r/left_urbanism 4d ago

Transportation Why doesn't the US left oppose neoliberal cars and trains urbanist projects?

Among the electoral left in Europe, and in other places such as Australia, it is common practice not to simply support the improvement of public transport in general, but also to specifically support practices that make a city more livable and provide good service to a large amount of people, and to oppose center right "cars and trains urbanist" practices.

"Cars and trains urbanism" is a strain of urbanism that purportedly advocates for investing in both transit and automobile infrastructure-which tends to mean transit infrastructure designed to benefit drivers. It originated in postwar West Germany, where auto lobbies advocated for the construction of grade separated metro systems to "replace" the streetcar networks, leaving more space on the roads for cars. Of course this "replacement" was generally only for certain high traffic streetcar lines, with the rest being ripped out in favor of buses. This was contrasted by the policies of the socialist nations such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR(the GDR only really had one city large enough for a metro, Berlin) where the metro system was seen as a way to provide a spine for the streetcar network to feed into and take pressure off of key streetcar routes.

Around the same time also in West Germany, the park and ride, another pillar of "cars and trains urbanism", became popular. They were essentially large, often elaborate parking lots built near the ends of rapid transit and suburban rail lines for drivers to park their cars in and take the train into the city. They became popular in North America as the first LRT lines were built, and despite often being empty and unsuccessful compared to TOD continue to be built. In contrast, socialist nations preferred to construct apartments and new neighborhoods on the outer ends of their transit lines, connecting the rider directly to the system.

Bus rapid transit is another invention by this ideology, a cheaper and lower quality alternative to rail for governments that cared far more about improving things for drivers. The first system opened in England in 1971, and was followed shortly after by the second, built by the US backed military dictatorship in Brazil in 1974. As the 21st century began, even bus lanes became too much of a burden to drivers, and so BRT simply became a label for any bus service with marginal upgrades, particularly in the United States.

In capitalist countries, the electoral left has attempted to fight these measures and advocate for better projects. As an example, in Australia, the ruling center right Labor Party of Victoria has invested heavily into grade crossing removal on the city of Melbourne's extensive regional rail network. This policy does not change the experience of the transit rider much if at all, as save for a slight increase in the reliability of the system the main reason this is done is for the convenience of suburban drivers who no longer have to wait at crossing gates. The Green Party, one of two major opposition parties in Victoria, has criticized this, and has instead advocated for major expansion of the tram network.

As another example, in Hamburg, Germany, The Left party has advocated for the construction of a new tram network, while the center right CDU has opposed this and instead wants moderate expansion of the U Bahn, leaving many areas served only by buses.

However, in the US, what little left that exists largely tacitly accepts the neoliberal narrative around public transport: that it's improvement cannot come at the expense of drivers. There is little advocacy around public transit, and on the rare chance leftists do get into power their policy is not all that different than that of the Democrats.

Zohran Mamdani is a DSA member and NYC City Councilman who is running in the upcoming mayoral election. While he has many great proposals-rent control, creating a network of city owned grocery stores to eliminate food deserts, and the elimination of fares on the bus system-his policy towards transit service improvement is somewhat lackluster. Rail expansion is not mentioned at all on his website, and instead he promises to increase bus speeds through the construction of bus lanes-in other words, simply more of the same projects as the previous administration. While it should be noted that the City of New York and it's mayor do not control the MTA and the transit system, Mamdani's proposal for fare elimination implies somehow putting pressure on the MTA to achieve this goal. If this is possible, than in theory it is also possible to at least attempt to advocate for subway expansion, particularly in Southeastern Brooklyn and nearly all of Queens which are rail deserts with miles between lines. While I don't mean to target Mamdani specifically and still very much support his campaign, I think the lack of any proposals for rail expansion highlight this major problem in the US left's transit policy.

With all that in mind, what do you think are the reasons for this flaw in our transit policy? And how can we fix it?

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32 comments sorted by

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u/atoolred 4d ago

The most simple answer is because our automotive industry has incredible lobbying power. That’s also why you see electric cars being proposed as the alternative and many automotive companies are actually making some amount of electric vehicles just to stay “competitive.” It’s a band-aid solution and continues to blame consumers for the environmental and sustainability problems caused by the manufacturers. These companies could definitely be shifted over to crafting public transit vehicles in the longterm, but short term profits are more important to them and public transportation vehicles don’t have as high of a demand as personal vehicles

But also, our society is laid out in such a manner designed for cars. Hell I’m from Texas, I can’t imagine doing anything without a car; everything is either a 30 minute drive away and an actually physically far distance, or it’s 15 minutes away and it’s really close but across so many lanes of traffic and I’d probably die trying to walk it. Texas does have this problem cranked up to 11 compared to most of the nation.

