Chief
01-23-2008, 07:47 AM
This is what one wing of the opposition to Light rail looks like at this point...
Important!! Please read all the way to the end including Mr. O'Tooles
article on the folly of building Light Rail
Light Rail the Gravy Train
Not only are the Democrats Coming, they are now coming in pairs. A recent article in the Columbian showed two Democrat Governors, repeat Democrat Governors (Kulongoski & Gregorie) on a perfectly good I-5 Interstate Bridge between Oregon and Washington plotting on ways to PICK OUR POCKETS.
The two Tax and Spend Liberal Politician are willing to tax us to the tune of approximately 10 Billion dollars to replace the I – 5 bridge just so they can get on board “LIGHT RAIL THE GRAVY TRAIN”. Remember that number, 10 billion dollars. They, the politicians are currently low balling the estimated cost.
As pointed out in today’s Editorial “Attitudes About I-5” The Columbian at least had the courage in their cheer leading editorial that the Governors have no Idea what the proposed new Bridge Boondoggle is all about.
What they are not telling us is that if this Boondoggle goes through, not only will we have an excessive and early Tax (Oops some call it a toll) on the existing bridge followed by an excessive toll on the new I-5 Bridge, but we will soon see an excessive toll on the already paid for I-205 Bridge.
Why a toll on the I-205 Bridge? Without a toll on the I-205 Bridge most of those commuting from the high density Eastern part of Vancouver and Clark County will avoid the excessive I-5 toll by using toll free 205 bridge.
A new bridge with light rail will also result in higher sales taxes, increased business taxes, and what ever God forsaken new tax they think they can get away with.
If they, Those Tax and Spend Guys are really concerned about congestion why not use the existing heavy rail line between Vancouver and Portland. Add a Park and Ride lot at the Vancouver Train Station and one in the Vicinity of the Portland Expo Center and we could have for a fraction of the cost to build a light rail platform on a new but unneeded bridge an inexpensive commuter system . Those few people who want to use Light Rail, about 4 or 5 percent of the total commuters, can easily drive to the Vancouver Rail Station, jump on a special heavy rail commuter train, get off in Portland and jump on one of Portland’s financially failing Max Line Trains. This congesting buster idea should save the taxpayers roughly 9 billion dollars or more.
There is only one drawback to that idea, Saving Taxpayer dollars will not line the pockets of those Mr. O’Toole speaks of in his article below. An article I might add you won’t find in the Columbian. Far be it for them to print both sides of an issue.
Anyone want to bet that there are currently smoke filled back room deals being discussed that will allow the Tax & Spend Politicians to pursue this boondoggle without a vote of the people.
We need to start now preparing to fight their actions with petitions and referendums. We defeated Light Rail the Gravy Train the last time it was proposed and we can do it again. The First Step would be to vote Gregoire and her tax and spend crowd out of office in November.
In the meantime, we hope the Two Governors will read and digest what Mr. O’Toole has to say. It won’t change their minds but it will let them know we know this Light Rail idea is a colossal boondoggle.
Please pass Mr. O’Toole’s article on to your mailing list.
L. M. Patella
CDR USN (ret)
2714 NE 42nd Circle
Vancouver, WA 98663
Tel: 360 750 1186
lmpatella@comcast.net
READ On
Dispelling Transit Myths
By Randal O'Toole
This article appeared in the Charlotte Observer on October 12, 2007.
Rail transit is a huge waste of money that harms transit riders and mainly benefits a few politically powerful interest groups, such as rail contractors, at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. Transit has performed so poorly in the two dozen U.S. urban areas with rail service that it's hard to find any real success stories.
So expensive are rail lines to build, maintain and operate that most rail regions have, at some point, been forced to significantly raise fares and/or curtail bus services, often leading to a loss of transit riders.
Randal O'Toole, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and the author of "Great Rail Disasters: How Rail Transit Harms Urban Livability," in remarks prepared for a John Locke Foundation forum in Charlotte Wednesday, October 10.
More by Randal O'Toole
Thanks in part to the high cost of rails, transit systems in Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and the San Francisco Bay Area carried fewer riders in 2005 than two decades before.
