A Competitive Model for Public Airport Privatization
Working Paper 18-01 (August 2018) Author: Gregory N. Golyansky DOWNLOAD WORKING PAPER IN PDF Executive Summary: The airline deregulation of 1978 has created a dynamic and competitive environment for air- travel in America. Lower prices, wider service choices and new destinations have transformed civil aviation from a country club for only the privileged to those […]
Congress should approve Trump’s effort to stop funding local transit boondoggles
by Randal O’Toole President Trump has proposed to stop funding new New Starts projects. New Starts, along with its subsidiary program Small Starts, is a multi-billion-dollar fund created by Congress, and funneled through the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), that gives cities incentives to build the most expensive transit systems possible so they can get “their […]
Colorado transit doesn’t need state funding
The misleading data are part of a report by a Boulder group known as the South West Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP), which is urging the state legislature to spend more money on transit.
Transportation planners show ignorance, anti-auto bias over self-driving cars
What if people place a high priority on mobility to a lot of different destinations, not just ones they can reach on foot or transit?
Denver transit-oriented developments reflect planners’ misguided mania for density
Over the past decade, three-, four-, and five-story apartment buildings have been built in the Denver area, especially along the routes of current and planned rail transit lines. These apartments, known as transit-oriented developments or TODs, are a part of the original FasTracks plan: first, build rail lines that don’t go where people want to […]
Why rapid-buses are preferable to rail transit
Transit agencies from Baltimore to San Diego and from Seattle to St. Petersburg are planning new light-rail lines. Yet light-rail is not only vastly more expensive than buses, it is slower, less comfortable, less convenient and has lower capacities than a well-designed rapid-bus system. Being expensive to build, light-rail can only reach parts of a […]
Diminishing returns: time to end public transit subsidies
Rail advocates often call me “anti-transit,” probably because it is easier to call people names than to answer rational arguments. I’ve always responded that I’m just against wasteful transit. But looking at the finances and ridership of transit systems around the country, it’s hard not to conclude that all government transit is wasteful transit.
Driverless cars improve mobility while mandatory V2I invades privacy
President Obama recently gave a speech in Virginia calling for mandatory installation of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications in all cars. By coincidence, last week the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International held its annual symposium on autonomous (that is, driverless) cars in California.
Congress shouldn’t be running the transportation system
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has proposed a three-month transportation bill. Three more months, he says, will give Congress a chance to figure out a long-term solution. The only problem is that Congress had three months three months ago and did nothing. Meanwhile, Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., have proposed to increase gas […]
How Congress can avoid the “transportation cliff”
President Obama’s recent visit to the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York was intended to push Congress to approve billions of dollars in infrastructure spending increases. But throwing more money at transit just puts more cash into the hands of government contractors, while doing little for commuters. The federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to […]
Obama’s transportation plan is fiscal fantasy
by Randal O’Toole President Obama’s latest transportation “vision” is as unrealistic as California Governor Brown’s plan to pay for high-speed rail with cap-and-trade revenues. Obama proposes that Congress spend $302 billion on surface transportation over the next four years, or $75.5 billion a year. This is nearly $25 billion more per year than Congress is […]
Without tolls, HWY 36 expansion wouldn’t happen
by Peter Blake You could hardly buy an environmental impact statement today for the $6.3 million the Colorado Highway Department spent on the land, labor, bulldozers, concrete, rebars and bridges needed for the original Denver-Boulder Turnpike more than 60 years ago. Not that they needed EIS paper shufflers then. But the obvious question is: Why […]
