Lipinski Symposium: Reactions

The Lipinski Symposium on Transportation was an invitation-only event on Monday designed to encourage Chicago area transportation leaders to think outside the box. Pasted in below are two reports. Add your own in the comments or send them to moderator1stc@yahoo.com and I will post them.

Comment #1

The >Lipinski Symposium was pretty much what I expected. There were exhortations from a couple of politicians, William Lipinski and James Oberstar (someone described them as the "bring home the bacon twins"). The panels of experts covered familiar transportation management techniques (e.g., congestion pricing) as if these things had just appeared on tablets on the mountaintop. There were a couple clunkers (e.g., the fellow who was very excited about logistics). At the end there was a panel of politicians who treaded carefully through questions about the current transit funding crisis.

The audience was pretty passive. There were few politicians there to convert to the "progressive" cause. Those that were, such as Representative Julie Hamos, Lake County Board Chairman Suzi Schmidt and DuPage County Chairman Robert Schillerstrom, weren't biting on the ideas of congestion pricing and a tax on parking spacings that were being discussed.

I thought that some of the day might be spent on breakout sessions with the goal of developing a set of principles/priorities that might be adopted, or at least voted upon, by the group. Instead, we were pretty much pumpkins for the day.

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Comment #2

Moderator--

I don't know if you got in the Lipinski symposium. I strapped on a tie and snuck in for the afternoon session (even got a cookie).

What struck me is how male, pale and stale the group was. This is a highly diverse region, but you would never know it from this group. A large majority were white men over 50. There was a smattering of women, maybe 10% in all, and even fewer minorities.

There were some good ideas thrown out during the day, but this group seemed stuck in a Fifties/Sixties time warp. They clearly are oriented (indoctrinated?) to think that minor changes to existing institutions, lots more money, and some engineering fixes will allow Chicago to continue on its merry way.

Have the well dressed tushes of these fellows ever felt a bike seat for a commute? Have concepts like global warming and reducing the carbon footprint penetrated their consciousness? Are they aware of the potential of ride-sharing programs using a mesh network model?

The pivotal moment came when Todd Litman, who is to transportation what Eric Clapton once was to the electric guitar (i.e., god), was speaking. Litman outlined why reducing vehicle miles traveled is by far the preferred solution to our transportation system woes. This approach generates the most benefits--congestion relief, accident reduction, environmental improvements, etc. Litman then laid out some strategies involving little or no new infrastructure, such as pricing insurance on a VMT basis and a tax on parking spaces, that together could reduce VMT by 20 percent.

The audience was dumbfounded. These guys clearly didn't get it. Their brains were spinning because they can't think outside of what Litman called the reductionist mindset that says that only a transportation solution can solve what is being perceived as a transportation problem. The more cynical among them were probably thinking that Litman's approach will never fly because there are not enough construction contracts involved.

I'm sorry, but all these good ideas were largely wasted on a group that is clearly set in its ways and fighting hard to preserve the status quo. I never realized what such a stodgy group is the public's custodian/advocates for our transportation system. Scary.