How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country

[202_Cyclist]

How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country

By Hiroko Tabuchi
June 19, 2018
NY Times


"NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A team of political activists huddled at a Hardee’s one rainy Saturday, wolfing down a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Then they descended on Antioch, a quiet Nashville suburb, armed with iPads full of voter data and a fiery script.

The group, the local chapter for Americans for Prosperity, which is financed by the oil billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch to advance conservative causes, fanned out and began strategically knocking on doors. Their targets: voters most likely to oppose a local plan to build light-rail trains, a traffic-easing tunnel and new bus routes.

“Do you agree that raising the sales tax to the highest rate in the nation must be stopped?” Samuel Nienow, one of the organizers, asked a startled man who answered the door at his ranch-style home in March. “Can we count on you to vote ‘no’ on the transit plan?”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/c...c-transit.html

[202_Cyclist]

You can get mad at this or do something about it. Volunteer this summer and fall and help vote out every single billionaire-coddling Republican.

[Busy Bee]

Amen brother.

/)/)/)/)/)/)/)

[skyscraper]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

You can get mad at this or do something about it. Volunteer this summer and fall and help vote out every single billionaire-coddling Republican.

[The North One]

Can the Koch brothers die already?

"David Koch recently said he would be scaling down his public role because of declining health."

Oh, at least there's some good news in this article.

[Vlajos]

^ one of them is dying I believe.

[Busy Bee]

I hate these folks with the heat of a thousand suns, but the above comments are crass and poor taste.

Remember a few weeks ago when that heartless bitch said the same thing about John McCain? Yeah, like that.

[202_Cyclist]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

I hate these folks with the heat of a thousand suns, but the above comments are crass and poor taste.

Remember a few weeks ago when that heartless bitch said the same thing about John McCain? Yeah, like that.

Well said. I concur.

[mrnyc]

the thing is, even when they die, others will take their place. what they are doing isnt as idiosyncratic as some would like to think. it takes a heck of a lot of activism to counter money like that.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

the thing is, even when they die, others will take their place. what they are doing isnt as idiosyncratic as some would like to think. it takes a heck of a lot of activism to counter money like that.

If your transit plan meets the needs of all citizens today, if your transit plan meets the needs of all citizens tomorrow, if your transit plan steals from the rich to provide services to the poor, if your transit plan wins the support of most of your city's leaders, both political and commercial leaders, then your transit plan could win a referendum. Fail at more than one of my requirements above, then political outsiders with money to spend can doom it.

Too often transit planners favor the most expensive and longest to achieve solution, and that's why their plans fail so many referendums. I sincerely believe it's better to propose a smaller in scope and therefore cheaper starter system, either rail or bus. on the busiest traditional bus route, then expand it later once taxpayers benefit from it.

While this occurred decades ago, the principle remains true. Take DART as the prime example, their first referendum for taxes to build a complete heavy rail metro or monorail system failed miserably, the second referendum for taxes to build a cheaper light rail starter system won. Don't treat your electorate as dummys, keep them engaged in the process, and keep your plans inline with most of them and your referendums for transit taxes will pass.

As an aside, I read much to much criticisms of DART's light rail system here, but they don't recall its' history with referendums. Basically, it's a heavy rail system using light rail vehicles for most of its milage, and only a true light rail system in city streets here and there for just a few miles. The transit planners got what they wanted mostly, and the voters got what they wanted mostly.

[llamaorama]

Originally Posted by electricron

If your transit plan meets the needs of all citizens today, if your transit plan meets the needs of all citizens tomorrow, if your transit plan steals from the rich to provide services to the poor, if your transit plan wins the support of most of your city's leaders, both political and commercial leaders, then your transit plan could win a referendum. Fail at more than one of my requirements above, then political outsiders with money to spend can doom it.

Too often transit planners favor the most expensive and longest to achieve solution, and that's why their plans fail so many referendums. I sincerely believe it's better to propose a smaller in scope and therefore cheaper starter system, either rail or bus. on the busiest traditional bus route, then expand it later once taxpayers benefit from it.

