Search Results for: honolulu rail

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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Presentations

The Antiplanner gives about three dozen presentations a year on a variety of topics. Most of the presentations below include a summary of the narration in the notes section. All of the charts in these presentations are in the public domain and may be freely distributed or used in your own presentations. I make every effort to use photographs that are in the public domain or under a creative commons license, but may have accidentally included some that are copyrighted, so it is best to try to find the photo’s origin before publishing the photos. If you find any that are copyrighted, let me know and I’ll take them down.

Land-Use Presentations

Presentations about planning in Lafayette, Louisiana: the Lafayette Comprehensive Plan (40 megabytes); the Lafayette Unified Development Code (14 megabytes); a somewhat different version of the presentation on the Lafayette Unified Development Code made before the Lafayette city/parish council (12 megabytes, all in Powerpoint format).

Maintaining the Texas Miracle by protecting property rights (8.0-MB PowerPoint show), given on January 8, 2015 in Austin, Texas.

Debate with Myron Orfield (11.6-MB PowerPoint or 10.5-MB PDF version) on September 24, 2014, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Presentation made to the San Antonio Tea Party about smart growth and transit issues in PDF (35 MB), PowerPoint format without videos (40 MB) or PowerPoint format with videos (122 MB).

Presentation about the Twin Cities Thrive plan made to the Southwest Metro Tea Party in Chanhassen on August 4, 2014, downloadable as a Zip file (111 MB including video) or PPT file (32 MB, no video)

Presentation about Plan Bay Area downloadable as a 16-MB PDF or a 57-MB zip file containing the PowerPoint show plus two videos of driverless cars. This presentation is considerably longer than the one used in the debate (below).

Presentation at the Canadian Property Rights Conference in Ottawa on September 14, 2013 (11.6-MB PDF).

Review of Plan Bay Area, a short (10-minute) presentation given as a part of a debate over the future of the San Francisco Bay Area (5.3-MB PowerPoint). The same presentation as a 3.1-MB PDF with the narrative in notes.

Freedom of Movement, presentation given at the Educational Policy Conference in St. Louis, January, 2013 (20 MB)

Land-Use Regulation and Housing, 350-slide presentation given to the Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon, Salem, January, 2013 in PDF (49 MB) or in PowerPoint format with videos (89 MB)

Smart Growth and Property Rights in California, presentation given in Camarilla, June, 2012 (67 MB)

Smart Growth and Property Rights, presentation given in SeaTac, Washington, March, 2012 (82 MB)

Debate with James Howard Kunstler, presentation given at Brown University, Providence, April 2010 (30 MB) — Same presentation in PDF (30 MB)

Smart Growth and Property Rights in Montana, presentation given in Bozeman in February, 2010 (16 MB) — Same presentation in PDF (16 MB)

The Best-Laid Plans, presentation made in Wichita, February, 2010 (26 MB)

The Costs of Smart Growth in Portland is a companion to my 2001 book, The Vanishing Automobile. Though it is a decade old, it can still be useful, especially as it comes fully narrated. The narration also makes it 128 MB, so be prepared for a long download unless you have a really fast connection.

The Costs of Smart Growth in San Jose is a fully narrated version of the Portland show prepared for San Jose. It is 216 MB so will take even longer to download. However, you can play either the Portland or San Jose shows for the public by hooking your computer to a projector and speakers.

Tax-Increment Financing Presentations

Tax-Increment Financing in Louisiana, presentation given in Lafayette, LA in June, 2011 (20 MB)

Tax-Increment Financing in Idaho, presentation given to the Idaho Freedom Foundation in Boise in November, 2009 (13 MB)

Streetcar Presentations

Milwaukee Streetcar Plan Critique, presentation given in Milwaukee in March, 2013 (18 MB) — Same presentation in PDF (15 MB)

Critique of San Antonio Streetcar Plan, presentation given in San Antonio, November, 2012 (61 MB)

Boise streetcar presentation given to the Idaho Freedom Foundation in Boise in December, 2011 (11 MB)

American Nightmare Presentations

American Nightmare, presentation given about housing issues in Atlanta in March, 2013 (13 MB) — Same presentation in PDF (10 MB)

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Faster, Cheaper, Safer, and More Convenient, the keys to insuring that transportation spending leads to economic growth (66-MB PowerPoint show with videos); show given on January 8, 2015, in Austin, Texas

Here is a 14-MB PDF of an October 8, 2013 presentation given in Bakersfield, California on why high-speed rail won’t relieve congestion and what we should do instead. The videos of self-driving cars that were in the presentations are in this 10-MB zip file.

Gridlock, presentation about the Antiplanner’s book given in Albuquerque to the Rio Grande Foundation, May, 2010 (35 MB) — also download media files to get video (53 MB)

Gridlock, presentation about the Antiplanner’s book given in Dallas to the National Center for Policy Analysis, April, 2010 (29 MB) — also download media files to get video (63 MB)

Rail Transit Presentations

A presentation on the failed Norfolk light rail and the plan to extend it to Virginia Beach, given in Virginia Beach on October 16, 2014 (33-MB PDF).

