Coalition for Regional Transportation Op-Ed Column – The Birmingham News

Your readers were recently treated to a classic propaganda piece trashing the Northern Beltline funded by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), an activist group of lawyers well known in our area for cloaking their anti-growth agenda beneath a veneer of environmentalism.

Now that we have finally reached the point in the process at which construction of the first segment of the much-needed Beltline (future I-422) is about to start, the SELC and its allies are desperate to do anything they can to slow down or even stop this vitally important project. They know that losing this battle is tantamount to losing the war. Their solution: a “study” from an out-of-state firm—the Ochs Center—notorious for mischaracterizing data to support the claims of anti-growth clients like SELC.

The Internet is replete with instances in which the Ochs Center has used speculative and highly flawed analysis in an attempt to discredit development projects and discourage economic growth and development.