The Easy Ride Incentive

Easy Ride. Swipe N Ride. Whatever you want to call it, it's a good program that shouldn't be cut. I recently started taking the 34X into work from where I live and the bus is full of state employees worried about how they are going to afford the daily commute into work starting July 1st if this state program isn't saved. I understand that we need to make budget cuts across the board while we survive this recession, but this would be a monumental step backwards for a state that desperately needs more mass transit, especially when the national focus is beginning to shift towards mass transit (White House's new high-speed transit plan). See the gigantic hole where Tennessee sits?

One of the reasons we are not on the map is because we are sacrificing transit programs when people need them the most. That doesn't help. I'm sure that when the White House was putting together their plan, they wanted to start in locations where mass transit has a fighting chance. As of right now, we don't even have the appropriate mechanisms in place to come up with the funds to match the federal dollars to do economically viable transit projects.

But that was yesterday! Currently there is legislation in place that will give regions in Tennessee the power to create regional transit authorities with bonding power (HB1263 & SB1471). Now we can come up with the match to make mass transit work. I just hope it's not too late...again referencing the national high-speed transit plan. Nevertheless, this is a move in the right direction. So far, both bills have passed their respective subcommittees and are now at the finance committee level. They should pass, but then again you never know.

Why is this so important? It is because this is a pivotal year for land use and transportation in the United States. Every six years, Washington reviews the Transportation Efficiency Act (TEA) and sets the guidelines for how the Department of Transportation will give out the federal fuel tax monies to the states and how they can be spent. We are currently operating under SAFETEA-LU, the grandchild of ISTEA who was born in 1991 and was touted as the post-interstate set of guidelines. Yes, I said 1991. We believed that we had fulfilled our mission of developing an interstate super highway system linking all urban areas back in 1991! But we're still widening our roads and adding interchanges to new strip malls in 2009 when it has been proven that 85% of our population resides in urban areas. Remember...the more we drive, the more fuel we will buy, the more money goes in the kitty that is awarded to modes that feed the kitty. We have been rewarding sprawl since the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956! It's also because the current TEA doesn't have the TEATH in it to guide how transportation dollars are spent. So if we can get behind groups like Transportation for America and Smart Growth America, we can get these reforms in place. Otherwise, we'll have to wait another six years.

See, it's all about incentives. Remember the MTA bus 34X I take? It has a park n ride in Madison so if I drove my car and parked it at the PNR, I would only spend $50/yr on gas ($2.25/gal) compared to $450/yr if I drove to work M-F. That's great news, but the bus ticket price for the 34X is $2.10/trip which ends up costing me nearly $1,100/yr. Now hang on, if I drive to work, I have to park somewhere and that's costing me $1,800/yr right now (actually, it's not costing me anything because my employer is picking up the tab). So the bus is going to cost me $1,150 compared to the automobile at $2,200/yr.

With those numbers (and I'm not considering depreciation, maintenance or taxes), you would think that I would take the bus every day, but see I don't because my parking is provided and now it becomes a personal incentive that sways me... reliability and convenience. Our current mass transit system is neither reliable or convenient for me on a daily basis. I only take the bus on days when I absolutely know that I will only be going into the office and will not be leaving downtown. So if my parking were taken away from me (economic incentive), I would ride the bus as much as I could... and if the system became more reliable, more frequent and convenient, I might sell my car.

So how about those state employees who are about to get their bus passes canceled (I heard there were 40,000 trips taken in the past month) from a meager $750,000 budget cut? That's a drop in the bucket compared to other programs, but will have a major negative impact on downtown when these bus riders start driving downtown to gobble up all of the STATE FREE PARKING.

So which incentive should be cut? Parking or Transit? Hmmm??? I would even go further and suggest selling some of the parking to developers for millions of dollars that would easily balance out some of the budget shortfalls and keep Tennessee moving in a strategic direction towards smart growth.

-Dave