Urban Nature Preserves

I've been meaning to write on this topic for a few months. Back in March, my wife and I took a road trip to Texas. While there, our host (my sister-in-law) asked us if we wanted to visit the Trinity River Audubon Center in Dallas. We said sure. So on a hot day, especially for us Ohioans in March, we visited the center. Upon our arrival, I immediately encountered that deja vu feeling. It wasn't so much that I thought I had been to that specific location before; it was more that the Trinity River center had almost the same look and feel as the Grange Insurance Audobon Center right here in Columbus.

The family resemblance of the two Audobon centers was a prominent reason for this feeling, but it was more than that. Both are located within the city limits of their host cities: the Trinity River Center is in an outlying part of Dallas, whereas the Grange Insurance Center is close to downtown Columbus. Both are located along a major waterway: the Trinity River in Dallas and the Scioto River in Columbus. Both centers are built on reclaimed industrial wasteland. The Trinity River Center was once an illegal dump. The Grange Center is on a former industrial park called the Whittier Peninsula, formed by a U-shaped bend in the Scioto River. More recently it has been the site of the Columbus Police Division's vehicle impound lot, where abandoned and confiscated motor vehicles were kept. Both centers are only a few years old. Both have incorporated extensive wetland areas to attract greater biological diversity. And both have financial support from local government: the City of Dallas partly funds the Trinity River Center, while the Grange Center is incorporated into Scioto Audubon Metro Park and is partly supported by the Columbus Metro Parks system. And of course, both are islands of biodiversity in an urban setting.

Both centers take environmental education seriously, as do all Audubon nature centers. Both have education facilities housed in state-of-the-art, ecologically friendly, low-carbon-footprint buildings. Both nature centers have educational displays, a conference area, classroom space for lectures, hands-on activities for children, and a bookshop.

Here is the education building at the Trinity River Center in Dallas, taken in March 2011.

We first visited the Grange Center in Columbus in January 2010 when the Metro Parks held their annual winter hike there. This is what the education center looked like at that time.

 

Here is a view along the Trinity River in Dallas, in March 2011.

And a view of a mist-shrouded, partially frozen Scioto River. January 2010.

Both centers, of course, are valuable additions to the biological diversity of the urban areas in which they are located. The Whittier peninsula has been an important central Ohio stopover for migratory birds. Close by, on the opposite side of the Scioto river, is Green Lawn Cemetery, another area of high biodiversity, with its extensive prairie plantings and mature, mostly native, trees.

I might briefly discuss how these islands of biodiversity, while a great thing to have in the urban and suburban environment, are only part of the solution to the problem of urban ecological poverty. Property owners, from businesses to homeowners to religious and government facilities, also need to participate in the "greening" of our cities. Entomologist Douglas Tallamy, in his book Bringing Nature Home, discusses the need for urban and suburban landowners to add more native plants to their landscapes, and he then gives a thorough explanation of the reasons why this is important--highly recommended reading. Organizations like the non-profit Wild Ones are dedicated to demonstrating for homeowners how they can grow less lawn, plant more natives, reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous lawn "care" chemicals, and still have an attractively landscaped property. All who own even a small piece of property can help increase the spread of biodiversity throughout our urban and suburban landscapes just by adding a few native plantings to their yards.

Increasing the native plantings in our cities and suburbs can go a long way toward rebuilding our damaged ecosystems. The Audubon Society and its educational programs, along with those resources I mentioned and still others, also dedicated to restoring biological diversity, can help us achieve that goal. If you're ever in Dallas or Columbus, I encourage you to check out these unique Audubon centers and spend some time there.

I Have Emerald Ash Borer

This is so, so, sooooo--not good. We looked at the white ash tree in our front yard today and noticed one branch that hadn't leafed out. It looked dead. I looked closely at the branch and noticed the characteristic and unmistakable half-moon bore holes. Ever since the borer had been found in a metro park nearby, we have been expecting to see it sooner or later. We were always hoping for later, of course.

Now we have to decide whether to try and save the tree by using a systemic chemical drench that is implicated in honeybee colony collapse disorder, or to just let the borer have its way and turn the tree into firewood. Not a happy choice.

Sigh.

How Quickly Will the Poison Build Up Again?

