Re: Mass Transit and DART
Rod might have left us for the Southern Poverty Law Center, but he’s still reading the blog. He saw my post about his 1991 DART story and returns fire:
D hardly got the DART story “wrong,” as you snark in your post, back in 1991. Perhaps my attack on DART’s light rail plans as a bureaucracy-driven boondoggle that ill-served the majority of the city and the suburbs, and that shifted resources from a far more sensible and flexible expansion of bus routes, is not how you, in your wisdom, see the issue. But “wrong” is just not right, as it implies accuracy rather than evaluation.
I would suggest that FBvians read the linked piece and decide for themselves. Some of the numbers have changed over the years but DART light rail still loses far more money than it ever contributes to the social good (beware DART’s own PR). Meanwhile DART’s bus system, the one true (though less sexy) possibility for making mass transit mesh with the actual, not theoretical, geography of expansion, remains underfunded and underutilized. No accident there.
As I said in the piece, everyone is “for” mass transit. The questions are how best to make it serve the needs of the people, not highly paid executives, developers, and heavy equipment salespeople.
Good lord, I sound like Schutze. Now that is “wrong.”
You still have to admit, Rod: that headline was horrible.
Awards | Archives | Reprints | Custom Publishing | Jobs | Advertiser's Index