Search Results for: plan bay area

Transit Crime Rates on the Rise

By | | Policy brief, Transportation
14 Comments

After a woman died when she was shoved in front of a subway train in January, New York Mayor Eric Adams announced a major action plan aimed at reducing transit crimes. The weekend following his announcement, at least six people were stabbed on the subway system. A few days after that, a woman was robbed and her skull fractured after being struck with a hammer in a New York subway station. A few hours later, a man was stabbed in the neck at a Brooklyn subway station and someone set fire to a shopping cart in a station in the Bronx.

Click image to download a five-page PDF of this policy brief.

New York is not the only transit system to be suffering from violent crimes. Last month, a man was shot to death on the San Francisco BART system. BART had seen violent crimes more than double in the years before the pandemic, and crime numbers remained high after the pandemic began. Continue reading →

BART Outlook Grim Because Managers Dim

By | | Transportation
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The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) says that its financial outlook is “grim” and it may have to ask voters for a tax increase to keep running. As of December, BART was still carrying just 25 percent as many passengers as it carried before the pandemic.

BART spent nearly $2 million apiece on 775 of these railcars, which first went into service in 2018. In December 2020, BART halted delivery on the new cars because they were so unreliable.

In a presentation to the agency’s board of directors, staff noted that Congress had given $1.3 billion in COVID relief funds. It has used just about half of that and is burning through the rest at a rate of $25 million a month. At that rate, it has enough to keep going for about two more years. Continue reading →

America’s Rising Housing Prices

By | | Housing, Policy brief
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Now is a great time to sell a home, but a terrible time to buy one. According to the St. Louis Fed, median home prices in the United States have risen by 25 percent since the pandemic began in December 2019, which is probably more than any two-year period in history. Even after adjusting for inflation, prices in many markets are higher today than they were at the peak of the mid-2000s housing bubble.

Click image to download a five-page PDF of this policy brief.

This increase is due to a combination of labor shortages and supply-chain issues. Unlike the housing bubble, these issues are affecting all housing markets, not just those beset by anti-sprawl growth-management planning. Indeed, prices in some places without any growth management have risen more than in some places with strict growth-management regulations. Continue reading →

How Cato Sold Out California Property Owners

By | | Housing, Policy brief
32 Comments

In September, 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill abolishing single-family zoning. This bill was a victory for the Yes in Other People’s Back Yards (YIOPBY) movement, as well as for urban planners who sought to densify California urban areas, which are already the densest in the nation.

Click image to download a five-page PDF of this policy brief.

It was also a victory for the Cato Institute, which was proud of the fact that it was working hand-in-hand with left-wing groups that sought to force Californians to live in ways in which they didn’t want to live. Cato’s work was led by Michael Tanner, whose previous experience with housing issues was nearly nil. In supporting this movement, Cato and Tanner ignored everything I had written in two books and seven policy papers for Cato over the previous fourteen years. Continue reading →

Point Reyes: Cattle Grazing Yes; Oyster Farming No

By | | Public lands
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Environmental groups are suing the National Park Service’s Point Reyes National Seashore to stop a plan to kill elk (which are native to California) in order to provide more grass for cattle (which are not). Point Reyes is one of the few units of the National Park System that allow cattle grazing, and the ranchers whose cattle use the area claim that the elk are in their way.

Cattle grazing in Point Reyes National Seashore pollute streams and spread disease to native elk. Photo by John Loo.

This is the same Point Reyes that shut down an oyster farm, fabricating claims that the “oyster feces” were “smother[ing] native species” of plants, which was never proven. The reality is that oyster farmers do their best to preserve water quality as oysters themselves are highly sensitive to pollution. Despite the exposure of these fraudulent claims, then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar shut down the operation, saying that no commercial activities should be allowed in the parks. Continue reading →

Why U.S. Infrastructure Is So Expensive

By | | Policy brief, Transportation
4 Comments

Now that Congress has passed an infrastructure bill, major media outlets are beginning to ask questions about how the money will be spent. Using the Honolulu rail project as an example, the New York Times wants to know why so many infrastructure projects suffer from such large cost overruns. Bloomberg asks similar questions using Boston’s Green Line extension as an example.

Click image to download a four-page PDF of this policy brief.

The Eno Transportation Foundation and Manhattan Institute wonder why projects cost more than in other countries even before the cost overruns. These are all good questions that should have been asked before the bill was passed. Continue reading →

Thieves Continue to Raid Container Trains

By | | Follow up
8 Comments

In the San Francisco Bay Area, flash mobs are raiding everything from Home Depots to Louis Vuitton. But in Los Angeles, as I noted here four weeks ago, thieves only have to break into containers on board stalled railroad trains.

NBC-LA news has not only documented that thieves are still breaking into containers on Union Pacific trains, it captured video of them doing it. It also contacted some of the intended recipients of the now-empty boxes to let them know why their packages were late. Continue reading →

Mobility Principles for a Prosperous World

By | | Policy brief, Transportation
3 Comments

Four years ago, Zipcar co-founder Robin Chase wrote, or led the effort to write, ten principles of shared mobility for livable cities. Despite a patina of social justice and green values, these principles were a transparent effort to give her company and companies like hers a huge economic advantage by limiting and eventually forbidding the use of privately owned vehicles in cities.

Click image to download a five-page PDF of this policy brief.

Recently, someone asked me for my response to these principles. While my reply is on page 5 of the PDF, my main response is to offer my own mobility principles. These principles apply to urban and rural areas, to the United States and other countries, and to all forms of transportation. I’ve previously stated most of these principles in various Antiplanner posts, but this one brings them together. Continue reading →

The Morality of Protecting Endangered Species

By | | Fish & wildlife, Policy brief
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Since the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, around 1,750 plants and animals in the United States have been listed as endangered (meaning in immediate danger of extinction) or threatened (meaning likely to become endangered soon). Of those, 48, or less than 3 percent, have been taken off the lists because they have recovered. That’s not an inspiring success story, particularly since some of those species recovered due to actions that have nothing to do with the Endangered Species Act.

Click image to download a five-page PDF of this policy brief.

In addition to the 48 recovered species, another 10 listed species have been declared extinct. Two weeks ago, the Fish & Wildlife Service announced that it wants to declare another 23 species, including the ivory-billed woodpecker, to be extinct. Continue reading →

National Obsolete Transportation Month

By | | Policy brief, Transportation
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From San Francisco to North Carolina, transit agencies have declared September to be “Transit Month.” “This month is all about celebrating the vital role of public transit for our communities,” says one transit agency, which means “getting elected leaders to make transit a priority issue.”

Click image to download a PDF of this four-page policy brief.

From a transportation viewpoint, agencies don’t have much to celebrate this year. Cities have proven they can get along quite well without transit. With more than half of all American employees working at home at the beginning of this year, roads are less congested so people who continue to work outside of their homes can more easily drive to work. While driving recovered to 100 percent of pre-pandemic levels by June 2021, transit remained stuck at 50 percent in June and July. Continue reading →