The Wall Street Journal doesn't like transit, your grandparents

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board is extraordinarily adept at finding new and unique ways to be disappointing in their views on transportation.

Let’s look at their Sunday editorial, Why Your Highway Has Potholes:

What's missing is any new thinking. Clear evidence of inefficient transportation spending comes from a new Treasury study estimating that traffic gridlock costs motorists more than $100 billion a year in delays and wasted gas. In cities like Los Angeles, commuters waste the equivalent of two extra weeks every year in traffic jams. This congestion could be alleviated by building more highway lanes where they are most needed and using market-based pricing—such as tolls—for using roads during peak travel times.

The Wall Street Journal goes on to place the blame for the failure of the Highway Trust Fund on public transit (you know an editorial board has veered off track when they start citing figures from Wendell Cox and the Heritage Foundation).

Let that sink in: the problem with the Highway Trust Fund isn’t the fact that Congress hasn’t raised the gas tax since 1993, and hasn’t even pegged it to inflation; it’s that it’s spending a portion of the funds on public transit.  It doesn’t take a lot of words to disprove this fallacious argument.  In fact, it only takes two pictures (courtesy U.S. PIRG):

 

 That is why the Highway Trust Fund is in trouble.  We’re driving less per capita, and we’re using more fuel-efficient vehicles to do the driving.

 The Wall Street Journal says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wants an America without cars.  But while they’re busy beating up their straw-man, sensible Americans are dealing with the real transportation problem: while cars and roads will continue to be the primary mode of transportation, people are sick of being forced into their car for each and every errand and trip.  No one at the U.S. DOT really wants to abolish highways, but they are working hard to make sure Americans have options—that communities are connected by more than just highways.  And the following counterfactuals provide ample evidence that Americans are ready for choice:

• Between 1995 and 2010, public transportation ridership by 31 percent—almost double the 17 percent growth in population.
• A recent study done by U.S. PIRG found that from 2001 to 2009, the annual number of vehicle miles traveled by people 16 to 34-years-of-age dropped from 10,300 miles to 7,900 miles per capita—a 23 percent decrease. 
• Senior citizens often choose transit because it is their last link to the outside world.  Almost 31 percent of transit trips in rural areas are made by older Americans.  
• Transit enriches the lives of senior citizens; 2004 study found that seniors 65 and older who no longer drive—compared with drivers of the same age—make 15% fewer trips to the doctor, 59% fewer trips to shop or eat out, and 65% fewer trips to visit friends and family.
• As the U.S. population continues to get older on average, this reliance will only increase—Transportation For America estimates that by 2015, more than 15.5 million Americans 65-and-older will live in communities where public transportation is poor or non-existent.

Americans are demanding a balanced approach to transportation policy, and reverting to a roads-only approach will leave too many people stuck in traffic when all they want is to pop out to the store and get a carton of milk. 

But even worse, abolishing transit funding will strand millions of men and women who helped build America into a great country.  They deserve better.