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Monthly Archives: May 2010

One More Gridlock Trip

By | | Housekeeping
3 Comments

Today the Antiplanner is speaking in Raleigh, NC for the John Locke Foundation. The event is at noon at the Foundation offices, 200 W Morgan St.

Tomorrow the Antiplanner will speak at an 8 am breakfast in Atlanta, sponsored by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. The event will take place at the Georgian Club, 100 Galleria Parkway, Suite 1700.

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By my count, this makes 30 cities in the 120 days since Gridlock was released in January. I only have one trip scheduled in June (to Honolulu!), and none (so far) for the rest of the summer.

Much More Ado about the Suburbs

By | | News commentary, Regional planning
38 Comments

“White Flight: Suburbs Lose Young Whites to Cities,” proclaims the headlines. While whites are moving to the cities, the suburbs are supposedly turning into slums. Horrors! Sounds like a job for Superbiggovernmentman!

A few decades ago, urban planners knew suburbs were evil because they were enclaves of wealthy whites, while downtrodden poor and minorities were left behind in the cities. But a new report (part one and part two — 8 and 16 MB respectively) from the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program reveals that suburbs today include people of all incomes and all races. Instead of viewing this as a cause for celebration, the report’s writers argue that “National policy makers have the unique obligation” to “manage this change.”

One of the report’s co-authors, William Frey, was quoted by the media saying, “What used to be white flight to the suburbs is turning into ‘bright flight’ to cities that have become magnets for aspiring young adults who see access to knowledge-based jobs, public transportation and a new city ambiance as an attraction.” In fact, there are no data in the report to support the claim that suburbs are “losing” young whites or high-income whites to the cities.

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Chicago Rail Tragedy

By | | News commentary, Transportation
14 Comments

A sad story from Illinois: Phil Pagano, the head of Metra, Chicago’s commuter-rail agency, was recently accused of granting himself an unauthorized $56,000 bonus (on top of his regular pay of $270,000) in 2009. The agency initially denied it, but then announced it had suspended Pagano during its investigation, which later revealed that he had written himself forged signatures on checks totaling “about $100,000” (update: now up to $475,000).

In response, a few hours before a planned meeting with the agency’s board of directors, Pagano walked in front of one of his trains and stared into the face of the engineer as it ran him over. In his pocket investigators found “a copy of Metra’s procedures on how to handle a service disruption after a suicide.”

Without making light of this tragic situation, faithful Antiplanner ally Peter Samuel asks a good question: Why do we pay transit agency executives so much money in the first place? Samuel points out that the Illinois Tollway carries ten times as many passenger miles (and infinitely more freight) as Metra, yet the CEO of that agency makes only $189,000 a year.

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Not So Fast for High-Speed Rail

By | | News commentary, Transportation
10 Comments

Over most of Obama’s so-called high-speed rail network, the administration proposes to run passenger trains at top speeds of 110 miles per hour on the same tracks as freight trains. But CSX says it will not allow passenger trains to run faster than 90 mph on the same tracks as its freight trains. If the government wants to build new tracks, they must be at least 30 feet from CSX freight tracks.

Since New York, among other states, was counting on using CSX tracks for some of its moderate-speed rail routes, the Empire state has unsuccessfully pressured CSX to change this policy. Last month, the director of the state’s high-speed rail program quit in disgust because she felt other state officials were lying to CSX and not negotiating in good faith.

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Transformational Yet Futile Strategic Plan

By | | News commentary, Transportation
23 Comments

Last month, the Department of Transportation published a strategic five-year plan that illustrates all the reasons why government should not plan. Rather than attempt to provide the transportation services that Americans need and want, the plan aims to “transform” — i.e., socially engineer — America. Rather than focus on processes that will insure that tax dollars are effectively spent, the plan predetermines the modes of transportation that ought to be funded based on touchy-feely criteria.

