Comments John Dewey has made

light rail advocates get paid much more than I do

Maybe the freeways would be more congested, but some people are moving into Dallas, partly because of the light rail.

If people are moving into the Dallas because of the light rail, they certainly are not using it.  Again, daily ridership is only 60,000, representing 30,000 round trip passengers - in a metro area of 6 million people.

The more people that live in the city proper, the less that are in the suburbs, the less congestion there is.

Sorry, but I have to disagree.  Geographic dispersion, not geographic concentration, is the solution to urban congestion.  When workplaces are dispersed, much more affordable housing can be built close to workplaces.  Moving jobs to the suburbs - which is exactly waht is happening nationwide - keeps commuters out of already congested cities.

Bus rapid transit has been very successful, it may be that that would have been a better decision for Dallas.

Thank you for that consideration of my argument.

Light rail continues to be voted in over BRT because the print news media buys into it.  Local newspapers continue to feature the propaganda of DART and rail advocate organizations funded by special interests.

Light rail requires much greater financial commitment - and allows much greater financial rewards.  Light rail beneficiaries pack public meetings with professional advocates.  Individuals who object in meetings - as I have frequently - get a fraction of the coverage given to DART officials and rail lobbyists.

Local newspapers have published several of our letters opposing rail transit.  But every time they do, they follow up with 3 or 4 counter letters within a few days.  Never do newspapers give much credence to the simple facts of light rails ineffectiveness.On Transit investment should and will be a part of the peak oil solution posted 1 year, 8 months ago 39 Responses

Let each culture pay its own way

I never liked living in suburbia, and there are certainly many people (don't have any figures) in Manhattan and other cities that don't.  In fact, property values in dense city centers are even going up now, while they are going down in exurbia.  So some people like it, some don't -- as long as I have a choice, it's cultural.

I agree that people have different desires.  I do not agree that your property value assessment is valid across the U.S.  Certainly those cities which have retained strong central business districts will see higher property values near center cores than in the far suburbs.

Housing in close proximity to workplaces continues to be more valuable.  What has happened in the more modern cities is the dispersion of workplaces.  Free markets and the availability of inexpensive land has combined to allow homebuyers with different desires both live in the neighborhoods they desire.

My issue with planners and environmentalists is their insistence that the predominant culture subsidize the minority one.  It is apparently their intent to force change onto my culture, which is not going to happen.  In the meantime, subsidization of your culture in modern cities have given us boondoggles such as Dallas light rail, a system that has cost $5 billion but only serves 30,000 people a day.

I try to have patience with the insistent argument that proper urban planning will change my culture to be closer to yours.  If it were just argument, I wouldn't care.  It's when you reach into my wallet to fund your new urban experiments that I get bothered.  On Transit investment should and will be a part of the peak oil solution posted 1 year, 8 months ago 39 Responses

Town Centers? just nostalgia and hype

Virginia Beach just put in a "Town Center", which was a new urbanist project, and downtown Norfolk is getting some "walkable" development.

I haven't seen Virginia Beach's "Town Center", but I have seen the one in the affluent suburb of Southlake, TX.  From in front of the storefronts it appears similar to the nostalgic view most people have of small towns.  But instead of mom and pop retailers it houses Banana Republic, Williams-Sonoma, Crate and Barrel, and numerous other chain retailers.

About 150 townhouses have been built adjacent to the town center, within easy walking distance.  That's enough for locals to claim this is a mixed use development.

The reality?  Southlake's Town Center is just another shopping mall.  The parking lots to the north are huge, and crammed with vehicles.  Shoppers drive to the Town Center from all over Southlake and also from the five adjacent suburbs.

How is Southlake Town Center any different from Grapevine Mills Mall or Vista Ridge mall or any other mall in the north Texas?  Large apartment complexes surround every shopping mall I've seen, and house many more residents than do the few high-priced townhomes around the Town Center.  The customer base of this Town Center and the other suburban ones I've seen is primarily vehicle-based.

Town Centers may be nostalgic, but they are still just suburban shopping malls.

If the Virginia beach Town Center is really any different, I wonder why it required 3,200 parking places in a covered parking garage.  Surely not for the 175 condos and 341 apartments it is trying to sell and lease.On Transit investment should and will be a part of the peak oil solution posted 1 year, 8 months ago 39 Responses

Trade deficits represent prosperity

Trade deficits are unsustainable, John even the people who claim, as you do, that the trade deficit is the result of foreign investment -- like Ben Bernanke -- will claim that trade deficits cannot go on forever.

