Many people on the No side of this issue think that the Yes side is acting out of pure selfishness. However, I dont think thats the case, since many people on the Yes side have said that they wouldnt mind paying taxes if they felt that their taxes were well-spent.

The Yes side is angry about *inappropriate* and *inefficient* spending. Theyve expressed frustration with big government organizations, which in general seem to be arrogant, unresponsive, out of touch with the public's needs, corrupt, over-funded, etc. and they see a funding cut as one way to teach them to budget just like the rest of us do.

In order to fight the inefficiency in such organizations the first step is to understand them. Id like to share my views on the subject of big government bureaucracies since I personally spent many hours this summer trying hard to get a bureaucratic government organization  King County Metro Transit  to take action on the publics behalf.

First, heres a quick description of the idea that I tried to implement, to provide some background. I dont want to get into a debate about the idea itself on this forum, but Ill tell you what I learned while trying to put it into practice. This letter from me was published in the 5/27/99 Seattle P-I:

"The P-I's article on the 520 bridge traffic bottleneck (May 20) didn't mention a simple, practical measure that will take hundreds of singly occupied vehicles off the 520 bridge each day. That measure is to run a direct bus from Capitol Hill, Seattle's most densely populated neighborhood, to Eastside office concentrations. Metro's bus routes are designed with downtown as a hub where several routes converge. This made good sense for commuters following the traditional flow towards downtown offices. However, it makes no sense for the growing numbers who commute to the Eastside. There are thousands of Capitol Hill residents who would much rather face the horrendous 520 commute in a bus than in their cars, and have tried to do so, but given up because their commute times are nearly doubled by the inconvenient transfers at Montlake or downtown. In today's situation it makes sense to add bus routes that focus on the densely populated neighborhoods, instead of downtown. Moreover, there is a way to implement this plan at almost no cost -- namely, to re-route some trips of the 263 bus, which runs from downtown to Overlake, (and similar routes) *over* Capitol Hill, instead of *around* it on the freeway. Compared with some of the "relatively simple" options listed in the article -- ferries, more bridge lanes, light rail -- this option is almost trivial to implement. Given the documented, overwhelming demand from Capitol Hill residents, it's astonishing that Metro hasn't jumped on the opportunity, and instead spends resources trying to promote less desired alternatives such as van pools."

-- Anirudh Sahni (anirudhsahni@hotmail.com), October 29, 1999

Answers

Now heres what I learned about government bureaucracies while trying to put this idea into practice.

I proposed a bus route from a very high density neighborhood to a dense office concentration. There was no doubt that this new route would be very heavily utilized, and therefore an excellent use of county funds. I dug up employee residence maps, and got about 100 Capitol Hill residents to write letters (not just signatures) to show the demand. Unlike most people who demand bus service, I even dug up ridership data for an existing bus route and identified some low- ridership trips that Metro could divert in order to implement the service.

Although the case was plainly obvious to me and many others, it took me quite a long time to get Metro to agree that the route was worth providing quickly. I worked hard to advocate an idea that I believed would benefit the community as a whole, and my proposal was ultimately almost rejected on a bureaucratic pretext  the need for a passenger survey to establish that the demand exists  so if anyone has cause to gripe about unresponsive government, it should be I.

And YET  I did NOT find any evidence to suggest that transit authorities were arrogant, unresponsive, etc. On the contrary, I got the impression that the people I dealt with were intelligent, articulate, responsive, very aware of riders' issues, and very knowledgeable about the realities of stretching limited resources to cover conflicting demands. They could probably get higher paying jobs in private industry; but were doing what they were doing because they were committed to improving transit. The county council members (politicians) who helped me push the idea through Metro had no political interest in providing the bus route  they were not elected by the Capitol Hill residents who would have benefited. They responded because they recognized a good solution to a transportation issue. The Metro transit planners raised many objections, but they listened to all of my input, followed up on all the facts that I brought to their attention, and once they were convinced, even went out of their way to show me a way that I could try and use to accelerate the normal procedure, which clearly shows that they were sincerely interested in helping.

Yes, their objections sounded incredibly bureaucratic and out of touch with reality to me at first, and I was very tempted initially to dismiss them as being arrogant, unconcerned, closed-minded, etc. and go off in a huff; and indeed most people do, when dealing with government. But you get much further with people when you take the time to understand what *their* concerns are and why they are dragging their feet on something that seems so obvious to you. When I did that, I started realizing that *they* were well-intentioned people who just as hampered by the system as *I* was.

Government agencies make easy targets for jokes. Many of us are fond of poking fun at the way they work, and saying, If this was private industry, it would never be so inefficient.

