The Antiplanner »

Monthly Archives: May 2013

Tyranny Bay Area

By | | Regional planning
13 Comments

Comments are due this Thursday on the draft environmental impact report for Plan Bay Area, a regional plan written for nine counties that surround San Francisco Bay. This plan is so poorly written that it makes me proud to be an antiplanner; if I were a real planner, I’d be ashamed to be associated with a profession that could produce such a shoddy plan.

The main problem with the plan is that its main prescriptions were set in advance of any analysis of whether they would be effective. In fact, planners never did analyze whether those or any alternative policies would cost-effectively meet the plan’s goals.

Continue reading →

TriMet Tramples on People’s Credit; Streetcars Still Late

By | | Transportation
8 Comments

Portland transit follies are increasingly scrutinized by the local media, something that should have happened years ago when there was still a chance of stopping projects such as the $1.5 billion boondoggle low-capacity rail line to Milwaukie. (The video below shows why it is such a boondoggle.)

Joseph Rose, the superreporter who can walk faster than a speeding streetcar, has found that the fare machines for Portland’s low-capacity rail lines are in service a lot less than the agency claims. Some are down more than 35 percent of the time. Since they give out $175 tickets to people who don’t pay their fare, this can be distressing.

Continue reading →

Chinatown Bus Crackdown Based on Bogus Report

By | | Follow up, Transportation
8 Comments

A year ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation dramatically shut down more than two dozen “Chinatown” bus companies for safety violations. At the time, the Antiplanner expressed skepticism, saying that if the same criteria were applied to transit agencies such as Washington Metro or Boston’s MBTA, they would be shut down too. But the DOT said it relied on a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) study that found that “curbside” buses were seven times more dangerous than conventional intercity buses.

Fung Wah, the original Chinatown bus company, was not one of the ones shut down in last year’s federal raids. Wikipedia photo by Toytoy.

Now, some people are challenging this study, saying that its methods were so faulty it may as well have been completely fabricated. The NTSB has a reputation for sound quantitative analysis, but this study was first questioned by Aaron Brown, a Wall Street financial analyst, who accused the NTSB of “statistical malpractice” for improperly manipulating data and refusing to release its raw data. Based on what data were available, Brown estimated that curbside buses were actually safer than conventional ones.

Continue reading →

SEPTA’s Economic Burden on Pennsylvania

By | | Mission
23 Comments

The Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is one of those transit agencies that depends on annual appropriations for its operations, maintenance, and improvements. The agency bitterly complains that it doesn’t have a “dedicated fund” meaning a tax on something else that it can count on whether it serves its customers or not. It tried to get permission to have the state impose a toll on Interstate 80 and give SEPTA the money, but the federal government rejected the idea.

SEPTA high-capacity rail lines. Flickr photo by Joseph A.

In 2011, fares covered less than 29 percent of SEPTA’s costs, including both operating and capital costs. Local governments provided only 7 percent, the feds 20 percent (mostly capital funds), leaving the state to cover 42 percent of the agency’s budget. Without more money, says SEPTA, it will have to cut service.

Continue reading →

Protecting Rhinos

By | | Fish & wildlife
6 Comments

Black rhinos have reportedly been extirpated from Mozambique, and the loss is partly blamed on park rangers who were hired to protect them but who earned more money helping poachers. Supposedly, “conservationists are trying anything and everything to put a stop to” such poaching, including using “surveillance drones and hidden sensors, to monitor . . . human activity in reserves.”

Black rhinos in Kenya. Flickr photo by Gary MacFadyen.

Maybe, however, they haven’t tried everything. Rhinos are a difficult case because so few are left, but in general, African wildlife is doing best in countries with secure property rights. Unfortunately, Mozambique is not one of those countries. Someone may think they own land, but the country has few of the institutions needed for them to prove it. If you can’t prove you own land, think how hard it must be to prove you own wildlife.

Continue reading →

Who’s Crazy?

By | | Transportation
14 Comments

The Antiplanner’s faithful ally, Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation, told a Congressional committee last week that highway user fees should be dedicated to highways and any federal subsidies to transit should come out of other funds. Unfortunately, we have become so used to the idea that everything should be subsidized that advocates of transit subsidies could get away with calling Poole’s ideas “crazy talk.”

Why is it crazy to think that user fees should go to the infrastructure that the users are using? I suppose the transit lobby thinks that some of the money people pay for clothes at Wal-Mart and J.C. Penneys should go to subsidize Paris fashions. Or that some of the money people spend on ordinary groceries should subsidize gourmet restaurants.

After all, transit–at least the kind of transit these people want–is a luxury, not a necessity. They want expensive transit systems aimed at getting relatively well-off people out of their cars. To pay for these systems, they want to tax the more-than-92 percent of mostly ordinary people who have and use cars as their primary modes of transportation.

Continue reading →

The Acela Does Not Make Money

By | | Transportation
15 Comments

Trains magazine columnist Don Phillips is an unabashed enthusiast for passenger trains. Yet his latest column lashes out at Amtrak for repeatedly misrepresenting the Acela–the closest thing Amtrak has to a high-speed train–as profitable.

Amtrak Acela train entering the Washington, DC station. Flickr photo by Steve Wilson.

“Seldom in my life have I seen such a mass of misinformation spread about any one subject as is being spread now about the American passenger train,” Phillips begins. “The misinformation is spread by confused and shallow politicians, young reporters who have no idea what they are talking about, and by Amtrak officials who have learned that they can count on the first two groups to not understand their technical jargon.”

Continue reading →

Cry Me a Tide

By | | Transportation
6 Comments

Norfolk opened its “Tide” low-capacity rail (formerly light rail) in September, 2011, a mere 16 months behind schedule and 60 percent over the original projected cost. Now, Hampton Roads Transit–the agency that serves Norfolk-Newport News-Virginia Beach–says that the line will cost a lot more to run that it expected, so it will have to raise fares for both rail and bus riders.

Opening day for “the Tide.” Flickr photo by Virginia Department of Transportation.

Actually, they knew it was going to cost a lot to run, but they used federal funds to subsidize operations for the first couple of years. Since fares cover only 14 percent of operating costs (and zero percent of maintenance costs), the transit agency is hoping Norfolk, the state, or anyone else will come up with some of the difference. When the region was deciding whether or not to build the rail line, did the agency tell the public that building rail meant raising fares? Probably not.

Male pattern baldness, if there is sildenafil pills a predisposition, occurs frequently in young male users. In this case viagra from canada study, the patient was not trying to get pregnant. Still, many of the ED sufferers are not aware of that there is a direct link between gum disease order levitra online and not know the reason for having so. Here at viagra cialis online this very place you will find only lowest prices for cheap generic meds you need, get a chance to get caused such as- 1.Nausea2.Stuffy nose3.Flushing4.Headache5.Painful or prolonged erection6.Hearing problem7.Sudden vision changes8.Breathing problem9.Dizziness. Continue reading →