TRANSPORTATION - Miscellaneous - Independence Institute

Remember When “Transit” Meant “Transportation”?0
- December 1, 2011
Portland’s TriMet transit agency is spending more than $370,000 to install solar panels on a downtown building. This will initially save the agency less than $3,700 a year, and even if the savings increase over time, when interest is counted there will be something close to a 100-year payback period. Someone comments on the above […]
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Detroit Light Rail 0
- November 30, 2011
Detroit’s plan to spend $550 million building a nine-mile light-rail line on Woodward Avenue would be laughable if it weren’t wasting so much money that could actually do something useful if spent on something else. Detroit leaders have convinced themselves that light rail is world-class transportation, that it will be the lynchpin of Detroit’s recovery, […]
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A Recipe for Decline 0
- November 29, 2011
Thanks to high housing prices and a poor economy (which is also partly due to high housing prices), more Americans are leaving California than are moving to the state. In the last decade, 1.5 million more people moved out than moved in from other states, and the poor economy is also reducing foreign immigration, leaving […]
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Creative Financing Bites Muni 0
- November 28, 2011
San Francisco Muni may have to pay $68 million to banks and insurers as a result of some “creative financing” done 8 and 9 years ago. As previously described in the Antiplanner, in the early 2000s the Federal Transit Administration encouraged transit agencies to sell their equipment to banks and then lease it back. The […]
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Reviving California High-Speed Rail 0
- November 25, 2011
The California High Speed Rail Authority has reason to be thankful this week as the U.S. Department of Transportation gave it another $900 million, keeping hopes alive for the state’s rail program. That means the feds have given the state a total of about $4.5 billion which, when matched with state bonds (which can only […]
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Happy Thanksgiving 0
- November 24, 2011
Here in central Oregon, Smokey got a taste of his first powder snow a few days ago. Though it has mostly melted at our elevation, there is plenty at Santiam Pass a few miles away. The Antiplanner and his companions wish all readers of this site, faithful allies and loyal opponents both, a wonderful and […]
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