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California Bus Association

By | | Housekeeping, Transportation
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The Antiplanner spent the last couple of days at the annual meeting of the California Bus Association, which left me unable to post as I was too cheap to pay the hotel $9.95 per day for Internet access even though the nice people at the Bus Association would probably have covered the cost. In any case, I learned a lot at the meeting that I’ll probably comment on in future posts.

I’ve never been to a bus association convention before, but my impression was of a thriving, growing industry. Hundreds of different companies offer scheduled and charter bus services; there are quite a few different manufacturers; and new buses feature intriguing technologies including adaptive cruise control, vehicle stability control, and on-board fire detection and suppression. Moreover, the market is rapidly shifting in an endless series of buy-outs and mergers. It felt more like Silicon Valley than a nearly-100-year-old industry that had been in decline from before 1980 to some time in the last decade.

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Department of Irony

By | | City planning, News commentary
17 Comments

Officials from Aurora, Colorado are in a tizzy because someone conducted some focus groups to see what taxpayers thought of a $300 million subsidy to a proposed hotel. Such focus groups “violate the ethics code for economic development organizations in the region,” said Tom Clark, the executive vice-president of Denver’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC).

Apparently, it is perfectly ethical to steal money that taxpayers had allocated to schools, fire, and police and give it to a private developer, but it is unethical to ask those taxpayers how they fell about such theft. Colorado’s “taxpayer bill of rights” prevents governments from raising taxes by more than a certain percentage each year–but tax-increment financing, the main source of subsidies for the proposed hotel, is exempt from this law.

“You can’t work against your neighbor, and you can’t run around them,” Clark said. “If you do, you’re subject to permanent expulsion from the Metro Denver EDC.” Of course, it is always possible that some people don’t want to be a part of Clark’s cozy little club of thieves.

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2010 Census Data

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Despite huge efforts to get people out of single-occupancy vehicles, nearly 8 million more people drove alone to work in 2010 than in 2000, according to data released by the Census Bureau. Wendell Cox’s review of the data show that the other big gainer was “worked at home,” which grew by nearly 2 million over the decade.

Transit gained less than a million, but transit numbers were so small in 2000 that its share grew from 4.6 percent to 4.9 percent of total workers. While drive alone grew from 75.6 percent to 76.5 percent, the big loser was carpooling, which declined by more than 2 million workers. As a result, driving’s share as a whole declined from 87.9 percent to 86.2 percent.

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Donor States? Recipient States?

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation uses 2009 data to show that more than half the states send more gas taxes to the Treasury than they get back in federal transportation dollars. But the GAO uses 2005 through 2009 data to argue that, in fact, all the states have gotten back more than their residents paid in gas taxes.

It is likely that both are correct. Particularly in 2007 and 2008, the federal government spent more on surface transportation than it took in. If you spend more than you receive, then all everybody wins–except whoever has to eventually make up the difference.

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Jerry Brown Scores Again

By | | Transportation
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The Antiplanner applauds California Governor Jerry Brown–who proposed and ultimately persuaded the legislature to kill urban redevelopment agencies–for vetoing a bicycle bill last week. The bill would have required motorists to slow down to 15 mph if they were passing a bicycle and unable to give the cyclist at least three feet of room.

Proponents argued that this was for cycling safety, but as the Antiplanner has previously pointed out, most car-bicycle accidents take place at intersections, while only a tiny number consist of the car hitting the cyclist while overtaking it from the rear. Thus, this bill would have imposed a huge cost on auto drivers–and, as Brown pointed out, could lead to more auto-to-auto accidents–while doing little for bicycle safety.

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Back in the Air Again

By | | Housekeeping
7 Comments

The Antiplanner is flying to Denver today for three presentations. First, I’ll speak about the futility of government planning to a group called Hear Us Now in Thornton. The event will take place tonight at 6:00 pm at that bastion of free-markets (they don’t take TIF money), Gander Mountain, 9923 Grant, Thornton (accessible from Thornton Parkway or 104th).

