High-Speed Fail, v. 2.0
Ninety-eight point five billions dollars. That’s the new cost of California’s high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, according to a business plan released yesterday by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. At least, that’s the cost reported (a half day in advance of the plan’s release) by the Los Angeles Times. The reason […]
Republicans Caving on Reauthorization
It would seem like Republicans hold all the cards in the debate over transportation reauthorization. It seems most likely that they will gain seats in both House and Senate next fall if not capture the Senate majority. House Republicans have said they want to spend no more money than is flowing into the Highway Trust […]
LaHood Looks Forward to “Wonderful Opportunities”
Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood announced recently that he plans to step down from his post at the end of President Obama’s first term and that he is looking forward to some “wonderful opportunities” in the private sector. This naturally raises the question of what kind of opportunities await a bumbling has-been who betrayed his […]
Getting Priorities Straight
Facing a $12 million to $17 million budget shortfall next year, Portland’s TriMet transit agency is cutting bus service for lack of funds. But it has enough funds to spend $250,000 on a giant sculpture of a deer with a baby face. The agency has already cut bus service by 13 percent and light-rail service […]
RIP Bill Niskanen
The Antiplanner was saddened to hear that William Niskanen, who for more than two decades chaired the board of the Cato Institute, died yesterday morning after suffering a stroke Tuesday night. Niskanen was a tenured professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1975 when he took a job as chief economist […]
Department of Irony
Officials from Aurora, Colorado are in a tizzy because someone conducted some focus groups to see what taxpayers thought of a $300 million subsidy to a proposed hotel. Such focus groups “violate the ethics code for economic development organizations in the region,” said Tom Clark, the executive vice-president of Denver’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Apparently, […]
Donor States? Recipient States?
Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation uses 2009 data to show that more than half the states send more gas taxes to the Treasury than they get back in federal transportation dollars. But the GAO uses 2005 through 2009 data to argue that, in fact, all the states have gotten back more than their residents […]
Then Why Did They Vote for It in the First Place?
A new poll finds that, if high-speed rail were on the ballot today, 62 percent of California voters would vote against it. The complete poll report also indicates that 63 percent of Californians say they would never ride it if it were built. The poll asked people about their state funding priorities. The top priorities […]
Music City Star Continues to Bilk Taxpayers
Nashville’s commuter train, the Music City Star, is “really taking off,” at least according to an op ed in the Tennessean written by the transit agency CEO, Paul Ballard. Actually, the best that can be said for the train is that Ballard hasn’t been fired over it yet. The Music City Ripoff. Starting the commuter […]
Blame the Insurance Company
Here’s a tip for transit agencies: Buy insurance guaranteeing ridership revenue so that, when you screw up and ridership declines, you can sue the insurance company to cover the revenue losses. That’s what Washington MetroRail has done in response to ridershop losses that it claims resulted from the 2009 accident that killed 9 people. According […]
Triple-A Sues PATH
The American Automobile Association is suing the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (PATH) for raising bridge tolls. AAA doesn’t oppose tolls, but it does oppose tolls whose revenues won’t be spent on activities that have a “functional relationship to transportation.” Since these bridge tolls will be used to subsidize the new World […]
DC Congestion the Worst
The Texas Transportation Institute has published its 2011 urban mobility report, and this year it is based on real measurements of actual congestion rather than formulas. According to the report, in 2010 the nation’s worst congestion was in Washington, DC, where the average commuter wastes 74 hours a year sitting in traffic compared with only […]
