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The City That’s Corrupt

By | | News commentary, Urban areas
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Portland, whose slogan, “The City That Works,” was stolen from one of the most corrupt cities in America, has been rocked by a new scandal, this one involving actual charges of bribery and under-the-table dealings. The FBI raided the home and office of the city’s parking manager to investigate allegations that he accepted large bribes to turn the city’s parking meter business over to a particular company.

These allegations apparently go back several years, but only now are being investigated in detail. What is interesting is how many Portlanders read the headlines and say, “yep, it must be true,” rather than, “this would never happen in our city.” A city that wastes huge gobs of money on silly streetcar and light-rail projects just exudes a culture prone to corruption.

“Portland is one of the most corrupt and nepotistic city governments in America,” says former Portland planner Richard Carson, who walked away from a lucrative planning job because “I just could not compromise my principles for more money.” He specifically points to the city building a light-rail line after voters rejected it twice and taking money from water user fees to spend on pork-barrel projects as examples of that corruption.

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Obamacars to Cost $6,714 More?

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
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Motor Trend magazine reports that meeting President Obama’s fuel-economy standards for 2025 will cost consumers $6,714 more per car. This is based on a paper published by the Center for Automotive Research last June, when Obama’s standards were still in flux.

There is some debate over this conclusion: a group called the International Council on Clean Transportation thinks that CAR has exaggerated the difficulties (CAR’s response). ICCT notes that the auto industry has a history of crying wolf when the federal government proposes new safety or pollution standards: Henry Ford II, for example, predicted that seatbelt and safety glass standards would “close down” his company.

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Let the Gas Tax Expire

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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The Antiplanner has written several recent posts about Congressional reauthorization of transportation spending. But an even more imminent transportation reauthorization deadline is coming up: that for transportation revenue in the form of gas taxes. The law allowing such taxes is due to expire on September 30.

Recalcitrant Republicans held airline ticket taxes hostage for several weeks over subsidies to a baker’s dozen out-of-the-way airports. They let the debate over raising the debt limit go down to the wire. What’s to prevent them from refusing to reauthorize the federal gas tax?

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Obama Undercuts Case for HSR and Rail Transit

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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President Obama has ordered the auto industry to make cars that average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This is after his 2009 order directing the industry to make cars that average 34.5 miles per gallon by 2016.

As a free-market advocate, I should be outraged that Obama is ordering private enterprise around like a petty dictator. But actually I feel schadenfreude for all the anti-auto environmentalists who will now have an even more difficult time claiming we need to invest in transit and intercity trains to save energy.

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Paradox or Not?

By | | News commentary
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Every family, every company, every nation must decide how much to spend today and how much to save/invest for the future. The decisions they make reflect their internal discount rate, which is the rate (expressed as an annual percent) that they discount future benefits and costs.

In the case of the recent debt deal, Democrats want to spend more now and not worry about future costs, indicating they have high discount rates and value present consumption much more highly than the future. Republicans want to save now, which they hope would have the effect of leading private investors to invest that savings effectively. This suggests they have a lower discount rate and value the future more highly.

On the other hand, considering the climate change issue, liberals tend to want to reduce current consumption in order to protect the distant future, which suggests a low discount rate. Fiscal conservatives see the future as highly uncertain and prefer to increase current wealth, which sounds like they have a higher discount rate. (A true application of the “precautionary principle,” conservatives argue, would be to invest in things that have immediate returns, such as reducing malaria and other major diseases, with the expectation that society will be wealthier and better able to deal with climate change if and when it actually happens.)

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Biketopia Is Mantopia

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Cyclists want to spend millions of dollars out of highway user fees to build new bicycle infrastructure, including bike paths and lanes. But a recent survey by a bicycle advocacy group found that the most important reason women don’t bike is not lack of infrastructure, but because it is not convenient for them to do so. As a Seattle blogger points out, women spend twice as much time doing housework as men (including the time spent cleaning men’s cycling clothes), they are twice as likely to do trip chaining (combining multiple destinations in one trip), and they are twice as likely to take children with them on their trips. All these things make it unlikely that building a few bike paths will get lots more women on two wheels.