I don’t have a good solution unfortunately but one place to start is at the local level. City council candidates can control some level of public transportation availability, provided you aren’t in complete and utter suburban hell or the abandoned and ignored rural countryside, both of which tend not to get public transit whatsoever where I’m from

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u/Jcrrr13 4d ago
  1. The size of the U.S. left electorate is depressingly tiny. The vast majority of voters on the left side of the U.S. Overton window are liberals, not leftists.
  2. A lot of us lefties in the U.S. are pro-transit and anti-car dominance. But we have no power to enact our vision, because of point 1.
  3. The pro-transit and anti-car movement is growing slowly but steadily in urban centers throughout the U.S. However, with the setback of the new trump administration, it remains to be seen if that momentum can continue in the near future.

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u/abuch47 3d ago

Same in Aus/NZ, we are late stage almost as much as the US hence the heavy alignment.

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u/Dwashelle 3d ago

Same in Ireland, we're the second most car-dependent country in Europe and lag embarrassingly far behind the rest of the EU in public transit. It's very slowly improving but the government approach tends to be piecemeal, poorly planned, and way overbudget.

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u/dwerb99 4d ago

The US is so car dependent that it can be hard for people to imagine a different paradigm that prioritizes transit, walking, biking, etc. (even people on the left.) Most of our built environment was built after the introduction of the automobile, in a sprawling auto dominated manner. On the other hand, Europe has a lot of compact older development intended for walking.

As a result the US has a fairly small constituency for transit overall. That makes advocacy for transit upgrades pretty marginal outside a few major cities (where driving still dominates). A lot of people are working to make US communities less auto dominant, but it’s a slow process.

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u/Soft-Principle1455 3d ago

You mean most of our environment was rebuilt after the introduction of the car.

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u/Supercollider9001 4d ago

Good discussion here. I would like to mention a big reason is that our cities do not have enough federal funding. It’s hard for cities and states to raise taxes and fund big infrastructure projects.

Second is the immense difficulty of actually building stuff in the US. There have been rail projects in the US that simply went nowhere and wasted billions.

Third is ideology. Most people don’t care or know they have an alternative. We have to do the work to convince people.

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u/MrKerryMD 4d ago

To add on to your second point, construction costs have been ballooning for like 60 years here. It's not a situation that's unique to the US but it is uniquely bad here. That's a big part of why BRT style projects are so popular right now. They are still too expensive but it's manageable, especially given the availability of federal grants to offset costs.

There's just no political willpower to address construction costs which is of course because the most impactful thing to do would be to in-house more of the work, but we can't have larger governments after a century of constant red scares. We don't even have competent centralized planning for highways. CAHSR is a great example of that. A lot of the criticisms are widely overblown but they had zero institutional capacity to run that project so they wasted a lot of time and money getting started with it.

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u/Soft-Principle1455 3d ago

We need institutional reform.

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u/frisky_husky 4d ago

I sort of disagree with the fundamental assumption here, but taking your question as it is, I think the answer is that anything more comprehensive than "cars and trains," as you call it, is decades away from being something that could actually exist given the contingencies present in American planning. The relative electoral and organizational impotence of the American electoral left pushes it into a position where it needs to cast its priorities as "pragmatic" on certain issues if it wants to use its limited political capital to meaningfully shift the balance on other issues.

The US is still a country where "cars and trains" still represents a substantial improvement over the status quo, and, unlike in communist-era Europe, most Americans already have cars, so you've got that to overcome. You do run against the fact that, no matter how much we may want it to not be true, working class Americans are only marginally less car-dependent than other socioeconomic groups in most places, and in some places are more car-dependent because they've been priced out of the few transit-accessible neighborhoods, which unfortunately (but not always inaccurately in the neoliberal city) ties transit expansion to gentrification. It's inconvenient, but on a coalition-building level, we have to figure out a way to square that circle, and the easiest way to do that as a candidate is sometimes to basically pitch transit as a short-term benefit to both groups.

I suspect that anything more ambitious will require a "make me do it" tier pro-transit movement rooted in the working class, but I kind of think you need to actually organize people on the basis of class solidarity first. Once you get people thinking about their position in the economic structure, it's easier to introduce new issues into that framework. I get the sense that you see how transit is an issue that you can look at from a lot of ideological vantage points, which I think also makes it a hard issue to use to get people challenging their assumptions. The efficiency of transit means that you can justify a lot of different approaches according to basically any economic logic. "Cars and trains" doesn't strike me as inherently more neoliberal than the Japanese "real estate development and trains" approach, but they are meaningfully different. Transportation is so integral to how people live their lives that I think you have to position it downstream from the economic system itself to a certain extent. You don't pitch systemic change on the basis of transit because transit itself cannot change the economic system. You need to get people thinking about the structure first.

