Transit agencies, which are known to be “an effective way of accelerating the spread of infectious diseases” but are not effective at much else, received a $25 billion bailout in the $2.2 trillion Congressional coronavirus relief bill. That’s only a little more than 1 percent of the total, but why did the industry get any at all?
When transit agencies asked for the money, the Antiplanner wrote an op-ed arguing against it. Unfortunately, it didn’t reach print until after Congress passed the bill.
Yesterday, which happened to be the day after the op-ed was published, the Department of Transportation announced how the spoils would be distributed. The money is parceled out geographically, so agencies in regions with multiple transit providers will squabble over the funds at the MPO level.
Urban areas, where 98.7 percent of transit ridership takes place, only get 90.8 percent of the funds. Rural areas get 8.7 percent even though only 1.2 percent of ridership takes place there. The FTA gets 0.3 percent and Indian tribes get 0.1 percent.
The division among urban areas is more proportional to actual transit ridership. Agencies in the New York area received more than $5 billion; in Los Angeles, $1.2 billion; Chicago, $1.5 billion. Boston is considerably smaller than Atlanta but it received more than twice as much money, $884 million vs. $371 million.
buy viagra in stores Shilajit ensures energy producing reactions in your body and around the base of your penis and testicles. Mr Cable supported a call from Lord Blair, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, for a police investigation into what he said appeared to be evidence that Barclays staff had perpetrated a conspiracy to defraud. cialis tadalafil tablets http://www.midwayfire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/March-28-2016-Pension.doc Erectile dysfunction predominantly occurs because of prescription du viagra poor blood flow is the main reason behind weak erection. When discussed the issue erectile dysfunction with distinctive levels of wholesale cialis price seriousness.
This is free money for the transit agencies. They can spend it on almost anything they want and they don’t need matching funds. For many agencies, the amount they received will be four to six months’ worth of operating funds, so they can continue to run empty buses and empty trains while their former riders shelter in place. I’m not sure what kind of relief this provides for anyone other than agency employees.
Many agencies responded to ridership declines by cutting back service, but some have not. The Chicago Transit Authority lost 82 percent of its riders, but continues to run as if nothing had happened. Now it won’t have to cut back.
Now House Transportation Committee chair Peter DeFazio (D-OR) wants to pass a $760 billion infrastructure bill, with at least $55 billion earmarked for rail projects. This seems premature since we don’t even know what our transportation priorities will be after the pandemic is ended. We can only hope that fiscal conservatives manage to kill this bill.
Note:: The next chapter of “The Education of an Iconoclast” will appear next Friday.
Why would any observer of transportation policy since Eisenhower expect post pandemic transportation priorities to be any different than pre pandemic ones?
As the benefits-to-costs ratio of transportation spending approaches zero, nobody in any policy making position has even noticed, let alone reacted!
I predict the continuation of current trends: Taxpayers will continue to pay more and more for less and less.
“We can only hope that fiscal conservatives manage to kill this bill.”
Hilarious! The Federal government just took control of the entire economy. There are no fiscal conservatives.
True, the outbreaks of disease is byproduct of the quality of public/personal hygiene and sanitation. Sanitation practices and prepared institutions like they have in South Korea and Japan make all the difference.
Last fall, my wife and I visited China and rode the Beijing subway several times. It ranged from crowded to so packed that your arms where pinned to your sides by other passengers. As the Chinese try to come out of their Covid-19 lockdown I have to think this will be a huge problem. Many big city Chinese own cars and they have recently constructed freeways but Beijing is so high density that traffic is horrendous so that’s not really an option.You can wear as good of a face mask as you want but the Beijing subway is still going to be a great place to transmit disease and it will be impossible to trace who you were in contact with and may have transmitted the disease to. I’m sure many other Chinese cities have the same problem. In the long run, the United State’s relatively low density cities will have a huge advantage when trying to deal with Covid-19.
As I noted before, AND HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT to you weak minds out there, density HAS NOT been associated with the pandemic. In some cases overcrowding–note that subway “pushers” in Tokyo are a thin of the past, since that City has build sufficient rail lines to meet demand–is an issue. In NYC, Manhattan had the LOWEST infection rate among boroughs, and some of the lowest rates in Manhattan were the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, where population densities are 1000,000-200,000 per square mile–e.g., comparable to Hong Kong (which also had low rates due to excellent preparation).
If you don’t believe me, look at this graphic, which illustrates my point http://www.calrailnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/nyc-covid-19-cases-by-zip.pdf.
I see this anti-urban “density” argument as the opening salvo in the lies people like Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox, and of course The Antiplanner and other highway-loving charlatans, will spew in a renewed effort to keep the highway bandwagon going long past its expiration date. To the best of my efforts, I will call these out as the OUTRIGHT LIES that they are. There are lots of other people who, for once, are also on the case, forutnately.
Michael Setty, you got spanked by KomradKurwa. So you can shut the fukup now.
