As a rule of thumb, I agree that it’s important to have a wide variety of people sit in a representative democracy. I think that’s true for people of color and gender minorities, and I think that’s true for people fo different backgrounds and walks of life. And I’m having a hard time imagining a reason to say otherwise (that isn’t dumb).
But in the context of light rail in Raleigh (which has its own thread)…
I mean it feels that way, yeah, but history says it's more complicated.
Before Raleigh’s light rail stint, TTA (now GoTriangle) tried to build Greater Triangle Regional Rail using state and federal grants. It got canned, though, because the FTA decided it’s too expensive and depended on funding sources that weren’t guaranteed.
The idea with light rail was to pick up where the Regional Rail study left off. This meant TTA had to restart from scratch, know how to pay for their project before they apply for federal grants, and make light rail make more financial sense. Piece of cake, right?
Now, why don’t we make it even more fun by electing rural legislators who are openly hostile to mass transit, and make it nearly impossible for transit projects to get state aid?
“Can’t Raleigh just raise their own money to fund their own transit stuff?”, you ask? Durham County did it in 2011 and Orange did the following year, but Wake County residents couldn’t make the same commitment and were stuck with smaller budgets.
“Could Raleigh have done something wrong last time that we didn’t pick up on this time?”, you say? Wake County tried to get neutral, outside observers to comment on what City Council approved at the time. Their most vocal reviewer didn’t have very kind words to say despite his pretty pro-transit resume.
So by the time Wake County wrote its transit plan in 2012, Raleigh was stuck in a situation where they:
- wanted a Big Sexy Transit Project that could cost billions of dollars
- only made a tiny fraction of their income from fare box revenue
- could not rely on state grants for that Sexy Project
- did not have a dedicated tax to fund the Sexy Project
- may or may not get federal grants for the Sexy Project even if they figured out all other funding sources
As far as Raleigh and Wake County were concerned, only the things in bold were possible and acceptable to change. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of another way out aside for what really happened: the county eventually pulled the plug in 2015, and finally passed a dedicated tax a year later.
As a final reminder, the regional rail and light rail projects were treated solely as transit projects. This means social contributions like artwork, parks, affordable housing, and transit-oriented developments were all afterthoughts in those projects (if mentioned at all). The FTA’s rating for the old regional rail project reflects that, of course, and this happened before socioeconomic inequity became taken more seriously in urban development projects across America. This weakness, too, got thoroughly addressed in the current BRT project.
In light of all that, who were “the experts”? Do all transit experts have the same opinion about what’s in the best interest of Raleigh? Are you assuming all local politicians act the same? Do you know anything about GoTriangle’s new CEO? When you start to dig more into the past and present of transit in the Triangle, I think your narrative of “Experts vs Locals” makes less and less sense.
TL/DR: it’s not like the only thing that happened in the world of Raleigh’s unbuilt light rail is that it got shot down for being too expensive. Rule changes, harsh financial realities, and changing expectations by society meant Raleigh’s fling with light rail is over -and it’s since moved on.
Same, for a good bus system (and it’s nice that the Wake Co. Transit Plan specifically focuses on that).
As for the carpooling bit, let’s put a twist on this thread’s title! Once the pandemic is over, depending on how social distancing sticks around as a thing, could we somehow encourage more people to carpool so that we can reduce the number of strangers (“outsiders”) stuck in traffic in our commutes?