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Phoenix launches its new light-rail system amid criticism

"I am an environmentalist," said Dean Pedrotti . . . So, to me, this is the right way to go."

Yeah -- that sounds about right. $1.4 billion down the toilet, building a mass transit system no one will ever use, and "this is the right way to go."

That's the problem with the environmental religion. No sacrifice of other people's money, time, convenience -- even lives -- is too great to force their articles of environmental faith us.

Build an expensive, but utterly worthless transit system, and they will come.

How many more billions will be flushed down this particular rathole, and the thousands of others, before the people rise up and overthrow this secular religion and its elitist high priests?

Dear Folly:

Has it occured to you that roads for your freedom to use cars are even more subsidized than any transit system? In Phoenix, they have to be paved and re-paved constantly due to use and heat. In Utah, roads have to be ploughed and sanded in the winter -- and more roads means more police to patrol traffic and crime, all that costs tax payer money. In highly congested areas, you have to pay for parking when you shop or go to work. In fact, in many cities, it is very inconvenient to own a car, simply because of the hassles of finding a place to park it. Wait till Utah's population doubles in the next couple of decaded -- New York City, here we come!

Give me a break! Before you criticize "environmental religion," think about your own "status quo ignorant bliss." The status quo of the millions of hours each year that individuals endure in traffic jams, hunting for parking, etc., is NOT worthless!

Folly, do you mean to tell me you enjoy breathing that foul soup that some of us still call "air," winter after winter in the Salt Lake Valley? More people are going to need transportation, and if they all drive cars the air will get even worse. Mass transit is not just the best choice, it's the only sane choice.

Roads, as expensive as they are, have one large advantage over light rail -- they go where people want to go!

In your socialist communitarian universe, people go where they're told. In the real universe, however, people choose for themselves.

And Bill, if you'd lived in Utah for more than the last couple real estate cycles, it would be "clear as the air" that the air in SLC is cleaner now than anytime within my memory. Hardly anyone burns coal anymore, and cars emit less than 1% of the pollutants (no, I do NOT consider CO2 a pollutant -- it fertilizes my crops) they used to.

You're singing the hymns the environmental cult taught you to sing. They're not only false, they have no beat and you can't dance to them.

Wow! I'm shocked. Just shocked! The Phoenix lightrail system costs a dollar less than UTA's TRAX?? What a joke, lol!

Like all auto commuters I pay federal and state gasoline taxes to construct and maintain roads. Imposing light rail on me and my fellow commuters would be extraordinarily costly, in terms of taxes, time, convienence, etc.

I agree w/ some of the posters above, i.e. that light rail is a matter of ideology rather than the result of a rational cost/benefit tradeoff. Too bad, unlike roads, those of us who will never use it will still be forced to fund it.