Census Results

Amazing! One person read yesterday's blog about saving the tiger and today news arrives that the tiger population of India has gone up for the first time in a decade. Nice work reader!

The 2010 census was on WBZ radio this morning and the Curiosity Shop had a posting from Melanie Deware regarding the population of Fall River and train service. You can access Bristol Counties population figures here. Easton's population grew 3.65% to 23,112. Fall River lost 3.35% of its population one of the largest drops in the state. Raynham, Rehoboth, and Dighton all grew more than 14% as the buildout that passed through Easton and Mansfield in the 1980s and 1990s moved south. The comment on Fall River's loss of population related to its need for a passenger rail connection to Boston. The other cities that think they will benefit from passenger rail to Boston are Taunton (down .18%) and New Bedford (up 1.39%).  Of the fastest growing communities only Raynham and Berkeley (up 11.52%) will "benefit" directly from rail service. The other fast growing towns (Dartmouth, Dighton, Rehoboth) will have to drive some distance to a station in order to use the train although if you believe in the rail transport fairy tale that's better access then they had before. The 2010 census data probably can be used to build an argument for both sides in the train debate, but the Army Corps of Engineers report only uses population data up to 2006. From 1990 to 2006 Fall River had only lost 187 people (it's now down about 3,000) while New Bedford was down 5965. Federal census figures show that between 2000 and 2010 New Bedford gained 1304 people. In 1990 New Bedford had a population of 99,922, in 2000 it was 93,768 while in 2010 it was  95,072. Clearly, an argument of rail proponents is that New Bedford and Fall River need passenger rail to reverse negative growth. There are lots of reasons to question this hypothesis (if anyone on the other side was actually listening), but in New Bedford's case we are being asked to build a billion dollar railroad on a twenty year downward trend when the ten year trend is upward. The ultimate problem in  projects like this one is we will never have current enough information to reach a completely rational conclusion. So how much "by guess and by gorry" is acceptable in planning? One could argue that the bigger the project, the bigger the guessing simply because of the immense amount of data involved and the slowness of interpreting that data. Bet you could apply that same insight in building nuclear plants in Japan or sending men to the moon. No matter where you stand on the train, it's an interesting philosophical issue.

Tomorrow, an article of more import-Clam Chowder, Red or White?