Re: Brisbane Light Rail,Briztram - questions

[Chris Brownbill <cbrnbill@enternet.com.au>]

qldspeed wrote:

> I urge other readers of aus.cars aus.transport etc. to have a look and
> draw their own conclusions.
> 

I also urge readers of these groups to read these stuff.  I have and I
have drawn my conclusions about these people.  Basically it seems that
its possible to make any case you want either for or against public or
private transport - it all depends on your skill as a marketer of
ideas.  how the heck do you think Clinton and Kennett got to be so
popular - its not their great vision its their marketing of themselves.

Read between the lines of these sites and ask yourselves what is the
reason these sites exist - why have they gone to the trouble?  Who
benefits?

I would have to say that even without disputing a single one of the
statistics one any of the sites mentioned (and maybe you could) - there
is no case to support the conclusions offered - because of a
fundamentally false premise upon which the argument is based - that is
that because things happen they way they do then things should continue
to happen they way they do.  In particular because car drivership is so
high that therefore people prefer to commute by car and it should remain
and be increasingly so.  Wrong.  It is that way because there are SOME
people who want it to be that way - but dont start putting opinions into
people's minds.

There is no explanation of the phenomenon of 'infrastructure envy'. 
Perhaps this is a manifestation of what people really want.  They have
used an unnecessarily emotive term for a desire people have for
something with which this mob disagree.  That is not a good enough
argument.

Finally, it is possible to construct, quite easily, even on the
simplistically narrow financial basis on which their case is made, that
society and individuals are significantly worse off under the scenario
espoused (again emotively) as the American Dream (I have my own emotive
term - the Suburban Wilderness).

Have a bit of a think about it and remember ask yourself - who benefits
from such a site?