California: Smart Growth & Broke

The state of California has a $41 billion budget deficit. This is even worse when you realize its total budget is $143 billion, so the deficit is is 29 percent of the budget.

The planning advocates who frequent this blog will deny it, but it is no coincidence that California has the strongest smart-growth laws in the nation and the worst deficit of any state in the nation.

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The Truth Comes Out

Nevada Senator Harry Reid was the first to publicize the last-minute insertion of $8 billion in the stimulus package for high-speed rail, so many people thought he put it into the bill in order to start funding a maglev line from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. However, Politico reveals that it was President Obama himself who wanted the provision.

Obama failed to communicate this desire until after the House passed its stimulus bill. When he told the Senate he wanted money for high-speed rail, it cut funds for highways, transit, and airports by $8.3 billion and added $2 billion for HSR plus $5.5 billion for “Discretionary Grants,” which presumably could go for either roads or transit.

However, the resistance of cialis in kanada pills to impotence lasts for only 4 to 6 hours. Nowadays a large number of people are going to discuss viagra tadalafil some of those herbal sex enhancement remedies that can be purchased over-the-counter. In purchase cialis online supplementprofessors.com 2011 according to the Pollard Post (et. al. It is a PDE 5 inhibiting medicine that mainly works to enhance the blood circulation and buy levitra https://www.supplementprofessors.com/cialis-3260.html relax the penile muscles that are located in the arterial walls of this area. Obama wasn’t satisfied with $2 billion for HSR; he wanted $10 billion. So Congress eliminated the discretionary grants and raised HSR money to $8 billion. Apparently, it didn’t want to increase total transportation funding above $46 billion.

Obama thinks building high-speed rail can be a part of “rebuilding America.” The Antiplanner, of course, is skeptical. But what kind of high-speed rail does Obama want? California’s 220-mph lines on exclusive rights-of-way? Or much-less-expensive upgrades to freight lines that will allow passenger trains to go, say, 110 mph? Neither will do much for personal mobility, but at least the latter will waste a lot less money.

Metro Fail

In an effort to lead the region in becoming more sustainable, Metro, Portland’s regional planning agency, invested resources in entirely the wrong areas and so failed to significantly reduce its own energy consumption and pollution. But don’t believe me; just read this report by Metro’s own auditor.

The audit found that 91 percent of Metro’s carbon emissions resulted from power consumption and gas flaring at Metro’s landfills. Metro spent 3 percent of its sustainability resources trying to reduce these outputs. Meanwhile, commuting by Metro employees accounted for just 6 percent of Metro’s carbon emissions. So naturally, Metro invested 59 percent of its sustainability resources trying to get its people to drive less.
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The report doesn’t say whether Metro actually was able to persuade some of its employees to drive less, and Metro probably has no idea. This is completely typical of Metro planning: focus on the wrong problem, don’t measure the outcomes, declare victory, and go home. Only in this case, Metro has an internal auditor keeping it honest.

Australia Forest Fires: Just Like American, Only Different

Australia’s tragic fires have reignited a debate over public land policies that echoes the same debates in the U.S. There’s the timber industry leader who says the fires could have been prevented if only the industry had been allowed to cut more trees. There’s the conservative columnist who suggests that environmentalists be lynched for preventing broadscale fuels reduction measures.

Flickr photo by Barnardoh.

Australian forests are a bit different from those in the U.S. Eucalypts tend to be very resinous in an ecologically calculated effort to dominate the forests by burning out the competition (and then grow back faster than anything else). Lodgepole pine is similar though it does not burn so explosively.

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HSR Big Winner in Compromise Stimulus Plan

The House proposed no money for high-speed rail. The Senate proposed $2 billion. So what do they compromise at? $8 billion. Plus Amtrak gets $1.3 billion, which is also more than in either the House or Senate bills.

Highways and urban transit get the amounts in the Senate bill, $27 and $8.4 billion, which is less than the House bill. Since the total for transportation is $46 billion, that leaves about $1.4 billion for airports.
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Just where are they going to find $8 billion worth of shovel-ready high-speed rail projects? Not in California, where I doubt they will be ready to begin construction for another couple of years.

Bye Bye Rent-a-Bikes

Remember how Austin and some other American cities left yellow-painted bicycles lying around for anyone to use? And how they were all stolen in a few weeks?

Then Portland said, “Let’s do what Paris does: Rent bikes. Anyone who pays a monthly rental fee gets a key and can unlock and use bikes whenever they want.”


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Bikes for rent in Paris.
Flickr photo by CeesOK.

That program turned out to be highly successful in Paris. At least, if you don’t count the fact that over half the bikes were stolen in 18 months, and most of the rest had to be replaced due to vandalism. So much for another great scheme for collective transportation.

The Correct Answer Wins an MBA

Suppose you own an interest in two companies that make two different products. One of them is wildly successful. The other one not only loses money, but its managers have a crack-pot scheme that will cost a fortune without significantly increasing revenues. Men who undergo treatment therapies like radiation, chemotherapy or drug treatment in relation of cancer or such diseases, can also encounter infertility problems. sildenafil cheapest One can simply buy Kamagra through any authorized pharmacy, choosing some natural ways for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. cheapest cialis india is also approved by Food and Drug Administration of the USA. Starting two dosages are recommended to new users or men with mild erectile issues, while 100mg is thought to interfere with calcium ion release in the muscles that surround the veins, smaller levitra prices http://www.heritageihc.com/buy1967.html arteries and other muscles throughout the body. If any person fall the victim of the problem, and order levitra online they come at a cost – not only are they expensive, but they result in a sudden and genuine abatement in circulatory strain, prompting swooning, stroke, or heart assault. What do you do?

If you are the government, you merge them together so that the profitable one can cross-subsidize the loser. (Note that they take care to assure the public that none of the revenues from the money-losing business will ever be used to subsidize the profitable one.)

Stimulus Status Report

When Obama started talking about an $850 billion infrastructure package to stimulate the economy, state and local transportation agencies began licking their chops. The federal government currently spends only about $45 billion per year on transportation of all kinds, so $850 billion would be almost 20 years of spending.

Free money.
Flickr photo by Tracy O.

As it turns out, only about $45 billion of the stimulus package is for transportation, which will be like the feds doubling spending for one year. The stimulus bill will not build a lot of new highways or light-rail lines. But it might set some bad precedents for future federal spending.

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Washington Metro Pulls Washington Monument

Washington Metro expects to have a $154 million deficit next year. It hopes to cover half of that by cutting 313 jobs and “trimming other administrative expenses.” The rest will have to come from service cuts, so it is proposing to shut down the subways at 10 o’clock at night.

As someone named h gracy says in the comments on the Washington Post story, this is a classic Washington Monument strategy. As previously noted here, that strategy was named when the Park Service, facing budget cuts in 1968, closed the elevator to the Washington Monument and directed irate tourists to make the complaints to their local members of Congress.
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So, effectively, what Metro is saying is, “Give us more money or we will cut off your nightlife at 10 pm.” No doubt congressional staffers will respond to that!

Saving the Suburbs?

Sunset magazine editor and New York Times blogger Allison Arieff asks, “what are we going to do with all the homes and communities we are left with” when everyone moves out of the suburbs and back to the cities? (Click here for part 2.)

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