On Public Transportation

I've lived in Washington D.C all my life. I love it here, and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. What I like most about D.C is its great public transportation system. That, and being able to say that I'm "Inside the Beltway."

There's been a huge debate in this country since Barack Obama was elected about the role of government in people's lives. Many of these issues had long since been decided, and many hadn't been controversial for decades, but there's nothing like the election of a Democratic president to get Conservatives to oppose things they have never much cared about, or were in favor of, before. In this debate, however, some important questions have largely been ignored. Questions like "did the politicians who created our public transportation system do so in a bipartisan manner?" "Did they get along while they were debating these it, or were they as polarized and hostile towards one another as today's politicians are?" Once you've thought about it, you'll realize how important these questions are.

Anyone who reads the nation's op-ed pages knows that a popular method that journalists use it to talk to normal people, "on the street" as they say, to gauge their opinion about the issues of the day. Thomas Friedman has often written about the cab drivers he has chatted with in his travels, and how they have been able to talk about and explain to Friedman many of the very same topics that Friedman himself is interested in. Meghan McArdle, the Business and Economics editor of The Atlantic has also used random conversations with folks she has met on the bus to further her arguments. In one post, she adds "color" to the argument that the displaced really don't mind gentrification at all:

"Yesterday, I rode the bus for the first time from the stop near my house, and ended up chatting with a lifelong neighborhood resident who has just moved to Arizona, and was back visiting family. We talked about the vagaries of the city bus system, and then after a pause, he said, "You know, you may have heard us talking about you people, how we don't want you here. A lot of people are saying you all are taking the city from us.  Way I feel is, you don't own a city." He paused and looked around the admittedly somewhat seedy street corner. "Besides, look what we did with it.  We had it for forty years, and look what we did with it!"

Without that quote, McArdle's argument may have just looked like a yuppy trying to rationalize the consequences of gentrification on the dislocated residents who can no longer afford housing in the neighborhoods they have lived in all their lives. Thanks to the lucky coincidence of meeting a particularly chatty bus passenger who coincidentally agrees completely with McArdle's argument, she proves her point and shows that she is down to earth enough to engage with the proletariat. Not only that, but McArdle was doing what all good  journalists should do: get quotes.

Now, some bloggers responded that McArdle was clearly making this up, and that the story doesn't sound very likely. But if that were true, that would mean The Atlantic Monthly's business and economics editor is a lying, ideological hack, and I just can't believe that.

So with all this in mind, I decided to set out on a fact finding mission of sorts. I decided to talk to the cab drivers and bus and metro passengers in Washington D.C to find out what people really think.

More on this to come...