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New Panic Over Farmlands

By | | News commentary, Useful Data
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The Department of Agriculture’s latest Census of Agriculture has generated new fears about “disappearing farm lands.” The census found that the United States had 22 million (2.8 percent) fewer acres of farm lands in 2022 than in 2017 and 40 million (4.3 percent) fewer acres than in 2012. The census is conducted every five years in years ending in a 2 or a 7.

Oregon Public Broadcasting responded to the release by reporting that “Oregon continues to lose farmlands” which “raises red flags for some agricultural land conservation advocates.” However, a closer look at available data is needed before panicking. Continue reading →

December Driving 96.9% of 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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U.S. residents drove 96.88 percent as many miles in December of 2023 as in the same month in 2019, according to estimates released yesterday by the Federal Highway Administration. Though this is down from 104.3 percent in November, driving has been hovering around 100 percent of 2019 levels all year.

In fact, the estimates indicate, Americans drove 100.1 percent as many miles in 2023 as they did in 2019 and 102.0 percent as many miles in 2023 as in 2022. I would judge that driving has completely recovered from the pandemic and is now growing at pre-pandemic levels. Decreases in rush-hour driving due to remote work are made up for by increases in non-rush-hour driving by remote workers running errands, going out for coffee, or attending meetings as well as by people moving from urban to rural areas or from some states to others. Continue reading →

Transit Carried 73.7% in December

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Transit carried 73.7 percent as many riders in December 2023 as the same month in 2019, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration yesterday. As I predicted last month, this was a slight decline from the 74.9 percent reported for November because November had one more business day in 2023 than 2019 while December had one fewer.

Amtrak ridership, as a share of 2019 levels, declined from 103.1 percent in November to 93.6 percent in December according to Amtrak’s monthly performance report released last week. This may suggest that holiday travelers are still wary of taking trains. It also raises questions about why Amtrak numbers have been bouncing up and down so much over the past several months. Air travel has not been so bouncy: according to TSA passenger counts, air travel grew from 101.2 of 2019 levels in November to 103.1 percent in December. Continue reading →

Do More Subsidies Increase Efficiency?

By | | Transportation
10 Comments

Streetsblog posted an article yesterday that quotes and attempts to refute the Antiplanner by claiming that increasing subsidies to transit agencies actually makes them more efficient. The article, written by former Strong Towns staffer Kea Wilson, misinterprets both the Antiplanner’s quote and the meaning of efficiency.

Does reducing the share of transit costs that are covered by farebox revenues increase efficiency? Photo by AgentAkit.

Transit systems get more efficient when they are more heavily subsidized, Wilson asserts. How can this be true? Efficiency is economically defined as “when all goods and factors of production in an economy are distributed or allocated to their most valuable uses and waste is eliminated or minimized.” Before the pandemic, transit agencies were typically spending four times as much money moving someone a passenger-mile as automobiles. That sounds pretty inefficient to me and increasing subsidies even more is likely to be even more inefficient. Continue reading →

The Benefits of Congestion Relief

By | | Transportation
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Data published by the University of Minnesota Accessibility Observatory a few months ago reveals some of the benefits of congestion relief that resulted from the COVID pandemic. I’ve used 2019 data in the past to show that residents of U.S. urban areas can reach far more jobs in a 20-minute auto drive than a 60-minute transit trip. The latest data for 2021 reveal that the number of jobs reachable by transit or bicycle was about 9 percent greater in 2021 than 2019, but the number reachable by a 20-minute auto drive was 66 percent greater.

On average, over 50 urban areas and for trips of 10 to 60 minutes, auto users were able to reach 48 percent more jobs in 2021 than in 2019. Solid lines show 2021 and dotted lines show 2019.

These numbers are the average of the nation’s 50 largest urban areas, but for some the increased access caused by less traffic was much greater. In a 20-minute auto drive, residents of Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Washington could reach more than twice as many jobs in 2021 than in 2019. Of course, jobs are only one possible set of destinations that became more accessible; other social and economic opportunities also became equally more accessible. Continue reading →

What’s Happening in Oregon and Vermont?

