News commentary

The China Mystique Breaks Down 0
- July 25, 2011
At least 35 people killed in a Chinese high-speed rail crash–caused by lightning? This doesn’t make any sense at all. Electric rail technology is more than a hundred years old; how could China’s trains not be safeguarded against this common phenomenon? Plus, the second train ran into the first train simply because the first train […]
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Obamacare Pseudoscience 0
- July 21, 2011
Last week, the Antiplanner noted in passing a study that found that making people live in “walkable neighborhood” won’t make them any healthier. Since then the Antiplanner has encountered another research paper that found that “the effects of density and block size on total walking and physical activity are modest to non-existent, if not contrapositive.” […]
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Mica’s Retort to U.S. C. of C.0
- July 15, 2011
In recent months, the Antiplanner has wondered if Representative John Mica, chair of the House Transportation Committee, would act as a true fiscal conservative or revert to his old ways of pork barreling for his state and district. The reauthorization proposal he made last week provides one answer; another can be found in his response […]
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1.389 Million Lies about Mica Plan 0
- July 11, 2011
The responses to Representative John Mica’s plan to reduce transportation spending to affordable levels are shrill and bombastic. “1.4 million infrastructure jobs lost due to republican transportation budget short sightedness” claims a Florida newspaper. It’s the “road to ruin” says Oregon Representative (and ranking minority member on the Highways and Transit Subcommittee) Peter Defazio. Many […]
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Mica Would Cut Transport Funds by 30%0
- July 8, 2011
Fiscal austerity is the theme of House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica’s long-awaited proposal for reauthorizing federal surface transportation funding, which he released Thursday. Unlike the 2005 reauthorization and President Obama’s proposed reauthorization, Mica’s proposal, which is supported by other Republican subcommittee chairs but has been blasted by Democrats, calls for spending no […]
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Florida Governor OKs SunRail 0
- July 5, 2011
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 […]
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