Friday Street Poll: Who Is the Best Online Defender of the Westside Subway
A couple of weeks ago Metro released their Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Westside Subway, formerly known as the Subway to the Sea. The DEIR contained a lot of good news for the city including a slight reduction in automobile congestion along the corridor despite hundreds of thousands of new residents coming to the area over the next twenty five years.
These numbers weren’t good enough for the media. Both the local paper of record and the largest alternative news source came out swinging. The Times “broke the news” about the minimal reduction with an attention gathering headline basically calling the Subway a failure. LA Weekly was actually far less subtle in their analysis. Only in Los Angeles will the alternative paper slam transit projects and suggest some more highway expansion would be a better use of money.
But a funny thing happened. These outlets, along with L.A. Observed, came under fire throughout the Internet for not understanding transit. LA Weekly tried to dismiss criticism of their reporting as just some transit advocates, but as Steve Hymon points out at The Source, over two-thirds of the county voted for Measure R. Things got so ugly, that Alex Thompson’s mathematical evisceration of a fellow City Watch columnist barely gets mentioned.
So I’ve gathered the best responses and am asking you to crown one as the best evisceration of subway backers. Who has written the best article defending the Westside Subway? Links to the articles mentioned in the poll can be found after the jump.
- Only Boneheads Oppose the Subway to the Sea: LA Weekly Readers (or check out the comments section to their original article)
- The Local Party of No: Huffington Post
- MTA Wants To Environmentally Impact LA Weekly’s Face After School In The Parking Lot: LAist
- Subway Critics Attacks Based on Faulty Logic: Streetsblog
- Westside Subway Will Do Little To Stop People From Making Babies, L.A. Media Say: Neon Tommy
- Metro Responds to L.A. Weekly’s “Subway Ripoff” Story: The Source
- Lies Damn Lies and Statistics: City Watch
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