One thing you can say for rail transit advocates: They are consistent. Which is to say they are as unethical in their campaign tactics as they are about telling the truth.
Case in point: The Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the main organization pushing for construction of a $3.2 billion $4.7 billion $6.0 billion who knows how many billion-dollar BART line to San Jose. After voters rejected a sales tax increase for the project in 2006, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) put another sales tax on the ballot for this November.
When opponents submitted their carefully documented arguments against the project to the county for publication in a voters’ pamphlet, an attorney who works for the Leadership Group took the statement to court, claiming it was misleading. Among other things, the attorney challenged the claim that VTA has the “worst-performing light-rail line in the country” (a claim that has also been made by the Antiplanner).
The well-funded Leadership Group forced the citizens’ group to hastily hire a $300-per-hour attorney. Fortunately, they had documented their argument so well that the judge threw out almost all of the Leadership Group’s claims. However, the judge did strike one sentence from the argument, which said that if VTA’s costs per vehicle hour were as low as San Francisco Muni’s, it wouldn’t need to ask for more sales taxes.
The attorney’s action was unethical partly because it was a case of pure harassment, a big-monied interest trying to suppress or intimidate ordinary citizens. If the judge had not struck that one sentence, the opponents could have filed a “SLAPP” (strategic litigation against public participation) lawsuit against the attorney. As it is, the opponents can at least state that a judge has agreed that VTA is the worst-performing light-rail system in the country.
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It was also unethical because it should be up to the voters, not some judge, to determine what statements are true and what are misleading. San Jose Mercury News columnist Scott Herhold agrees: “Suppose every charge and counter-charge in a presidential campaign were subject to this vetting,” he says. “Sarah Palin was against the Bridge to Nowhere? Prove it in court. Obama’s plan won’t raise taxes on the middle class? Tell it to a judge.”
If public speech is to be censored for being misleading, the claims made by BART advocates are a prime target. I am sure that every pamphlet, speech, and op ed promoting BART talks about congestion relief. Yet the environmental impact statement for the BART-to-San-Jose line reveals that it will not provide a single minute of congestion relief on any highway in the area.
This isn’t the first time rail supporters behaved unethically regarding voter arguments. Colorado distributes a similar voters’ pamphlet to voters, and when the FasTracks measure was on the ballot in 2004, one of the FasTrack Yes! campaign staff members submitted a last-minute argument against the measure. The argument was filled with exaggerations and inane statements, like “We’d rather have 22-lane freeways than light rail, because light rail can carry as many people as a 22-lane freeway.”
In Oregon, anyone can submit a statement to the voters’ pamphlet, and they all get printed. But in Colorado, if more than one statement is submitted, the agency proposing the ballot measure is supposed to edit all the statements into one. Though it admitted it knew the phony argument came from a rail supporter, Denver’s Regional Transit District was happy to incorporate the idiotic statements into the anti-rail argument. Rail opponents took it to court and a judge said it was very unethical but, under the state law, he couldn’t do anything about it.
Would you buy a used car from people like this? How about an expensive, worn-out, obsolete transportation concept like light rail?
BART to San Jose, wouldn’t it be more cost effective just to electrify CalTrain?
Also you’d think that after over 90 years at the public trough, the highway lobby would cease attacking railroads and transit.
Then we have enties like Reason, Cato & etc. That talk about “markets”, but are really hyper closet socialists.
Give it a break!
How are the Reason Foundation and Cato Institute closet socialists?
“How are the Reason Foundation and Cato Institute closet socialists?”
Good question. As on overt socialist I take issue with that label. Like most quasi-libertarian groups and individuals, the Reason Foundation and Cato Institute practice selective socialism, which is what I think highwayman is getting to. You see, for all the crap that is dished out to planners for being self appointed experts and elitist for claiming to know what is best for society, people like O’Toole and his friends do the same thing. The two groups just choose to draw the line in different places. Now the libertarian fakers will tell you time and time again that road do not receive hardly any subsidies and are paid for by user fees, but we ll know that this is crap, and that highwayman is right about the highway lobby ensuring the socialization of roads. There are no pure free-market libertarians out there. All of them want something socialized, and they don’t argue when they get what they want. But if some one else want a piece of the pie, then they claim these groups are against freedom and liberty. At least thats my take.
Every voter in Santa Clara County needs to read Herhold’s article before they vote on the BART tax. This episode shows that Carl Guardino, with his deep pockets, is trying to ram this BART tax through and is willing to stomp out all dissent. Shouldn’t VTA, as a
public agency, stay neutral in the tax debate? I agree with Herhold’s evaluation of this BART project. He writes:
“It’s a very costly system for the number of new riders it is expected to serve. It will suck money from bus and light rail service. This won’t be the last tax.”
