September 9, 2008
One of our Rare Pro-Muni Posts
It's not often we get to say it, so let's relish the feeling: yay Muni! Today, Muni boss Nat Ford joined a bunch of other transit officials in making some nice suggestions for the future of federal transportation planning. And you know what, it actually looks pretty good.
Currently, America's transit planning is guided by a bill called "SAFETEA-LU," signed a couple years ago by still-president Bush. It expires in 2009, and a group called "NACTO" (comprised of urban transit planners, including Muni) is pushing for an update that would bump up the priority of transit over private vehicles. Their proposal is in loathsome PDF, but here's some of what they're advocating:
- commitment to mass transit and other alternatives to highways and private autos
- Bring Public Transportation into a State of Good Repair
- Mandate a Better Environment For Walking and Bicycling
- Prioritize Mass Transit When Adding Capacity
- Promote Compact Land Use Development and Infill
What's not to like? There's some other blah blah blah in there about projects and funding that only makes sense to insiders; but the main bullet points are flawless.
It's anyone's guess how SAFETEA-LU's replacement will look once it's been chewed up by politicians in DC; but as foundations go, NACTO's suggestions look swell.
| 
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
The feds under Bush Jr. have made it an evangelical calling to gut transit funding . They require mass transit to pay for more at the local level than they do roads. Roads continue to be heavily subsidized despite the increase in the cost of gas, and lately the feds have been stealing from mass transit funding to pay for more roads.
It's a sick spiral and at a time when more people are looking to transit options due to the cost of gas and living in general, the feds, Arnie and the Democrats in Sacramento, and others are taking away billions of dollars from good transit projects around the country.
And all of course tout how f*cking "green" they are. Can we retire the term "green" (along with "progressive') since neither of these things mean anything anymore?
I am so in love with those acronyms
While you'd probably get more pageviews with anti-MUNI posts, I'm pleased to see that you are not caving in to the temptation of sensationalist "journalism."