Washington.--It's possible to read 1994 as the worst year in many for mass transit, for cleaning our air, for finding alternatives to America's unfettered automobility and extreme dependence on foreign oil.
The new Republican congressional majority -- obliged to find billions in spending cuts to finance the tax cuts and defense spending promised in its "Contract With America" -- will find a tempting target in the subsidies that protect many of our mass-transit systems from bankruptcy and shutdown.
Switching tax policy to restrain auto use and favor mass transit seems less likely than ever -- even though our gasoline taxes, by world standards, remain laughably low. We pay $40 billion a year in gas taxes, but the 12-nation European Community, with fewer vehicles on the road, takes in $210 billion, five times our sum.
The result: Our auto use balloons; Europe's rises more modestly. Europe has world-class transit systems; ours lag virtually all industrialized nations. Even spread out Australia taxes gas at twice our rate and manages to put twice the share of passengers onto trains and buses.
We are importing 8 million barrels of oil a day, 54 percent of our usage -- headed for 70 percent by 2010. The current cost is $47 billion a year -- two-thirds of the trade deficit that saps our national wealth. Some of our politicos question whether democracy and human rights in Haiti are worth a single American life. But defending our oil supply is another matter. Ex-Pentagon official Earl Ravenal estimated that if the American military expenditures triggered by the Iraqi war were added to the price of a barrel of Middle East oil, the cost would have soared by 10 times over.
But will we change? The ferocious anti-tax cast of election year '94 seems to make change less likely than ever.
Last summer, voters in the St. Louis region voted strongly for a big bi-state mass-transit expansion. But four important mass-transit initiatives were defeated, generally by 2-to-1 margins, on Election Day -- in Boulder, Phoenix, Denver and California.
Some of these proposals were highly imaginative. Boulder, for example, would have provided 80,000 workers in the city with free transit passes, potentially doubling local ridership, paying the bill with a modest monthly tax on payrolls. Phoenix would have raised $8 billion over 20 years with a half-cent sales tax -- half for freeways, half for major transit improvements.
But the answer everywhere was "no." Denver voters even directed the Regional Transit District to return $5.2 million in surplus funds to them, rather than freeing the funds to improve mass transit.
As for the Clean Air Act, numerous states have been complaining about tough emissions testing requirements to clean up smoggy skies. On December 2, the Environmental Protection Agency buckled, agreeing to let states devise alternate anti-pollution programs -- which political reality says many just won't do.
In Los Angeles, there were high hopes after the Northridge earthquake that commuters would switch to newly available commuter rail, car pools or telecommuting. But no, the number of workers who drive alone to work has increased slightly and freeway usage is back to its prequake levels. Mass transit use is up, but not enough to make a dent on the freeways.
Observes the authoritative Los Angeles "State of the Commute" report: "Unlike recycling, altering travel behavior is viewed as too high an individual price to pay for the collective good of the environment."
Yet each additional year of increased foreign oil dependence, each year of mounting single-passenger auto use, each year of stagnant or declining mass-transit use, spells multiple perils.
The dangers run from national wealth flowing overseas to less productive job-producing investment here; from compounded traffic congestion to a shortage of decent transit alternatives for our commuters, youth and elderly; from dirtier skies to more asthma victims; from sprawling development to accelerated loss of our forest and fields.
There is some good news. Strong bipartisan support backs ISTEA, the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, which is up for reauthorization in the next Congress. By giving metropolitan regions substantial leeway on how they use federal transportation funds, ISTEA gives transit a much better chance than when the highway lobby controlled all decisions.
But even full local control won't begin to level the playing field if taxpayers and local officials go for short-term economies and fail to see the immense long-term benefits of realistic energy taxes, mass transit and clean air, more compact urban development and saving our open spaces.
The problem is we have no immediate, precipitating crisis to shock us out of our complacent ways. Urbanologist Anthony Downs likens our situation to that of a frog placed in an open pan with cold water. The water is then heated, but so slowly the frog never notices the difference from moment to moment. It never jumps out -- and in the process is boiled to death.
No matter what we said politically in 1994, it's time to jump to more rational policies -- now.
Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.