Search Results for: peak transit

Making Cities Safe for Pedestrians & Cyclists

By | | Policy brief
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In 2008, wildfires in Butte County, California led to the evacuation of 9,000 people from the town of Paradise. Fortunately, firefighters saved the town from any damage, but severe delays during the evacuation led a grand jury to warn that Butte County needed to upgrade evacuation routes, which then consisted of three two-lane roads and a four-lane road.

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Instead, prompted by a state grant, officials put the four-lane road on a “road diet,” reducing it to two lanes of travel. Obstacles known as “traffic calming measures” were installed throughout the town, including bump-out’s, center medians, and extended sidewalks. Continue reading →

The Case for Single-Family Neighborhoods

By | | Policy brief
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Housing prices continue to rise and in many places they now exceed prices at the peak of the 2006 housing bubble. Incomes in many regions have failed to rise to match those prices, with the result that housing is unaffordable—that is, median home prices are at least four times median family incomes—in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, as well as the Boston, Miami, and New York urban areas.

Click image to download a PDF of this five-page policy brief.

Prices are high in these areas because of urban-growth boundaries or other restrictions on development of rural areas at the urban fringes of these states and regions. Collectively known as growth management, such restrictions increase the price of developable land, allow cities to impose development restrictions without fear that developers will go outside the cities, and increase labor costs as home construction workers fight to find affordable housing along with everyone else. Continue reading →

10. Los Angeles Metro’s New Climate Strategy

By | | Policy brief
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Los Angeles is “hemorrhaging bus riders,” worries the Los Angeles Times. This is supposedly “worsening traffic and hurting climate goals.”

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L.A. Metro buses “have lost nearly 95 million trips over a decade,” the paper notes. This “25% drop is the steepest among the busiest transit systems in the United States.” Actually, Sacramento’s Regional Transit District has lost 43 percent of its bus riders in the last decade, but the Times probably doesn’t count it “among the busiest transit systems.” Continue reading →

Reports from the War on Homeownership

By | | Policy brief
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The latest home price data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency indicates that the most recent housing bubble has peaked and prices are now declining in expensive housing markets such as those in California, Hawaii, and Washington. This is an indication that the nation may be headed into a recession.

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In contrast, prices continue to slowly increase in more affordable housing markets such as those in Indiana, North Carolina, and Texas. This difference is a result of the amount of rural land-use regulation in these states. Continue reading →

2. The Day That Changed the World

By | | Iconoclast
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If asked, many baby boomers would probably say that the most important day in history during their lifetimes was November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. That event transformed America in many ways, bringing the happy-go-lucky 50s to a dark close, perhaps paving the way for the Viet Nam War, but also bringing in a president who, unlike Kennedy, was able to persuade Congress to pass several vital civil rights laws.

For me, however, the most important day was another 22: April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day or, as it was called then, the National Environmental Teach-In. This day transformed America from one that was divided on environmental issues to one in which everyone, from teachers and politicians to oil and timber companies, were expected to pledge allegiance to environmental protection first before taking any other position on the issues. The results include recycling, locavores, and a consensus of thousands of scientists who aren’t climatologists on global climate change even though scientists had previously been conditioned to not express strong opinions on issues outside their areas of expertise.

As well as affecting our country in general, the teach-in had a huge effect on my life. I wanted to be an architect, and I spent the long drives my family took to Arizona each Christmas reading books on modern architects: Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, Le Corbusier, and most importantly Frank Lloyd Wright, whose Taliesin West I visited on one of our Arizona trips. Continue reading →

Transport Then and Now

By | | Transportation
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The Guardian has published comparison maps showing historic transit systems vs. modern systems in those same cities, leading commenters to lament that “big oil and the automobile industry destroyed public transport.” Yet the maps that make up the article were made more for artistic purposes and not as any scientific study of the history and fate of public transit.

The first thing to note is that the maps only include rail lines, not buses. Yet, as another article in the Guardian notes, American transit systems began converting rails to buses as early as the 1920s, with 20 percent of them having completed the conversion by 1930 (years before the so-called General Motors streetcar conspiracy). The maps misleadingly make it appear that transit service has shrunk when all it did was change modes.

