by Ginger Harris - Jan-Feb-2001
Ozark Chapter Membership Chair
Ozark Chapter Transportation Chair Ron McLinden made his annual holiday pitch to the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission in Kansas City on December 1. As part of his presentation he gave a Sierra Club calendar to each Commissioner as a year–round reminder that we’re vitally interested in their actions. We have given calendars to Commissioners each year for nearly 10 years.
Ron used his ten minutes on the meeting agenda to remind the Commissioners of three points, as they contemplate the state’s transportation needs:
1) Missouri faces a transportation crisis.
2) We can’t afford as much transportation as we currently think we need.
3) We need to pursue a multi–faceted course of action to preserve the infrastructure we have while also reducing future infrastructure needs.
The crisis is that MoDOT (Missouri Department of Transportation) has identified 20 years worth of needs costing $52 billion, but anticipates having only $22 billion in revenues to pay for these needs.
To make up the $30 billion shortfall, Missourians would have to raise their gas tax by 40–50 cents per gallon or their general sales tax by 3 cents. We don’t think voters will approve this.
To avoid this whopping cost, we need to remember that transportation “mobility” is normally not an end in itself, and is only one of two ways to achieve our real goal of “access.” The other way to achieve access is through “proximity” (moving our destinations closer together). “Smart growth” promotes proximity. Proximity makes walking and bicycling feasible and makes transit more cost effective. Smart Growth would not only save on transportation costs, it would enhance community cohesion, safety, and mental and physical health, especially for senior citizens and children.
Since our perceived “needs” are often a function of our economic situation, Missouri needs to use market mechanisms to make the beneficiaries of our transportation spending pay their fair share of the costs. This could include tolls for the use of our limited supply of freeway lanes during peak hours. This mechanism can avoid being a “regressive tax” if toll revenues are spent to improve transportation services that poor citizens depend on.
The full text of Ron’s presentation is available here.
On December 4–5, four Ozark Chapter activists attended a two–day Sierra Club workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on “How to Influence Your State DOT.” Norm Crocker (Osage Group Conservation Chair), Tom Moran (Ozark Chapter Excom member and Osage Group Chair), and Ginger Harris (Eastern Missouri Group Transportation and Smart Growth Committee Chair) attended the workshop with more than 25 other activists from New Mexico and about 10 other states as far away as New Hampshire and Connecticut. Ron McLinden (Ozark Chapter Transportation Chair) attended the workshop as one of five “expert” presenters.
Presenter Hank Ditmar (former director of the Surface Transportation Policy Project) provided historical context by reminding us that as the Interstate Highway System neared completion in the late 1980’s, the national highway lobby engineered the creation of a National Highway System to bring many state highways up to Interstate standards. Subsequent federal legislation, ISTEA and TEA–21, attempted to balance huge highway expenditures with some new funding for transit and non–motorized modes (bicycle and pedestrian facilities). However, state DOTs resisted implementing the “alternative mode” programs. Ditmar encouraged us to mount campaigns to win these issues “in the court of public opinion.” He suggested three models for reform:
Follow the federal model of “devolution” by pushing decision–making authority over transportation spending down to the local level;
Reform your DOT from within by educating its staff;
If the other two methods don’t work, pass state legislation mandating your DOT, for example, to first fix what it already has, before building new capacity.
Michael Replogle (Transportation Director for the Environmental Defense Fund) shared his experiences as a non–lawyer involved in court cases against DOTs based on NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act), the Clean Air Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Replogle also described an extensive array of alternative measures to improve development patterns and provide greater choice among transportation modes. Finally, he explained the importance of understanding how mathematical models are used to analyze transportation proposals. This led to the observation that there are not enough sympathetic modeling experts in the US to meet the needs of transportation activists who could otherwise make a valid claim in court against highway proposals and DOTs.
Pat Gallagher (National Sierra Club attorney) walked us through several court cases, explaining why one case prevailed, while another case was lost. In the final analysis he concluded that the “school of critical legal studies” is the best explanation. Founded on the principle that “all law is politics,” this “school” teaches that the ideology and personality of the judge assigned to your case has more to do with your winning or losing than the arguments you can summon on your behalf. Thus, where you file your suit can be critical.
Ken Ryan (Transportation Chair for California Sierra Club chapters) advised us to become engaged at the beginning of any project proposal so that we (1) can establish the best possible legal record to be used in a later court challenge, and (2) can modify the project more to our liking so that a court challenge becomes unnecessary. Ryan described how best to establish the legal basis for a suit: ask questions, even “stupid” ones. It’s not our job to provide the alternative solution to a transportation problem, so even if we come up with a better solution, the judge is not going to impose our “better solution” onto the implementing agency. The judge’s job is only to assure that the law’s required procedures have been followed. Thus, the implementing agency’s responsibility is to adequately answer our questions and provide an adequate amount of data on which to base their decision. Thus, we need to ask the right questions to elicit the information that will show the public (and our potential allies) why a proposed project should not be built.
Ron McLinden described the many ways in which our chapter has been engaged in educating our own MHTC Commissioners, MoDOT staff, other state and local officials and the public (our potential allies). Although Ron acknowledged limited identifiable successes so far, he contended that we might have already achieved more gains than we are yet aware of.