The Antiplanner tries to post every weekday, but I missed last Friday and may miss a few more days in March due to three more trips. Last week, as I was traveling to Portland for various events, I received a phone call from the John Stossel show inviting me to join them on Friday.
That meant flying to New York and back for perhaps 5 minutes of air time, but that’s one of the costs of living on the West Coast. My previous appearance on the show, though brief, seems to have turned out okay. But in the rush to get to New York and back, I was unable to post last Friday.
It relaxes the blood vessels to http://raindogscine.com/?attachment_id=95 order cheap cialis allow more blood flow to cause an erection. sample generic viagra These products must consistently and continually perform on demand without risk of failure or downtime that may result from surgery can cause erectile dysfunction. The plant’s ability to increase sexual desire and performance are among always the pfizer viagra without prescription same that surpass these factors. Chiropractors align without prescription viagra these subluxations to bring back nerve contact between the ultrasound transducer and the skin. The Antiplanner’s previous appearance on the John Stossel show.
The subject of the show taped on Friday (which will be broadcast in the next week or two) was the effects of government regulation and zoning on business. When he called, the show’s producer, Maxim Lott, asked he who they could get to advocate for stricter land-use regulation. I suggested James Howard Kunstler. Kunstler, however, was still mad at being edited in an appearance on Stossel’s ABC show, so he told Lott to “tell Stoessel he can kiss my ass.” Kunstler missed a bet, since Stossel’s new show on Fox is unedited (though they would probably bleep out any of the profanity that Kunstler seems to like).
In any case, on Wednesday, March 10 the Antiplanner will fly to Alaska for several events in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla. On March 20, I’ll talk about smart growth in Orange County, California, at an event sponsored by the Pacific Research Institute. Then, during the week of March 22, I’ll be in Chicago, Racine, Waunakee, Madison, and Minneapolis to promote my book, Gridlock. If you are in any of those places, I hope to see you there.
Kunstler is correct, O’Toole you are a shill.
To go from Oregon to New York and back for 5 min on Faux News?
You could have saved Koch Oil some money & used a web cam!
Nice tie and great vid. Keep up the good work.
Ignore the village idiot.
Wasilla is an interesting case study – the Barracuda opened up the floodgates, and the spatial arrangement & architecture is butt-ugly, and their neighbors to the east are aghast at the sprawling ugliness and sought help to keep the cr*p away.
Nonetheless, Randal hasn’t mentioned that he has an interview in Duh Post recently, with an underinformed interviewer who didn’t know enough to ask follow-up questions to clarify some assertions. But the topic is interesting enough and the comments are instructive as well.
DS
highwayman,
Please describe what Kunstler is supposedly right about & why. He is against freedom & wants people to live his way.
Please elaborate on your accusation of why O’Toole is a shill. That doesn’t mean any source of income. That would entail any faulty facts & reasoning.
Dan, sure, Alaska, with 0.7 million people on 0.5 million sq.mi. has a big problem with sprawl.
We have yet to see the statists clearly address any specifics about the analysis of gov regs worsening things. Going to the extremes, which are not advocated, of anarchy or building anything anywhere, such as a factory or high rise in low density residential neighborhoods, does not cut it.
Try looking at content & reply with valid, related content. That’s hard for leftists to do when facts are against them & their ideas are based upon hopes, irrationality & against human nature. Yes, those are mostly “labels”; I can back those up. I have given examples in the past.
Scott still right.
Lefties still wrong, not to mention offensive.
Although, Scott, you can never argue with them. They change the subject, evade, invent bogus concepts and ideas out of whole cloth and express them in incomprehensible pseudo-learned buzz language, lie and badger you with every fallacious argument ever invented. All you can do is laugh at them.
Back to the buses: The idea from the last thread that buses require some gigantic downtown bus barn or terminal is in error. These barns can and do go outside of town.
The buses I ride start in the burbs and go to and through downtown. They drop people off at various stops over perhaps a 20 block range, and pick them up too. Then they turn around and do it again. No downtown barns, no tracks, no gigantic extra capital expense, no draconian zoning rules at bus stops. The barns are in an industrial area.
