John Locke transit critique question

"Light rail hasn’t prevented a ridership decline in Charlotte; ridership peaked in 2013 and had dropped by more than 15% by 2019 despite opening a new light-rail extension in 2018.65 This extension was built with the help of $299 million in state funds.66 This is on top of the $100 million provided by the state for Charlotte’s original light-rail line that opened in 2007.6770 TOWARDS SAFE, COST-EFFECTIVE, AND EQUITABLE TRANSPORTATION Light rail is, in fact, functionally obsolete. Using the same amount of land, buses can move more people per hour, in greater safety, with greater reliability and more flexibility to serve more destinations for a lot less money. " i found this at the john locke website. is there a good place to start to look at info that is counter to this with examples that relate well to Raleigh? thx

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Well, the John Locke Foundation is well to the right of center…just sayin.

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Please proofread what you blindly copy-pasted, and cite your sources -especially if it’s the reason you’re starting a whole new thread :man_facepalming: I assume it’s one of the articles listed in this blog post, but I couldn’t care enough to look further.

I would start by looking at the text you posted, yourself:

If you want to disprove a point, look at the points they’re making, and come up with evidence to either disprove them or to prove the opposite. Just take it one step at a time.

For example, you can counter the first point by looking at how a light rail corridor (and also BRT, as opposed to “normal” buses) can move more people per hour. That’s pretty basic information you could find via Google in a journalist’s handbook, nationwide advocacy organizations on transit, or even the US Department of Energy.

For Raleigh specifically, you can look to when the City decided BRT is the most suitable mode to use for the transit corridors they chose. That would be the major investment study back in 2018.

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