When you widen a freeway you may reduce congestion for a few years, until induced demand kicks in and it fills back up. But you can't widen local roads, so they just get worse and worse, degrading quality of life for residents of our urban centers—and all for the sake of suburban commuters.
Read MoreNews Roundup: July 8, 2013
Ferry passengers waiting in line on second day of BART strike, photo by Steve Rhodes.
What the BART Strike Means for the Regional Transit Agenda (SPUR)
SPUR, a San Francisco-based non-profit has an expansive post on the implications and lessons learned from the BART strike last week. They also take a moment to bemoan the inevitable harm that the strike will cause to transit's image in the area, which is warranted.Their big four takeaways are: 1) the need for redundancy; 2) the importance of communication in transportation; 3) the benefits of workplace flexibility; and 4) the value and role of complete communities.
More Cogent than I (Crossing the Lines)
Steve Stofka sees a growing awareness about the need for serious passenger rail safety regulation reform, both among urbanists and some broader organizations, like the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute. I've written about the topic before, and the CEI writers sum up the issue well. Referring to the FRA's apparent protocol for evaluating train safety, they have this to say: 'It now asks, “Does this train fit our rules?” It should ask, “Is this train survivable in a crash?”'
The Missed Opportunity of Underspending During the Recession Will Haunt America for Years (Slate)
Though none of this is a surprise, and many commentators and bloggers have been writing about this for years, Yglesias reflects on our failure to take advantage of the economic recession for infrastructure spending. Back in 2008-2010 we had the opportunity to finance projects at very low interest rates, with lower contract costs, and at a time when putting people to work would have had the most benefit. Now, as the economy recovers and interest rates climb, the need for stimulus spending is less and the cost of projects is more. "So we underinvested when it was cheap, and now that it's possible to spend a bit more, that extra money is going to be eaten up by debt service obligations."
Car Ownership May Be Down in the U.S., But It’s Soaring Globally (Streetsblog)
Streetsblog brings some much-needed international context to the state of car ownership in the US. The New York Times wrote last week about "The End of Car Culture," but in many countries car culture is just beginning, and it's going to have disastrous impacts on the livability and efficiency of cities, as well as the environment. In virtually every developing country and most of the less wealthy developed nations car ownership is increasing at an incredible pace--in the case of China more than doubling in just four years--and millions more cars are built worldwide in each successive year.
The Side Effects of Property Taxes (Planetizen)
In response to a recent article by The Economist, Michael Lewyn tries to temper the pro-property tax message with a few warnings about possible negative effects of relying more heavily upon property taxes, particularly the potential for a more antagonistic environment for development. It's an interesting argument but I disagree with his conclusions, and you can find my comments below the article, as well as a response from Lewyn.
Sunday Dialogue: Cycling in the City (New York Times)
This is just another anti-bike share editorial with responses from readers, but I had to share it because the writer's response is just hilarious--Rabinowitz-esque, even. Complaining about the color scheme of the NYC Citi Bike stations and bicycles, he said: "I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To my eye they are the most disturbing clash of blue and gray since Gettysburg." Hahaha, brilliant!
News Roundup: Highway Edition
Wisconsin DOT's $1.7 billion "Zoo Interchange" proposal.
Highway Revolts Break Out Across the Midwest (Streetsblog)
Leaders in Midwestern state governments--both politicians and DOT officials--haven't all caught on to the drop in vehicle miles and the shift away from car dependence over the last decade, but their constituents have. From St Louis to Cleveland to Detroit, regular people are rising up against the endless flow of money toward ever-grander and more exp(a/e)nsive highway projects as transit, pedestrian, and bicycle infrastructure, at mere fractions of the cost of road-building, is denounced as too expensive. Midwesterners aren't buying it.
If You Can Repeatedly Close a Freeway For Months At a Time, Do You Really Need It At All? (Urbanophile)
And the award for Best Article Title of the Month goes to Aaron M. Renn. Using a downtown freeway in Indianapolis as his case study, Renn notes that the road was completely shut down for three months, and that the carmageddon that was expected never materialized (much like in Los Angeles). Now they're shutting it down for a few more months for additional surface work, and you can't help but wonder, if shutting it down doesn't cause any significant problems, couldn't that road space be put to better use?
