Good Question

The offensively large billboard at the psychic car shack by my work got a new message on it. Sold cheap, no doubt, because signs like this inspired a law that requires such signs to be taken down when they're un-rented for a certain period of time. And this sign comes very close to the limit every time. The neighbors detest it because it's the sort of billboard that's meant to be on a highway and it's on a commercial four-lane road where it dominates the landscape.

I had fun debating with an old classmate's hubby about the merits of light rail, of social engineering, the private and public sectors and so on.



I'm no fan of sprawl, but really. Are we to believe the suburbs will depopulate and people will flock into the city to be able to commute by rail? And if they did, what would that do to housing prices in the burbs? What are we to do with all these umpteen bedroom McMansions people owe huge amounts of money on?

All of which is secondary to the pseudo-greenness of it. I see a billion dollar light rail project for this town as being as ecologically sensible as a whaling expedition. The proof is in the colossal expenditure: all that steel and the electricity to animate it takes vast natural resources, and it takes them whether one person or thousands ride. And if you want a schedule that will encourage ridership, you're going to run that train near-empty a lot. Cars may have their faults, but at least they only burn gas when someone goes somewhere in one.

Dollars represent resources, plain and simple. If you've imbibed the Kool Aid on the dangers of carbon, light rail for a sprawling town is the last thing you should root for.