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Time for free transit
As that great American, Desi Arnaz, would've put it, I've got some 'splainin' to do. Which probably means I didn't 'splain myself well enough the first time. Two weeks ago, I wrote a column that was dismissive of the city's plans for a 1.5-mile streetcar "starter kit." Afterward, e-mails from angry liberals piled up, most of them attacking yours truly for being against public transportation, becoming a redneck, or fearing conservative critics. One woman, though, wrote that she wasn't angry, "just so, so sad for you."
I won't mention the importance of reading an entire column before firing off an e-mail; I'll just say that perhaps I wasn't clear enough. So let me be clear: I am completely, unalterably, in favor of good, efficient public transportation systems. Charlotte, though, does not have that, which is precisely why I find it hard to get excited about a mile-and-a-half streetcar line. Yes, it's supposed to eventually be 10 miles long, or 20 miles, depending on who's doing the talking, but even that is squat compared to how much more service our transit system should offer.
Part of the problem with the streetcar decision is that local government is divided between city and county. The county runs CATS, and the streetcar is a city project. That division of responsibility means that City Council could be forgiven for looking at the streetcar as a development tool and not considering the bigger picture of area transit needs. That division is a problem that won't go away until citizens demand that county and city government be combined to save money, time and effort. Consolidation should, at least in theory, help everyone in local government focus more clearly on what issues are important to the public and which aren't.
In the meantime, and this isn't the first time I've brought up the subject, local leaders should look into a transit strategy that is being successfully, albeit gradually, tried in a few other cities and some other nations: free-fare transit.
Clemson and Chapel Hill offer fare-free rides for all standard routes; needless to say, ridership has increased dramatically. Other places offering standard fare-free transit include cities in Colorado, New York, California, Utah, Washington, and several European countries. The figures are in, and the good news is that if it's done right, fare-free transit works. What's more, there's plenty of information available on how to make it work.
To start with, here are two articles by Dave Olsen, a public transit consultant in Vancouver who has been pushing the idea of fare-free transit there for years: http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/07/05/NoFares1/ — and www.planetizen.com/node/37530.
Charlotte, for too long, has treated mass transit as a frill, or a tool for directing development. The city needs a new way of looking at transit, one that will serve more people while also solving some of our traffic and environmental problems. Instead of cutting services and then fighting over whether new dollars should be spent on public transportation or more roads, local and state leaders need to focus on ways to entice more people to use mass transit. It's easy to see how free-fare transit could be the best way to really entice commuters to leave their cars at home.
We could ease into the fare-free concept by imitating Merced County, Calif., which now offers fare-free transit during the summer "pollution season." What would it take for Charlotte and the rest of the county to make such a change? For one, it would take local leaders with vision and imagination. They would have to overhaul local government budgets, and collect more money (I suggest a gas guzzler tax, rather than raising the sales tax again). Mostly, though, they would have to change their view of mass transit, away from the Old Charlotte paradigm of buses as something the maid rides to and from her job, and see it as the public, and environmental, necessity it has increasingly become.
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