Cheerleading for Rail
The Comical's Lucas Wall (responsible for this piece of shoddy journalism that's been a hot topic lately) sat down with the new head of METRO (a real estate developer) for a Q&A session. Here's a snippet of how it went:
Question: Metro has a lot of opponents in the community -- 48 percent of voters cast their ballots against the expansion plan. What can you do to improve the agency's image and promote the benefits of mass transit?What a bunch of bull. The rail referendum would almost certainly lose today. That's the main reason "they couldn't afford to wait!" And I suspect the popularity of light rail will decline even more when METRO scales back its bus service around the Main corridor during the summer (hot!) in an effort to boost ridership numbers.Answer: It's unfortunate the referendum had to take place before the Main Street light rail commenced operating because people really had no idea what light rail was going to be like until they could see it with their own eyes. I think the margin of victory would have been greater if it had been a few months later, but they couldn't afford to wait.
The rail referendum is water under the bridge. But why does the city's only newspaper basically give the new METRO chief an outlet to be a cheerleader for rail? Rail opponents are simply dismissed, and their arguments are not even considered. It's a free platform for METRO's new chief -- who admits he's never ridden a Houston bus -- to engage in pro-rail cheerleading, unopposed.
Shoddy.
But not as shoddy as what I'll be posting about later tonight.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/11/04 14:53 | Houston | Technorati
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