You can dismiss Today’s modern advocates and political hucksters if they withhold from debate they’re not worth listening to. Urban planners and architects like Andres Duany love the lecture circuits, they hate debate.
Density is a loveable pet subject of environmentalists and urban elitiest, who argue that densely populated cities are the solution to energy, environmental, medical, social……….whatever problem is plaguing society as they see.
Following the demise of the Roman Empire (with its early sewers and water closets) and right up to the end of the nineteenth century, disease outbreaks from poor sanitation and contaminated drinking water were common occurrences. Conceit is the finest armour a man can wear; it doesn’t actually offer you any protection, but makes you feel invulnerable. Hygenic societies survive
The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China. The Asian Flu pandemic was another global showing for influenza. With its roots in China, the disease claimed more than 1 million lives. The virus that caused the pandemic was a blend of avian flu viruses.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that the disease spread rapidly and was reported in Singapore in February 1957, Hong Kong in April 1957, and the coastal cities of the United States in the summer of 1957. The total death toll was more than 1.1 million worldwide, with 116,000 deaths occurring in the United States.
msetty, what does it say about the character or intellect of a man who barges into a conversation, hurling insults, only to miss the point of the discussion? (Probably not positive things!)
Only in your mind are people arguing that the literal density – the count of people / sq mile – tracks 100% with china virus cases. In fact, the only statement in regards to density was Builder’s comment that “the United State’s relatively low density cities will have a huge advantage when trying to deal with [kung flu]”. If you have an issue with this statement, you have not addressed it. Instead, you are arguing against strawmen. Poorly, I may add.
As is tradition, your linked PDF map has little to do with your argument (only in your mind does it convincingly demonstrate your point). Even if we had the density of NYC memorized and could mentally overlay that information upon your map, no meaningful conclusion can be drawn from the arbitrarily crude binnings. For example, the colors represent, from low to high, a delta of 106, 69, 123, and 640 cases. This means 10 cases have the same color as 100 (an order of magnitude difference!), and 310 cases have the same color as 930. A plot of zipcode density vs. corona cases (or better yet, corona case rate) would be a more meaningful comparison, but even that has problems. First, the virus has not run its course, so the stochastic effect of source point spreading due to density has not yet been fully realized and two, zipcode density is a surrogate for other types of density metrics that may better represent the frequency of human-to-human contact. Last, the examples you cherry picked are, by definition, cherry-picked outliers, and amount to nothing more than anecdotes.
To preempt your automatic, NPC-like retort, yes we know that TOKYO and SEOUL, despite being very dEnSe CiTiEs, did a good job of containing the virus. However, Seoul is not San Francisco, and Tokyo is not Terre Haute. A more reasonable comparison is Seoul versus a suburb of Seoul or the Korean country-side. Something tells me the area without people living on top of each other, without people being stuffed like sardines into cattlecars, had fewer instances of corona, or were able to contain it with fewer measures.
To reiterate explicitly the rational position on the matter, in any sufficiently complex system, such as the stochastic spread of an airborne pathogen, many variables determine the state of the system. However, in exactly zero situations does increasing density decrease the number of people infected, all else being equal.
As always, I look forward to your articulate response to the points I raised (but will be forced to settle for whatever you actually produce). Now on to start my binge of Tiger King.
”
density HAS NOT been associated with the pandemic.
” ~msetty
keep drinking your koolaid.
A density of people —>correlates<—- with outbreaks of COVID19 in the US. That's why we see, thanks Mardi Gras, an high outbreak in New Orleans while it's nearly absent from other cities in it's region.
Density is a key factor. No, it's not the only thing going on. But note that without it, the virus is absent.
Think of it this way, age is a risk factor but it's not going to cause the spread. So old states like Maine and Florida are doing fairly well so far, knock on wood.
The key seems to be that you need opportunities to transmit. And the less of those you have, the number of cases drops exponentially.
Also, observiing differences between Manhattan and Staten Island doesn't speak to density. YOu're speaking to who has the sort of jobs and the _INCOME_ get do things differently, order groceries delivered, work from home and just up and leave town for the 2nd home. When you're working in a grocery store or a firefighter or a nurse, you can't afford to live in Manhattan. And you're job forces you to be there, in person, constantly exposed.
Msetty, I’m sorry. I do not want to be an ass. I would removethe koolaid comment if I could. that was out of order.
———————
NOte, it’s not about residential density but density of atttack vectors for the virus. This is why even though many of the densest cities – densist in terms of residential population per urban developed area ( aka not including green spaces, mountains, etc ) in the country are in CA. For example, LA is 30% more dense than NY in that sense.
Yet we have 25 times more cases in NY than in CA.
We can go on and on.
Msetty, you’re not wrong that the problem isn’t caused by density. That’s just a loose correlation.
The core issue is that mass transit is a ginormous attack surface to spread. This is why 1/2 the cases ikn CA are in LA county where 1/2 the states transit trips take place. The same with MIA vs FL, NYC vs NY or metro NYC vs US.
It all mirrors transit use.