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

 
The "Adopt A Transport Pundit" Program

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Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

Effective immediately, The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal is blatantly, unashamedly, joining the "Adopting A Transport Pundit" program, following the example of the "Adopt a Pundit" Program as outlined at www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/000220.html.

Some excerpts:

The "Adopt a Pundit" Program

"The absence of alternatives,” said Henry Kissinger, “clears the mind marvelously.” That would probably explain why my mind has been so muddled since I started blogging. The blogosphere contains far too many alternatives, too many choices about what to read or what to ignore. The posts accumulate by the thousands and even Glenn Reynolds (www.instapundit.com) with his stable of indentured servants armed with laptops and T1 connections can’t keep up with them all.

"...To compound the problem, we bloggers tend to gather with our own kind, preferring not to venture far from our cozy end of the political spectrum. On our horizon we are able to see the broad outlines of our ideological opponents positions but we miss the nuance and subtleties that are hidden beneath the surface.

"Obviously, it would benefit us to have exposure to other thoughts and ideas and have them tested against our own. But we hardly can find the time as it is to keep up with the conversation among our circle of peers. What we need, however, is not more time but a different tactic.

"A modest solution to this problem would be for every pundit to “adopt” a blogger from the opposite political pole. If the liberal/conservative blogger has a post that is worthy of notice he could bring it to the attention of his circle of readers who would then be able to spread it to their own audience. In this way, the blogs that don’t find their way onto the “common grounds” (Instapundit, for example) would gain greater exposure.

"The plan is not foolproof. What is considered worthy of notice by one blogger may not be viewed the same by their peers. Still, the scheme offers a way out of our current political myopia...."

By diktat of Cabalmaster, the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal has arbitrarily chosen these transport pundits from the opposite side: Wendell Cox (www.publicpurpose.com and www.demographia.com) and Randal O'Toole (www.ti.org and a new site www.i2i.org, click on "Center for the New American Dream"). But of course you already knew that.

You probably also know that Wendell and Randal likely won't appreciate being adopted, particularly by the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal (for proper sound effect, click here). Of course, we might possibly be wrong! But don't bet the farm!


posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 2/19/2004 06:53:00 PM

 
It's The Rush Hour, Stupid!

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

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

Just when we thought it was safe to turn the computers back on . . . we did yet another search on yet another unrelated topic, and up popped yet another example of asininity from Wendell Cox's online "Urban Transport Fact Book."

This particular "Wendellpage" is titled Comparing Roads to Rail, was written by Jack Mallinckrodt and is dated November 19, 1999 (www.publicpurpose.com/ut-mallinckrodt-fwylanes.htm).

Mallinckrodt, a retired radio science engineer (and candidate SAPTM laureate) is webmaster for a pro-road, anti-transit website titled "ARISTOTLE on Urban Transportation Issues" (mywebpages.comcast.net/mallinc/index.html; "About WEBMASTER" page is here mywebpages.comcast.net/mallinc/abtweb.html).

Mallinckrodt's opening salvo (. . . he has extensive experience in military operations research . . . get it ? . . . get it ?? You HAVE a sense of humour, do you not?!) reads as follows:

"Light rail advocates often compare a freeway to a rail track, claiming that a rail track can carry more traffic at less cost in less space than a freeway. This is wrong in general, and true only if one compares the most heavily patronized heavy rail system (New York City) with a least utilized freeway."

Doesn't he wish.

To paraphrase a slogan from a political campaign of the early 1990s:

IT?S THE RUSH HOUR, STUPID!!

Comparing 24/7 freeway traffic to transit traffic is like comparing 24/7 business at an all-night donut shop with that at a tres grande luxe restaurant open only for dinner. Yes, both serve food, but the comparison ends there.

If urban travel were distributed evenly around the clock, most cities would probably not need rail transit. But it isn't, so they do.

In terms of people per hour--which is how rush hour traffic is measured--MOST U.S. rail lines outperform freeway lanes.

At "Level of Service D",--the highway engineer's description of traffic flow conditions just before "stop and go" sets in, the maximum vehicle flow recorded in U.S. cities ranges from 1,800 to 2,200 per hour. This works out to a maximum of about 2,500 people per hour per lane, given typical motor vehicle occupancies of 1.1 to 1.2 during peak hours. Many U.S. and Canadian rail systems, far away from New York City, carry 2,500 people per hour or more during the rush hour.

In Portland, light rail trains move half as many people during the morning peak as the parallel I-84 freeway. In other words, the Banfield corridor carries 50 percent more rush-hour traffic than it could without the light rail line.

