I like trolleys.
But I am not exactly jumping up in glee regarding yesterday's news about trolleys in El Paso.
More often than not the governments that push for public transportation are the ones that usually set it up for failure.
Look no further than City Engineer Irene Ramirez's words.
According to her, the project will not start until NEXT YEAR, and can take up to 3 1/2 YEARS.
So by 2019, El Paso will have trolleys up and running on less than 5 miles of track.
Just for some perspective, the First Transcontinental Railroad was 1900 miles long and took about 6 years to complete.
Yea.
Now when it comes to highways...Sheeeeeeeeit. Granted, not necessarily under the City's purview, but the City does lobby the State for highways, and man the ink on the contract is not even dry and highways contractors are already shoveling dirt.
The other way that governments, particularly municpalities, set public transit for failure is by not changing land use policies. By still having auto-centric policies in place, especially near a transit line, you are still setting up the transit line for failure.
That being said, highways themselves are a failure as well.
Don't think so?
There are thousands of unsold vehicles in England that beg to differ.
So I guess between a highway failure and mass transit failure, I'll take the mass transit failure.