<<  <  >  >>

Page 28

slightly, and to punish with increased congestion those

people who continue to drive.

The False Panacea of Urban Rail

Electric-powered rail transit is a 19th-century tech-

nology that was quickly replaced by the automobile, which is

faster, more convenient, and not tied to an expensive rail

right-of-way.  Yet rail technology is a critical component

of New Urbanism.

In addition to the fact that rails are a solution to a

problem that would not exist if New Urbanists did not insist

on density, the main difficulty with rails is that they do

not work.  Compared with the auto, which "goes where you

want to go when you want to go, trains just don't cut it,"

says Garreau.  "Trains require you to go where someone else

wants you to go when someone else wants you to go."54

So why are proposed rail systems so popular?  As Ken-

neth Dueker of Portland State University's Center for Urban

Studies notes, rail is a "feel-good" issue: people support

it because they hope it will reduce congestion even though

they do not plan to ride it themselves.55

Another reason for strong support of rail is the "ro-

mance of the rails."  Jonathan Richmond, investigating the

myths behind rail transit, found that people "tend to reject

findings [about rail] which fail to confirm prior be-

liefs."56

ISTEA gives cities huge incentives to build enormously

expensive rail transit projects that will carry very few

people.  Central city officials and downtown interests want

to keep current jobs and residents in and attract new ones

to the city centers rather than the suburbs.  They see new

rail construction as an environmentally correct means to

that end.  Just as important is the fact that under ISTEA

the federal government pays at least half of the bill for

rail, so the high cost of new rail construction is viewed as

a virtue.  Although an expanded decentralized bus system

could carry far more people at far lower cost, buses do not

create local, though temporary, jobs that boost union and

construction-company support for politicians.

Examination of the actual results from rail lines that

have been built in the past two decades shows that nearly

all fail to meet the goals set for and provide the benefits

expected from them.