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John Oliver on Infrastructure

By | | Transportation
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Given that American attentions spans have grown so short that the only way we can learn anything is through comedy, John Oliver’s report on infrastructure is a welcome addition to the debate. He gets some things wrong, but many things right. The Antiplanner was flying to Washington DC when the report was first broadcast, so this commentary is a little late. But if you haven’t seen it, you can watch it below.

Oliver notes that the American Society of Civil Engineers gives a “D-plus” grade to the state of our infrastructure. But he points out that asking civil engineers to grade infrastructure spending is “like having the state of our nation’s tennis balls assessed by the American Society of Golden Retrievers.” Too bad he doesn’t remember this rule later in the broadcast when he notes that both the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce want to increase federal spending on infrastructure, suggesting that if these traditional antagonists agree on something, it must be right. Of course, what they agree on is that Americans should pay more taxes so their members can get more money from the feds.

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Every Kind of Fail

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
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Does Miami need a light-rail line? In 1988, the Florida city built the Metromover, a 4.4-mile automated system that cost twice as much as projected and carried less than half the projected riders. Although Wikipedia claims this is a great success, the National Transit Database reports that it carried less than 31,000 riders per day in 2013 (less than a third of what Wikipedia claims and well under the projections).

In the same year, Miami also opened Metrorail, an elevated rail line that cost far more than projected and carries less than a third of the projected riders.

Then there’s Tri Rail, a commuter train between Miami and West Palm Beach that began service in 1989. Taxpayers have lavished around $600 million in capital improvements on this line, and spent $46 million subsidizing operations in 2013, for a commuter system that carried less than 15,000 riders (i.e., under 7,500 round trips) per day.
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No Infrastructure Fund

By | | Transportation
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A lot of people have proposed that Congress create an infrastructure bank that would fund or finance the reconstruction and expansion of America’s transportation and other infrastructure. One problem is where the money would come from. Another problem is how would it be allocated.

Representative John Delaney (D-MD) thinks he has the answers to these two questions. He notes that, for tax reasons, American corporations have kept billions of dollars in foreign profits overseas so they don’t have to pay U.S. taxes on them. He proposes to drastically reduce the rate they would pay on this income, leading them to bring the funds back. The revenues from the lower rates (he proposes about 8 percent) that would then be paid would seed what he calls the American Infrastructure Fund.

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Amtrak Not Worth State Support

By | | Transportation
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The Antiplanner arrived at the Purple Line debate debate last night to find protesters who were apparently upset that anyone would consider not building a train whose projected costs have already risen by more than 40 percent and whose ridership projections are so outlandish that even the Federal Transit Administration uses a lower (though still unrealistically high) number. Some of the protesters recognized me and were nice enough to wish me well in the debate.

My opponent, Richard Parsons, seems to truly believe that a 15.5-mph, low-capacity rail line will spur enough development to increase county tax revenues by more than $10 billion. When I pointed out that this has not happened to any rail project in the last 40 years, and that at most all they have done is influenced where development takes place, he didn’t dispute it, but merely claimed that Montgomery County was unique. Those who wish to see my presentation can download the PowerPoint file here.

Meanwhile, in keeping with the fiscally conservative trend that swept much of the nation in the last election, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has proposed (see p. 3-32) to help close the state’s $6.8 billion budget gap by cutting state support for Amtrak from $46.2 million in 2015 to $28.8 million in 2016. Amtrak supporters are unsurprisingly outraged, claiming that a reduction in passenger train service will increase traffic congestion, air pollution, and wear and tear on the highways.

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Back in the Air Again

By | | Housekeeping, Transportation
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The Antiplanner is in Washington DC today to participate in a debate over the Purple light-rail line–or, as I like to call it, the Purple Money Eater. In conjunction with this debate, the Maryland Public Policy Institute will release a detailed critique of the proposed low-capacity transit line; Antiplanner readers can download a preview today.

Predictably, rail supporters are claiming that the supposedly evil Koch Brothers “dispatched” me to fight this rail project. In reality, I doubt that light rail is even on the Koch Brothers’ radar screen, since there is no light rail in Kansas (where they are headquartered) and no proposals for any as far as I know. (Could it be that’s not a coincidence?)
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We’ll see what the rail supporters say tonight. If you are in the DC area, I hope to see you in Silver Spring at 7 pm.

Will Apple Join the Self-Driving Car Race?

By | | Transportation
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Apple is planning to put an electric car on the market by 2020. No, Apple is planning to build a self-driving car. No, it’s not. It would be stupid to do so.