"The Columbia River Crossing is dead" (Bike Portland)
Jonathan Maus has been diligently chronicling the progress (and many flaws) of the stuck-in-the-80s multi-billion dollar CRC bridge replacement program spanning the border between Washington and Oregon, but it looks like what ultimately killed it was the intransigence of a Republican-led Washington State Senate. They didn't put together a transportation bill during their most recent session, and without any money allocated to the CRC it will have to begin winding down after over $170 million spent on planning. It's unfortunate that the failure was more the result of Republican opposition to light rail than massively wasteful road spending, and that Seattle transit will also suffer from lack of a transportation bill, but a bad project is now off the books and that's definitely reason to celebrate.
Cleveland Revisits 1960s With Urban Renewal-Style “Opportunity Corridor” (Streetsblog)
One of the Midwestern Highway Revolts is taking place in Cleveland over the hilariously inaptly named "Opportunity Corridor," set to cut through one of the poorest and most dis-invested parts of the city. The goal is to allow suburban residents to reach the city core at the expense of actual Cleveland residents, which sounds like a pretty bad deal to me. Not that you need to hear anything besides the name to know this plan is a stinker: has anything so euphemistically named ever actually been good for the people its being sold to?
The End of Car Culture (New York Times)
I'm including this because it fits the same narrative as the highway-oriented articles above. Namely, that people are coming around to the idea that cars are not the path to economic prosperity. (Also, it's always nice to see a big guy like the NYT giving these issues some airtime.) There's also an interesting bit of information in there: though the share of people under 35 has declined since 1983, those 55 years of age and older are more likely to drive than they used to. Seniors over the age of 70 have seen an especially large increase, up to 80% from 55% just thirty years ago.
Safe Routes to School needs more than funding to be successful
Of all the negative impacts of car-centric development over the last century, few are more stark or disheartening than the decline in walking and bicycling for school-age children. The share of kids getting to school with their own two feet has dropped an incredible amount over the past forty years, from 48% in 1969 to roughly 12% today. Over that same time period, childhood obesity and children driven to school in a private automobile have each increased four-fold, and their freedom to explore the cities they live in has been sharply curtailed.
In response to these troubling statistics the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program began in 1997 and a national program was established by the U.S. Congress in 2005. The primary goal of SRTS, as stated on their website, has been to "improve safety on walking and bicycling routes to school and to encourage children and families to travel between home and school using these modes." There's evidence that they've had some success, including one study that showed California schools receiving infrastructure improvements were able to increase biking and walking rates by 20 to 200 percent and another showing a decrease in collision rates by up to 49%.
The benefits aren't limited to safety and physical activity, either. Cars driving kids to school are estimated to account for 10-14% of morning traffic. Air pollution is often markedly higher in school zones and contributes to other health problems, like asthma, and increases atmospheric carbon concentrations. Kids who walk or bike to school have measurably better concentration than kids who are driven. As a nation we spend $21.5 billion a year busing students, which works out to $854 per student. By comparison, many schools in Japan ban car drop-offs and limit busing, choosing to instead spend that money on crossing guards and pedestrian improvements. As a result, 80% of children age 6 to 12 walk to school there (and they do it without adult chaperones, too).
Last year, as part of its MAP-21 transportation package, Congress effectively reduced Safe Routes to School funding by combining it with several other walk/bike programs and reducing total funding by 30%. These cuts will inevitably lead to smaller gains in children's safety and physical health, and their wrongheadedness is virtually beyond dispute. Instead of harping on that point, which has already been done effectively elsewhere, I'd like to focus on what can be done in lieu of adequate funding. Because even though more is needed, money alone won't get us back to where we want to be. The question we need to ask is: How can we leverage the people power of schools and communities, not money and infrastructure, to get more kids walking and biking to school, and doing so safely?
Loyal Heights Elementary principal Wayne Floyd leading a bike train, photo by Clint Loper.
