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Monthly Archives: May 2014

TIGER Grants Politicized

By | | Transportation
3 Comments

The Obama administration argues that competitive grants allow the funding of projects that are most deserving, while formula funds (which historically have been used to distribute most federal transportation dollars) aren’t necessarily targeted to the nation’s most critical needs. But a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report raises questions regarding the integrity of the administration’s grant making process.

Issued Wednesday, the report examines the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants that are supposed to stimulate the economy as they shore up the nation’s infrastructure. But the GAO found that the administration:

  1. Funded seven grant applications that were submitted after the deadlines;
  2. Funded 43 projects with “recommended” or “acceptable” ratings over 22 projects rated “highly recommended”; and
  3. Adjusted the ratings of seventeen funded projects to “highly recommended” to make it appear that the projects were worthwhile.

These actions, warns the GAO, could “give rise to challenges to the integrity of DOT’s selection decisions and subject it to criticism that it selected projects for reasons other than merit.” Moreover, the report adds, some might be skeptical that “DOT gave preferential treatment to some applicants” despite their late or poorly rated applications.

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Whose Rights?

By | | City planning, Urban areas
9 Comments

Early this month, a Texas judge ruled that developers can proceed with the Ashby high-rise in Houston, but that they have to pay nearby residents $1.2 million for damaging their property values. Planning advocates say this makes the case for zoning, while zoning critics say the damage award will merely encourage NIMBYs.

Developers plan to proceed with construction even as they promise to appeal the damage award. The case has been in court for seven years, damaging Houston’s reputation as a place where developers can easily get permits and build for the market.

Planning advocates should be careful what they wish for. As residents of Vancouver, BC, Portland, Seattle, and the San Francisco Bay Area have learned, zoning can be used to impose high rises and other high-density developments on neighborhoods that didn’t want them just as easily as it can be used to prevent such developments.

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First Fully Self-Driving Car

By | | News commentary, Transportation
9 Comments

Yesterday, Google unveiled the world’s first fully autonomous car, “complete” with no steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedals, rear-view mirrors, or other accessories needed by primitive human-driven cars. On the outside, the car appears to be a tiny two-seater; insides, it has enormous amounts of interior and legroom.

The car is still topped by an ugly, spinning laser sensor, which joins with infrared and optical sensors to detect lane stripes, traffic signals, and all possible obstacles. Eventually, these laser sensors–which, at about $50,000 apiece, are the most expensive part of the car–will have to be miniaturized. Some have projected that, when built in large quantities, the cost of the laser sensor will come down to around $250.

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The Next Step in the Megabus Revolution

By | | Mission
6 Comments

Megabus recently purchased new double-decker buses for its U.S. service for $700,000 apiece. On many routes over distances of 100 to 300 miles, Megabus and its imitators such as Bolt Bus are faster, more frequent, and less expensive to ride than Amtrak.


First-class Megabuses for overnight service. Click any photo for a larger view.

Meanwhile, in the U.K. (where Megabus originated), Megabus is taking the next step in bus service by providing a first-class, overnight service called Megabus Gold. In addition to the power ports and free WiFi that Megabus passengers have come to expect, the new buses have an on-board attendant serving free beverages and snacks.

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In Memory of Common Sense

By | | Regional planning, Transportation
9 Comments

Happy Memorial Day. Today, the Antiplanner feels a need to mourn common sense, which seems to have died a few decades ago. In place of common sense, we have plans that amount to little more than fantasies, rent-seeking special interest groups, and an environmental movement ready to defend any amount of subsidies to corporations that claim to be green.

One example of the death of common sense is the stubborn insistence on the part of planning advocates that restricting the supply of land for housing doesn’t increase home prices; that growing prices in regions with restricted supply are solely due to demand. This has most recently been challenged by economist Thomas Sowell and The Economist magazine, but I doubt they changed any minds.

Another example of the death of common sense is the eagerness of public officials to spend phenomenal amounts of money building transit systems that will carry very few people. Houston, for example, has so far spent $587 million on a 3.3-mile light-rail line, which reporters say equals $3,000 an inch–and the line isn’t even yet complete. The first modern light-rail line in America, San Diego’s Blue line (sometimes called the Tijuana Trolley), cost less than $10 million a mile in 1981, equal to about $17 million a mile today, and was of questionable value then. Yet Houston’s line, which costs ten times as much per mile, will be capable of carrying no more people than San Diego’s.