Outside of New York, the heavyweight champ among U.S. rail systems is San Francisco's BART, which carries as many people as an eight-lane freeway during rush hours.

In Portland, it would have cost more than twice as much to expand the freeway as it did to build the rail line. In San Francisco, the cost of providing the highway capacity necessary without BART would be unthinkable.

And so, the next time you hear Wendell or one of his minions arguing that freeways carry more people than rail transit, you might want to ask the following:

WHAT ABOUT THE RUSH HOUR, STUPID?

(Yeah, we admit, the "stupid" was a bit crass, but that?s why you like our blog, isn't it? C'mon, admit it . . .)





posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 2/19/2004 05:50:00 PM

 
Getting Personal About Personal Rapid Transit

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Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

We here at the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal hold Personal Rapid Transit (PRT to you) in the same high regard as we do monorail.

No foolin’. If PRT could accomplish just a fraction of what its supporters claim, we’d be on board in an instant. All of us, from hither and yon (we are, after all, a worldwide cabal). But it cain’t, so we ain’t.

"’Personal Rapid Transit’ is totally ridiculous...a real hoot." That’s the opening salvo fired into cyberspace by a real hoot of a site, “PRT IS A JOKE!” See www.avidorstudios.com/PRTisaJoke.html.

“Now you can link to this web page instead of wasting your time arguing with pie-in-the-sky PRT fanatics.”

(Indeed . . . if you can stop laughing long enough to enter the proper keystrokes!)

“Folks, I'm sorry, But I'm going to have to have to break the news to you that PRT is a red herring, a clever distraction meant to muddy the debate in communities that are trying to decide whether to try non-automobile based transit systems or expand their existing dangerous and expensive automobile infrastructure. The PRT people are ALWAYS knocking rail and bus transit, rarely saying anything negative about automobiles.”

(Interesting . . .)

"When I first went to a meeting about LRT (light rail transit) way back in the 1980's, there was some PRT fanatic in the audience bad-mouthing trains, calling them ‘an old technology.’ He also said that automobiles were wonderful because you could choose who you wanted to ride with. I thought the guy was a total nut. After all cars were invented about the time as electric trollies..but, anyways... years later, a man interrupted a workshop my wife and I were giving at Macalaster College, shouted that ‘PRT was the only transportation solution,’ threw some ‘Taxi 2000’ brochures at us and stormed out.

"Fast forward to 2004. Some very dedicated transit advocates including myself are trying to stop the "35W Access Project", a highway expansion project. All of a sudden PRT fanatics are all over the place talking about how cars are great and transit sucks and that we have to wait until they can attach the so-called ‘advantages’ of automobiles onto a mass transit system using the glue of millions of taxpayer dollars.

"Coincidence?.....Hmmmmm....."

(Oh, NO! Could it be that PRT is not a joke, but a scam???)

We thought we’d reproduce the “table of contents” to give an idea of what this site contains.

1) PRT-The Old Shell Game.

2) Who Do You Believe?

3) The PRT Experience in Other Cities

4) Making it Up as They Go:

5) 1001 Reasons PRT is a Joke.

6) Picture PRT...

7) Comments

8) Contact

(The site is a great mixture of entertainment and education. Consider the following excerpts from "1001 Reasons PRT is a Joke.")

"Pigeons would just LOVE all that PRT infrastructure.

"...and so would graffiti ‘taggers.’

"Hookers would use the PRT pods as their private ‘office.’

"...and so would drug dealers.

"Terrorists could use PRT pods as a guided missile. Just park a bomb on the seat and away it goes...right into the second floor of a downtown building."

(If this is beginning to sound like something written by one of Your Favorite Transit Pundits . . . maybe it WAS! We are, after all, a secret cabal!)

(And, with reference to one of the items above, make sure you scroll down and check out the two cartoons, especially the second. Just how “personal” might things get aboard "Personal Rapid Transit.")

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 2/18/2004 02:22:00 PM

 
Monorail Recall in Seattle!

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

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

We told you so!

We knew it would come to this!!

Actually, Your Favorite Transit Pundits cannot claim to be the “first” to predict a stop-the-monorail initiative in Seattle. Some transit professionals have been saying this all along.

Although we haven’t been able to verify this story, we’ve heard that someone predicted this, in print, more than a year ago, writing in what is described as “some European newspaper or journal.” We don’t like to traffic in unverified rumors, but we mention this one because the outline of the story makes sense: the Seattle monorail project is likely to incur much higher costs than anticipated, owing to utility relocation, station parking and other issues. Once this fact becomes known, someone will start circulating petitions to place a monorail-defunding measure on the ballot. It is relatively easy to qualify an initiative for the Seattle municipal ballot if there’s any significant interest. So, the story goes, the measure would certainly qualify. The writer is said to have predicted that voters would overturn the project. We’re not quite ready to predict that – yet.

