Study: Average speed difference trivial if toll lanes added; HOV lanes don’t work.
By Alan Hirsch, Yolo Mobility
If you read deeply and critically into Caltrans documents, you will often find a number of things acknowledged- inconvenient truth not always shared with elected officials.
City and County elected officials rely on agency staff to give honest and complete presentation of objective findings. However, the reality is elected official are very vulnerable if an agency’s staff is committed to pursue a pre-ordained solution. Staff can bending their analysis or make strategic omissions of information in their presentation. These are rarely caught by elected official who don’t have time to read, much less understand the reports.
Then it’s up a rare whistleblower and or nerdy gadflies to protect the public interest by catching this, and making public comments to elected who otherwise don’t have time to read everything.
But in the end, it up courageous electeds, who are willing to both listen to the outsiders, and are then open to changing their minds, if the agency solution is be questioned if its pre-ordained solution is in the public good.
This manipulation of data does come from all Government agencies, or even most, but this Machiavellian approach to public policy can hard backed into the culture of some.
Davisite 