Libertarian Backlash

Like Adron and others, I sometimes wonder what it would be like if we operated in a true libertarian based market in terms of land use and transportation. Apparently, so do other libertarian commenters who in a recent blog post on the reason foundation blog take Wendell Cox to town. We all know that he and Randal and other sprawl apologists are just vulgar libertarians, using the ideology as a corporate protection racket. In thier case it's the highway and auto industry. Here's a comment that hits the mark for me:

I fully understand the idea that excessive land use regulation can raise the costs of home ownership. Smart Growth or anti-sprawl regulations, however, are just as much an implementation of greater flexibility in urban development, by allowing greater densities of housing, tenure and use, than it is a restriction on building. It is pretty well established that sprawl producing land use regulation is that which creates an artificial scarcity by requiring large lots, minimum square footage, and lower densities - driving up prices.

HT PublicTransit.US

Kansas City Opposition Flow Chart

Wow. This is crazy. In a good way. The anti-light rail flowchart. Perhaps every campaign should have one of these.

HT KCLR

No You Don't Like Trains

Robert as usual has the goods. Anyone else tired of people falling for the "I'd like another proposal besides this one later because now is not the right time" crowd? It's never going to be the right time for someone out there. Or the guys like O'Toole and Cox that say, we're huge train fans, we just think they cost too much blah blah blah.

An interesting discussion I had tonight with a colleague. He reminded me that the Howard Jarvis people that wrote the Anti Prop 1a junk study with Wendell Cox are the same folks who got Prop 13 passed...

The Liberal Light Rail Agenda

I really wish they would cut this out. So what if we want a different lifestyle?

Hawaii Fight O

The opposition wants this guy's road plan, which happens to be called EZ way, and if the steel on steel election loses, they expect the FTA to pick up the tab for their elevated freeway. Well as the Mayor's office has said repeatedly, the FTA won't pay for HOT lanes. In fact, Ma Peters had tried to get HOT lanes funded in a recent fight with congress but lost. This is a battleground for transit. The opponents believe that if they can win in places without rail like Honolulu, they can turn the tide against it. And if we ended up using transit money for a freeway given the demand for real transit projects, then we haven't learned anything from the last 60 years.

I Used to be Snow White

But I drifted. ~~Friday Night Link Party Below~~

It's Not About You! - So says the president of a commercial real estate firm in Milwaukee.

There are too many people who want to get on their soapbox and say, "I'm not going to ride it." The point is, it's not about you. The young person, who does believe in green technology and sustainable development, does want it. Whether you believe in global warming or not is not the point. There are a lot of people who do

~~~
In typical conservative fashion, Paul Weyrich, usually a staunch supporter for transit says no on high speed rail for California. Good thing he doesn't live here. I imagine he's never driven I-5 either. He uses the reason foundation explanation as to why he opposes it. Robert if you're counting Hoovers vs. Keynes, here's another Hoover for you. He does say this about the project:

Unlike the Reason Foundation, I do not think that this project would be a white elephant.

He goes on to deride the ridership estimates like everyone else who doesn't know why they are called "estimates". You know, like the estimates to sell bonds for these grey elephants.
~~~
A report on the Purple Line and all its noise and impact issues was released yesterday. The article did not talk however about particulate matter released from an internal combustion engine even if hybrid on the bus. Wonder if that was in the report.
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Leaving Town? Some in Seattle say they will leave if the region doesn't pass the transit measure. I think there are some big issues that will come about if the transit measures around the country don't pass. What it might mean is that the region is left flat footed without a plan if and when the next transportation bill provides more money for transit. If we go into new deal spending, the regions that have transit plans in the Space Race will benefit from instant recognition that they have projects ready to go.
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Brain Drain + Brain Gain = Negative Brains for Rochester. Keeps the zombies away at least.

