Light Rail Redux

One of the most disingenuous op-ed pieces I have ever read was published in the January 22, 2013, edition of the "Tampa Bay Times".  "It has been decades since Detroit was seen as a forward-looking urban community instead of an inner-city wasteland racked by crime, vacant buildings and government debt," it begins.  "But the federal government last week put the finishing touches on what will soon be a 3-mile light rail system through the heart of downtown.  [I]t should stand as an example for how Tampa Bay could get its act together on transportation."

Any comparison of the Tampa Bay metroplex with Detroit is ludicrous on its face.  If you were to contain a graph comparing crime rates on a single page, you would need a magnifying glass to find Tampa's while Detroit's would spill over the edge.  Detroit's downtown looks like Gotham's after Bane got through with it; Tampa's is vibrant and safe.

Detroit doesn't need light rail; it needs a fleet of bulldozers.

But Detroit isn't building a light rail system, anyway.  It nixed a nine-mile line two years ago.  Instead, it's building a three-mile streetcar run, the projected cost of which will be $140 million.  You and I both know the final cost will be much more than that.  It'll be months and possibly years behind schedule; the maintenance fees will be exorbitant, and hardly anyone will ride it.

How do we know this?  Tampa already has a streetcar run.  It originates in a part of town where the only foot traffic consists of folks walking from parking facilities to their offices.  It passes by a second-rate aquarium, a failed complex of shops and restaurants, a couple of cruise ship ports, and dead-ends at Ybor City.  Its only riders are the occasional handful of tourists who are attracted by its novelty.

Soon after it was built it was declared a white elephant.  The sentiment was to halt its runs and rip up the track, but no one wanted to spend the money to do it.  The city then tried to sell it, but private companies are in the business of making money, not flushing it down the toilet.  It continues to operate largely on handouts from the kindness of those with too much money and no clue as to what to do with it.

Now Pinellas County wants to put a referendum on the ballot to see if there is public support for a 26-mile line from Clearwater to St Petersburg.  Thanks to the Sunshine and open records laws, I was able to obtain a transcript of the county commissioners' discussion of the issue.

"Okay, who wants light rail?"

"I do!  I do!  I love choo-choos!"

"But who's gonna ride on it?  Can't make anybody ride it."

"Don't have to make them ride it; you just have to make them want to."

"How do we do that?"

"Easy.  Reduce the number of parking slots by at least half.  Do away with one-way streets and timed traffic lights.  Cause auto gridlock so bad that folks will beg to ride it."

"How we gonna pay for it?"

"We'll jack up the sales tax from seven to eight percent.  The rest we can get from the feds."

"That's like double taxation.  Ain't nobody gonna buy into that, not in this economy."

"I will!  I will!  I want my choo-choo!"

We've had this discussion before.  We've taken votes on light rail before, and it has always been voted down.  But like shingles, just when you think you have it beaten once and for all, it flares up again to fester and annoy.

Here's some good advice, commissioners.  You want to play with trains?  Go to a hobby shop and buy a Lionel set and an engineer's hat.  Okay, Casey Jones?