Why Didn’t He Take a Stand on Pot?
When a president takes a stand on a highly controversial issue like gay marriage in an election year, you know he is doing it solely to motivate his base. How so? The job of the president has nothing to do with who can and cannot get married, so in announcing that he supports gay marriage, […]
Transportation Notes from All Over
The city of Detroit decided not to build a light-rail line down Woodward Avenue, so some private foundations are trying to raise the $137 million to build it instead. Are they nuts? Do they really think this is the best use of their money? In 1996, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union forced the county […]
Breaking Promises
The high-speed rail ballot measure that California voters approved in 2008 made two promises: first, that fares would cover operating costs; and second, that trains would carry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just two hours and forty minutes. The first promise will be hard to keep but no one will know for […]
Brinkmanship
Having failed to pass a reauthorization bill, Congress has only a few hours to extend the current law, which expires on Saturday. On Tuesday, however, the House failed to pass a 90-day extension to the law. On Wednesday, it failed to pass a 60-day extension to the law. Supporters of an extension are are making […]
Hiding in the Bills
One of the special-interest provisions in the transportation bill that passed the Senate a couple of weeks ago is a requirement that operators of passenger trains be licensed by the Surface Transportation Board. There is one and only one exception: Amtrak. Supposedly, this could give Amtrak an edge when it competes with other companies for […]
Crony Infrastructuralism
Last night, the Antiplanner dreamed that Apple, the company with the highest market capitalization in the world, was spending some of its $97 billion in cash on roads, bridges, and other local infrastructure. A crazy idea, I know, but then, in the dream, some politician says, “What a great idea! Let’s create some TIF and […]
FTA Questioned Honolulu Rail Boondoggle
Internal emails reveal that Federal Transit Administration officials were skeptical of Honolulu’s plan to spend $5.3 billion on a 20-mile rail transit line. City voters approved this line only after an expensive and hard-fought campaign. One FTA email accused the city of Honolulu of “lousy practices of public manipulation” and argued that the FTA should […]
Shooting Themselves in Their Feet
After fiscal conservatives successfully scuttled a House transportation bill that would have ended pork and allowed Congress to minimize deficit spending, the Senate has passed a bill that is full of pork and will practically mandate deficit spending. The good news, such as it is, is that the bill only reauthorizes federal spending for two […]
Unsafe at Any Speed
Three months ago, Washington MetroRail’s Blue and Orange lines shut down when parts fell off the braking gear of one of the railcars, damaging another car. Hundreds of riders had to evacuate and train service was delayed for hours. The disk brake that fell off the Metro railcar in December. Metro initially blamed the malfunction […]
Streetcar Dreams
A few weeks ago, the Antiplanner questioned a streetcar project in Atlanta. Now comes a response from none other than Portland Mayor Sam Adams, who says Portland’s streetcar once had detractors “were afraid that it would be too expensive and people wouldn’t ride it. We don’t hear that so much these days.” As Bojack says, […]
So Much for the Koch Brothers Controlling the Antiplanner
Apparently, the Kochs and Cato have been feuding since 1991. I have no idea what this is all about, but at least no one can say that I am in the pay of the Koch family and somehow doing their bidding.
Toronto Transit Chief Fired
In an unusual move, Toronto’s transit commission fired its chief executive, Gary Webster, because he didn’t think it was cost-effective to build an expensive subway. (Usually, transit chiefs are fired for building an expensive rail line.) Actually, Webster thought that light rail was more cost-effective than subways. But Toronto Robert Ford wanted subways. He asked […]
