Rail transit is excessively expensive, inflexible, and incapable of moving as many people as buses. Yet when the Antiplanner points out these facts, rather than respond with factual arguments, rail supporters reply with insults and innuendo.
In Florida, for example, a Tampa Bay Times columnist named Daniel Ruth spent an entire column attacking my credibility apparently because someone paid me an honorarium of $500 to evaluate the St. Petersburg light-rail plan. Ruth did not make any factual arguments in favor of the plan; he merely contended that my opposition was a foregone conclusion and so should be ignored.
He even implied that I didn’t get paid enough for my conclusions to be credible. After all, the transit agency spent millions of dollars hiring consultants to write reports about the proposal, and those very reports were the sources of much of my information. Those same consultants are, of course, financially backing the election campaign in favor of light rail, and if voters approve, they stand to make tens if not hundreds of millions in profits. If the measure loses, neither I nor anyone at Cato will make a dime of profit. Yet somehow they are supposed to be more credible than I.
Similarly, in Austin, Texas, rail advocates issued a vicious press release attacking me using numerous hot-button terms such as “right wing,” “Koch brothers,” and “tea party.” Nowhere does the press release address my factual arguments.
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The light-rail projects in St. Petersburg and Austin are both so expensive and will carry so few new transit riders that it would cost less to give every new transit commuter a new Toyota Prius every year for the next 30 years than to build the rail lines. The rail lines will do nothing to relieve congestion and in fact will make congestion worse.
Rail proponents in both cities are anything but transparent. None of them have revealed how much interest payments local taxpayers will have to cover (more than $600 million in Pinellas County, more than $200 million in Austin). None of them have admitted that the rail lines will need to be substantially rebuilt in 30 years, which in the Pinellas case at least will be before the bonds on the original construction are even paid off. They talk about congestion relief but neither have revealed any traffic analyses to show how light rail will affect congestion.
None of these facts are important to proponents. All that is important is that the rail lines are built. These lines are in fact little more than corporate welfare, and the supporters are mostly unwitting stooges for the engineering and construction firms that stand to profit (and that provide much of the campaign support).
Forty years ago, I began my career working for environmental groups who were fighting large corporations that were seeking government subsidies to do things that harmed the environment. Today I find myself fighting environmental groups who support corporations that are seeking subsidies to do things that harm the environment. Meanwhile, leftists, who used to be so sensitive to innuendo and ad hominem attacks, now rely on these techniques almost exclusively to drown out anyone who disagrees with their corporate welfare agenda.
Go back to the old site layout, this thing is ugly.
You’ve made yer opinion known. Twice. You’ve made no other comments in…how long? Send an email next time: rot@ti.org.
Site looks fine. Focus on content.
Randal, you lack imagination in your overwrought claim that streetcars and other forms of rail are “obsolete.” On the other hand, I think your technophilia for robocars is also greatly overwrought, and easy to parody, even though Daniel Ruth didn’t use it.
By your reasoning, concrete is obsolete since it is a Roman technology, and light bulbs are obsolete, too, since they are “19th Century technology.”
Here’s a concept for you: self-driving streetcars/rail service. Such an advance would be most effective operating in Vukan Vuchic’s “Class B” rights of way, e.g., separated from car traffic but with grade crossings (http://www.humantransit.org/2011/03/rail-bus-differences-contd.html). Rails would provide much less complex guidance than buses, thus simplifying the requirements for guidance and the various algorithms needed for monitoring cross traffic and other traffic compared to robocars. And by eliminating drivers, operating costs would be nearly cut in half.
I can imagine smaller streetcar vehicles the size of 35- and 40-foot buses that operate in trains on the “main stem” of a network, but separate onto various routes, frequency varying on demand. Since guidance is simple and predetermined compared to rubber-tired vehicles, the operating problems to be solved are probably an order of magnitude lower.
So far, things like Uber and other challenges to taxis have proven to be something of a red herring, mainly because diverting to pick up other passengers will add considerably to travel times for other passengers–and an inherent problem with carpooling. Compared to fixed route transit that runs in straight lines, demand responsive service–no matter how taking advantage of smart phones–are inherently time-consuming thanks to their alleged “flexibility, ” along with other delusions debunked by Jarrett Walker at http://www.humantransit.org/2011/07/los-angeles-gensler-architects-attack-citys-transit-future.html.
