Comment 33271

By highwater (registered) | Posted September 07, 2009 at 17:34:37

Capitalist wrote:

Jason, I stumbled upon some interesting transit data from your dream city.

Well, I suppose it's not surprising that you 'stumbled upon' these stats on publicpurpose.com, Wendell Cox's anti-Public Transit website. Wendell Cox is a paid shill for the American Highway Users Alliance. He is a fellow of the far-right Heritage Foundation, and has written anti-Public Transit and anti-Rail screeds for the far-right Libertarian Cato Institute. He has fought against LRT proposals in Milwaukee, Chicago, Orlando, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Seattle, St. Louis, Denver, Dallas, San Antonio, and Auckland, New Zealand.

Trains for America has an expose on him (www.trains4america.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/who-is-wendell-cox), and has produced a response to his anti-Rail arguments(www.cfte.org/images/response_cox.pdf).

The money quote:

"The most important lesson to be gleamed from reviewing Cox's body of work is how factual knowledge is often manipulated and distorted to reflect personal ideology or, more importantly, the funders of his studies. Wendell Cox's work has been pretty much dismissed by both from the left, middle and even right...In every instance, Cox's statements are either inaccurate, distortions or claims not supported by the facts. Cox's technique seems to be to start with a snippet of the truth and stretch it like taffy until it turns into something else that supports his position."

Granted, this is a response to his anti-Rail work. Still, if we are to believe his Public Transit stats on Portland, we must believe that where he has used distortion and manipulation to defend his anti-Rail stance, he has been scrupulously honest in his presentation and interpretation of Public Transit stats.

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