My only complaint with buses is that the ‘planners’ never plan pull-outs for bus stops, even in new areas, because of course they can scarcely plan to find the bathroom and take positive delight in thwarting and inconveniencing auto drivers, because they are lefties, and lefties hate cars because of the freedom they give us.
Hey, maybe I’m wrong and the planners can actually plan something, namely endless planny-plans for assaults on freedom and common sense.
Gotta go, I’m busy preparing an utterly bogus and self aggrandizing resume to put on-line so I can appeal to it in arguments with the lefties. “Mr. Shellacque, often compared with Einstein, …”
Hey Jacque:
How many buses per hour converge on the downtown you ride to?
In Portland, hundreds of more buses per hour would be required on top of what already exists, either overwhelming the street system further, or requiring massive, expensive off-street terminal space as well as supporting, expensive exclusive busways in the current MAX corridors.
Apparently you’ve never been to downtown Portland–if you had, you’d realize that the area is quite compact and dense, so several hundred buses per hour would be a major negative impact.
One of the impacts of the previous bus-only mall was creating a business no-man’s land, resulting from hundreds and hundreds of loud, smelly and polluting diesel buses. Fortunately, electrically-powered MAX (and the Portland Streetcar) has dramatically mitigated this problem, along with bus technology improvements compared to the pre-rail era in Portland.
a business no-man’s land, resulting from hundreds and hundreds of loud, smelly and polluting diesel buses.
One of the lefty things lefty Flyvbjerg found in lefty Rationality & Power. Oh, wait: it can’t be an issue, because it is a lefty case study. Never mind.
chuckle
DS
msetty:
I have been to Portland, but not for a long time. As for streets being overwhelmed, I dunno, maybe, but it strikes me that if Portland streets are overwhelmed it is because there is high demand for them. We dirty damn capitalists respond to high demand by supplying more of what is demanded. Portland’s reputation is that it is leftie-central – is it possible the lefties have once again created a problem by stopping road improvements, then solved the problem they created with a statist solution? I was arguing generalities not particulars.
OK so the diesel buses are a bit noisy and stinky, but that’s because municipalities always exempt their own creatures from noise and stink laws. I’m glad there is some alternative but I doubt what you cite is half as good as diesel designed by say, for example, some arch capitalist engineer at Volkswagen
I live in Calgary Canada, which is an interesting place transportation wise. We have an LRT, rammed down our throats by the bureaucrats with much figure fudging. We have an under-utilized bus system and huge numbers of cars, all heading downtown in a mad rush from 6:30 to 9:30, then back out at 3:30. We are an head office city of 1M with huge numbers of downtownies. The road net is still quite good as we are also a fairly right wing place and we love our cars. Our downtown is quite dense as well.
I also don’t get how even ‘hundreds’ of buses driving in, unloading, re-loading and leaving is that bad in the context of streets carrying 10s of thousands of cars.
DS:
Look, just make a point of some sort other than ongoing grandstanding insults. If you can’t summarize Flyvbjerg’s point in a couple of sentences with a page reference then it’s hopeless anyway.
We’re not talking the mathematics of complex topological spaces here, we’re talking buses vs. trains vs. cars. It’s like arguing with the AGW nuts – “the science is settled, and it’s too complicated for you anyway, you dummy, so we won’t show you our data or our code.”
Trains may be better than buses and both may be better than cars, but I don’t believe either based on personal observation and experience, and not one pro-train argument here has come anywhere near saying something cogent or convincing me. Distributed processes like cars always beat large lumplike solutions. You will note we are a race of billions of individuals not a gigantic gigaton lump of flesh, which might be more ‘efficient’. At something. You will not that we are not communicating using gigantic mainframes, but rather with the distributed processing interwebgoretubes.
So there, you go tell me what Flyvvy boy says and I’ll listen. *pat pat*.