Ben Bernanke is not the only economist, just the best known.  Don Boudreaux of George Mason University, John Tamny of H.C. Wainwright Economics, Dan Griswold of CATO, and Robert Murphy of the Pacific Research Institute have all recently argued that the trade deficits are meaningless and represent no danger.  If I had the inclination, I could a number of other free market economists who agree.

Other economists have been claiming for 20 years that trade deficits were unsustainable.  Yet those trade deficits keep growing at the same time that U.S. exports keep growing, that U.S. manufacturing has reached all time highs, that the GDP of the U.S. continues to grow, and that the net worth of U.S. households has reached all time highs.

Even if you don't mind that foreigners will own basically the entire country after a while

That could only happen if the U.S. possessed a fixed amount of wealth.  But the wealth in the U.S. is increasing all the time.  In fact, when foreign corporations invest in the U.S., they generally increase not only their own wealth but also that of Americans.  Consider the BMW plant that was built in Spartenburg, SC, 15 years ago.  It sparked an economic transformation in that state that made thousands of Americans much wealthier.  Nearly 200 smaller firms in the Carolinas supply goods and services to the South Carolina BMW complex.On Chinese miners and our appetite for cheap crap posted 1 year, 8 months ago 23 Responses

Manufacturing GDP is at an all time high

It would be a quite a stretch to attribute all the subsequent job loss to automation and not the fact that Reagan and the union-busting, neoliberal free-traders came in.

And I didn't attribute ALL the manufacturing job loss to automation.  In fact, I pointed out how movement of the automobile industry out of the rust belt and into right-to-work states enabled productivity gains that union rules had prevented.

Another cause for the "elimination" of manufacturing jobs is the outsourcing within the U.S.  When a manufacturing company outsources any service function - such as janitorial or cafeteria staffing - the service sector immediately gains workers and the manufacturing sector immediately loses workers.  Anyone who has worked for large corporations the past 25 years should be well aware that whole departments have been outsourced to smaller service firms.

Certainly many factories have been offshored, and all U.S. consumers have realized lower costs of purchases as a result.

You can blame globalization or Reagan or anyone else you wish for the elimination of factory jobs in the U.S.  Those who believed that very low skilled factory workers would continue to be paid as much as engineers or accountants were fooling themselves.  Those wages were doomed as soon as:

• air conditioning enabled southern states to compete with the Midwest
  
• Japan reindustrialized after World War II
  
• political climates in low cost nations were stabilized enough to protect multinational investments
  

Still, my main objection to Tom Philpott's post remains: his incorrect claim that United States has outsourced its industrial base to China.
On Chinese miners and our appetite for cheap crap posted 1 year, 8 months ago 23 Responses

Growth in service sector is good!

Hello, again, Jon!

My response to one of your comments:

the percentage of manufacturing has actually declined from 2003 to 2006, from 12.4 to 12.1 percent.

Manufacturing as a percentage of GDP has been declining for at least 50 years:

• 1960 - 25.3%
  
• 1970 - 22.7%
  
• 1980 - 19.9%
  
• 1990 - 16.3%
  
• 2000 - 14.5%
  
• 2005 - 11.9%
  
• 2006 - 11.7%
  

Source: BEA: Industry Economic Accounts

That decline should not be alarming.  Computers enabled automation of numerous manufacturing tasks.  As that happened, the cost to manufacture numerous items continued to drop, and manufacturing's share of GDP thus also dropped.

What has happened to the U.S. economy the past 50 years is an explosion of the service sector.  Though some try to demean service jobs as McJobs, the service sector actually includes the highly skilled professions: physicians, nurses, lawyers, accountants, architects, dental hygienists, computer systems analysts, management consultants, investment analysts, and many more.  It also includes such blue collar jobs as truck drivers and cable television installers.  And yes, it includes retail workers, but also retail supervisors, retail marketers, and retail buyers.

The highly paid government sector has also grown sharply since 1960.On Chinese miners and our appetite for cheap crap posted 1 year, 8 months ago 23 Responses

Ending Chinese poverty is good

"How very true! The sacrifice is well worth the end result. ... the Chinese should concentrate on making money first and fixing the environment later!"

If you ask the formerly impoverished Chinese workers, I am sure they will tell you that the gains from industrialization are well worth the increases in GHG.  It was their choice to make.

