Transportation and Republicans

Transportation and Republicans
By Daniel G. Jennings
A while back I predicted that the Republican policy on transportation which is basically,“Mass Transit is Bad highways are good” would cost some GOP candidate an election. Well that has now happened in Virginia.
Republican Jerry W. Kilgore lost the governor’s race in my dad’s home state to Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat on Nov. 1. Kaine won the election by running on issues important to voters in suburban and exburban (far out suburban counties). According to The Washington Post* and other observers one of the biggest issues Kaine used to appeal to suburban voters was transportation.
Most of the voters who elected Mr. Kaine live in the Washington D.C. suburbs and exburbs an area heavily dependant upon mass transit (people there ride the Washington Subway, buses or commuter trains to work at Federal offices). I have to wonder did many of those voters vote for Mr. Kaine because they thought he’d work for money for mass transit to make their commute easier?
The media in it’s usual blindness said the issue was roads but was it? Was the real issue mass transit and the perception that Republicans vote against mass transit?
Mass transit is a huge issue in the exburbs, I should know I grew up in one of the original exburbs, Evergreen, Colorado. I also lived in one of the country’s biggest exburbs, Riverside, California, and took the train to work in Orange, County. From personal experience I know that exburbs are “park and ride country.” That is a large percentage of exburb residents drive to a parking lot, park their cars and get on a bus or train that takes them to work. Exburbanites who don’t take the train to work may take it downtown to the museum or the ball game on the weekends.
Many of the fastest growing exburbs are on commuter and light rail lines. Many more are on bus lines. Much of the support for mass transit expansion is coming from real estate developers and chamber of commerce types who believe mass transit can benefit their communities. That is it will raise property values, these are hard nosed businessmen they want rail transit not because it will help the environment but because it will make them money by increasing the value of their investments. Many of these guys will write checks to people who vote for rail.
Average people seem to agree, in the Denver metro area last year voters in a presidential election year approved FasTracks a plan to raise sales to build new rail lines to suburban areas. Getting Colorado voters to approve a tax increase is close impossible yet Denver area voters have twice voted for tax measures designed to finance new rail lines to suburbs. Suburban Republican voters who voted for George W. Bush also voted for FasTracks.
Even U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, (R-Colorado) formerly a staunch light rail critic, is now seeking more federal funds for light rail expansion in his exburban district (Douglas County, Colorado). A change for a man who once wrote editorials promoting bus rapid transit, now that light rail reaches into Tancredo’s district and voters like it. Guess what, Tom Tancredo now believes in light rail and wants federal funds for it.
The message the voters are sending is clear, they want mass transit (i.e. rail transit) and they’ll support candidates who back it. They’ll even raise their taxes to pay for it. The question is, will Republicans listen or go down fighting for a lost cause called highways?

*http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/08/AR2005110800371_3.html