Corporatizing Transit

Apple Computer has agreed to spend nearly $4 million fixing up a run-down subway station and bus turnaround lane next to a planned Apple Store in Chicago. Given the precarious state of the Chicago Transit Authority’s finances — the agency is something like $16 billion behind in its rail maintenance — this may be the answer to the transit system’s needs.

Soon to be the Apple Subway Stop.

In exchange for its $4 million, Apple not only gets a nicer neighborhood for its store, it gets first right of refusal for naming rights to the subway station “if the CTA later decides to offer those rights.” In other words, Apple will have to pay even more to call it the Apple subway station.

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U.S. High-Speed Rail Network

When Obama endorsed the Federal Railroad Administration‘s 8,600-mile high-speed rail plan, the Antiplanner predicted that rail advocates would not be satisfied with such a small system. For one thing, the FRA system reached only 33 states. For another, as a system of unconnected corridors it failed to connect such key cities as New York and Chicago or Chicago and the West Coast. Although self-proclaimed high-speed rail “experts” say that high-speed rail only makes sense in 300- to 600-mile corridors, the Antiplanner argued that politics would lead Congress to insist that lines be built across the country.

Sure enough, a group calling itself the U.S. High Speed Rail Association has proposed a 17,000-mile network that connects both coasts and appears to reach 43 — possibly 44 (West Virginia is unclear) — states. The route map includes lines from Chicago to Seattle and San Francisco (via St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver) and Dallas to Los Angeles (via Albuquerque, Phoenix, and San Diego).

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Can FasTracks Be Killed?

Denver’s FasTracks rail plan gets deeper and deeper into trouble. The fragile coalition of municipal officials supporting the plan has been threatened by a new proposal that would give some lines priority over others. No one seems to think that voters will ever approve the tax increase RTD, Denver’s transit agency, says it needs to the complete system.

The Denver Post published another article questioning whether commuter rail makes sense, following up a previous article questioning light rail. “Besides being pricey to install,” says the Post, rail lines “are pricey to maintain, and other alternatives exist that would clear clogged roadways (and the air) at least as effectively,” namely buses. So “we think RTD ought to return to the drawing board.”

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Do TODs Increase Transit Usage?

The Oregonian reports that residents of Orenco — a transit-oriented development built on prime farm land miles from Portland — mostly drive to work rather than use the light-rail line that is located close to their homes. In fact, according to a survey by Lewis & Clark University sociologist Bruce Podobnik, a higher percentage of commuters in a typical low-density suburb take transit to work than commuters from Orenco.

Podobnik did find that more Orencons walk to work and shopping than residents of other Portland-area neighborhoods. A higher percentage of Orencons also found that there was “more community” in Orenco than residents of other neighborhoods — though anyone living in a community that was widely touted as a national model would come to feel a sense of community.

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Compact Cities Won’t Save the Planet

Several recent reports from the smart-growth crowd have argued that U.S. cities must be rebuilt to higher densities in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Antiplanner will have more to say about these reports in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, a new analysis from MIT concludes that “even moderate carbon-reduction policies now can substantially lower the risk of future climate change.” However, the report adds, “quick, global emissions reductions would be required in order to provide a good chance of avoiding a temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius.”

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There is no consensus among planners and economists about whether compact development will even have a significant effect on carbon dioxide emissions. Those who believe we need to reduce such emissions should reject compact cities as a risky, expensive policy that will take decades to implement and even longer to determine if it even works.

Congestion Is Good for the Environment?

The Wall Street Journal has done a public service by publishing an excerpt from a new book called Green Metropolis. The article, by a New Yorker writer named David Owen, reveals just how idiotic anti-auto environmentalists have become.

Congestion pricing (by which Owen means cordon pricing) might relieve congestion, says the article, but that would be a bad thing because congestion “turns drivers into subway riders or pedestrians.” Sure, congestion wastes fuel and in turn spews out greenhouse gases, but relieving congestion might — horrors — induce more driving (previously debunked by Robert Cervero).

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Cap and Make Gore Rich

The Antiplanner’s favorite computer company has resigned from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because (pick one):

a. The Chamber supports the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that gives many of its members the right to emit huge volumes of greenhouse gases at no cost, which Apple thinks is inappropriate;

b. The Chamber supports legislation that cost-effectively reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but opposes the cap-and-trade bill because it would cost Americans a lot of money without significantly reducing emissions;

c. The Chamber is skeptical of global climate change and opposes all legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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Save Money by Making Others Pay

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) has a solution to the high cost of living: make other taxpayers subsidize your lifestyle. Specifically, APTA reports that people can save $9,000 a year by riding public transit instead of driving.

What APTA doesn’t mention is that transit appears inexpensive only because most of the cost of transit is paid by non-transit riders. In 2007, subsidies to transit average 66 cents per passenger mile.

To calculate the $9,000 annual savings, APTA assumes that people would substitute transit for 15,000 miles of driving each year. At 66 cents per mile, that works out to $10,000 of subsidies to save $9,000 in costs. Not only are transit riders making other people subsidize them, they are making other people pay more in subsidies than the former auto drivers are saving.

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Baby Boomers Heading for the Country

Smart-growth advocates love to talk about how retiring baby boomers and other empty nesters will all want to move to high-density, inner-city housing. For millions of such This supplement is free from discount viagra pharmacy arising any harmful side effects. Kamagra is a kind of PDE5 inhibitor, which basically is meant to allow the erection to develop in viagra no prescription canada the normal circumstance by inhibiting the affected enzymes within the genital area. Using this viagra ordering individual without any complexity can receive joy in doing the desired thing without any trouble. These rips within the engagement ring might outcome the actual discomfort all-around vertebral nervousness creating agony, numbness along with weakness within the parts where nervousness travels. http://valsonindia.com/about-us/eco-friendly-manufacturing/ cheapest levitra people, the truth is just the opposite: they hope to move to small towns and rural areas. So much for rebuilding cities to higher densities.

High-Speed Rail Deadline

Today is the deadline for states to submit high-speed rail program applications. Only states with shovel-ready high-speed rail plans (meaning the final environmental impact statement has been approved) are eligible to make such applications. States without such plans had to submit applications for planning grants in late August, and at least some of those planning grants have already been awarded.

The Antiplanner spent Wednesday in Springfield, Illinois, where the primary question is not whether to build high-speed rail but where it is going to go. As the home of both the president and the secretary of transportation, Illinois officials believe their state has a lock on its proposal to build a high-speed (really, a moderate-speed) line from Chicago to St. Louis via Springfield.

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