Transportation, a service and an ideal - Guest Post from Matt Heil

Hello everyone!  This week I'll be providing “guest lectures” on our topics for this week, implementation and transportation.  Why me, you may ask?  In my other life outside of graduate school, I work full time for the City of Phoenix Public Transit Department, in the public information office.  So I see every day how implementation plays a role in successful government service provision, and how the unexpected can challenge our understanding of the best way to approach a problem.  The article we read from the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and the research  brief from Congressional Quarterly both drive home the point that implementation is a process, and that  its success lies as much in the interpersonal savvy of administrators as it does  any kind of technical expertise.  These subjects are an excellent pairing, in my opinion, because most transportation systems in the United States, (I won't say absolutely all, but I suspect nearly so) combine  many aspects of implementation that are essential for public administrators to familiarize themselves with, if they are going to be successful working in the community.

First and foremost, transportation of any kind—from roads and highways to buses, light rail and alternative transportation for people with disabilities—is a significant investment.  Expenses come in many shapes and sizes.  From my own experience, compare light rail and local bus.  The first light rail line in the Valley cost approximately $1.4 billion to build, exclusive of operating costs.  A local bus can cost anywhere from $300,000 to $500,000 to fabricate and “build out” with all the components to be fully functional on the street.  And typically, to run a bus one city block, over and over again for a year, could cost as much as $100,000.  How do you compare these numbers and make a decision on what's best to provide passengers and the surrounding community?  If we were simply making choices based on cost, then, bus would be the far and away best choice.  But other considerations, including future investment by business and government, and intangibles like civic pride and a city's reputation, all play into these choices.

As the article by Peter and Linda deLeon shows, implementation usually requires more than sound financial reasoning.  To get transportation in almost any community, there must be buy in from the community and elected officials.  That comes, primarily, from good public involvement processes, and  a clear sense of the goals of transit projects.  Again, from my own experience, the Phoenix Public Transit Department operates on a $275 million annual budget.  The majority of this funding comes from a local , 4/10ths of a cent transportation tax enacted by Phoenix voters in 2000 called rather intuitively Transit 2000.  Just to get that tax passed, a lengthy process of community involvement was conducted.  Voters were polled on their concerns and hopes for public transit in the region.  A multi-modal transit plan was developed, and projects were programmed throughout the 20-year life of the tax.  It was this plan, in effect, that allowed the tax to get passed, after several previous attempts by the regional agency and cities in the Valley had failed.  Light rail was an important component of this plan, as were services for people with disabilities, and bus rapid transit for commuters.  In the end, it was a mixture of factors, including costs, services that were to be provided, public involvement, political investment in a new and larger transit system, and likely the luck of timing that brought our current regional transit system into being.

As you read this week, and ponder implementation and transportation, consider what steps it would take for an elected official, a public administrator, and an average resident to support such a transit plan.   Not only would they have to be invested in the ideas offered up, they would also have to see a successful road to implementation.  And not only implementation of the first bus route, for the first year, but year after year, as the economic climate changes, as natural resource costs fluctuate, and as population—especially in Phoenix—continues to grow.  Implementation is an ongoing challenge and one that you'll all be faced with should you work in the public sector.

If you'd like additional information on transit in the Valley, here are a few places you can look:

Valley Metro RPTA, (the regional public transportation authority)

www.valleymetro.org

The City of Phoenix Public Transit Department

www.phoenix.gov/publictransit

The City of Tempe Public Transit Department

www.tempe.gov/tim

The Maricopa Association of Governments (which provides regional transit planning and research)

www.azmag.gov

The State of Arizona Department of Transportation

www.azdot.gov

A Tale of Justice, Need, and Anxiety - My Thoughts on Crossing Arizona

This week, we have our first non-Frontline documentary. You will notice as we go through the semester that many of the documentaries from sources aside from PBS will have a stronger point of view. Of course, you are always welcome to discuss any biases in your reflection papers and discussion comments. That being said, this may be one of my favorite documentaries that I have assigned this semester. I don't often work on immigration policy, but in Arizona we have all had some first-hand experience with this policy issue. In my opinion, Crossing Arizona highlights the diverse voices of individuals affected by immigration policy, many of whom often go unheard in our immigration policy debates.