And for all you leftists out there, please note that the ultra-liberal Sierra Club opposes the BART tax lomaprieta.sierraclub.org/Election_Insight_2008.pdf .
Say “no” to Carl Guardino’s heavy-handed tactics. Vote “No” on Measure B.
bennett wrote:
> As on overt socialist I take issue with that label.
Bennett, I don’t know what an overt socialist is, but I do know what the Swedish Social Democratic Party (a democratic socialist party that the late Olof Palme was once the leader of (and before him, the late Tage Erlander)) did while they were in charge of that nation’s government in the late 1990’s – they converted all mass transit systems in Sweden from operation by public-sector employees to operation by private-sector contractors through competitive tendering. No legal requirement for tenured public transit workers in Sweden like we have in the United States (thanks to Section 5333b of the Federal Transit Administration Act (formerly Section 13c of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964)).
Antiplanner wrote:
“When opponents submitted their carefully documented arguments against the project to the county for publication in a voters’ pamphlet, an attorney who works for the Leadership Group took the statement to court, claiming it was misleading.”
This is a peculiarity of US law. Often, things are resolved by law suit that in the UK would be resolved by an inquiry or by regulation. On the other hand, the UK has a very intrusive libel law, which the USA simply hasn’t got. In the USA the plaintiff has to prove malice, in the UK the defendant must prove accuracy.
It seems that the statement was a little bit overstated. The same sometimes happens to Antiplanner, who wrote:
“Would you buy a used car from people like this? How about a expensive, worn-out, obsolete transportation concept like light rail?”
To address the first question, I don’t think it has anything to do with honesty. Often, a team does so much work on a project before they open it up to the public that the subsequent criticism, instead of being treated as constructive, is painful and hurtful. The team then responds by pushing their scheme through, being unable to let it go.
Antiplanner overstates what it wrong with light rail. It is a superior technology to buses. I disagree that it is an obsolete or ‘worn-out’ concept. But I have agreed with Antiplanner when he said that it was too expensive, taking money away from improvements to bus services, which may offer better value for money, and at lower or zero cost to the taxpayer.
There are two cases where light rail is demonstrably superior to buses – firstly, on corridors with high transit demand, where putting on lots of buses would be more expensive than providing light rail – and secondly, where the route is pedestrianised, since pedestrians and trams are a safer combination than pedestrians and buses. The bus station in Bath (and just about everywhere else) is plastered with signs saying ‘keep out’. Bus depots are well known as a hazardous working area.
This BART-to-SJ project is been debated here since 2000, when voters approved Measure A which was a countywide package of transit goodies. Since then, most of these projects have been deferred as the costs of BART have grown. I recommend going to the http://www.novtatax.org site and reading up on this project in depth. Click on the links provided and read the backup.
Regarding Carl Guardino and his grossly misnamed “Silicon Valley Leadership Groupâ€Â, he’s become a megalomaniac regarding the BART project. After approving the 2000 tax, voters here went thumbs-down on a sales tax increase proposal back in 2006. Carl has attempted to silence opponents of the BART tax as Herhold’s column indicates. See also the “VTA Watch†blog, there’s good background there.
This project is so awful that the local Sierra Club has joined forces with the local taxpayer’s association to oppose it. Talk about strange bedfellows!
For the record, BART is not “light rail†but rather a “heavy rail†system of the type that are much more expensive than a light rail line.
C.P,
Just because I condone socialism does not mean that I condone all acts of governments that claim to be socialist. It like saying that fiscal conservatives condone the Bush administration. After all, he does claim to be a fiscal conservative. My overtness to socialism is in a theoretical sense. Fact is, I live in America and have no other choice than to live as a capitalist in a capitalist system. But here is where I take my stand for socialism. I believe that a system of social organization that bases itself on actions for the common interest is kinder, more humane, and ultimately better then one that bases itself on action for the individual interest. I personally feel that Bear Sterns, AIG, Ken Lay, etc. have been making my point nicely (or not so nicely) over the past few years.
p.s
And while I do believe that public funds for transit choices (including personal transit) is okay, I do not agree with the way that the CART sales tax issue was handled (at least according to the information provided on this post). I believe in free speech and weather I agree with the points that the rail opponents in California made or not, they should not be silenced because they believe the BART is the worst system in the country. Fact is, these tactics do not help the rail transit movement.
Thank you Bennett for noticing this double standard too with groups such as Reason & Cato.
If they were honest, they would be pushing for more rail lines to be rebuilt along with a strong focus promoting civil liberties.
Also for what Hugh Jordan wrote, you would get more bang for your buck by electrifying the CalTrain route between SF & SJ instead of extending BART.