Magical Thinking

I am interviewed by Nick Sudheimer in the Mn Daily: Minneapolis continues debate over benefits of adding streetcars to city’s north side :

"But David Levinson, a transportation expert at the University, said the argument that streetcars will spur significant development is “magical thinking.” “There is nothing magic about steel wheels on steel rails,” Levinson said. “There’s nothing special about it except that you’ve made some investment that you could’ve made in some other technology.”"

The whole article is worth reading, though I think it conflates Arterial BRT with Freeway BRT. There is another nice factoid from former student Charlie Carlson:

Carlson said traditional buses are actually moving less than half of the time. “About a quarter of the time, buses are stopped at red lights and about a third of the time, were stopped for people to get on and off the bus and pay their fare,” Carlson said. BRT would make stoplights change so buses would wait less at red lights and would allow passengers to prepay for tickets.