Public Transit - Peek Inside A Democrat's Skull

So Bill King thinks it would be a great idea to elevate the Houston light rail system currently traversing the Medical Center ("Let's raise the rail in Medical Center", Outlook, Sunday, Aug 16th). So do I. Unfortunately, King is a day late and a couple hundred million dollars short. The former mayor of Kemah calls the current system "a driver's nightmare", and documents the threats to pedestrians and the "leaking electric current" from the current system that is "corroding nearby piping and surrounding infrastructures". Then he gets to the pricetag, proudly proclaiming that, although it would cost "$200 million to $300 million", a "Federal Transit Authority" program will pay for "as much as 80% of the costs".

Let's set aside for the moment the irony of proponents of the street-based boondoggle known as MetroRail now acknowledging what OffHisMeds and many others predicted before it was built: that it is a collosal failure, and dangerous to boot. What is truly amazing is the casual tossing about of such numbers to "fix" it. Do Mass Transit proponents such as Mr. King even think about how insane it is to spend as much as $150 million per mile - $14,200 per linear foot - to elevate the system? For the money he proposes to spend to elevate two thin rails of steel on concrete pillars for two miles, you could build two miles of 2700 sq. ft. three story luxury condos 30 feet wide - including all appliances and furniture - and still have about $50 million left over. Who knew concrete and rebar could be so expensive?

Besides the fact that such pricing reeks of corruption, is it lost on the Bill Kings of the world that if a city as rich as Houston in a county as rich as Harris can't afford to elevate its own rail system, the United States government certainly can't afford to do so? Those federal funds he proposes to use come from somewhere, and that somewhere is other taxpayers. Why would he have the federal government incur additional debt on behalf of all of us for a project that Houstonians did not have the political will to do for themselves?

Here we have the perfect storm of public sector greed, corruption and incompetence, spending hundreds of millions to build a MetroRail system that was overpriced to begin with, nearly useless, an impediment to traffic, a danger to pedestrians and a threat to other infrastructure; then proposing to spend hundreds of millions more to "fix" it a mere five year's later, using other people's money.

And the problem is compounded many times over because there are thousands of Bill Kings all across the country, enthusiastically touting the use of unlimited Federal funds for their pet projects, and oblivious to the consequences of spending money like drunken sailors on things that they themselves refuse to fund.

But hey, it's Federal dollars we would be spending, not our own. I guess that makes it alright.