How many deaths will it take 'til he knows,
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind,
The answer is blowing in the wind.
--Bob Dylan

I have been in a somber mood for most of the last week. Those of you who read the last post on this blog know part of the reason why, as I wrote about my wrestling with an uncharacteristic and unexpected emotional reaction to a tragic bit of news. In the time since then, the intense emotional pain has subsided, although my feelings are still tender, and I can be set off weeping just by thinking about it or being reminded of it. (Music, especially singing, can do it, for example.) But just as I was beginning to feel more or less "normal," another event, much larger in scope, imposed itself on my conscience.

I was working here on that high school classmate Facebook page last Sunday evening when someone posted a note saying the president was going to speak at 10:30 on a "national security matter," so I went downstairs and alerted my wife. We turned on the TV and then waited and waited for the president to come out; finally I gave up and went to bed, so I never heard his announcement. But in the meantime, the information that the president was going to deliver had leaked to the media, and the CNN reporters told me all I really needed to know: that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had been hunted down and killed by American forces.

I have to say that I didn't react at all, one way or another, at the time. I simply accepted it as another news fact, no different than any other news fact. It wasn't until many hours later that I began to recognize that this initial reaction to such a significant event was rather strange. Maybe my emotions were still too raw to react? I don't know.

All the next day (Monday), I think I was in some sort of daze or trance. In light of my emotional vulnerability over the past two weeks, I didn't think I needed anything to happen that day that could provoke another emotional breakdown. (No, I didn't think it would be good to start blubbering in class!) So I tried to keep my distance from the whole thing. I deliberately stayed away from news broadcasts and newspaper reports about the details of the search, the raid, and the final outcome; I'm still purposely avoiding news reports of the affair and only slowly peeking at reports of other events. There are facts about this event that I simply didn't--and still don't--want to know; at least not now. But by Monday morning, I began hearing people talking about celebrations during the night, and that disturbed me. People celebrating bin Laden's death? How does that make us any different from the people ten years ago who filled Middle Eastern streets celebrating the collapse of the towers?

Then a friend and colleague from school posted some comments on Facebook, expressing a sentiment similar to what I had begun formulating:

[Name withheld] considers posting an opinion about recent events and wonders how many people will 'unfriend' her for finding all this kind of anti-climactic, thinking more about the deaths and permanent damage (visible and invisible) visited on many MANY good goood people, and wondering how quickly the poison will build up again.

So I came around and posted my own comment, echoing her concerns, and even borrowing some of her wording:

Don Plummer is still processing what he thinks about the news that broke late last night.

Like another Facebook friend mused, I've wondered how many people will ‘unfriend’ me if I post what I'm really thinking? Thirst for blood has been satisfied, I suppose, but what a horrible cost has been paid! Far more lives than were killed in the terrorist attack. Desire for revenge killed Hamlet in the end, after all.

Right now, I'm not willing to:

• engage in flag-waving;
• gloat over bin Laden's death;
• begin to think that this event will solve our problems; rather, it may unleash even more terrorist threats as bin Laden has now gained martyr status;
• think that targeted assassination, even of the most diabolical figures, is anything more than sanctioned murder.

I posted my comments not because I wanted to make a definitive what's-right-and-what's-wrong statement, but because my mind and my spirit were still trying to process the event and the nation's reaction to it--just like they're still trying to process the earlier-learned fact of my classmate's death.

Later Monday morning, I posted a snippet of dialogue from The Lord of the Rings, a work that has profoundly influenced the way I view the world. It's one of my favorite scenes, in fact, and features an exchange between Frodo and Gandalf that takes place after the latter had finished telling what he had learned about the creature Gollum, the miserable soul that had possessed (or rather, had been possessed by) the One Ring for so many, many years:

 "What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!"

"Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need ..."

"... I do not feel any pity for Gollum ... He deserves death."

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

This passage came to my mind very soon after I posted my first Facebook comment; again, not a statement of right or wrong, but a commentary on our all-too-human rush to "deal out death in judgment" (not to mention that Gandalf's comment, "some that die deserve life," reminded me again of my departed classmate).

In the comments thread generated by the earlier Facebook posting, I explained that my biggest concern was that we as a nation have dragged ourselves to the level of our enemies and have become what we hate. The temptation to do that is all too natural and must be fought against. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem we were up to the challenge.