Seattle, like many other cities, has been experiencing something of a revolution in how our children get to school over the past few years, and Seattle Bike Blog has done a great job of documenting the change: on Bike to School day this year one elementary school had hundreds of students biking to school as well as a VIP appearance by the district superintendent; several schools in the Ballard neighborhood are promoting biking and walking to work, and even some principals are getting involved; and a new organization called Walk.Bike.Schools formed just last year to share ideas about how to increase active transportation to and from schools.
61% of students less than 1 mile away are driven to school!
All of these programs are great news and an encouraging sign of the trajectory of the movement, but at this point they're much more likely to be big once-a-month events than daily, routine commutes. How are kids getting to school the other 95% of the time? Too often, the answer is still "cars and buses."
Given the number of students arriving at school in cars, there are clearly plenty of parents with time in the mornings, many of them probably stay-at-home moms or dads. They could be taking some extra time to lead biking and/or walking trains every morning, gathering students as they make their way to school with their own children, but they're not. With the full disclosure that I'm not a parent and can't pretend to know exactly what their concerns might be, I think much of it comes down to two related issues: potential parent leaders may not want to take responsibility for the safety of kids they don't know, and other parents may not be comfortable leaving their kids in the care of someone they don't know well, even for a 15-minute walk.
The problem here, if it is indeed a part of the problem, is ultimately a lack of community. Most people would never harm a child, but when people don't know the members of their community they can't always trust them by default. It may be that school districts or another credible institution can step in to bridge the gap and provide a framework for continued growth.
Schools, teachers, and administrators are extremely well-respected and trusted in America, and they could function as intermediaries in this impasse. (They could also lead these trips themselves, though they shouldn't be obligated or expected to do so.) They're in a position to lend credibility to potential parent leaders interested in running bike or walking trains on a regular basis, as well as to allay the concerns of hesitant parents. Bestowing credibility upon parent leaders could take the form of something simple and informal, like a brief interview or background check, or could be a more involved "licensing"-like process with classes and meetings with other parents and children. Though this might be a bit over-the-top in terms of burdening the parents interested in participating, I would argue that if it's what's necessary to get kids walking and biking to school every day, it's worth the trouble. As familiarity with the program and a proven track record of safety was established, the need for such formalized measures would be likely to fade.
There's also room for technology in solving this problem. Lenore Skenazy, interviewed last year by Salon, captured my thoughts pretty well:
So what’s the antidote? Skenazy has thought about setting up a website, Find a Free-Range Friend, “like a dating site,” she says. “You put in your kid’s age and ZIP Code so you can find another parent and say, ‘OK, you believe in it and I believe in it. Let’s send them to the park together, or they can walk to school.’”
A better analogy might be something like Lyft, the ride-sharing business where people can use their cars as taxis and connect with people who need rides via a convenient smartphone app. In that same spirit, parents walking or biking to school with their kids could broadcast their trip, inviting other parents to contact them if they'd like their kids picked up on the way, free of charge!
As a last note, the emotional pull of how little freedom kids have nowadays, and their utter dependence on adults for transportation, is especially powerful for me. With that in mind, I'll leave you with this excellent Streetfilms production on how much things have changed over the past half-century:
News Roundup: June 29, 2013
If You Live In New York And You Rent, You're Paying A Huge Tax You Don't Even Know About (Business Insider)
Property taxes: An unexploited resource (Economist)
Senate Offers a More Multi-Modal 2014 Transportation Budget Than the House (Streetsblog)
The Law of Traffic Congestion, according to "The Flash!" (Planetizen)
DC Police Wrongly Presume Injured Cyclist Guilty: “C’mon, You Are a Biker” (Streetsblog)
Apartment renters are paying vastly higher property tax rates than single-family home and condo owners in New York City, despite the fact that the former tend to be poorer on average. It's devious and despicable, and looks even worse in light of the near-zero rates paid by many $50+ million condo owners in NYC reported on by the New York Times last year. This graph says it all:
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| Business Insider, data from New York City Independent Budget Office |
Compared to taxes on income or even consumption, property taxes are less discouraging of economic growth, yet in most countries they represent a relatively small share of government income. In America they represent about 17% of total tax revenues--that's mostly from local governments, which get 70% of their income from property taxes--but in most other developed and emerging economies the numbers are closer to 2-5%. Perhaps this plays some role in the economic success of the U.S.?
