Phoenix opened its $1.4 billion light-rail line for business on Saturday, December, 27. Thousands of people lined up to ride it during the first four days, when it was free.

Flickr photo by Phxwebguy.

Some riders were treated to a little extra excitement when light-rail trains were involved in several collisions with automobiles. The first accident took place on December 2, when Phoenix Metro was testing the system. The second collision happened on the day after it opened to the public. The car’s driver, apparently an illegal alien, fled the scene on foot.

But it was the third collision, less than a week later, that raised the most eyebrows. A pickup truck had stopped at a light-rail crossing for a train to go by. After the train passed, the crossing gates lifted, the light turned green, and the pickup tried to cross — only to be hit by a train going in the other direction. Apparently Metro still has to get the bugs out of its crossing gates.

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The company that tried to sell “Diesel multiple units” to the nation’s transit industry is officially out of business. The company’s bumpy history was noted here a couple of weeks ago.

In retrospect, it is hard to believe that a railcar manufacturer could have failed after a more than a decade in which the transit industry furiously spent well over a hundred billion dollars of the taxpayers’ money on various rail transit schemes. This is especially so considering that RTD, Colorado Railcar’s “hometown agency,” ordered a record-breaking $187 million worth of light-rail cars from Siemens. But Colorado Railcar only managed to sell its product to two different transit agencies, one in Florida and one in Oregon.

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A report from the Swedish Institute for Transport and Communications Analysis (SIKA) finds that rail transportation may reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but at an extremely high cost. The report, which was prepared at the request of the Swedish government, is available only in Swedish, but an English summary is in this news report.

The report found that rail transportation emits about 20 percent less greenhouse gases than autos, but rail service is so expensive that it would be more effective to simply improve auto technologies. Reducing one ton of greenhouse gases with rail costs $6,500, said the report, while reducing it with auto improvements can cost less than $40 per ton. Nonetheless people should also know that this will provide you with the joy of sexual pleasure as an important part of a person’s healthy life. tadalafil online in uk see for more info Ejaculation time more than 4 minutes is normal and for the most part related to men levitra generic cheap who are sixty years and above. If taken 30 minutes to 1 hour before the sexual intercourse and works better if the stomach is empty. sildenafil pfizer is widely used by millions of men throughout the world suffer from erectile dysfunction. Your physician will probably see this link low priced viagra be the one particular to determine whether you should continue making use of the drug can be harmful and it can leave bad impacts to user. The news report does not make clear whether the SIKA report accounted for greenhouse gas emissions during rail construction, but if it did not, then rail’s cost per ton would be even greater.

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).

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