Comment 77229

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted May 24, 2012 at 03:51:08 in reply to Comment 77226

Randall O'Toole is a highly unreliable source if you're looking for objective evaluation of urban design issues, especially if you want a successful, pedestrian friendly downtown!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randal_O'Toole

He actively promotes urban sprawl, is against public transit and receives much of his funding from the oil and gas industry. He is concerned not so much with the effectiveness of various urban planning decisions in creating healthy economically dynamic communities, but in opposing anything other than letting "market forces" operate freely. This neglects the fact that there are already all sorts of public subsidies at work promoting sprawl, notably public investment in roads and utilities.

His lack of objectivity and mis-representation of the facts is well-known:

"Many detractors have noted O'Toole's selective use of information, undocumented statistics, and unverifiable sources of information in order to support his claims against rail transit.[13][14] O'Toole has been criticized for declaring that roadways pay for themselves and are the best use of public funds, even though highways are some of the most expensive public works projects.[15]"

(from the wikipedia article)

For some real peer-reviewed analysis on one-way versus two-way and pedestrians see the references in Adrian Duyzer's article

http://raisethehammer.org/blog/2459/one-...

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2012-05-24 03:53:22

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