I am alarmed by the loss of forest land everywhere.  The solution to loss of forestland is the same as the solution to loss of American Bison.  Make it profitable for landowners to grow or preserve trees, just as it is now profitable for ranchers to raise American Bison.

As for the GHG increases, I have stated in another post that I am not alarmed by increase in CO2.  I am unconvinced anthropogenic global warming represents a significant threat to this planet.  I'm not denying AGW, just skeptical about the magnitude and the danger.On Chinese miners and our appetite for cheap crap posted 1 year, 8 months ago 23 Responses

U.S. rust belt jobs outsourced to the sun belt

Sorry, Mr. Philpott, but the U.S. has not outsourced its industrial base to China.  U.S. manufacturing output in 2007 was at all time highs, and has grown 21% the past seven years.  you can find this real data about U.S. manufacturing at the Bureau of Economic Analysis

The last figures I've seen, from 2006, showed that the U.S. still leads the world in production of aircraft, motor vehicles, medical equipment, semiconductors, chemicals, gasoline, and much more.

Michigan did not lose blue collar automobile jobs to Japan or China.  It lost them to Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and other business-friendly, right-to-work states.

About the dangers of industrialization to Chinese workers:  the standard of living in China has skyrocketed as it modernizes.  We should applaud the economic growth in formerly impoverished Asia.On Chinese miners and our appetite for cheap crap posted 1 year, 8 months ago 23 Responses

trade deficit? so what?

Bill Hannahan: "maximize their benefit by reducing the price of oil and our trade deficit"

What benefit would the U.S. derive from reducing our trade deficit?  If foreigners want to trade our little pieces of paper for goods they produced, why not continue letting them do that?  If foreigners want to use those little pieces to invest in the U.S. rather than take some of our goods back home with them, why not continue to let them do that?

The truth is, the U.S. economic engine is so strong it generates increased wealth for both U.S. citizens and foreign investors alike.  That foreigners have a greater need for saving - and choose to place their savings in U.S. financial instruments and U.S. capital investments - is no cause for alarm.On Mood in the hood posted 1 year, 8 months ago 10 Responses

U.S. manufacturing at all time high

jon rynn : "There you have it -- the US used to import raw materials and export manufactured goods, now it's the opposite, just like those colonized Third World countries."

I'm not surprised you might think this.  Whenever a Republican holds the presidency, the news media slants the news so much that the casual reader gets an incomplete picture.  Today, even the right-wing fools such as Lou Dobbs are distorting the real state of the U.S. economy.

Here's some real facts:

U.S. exports, 2006 ($ billions)

manufactured goods ....... $923 ... 63%
services ..................... $414 ... 29%
agriculture & commidities ..$43 .... 3%
fuel and other ...............$71 .... 5%

total U.S. exports ..... $1,437 .. 100%

That mix hasn't changed much in 2007, though full year data is not yet available.

U.S. exports comprised 11.1% of GDP in 2006.  Fifty years ago U.S. exports made up only 5.2% of GDP.

Export Fact Sheet

Facts about U.S. manufacturingOn No American-made car meets China's fuel standards posted 1 year, 8 months ago 10 Responses

Why not tax emissions and let the market work?

"put a tax on the fossil fuels and it will have the same effect, no?"

Forgive me for being uninformed, but why put a tax on fossil fuels?  If the objective is to reduce CO2 emissions (not my objective, by the way), why not tax CO2 emissions?  If a fossil fuel user can figure out how to elimimate or reduce his CO2 emissions, why should he be taxed the same as one who cannot?

If a tax is ever going to be accepted, it must be revenue neutral.  And it can't include a huge redistribution of wealth.  On Does additionality matter? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 29 Responses

Target consumers, not capitalists

"Our lame car companies don't make their (relatively few) most efficient vehicles in this country."

The mission of automobile manufacturers is to maximize shareholder's wealth.  If enough American consumers wanted high mileage vehicles, and automobile manufacturers could sell them at a profit, the market would ensure a sufficient supply.  

The problem environmentalists face is not with the manufacturers.  It's with the consumers who are not yet convinced the harm they do outweighs the safety and comfort of larger vehicles.  If you guys were winning that battle, you wouldn't even need government regulation.

Consumers are not sheep.  They do make informed choices.  Why do you guys want to believe U.S. consumers are a bunch of helpless fools?On No American-made car meets China's fuel standards posted 1 year, 8 months ago 10 Responses

Airline travel growth exceeds population growth

"Would you rather spend extra travel hours on a comfortable train, internet connected or sleeping peacefully?"