H/T Urbanophile
~~~
Details...

Pushy SF1

I always find the opposition to more density and urban neighborhoods quite perplexing. Even more so when its backed up using vulgar libertarianism. Bill Fulton discusses the issue of libertarians and thier exceptionalism on single family housing trumpeted through a recent article in the OC Register.

Most amusing of all, however, is the way the Register conflates the free-market idea of what people want with the socially conservative idea of what people should want. Simply put: Despite its supposedly free-market orientation, the Register can’t imagine a world in which some people might answer their derisive question –“Want to live in a condo by the tracks?” – by saying yes.

This is a pretty common theme by urbanists who aren't trying to get rid of people's choices, just give them more. In fact Ryan posted on an Atrios comment today as well:

It never ceases to amaze me how angrily people react to advocates of pro-urban policies, as if the very idea of improving such places is equivalent to war on the suburbs and the people who inhabit them. It’s also strange to be told how people don’t like to live in cities by folks seemingly incapable of grasping the fact that some people don’t like living in suburbs.

I've said this before but I believe if there were more urban neighborhoods in cities, more people would be able to afford to live in them. I understand why people live in the burbs. I grew up there and it was a great experience. Right now though, I'm liking my urban neighborhood in San Francisco. And it sure has helped me save gas money.

Magical Density Machine

In a recent email exchange on one of my numerous listserves, a bus booster has been trying to downplay the impact of light rail and streetcars on new development and shaping growth. If this is really the case, I have to wonder why those in opposition to such lines are always so worried about them changing the neighborhood. In a local Milwaukie paper (Milwaukie, Oregon not Wisconsin) a citizen worries about the density and character changes that will come with the rail line.

...all are part of a thrust by the regional government to dictate the forced density they advocate. Light rail is basically a density tool, and Metro’s vision of Milwaukie is as one large Transit Oriented Development hub and over-populated switching yard.

Much like the Berkeley regressive progressives (TM), its understandable that people are worried about change. But I believe this mans fears are unfounded.

As they expound on the wealth that density and rail will bring to Milwaukie, the throngs of people who will come to shop, the jobs that will be created here, I cringe. They have it backwards. Our valuable downtown property will be converted into park-and-rides or jam-packed transit-oriented developments with inadequate parking; the shoppers and jobs will go to Portland, along with the money. Remember, all roads lead to Rome.

Anyone who would take valuable land and turn it into a park and ride doesn't really want to make money. Also, regional centers don't drain to the downtown and the constant worry about parking belies a autocentric thinking that is all too common in this country. I would be surprised if Milwaukie's downtown didn't turn into a vibrant center.

If I were in opposition, I would just do what all opponents do, say the next lowest mode on the totem pole would be better and cheaper. This would effectively kill the density and the transit project keeping the status quo, just like the Nimbys want.

Some Things Never Change: Part 3,000

In a Metropolis, Everybody benefits from Public Transportation...



H/T RS

Updated: It's All Your Fault

Apparently this crash is all the fault of 'Smart Growth'. So says, Wendell Cox.

Yet the bottom line remains: without smart growth’s land rationing policies, the severe escalation in home prices would never have reached such absurd levels. But the disaster in the highly regulated markets will be with us for years. The smart growth spike in housing prices turned what might have been a normal cyclical downturn into the most disastrous financial collapse since 1929.

Wow. Speechless.

Ryan and Matt respond.

Radio Killed the Railroad Star

In Milwaukee the meme is beginning to form that conservative talk radio killed transit and should be tied to its failure to emerge. I've seen it a number times in the last few days in the JS. Our friend Jim Rowan gives us the history of how transit was killed in an article he wrote for the Journal Sentinel.

Examples of the meme recently:

Jim Rowen:

And "light rail" was and continues to be aimed as a partisan, fear-laden phrase against Milwaukee and its urban, Democratic majority on conservative talk radio and in some Republican-dominated suburbs.

Mayor Barrett:

"I think it's driven by conservative talk radio," Barrett said. "There are many people who are suffering because of ideological opposition to rail. ... If you listen to conservative talk radio, you'd think having some sort of rail in Milwaukee is the end of Western civilization as we know it."

Letter to the Editor:

Maybe the service cuts down the road will wake people up. The year 2010 promises a 30% cut in bus service and elimination of the freeway flyer service. The proposed 1% sales tax is the most feasible answer to saving our bus system. The Milwaukee County Transit System is the only system of its size that totally relies on property tax. A sales tax increase would be paid not only by county residents but anybody who visits Milwaukee County. We are not in the hell-hole talk radio talks about.

Documents You Shouldn't Use Against Transit

I have a problem with people using documents they don't quite understand to fight against transit they don't understand. In a recent Daily Planet article, there's a lady who argues that transit lines often overestimate ridership and underestimate cost. She uses the Contractor Assessment Report to make her point.

