Dan and Angi have something to say

Welcome to our site! This is the Lovejoy family blog where we talk about all kinds of stuff. Mostly we talk about minutia and our beautiful son Elijah.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Dan says:

The story of the free lunch, er.. road

Charles dug up this quote on a brand new blog. It’s a pretty thoughtful discussion of Oklahoma City’s annexation plan for land to the west of Edmond. But the quote reveals a weakness that is common to the west, and probably most common in Oklahoma City.

As long as we tend to provide our citizenry with an unmatched transportation infrastructure, we should have smooth sailing.

When does this unmatched transportation infrastructure building begin? Because I don’t want to miss it.

Most of us in the wide open country equate “transportation infrastructure” with good highways. This includes our illustrious Congressman Istook who is loath to spend one penny on anything other than highways, highways, and yes, more highways.

Our “unmatched transportation infrastructure” forces lowest-wage workers into usury so they can have a car to get to work anywhere but a few limited places. Our public transport stinks, mostly because our city is too large in area to make it feasible. Adding a huge chunk to the north side sure ain’t helping matters.

It’s frustrating to me that all who oppose rail projects for their cost, which could eventually be recovered by user fees, have no problem with enormous highway spending that subsidizes the auto industry. When we compare public transport costs unfavorably with road construction, we never consider TCO of highway projects, which are astronomical. And we certainly don’t consider the costs to the citizenry of buying expensive vehicles that they wouldn’t need if we had decent infrastructure.

Of course, those that ignore TCO and rail about the cost of public transportation are usually the same people who think paying their own way for using a toll road is some kind of violation of their human rights. Never mind the fact that so-called free highways are just another subisdy to car makers and trucking companies. Highway spending is the biggest form of corporate welfare in the history of the United States, yet we hear not one peep about it.

Let’s face it - there is no free lunch. Expanding OKC is going to cost A LOT of money. There will be no public transport in this area for 20 years. Even road infrastructure will lag miserably behind demand.

I know this because OKC’s roads aren’t even that good now. Getting from anywhere around the Penn/Memorial gridlock north can be a complete nightmare. Only recently has Oklahoma City bothered to install traffic lights at the high-traffic intersections between Western and May (inclusive), north of Memorial. For the last four years, at least, you would turn north on Western and only realize your mistake when you saw 100 yards of brake lights ahead of you, waiting at a four-way stop.

Grr…

P.S. I’m not saying that every alternate transportation scheme is a good idea or even makes sense. But we often compare apples to oranges. Looking at the Heartland Flyer, for example. Congressman Istook said that it would be cheaper to hire a limousine for each person who rides the train than to subsidize their ticket costs. Really? How much does it cost to build the road for the limousine, Congressman? Or does that cost not count?

Yes, even so, the Heartland Flyer should probably die. It’s a huge waste of money. But it’s just an example of how poltiicians make faulty comparisions. They don’t figure in road costs when they compare the costs of alternate transport.