If you live in or anywhere near the Birmingham, Alabama area and haven’t been living under a rock, you are probably well aware the city currently has a ridiculous joke of a mayor in Larry Langford. Up to this point, I have avoided paying much attention to him because most everything I hear either points to infuriating corruption or simply mind-boggling stupidity. A fine example of the latter is the recent “sackcloth and ashes” proclamation made by the mayor calling for a day of prayer and turning back to God to end crime in the city. Not only was this and the corresponding prayer rally absurd; the proclamation itself, with its egregious grammatical errors, looks like it might have been commissioned out to an elementary schooler.

Even more recently, Langford has been hatching harebrained schemes for the city’s struggling public transit system, shortsightedly (and needlessly) proposing free bus fares for the summer months. The city council, county commission and transit board had approved his plan to offer four months of free rides to be paid for by a portion of the $9 million promised from the city to the Birmingham-Jefferson Transit Authority (BJCTA) for massive bus system improvements (because it won’t be spent on new buses until next year). Apparently, however, while free fares were expected to begin on the 1st of May, the money to cover those fares was not to be given to the BJCTA until July. As a result, the transit director backed out of the free fare plan, explaining that daily costs are covered by the $1.25 bus fare, and, therefore, the BJCTA would naturally not be able to offer free fares without some money in advance.

Many of the council members who had approved the plan actually began to listen to transit officials and came to their senses, realizing that the plan just wasn’t smart in any way and would inevitably put strains on the much needed improvement plan later. As the council president put it, “This is not really the highest and best use of our money. If we take it now, we’re going to have to find it later.”

Exactly. But Langford doesn’t seem to be thinking about the best long-term plan or fiscal responsibility. He seems to be merely following his nondescript campaign slogan, “Let’s do something!” And that is exactly all he cares to do: just something that has the mere appearance of progress or change. That something may not amount to anything of substance, or more likely will amount to substantial loss and debt; but when he is challenged on such plans, he uses them as weapons to portray himself as the only one actually trying to do something for the city, while he accuses his opponents - e.g., the officials who actually have the direct responsibility of keeping transit up and running - of being obstacles to progress. Just consider his response to the director’s reasonable and wise decision to cancel the free fares for example;

“I will move to get a new director… Now we understand why it’s so difficult to get stuff done in this city. It’s like the inmates running the asylum, and we can’t have that.”

Okay, so I guess in Langford’s twisted world, the transit officials are the insane ones for letting such a silly thing as the very financial solvency of the transit authority get in the way of his plans. But of course here in the real world, where budgets and long term effects / results really do matter, Langford is truly the questionable one here, without even the foggiest notion of what he is talking about. For example, to defend the free fare plan he said,

“The free fares were designed to give commuters a break in light of rising gas prices. In addition, new bus riders would become accustomed to riding the bus and might ride it more in the future when the system is expanded and upgraded.”

What Langford was arguing for is completely meaningless, a bogus issue. First of all, the free fares would not really be a “break” from gas prices at all. They would instead merely be a break from bus fare prices, which are generally not affected by gas prices at all and have not gone up in probably at least at year. At any rate, regular bus riders obviously do not need a break from rising gas prices anyway - and weren’t asking for any sort of break from regular bus fares to my knowledge - and car commuters who can get where they need to go on the bus and want a break from gas prices would receive a very nice savings right now, even with the $1.25 fare. Fare prices are simply not an issue. The real issue here, which brings me to my second point, is the bus system is highly unreliable, inconvenient, and very limited, and, therefore, many who might be interested in riding but have other, more efficient and convenient options are not likely to climb aboard now whether it is free or not. I think transit officials are right to argue this plan will do little to increase ridership, and such increase will only come when the promised substantial improvements are made. It is not going to happen the other way around, so why blow a chunk of the money - every penny of which I’m sure they are going to need to overhaul the system - on freebies no one was asking for?

Thank goodness at least some transit officials have the good sense and foresight to understand this, even while the mayor seems to be clueless and hellbent on recklessness. I guess we shouldn’t expect anything different from him though. After all, in his bid for office, he reportedly said the city needed a “crazy man” as mayor. If that is the case, I doubt there is anyone better qualified for the job.