Facing a $12 million to $17 million budget shortfall next year, Portland’s TriMet transit agency is cutting bus service for lack of funds. But it has enough funds to spend $250,000 on a giant sculpture of a deer with a baby face. The agency has already cut bus service by 13 percent and light-rail service […]
READ MOREThe Antiplanner was saddened to hear that William Niskanen, who for more than two decades chaired the board of the Cato Institute, died yesterday morning after suffering a stroke Tuesday night. Niskanen was a tenured professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1975 when he took a job as chief economist […]
READ MOREThe Antiplanner spent the last couple of days at the annual meeting of the California Bus Association, which left me unable to post as I was too cheap to pay the hotel $9.95 per day for Internet access even though the nice people at the Bus Association would probably have covered the cost. In any […]
READ MOREOfficials from Aurora, Colorado are in a tizzy because someone conducted some focus groups to see what taxpayers thought of a $300 million subsidy to a proposed hotel. Such focus groups “violate the ethics code for economic development organizations in the region,” said Tom Clark, the executive vice-president of Denver’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Apparently, […]
READ MOREDespite 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 […]
READ MOREThe Antiplanner applauds California Governor Jerry Brown–who proposed and ultimately persuaded the legislature to kill urban redevelopment agencies–for vetoing a bicycle bill last week. The bill would have required motorists to slow down to 15 mph if they were passing a bicycle and unable to give the cyclist at least three feet of room. Proponents […]
READ MOREThe Antiplanner is flying to Denver today for three presentations. First, I’ll speak about the futility of government planning to a group called Hear Us Now in Thornton. The event will take place tonight at 6:00 pm at that bastion of free-markets (they don’t take TIF money), Gander Mountain, 9923 Grant, Thornton (accessible from Thornton […]
READ MORELast Saturday the Antiplanner participated in a conference about the Columbia River Crossing, a government-planning effort aimed at replacing a bridge that doesn’t need to be replaced so Portland can sneak its light-rail system (and associated land-use planning) into Vancouver, Washington. One of the more fascinating presentations at the conference came from Tiffany Couch, a […]
READ MOREAn article in The American Conservative commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The publication also asked the Antiplanner to join a number of New Urbanists and others in an on-line seminar about the influence of Jacobs on American cities. The Antiplanner’s response was that “Jacobs was […]
READ MOREA new poll finds that, if high-speed rail were on the ballot today, 62 percent of California voters would vote against it. The complete poll report also indicates that 63 percent of Californians say they would never ride it if it were built. The poll asked people about their state funding priorities. The top priorities […]
READ MOREA decade or so ago, an Economist senior editor named Frances Cairncross wrote a book called The Death of Distance which argued that, thanks to declining transportation and telecommunications costs, distance really doesn’t matter anymore. So it is ironic that another Economist writer, Ryan Avent, has written a new book arguing that “Distance is not […]
READ MORENashville’s commuter train, the Music City Star, is “really taking off,” at least according to an op ed in the Tennessean written by the transit agency CEO, Paul Ballard. Actually, the best that can be said for the train is that Ballard hasn’t been fired over it yet. The Music City Ripoff. Starting the commuter […]
READ MOREHere’s a tip for transit agencies: Buy insurance guaranteeing ridership revenue so that, when you screw up and ridership declines, you can sue the insurance company to cover the revenue losses. That’s what Washington MetroRail has done in response to ridershop losses that it claims resulted from the 2009 accident that killed 9 people. According […]
READ MOREThe American Automobile Association is suing the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (PATH) for raising bridge tolls. AAA doesn’t oppose tolls, but it does oppose tolls whose revenues won’t be spent on activities that have a “functional relationship to transportation.” Since these bridge tolls will be used to subsidize the new World […]
READ MOREThe Texas Transportation Institute has published its 2011 urban mobility report, and this year it is based on real measurements of actual congestion rather than formulas. According to the report, in 2010 the nation’s worst congestion was in Washington, DC, where the average commuter wastes 74 hours a year sitting in traffic compared with only […]
READ MOREAmy Oliver Cooke, Director
Email: Amy@i2i.org
Phone: 303-279-6536, ext 107
Amy Oliver Cooke, Director
Email: Amy@i2i.org
Phone: 303-279-6536, ext 107
Foster and kinship children too often miss out on supplemental services and activities. A new breed of program called a Supplemental Educational Support Account (SESA) would provide a set amount of annual funding for each student that can be used for services such as tutoring, therapies, music lessons, specialized programs, transportation, and a wide variety
READ MOREWho knew it would be such a busy week? Before I head off to go play in the snow or jump in a pile of leaves or two — you never know with the weather here in Colorado — I thought you’d like to see the new results from the Association of American Educators nationwide […]
READ MOREAs explained by author Marya DeGrow, conflict between some Colorado public school districts and parents led to the adoption of a 1988 legislative bill that established guidelines for home education.
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