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Courts May Have Last Word on Trains

By | | Transportation
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A county judge says the California high-speed rail project violates the law approved by voters in 2008. But he won’t decide to issue an order halting the project until after another hearing, for which a date hasn’t yet been set.


The Reason Foundation’s Adrian Moore and Antiplanner friend Wendell Cox discuss California high-speed rail.

The Contra Costa Times lists many of the ways the project as planned today violates the 2008 ballot measure: the construction cost has doubled; the projected ticket prices have gone up; the speeds are slower; and the projected opening date is already nine years behind schedule. But the judge only rules that the project had failed to complete its environmental review and find funds to finance the entire project, not just a few miles in the Central Valley.

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Cars Provide Social Benefits Too

By | | Transportation
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When the Antiplanner travels around the country, I often meet people critical of their local transit systems. “The buses/trains are empty most of the time,” they say. “I saw a bus this morning with only one passenger on board.” “They put advertising over the windows so we can’t see in to see how empty they really are.”


Socially beneficial transit? Flickr photo by David Wilson.

People shouldn’t complain about empty transit vehicles, says transit expert Jarrett Walker. People “make it sound like because transit systems run empty buses that means they’re failing,” says Walker. In fact, those empty buses are serving a socially beneficial function: they “are valued for the lifeline access they provide for the isolated senior,” disabled person, or other people who lack access to an automobile.

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Alive Again?

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
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The once-dead Columbia River Crossing, a $3.5-billion project to build a $1.0 billion bridge across the river between Portland and Vancouver, may be alive again. After the Washington legislature rejected the idea that Washington state taxpayers should contribute $400 million to the plan, Portland bridge supporters have come up with an idea: Just build the bridge, but nothing north of the bridge in Washington.

The plan basically called for a $1.2 billion bridge, a $1.0 billion low-capacity rail line, and $1.5 billion replacing all highway interchanges for miles north and south of the bridge. Although the new bridge would have more lanes than the current bridge, the highways leading to it from both directions would have no more lanes, so the total capacity would not be significantly increased.

The existing bridge is not in any danger of falling down, but Portland wants to cram low-capacity rail down Vancouver’s throat, and replacing the bridge is an excuse for doing so. To keep the plan alive, advocates suggest deleting all of the highway interchange reconstruction in Washington. If Washington decides to reconstruct those interchanges later, it can come up with the funds later. Of course, the plan still includes low-capacity rail.

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Hyperloop’s Real Problem

By | | Follow up, Transportation
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Most reviews of Elon Musk‘s hyperloop plan focus on technical questions. Will it cost as little as he estimates? Could it move as fast as he projects? Could the system work at all?

None of these are the real problem with the hyperloop. The real problem is how an infrastructure-heavy, point-to-point system can possibly compete with personal vehicles that can go just about anywhere–the United States has more than 4 million miles of public roads–or with an airline system that requires very little infrastructure and can serve far more destinations than the hyperloop.

Musk promises the hyperloop will be fast. But fast is meaningless if it doesn’t go where you want to go. Musk estimates that people travel about 6 million trips a year between the San Francisco and Los Angeles urban areas, where he wants to build his first hyperloop line. But these urban areas are not points: they are huge, each covering thousands of square miles of land.

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Hyperloop De-hyped

By | | Transportation
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OFP2003 pointed out yesterday that Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk has finally revealed what he means by a hyperloop, which he proposes should be built between Los Angeles and San Francisco. As described in detail in this paper, he proposes an elevated tube paralleling Interstate 5 through which capsules or pods move at near-supersonic speeds propelled by linear induction motors.


Claustrophobes need not apply: Hyperloop passengers would be stuck in a windowless seat with limited headroom for the hour or so it would take to get between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Musk estimates that a tube capable of carrying both people and freight would cost about $7.5 billion to build. Each capsule would have 28 seats, and could depart on two-minute headways. He says this would be enough to carry all six million people who today travel between the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas each year.

