I'd love to hear what sort of breezy review of case law you guys get in school. Please, show me where a transportation engineer followed the law designing non-car facilities but got his city sued for not following "common practice".

I have heard this line from several transportation engineers now, and it really pisses me off (full disclosure: I am neither an engineer nor a planner).

I've wasted time reading through the bullshit metrics that engineers use to "study" the roadway - but their conclusions are already decided in advance because the metrics they use only have to do with car throughput and passive safety measures (which they don't spend much time scientifically researching anyway).

The truth is, from the ITE's own web-site, that this trade group grew up with the automobile. Their very reason for existing was to guide the expansion of the automobile network that has taken over our nation. It wasn't a conspiracy, but it is how things happened.

Real measurements of a roadway would not be limited to throughput measurements of "vehicles", or mobility measurements limited to "vehicles" - but would include things like: effects of roadway planning on tax dollars, measured air quality, measured noise levels, polls to establish livability and social cohesion, demographic and modal surveys of roadway users, and a few other things.

These cheap, off the shelf, source of information would allow real, scientific, study of our roads, but that is not what concerns american transportation engineers.

Planners don't understand the math? Take your cockamamie cooked numbers and stuff 'em is how I feel about it. Those numbers don't mean jack squat to anyone except the cabal of college educated drones who fill the ranks of DOT's across this nation.

But lemme tell you how I really feel...

not to mention, your division at metro is really sucking it up on the funding. lets get it together ok?

I agree that there are a lot more effective ways of spending $140 million, even in Orange County. Signal synchronization, travel time information systems, and enhanced bus services are a better use of the money. Not rail, since there is not much center in Orange County. The roadway capacity would only be used for a few hours a day, since that segment of the 57 is not congested outside of rush hour. Freeway improvements are necessary but should be reserved for segments that get congested for at least 8 hours a day.

As far as the ITE goes, one thing that would help would be alternative transportation advocates who have actually gone to engineering school and can debate the numbers. The problem is that most of the planners can't speak their language. And hem and haw as you much, but they are the ones that are in control, and they are the ones that get sued if they fail to heed the common practice.

The benefits of using a new roadway? Please. If it were 1950, and the U.S. were still producing most of its own crude, you'd have a point. The good times are soon up, my friend, and mis-allocating our children's wages on the suburban consumer living arrangement is folly. Our public money should be going to transportation projects that will reflect an energy scarce future - and that is most likely NOT going to involve easy motoring through the southland.

If induced demand is so controversial, please explain how. To me the facts are generally quite clear: build a heavily subsidized transportation network, and people will use it. You'd have to work hard to find examples of this type of thing failing to induce demand.

(note: sarcasm and generally angsty mood)