Comments on: Senate’s New DOT Spending Bill Eases One Transit Funding Barrier http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/08/11/senates-new-dot-spending-bill-eases-one-transit-funding-barrier/ Covering San Francisco's livable streets movement Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:38:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mara http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/08/11/senates-new-dot-spending-bill-eases-one-transit-funding-barrier/comment-page-1/#comment-24911 Mara Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:22:15 +0000 http://sf.streetsblog.org/?p=23651#comment-24911 The Columbia River Crossing is still a needless sprawl-inducing highway mega project. The transit component is an important part of a regional multi-modal system, but it doesn't justify spending $4 Billion, most of which is for freeway and interchange expansions. The Columbia River Crossing is still a needless sprawl-inducing highway mega project. The transit component is an important part of a regional multi-modal system, but it doesn’t justify spending $4 Billion, most of which is for freeway and interchange expansions.

]]> By: Richard Mlynarik http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/08/11/senates-new-dot-spending-bill-eases-one-transit-funding-barrier/comment-page-1/#comment-24201 Richard Mlynarik Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:54:19 +0000 http://sf.streetsblog.org/?p=23651#comment-24201 Be careful what you wish for. Bundling local financial matches for tangentially related grab-bags of projects leads to disasters like BART to Millbrae (bundled into a fictional and fraudulent MTC "regional rail plan" in the 1990s, which was oh-so-coincidentally gutted of its Caltrain component the month after BART scored its local-match-enabled federal earmark pork $750 million) or the appalling Muni Central Subway (which SFCTA pretends is "phase two" of the non-performing Third Street light rail line, and hence the federals should step in to throw a billion of on top of what we've already wasted locally), etc. Further easing the accounting fictions which enable pork-barrel megaprojects to evade even the semblance of federal cost-benefit analysis -- which is what this is all about, by increasing fictional "local matches" above the threshold at which FTA will write blank checks no questions asked -- doesn't serve the cause of improving transit at all. Good money shouldn't always follow bad down the gurgling drain of poorly-conceived, over-priced, inefficient mega-projects. Even when a project is greenwashed as "transit". Be careful what you wish for.

Bundling local financial matches for tangentially related grab-bags of projects leads to disasters like BART to Millbrae (bundled into a fictional and fraudulent MTC “regional rail plan” in the 1990s, which was oh-so-coincidentally gutted of its Caltrain component the month after BART scored its local-match-enabled federal earmark pork $750 million) or the appalling Muni Central Subway (which SFCTA pretends is “phase two” of the non-performing Third Street light rail line, and hence the federals should step in to throw a billion of on top of what we’ve already wasted locally), etc.

Further easing the accounting fictions which enable pork-barrel megaprojects to evade even the semblance of federal cost-benefit analysis — which is what this is all about, by increasing fictional “local matches” above the threshold at which FTA will write blank checks no questions asked — doesn’t serve the cause of improving transit at all.

Good money shouldn’t always follow bad down the gurgling drain of poorly-conceived, over-priced, inefficient mega-projects. Even when a project is greenwashed as “transit”.

]]> By: Jeffrey W. Baker http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/08/11/senates-new-dot-spending-bill-eases-one-transit-funding-barrier/comment-page-1/#comment-23901 Jeffrey W. Baker Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:27:07 +0000 http://sf.streetsblog.org/?p=23651#comment-23901 I thought I had read in Oregon blogs, some linked from Streetsblog, that the Columbia River Crossing was a needless sprawl-inducing highway mega project, with the transit component tacked on to appease interest groups. Is this project now thought to be a good thing? I thought I had read in Oregon blogs, some linked from Streetsblog, that the Columbia River Crossing was a needless sprawl-inducing highway mega project, with the transit component tacked on to appease interest groups. Is this project now thought to be a good thing?

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