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The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal

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

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Friday, November 28, 2003

 
"FREEDOM FRIES" AND OTHER FRIVOLITY

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

TIME TO CHANGE THE APHORISM!

Great spirits have often encountered opposition from weak minds. Einstein.


From the Cabalmaster:

Now that all of you websurfers are still recovering from your meal of stuffed turkey or whatever, The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal is pleased to bring you a transit-related aspect of the France-bashing tomfoolery that erupted in January 2003.

Back then, as intrepid websurfers may recall, French President Jacques Chirac said, in effect, that he would not support America's planned adventure in Iraq because the French public was against the idea.

(We TransitCabalists were no fans of "Dat guy wit da mustache (RIP?)" but we're willing to accept the unabashed right of another democratic nation to disagree with the United States-- and nobody ever accused the Fifth Republic of being "undemocratic.")

For rest of this post, click here.



Monday, November 24, 2003

 
WIN AN ANNUAL TRANSIT PASS FOR THE URBAN TRANSIT SYSTEM OF YOUR CHOICE!

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal is pleased to announce the reopening of our first contest! NOW A STANDING OFFER UNTIL THERE'S A WINNER!

The prize: an annual transit pass, or its equivalent (e.g. twelve monthly passes), to any urban transit system in the WORLD! (Or, for commuter rail, up to two monthly passes for, say, the Metro-North Commuter Railroad or the Long Island Rail Road; we’ll consider similar operations on an ad-hoc basis.)

The challenge: Provide bona fide evidence that documents the source(s) of Wendell Cox’s ongoing funding!

Besides his own firm, "Wendell Cox Consultancy" and his personal websites, www.publicpurpose.com and www.demographia.com, Wendell is or has been listed in the recent past as "Associate" or "Senior Fellow" at the Heritage Foundation, the Texas Public Policy Institute, the Independence Institute, Heartland Institute, and many others. (These titles probably indicate that he’s been hired by each organization to write an anti-New Urbanism or anti-transit paper or two, and little else.)

Many of Wendell’s critics and opponents believes that he receive much loot from pro-highway, anti-urban, anti-smart-growth, right-wing and Libertarian interests.

(We’re shocked – utterly SCANDALIZED – we thought he did it just for fun!!!)

Wendell himself has refused to disclose who his clients are, other than to cop a plea of “customary professional practice.” Legitimate transportation consulting the equivalent of political hack jobs? Wendell, oh, pulleeze...




 
SONGS FROM THE WOOD(S): MORE VAPID VERBIAGE FROM RANDAL O’TOOLE

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

“You could put everyone in this country in California and there would be plenty of land left over.”

(Randal O’Toole, at www.sdearthtimes.com/cut_to_chase/ctc_74.html.)

Well, yes, as anyone who knows anything about Japan knows well.

Japan is roughly the same size as California, has half the population of the U.S. . . . but, paradoxically, most of the country’s land area is sparsely-populated or uninhabited.

However, moving everyone in the U.S. to California could not be accomplished without drastic government intervention to compel people to accept much higher residential population densities that exist today (outside of San Francisco, parts of Los Angeles, and adjoining very dense “suburbs”). Much more drastic than the planning and land-use policies that draw so much ire from O’Toole.

Of course, if everyone in the country moved to California, within 10 years a significant portion of their housing would go up in smoke from the inevitable wildfires, as shown in (seemingly) half of Southern California burning down recently.

Is there a contradiction here, Randal?






Tuesday, November 11, 2003

 
Light Rail Vote in Irvine (Orange County, CA), Addendum Four

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal concludes its coverage of the Orange County Grand Jury light-rail investigations.

Click here for article.



Saturday, November 08, 2003

 
LIGHT RAIL VOTE IN IRVINE, CA., Addendum Three

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal continues its erudite, in-depth analysis of the Orange County Grand Jury light-rail investigations.

For article, click here.


Wednesday, November 05, 2003

 
LIGHT RAIL VOTE IN IRVINE (ORANGE COUNTY) CA – Addendum, part 2

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

The Secret Worldwide Continues its hard-hitting, award-winning analysis of the light-rail investigations conducted by the Orange County Grand Jury.