Presentation in St. Petersburg about the proposed Pinellas light rail (18-MB PDF)

Presentation in Austin about the proposed Austin light rail (24-MB PDF)

Presentation about light rail made to residents of St. Paul’s Daytons Bluff neighborhood on August 5, 2014, Zip file (82 MB with video) or PPT file (39 MB, no video)

Presentation about transit and transportation made to the Metro North Chamber of Commerce, Coon Rapids, Minnesota on August 6, 2014, Zip file (98 MB with video) or PPT file (15 MB, no video)

Light-Rail Transit in St. Petersburg, presentation given in St. Petersburg, April, 2012 (78 MB)

Critique of Proposed Honolulu Rail Project, presentation given in Honolulu, February, 2012 (17 MB)

Critique of Columbia River Crossing and Vancouver Light Rail, presentation in Vancouver, Washington, October, 2011 (12 MB)

Light-Rail Transit in Vancouver, Washington, presentation given in Vancouver, March, 2010 (14 MB)

Light-Rail Transit in Tampa, presentation given in Tampa, September, 2010 (26 MB)

Can Rail Transit Save Energy and Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? presentation given in Washington, DC, April, 2008 (13 MB)

Other Transportation Presentations

Presentation about transportation planning and property rights given to the Spokane Chapter of the Citizens Alliance for Property Rights on May 22, 2015 (31.2-MB Powerpoint format).

A review of a proposed transit plan and tax increase for Spokane in PowerPoint (13.5 MB) or PDF format (9.0 MB).

A presentation on autonomous vehicles, mass transit, and long-range transportation planning given on Capital Hill on October 15, 2014 (20-MB PDF).

A presentation about high-speed rail, with particular reference to the proposed “Zip Train” from Minneapolis to Rochester, given on August 8, 2014 in PDF (18 MB).

A presentation on an Indianapolis transit plan can be downloaded as a 16-MB PDF.

Ending Congestion by Refinancing Highways, presentation in Washington, DC, May, 2012 (2 MB)

The Case for Privatizing Transit, presentation given in Washington, DC, July, 2011 (40 MB)

Rails Won’t Save America, presentation on high-speed rail and rail transit given at MIT in November, 2010 (46 MB) — also download media files to get video (40 MB) — Same presentation in PDF (64 MB)

Transportation Reauthorization, presentation given in Washington, DC, September, 2009 (13 MB)

The Case Against High-Speed Rail, presentation given to the Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, June 2009 (9 MB)

Poverty Reduces Congestion

By | | News commentary, Transportation
36 Comments

The soviets had a successful policy for minimizing traffic congestion: keep people too poor to drive. Environmentalists today want to use the same policy: tax the heck out of gasoline; prevent the development of Alberta tar sands (“keep the tar sands oil in the soil” says one group); stop the development of natural gas.

The policy seems to be working. Thanks to the recession, Inrix says traffic congestion has declined in most U.S. urban areas. The worst congestion now is in Honolulu, followed closely by Los Angeles.

Inrix scores are based on actual measurements of traffic. A score of 10 means it takes an average of 10 percent more time to get anywhere in an urban area than it would take without congestion. Since that’s a 24-hour average, a score of 10 probably equals a score of 30 or 40 during rush hour–that is, rush-hour travel takes 30 or 40 percent more time than if there were no congestion. Honolulu’s 2011 score of 24 must represent a score of 50 or more during rush hour.

Continue reading →

FTA Cost-Effectiveness Rule

By | | Transportation
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As if projects such as the Honolulu rail line aren’t a big enough waste of money, Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood is seeking to change the Federal Transit Administration’s process for evaluating grant proposals for rail projects. As if to illustrate the slow and cumbersome nature of federal programs, LaHood originally proposed to revise these rules more than two years ago, and now we are only at the stage of having a first draft for public comment.

In any case, the Antiplanner submitted comments arguing that LaHood’s proposal violates the law in three ways. First, the law requires that transit agencies evaluate the cost effectiveness of transit projects by comparing them with a full range of alternatives. But the proposed rules only require that the cost effectiveness of proposed projects be compared with a “no action” alternative. If no other alternatives are considered, no one will know if a project is truly the most cost-effective way of improving transit.

Second, the law requires that projects be judged based on their ability to improve mobility and reduce congestion. Yet the proposed rules actually reward transit agencies for increasing congestion. While the existing rules require that cost effectiveness be calculated in terms of the cost of saving people’s time, including the time of auto users as well as transit riders, the new rules base cost effectiveness solely on the cost of gaining new transit riders. This means that a project that increases congestion, leading some people to ride transit to escape traffic, will actually be scored higher than one that does not increase congestion.

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Lessons for Hawai’i from Puerto Rico

By | | Transportation
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The Honolulu City Council is determined to spend billions of dollars on a ridiculous rail-transit line in Oahu. State Representative Marilyn Lee happened to visit Puerto Rico and came back gushing about that island’s new Tren Urbano in Honolulu’s leading paper.

