The so called Cato inststitute experts!!

Trains Magazine Transit
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http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8738

According to this a^& h%^& California highjacked highway funds to build rail empires!!!

Where does Cato get these people? The string ties should give this away…

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As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the Cato Institute is well-known as a libertarian (rugged individualism to the extreme and minimal government) think tank so the opinions that come from there should not be too surprising.

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Foundation support

The Cato Institute has been supported by:

[edit] Corporate support

Like many think tanks, Cato receives support from a variety of corporations, but corporations are a relatively minor source of support for the Institute. In fiscal year 2007, for example, corporate donations accounted for only three percent of its budget.[1]

According to Cato supporters, the relative paucity of corporate funding has allowed the Institute to strike an independent stance in its policy research. In 2004, the Institute angered the U.S. pharmaceutical industry by publishing a paper arguing in favor of “drug re-importation.”[62] A 2006 study attacked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

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Regardless of its sources of funds (and several of those named have, in the past, shown a definite lean towards highways at the expense of anything rail), Mr. Randal (One “L”) O’Toole has been at the forefront of opponents to modern, efficient rail services, use of any sort of vehicle that doesn’t involve personal driving as opposed to public transit, and any attempt to limit sprawl and outgrowth (which he considers essential to the well-being of the world). Much of what Cato has produced vis-a-vis transit and rail has come from Mr. O’Toole and his disciples, and hammer those same themes over and over. While they don’t necessarily agree on every point, very similar arguments using similar questionable statistical analyses have come from the Reason Foundation and its subsidiaries (Mr. Robert Poole, Director of Transportation Studies), Mr. Wendell Cox, and Mr. Tom Rubin, all of whom have an interest in fighting any expansion of any rail systems far out of proportion to their objectivity. These people travel all over the world to instill fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) into any planning discussions that could result in the development of another light rail or streetcar system. I consider their positions to be in many cases leaning slightly towards anarchist, but with some very strange twists as to what they consider the involvements of government in the lives of US citizens should be.

For one example of Cato Institute financial backing, the Scaife Foundations, from the following URL:

<www.mediatransparency.org/aboutthedata.php>

Sarah Scaife Foundation

Financed by the Mellon industrial, oil, and banking fortune. At one time its largest single holding was stock in the Gulf Oil Corporation. Became active in funding conservative causes in 1973, when Richard Mellon Scaife became chairman of the foundation. In the 1960s, Richard had inherited an estimated $200 million from his mother, Sarah. Forbes Magazine ha

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Richard Mellon Scaife is related to Tim Mellon who is a princiniple in GUILFORD RAILROAD…

The worst run railroad in the USA

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“Libertarian” is often a code-word for “Conservative”. The people, companies and organizations supporting “Libertarian think tanks” are most likely also going to be supporting conservative Republican candidates.

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Cato starts at the answer and works backward to the question picking and choosing facts along the way…

…just like the transit/passenger rail/HSR/Amtrak advocates do![}:)]

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You know, here in Chicago our commuter rail line, Metra, gets only about 35% of its budget out of the fare box. This was compared in a local article a few months ago (that I wish I’d saved) to the big eastern systems which are at almost twice that level – Metro-North from Gunhill Road in the Bronx to GCT nine dollars (!) if you don’t have ticket in hand.

In Illinois, the gasoline tax is higher in Greater Chicago Metro (a/k/a the “Six County Area”) due in part, at least, to a certain percentage of tax (sorry can’t be more explicit) that goes to Metra, Pace (suburban buses) and CTA. A consumption tax on that probably hits the working poor disproportionately high, because the subsidy lowers the ticket price (in part) to the train-commuting public, which is more skewed to middle- and upper-income white-collars and professional people with jobs in the Loop and adjacent areas. Nonetheless this seeming perversity stopped upsetting people years ago.

That relatively minor injustice notwithstanding, Metra has been very successful in growing its ridership. I’ve seen downtown Chicago go in the last twenty-five years from a place where car commuters, if they really wanted to, could drive to the edge of the downtown and park somewhat reasonably – now to a place where the vast majority of people simply have to take some form of public transportation to their work downtown. Also, the Interstates are overcrowded with people, many of them driving themselves from suburb-to-suburb or city-to-suburb for their own jobs. Sharply escalating gasoline prices will help feed the subsidy kitty, which is fine with most folks (th