Ask any driver or resident in the Madison, WI area what their primary transportation concern is and they’ll tell you that it is traffic congestion. It seems that virtually every major thoroughfare operates at well over 100% capacity during peak travel times. Ask the average Dane County resident what is being done about the problem and they’ll tell you that Transport 2020 (a collaboration of private, city, county, university and other involved parties) is looking into the problem and will soon have a solution.
However, many are beginning to see Transport 2020 for what it really is – a committee to bring commuter rail to a community that doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it and can’t afford it. Just like proponents of the City of Madison’s streetcar proposal, commuter rail proponents seem to operate in a world not quite grounded in reality.
Art Webb of Stop Smart Growth (www.stopsmartgrowth.org) says that the main goal of Transport 2020 seems to be “forcing people out of their cars and into mass transit.” He continues to say that it is a perfect example of “government forcing us into their utopic dream of society and to live life their way.” Madison and Dane County seem to be force-feeding citizens the idea the commuter rail is the way to go and that in 20 years we’ll all be taking trains from our homes in suburbia to the hubs in Madison where we’ll hop on the trolley to go to work. Of course that scenario doesn’t mention how we’ll get from our front doors to the rail depots or from the trolley to our workplaces. It also doesn’t mention how we’ll get the kids to the babysitters, ourselves to the grocery store or our families to the hospital for those late-night emergencies.
The fundamental truth is that commuters and citizens in general want to stay in their cars. We here in the greater Madison area value the freedom afforded by having our own automobiles. We can not only drive our kids to school and drive back and forth to work but also pile in the car in the evening to head out for extracurricular activities, nights out or even just a pleasurable drive. We can go from our doorstep to the grocery store, department store, restaurants, shopping centers and back without having to work around the schedules of bus lines and commuter rail.
Transport 2020, in its own study (Final Report dated 8/23/02), states that “transit ridership in the region is anticipated to increase significantly, regardless of the composition of the mass transit system of the future. However, the proportion of the region’s local trip making on transit is expected to decrease, because the total number of trips made in the region, and by private vehicle, is anticipated to increase dramatically between 1990 and 2020. Transit’s share of the vehicle trips is projected to decrease, from 2.4% to 2.2% in that period.”
There it is, right up front – mass transit ridership will increase regardless of the mode of mass transit however mass transit’s total share of trips – the percentage of total trips taken on mass transit versus the percentage of total trips taken in a car, van, bike or any other mode of personal transportation - will decrease. It’s essentially a foregone conclusion that despite what happens in the mass transit arena private trips will increase exacerbating the congestion problem.
Congestion is – or at least originally seemed to be – a primary concern of Transport 2020. Their own “Problem Summary”, Paragraph 1, Bullet 1 says “Traffic congestion is a growing problem in the region and in the study corridor, especially in the Isthmus and nearby areas.” It goes on to state that “Forecasts for 2020 indicate that mobility problems in the study area will worsen over the next two decades, again, especially in the isthmus.”
So, there it is in black and white – right at the beginning of the problem statement - Transport 2020 identifies traffic congestion as a primary concern.
The next section of the Transport 2020 study process covers the Goals and Objectives of the study itself as defined by the Problem Summary.
Goal 1 is to “promote efficient land use/development patterns in Madison and Dane County.” Goal 2 is to “provide enhanced \non-automobile access to home, jobs, services and other activity centers. Goal 3 is to “improve and enhance economic development and employment opportunities and expand access to jobs.” Goal 4 is to “enhance the natural and social environment.” The final goal, Goal 5, is to “develop a cost-effective transportation system improvement strategy that maximizes community consensus and institutional support.
What happened to that pesky congestion problem? It was listed right at the front of the problem summary but not one of the specified goals addresses it. The congestion problem, in Transport 2020’s own determination, will only get worse with time no matter what happens with mass transit. So why have they chosen to ignore the problem?
Unfortunately, they’ve done more than choose to ignore the problem – they’ve chosen to make it worse.
Transport 2020’s final report details four scenarios including three possible solutions. The first is the transit situation as of 2000, the second is what the current metro bus system would be like as of 2020, the third is an ‘enhanced’ bus system including express buses from the suburbs in 2020 and the fourth is a bus/commuter rail system in 2020.
They then measured each scenario in five areas – daily linked trips, annual unlinked trips, total cost, annual operating cost and annual non-federal funding requirements.
In short, the results show that the daily linked trips for an expanded bus system would be 55,500 and the daily trips for a commuter rail/bus system would be 56,650. Not much of a difference – only 1,100 trips per day or an increase of only 2%. The cost difference, however, is huge. The total capital cost of the expanded bus system is only $60.3 million but the total capital cost of the bus/rail system is almost 150% higher - $242 million. The annual operating cost of the expanded bus system would be $36.2 million and the annual operating cost of the bus/rail system would be $39.5 million.
Transport 2020 then ranked each solution as it meets the goals previously created – and wouldn’t you know it, the system that meets the most goals is the bus/rail combination. Had the committee left congestion alleviation in as a goal it would have meant that the bus/rail solution would not have been the best possible solution
The bottom line is that adding commuter rail to the existing rail corridor and mass transit system will further increase the congestion problem. Increasing the use of the existing rail lines will increase the frequency at which the rail lines cross area roads (with some of those roads like East Washington Ave being major traffic arteries) creating even more of a congestion problem. Why, then, would we pay $181,000,000 more than we need to up front and then an extra $3.2 million per year for a solution that will compound the major problem of congestion instead of alleviating it?
Another big question is where would Transport 2020 find the necessary funding? The answer is simple - Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer would once again have to pay the bill. Possible funding sources being looked at include an increase in gas tax, localized property tax increases, an increase in sales tax and even a wheel tax.
It would seem that Transport 2020 has failed to understand that their purpose is to find potential problems and present the best, most cost effective and user-friendly solution which in this case would clearly be an expanded bus service. Instead, they have rails running between their ears and are trying their hardest to push their own personal delusions of a utopian society within the city limits of Madison where there are nothing but bikes, commuter trains and streetcars.
It is time for us, the people living within Dane County, to stop Transport 2020 cold. The solution to the transportation problem is not paying an extra $181 million for the privilege of sitting behind closed railroad crossing gates more often but rather a better and expanded use of the transportation system we already have.
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