While this occurred decades ago, the principle remains true. Take DART as the prime example, their first referendum for taxes to build a complete heavy rail metro or monorail system failed miserably, the second referendum for taxes to build a cheaper light rail starter system won. Don't treat your electorate as dummys, keep them engaged in the process, and keep your plans inline with most of them and your referendums for transit taxes will pass.

As an aside, I read much to much criticisms of DART's light rail system here, but they don't recall its' history with referendums. Basically, it's a heavy rail system using light rail vehicles for most of its milage, and only a true light rail system in city streets here and there for just a few miles. The transit planners got what they wanted mostly, and the voters got what they wanted mostly.

DART rail isn’t as useful as a subway would have been, and it shows in ridership figures. Imagine something like MARTA burrowed under McKinney ave and other genuinely urban, dense neighborhoods where parking is not always free. A ton of people would use it.

Another cautionary tale is Austin. The DMU train ended up being expensive and nobody uses it. Building it as a compromise made nobody happy.

[mhays]

People like the Koch brothers care about the details of transit for one reason: to find ways of arguing against each and every measure. There's always something to grab onto. A system that anticipates future demand is "unnecessary" today. A system that goes to high-use areas "skips lots of places" with low demand potential. Helping people live well without cars is "communist." And so on.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

DART rail isn’t as useful as a subway would have been, and it shows in ridership figures. Imagine something like MARTA burrowed under McKinney ave and other genuinely urban, dense neighborhoods where parking is not always free. A ton of people would use it.

Another cautionary tale is Austin. The DMU train ended up being expensive and nobody uses it. Building it as a compromise made nobody happy.

I don't disagree, but as I pointed out earlier, the subway/metro proposal died a very quick and sudden death at the polling booths. DART was able to sell light rail vehicles as modern versions of interurbans that once ran in Dallas. DART was not able to sell metros seen in D.C., Miami, or Atlanta. Ridership numbers will probably show the metro systems are higher, but if you check out how far out these systems reach, DART's light rail system beats them. DART is half funded by suburban cities, they needed the trains to reach them. Golly, the old interurbans from Dallas reached as far as Waco (95 miles), Sherman (65 miles), and Corsicana (55 miles).

DART has over 90 miles of double tracks, DC has around 50 miles of double tracks, Atlanta 48 miles of double tracks, and Miami just 24.4 miles of double tracks.

For a train nobody uses, CapMetro is adding the number of trains just to meet today's ridership demand. By the way, eBART and DCTA are using the same trains as CapMetro, and there are DMU operations in the USA you might consider successful, like NJT's Riverline and NCTD Sprinters.
Some recent ridership statistics:
Riverline 8600 weekday
Sprinters 8500 weekday
eBART 7,000 weekday
CapMetro 2500 weekday
DCTA 1900 weekday

CapMetro spent less than $150 milion, and DCTA spent less than $350 million to build their DMU trains, Honolulu Rail is projecting over $8 Billion for its EMU metro style train, and its price tag keeps rising. Hopefully Honolulu Rail can achieve 5333% more riders than CapMetro.
Some math; 8,000,000,000 / 150,000,000 = 53.33 ; therefore 53.33 times more riders to break even ridersship per dollars wise, or 133,333 weekday riders. Only time will tell if they can or will.

[ILUVSAT]

Additionally, if CapMetro's Red Line was such a failure, there's no way in hell talks of developing their Green Line would have advanced to its current point.

Yes, it's not funded nor have solid plans for construction been achieved. But, talks are progressing positively.

[Dale]

The notion of the Koch Brothers destroying transit is a might exaggerated. Witness Nashville, where they spent a grand total of $10,000 as against transit proponent's $2.9 million. And transit VASTLY outspent its opponents. I rather surmise that it is Nashvillians who didn't want this particular plan.