I can be certain that none of my tears over the last six days were shed for Osama bin Laden. He was a despicable figure--far more despicable than Gollum, in fact, who, although a murderer, was really more of an old, miserable wretch, totally in thrall to that shiny object dangling from Frodo's neck. (If there's an analogue to bin Laden in Tolkien's narrative, it's more likely to be Saruman than Gollum.) But I have been mourning for what our nation apparently has become--how we have allowed the event that bin Laden will most be remembered for to make us forget who we are as a nation and to become something we were not. And I have mourned for the countless thousands that have died, multiple times more than died when the towers fell, in our nearly ten years of senseless war: some of them our own brave soldiers, of course, but many more non-combatant, innocent Iraqi and Afghani citizens.

As I said, I've deliberately stayed away from the news this past week, but I have been told some of the circumstances of the raid on bin Laden's compound. I understand that the "official" story has changed and I would presume that we may never know exactly how events transpired. Although I cannot second-guess why the special forces troops on the scene decided they had to shoot instead of capture, it just doesn't strike me that cornering and then killing an unarmed bin Laden in his own bedroom, while surrounded by family, can ever be regarded as our nation's proudest moment or most noble achievement. We've been told that the death of bin Laden serves justice, brings closure, or causes satisfaction. The Columbus Dispatch even used the word solace. But I don't feel any of these sentiments. Rather, just thinking of this entire affair makes me feel hollow and gives me a sinking feeling. Hence the somber mood I've been in.

Violence begets violence. Or, as put far more eloquently nearly two thousand years ago, "all who take the sword will perish by the sword". This past week, another friend blogged on the myth of redemptive violence. I highly recommend reading it. Already al-Qaida is plotting revenge on their new martyr. When will it end? Why couldn't we have ended it at the beginning, by responding differently to the initial attack?

I don't pretend that my words here are the last word on the subject. I'm still trying to make sense of this event and don't feel I could give a definitive word if I tried. If you think you must break off contact with me because of what I wrote here, do what you feel you must do. But I would hope, even if you disagree with me, you will read these comments in the spirit in which they are written: the cries of an anguished heart, concerned about what our country has become; and that you will receive them in that way.

Bone-deep connections

How can I write about something I cannot begin to understand?

I've been undone. My emotions have become unhinged. I've awakened at night with moist eyes; I've been weeping in my sleep. I've found myself crying audibly during the day. I've felt tears welling up as I walk between classes. I've lost sleep. I've neglected some of my work. As one who normally doesn't display his emotions, this is a totally new experience. And after a week, it isn't letting up. Moreover, I don't really understand why it's happening.

What has caused me to become such an emotional basket case? I recently was told of a tragedy. Just last week, I learned of the untimely death of a grade school/high school classmate--almost ten years after the fact. Clearly, I'm grieving. It's quite natural to grieve, of course. But I've never, ever, experienced this depth, level, or intensity of grief in my life--not even when my mother died (which was seventeen years ago this past week). And the classmate, who died in November 2001, was not really a close friend; she was more of a casual friend. What is happening? Why has this particular bit of tragic news so upended my emotions?

A few months ago, my wife received an e-mail from a high school classmate. With her 40th graduation anniversary approaching, a few classmates decided to use e-mail and Facebook to contact other classmates and try to organize a face-to-face reunion. In response, I realized my own high school class' graduation is also approaching its 40th anniversary, but nobody to my knowledge was organizing a reunion. So after a few electronic correspondences with another classmate, we thought it might be a good idea to set up our own "virtual reunion" on Facebook. Last week, on Monday, I did it; I set up the Facebook group and enrolled eight classmates who were also Facebook friends. It has been a great success so far; classmates who have Facebook accounts are signing on; then they're letting other classmates know of the group. Interest is spreading, and it appears that a face-to-face reunion will be organized for later in the year.

All is going as expected, right? Well, not quite. Along with the excitement and pleasure of reacquainting ourselves with long lost school mates, we're uncovering the always sad news of classmates who are no longer with us. Some of them I didn't know well or at all. Others I knew, but was never very close to. It's always a tragedy to be told of someone's death, but it's still less painful to say, "I'm sorry about ______'s passing" when one didn't know the deceased person well. However, when one classmate mentioned that she thought Mindy had died and another confirmed it, also sharing some details, I was devastated. I wanted to shout out, "Say it ain't so!" Not Mindy! This has to be wrong! Thus, one week ago, my inexplicable emotional ride began, with no end in sight.

