Comparing today’s light rail vehicles to the horse-drawn trolleys of the Civil War Era (1861-1865) is the same as saying that a 2017 Ford Explorer is the same as a horse-drawn wagon.
I really loathe articles like this because they’re so pathetically ignorant that they distract from the real issue which is the waste of taxpayer funds.
What I mean is that if you make an absurd argument against something then your absurdity distracts from what you’re arguing against.
Example: “Hillary should not be President because she’s actually an alien from the planet Gotalottabutt and she eats small children every day on her way to her job at the secret Wall Street opium den!”
The absurdity distracts from the legitimate point that Hillary should not be President.
Such absurd and ignorant arguments may well be false flags that are intended to make opponents to these project ALL look loony.
In sum, make better arguments and for the Love of God and all that is Holy please...PLEASE do not use the word ‘boondoggle’ absent any actual proof that something is truly a boondoggle. The word is an adjective and not an argument unto itself!
With some familiarity with both the DC system and Baltimore’s light rail, I can say that mass transit can make sense. I never understood the point to the DC street car. The Baltimore light rail on the other hand does make sense. Each light rail car would need to be replaced by two buses, and because they are run in linked pairs, they replace a lot of buses.
I just wish all the rail dreamers would stop with the silly claims about what their proposed systems would do. They primarily provide remote parking for people with business in the city, if they do provide timely transport from where people are to where they want to go they will not be used.
Both the DC subway (when it is not broken due to deferred, incorrect and neglected maintenance) and Baltimore’s light rail systems can bring you down town in about the same time as driving in rush hour traffic. The subsidy of these systems allows for fares and parking fees at the stations to be less than parking downtown, easing the need for roads and parking in the highly congested central business district.