An August 2007 study by the Federal Transit Administration entitled “Contractor Performance Assessment Report” compared average weekday boardings for completed projects with the predictions made during the EIR process. Of 19 New Starts projects (mostly light rail), 16 had boardings below the forecasts, with some as low as 20-30 percent of forecast figures.

Ridership forecasts for busways performed even more poorly, according to the report, where “none of the available busway forecasts proved to be accurate. It appears from the limited sample that forecasts of ridership on busway projects . . . will not exceed 41 percent of the forecasts.”

First off, the busways in this study were either in freeway right of ways like Houston or built on an existing freight right of way as a new road like in Pittsburgh. These bear no resemblance at all to the arterial running Oakland BRT plan and should not be compared to them as much as I think these first generation busway projects show that buses are no replacement for rail.

This is a document that was done a number of years ago but recently cleaned up and released by the Bush administration folks under Ma Peters. It was a follow up to the famous Pickrell Report which was used by wingers and libertarians alike to say that transit was worthless. But as Todd Litman notes, you can't take the start number and compare it to the end when you have design changes in the middle of the plan among other things.

Studies by Pickrell (1992) and Flyvbjerg (2005) suggested that many earlier rail transit projects exceeded projected costs and failed to achieve first-year ridership predictions. But much of what Pickrell classified as cost overruns where actually adjustments due to design changes...

The FEIS numbers are also from the late 80's early 90's when ridership models for transit were still being honed due to the fact that we had just started building transit projects again after a long time off with a few metro subway lines in between. I'm not going to say things were perfect and there were some mistakes made, but I feel like now the FTA is starting to overcompensate for that. Recently ridership has been going over estimates like Charlotte, Denver, Minneapolis etc etc. In this report, the ridership estimates are extrapolated which make it look a bit worse if you look at the numbers without looking at the year they were forcast for. I'll also note that building automated guideways was a bad idea back then. 6% of ridership is really bad.

Ridership forecasts are developed to reflect trips in a particular year. For eleven of the twentyone projects included in this study, the ridership forecast year remains in the future (as of this writing).

The Capital Costs aren't anything different from what you would find with major freeway projects. Some over and some under the final estimate. But my main problem is using this report against transit at all, especially since the processes are completely different now. I know this report will get used again against transit at some point in the future, but I really wish it wouldn't, because without context, its worthless.

Guess Who!

Just when you thought you could go a year without hearing his name, he pops his car loving face up through the wack a mole hole to write another bs study on rail. Never mind that he has been debunked more times than anyone can remember, he still gets his funding from the Reason Foundation. You know, that place that doesn't believe in transportation choice and believes that the free market = automobiles. It doesn't hurt that they are funded by oil companies and beneficiaries.

But on to the report. Here's the first zinger.

It is possible that HSR can serve legitimate public and environmental purposes and be a financial success in California. However, the current CHSRA proposal cannot achieve such objectives.

I'm not sure what other CHSRA proposal they were referring to, like they were proposing another one? Perhaps we should wait 20 years right? Because it will be so much cheaper. Why do they even say this when they don't even believe it.

Here's another favorite:

It should give pause that previous HSR projects have been halted in three states—California (for Los Angeles–San Diego), Texas and Florida. The federally sponsored HSR program for Boston– New York–Washington serves only a fraction of its projected ridership and carries a fraction of the passengers that European and Japanese lines carry.

Because you can compare real high speed rail with a line that barely gets over 100 miles per hour. Apples to Apples right? And how about the Texas comparison, where HSR was stopped by airline lobbiests for Southwest Airlines, because they were so scared of what it would do to thier business.

I could go on but you really don't want to read my rant. If so inclined you can read the report for yourself. It's pretty gross and has a lot of generalizations.

And yes...they play the fear card.

Terrorism against rail targets is a concern considering the extent of attacks that continue to occur on rail systems around the world.

Typical of current culture warrior thinking. When you can't win with the facts, try to scare people.

Standard Response: X Project is a Black Hole

I've noticed a lot of taxpayer associations popping up talking about black holes. Perhaps they are scared of a certain super collider, but its usually a rail line that will severely hamper their ability to drive. Right? I mean they are freedom destroyers. This one is in response to the Norfolk Light Rail to Virginia Beach:

"This project is nothing but a black hole on the backs of the taxpayers," said Robert Dean of the Virginia Beach Taxpayer Alliance.

Project Name - Verb - Black Hole

Fiscal Urbanism

Ryan Avent links to this post at the American Prospect on why conservatives should choose urbanism and transit:

