That is, near the top of the list of the nation’s worst transit systems, says the San Jose Mercury-New. “The near-empty trolleys that often shuttle by at barely faster than jogging speeds serve as a constant reminder that the car is still king in Silicon Valley,” says the paper, “and that the Valley Transportation Authority’s […]
READ MOREHave a Happy Hanukkah, Wonderful Winter Solstice, thrilling Kwanzaa, Festive Festivus, glorious Gurnenthar’s Ascendance, or whatever holiday you celebrate. From the Antiplanner dogs, Smokey & Buffy.
READ MOREGarl Boyd Latham, of the Texas Association of Railroad Passengers, predicts that San Antonians will be “pleased by streetcars once they are running.” His response to the Antiplanner’s op ed critiquing the city’s streetcar plan basically amounts to, “don’t confuse me with the facts; I know what I believe.” To be precise, Latham says, “An […]
READ MOREThe Auto Train, which carries passengers and their autos between Virginia and Florida, was a “private failure” but a “public success,” says the January, 2013 issue of Trains magazine. For those who don’t know the story, the Auto-Train began as a private venture when a Department of Transportation employee named Eugene Garfield took a DOT […]
READ MOREThe costs of collecting electronic tolls are rapidly declining, particularly for roads that only accept electronic tolls. In 2009, when I was writing Gridlock, the best available estimates indicated that 12 to 23 percent of toll revenues went to collection costs, compared with just 3 percent for state gas taxes. However, a recent paper from […]
READ MORE“When does regulating a person’s habits in the name of good health become our moral and social duty?” Dr. David Agus asks in a New York Times op ed. The answer, says Agus, is “when all of us are stuck paying for one another’s medical bills (which is what we do now, by way of […]
READ MOREA common saying (sometimes attributed to Samuel Francis, but I first heard it before he is supposed to have said it) inside the DC Beltway, at least among fiscal conservatives, is that America has two political parties: the Evil Party and the Stupid Party. It appears to the Antiplanner that the Stupid Party has once […]
READ MOREIt took several days to transfer all the files, but the Antiplanner has a new web host and it seems to be working fine. I lost the last post and I think some of the comments on the next-to-last post, but I’ll live with that rather than try to recover them. I’ll be playing with […]
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