Colorado Amendment 63: Freedom Is Too "Haphazard" for Bell Policy Center
In a recent Denver Post op-ed, Bob Semro of the Bell Policy Center writes that Amendment 63 would “move Colorado to a less protected, more haphazard health care system where people pay directly for services rather than having health insurance.” What Bob Semro called “haphazard” is really personal freedom. The freedom to pay for medical […]
Report from Japan
On Monday, the Antiplanner rode a high-speed train from Tokyo to Nagano, probably the most expensive high-speed rail route in the world. According to one source, it cost more than half a billion dollars per mile in 1997 dollars, no doubt because much of the route is in tunnels. The train I was on was […]
How to Fool Transit Riders
Recently, FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff told transit managers, “you can entice even diehard rail riders onto a bus, if you call it a ‘special’ bus and just paint it a different color than the rest of the fleet.” Eugene, Oregon’s Lane Transit District (LTD) proved this with its EMX bus-rapid transit line. When this line […]
Report from Seoul
Even smart-growth planners believe, or say they believe, that Le Corbusier‘s Radiant City would be an awful place to live. If you agree, then Seoul is a scary place, as much of it consists of hundreds of high-rise apartment blocks. Seoul occupies less than 2 percent of Korea’s land area but contains 40 percent of […]
Amendment 63 Protects Right to Spend Money on Your Own Medical Care
by Linda Gorman, Ph.D. Passing Amendment 63 in November would ensure that you will have the right to use your own money to pay for the medical care that you think you need. If you live in Colorado you need this protection, and you need it now. Colorado’s health agencies plan to control your health […]
Amendment 63 Protects Right to Spend Own Money on Medical Care
By Linda Gorman, PhD Passing Amendment 63 in November would ensure that you will have the right to use your own money to pay for the medical care that you think you need. If you live in Colorado you need this protection, and you need it now. Colorado’s health agencies plan to control your health […]
Why Colorado Should Shift to a Defined Contribution Retiree Health Plan
By Barry W. Poulson, Ph.D. Colorado taxpayers are on the hook for more than $1 billion in unfunded liabilities incurred in the defined benefit retiree health plan administered by the Public Employee Retirement Association (PERA). An additional $79 million in unfunded liabilities was incurred in 2008, reflecting both a rapid growth in retiree benefits and […]
Flying to Seoul Today
The Antiplanner is flying to Seoul, Korea, today to speak at a conference tomorrow (Thursday local time) on conflict management and collaborative governance. Apparently, someone heard about the Forest Options Group, a committee of environmentalists, timber industry leaders, and Forest Service officials that I helped organize in the late 1990s. The group urged the Forest […]
Los Angeles Rip Off
In 2008, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa promised voters that extending the city’s Red Line subway would relieve congestion. Voters believed him and supported a sales tax increase to build the line. Now the environmental impact report finds that the subway line will increase rush-hour traffic speeds on parallel streets by, at most, 0.3 mph (p. […]
Notes from Orlando
PowerPoint shows from the 2010 Preserving the American Dream conference are posted on the American Dream Coalition web site. Here are a few interesting comments made at the conference. “The U.S. Department of Transportation was created on April Fools Day, 1967. Today, it produces a product (mobility) that it doesn’t understand and doesn’t care much […]
Back in the Air Again
The Antiplanner is flying to Orlando today for the eighth annual Preserving the American Dream conference. I’ll also be traveling for the following two weeks through October 7. Postings during this time may be light, especially if I can’t find good internet connections.
Another Rail Project Goes Overbudget
With phase 1 already under construction, planners now say that phase 2 of Washington’s Dulles Airport rail line will cost almost 50 percent more than previously projected. Of course, the bus-rapid transit project that most people wanted could be running today at a fraction of the cost. One way to save money, planners say, would […]