In fact, one doesn't have to be concerned about climate change at all in order to support such policies; values of fiscal conservatism and localism, both key to Republican ideology, can be better realized through population-dense development than through sprawl. Tom Darden, a developer of urban and close-in suburban properties, said Wednesday, "I'm a Republican and have been my whole life. I consider myself a very conservative person. But it never made sense to me why we would tax ordinary people in order to subsidize this form of development, sprawl."

This is something I've always thought, if so concerned with fiscal conservatism, why is sprawl so pervasive? Part of the problem perhaps was communism in the 50's. Whenever you read opposing blogs or "conservative" thought in the comments, you always hear communism. I often wonder, if Moscow and Eastern Europe didn't have high rises and expansive transit networks, would we hear a different argument for sprawl? Probably. But who knows.

I do know that Representative Mica has been pretty supportive in the past. And its heartening to hear his comments. The FTA isn't helping.

But the federal government is a hindrance as often as a help, Mica admitted, throwing years worth of bureaucratic red tape in front of states that want to construct light rail lines. "As the federal government, we're a very unreliable partner, and we haven't decided what our policy is," Mica said, adding that he has been working since 1989 on building one light rail line in his central Florida home district, and expects to see grandchildren before the project is completed.

This is what causes cost overruns. Of course things are going to go up in cost when it takes 10 years to build a light rail line. You should blame that on the FTA and the political appointments of Bush, rather than the transit agencies that want it done quicker.

Opposition Pundits on Parade

Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation is worried. So are all the other anti-transit pundits out there. The newly minted interest in transit is encroaching on their road loving ways. A recent AP article on rising transit ridership captures Utt's opinion, proving that balanced transportation and oil independence means nothing to the conservative crowd.

Ron Utt, of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said transit is "inconsequential in terms of reducing congestion or greenhouse gases" and that people who want to use transit should simply pay more. Citing the example of a Washington-area commuter rail, Utt said: "If more people want to use that and more people have to stand, I don't know why that should place a financial burden on people in Iowa."

Sure Ron, that's why almost a million people per day take Metro in DC. I have a really great idea, how about people pay the true cost of gasoline or roads or airlines. Let's also make people pay directly for air traffic controllers and the highway patrol. And why should I pay for a rural road in Iowa? All transportation is subsidized, let's stop the favoritism towards one mode and pretending that cars pay for themselves.

Typewriter Typewriter Typewriter!

Then there is our favorite cipher, Randal O'Toole. His most recent call is to cancel the Denver Fastracks program claiming it's bad for the environment and social engineering. You know, the usual junk.

Environmentally, light rail is a disaster for the region. For every passenger mile carried, light rail consumes four times as much land as Denver-area freeways. It also uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gases, per passenger mile, than the average SUV.

I don't know where he gets this one. But as Mr. Setty at PublicTransit.us reminds us, transit actually reduces passenger miles overall. Randal's twisted logic lumps in the construction of the line when he never talks about the construction losses of highways and the vehicles that drive on them. What about the construction of all those parking garages?

O'Toole, many academics and other anti-transit activists understandably do not wish to discuss the wider, systematic impacts of transit on transportation patterns and land use. One key study estimates that for every passenger mile on transit, slightly more than two urban vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is suppressed or foregone. This study documents the connection between transit and lower vehicle usage that has also been documented in dozens of other studies. This effect is particularly significant when less than 40% of U.S. residents have easy access to transit at the present time.

But what annoys me the most is that stupid no one rides transit argument. Well no one has the option to take it! New York City has transit, people take it. Washington DC has a rather good subway system, people take it. But when the green argument for him fails, he can always fall back on social engineering. You know, the kind that took place from 1950 to the present when cities built roads only and subsidies were funneled to development related to roads.

The other support for FasTracks comes from those who want to socially engineer Colorado lifestyles. They use light rail as an excuse to build tax-subsidized high-density housing projects on properties taken from their owners by eminent domain near planned rail stations. Yet few Americans aspire to live in such dense housing, and such compact development makes little sense in a state that is 97 percent rural open space.

Hmm. No one in Colorado wants open space, just build on it. I'm sure John Denver wouldn't mind. And no one wants to live in high-density housing projects, that's why TOD commands such a low price premium with buyers. No one ever wanted to live in LoDo right? What about all those road, pipe subsidies.

Cars Cars Cars. Sprawl Sprawl Sprawl. Sounds like Drill Drill Drill.

Major Paper Backs Rail in Hawaii

The Honolulu Advertiser says voters in the city should go for rail. They also call out the opposition for being misleading. What a concept.

Crime and Transitment

Finally an article that discusses crime and light rail using the facts instead of hysteria.

