Toll Road Forecast Calls for Lies

* Re “Forecaster Repeatedly Wrong on Toll Traffic,” March 9:

So Supervisor Tom Wilson can’t figure out why the county is going to continue using the same consulting firm whose toll-road traffic predictions have repeatedly been wildly optimistic.

Is he really that dim, or does he think we are? At the risk of stating the obvious: Accuracy is never a concern when trying to sell any such taxpayer-guaranteed swindle.

The primary goal is to come up with numbers that the promoters can cite as “proof” that the project will be self-sustaining. The secondary goal is to provide a scapegoat for the politicians to blame when their part in the fraud becomes manifest. And the rubes buy it every time.

How can the estimates always be so far off all the time (and always in the same direction)? Lies, damn lies and statistics.

A statistical model complex enough to predict the utilization of a toll road or airport, or the economics of a public sports stadium, has a sufficient number of parameters and coefficients that you can easily come up with any desired result.

It doesn’t even require conscious fraud on the part of the predictor. Just a little tweak here, an adjustment there.

The consulting firms know their clients’ desires. They also know just how much repeat business they will get if they predict that projects will fail. And they can always fall back on the excuse that the data supplied to them were inaccurate.

Next time, Wilson should ask for all of the proposed consultant’s previous studies. Verify with the clients both the predictions and the actual results. If there aren’t about the same number of under-predictions as over, find somebody else.

LARRY DINGLE

Laguna Niguel

* Where else could someone get $90,000 a year to guess the number of cars on a toll road? You’ve gotta love this country!

KEN ANDERSON

San Clemente