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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Atrios Bait

Atrios Bait

by John Cole|  March 8, 20116:59 pm| 39 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links

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Those crazy kids. This video extolling the virtues of light rail was written and directed by Joel Batterman and produced by a group of urban planning graduate students at the University of Michigan:

I’d kill for public transportation, but considering I live in the middle of nowhere, that isn’t happening. Still, I hope these guys get their way and this helps revitalize Detroit.

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Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    March 8, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    Umm, you recently chose to move to a house in a place with a population of ~300 people.
    It’s doubtful public transportation was really too high on your list.

  2. 2.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 8, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    @Corner Stone: It is good for others, you know, like chastity.

  3. 3.

    Mr. Poppinfresh

    March 8, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    Road-grade light rail is retarded. Elevate it / put it ungerground or GTFO.

    /talksabouturbanplanningalldayatwork

  4. 4.

    Mr. Poppinfresh

    March 8, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    Awesome, a typo and edits are broken. FYWP.

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    March 8, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    The wingnut plan is working overtime:
    Pension Envy
    “When Erin McFarlane looks at public workers, she sees lucrative pension benefits she doesn’t ever expect to get. And it makes her mad.

    “I don’t think that a federal employee or government employee is worth any more than anybody else who does their job and does it well,” said the Slinger, Wis., woman. She’s been working a couple of bartending jobs since January, when she was laid off from her job at a Harley Davidson plant after almost a decade.

    She’s not alone in seeing public servants as public enemies in some ways. For some everyday Americans, it’s a case of pension envy.”

  6. 6.

    kdaug

    March 8, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    Does anyone else feel this? That the worm has turned, the zeitgeist has shifted?

    Obama told them “I’m the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks”. They thought they knew better.

    Here come the pitchforks. Worldwide.

  7. 7.

    trollhattan

    March 8, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    If you had public transportation, at some point Rosi would try it. Just sayin’.

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    March 8, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: True. If you’re into Buddhism it sounds like a natural decision.

    I’m just wondering where he’d like public transport to take him in this environment? Down the block to the town’s Post Office? Across the corner from there to the PigglyWiggly?
    Hell, you hop on public transport and 3 minutes later you’d be hearing the music from The Legend of SleepyHollow.

  9. 9.

    Kryptik

    March 8, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    But we all know that public transportation is stealth Marxism and one step away from instituting a broccoli mandate. So thank god for folks like Walker, Kasich, and Scott turning down all that gubment soshulizms and railway mind control.

  10. 10.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    March 8, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    @Corner Stone:
    To paraphrase Jay Gould:

    I can get one half of the working class to steal the bread right out of the open and hungry mouths of the other half.

  11. 11.

    General Stuck

    March 8, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    @kdaug:

    it’s not only about WI, and was fairly predictable, the winger over reach in general. I mean what you going to do when your energy and support is coming from people waving Obama witchdoctor signs, and insisting on taking the country back to 1880.

    I don’t want to say a permanent, or somewhat permanent failsafe point has been reached, but there is a basic change in the pol atmosphere, of bewilderment and growing concern at the wingnut power grabs in a number of areas, and just a general lack of inhibition toward ideological assaults on the status quo, and a seeming lack of ability to slow down the crazy for a second.

  12. 12.

    Josie

    March 8, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    John, you might want to look at your second sentence. It needs something to put it right. Maybe break it up into two sentences or something.

  13. 13.

    Steve

    March 8, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    Wow, public transportation in Detroit. I never thought I’d see the day.

  14. 14.

    Narcissus

    March 8, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    There aren’t going to be any pitchforks. This country is fucked.

  15. 15.

    Corner Stone

    March 8, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    I blegged earlier but it was kind of late in the thread:
    OT bleg, anyone have links to a study or report detailing how private schools raise their tuition when vouchers are introduced?
    I found this:
    Fighting vouchers in disguise
    But it doesn’t give specific research links.

  16. 16.

    Mark S.

    March 8, 2011 at 7:41 pm

    Yikes:

    In 2009, the total net worth of the Forbes 400 was $1.27 trillion. The best information now available shows that in 2009 the bottom 60% (yes, now it’s 60%, not 50%) of U.S. households owned only 2.3% of total U.S. wealth. Total U.S. household net worth — rich, middle class and poor combined — at the time the Forbes list came out was $53.15 trillion. So the bottom 60% of households possessed just $1.22 trillion of that $53.15 trillion, less than the Forbes 400.

    That’s really fucking incredible. Do Real Americans think that’s a good thing? But it comes from Michael Moore and he’s fat.

  17. 17.

    cathyx

    March 8, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    I understand the Oregon is getting some of that transportation money Wisconsin??? and Florida??? turned down. I hope hope hope we get light rail from my town to Portland.

  18. 18.

    jwb

    March 8, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    @kdaug: Problem with pitchforks is that they are rather indifferent to what they stick. Thus today it looks like they are wanting to stick the Galtian overlords, but tomorrow they may be back sticking the disempowered. All you can really say is that pitchforks are a sign that you have been cursed to live in interesting times.

  19. 19.

    Cain

    March 8, 2011 at 8:13 pm

    @cathyx:

    I understand the Oregon is getting some of that transportation money Wisconsin??? and Florida??? turned down. I hope hope hope we get light rail from my town to Portland.

    We need to dream bigger than that! Super fast rail from Vancouver B.C. to San Francisco… we could create an awesome awesome economic zone and move large amounts of people back and forth.

    Nobody in this country seems to dream big anymore. It’s really disappointing.

    cain

  20. 20.

    Elias

    March 8, 2011 at 8:14 pm

    Thanks, John! I think your grammar is just fine and I know how it got that way

    @Mr.Poppinfresh If we can’t get it elevated or underground, I’m hoping at least it won’t be side-running!

  21. 21.

    cathyx

    March 8, 2011 at 8:16 pm

    @Cain: I’ll take that too.

  22. 22.

    Arclite

    March 8, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    On the other hand, here in Hawaii, we’re spending 7 billion on a light rail system that makes no sense. Much better use of funds to invest in electric buses that use transoms and battery back up for the out country.

  23. 23.

    Corner Stone

    March 8, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    @Cain:

    Nobody in this country seems to dream big anymore. It’s really disappointing.

    Sometimes it takes some leadership to allow people to dream big.
    We currently don’t have that.

  24. 24.

    Chuck Butcher

    March 8, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    @Cain:
    How nice for the I-5 corridor. Meanwhile we can’t get Amtrack restored across E OR to P-land.

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    March 8, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    @Arclite: I’ve been curious about this. Mind you, not curious enough to actually research it in any way. But still, curious.

  26. 26.

    Arclite

    March 8, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    Seriously, when gasoline jumps to $8 per gal as it will in the next few years, there will be a deafening clamor for more public transport and the blame game will start. Is it really so difficult to forecast this and make the pitch? It’s so obvious it hurts.

  27. 27.

    Corner Stone

    March 8, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    @Arclite: There’s no money for cronies in planning ahead.
    It’s much more profitable to wait until there’s a crisis and then charge triple +cost to make a poorly designed alternative.

  28. 28.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 8, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    @General Stuck: I’m, well, let’s just say a score or so years the other side of 40, and I cannot recall protesters at a state of the state speech. But Napoleon Heartland had some: Cincinnati Enquirer and Dispatch Politics.

  29. 29.

    Ailuridae

    March 8, 2011 at 9:32 pm

    Random complaint about transportation posts. Why is it never easy to find a map of where a proposed rail line runs? I have cursory familiarity with downtown Detroit so I sort of know already but I just want to see an actual, you know, map.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2wh3rXaMLM&feature=player_embedded

    That video does a fine job of explaining the path.

    Mr. Poppinfresh:

    Burying rail is certainly preferable but road grade rail works absolutely fine. The LYNX system in CHA, for instance, kicks ass.

  30. 30.

    stormhit

    March 8, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    @Ailuridae:

    There’s a bunch of maps at

  31. 31.

    stormhit

    March 8, 2011 at 9:50 pm

    The website seems to be disagreeing with firefox, but as I was saying, there are maps at woodwardlightrail.com

  32. 32.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    March 8, 2011 at 10:00 pm

    This video is a great idea and I’m a huge fan of public transport (use it daily) – but these folks are even worse rappers than I am and couldn’t keep a rhythm in a goddam cage.

