PrintMay 16, 2011
Fast Train To Hell
The world's romance with train travel remains ardent. Books and movies and television documentaries rhapsodize. Public sector planners appear to be smitten with rail as the answer to environmentally friendly transport that will reduce automobile use -- the bête noir of righteous greenies. And even better, rail transit adds considerably to their desire to re-settle populations to prevent "sprawl," a condition they find repugnant. Most Americans call sprawl "neighborhoods," however, little realizing that ramping up urban rail transit creates the cutting edge of the ax designed to control where they live.Localized rail transit is a planner's dream and a city's nightmare. Urban rail systems are costly and ineffective and never go away, saddling local governments with continually escalating costs and stagnant revenues. The list of ancillary costs and aggravations, rarely revealed by rail enthusiasts, includes the expense of rights-of-way; land and construction...(Read Full Article)
