Stockholm traffic management lessons from Randy Blankenhorn

Today at the Metropolitan Planning Council's "Around the World in 90 Minutes in Global Infrastructure Best Practices" Randy Blankenhorn of CMAP shared some insight into how we can reduce traffic congestion through better management, Stockholm-style.

We don't really do much to manage traffic flow in Northeastern Illinois. There's an Illinois Department of Transportation website on real-time highway congestion, but nothing on arterial streets. Drivers should be getting information about what routes are congested (so they can avoid them), but that information isn't widely disseminated. As an example Randy brought up, there are big signs on the highways that tell drivers how much time it takes to get downtown, but those signs should be before the entrance ramp so drivers can decide whether or not to take the expressway or stick with arterial streets. And we don't really manage traffic signals at all, particularly in the suburbs.

Part of the problem is that the municipalities own and set the traffic lights. There is no regional body to run traffic signals on a real-time basis to adjust traffic signals to changing conditions (like an accident). Airports have the federal air traffic control to manage the traffic. There is no Illinois road traffic control to open express lanes or change traffic signals or (ideally) adjust prices on tollroads to keep roads at a free-flow level). And there should be.

Stockholm has a Trafik Stockholm Joint Traffic Management Centre that takes information in from thousands of cameras and sensors and immediately dispatches roadside assistance, shifts or closes lanes and (I think) adjusts traffic signals. That's something we should emulate as we learn how to manage our transportation infrastructure more efficiently.

Senator Jeff Schoenberg hits the blogosphere

Joining Representative John Fritchey in Blogistan, Senator Jeff Schoenberg launched Deep Blue Illinois, a policy-oriented blog with some good political insight as well (at least based on his first three posts....).

Senator Schoenberg was one of the first blog readers, even telling me on the record when I came to testify before his Senate Appropriations Committee a few years ago "you can submit your testimony on your blog if you'd like."

Senator Schoenberg has one of the best financial minds in the General Assembly, so his discussion about Treasurer Giannoulias' proposal to merge the state's five pension funds into one is definitely worth a read.

Federal stimulus an opportunity for passenger trains and transit

Change is coming to Washington, and that change could mean a new investment in transit and passenger trains.

Today, President-Elect Barack Obama is in Philadelphia meeting with almost all of the nation's governors who are pushing for a major federal investment in infrastructure and Medicaid spending. The governors are looking for a stimulus package to pass in less than eight weeks (!) to reverse the economic contraction that is throwing people out of work.

This is happening so fast that it can be hard to see the fundamental change in the federal government's philosophy towards the economy. For most of the last 25 years, the ideas has been that the best government is an anti-government - cut spending, cut taxes, cut regulation of business and prosperity will follow. Well, that failed miserably. Now the philosophy is to increase spending, increase regulation (and maybe increase taxes on high incomes) to generate prosperity. This is good news for transit and passenger trains.

Advocates need to have their projects "shovel-ready" in order to overcome objections from Republicans that the additional spending won't create additional jobs in the short term. So now is the time to ensure that every one of your potential projects are ready to go in order to get in line for a bigger share of federal stimulus funding.

And now is *definitely* the time to tell your Members of Congress than the nation needs a major investment in infrastructure. The Midwest High Speed Rail Association is calling for a $5 billion investment in high speed rail (and you can participate in that action alert as well). Speaker Nancy Pelosi's team said they are looking for a total package of around $400 to $500 billion. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he thought the package would come in around $500 billion. It is not clear how much of that could go to transit and passenger trains, so call your Members of Congress and ask them to push that figure as high as possible to get people working again and expand transit and trains!

[Cross-posted at More Riders and Improving Amtrak Incrementally]

Best bailout for GM, Ford, Chrysler: Government health insurance (with private doctors)

While the Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing hard for a bailout of some kind to the nation's big three automakers (Ford, GM and Chrysler), the Republicans have basically said no. 

"The financial straits that the Big Three find themselves in is not the product of our current economic downturn, but instead is the legacy of the uncompetitive structure of its manufacturing and labor force," Mr Richard C. Shelby, senior Republican on the banking committee said.