Obviously, travelers are selecting air travel.  As I pointed out, the growth in the airline passenger industry continues, at a rate higher than the U.S. population growth.  The growth in international air travel is even higher.

You can probably find many opinions about how airline travel is undesirable, from an environmental and comfort standpoint.  But the real vote that matters is how consumers spend their dollars.  On Reducing your carbon footprint from travel posted 1 year, 8 months ago 41 Responses

Consumers choose air for long trips

amazngdrx: "Have you seen the news reports of air commuters stranded in airports for days due to weather delays, with absolutely no recvourse?"

In the belly: "as evidenced by increases in Amtrak ridership"

Have either of you seen any data on airline and rail passenger travel?  The airline industry continues to grow, by about 24 million additional U.S. passengers in 2007.  That one year increase - a mere 3.2% addition - is about the same as Amtrak's FY2007 total ridership of 25 million.On Reducing your carbon footprint from travel posted 1 year, 8 months ago 41 Responses

Government intervention hurt air travel

"Without government bailouts and military spending to develop every new generation of aircraft since the Wright brothers, who would be able to afford air travel now? "

Government bailouts just prolong inefficiencies in the airline industry.  Few airlines wanted the post 9/11 loan guarantees, and only two of the larger airlines even applied for them.  Government bailouts were the work of senators of Pennsylvania and Arizona who wanted to save U.S. Airways and America West from certain bankruptcy.   A healthier industry would have emerged without those bailouts.

I disagree with your assessment that military spending was necessary for the development of jet aircraft travel.  Certainly Boeing and McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed took advantage of military-sponsored innovations.  But there is no way to know whether those innovations would have developed anyway.

It was government protection of airline route monopolies and government fare setting that hindered the developemnt of passenger air travel for decades.  The explosive growth of that industry after deregulation is clear evidence that government intervention harmed rather than helped passenger air travel.On Reducing your carbon footprint from travel posted 1 year, 8 months ago 41 Responses

experts put money where their opinions are?

"A growing number of experts believe otherwise."

What does that mean?  There are now a dozen so-called experts where there were once four?  

Anyone can offer an opinion - and even claim it is informed.  The real test, though, is how much money one is ready to bet on one's opinion.  Airlines, aircraft manufacturers, energy companies, and millions of private investors are still placing their bets on the cost-effectiveness of air travel and a long-term supply of fossil fuels.  

How much money would be invested on alternative energy without government incentives and government regulations?  How much money would be invested in North American passenger trains if taxpayers and gasoline purchasers weren't heavily subsidizing rail?  Government intervention in markets leads to .... shortages?  lack of choices?  collapse of the Soviet union?  a rebirth of free markets in China?On Reducing your carbon footprint from travel posted 1 year, 8 months ago 41 Responses

air travel going away? not any time soon

"The idea of mass affordable air travel was a nice little concept that lasted about 30 years."

You know, the people who run the world's passenger airlines are not stupid.  Neither are the people who run Airbus and Boeing.  If the future of air passenger travel were truly at risk, neither group of executives would be signing long term contracts to buy and sell the next generation of passenger aircraft.On Reducing your carbon footprint from travel posted 1 year, 8 months ago 41 Responses

North America train travel will not happen soon

"The other area in which Europe can serve as a model is trains. People in North America drive or fly because it seems to be much more convenient and faster than taking trains, and it probably is."

I don't see how the European train model can work in the U.S.  Distances between large European cities are not that great:

• Paris-Milan 392 miles
• Geneva-Frankfurt 287 miles
• Brussels-Paris 162 miles
• Warsaw-Amsterdam 682 miles

Compare that with U.S. distances:

• New York-Dallas 1,316 miles
• Detroit-Miami 1,164 miles
• Atlanta-Denver 1,205 miles
• Philadelphia-Los Angeles 2,398 miles
• Boston-San Francisco 2,693 miles

Neither business travelers nor tourists are going to give up a 3 to 5 hour flight to sit on a train for 2 or 3 days.On Reducing your carbon footprint from travel posted 1 year, 8 months ago 41 Responses

Ideal vs quick BRT solutions

Jon Rynn: "The buses also need to be quiet and not "smelly", i.e., mostly electric. "

BRT generally uses existing highway corridors.  I'm not sure why "quiet" matters, unless one insists that BRT be accompanied by high density housing.

