Public Transportation and Smart Growth

has been racist, although the opponents have been savvy enough to use code words, like "bringing crime and drugs to our suburbs."

When the Westside light rail line was being built in Portland, there were rumors (even picked up by the Oregonian, which is a pretty poor paper, but this was bad even for them) that Latino gangs had divvied up the stations and were going to rob passengers.

When the South-North line was proposed for the first time, there was a whispering campaign claiming that African-American gangs from north Portland were going to go to the southern suburbs to recruit white youth.

If you look at the online comments about transit in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, you see readers saying things like, "I don't want to ride with the diversity" or "the buses are full of welfare mothers" or "I don't like waiting at bus stops downtown with all the gangbangers and drug dealers" (who, of course, are actually people going to and from their jobs).

With that kind of racism circulating, it's no wonder that the Tea Party can easily arouse sentiment against expansion of mass transit.