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June 06, 2005
A picture of Metro, 30 years from now?
This post from last year addressed the economic failure of the urban rail system in Washington, D.C. Now, the Washington Post is running a series of articles (first one here) that is examining the dubious economics and management of D.C.'s subway system. Here are other posts on various urban rail boondoggles.
Tory Gattis over at Houston Strategies picks up on the same WaPo article and observes the following regarding the failed economics of most urban rail systems:
Quite the depressing and scary litany. It's really hard to have good management at a public agency, and transit is a seriously complicated and expensive business with billions of dollars at stake, especially rail transit. Amtrak's a mess. DC's a mess. NY, Chicago, SF/San Jose, and LA all have serious problems with their transit agencies. What makes us think Houston Metro can buck this trend?
Posted by Tom at June 6, 2005 07:15 AM
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� The future of Houston's METRO? from blogHOUSTON
Both Tom Kirkendall (Houston's Clear Thinkers) and Tory Gattis (Houston Strategies) call attention to the first of a series of Washington Post articles on problems with D.C.'s mass transit agency... [Read More]
Tracked on June 6, 2005 08:56 PM
Comments
I think you're seriously mischaracterizing the Post article. I hope readers will go read the whole thing for themselves. There's really no discussion of the underlying economics of the DC Metro system. And, as I pointed out in a comment to the older post you referenced, labelling it a "boondoggle" is pretty clueless. The criticisms you references were that DC Metro didn't solve a problem it wasn't designed to solve, while providing
The Post article is useful, though, in that it points out how important it is to keep a very close eye on how these agencies are run.
Posted by: John at June 6, 2005 08:49 AM
John, WaPo describes the article as follows:
"Washington's world-class subway has fallen into decline, and nearly $1 billion spent on projects to upgrade the system has not improved service."
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