Driverless Nevada, Here We Come!
The Nevada legislature has passed a law allowing driverless cars in the Silver State. The law directs the state’s Department of Transportation to “adopt regulations authorizing the operation of autonomous vehicles.” Meanwhile, Volkswagen has announced that it has developed a car that incorporates a “temporary auto pilot” (TAP) that can drive at up to 80 […]
Commuter Rail 1, Archeological Heritage 0
Utah is so intent on building rail transit that it is willing to cook the books and systematically overestimate ridership in order to support its ridiculously expensive rail projects. One commuter-rail line, for example, is expected to attract a 6,100 new transit riders a day, or 3,050 new round trips, for a mere $612 million. […]
Why Rail?
After nearly 50 percent cost overruns, eighteen months of delays, and a scandal that cost top transit agency officials their jobs, Norfolk, Virginia plans to open its first light-rail line for business in August, 2011. This fabulous 7.4-mil line expected to carry an average of 2,900 riders per day in its first year, increasing to […]
Damn the Deficits! Full Speed Ahead!
Washington Metro doesn’t have enough money to maintain its rail system, and the region doesn’t have enough money to build the Silver line to Dulles Airport, which is already under construction. So what should the region do? Plan more rail lines, of course! Because, when it comes to rail transit, no amount of money is […]
NC Says No More High-Speed Rail
The North Carolina legislature has forbidden the state’s transportation department from applying for more high-speed rail funds from the federal government. Before the department can apply for any grants that would obligate the state to pay $5 million or more in operating costs–which any high-speed rail project would do–it must receive approval from the state […]
The Myth of the Senior Transit Rider
According to Transportation for America–which is largely a shill for the transit and high-speed rail industry–the nation about to face a new crisis: a shortage of mobility “options” for retiring baby boomers. According to a report published by the group on June 14, “By 2015, more than 15.5 million Americans 65 and older will live […]
Do What First?
The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that commuters wasted $115 billion sitting in traffic in 2009–up from just $24 billion in 1982. But Smart Growth America is still promoting its idiotic “fix-it first” policy. Federal Highway Administration data show that the number of bridges that are “structurally deficient” has steadily declined from 79,000 in 1992 to […]
Cars: Necessity or Luxury?
Some people are chortling over a recent Pew survey that finds the share of Americans who think that cars are a “necessity” is the lowest since pollsters started asking the question in 1973. Perhaps, some are suggesting, that’s because young people aren’t driving as much as older Americans, so we shouldn’t invest much more in […]
Bullets in a Railway Heart
This “news” is a couple of months old, but Caixin Weekly, a Chinese business magazine, has published an extremely critical article about that country’s high-speed rail program. This report probably inspired similar but shorter articles in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
Driving Alone without a Vehicle
According to census data, about 4 percent of American workers–5.9 million–live in households that have no automobiles. Conventional wisdom suggests that these are people who are either too poor to own a vehicle, and we should pity them; or people who for environmental or other reasons have learned to live without a vehicle, and we […]
State of the Subways
About thirty years ago, the Antiplanner’s first visited the East Coast, traveling there by Amtrak and riding rail transit lines in as many cities as possible. The Washington DC subway looked like a set from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, with gleaming trains quietly zooming into and out of clean stations that mostly featured high arch ceilings. […]
Finally: The Truth About High-Speed Rail
“OF ALL the high-speed train services around the world, only one really makes economic sense,” The Economist observed last week, that one being the Tokyo-to-Osaka route. “All the other Shinkansen routes in Japan lose cart-loads of cash, as high-speed trains do elsewhere in the world. Only indirect subsidies, creative accounting, political patronage and national chest-thumping […]