Right now, an all-electric BRT system would probably require a huge investment in dedicated power lines.  Implementing a diesel BRT along HOV lanes is much, much cheaper and much faster to implement.  Those who wish to reduce the congestion and carbon impact of personal automobiles should think about achieving the most bang for the bucks.

If - or when - electric buses can operate without dedicated power lines, then I agree electric power should be the preferred option.On A comprehensive solution to end congestion posted 1 year, 8 months ago 33 Responses

Bus vs train economics

The huge advantage of bus transport is the much lower cost.  For the $5 billion that has been spent on light rail in Dallas - to serve a very small part of the metro area - Dallas Area "Rapid" Transit could have blanketed the metro area with buses.  As those diesel buses needed to be replaced, the newer electric buses could have replaced them.  BRT doesn't even need dedicated highway lanes.  In Dallas, these buses are using existing HOV lanes.

Here's what is incredibly stupid.  A new light rail extension is being built - at a cost of a couple of $billion - to serve the northwest corridor of Dallas.  That corridor is already being served by express buses, which will be eliminated when light rail service is available.  Because of the number of rail stops along the soon-to-be built light rail extension, bus commuters travel times will increase.  Why are they doing this extension?  Because the suburban cities along that corridor have been paying for light rail for 20 years.On A comprehensive solution to end congestion posted 1 year, 8 months ago 33 Responses

Forgot one important vehicle

Rubber tire bicycles can also reach every home and business in the U.S.On A comprehensive solution to end congestion posted 1 year, 8 months ago 33 Responses

from a lobbyist's paper ...

Jon Rynn: "from a paper from the American Public Transit Association"

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to believe an industry lobbying association is presenting an objective argument when it states:

"there is one root cause of congestion: too many vehicles crowding available road space coupled with a lack of travel options."

Yes, our nation's road funding has lagged the demand for roads.  Gasoline taxes have not kept pace with inflation and with increases in vehicle fuel efficiency.  Further, mass transit now syphons away 15% of highway funds.

It should be no surprise that the "solution" prescribed by the mass transit lobbyist is to put more money into mass transit.  The solution for teh highway lobby would be to put more money into highways.  Want to read some of highway propaganda just to get a balance of views?On A comprehensive solution to end congestion posted 1 year, 8 months ago 33 Responses

Sprawl doesn't need transit to save energy

"is there a place for transit in sprawl cities, particularly if "we" want to move to a less energy-intensive form."

The simplest way to reduce energy consumption is to live close to one's workplace.  That can be accomplished two very different ways:

1. pack all jobs and housing into a very dense geographical area; or

2. disperse jobs and housing throughout a sprawled, much larger georgaphical area.

Increasing density leads to unwanted congestion.  Dispersal of housing and workplaces leads to shorter commutes for those who choose to live close to workplaces.  Can't help those who won't take advantage of the gift that sprawl provides,  of course.On A comprehensive solution to end congestion posted 1 year, 8 months ago 33 Responses

Vehicle miles traveled have declined? Where?

Ryan Avent: "Transit ridership on existing systems is increasing. Where transit exists as an option, increased gas prices have limited growth in vehicle miles traveled and increased transit ridership."

Ryan, I do not dispute that transit ridership has increased.  After all, the U.S. working population has increased.  At the same time, billions have been spent to increase rail transit's reach.

My argument was that mass transit share has declined tremendously since 1960.  It has continued to decline even after the federal government began to syphon 15% of federal gasoline taxes away from highways and spend on mass transit.

Can you point to specific metropolitan areas where increased gasoline prices have limited growth in vehicle miles driven?  Are these metropolitan areas ones that are growing in population?  
On A comprehensive solution to end congestion posted 1 year, 8 months ago 33 Responses

Central business districts = longer commutes

jon rynn: "I think simple graph theory would show that having a group of destinations in the middle of a circle minimizes travel from the periphery of the circle"

I disagree.  Theoretically, a central business district could minimize travel distance, but never travel time.  A significant amount of energy and time is wasted when commuters sit on congested freeways and congested access roads trying to squeeze into central business districts.

In practice, a central business district does not even minimize travel distance.  All across the nation, commuters have moved close to workplaces.  When workplaces are dispersed across a large geographical area, that's possible.  When workplaces are located close together, it is not.  There is simply not enough land in the immediate vicinity of central business districts to accomodate the type of housing which the nation's overwhelmingly prefer.

