🚀 go-pugleaf

"Jack May" <jack.may@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<r81Mc.143576$a24.94703@attbi_s03>...

[snip]

> Oh you mean like all those 200,000 pound light rails carrying a couple of
> people most of the time.   Not exactly an environmental solution.  Even the
> MTC said funding more transit under one court order in the Bay Area would
> probably increase pollution
> 
> To believe that just because it is not a car, it must be environmentally
> better is unlikely to be true.   That belief is just car hatred and not
> science.

[snip] 

This statement is only very partially, in the narrowest sense, true. I
lived in Sac for 14 years. As for most things, simplistic statements
rarely accurately quantify the issue.

The light rail (LR)system in Sac, for a number of reasons, doesn't
work very well. For one thing, political decisions, for example,
located a Home Depot next to a LR terminal. Why? Short-sightedness,
among other things. Cumulative decisions like this one, including many
developer-incented decisions, make LR development problematic in, say,
the North Natomas basin.

The original plan in North Natomas had many more facilities and design
options for public transit [including transportation to the airport].
Most of these things got eaten away in negotiations with developers.
 
> 
> How are they going to get to the light rail?   Car-crazy statements only
> show a lack of understanding of why people choose transportation modes that
> meet their needs.   People don't use transit because it is not a solution to
> the needs of those people.  It has nothing to do with "car-crazy" and
> everything to do with a failed transportation mode.

Yes. As I said, LR in Sac is not located adjacent to things that users
would use LR for. The open space around stations was not mandated to
develop grocery stores, retail, restaurants, offices, apartments,
single-family at sufficient density [e.g. 6+ du/ac], etc. [nor is
infill directed toward developing these uses].

Check it out. 

The MODE has not failed, policy-makers have failed to secure proper
development adjacent to LR stations. Reading Cervero's latest can
enlighten folks on this subject.

D