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Monthly Archives: May 2023

Get Back to Work, You Cretin!

By | | City planning, News commentary
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Perhaps the Antiplanner is naive, but I’ve always believed that government infrastructure exists to help us be more productive and live the lives we want. To the contrary, I’ve noticed that news reports take it for granted that we exist solely to support the infrastructure that government thinks we should have.

According to the latest estimate, economic activity in downtown San Francisco is only 32 percent of what it was before the pandemic. Photo by PhotoEverywhere.

This is most obvious with urban transit which, since we aren’t riding it, “experts” argue we should pay more taxes to keep it running anyway. Lately, the same attitude is creeping into stories about downtowns. Continue reading →

The Face of Public Transit

By | | Transportation
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This is Daquan Rogers. He is a 27-year-old Minneapolis light-rail rider who has a history of transit crimes including being arrested last month for brawling aboard a light-rail train. Following the arrest he was released pending his court case.

On May 20, while standing on a light-rail platform, he got into an argument with 41-year-old Eugene Snelling. A horrific video shows Rogers pushing Snelling on to the tracks between two light-rail cars. Snelling died and Rogers was arrested in what was considered to be a homocide case. Continue reading →

Reordering of Cities

By | | Housing, Useful Data
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Jacksonville is now the nation’s 11th-most populated city, having overtaken San Jose in 2022. This is partly because Jacksonville grew by 1.5 percent since 2021, but also because San Jose lost 1.0 percent of its residents, according to Census Bureau estimates released earlier this week.

The new number eleven. Photo by Jon Zander.

Charlotte also overtook Indianapolis as the nation’s 15th largest city, partly because Indianapolis lost 0.2 percent of its residents but mainly because Charlotte grew by 1.7 percent. Las Vegas grew by 0.8 percent, overtaking Boston as the 24th largest city as the latter shrank by 0.6 percent. Continue reading →

This Just In: Electric Buses Weigh More

By | | Transportation
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Electric buses weigh more and put more stress on infrastructure than regular buses, as Indianapolis transit agency Indygo realized when it discovered that the streets it paved for its bus rapid transit lines were wearing out after less than three years of service. Now it is repaving those streets, which is causing problems for businesses and annoying residents along the routes.

An electric bus at one of Indygo’s bus rapid transit stops. Photo: Indygo.

The Indianapolis Department of Public Works had urged Indygo to use thicker pavement, but Indygo — which was already spending four years and too much money on a bus line that it could have started practically overnight at little cost — decided to save money on a part of the project that would be less visible to most people. After all, the point of the project was to please politicians with colorful buses and flashy bus stops, not to provide better transportation service. Continue reading →

Letting Your Car Drive You from SFO to LA

By | | Transportation
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Someone instructed their Tesla to drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and it was able to do so without any driver intervention. The car even pulled off the highway and went to a charging station when its battery ran low.

I’ve noted before that Waymo and Tesla have two very different strategies for driverless cars. Waymo’s is basically to go into full-fledged driverless mode with the help of maps and remote monitors. Tesla’s is to incrementally improve their self-driving software until it can do everything by itself. Continue reading →

The Real Reason Downtowns Are Declining

By | | City planning
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Crime, on-line shopping, telecommuting and exorbitant rents are all contributing to the decline of downtowns, observes an article on CNN Business. But the real reason downtowns are declining, according to the article, is that people don’t live in dense enough neighborhoods.

If we just had more density, this wouldn’t be a problem, say the densimaniacs — except this boarded up pharmacy is in one of the densest neighborhoods in the country. Photo by thisisbossi.

“To reinvent downtown retail,” asserts the article without any room for debate or citation of evidence, cities need “denser neighborhoods with a broader mix of affordable housing, experiential retail, restaurants, entertainment, parks and other amenities.” Where have I heard that before? Continue reading →

Affordable Housing Is a Black Hole

By | | Housing
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Are we living in a black hole and I just passed through a wormhole into another universe? That’s the only explanation I can think of for a recent New York Times article (no paywall) by Ezra Klein praising a new mid rise in San Francisco “that might be the answer to San Francisco’s homelessness crisis.” Built in three years (half the normal time in the Bay Area) using modular construction methods, the building costs less than $400,000 per unit compared with $600,000 to $700,000 for other similar projects in San Francisco.

The reddish-brown color isn’t paint; it’s rust, or what the architect calls “weathered steel.” That’s just as well in San Francisco’s rainy, salty environment as I doubt many people will want to see this building last for very long. Photo by Bruce Damonte, David Baker Architects.

My first thought was “$400,000 still sounds pretty high for any kind of ‘affordable housing.'” My second thought was, “How big are those housing units anyway?” Continue reading →

March Driving 99.9% of 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Americans drove 99.9 percent as many miles in March 2023 as in the same month in 2019, according to data released by the Federal Highway Administration on Friday. Rural driving was 4.1 percent greater than in 2019, and driving on urban interstates was 1.5 percent greater, but other urban driving was 3.1 percent less than in 2019, dragging down the overall average.

See May 5 post for discussion of transit, Amtrak, and airline travel.

I have to say I’m a little bit skeptical of these numbers. Throughout the pandemic, rural driving has been a bit ahead of urban, so that makes sense. However, urban interstate driving was generally behind other urban driving. Why is it suddenly ahead now? Continue reading →