File this one under "Least Surprising News Ever," but the United States Senate is doing much more to support active and public transportation than the U.S. House. The latter seems to think that the only economically valuable transportation mode is single-occupancy car travel, and they're doing everything they can to boost it to the exclusion of everything else. Why? Who knows. On the bright side, the distance between the House and Senate proposals might be significant enough that they can't come to any agreement and a continuing resolution at current spending levels happens instead, which wouldn't be so bad. Much better than the current House proposal anyway.
DC has a reboot of The Flash superhero comic series and the first issue features a shockingly professional assessment of induced demand. Here are some actual quotes: "Ever hear of the Law of Congestion? Building more highways doesn't reduce traffic - it does the opposite. It increases the volume of motorists and generates even more traffic," "Maybe we should knock them [highways] down instead," "Right! In Seoul, South Korea they demolished an elevated highway leading to a rejuvenation of the area AND a reduction in traffic..." Swoon.
You read that right, and no, it doesn't seem to be an exaggeration. A bicyclist, Zach, was hit by a car in an intersection and the driver and a witness lied and said he'd run a red light. When Zach disputed these claims the police officer he went to didn't look at the CCTV proof he had that it had been the driver who broke the law. His justification? "We all know how bikers behave. It must have been your fault." Makes you wonder how many other bicyclists (and maybe pedestrians, too) are being wrongly accused and fined when they're the victims of crimes, just because some police offers are too lazy and prejudiced to do their job and look at the facts.
News Roundup: June 25, 2013
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| Photo by dbking. |
A double-whammy of great news coming out of New York: the NYPD is taking vehicle collisions more seriously, expanding their team of investigators and not dismissing them as "accidents" so readily, and they also mention Streetsblog NYC as being particularly on top of the police department about the issue, which is richly-deserved. The money paragraph is right here: '“For big cities, they’re on the leading edge of the curve,” said Roy E. Lucke, a retired Chicago-area traffic officer and the director of transportation safety programs at Northwestern University. Most cities think of traffic deaths as somehow less worthy of investigation, he said. “Our mantra has always been, ‘Tell me how they’re less dead,’ ” he said.'
Richard Florida reports that house prices per square foot are rising at a faster rate in urban areas than suburban ones, and that the difference is greatest in some areas not historically known for their high urban living standards: Detroit and Phoenix top the list, with the more likely candidates of Miami, New York, and Boston rounding out the top five. Even more interesting, "high-rise" neighborhoods grew in value more quickly than the average urban area, and areas with high levels of diversity in terms of both sexual orientation and race and ethnicity did the best of all.
Park and rides frequently accompany rail and commuter express bus service into the suburbs as a way to boost ridership, but STB contributor Ben Schiendelman argues that this is counterproductive. The reason, essentially, comes down to induced demand: the people who switch to the park and ride transit are just replaced by even-more-distant suburb-dwellers for whom traffic was previously too heavy to justify driving. In effect, we pay millions of dollars to increase the total number of miles driven. The basis of the argument is actually similar to a post I wrote about downtowns back in December.
Chuck Marohn shares an email from a reader, who wondered, why are economists so positive about news of increasing car sales, when the majority of states don't manufacture vehicles or many of their parts. While the sales may be good on a nationwide scale (maybe), a state like Maine that receives all its cars from other states (or countries) is sending many millions of dollars across its borders every year and the benefits they receive are hard to see. And that's before considering that the money would probably be better spent on other things even if the cars were made locally.
We all saw this one coming, right? The Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank that's viscerally anti-urban and pro-sprawl/car sent out a few "researchers" last year during the first week of LA's new Expo light rail line to estimate ridership. They made the utterly inane assumption that ridership would not significantly increase over the next century or more--and stuck by that position when challenged. Unsurprisingly, they were wrong. Ridership jumped from their 13,000 estimate to 18,000 within two months, and is on track to reach its 2020 goals before the end of this year. (It's currently over 26,000 trips per day.) Somehow I doubt we'll be seeing a Reason Foundation mea culpa any time soon.
Study: Americans have no idea what they're talking about, might hate selves
Gas tax protesters in Boston. Photo from Boston.com.
