Letter to the Editor: Support Tri-Rail Funding

Right now our state legislators are debating whether or not to pass a law that would allow Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade County to reallocate 80 percent of the money that is generated by an existing surcharge of $2 per rental car per day from funding for road building projects to funding for the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA), the agency that runs Tri-Rail. The 80 percent equals about $41 million per year, which is enough to fund Tri-Rail operations at current service levels. If passed, the counties could reduce their funding levels from current levels to the federal minimum levels, thus reducing their general obligations. Without the portion of the rental car tax, each county will still cut their level of funding and so will all the matching agencies, forcing Tri-Rail to drastically cut back on service. It appears that the rational direction to take from the perspective of the south Florida region is to establish the dedicated funding source for Tri-Rail. There are several reasons.

• First, from a fiscal standpoint, we as taxpayers paid $265 million to improve the CSX corridor by double-tracking to increase train capacity. The cuts in service Tri-Rail would have to make without a dedicated funding source would mirror the pre-double-tracking schedule. Clearly, this inconsistent with the investment we made to improve the CSX corridor.

• Second, even with proposed fare increases looming for riders, Tri-Rail is a fiscally wise choice for commuters as gas prices will continue to rise over the long run due to the constricted supply of oil. It’s a fact that the world has reached peak oil production so the temporary lull in gas prices we see is just that, temporary. Saving money on commuting gives riders more money to spend in the local economy.

• Third, after 60 years of post WWII experience with unending road building and suburban sprawl, we now know that it is impossible to build our way out of congestion by continually widening roads or building new roads. Many traffic engineers, the very people who used to advocate for wider roads and better “levels of service,” now believe that the answer to increasing mobility is multifaceted and includes balancing land uses and providing alternate forms of transportation other than the single occupant vehicle.

• Fourth, every rider that takes Tri-Rail is one less car on I-95 so there is an incentive to non-Tri-Rail users to make Tri-Rail as successful as possible. A recent study (http://www.ceosforcities.org/blog/entry/2169) shows that even a slight reduction in rush hour vehicle trips on the roads can result in a large decrease in congestion. Tri-Rail isn’t the right transportation choice for everyone and it won’t ever be the right mode of transportation for everyone but it is for many people and we must provide the alternative. The consequences to riders and non-riders is a decrease in quality of life; less frequent service to riders equals longer waits for trains and less free time, while riders who are pushed into driving congest the roads for drivers already there, making commuting times even longer.

• Fifth, a trip taken on Tri-Rail pollutes less than a trip taken by a single occupant vehicle. What kind of world would we be creating for ourselves and the next generation by not funding Tri-Rail?

• Sixth, taking a trip on Tri-Rail is safer than driving. Why set policy that moves people from a safer form of transportation to one that is increasingly more deadly?

• Seventh, a fully functional Tri-Rail expands the job markets for Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. For example, people living in Palm Beach County who could not or would not drive to Miami can consider jobs in Miami knowing they can take Tri-Rail. When job markets are expanded, everyone wins.

• Finally, everyone’s quality of life has a vested interest in seeing Tri-Rail succeed. Let us imagine a world where every car and truck and train runs on solar energy, no emissions from any form of transportation and the technology was inexpensive so everyone could afford a car. This would be great for the environment and many detractors of mass transit would argue that mass transit would no longer be necessary. But if we all drove single occupant solar cars, would we still be stuck in traffic? Of course we would. Our quality of life would still suffer because we would still be wasting time in traffic jams. That’s why the answer to the problem of pollution generated by transportation/congestion is not a singular answer of “build less polluting cars.” It has to include mass transit as a component of a regional transportation network.

Individual transportation is unfortunately something that is subject to the dilemma of the “tragedy of the commons.” The classic example of the tragedy of the commons is a group of fisherman who fish the same waters. If each fisherman acts only in accordance with what benefits his own economic situation the most (catching as many fish as possible each day), the entire community of fisherman will eventually suffer because the waters will be overfished and there will be no fish left for any of the fisherman. It therefore behooves the fisherman to act collectively, imposing limits on themselves as individuals so that everyone prospers in the long run.

With individual transportation, driving a single occupant vehicle is clearly the most convenient mode of choice (if a car is available but, converse to convenience, a car is the most expensive). However, when everyone drives a single occupant car we know what the results are, crushing congestion and pollution resulting in a loss of quality of life for everyone. The “commons” are in this case the collective quality of life for society as measured by commuting times, pollution, disposable income, access to wider job markets and increased personal safety. We live in the fifth largest metropolitan region in the United States. We cannot cut funding to our regional mass transit system in a time of increasing ridership and increasing gas prices when we know that a trip taken on Tri-Rail means less pollution, more money in the local economy, more access to jobs, less congestion on the roads and is safer and reduces our need to build more roads.

Submitted by: Matthew Barnes

Related posts:

1. Get Involved: Save Tri-Rail Funding
2. Tri-Rail Still On Life Support
3. Tri-Rail Funding Crisis Redux
4. Tri-Rail Shuttle Shuffle
5. Tri-Rail in Serious Jeopardy