Transit Benefit Cut Defies Trends

Transit Benefit Cut Defies Evident Trend Away from Car Dependence

Thursday, December 22, 2011

This morning’s Washington Post features a cover story noting that Washington, DC’s population has grown tremendously while most places in the US have seen shrinking numbers of residents. Perhaps most significantly, the Post says “Three in four newcomers [to DC] in recent years have been between the ages of 18 and 34. They have zero interest in the suburbs.”

Downtown San Jose, CA. [Image: Sean_Marshall on Flickr]

This reflects a growing and highly evident preference for urban living amongst those of us of the next generation, combined with the increasing prevalence of teenagers waiting longer to get their first driver’s license, once considered a rite of passage into adulthood. “Millennials” such as myself would rather not be tied to needing a car to get everywhere, along with the stress, danger and great expense driving entails. Being able to use electronics or read while traveling, having easy access to a multitude of activities, and being able to enjoy bars and parties without worrying about getting behind the wheel afterwards are all good reasons to live in a place where a car is not a necessity.

Combine that with my generation’s increasing awareness of the great social and environmental costs of the automobile’s disproportionate dominance of America’s transportation universe—oil dependence, homogenous suburban sprawl eating away at farms and open spaces, air pollution, etc.—and you have growing demand for human-scaled neighborhoods connected to one another by trains, subways and streetcars.

Yet many of our elected leaders aren’t getting the message. Just when more and more professionals are moving into cities and relying on public transportation to get to work, Congress’s lack of action on an extension of provisions in the 2009 Recovery Act means that the maximum pre-tax transit benefit allowed to employees will be cut in half come January 1—while the maximum parking benefit will increase. At the same time, decreased revenues and state and local funding cuts due to the recession are forcing many transit agencies to raise fares. For many Americans, my generation especially, this will be a painful double-whammy. It will encourage some commuters to switch to driving—precisely the wrong message to send when we’re also trying to ease congestion and pollution in our urban areas—but for most transit commuters, it will make the struggle to make ends meet harder and force difficult tradeoffs.

It’s up to all of us to maintain pressure on our Senators and Representatives. Remind them that the plethora of public policy goals that are achieved when it is cheaper and easier for people to use transit than drive are worth more than the miniscule additional tax revenue resulting from the reduction in the transit benefit cap. It’s also good to know that our biggest opportunity to tell Congress how we feel is coming in 11 months.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Tags: car dependence, commuting, population growth, transit benefits, transportation policy, urban living, us cities, washington dc, washington post
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