Friday, January 9, 2009

Rail Opponent Cliche Fest

Ryan points out the dumb comments the Post starts its article out with:
"Despite its substantially higher cost"
He goes on to comment:
Despite its substantially higher cost, I ordered the delicious steak the other night, instead of the potted meat. Despite its substantially higher cost, I bought a nice bottle of wine instead of a plastic jug of horse spit. Despite its substantially higher cost, I opted to burn a pile of money, rather than shell out for a copy of the worthless Washington Post.
I'll do you one better! How about all these wonderful anti rail cliches from US News and World Report:
Democratic bleeding hearts

social engineering program

nice thing to have. But

at a fraction of the cost, buy swank new buses

half the cost of light rail, build a dedicated "bus rapid transit" system

riders of the proposed Purple Line already take mass transit to work

proponents are actually hurting the cause
Who thinks US News should stick to college rankings?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I sure do love our media!

Randy Simes said...

Fantastic post.

Anonymous said...

What a laugh! These opponents must be joking about it. It's no joke that in Maryland, officials seem to favour LRT for the Purple Line. To quote Homer Simpson, "Woo hoo!" LRT is my known preference for this. BRT was just a Trojan horse inserted by former Republican Governor of Maryland Bob Ehrlich, who is not a full "moderate".

These are only tiresome cliches about rail transit. Droning rhetoric is boring me, as much as the strike by OC Transpo employees in Ottawa will continue again for some time, from yesterday's vote. (Of course, I support labour unions.)

Needless to say, great post!

Anonymous said...

This post may just have made my morning.

Unknown said...

Those of us on the ground in advocating for the Purple Line (I live in suburban Maryland) are glad that the debate is not driven by the Post. The Post has consistently not seen this project for what it is: a dramatic improvement of mobility for our entire region. District of Columbia residents will use this line in addition to Maryland residents. It connects existing centers of activity and existing Metro lines.

When it comes to transportation, the Post is still driven by a 20th Century favored quarter (definition: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=611) suburban mindset that says that transit is for "them." They are not that relevant in the debate, thankfully. They merely try to make a Cable TV news-style "storyline" out of the players on the ground. They have reported little substantive information for quite a while.

The DEIS can be found at www.purplelinemd.com. It's the state's page. Also, check out the Purple Line Now coalition page at www.purplelinenow.org and the Action Committee for Transit (of Montgomery County, MD) at http://www.innerpurpleline.org/ You'll find more relevant information there.

This line will be a part of the existing Metro system. It's being done by Maryland because WMATA had to lay off their planning staff back in 2003. The same is true of the Silver Line in Virginia.

Anonymous said...

that sounds exactly like the work of a handful of commenters on portlandtransport.com, perhaps jim karlock? terry parker? "billy"? randall o'toole?