Los Angeles lost 17 percent of its bus riders when it began building rail transit, a decline reversed only when the NAACP successfully sued the region's transit agency for favoring white neighborhoods with rail service while cutting bus service to black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
Due to financial stresses caused by the high cost of rail transit, San Jose cut its transit service by 20 percent and lost a third of its transit riders.
The mass transit system in Portland, Ore., carries only 7.6 percent of the region's commuters, down from 9.8 percent before rail construction began.
The subway in Washington, D.C., is wonderful for tourists, but not commuters: Though the region gained more than 100,000 jobs between 1990 and 2000, the transit system lost more than 20,000 daily commuters.
Many people who support rail transit hope other people will ride it, leaving less congested roads for everyone else. But rail systems that lose transit ridership or transit's share of travel make congestion worse, not better.
As Charlotte has discovered, building a rail system is far more complicated than simply providing excellent bus service. Rail construction requires long-range forecasts of revenues, costs and ridership trends — forecasts that are almost invariably wrong. As a result, rail projects go an average of 40 percent over budget and end up carrying an average of 35 percent fewer riders than projected.
Nor is rail the environmental panacea its advocates promise. Light rail may seem to use less energy and emit less pollution than buses or cars. But rail lines must be supplemented by feeder buses that tend to run much emptier than the corridor buses the rail lines replaced. Empty buses mean high energy use and pollution per passenger, so the transit system as a whole ends up consuming more energy and producing more pollution, per passenger, than if it ran only buses.
Transit advocates brag that transit produces less carbon monoxide than autos. But carbon monoxide is no longer a serious environmental threat. Today's problems are nitrogen oxides, particulates and greenhouse gases. Diesel buses, and rail cars whose electric power comes from burning coal, produce far more of these pollutants than today's automobiles.
For all these reasons, Charlotte should stop building new rail lines. In fact, the best use of the line now under construction might be to pave it over and convert it to exclusive bus lanes. Those bus lanes could move more people at far lower financial and environmental costs than the multibillion-dollar rail network that the Charlotte Area Transit System wants to complete.
AMEN
Important!! Please read all the way to the end including Mr. O'Tooles
article on the folly of building Light Rail
Light Rail the Gravy Train
Not only are the Democrats Coming, they are now coming in pairs. A recent article in the Columbian showed two Democrat Governors, repeat Democrat Governors (Kulongoski & Gregorie) on a perfectly good I-5 Interstate Bridge between Oregon and Washington plotting on ways to PICK OUR POCKETS.
The two Tax and Spend Liberal Politician are willing to tax us to the tune of approximately 10 Billion dollars to replace the I – 5 bridge just so they can get on board “LIGHT RAIL THE GRAVY TRAIN”. Remember that number, 10 billion dollars. They, the politicians are currently low balling the estimated cost.
As pointed out in today’s Editorial “Attitudes About I-5” The Columbian at least had the courage in their cheer leading editorial that the Governors have no Idea what the proposed new Bridge Boondoggle is all about.
What they are not telling us is that if this Boondoggle goes through, not only will we have an excessive and early Tax (Oops some call it a toll) on the existing bridge followed by an excessive toll on the new I-5 Bridge, but we will soon see an excessive toll on the already paid for I-205 Bridge.
Why a toll on the I-205 Bridge? Without a toll on the I-205 Bridge most of those commuting from the high density Eastern part of Vancouver and Clark County will avoid the excessive I-5 toll by using toll free 205 bridge.
A new bridge with light rail will also result in higher sales taxes, increased business taxes, and what ever God forsaken new tax they think they can get away with.
If they, Those Tax and Spend Guys are really concerned about congestion why not use the existing heavy rail line between Vancouver and Portland. Add a Park and Ride lot at the Vancouver Train Station and one in the Vicinity of the Portland Expo Center and we could have for a fraction of the cost to build a light rail platform on a new but unneeded bridge an inexpensive commuter system . Those few people who want to use Light Rail, about 4 or 5 percent of the total commuters, can easily drive to the Vancouver Rail Station, jump on a special heavy rail commuter train, get off in Portland and jump on one of Portland’s financially failing Max Line Trains. This congesting buster idea should save the taxpayers roughly 9 billion dollars or more.