[202_Cyclist]

Originally Posted by Dale

The notion of the Koch Brothers destroying transit is a might exaggerated. Witness Nashville, where they spent a grand total of $10,000 as against transit proponent's $2.9 million. And transit VASTLY outspent its opponents. I rather surmise that it is Nashvillians who didn't want this particular plan.

No, try again.

"A single group, “NoTax4Tracks,” raised about $950,000 in three months to fight the transit package, reports the Tennessean. Most of it — $750,000 — was from a separate dark money organization whose donors are secret.

Meanwhile, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity has been phone banking, sending opposition mailers, and organizing against the transit referendum."

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/04/...it-referendum/

Additionally, besides the money spent, groups like Americans for Prosperity (for billionaires) provided significant organizing resources to oppose this, that is likely more than the direct money they spent.

[ardecila]

^ Regardless of where the money came from in Nashville, it seems like a fair fight. Transit advocates had more money at their disposal than the opponents, and had access to all the same tools to persuade voters. They were not able to convince enough voters to win at the ballot box. You may complain that Koch brothers brought in money from out of town, but I'd be willing to bet the transit advocates also took money from the likes of Michael Bloomberg, etc.

Likely other issues of turnout affected this election - gotta put these measures on the 4-year Presidential ballot if you want the most minority/youth/low-income turnout, or at least a midterm. The only people who vote in off-year elections are the people who have nothing better to do - usually conservative-leaning seniors. That's just a fact of American democracy, and unless we have a national election holiday every year or compulsory voting, it will continue to drag down measures like this.

[mthd]

Originally Posted by electricron

...
DART has over 90 miles of double tracks, DC has around 50 miles of double tracks, Atlanta 48 miles of double tracks, and Miami just 24.4 miles of double tracks. ....

i agree with your general point - heavy rail metros are not for everywhere, and not for anywhere without significant density - but i'm not sure where you got these figures from.

DART has 93 route miles and ridership of around 100k/weekday.
roughly 1k riders per route mile.

BART has 109 route miles and ridership of around 430k/weekday.
roughly 4k riders per route mile. very low for fully grade separated metro style heavy rail due to long extensions into the suburbs.

DC has 117 route miles (more than double that in track miles, of course) and ridership peaked (before all the recent maintenance, single tracking, etc) at 750k per weekday.
roughly 7k riders per route mile.

given the very low densities served, DART did the right thing probably with the system type.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by mthd

i agree with your general point - heavy rail metros are not for everywhere, and not for anywhere without significant density - but i'm not sure where you got these figures from.

DART has 93 route miles and ridership of around 100k/weekday.
roughly 1k riders per route mile.

BART has 109 route miles and ridership of around 430k/weekday.
roughly 4k riders per route mile. very low for fully grade separated metro style heavy rail due to long extensions into the suburbs.

DC has 117 route miles (more than double that in track miles, of course) and ridership peaked (before all the recent maintenance, single tracking, etc) at 750k per weekday.
roughly 7k riders per route mile.

given the very low densities served, DART did the right thing probably with the system type.

I did not include BART earlier, I limited my response to Miami, Atlanta, and DC - systems compared to DART in someone else’s earlier response.

As for where I got my data, check out Wiki.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metr...nsit_Authority
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metr...mi-Dade_County)
And I’ll admit I got the DC metro data wrong, misreading the 50 miles of the more than 110 miles system is a subway, the rest sees the light of the sun and moon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metro

Never-the-less, my point about proposing a system voters will pass for any referendum is valid. You have to match expectations with both finances and politics.

[mthd]

Originally Posted by electricron

...
Never-the-less, my point about proposing a system voters will pass for any referendum is valid. You have to match expectations with both finances and politics.

agreed. i added BART as a good/bad example of a relatively low-ridership per mile heavy rail metro. dense networks of BRT/LRT with as much grade separation (and virtually no subways) as can be afforded is probably the best solution for MOST american cities.