Her name was Melinda, but she was always known simply as Mindy. It was a lovely name for a wonderful person. She was one of those extremely rare people for whom the word "special" doesn't begin to do justice. She was unabashedly friendly, and her friendliness was absolutely genuine, never contrived. She was full of energy, and always ready with an enthusiastic greeting. Most importantly, she was a warm, caring person, who always took interest in others' needs ahead of her own.

I cannot remember when we first met. We simply grew up together. Mindy was born three months ahead of me (and two days after Christmas) in the same small city that we both called home. We didn't attend the same elementary school after completing first grade, though it's quite possible that she and I knew each other by the time we were in first grade, if not earlier. I can be almost certain that she and I attended Sunday school together at the Methodist church from an early age, and that we were in the same confirmation class. It's also likely that we also both attended summer Vacation Bible School sessions together. Later, we were both involved with Methodist Youth Fellowship. By our junior high years and through high school, we would have been in many of the same classes together because we were both in the top 10% of the class and were normally enrolled in the same Advanced Placement classes. However, Mindy was clearly my superior in the intelligence department; she finished second in our graduation class of about 250, while I was several steps lower. Finally, Mindy and I shared one passion: we both loved to sing. We were in Concert Choir and Swing Choir together during our senior year, and we both sang in the high school youth choir at church.

After high school graduation, we went our separate ways, as so often happens to high school graduates in our mobile society. We attended separate private colleges in different corners of Ohio, and eventually both of us moved away from our hometown. Our families still lived there, though, so occasionally I would encounter her when we were both visiting family, usually in church over a holiday like Christmas. She would invariably give me her enthusiastic, warm greeting, like she always did, and we would briefly exchange pleasantries.

I believe Mindy attended our 20th high school class reunion in 1991 (we didn't have a 30th reunion in 2001), but I don't recall either seeing or speaking with her. Therefore, I may never know the last time I actually spoke with her. We simply lost contact with each other over time. The 20th anniversary reunion directory indicated that Mindy earned a doctorate in clinical psychology in the early 1980s, married, settled with her husband, also a psychologist, in a large city in another state, and had a daughter who was three years old at the time. However, I never learned that she had been diagnosed with scleroderma in 1983. I only learned that last week, after I was told of her passing. Scleroderma is a systemic disease; it is thought that the body's immune system turns against the body and begins attacking vital organs. Mindy suffered with it for eighteen years before it finally ended her life. The daughter would have been around 13 when Mindy passed away, so she's a young adult woman by now.

So why have I reacted so emotionally to the news of Mindy's death, when I never reacted similarly to the deaths of dear family members, including my own mother? Is the emotional intensity my way of crying out at the seeming injustice of Mindy's predicament--the age-old, unanswerable question of why someone as wonderful, generous, and kind as Mindy would be made to suffer as she must have, and made to die before she even reached the age of fifty? Or is it because the news came out of the blue and I was totally unprepared for it? When my mom died, it wasn't at all unexpected; we had watched cancer slowly devour her life over the six years after she was diagnosed. Until I heard otherwise last week, I would have assumed that Mindy was still as active, healthy, and energetic as ever. Or am I perhaps punishing myself for failing to keep in touch with a true friend? At the very least, I could have put her on my Christmas card list; we could have exchanged cards over the years. Perhaps all these are factors. But an essay by Scott Russell Sanders suggests that there might be a far deeper, more primordial, reason.

Sanders grew up in northern Portage County in northeast Ohio. During his high school years, the state decided to dam the west branch of the Mahoning River, which flowed through a valley near his home. The dam was completed during his senior year, but his family left the area right after he graduated from high school, and Sanders went off to college, so he never saw the reservoir after it had filled. About two decades later, Sanders happened to be doing some work in the area and was traveling on the interstate when the familiar town names on the highway signs lured him back to the area. He was shocked not only by the vista that the reservoir presented him, but also by the fact that the land surrounding the lake, including the area where his home had been, had seemingly been abandoned by humans and was reverting to wilderness (Sanders 7-11). But as unprepared as he was for the change in the landscape, he was even less prepared for his emotional reaction:
"My worst imaginings had failed to prepare me for this. I stood there dazed. I could not take it in, so much had been taken away. For a long spell I leaned against the guardrail and dredged up everything I could remember of what lay beneath the reservoir. But memory was at last defeated by the blank gray water. No effort of mind could restore the river or drain the valley. I surrendered to what my eyes are telling me. Only then was I truly exiled" (11).

