Craig Cox’s analysis of light rail was shallow and poorly researched. His most glaring omission was his failure to consider the issue of “capacity.” A single track of transit can carry 40,000-50,000 people per hour. A dedicated busway can carry just 20,000 people per hour. A car lane can carry an absolute maximum of 4,500 people per hour, and that’s with three people per car! Clearly, light rail transit has the greatest peak-demand hauling capacity. With no more room for highway lanes downtown, the only way to significantly increase capacity in the long run is by building a light rail transit network. Secondly, Cox doesn’t consider regional air pollution which frequently exceeds safe levels during the summer months. While diesel trucks and buses account for only 2-3 percent of highway vehicles, they are responsible for 25 percent of the smog-forming pollution and over half the particulate matter in our city’s air. Only electric rail (or electric buses) would significantly improve regional air quality. Finally, Cox makes some historical errors. The Twin Cities Rapid Transit Company was forced to share much of its right of way with cars, eliminating its potential advantage in speed and peak capacity. More importantly, Fred Ossanna was in the pocket of General Motors, whom he hired as “consultants” to rip up the TCRT and convert it to buses. GM repeated this process in hundreds of American cities, using front companies like National City Lines and Yellow Bus Company, to purchase and destroy trolley systems. A good account of all this can be found in David St. Clair’s book The Motoriza-tion of American Cities.
Andy Singer, Rake contributor,
St. Paul
Leave a Reply