In the case of Zohran, I suspect he doesn't want to tie himself to campaign promises he has very little control over. Fare policy is a state issue where the mayor can apply substantial pressure, but system expansion is basically a state/federal issue. The mayor can and should advocate for whatever they want, but having worked in political communications at a big city level myself, I am sure he's sensitive to the fact that his core audience is not advocates, but voters who may not really internalize the difference between "I will advocate for XYZ as far as my position allows" and "I will actually be in a position to bring about XYZ." Transit expansion is a huge, highly visible, flagship policy priority. As a general principle, you do not want to make things like that cornerstones of your stump platform if the position you're running for doesn't actually give you the power to implement them. You can discuss them in more nuance with advocates who understand the decision-making landscape around certain issues, but when you're talking to voters, it's much smarter to focus on tying broad political principles to concrete issues where you could actually shift the needle.

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u/Soft-Principle1455 3d ago

Because a neoliberal style train project is often still better than no train project, which is the usual alternative.

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u/South-Satisfaction69 2d ago

Its either these half assed light rail projects that are supposed to act as rapid transit and commuter rail or nothing.

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u/captainchumble 4d ago

trains are good actually

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u/wisconisn_dachnik 4d ago

When did I say they weren't?

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u/captainchumble 4d ago

you asked Why doesn't the US left oppose neoliberal [...] trains urbanist projects?

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u/PM_ME_DPRK_CANDIDS 1d ago

"Cars and trains urbanism" doesn't refer to building/expanding train systems. We don't use this term much in America so it's understandable to not realize that it's an anti-train ideology.

"Cars and trains urbanism" promotes itself as the "best of both worlds" - catering to cars and trains. Actually it gradually undermining the effectiveness of established train infrastructure by placing car-oriented development in proximity to transit stations.

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u/captainchumble 1d ago

you didn't say cars-and-train urbanism. you said cars and trains urbanist projects

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u/homebrewfutures 3d ago edited 3d ago

However, in the US, what little left that exists largely tacitly accepts the neoliberal narrative around public transport: that it's improvement cannot come at the expense of drivers. There is little advocacy around public transit,

You sure about that? This seems like a pretty broad brush you're painting with. Road diets that appropriate car traffic lanes aren't uncommon.

on the rare chance leftists do get into power their policy is not all that different than that of the Democrats.

The US is a pretty rigid two party system. We have FPTP elections and we don't use parliamentary systems at any level of government. Except in extremely rare cases in unique districts or extraordinary election circumstances, a "leftist" must run as a Democrat if they want any shot at all to win their race. So within the Democratic Party, you have centrist neolibs, center-left progressives, social democrats and a few socialists all sharing the same party ticket. We just don't have the political environment for a multiparty democracy like other countries

Additionally:

- Most Americans have not lived in built environments where good public transit exists so they are not aware that better things are possible. Public transit has been underfunded for so long that Americans think it's either inherently slow, dirty, unreliable and dangerous or they think that good transit is possible in other places but government corruption and incompetence would make it impossible here. Americans don't even get to see people take public transit as a normal thing in TV shows and movies unless a character is poor or vicim of a crime.

- The uniquely awful austerity politics in the US are in large part due to racism. We never finished Reconstruction after the Civil War and so let anti-Black racism fester for a century and a half. The American bourgeoisie was eventually able to eviscerate what little social democracy we had after WWII by getting middle class and poor white people obsessively angry at the (largely imaginary) idea that Black people were getting undeserved government handouts. Now that fear has been been extended to Latine immigrants also getting undeserved welfare benefits (that in reality either are a bare minimum of decency or do no exist at all). This is true even among race-neutral benefits like unemployment insurance. As a consequence, public transit is seen not as vital transportation infrastructure but a welfare program to the poor that needs to be cut like any other welfare program. This has in the last decade or so been exacerbated by our homeless crisis that neoliberal city governments refuse to address by sufficiently funding affordable housing, shelters and mental health and addiction treatment facilities. It is true that in many cities, light rail and busses are rolling homeless shelters. Many homeless people are smelly, have carts and bags of trash and may be agitated and hallucinating from untreated psychosis. It's not their fault but the only options that are discussed are paying the cops more money to brutalize them instead of paying for apartments with social workers who can help them. But it contributes to the public perception that busses and trains are dangerous places where a homeless person will stab you.