Obviously written by smart-growth apostles, the plan includes all of the twisted facts and junk science so beloved of today’s urban planners. For example, page 14 says, “Over the last decade, transit ridership has grown over 20 percent, far outpacing growth in automobile travel.” In fact, urban automobile passenger miles have grown by 24 percent in the last decade (1998 to 2008), while transit passenger miles grew by only 22 percent. By comparing transit ridership with total (instead of just urban) auto travel, the plan’s writers are comparing apples with oranges.

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Embezzling from the Infrastructure Bank

By | | News commentary
18 Comments

Banks accept money from depositors and lend that money out to borrowers. The difference between the interest paid to the bank by borrowers and the interest paid by the bank to depositors provides the funding to operate the bank.

As faithful Antiplanner ally Ron Utt points out, most proposals for a so-called infrastructure bank would work differently. The federal government would borrow money at current rates of around 4 percent. Then it would give that money away. Of course, that is most of what the federal government does anyway; all that is new is that Obama and Congress want to dignify it by calling it a bank.

Arguments in favor of an infrastructure bank all start out the same. There is a mention of the Minneapolis bridge collapse (which was due to a design flaw, not to deteriorating infrastructure). The number of bridges that are “structurally deficient and functionally obsolete” is raised (without mentioning that the number has been steadily declining for decades). This leads to the erroneous conclusion that there is a “gap between our economy’s need for functioning infrastructure and what is being invested in it.”

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Transit Trials and Tribulations

By | | News commentary, Transportation
29 Comments

Horrors! In response to a declining tax base, the “financially strapped” Washington Metro plans to increase fares, which “puts most of the burden on users.” How awful to think that transit users will actually be asked to pay for a larger share of their transport!

Rushing to financial disaster.
Flickr photo by Willamor Media.

Meanwhile, Atlanta’s Marta is also in dire financial shape and has threatened to cut service by 30 percent. This has led to protests, supposedly by bus riders but in fact organized by transit unions. This is at least in part a Washington Monument strategy by Marta, which would like the state to dedicate some funds to its future operation.

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Pavement Condition Report

By | | Transportation
5 Comments

In Gridlock, the Antiplanner argued that the so-called infrastructure crisis is phony, and used bridges as an example. The Minneapolis bridge collapse raised attention about infrastructure, but it turned out that disaster was due to a design flaw, not lack of maintenance. While some bridges are in poor condition, records reveal that the number of bridges that are “structurally deficient” has been steadily declining since 1992 (the earliest year for which on-line data are available).

Filling potholes on a Virginia highway (VDOT photo).

On the Antiplanner’s recent 1,500 mile road trip to Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, however, the often rough interstate highways made me wonder if pavement is a different story. Could it be that bridges are in good shape but pavement is declining? Maybe there is some truth to claims of an infrastructure crisis.

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Amtrak Has “Revolutionary” Idea

By | | News commentary, Transportation
5 Comments

Amtrak vice-president James McHugh recently presented a revolutionary idea to members of Congress: give Amtrak a hell of a lot more money. Okay, maybe that’s not so revolutionary, since it is the same idea of just about every agency in Washington DC.

Amtrak, according to the testimony, needs “long-term, sustainable funding.” Well, who doesn’t? Where will Amtrak’s funding come from? McHugh has no clue, except that he suggests that Amtrak be included in the transportation reauthorization bill that Congress will take up next year. Until 1982, all the money in this bill (which Congress revises about every six years) went to highways. Since then, it has mostly gone to highways and transit — none to Amtrak.

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Unsustainable Austin

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
17 Comments

Austin (which the Antiplanner visited last week) is the latest city to discover that rail transit is unsustainable transportation. A recent state audit of Capital Metro finds that the agency “has a history of uncontrolled costs and overspending that cannot be sustained.”

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Capital Metro responds that the rail line is safe and claims it is addressing the other issues. But most of its actions are mere window dressing: creating new committees, interagency agreements, and so forth. Probably the best thing the agency can do is simply abandon the commuter-rail line, which would save taxpayers around $10 million a year.