[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 107 (Tuesday, June 26, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H5654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                              MASS TRANSIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, there is a recent article in The New 
York Times about the Koch brothers and its stealth campaign to try to 
attack mass transit projects around the country. It was disturbing on 
several levels.
  First and foremost, it is misguided in terms of the economic impact. 
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that there is $4 of economic activity 
generated for every $1 that is invested in transit. It increases 
business sales, and it results in higher real estate values and jobs 
created.
  It is important to note that, right now, we have a road system that 
is heavily subsidized by the general fund. The road user charge has 
long since failed to pay for it. We have had to transfer $140 billion 
just to keep the failing Surface Transportation Program afloat.
  The Koch brothers argue, through their organization, that American 
cities really don't have the population density to support mass transit 
systems. That is false. It is clear that there are some very dense 
systems serving Chicago and New York, but there are very successful 
programs in Phoenix and Houston with much lower density that are 
providing essential services.
  It is important to remember who gets that service, because transit is 
much less expensive for men and women to be able to have access to jobs 
and employment. The average vehicle costs almost $10,000 a year to 
operate. In most families, it is the number two item in the family 
budget after housing. For many poor people, transportation is actually 
ahead of housing.
  Transit provides access to jobs, so that people don't have to spend 
42 hours a year trapped in traffic behind the wheel of a vehicle, as 
happens on average.
  The notion that somehow we are going to be forced to look at a lack 
of density, well, communities across the country in the metropolitan 
areas are getting more and more dense. They are attracting young 
people, retired people, and more economic activity in the 49 largest 
metropolitan areas around the country. In those areas, transit is the 
most cost effective and environmentally sensitive way of providing that 
service, to say nothing of the fact that we kill almost 40,000 people a 
year on our roadways. Transit is amazingly safe by comparison.
  One of the most disingenuous arguments is that transportation 
programs for mass transit are bad because they promote gentrification 
of our cities. Look at that argument for a moment. One of the things 
that is happening in cities across the country is that there is a new 
urban renaissance. Young millennials are moving back to the cities. 
Those are the engines of the economy. Aging baby boomers are finding it 
much more attractive to move into those urban cores than to be isolated 
out in the suburbs with a large-lot subdivision and forcing people to 
burn a gallon of gas to buy a gallon of milk.

  Those urban areas are our future. Not everybody is going to do it, 
but the majority of people are. We ought to be investing in 
transportation systems for our future, not undermining them by limiting 
investments to transportation of the past.
  We are in the process of a rapid revolution in transportation 
technology and people's approaches. More and more young people, 
actually, are choosing not to buy a car, which sits idle about 22\1/2\ 
hours a day and is very expensive. They are instead choosing transit, 
ride-share, bike-share, and being able to have transportation when they 
need it--Lyft and Uber--without having an anchor of an individual car 
bearing down on them.
  Frankly, gentrification is a function of how we plan and develop our 
cities. That ought to be an invitation to think about how to do it 
better, as many cities are doing now, not to undermine progress by 
assaulting transit.

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