(“chuckle”, is old, stale and completely ineffective as an insult. It merely conveys the idea that the writer is smugly stupid. I highly recommend an essay by the only honest lefty I have ever read, George Orwell [Eric Blair], http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit, all of it, but the last sentence in particular: “One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno [,chuckle], or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs.” ([] denotes addition by the loudly jeering Mr. ‘Einstein’ Shellacque))
BJS:
I live in Calgary Canada, which is an interesting place transportation wise. We have an LRT, rammed down our throats by the bureaucrats with much figure fudging. We have an under-utilized bus system and huge numbers of cars, all heading downtown in a mad rush from 6:30 to 9:30, then back out at 3:30. We are an head office city of 1M with huge numbers of downtownies. The road net is still quite good as we are also a fairly right wing place and we love our cars. Our downtown is quite dense as well.
Yes, in Portland there is “high demand” for streets because driving is severely underpriced, as I’ve stated numerous times recently, and is utterly normal for most U.S. and Canadian cities. If the “free enterprisers” here don’t want to accept this fact, well…so what?
For the record, the C-Train carries 250,000+ rides per day, involving roughly 80% of the total “linked trips” (completed trips not counting transfers) served by Calgary Transit. According to various statistics I’ve seen for Calgary, there are slightly more than 90 annual rides per capita, again excluding transfers. Given the relatively low density and prevalence of single family houses in Calgary overall, this level of transit ridership is very high by North American Anglosphere standards–and roughly half the per capita transit usage rates of New York City, again, once the transfer rate–and the over-hyped “you gotta have extremely high density” rubric–have been accounted for. Not bad performance at all, ignoring your rhetorical points.
If the C-Train didn’t exist, you’d find a lot more cars, and a lot more billions in otherwise “needed” freeways. And if C-Train is so unpopular with some in the community, obviously there are not enough of such folks to stop the West Calgary LRT extension and the LRT extensions being advanced for the Southeast and North corridors.
As far as Calgary buses being underutilized, you are correct, to some extent. The degree of integration with the C-Train could be better, e.g., such as timed connections with trains at key stations–something I didn’t find the last time I was up there. On the other hand, the annual per capita ridership in Calgary is substantially higher than Edmonton, which still relies to a much greater extent on buses. Edmonton is now scrambling to catch up with Calgary by serious proposals for several new LRT lines.
BTW, ignoring the religious extremists in Alberta, my impression is that the Tories and similar Canadian conservative groups are closer to Democratic Leadership Council corporate types in the U.S. in their economic viewpoints, as well as these things can be compared. Does a working majority of Albertans want to dispense with the current single payer health care system, for example? I seriously doubt it.
Speaking of Canada, here is a very hilarious story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/08/palin-crossed-border-for_n_490080.html.
Sam Stein
stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting
“Palin Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care — admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada’s single-payer system.
“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,” Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. “And I think now, isn’t that ironic?”
The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada’s health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and ‘death-panel’-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.
Officials at several hospitals in that area declined to give out information on patient visits.”
—-
Palin’s parents must have been tightwads–even if Yankees from Alaska had to pay 100% for the care, it probably was a lot cheaper than in the States.
Sorry, the significance of super-hubs (bus or rail) in a CBD has not been clearly shown. A few observations.
1.Why wouldn’t the route continue through, continually dropping off & picking up?
There are geographical limits, mostly having to do w/a coast.
2.Is there a high concentration on jobs, within a walkable distance?
3.Many hubs are for transfers.
4.For driving, that entails directly to place of work, rather than the hub.
5.For parking in downtowns, there are charges ($8-30/day) or it’s included in the employer’s property. (Should workers pay for their space, electricity & equipment?)
(Should pedestrians pay for sidewalks?)(Should queers pay for rainbows?)
6. Transportation is not a one type only choice. Each person has their different wants, finances, time-value, residence, workplace, etc. However, public transit needs a much higher “subsidy” on a per passenger-mile basis.
