Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Light Rail Opponent O'Toole Lit Up At Congressional Hearing

Looks like people are beginning to see through the light rail opponent Randal O'Toole.

It's thinking like his that keeps modern rail transit upgrades off the table in Milwaukee, contributing to a stunted local economy, dirty air, traffic congestion and overall regional stagnation.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please go to Google search: Denver Light Rail Trains Running Red Lights

SocratesChildren said...

Commenting on O'Toole's recent piece at:
http://masterresource.org/?p=3628



O’Toole has several disconnects in his argument. He surmises that management of buses will not change when a rail is added to the transit mix. This of course could happen in a less than brilliant management system, but if rail is added, it makes sense to look at bus route and tweak them to serve the new configuration. The big claim of bus-over-rail advocates is that rubber tire service is more flexible; O’Toole would like to ignore this claim when it is inconvenient to his argument.

Rail is not locked-in technology. The rails are, yes in the ground, but the engines will continue to improve, or electricity might as well be added, constantly improving rail efficiency. O’Toole assumes cars efficiencies will improve and assumes rail efficiency will not improve.

His favorite org, Center for Clean Air Policy, is a market-based advocacy group, and by that commitment to that mission, will argue against public investment, as does O’Toole’s Cato which has faith in market solutions, and is well funded by industries that stand to gain from the status quo.