Senate Reauthorization Proposal
Bipartisan leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee have reached an agreement on a broad outline for surface transportation reauthorization. This agreement includes: Fund programs at current levels to maintain and modernize our critical transportation infrastructure; Eliminate earmarks; Consolidate numerous programs to focus resources on key national goals and reduce duplicative and wasteful […]
California HSR Fading Fast
You know you are in trouble when a liberal bastion such as the Washington Post questions your big-government program. So last week’s editorial questioning the California High-Speed Rail Authority for being “bound and determined to start building the railroad before its long-term funding is clear” should be one more sign that the rail project is […]
Top Down or Bottom Up?
America’s transportation system needs more centralized, top-down planning. At least, that’s what the Brookings Institution’s Robert Puentes advocates in a 2,350-word article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. If that seems like an unlikely message from America’s leading business daily, perhaps it is because Puentes couched it in terms such as “spending money wisely,” solving congestion, […]
When Is a Fee a Tax?
Years ago, Oregon voters approved a ballot measure that required a vote of the people before any local increase in taxes or user fees. As the Antiplanner supports user fees as a way of improving government efficiency, I asked one of the measure’s authors why he included user fees in the measure. “You know if […]
Driverless Cars vs. High-Speed Rail
The Los Angeles Times says the California high-speed rail project “is a train wreck” that has become “a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works.” But the newspaper still favors “Obama’s inspiring vision of a nation crisscrossed by bullet trains, providing cleaner, safer and cheaper competition […]
The Wrong Measures
Late last week, with great fanfare, the Brookings Institution released a new report on “Transit and Jobs in America.” Too many people, the report found, live too far away from a transit stop, so it urged more investments in transit so that more people can use it. Data in the report itself discredited this logic. […]
LaHood Lied about Michigan HSR
When Immobility Secretary Ray LaHood gave $200 million to Michigan for high-speed rail last Monday, he claimed this grant would bring “trains up to speeds of 110 mph on a 235-mile section of the Chicago to Detroit corridor, reducing trip times by 30 minutes.” That’s a lie. In fact, the state itself says the top […]
TSA Helps Kill High-Speed Trains
One of the punchlines of President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address had to do with high-speed rail: “For some trips,” he said to “laughter and applause,” “it will be faster than flying–without the pat-down.” Now the Transportation Security Administration has announced a new policy that will eliminate this frequently used but inane argument […]
Latest High-Speed Rail Grant
Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood announced yesterday the latest–and possibly last–round of high-speed rail grants, this one from redistribution of the $2.4 billion rejected by the state of Florida. As the Antiplanner noted in March, LaHood could have given the entire $2.4 billion to California, sending a signal that the administration remains serious about building […]
Obama’s Reauthorization Proposal
Over the next six years, the Obama administration proposes to spend $253 billion on highways; $119 billion on mass transit; $53 billion on “high-performance” passenger trains; $28 billion on “livability”; and $25 billion on an infrastructure bank. At least, those are the numbers that can be found in a copy of an undated bill representing […]
Transit Energy Efficiency
A new report from Florida’s National Center for Transit Research looks at how transit can save energy. The report’s lead author, Steve Polzin, has been mentioned here before. Some of the findings are more surprising than others. Transit uses about the same amount of energy as driving, the report finds, and transit in most places […]
Federal Transportation Subsidies
Per passenger mile, federal subsidies to Amtrak are 30 times greater than federal subsidies to airlines and 500 times greater than federal subsidies to intercity buses, according to a new study from the American Bus Association. The study also reports that federal subsidies per passenger mile to public transit are 3,200 times greater than federal […]
