Are Auto Accidents a Disease?
Somebody thinks they are. The Centers for Disease Control just released a study saying that crash-related deaths cost $41 billion a year. This smells to me like a government agency seeking more funding by jumping into an area outside of its core mission. The first thing to note about this study is that it is […]
The Wrong Measures
Late last week, with great fanfare, the Brookings Institution released a new report on “Transit and Jobs in America.” Too many people, the report found, live too far away from a transit stop, so it urged more investments in transit so that more people can use it. Data in the report itself discredited this logic. […]
LaHood Lied about Michigan HSR
When Immobility Secretary Ray LaHood gave $200 million to Michigan for high-speed rail last Monday, he claimed this grant would bring “trains up to speeds of 110 mph on a 235-mile section of the Chicago to Detroit corridor, reducing trip times by 30 minutes.” That’s a lie. In fact, the state itself says the top […]
TSA Helps Kill High-Speed Trains
One of the punchlines of President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address had to do with high-speed rail: “For some trips,” he said to “laughter and applause,” “it will be faster than flying–without the pat-down.” Now the Transportation Security Administration has announced a new policy that will eliminate this frequently used but inane argument […]
Latest High-Speed Rail Grant
Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood announced yesterday the latest–and possibly last–round of high-speed rail grants, this one from redistribution of the $2.4 billion rejected by the state of Florida. As the Antiplanner noted in March, LaHood could have given the entire $2.4 billion to California, sending a signal that the administration remains serious about building […]
Notes from All Over
The Economist published an article claiming that traffic is worse in the United States than Europe and lamenting that the U.S. was not building high-speed rail. Wendell Cox responds with a data-filled article basically showing that everything The Economist said was wrong. John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute just published Light Rail, Streetcars & […]
Building Micro-Homes in Portland
Okay, it is one thing for someone who wants to live within a block of Central Park to pay $700 a month for a 90-square-foot “apartment.” But now a major homebuilder, D.R. Horton, is building 364- to 687-square-foot micro-homes in Portland. “You can’t just keep going farther from the city and acquiring farm land,” says […]
Whitest City Gets Whiter
Portland should change its motto from “the city that works” to “the city that’s white.” Already the whitest big city in America in 2000, the city has gotten whiter still as poor people have been pushed from the inner city into the suburbs, as shown in this stunning series of maps. The Antiplanner has covered […]
Federal Transportation Subsidies
Per passenger mile, federal subsidies to Amtrak are 30 times greater than federal subsidies to airlines and 500 times greater than federal subsidies to intercity buses, according to a new study from the American Bus Association. The study also reports that federal subsidies per passenger mile to public transit are 3,200 times greater than federal […]
The Rights of Mother Earth
Here‘s a great way to bring about the collapse of civilization: declare that Mother Earth has equal rights with humans and give anyone standing to represent Mother Earth in court in challenging any activity by anyone else. In practically no time, the gears of industry would grind to a halt, agriculture would shut down, and […]
Federal Budget Outlook
Republican and Democratic responses to Standard & Poor’s negative outlook on the federal debt are so predictable they could have been scripted years ago. Democrats want to address the deficit by soaking the rich; Republicans want to cut supposedly vital programs such as Medicare and Planned Parenthood. The problem with soaking the rich, as economist […]
Mixed Messages from Fortune Magazine
On March 29, Colin Barr, a Fortune magazine financial writer, argues in a blog post that “housing prices will keep falling.” Just two weeks later, the cover story of the April 11 Fortune proclaims the “return of real estate” and says “it’s time to buy again.” They can’t both be right: either Fortune magazine is […]
