[milwaukee-electric] Who is Tom Rubin, and what exactly is the 'Reason Institute'?

[mrcooby]

ANTI-RAIL "REASON INSTITUTE" FUNDED BY OIL & AUTO COMPANIES.

A new anti-KRM Line report from a California-based group calling 
itself the Reason Institute has garnered much publicity over the past 
several days in area newspapers. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 
called the Reason Institute a "libertarian think tank (that) claims 
the projected economic benefits of a proposed Milwaukee-to-Kenosha 
commuter rail line have been inflated and questions its ridership 
estimates."
But the author of that study is Los Angeles-based Tom Rubin, who had
taken a far more positive view of the $200 million project back last
June, when pro-transit business leaders were pushing the Southeastern
Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority to hire him as the authority's
consultant. Rubin almost was hired, too, except for one anti-Rubin 
veto vote from Len Brandrup, director of Kenosha Area Transit and the 
Kenosha RTA representative member, enough to stop Rubin's hopes of 
employment here.

That Reason Foundation release said the transit authority should 
instead consider express buses as an alternative to the KRM Commuter 
Link, which would connect downtown Milwaukee and the southern suburbs 
to Racine and Kenosha with 14 round trips each weekday. Rubin says 
his latest study was meant to illustrate the advantages of bus 
options. Rubin said on Monday, December 15th. "I am not saying that 
KRM is going to fail. I am saying there are other options that should 
be studied before you make that commitment."

A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study projects property values 
would rise 10%, or $2.1 billion, along the rail route. Rubin disputed 
that in his release, but Ken Yunker, deputy director of the 
Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, said the UWM 
figures were based on development along other commuter rail lines, 
including Chicago-area Metra routes that carry fewer riders than 
KRM's projected 1.7 million a year.

Rubin argues with KRM ridership forecasts, saying that either the
ridership is overestimated or the service wouldn't be enough to handle
all the riders. Yunker says the projections had been extensively
reviewed and approved by federal transit officials.

Rubin argues that KRM planners haven't considered express buses on I-
94 and urged consideration of that option, which he said would better 
serve riders farther from the Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha downtowns.

But back in June - when Rubin had already been paid $30,000 by the
Milwaukee 7 regional development alliance and was seeking a $50,000
contract from the regional transit authority - Rubin said the KRM 
would work better than any bus alternative because it would serve 
Kenosha, Racine and other lakefront communities that are miles from I-
94. The new study concedes that distance would be a disadvantage for 
I-94 buses.

Six months ago, some business leaders supported hiring Rubin, saying
that Rubin's anti-rail views would give the transit authority more
credibility among Republicans who then controlled the Assembly. But 
then Len Brandrup's 'No' vote stopped Rubin from getting hired by 
stopping the RTA's seven-member board from mustering the required six-
vote supermajority to hire him. (That story received coverage on WLIP 
News.)

Rubin's December 15th release is more consistent with his previous 
work and other Reason Foundation releases, which typically oppose 
light rail and commuter trains and push buses instead.
A look into the Reason Foundation's 1999 annual report brought the
annotations that its main corporate donors that year included the
American Petroleum Institute, ARCO Foundation, BP Amoco, Chevron
Corporation, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Daimler Chrysler
Corp., ENRON, Exxon Mobil, FMC Corporation, Ford Motor Company, 
General Motors, National Air Transportation Association, Shell Oil, 
Sun America, United Airlines, and Western States Petroleum.
Pete Beitzel, a vice president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee 
Association of Commerce, suggested Rubin's opinions depended on who 
was paying him.

Rubin denies that, saying this latest release was based on careful 
study and that the earlier work was a study of Milwaukee County 
Transit System finances that touched on the KRM, and this study 
focused on the KRM. "The think tank guys got real mad at him when he 
said it (the KRM line) was a good idea," Beitzel said. "Apparently, 
they hired him to change his mind."

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