The second thing to note is that, on most maps, the artist only included streetcars and rapid transit (light and heavy rail). One historic map shows interurban lines, but none show commuter rail. In Los Angeles, for example, commuter rail has replaced some of the longer-distance Pacific Electric lines, but this isn’t shown on the maps. Continue reading →

Fantasy vs. Reality

By | | Transportation
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Last week, the Antiplanner participated in a conference on the future of transportation in southern California. The conference consisted of four panels: high-speed rail, congestion, finance, and experiences in other countries. Since they invited me, I assumed the conference would offer a balance of pros and cons on the various issues. It turned out I was the only skeptic of passenger rail and giant subsidies to transit.

The high-speed rail panel opened with a statement by the moderator that the state has to build high-speed rail because there is no way that the airlines could handle the projected growth in travel between the Bay Area and southern California. Really? Most of the planes in that corridor today are 737s or smaller; a switch to 757s or similar-sized planes would instantly increase capacity by 50 percent or more.

The first formal presentation was by Dan Richard, who chaired California’s High-Speed Rail Authority from 2012 until being replaced by Governor Gavin Newsom last month. Richard noted that, as of 2008, the year California voters approved selling $9 billion worth of bonds for high-speed rail, China only had one high-speed rail line that was about 250 miles long. Since then, in the time it has taken California to complete no lines, China has opened nearly 18,000 miles of lines. Continue reading →

Take a Streetcar to Forest Park–If You’re Rich

By | | Transportation
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Portland’s streetcar is slow and expensive, ridership is stagnant, and fare recovery is negligible. So obviously the solution is to extend the streetcar line. At least, that’s what Portland’s Bureau of Transportation proposes.

Streetcar ridership peaked in 2016 at 4.86 million trips per year. In 2018 they had fallen slightly to 4.79 million. Although the fare is nominally $2, actual revenues amount to just 17 cents per trip. Of course, those revenues don’t come close to covering costs, which average $3.50 per rider. The city spends $39 per streetcar revenue mile running it, where TriMet buses cost only $12.50 per mile.

Despite these flaws, the report proudly announces that the city has received a $1 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration to study the possibility of extending the streetcar a little over a mile to Montgomery Park, which is not a park but a former Montgomery Wards warehouse. The terminus would be near Forest Park, which is a 5,100-acre park with hiking trails in Portland’s West Hills. Continue reading →

INRIX 2018 Congestion Scorecard

By | | Transportation
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INRIX has released its 2018 traffic congestion numbers for more than 200 urban areas around the world. Unfortunately, the company changed its methodology from previous years, so the numbers aren’t comparable. It also isn’t clear how INRIX ranks congestion.

For example, the INRIX web page notes that, “In 2018, Bogata drivers lost 272 hours due to congestion — more than any other city in the world.” Yet Bogata is ranked number three behind Moscow (where drivers lost 210 hours) and Istanbul (where drivers lost only 157 hours). The only other data offered for ranking congestion is the speed of driving in the inner city: in Bogata it was 7 mph compared with 11 in Moscow and 10 in Istanbul. So if Bogata is worse on both criteria, why is it ranked only number 3? Continue reading →

What Is a Mansion?

By | | Housing
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“Fire Damages Del Mar Mansion,” NBC San Diego News reported yesterday. The mansion in question, the story added, had three bedrooms, three baths, and 2,242 square feet.

Merriam-Webster defines “mansion” as “a large, imposing residence.” The Free Dictionary says it is “a large, stately house.” Call me old fashioned, but 2,242 square feet doesn’t seem that large, imposing, or stately to me. Maybe compared with tiny homes it is, but even in California, most people have not yet been squeezed into tiny homes.

What is large about the house is the value: according to Zillow, it is currently worth about $5.3 million. That’s not because it has a great ocean view: it sits four houses back from the ocean and its views are clearly blocked by bigger houses in front of it. A nearby house that does sit on the ocean, but is only 1,851 square feet, is currently on sale for $11.8 million. These high prices are due to California’s various anti-growth policies. Continue reading →