Meanwhile, in Gainesville Florida, a cyclist challenged the head of the local Republican Party to a bicycle vs. car race. The car won by 45 minutes–probably because the race was a stacked deck, requiring participants to wear business clothing, make multiple stops, and carry such things as groceries and a 2×4 (which proved to be impossible).

Of course, once cyclists get legislation passed forcing all businesses to have showers available, there won’t be any need to wear business clothing on cycle trips. (However, the time required to shower and change might have to be counted against the cyclist.) Continue reading →

Senate Bill DOA

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Continue spending money at current levels that are far greater than revenues. Drain the Highway Trust Fund. Make a few token changes in the law to make it look like you are doing something. Then revisit all the issues in just two years because you are too chicken to make the hard decisions today.

That’s pretty much the outline of a transportation reauthorization presented by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee late last week. Really, this plan is just like the one the committee presented last May, except the new one would expire in just two years instead of the usual six.

Ironically titled, “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century” or MAP-21–since it only moves ahead two years and makes no progress on the debates over funding sources and spending restraints–the plan exists only as a three-page outline, not the thousands of pages that would make up an actual bill.

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Henry J. Is Spinning in His Grave

By | | News commentary, Transportation, Urban areas
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To find everything that is wrong with American transportation, you only need to look at the process for replacing the Interstate 5 crossing of the Columbia River. Planning for a new bridge or bridges between Portland and Vancouver began at least six years ago, and planners have so far spent well over $130 million without turning a single spade of dirt. The Antiplanner suspects planners are perfectly happy to spend as many highway dollars as possible on anything that doesn’t actually increase roadway capacity.

The current proposal calls for two double-deck bridges.

The bridge itself is expected to cost a little over $1 billion. But all the various government agencies that have jumped on the planning effort have managed to drive the cost up to $4 billion. A big part of this increase is the cost of light rail to Vancouver, including a special bridge or bridge deck for a rail line.

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The China Mystique Breaks Down

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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At least 35 people killed in a Chinese high-speed rail crash–caused by lightning? This doesn’t make any sense at all. Electric rail technology is more than a hundred years old; how could China’s trains not be safeguarded against this common phenomenon?

Plus, the second train ran into the first train simply because the first train was stopped on the tracks. Hasn’t China heard of positive train control? American railroads, which typically run freight trains at around 45 mph, are required by law to implement PTC by 2015. The Chinese trains in question reach top speeds of 155 mph, and should have had positive train control installed before turning a single wheel.

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Obamacare Pseudoscience

By | | City planning, News commentary
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Last week, the Antiplanner noted in passing a study that found that making people live in “walkable neighborhood” won’t make them any healthier. Since then the Antiplanner has encountered another research paper that found that “the effects of density and block size on total walking and physical activity are modest to non-existent, if not contrapositive.” It seems that anyone who looks at the relationship between urban design and health, other than committed smart-growth advocates, finds that there is no relationship.

So it is disappointing, but not surprising, that President Obama’s recently released National Prevention Strategy–which resulted from the so-called Obamacare legislation–focuses on redesigning the built environment. The Active Living portion of the strategy calls for “community design and development that supports physical activity. Sidewalks, adequate lighting, and traffic slowing devices (e.g., modern roundabouts) improve the walkability of communities and promote physical activity. Increasing access to public transportation helps people maintain active lifestyles. People are also more likely to use active modes of transportation (e.g., walking, biking) for their daily activities when homes, workplaces, stores, schools, health care facilities, and other community services are located within close proximity and neighborhoods are perceived as safe.”
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Although the Strategy includes footnotes for each of these claims, they only reference other publications recommending changes in the built environment–some of which were written by advocacy groups such as the Surface Transportation Policy Project–and not actual research showing that this is a worthwhile or cost-effective strategy. The Antiplanner is not an expert on health care, but if the rest of Obama’s health care package is as “scientific” as this, it appears we have turned our entire medical system to Lysenkoists. Next time you see a doctor, don’t be surprised if he or she gives you a prescription based on the latest fad (or campaign contribution) rather than the latest research.