Transportation

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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Honolulu Showdown 0
- August 30, 2011
The Antiplanner is at a conference this week so postings will be light. In the meantime, readers might want to discuss this editorial against the Honolulu rail project, which it says “would change the landscape in ways many are unwilling to accept.” Only subscribers can read more than the first couple of paragraphs, but Honolulu […]
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The Myth That Will Not Die 0
- August 25, 2011
Transportation planning today suffers from several common fallacies, including the myth of the great streetcar conspiracy and the notion that we should spend billions of dollars on obsolete forms of transportation to give people “choices.” But the most troublesome myth is the notion of induced-demand, that is, that new roads will automatically become fully congested […]
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Why Conservatives Hate Trains 0
- August 24, 2011
Debates over high-speed rail and federal transit funding have inspired a number of writers asking why conservatives hate passenger trains. Most of them get it wrong. The real answer is: they don’t. They just hate subsidies, at least if they are fiscal conservatives (as opposed to social conservatives like the late Paul Weyrich). Case in […]
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World Boondoggle Center 0
- August 22, 2011
The World Trade Center that was destroyed almost ten years ago was a frequently photographed symbol of New York City, but it was also a huge boondoggle of the New York & New Jersey Port Authority that was heavily subsidized by motorists paying bridge tolls. So of course, it is completely appropriate that the building […]
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Build Trains = Raise Fares + Cut Bus Service 0
- August 19, 2011
Denver’s Regional Transit District (RTD) says it will have to raise fares and cut service due to higher-than-expected operating costs and lower-than-expected revenues. I am sure this has nothing to do with cost overruns for RTD’s rail lines that are under construction, right? Because operating and construction funds come from two entirely different sources, right? […]
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