Transit and regionalism: Wisdom from the East (side)
A big crowd was on hand for the Transit Summit held this morning at Washington University.
The program was organized by Metro and its purpose was to brief local officials on a variety of matters having to do with where things stand in regional mass transit.
The presentations were solid and substantive — and the proceedings were video taped and should be available online at Metro’s site within the next week or two.
Among a line up of panelists, I especially enjoyed hearing from the Illinois representatives, including Madison County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan, St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern, former St. Clair County Board Chairman (now Judge) John Baricevic, and Patrick McKeehan, director of the Leadership Council of Southwestern Illinois.
What I appreciated was their uncomplicated, walk-the-talk outlook on regionalism. They’re for regionalism because they know it is good for their constituents. And to put their money where there mouth is — whether the project is a new Mississippi Bridge or MetroLink expansion.
Alan Dunstan’s presentation was the most pointed, and he talked sense in a good humored way. He bluntly observed that folks from Metro East are much more “regional” in their outlook than many of their Missouri neighbors, implying that Missouri is more often the source of drama and foot dragging when it comes to regional solutions.
Nobody disputed the point.
He also noted that term limits in Missouri work against regional progress — that just as state lawmakers really get up to speed on regional issues that run out of time.
James Simpson, who heads the Federal Transit Administration, noted how toll bridges are gaining currency a means to fund local transportation needs. That was something Dunstan saw as not a great idea, and just another barrier to forming a regional family.
“We want to be your cousins,” he said.
Eddie Roth writes about education, social justice, public safety, transportation, legal affairs and historic preservation. He joined the Post-Dispatch editorial page in 2008 after six years as an editorial writer with the Dayton Daily News. But he is not new to St. Louis. Eddie grew up in Webster Groves and south St. Louis County. He's a lawyer who for many years practiced with a downtown firm, and was active in civic affairs, including serving a term on the St. Louis Police Board. He and his wife, Jeanne, and their three daughters, Emily, Julia and Alice, live in the Shaw Neighborhood.
When it comes to community organizing, he endorses Quentin Crisp's advice: Rather than keeping up with the Joneses, it's better to pull them down to your level. 
The folks from Illinois are more “regional”? How is it “regional” to develop sprawling communities stretching from Godfrey all the way to Columbia, a distance of nearly 50 miles? How is it “regional” to suck population from St. Louis, then demand we share the cost of bridges so you can get from your bedroom communities over to your jobs here? How is it “regional” when the congestion you cause on the bridges results in bottlenecks for the commercial traffic that is the lifeblood of our region? How is it “regional” when you pay for transit when you get sick of sitting in traffic on the bridges?
The reality is, you have to be “regional” when you govern a bedroom community with little employment outside of retail and restaurants. You have to be regional when every cultural amenity (aside from Fairmount Park and Gateway International Raceway) is in St. Louis. You have to be regional when you’re from metro east, because if you chopped out the Missouri part of the St. Louis SMSA, there wouldn’t be much left. Yes, Alton and a few other historic towns have been here a long time, and have much to commend themselves apart from St. Louis. Edwardsville would be a nice little college town. And Belleville would have the area’s last remaining drive-in theater. But otherwise …
I’ll thank the good folks of southern Illinois to keep their hands out of my wallet. For those of us in Missouri, regionalism is a cost. For those in Illinois, it’s a benefit. No wonder they’re so much more “regional” than we are.