7.The Calgary LRT ridership of 250,000 is impressive. Out of that #, suppose 80% work in the CBD–100,000 (don’t forget round-trip conversion). How many total workers are in the CBD & is it an even feasible option for the remainder to take the rail or bus?
7.Regardless of looking at a few cities, how effective, overall, are these expensive LRT lines? Buses can transport the same amount at lower cost (especially capital) & without taking up any extra land for each route (besides stops & pullouts); the roads already exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Light_Rail_systems_by_ridership
msetty – You just fell for more Huffington Post propaganda.
Sarah Palin lived in Skagway, Alaska when she was a child. There were (and still are) only a few hundred people living in Skagway. There were no hospitals or doctors. The only road out of Skagway goes to Canada. It is a two-day drive to reach any other part of Alaska, and several more days to get to Washington State.
Where do you think her family and everyone else received medical care? And besides, the Canadian Yukon didn’t have socialized health care back then.
Guess you didn’t read that on the Huffington Post propaganda page.
Scott:
Figures I’ve seen are that there a little more than 100,000 jobs in the Calgary CBD, or about 20%-25% of the City’s total–this from memory. According to the City of Calgary (in their transit pages), they say about 40% of downtown workers use buses and trains. If say, 70%-80% of this group use the train–an estimate close enough for “gummit” work–that would be about 90,000-100,000 trips daily, assuming a 1.6 factor for daily round trips (accounting for absences of various kinds, sick leave, vacation, etc.), and assuming 50% are work trips and 50% for all other purposes.
In addition to C-Train trips in and out of downtown, I also recall something in the range of 20,000-30,000 weekday shuttle trips within downtown, which has a free ride zone like Portland and Seattle. So, roughly 50% of C-Train rides involve downtown Calgary in one way or another. The precise numbers are buried somewhere on the Calgary Transit (CT) website. I also recall a number of bus lines also operate on the downtown transit mall where the C-Trains run.
Apparently CT buses carry a lot of traffic to and from C-Train stations, despite the lack of timed connections in many cases (I’m not sure this has changed significantly since I was there around 2000). I’m sure there are a lot of trips where people arrive at C-Train by bus and then travel to another station, and then take another CT bus, e.g., two transfers. This latter pattern is also very common with the MARTA rail and bus system in Atlanta.
Andy:
I’d like to see Palin claim that the Yukon health care system has declined dramatically since it went single payer. To be precise, in Canada there is a government-FINANCED system, with multiple non-profit and private providers in each Canadian province, which gives full choice of doctors and hospitals, just like that available to Yankees (unless you’re in Kaiser and few other HMOs).
I also don’t see most U.S. seniors demanding that Medicare be privatized, despite its shortcomings (considerably fewer than Anthem Blue Cross here in California!) Since I’m ten years away, I’d like to see the option of buying into Medicare, even if I had to pay 100% between now and 2020.
Andy:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/sarah-palin-sees-eye-to-eye-with-albertans-in-calgary-speech/article1492634/
What’s the difference between HP and say…FOX news (which Randal was just on)? This is why I hate partisan politics.
blacquejacqueshellac:“Portland’s reputation is that it is leftie-central – is it possible the lefties have once again created a problem by stopping road improvements, then solved the problem they created with a statist solution?”
ws: Regarding the bus mall and downtown in general…no considering Portland’s local streets have been built out years ago. Not to mention Portland’s insanely small block sizes make it a city with the most streets per acre (kind of a made up stat) of just about any in the US.
msetty – Sarah Palin only lived in Skagway until she was six years old. Why don’t you ask the Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams what he thinks about Canadian health compared to US healthcare?
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2510700
ws – If you can’t tell the difference between the Huffington Post article and the Globe Mail article, then take my advice — don’t open any e-mail from Nigeria.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2510700
Should I take seriously a publication that was founded and run by Conrad Black, and given that he is now a long-term “guest” of the U.S. Gummit? Pulleeeeezeee…
To msetty and Dan (everybody else needs to skip this so as not to embarrass them):
[Pssssst. I don’t think you realize how much people think your comments are weird when you use “gummit”? Perhaps it is gay jargon like your “teabagger” thing you talk about all the time?
