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Will Transit Prevent Bay Area Traffic Jams?

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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A key part of the MacArthur Freeway, one of the most congested roads in the San Francisco Bay Area, collapsed in a tanker fire early Sunday morning. As shown in these graphic photos, the accident managed to put Interstate 80, 580, 880, 980, and state highway 24 out of commission.

In response, Governor Schwarzenegger announced that all Bay Area transit services will be free on Monday as commuters adjust to the new situation. BART promised to run longer trains and other transit agencies promised to increase frequencies.

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Condo Boom Over

By | | News commentary
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Remember all those condominiums being built in various downtowns, and how they were supposed to herald the return of people to the cities? Not so much.

“We’re in for a fairly ugly correction,” says the president of Trammel Crow Residential. It turns out there are 5.5 million vacant homes out there, mostly purchased by speculators who expected condo and other home prices to go ever upwards.

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Federal Program Fails to Promote Transit

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Here’s a great idea. The federal government should give its employees free transit passes. That will encourage a lot of them to leave their cars at home.

Actually, it turns out that it will encourage a lot of them to continue driving but to sell their passes on ebay to people who are already taking transit, thus taking zero cars off the road. When the GAO followed up on ebay transit pass sales, they were all being sold by federal employees.
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The GAO estimates that this scam costs federal taxpayers $17 million a year — and that is an absolute minimum. But isn’t it worth the cost to know that the intentions were good?

Monorail for Portland?

By | | News commentary, Transportation, Urban areas
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When I was a kid, I had a toy monorail. It looked like a rocketship, only pointed on both ends, or possibly two airplane fuselages back to back, and it hung from a thin, round metal rail. I saw one on a web site about historic toys once, but can’t find it now.

Now a former Boeing engineer wants to build a full-scale monorail like it in Portland. Instead of calling it a monorail, which is what it is, he calls it an “air tram,” possibly because he thinks that will sell better in a city that has already built an aerial tram.

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“This Pig Stinks,” Say Bus Ads

By | | Follow up, News commentary
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Opponents of a tax increase for Grand Rapids transit (previously discussed here) have a new ad, illustrated below.


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They are paying the transit agency $290 to carry a 2-foot-by-6-foot version of the ad on one of its buses. Isn’t freedom wonderful?

Making California Housing Affordable

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters
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A bill being considered by the California legislature aims to make the state’s housing more affordable. According to this analysis, the bill amends the state’s Planning and Zoning Act by requiring cities and counties to take more steps to keep housing affordable.

The bill is supported by various home building associations as well as some non-profit groups such as the California Council of Churches, St. Vincent DePaul, and the California State Firefighters Association, which worries that firefighters and other public employees can’t afford to live in the cities they serve.

Is California’s housing system broken? This house would cost $150,000 in Houston, $400,000 in Bakersfield, $950,000 in Marin County, and well over $1.2 million in San Jose.

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Subsidized Development Dumbfounds NY Times Reporter

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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“Rail Line Drives Utah Development” trumpets an article in Sunday’s New York Times. The article tells of a $140 million mixed-use development being built along a Salt Lake City-area light-rail line.

It took me less than five minutes to find what was really driving this development. If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you should be able to guess it: tax-increment financing. Specifically, $24.6 million in infrastructure subsidies and $7.8 million in housing subsidies.

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Global Warming: Catastrophe or Convenience?

By | | News commentary
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Yesterday was Earth Day, so it seems appropriate to talk about global warming, which is supposed to be the earth’s biggest environmental problem. I remain an agnostic about global warming for two reasons.

First, I don’t trust computer models such as the ones used to predict how much the earth is supposedly going to warm in the next century. I’ve seen too many models designed to confirm preconceived notions for me to find any of them believable.

Freeman Dyson, generally regarded as one of the world’s smartest men, feels much the same way. “I have studied their climate models and know what they can do,” says Dyson. “The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.”

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Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters, Regional planning, Transportation
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Last week, I reported that Vancouver’s Mayor Sam Sullivan says that we need density to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, Salt Lake City’s Mayor Rocky Anderson says that his region should build more light rail in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Both of these ideas are wrong. Building light rail is increasing greenhouse gas emissions in Salt Lake City. Building high-rise condos instead of single-family homes is increasing greenhouse gas emissions in Vancouver.

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