A group titled Monorailrecall.com (www.exordia.net/monorailrecall) has begun a “pre-petition” e-mail campaign – which, we think, is a novel and clever strategy. Step 1 is to collect e-mail addresses. Step 2 follows once a sufficient number of e-mail addresses are collected. Monorailrecall.com will send petitions by e-mail for recipients to sign and return by USPS. This strategy, according to the website, is required because the monorail ordinance limits signature-gathering to a 90-day period rather than the usual 180 days.

Monorailrecall.org’s list of “23 Reasons for Recall” is here www.exordia.net/monorailrecall/23reasons.htm.

Additional information may be found here seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/160040_monorailside10.html.

Things are beginning to get REALLY interesting in Seattle! We Opinionated Ones will certainly not be the only ones paying close attention to this story.

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 2/12/2004 06:34:00 PM

 
Iraq Update: Disappeared WMDs Stashed in Disappeared Baghdad Tunnel Network?

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

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

As intrepid websurfers know, the capture on December 13, 2003 of Sadaam Hussein abd al-Majd at-Tikriti, (aka “The Big Bad Baghdaddy,“ aka “Da Guy Wid Da Mustache”) was followed shortly by public airing of high-level doubts regarding Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs). On January 23, 2004, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, said he believed the regime ousted by the U.S. military in April 2003 had not stockpiled “unconventional weapons” for years. On the following day, (January 24, 2004), U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell conceded that Saddam’s regime may no longer have possessed WMDs at the start of U.S. military action in March 2003.

Kay made his remarks upon stepping down from the Iraqi Survey Group, the team that has been scouring Iraq for WMDs – without success – since the end of “major combat operations” at the beginning of May 2003. What he didn’t say – and what we here at the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal can’t help wondering – is whether the ISG found that legendary tunnel network beneath the streets of Baghdad.

Whatever else one may believe, Baghdad is populous enough to justify a subway network, and oil-rich Iraq could afford to build one. Saddam Hussein, in power, 1.) was anything but a nice guy, 2.) wanted to build a Baghdad subway, and 3.) wanted to build all sorts of nasty weapons and the facilities required for development – and concealment.

On the other hand, Your Favorite Transit Pundits find stories of a tunnel network, designed and built for transit purposes but converted to military use, hard to believe. At very least.

Underground bunkers and shelters are one thing (if you’d like one, there’s a firm in Belgrade that will build it for you www.energoprojekt.co.yu).

However, a network of tunnels extending up to 60 miles, of a cross-section large enough to accommodate subway trains, is another story. A project of this type could hardly be kept secret from residents above – nor, we suspect, from the watchful cameras of U.S. spy satellites. We can think of a number of things that would reveal the presence of such a project, including noise, vibration, excavation entrances and spoil disposal.

In 1998, UN inspectors did find bunkers and tunnels beneath some of Saddam’s palaces – but not the sophisticated tunnel network suggested by various reports. These reports described tunnels, connecting palaces, secret hideaways “and more,” built by Chinese, East German or Yugoslav engineers (straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/iraqwar/story/0,4395,182204,00.html).

The U.S. State Department lifted its long-standing ban on travel by U.S. citizens to Iraq more than six months ago. We admit that Baghdad is hardly a holiday destination owing to unrest and instability, but note the dearth of recent subway stories. As we reported previously, everything that can be found on the subject of Baghdad subways or Baghdad tunnels, everywhere in cyberspace, pre-dates the “end of major combat operations” announcement of President George W. Bush on May 2, 2003.

Your Favorite Transit Pundits have concluded – however tentatively – that the Baghdad subway tunnel story has little, if any, basis in fact. It arose most likely as an Iraqi “dezinformatsiya” effort, of the sort propagated by Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the hapless former Iraqi Minister of Information better known in the West as “Baghdad Bob.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in his December 2002 statement about “miles and miles of underground tunneling” may have propagated Iraqi dezinformatsiya, perhaps not unwittingly. Or, U.S. intelligence may have concluded that the tunnel network did exist (hey, they’ve been wrong before). In any case, the “full story” of Baghdad’s phantom subway has not yet emerged, and we’re certain that we’re not the only ones waiting to see it.

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 2/09/2004 10:05:00 AM