“There are many similarities between Hawaii and Puerto Rico,” says Representative Lee. “We must proceed with our scheduled plan to build transit — our sister island state has shown it can succeed.”

San Juan’s Tren Urbano.
Wikipedia photo.

There are so many fallacies in Representative Lee’s column that it is hard to know where to begin. Needless to say, Puerto Rico is not a state. Further, Honolulu rail proponents have a nasty habitat of calling rail transit “transit,” implying that Honolulu doesn’t have mass transit because it doesn’t have rail transit.

Continue reading →

Transit Executives Rake in the Dough

By | | Transportation
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The news from California this week is that Michael Hursh, the CEO of the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit), is resigning, but the agency will continue to pay him through September as a “senior advisor.” The real news is how much he was paid: according to Transparent California, in 2022 he collected $556,045.

Former AC Transit CEO Michael Hursh and current AC Transit board member Sarah Syed. Photos by AC Transit.

Transit agencies have historically paid their executives well, but $556,000 seems like a lot even for these agencies. So I decided to do a quick survey of transit agency executive pay. First, Hursh’s resignation is worth examining in a little more detail. Continue reading →

Transit Use Shrinks to Insignificance

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Transit in 2022 carried less than 1 percent of passenger travel in 461 out of the nation’s 487 urban areas and less than half a percent of passenger travel in 426 of those urban areas. It carried more than 2 percent in only 7 urban areas and more than 3 percent in just two: New York and San Francisco-Oakland. These numbers are calculated from the 2022 National Transit Database released last October and the 2022 Highway Statistics released last month, specifically table HM-72, which has driving data by urban area.

Highways were a little less congested in 2022 than before the pandemic. Oregon Department of Transportation photo.

In 2019, transit carried 11.6 percent of motorized passenger travel in the New York urban area, a share that fell to 8.5 percent in 2022. Transit carried 6.8 percent in the San Francisco-Oakland area in 2019, which fell to 3.6 percent in 2022. Transit carried around 3.5 percent in Chicago, Honolulu, Seattle, and Washington urban areas, which fell to 2.5 percent in Honolulu, 2.1 percent in Seattle, and less than 1.8 percent in Chicago and Washington in 2022. Anchorage, Ithaca, and State College PA are the only other urban areas where transit carried more than 2 percent of travel in 2022. Continue reading →

Throwing Good Money After Bad

By | | Transportation
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The Federal Transit Administration has agreed to give Honolulu another $125 million to finish its insane rail transit line. Years ago, the FTA agreed to provide $1.55 billion for the rail line, but that was when the line was expected to cost $5.1 billion.

When projected costs exploded to $12 billion and the city proved to be an inept project manager, the FTA withheld about half of the promised money, saying that it didn’t believe the city would be able to complete the project. Now, after redesigning the system, negotiating with the FTA, and no doubt twisting some arms, the federal agency is handing over about 17 percent of the withheld funds. Continue reading →

No Amount of Money Is Too Much

By | | Transportation
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Is there any transit construction project that is so expensive that a transit agency will say, “Let’s not do this”? The Antiplanner has argued that the answer is “no”; instead, the only question agencies ask is, “Where are we going to get the money to do this?” Evidence for this view has recently come to light in San Francisco and Baltimore.

Architect’s model of the planned San Francisco transit center. Note the bottom level has commuter trains on the outer tracks and high-speed trains on the center tracks even though the prospects of high-speed rail ever reaching San Francisco are dimming every day.

Last January, I observed that the price of a 1.3-mile commuter-rail extension that San Francisco was planning had increased from $5.0 billion to $6.7 billion, or more than $5 billion a mile. I pointed out that there were several viable alternatives to spending what would be a record amount of money per mile on a transit project, including replacing the trains with buses or terminating the trains at a different location just seven minutes away. Now comes the news that the cost of the project has increased again to $8.25 billion, or more than $6.3 billion a mile. Continue reading →

Transit’s Minuscule Share of 2021 Travel

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Public transit carried 6.4 percent of 2021 motorized passenger travel in the New York urban area. It also carried 1.6 percent in Honolulu, 1.5 percent in San Francisco-Oakland, 1.4 percent in Seattle, 1.2 percent in Chicago, and 1.1 percent in Salt Lake City. In every other urban area it carried less than 1 percent; nationwide, transit carried just 0.7 percent of all motorized urban travel.

Chicago transit carried 1.2 percent, autos the other 98.8 percent of motorized passenger travel.

I calculated these numbers by comparing passenger-miles in the 2021 National Transit Database, which was released last fall, with daily vehicle miles of travel (DVMT) by urban area in table HM-72 of Highway Statistics, which was recently released by the Federal Highway Administration. To make the numbers comparable, I multiplied DVMT by 365 to get annual data and by 1.7 to account for vehicle occupancies, 1.7 being the result when dividing passenger-miles by vehicle-miles in Highway Statistics table VM-1. These numbers don’t include walking, bikes and e-bikes, or scooters, but they do include motorcycles. Continue reading →