Would you have the government force families to live in housing arrangements they would not otherwise choose?  For me, freedom to live where one desires and where one can afford should trump all the goals of urban planners.  On A comprehensive solution to end congestion posted 1 year, 8 months ago 33 Responses

sprawl does not cause congestion

Ryan Avent: "we didn't understand what we were getting into--that congestion, pollution, and sprawl would be the result of such an unbalanced approach to transportation."

I disagree that sprawl causes congestion.  Increasing population density causes congestion.  

Dallas-Fort Worth is probably the most sprawled major metropolitan area in the nation.  I drive 24 miles into the center of Dallas every day.  My commute time is under 35 minutes.  Each morning my wife drives across three suburbs, each with populations exceeding 100,000.  Her commute is also less than 35 minutes.

Los Angeles is the most dense metropolitan area in the U.S.  Most residents there would love to have a 35 minute commute.
On A comprehensive solution to end congestion posted 1 year, 8 months ago 33 Responses

roads are what commuters want

rh: "I might be wrong, but I'm thinking we built a few more roads than transit lines...funny how that'll drive down your miles traveled on transit, eh?"

Why do you think we've built more roads than transit lines?  Could it be that's what people want?

The 45 mile Trinity Railway Express (TRE) connects Dallas, Irving, and Fort Worth Texas.  Its high speed trains are never full.  About 4,400 round trip passengers per day use it.

Interstate 30 and State Highway 183 connect the same cities, running parallel and nearby TRE.  Approximately 200,000 vehicles travel each way daily on these highways.

Why should north Texas build any more transit lines that won't be used?On A comprehensive solution to end congestion posted 1 year, 8 months ago 33 Responses

TRE did nothing to shape Fort Worth development

tasermons partner: "Actually, and though not a part of the DART system technically, parta the growth in Fort Worth is due to an expansion of daily services of a transit line that connects Fort Worth to Dallas, and the DART line."

And what part would that be?  

The Texas and Pacific lofts by the T&P station are a fraction of the development at Sundance Square - which is on the other side of downtown from the TRE line.

I've seen no development near the Richland Hills station.

And, of course, the housing development in the far suburbs of Tarrant County - around Keller, Southlake, Colleyville, and Grapevine - dwarfs the puny growth near the TRE line by a factor of at least 500.  IOW, for every condo that has been added near TRE since its opening, at least 500 single family homes have been added in train-less Fort Worth suburbs. On Defying conventional wisdom, NC residents express desire for public transport posted 1 year, 8 months ago 27 Responses

DART is anything but a winner

Jon Rynn: "Also, ridership is up past 60,000, apparently.  It sounds like you have a winner there."

Please remember that "ridership" counts every one way trip as a rider.  So a "ridership" of 60,000 means that, after 15 years and $5 billion in subsidies, 30,000 people are using the trains each day - in a metro area with a population of 5 million.  How on earth is that a winner?  On Defying conventional wisdom, NC residents express desire for public transport posted 1 year, 8 months ago 27 Responses

move jobs close to housing

Thanks for the response, Mr. Philpott,

As I see it, whether low density is a problem or not, it is the choice that 2 million households have already made in north Texas.  Spending another $5 billion on trains is not going to change the density.  IMO, it is not practical to assume those 2 million homes are going to be abandoned.  On the other hand, workplaces can be moved closer to existing housing.  That's what is happening not just in Dallas, but across the nation as office jobs are relocating to the suburbs.On Defying conventional wisdom, NC residents express desire for public transport posted 1 year, 8 months ago 27 Responses

a light rail boondoggle

Light rail has been promoted for almost 30 years as the solution for traffic congestion in low density Dallas.  So what has been the result?

Dallas Area Rapid Transit has collected about $5 billion in sales taxes and federal government grants over the past 20 years.  Their latest rail ridership figures for 2007?

light rail - 60,592 riders per day
commuter rail - 8,893 riders per day

Ridership figures count each half of a commuting round trip as a separate trip.  Do the above ridership totals really mean that - at most - 34,700 passengers have abandoned their personal vehicles to ride the trains.  The areas served by DART and the Trinity Railway Express are home to 3.5 million daily commuters.

Net result from collecting $5 billion of taxpayers money for rail transit in Dallas?  1% of commuters have been removed from the highways.

Trains do not work in low density metro areas.  Yet greens keep promoting them.  Why?On Defying conventional wisdom, NC residents express desire for public transport posted 1 year, 8 months ago 27 Responses