Central Planning Gone Wild
In 1957, Nikita Khrushchev bragged that the Soviet Union would overtake the United States in production of steel and other important products within 15 years. Not to be outdone, Mao Zedong immediately decided that China’s own steel industry would overtake Britain’s–then the world’s second-leading manufacturing country (14). Thus began the Great Leap Forward, one of […]
Is the U.N. Taking Over America?
At a recent meeting about Oregon’s land-use planning system, someone asked how much Agenda 21 has influenced Oregon’s laws and rules. The answer the Antiplanner gave was a big, fat zero. Agenda 21, after all, was written in 1992, while Oregon’s legislature passed the state’s land-use law in 1973. The most radical conception of that […]
Dispelling the Myth of "Clean" Green Energy
By Michael Sandoval Clean Water Action’s Gary Wockner plays the card in his Denver Post guest editorial that is usually intended to end any debate between advocates of renewable energy technology and those in favor of continuing the exploration of fossil fuel resources–“What are the environmental impacts?” Typically, readers are treated to some sort of […]
Fast Spending on FasTracks
The projected cost of the Denver-to-Longmont, or Northwest, rail line–one of six approved by Denver-area voters in 2004–has risen from the 2004 estimate of $462 million to $1.4 billion. For all that money, RTD won’t even get to own the rail line, but will merely rent it from BNSF. Moveover, most of the route from […]
Moving in for the Kill–or to Be Fleeced?
The Voice of Orange County reports that opponents of California’s high-speed rail boondoggle are “moving in for the kill.” But the article presents no clear path for killing the train to nowhere. While there are lawsuits, opponents in Congress, and critics in the state Legislative Analyst’s Office, the final decision will be made by the […]
Driverless Cars Take Off
Self-driving cars will transform mobility, says Sebastian Thrun, the engineer who led the development of the Volkswagen and Google self-driving cars. The fact that Thrun’s article is featured in the New York Times constitutes a major endorsement from America’s “newspaper of record.” This is the only major endorsement for driverless cars as represented by Thrun. […]
Remember When Transit Used to Be Efficient?
Arlington County, Virginia wants to spend $261 million building a streetcar line that, just four years ago, was expected to cost $100 million less. The streetcar’s costs are now expected to average $50 million a mile. That’s quite literally insane. When San Diego built the first modern light-rail line, which opened in 1981, it cost […]
Forthcoming Book: American Nightmare
The American dream of families owning their own homes has become a victim of class warfare, with the middle class attempting to suppress homeownership among the working class and other people they view as undesirable neighbors. That, at least, is one of the major themes of American Nightmare: How Government Undermines the Dream of Home […]
If You Don’t Like the Data, Attack the Messenger
California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office announced this week that the state is about to waste $6 billion or more starting construction on a high-speed rail line that will never be completed. “The availability of funding to complete a usable segment is highly uncertain,” said the report, to which the Antiplanner responds, “Duh!” Yet some people aren’t […]
Remember When “Transit” Meant “Transportation”?
Portland’s TriMet transit agency is spending more than $370,000 to install solar panels on a downtown building. This will initially save the agency less than $3,700 a year, and even if the savings increase over time, when interest is counted there will be something close to a 100-year payback period. Someone comments on the above […]
Detroit Light Rail
Detroit’s plan to spend $550 million building a nine-mile light-rail line on Woodward Avenue would be laughable if it weren’t wasting so much money that could actually do something useful if spent on something else. Detroit leaders have convinced themselves that light rail is world-class transportation, that it will be the lynchpin of Detroit’s recovery, […]
A Recipe for Decline
Thanks to high housing prices and a poor economy (which is also partly due to high housing prices), more Americans are leaving California than are moving to the state. In the last decade, 1.5 million more people moved out than moved in from other states, and the poor economy is also reducing foreign immigration, leaving […]
