Thanks for everyone’s great feedback on yesterday’s screed. I’m sensing there’s more to say about this issue. I did get a bit of contextualization from my friend, Xavier Harmony, who’s nearing the completion of his Ph.D. in Planning, Governance, and Globalization with a dissertation suite called “Essays in Transportation and Electoral Politics.” If there’s anyone to figure this out it’s Xav.
Anyway, here’s what he sent me.
Party politics in transportation plays out very differently depending on the level of government and the salience of transportation issues.
This doesn’t feel obvious. And maybe that’s part of the problem: ordinary citizens don’t know where to go to have that conversation about a pothole. Do they write to their Congressperson? Do they talk to the mayor? What even is a county commissioner?
At the congressional level, the conversation might split along “to spend at all” versus at the local level—when money’s already flowing in from who-knows-where—the conversation will …
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