Transportation is a Service, Not a Business

By Robert Wilson

This paper presents some of Robert Wilson's views on public transportation.

In 2002 a plan for a light rail system in Cincinnati was on the ballot and failed miserably. It failed with 68% opposed and 31% in favor of the light rail plan for Cincinnati (http://www.lightrailnow.org/news/n_000006.htm.). The main reasons for its failure on the ballot were the lack of understanding of light rail by the public and much the idea that the light rail proposal was unprofitable.

Well sorry to burst the bubble, but public transportation is truly a service similar to police and fire that helps bring ease and convenience to its citizens. Imagine if police and fire were meant to be profitable. Would police charge the citizens every time they called? Or every time the police came to help catch who stole John Doe's Chevy Suburban? What if the fire department charged the citizens per gallon of water used to put the fire out on their house and then required a bonus for saving their daughter from the blaze? They may argue that police and fire already do charge because these departments are paid by their taxes.

But is that fair? Think of all the money from citizen taxes that are poured into streets, roads, and highways to help them navigate the city. Are those profitable? The answer is no, they are a service provided by the municipality once again. So why would they consider light rail any different from this? The answer is more than likely because it is not the conventional American way of thinking.

Americans have fallen in love with the automobile, and have closed their minds to other modes of local transportation. I believe it is time for Cincinnati to step up and start thinking a bit more progressively, or we will die buried by Mark Twain's infamous quote about Cincinnati that "when the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times."

I personally practice what I preach. I truly enjoy public transportation. I have given up my auto dependent lifestyle in the suburbs and moved to the city where I have saved more money than I ever could have imagined. I no longer pay for gas, parking, insurance, car payments, inconvenient breakdowns, license tags or the time wasted sitting in traffic wondering what more productive things I could be doing. It is time to open the smart business of a light rail system that will ultimately set Cincinnati apart from the rest of its Rust Belt partners. Let's be progressive and support public transportation.