But, anyway, this is a website about government transportation planning and most of the people here are not familiar with the gay or “gummit” lifestyle. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Here is a gender and GLBT neutral suggestion. Try using other words. Dan got a new Thesaurus for Christmas so maybe he can suggest other synonyms.]
More re Calgary and Portland, with London thrown in for fun. Underpriced streets is an interesting concept, dealt with by the London congestion charge quite nicely. Did not most European cities charge admission to entrants through the city walls back in the day?
As for trains vs. buses vs cars and roads, particularly the Calgary C-Train, do not mistake me: I don’t care.
My position is two-fold:
1. Users must may their own costs. No subsidization of any mode of transport. None. Zero. Zip. To that end we must dismiss from our minds all preconceptions, biases, likes, dislikes, auto lust, train lust, opinion polls, public surveys, whatever. Just the facts.
2. The market will automatically implement the best solution and no government can do it as well. The role of the government ought to be to keep the market honest, no more. This is substantially because the only way to measure what people actually want, in the context of their actual resources, is to watch what they actually spend. Everyone will tell you that they want a new LRT leg which they can use for a trivial sum, and free downtown, as msetty points out, paid for by taxpayers, but this is not, absolutely not, a measure of their true wants. Money talks, bullshit walks has it exactly backwards. If a man has the true cost of an LRT ride in his wallet, say $10.00, will he actually spend that on the ride or will he walk, and buy a pizza instead? That is the only honest measure of public opinion.
Msetty asks: “Does a working majority of Albertans want to dispense with the current single payer health care system, for example?”. Of course not. We are like habituated heroin addicts grown used to mugging our neighbours for our fix. The same applies to transportation. “Does a working majority of any population group want to give up free [popcorn, buses, whiskey, guns, butter, sex, LRT tickets]?” Uhhh, no.
Lefties are like drug pushers: Get the citizens hooked on the idea of having their neighbours and friends forced to pay for free stuff that they can con themselves into thinking harmless or essential, then expand from there.
blacquejacqueshellac:“Users must may their own costs. No subsidization of any mode of transport. None. Zero. Zip. To that end we must dismiss from our minds all preconceptions, biases, likes, dislikes, auto lust, train lust, opinion polls, public surveys, whatever. Just the facts.”
ws:Agreed, but when was the last time you’ve seen an objective analysis of the true cost of driving your automobile from Cato, O’Toole, Reason, or Wendell Cox?
http://marketurbanism.com/2008/07/30/urbanism-legend-gas-taxes-covers-all-costs-of-road-use/
What seems to be missing from analysis by those mentioned?
Or by Peter Gordon, Sam Stalay, Harry Richardson, Robert Bruegman, Stephen Greenhut, Ed Glaeser, Jospeh Gyorko, Joseph Giglio, Ted Balaker, among others?
The lefty statists such as: LaHood, Peter Calthorpe, Andrews Duany, Jame Kunstler & those anti-property groups (Sierra Club, Resource Council),
are way off.
Here are brief backup points, beyond just a “label or assertion”:
—General “off” area ______ (one example)
-exaggeration of perceived benefits (reduction in traffic)
-disregarding many facts (more freeway lanes have less congestion)
-limiting property rights (preventing some sales for residential use)
-forcing many to pay to pay for few (any public transit)
-limiting housing choice (limits to mainly multi-family dwellings)
-reducing open space (building tightly, everywhere, within a UA)
-restricting housing supply which pushes prices (UGBs)
-blaming correlations on other factors (obesity)
-interfering with market (TIF)
-taking taxes away from gov basics (TIF)
-altering priorities (municipal pursuit of retail tax)
-avoiding efficient transportation, which people prefer (freeway lanes)
-avoiding highway funding (gas tax–not increasing since 94)
-inequitable property taxes (prop 13 for CA, similar for some other states)
-inequitable infrastructure charges (impact fees for new, but not charged in past)
-paying too high for public goods (unions)
-giving flora & fauna priority over humans (EIR)
-avoiding eminent domain (private hillsides for public use-viewing, are often not allowed to have residential) Additional comment: hillside housing can have beautiful architecture & much more landscape than just grass or brush, looking much more pleasant.
