All posts by Jim Whitehead

The Atlantic has a good piece about the decades-long decline of Syracuse, NY, – my home town – a small rust-belt city that shares, in outline, the history of many Northeast and Midwest cities. Robust growth from mid-late 19th to mid-late 20th centuries, founded on manufacturing and transportation, was followed by slow but continual economic decline as manufacturing businesses left or closed, and social dis-integration as many white, affluent families moved to suburbs. Syracuse University and a large health-care complex are the remaining symbols and a major engine of the still-troubled economy today. Gentrification has renewed just a couple of in-city neighborhoods, but many more are continuing to decline.

Interstate 81 was built through the city from north to south, 50 years ago, and its elevated stretch through downtown is near the end of its life. The city and state are deciding now whether to rebuild it, or alternatively NOT rebuild it, redevelop that area and allow the Interstate route to follow an existing suburban bypass (I-481, analogous to I-405).

The story is a good read, though the headline is needlessly crude: construction of the Interstate through the city made things worse, but that’s far from the whole story of the past 50 years. The article is much more nuanced and informative.

Jarrett Walker has an interesting and useful piece (already linked in a recent News Roundup) suggesting that anti-urban, anti-transit attitudes are often related to fundamental human characteristics that we should sympathize with – because we all share them. He highlights loss aversion, comfort with known procedures, and the desire to secure our homes. If you all don’t mind a personal story, I can add a bit to Walker’s point.

In the mid-1990’s, I had an ex-pat assignment in Amsterdam, and lived there with my family including school-age kids. This exposure showed me the value of a very livable “real” city, not least because my 12-year old was incredibly independent, largely as a result of excellent transit. Yet when we moved from Amsterdam to the Seattle area. we settled in low-density Mercer Island, hardly a city and a place with only mediocre transit service, even then.

Why would we have done such a thing? Because, like many parents, we took school quality to be the most important criterion. Affluent suburbs such as Mercer Island and Bellevue were – and perhaps still are – a safer choice for navigating kids through public schools, and metrics such test scores were more favorable there. Whether those metrics are “fair” or not becomes less important when making choices for your kids. Many parents have made the other choice – to live in Seattle and similar cities – and I’m sure their kids have done fine, but it was certainly a reasonable consideration, and one that still strongly influences many parents today.

I’d guess that parents’ concern for their kids’ security and environment has much to do with the backlash against HALA’s proposals. Some of the same folks who are strongly for bike- and walk- friendly neighborhoods also are unhappy about the possibility of denser development in their neighborhoods – and both motivated by parental concern.

Many expressions of those concerns are misguided, in my opinion. But the details are not easy, and dismissive arguments will only harden positions.

One final observation about Amsterdam: in the Netherlands, publicly-financed elementary and high-school education is an interesting historical hybrid of public, private, and religious schools, with more choice than most places in the U.S. (and transit is full of commuting students). As a result, location has much less impact on access to (perceived) high-quality education, and so there has been less pressure for affluent parents to self-segregate in affluent suburbs – such as Mercer Island.

(The author has contributed to the I-732 campaign but has no other affiliation with it.)

Initiative 732 would establish a tax on fossil fuels consumed in Washington State, ramping up over 2 years to the equivalent of $25/ton of carbon emissions, and then increasing by 3.5%/year (plus inflation). The revenue would be used to reduce the state sales tax , eliminate the B&O tax for manufacturing, and provide sales-tax rebates to low-income working families.
The I-732 campaign is currently collecting signatures to place the initiative on the November ballot. Further details are available at http://carbonwa.org

Why a revenue-neutral carbon tax?

Most transit advocates are also carbon-reduction advocates, and likely favor some sort of carbon pricing. But why-revenue neutral? Why not designate the proceeds for transit funding and perhaps other climate-friendly government spending?
First and foremost, it is critical to gain consensus in favor of carbon reduction. Without very strong and broad popular support, carbon pricing legislation will fail in the face of spending by fossil-fuel industries and their focus on anti-tax messaging that (whatever your opinion of it) is popular with a large segment of voters. Many moderate and even some conservative voters recognize the dangers of climate change and would favor some climate action. But they are not likely to be urbanists, passionate about transit, nor friendly to increased taxes. Still, we are all agreed on the importance of carbon reduction, and a proposal that focuses on that single objective can gain the necessary consensus across progressive, many moderate, and some conservative voters.

What is the goal?

To insist on bundling carbon pricing with other progressive causes endangers that consensus. We have a choice: insist on the entirety of our individual agendas, or find common ground with enough voters to succeed on this critical issue. A revenue-neutral carbon tax provides that common ground.
And once we DO succeed, then we can continue the important debates about further aspects of land use, transportation, and equity.

Earlier this week I posted a quick analysis of Metro’s proposed financial plan, and concluded that the proposed 2015-16 cuts are not necessary. Some very apropos comments focused on the impact of another recession, which of course is inevitable, at some time and with some severity. Metro’s budget proposal mentions but does not detail an analysis based on “a moderate recession…after 2018.”

In the absence of Metro’s details,  I’ve added a simple model of a recession: starting in 2018, sale-tax revenue is 7.5% below forecast. In 2019-20, growth resumes as before, but from the “new” baseline – so those sales-tax revenues are ALSO reduced by 7.5% from forecast.

Why 7.5%? The Great Recession of 2008-9 reduced sales-tax receipts by 15%, before growth resumed. Half of that impact seems like a reasonable “moderate” recession.

Summary results: (details further below)

• Cash flow remains positive in 2017-2020. (It’s negative in 2015-16 due to a very large capital program)
• The Revenue Stabilization Reserve is exhausted right at end of 2020
• However, Metro’s overall balance (Ending Fund Balance) is on the rise from 2017 through 2020.

My conclusions:

• If the 2015-16 cuts are canceled,  a “mild recession” in 2018 would take Metro to the edge of needing cuts by 2020. If such cuts were needed, they would be foreseeable and NOT dramatic.
• Long term, the current service level IS sustainable, even with a mild recession in 2018.
• The proposed cuts amount to 7% reduction in service hours, and this is too high a price to pay to forestall the modest, foreseeable, and temporary cuts that might be needed in the event of a mild recession.

Yes, this is speculative, and Metro (and others) may have more authoritative and solid analysis. It would be really good to have that, with the numbers.

Details:

Similar to the previous post, here are Cash Flow and Reserve amounts, now with a case added without service cuts, but with the “moderate recession” in 2018.

As it turns out, Mr. Dembowski’s suggestion to reduce RFRF to 20% of anticipated capital spending helps a little, but not dramatically. If the amount of reduction were applied to the RSR: