Category Archives: Shoddy Studies

Defrauding the Public on European Rail Profits

Posted on 2011/10/05 by

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) penned an op-ed defending his attempt to strip California high-speed rail of all funding. In the usual litany of complaints about the deficit, he referenced a 2008 study by Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General claiming that … Continue reading →

Posted in Amtrak, High-Speed Rail, Politics and Society, Shoddy Studies, Studies, Transportation | 33 Comments

Skewed North Shore BRT/LRT Proposal (Hoisted from Comments)

Posted on 2011/10/03 by

The MTA produced an alternatives analysis for transit service on the North Shore of Staten Island. The study contains zingers and various factors making the cost many times higher than it should be, but the agency response to all comments … Continue reading →

Posted in Construction Costs, Incompetence, New York, Shoddy Studies, Studies, Transportation, Urban Transit | 12 Comments

Disappointment 2050

Posted on 2011/09/30 by

The political transit bloggers are talking about the new RPA/America 2050 report on high-speed rail published by the Lincoln Institute, which recommends a focus on the Northeast and California. Unfortunately, this is not an accurate description of the report. Although … Continue reading →

Posted in Good/Interesting Studies, High-Speed Rail, Shoddy Studies, Studies, Transportation | 12 Comments

Shoddy Study Claims Light Rail Increased Congestion in Paris (Hoisted from Comments)

Posted on 2011/08/02 by

Jarrett points us to a just-published paper in World Transit Research that contends that Paris’s new T3 light rail line caused traffic congestion on the adjacent freeway, the Boulevard Périphérique, to increase, thereby causing a net increase in environmental damage … Continue reading →

Posted in Cars, Shoddy Studies, Studies, Transportation, Urban Transit | 9 Comments

Rumors of the Death of HSR Greatly Exaggerated

Posted on 2011/07/14 by

Aaron Renn has a post on New Geography pronouncing American high-speed rail dead. His reasoning: the stimulus spread the money around too much, Republican Governors rejected the HSR stimulus money, rail advocates have called 110 mph legacy lines high-speed rail, … Continue reading →

Posted in High-Speed Rail, Politics and Society, Shoddy Studies, Studies, Transportation | 18 Comments

Quick Note on Air Pollution

Posted on 2011/05/27 by

Yesterday’s USA Today carried a story about a study from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis coming up with a huge figure for excess mortality, 2,200 nationwide just from the extra gas consumption caused by traffic congestion. Such a figure … Continue reading →

Posted in Shoddy Studies, Studies | Leave a comment

Whither BRT?

Posted on 2011/05/26 by

The Institute for Transport and Development Policy has joined Brookings in publishing a completely pointless transit system ranking, this time focusing on the quality of BRT, the mode of transit ITDP advocates. I want to like ITDP for its BRT … Continue reading →

Posted in Shoddy Studies, Studies, Transportation, Urban Transit | 5 Comments

Brookings Folly

Posted on 2011/05/26 by

People who have read Brookings’ awful report saying San Jose is the second most transit-accessible city in the US and New York the thirteenth already know not to trust what Brookings says. Even at the level of collecting facts, it … Continue reading →

Posted in Incompetence, Shoddy Studies, Studies, Transportation | 10 Comments

Fatality Numbers vs. Safety

Posted on 2011/05/24 by

On Streetsblog, they’re waving New York’s relatively high pedestrian fatality rate as evidence the streets are unsafe and much more can be done. The region’s pedestrian death rate is the 13th worst in the nation, about the same as Houston, … Continue reading →

Posted in Good/Interesting Studies, New York, Shoddy Studies, Studies | 7 Comments

More on Driving vs. Transit Costs

Posted on 2011/05/17 by

Thanks to Elizabeth Alexis of CARRD for finding and giving me a link to the AAA’s methodology for computing driving costs, used in APTA’s flawed study about the high household savings coming from switching from driving to transit. The AAA … Continue reading →

Posted in Cars, Good/Interesting Studies, Shoddy Studies, Studies, Transportation | 4 Comments