News commentary

High-Speed Rail Is Still Dead (and Let’s Keep It That Way)0
- September 23, 2011
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to spend a token $100 million on high-speed rail after its own transportation subcommittee had zeroed out funding for the program. The purpose, said a rail advocate with US PIRG, is “to keep things on life support until Congress comes to its senses.” The only way Congress will “come to […]
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Another LRT Exceeds Minimalist Expectations 0
- September 19, 2011
Norfolk Virginia finally opened its light-rail line, and ridership “exceeds expectations” at 5,600 riders a day. Considering they run 212 trains a weekday, that’s just over 26 passengers per train. How many 40-passenger buses would have been needed to handle all that traffic? Of course, the rail line exceeded expectations in many other ways as […]
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Can Buses Compete with Planes?0
- September 14, 2011
The House of Representatives agreed to extend reauthorization for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for four months and for surface transportation for six months. That’s not as long as the two years the Senate wanted for surface transportation, but apparently House Republicans weren’t ready to give up the gas tax (which would otherwise have expired […]
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Louisville Bridge Is Falling Down?0
- September 13, 2011
The Interstate 65 bridge across the Ohio River was closed after inspectors found “two cracks in a load-bearing structure of the bridge.” Naturally, this has generated huge traffic jams, as many people in southern Indiana use the bridge to commute to Louisville and the six-lane bridge carries 60,000 to 90,000 vehicles a day. Flickr photo […]
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What’s the Opposite of a “Clean Extension”?0
- September 2, 2011
While the Antiplanner was in Montana, President Obama asked Congress to pass a “clean extension” of the surface transportation laws. By this, he meant that Congress should continue spending money like a drunken sailor the way it has been spending it for the past several years (more specifically, spending it faster than it has been […]
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Another Bad Idea 0
- August 31, 2011
Someone named Marc Fasteau urges the United States to adopt an industrial policy. Because, after all, it worked so well in Japan (two lost decades of nearly zero economic growth), China (rapid growth but rampant corruption), and Germany (which has fined one of its biggest manufacturers more than $1.5 billion for bribing local officials to […]
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