Sanders believes that his emotional reaction to the inundation of the valley where he grew up was related to the inevitable tie we humans have between ourselves and our "native ground":
"One's native ground is the place where, since before you had words for such knowledge, you have known the smells, the seasons, the birds and beasts, the human voices, the houses, the ways of working, the lay of the land, and the quality of light. It is the landscape you learn before you retreat inside the illusion of your skin. You may love the place if you flourished there, or hate the place if you suffered there. But love it or hate it, you cannot shake free. Even if you move to the antipodes, even if you become intimate with new landscapes, you still bear the impression of that first ground" (12).

While Sanders is speaking here of what he calls our "bone-deep attachment" (14) to our formative physical geography, is it possible that we also, similarly and indelibly, bear an equally bone-deep connection to the people who were part of our formative lives? Sanders' story, especially his emotional reaction to the sudden realization that things around the reservoir did not remain the way he had remembered them, parallels my own experience from this past week. Is it possible that my life, Mindy's life, and the lives of perhaps other classmates I might not even realize right now, were woven together in some very deep, mysterious way during our formative years as we grew, learned, played, and, yes, sang together? Is it possible that this very palpable, almost physical pain that I've been experiencing since learning of Mindy's passing, a pain that is welling up from some deep, unknown, and heretofore unexplored depth of my being, has been caused by the severing of that bond--that deep, mysterious connection that was woven all those years ago? I don't know, but I'm beginning to imagine that it might be so. If so, it's a reminder that we humans are social creatures, and that we're not meant to live the autonomous, atomized lifestyle that's so relentlessly promoted by our American, consumerist culture. The bottom line is that we cannot live lives contrary to our own nature. We may ignore or neglect these connections, but we cannot escape them.

It's true that both Mindy and I, along with our families, made new friends and acquaintances in the places where we eventually settled. Mindy certainly had a secure support network that helped see her through the tragedy of her illness, and I believe I also have one. But new relationships do not replace these primordial bonds; they can only supplement them. Finally, although learning of Mindy's passing has caused me great emotional pain over the past week, I would never, never want to deny that deep, mysterious connection, even if doing so would allow me to avoid the hurt.

I began this essay by asking how I could write about something I am unable to understand. I'm ending it by imagining that, perhaps, the writing process itself actually helped me reach a kind of understanding--however inadequate that understanding might be--and has helped begin the healing of the Mindy-shaped wound that was inflicted in my soul. The pain and emotional intensity I'm experiencing now will, sooner or later, fade, and my life will go on. But it will probably never be quite the same. Such wounds never completely heal. The bonds that hold people together; the bonds that remain an essential part of our humanity, will endure come what may. Mindy, you have been and will continue to be sorely missed. May you rest in peace, Mindy, and may God continue to bless your family and loved ones.

--------------------

Work Cited
Sanders, Scott Russell. "After the Flood." Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. 3-15.

FINAL NOTE: In order to try and protect the privacy of Mindy's family, I did not include last names; I also purposely left out the name of our mutual hometown, the names of the schools and the church we attended, and the name of the city to which Mindy eventually relocated. However, I couldn't bring myself to avoid using her real name.

George Will's Flip-flop

My previous post, "George Will: Driving a Wedge" was re-posted late last Thursday on the Energy Bulletin site. It received a few comments from Energy Bulletin readers; among them was a comment from Eddiejoe67: "George Will was for high speed rail before he was against it." Eddiejoe's comment linked to an article in Grist published on March 4 and written by cities editor Sarah Goodyear. Goodyear mentions a reader who "tipped [them] off" to an article Will had written almost ten years earlier, shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Goodyear writes:

In the dark days immediately after 9/11, Will seems to have had a revelation about how a certain mode of transportation could help our nation be stronger and more secure. In an Oct. 1, 2001 column syndicated in the Jewish World Review, Will recommended three steps in response to the attack that the nation had just sustained. First, buy more B-2 bombers. Second, cut corporate taxes. And third? Let Will speak for himself (emphasis mine):

Third, build high-speed rail service.
Two months ago this columnist wrote: "A government study concludes that for trips of 500 miles or less -- a majority of flights; 40 percent are of 300 miles or less -- automotive travel is as fast or faster than air travel, door to door. Columnist Robert Kuttner sensibly says that fact strengthens the case for high-speed trains. If such trains replaced air shuttles in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, Kuttner says that would free about 60 takeoff and landing slots per hour."

