Florida Governor OKs SunRail
In what could be an ominous decision for the future of federal transportation funding, Florida Governor Rick Scott got out of the way of SunRail, a costly commuter-rail project in Orlando. While his Tea Party supporters strongly opposed the project, Scott said that he didn’t have the authority to kill the project. As reported in […]
Driverless Nevada, Here We Come!
The Nevada legislature has passed a law allowing driverless cars in the Silver State. The law directs the state’s Department of Transportation to “adopt regulations authorizing the operation of autonomous vehicles.” Meanwhile, Volkswagen has announced that it has developed a car that incorporates a “temporary auto pilot” (TAP) that can drive at up to 80 […]
Commuter Rail 1, Archeological Heritage 0
Utah is so intent on building rail transit that it is willing to cook the books and systematically overestimate ridership in order to support its ridiculously expensive rail projects. One commuter-rail line, for example, is expected to attract a 6,100 new transit riders a day, or 3,050 new round trips, for a mere $612 million. […]
Why Rail?
After nearly 50 percent cost overruns, eighteen months of delays, and a scandal that cost top transit agency officials their jobs, Norfolk, Virginia plans to open its first light-rail line for business in August, 2011. This fabulous 7.4-mil line expected to carry an average of 2,900 riders per day in its first year, increasing to […]
NC Says No More High-Speed Rail
The North Carolina legislature has forbidden the state’s transportation department from applying for more high-speed rail funds from the federal government. Before the department can apply for any grants that would obligate the state to pay $5 million or more in operating costs–which any high-speed rail project would do–it must receive approval from the state […]
California Almost Eliminates TIF Agencies
As a part of the annual budget package, the California legislature approved a bill that would have required city and county redevelopment agencies to either shut down or start making large payments to local school districts. However, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the budget package, saying it doesn’t go far enough in closing the state’s budget […]
Do What First?
The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that commuters wasted $115 billion sitting in traffic in 2009–up from just $24 billion in 1982. But Smart Growth America is still promoting its idiotic “fix-it first” policy. Federal Highway Administration data show that the number of bridges that are “structurally deficient” has steadily declined from 79,000 in 1992 to […]
A Parking Garage Even (Some) New Urbanists Can Love
Architects, even New Urbanist architects, seem to love a parking garage recently built in Miami. In the video below, Andres Duany–the Antiplanner’s favorite New Urban architect–praises the garage as being as “beautifully designed a place as any piazza.” In fact, Duany adds, “it is a piazza; it’s a public square in the air” where you […]
State of the Subways
About thirty years ago, the Antiplanner’s first visited the East Coast, traveling there by Amtrak and riding rail transit lines in as many cities as possible. The Washington DC subway looked like a set from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, with gleaming trains quietly zooming into and out of clean stations that mostly featured high arch ceilings. […]
Finally: The Truth About High-Speed Rail
“OF ALL the high-speed train services around the world, only one really makes economic sense,” The Economist observed last week, that one being the Tokyo-to-Osaka route. “All the other Shinkansen routes in Japan lose cart-loads of cash, as high-speed trains do elsewhere in the world. Only indirect subsidies, creative accounting, political patronage and national chest-thumping […]
Senate Reauthorization Proposal
Bipartisan leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee have reached an agreement on a broad outline for surface transportation reauthorization. This agreement includes: Fund programs at current levels to maintain and modernize our critical transportation infrastructure; Eliminate earmarks; Consolidate numerous programs to focus resources on key national goals and reduce duplicative and wasteful […]
When Is a Fee a Tax?
Years ago, Oregon voters approved a ballot measure that required a vote of the people before any local increase in taxes or user fees. As the Antiplanner supports user fees as a way of improving government efficiency, I asked one of the measure’s authors why he included user fees in the measure. “You know if […]