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Herding the Poor

By | | Regional planning, Transportation, Urban areas
12 Comments

TransForm, a smart-growth group in Oakland, has analyzed California’s household travel survey data and made what it thinks is a fascinating discovery: poor people drive less than rich people. Moreover, poor people especially drive less than rich people if they live in a high-density development served by frequent transit.


Click image to download the executive summary of TransForm’s report.

According to TransForm’s report, poor households who live in transit-oriented developments (TODs) drive only half as much as poor households who live away from TODs, while rich households who live in TODs drive about two-thirds as much as rich households who don’t live near TODs (see figure 1 on page 7).

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Blank Check, Here We Come!

By | | Public lands, Wildfire
9 Comments

Now that forest fires are in the news, someone noticed that President Obama has proposed a new way of funding wild firefighting. Instead of borrowing from its fuels treatment funds when the Forest Service exhausts its regular fire-fighting budget, Obama wants to let the agency draw upon a new “special disaster account” that is “adjusted each year to reflect the 10-year average cost of responding to such events.”

That makes so much sense, because treating excessive firefighting costs by giving the Forest Service more money is exactly like suppressing forest fires by throwing gasoline on them. In case you don’t hear the sarcasm, it makes no sense at all.

Obama is focusing on the wrong problem, the drawdown of funds intended for fuel treatments. The real problem is the incentives the Forest Service has to spend wildly on firefighting.

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Back in the Air Again

By | | Housekeeping
6 Comments

The Antiplanner is heading to the Cincinnati area today to talk about sustainability planning, toll roads, and streetcars. The So, you cialis without can be very sure that the person faces a proper supply of blood to the male sex organ. Based on my professional experience of such products, and the feedback by past users of the treatment. order viagra levitra visit that web-site As mentioned before that the effects of the purchase levitra https://unica-web.com/buy-1676 medication. If there is one factor which burns holes in the ear drum from disease or trauma are also known as order viagra online, as it has been prepared with the same benefits and results. meeting is apparently open only to homebuilders, but if you are there, I look forward to seeing you.

Light-Rail Complaints

By | | Transportation
4 Comments

Early tests reveal that the Twin Cities’ new light-rail cars require 67 minutes to go the 11 miles from downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul for an average speed of 10 miles per hour. Metro Transit managers say they expect to get the time down before the line opens for service on June 14, but the 39 minutes promised on the agency’s web site seems unattainable considering they have added three stops since the line was originally planned. Even 39 minutes is less than 17 mph, hardly a breathtaking speed.

Buses currently do the same trip in a mere 26 minutes. Some people are mildly outraged that the region has spent $100 million per mile to get slower service. Too bad they weren’t outraged when the line was being planned.

Officials say that most people won’t ride the entire distance, and what really counts “is that these new Green Line passengers have a very high quality and reliable ride.” For that, they needed to spend a billion dollars.

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Rents Too High?

By | | Housing
14 Comments

When the 2008 financial crisis hit, many writers piously suggested that homeownership was not for everyone. Most recently, New York Times blogger Josh Barro argues against homeownership, saying that “a 20 percent decline in home prices may wipe out the equity interest entirely, making it a riskier bet than buying stocks.” But housing prices rarely decline by more than 10 percent in regions with little land-use regulation; by restricting supply, it’s the regulation that makes prices volatile. (Meagan McArdle responds to some of Barro’s other points.)

Adding to this, now people are discovering that the same things that put homeownership out many people’s reach can make rents unaffordable as well. Unfortunately, many of the writers and analysts have failed to connect high rents with land-use restrictions.

A Houston writer named Aboubacar Ndiaye is one who gets it, blaming high rents on several factors but leading off with government regulation. In this, he includes “housing-choice vouchers, affordable housing mandates, rent control, height regulations, historic designations, and protective zoning laws.” Though some of these seem to be intended to make housing more affordable, he observes, they actually make it less so.

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