TRANSPORTATION - Miscellaneous - Independence Institute

Getting Highway Numbers Right 0
- January 18, 2013
“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 […]
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Kansas City Spared Light-Rail Vote 0
- January 16, 2013
Kansas 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 […]
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Neglecting the Basics 0
- January 14, 2013
Portland 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 […]
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Confusing Inputs with Results 0
- January 11, 2013
Why do liberals confuse inputs with outputs? Matthew Yglesias raves about how wonderful Los Angeles is for building more rail transit, even though the city’s last burst of rail construction resulted in a 17 percent decline in transit ridership. A Los Angeles attorney named Robert Garcie provides an antidote to Yglesias’ rantings. He notes that […]
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The Transit Overtime Scandal 0
- January 10, 2013
The Oregonian reports that drivers for TriMet, Portland’s transit agency, are taking so much overtime that many get little sleep. Paying for overtime costs taxpayers a lot of money and the lack of sleep creates hazardous situations. This TriMet light-rail train crashed into the bumpers at the end of the line because, investigators found, the […]
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End Gas Tax? Yes! Pay for Roads with Sales Tax? No!0
- January 9, 2013
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell wants his state to be the first to end the gas tax. The Antiplanner supports that idea because gas taxes are an imperfect user fee. However, McDonnell proposes to replace the gas tax with a 0.8-cent sales tax that he says will generate more revenue than the gas tax. If your […]
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