The L.A. Times engaged researches at UCBerkeley to tell them what they wanted to hear.
There are no links to the actually study (how hard would that be?). There is no mention as to when the pre-Orange Line and post-Orange Line samples were taken.
Also there is more evidence than to the contrary that the ridership for this hundreds of millions of dollar project has been from previous bus riders, and not people abandoning their cars.
Most likely, traffic improved nationwide as gas prices jumped this summer/fall.
If you were looking for a 'Katrina' effect on traffic patterns instead of a 'Successful implementation of mass transit' effect, then the same data sets could lead to differing conclusions.
Also something as simple as where the sun sets and rises and what times effects traffic patterns (example the 10 freeway west bound into Santa Monica, the commute worsens for a few weeks after the time change as the 5pm rush suddenly drives directly into the setting sun for a time), so for an accurate assessment of traffic improvements (especially ones as small as average speeds from 43 to 46 mph) then comparisons to previous years are also necessary to factor out possible common environmental noise from the data.
Now if they could get people to stop running in to these durn buses maybe they'd have something.
3 comments:
Damnit XWL, if they had wanted you to think for yourself, they wouldn't have told you what to think! Now sit down and know your roll!
Personally, my roll is of the Hawaiian sweet variety....
Can't eat barbequed pork ribs without them (my father's speciality)
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