dean

I'll try to get to all these points eventually, but for now -- corn is not the only source for fuel. Why not think about mountain top removal for coal? Changing the route due to ice is better than just shutting down the system. Portland's system is sometimes just shut down in the Winter. I do not speak for the Green party, but I fail to see why improved mass transit with a mind towards lower emissions is a bad idea.

BTW, someone tell John Schneider he can upload his PPT to Google documents with a free Google account -- and then he can embed the slideshow in any web page, or simply publish it on Google's servers for anyone to see.

Okay. I'll stay on topic. I encourage your other posters not to criticize The Beacon for deleting off topic comments. 1. I noticed your use of the word "could." How long should we wait? How long should we promote MORE pollution, while waiting? Don't tell me we can buy green energy credits. We can do that anyway. We can do that with biofuel trolleys. We can do that just because we want to give Duke money towards green energy. The reality is that, for the foreseeable future, we have coal electricity in Cincinnati. Do you have concrete knowledge to the contrary? 2. Cincinnati's bio-diesel buses release less pollutants than Duke's coal burning. Why promote more coal burning, if you are so concerned with the environment? 3. Streetcars have more CO2 output per passenger mile than gasoline, when powered by coal burning electricity. Streetcar advocates use slippery numbers when projecting ridership. For example, they say Portland and Cincinnati have the same population densities -- but that is not true in the Portland four mile loop and our comparable downtown loop. The area of Portland that seems analogous to OTR has more than twice as many people living in it. Did those people come due to the streetcar? Maybe. Maybe it was the urban growth boundaries. Maybe the buildings constructed on massive subsidies and abatements. Maybe all three. It is not straightforward to pick the cause you like best, emphasizing only that. I mention this as tangential to the issue of capacity needs for the downtown loop. I'd be interested in your research about costs for replacing biofuel tire trolleys over 30 years compared to a streetcar system. Thanks.

We do not delete substantive comments with which we disagree. In fact, the whole time this person has made these baseless allegations, we have been hosting lengthy comments which disagree with our positions, and we have engaged a healthy debate. I have sent an email to this person, asking for a copy of the allegedly deleted item. If s/he sends something of substance, I will happily showcase it on The Beacon.

Actually, that just tells you I can make a typo, and that I don't always carefully proofread blog posts, which I usually write in a hurry. If the best you've got on my argument is a typo, that says everything we need to know about your inability to reason. We need solutions that are environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable. Why this forum opposes those concepts is beyond comprehension.