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Democracy in Inaction
The Twin Cities are wrestling with the oh-so-trendy issue of "light rail", and the resulting spectacle is enlighteningly reflective of larger issues at work in our society. Minneapolis and St. Paul have absolutely no mass transit system to speak of. Sure, there are busses, but nothing your average commuter would see as a legitimate alternative to driving. There are reasons why this is so. First, it is difficult to imagine a more poorly designed metropolis in which to make mass transit work than the Twin Cities. Two Hubs rather than one, separate suburban rings than meld at the edges, and nothing except for cornfields to hem the growth of the metro area. This difficulty is reflected in the the fact that taking a bus from the north central Minneapolis suburb of Fridley to the north central St. Paul suburb of Shoreview requires at least a 2-3 hour ride for a 10 mile trip.
The bigger reason that there is no mass transit in Minnesota is that there is simply no demand for it. Actually, that is not entirely true. Construction companies, construction unions, eco radicals, and businesses on prospective routes are wildly in favor of the prospect. But the vast majority of people in Minnesota do not feel that mass transit in general, and light rail in particular, will benefit them in any meaningful way. The unelected Metropolitan Council, with the enthusaistic support of urban planners and the backing of the Ventura administration, have proposed a 15 mile line running south from downtown Minneapolis along the "Hiawatha Corridor" to the Mall of America. The total projected cost of this effort is between $500,000,000 and $700,000,000 million. As you might imagine, this has sparked a vigorous debate within Minnesota.
I suspect you may not especially care to hear the pros and cons in excruciating detail, but there are several factors underlying the debate which are fundamentally problematic.
It is an excerise in anti-democratic politics of the worst sort. There is a growing tendency among "experts" at all levels of government to assume that the citizens are idiots, and that they cannot be trusted to want the right things. This is a different animal than generic indifference of bureaucracy. It is an active effort to work around the popular will thorugh any means necessary in order to impose one's superior agenda. Whether following the utopian vision of environmentalism or its ugly younger cousin "Smart Growth", or just engaging in the perverse delight of forcing other people to bend to their will, this "un-democracy" has become one of the hallmarks of modern politics. From EPA and HUD to the Twin Cities Metro Council to the courts, democracy has become nothing more than an impediment to be overcome in pursuit of the "good".
Left to their own devices, the citizens of the Twin Cities would overwhelminly prefer to sink money into highway expansion, using common sense to figure out that light rail in this environment will benefit virtually nobody and become a huge financial boondoggle. Jesse Ventura mined this vein in his election campaign, coming out firmly against light rail. Oh, Jesse, how you have grown.
It is a financial shell game. As I mentioned above, the total expected cost of this system is between a half and three-quarters billion dollars, just to get the system up and running. Yet Governor Ventura and the gang persistently tell us it will "only" cost Minnesota Taxpayers $100,000,000. How can this be so? Surely somebody has to pay the difference? Part of the difference is in federal money - you know, the kind that is just laying about on the streets in D.C. waiting for a noble cause to claim it. This, of course, is trumpeted as a positive. We have reached a very sad place in our political existence when it is considered an unmitigated good to take the hard earned tax dollars of people from Florida and Arizona in order to help pay for a useless length of railroad track in Minnesota. The other clever ruse is to force the utility companies to pick up the costs of rerouting gas and electric lines to make way for the rail line. This, of course, will be passed along to Minnesota citizens in the form of a rate increase, but because it isn't deducted form paychecks, Jesse doesn't consider it a tax.
One should never underestimate the financial cleverness of liberals on a mission. From lotteries to tobacco to internet "phone taxes" to shaking down Wall Street to squeezing the utility companies, liberals have figured out new and succesful to work around the public's taxophobia. Even if I supported the prospect of light rail in the Twin Cities I would still fight against the current effort with all the energy I could muster. The only way to reverse the sad trend of undemocracy at work is to start slapping some devastating defeats on its pet projects.