That has not happened. MetroLink security has not been perfect. But, by any reasonable measure, the system is safe.

Serious crime is rare. According to agency data, there were a total of 14 robberies and 24 assaults at the system's 26 Missouri stations during 2007 — out of 19 million passenger boardings that year. The figures are consistent with national research that shows transit stations are as safe as or safer than the neighborhoods in which they're located.

Space Race Update: Denver's Whiners

I like the Fastracks program. What it has done is lead the way for other regions to start thinking about how transit is being built in this country, usually one line at a time over many years. But now that the budget has gone up a few times, a lot of people are freaking out, mostly the people that didn't want the project in the first place, like the Rocky Mountain News. Part of the problem is that they never saw the importance of the project, but another part is that they are stuck in the car oriented world of roads are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

An editorial at the Rocky Mountain News this weekend states that Fastracks should be pared down in order to deal with the cost, which sounds reasonable when you think about it, until you read what they feel like should be the priority instead.

Some of those new revenues could come from whatever tax plan for transportation emerges from the legislature in the coming years. But transit should be far behind highway and bridge construction as a priority for state transportation planners. There simply isn't enough new revenue likely to materialize.

Because new highway construction to make the problem Fastracks is trying to help solve worse is a great idea. Look, for over 60 years in Denver, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on road infrastructure just like everywhere else. I don't see why making even a $10 billion investment in transit is such a big deal.

I do think RTD is doing the best it can with a bad situation created by the people that love roads anyways. It's not their fault that costs have skyrocketed because of issues outside of their immediate control, but to say that because of the cost, this type of project shouldn't be completed is wrong headed and short sighted. In fact, if the money for expanding (not fixing) freeways in the state was shifted to transit to complete the project, they would get done faster and help direct growth more intelligently sooner. The funds used on expansion would have just allowed people to sent more of their money to foreign oil companies and increase VMT.

There was a poster who replied to the editorial saying he was tired of North Denver getting the shaft when it came to funding allocations. The favored quarter of the Southeast is getting a lot of the investment and the northern end is paying for a lot of it, yet there is a lot going on in the Northwest as well.

I can see where the corridor gets even more congested between Boulder and Denver as population fills in the gap between the two cities. The need for an alternative development strategy is great and its not going to happen with BRT going down the center of a huge freeway, contrary to what people think. I have a lot of problems with the southeast corridor light rail because it was run down the side of the freeway. Many of the stations including those in the area of the tech center are not able to help the district turn into a more walkable pattern because the stations are on the other side of the freeway. The line should have shot through the center of the building density, not around it.

But I digress. We should be measuring mobility projects on whether they can get us out of the hole we have dug. The Denver projects move the region in that direction and the locals will have to step up and push against the road building interests of newspapers and the status quo.

Killing the Opposition's Density Meme

Chicken and Egg again. I'm not saying that the move not to go into Scott County isn' t the right one in the Twin Cities Region. Being fairly far outside of the core, it's not likely to get a rail link to downtown any time soon.

But for Peter Bell, the head of the Metropolitan Council to claim that there will only be two more light rail lines in the region because of population density shows that people still don't get it, the people that are supposed to. They still don't understand that transportation is an investment made in part to decide later land use. I can think of three light rail corridors in the Twin Cities that are in planning. Does this mean that only two get rail because the other one has no chance to regenerate?

"There will only be one or two additional light rail lines in this region," council chair Peter Bell warned. "We just simply don't have the population density, and we won't get the federal matching dollars.

These are unfortunate comments from someone who should know better than to reinforce the auto-centric density meme. This is one of these things that everyone should be on message about. We really need to hammer our leaders on this issue because we'll never get anything done if people are repeating what the opposition wants the message to be, especially when false. Was Arlington County dense enough to get a Metro Subway? Was the Pearl District dense enough to get a streetcar?

This meme needs to stop, and you know who has been aiding and abetting? From Peter Bell's quote, it's our favorite Mary Peters and her FTA. They don't believe in land use or transit changing land use patterns. In fact, they encourage under investment in transit by telling cities they can't build light rail lines unless they have a cost-effectiveness measure that matches current conditions, not future. Again, transit investment is about shaping future growth patterns. We know this because we have seen what transportation investment has done to our growth over the last 60 years.