Opinion: Washington Post Takes a Cheap Shot at GEORGE

I just read Monday’s editorial in the Washington Post (”A Bus to Nowhere”) about GEORGE, and I’m hopping mad.

Not because most of GEORGE’s failings listed in the Post aren’t true — they are.

No, it’s because, to someone who has followed GEORGE since the bus service began in 2002, and has written half a dozen stories about it, the Post’s hidden agenda is pretty transparent.

Let’s be real: two buses running a 2-mile circuit in a town of 11,000 people at an annual cost of $600,000 doesn’t merit headlines all over the United States and even a couple of foreign countries (see April 18 story below). It doesn’t even merit an editorial in the Washington Post, much less a newspaper all the way out in Las Vegas.

There’s more going on here, and it has nothing to do with GEORGE. And that’s still not even why I’m mad. People are entitled to their opinions, pro or con, on public transportation and government subsidies. And it’s the job of “special interests” to promote their points of view.

Here’s why I’m upset: The Washington Post has a long reputation for journalistic integrity. It isn’t some low-budget rag easily steamrolled by any smooth-talking lobbyist. Yet the Post editorial cites only one source: the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance.

The Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance is a well-funded lobby for the construction of more roads and bridges. The lobby works tirelessly for widening I-66, and attacks any politician who dares oppose that. That includes Councilman Dave Snyder, who coincidentally (?) came in for scorn in the Las Vegas newspaper’s editorial against GEORGE.

The Washington Post editorial states: “Buses and trains alone won’t clear clogged roads. Transit projects . . . are necessary, but so are road improvements, such as the widening of Interstate 66.”

That is chapter and verse from the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, which claims to support mass transit as “part” of a solution that focuses on an ever-wider, ever-bigger network of roads and bridges.

The Alliance lobby’s name is almost indistinguishable from the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC), the government entity in charge of allocating federal and state subsidies to municipalities such as Falls Church that provide public transportation.

The NVTC recently wrote a detailed evaluation of GEORGE, including costs, ridership, and suggestions for improvement. It is the authoritative document on GEORGE. But when the Post printed statistics (”a measly 10 riders per hour”), it ignored the NVTC and cited the Alliance lobby as its source.

The Post editorial concludes: “With a painful fiscal 2010 budget shortfall forcing Falls Church to freeze pay and reduce services, GEORGE is a luxury the city can’t afford. There has to be a better way to spend $600,000.”

The Post editor must have lost his train of thought, because the previous paragraph had acknowledged that although GEORGE costs $600,000 to operate, half the cost is paid by the state.

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If, in some parallel universe, I had the ear of the Washington Post editorial board, here are the talking points I would slip them:

– Los Angeles County proved 30 years ago that more roads and bridges won’t “ease traffic gridlock.” “If you build it, they will come.”

– Washington suburbs such as the little City of Falls Church are incredibly lucky: thanks to their proximity to the nation’s capital, they have access to a multi-billion-dollar subway system financed by the federal government.

– With two Metro stops, one at each end of the City, Falls Church should be doing everything it can to take advantage of the facility.

– MetroBus runs down the center of the town and connects to the subway, but that’s a long walk for the majority of well-heeled residents commuting in their wingtips and silk ties.

– So with federal seed money the City started a neighborhood feeder bus service in 2002, similar to those operated in its sister suburbs of Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax.

– Unfortunately, almost everything went wrong: The experimental electric buses wouldn’t work. The replacement diesel buses were so big that they shook the houses on back streets, and in short order the buses were “banned from Broadmont.”

– The city failed to appoint a bus supervisor. The neglect was evident in things as small as the bus marquee flashing ESTRN FALLS. Eastern Falls? Much worse was the lack of thought in bus routes, which discouraged ridership. GEORGE fails to reach back into most areas not accessed by MetroBus and in fact generally follows the MetroBus route. So one of its only advantages is that at 50 cents it’s cheaper than MetroBus.

– When times were flush, GEORGE was a minor item in the City budget. But with the spike in fuel costs the operating authority raised the cost to the City by 25 percent. Now, even though fuel costs have gone down, the operating cost has not.

– When tax revenues plummeted, the City had to cut its proposed budget for the first time in memory. Every avenue was explored — even charging $15 for mulch. In the process someone decided to claim a $600,000 savings by axing GEORGE.

– We now know that figure is bogus, as is the “$8 per ride” cost to the City. But after an Associated Press article on GEORGE containing that information ran Saturday in more than 100 newspapers (including the Washington Post), millions of people have the wrong idea.

– The right idea, according to the lobbyist quoted in the Associated Press article, is to stop “wasteful” government subsidies of public transportation efforts like GEORGE.

– We have a better idea: With the nation’s eye on GEORGE, maybe local officials will feel the pressure to fix the problems. After all, if we can go to the moon . . . .

– Running a practical feeder bus service in Falls Church is not “rocket science.” And if Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax can do it, why not Falls Church?