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Ending the Longest Job Interview in History

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Last week, the Washington State Senate refused to confirm Lynn Peterson as state Secretary of Transportation, effectively firing her three years after she was nominated to the job by Governor Jay Inslee (and during which she served in the job). In effect, the Senate turned her down after a three-year interview period.

Peterson was a curious choice for the job as she was an Oregonian who had been a Clackamas County Commissioner. Her background also included working as a transportation planner for Portland’s Metro, transit planner for TriMet, and an advocate for 1000 Friends of Oregon. Given that resume, she clearly supports the “build-it-and-they-will-come” ideals of light rail and conversely, don’t-build-it-and-they-won’t-come opposition to highways. Just as Washington imported its 1990 land-use law from Oregon’s 1973 law, it made sense to import an anti-highway, pro-high-cost transit planner from Oregon to run Washington’s transportation department.

Of course, it only made sense if you believe those ideas, but from any realistic view they are nonsense. Portland and Seattle both suffer from housing affordability crises born out of the inane “density-reduces-driving” myth. Their ever-more-expensive light-rail and streetcar lines combined with subsidies to transit-oriented developments are bankrupting the cities. Failing to build new roads hasn’t led people to drive less; instead, traffic congestion (measured by hours of delay per commuter) has more than tripled in Portland and more than doubled in Seattle since 1982.

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New Starts 2017

By | | Transportation
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The Federal Transit Administration has published its New Starts recommendations for 2017. The recommendations include profiles of more than 60 different transit projects, including bus-rapid transit (BR), streetcars (SR), light rail (LR), commuter rail (CR), and heavy rail (HR). Only 60 projects are shown in the table below as a few, such as the San Antonio streetcar, have been cancelled or at least are “on hold.”

CityProjectModeMilesCapitalCost/mi
PhoenixS. CentralLR5.0531106
TempeStreetcarSR3.018361
LAConnectorLR1.91,403738
LAStreetcarSR3.87520
LAPurple 1HR3.92,822720
LAPurple 2HR2.62,467949
Sac'toStreetcarSR4.215036
CalTransElectrifiedCRC51.01,75934
San DiegoMid-Coast LR10.92,171199
San Fran.CentralLR1.71,578928
San Fran.Van NessBR2.016381
San JoseEl Camino BR17.418811
San JoseBerryessaHR10.22,330230
San RafaelSMARTCR2.14320
Santa AnaStreetcarSR4.128970
DenverEagleCR30.22,04368
DenverSE ExtLR2.322497
Ft. Laud.WaveSR2.817362
Ft. Laud.BrowardSR5.00
J'villeEastBR18.5342
J'villeSWBR12.9191
OrlandoOIACR5.522541
OrlandoSouthCR17.218711
OrlandoNorthCR12.2696
HonoluluHARTHR20.05,122256
ChicagoAshland BR5.411722
ChicagoRed & PurpleHRC5.6957171
Indy.Red BR13.1967
BostonMedfordLR4.72,298489
MarylandPurpleLR16.22,448151
Gr. RapidsLakerBR13.3715
LansingMichiganBR8.516419
Minn.Blue extLR13.010
Minn.OrangeBR17.01519
Minn.SWLR14.51,774122
K. CityProspectBR10.0545
CharlotteBlue extLR9.31,160125
CharlotteGoldSR2.515060
CharlotteBlueHRC9.6404
DurhamOrangeLR17.11,800105
Albuq.RapidBR8.812614
Reno4th StBR3.15317
RenoVirginiaBR1.86033
AlbanyRiverBR15.0352
AlbanyWashingtonBR8.0648
NYCCarnarsieHRC6.027446
NYCWoodhavenBR14.023117
ColumbusClevelandBR15.6473
PortlandMilwaukieLR7.01,490213
PortlandPowellBR14.0755
DallasCBDLR2.4650271
DallasRed & BlueLRC48.11192
El PasoMontanaBR16.8473
Ft. WorthTEXRailCR27.299637
HoustonUniversityLR11.31,563138
ProvoBRTBR10.515014
EverettSwiftBR12.3675
SeattleCenterSR1.3135104
SpokaneCentralBR5.87212
TacomaLink extSR2.416669
A “C” after a mode abbreviation means that project is a capacity increase or reconstruction of an existing line. An “ext” at the end of a project name is an extension of an existing line. There are 60 projects in the table; to see all 60 at once, select “Show 100 entries.” Projects are sorted in alphabetical order by state, but you can resort by any column.

