2011 National Transit Database
The Federal Transit Administration has published the 2011 National Transit Database, which has cost, fare, ridership, and other data for every transit agency, broken down by mode, that receives federal support. You can download the raw data in two formats: the database, which is easier to manipulate, or data tables, which are easier to read […]
Cities Growing Faster Than Suburbs–Not!
A return to the cities and rejection of the suburbs is an article of faith among smart-growth planners, and their wishful thinking is often supported by breathless media reports. The latest news comes from 2011 Census estimates, which the Wall Street Journal reports as revealing that the “cities outpace suburbs in growth.” MSNBC reports that […]
2010 Transit Data Update
The Antiplanner has reposted the consolidated spreadsheet for the 2010 National Transit Database. The revision of a file I posted last month fixes an error in the calculation of the total number of seats and standing room provided by each transit agency and mode of travel. More important, the revised file includes some calculations, including […]
Christmas Present
The 2010 National Transit Database has been available for a few weeks. As usual, it comes in two formats: either some 34 data tables that are easy to read but difficult to manipulate in Excel or some 20 data files that are easy to manipulate in Excel but difficult to read. The Antiplanner has summarized […]
2010 Census Data
Despite huge efforts to get people out of single-occupancy vehicles, nearly 8 million more people drove alone to work in 2010 than in 2000, according to data released by the Census Bureau. Wendell Cox’s review of the data show that the other big gainer was “worked at home,” which grew by nearly 2 million over […]
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 […]
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 […]
Suburbs Are Still Growing
Next time someone tells you about how everyone is returning to the cities, point them to these maps based on the 2010 census. Available for the forty largest urban areas in the United States, they show, almost without exception, the central cities losing population and the suburbs gaining. According to the mapmakers, “deep blue indicates […]
Thank the Internal Combustion Engine
American forests are growing 42 percent faster than they are being cut and 380 percent faster than they were growing back in 1920. At least, that was true in 2000 when this report evaluating the state of forests in the United States was published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Though the report is […]
Are We at the Bottom Yet?
According to economists at Moody’s, the housing market will bottom out in 2011–which means now may be the time to hunt for cheap homes and be ready to flip them when prices start going up. Unfortunately, the Antiplanner can’t afford the $250 required to listen to Moody’s webconference, so let’s look at some other data […]
2009 Transit Data
The Federal Transit Administration has published the 2009 National Transit Database, which includes loads of information on every federally subsidized transit system in America. Unfortunately, the data come on about 20 hard-to-read spreadsheets (this version, known as the “data tables,” are easier to read but harder to use for calculations). So, once again, the Antiplanner […]
A Free Parking Space Grows in Manhattan
The Antiplanner blew it yesterday by saying there was no free parking in Manhattan, which shows this Oregon resident doesn’t spend much time in the Big Apple. It turns out Manhattan has lots of free on-street parking, though on many streets you have to move your car to the alternate side of the street every […]
