-noun, plural -gies
Choo-choo Buffology is the pseudo-science of repeating the same specious arguments ad-infinitum to avoid rational criticism of transit-
rail projects. Practitioners appear to have
better arguments than their critics primarily because their arguments can be summed up within media-friendly
sound bites. This phenomenon is frequently attributed to the choo-choo
buff spending a majority of their research funds on media consultants and focus groups, while their opponents spend their research funds on actual scientists and economists.
The transit authority hired a choo-choo buffologist for their rapid response team which will allow them to quickly respond to media inquiries asking critical questions. Unfortunately for the opponents, this
guy is the top choo-choo
buff in the nation. His latest sound
bite is critical of busses because he claims that people don't
like dirty busses, putting his opponents at a significant disadvantage because it takes more words than can
fit into a sound bite to explain that people are turned off by the "dirty" busses which were made that way by people who did not respect the
bus enough to keep it
clean because people who receive a subsidy can't appreciate the value of the service and thus are disrespectful - and rolling out
shiny new trains won't correct the problem because they will be dirty within a few years as the same disrespectful people start riding the trains instead; that the only way to prevent the deterioration of the transit system is to charge market rates for riding instead of
tax-subsidized rates.
-or-
I wish there wasn't some way of silencing that choo-choo
buff. He's been practicing choo-choo buffology so long he's figured out all you have to do is claim that trains are green, and nobody can point out that according to the transit authority's own environmental impact statements that
bus rapid transit is both
greener and more efficient without being labeled pro-pollution. He's really a master choo-choo buffologist.