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Peak Oil Panic

By | | News commentary
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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

By | | News commentary
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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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The Decline of Twin Cities Transit

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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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

By | | City planning, News commentary
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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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Transportation Empowerment Act

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and two other senators and joined Representative Tom Graves (R-GA) and 18 other representatives in introducing the Transportation Empowerment Act. This bill would phase out most federal involvement in surface transportation, including 80 percent of the federal gas tax, over five years. In the meantime, federal funds would be given to the states as “block grants” with few strings attached.

As the Antiplanner reads the bill, funds would be distributed to the states using the same highway formulas now found in MAP-21, the 2012 transportation bill. The transit formulas are dropped. However, if a state determines that the highway funds it receives are in “excess of the needs of the state” for highways, that state may use those funds for any surface transportation program including transit and intercity rail.

The bill limits distributions in the first year to about $38 billion, which is the current estimate of gas tax revenues in that year. However, if revenues fall short of that estimate, the bill states that no more funds may be distributed than are actually collected. The gas tax and distributed funds are cut in half in the second year, then by approximately 33 percent per year over the next three years.

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It’s a Matter of Class

By | | News commentary, Regional planning
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The British are more aware of class than Americans. So when Paul Dacre, the editor -in-chief of the working-class Daily Mail, says, “there is an unpleasant intellectual snobbery about the Mail in leftish circles, for whom the word ‘suburban’ is an obscenity,” the Brits know what he means.


While some Brits may be ashamed to admit it, more live in suburbs than central cities, though thanks to highly restrictive land-use laws, they tend to live on small lots or in semidetached homes. This suburb is southeast of London. Flickr photo by diamond geezer; click for a larger view.

Suburban hostility among British elites actually preceded that in the United States by at least a couple of decades. As Clive Martin, the former Lord Mayor of London, observes, there may be no “aspect of the British experience that comes in for more derision than suburbia,” a lifestyle that is “relentlessly mocked” as “an acquired taste for people with no taste.”

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That Explains It

By | | News commentary
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As reported in the New Yorker, an OECD study finds that Americans have some of the worst problem-solving skills in the developed world. For 16-65 year olds, only Spaniards are less numerate, The problem of ED was cialis cheapest https://regencygrandenursing.com/post-acute-sub-acute-care/orthopedic-rehab increasing among men and the treatments which he finds shy to discuss with others. The massage of Overnight oil will get for men a highest pleasure and enjoyment in lovemaking sessions. levitra prices You can gain online generic cialis rock hard erection during the lovemaking time. The discontinuation of the medication should also be done as right on time as cialis prices would be prudent. and only Spaniards and Italians are less literate (see pages 259 and 264).

No wonder so many voters support billion-dollar rail projects aimed at addressing problems that could be solved by million-dollar bus projects.

Maglev: The Next Generation of Boondoggles

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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A group in Maryland is promoting magnetically levitated trains in the New York-Washington corridor. “Superconducting” maglev, says the group, is the “next generation of transportation.”


Superconducting maglev train being tested in Japan. Wikimedia commons photo by Yosemite.

Get real. Japan is proposing to build such a line from Tokyo to Osaka: 320 miles for a mere $112 billion. That’s $350 million per mile, or twice as much as the current estimated cost of California high-speed rail boondoggle (about $100 billion for 440 miles). Except for contractors, nobody is too happy about the cost of that line.

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Yellow Journalism at the L.A. Times

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Every experiment with vehicle-mile pricing that has ever been done protected driver privacy. In most if not all experiments, devices used to calculate charges did not even keep track of where users were; only what they owed. Legislation introduced in Congress to shift to vehicle-mile pricing set privacy as a top priority. Yet the Los Angeles Times ominously writes about “black boxes” that “possibly” will tell the government where you are driving or have driven.

Given concerns over the NSA and other government agencies that have admitted they are keeping track of our emails and other communications, privacy is a legitimate concern. Yet given the concerted efforts by supporters of vehicle-mile pricing to protect privacy, it is irresponsible of the L.A. Times to make a big deal of this.

The article quoted several people pointing out that gas taxes don’t work anymore, if they ever did, but ended up quoting someone saying Congress should just raise those gas taxes so that drivers won’t have to “be concerned about their privacy.”

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Mayor Bloomberg Doesn’t Understand Economics

By | | Housing, News commentary
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Mayor Bloomberg says New York City’s lack of affordable housing is a sign of a vibrant economy, because it proves people want to live there. Despite his reputation in the business world, he obviously doesn’t understand the laws of supply and demand.

“Somebody said that there’s not enough housing,” Bloomberg said on a radio show. “That’s a good sign.” Housing is only scarce, he said, because “as fast as we build, more people want to live here.”

In fact, as the Antiplanner has previously shown, high housing prices do not prove that lots of people really find an area desirable. Instead, they are more a sign of government barriers to housing.

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