Please for the love of god don't spend any more money on Loop studies

[John Meissner]

Watching the study session last evening, here are some truths that if the trustees can't agree upon, they are no longer qualified to be trustees

(1) if this traffic "study" was submitted to a scientific journal for peer-review, it would be rejected before the paper it was printed on had time to settle on the reviewers' desks.  There are too many variables that weren't controlled for, too much pressure in hiring the same company to do the analysis to demonstrate improvement rather than double blind allow for the data to show itself and let the chips fall where they may, and differences between ten years ago and today that make it silly to continue this empty exercise.   You moved the starting line on one of the studies.  Are you kidding?  How long it takes to get out of town from the intersection of Elkhorn and Moraine is not comparable to how long it takes to get out of town from Riverside near what is apparently now called Ivy, and never was.  The same starting point should have been used if you wanted real data.  Sorry, you can't change the parameters to fit your story.  Emissions and fuel usage is down 50% because of the Loop?  Are you kidding?  Who would put up that data with a straight face?  How was it measured?  Were the same test vehicles used?  Were you just polling drivers on their opinions by giving them options like 25% less, 50% less?  You are telling me that what used to take 2 gallons of fuel to get from point A to point B downtown now takes 1 gallon?  Are you serious?  How were pedestrian counts made compared to how many total tourists were within a 5-mile radius of downtown at the time of the counts?  With a drone hovering overhead and facial recognition so that you weren't counting pedestrians who crossed twice or three times in the same time window because they were confused?  Again, for those trustees who are rolling their eyes, unless you have a PhD in some core scientific field, you aren't qualified to weigh in on whether the study was legitimate or "what we asked for" or not.  Unless you asked for a poll conducted by idiots for $25, you simply should be allowed anywhere near the cash till.  

(2) There was no vote of the public on the Loop.  Period.  End of story.  So both sides can speculate on what the public wanted, or how much they participated in what public engagement was allowed, but it all comes down to what the trustees' opinion was, then and now, and none of the trustees' opinions has changed and will ever change, so please, for the love of God, don't spend any more money on these "studies", because it won't change anything.  The Loop is fait accompli.  Stop wasting more money than what it took to put it in place.  And stop doing gymnastics to justify not allowing the public to vote.  It would have failed had it come to a vote.  Those in favor of the Loop were afraid to let the public vote.  We do not live in the Soviet Union where decisions are made by a few while the many are told it is best for them.  Those who go to their grave thinking the public would have supported this had it come to a vote are delusional and possibly narcissistic, and continue to just defy reality when they claim the public was split.  If you don't believe this, hold the vote now.  That would be a much better use of $20,000.  

(3) You bet I drive the wrong way on Moraine.  On purpose.  I don't want to spend 2 gallons of gas when it takes 1 ounce at 5:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. in the winter when there is no traffic to drive in a circle coming off Davis Street to end up 50 feet north of Davis in a parking spot on Moraine.  Residents are not stupid, and until you put up one way spikes, they are going to restore sanity to what they see as insane.  This isn't Fulton and Church in Lower Manhattan.

-john