You'll notice that the reading on immigration policy focused as much, if not more, on policies affecting legal immigrants, while the documentary focuses primarily on illegal or undocumented immigration across the U.S. Mexico border. Of course, both are intimately related. As we learned, not all immigrants are created equal when it comes to our immigration policies. One of the great points that this documentary makes is that human rights groups, anti-immigration groups, public servants, politicians, and residents of border communities all see the current immigration policies as problematic. Despite this, we have been unable to change our policies. As the law stands, we essentially pose a high risk of death to anyone who risks crossing the border, while simultaneously benefiting from the cheap labor of those who make it across. Certainly, this creates a lot of ethical questions and quandaries for people who live on the border and for our policymakers.

The documentary presents a question that is relevant for our readings this week. What are the possible unintended consequences of policies when we do not fully understand, or are afraid to acknowledge, the causes of problems? In this case, by not acknowledging our demand for cheap labor and our trade policies as push and pull factors affecting immigration, we have instead created "a solution" that does not solve the problem. If a 40 hour walk through the desert in 110 degree heat is not enough to keep people from crossing the border into Arizona, perhaps we need to re-think our understanding of immigration policy.

This documentary also highlights some of the topics we will be discussing next week when we talk about implementation. If you were paying attention at the beginning of the documentary, you may have noticed that the Border Patrol agent talked about policy changes that occurred in 1993 and 1994. If you remember, the readings discussed bills that were passed in 1990 and 1996. The policy change discussed in the documentary is a change in implementation or the carrying out of policies of the border patrol to stop immigration. This change locked down the easiest places through which immigrants could pass, filtering them through the most difficult terrain. I believe that Matt, who will be taking the reins and leading the class next week, will also discuss co-production, or citizen engagement in public service delivery. In this documentary we saw many examples of co-production from the samaritans providing water to the Minutemen camping out on the border. Normally, we think of co-production as a positive thing, but depending on your point of view, you may have seen some examples that made you uncomfortable.

So, what do you think? Did the documentary bring to light a point of view that you did not previously know about or understand? How do you think the various activists and public servants came across? Could you put yourself in "the shoes" of any of the individuals featured?

My Thoughts on Peters Chapter 6

Once again, we return to the story of our naive policy analyst. She has gotten her issue on the agenda, formulated the best policy response, determined the best arena for successful "passage" of her policy, and the policy has been adopted. Now she is done, right? The answer of course is not yet.

A lot of policy scholars focus almost exclusively on the policy formulation and evaluation stages of policy and leave implementation studies to the public administration scholars. Implementation is the administration of the policy, and can be the most important stage of the policy process in determining how citizens experience policy and the success and failure of policies. The study of implementation really took off in the 1970s with the publication of Pressman and Wildavsky's classic Implementation. Their work examines how the failure of Great Society era anti-poverty programs in Oakland, CA can be traced to relationships within and among agencies and citizens. 

When most people think of the policy process in America, they think that the legislature passes a law and the executive branch administers it. The power to determine what should happen in this case lies with the legislature. From this perspective, when the administrator does not carry out the law exactly as the policymaker intended, the result is undemocratic and problematic. In reality, implementation rarely works this way. The political process tends to produce laws with little practical guidance, vague statutory requirements, and often contradictory instructions. Much of the work is left to administrators, who are generally experts in substantive areas, whereas policymakers are not. Of course, this brings up a lot of questions about legitimacy in a democratic country. 

Implementation takes place in agencies, which tend to be hierarchical and bureaucratic. The character of these agencies can make implementation of new policies difficult, even when everyone agrees how to implement them. Max Brooks' World War Z  is a great work of fiction that deals with the same issues that Peters discusses. In the book, Standard Operating Procedures, communication problems, horseshoe-nail problems, and interorganizational problems slow the response to the zombie-pocalypse. Further, the military and CDC treat the zombie plague and war as standard epidemics and wars, which leads to an ineffective response. The author even directly states (through the mouths of his characters) many of the problems with implementation that Peters brings up. I highly recommend reading the book.