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Originally Posted by Boris2k7
Well, his argumentative style is to coopt little bits of truth into an otherwise untrue argument. Like a politician whose party wants to destroy the health care system, lower spending on social services, and send the country to war, but also wants to ensure that children get good daycare. I mean, you can't be against good daycare, can you? 
Just "The Antiplanner" title pisses me off. |
The title "Antiplanner" is so ridiculously full of hollow pomp and arrogance, and is simply pandering to the so-called libertarian crowd. What O'Toole advocates isnt even "anti-planning" in the first place, its just lousy planning. Does he really think sprawly development has no involvement in some manner or another from municipal governments (and thus planners)?
Lets review the article:
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Buying bulk people-movers is old paradigm. As U.S. environmental economist Randal O'Toole observed in this space the other day, light-rail service was a fad of the past generation that sought to replace heavy buses (average weight: 13,600 kilograms) with heavier rail cars (average weight: 45,360 kg). With few exceptions, the U.S. cities that opted for light rail – a term laden with irony – incurred far more cost than anticipated. Twenty-year projects always do. (The Boston transit authority, citing a single example, is $5-billion in debt.) And most light-rail systems carry fewer people – because light rail (on fixed routes) still requires the preservation of big buses (on flexible routes). You get the worst of alternative transit systems, and diminishing returns."
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- Calling LRT a "fad" is simply an attempt to instill a prejorative mentality towards in within the reader. Indidentally, LRT appears to be more popular than ever right now.
- LRT is so named due to its capacity (relative to traditional "HRT/Subways". it has nothing to do with the weight of the vehicle.
-The "Boston example" is conviniently phrased in order to make is sound like it was randomly selected. In fact, Boston's transit operator has the higherst debt of any transit authority, and thus he's attempting to pass of the worst case scenario as simply an "average" situation.
-Incidentally, speaking of Boston and cost overruns, ever heard of the BigDig, O'Toole? It's only $6.5 billion dollars over budget...
-The last couple sentences doesnt even make sense. How does being "fixed alignment" equal bad? You would build LRT where you have high ridership on existing buses (i.e. where you would not want to change routing). And if I understand correctly, is he criticising LRT for the inabbility to replace all bus routes throughout the city? What a stupid thing to say. Imagine a hundered years ago: "but sir, its stupid to pave that road, because the rest of them will still be dirt roads".
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Road to hell is paved with public transit
Exclusive bus-only lanes, like the semi-exclusive HOV (“high-occupancy vehicle”) lanes that are common in the United States, further lessen the inherent efficiency of cars. Mr. O'Toole calls HOV lanes “fampool lanes” – because family size alone typically determines the number of people in any particular car at any particular time. (He calculates average car occupancy this way: family size minus one.) In the U.S., a number of states have eliminated HOV lanes in favour of HOT lanes – high-speed toll lanes available to any car, with any number of people. Bus-only lanes have the same flaw as HOV lanes – they cause congestion for many, mobility for few.
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-Cars are not inherently efficient, they are anything but, whether you measure it spacewise, moneywise or environmentwise. They can be, however, timewise,if only because we have spent the last half century designing out cities to cater to them. More about tolling below.
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From an environmental perspective, highway construction makes a relatively good investment. Mr. O'Toole: “Each mile of urban highway typically provides far more passenger miles of travel than a mile of light-rail transit line. The average mile of U.S. light-rail line, for instance, [provides] only 15 per cent as many passenger miles as the average lane mile of urban freeway.” Yet all drivers know the anguish of driving at a crawl on expressways – alongside an exclusive, empty bus lane.
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Adding the bus lane to the freeway would do very little, if anything, to decongest the road. The Principle of Triple Covergence tells us that this space would almost immediately fill up, and we'd be back to where we were before.
Furthermore, it ignores the basic point that the idea behind bus lanes is to make public transit faster in order to get poeple out of their cars.
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Worst of all, big light-rail projects require a generational commitment. You're building something that must last for 40 or 50 years to make any economic sense. You must necessarily build with today's technology – and then you must necessarily forgo technical advances that become available in the decades ahead.
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What a stupid arguement. I guess I should never buy a computer, because there will always be a better model with a month. Simply because something is not state-of-the-art doesnt mean its useless. The London Underground is as well used as ever, despite some of it being 140 years old. Has O'Toole ever heard of maintainance and upgrades? Guess what, even freeways need them.
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“Can you imagine trying to write a transit plan for today 20 years ago,” Mr. O'Toole asks, “when no one had heard of the Internet, and all the ramifications of the Internet? Yet we see governments all the time, sitting down and writing 20-, 30- and 50-year plans for their cities – which is totally absurd.”
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What the hell does the internet have to do with this? Not nearly enough people telecommute for it to make a large difference, if thats what he's refering too.
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Mr. O'Toole advises cities, instead, to help cars operate efficiently. He proposes tolls on all future highways and advocates toll lanes on expressways. He favours peak-hour tolls in all congested parts of town. He calls for the smartest traffic-light technology that money can buy. Congestion, he says, is not the fault of cars; rather, he says, it is the fault of urban planners.
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STOP THE PRESSES! He's actually right about something. Congestion tolls are a good idea (though only with good public transit, so lower income people dont get royally fucked).
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Congestion, he says, is not the fault of cars; rather, he says, it is the fault of urban planners.
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Yup, the fault of Robert Moses and his fellow "car-first" mentality planners.
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As for the environment, Mr. O'Toole says a 1-per-cent increase in new-model cars on the road produces more benefits – in energy efficiency and in greenhouse gas reductions – than any light-rail system can produce. This kind of transformation, he suggests, can be accomplished with “minimal incentives.” Further, hybrid-electric cars save energy and cut CO{-2} emissions far more effectively than trying to induce people to use public transit.
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Guess whats even more efficient? A 1-per-cent decrease in the number of cars on the road!
As usual, he ignores the inherent correlation between transit and development style. A transit system is more than just getting people from A to B, its a catalyst for compact development, which in turn provides a massive host of environmental benefits, such as more efficient heating, the lack of paving-over of farmland and greenfields etc.
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In the end, Mr. O'Toole's theory is persuasive because cars are the urban transit system that can most quickly exploit technological advances and the only urban transit option that can be simultaneously light and rapid.
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In the end, Mr. O'Toole's theory is persuasive because a) you respond favourably to level-down populist pandering, and b) because he is the epitome if intellectual dishonesty and will withold facts that would paint a different picture, and will play off of most peoples lack of knowledge about his examples.
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