@ msetty
I agree that the ‘self-driving car’ motif has been overdone. The cars will have to drive like human drivers in order to be safe – speeding, the one second delay before braking, etc. It’s an expensive way of replacing a free car driver with an expensive one.
A better approach is express buses, which behave more like a car, and which accurately replicates the process of scores of cars all on the same road, and all heading in roughly the same direction. They don’t stop every 200 yards. What should be the last-mile system? Taxis are cheap in the Middle East, but expensive in the UK, and I suspect also in the US. Cycling? Something else?
“Randal, you lack imagination in your overwrought claim that streetcars and other forms of rail are “obsolete.”
Obsolete just means that there are better, cheaper replacements available. You are overwrought in your defensive posture msetty.
Despite the frenzied dreams of academics and their echo chamber in the media (who dutifully release a shrill “the suburbs are now dead!!!” announcement every week), cars aren’t disappearing, but trains aren’t going anywhere (pardon the pun). The American people have chosen not to be Hong Kong (thankfully).
“when the Antiplanner points out these facts, rather than respond with factual arguments, rail supporters reply with insults”
Such as, “you lack imagination in your overwrought claim”.
Trainies get so mad when someone challenges their beloved choo choos.
overwrought: (of a piece of writing or a work of art) too elaborate or complicated in design or construction.
Trains are obsolete. Nothing complicated about that assertion.
Of course, no argument in this post has been made about autonomous cars, so that’s just a red herring to distract away from the SIMPLE claim that choo choos are an obsolete (no longer in general use) form of transportation.
That’s mshitty™ for you. Gotta love his lexical foibles and his vagaries of reasoning.
MSetty wrote:
Randal, you lack imagination in your overwrought claim that streetcars and other forms of rail are “obsolete.”
Would the U.S. be building any passenger rail if not for generous taxpayer subsidies to construct and operate same?
CPZ wrote:
Would the U.S. be building any passenger rail if not for generous taxpayer subsidies to construct and operate same?
Supposedly, Amtrak is close to “breaking even” on its operating costs (though if actually operated like a business, this would have occurred several years ago), talked about in some detail here: http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2014/08/will-2015-be-year-that-amtrak-turns.html.
Then there is the All Aboard America proposal in Florida, and the HSR proposal in Texas, both of which having substantial backing by capitalists that claim they will be profitable. We’ll see over the next few years.
Of course, this is contrasted with my very rough back-of-the envelope calculation that the thousands of miles of paved and unpaved roads in rural Nevada that I traveled over a few weeks ago probably lose 3 or 4 times as much for every penny and dollar collected directly in fuel and other taxes for every VMT, a situation repeated over most of rural America. Just one example of the massive losses run up by most of the road network (also a network where the Google photo cars will never venture off the main roads).
I also see Frank reverted to his old trolling ways. Shame.
Oh, yes, something is “obsolete” because Metrosucks and Frank say so.
Convincing argument to auto apologists, I suppose.
Oh, yes, something is “obsolete” because Metrosucks and Frank say so.
Not something. Passenger trains. Passenger trains are obsolete by DEFINITION.
Passenger rail miles traveled in the US are 1.3% of passenger automobile miles. Source.
That is, passenger rail is no longer in general use. It by DEFINITION is obsolete.
Also obsolete: ferry boats and sidewalks. The latter is so obsolete that they don’t even list it. And yet the taxpayers continue to shell out millions for these boondoggles.
Also obsolete: self-driving cars. BY DEFINITION.
Also obsolete: self-driving cars. BY DEFINITION.
Poor, poor gilfoil. Reading comprehension is so low that it can’t understand the phrase “no longer” which precedes “in general use” in the dictionary definition of obsolete. Of course obsolete would not apply to autonomous cars, which are not yet in general use.
Poor, poor mentally challenged gilfoil. It has nothing to contribute so it trolls and shills.
Rail isn’t obsolete, the problem is a hostile political environment to rail. Also you don’t expect roads, sidewalks, street lights, etc to make money. :$