-not doing proper cost-benefit analysis (transit cost considerably more for public funds/passenger-mile)
Each major point can be elaborated on, and more negatives to this statism can be made.
We, who like freedom & prosperity have not seen any cogent argument for massive government intrusion into so many aspects of life. Vague claims, misdirection, tangents, & insults are often made, but there has not been specifics.
I saw this in the news regarding coyotes in the Portland area:
http://www.oregonlive.com/lake-oswego/index.ssf/2010/03/coyote_sneaks_up_on_girls_playing_in_backyard.html
Not such an isolated animal, afterall…
msetty,
Regarding your comments in #13, to mine in #11.
As usual, you have avoided objections & questions.
It’s funny, that the only point which you responded to, was a praise for Calgary rail, which has no comparable transit performance in the US. I included a link of ridership figs. Only Boston comes close, for US LRT, but has a much smaller % of commuters. Many cities attempt to emulate performance like Calgary, but all have fallen way short.
One of the newest LRT lines is in Phoenix. It’s ridership #s (30,000 daily) are about the same as for the VTA LRT (begun 1986), yet: only one line (vs 4), half the total distance, & in a lower density region. Strange, huh? Still, a bad public investment. Ridership below 100,000 is pretty much a failure; varies on route distance. Capital cost is too exorbitant, & usually not even accurately amortized per passenger-mile & revenue.
But thanx, for more details on Calgary.
ws said: I saw this in the news regarding coyotes in the Portland area:
http://www.oregonlive.com/lake-oswego/index.ssf/2010/03/coyote_sneaks_up_on_girls_playing_in_backyard.html
Not such an isolated animal, afterall…
THWM: Coyotes are actually quite bold.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17950832/
And the coyote shall lie down with the SoBes …
Wild animal walks into downtown Chicago sandwich shop, chills in cooler
updated 2:46 p.m. ET, Wed., April 4, 2007
CHICAGO – For one day, at least, the roadrunner was safe. It seems the coyote was hankering for another kind of fast food. Employees and customers at a downtown Chicago Quizno’s sandwich shop were stunned to see a coyote walk through the propped-open front door Tuesday afternoon and lie down in a cooler stocked with fruit juice and soda.
“It wasn’t aggressive at all,” restaurant manager Bina Patel told the Chicago Tribune. “It was just looking around.”
Employees and customers calmly cleared out of the restaurant, though some took the time to finish their sandwiches and snap some cell-phone photos, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Animal control officers took the passive coyote away after about 40 minutes, after a curious crowd had gathered outside.
“This one definitely I will definitely remember forever. A coyote in downtown Chicago,” Quizno’s employee Rick Torres told WLS-TV.
The city captures 10 to 15 coyotes every year, especially in the spring when they are most active, said Anne Kent, director of Chicago Animal Care and Control. Veterinarians will examine the coyote and, if he is not injured, release him into the wild.
Scott said: He is against freedom & wants people to live his way.
THWM: You’re against freedom and want people to live a certain way.
BJS; Get the citizens hooked on the idea of having their neighbours and friends forced to pay for free stuff that they can con themselves into thinking harmless or essential, then expand from there.
THWM: Then don’t use the street in front of your residence!
Highman,
Keep up the nonsense.
It’s entertaining, & helps promote the idea of birth control, fertilization & the death penalty.
It also helps illuminate the ineffectiveness of the public school system, assuming you went–could be giving you too much credit.
Some how Scott, I’m not surprised by your pro-eugenics remark.
Thank you for the compliment.
Getting rid of dead-weight, or not even allowing, is better for all.
More education, higher productivity, yeah!
Pingback: Who Caused Sprawl? » The Antiplanner
That’s not surprising Scott, you guys are no different than the KKK or Storm Front.