The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) just released year four of its ongoing study, and it’s got some interesting findings on what Americans know about transportation funding in the United States and, regardless of what they know, what they think about it. It’s laboriously (but informatively) titled “What do Americans Think About Federal Tax Options to Support Public Transit, Highways, and Local Streets and Roads?” The biggest takeaway, as far as I can tell, is that people have no damn clue how the hell transportation funding works in this country, and their opinions about how it should be funded are often completely contrary to their own self-interest.
Here’s the justification for the study, found in the introduction:
Over the past several decades, the transportation revenues available from state and federal gas taxes have fallen significantly, especially in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars per mile traveled. At the same time, the transportation system requires critical—and expensive—system upgrades. Among other needs, a large portion of the national highway system needs major rehabilitation, and there is growing desire at all levels of government to substantially upgrade and expand infrastructure to support public transit, walking, and bicycling, modes that have been relatively neglected in the past 50 years.
This dilemma of growing needs and shrinking revenues can be resolved in only two ways: either the nation must dramatically lower its goals for system preservation and enhancement, or new revenues must be raised. If the latter is to happen, legislators must be convinced that increasing taxes or fees is politically feasible. One portion of the political calculus that legislators make when deciding whether or not to raise new revenues is, of course, considering likely public support for—or opposition to—raising different kinds of taxes.
Fair enough. It’s probably helpful to have some idea of what proposals a politician or other public official could make without ending his or her career, otherwise we might never get anything done. It’s taken as axiomatic at this point that attempting to raise gas taxes is political suicide, so we want to know what alternatives might be palatable to the American public, and whether gas taxes are really as anathema as they’re often portrayed.
Let’s look at what they found.
“Gas taxes are the worst, unless they’re actually going to be used for something. (Really, anything is fine.)”
When poll respondents were asked how they felt about a ten-cent gas tax increase (from 18 cents to 28 cents per gallon), support was abysmal at just 23%. However, support increased when a use was specified for the additional funds, and every suggested use received greater than 50% support:
Blue bars represent percentage sums of "strongly support" and "somewhat support." Adapted from MTI report.
This encompasses basically every possible use of gas taxes, including some that are arguably illegal under current law, but Americans support it all when you actually tell them what it’s for. Most people, of course, aren't aware that the Highway Trust Fund has been a net recipient of tens of billions of dollars over the last several years (or that there is a thing called the Highway Trust Fund, probably). But really, what do people think gas taxes are currently spent on? Medicare?
“Yes, fares cover the full cost of transit service, I’m certain. Final answer.”
MTI wanted to assess the average American’s knowledge of how transit is funded, and they started with the following question:
“When people ride public transit, they pay a fare. This money is used to pay for the service. Do you think that the money collected from public transit fares in general covers the full cost of the service?”
The correct answer is no, and the amount covered by fares is usually quite low, around 20-40%. The most transit-oriented cities (SF, Chicago, NYC, D.C., etc.) get up into the 50s and 60s. Fifty-five percent of people got this right, and another 15 percent said they didn't know, but a shocking proportion of people—30 percent!!!—said that yes, transit fares do cover the full cost of the service. It's not a big deal that people don't know the truth, really, but if you don't know why can't you just say so!?
Given that this is completely untrue, and has been for basically as long as anyone’s been alive, I’m not sure what to think of it. On the one hand, maybe these people are genuinely misinformed and thought they had good reason to believe what they said. That would be unfortunate. On the other hand maybe they really didn't know, and rather than admit it they gave the answer they felt was most likely or fit their ideology best. That would be even worse.
Bonus fact: people who drive cars that get 39+ miles per gallon were about twice as likely as those driving lower-mileage cars to think/say that fares covered the full cost of transit. I have no idea what that to make of that.
“Congress should raise bus fares. They can do that, right?”
