[PRCo] the WABCO PAT-Metro study

[Daria Phoebe Brashear]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 9:27 AM, Edward H. Lybarger <trams2 at comcast.net>
wrote:

> Unfortunately the memory gets blurry after 40+ years...would PAT have
> “commissioned” the WABCO study so they could claim a fair evaluation
> between alternatives when they again selected their pet project?  I don’t
> doubt that for a moment.
>
>
>
> Reality was what they wanted it to be, especially at Westinghouse.  A few
> years ago I attended the dedication of the remaining Transit Expressway car
> as a monument outside successor Bombardier’s West Mifflin facility.  I told
> a couple of the folks who had been involved that had they proposed putting
> Skybus anywhere except the proposed South Hills alignment, it would
> probably still be running today.  They looked at me like I was from Pluto.
> “What do you mean?”  They simply didn’t grasp the (local) politics of the
> thing and couldn’t understand why the South Hills transit patrons didn’t
> want it.
>
>
>
> Of course, what no one at the time wanted to say too loud at the time was
> that the only way to accomplish the project in any kind of acceptable
> budget was to NOT have to acquire new right-of-way.  This would also
> conveniently serve as a vehicle for ridding the county of the abominable
> trolleys.  But it’s funny how the $228 million project cost NEVER increased
> for inflation through all the years it took to finally kill it.  Talk about
> lack of reality...
>
>
>
>
> I do wonder if we'd be better off if we'd gotten the WABCO version (which,
really, doesn't seem to be that radically different than what we got except
that the East Busway would have been rail)... of course there was also the
Ford Bacon Davis study from the mid 70s that also fell on its face.

Who knows...


-- 
Daria Phoebe Brashear
AuriStor, Inc
dariaphoebe.com



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