By | | Follow up
15 Comments

A few weeks ago, I noted that there appeared to be correlation between government efforts to get more people into multifamily housing and low fertility rates. The correlation is not perfect — I estimated about 0.4 — because there are a lot of factors that affect fertility rates, but it appears strong enough that, if the goal is to have a healthy demographic structure, then single-family housing should be preferred.

Click image for a larger view. Source: BirthGauge.

Unfortunately, the census data I had available didn’t allow me to make a standard calculation of birth rates, so I used a substitute. Now, a group called BirthGauge has published the above map showing birth rates calculated the standard way. It does show that birth rates are lowest in the Pacific Coast and north Atlantic Coast states that have done the most to restrict new single-family housing in favor of multifamily. Continue reading →

Elites Want to Ban Gasoline Cars, Gas Stoves

By | | News commentary
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Urban elites are far more likely than other Americans to oppose gasoline powered cars, SUVs of all types, and gas stoves, according to a survey released last week by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. The survey defined “elites” as people who have post-graduate degrees, live in households that earn more than $150,000 a year, and live in zip codes with densities of more than 10,000 people per square mile, which is about four times the average urban density in the U.S.

The cities of Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco all average more than 10,000 people per square mile. Photo by Mai-Linh Doan.

Conducted by Scott Rasmussen, the survey found that 72 percent of these elites (and 81 percent of Ivy League elites) favored banning gasoline-powered cars, compared with 24 percent of Americans as a whole. Further, 58 percent of elites favored banning SUVs compared with 16 percent of Americans and 66 percent of Ivy League elites, while 69 percent of elites (and 80 percent of Ivy League elites) favored banning gas stoves compared with 25 percent of all Americans. Continue reading →

Affordable Housing Debate

By | | Housing
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The Divided We Fall web site has posted a debate over the housing crisis between the Antiplanner and former U.S. Ambassador Charles Ray. The debate covers some important issues, but I had hoped that my opponent would be a card-carrying member of the Affordable Housing Industrial Complex. Instead, Ray and I ended up agreeing on more issues that we disagreed about.

Affordable housing project in Salt Lake City. Source: Google street view.

I wanted to make the debate about the billions of tax dollars being spent building not very much housing. But it turned into a debate over housing affordability in general, which is both a completely different issue and too broad to cover in 1,000 words. Continue reading →

November Driving 1.2% More Than in 2019

By | | Transportation
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Americans drove 1.2 percent more miles in November of 2023 than in the same month in 2019, according to data released by the Federal Highway Administration yesterday. Rural driving was 6 percent greater than in 2019, while urban driving was 0.9 percent less. This may partially be due to a movement of people from urban to rural areas.

For a discussion of airline, Amtrak, and transit numbers, see the post from earlier this week.

A few states are still seeing major shortfalls in driving. West Virginia is 31 percent below 2019; California is down 21 percent; and the District of Columbia remains 29 percent less than in 2019. Missouri and Washington are also below 2019 levels, but only by 5 to 6 percent. Continue reading →

Another Rail Cost Overrun

By | | Transportation
1 Comment

Metro Transit has raised the projected cost of the Twin Cities’ Southwest light-rail line to $2.86 billion, or $197 million per mile for the 14.5 mile line. The news stories say this is up from $2.0 billion, but the original projected cost was $1.25 billion for 15.8 miles or less than $80 million a mile (which is still outrageous for an inflexible, low-capacity system).

Light-rail trains pass through a half-empty downtown Minneapolis. Photo by Andrew Ciscel.

Considering that downtown Minneapolis is ranked as having the third-slowest recovery of the nation’s 56 largest urban areas, and Twin Cities light rail carried only 52 percent of pre-pandemic riders in November, this would be a good time for the region to scrap the project. As I’ve suggested before, it would cost a lot less to turn it into a rapid bus route than to complete the rail project. Continue reading →