But when you take a close look at what government agencies have to do, you realize that the comparison is not realistic. In fact, the comparison is almost absurd. Private companies are not democracies!! Because govt. agencies are spending *public* money, not their own money, they are subject to much more review and controls on the way they operate than private companies are. Even if they know that a move will be good for the public, they are *required* to solicit public input before implementing it, to give every side a fair chance to comment (no matter how poorly thought out the comments may be), and to present all of the resulting input as legal evidence at a public hearing to support their decisions about how they spend the money. They don't have the luxury of being able to quickly reorganize to cope with changing conditions. Private industry faces no such hurdles!

We have charged these folks with a very difficult task -- the task of running our public services in a "democratic" manner, and much of the bureaucracy that we encounter when dealing with government is the price that we pay for demanding democracy.

I visited China this summer and saw evidence everywhere of how quickly the government is able to move when it's not "hampered" by democracy. If the government decides that a new highway is needed somewhere  boom! It's done. All the people who used to live where the highway is are summarily moved elsewhere, without time wasted on their objections and lawsuits. Of course we don't want that kind of system in the US  but we need to recognize that our system comes with a price.

Yes, the system is inefficient, and it's good to be angry with it, because anger motivates change. But anger is productive only if directed at the right target. If we want the system to move faster, the solution is for us to CHANGE THE SYSTEM to empower public officials to abbreviate their procedures in certain types of cases, not to punish ourselves by cutting our own sources of funding. For example, empower them to summarily cut bus trips that are less than 30% full during commute hours, without the expense and delay of a survey, and move the buses elsewhere. (This idea is ultimately good for the community, but hard to sell, because riders of such bus trips will fight it.) Empower them to rely on objective data, such as population maps, instead of relying so heavily on customer input.

A huge number of people this summer have bought into the curious notion that a funding cut will "punish" government agencies such as Metro for their inefficiency and "teach them to be more efficient" because they will have to "trim the fat". This is like putting less gas in your car and expecting it to become more fuel-efficient! A funding cut does nothing to change the *system*. All it means is that they will get less done; and they won't be eliminating only the least "efficient" expenditures if I-695 passes. In Metros case, they are going to cut high-ridership routes in the dense urban areas just as much as they cut low-ridership routes in the suburban areas. This is not because of incompetence or dishonesty, but because that's all they're *allowed* to do  I-695 doesnt enable them to do better. (The reason has to do with historical fights over distribution of funding  funding is divided according to population of districts, regardless of whether those districts use buses; and a funding cut wont make the suburban districts more generous.)

Metro has only 12 transit planners responsible for 1,300 buses on 230 crisscrossing routes. They face more customer demands than they can possibly keep up with. Contrary to what some people say, they already DO have a system to prioritize the demands, and it was hard for me to shake them out of that system. They were actually being *responsible*, rather than unresponsive, by leaving it up to me to demonstrate that my request deserved high priority. (We actually experience similar delays with private companies that face many customer demands, even if they have the most talented people - Thanks, please go through our support channels and file a bug, and well prioritize it when we start work on the next version...)

Nor will a funding cut motivate them to change the system  the system is already a set of compromises that have been worked out over many years, and changing it is not so easy. They will just be slower at implementing it, because they will have less staff. If you want your car to get more fuel-efficient, a better place to direct your efforts is the ENGINE  change the system. That's much harder to do, and can only be done a small step at a time, but it pays off in the long run.

One of the costs of I-695 that hasnt received much attention is the wasted time of all the people in public service who will have to spend many months figuring out how to deal with the sudden drastic loss of funding, getting approval for new plans at public hearings, etc.

Sure, if you were suddenly and unexpectedly deprived of gas, and still HAD to finish your car trip over the mountain, perhaps you could. There's definitely no time to improve the engine. There may be a small amount of obvious fat -- like useless stuff in the trunk that you never got around to removing -- that you could immediately toss out. Next you might rip out the back seat -- how often is it used, anyway? -- and try to bolt it back in only on days when it's needed. You might be tempted to toss out the spare tire and the tools (the "emergency reserve fund") - you can always call AAA (the Feds) for help if they're needed. Oh - and you could cancel that side trip that you'd planned, to take your elderly friend to the library - it's all frills. You were in the midst of a trip that had been carefully planned and co-ordinated with many other people, but now it's derailed and you have to spend all your time bolting and unbolting the back seat instead, and trying to get consensus among your passengers, who are fighting over whether to leave behind the spare tire or the hubcaps. All on the whim of somebody who convinced you that you're putting 2% too much gas in your car. You might end up spending more money trying to save gas than you're saving on gas.