Thinning air traffic in the Boston-New York-Washington air corridor has acquired new urgency. Read Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker essay on the deadly dialectic between the technological advances in making air travel safer and the adaptations to these advances by terrorists.

"Airport-security measures," writes Gladwell, "have simply chased out the amateurs and left the clever and the audacious." This is why, although the number of terrorist attacks has been falling for many years, fatalities from hijackings and bombings have increased. As an Israeli terrorism expert says, "the history of attacks on commercial aviation reveals that new terrorist methods of attack have virtually never been foreseen by security authorities."

The lesson to be learned is not defeatism. Security improvements can steadily complicate terrorists' tasks and increase the likelihood of defeating them on the ground. However, shifting more travelers away from the busiest airports to trains would reduce the number of flights that have to be protected and the number of sensitive judgments that have to be made, on the spot, quickly, about individual travelers. Congress should not adjourn without funding the nine-state Midwest Regional Rail Initiative.

So long before passenger trains turned into a tool for socialist control, Will thought they might be useful both as a transportation and as a national security solution.

It's really a tragedy that a writer as intelligent and incisive as Will can be is apparently unwilling to counter the right-wing echo chamber.

George Will: Driving a Wedge

On February 27, Newsweek published a column written by George F. Will titled "High Speed to Insolvency: Why Liberals Love Trains", in which he lambastes the Obama administration for proposing to build (and fund) a nationwide high-speed rail network. Will goes on to ridicule "liberals" for supporting taxpayer-subsidized passenger rail service in general. While Will repeats many of the shibboleths that commonly trip off the lips and pens of all passenger rail opponents (it will  drain our public treasuries, nobody will ride them, people prefer to drive, etc.), he goes a step further by presupposing an ideological divide over the issue. It's "liberals" who want trains, and, further, the real reason these "liberals" want trains is to use them to modify the public's behavior. These seditious "liberals," after all, want to "[diminish] Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."

It's quite unfortunate that Will would frame his complaint in ideological terms, because doing so only drives another wedge between Americans. The simple fact is that those of us who want to see a nationwide passenger rail network re-established believe that restoring rail transportation in the USA is a practical necessity. We don't want trains for ideological reasons; we're only seeking solutions to pressing transportation and energy problems.

Will's argument that train travel would somehow lead the American public to embrace collectivism is extremely weak. I wonder whether, during the heyday of rail transportation in the USA in the early 20th century, anyone thought that trains were leading people down the socialist track. I wonder if the commuters waiting for the Metro in DC, the subway in New York, the T in Boston, or the Metra in Chicago experience pangs of worry that their support of public transportation is subverting American values. And since air travel, like train travel, forces passengers to abide by timetables and only takes people to predetermined destinations, I wonder if air travel might already be corrupting our individualism the way Will maintains that rail travel would.

The facts are these, in case Mr. Will is interested: we have a serious energy crisis and an even graver potential crisis. Petroleum resources are depleting worldwide, and new reserves aren't coming into production fast enough to offset the rate of depletion. Fuel prices are once again on the rise. Many people can't afford to operate their automobiles now, and it's likely to get worse. The civil unrest in the Middle East threatens to disrupt the flow of petroleum and, thus, torpedo our global economy (This column by Michael Klare details how, historically, oil producing nations that have gone through political or social upheavals never return to their previous level of production). In this age of energy instability, do we really want to say no to rebuilding our passenger rail capabilities?

Of course, George Will can disagree with the Obama adminstration's high speed rail plan if he wishes. (Even some rail advocates, most famously James Howard Kunstler, believe "high speed rail" is a pipe dream and that the money would be far better spent, not to mention go further, if we used it to rebuild a standard-speed system.) Will has the right to disgree with taxpayer-funded rail transportation altogether. But if he wishes to oppose passenger rail, he ought to give us his real arguments. In the Newsweek column, Will dismisses the arguments offered by rail advocates as "flimsy" and claims they point to an ideological purpose. I'm sorry to tell Mr. Will, but that doesn't work. He need to answer our arguments; if they're really as flimsy as he maintains, he should have no trouble whatsoever countering them. But because he offers us his ideological red herring instead, I suspect that he doesn't really have any substantive rebuttals to our reasoning.

