How Does Amtrak Determine Fares?
A transit advocate who calls himself Captain Transit asks, “How can Amtrak charge so much for the Northeast Corridor?” His answer, which he claims to have arrived at with the Antiplanner’s assistance, is that buses carry the low-income passengers in this corridor, so Amtrak can get away with charging first-class rates for high-end passengers. That’s […]
Amtrak President Exaggerates
Amtrak President Joseph Boardman scored a point when he announced that Amtrak operates the Rocky Mountaineer, a cruise train that takes passengers from Vancouver to Whistler and the Canadian Rockies. He made this announcement at the September 20 House Transportation Committee hearing about 41 years of Amtrak deficits. The Antiplanner had offered the Rocky Mountaineer […]
Privatize or Contract Out?
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) spends $50 million more than its peers on employee benefits, says KPMG in an audit of the agency. Reducing benefits to national average levels (easier said than done) and contracting out some services such as cleaning would allow MARTA to erase a $33 million deficit in its annual […]
Jerry Brown Tries the Google Car
California Governor Jerry Brown rode in a self-driving car with Google co-founder Sergey Brin on their way to Google headquarters, where Brown signed legislation creating a framework for introducing driverless cars into California by 2015. Meanwhile, automakers are incrementally automating driving with the introduction of a variety of new technologies. On October 23, Volvo and […]
USA Today‘s Interesting Arithmetic
USA Today reports that “fewer Americans commuting solo.” As the story says, “The dismal economy and skyrocketing gas prices may have accomplished what years of advocacy failed to: getting more people to stop driving solo.” To put some numbers on this, Wendell Cox points out that the number of people commuting solo has declined from […]
Back in the Air Again
Today the Antiplanner is in Washington DC to testify at a hearing on Amtrak subsidies. The Antiplanner will tell the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee that it should “support privatization of Amtrak, in the context of a broader effort to end federal subsidies to and unfair taxation of all forms of transportation.” My testimony points […]
Highway Fund Uncertainty Leads to Ratings Cut
Citing uncertainties about the health of the federal Highway Trust Fund, Fitch has cut its ratings on state highway bonds in several states from AA- to A+. The bonds being cut are “grant anticipation revenue” or GARVEE bonds, which are supposed to be repaid out of federal grants. In recent years, Congressional overspending of the […]
DC Metro Continues to Decline
It’s a sign of distinction that the Washington Metro Rail system has not one but at least two blogs dedicated to documenting the system’s poor operating condition. One of the blogs reports that, in July, MetroRail suffered from nearly 500 problems that led to a “deviation from normal scheduled service,” all but about 20 of […]
Clackistanis Threaten Portland Light Rail
In all the times it has been on the ballot, Clackamas County has never voted for Portland light rail. But Portland planners were determined to run a light-rail line into the urban heart of the county, so they persuaded the county commission to give them $20 million of the $1.5 billion cost of the 7.7-mile […]
Join a Transit Agency; See the World
Taxpayers have paid for the “mostly advisory” CEO of the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) to travel to more than ten countries and seventeen American cities in the last eighteen months. John Inglish was UTA’s general manager until two years ago, when he was replaced and kicked upstairs to a newly created position “as severance.” “Nice […]
New Report on Self-Driving Cars
The Center for Automotive Research and KPMG have published a new report predicting the self-driving cars may be on the market as soon as 2019–if, however, the government takes action aimed at improving auto safety. The report notes there are two approaches to self-driving cars. One, which it calls the “sensor-based solution,” is represented by […]
Oahu Rail Construction Halted
The City of Honolulu was so anxious to start construction of its $5 billion rail line before voters could elect an anti-rail mayor that it began without completing the legally required archeological surveys. Only about a quarter of the surveys have been done, and the rest won’t be completed before the end of the year. […]
