UNDERSTIMULATION WATCH: PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION LEFT BEHIND

I'm worried about the economic stimulus package. For one, it may well be too small to provide the necessary jolt to our struggling economy. For another, it's short shrifting public transit. Over the last few years, across the country, public transit use has skyrocketed. On the heavily-traveled East Coast corridor, ridership is up on regional rail and on Amtrak, despite the fact that both have struggled to survive on a starvation diet. High gas prices have led commuters are seeking alternatives to high gas prices and to the hassle of air travel. In our sprawling metros, buses are a crucial link between people and jobs. In many smaller cities, where airlines have axed service, buses and sometimes trains are the only alternative to long-distance driving.

Our public transportation infrastructure is often dreadful. Train stations are decrepit, many of our buses aren't deploying new smart technologies and could be greener, and service is spotty, even in high demand areas. Two weeks ago, I had a speaking gig in Charlottesville, Virginia. Flying from Philadelphia via US Air was exorbitantly expensive, but Amtrak, which only runs a few trains to Charlottesville per day, was completely sold out. I had to drive, adding to the East Coast congestion, spewing exhaust into the atmosphere, and relying on fossil fuel. My regional rail in Philadelphia is more crowded than ever--on peak trains, I often can't find a seat. But SEPTA (southeast PA's regional transportation authority) has not modified its schedules to meet increased demand. It can't afford to. Bus transit is even worse. On a bitterly cold day last week, I stood on a shelter-less corner, waiting forever for a local bus. For the tens of thousands of working people who don't own cars, a bus ticket is a ticket to jobs and economic security.

Public transportation creates jobs. It sustains the economy. It's good for the environment. And it's woefully underfunded. Democrats (and a few GOP allies): expand transit funding in the stimulus package.

London Calling

Greetings from London! where I've snuck off for two weeks.

There is nothing so tedious as Americans who come back from Europe moaning about how much better things are there than they are in the United States. So with that by way of begging your pardon, here I go.

I haven't been here in two years, and I'm struck particularly that England is moving so much faster in directions to deal with environmental issues, urban questions, and sustainability than we are in the US.

Take public transportation (which I have been taking since I got here): it isn't simply that the trains, buses and subways are so crowded with users, or that they run so much better than they do almost anywhere in America - that much has been true for a while. But it is clear that in London, the rest of Great Britain (and in Germany where I spent 3 days last week) governments and the private sector are aggressively investing to make these systems even better. Modern buses and bus stops (that tell you what bus is due to arrive when); sleek modern train cars; and most of all speed. London to Paris now in 2hrs 15 min.

By comparison, Amtrak looks positively shabby. When I heard that Barak Obama will travel from Philadelphia to DC for the inauguration, I joked that the inauguration would probably be delayed for several hours because of an Amtrak breakdown. American railroad track can't accommodate high-speed trains, and no one has bothered to invest in upgrading most of that track in about half a century.

Likewise food production. Stop into any ordinary supermarket in London and you will find that locally (or regionally) produced food, organic food, free range meat etc are widely available. What is still largely a boutique niche in the United States is entirely common and mainstream here.

Climate change is an accepted fact here - not something with scare quotes around it as in America - and so the discussion is not whether to act, but how. The winner of the design competition for the next generation of double-decker buses for London, announced today, will be hydrogen-powered. And thanks to the "congestion fee" which charges people who drive private cars in central London, the buses make it around town more efficiently than they used to.

All of which is to say that being here, I can't help but feel in a more palpable way that America no longer leads the world, not at least on these critical issues. We look dated, backward, and thoroughly mid-twentieth century, not twenty-first. When I first came to London in the 1970s it felt quaint and old-fashioned, like it hadn't quite emerged out of the trauma of WWII. Now I wonder if English people feel the same way when they come to the United States. What was it that Ezra Pound wrote about Western civilization in 1920? an old bitch, gone in the teeth.