Public Transportation: Not a High Priority in Ohio

The Columbus Dispatch reported last week that under the administration of Ohio's new Republican governor John Kasich, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is cutting funding for local transit agencies that had been promised by the administration of the previous governor, Ted Strickland, a Democrat. While this comes as no surprise, given that Governor Kasich managed to kill a major passenger rail project for Ohio before he was even sworn in as Governor, it still comes as a blow to those of us who believe that the government should stop favoring highway construction and automotive transport--those of us who believe we should begin to fund more sustainable transportation systems that will help us cut petroleum use and also provide transportation alternatives to those who need and want them.

Specifically, former Governor Strickland had pledged $150 million out of ODOT's budget over three years to ten Ohio transit agencies, mostly to help them develop new routes. The intent of the new routes was to help connect people to places that offer jobs and job training programs. The Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), which serves the Columbus area, was among the intended recipients. COTA was planning to use the money to begin a new bus route that would have connected the area's hospitals, including The Ohio State University Medical Center and Nationwide Children's Hospital, to several local educational institutions, including Columbus State Community College where I teach. Given that Ohio's unemployment rate remains above the national average, and given that fuel prices are currently hovering around the $3.00 per gallon range and are rising, such a boost for public transport services seems to be a no-brainer to me.

But this expansion of transit services is not to be. Although ODOT will still share some $80 million in mostly federal transportation money with local transit agencies over the next three years, and although our public transit agencies will be getting more money this year than they have been getting in previous years, the increase won't be enough to allow COTA to offer the planned service connecting health care and higher education services.

According to the Dispatch report, a spokesperson for ODOT dismissed Strickland's funding promise as "not realistic and short-term." One wonders, however, why it isn't realistic. One also wonders what ODOT plans to do with the previously promised money. It is my understanding that ODOT's annual budget hovers around $3 billion per year. I also understand that ODOT's funding, since it comes from federal transportation money and fuel taxes, is not accounted with Ohio's general fund, which is currently running something like an $8 billion projected deficit over the next two years, and over which a lot of hand-wringing is now occurring over imminent and severe budget cuts. Again according to my understanding, ODOT spent about $10 million last year on public transportation. That's only about 60% of the amount ODOT spends every year mowing along the highways! Is most of the money that Strickland had promised to the transit agencies now going to be used for highway construction? One wonders. And if so, one wonders why we need to dedicate even more of the ODOT budget to highway construction, since that's where about 98% of it goes right now. Partly because of the fuel price crunch and high unemployment, Ohioans, like most Americans, are driving less and many younger Ohioans, like many younger Americans, want other transportation options besides driving and being saddled with the cost burdens associated with automobile ownership and maintenance. (Some young Americans aren't even getting their driver's licenses until they're in their 20s, and there's a boom in auto sharing and ride sharing among them.)

The $80 billion that the Kasich administration indicates it will deliver to local transit agencies, spread out over the next three years, represents almost quadrupling the state funding for public transportation from last year. I guess that's better than nothing, and I suppose I shouldn't complain. But other states do far better than this. According to All Aboard Ohio's Ken Pendergast, Pennsylvania spent close to $400 million last year on public transport. And the results are evident in clearly superior services to the public, as Pendergast reports here. There's no real reason why Ohio can't do at least as well.

One more thing: John Kasich, in his inaugural address on January 10, 2011, enjoined Ohioans to "rebuild our great cities in Ohio." I honestly don't know how he can accomplish that without significant and serious increases in spending on viable, convenient public transportation for our cities (not to mention inter-city passenger rail). Just look around: the cities that are vibrant and alive all have excellent and convenient transportation services that the residents use frequently; they are cities that are designed for people and not automobiles. Then take a look at many of Ohio's cities: the central cores are deserted after business hours. Walk around the downtown areas and notice the wide streets cluttered with fast-moving traffic; then look at the relative lack of safe places for people to walk. Notice the parking lot deserts where shopping and other services, as well as residences, could be built instead. (Columbus' downtown has long since been abandoned by retailers; to compensate, if one can call it that, we built a fake downtown in the suburbs, called Easton. One has to drive to go there, of course.) If we want to rebuild our great cities, we need a real commitment to invest in public transportation.

This is not a funding problem; it's a problem of priorities. So long as road-building and automobiles remain a top priority, the full transportation needs of all Ohioans will be neglected. Ohio can do better than this. Ohio must do better than this.