Spencer Coe has left a new comment on your post "Fetter: "Clere should represent the will of the people, business, and local government entities (as to) how tolling will negatively affect them."
Vocalizing support for actually building the bridges project with alternative financing, whether it be tolls (which I support), public private partnerships (which I support) or any other means is immediately countered by a plethora of comments about oligarchs and insinuations that supporting infrastructure and creating jobs is some how evil. This is immediately followed by flowery comments about “local business owner” Paul Fetter, “ Clark County Business” and their dedication to the poor and oppressed.
Let’s set the record straight, if there is an Oligarch it is Mr. Fetter. Manheim, Inc., his employer/partner (whatever the arrangement) has over 26,000 employees, over 100 locations in more than 15 countries and sold more than 10 million vehicles last year representing sales of over 50 billion dollars in 2010. Its headquarters is not in Clark County or in Indiana it’s in Atlanta Georgia and it is against tolls, the Bridges project, and moving our community forward. Manheim is about one thing, selling cars and they oppose tolls for one reason, they feel tolls will have a negative effect on their business. Obviously, Manheim/Fetter feels that if there are tolls fewer people will drive to Indiana and buy vehicles at his facility which will adversely affect his profitability. It’s not about driving to Louisville, or Indiana paying a disproportionate share of tolls. It’s about money. The “no tolls” group fears that a toll will adversely affect them financially.
On the opposite side of the argument there are those of us which support the Bridges Project. There are several reasons I support this project. These are the points that the “no tolls” folks over look or refuse to admit. The first and foremost being the economic development the project will bring to the area. This project will create jobs. The project will allow companies, including the one I work for and hundreds more in the region, to keep and hire workers. The project will stimulate home sales, commercial sales and encourage investment in our region. It has been consistently estimated that the construction alone will provide in excess of 4000 new jobs to the area during the 8-10 years of construction. These are good, skilled labor jobs paying, $25-$40 per hour federal wage rate jobs with benefits. These are jobs with which people can raise families, not minimum wage service industry jobs. Moreover, after construction the economic development benefit will be thousands more.
Contrary to the “no tolls” folks contentions, this project can not be built without some source of funding other than normal transportation funds. It is disingenuous to suggest that an additional one billion dollars can be cut from the project and no one can specify where these additional cuts will occur.
If you’re going to argue “no tolls” be fair and honest. If you’re against tolls you are against the bridges project, against new high paying jobs for our community, against economic development and against progress.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Coe: "If you’re going to argue 'no tolls' be fair and honest."
Blogger is glitching (imagine that), and Spencer Coe has made three stabs without success at posting this as a comment. He agrees to have it lifted to the marquee, and so here goes. Let the discussion begin!
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13 comments:
My question:
If "The 'no tolls' group fears that a toll will adversely affect them financially," and you concede that it will benefit your company positively, then who decides that progress means improving your company's prospects at the expense of others?
If you’re against tolls you are against the bridges project, against new high paying jobs for our community, against economic development and against progress.
This is where the rubber meets the road so to speak in that Mr. Coe parrots the same old talking points which compare the bridges project as currently proposed to nothing. The problem is, hardly anyone of the tens of thousands against tolls are proposing that we do nothing.
The first sentence quoted above is partially correct. A lot of people against tolls are indeed against the massive yet ineffective current design of the project. It's a regressive waste of money whose negative impacts will far outweigh temporary benefits to companies like his, making it even more difficult to correct later.
The second two sentences are just evidence of a lack of research and understanding on Mr. Coe's part.
Is the proposed ORBP the way that would maximize public investment in terms of:
The financial and environmental costs of the project?
Actually solving transportation problems and successfully dealing with congestion?
Creating short-term and long-term jobs?
Producing the highest levels of safety?
Enticing increased private investment in the region?
Improving quality of life (i.e., attracting and retaining people and companies)?
Evidence from around the country has long suggested that the answer to all those questions is no. That's why most cities are going in a different direction and the federal government has awarded their projects transportation grants rather than ORBP.
Mr. Coe and a relatively small group of others suggest that we ignore all of that evidence, though, supposedly in the name of progress.
For now, I'll simply refer Mr. Coe and other readers to an answer I provided some time ago to another bridges proponent who wanted to know how I could possibly be right.
A response to Michael about the Bridges (part 1)
If Mr. Coe is serious about dialogue and making sure our transportation solution is the best we can do for our region's future, he can work his way through those examples, a small sampling of the research that's out there, and respond.
Bridges proponents aren't referred to as oligarchs simply because they've expressed a pro-ORBP opinion. They've been called that because they've used their money and power to keep objective, rational comparisons from being made between ORBP and other methodologies, forcing the region into the false dichotomy of ORBP or nothing as Coe has tried to do here.
That should read "phrase" instead of "sentence". Sorry.
To further clarify Mr Coe's jobs claim, it's important to understand it's source. After falsely telling the region for years that ORBP would create tens of thousands of jobs, project proponents had to finally attempt to report the number honestly in order to apply for a federal Tiger II grant.
In the application document (page 18), they claimed temporary construction jobs would peak at 3,096 in 2017. However, that's again a comparison to doing and building nothing. Other project/construction alternatives would create temporary jobs as well. For instance, recent research concerning stimulus money used for transportation projects has shown that, because it's more labor than materials intensive, mass transit construction typically produces more jobs per dollar invested than road construction. And wouldn't a project like 8664 create construction related jobs just like ORBP?
The rest, however, is even more interesting. I may write more about it later but, for now, know this:
In the grant application, Project proponents themselves determined that ORBP would incrementally generate a total of 1,016 long-term jobs between 2010 and 2056, a period of 46 years. That's again a comparison to building nothing. It's also only 22 jobs per year.