THE BACK OF THE BUS

In 1968, before political campaigns were completely scripted, Robert F. Kennedy insisted on taking his entourage through some of the country's most impoverished neighborhoods. These were not just pass-throughs or convenient photo ops, but chances to get out and meet people. RFK disregarded the advice of his advisors and campaigned in impoverished Indian reservations. He spent real face time in places like Bed-Stuy. He spent hours with Cesar Chavez and strongly supported the cause of Mexican-American farmworkers. Even though RFK had begun his career with a spotty record on civil rights and had authorized the FBI wiretap of King as attorney general, Kennedy's openness to the plight of impoverished and poor blacks won him widespread support among black voters in 1968.

The night that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, April 4, 1968, RFK had one of his most extraordinary and unscripted moments, breaking the news to a stunned crowd. In a preternaturally low voice, haunted by his brother's death, he nearly wept as he recited a poem from Aeschylus. Listen to it. It's profoundly moving. The crowd listened in stunned silence. Such powerful moments are rare in American politics.

Flash forward. John McCain has taken his superficial tours to Selma, Alabama; Inez, Kentucky; Youngstown, Ohio; and New Orleans. And Obama started his career on Chicago's South Side, still one of the grittiest and most troubled neighborhoods in the country. But in this years' highly scripted campaign, expect both candidates to spend most of their time "hunting where the ducks are," that is in mostly white, suburban and exurban places.

I'm scribbling these notes from Baltimore, one of my favorite Rustbelt cities (now immortalized on HBO's brilliant series, The Wire). As I do in every city, I ride public transportation (today, the bus) across Baltimore. It's the best way to get to know a city and its working-class and poor population. I sat next to a guy who looked like Stringer Bell (who would never set foot on a bus) and across the row from someone who looked like Omar's grandmother, minus her shot-up Sunday crown. In the mid-afternoon, the bus was full of elderly people, many with canes and coughs. I struck up a conversation with a young woman in a security officers' uniform heading to work the 3pm-11pm shift who supports Barack Obama but isn't sure if she's going to vote in November. The bus headed up Charles Street, passing the shabby but still grand architecture along the ungentrified stretches of Charles north of Penn Station.

If I had my way, I would ask all of our leading candidates to stand around waiting a long time for the bus, riding down the potholed streets, and striking up conversations with the people they met. For sure, they would be reminded of the critical importance of the public transit for millions of Americans. And maybe, just maybe, they would see the need to bolster the meager federal spending for our woefully underfunded bus and train systems. And if they could get a few moments of quiet and stare out the window, like I did, they would see a beautiful city whose physical resources are unnecessarily wasted and whose people are still suffering too much. But I dream. But maybe, on this anniversary of Bobby Kennedy's untimely death, I can dream of a country where poor and working people aren't left at the back of the bus--a bus that is running too slow and too late on a road that is very bumpy. We should hope and fight for better.

NORTHBOUND

I'm scribbling this post on a northbound train to NYC. I'm a big fan of public transit and ride the rails often, from home to work or, like this morning, to get my fix of the Big Apple. With gas prices nearing $4 a gallon, we should be thinking hard about bumping up our subsidies for our woefully underfunded transportation system.

It's only 90 miles from Philly to NYC, but our starving Amtrak system keeps jacking up the fares--it's only sensible response to the fact that Amtrak could not survive any other way. In one of the most perverse examples of the way that market fundamentalism distorts our public policy, Congress puts our rail system on a famine diet and then blames it for wasting away--all as an excuse for the dubious panacea of privatization.

The result is a transportation alternative accessible only to the wealthy. A roundtrip ticket from PHL to NYC on Amtrak would have cost me about $150.

So here I am traversing the lovely Garden State on New Jersey Transit. Thank goodness NJ still finds the revenue to offer frequent and relatively cheap service. My total fare, including regional rail in Philly amounts to $42 roundtrip. Bummer that the trip takes three hours. But at least I can read and type on my phone.And riding the rails offers a great view of rusting cities, tacky suburbs, and sometimes stylish graffiti.

NJ Transit has experienced a spike in ridership recently. This is the upside of high fuel prices. But it's time for America to join the rest of the world and put a lot more resources into this environment-saving alternative to the car.

From Rahway, heading north...