For the projects in this year’s report, the average cost of new streetcar lines is $45 million per mile; light rail is $163 million per mile; heavy rail is $347 million per mile; and commuter rail is $38 million per mile. Of course, cost overruns are likely for a majority of these projects, so the final costs are likely to average 20 to 50 percent more. Even without the overruns, these costs are outlandish, as the nation’s first light-rail lines cost only around $10 million to $25 million per mile (after adjusting for inflation), and streetcars were supposed to be even less expensive than that.

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DC Ridership Falls Despite Population Growth

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
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As the Antiplanner noted last week, Los Angeles is not the only region experiencing declining transit ridership. Another is Washington, DC, where a recent report from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA aka Metro) revealed that ridership has fallen to the lowest level since 2004. The agency’s financial situation is so bad that WMATA’s number-two executive has resigned and, ominously, the agency has hired a bankruptcy attorney to help it deal with its problems.

As detailed in the actual report, rail revenues and ridership in the first half of F.Y. 2016 are both down by 7 percent from the same period in F.Y. 2015. Metrorail ridership peaked in 2009, and if the second half of F.Y. 2016 is as bad as the first, annual ridership will be down as much as 30 percent from that peak despite a 15 percent increase in the region’s population. Bus ridership and revenue in 2016 is also down but by only about 3 percent below 2015.

Metro rails ridership declines, continued the report, are due to declining service reliability. Median travel times, the unpredictability of travel times, and the frequency of major service delays have all increased.

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The Future of Federal Lands

By | | Public lands
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The Antiplanner was in Washington, DC on Tuesday to testify before the Federal Land Action Group, an unofficial Congressional committee made up of representatives from western states who support more local control of federal lands. Several of the committee members expressed the opinion that federal land would be better managed by the states because the easterners who made up a majority of Congress didn’t understand the West.

While I believe the federal lands could be better managed, I had to throw cold water on some of their ideas. The real debate, I said, wasn’t between easterners and westerners. It was between urbanites who have little connection with agriculture, forestry, and mining, and ruralites whose jobs depended on those sectors of the economy. Ninety percent of residents of the West live in urban areas that occupy just one percent of the land, and–unlike forty or so years ago–few if those urbanites have jobs that directly depend in mining, logging, or farming.

The population of the most rural state in the West, Montana, is 55 percent urban; Wyoming and Alaska are 65 percent; Idaho and New Mexico from 70 to 80 percent; and all the others are more than 80 percent urban. Many people in these urban areas moved to or stay in the West because they love the easy access to recreation on federal lands, and polls show that most of them support continued federal ownership of these lands. Can anyone really think that ranchers and other rural interests are going to get more sympathy from the West’s urbanites than those from the East?

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Low Fares Beat Steel Wheels

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
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Last week, the Antiplanner highlighted an LA Times story showing that Los Angeles transit ridership was dropping despite billions being spent on transit improvements. A blogger named Ethan Elkind wrote a response arguing that a graph in the Times story was unfair because it showed that Los Angeles transit ridership peaked in 1985.

That high point was reached, says Elkind, because L.A. County had kept bus fares at 50 cents for three years in the early 1980s. After the region started building rail, it raised fares and ridership declined. “So choosing 1985 as your baseline is like climate change deniers choosing an unusually warm year in the 1990s to show that global warming hasn’t really been happening since then,” says Elkind. (A better analogy would be transit advocates’ habit of using 1995–a low transit year nationwide–as a starting point to show increasing transit ridership.)

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A Streetcar Plan Grows in Brooklyn

By | | Transportation
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New York is far denser than any other large American city, with an average of 27,000 people per square mile compared with 2,500 to 4,000 for most American cities. Although the city is criss-crossed by an extensive subway system, there are still some neighborhoods that are more than half a mile from a subway station.

So naturally, what those neighborhoods need is an ultra-low-capacity, high-cost form of urban transit: a streetcar. At least, that’s what Mayor Bill de Blasio thinks: last week, he proposed to spend $2.5 billion building a 16-mile streetcar line connecting Brooklyn with Queens.