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Green Ridge Fire Follow-Up

By | | Public lands, Wildfire
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The Forest Service says that it has pretty much contained the Green Ridge Fire. When the Antiplanner reported on the fire last Tuesday (August 6), it had burned 550 acres, and officials said they expected to have it contained by the end of August 7. In fact, it took at least four more days and a total cost of close to $5 million.


This map shows the status of the fire on Wednesday, August 7. Notice that the Forest Service was building a fire line (black line) well south of the actual fire front (red line). Click image for a larger view.

On the night of August 8, a strong wind whipped up the fire and sent fire brands that created spot fires as much as a mile away from the main fire, increasing the area burned to 950 acres. But on the evening of Friday, August 9, firefighters were helped by a rain storm that didn’t last long but was quite heavy. Rain fell again the afternoon of August 10. Despite the rain and Forest Service assurances that “lower temperatures and higher relative humidities are helping firefighting efforts,” the number of acres burned climbed to 1,150 by Saturday morning.

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Building Urban Prosperity

By | | City planning
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Faithful Antiplanner ally Wendell Cox has recently written a series of papers on urban development that should be read by every city official concerned about the economic future of their city. First, for a blog about World Streets, Cox argues that those who are concerned about urban prosperity should focus on ends, such as eradicating poverty and spreading affluence, rather than means, such as increasing density.

Second, for Canada’s Frontier Centre, Cox argues that urban containment strategies do more harm than good. Again, he says (but with far more detail) “the focus should be on objectives, not means.”

Most recently, in an article in the Daily Beast co-authored by Joel Kotkin, Cox rates the nation’s most aspirational cities, meaning cities with a high quality of life and numerous economic opportunities. The best cities, they find, are those with “cultural amenities and attitudes of ‘progressive’ blue states but in a distinctly red-state environment of low costs, less regulation, and lower taxes.” The top five cities, they find, are Austin, New Orleans, Houston, Oklahoma City, and Raleigh.

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But It Always Loses Money

By | | Transportation
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A new poll finds that three out of four Americans never or almost never ride transit. Just 6 percent use it daily; 7 percent once a week; 4 percent two or three times a month; and 7 percent once every few months.

The numbers seem a little high, as the 2010 census found that less than 5 percent of workers ride transit to work. Moreover, other data show that people who say they ride transit often drive instead, while people who say they drive almost always drive, so the census numbers overestimate transit commuting.

In any case, the poll goes on to say that Americans “still tend to believe the government should back mass transit projects as long as they don’t lose money.” But all transit loses money? How did the pollsters reach this conclusion?

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Air Show

By | | News commentary, Wildfire
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It’s hot and dry in Central Oregon, and a lightning storm on July 31 lit at least 48 fires in or around the Deschutes National Forest. Forest Service firefighters quickly suppressed all but one of them; unfortunately, a 58-year-old firefighter named John Hammack was killed when a tree fell on him.


Fires burning on Green Ridge Sunday night, August 4. Click image for a larger view.

The one fire still burning is about seven miles from the Antiplanner’s home and within view of my back deck. So we’ve been treated to a parade of helicopters and air tankers of various kinds attempting to control the fire. The Forest Service reports that it is spending about $200,000 a day, but the fire grew 90 acres Sunday and 175 acres Monday.

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The Suburbs Are Still Alive

By | | News commentary, Regional planning
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Ho-hum, another prediction that “suburbs are dead,” this time from Fortune magazine assistant editor Leigh Gallagher. Her just-released book, The End of the Suburbs, argues that Americans no longer dream of owning a house with a yard and driving to work and everywhere else.

“All the studies show” that the millenials “want to live where they can walk, whether that’s the city or an urban suburb,” she tells Washington Post reporter Paul Windle. Gallaher herself lives in New York City’s West Village, while Windle lives in inner Washington, DC, so their own personal anecdotal evidence easily confirms what “all the studies show.”

As it turns out, however, all the studies don’t show that. Take, for example, the Census Bureau report (previously noted here) that new homes are larger than ever or this survey, which found that three out four millennials aspire to live in a house of their own–and many of them are working hard to achieve that.

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