Stalling out? Try Dead

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Sam Stein at the Huffington Post frets that “Obama’s vision for high-speed rail is in danger of stalling out.” Where has he been the last three years? High-speed rail was in danger of stalling out in 2010, when Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin elected governors who turned back funds for their states’ programs. Today, Obama’s “vision” is dead, and so is high-speed rail in this country.

Unlike air and highway travel, with Obama’s high-speed rail vision, you won’t be able to get from anywhere in the country to most other places in the country.

Like other rail nuts, Stein tries to make it appear we are in some kind of race for supremacy with Japan and other countries. “With countries like Japan already investing in the newest form of rail technology –- magnetic levitation, which LaHood called “way too expensive” for the U.S. –- the nation is very much set to be left in the proverbial dust.” The problem is that “the newest form of rail technology” is just as obsolete as the previous form. Stein might as well worry that we aren’t keeping up with the Japanese on floppy disk technology.

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2012 National Transit Database

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A few days ago, the Federal Transit Administration posted the 2012 National Transit Database. Data are downloadable in three formats. First, you can download profiles for every transit agency (21.3 MB). These give basic data such as trips, passenger miles, fares, and costs broken down by type of transit. If you don’t want to download the whole book, you can also download profiles for individual agencies by entering the agency name, city, or ID number in a search box (scroll down and look for “Individual Profiles” on the righthand column).

Second, you can download data tables, which present the data for all transit agencies in fairly user-friendly spreadsheets. All of the tables at once can be downloaded in a self-extracting exe file (4.1 MB), but my Macintosh doesn’t want to extract the spreadsheets. One problem with the data tables is that there are separate tables for trips, fares, operating costs, capital costs, and other data, so comparing the numbers is difficult.

Third, you can download database spreadsheets. These are more difficult to read than the data tables, but are easier to manipulate on a computer because every row on each spreadsheet follows a consistent format. Like the data tables, these spreadsheets can also be downloaded as one self-extracting exe file (5.1 MB).

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New Threat to Transit: Obamacare

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One of the many inane things about Obamacare is the Cadillac tax, which punishes employers who provide their employees with “too much” health insurance. The Democrats who supported this are now having to deal with the fact that the employers most guilty of providing Cadillac health insurance are public agencies. Of these, transit agencies have some of the most expensive plans of all.

The Cadillac tax, which takes effect in 2018, is 40 percent of health insurance costs above $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. As of 2013, Portland’s TriMet reported it was providing health coverage averaging $21,000 a year for individual plans. The agency asked employees to accept a cut to $19,000, but even if the union accepted, this remained well above the federal limit. The recent BART strike was over the same issue.

Even if TriMet negotiated a lower rate, it is likely to rise by 2018 due to inflation. Assuming most employees are on the family plan, paying the Cadillac tax for TriMet’s 2,400 employees could cost as much as $20 million per year, which is about 5 percent of the agency’s operating budget. TriMet was already threatening to cut service by 70 percent if unions did not agree to lower benefits. The Cadillac tax could make this even worse.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Good News from California

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A California judge has refused to allow the California High-Speed Rail Authority to sell $8 billion worth of bonds to begin construction of the project. The judge said the authority had failed to meet legal requirements necessary to begin construction.

Not everyone was thrilled about the high-speed train.

The authority had filed a “validation” lawsuit last March, challenging anyone in the state to argue that it didn’t have the right to build. A variety of groups, including Kings County Board of Supervisors and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, rose to the challenge. As a result, Judge Michael Kenny ruled that the authority had failed to show that it was “necessary and desirable” to sell bonds and begin construction.

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Peak Oil Panic

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The Antiplanner paid $2.99 a gallon for gasoline last week, which–according to my records–is the lowest I’ve paid for three years. The United States is now producing more oil than it imports for the first time since 1995. Not only is the U.S. producing more oil than Saudi Arabia today, it is poised to become the world’s largest oil producer (ahead of Russia, which is currently number one) by 2015.

Despite these dramatic changes, there are some who still want to harp on peak oil. “A new multi-disciplinary study led by the University of Maryland calls for immediate action by government, private and commercial sectors to reduce vulnerability to the imminent threat of global peak oil,” says one news article.

In fact, the study in question doesn’t predict that peak oil will take place soon, only that if it does, it will have serious consequences. But even that conclusion is wrong, as the “multidisciplinary team” would have known if one of the disciplines had been economics.

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What We Lost and Gained

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The Antiplanner is old enough to remember what happened 50 years ago today, and even to remember that November 22 was a Friday 50 years ago just as it is today. That gave most people two days to be at home to think about it–or in one case to do something about it–before the funeral on Monday.

There is no doubt the assassination changed America. We lost an innocence that had infused the nation since the end of the Korean war–an innocence we did not truly deserve. Yet we lost less than many think and may even have gained more than some want to believe.

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Outlawing Backyards

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The Washington Times published an article yesterday charging that “climate crusaders want to phase out the American dream of a house and yard.” Focusing on Plan Bay Area, the article argues that single-family homes are hardly a threat to the planet.

“Phasing out backyards”–that’s a good phrase. Why didn’t I think of that?

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal observes that federal regulators condescend to “approve” of cars that drive themselves” (if the link hits a paywall, search for “Regulators Back Efforts to Develop Cars That Drive Themselves”). The article cautions that such cars won’t be available “until about 2025,” but Forbes is more optimistic, saying they will be available “before the end of the decade.”

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The Decline of Twin Cities Transit

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The Minneapolis Star-Tribune frets that “getting around the Twin Cities is nearly as costly as housing.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer expenditure survey, the average resident of the Twin Cities spent $10,359 on shelter in 2012 and $9,897 on transportation.

“In 2007, the annual cost of housing was $3,173 more than annual transportation costs,” says reporter David Peterson. “By 2012, the gap had shrunk to $462.” Without any grounds for doing so, Peterson speculates that “rising transport costs may also be due in part to our sprawling development patterns, leading to lots of long and congested single-motorist drives.”

Let’s test that theory. The BLS estimated that the average consumer spent $8,806 on transportation in 2011. Thus, the 2012 costs were 12 percent higher than in 2011. Does Peterson really think that the Twin Cities sprawled enough in one year to drive up transport costs by 12 percent?

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$20 Per Person to Subsidize Golf

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Why does a city not far from the middle of nowhere need to subsidize a golf course? Ontario, Oregon has about 11,000 people (and, according to Census Bureau estimates, the number is declining) on Interstate 84 near the Idaho border. Scott McKinney, the golf course manager, recently told the city council that he needs $221,500 in public funds to open the course in 2014.

That just about $20 per resident and nearly double what the city spent subsidizing the course in 2013. The course is generally open (weather permitting) from March 1 to November 15, so it just closed.

Ontario is the largest city in Malheur County, whose land area is greater than New Jersey‘s but which has only about 31,000 people. Ontario is on Interstate 84, so any golfers who drive through might want to play at the course. It’s an hour away from Boise and six hours from Portland.

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