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Double the Gas Tax for Green Transportation

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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For most of Obama’s years as president, he has opposed raising the gas tax. Now, in his last, lame-duck year, he is proposing a $10 per barrel tax on oil. Since a 42-gallon barrel of oil produces about 45 gallons of gasoline, Diesel, jet fuel, and other products, this is roughly equal to a 22 cent per gallon gas tax, well above the current 18.4 cent tax.

The distinction between Obama’s oil tax and a gas tax is that the oil tax wouldn’t go into the Highway Trust Fund, where up to 80 percent goes for roads and 20 percent goes for transit. Instead, he proposes to spend $20 billion per year on alternatives to autos, including urban transit, high-speed rail, and mag-lev. Another $10 billion per year would be given to the states for programs that would supposedly reduce carbon emissions such as “better land-use planning, clean fuel infrastructure, and public transportation.” Finally, $3 billion would go for self-driving vehicle infrastructure that is both unnecessary and intrusive.

Obama proposes that the oil tax be phased in over five years, so that $33 billion is the average of the first five years; when fully phased in, the tax would bring in nearly $60 billion a year. This would be a huge slush fund for all kinds of social engineering programs.

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2014 Transit Data

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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In mid-December, the Federal Transit Administration posted 2014 transit data on line, then withdrew it–but not before the Antiplanner was able to download most of the data tables. Two tables that were not available then were “Service” (including such things as vehicle revenue miles, passenger miles, and average daily trips) and “Vehicle Inventory” (including the number of vehicles and number of seats and standing room per vehicle).

The FTA has reposted all of the tables, including the two tables that were previously missing. Those two tables are dated today, so I appear to have downloaded them almost as soon as they were posted. Most of the other tables date to mid-December, so it is likely that few changes or corrections were made since then.

I’ve added the new data to my master spreadsheet and posted it for your convenience. This takes the information I consider the most important, including costs, ridership, fares, and energy consumption, from eight different spreadsheets and puts them in one spreadsheet.

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Are Oil Prices Too Low?

By | | Transportation
18 Comments

Remember peak oil? Remember when oil prices were $140 a barrel and Goldman Sachs predicted they would soon reach $200? Now, the latest news is that oil prices have gone up all the way to $34 a barrel. Last fall, Goldman Sachs predicted prices would fall to $20 a barrel, which other analysts argued was “no better than its prior predictions,” but in fact they came a lot closer to that than to $200.

Low oil prices generate huge economic benefits. Low prices mean increased mobility, which means increased economic productivity. The end result, says Bank of America analyst Francisco Blanch, is “one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history” as $3 trillion remain in consumers’ pockets rather than going to the oil companies. The Antiplanner wouldn’t call this a “wealth transfer” so much as a reduction in income inequality, but either way, it is a good thing.

Naturally, some people hate the idea of increased mobility from lower fuel prices. “Cheap gas raises fears of urban sprawl,” warns NPR. Since “urban sprawl” is a made-up problem, I’d have to rewrite this as, “Cheap gas raises hopes of urban sprawl.” The only real “fear” is on the part of city officials who want everyone to pay taxes to them so they can build stadiums, light-rail lines, and other useless urban monuments.

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$44 Per Ride Subsidy

By | | Transportation
17 Comments

Last week, the Antiplanner commented on a proposed passenger train between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Yesterday, The Advocate, a New Orleans weekly, published an op-ed on the same train.

The article calculates that the subsidy per ticket will average $44. Considering that the proposed fare is only $10 for the first few years, rising to $13 after ten years, this would be a horrendous subsidy, at least compared with other intercity trains. Subsidies to the average Amtrak train are about equal to the ticket price, not three to four times the ticket price. On the other hand, subsidies to urban transit average $3 for every dollar paid in fares.
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In comments on the op-ed, one of the defenders of the proposed train says, “in the 1930s in the middle of a Depression we built a network of airports that served as foundation for a commercial airline industry we see today.” The two clear differences are that most airports pay for themselves with landing fees, and the airline industry in the 1930s was rapidly evolving and growing. By comparison, the technology for the proposed train hasn’t changed since the 1930s, and passenger train ridership is declining. It is a continual source of amazement that so many Americans consider subsidies to an obsolete forms of travel such as streetcars, light rail, and intercity rail to be normal and acceptable.