Aaron Houck, in the January Charlotte Viewpoint (online magazine) asks: Does rapid transit subsidize sprawl? He concludes it does, sort of. (Also in this issue, Mark Peres — dubbed one of Seven to Watch by the Observer’s Local Desk late last year– muses about business ethics.)
I’ll give you my thought on the matter later, but here’s the headline: Whatever transit might be doing to subsidize sprawl, the outerbelt is doing to the 10th degree. Building the outerbelt AND building a transit system was a truly schizophrenic approach to transportation planning.