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ChineseWill Randal Ever Stop?
Contributed by ScottMercer on September 6th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Looks like noted train loather Randal the Tool, er, excuse me, Randal O’Toole, is trying to poison another well against new rail mass transit, this time Honolulu. Check out his article claiming how
horrible trains are. If I were selfish, I’d let Randal go on about his business, hoping his nasty work would just mean fewer projects in other cities and more federal transit money for L.A. But I don’t think that way.
I hope some of you would like to debunk this article and Randal’s raucous ranting, and send off a response email to this Hawaiian website, which I have already done on more than one occasion.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
O’Toole doesn’t hate trains. He speaks out against rail transit promises vice results. Huge difference.
Which of his statements in this article are at variance with the facts?
For example, the share of commuters by transit is misleading since the Portland area sprawled a great deal, despite the “growth boundary”, between
the time the first light rail line opened and now. The Census is always a dubious place to get commute data from, since the form asks you how you usually get to work. If you drove 3 days and took the bus 2 days it would state that you commuted by car, despite the fact that you also used public transit. It would be better to cite the statistic of commuters who live within 0.5 miles of a rail station who use transit, because then you would see a significant difference.
Honolulu is much denser than Portland, and has a much higher number of tourists, so I suspect that rapid transit will work much better than in Portland.
share of commuters by transit is misleading since the Portland area sprawled a great deal, despite the “growth boundary”, between
the time the first light rail line opened and now.
Why is that misleading? The share did drop and technically the area is less sprawled. and I am not even comfortable with that. You misinterpret the disaggregated “journey to work” data. If you use transit at all you are counted as a transit user. Even more misleading, if you commute 20 mi by auto and take the last two miles by transit your car trip is what gets ignored.
Yes, Honolulu is denser and more compact and its linear nature makes it a prime candidate for LRT. That said it ain’t gonna be without cost, that cost being loss of lane miles. Sure Airport to Wakiki will work but that’s it. Can you say Vegas Monorail baby?
Robert wrote:
Can you say Vegas Monorail baby?
Can you say Deuce?