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Cheaper to buy all commuters Dodge Neons and a tank of gas a week for life

From the National Review comes this little nugget from the goldwater institute:

Myth #3 Light rail has been successful in other cities.

Reality: Light rail has had a miniscule impact on traffic congestion. In no city in the country does light rail ridership equal more than 1.2 percent of travel. In densely-populated Boston, which has the highest use of light rail in the country, the daily passenger miles per directional route is 9,942. But the U.S. Department of Transportation reports that for the top 50 urban areas in the country, the average passenger miles per lane mile of freeway is 26,370. So even the most optimistic forecast on light rail ridership comes nowhere close to the normal usage of a freeway mile.

My father used to say that public transportation systems were to urban planners and homeless advocates what the Reagan era rail deployed MX missile system was to defense planners. They both were completely ineffective and really only served as a way to keep their charges dry and out of the rain while also keeping them on the move and away from the prying eyes of the taxpayer. He also called city transit buses "rolling insane asylums", which based on my experience is just about right.

Back in the early 90's I rode light rail daily from the suburbs to downtown Sacramento. On any given day,the rail car was filled with myself and no more three other office workers. The rest of the car was filled with homeless folks who had gone "Aluminum mining" during the night out in the suburbs. They carried large black plastic trash sacks full of dripping and dirty aluminum soda cans with them. They would load up in the suburbs and then take light rail downtown to get to the recyclers where they would redeem the evenings takings and then go rest at the Salvation Army for the day and start over the next day.

I dont know what they called it, but it looked exactly like work to me.

For them, it was easier to take the light rail system than to take the bus. The Light Rail cars were largely empty which allowed them to take big plastic sacks filled with soda cans without the other passengers or the bus driver getting upset at the craven display of entreprenurial urban survival techniques. The plan worked pretty well except when there was a sucker such as myself who was actually using the system for personal transportation instead of for bulk aluminum hauling.

I think people who are being asked to fund light rail should understand that if we were honest we would say that we ourselves dont want to ride light rail, we want everyone else to ride light rail. We just want all those other people off the freeway.

Posted @ January 06, 2008 12:06 PM | Current Affairs

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Posted by: Blogengeezer at January 11, 2008 05:34 PM