Rumors about Apple, which has the highest market capitalization of any company in the world, are an industry in itself, so the rumor world was thrilled to learn that Apple had leased a modest Dodge Caravan and was driving it around Silicon Valley festooned with cameras, Lidar, and other devices.

Meanwhile, Apple has hired hundreds of auto engineers away from Tesla, General Motors, Ford, and other companies with the goal of putting as many as 1,000 of them to work on the so-called Apple Car. (Ironically, less than a month after being fined more than $100 million for agreeing not to poach employees from Google, Adobe, and Intel, Apple is being sued by battery maker A123 for allegedly poaching its experts.)

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Streetcars and Commuter Trains Are Hot

By | | Transportation
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Ridership on Atlanta’s new streetcar is 18 percent below projections–and the projections assumed patrons would be charged a $1 fare, but (as of the date of the ridership numbers) the city was still offering free introductory rides. Meanwhile, operating costs have proven to be a mere 50 percent more than projected.

Washington, DC’s new streetcar hasn’t yet opened for business, but it has already proven to be hot–as in one of the streetcars being tested on H Street caught fire the other day. DC residents aren’t exactly looking forward to the streetcar, which is increasing traffic congestion and slowing bus service in the corridor. This is just one more example, locals note, of “corporate welfare and the edifice complex.”

Just outside of DC, a new report reveals that the Maryland Transit Administration has done a poor job of tracking consultant costs on the proposed Purple and Red lines. This doesn’t bode well for taxpayers if construction ever begins on these two lines, both of which are expected to cost more than $2 billion.

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Cities Want Federal Grants

By | | Transportation
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Here’s another article claiming that the fact that cities are foolish enough to accept federal grants to build streetcars proves that “America has a renewed desire for streetcars.” The article then lists eleven streetcar projects–some of them under construction, others still in early planning phases–as evidence.

One of the projects is in Kansas City, where less than a year ago voters rejected a plan to expand the starter-system funded by the feds. Another city was Milwaukee, where voters have repeatedly rejected light rail, commuter trains, and other rail boondoggles. A third city was Cincinnati, where voters elected a mayor who promised to cancel the streetcar–but was unable to override the majority of the city council. Considering opposition to streetcars in Arlington, San Antonio, and other cities, there is hardly a groundswell of support for these obsolete systems.
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The pro-streetcar article is on a website called FutureStructure, which is basically a rah-rah site for people interested in profiting off of government infrastructure spending. Many readers no doubt drooled over the 11 streetcar projects in the article whose average cost was $37 million per mile, ranging as high as $79 million in one case. Considering that it costs less than a quarter of that average to build a mile of four-lane urban freeway and that streetcars are slower than buses and have far lower capacities, these are insane amounts to spend–unless of course, you are the one profiting from government contracts.

Farms vs. Transit in Hawai’i

By | | Regional planning, Transportation
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Now that Honolulu’s insanely expensive, low-capacity rail line is under construction (and over budget), Oahu land-use advocates are upset that the city wants to rezone 1,289 acres of farms for residential development. At least some members of the city council claim to have been shocked to learn that just 17 percent of the island is still suitable for farming while 27 percent has been urbanized.

Sadly, efforts to protect farmlands in Hawai’i are something of a joke considering that Hawai’i’s land-use laws–the strictest in the nation–were supposedly passed to protect farmlands and yet in fact are responsible for destroying Hawai’i’s agricultural industry. The land-use laws made Hawai’ian housing so unaffordable that farmers can’t pay workers enough for them to be able to live there. As a result, the state has lost most of its pineapple, sugar cane, and other crop production to other Pacific islands such as Fiji.

Comparing a map of Oahu land-use designations with the route of the rail line reveals that the rail line will cross only a few tiny areas of land zoned for farming. In fact, a lot of the land around Kapolei that is zoned urban hasn’t yet been developed and could still be used for farming, but why bother if you can’t afford to grow crops?

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The Inequities of Federal Transit Funding

By | | Transportation
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Federal funding for new rail transit lines has led to an inequitable distribution of funds among urban areas. This can be shown by downloading the historic time series data for capital funds from the National Transit Database. These numbers extend from 1991–which, coincidentally, is the year Congress created the New Starts program–to 2013.

Gross domestic product price deflators can be used to adjust all dollars to 2013 values. Finally, the National Transit Database’s historic time series for service data gives transit ridership for the same years. The time series show which urban area each transit agency primarily serves, so I added up the capital funds and ridership numbers by urban area.

The detailed results for 488 urban areas can be downloaded in this spreadsheet, while the basic results for the nation’s 50 largest urban areas are in the table below. Though there are a few surprises, the results mostly confirm my hypothesis that the best way for an urban area to get lots of federal transit funds is to build new rail lines.

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