Saturday, December 8, 2007

When Alternatives Analysis is a Wasteful Exercise

JMD at Transit in Utah points out a few projects in Los Angeles that will have to go through the AA process to get federal funding and finish their environmental assesment when it ends up wasting money. 1. The Subway to the Sea - Why would you do an AA with a BRT alternative when there is already BRT running on the street? 2. Expo Phase II - The first half is Light Rail, why require a transfer to BRT? 3. The Downtown Connector - This was supposed to connect the gold line to the blue line directly without a transfer. But why would you study a BRT connection between the two when the point was to connect the directly.

I understand doing an AA on a new corridor and in some places BRT is the best tool for the job, but forcing a study of it as an alternative when its obviously a waste of money is ridiculous. Use it to study different route alternatives instead. Besides, it looks like we are going to have to save all the money we can with the crazy inflation that is going on and the lowering of the dollar's value against other world currencies.

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