And on the House side, Republican and Minority Leader John Boehner said:

"Spending billions of additional federal tax dollars with no promises to reform the root causes of crippling automakers' competitiveness around the world is neither fair to taxpayers nor sound fiscal policy."

What most Republicans want to do is just bust the union and lower wages. High wages is a central economic strategy of any recovery, so it's bad policy to try to lower wages. (That's the single strongest reason why government policy should always be to encourage more labor unions to form -- unions result in higher wages for workers, which results in more purchasing power for Americans which results in a stronger economy). 

However, the Republicans do have a point. It's too expensive to make cars in the U.S. compared to Japan or Europe. And it's not because we pay our workers too much. 

It's because the cost of buying health insurance to workers and retirees is contained in the cost of the car for American companies and not for Japanese and European companies. 

We force GM, Ford and Chrysler to pay for health insurance and run a huge insurance division. If we handle health insurance the way most European companies and Japan handles it -- which is to have the government pay for all health insurance while hospitals and doctors and providers are private and they just get paid by the government -- then the American automakers would save billions of dollars and become much more competitive.

Even just extending Medicare -- the most efficient health insurance company in the nation -- to people who are 55 and over and letting them buy into the plan (as many Democratic Members of Congress have suggested) is a great bailout of automakers by helping to solve a structural problem that makes them (and every other manufacturer) less competitive. 

I hope that's part of change in Washington. And I suspect that a smarter way to pay for health insurance than making American manufacturers less competitive will be.

Huge overflow crowd at Highland Indiana rally

This multi-racial crowd has overwhelmed the park on a beautiful Halloween night. Costumes aren't allowed so kids are wearing their parents jackets over princess outfits. The crowd tastes victory in Indiana while we wait for the next President to appear. It feels like a new majority. Friendly, crowded but firm in the absolute rejection of Republican rule. The few pro-lifers outside seem like renmants of a dying regime. It's a new day.

Who should I vote for? If you make less than 100 grand, Obama. More than 250 grand, McCain.

If you are going to base your vote exclusively on which candidate will cut *your* taxes, then the choice is clear, depending on how much money you make.

Start by remembering how much money you made in 2007 and how much you realistically expect to make next year. Got it?

If you will make less than $100,000, then Obama will cut your taxes more than McCain will. No question. If you make $40,000 or $60,000 or $80,000 a year, and you are going to vote based on which candidate will cut your taxes the most, then Obama is your candidate.

If you will make between $100,000 and $250,000, then it's about the same. Both candidates will cut your taxes about the same amount. There are slight differences based on your personal circumstances, but it basically comes out in the wash. You have to use a different reason to choose who to vote for then which candidate will cut your federal taxes more if you make between $100,000 and $250,000.

And if you will make more than $250,000, McCain will cut your taxes while Obama will raise your taxes. If you make more than a quarter million dollars a year and you want a candidate who will cut your taxes, McCain is your candidate.

This is why people say that the Republican Party is for the rich while the Democratic Party is for working people, because Republican candidates almost always want to cut taxes for the rich while Democratic candidates want to improve the lives of regular people (the people who make between $20,000 and $100,000 a year).

These conclusions come from an independent analysis by the Tax Policy Center and the big accounting firm Deloitte, and reported in the New York Times.

Now there are lots of other (perhaps better) reasons to vote for a candidate and a political party than which one will cut *your* personal taxes more, but now you know which candidate will cut your taxes based on your annual income. 

McCain calls Obama tax plan socialism for "spreading the wealth" ...

John McCain calls Barack Obama's tax plan "socialism" as it w0uld reinstate the tax rates we had from 1993-2001 where any income above $250,000 paid an additional 3.6% more than they do now. 

That's the difference between our economy today and "socialism" according to the Republican Party -- if someone makes more than $250,000, that person would pay a little less on the money earned up to $250,000, but the tax rate applied to any income above a quarter million dollars would be 3.6% higher. That, my friends, is socialism.

Really.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't call the Obama-style tax rates we had in the 1990s under Bill Clinton "socialism" -- I'd call that "prosperity." If we lived under "socialism" in the 1990s and we've been living under something else since Bush got elected, then guess what -- I'll take the 1990s type of socialism any day of the week. Wouldn't you?