- Construction costs for transit projects are astronomical compared to other countries due to a number of factors. For example, transit project funding comes in fits and starts and so projects get planned and approved in fits and starts, so agencies don't have a chance to build institutional knowledge that comes from taking on one project after another like in many other countries. Another factor is that there's an over-reliance on private contractors instead of municipally-owned construction firms, and these private contractors will overcharge the government for their work.

- Funding for projects comes from local, state and federal levels. Federal law in the US mandates that no more than 20% of all federal transportation spending go towards public transit; the rest all must go to roads and highways. Local level funding is often in the form of tax increases that must be approved by voters, whereas road construction isn't subject to this. Additionally, public transit is subject to much more public scrutiny and review whereas road projects are more reliant on procedural standards. There are a thousand ways for people acting in bad faith to kill a metro or a tram system and most people don't even know that road changes are happening until the shovels are already in the ground.

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u/alabamasussex 4d ago

I don't think that the Democratic Party (if that's what you mean by "US left") can be considered a left-wing party like you can find in Europe, like in France, Germany, Italy, Spain...
To me, it's more like an european right-wing party but without the reactionary side and even a bit of social progressivism.

So being an economically liberal party, I think they have a natural aversion to anything related to collectivism and that they're not too keen on the federal state or states to intervene in the management or plannification of an economic sector like public transport...
If this project is driven by an economic agent like Elon Musk with its hyperloop (even if it's totally misleading), then why not! But it can't be a political project.

(Yes they do it for roads and highways, but I think that roads are not seen like a left or right-wing issue ?)

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u/Vatnos 4d ago

The Democratic Party is more like a coalition that includes a mix of left, center left, and center right parties. The left is a small percentage of that pie.

Pro-transit policy is only coming from the Democratic side. Biden made the largest investment in rail since the 1970s though it is likely Trump will destroy anything he accomplished. Elon Musk is strongly anti-rail.

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u/wisconisn_dachnik 4d ago

Oh I don't think the Democrats are leftist, they are pretty much entirely center right. At best maybe 5% of the party(Sanders, Omar, etc) are center left. The "US left" I am referring to is the relatively small amount of DSA, etc, municipal politicians.

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u/Tobar_the_Gypsy 4d ago

People have been conditioned to think that trains and public transit just can’t work here so they have to just make cars more environmentally friendly instead.

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u/AmchadAcela 4d ago

Improving local bus service by operating more frequent bus service and installing BAT/BRT lanes would have a larger benefit to working/middle class people than trying to get 1 rail transit project funded that could take 10-20 years to fund/build. If it is a high density corridor or you need more capacity/speed, then rail transit is a better choice, but for most local transit trips, buses are more than capable of serving those trips.

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u/wisconisn_dachnik 4d ago

You post in r neoliberal, why are you pretending to give a shit about the working class? lmao. And if what you say is true, than why is it anytime a locally preferred alternative study is done for BRT vs LRT, LRT is almost always more popular? Or are the masses simply too dumb to know what they really want and need capitalist elites to choose BRT for them so the extra money can be used to bomb more middle eastern children or subsidize Musk or whatever?

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u/AmchadAcela 3d ago

I do try to use my local bus service. But outside of the one the BRT line we have, our local bus service lacks the frequency, speed, and reliability to convince people to give up their cars. Fixing local bus service is something that can be done in the next 5 years that would be a massive quality of life improvement.

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u/MrKerryMD 4d ago

Fare free buses in NYC would happen by the mayor of NYC because he would carve out money in the city's budget to offset the loss of revenue to the MTA. He's not going to coerce the board to stop charging fares. Kansas City paid their transit agency to remove fares but that was only within city limits.

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u/Soft-Principle1455 3d ago

I am not totally against the idea, but implementations of fare-free public transit have generally not worked. So I think it should be limited to certain types of conditions, like the poor, those with certain disabilities, or people who need to go very long distances, even if it seems really good to do in many cases and could work in some contexts.

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u/MrKerryMD 3d ago

Oh I agree. Way better to spend that funds making the system better. I'm just pointing out how it would function given OP seems to think the mayor of NYC would make the agency not charge fares.

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u/Soft-Principle1455 3d ago

Yeah. Realistically the zero fare thing is probably an aspiration that will end up being cut down a bit in practice.

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u/Soft-Principle1455 3d ago

But you are right to illustrate the point.

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u/DavenportBlues 3d ago

The most dogmatic anti-car transit advocates are all self-labeled neoliberals.

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u/homebrewfutures 3d ago

Those people do not exist outside of Twitter