Two-thirds of Americans oppose increasing gas taxes, even if it means the revenue would go toward improving roads and bridges, a new polls shows.
READ MOREAlthough the PUC found that Mile High was both operationally and financially fit to operate as a taxi business, it denied the application because it was unsure whether additional taxi services were needed in the city.
READ MOREOur cities are in trouble. Most have huge unfunded pension and health-care obligations. Their infrastructure is old and so poorly maintained that it can’t power a football stadium for the full length of a game. Their schools have significantly lower high-school graduation rates than the suburbs, even after accounting for differences in incomes. Housing in […]
READ MOREIt was with some trepidation that the Antiplanner finally took the time to carefully read the Department of Transportation’s final rules for major transit capital grants. Long-time readers may recall that the Antiplanner is concerned about the cost-effectiveness of these grants, and urged the Department to strengthen those requirements–without much hope that the Obama administration […]
READ MOREAs the Antiplanner noted yesterday, Ray LaHood’s lasting legacy as Secretary of Immobility is the loosening of requirements for major transit capital grants in new rules issued a few weeks ago. This is most important for streetcar fans, since the Bush-era rules pretty much predetermined that streetcars were not a cost-effective use of federal transportation […]
READ MORESecretary of Immobility Ray LaHood has announced his intention to leave office as soon as a replacement can be found. Aside from an admirable emphasis on safety, LaHood’s main legacy will be a weakening of the cost-effectiveness requirements for transit grants so that, now, the most ridiculously expensive transit projects can get federal funding. As […]
READ MOREFever, headache, sore throat, congestion (of the nasal not the traffic kind)–it all sounds so easy. Having experienced the early symptoms of the flu when the Antiplanner was still in St. Louis on Saturday, then getting hit particularly hard on Sunday, I can testify that the flu is no picnic. So I have to wonder: […]
READ MOREVermont officials are proud that a federal high-speed rail grant allowed them to take 29 minutes of the Vermonter schedule between New York City and Burlington. This is quite a bit less impressive than it sounds, as the speeded-up train still takes 9.5 hours for an average speed of 38 mph. By comparison, Megabus does […]
READ MOREStung by the entirely accurate criticism that it is one of the worst-run transit agencies in America, San Jose’s VTA has come up with a breath-taking plan for improving its efficiency. Naturally enough, the plan is called the light-rail transit efficiency project. Click image to download an 8-MB presentation describing San Jose’s “light-rail efficiency plan.” […]
READ MOREThe Antiplanner is flying to St. Louis today to speak tomorrow at a conference about the Constitution. I am not a Constitutional expert, but they asked me to speak about mobility. If you are in the St. Louis area, I hope to see you there.
READ MOREPortland Streetcar, the non-profit organization that operates streetcars in Portland, is demanding that the city cough up $145,000 to fix its brand-new, American-made streetcar. Let’s take a look at the history of this car. First, the city used its own money to buy streetcars from the Czech Republic for an average of $1.9 million apiece. […]
READ MORELast Thursday, January 17, the Tax Foundation (TF) issued a paper arguing that only 32 percent of state and local highway costs were paid out of user fees, while the remaining costs came from “general funds.” In a post here, I pointed out that, actually, user fees for highways cover 76 percent of the costs […]
READ MORERepresentative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) has introduced a bill directing the Department of Transportation to start vehicle-mile fee pilot programs in every state and authorizing $150 million to fund the program. Since privacy is a major concern for many people, Blumenauer’s bill wisely makes protection of personal privacy a top priority of the program. Oregon’s bicycle-riding, […]
READ MORE“Gasoline taxes and tolls pay for only a third of state and local road spending,” claims a report released yesterday by the Tax Foundation, a supposedly independent, non-partisan group. “The rest was financed out of general revenues.” According to the group’s calculations, users paid just $49 billion of the $155 billion cost of roads in […]
READ MOREKansas City voters won’t get a chance to vote on light rail despite the fact that proponents gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot. The court that rejected the measure said that the plan was unworkable because it didn’t provide enough money to build the mandated rail lines. A light-rail fanatic named Clay […]
READ MOREPortland is proud of being a livable city. Sure, its streets are crumbling, city buildings are neglected, and its schools are crappy. But don’t worry; it’s a livable city. A building so ugly that Willamette Week newspaper uses the “ugly” tag for any article that refers to it. The Antiplanner noted last February that the […]
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
Over at Education Next (one of my favorite stops these days), professors Robert Costrell and Michael Podgursky say there may be a way to make a positive move beyond the traditional debate over teacher pensions:
The critics of DB [defined benefit plans] are correct that current plans are seriously underfunded in part because benefits are not […]
READ MORELast week I asked what Denver Public Schools was up to with a plan to change the enrollment policies for some of its charter schools, making them into “boundary schools.” What’s up with that?
When you’re 5 years old like I am, you can tend to be insecure about questioning authority so often. Thus I was […]
