Libertarians Prod Kansas City to Forget Light Rail
Libertarian groups Cato Institute and Show-Me Institute are scrambling to convince Kansas City to end talks to consider building a light rail system in the city.
"The Show-Me Institute, a St. Louis-based libertarian group with Kansas City ties, released a study Wednesday that lambastes light rail as a bad fit here. However, the author and some of his arguments have been at the center of controversy elsewhere."
"The author is Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington D.C. He has written several papers and books denouncing light rail, and national pro-rail groups such as the Center for Transportation Excellence have accused him of presenting flawed and inaccurate arguments about this increasingly popular form of mass transit. Some of those arguments — such as associating light rail with crime — appear in the Kansas City study."
"'I think it’s important to look at this study in the context of its author,' said Mark Huffer, executive director of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, which is leading Kansas City’s light-rail planning. 'I think the conclusions … were a foregone conclusion before he (O’Toole) started.'"
- Login or register to post comments
- Email this page
Related News Stories
Study Says Traffic Growth Slowing In Metro St. Louis - Feb 20, 2008
Kansas City Light Rail Crime 'Myths' - Part 2 - Feb 01, 2008
Kansas City Light Rail Crime 'Myths' - Part 1 - Jan 31, 2008
Is A Subway System Possible In Kansas City? - Dec 10, 2007
Kansas City Behind In Light Rail - Jul 31, 2007
Haha. You have to get a
Haha. You have to get a kick out of O'Toole's "statistics".
"O’Toole wrote that light rail has “by far the worst crime record in the transit industry” and cited a decade worth of federal statistics for crimes such as homicide. However, those statistics show all light-rail lines across the country were associated with just two homicides in the last seven years of federal data."
"Because most light rail lines don’t systematically check whether riders paid at stations before boarding, “you encourage crime when you encourage fare evasion,” O’Toole said in an interview."
Fare collection on the honor system with random checks => crime => murdering of innocents. Excellent work Randall. Please, do tell us more.
I wonder what the stats backing up his other arguments are, such as "It (light-rail) doesn’t carry as many people as buses but it costs a lot more". Didn't realize that one of the bus' beneficial characteristics is capacity.