(We thought we’d try matching the good . . . well, Mr. Fudge . . . when it comes to shameless self-promotion, but somehow, we think we’ve fallen short.)

Whoever the 1999 Orange County Grand Jurors might have interviewed, it’s obvious that the only published material they consulted (other than OCTA documents excluded, and the others separated above) were authored by:

Peter Gordon, Professor, School of Policy, Planning, and Development and Department of Economics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, see here www-rcf.usc.edu/~pgordon.

Most Memorable Recent Quote: “In any case, the world would be better off without the Blue Line.”

Charles A. Lave, Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, University of California, Irvine, aris.ss.uci.edu/econ/personnel/lave/lave.html. Lave is a long-established reputation as a rail transit critic.

James E. Moore II, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Public Policy and Management, Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, www.usc.edu/dept/ise/faculty/Moore.html.

Most . . . Singular . . . Recent Quote (see here www.lplac.org/jamese.htm):

“[Political commentator] Jill Stewart is trapped, forced to remain a lifelong Democrat ‘by the Republicans' incredible idiocy on such major issues as protecting the environment.’ . . .

“Why suffer? There is an alternative, Jill. We know you, and you know us. We are the Libertarians. We love pissing people off, and so do you. You know you want to do it. You know you will do it eventually. You know you're ready. Why wait? Don't fight nature. Don't be afraid. It's time. It will be so good.”

David Mootchnik, “a retired systems engineer with an interest in transportation,” a resident of the Orange County coastal community of Huntington Beach, and a transit critic, see here mywebpages.comcast.net/mallinc/cbicritique.pdf.

Most Rip-Roarin’ Opening Sentence: “Once again the Surface Transportation Policy Project’s (STPP) statisticians have conspired to dupe the public regarding the issue of transit versus roads.”

Robert W. Poole, Jr., Director of Transportation Studies and Founder, Reason Foundation, a Libertarian ”think tank” based in Los Angeles. Poole holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering from MIT; see www.rppi.org/robert.html.

Jonathan E. D. Richmond, a “former fellow” at the A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. A long-established rail critic, he styles himself as The Very Model of a Modern Major Transit Expert [sic].

Truth be told, we are not certain about his current employment or activities; his home page (see here the-tech.mit.edu/~richmond) does not say. Question we’d like him to answer: “With reference to the header on your home page (Jonathan Richmond!), do you think it’s possible that punctuation marks also represent . . . er . . . phallic symbols?”)

Thomas A. Rubin, CPA, CMA, CMC, CIA (. . . think you can squeeze "NKVD" or "KGB" in there, Tom?), CGFM, CFM, a former Controller of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and now an independent transportation consultant, is the only person on this list who has actual transit management experience (as far as is known to we TransitCabalists). A longtime rail transit critic, he has collaborated with James Moore (above) on several Reason Foundation publications.

Florida Public Policy Institute, a Libertarian “think tank” based in Tallahassee, FL and affiliated (evidently) with the Florida Libertarian Party. In addition to its “analysis” of the Orland light-rail proposal, FPPI has reprinted a Reason Public Policy Institute document, "Myths of Light Rail Transit" (Policy Study 244).

(. . . and, of course, Wendell, who needs no introduction.)

Um, have we made our point yet?

Collectively, the “authorities” above bear far more resemblance to a panel of SAPs™ than a panel of “experts.” Their “findings” and “conclusions” all tend to boil down to the following:

STOP BUILDING RAIL SYSTEMS, DAMMIT!

It is important to remember that Grand Jury proceedings are confidential. However, we feel safe in speculating that CenterLine opponents “pulled out the stops” attempting to influence the outcome.

What did they get for their efforts?

Not nearly as much as they’d like you to think.

Whatever a Grand Jury chooses to publish in the body of a report is there to support its “findings” and “recommendations.” The agency in question is required to respond to “findings” and “recommendations” – but not to anything else. Quotations from the body of the report may be trumpeted far and wide by “the opposition,” but have little if any real significance for the agency investigated.

We’ll continue this story in our next post.



 
SOME THINGS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES -- II

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

"Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two.


From the Cabalmaster:

According to several FOCs, Randal O’Toole explains that light rail trains are much more dangerous than buses because . . .

. . . when you get hit by a light rail train, you die, but when you get hit by a bus, you just bounce off!