Commentary

Transit Won’t Save Detroit. High Speed Trains Won’t Save the US

Monday night PBS aired a documentary Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City which they say “examines how Detroit, a symbol of America’s diminishing status in the world, may come to represent the future of transportation and progress in America.”

I say it is an incredibly one-sided view of how some people think that a bunch of already failed ideas will suddenly start working, and not just work, but perform miracles. They argue that a few miles of a single light rail line is going to turn Detroit into a happening city, and the high speed trains will do the same for the whole US. Interestingly, the piece is almost utterly devoid of facts, and is instead full of opinions and hope.

I teamed up with Shikha to do a pretty thorough dissection of their key assertions.