WalkBoston pleased with USDOT's stance on walking and biking

Today, we're sending this letter to Ray LaHood, US Secretary of Transportation:

Dear Secretary LaHood,

WalkBoston is delighted with your new Federal Department of Transportation policy statement in support of bicycle and pedestrian facilities. We hope you will follow up in encouraging – even pressuring – state and local agencies to take action with the federal funding to recognize biking and walking as equal with other modes, rather than as afterthoughts to roads projects.

For millions of Americans, walking is not purely recreational and this number is rising. Many people walk to work and school, to trains, to transit, and for social purposes, though the data is poorly collected. The collection and use of more inclusive and comprehensive data would further support this excellent policy.

WalkBoston is the nation’s first pedestrian advocacy organization, advocating for Massachusetts pedestrians for more than 20 years. We see your statement as a huge step toward making US transportation policies meet the needs of the future. Walkable communities are welcoming to a broad range of people, resilient in the face of economic and environmental adversity, good for health and fitness, and for our children.

We are writing to thank you. We intend to encourage our U.S. Representatives and Senators to support your policy It has been a long time coming and we are grateful for this and your numerous other sensible strong positions.

Thank you,

Rosa Carson
WalkBoston

The evils of externalized costs and what it means for transportation in Massachusetts

Okay, this isn't WalkBoston specific but it is related to transportation in general, and I keep ranting the ears off anyone who will listen to me and I woke up in the middle of the night last night to fret about this, so I'm just going to get it off my chest.

This spring, Governor Patrick proposed a significant transportation reform for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which involved a lot of absolutely essential elements like road and bridge repair. Like much of the rest of the country, Massachusetts' transportation infrastructure is aging and ailing, and we need to take care of it. This, of course, costs money, which no one has these days.

So, Governor Patrick proposed that we pay for these improvements by raising the gas tax 19 cents a gallon. This would have been the first gas tax increase in Massachusetts since 1991. Why a gas tax to pay for transportation improvements, though? No one wants to pay more for gas, after all!

I talk about this in terms of internalized and externalized costs. Internalized costs are costs that are reflected in the price we pay for things. So, for example, if we know that one out of every 200 oil tankers is likely to leak and cause environmental damage, and some smart economists figure out that $0.01/gallon would fully fund a program to clean up that damage, and we therefore tax gas at that rate, then the price of gas "internalizes" that environmental cost of gas. If, on the other hand, we decide that we're not going to clean up those spills, or we're going to let an environmental nonprofit do that, then we're "externalizing" that cost, either to the future or to the nonprofit and its donors.

When we drive, we cause wear and tear on roads. We create a need for traffic enforcement by state and local agencies. Our use of roads and other transportation infrastructure creates the need to spend money. Streets and roads are not free, even though they look free because so few of them are toll roads. The more we drive, the more wear and tear we create, and a gas tax is a fair way to figure someone's contribution to this. If I don't want to spend more money on gas, I can get smarter about how much I drive -- as many people have done in the last year when gas prices skyrocketed to more than $4/gallon. Because a gas tax internalizes the cost of roads, drivers can make smarter choices about how much it's worth to them to drive somewhere.

It additionally makes sense to use this money for things like public transit, because public transit is less costly per user in the long run, and a full bus is much less damaging on the infrastructure per capita than each person or family in their own car.

BUT. Public transit isn't popular, and paying for things we use isn't popular, so the citizens of Massachusetts made a big stink, and therefore the legislature dug in their heels, and someone came up with the brilliant idea of making these costs invisible again: sales tax. Now, there's no incentive for people to be calculated about their impact on the built environment, because we all pay sales tax (although it can be easy to dodge that through things like internet shopping) on things unrelated to transportation. Way to go, guys.

Now, of course, we'll raise less money for necessary improvements, it'll be more variable, and people will have no incentive to understand that their choices have consequences. If there's one great evil in our current system, it's externalized costs that create falsely deflated prices for goods and services with high costs. I'd hoped Governor Patrick could lead Massachusetts out of that system for transportation spending, but, instead, we're all going to pay higher taxes on cheap plastic trinkets while people who ride the T have to pay up to 25% more because some short-sighted jerk wants his roads to look like they're free.

If you care about how transit dollars are spent ... Call your Senators today!

There is movement in the Senate to strip funding from transit and redirect it to highway construction.

Please call these Senators to express your alarm about the out-of control highway proposals. Say no to highway expansion, and yes to transit and walkable communities.

Urge Senators to vote NO on the Bond Amendments and the Inhofe-Boxer Amendment!

Kit Bond (R-MO) Amendment #1: Strips $2 billion set aside for high-speed rail and redirects it to highway funding.

Kit Bond (R-MO) Amendment #2: Takes $5.5 billion in competitive transportation grants and gives it to highways.

Inhofe(R-OK) and Boxer (D-CA) Amendment: Creates $50 billion transportation slush fund with no criteria for fix-it-first or transit. Read: highway expansion.

Votes could be taken at anytime, so please call these Senators today!

Senator John Kerry
TEL: 202-224-2742
FAX: 202-224-8525

Senator Ted Kennedy
TEL: 202-224-4543
FAX: 202-224-2417

Senator Barbara Boxer
TEL: 202-224-3553
FAX: 202-224-0454

Majority Leader Harry Reid
TEL: 202-224-3542
FAX: 202-224-7327

[Edited to add: As of 11:45 this morning, I've only be able to get through to Senator Kennedy's office. It would seem the Senate phones are receiving a lot of calls. Keep trying!]

This post isn't about walking; it's about hope

[This post does not express the official views or opinions of WalkBoston.]

Last night, I was figuring that today I would write a cheery little post about walking to my polling place, chatting with a few people while waiting in line, and then walking to the subway to come to work, before exhorting y'all to be sure to vote today.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the line at my polling place was not only out the door (which has never happened in my time voting here), but all the way down the block and around the corner. "Perhaps I'll vote after work," I thought to myself. Imagine my further surprise to find myself not only tearing up, but on the verge of full blown crying as I walked by the long line of people waiting to vote.

I have largely been in denial this election season. I feel so afraid, after the last two presidential elections, that getting my hopes up will only result in their being dashed. And in neither of those was I so moved and inspired by any available candidate as I have been by Barack Obama. But even more, I'm grateful to have had my ideas about what's possible, politically, blown open this year.

Until even a year ago, I believed that I would not, in my lifetime, see the United States take seriously the presidential candidacy of a woman or a person of color. To have this happen not only when I'm here to see it but when I'm still in my early 30s amazes me, and it gives me hope. To see so many people in my neighborhood, where our individual votes matter rather less, given the inevitable allotment of Massachusetts's electoral votes to the Democratic party, speaks to inspiration and hope felt by many.

I want to hold onto this feeling when I feel stuck or discouraged in my political work, now and into the future. I want to hold onto this feeling even if I wake up tomorrow to find the election hasn't gone as I wish. I want to imagine that everything we work for is possible.