There is only one drawback to that idea, Saving Taxpayer dollars will not line the pockets of those Mr. O’Toole speaks of in his article below. An article I might add you won’t find in the Columbian. Far be it for them to print both sides of an issue.
Anyone want to bet that there are currently smoke filled back room deals being discussed that will allow the Tax & Spend Politicians to pursue this boondoggle without a vote of the people.
We need to start now preparing to fight their actions with petitions and referendums. We defeated Light Rail the Gravy Train the last time it was proposed and we can do it again. The First Step would be to vote Gregoire and her tax and spend crowd out of office in November.
In the meantime, we hope the Two Governors will read and digest what Mr. O’Toole has to say. It won’t change their minds but it will let them know we know this Light Rail idea is a colossal boondoggle.
Please pass Mr. O’Toole’s article on to your mailing list.
L. M. Patella
CDR USN (ret)
2714 NE 42nd Circle
Vancouver, WA 98663
Tel: 360 750 1186
lmpatella@comcast.net
READ On
Dispelling Transit Myths
By Randal O'Toole
This article appeared in the Charlotte Observer on October 12, 2007.
Rail transit is a huge waste of money that harms transit riders and mainly benefits a few politically powerful interest groups, such as rail contractors, at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. Transit has performed so poorly in the two dozen U.S. urban areas with rail service that it's hard to find any real success stories.
So expensive are rail lines to build, maintain and operate that most rail regions have, at some point, been forced to significantly raise fares and/or curtail bus services, often leading to a loss of transit riders.
Randal O'Toole, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and the author of "Great Rail Disasters: How Rail Transit Harms Urban Livability," in remarks prepared for a John Locke Foundation forum in Charlotte Wednesday, October 10.
More by Randal O'Toole
Thanks in part to the high cost of rails, transit systems in Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and the San Francisco Bay Area carried fewer riders in 2005 than two decades before.
Los Angeles lost 17 percent of its bus riders when it began building rail transit, a decline reversed only when the NAACP successfully sued the region's transit agency for favoring white neighborhoods with rail service while cutting bus service to black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
Due to financial stresses caused by the high cost of rail transit, San Jose cut its transit service by 20 percent and lost a third of its transit riders.
The mass transit system in Portland, Ore., carries only 7.6 percent of the region's commuters, down from 9.8 percent before rail construction began.
The subway in Washington, D.C., is wonderful for tourists, but not commuters: Though the region gained more than 100,000 jobs between 1990 and 2000, the transit system lost more than 20,000 daily commuters.
Many people who support rail transit hope other people will ride it, leaving less congested roads for everyone else. But rail systems that lose transit ridership or transit's share of travel make congestion worse, not better.
As Charlotte has discovered, building a rail system is far more complicated than simply providing excellent bus service. Rail construction requires long-range forecasts of revenues, costs and ridership trends — forecasts that are almost invariably wrong. As a result, rail projects go an average of 40 percent over budget and end up carrying an average of 35 percent fewer riders than projected.
Nor is rail the environmental panacea its advocates promise. Light rail may seem to use less energy and emit less pollution than buses or cars. But rail lines must be supplemented by feeder buses that tend to run much emptier than the corridor buses the rail lines replaced. Empty buses mean high energy use and pollution per passenger, so the transit system as a whole ends up consuming more energy and producing more pollution, per passenger, than if it ran only buses.
Transit advocates brag that transit produces less carbon monoxide than autos. But carbon monoxide is no longer a serious environmental threat. Today's problems are nitrogen oxides, particulates and greenhouse gases. Diesel buses, and rail cars whose electric power comes from burning coal, produce far more of these pollutants than today's automobiles.
For all these reasons, Charlotte should stop building new rail lines. In fact, the best use of the line now under construction might be to pave it over and convert it to exclusive bus lanes. Those bus lanes could move more people at far lower financial and environmental costs than the multibillion-dollar rail network that the Charlotte Area Transit System wants to complete.
AMEN