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Giving and Taking Away

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
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When Wisconsin and Ohio elected governors who promised to cancel high-speed rail, Secretary LaHood took their money away before the governors-elect even took office. But when Florida’s governor cancelled that state’s high-speed rail, LaHood gave local governments a week to see if they could form a consortium able to take on the project.

Why didn’t LaHood make the same offer to cities in Wisconsin and Ohio? I am sure there are enough rail advocates in Madison and Milwaukee that it was at least worth considering.

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Sticking It to Your Employer

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
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Many people seem to think that high-speed rail won’t work in Florida but still makes sense in the Boston-to-Washington corridor. For example, in a commentary on Governor Scott’s decision to cancel the Florida high-speed train, Michael Barone writes in the Washington Examiner,

“I have written rather extensively about the foolishness of most high-speed rail projects. Personally, I would love to see a really high-speed train from Washington to New York, one much faster than the current Acela, with speeds comparable to those of France’s TGV and Japan’s bullet train. As a business traveler I would be willing to pay (i.e., would be willing to have my employer pay) the high fares necessary to cover all or most of the cost of such service.”

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Reaction to Florida

By | | Follow up, News commentary
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Ray LaHood says Florida’s loss is someone else’s gain, as he will immediately redistribute the funds to other states. More like, Florida’s gain is someone else’s loss as any other state taking on a high-speed rail project will end up spending a lot of money on that project.

Meanwhile, Florida Senator Nelson (D) says he wants the federal government to simply build the Tampa-to-Orlando route even if the state won’t cooperate. This is probably just bluster on Nelson’s part.

Does he think the feds should take the right-of-way (most of which is state owned) by eminent domain? Governor Scott noted that projected ridership for the Florida route was nearly as great as on Amtrak’s Acela even though the Acela serves a corridor with eight times as many people — if those projections are wrong, operating costs are likely to be much greater than fares. Does Nelson think the feds should agree to cover all operating losses?

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High-Speed Train Wreck

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
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Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood says the administration’s high-speed rail fantasy won’t be derailed. But remember, this is the guy who said “there is no stopping” high-speed rail in Wisconsin a few months before the November election–and then he killed Wisconsin’s project himself when the “wrong party’s” candidate won the governorship.

Wikipedia commons photo of the world’s deadliest high-speed train accident by Nils Fretwurst.

Republicans remain skeptical and say they want to cancel the program. Even middle-of-the-road transportation commentator Ken Orski, who once wrote enthusiastically about high-speed rail and who is no antiplanner, argues (in a free email newsletter that he doesn’t post on line) that the administration’s plan is “a $53 billion high-speed rail program to nowhere.”

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Ending Urban Redevelopment

By | | City planning, Follow up, News commentary
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Despite pressure from cities, Jerry Brown stands firm in his proposal to end redevelopment agencies, a plan he says will immediately save the state $1.7 billion a year, and more than double that after 2012.


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Meanwhile, the Idaho Freedom Foundation publishes a report proposing to eliminate urban renewal in that state. Urban-renewal agencies in Idaho collect more than $50 million in property taxes that could otherwise go to schools and other agencies. The big savings will be in stopping the growth in urban-renewal districts, which Idaho cities are creating at the rate of five per year.

Spend It While You’ve Got It

By | | City planning, Follow up
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Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown said that the state’s financial problems are so bad that it should end urban-renewal subsidies. So the state’s urban-renewal agencies have selflessly stepped up and turned over surplus funds to the state to help it solve its financial problems.

Just kidding. Instead, redevelopment agencies all over the state have decided to blow their budgets by committing as much of their funds as possible before the state can take control.
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This is no surprise and it shouldn’t dampen efforts to revoke urban-renewal powers. Because most of today’s urban-renewal tax revenues are dedicated to paying off urban-renewal bonds, the greatest benefit from ending urban renewal will be in stopping the sale of any further bonds.

Portlandia Is Here

By | | Follow up, Housekeeping
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Although it will not premiere on television until January 21, the first episode of Portlandia is on line. Hulu says something about it expiring in three days, but if the video below doesn’t work, you might be able to watch it here or here.

Richard Florida claims that, by attracting the “creative class,” cities like Portland are building wealth and enhancing productivity. On the other hand, the thesis of Portlandia was best summarized by economist Randall Pozdena in 2007: “We are attracting (to Oregon) a lot of young, enthusiastic people who aren’t particularly well trained and who aren’t bringing a lot of human capital to the region.”

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No

By | | Follow up, Transportation
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That’s the answer to the question (raised here in September), “Should transit agencies buy hybrid buses?” At least, it is in the case of The Rapid, the transit agency for Grand Rapids, Michigan.

With the usual fanfare, The Rapid took delivery on five hybrid-electric buses some three years ago. These buses cost $510,000 each, or about a $220,000 premium over a plain Diesel bus of the same size. Agency officials predicted the buses would get 8 to 10 miles per gallon, compared with less than half that for ordinary Diesel buses.

A local transit blog, however, released a document showing that the new buses fell a bit short of this target. In fact, they only get 5.13 miles per gallon, compared with 4.45 for normal buses.

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CHSRA Chair: “Our Engineers Are Incompetent”

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
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The California High-Speed Rail Authority approved the Train to Nowhere, a plan to build the first leg of the high-speed rail line from a small town to no town. I suppose you have to start somewhere, but given the likelihood that the state won’t get any more federal funds, this seems like an exercise in folly.

Meanwhile, emails revealed that Curt Pringle, the chair of the California High-Speed Rail Authority (and mayor of Anaheim), thinks that the authority’s engineers are incompetent. “I do not think that the engineers working on the Anaheim to LA segment are capable of doing the work,” wrote Pringle last January. They “don’t live in the real world.” Continue reading →

More Election Results

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
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Progressive Railroading lists a few more election results, oriented of course to pro-rail transit. That article in turn links to the Center for Transportation Excellence, a group focused on government “investment” in infrastructure, which claims that the vast majority of transportation measures passed this year (including elections prior to November).

Many of the measures on CTE’s list were road measures (which, if they were funded by sales taxes, the Antiplanner would have opposed). CTE somehow managed to not count the Dane and Kenosha county rail measures that lost. Two of the rail measures that passed were bond measures in Arlington and Fairfax County, Virginia, to support capital improvements (really maintenance) on the DC MetroRail system. Other cities that accept federal funds for rail transit should take note: they will ultimately be responsible for rebuilding the system when it wears out.

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