The Antiplanner has been commuting to work at Cato’s DC office (about 5 miles from my Arlington hotel) by bicycle this week. So far the main pain I feel is from DC’s lousy streets, most of which could use a good warm mix-and-fill.
Meanwhile, IBM has published a report on the other kinds of pain caused by traffic congestion in the U.S. The effects viagra tablet of this pill last for up to two days afterwards. MDU has offered some of the most promising B.Ed distance learning options for the students and with the introduction of computers and innovative devices, they can now treat their issue with the soft versions of kamagra brand purchase levitra online such as jelly, soft tablets and effervescent. Reduced testosterone levels result in cheap viagra low sperm count and leads to many problems for women during the intercourse and for men who suffer from it highly irritating. Elevated levels of inflammatory markers preceded the beginning levitra india price of depressed mood in an elderly population with no psychiatric history. Let’s hope someone is listening. Contrary to what some planners would have you believe, the solution to congestion is not more congestion.
I have to say that I was pro-planning and supportive of many “smart growth” principles, until I read an Op-Ed like the blog linked by the Antiplanner that WANTED congestion to achieve their goals. To write about a desire to inflict hours of pain on families every working day of the year shows a tremendous lack of judgment and raises serious questions about the advocates.
This line of argument is like wanting a fatal car accident so you can get a traffic light installed, or celebrating an environmental accident because it gets publicity for an environmental cause, or rejoicing at a politician’s affair because it helps your political cause. I understand one might realize a tragedy helps your political cause, but those are dark thoughts, and if you feel like they are something to openly celebrate, then your judgment is seriously compromised.
Wow. A column in a mid-market paper speaking for a whole profession: truth or logical fallacy of hasty generalization? We ask, you decide whether this standard tactic should be dropped so readers don’t adopt it as cogent.
Confirmation bias notwithstanding, his work of complete streets allows throughput and provides for non-motorized safety and comfort. One wonders why this salient point was “forgotten” and what is the overarching condition that contributes to potholing?
DS
Borealis,
To pragmatists, the desired ends justify the means.
Dan is a perfect example of this mindset — he will literally say anything he must, flinging forward whatever specious reasoning he can conjure, in order to accomplish his purpose, which is an expansion of government planning (as he is a government planner, and so this is his meal ticket). He will mix in just enough fact to make the argument sound convincing, counting on the reader to fail to recognize his evasion of the underlying moral principles of the matter.
Of course, to Dan, people like me who point this out are “extremist nut jobs.” Well, if one can tell a person’s quality by the character of their enemies, then I embrace his hatred.
The question, Dan, is whether Dom’s viewpoint represents consensus with the planning community or is just an outlier. I would say he is firmly in the middle of what most urban planners think. He just is more arrogant and/or careless about revealing his beliefs than others. Comments likes his are always anecdotal until it becomes so common within a community that it speaks for the community.
How about you, Dan? While recognizing trade-offs, do you believe congestion is a net good for a community? (And no weasel words.)
Dan is a perfect example of this mindset  he will literally say anything he must, flinging forward whatever specious reasoning he can conjure, in order to accomplish his purpose
Your dim-bulb assertions might elevate themselves in the vicinity of puerile if you could actually show how this is true.
Since you can’t and your prose approximates hissy-fitting, we amuse ourselves at your low-wattage prolixity.
———————–
The question, Dan, is whether Dom’s viewpoint represents consensus with the planning community or is just an outlier… How about you, Dan? While recognizing trade-offs, do you believe congestion is a net good for a community?
I think the question is an interesting one, and I don’t think his is the consensus view; in addition, I doubt so many planners use so many false premises in their arguments, and his numbered arguments to me are weak at best.
Nonetheless, I think congestion is a result of inefficient land-use policy layered on top of normal human nature. As land-use policies are durable and lasting, congestion is an inevitable result of habitation and generally is a net negative.
BTW, the ‘arrogant elite’ meme is worn out and tired and is now, in effect, background noise, like ‘hippy’ and ‘hepcat’ and ‘tippler’.
DS
Nice way of voting “present” on this one, Dan.
Thanks, Dan.
Your admission that your position has no logical basis does help to move the conversation forward. Good luck with all your campaigns to increase congestion around the U.S.! Seriously. I would contribute towards ads that publicize your views.
