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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (214944)	8/8/2007 8:51:02 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793927

Light Rail: Moonbats' Dream, Taxpayers' Nightmare If you think the "moonbat" word is too extreme, I urge you to overlook it ... the piece is right on the money re. light rail. Nothing typifies the politically motivated, counterproductive meddling of moonbat social engineers better than light rail systems. It doesn't matter if people don't want to ride on them. Bureaucrats will build them anyway, because the systems fit their enlightened theories as to how population units ought to be transported. When construction is based on moonbattery instead of demand, the result is inevitable: bankruptcy, averted only by expensive bailouts involuntarily financed by taxpayers. A fine example is the Las Vegas monorail, scheduled to hit insolvency in the year 2010, unless it turns into a permanent financial sinkhole by attracting a government bailout. In Houston, METRO spokeswoman Raequel Roberts has been attempting to compare the light-rail system's stray-current problem to graffiti — resolutely ignoring the structural damage stray current can cause by corroding metal. Also in Houston, a rail extension promises to wipe out homes and businesses by the dozens. Phoenix has been dug up for as long as anyone can remember — making Central Avenue unnavigable and putting business owners' backs to the wall — for the sake of a new light rail system. Since there aren't enough people living along the Central Avenue corridor to support the rail, the authorities have been trying to promote high rise apartment developments in a city where people like to spread out. Needless to say, light rail lines do not reduce congestion, but add to it by taking up precious roadway. But they make social planners feel good about helping to move society away from individual transport, and toward one-size-fits-all people movers that take us from where it's been determined we should live to exactly where it's been determined we should go. Light rail in action. On tips from Byron. Posted by Van Helsing at August 8, 2007 7:57 AM moonbattery.com Comments From the socialist point of view, light-rail systems not only are a step toward the Utopian dream wherein only the elite are allowed to possess automobiles while the masses are forced to use mass transit. A government-run system where the government determines where you can go and when you can go there... it's catnip to social planners. As a bonus, the mass transit systems are staffed by unionized public employees whose union dues are laundered directly back into Democrat part coffers. Also, if enough people are forced to become dependent on mass transit, the unions have them at their non-existent mercy. moonbattery.com