Obsessing over the wrong project

It’s not as if I have much to add to Ben Kabak’s writings on the LaGuardia Airtrain, but if there are any doubts that Andrew Cuomo is a terrible transit governor, his ongoing love affair with this terrible project should erase them. The latest twist is a letter rehashing debunked arguments in favor of the proposal from people who would benefit from its construction regardless of its transportation merit.

I would be more understanding if Cuomo were doubling down on an overpriced but useful project like Amtrak Gateway or Second Avenue Phase II. The next question becomes, if he is so great at building infrastructure, why can’t he figure out how to dig new tunnels, be them under East Harlem or under the Hudson, for the same per-mile cost as the Second Avenue Phase I ones? Even reactivation of the LIRR Rockaway Beach Branch would be more useful than linking LaGuardia along a highway corridor to Willets Point, which will even in the best-case scenario get nowhere near the service that Jamaica does and never match the utility of a one-seat ride to Manhattan on the N. Instead, Mr. Cuomo has spent his energy on just about the least useful project possible. At $1 billion per mile, the asking price is now at least tenfold any remotely justifiable figure. At this point, there is no path to good New York transit that runs through this governor, and anyone who is so unwilling to cross Cuomo that they would rather continue making feeble defenses of a thoroughly debunked project has no contribution to make either.

In comparison, dare I say that I see quite a bit to be hopeful about in the new crop of leftist city, state and federal officials that have sprung up in the past five years, even though their grasp of urbanism is underdeveloped. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have donated a total of around $300 to Justice Democrats including Rep. Ocasio-Cortez since 2017. When it comes to transit, it needs to be said that many prominent American progressives are pushing a misguided vision. In service of the laudable goal of extending the reach of transit to the poor, they prioritize fare-free transit while ignoring that fare policy changes and subsidies would accomplish that—and already do to some extent—while preserving fare income that insulates agencies from political swings and incentivizes good performance. It’s also not hard to see that many loud progressive voices don’t see automobile use as a key problem.

On housing, it is even worse. Most recent housing proposals out of the American left center around mythical bottom-up, community plans for public housing. They fundamentally misdiagnose the main issue with housing in America as one of speculation when it is actually one of insufficient supply. They stubbornly claim that enough community input will smooth over most controversy when it is well chronicled that community input channels invariably favor the wealthy and those opposed to change. Ironically, their ideas, if realized, would further empower the exact people responsible for the supply shortage: homeowners who have the social clout, money, and time to fight needed reforms and dominate “community-based” plans with constantly shifting arguments in service of their selfish goals.

Still, I think there remain compelling reasons for knowledgeable housing and transit advocates to continue dialogue with young left-leaning Democratic candidates and signs that doing so will bear fruit. Despite other NIMBY statements, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a cosponsor of a fairly sweepingly YIMBY House bill. She has expressed at least some support for linking the Astoria Line to LaGuardia. A number of YIMBY city council candidates have sprung up.

In general, the incremental, both-sides approach embraced by 1990s Democrats prioritizes half-measures designed to minimize controversy at the expense of projects that trade short-term turmoil for higher benefits. For all the unrealistic talk on the left of bottom-up planning and pastoralism—which deserves to be criticized, most Clinton Democrats have never seen a new veto point that they didn’t like. All these checkpoints mostly serve to enrich middlemen and elevate the loudest voices, which are almost always unrepresentative of the majority. In comparison, it is hard for me to see how the latest Democrats’ comparative boldness would not be generally good for infrastructure projects.

Moreover, one of the key factors emerging from research into New York’s high construction costs is the importance of a healthy back bench of internal planners and engineers. In lieu of maintaining this kind of state capacity, Third Way-style Clinton Democrats have tended to outsource to consultants that in turn tend to donate heavily to their campaigns. Recent leftist candidates’ fundraising strategies tend heavily toward individual contributions and avoid large contributions from construction and consultant firms that would be expected to favor the status quo. Granted, they have attracted donations from and collaborated with unions that would likely mount at least some opposition to needed work rule reforms, but in the long run, there are plenty of expansion proposals to go around for more-efficient construction gangs to tackle. Despite certain left elements favoring bottom-up planning and pastoralism, general endorsement of another New Deal and Medicare for all, to me, indicates at least an implicit embrace of an increase in state capacity.

While a political culture that is unafraid of using the public sector for bold ends will not transform mass transit on its own, transit will necessarily continue to stagnate under the 1990s New Democratic ideology wherein projects are de facto judged almost only on inoffensiveness. Transit projects in particular depend on the most disruptive elements, such as downtown bus lanes or city center tunneling, coming to fruition. For all of Cuomo’s self-promotion as a doer, he lies firmly in the make-no-waves incrementalist bin. A handful of property owners is apparently too much trouble to bother with extending the Astoria Line to LaGuardia, and redoing work rules and design procedures is unthinkable. Generally speaking, among the left-leaning candidates gaining ground around New York, I see a willingness to anger powerful groups in service of a greater goal that is absent in most Clintonists. I say that counts for a lot, especially if advocates can prevail over some of the more fantastical planks of their urbanism platform.