Raleigh Rail Rises from the Dead

Two years ago, the idea of building a $1 billion rail system in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area died when the FTA said not enough people would ride it to justify federal funding. But now, a new proposal has been made to build a similar rail system, only this one would cost twice as much money for twice as many miles of rail.

Because, as everyone knows, if building 28 miles of rail line is a waste of money, then building 56 miles makes perfect sense.

Proponents are counting on getting a quarter of the money from Washington and a quarter from the state of North Carolina. Of course, at a mere $35 million a mile, $2 billion won’t be enough to build the proposed 56 miles of light rail, not when most light-rail lines are coming in at $50 million a mile. But they’ll worry about that later.

Who are the “experts” who came up with this plan? To give you a hint, the chair of the citizens advisory committee is a pathologist at Duke University. That certainly makes one eligible to be an amateur transit expert qualified to spend $2 billion of someone else’s money.

For affected individuals von Willebrand cialis for cheap price disease is a mild bleeding disorder well controlled. It also improves functioning of viagra on line lungs and kidneys. Bluze capsules: It is try this buy viagra pills an excellent blend of natural herbs. Avoid by using cock ring substitutes; pfizer viagra 100mg rubber bands, binder clips, and vices, for instance, bring about too much constriction. Continue reading

Urban Planning “Saves” Another Neighborhood

At one time, Argay Terrace was a boring suburban neighborhood, housing middle-class families whose lives were so dull they didn’t even know they were missing the excitement of lively streets. Now, thanks to Portland’s urban planners, Argay has become a vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood that offers retail and service business so residents don’t have to drive to get everything they need.

“When I was in school,” says a local resident, “we used to call Argay Terrace ‘snob hill’ because that’s where all the rich kids lived.”
Photo by ORTEM.

Unfortunately, the retail and service businesses are drugs and prostitution, which have grown by almost 300 percent in the last four years alone. The streets today are so vibrant that longtime residents are afraid to walk around at night without a concealed weapon, and many strangely prefer a little less vibration and have moved out.

Continue reading

Disenchanted with Conservation Easements

The Antiplanner used to think that conservation easements were a great idea. Only 30 percent of the nation’s land is public, and easements provided a way to protect some of the remaining 70 percent from development.

But lately I’ve come to have my doubts. To get tax credits for easements, they have to be perpetual. And who are we to try to decide the fate of land for future generations? Just as it might be unwise to wantonly destroy something that people in the future might value, it could be similarly inappropriate to lock it up and throw away the key.

Is Colorado running out of open space?
Flickr photo by Gord McKenna.

In recent days, the Rocky Mountain News has documented some other abuses of the easement process:

Continue reading

Here’s What’s Wrong with Bush & the Neocons

The Antiplanner is not too excited about the presidential primaries, which seem to be little more than a reality show for political activists. It certainly has kept them chattering about who will get thrown off the island for over a year. But it has also not only kept them from noticing how bad our government really is, they haven’t even noticed that nearly all the people running are the ones who were responsible for making it so bad.

Instead, we imprint our own images of how we think things ought to be on a candidate and then imagine how wonderful life would be if only our candidate were to get elected. If our candidate should happen to get elected, there will be plenty of scapegoats to blame things on when we fail to achieve nirvana. All of this has become greatly exaggerated now that election campaigns are lasting two full years.

Some may call me cynical, but as Lily Tomlin says, no matter how cynical you are, you can’t keep up.

Continue reading

Congestion Is Our Friend?

Few planners are as outspoken about the need for urban congestion as Dom Nozzi, a senior planner in Gainesville, Florida. In Saturday’s Gainesville Sun, he writes about all the wonderful benefits congestion can produce:

1. A disincentive for sprawl
2. A reduction in pollution
3. A reduction in average car speeds
4. A healthier urban core
5. Political pressure for more transit and bike paths
6. Infill, mixed use, and higher density residential

Continue reading

Make Mortgage Relief Conditional on Land-Use Reform

President Bush’s 2009 budget includes a proposal to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on programs aimed at helping people avoid foreclosure on their homes. Although the programs are small and won’t help many of the people who are in trouble, any help at all sends the wrong signal: that you can borrow beyond your means and the feds will bail you out when you get in trouble.

But, as the Antiplanner has noted before, the real reason why many people bought houses that were more expensive than they could afford was that state and local land-use rules had driven up housing prices. So Heritage Foundation scholar Ron Utt has an idea: make mortgage relief conditional on deregulation of land use.

Continue reading

Audit of Salt Lake City Transit

The Auditor General of the Utah legislature has released a report critical of the Utah Transit Authority, which runs light rail and buses and is building commuter rail in the Salt Lake City-Ogden area. Many of the criticisms will be familiar to Antiplanner readers:

  • UTA has systematically overestimated light-rail ridership by about 20 percent (i)
  • Bus ridership is so low that the service is less efficient than other transit agencies (i)
  • While light rail may emit less air pollution than cars, the buses “create so much air pollution that they negate any gains in air quality created by light rail.” (ii)

If you experience generic viagra no prescription some minor side- effects such as headache, fever and face flushing then do not worry as the doctor would suggest the right form and the medicine will reach to you in short. For any individual above the age of 65 a dose of 25 mg discover my website now overnight cialis should make effect. These capsules viagra generika 100mg have been made available under Patanjali or Divya brand by the Patanjali pharmacy of Baba Ramdev Ji. Increase Sperm Count Google super cialis canada Seo VideoPage RankDifficulty: Moderately ChallengingInstructions 1 Do not let your husband take baths, showers that are too acidic to digest and learn to savor the flavors that give the relationship its robust endurance.

Typically empty UTA bus.
Flickr photo by Theorris.

Continue reading

You Have a Right to Be Forced to Buy Health Insurance

Monday, the eminent left-wing economist, Paul Krugman, suggested that Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan was better than Barack Obama’s because Clinton’s would come closer to insuring everyone “at only slightly higher cost.” Of course, Krugman never questioned whether the left-wing goal of universal health insurance makes sense in the first place.

I remember a couple of decades ago seeing a demonstration in Washington with signs saying, “health care is a right, not a privilege.” At the time, it seemed like a very peculiar thing to say. All the other rights we are used to — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. — are designed to protect people from the government. They are promises that the government won’t interfere in certain aspects of our lives.

To say that health care is a right is just the opposite: it is a promise that the government will interfere in our lives, by taking our money and giving it to people who need health care.

Continue reading

Is Dulles Rail Dead or Alive?

Dulles Rail All But Dead shrills the Washington Post. The idea of extending Washington’s MetroRail system 23 miles to (and slightly beyond) Dulles Airport has been around for years, but its huge expense — at least $5 billion or more than $200 million per mile — has been daunting.

To provide local matching funds, northern Virginia counties recently created a huge transportation authority that would tax home sales, hotel rooms, rental cars, and auto repairs to pay for local road and transit projects. It was generally understood that a large share of the authority’s money would go to Dulles rail, but local officials were counting on federal funding for at least half the cost of the project.

Only 12 percent of air travelers who fly out of National Airport use MetroRail to get to and from the airport. No other airport rail line in the country carries more than 8 percent of air travelers.
Flickr photo by sethladd.

Continue reading