Bicycle Austin forum

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,466

Website

Why U.S. rail sucks (in two graphs)

Grist has an article with two graphs that say it all.

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-08-24 … wo-graphs/

paulsjv

Member

Registered: 2008-06-02

Posts: 7

Re: Why U.S. rail sucks (in two graphs)

One could argue, rather successfully, that a lot of politics is the reason why the graphs look the way they do.

dougmc

Administrator

Registered: 2008-06-01

Posts: 631

Re: Why U.S. rail sucks (in two graphs)

He thinks the cumulative graph is "more nutso" ?  It's the same data, though it does tend to hide the fact (from the first graph) that things have gotten much better (assuming that a higher transit/road ratio is better) recently (well, up to 2006, don't know about after that,.)  The only reason I can think of to point at the second graph is so one can say "SEE!  9x more $!" rather than "SEE!  5x more $!"

He should spend less time showing graphs and going "SEE!" and more time explaining why transit needs more money and roads need less.  And he seems to use the terms "rail" and "transit" interchangeably, which doesn't strike me as right.