  33. 33.

    West of the Cascades

    March 8, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    Fun video, and when I heard the lyrics “let’s look at precedent” I KNEW Portland would be the first one cited. I think the Seattle-Eugene high-speed rail is going to get some of the $$$ Wisconsin and Ohio returned. Sad those states had to learn the hard way that if you elect assholes, bad things happen.

  34. 34.

    Zoogz

    March 9, 2011 at 12:06 am

    Yeah, they’d been talking about putting rail on that corridor for years… ever since I used to live there.

    Yes, I was the complete idiot who relied on Detroit public transportation for over three years to get my butt from work to home (and then, for two semesters, from work to Wayne State University to home). That last one took six buses to accomplish. It was not bad except for the fact that I had to go twenty miles from residential to commercial and it took about 75 minutes one way.

    The sad part is that I am absolutely in favor of rail, but it’s too little too late for the city. Woodward is great and all, but people aren’t exactly clamoring to get from the suburbs to Metro. I don’t know if anyone remembers hearing about it as Detroit collapsed, but it’s a HUGE city, very much influenced by the car, and it takes forever to get from one side of it to the other. That works against any mass transit in the area because you can have either local or express… and there’s really not enough demand to do one or the other, and the infrastructure around the rail (Detroit Department of Transportation buses as well as SMART suburban buses) is as local and slow — average 25 mph — as it gets.

    What automobiles giveth, they taketh away.

  35. 35.

    Anne Laurie

    March 9, 2011 at 1:55 am

    @Mr. Poppinfresh:

    Road-grade light rail is retarded. Elevate it / put it ungerground or GTFO.

    Been a few years since I visited Detroit, but IIRC Woodward is wider than some of our New England freeways. If there’s any traffic whatsofrigging ever, having a midway “station stop” really would be a lifesaver for old, slow, physically challenged and/or baby-toting pedestrians.

    Detroit is flat and sprawling and broke. Surface is cheaper and hella faster, two factors that rank much higher than the architechtural aesthetics, I would think.

  36. 36.

    Anne Laurie

    March 9, 2011 at 2:04 am

    @Zoogz:

    The sad part is that I am absolutely in favor of rail, but it’s too little too late for the city. Woodward is great and all, but people aren’t exactly clamoring to get from the suburbs to Metro.

    Cost of gas keeps spiraling, that could change in a hurry. Detroit’s still got great advantages when it comes to rail/waterway shipping, and every forecast I’ve seen that doesn’t include the equivalent of “then a miracle happens” in the equations predicts more of those and a lot less truck transit. Odds are, if we don’t end up in an Iron-Castle scenario where we’re literally serfs on our Chinese masters’ grain megafarms, the younger posters here and all our descendents are going to find Detroit’s giant empty factory sites well worth reviving. And putting the rails in now will make it easier to take the next steps towards that.

  37. 37.

    Mr. Furious

    March 9, 2011 at 7:41 am

    Road grade rail can work just fucking fine. Charlotte’s LYNX was mentioned above, I’ve ridden into Baltimore on the light rail there, and much of Boston’s T is above ground.

    Laying track along an existing route is about all the infrastructure people are going to be willing to pay for and tolerate while built.

    That said, the motivation in Michigan right now to spend money in Detroit is less than zero. I don’t believe our new Republican governor is pushing his “emergency financial powers” legislation through the Republican legislature so he can divert money to a train so “those people” in Detroit can ride out to the suburbs…

  38. 38.

    Mr. Furious

    March 9, 2011 at 7:44 am

    Didn’t John just share with you all last week how Detroit is facing the closure of half of its schools? 60 kids per class in high school?

    This train is a bunch of students here in Ann Arbor doing what they’re supposed to do — dream big and come up with stuff like this project. It ain’t never gonna happen.

  39. 39.

    Mr. Furious

    March 9, 2011 at 7:48 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    Cost of gas keeps spiraling, that could change in a hurry.

    Not as much as you might think. Detroit’s not a typical American city surrounded by bedroom suburbs. People don’t commute from Birmingham into Detroit. They commute from Birmingham to a corporate headquarters in Warren or Auburn Hills.

    The price of gas could drop to a quarter a gallon and it wouldn’t increase traffic into Detroit.

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