The Balancing Act
There was always that one act at the circus where the clown (I love that commercial on television where the little kid in the high chair talks about making enough money in the market to hire a clown but then says he underestimated the creepiness) spins the plates on top of the sticks until he or she has half a dozen or more going at once. It's an incredible feat that usually ends with the plates crashing to the floor and the clown scurrying away on a miniature bicycle. When it comes to transportation, achieving a balance seems a lot more difficult, if not a lot more serious, and there are a couple examples.
First, I find it amazing how quickly the situation with corn being used to make ethanol for fuel has gotten out of hand. Some on Capital Hill are already beginning to rethink the nation's commitment to this alternative fuel source. On the surface it sounded perfect; corn is rather easy to grow and is a fully renewable crop. Growing corn is one of the things that this nation does very well. Thanks to former Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz and others, this nation uses corn for just about everything that we eat and drink. So who figured that it wouldn't hurt to mandate that corn be used to produce 9 billion gallons of ethanol every year as a way to wean ourselves off of gasoline? The problem is that the balance has been tipped. A global food crisis is being blamed on a shortage of corn although we seem to forget that much of the rest of the world relies on rice which is also in short supply to the point where it's being hoarded.
It seems like everything being considered as an alternative to gasoline has, at least for the near term, some sort of potential negative. For example the increased use of electricity to power cars (and transit trains) may lead to an increase in the use of coal or nuclear plants. Compressed natural gas currently being used in many of the region's buses may emit some dangerous chemicals as exhaust although the level of things like formaldehyde is still being studied. Biodiesel does not burn completely and emits an increased amount of NOx emissions. It's a balancing act.
The other thing that must be balanced is the way that that we budget for roads and for transit. Right now everything comes out of one big pot of money known as the transportation fund. There is little consideration made when it comes to what is new and what is repairing what already exists. It doesn't matter if the money is needed for a new trolley line or for the repair of potholes on an interstate; it comes out of the same pot of money. The "problem" here is that transit, especially heavy rail like Metro, tends to cost a lot more per mile than roads. The leap of faith or understanding is that the payback for these expenditures come many years down the road, pardon the pun. There are also intangibles to transit such as the environmental benefits that don't always get factored into the equation.
We need a lot of new transit because our environment demands it. We also need to make some repairs to our road infrastructure because we will continue to use it for some time. The funny thing that transit proponents seem to forget from time to time is that buses need to use the same road that cars use. It's a balancing act.
Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.