Please, ask a voter who is leaning towards McCain: would you rather have the economy of the 90s with the Democratic tax rates or the economy since 2001 with the Republican tax rates? Because that's the choice. McCain calls Barack's tax plan -- the exact tax rates for high incomes that we used throughout Bill Clinton's term -- "socialism" as if calling the Clinton tax rates that delivered higher wages and budget surpluses and a roaring economy something that sounds like a bad thing will make people choose the economy of the Bush years over the economy of the Clinton years. 

Don't be scared of words. Vote for the tax plan that made our country better off. 

And remember: people who make more than a quarter million dollars a year can afford to pay more. They're doing it for their own good -- because they will reap the benefits of a strong Clinton-style 1990s economy just as much as everyone else will. And the richest Americans will end up with more money even when they are paying an extra 3.6% on anything they earn over $250,000 because the economy will be stronger under the Clinton-Obama-Democratic type of tax rates than it would be under the Bush-McCain-Republican tax rates.  Not too many rich people are feeling very rich right now, and that's largely because Republicans have screwed up the economy with their anti-government government. 

If you want peace and prosperity again (or, in McCain's words, socialism), do what we did last time we had it: elect a Democratic President. 

20,462 people would have been excluded without grace period registration

The deadline to register to vote in Illinois is 28 days before the election. After that, the state extends a grace period of an extra 14 days where citizens can register to vote, but they have to do so in the office of the election administrator (no drivers license facilities or street-corner registrations from outside organizations are permitted after the regular deadline). And to make it easier on the election administators, grace period registrants must vote when they register, so the administators need not get their information, including a digital signature, to the polling place in that 14 day window.

This year, 20,462 Illinois citizens were not excluded from voting by the regular deadline to register, according to the State Journal-Register, as those 20,462 citizens registered and voted during the grace period.

Senator James Meeks (D-Chicago) and then-Representative Robin Kelly (now Chief of Staff to Treasurer Alexi Gionnoulias) sponsored the bill to implement grace period registration in their respective chambers. The bill, SB 2133, passed on essentially a party-line vote (with the exception of then-Republican Paul Froehlich who voted for it -- an early sign of his admirable independence and consistent work to improve democracy and government for all citizens). 

I was the advocate and lobbyist for the grace period registration bill and I hope that in 2009 the General Assembly will extend registration opportunities to more citizens who wish to vote but find out they can not because of a government deadline to provide the government with their residence information. Today, thousands of citizens (particularly the young and the mobile) are learning to their dismay that they are not registered at their current address or at all and are thus unable to vote. We should implement same-day voter registration, if not at the polling place as Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire, aine and a few other states use, then at least at the office of the election authority where same-day registrants can show up, show ID, register and vote. This is how Montana offers same-day registration (essentially an extension through election-day of Illinois' grace period registration Montana calls "late registration" -- doesn't "grace period" sound more inclusive than "late registration"?). 

Let's extend our grace period through election day in 2010 and stop excluding citizens from voting.

Upcoming radio appearances: the BBC and Beyond the Beltway

Must be a B for Barack alliteration: the BBC and Beyond the Beltway have kindly asked me to appear on their shows as a Democratic voter voice in the next week or so. 

I'll be on Beyond the Beltway tonight (to balance out the right-of-center Mancow who is getting back on Chicago radio on WLS).

And on Election Night, I'll be on the BBC Five Live's Richard Bacon show. I hope we'll get a booth at the Grant Park rally. Dan Proft will represent the Republican perspective (or as I call it, the permanent minority party).

It's really fun to mix it up on political talk shows, so if you happen to be a producer or host of one and you're looking for a progressive Democratic guest from Chicago, email me at Dan -at- ProgressivePublicAffairs.com. 

Best voters guide I've ever seen -- Tribune's website

This is one of the coolest innovations in voters' guides I've ever seen.

The Chicago Tribune (which does the most work of any organization in the state interviewing candidates for public office and offering those answers to the electorate) now has a very nifty online feature: a voter-specific ballot that compares the answers from each candidate for each race on a voters' particular ballot. Then you can make your choice among all the candidates running based on answers to substantive qustions posed by the Trib's editorial board.

Check it out at the Tribune website.