Monday, February 9, 2009

Do We Have to Even Read It?

And so it begins again. They got tossed out of Charlotte and now are hunting transit again. Some of their suggestions, more roads, BRT, and telecommuting. Anyone wonder why I continue to be skeptical of BRT? Especially when folks who hate transit advocate for more of it. Here's my favorite paragraphs:
The regional planning and transit bureaucrats who created the latest Triangle transit plan weren't really trying to fashion transportation policy. They were trying to remake the region's economy and land-use patterns according to "Smart Growth" principles that are, in truth, reactionary. They envision urban employment cores, dense residential neighborhoods and rigid commuting patterns based around a 19th century technology, the train, that bear little relationship to reality.

While some individuals desire such a lifestyle, the vast majority of citizens, 82 percent by one recent estimate, prefer to live the American dream in a single-family home and travel when and where they want using their personal vehicles. Any transportation plan hostile to clear public preferences is doomed to fail, and to cost taxpayers a great deal in the attempt.
Haha didn't anyone tell these guys about Karl Benz in 1885 and his four stroke gas engine. You know, 3 years before Frank Sprague and the electric streetcar. I wonder how many times we have to go over this. But that last paragraph is telling. No citations of real studies or polls (like this one) and all preferences of his own. How come its so expensive to live in Walkable cities? I would venture to guess it is because there is so much demand that prices are being driven up by folks who have money that want this type of lifestyle, making it harder for those who don't to leave the the suburbs. Again, why should we subsidize his suburbia?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The anti-rail ranters are really losing it, such as some of the exchanges I've recently gotten into at The Antiplanner's blog (www.ti.org/antiplanner). Truly entertaining, like the new GOP chairman Michael Steele trying to parse the difference between "work" and "jobs." Truly inspired wingnuttery.

Mike Setty ("msetty")

Anonymous said...

Mike Setty! Thanks for commenting!

So, "82%" of Americans want to live in McMansions and drive cars all the time? This propaganda is made up by sprawl apologists. I'd like to see evidence of where the majority of citizens favour sprawl and automobiles über Alles ("above all else" in German, like in Deutschland über Alles). (No, I will not resort to bad Nazi analogies.)

Oh, never mind. That stuff about polls is at the end. This editorializing sounds like, oh, something by Rush Limbaugh.

I don't even go to O'Toole's blog. He's just an auto apologist, with a false "environmentalist" veneer.

By the way, who wrote this column? Some guy from a right wing/libertarian think tank in North Carolina, the John Locke Institute?

Adam said...

Now you know why I live in Hoboken. Even if those nuts win in Charlotte they'll never come here.

This guy is a nut. Clearly he hasn't been to Europe, where subways, commuter rail, and HSR are a way of life. They should be an option here, and more than in just NYC.

Anonymous said...

Forgot to add this: The title says it all. I'm not obligated to read this schlock.

ChiefJoJo said...

Yes, it was penned by John Locke from Raleigh. They pushed the anti-rail argument in Charlotte and were beaten down, so now they are after the Triangle's plans. I don't think it will work, unless the economy gets much worse & folks have concerns over raising taxes in a recession. There is a good likelihood that a referendum would be held in the Spring of 2010 on a 1/2 cent sales tax in the three counties. Hopefully we will be in recovery by that time.