TRANSPORTATION - Miscellaneous - Independence Institute

Because $117 Billion Wasn’t Expensive Enough 0
- July 27, 2012
In 2010, Amtrak proposed to spend $117 billion to upgrade its Boston-to-Washington high-speed rail corridor. This idea was so unrealistically expensive that the Antiplanner called it “gold-plated high-speed rail.” Apparently, Amtrak wants platinum plating instead, as its 2012 update to the proposal has raised the cost to $151 billion. This includes some additional bells and […]
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RTD Fools the Wall Street Journal 0
- July 26, 2012
“Denver rethinks the modern commuter,” heralds the Wall Street Journal. The article goes on to say that, instead of building parking lots at its rail stations, Denver is encouraging developers to build high-density, mixed-use developments. Somehow, this is supposed to be news. Let’s think this through. First of all, no one is “rethinking the modern […]
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More Tales of Rail Failure 0
- July 25, 2012
The ink is barely dry on California legislation to start building high-speed rail, and now they reveal a $2.5 billion hidden cost that wasn’t included in previous estimates, that being the cost of tunneling the final mile into San Francisco. It shouldn’t really matter, as they don’t have the money to build the last 130 […]
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Brookings Discovers Driverless Cars 0
- July 24, 2012
Brookings Institution economist Clifford Winston points out in the Wall Street Journal that driverless cars will render high-speed rail and urban real transit even more obsolete than they already are. The Antiplanner, of course, brought driverless cars to the attention of WSJ readers two years ago. Winston’s major point is that, rather than build high-speed […]
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Land-Use Regulation & Income Inequality 0
- July 23, 2012
Harvard economists have proven one of the major theses of American Nightmare, which is that land-use regulation is a major cause of growing income inequality in the United States. By restricting labor mobility, the economists say, such regulation has played a “central role” in income disparities. When measured on a state-by-state basis, American income inequality […]
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Land-Use Regulation & Income Inequality 0
- July 23, 2012
Harvard economists have proven one of the major theses of American Nightmare, which is that land-use regulation is a major cause of growing income inequality in the United States. By restricting labor mobility, the economists say, such regulation has played a “central role” in income disparities. When measured on a state-by-state basis, American income inequality […]
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