Whoa! You took a bike on the streets? You didn’t pay any user fees for those lanes.
To the contrary, ws. We ALL paid user fees for those lanes — bikers, pedestrians, and drivers alike. They were called “taxes,” and we were not given the option to forego use in order to avoid incurring those costs.
Your admission that your position has no logical basis does help to move the conversation forward.
Your rhetoric is lame. Only weak, lame, artless rhetoric from people with no answer tries to paint with the ‘incoherent’ or ‘illogical’ brush.
Why don’t you try again. Point out how or why my statements are illogical.
Can you do that?
Don’t just baselessly state without evidence or showing how they are illogical – that would be lame and weak.
So here is your help: you can improve your lame, weak, baseless argument by showing how the unspecified position is illogical.
Let us know when you are ready to begin.
DS
Nice way of voting “present†on this one, Dan.
I answered both of your questions. I separated the answers by a new line. Was there something else you wanted but didn’t state that I was supposed to guess?
Or is this some gamie-game pretending I’m avoiding the issue to mischaracterize me in some way?
DS
Mike wrote:
> To the contrary, ws. We ALL paid user fees for those lanes â€â€
> bikers, pedestrians, and drivers alike. They were called “taxes,â€Â
> and we were not given the option to forego use in order to
> avoid incurring those costs.
Mike, I don’t know where the Antiplanner is staying in Arlington County, Virginia, but it is likely that he rode his bike on streets and roads maintained by Arlington County (Arlington is one of the very few counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia to maintain its own roads); the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT); the National Park Service (the NPS maintains quite a few streets in the District of Columbia, in addition to the federal parkways that run in D.C. and several of its suburbs); and the District Department of Transportation (DDOT – the District of Columbia’s equivilant of a state department of transportation).
Dan, here is a hint. I see you own a thesaurus (congratulations!), but just because a word appears as a synonym doesn’t mean it is the same grammatically. Your poor grammar and spelling greatly undermine your attempts to appear witty. You might want to study up with Grammar Girl (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/).
As for your challenge, I will just destroy the logic of your first sentence that has a subject, even if it doesn’t have a verb. You assert “A column in a mid-market paper speaking for a whole profession: truth or logical fallacy of hasty generalization.”
Nobody asserted anything like that. It was just one person reported on their own reaction to an argument (and thus actually doing a favor to the “smart growth” folks). It was you who projected that your whole profession wants to increase congestion. That is a logical fallacy known as a “straw man argument”. (You will need to look that up in a different book called a “dictionary”.)
That’s all the troll food you will get from me today.
That’s why we have troll booths.
WS & Mike,
Taxes are not user fees. WS is right that I didn’t pay user fees to cycle in DC. I support a tax on bicycle tires or other bike fees so that bikes can pay their way.
@13:
Thanks for the chuckle, lad.
DS
That was another witty comment, highwayman. Good job. I would suggest it is a “Phantom Troll Booth”.
AP:
No, they are not strictly speaking user fees, because taxes go to the general fund and the roads, etc, are paid out of that. User fees the way we want them to be are where only those using the resource pay money, and that money goes to maintain only the resource. What I meant to imply was that the taxes we pay now are essentially like a user fee coercively paid by everyone for everything, whether they use the service or not. (This intentionally betrays the definition of what a “user fee” is supposed to be, in order to illustrate what’s wrong with using tax revenue for an expenditure that should be within the domain of the private sector.)
The Autoplanner said:
WS & Mike,
Taxes are not user fees. WS is right that I didn’t pay user fees to cycle in DC. I support a tax on bicycle tires or other bike fees so that bikes can pay their way.
THWM: This is getting back towards the toll sidewalk stuff.
Speaking of commuting in DC and the teabaggers,
Did you see – presumably as part of the false narrative regarding the crowd size – that Rep. Kevin Brady [R] of TX sent a nasty-gram to DC Metro Manager John B. Catoe Jr., ” demanding an explanation for why the transit agency didn’t do more to prepare for the massive influx of conservative activists at Saturday’s march on the Mall”?
A couple of old ladies were…um…forced to take private transportation to the teabagger event.
Turns out Brady voted against a package of Federal funding for Metro. See, he’s blaming Metro for poor service but won’t allow them to provide service. Super.
DS
Dan, they just went to D.C. to whine.
Break stuff, then complain that it’s broken.