(Neal Peirce is a syndicated columnist who writes about local government issues. His columns do not reflect the opinion of County News or NACo.)

While the presidential candidates rather studiously ignore the country’s traffic and growth dilemmas, states and regions are engaging in vigorous debates on public transit and friendlier highway systems.

Advocates of new alternatives celebrated a first big 21st century win Aug. 12 when Dallas region voters – in a light turnout, but by a thumping 77 percent margin – gave their OK for DART, the Dallas area’s rapid transit system, to use long-term financing to accelerate construction of the area’s light rail system.

The vote means DART will be able to build 53 additional miles of light rail track by 2013, including one to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport that will be completed by 2008, a decade ahead of the former schedule.

Following approval of new light rail lines in such cities as Phoenix, Denver and Salt Lake City, the Dallas vote suggests light rail transit is becoming a formidable force when proponents do their homework and line up allies against the inevitable anti-tax opposition.

Supporters in Dallas ranged from the business community, which already credits DART’s first 40 miles of rail lines, opened in 1996, with generating $800 million in development, to the NAACP and Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, which believe DART extensions provide critical job access for low-income workers.

Now even projected DART station stops have begun to trigger a “clustering” in market investments – for pockets of stores, restaurants, residential concentrations that people can walk or bike around in easily.

Formidable support for light rail is building in Houston, which competes with Los Angeles for the nation’s worst air quality. The initial Houston line has tough opposition, though, from Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), the House Republican Whip and erstwhile Clinton impeachment leader who is using his House power to block federal funding.

San Antonio turned down rail last spring. But Austin voters may be poised to endorse a starter.
Another factor: Recent growth of a broad coalition of pro-transit groups, from the politically savvy Surface Transportation Policy Project based in Washington to the yearly “Rail-Volution” conferences (next one in Denver, Oct. 4-8). Obviously lots of lessons are being exchanged, all tied to the country’s growing “smart growth” land-use movement.

Nationally, a new “Transit Vote” lobby backed by unions and environmental, transportation and policy organizations was announced Sept. 14. One of its goals: to register riders at high-volume transit stops. Some 39 percent of transit users reportedly don’t own cars; the effort is to get them registered and start balancing the “motor voter” laws that have added millions of new registrants, presumably all auto drivers.

It’s a big error, though, to expect clear sailing ahead for transit. In Washington state, for example, a ballot measure this November – Initiative 475 – would require that 90 percent of all transportation funds, even local taxes now dedicated for transit, be spent on roads. Anti-tax forces have allied with the Asphalt Paving Association of Washington to back the initiative, described by one opponent as “a wicked recipe for more sprawl, worse pollution, and even worse public transit than we already have.”

Yet in Seattle, very reasonable people are disagreeing over an even more complex issue – whether the $1.9 billion budget for the Seattle portion of an initial Sound Transit rail line is sufficient. Doubters want an independent audit; supporters say full steam ahead or we may lose a $500 million federal grant for the project.

And in Maryland, trying to “think beyond the pavement” has helped older suburbs transform inhospitable commuter raceways into tree-lined boulevards with walkable plazas; has started to redesign unattractive intersections as traffic circles with grassy plazas, historic bus shelter designs and night-lighted sculptures; and has built bridges and walkways for rail users.

Yet the budget shift is not that major: so strong is the standard road-building budget, reports The Washington Post, that smart growth measures are less than 5 percent of Maryland’s $6.7 billion construction budget.

Bottom line: Transit, sensitive growth, new mobility options are still a minuscule part of our cost for building, and forever expanding, the world’s most humongous network of asphalt and concrete.

The next time you hear anyone bellyache about transit dollars, you might remind them of that.

(Neil Peirce’s e-mail address is npeirce@citistates.com.)