Speeding up traffic through more and better freeways would provide a much higher return on investment in terms of transportation provided to the public.

Light rail is slow. I remember trying out the Los Angeles Blue Line and seeing cars whipping past on the adjacent road at at least double the speed I was making. It did speed up once it got to dedicated sections not shared with cars, but the overall trip was about the same speed as the express bus which cost far less to operate.

I think the Oak Grove residents’ desire to maintain their neighborhood with large lots as opposed to the ugly, parking-free zero lot line condos is wise. All the rhetoric I’ve read on the planner’s side say that it would be better if people took transit and lived at higher densities. It doesn’t look like most people out on the ground want to live that way.

I would rather see warmer weather than people less satisfied with their neighborhoods and life, packed in like sardines in a can.

(What am I saying? I’d rather see warmer weather no matter what. But that’s a discussion for another time.)

D

a healthy suspicion about light rail is not as ridiculous as you seem to believe, most of the big transit boondoggles are light rail because they are initially cheaper which encourages much more half baked schemes, usually justified to voters because after all the Feds are taking up half the tab. Something they don’t do for far more practical Heavy Rail systems.

That said, I don’t think light rail is necessarily the best way to provide transit, certainly not in every city. But keep in mind that freeways have huge operating costs, huge capital costs, and huge externalities. So when pricing a light rail, you have to add back in the money saved by not building or operating some number of freeway miles. This is a really hard calculation–which, I assume, is why the NRO chose to completely ignore it.

I found that photo essay fascinating. Not least because, you see, I actually grew up and went to high school in Oak Grove. I actually lived just two blocks from “downtown” Oak Grove. I gotta tell you, that photo essay is junk. “Downtown” Oak Grove is … nothing. It contains a rundown convenience store… a comic book/baseball card store… and that is about it. All of the zoning laws would have done Oak Grove a world of good. The economics of Oak Grove are horrible. And, btw, the photo essay is _completely_ _full_ _of_ _shit_ where it suggests farms are being removed from Oak Grove. There are **ZERO** farms in Oak Grove. Nothing close to the old rail line or near “Downtown”. That is a joke.

Sorry to break it to you, but Northwest Portland is actually one of the most desired places to live in all of Portland. Oak Grove? It is a backwater with struggling families and little going for it. Sorry.

Apples to apples, folks.

Perhaps the reason the Marks (Steyn and Hemingway) deride the idea of light rail is that it is worthy of derision. Let’s have a look at how light rail worked out for Los Angeles:

All of this for a negligible decrease in traffic congestion.

Everything has a cost, and everything and I mean *everything* is subsidized. Or is the military now a for-profit operation? Of course not.

When we can talk transportation like adults instead of resorting to political rhetoric it will be a good day for the nation. However elections — Dem or Rep — are not won on logic, but on appeal to baser instincts.

That said, I like public transportation, and at various times, have depended on it. The problem is, though, it really only “works” where it is the only means of getting from A to B, like in Manhattan, Boston and Chicago (where the R-O-Ws entirely bypass the congestion). I’ll leave “works” undefined for now.

In addition, light rail is not really serious public transit, but an expensive exercise by the bien pensants to keep the backward yokels yapping about the one significant public works project that got past the NIMBYs and BANANAs.

Finally, the thing about public transit generally that cause me agaita is how the discussion is always about commuters, rather than the broader commercial necessities of the transit system. And no matter hom much light rail you build, it does not make for inadequate and deteriorating infrastructure for commercial transit.

And “[o]n the Democratic side, you had an intense debate on how best to achieve progressive change.” Again: please. All we’ve heard so far is that Edwards’ father worked in a mill, Hillary was around for all the good parts of the Clinton administration and none of the bad, and that Obama likes “change” and “hope.”

Primaries are all about appealing to the base so it shouldn’t surprise you that you find the Dem candidates who are trying to appeal to Dems (e.g. you) much more appealing than the Reps who are trying to appeal to Republicans (e.g. not you). And vice versa.

http://ti.org/og.html

It strikes me as undeniable evidence that while sprawl has its problems, New Urbanism and the light rail obsession do not lead in a positive direction.

I’m sure Mark Steyn and friends have read similar essays and that is why they laugh at light rail. The case against light rail and similar projects is serious and should not be ignored.

D