High-speed rail whistles past the graveyard
Happy Holidays from the high-speed rail boondoggle! In spite of the happy-talk from the United States High-Speed Rail Association, this is the year that this dumb project will die in California. Martin Engel at High-Speed Train Talk will be witnessing its death throes.
Labels: High-Speed Rail
posted by Rob Anderson @ 11:00 AM
16 comments
16 Comments:
Is Masonic and Fell dangerous?
Fact: Red light running is dangerous, regardless of the number of actual incidents.
Now we'll find out how dangerous it is. Of course Rob would probably say this is the city preying on motorists
Look at the accident numbers in the sidebar, and you can see---or at least those not blinkered by BikeThink can see---that the number of accidents at that intersection has been remarkably steady over the years. It's only the Big Lie campaign by the Bicycle Coalition and its allies in City Hall that has now established this intersection as "dangerous." Reisman did no analysis but just parroted the SFBC, City Hall line.
the number of accidents at that intersection has been remarkably steady over the years...
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". Perhaps if we put a red light camera the number will GO DOWN. Fewer accidents better than the same, n'est pas?
Right, throw a little French into the comment to show what a phony you are. The point is there aren't that many accidents at that intersection, which the city's own numbers show. The "same thing" is not an emergency. It's all bullshit fostered by bike crackpots like you and the Bicycle Coalition.
The point is there aren't that many accidents at that intersection...
The cost in measureable dollars due to those accidents - police time, lost work time, medical, bikes/cars/shoes/whatever, court costs, insurance adjuster time, lawsuits, etc... is higher than the direct costs for things to alleviate the accidents - separate timing signals, red light cameras, etc...
As such, it is financially prudent to take those measures. Judge Busch understood this and ruled accordingly.
If the Fell/Masonic intersection is so bad, why didn't the city include it in its annual list of "Highest Injury Collision Total Intersections" in its collision reports of 2006, 2007, 2008,and 2009? On page 16 of the current collision report, we have this sentence: "Collision Trend: This location has had a stable pattern since 2006 of 6 to 5 reported intersection collisions a year."
Between 2007 and 2009, there were 17 injury collisions at the intersection — an accident total that trailed only four other city crossings during that period of time.
Source - SF Examiner (link above)
Still, the intersection didn't make the most accidents list. You rely on the Examiner article, but the reporter took the numbers from the city's Collision Report (page 16). Why not go to the source?
Probably because the reporter left out the year 2000, when there was only one accident. Leaving out 2000 makes the intersection look worse for a nine-year period. But from 2000 to 2000, there were 60 accidents there, an average of six a year, which means the last several years were typical, not evidence of some kind of an emergency.
There are a lot of city intersections that don't make the worst list. Why is Fell/Masonic singled out for special attention? Because of the SFBC's drumbeat of hysterical propaganda for years, which prompted the PC lemmings in City Hall to act as if the hysteria had any basis in fact.
Because of the SFBC's drumbeat of hysterical propaganda for years, which prompted the PC lemmings in City Hall to act as if the hysteria had any basis in fact.
They might not be right but they sure are better than you at getting what they want. Which... Is all that matters!
For once you're at least being honest.
Honest? People post here purely for the entertainment of picking on a bitter old man, because convincing you of anything is not only impossible, it's meaningless because you can't do anything to stop us from our utopian vision. And we like to remind you of that over and over and over again.
That's right - there is NOTHING you can do. NOTHING.
I'm old but I'm not bitter. You morons never lay a glove on me. First, you all seem to have reading disorders, which makes it hard for you to focus on what I actually write. And your minds are so cluttered with the goofball perspective---BikeThink---that you actually think is a "utopian vision," that any thinking is a real strain.
And you cap that off by being too chickenshit to put your names on your lame gibes.
Rob -
Here is what your source says we should do instead of a HSR boondoggle.
He wants to run BART down the Peninsula
Now, Martin's no dummy. He knows that running a BART line from Millbrae to San Jose down the Caltrain line would cost northwards of 20 billion in direct costs (if you use BART to SJ or SFO as a guide). And he knows that the residents of the Peninsula would fight to have it undergrounded which would increase the costs to a prohibitive level.
And he knows it would give consumers WORSE service than the current Caltrain line, because Caltrain can run express trains but BART would not be able to without increasing costs even more. And it would eliminate service to downtown San Bruno, downtown SSF, Bayshore, Potrero Hill, and SoMA. There would be arguments about removing stations from the current line in the BART construction.
In other words he knows it would NEVER happen. In fact he would HATE it if it DID happen.
So... why is he advocating for it?
No different than fighting a bike plan because "It will hurt the environment to put in bike lanes". He makes this argument in order to get in the way of Caltrain electrification, because he knows that will mean more trains past his house (HSR or not).
That's his argument, not mine. All I know is that his blog is an excellent source on high-speed rail.
"No different than fighting a bike plan because 'It will hurt the environment to put in bike lanes'."
You put that in quotes, but I've never written anything like that, though taking away traffic lanes on busy streets to make bike lanes obviously can hurt the environment by making traffic congestion worse.
The bike plan is going full steam. Is traffic worse?
No.
Taking away traffic lanes for bikes does not make traffic worse. You guess. We prove. Facts trump hysteria. Always.
Which "facts" are you referring to?
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