Alternatively, you could just LEAVE THE THING ALONE, and put more gas in it - realize that it will never be as perfect as you'd like, and continue your efforts to improve it, but don't try to make them happen overnight - and meanwhile, go ahead with the other things you were planning to do!!

Incidentally, Im not a US citizen (lived in WA 10 years though) so Im not a voter. Its up to you. Somebody has managed to convince you that simply by cutting your governments funding, he can make your government more efficient. Take a critical look at the arguments he has used to convince you, think about the realities of how a democratic government has to operate, and ask yourself whether you REALLY believe thats going to happen.

-- Anirudh Sahni (anirudhsahni@hotmail.com), October 29, 1999.

anirudh--I appreciate the time it took for you to write your posts. Similarly, I appreciate the time you spent working on behalf of your fellow citizen (figuratively).

"Incidentally, I?m not a US citizen (lived in WA 10 years though) so I?m not a voter. It?s up to you. Somebody has managed to convince you that simply by cutting your government?s funding, he can make your government more efficient. Take a critical look at the arguments he has used to convince you, think about the realities of how a democratic government has to operate, and ask yourself whether you REALLY believe that?s going to happen."

Interestingly enough, I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. More interesting is the our arrival at different conclusions.

1) You've identified a potentially lucrative business opportunity. You've even the beginnings of a business plan similar to the model used by the Airport vans (do they have the blue vans here???).

2) WRT Metro's bureaucracy, it sounds like major procedural changes are needed. If you believe their funding process shouldn't change, what existing external force will provide them the shove needed to change?

I agree when you say (para.) "less money won't make you more efficient." That being said, if one is more worried about effectiveness, it's reasonable to believe there's a direct correlation between dramatic resource reductions (as long as it doesn't destroy the organization) and increased effectiveness. It's the organizational equivalent of Nietzsche's "that which does not destroy me only makes me stronger."

Put another way, in a rational world, nothing helps an organization to focus on its core mission like losing 30% its resources. In the same vein, nothing promotes adaptive change (aka innovation) like scarce resources. It's quite similar to the old proverb of "necessity being the mother of invention."

-- Brad (knotwell@my-deja.com), October 30, 1999.

"less money won't make you more efficient." That's silly and there are any number of excellent examples out of the "big merger" era of the business world that demonstrate just the opposite. Companies merged and rather than economies of scale, went broke when they tried to do jobs that they were no longer lean and mean and focused enough to continue to accomplish. Transit is a NICHE market. There are situations in which it works well. In Washington we have expanded it beyond it's normal niche, as evidenced by the fact that throughout the state it is subsidized by non-users at a much higher rate than the national average. It needs to be cut back. That does not mean that within the scope of this niche, there won't be opportunities like this one. But by attempting to push transit use beyond it's niche, we find ourselves building $20,000 a stall parking garages for park-n-rides, rather than taking advantages of opportunities to expand it effectively within it's niche. The goal SHOULD NOT be transit for everyone. The goal should be transit for where it is cost-effective, and where it is required to provide a safety net for the ever declining few who do not have access to other forms of transportation. It's still the demographics!

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 30, 1999.

Craig:

And 695 still does not address the issue, set priorities, or change programs. This is, in my opinion, the wrong place and time for program discussions.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), October 31, 1999.

"This is, in my opinion, the wrong place and time for program discussions." What do you want, d, a 48 hour moratorium until it passes. Since the defenders of the MVET have been having doom and gloom public meetings for the last 3 weeks over where they'll take their HUGE cuts, I don't think it's out of line to put in my druthers.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 31, 1999.

Go Craig! As far as the guy who's not a citizen. We Americans have something called a Constitution. It LIMITS government and secures our rights. Unfortunately, our history of gov't employees who have sworn oaths to uphold it have been so dumbed down by socialist public endoctrination "education" centers (that really refuse to teach what the documents say and will not teach the writers' intent, and have even banned the teaching of speeches in many cases of our founders because they mention "God") that we Americans have been too stupid and busy working to pay our taxes that we have not realized how rotten to the core our "public servants" have become. That is why we are rebelling, that is why we are excersizing our right (see Washington state constitution) to right the wrongs.

These politicians have put themselves and us into this mess, and now we demand they fix it. They have plenty of Pork projects that they can trim away to pay for needed services. And IF they happen to come up short(yeah, right)we Citizens are intelligent enough to know when to vote for things we REALLY need.

-- Paula (eagleross@pioneernet.net), November 01, 1999.

Craig:

Same point I have been making all along. I think we are down to 38 hours now: so, sure, why not?

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 01, 1999.