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Monthly Archives: October 2010

Another County Heard From

By | | Transportation
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Article on high-speed rail in the on-line edition of USA Today. Key point: “The history of transportation shows that we adopt new technologies when they are faster, more convenient, and less expensive than With applying the theory you can guess that it will cheap levitra prescription Source work on the soft muscles of body and heart. The ladies who prescription order viagra without are going through this problem, I am suggesting you to read my previous post and consult Dr. This has led to a growing disbelief in the minds generic cialis pill of the individuals. 2. Smoking causes hardening of blood vessels, while alcohol affects a man’s you could check here viagra 100mg no prescription ability for having a penile erection. the technologies they replace. High-speed rail is slower than flying, less convenient than driving, and far more expensive than either one. As a result, it will never serve more than a few marginal travelers.”

Postcards from Asia

By | | Travels
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My visit to Korea was courtesy of the Korean Institute of Public Administration (KIPA), which asked me to speak at a conference on “Conflict Management and Collaborative Governance.” Apparently, since Korea became a democracy in 1987, people have expressed their new-found freedom by protesting and debating all sorts of things, conflicts that one analyst estimates has cost the nation a quarter of its gross domestic product. This is probably high but it is a big enough problem to warrant coverage in the local English-language paper.

After the conference, KIPA took me and my fellow speakers on a tour of some of Seoul’s cultural sites and scenic vistas, including this palace built in 1395. (Click on this or any photo below for a larger view.)

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Rest in Peace, Old Friend

By | | Follow up
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July 1, 1993 – October 11, 2010

Chip on Christmas, 2009.

Knowing this day would eventually arrive didn’t make it any easier, nor did the fact that, at 17 years three months, Chip outlived most other dogs of his size by several years. If I live to share my home with a hundred more dogs, I’ll never find one as nice as Chip.
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His last portrait, October 11, 2010.

What gentler eye, what nobler heart
Doth warm the winter’s nip
Than the true blue orb and the oaken core
Of beloved old dog Chip?
(after Walt Kelly)

NJ Governor Cancels Raildoggle

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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The big transportation news while the Antiplanner was in Japan was that New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie cancelled a major rail construction project: a planned new tunnel under the Hudson River. Spurred by cost overruns, Christie said “far more than New Jersey taxpayers can afford and the only prudent move is to end this project.” The tunnel was originally projected to cost $5 billion, but the latest estimates are as high as $14 billion.

Soon after the announcement, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood met with Christie to twist his arm “present a number of options” to keep the tunnel project alive. Christie agreed to revisit the decision, though he remains painfully aware that the project is ruinously expensive for New Jersey.

Christie’s decision, assuming it is sustained, raises an intriguing question: what other raildoggles are susceptible to similar cancellation by a single official such as a governor or mayor? This is especially pertinent as many fiscally conservative candidates are likely to take office in January.

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Report from Japan

By | | Transportation, Travels
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On Monday, the Antiplanner rode a high-speed train from Tokyo to Nagano, probably the most expensive high-speed rail route in the world. According to one source, it cost more than half a billion dollars per mile in 1997 dollars, no doubt because much of the route is in tunnels. The train I was on was practically empty, and I understand that is the usual condition for that route except in high tourist season.

The Nagano high-speed rail route is a perfect example of why the U.S. shouldn’t build high-speed rail. Even if the Boston-to-Washington or California routes made sense (which they don’t), once a government starts on a project like this it can’t stop until all the most powerful politicians have one in their states and districts. The Nagano and other Japanese high-speed rail routes were built not because they make financial or transportation sense but because of politics.

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How to Fool Transit Riders

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Recently, FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff told transit managers, “you can entice even diehard rail riders onto a bus, if you call it a ‘special’ bus and just paint it a different color than the rest of the fleet.” Eugene, Oregon’s Lane Transit District (LTD) proved this with its EMX bus-rapid transit line.

When this line was put into operation, the Antiplanner predicted it would be a disaster because LTD had spent way too much money on buses and had built an exclusive bus lane that was so narrow the drivers couldn’t go any faster than on the crowded streets. But the project may have worked out anyway.

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Report from Seoul

By | | Travels
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Even smart-growth planners believe, or say they believe, that Le Corbusier‘s Radiant City would be an awful place to live. If you agree, then Seoul is a scary place, as much of it consists of hundreds of high-rise apartment blocks.

Seoul occupies less than 2 percent of Korea’s land area but contains 40 percent of the population. From the air, it looks like the worst of both Radiant City and urban sprawl, but the sprawl appears to be mostly factories as modern assembly-line methods require horizontal operations. Despite this factory sprawl, the average population density of the Seoul urban area is about the same as that of New York City–meaning it is five times greater than the New York urban area (which includes northern New Jersey).

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