Respondents were asked if they supported some gas tax revenue being used to support transit and—good news!—every subgroup of people expressed majority support (even Republicans!). They were then asked how, if Congress decided that public transit spending should increase, they should go about funding it: by increasing the gas tax, cutting other programs, or… increasing transit fares?*
Two things. First, I’m once again unsure of whether this is unconstitutional or not. Second, even if it’s not technically against the law, it’s a matter that the federal government currently doesn't meddle in—it’s up to the regional or municipal transit organization to set fares, at least in most places. (Despite this, the study found the greatest support among those good ol' local-control Republicans.) I’m gonna give America a pass on this one though, since you've gotta answer the question as given. Mineta gets the fault here. Stupid question, Mineta.
*And just to be clear, they do phrase the summary as “Three Ways Congress Could Pay for Expanding and Improving Public Transportation,” so they do actually mean Congress would raise the fares.
“Sure, I hate taxes, but you know what I really hate? Myself.”
Delving further into the question of which of the three transit-funding options provided were preferred by respondents, MTI looked at the subgroups that were most supportive of each option. I’m going to reprint that below, and I’m going to underline the groups lobbying against their own self-interest or ideology:
- Those most likely to prefer raising the federal gas tax were respondents who fell into one any one of the following subgroups: white or black/African American, living in households with annual incomes of $100,001 or more, drove vehicles in the two least-fuel-efficient categories, or either had not taken transit in the last 30 days or were living in communities with no transit service.
- Those most likely to prefer reducing spending on other government programs were respondents who fell into any one of the following subgroups: Asian/Asian American, not of Hispanic or Latino descent or origin, or living in households with the lowest annual income.
- Those most likely to prefer raising transit fares were respondents who fell into one any one of the following subgroups: Democrat, drove the most fuel-efficient vehicles, or had taken transit within the last 30 days.
Every single choice is full of subgroups that make no sense whatsoever! What are people driving the least fuel-efficient vehicles doing preferring gas taxes? Same story with people who don’t uses transit or don’t have access to it, i.e., the people most likely to drive. Are these people just super altruistic, or is it some kind of climate guilt?
And although this isn't really a new thing, we have the poorest people advocating for reduced spending on government programs, even though they’re the ones most likely to be served by them. Maybe they’re those median Americans who think 25% of the government's money goes to foreign aid.
As for raising transit fares, Democrats' support just seems like it’s contrary to the ideology of the party, but what I’m most interested in is these self-hating transit riders. What’s their deal?
Conclusion:
"Anti-vaccine zealots turn their attention to car pollution" ...right?
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that pre-natal exposure to pollution is correlated with higher rates of autism. As you can imagine, most pollution that people deal with on a daily basis comes from cars. Now that the whole anti-vaccine pseudoscience has been thoroughly debunked (over and over and over), I'm looking forward to those same folks taking their zeal and their resources into the fight against car pollution. Because it's all about protecting kids, right?
News Roundup: June 21, 2013
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| From Transportation For America. |
More attacks on everything that isn't a freeway from the Republican House of Representatives. The APA has a list of the form those attacks are taking in this years budget. Surprise: they're cutting everything! Rail, transit, Community Development Block Grants, TIGER (the worst in my opinion), the list goes on... all slated for significant cuts from their already historically-low levels.
As pictured above, in the 1990s we were repairing over 15,000 structurally deficient bridges every four years, and that number has steadily dropped to the present low of less than 5,000 over the same length of time. At that rate it's hard to see how we can even keep up with newly deficient bridges as they crop up. And the number is even worse than it seems, since, in 2011 for example, almost half of the repaired bridges were located in just two states.
More on the DoD's efforts to convert their bases to more walkable, pleasant communities, and the benefits expected from the shift. Not only has it already saved tens of millions of dollars in wasteful and poorly-planned projects, there are also hopes that it may help address the disturbing suicide rates in the military by promoting more personal connections among military families and encouraging healthier lifestyles.
Not many journalistic institutions can credibly make a suggestion like this, but the Economist is one of them. They note that the costs of fare collection cut significantly into the fares themselves (by my estimate, somewhere between 20-30%), and that the collection process itself negatively impacts the efficiency and speed of transit services. Eliminating fares would also increase ridership, of course, which could free up more space on the roads for other uses. The majority of transit agency budgets already comes from non-fare sources (e.g., sales tax, vehicle fees), so as the Economist says, free bus rides might be worth a second look.
