Informed but opinionated commentary and analysis on urban transportation topics from the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty.

Our Mission: Monkeywrench the Anti-Transit Forces

 
STOP BUILDING RAIL SYSTEMS, DAMMIT!


From the Cabalmaster:

The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal has created a new award: membership in the Society for the Abolition of Effective Public Transit, aka “SAEPT,” sounds like "Sap" or "Saps." Laureates will be known as “Saps,” and their pronouncements will be flagged with labels such as “This sounds typically 'Sappy.’”

The slogan of The Club is the plaintive cry:

“STOP BUILDING RAIL SYSTEMS, DAMMIT!”

This is the natural fusion of 1.) a sentence penned recently by Wendell Cox:

“If transit choice is the object of policy, then it is even more urgent that urban rail projects be abandoned as quickly as possible. (“The Illusion of Transit Choice.” Veritas, March 2002. Texas Public Policy Foundation.www.tppf.org/veritas/vol3_issue2/wendellcox.pdf

and 2.) a slogan popularized by “The Stranger,” a free Seattle weekly newspaper: “Build the monorail, dammit!” www.thestranger.com/2000-07-13/feature.html).

The motto of The Club:

We shall promulgate any baloney,
Attack any fact,
Support any sycophant,
Ignore any foe,
Accept any funds,
Pursue every grant,
From all who share our vision:
America, free of public transit.

It is reasonable to ask whether the benefits of rail transit justifies its capital cost. The speculative frenzies of a century ago gave rise to many miles of hopelessly uneconomic electric railways, and no one wants to repeat this experience.

However, rail transit is here to stay and will continue to expand, despite the best efforts of various pro-highway, pro-sprawl, right-wing, libertarian, autophile, urbanophobe and other factions to turn the tide.

The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal will award SAEPT memberships or "Saps" on a regular basis to various individuals and organizations who just don’t get the simple fact above.

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 8/01/2002 12:07:00 PM