TRANSPORTATION - Miscellaneous - Independence Institute

One More Chance 0
- February 14, 2012
Construction on Honolulu’s ill-conceived rail line–at least $5.7 billion, and more likely at least $7 billion, for a 20-mile elevated line–is supposed to start next month. Polls indicate that voters who once supported the project have turned against it. Fortunately, Hawai’ians have one more chance to stop this idiotic project before too much money is […]
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The Future of New Starts 0
- February 13, 2012
Should federal transportation funds be distributed to states and cities based on fixed criteria, such as population and land area, or should they be handed out based on the political whims of whoever is in power at the moment? While Republicans in Congress are moving in the former direction, the Obama administration is moving towards […]
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The Seductive Appeal of Value-Capture Finance 0
- February 8, 2012
Today, the Antiplanner is in North Carolina, where transit agencies seem to be competing to plan the wackiest, most-expensive rail transit lines that few people will ever use. Right now, the leading contender must be Raleigh, which (according to a paper by UNC-Charlotte transport professor David Hartgen and transit accountant Tom Rubin) is planning a […]
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Crushed to Death by Red Tape 0
- February 7, 2012
The Antiplanner’s friend, Ann Brower, barely survived last February’s earthquake in Christchurch when a building fell on her bus, killing the driver and seven other passengers as well as four pedestrians. Now it turns out that the building had been known to be unsafe for nearly 30 years. The owner wanted to demolish it but […]
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One Down, 48 to Go 0
- February 6, 2012
“Building better communities” was the slogan of the California Redevelopment Association. But the critics charged that redevelopment agencies “deprived tens of thousands of working and lower-income residents of their homes and livelihoods while granting vast subsidies to billionaires.” In the end, the social justice questions didn’t matter, but the subsidies did, so to save the […]
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Mica Introduces Surface Transportation Bill 0
- February 1, 2012
House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chair John Mica introduced a proposed surface transportation bill yesterday. Titled the American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act, the bill contains something to make everyone happy as well as things to make everyone unhappy. To please Senate Democrats, who want to keep spending more than the government is collecting in […]
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