No matter how they try to frame it (usually sans the context that makes it more understandable but less impressive), that's the real long-term jobs number advanced by the most ardent of project supporters in trying to make ORBP sound as attractive as possible.
Another jobs note while awaiting a response:
Coe says "These are good, skilled labor jobs paying, $25-$40 per hour federal wage rate jobs with benefits. These are jobs with which people can raise families, not minimum wage service industry jobs."
But he also says that he supports the sort of public-private partnerships that the Bridges Authority has been exploring.
Union reps are often in attendance at bridges meetings and are portrayed as being very pro-ORBP. But, I've discussed the project with about 10-15 of them and found the following:
1. They think the downtown portion of the project as currently designed is unnecessary, wasteful, and holding up construction.
2. They're pushing for the project to start as immediately as possible to reduce the chances that the the type of public-private partnership Coe mentions would come to fruition. A lot of that effort has been focused on out-of-state and foreign owned companies who would likely bring in their own workers from elsewhere, the result being that locals would see relatively little in the way of temporary construction wages while paying for the construction via tolls for decades.
At that point, all of the ultimate contractor profit and much of the temporary wage benefit would be exported from the region-- which might be OK if you're doing your family raising in Ohio or California or wherever the private partner happens to be based.
We Hoosiers would just be paying.
I would be delighted to see all the local business people, like Roger and Spencer, succeed.
leaving aside tolls, or other financing schemes, we obviously need to be able to move freight thru here - North-South, East-West. It's been the regions "bread-n-butter" since it was founded.
Also true is that the Louisville area has been without sustainable transportation policy since the last commuter train left Moron Station, like 70 years ago?
If our future depends on the freight and the movement of freight, then by all means, the "leaders" should keep the freight moving, including buildings roads and train-tracks and longer landing strips for UPS.
But New Albany's future will rely upon becoming integrated into the "metro" region and that will mean connecting the whole town, not just the freight, and their jobs, schools, hospitals, etc. byway of a sustainable regional transportation policy.
Why can't our "leaders", who get paid for this, figure out how to move freight AND people? It's been done other places...
You're exactly right, G. The last conversational thread that developed out of the "response to Michael" post to which I linked quickly turned to intermodal freight transportation.
The freight producers, shippers, receivers, and river ports are located around the ring road for a reason-- one that's largely turned out to be an empty promise thus far while we fight over massive impediments where they don't belong.
We need intermodal stuff in locations that make sense to move freight. That location isn't the downtown or very nearby suburbs.
There, we need infrastructure to move large groups of people, often in unison at certain times of the day. That our "leaders" stubbornly continue to insist that interstates and SOVs are the only or best way to facilitate that movement in such a localized area *inside* the ring road is the absurdity that perpetuates the conflict.
If done correctly, the whole thing would look a little like a bicycle wheel of sorts with mass transit spokes going back and forth between a beautiful, public hub and the rim with intermodal nodes on the rim. Throw in pedestrian and bicycle routes in the interior and you're basically finished. It's really not that difficult to figure out given the models all over the world.
Mr. Coe,
Thanks for engaging. Seriously. that's more than most anyone else will do.
The additional cuts would come from not building the extra and unneeded downtown bridge. Even more could be save by doing away with that tunnel in KY. I'm just trying to answer your questions.
Can you honestly say that you don't think tolls will dis-proportionally affect Hoosiers? Extra jobs would be nice but why would a anyone with any sense of fiscal responsibility "mortgage" 5-10 years of 2,000(ballpark for downtown bridge alone)or so jobs with 40-50 years of tolls on the rest of the citizens? Especially for little or no benefit.
There have been studies, one that I know of commissioned by KY that said by building the East End Bridge only would provide over 95% of the benefit at approximately half the cost. That's value--not boondoggle.
Again, thanks for "showing up". There are some BridgeS Authority members and some politicians that could take a lesson or two from you.
There for a moment, it looked like discussion. But now, it's cleared up.
Roger,
By that comment, I assume that Mr. Coe has not attempted to answer/comment anymore?
Not to my knowledge, Mark. I still don't understand the nature of Blogger glitches, but he was unable to convince the machine to accept his comment; I moved it to the marquee in hopes of generating discussion, seeing as at some point Saturday morning, his comments were making it through the cordon. If he has tried to comment since, I am unaware.
Since the "ball is in my court" according to Iamhoosier I'll do my best: Most if not all of Jeff's questions were rhetorical and his link was an op ed by 8664, produced by Mr. Stites. However, since I deal with unions on a daily basis and the local Operators, Laborers, Carpenters, Teamsters, UFCW, and Iron Workers and their leadership that I deal with support the ORBP and the downtown bridge I'm interested in who the 10-15 are that do not support a downtown bridge because I've yet to meet them.
Secondly, he is just wrong that any public private partnership will bring all of thier workers from across the united states. They will bring management and some engineering from their respective offices, 90% of the other labor will be hired locally, they will, live, eat, and purchase locally and that's where their wages will stay, locally.
Lastly, I do not know how many jobs the ORBP will produce, no one does, it's a moving target. But I do know that on construction projects of this magnitude wages make up approximately 30% of the cost. That's over ONE BILLION DOLLARS over ten years. That does not include the wages required to produce the locally manufactured and purchased Cement, Stone, Steel, Asphalt, Bridge Beams, Rented Equipment, Diesel, Oil and misc other products required to build this project. It is much easier and cheaper to purchase these products locally or manufacture them locally than to "import" them. That hundreds of Millions more dollars to our local economy.
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