It has become a truism that the pandemic brings all the big societal problems in focus and enlarges them. This is certainly true for transit. Corona highlighted inequities in mobility more than ever. For those who never thought much of transit in the first place, the pandemic is an opportunity to write its obituaries. This article argues that Corona must be the pivot to the 21st century.

Why defunding transit is a bad idea

When even a progressive voice such as CityLab joins the chorus of those who see the demise of classical transit, one has to wonder what the motives are. CityLab's recent article A Post-Pandemic Reality Check for Transit Boosters demands a hard look at its reasoning. Already the title is dubious. It implies that those who promote transit somehow miss reality. This is an assumption frequently found among conservatives who consider transit a lost cause anyway. CityLab, an urban news and opinion service formerly published under the flag of The Atlantic, now sails under Bloomberg flag.

Report by DreamCorps

Hyundai is now one of the main sponsors, could that have anything to do with the tone of the article?

"For many years we have a lot of aspirations for transit: We want it to beat traffic, fight climate change, and revitalize communities. But the two things it has demonstrably done in last half century is provide mobility for those without - whether that's due to age, income, or disability - and allow highly agglomerated places function. My educated guess is that we will see the rise of transit as a social service." (Brian Taylor, an urban planning professor and director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles)

Laura Bliss, who has written many well informed and illuminating articles about transportation in CityLab, lets a number of transit experts speak. One experts predicts that the future of transit is to be a "social service". The implication of this assumption is substantial as we will see. It is derived... READ FULL ARTICLE HERE