Jonathan Maus goes off on the lack of response we see from traffic violence and the other serious health impacts of a cars-first transportation policy. Repeated deaths of pedestrians, bicyclists, children and seniors, drivers themselves, the recent death of Rolling Stone contributor Michael Hastings, all reported as matter-of-fact--the price of doing business. We even have an international movement fighting an autism battle on the basis of anti-vaccine pseudoscience, but can't get angry enough to do something about the established connection between vehicle tailpipe emissions and autism in children.
As economic stimulus, the USPS is an incredible deal
Photo by Graeme Pow.
I haven't written about it on here before, but I've had pretty harsh things to say about the USPS over the past few years. As someone who frequently extols the virtues of urbanism and is bothered by the outsize subsidies associated with rural life, it irks me that I pay the same to ship a letter as someone who lives 50 miles from the nearest post office. Perhaps more importantly, I'm just not convinced that first class mail delivery is a strictly necessary government service in the year 2013. This was all no big deal as long as they were profitable, but now they're losing billions a year.
The Postal Service is on track to lose about $10 billion this year. And to be fair, a big part of the reason for that is a Congressional mandate, unique to the USPS, that they pay their future retirees' health benefits out to 75 years in the future. They tried to save a few billion dollars a year by cutting Saturday service, but that was quickly squashed by yet another Congressional mandate, this time requiring that they maintain six-days-a-week service.
But in a time of continuing high unemployment, maybe we need to look at this from another perspective. To get that perspective, let's look back a few years. As the job losses caused by the financial crash of 2008 were peaking, we passed a $787 billion stimulus package to save and create as many jobs as possible, and according to the CBO it was somewhat successful: as many as 3.3 million jobs were saved. Taking that number as a given, this means that each job cost at least $238,000. This was spread over three years, and for various reasons its misleading to say each job actually cost that much, but we'll just accept it for now.
By contrast, the USPS employs about 522,000 people (though that number is declining rapidly) who earn an average of about $50,000 a year and get some pretty nice federal benefits. Good middle class jobs, in other words. If the Postal Service loses $10 billion this year and keeps all of their employees, it'll cost taxpayers about $19,000 per job saved. If we got that kind of return on the 2009 stimulus we could have put every unemployed and underemployed person in America back to work, and then some.
How many federal workers do you know whose wages are mostly covered by user fees? Photo by komunews.
Now, part of the point of the stimulus was to keep people employed long enough for the economy to get back on its feet, not to subsidize those jobs year after year into infinity (which is part of why the $228k per job number is misleading). To get to that level of spending, though, we'd have to subsidize the USPS at its current loss levels for over 10 years. At a time where unemployment is still over 7%, is deficit reduction still such an imperative that we can't afford to keep the Postal Service afloat as it reorients itself over the next several years? Can we really hope for such a good employment deal in any other spending package?
Some people might argue that the USPS isn't like other federal organizations--they're a business, not a public service organization or entitlement like Medicare, so its not the taxpayer's responsibility to shore them up when they get in trouble. But if they were really a business, could the US Congress mandate that they, and they alone, spend billions of dollars on costs that won't be incurred for another three quarters of a century? If it wasn't a public service, could Congress force them to provide their services six days a week, no fewer?
Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, but I don't see how our lives would be significantly worse as a result of dropping to five-, or even three-day-a-week first class mail service (letter-type mail, not larger packages). We're forcing them to deliver every day because we find it convenient, that's all. We have the power to override the business decisions of the Postal Service for the sake of our convenience and we exercise that power, so as long as we retain that power the responsibility flows both ways. They have to do as we say, but when that gets them in trouble it's on us to bail them out.
I'm not proposing that we preserve employment into perpetuity--it's pretty clear that the USPS is on its way out eventually, or at best will be a much, much smaller organization in the not-too-distant future. In particular, I think we should be discussing whether six-day service is necessary anywhere, and especially where it's most expensive to provide. But anyone who's experiencing any kind of righteous indignation about Postal Service financial losses needs to look first to their Congresspersons, and themselves. Then they need to look at the unemployment number and think about whether this is really the best time to be laying off more people from well-paying, useful work. Even if its not strictly necessary.