Lucas Wall must have been light on material for his “Move It!”column this week because he wrote what he calls a MetroRail IQ test. It’s a multiple choice test, basically, and he explains his reason for making this a column:
Our city recently marked the first anniversary of passenger service on the Main Street light rail line. It’s time to test your knowledge of the trains that many Houstonians either love or hate. Most of the questions deal with our nationally publicized crash problem, which the Metropolitan Transit Authority won’t be happy to see. But hey, I worked all year keeping this collision database. I gotta put it to use!
I don’t know. Since Wall manages to squeeze in some Metro propaganda (the crashes are all stupid Houston drivers’ fault; no one has been killed), I don’t think Metro officials will be too unhappy. He also continues with this farce of saying there have been 63 collisions, when there were 67 (that we know of) in 2004. He justifies this by using the state of Texas’ definition that says a collision can only be counted if there was at least $1,000 property damage or an injury. That’s convenient for Metro, but John Gaver’s Action America site doesn’t look for handy excuses for Metro — Gaver reports ALL collisions. What good is a watchdog media if it is the one providing the cover?
And if Wall is unable to find material for his column, he might want to get up from his desk and mingle with Houstonians, or listen to talk radio, or watch the local TV newscasts. There is plenty of transportation talk, all around.
