Virginia Light Rail Woes
The city manager for Norfolk, Virginia, has been forced to resign due to allegations that she knew about light rail cost overruns but failed to inform the city council. The senior vice president for development of Norfolk’s transit agency, Hampton Roads Transit, has also quit in response to allegations that her mismanagement led to the […]
Save the States by Eliminating Urban Renewal
One of Jerry Brown’s first acts after taking office as California’s new/old governor was to propose to eliminate the state’s 425 urban redevelopment agencies. These agencies spend more than $5 billion a year on urban renewal subsidies that are largely unnecessary, and Brown hopes he can somehow tap into that money to help the state […]
Norfolk Light Rail Scandal
When the light-rail line in Norfolk, Virginia, went nearly 50 percent over its projected cost, the general manager of Hampton Roads Transit resigned in disgrace–but they gave him $300,000 in severance pay. Now documents have come to light that agency officials knew the line was going to cost more than their published projections but kept […]
FAA Bill Postponed for 17th Time
Last week, the House decisively postponed reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, something it has already done 16 times since reauthorization was scheduled to take place in 2007. At stake is the future of America’s airline network, which is beholden to the federal government to maintain and update an antiquated air traffic control system. Flickr […]
High-Speed Rail = Low-Quality Planning
High-speed rail advocates are psychotic, says the Boyd Group, an aviation planning firm. Psychotics, notes the company blog, suffer from “confusion, disorganized thought and speech, mania, delusions, and a loss of touch with reality”–all of which describe rail nuts. “If you really want to see psychosis,” adds the Boyd Group, “log on to the DOT’s […]
LaHood Redistributes High-Speed Rail Funds
Rather than fight the plans of governors-elect Kasich and Walker to cancel high-speed trains in Ohio and Wisconsin, Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood has preempted them by redistributing the $1.2 billion in federal rail grants to those states. Not surprisingly, most of the money is going to to California ($624 million) and Florida ($342 million). […]
Are Earmarks Necessary?
Represenative Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota, is against earmarks. But not when it comes to transportation. “Advocating for transportation projects for ones district in my mind does not equate to an earmark.” Georgia Republican Representative Jack Kingston agrees. “How do you handle [transportation] without earmarks, since that’s a heavily earmarked bill?” he says. I […]
What He Said
Economic journalist Robert Samuelson has a brilliant piece about the inadequacy of the deficit-reduction plan from the Bowles-Simpson Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Commission. It’s not enough to merely trim budgets, says Samuelson. We need a “new public philosophy,” one that rejects the idea that people are entitled to federal subsidies for everything from mass transit […]
More Overbudget Rail Projects
The planned Honolulu rail line is likely to go at least 30 percent over its projected costs, and ridership is likely to be 30 percent less than forecast, according to a new report commissioned and released by Hawaii’s governor. The report cost $350,000, which means it commands more respect than if one of the Antiplanner’s […]
CHSRA Chair: “Our Engineers Are Incompetent”
The California High-Speed Rail Authority approved the Train to Nowhere, a plan to build the first leg of the high-speed rail line from a small town to no town. I suppose you have to start somewhere, but given the likelihood that the state won’t get any more federal funds, this seems like an exercise in […]
Gold-Plated High-Speed Rail
Recently, someone asked the Antiplanner why Amtrak’s high-speed rail plan is so expensive. They were referring to a proposal published in late October to increase speeds in Amtrak’s Boston-to-Washington corridor to 220 mph. The plan calls for spending $117 billion in the 427-mile corridor, for an average cost of nearly $275 million per mile. That’s […]
Fast Train to Nowhere
The federal government’s most recent $900 million grant to the California High-Speed Rail Authority came with a string attached: most of the money had to be spent, not in Los Angeles or San Francisco where most potential rail patrons are located, but in the central valley. Handed out just before the election, the grant was […]