Tomorrow (Wednesday, October 12), I’ll speak to the Boulder Land Use Coalition about the destructiveness of comprehensive planning. The event is from 11:30 am to 3:00 pm at the Olive Garden, 2685 Pearl Street, Boulder, and lunch is $20 per person.
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Tomorrow night, I’ll speak to Liberty on the Rocks about the environmental impacts of rail projects. This will take place at Choppers Sports Grill, 80 South Madison Street in Cherry Creek, from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. All three events are open to the public.

Inside the Consulting World

By | | Regional planning, Transportation
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Last Saturday the Antiplanner participated in a conference about the Columbia River Crossing, a government-planning effort aimed at replacing a bridge that doesn’t need to be replaced so Portland can sneak its light-rail system (and associated land-use planning) into Vancouver, Washington. One of the more fascinating presentations at the conference came from Tiffany Couch, a forensic accountant who has been studying the budget of the planning team called the Columbia River Crossing.

It is public knowledge that this team has already spent $130 million doing nothing but pushing paper around. Since the bridge itself could be built for less than a billion dollars, that’s a healthy share of the cost. Of course, the planners’ goal is to spend well over $3 billion on the bridge, which would include money for light rail and other bells and whistles that are probably just as unnecessary.

What the public didn’t know, until Ms. Couch’s presentation (4 MB PPTX file), was that almost all of this $130 million was paid to one consulting firm. In 2005, Couch revealed, ODOT and WSDOT issued a “notice to consultants” that they wanted to hire someone to write the environmental impact statement for the project (page 17 of Couch’s presentation). “The project team anticipates the total cost of the environmental phase to be in excess of $20 million.” It asked consultants to submit and proposal with a list of their qualifications.

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Remembering Jane Jacobs

By | | Housekeeping, Regional planning
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An article in The American Conservative commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The publication also asked the Antiplanner to join a number of New Urbanists and others in an on-line seminar about the influence of Jacobs on American cities.

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At least six of the other eight participants in the webinar are hardcore new urbanists, so naturally they disagree. In my opinion, the best review of The Death & Life was by an amazing sociologist named Herbert Gans, and it is available on the web to subscribers of Commentary magazine. If you are a subscriber, I heartily recommend the review.

Then Why Did They Vote for It in the First Place?

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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A new poll finds that, if high-speed rail were on the ballot today, 62 percent of California voters would vote against it. The complete poll report also indicates that 63 percent of Californians say they would never ride it if it were built.

The poll asked people about their state funding priorities. The top priorities were education (76 percent), public safety (69 percent), and social services (65 percent). Water and irrigation (29 percent) and clean energy (18 percent) scored much lower. At 11 percent, high-speed rail was last.

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Partly based on this poll, transportation expert Ken Orski argues that “it looks like the end of the line for high-speed rail.” However, the California High-Speed Rail Authority still has several billion dollars of spending authority and the mandate to begin construction in the Central Valley by September 30, 2012 (or it will lose federal dollars). Unless the state legislature stops them, I would be more surprised if they voluntarily stopped than if they began building a train to nowhere.

The Density Fallacy

By | | Book reviews, Regional planning
16 Comments

A decade or so ago, an Economist senior editor named Frances Cairncross wrote a book called The Death of Distance which argued that, thanks to declining transportation and telecommunications costs, distance really doesn’t matter anymore. So it is ironic that another Economist writer, Ryan Avent, has written a new book arguing that “Distance is not dead” and proximity to other people still matters.

The Antiplanner previously mentioned this book, The Gated City (available only from Amazon in Kindle format for $1.99), a couple of weeks ago, but now I’ve finished reading it and can write a more detailed review.

Ryan’s book makes the following argument:

1. Denser cities are more productive
2. Due to NIMBYs, denser cities also have higher housing costs
3. Get rid of the NIMBYs, and cities will become even denser and more productive

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