STL Develops

Today’s  New York Times article has brought to the forefront of my mind the repeated backwards thinking of our city. Our decision to not fund public transportation as ridership increases and the national trend away from sprawling development towards urban development begins to take hold, is truly mind blowing. 

Its embarrassing to be a poster child, once again, for failure. As if Pruitt-Igoe being the international symbol of the fall of modernism, our decision to forego railroad development in favor of the steamship, our alderwoman urinating in a trash can during a meeting, or our perennial status as one of most crime ridden cities in the country weren’t enough.  The problem here is the collective us, the citizens of St. Louis.  It’s easy to point the finger at government, but the problem here is not enough people are interested in the big picture.  How can we build a great progressive city? This is the question citizens need to ask themselves. I think too often people look at a narrow view of the issue. ”I don’t take the bus, they had cost overruns, so I’ll vote no.”  Even citing mismanagement of the Metrolink expansion, doesn’t justify what is going to happen when the services get cut.  Not to mention, you can make a strong case that the mismanagement was due to powerful citizens influence on the process.  First of all, we used a local contractor who had never built an extension like the one we were building.   Then, they decided to bury part of the track near Wash U to make the wealthy neighbors next door happy.  Well, that added tremendous costs. Plus our state is a joke when it comes to transit. Check out this quote from the business journal:

“The state of Illinois gives St. Clair County, population 200,000, about $20 million a year in transit funding. By comparison, the state of Missouri allocates $1.4 million in transit funding for the 1.3 million people in the St. Louis city and county region. That funding could be cut further to $1.15 million amid the state budget crunch, according to Dianne Williams, a spokeswoman for Metro.”

Its so frustrating that we have many elements of a great city, but all too often they are separate initiatives that are not part of an overarching goal.  We consistently make bad decisions as a region and state.  We have a lot of very positive aspects of this region, but until we can work together towards a regional vision, we will continue to fall behind the rest of the country.

MetroLink is at a crossroads. Faced with budget restraints Metro is either going to have to reduce services if funding levels remain the same or expand service if St. Louis County voters approve a 1/2 cent sales tax increase to along with an already approved city increase. In my view the debate of whether the tax should be approved comes down to the question is Metro responsibly managing public money or are taxpayers in essence wasting their money on Metro funding. Of course beyond this issue are ideological arguments running to extremes. There are those on the far right that think there should be little or no taxes and everybody can use their money as they see fit and all will be utopia. On the far left are people who think few if any people should use cars and if we all spent our auto-related money on public transit all would be utopia. Most of us realize that we need a strong public transportation system in order to: allow those who can’t afford a car, to work and go about their lives, reduce pollution, reduce congestion on the roads for drivers. At the same time most of us realize it is far too expensive for St. Louis to build a transportation system heavily reliant on rail travel like Chicago or new York, and realistically it is not going to happen anytime soon. If we tried to do it we would bankrupt the region. So if we throw the extreme vies out the window, what is the debate on this proposition about?

It comes down to question what the tax payers will get for their money? Will they get a more efficient transportation system that better meets the public transportation need in the region, or will Metro squander their hard earned money? The state recently completed an audit of Metro focusing on its handling of the cross county extension. The Audit finds that metro mismanaged the recently completed cross county expansion and questions several additional compensations that were paid to staff members. You can read the full report in order to see what the state auditor found as well as Metro’s response to the findings. It is important to note that the report is critical of some of metro’s spending and the management of the cross county extension, but not Metro’s overall handling of the regions public transportation system.

I am willing to forgive a company for making a mistake, and clearly management of the cross county expansion was mistake. I believe partially because it was an extremely large project for Metro to take on with little experience. Also, they were allegedly pressured to use local companies when larger companies from out state, with more experience could have been used. The fact remains that demand for public transportation is up and Metro is losing a significant amount of funds unrelated to cost overruns and wasted spending. According to Metro’s website the reduced revenue includes:

• Federal subsidies, peaking at $22 million annually, were phased out by 1999.

• State of Missouri subsidies were reduced from $3.5 million in 2001 to $1.4 million today.

• Regional leaders elected to build the Shrewsbury I-44 MetroLink Branch with local funds to speed construction. Metro must commit $37 million annually in Prop M funds to pay back the bonds.

• St. Louis County reduced its appropriation to Metro by nearly $10 million to meet non-transit obligations in 2009.

• $10 million in federal startup funds for the Shrewsbury I-44 MetroLink Branch will expire in Fiscal Year 2010.

• Municipal TIF projects have diverted up to $8 million annually from 1/2 cent transportation fund

If we are going to be a progressive region, we simply need a strong transportation system. If we want to just stick with the old and continue to spend money on roads and reduce spending on public transportation, we are going to be left behind once again. This attitude of ignoring population trends, which suggest the future population increase will be in urban areas as urban sprawl is beginning to reverse, is akin to those who decided St. Louis should stick to reliance on the river and not paying to lay railroad tracks that would have linked us with New York. You may remember Chicago decided to try the new technology and lay the rail road tracks. St. Louis needs to begin to think progressively and fund public transportation, while making sure to keep pressure on Metro to perform.