Today’s Wall Street Journal (19 April 2007) carries a story on Mumbai’s suburban rail system and its overcrowding, which surely sets the world standard. The article provides further evidence that the term “sprawl” has no generally understood meaning, noting that the rail system has created “suburban sprawl.” Lest any potential tourist should be tempted to cancel a trip to Mumbai, out of fear that it will simply duplicate Atlanta (the world’s least dense large urban area), clarification is in order.

Only one urban area in the world sprawls less than Mumbai --- Hong Kong. Mumbai is the second highest density urban area among the more than 700 with more than 500,000 population (See Demographia World Urban Areas). Mumbai’s more than 65,000 per square mile or 25,000 plus per square kilometer density is 20 times that of Portland and seven times that of Paris. Mumbai, with all its poverty, filth and excitement represents the full flower of the “compact city.”

And, no, the sprawl (which apparently means any development of any sort anywhere), was not caused by the trains. Mumbai has expanded into one of the world’s largest urban areas because of the opportunities it provides for people moving from India’s countryside and villages. Much of Mumbai may look decrepit, even offensive to affluent first worlders, but Mumbai is better than where most of its residents came from. If it were not, the crowing on the trains would be outbound only.

See: Mumbai Affluent Archipelago in a Sea of Poverty (Rental Car Tour)

Recommendation: Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta is unique examination of Mumbai in its many dimensions. There is no better introduction to this urban area. It is available through Amazon and other booksellers.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 07:52 AM | Permalink

The US transit public relations machine is at it again, this time claiming significant ridership increases from 2005 to 2006. Finally, they have restored the 1957 level of ridership. By comparison, in 2006, car use was more than any year in history. In fact, since 1957, commuting by car has doubled. Transit says that ridership increased nearly three percent. In fact, annual increases have averaged nearly as much for 10 years, yet transit’s share of urban travel has fallen nearly 20 percent during the period. Why? Because, even in an era of unprecedented gasoline prices, urban car use has grown more rapidly. People leaving their cars for transit makes good press. It just isn’t true.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 06:47 PM | Permalink

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels favors spending unnecessary billions to put the Alaskan Way viaduct in tunnel. If no tunnel, he proposes not replacing the viaduct, which is in need of reconstruction. He cites removal of San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway as a precedent. The Mayor should look more closely, because the two situations are radically different. The Embarcadero was a stub of a freeway that was to have connected to the Golden Gate Bridge, but was never finished. It did not carry through traffic and instead served the role of an extended freeway off-ramp. The Alaskan Way was the principal through route from south to north through downtown Seattle until Interstate 5 was completed. It remains an indispensable through artery in a city with some of the nation’s worst traffic congestion. Better to spend the least money to replace the failing structure, maintain the capacity. There are plenty of other worthy highway projects competing for the additional billions that could improve congestion in the Seattle area.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 06:45 PM | Permalink

For years what has passed as transportation planning in the Portland, Oregon area has been based on little more than ideology and virtually no reality. Portland has engaged in building light rail lines with the intent of attracting people out of cars, but its highway market share remains unchanged. Portland planners naively thought that people would rush to switch to better transit, not realizing that few are prepared to spend longer traveling or to use transit to go places that it does not go. Portland’s reward has been development of the worst traffic congestion of any primary urban area its size. Last year a report prepared for the planning agency indicated that firms were leaving and avoiding the Portland area due to its traffic congestion.

Now, the Federal Highway Administration has leveled strong criticism at Portland’s regional transportation plan (see: FHWA criticizes Portland planning). The agency commented:

“It is difficult to find the transportation focus in this opening chapter of (the) Regional Transportation Plan.” Instead, the plan focuses on bike trails, light rail, and expensive skyline transport.

FHWA further noted:

“The plan should acknowledge that automobiles are the preferred mode of transport by the citizens of Portland. . . . They vote with their cars every day."

This is a particularly unusual development, since government agencies are reluctant to criticize one another. This shows how desperate the situation has become.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 07:28 AM | Permalink

To the Editor
The Daily Telegraph (London)

Re: Road tolls could be Labour's poll tax (13 February)

In his attempt to diffuse the growing resistance to road pricing, the Transport Secretary tells the nation, "We don't have the luxury of doing nothing, if we are not to see the kind of gridlock found in American cities." While fully comparable data are not available, indications are that "gridlock" is not so rampant in the United States. Average work trip times are less than in the United Kingdom. Average work trip travel times are less than in the United Kingdom. Even in Atlanta, with one of the worst road systems in the United States (considerably larger than any UK urban area outside London), average road speeds are faster than in any major UK urban area. Travel speeds are faster than London in the most congested US urban area, Los Angeles. It may be convenient to cite a "whipping boy" to justify the government's policies, but this one is simply not supported by the data. The Secretary would be better served to use Hong Kong or Jakarta.

Sincerely,

Wendell Cox

Visiting Professor

Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris

Former Member, Los Angeles County Transportation Commission

Address

Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers

Rue San Martin

75003 Paris

Posted by Wendell Cox at 12:31 AM | Permalink

To the Editor, The New York Times

Re: City that Loves Mass Transit Looks to the Sky for More (January 28)

Now The New York Times has been taken in by the Portland transit hype. The “city that loves mass transit” shows it by not using riding very much. Today, the share of workers using transit to get to work is less than before the first light rail line was built. Today, little more than two percent of travel in the Portland area is on transit and 98 percent of motorized travel is by car. That is really not much different than automobile champion Kansas City, where the figure is above 99.5 percent. The kind of cheerleading in this article may warm the hearts of urban elites but only serves to muddle and mislead.

Wendell Cox
Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris
Former Member, Los Angeles County Transportation Commission

Posted by Wendell Cox at 01:05 AM | Permalink

It is an attractive story line --- that Americans are cutting back on their driving and increasingly traveling by transit (“US Motorists Cutting Back a Bit", January 25). But it is misleading nonetheless. Between 2004 and 2005, the latest full year for which there is data, per capita travel by car declined 10 miles in the United States. This infinitesimal decline was not captured by transit, which had a per capita increase of 0.4 miles --- less than the Federal Transit Administration considers to be walking distance to a train station. In fact, however, the small decline in driving was concentrated in rural areas. In urban areas, where transit operates, travel by car increased at more than double the rate of transit.

Wendell Cox
Former Member, Los Angeles County Transportation Commission
Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris
Rue St. Martin
75003 Paris, France

25 January 2007

Posted by Wendell Cox at 10:14 AM | Permalink

One of the all-too-many shibboleths of the anti-suburbanites is that the rise in automobile air pollution has produced a rise in asthma cases. There is, of course, only one problem with this view --- that for 35 years, air pollution has been dropping in the urban areas of the United States and Western Europe. Thus, if there is a connection between the two trends, it has to be that less air pollution causes more asthma. Of course that is not true, but any attempt to blame automobile produced air pollution for the increase in asthma flies in the face of reason.

This specious claim of the anti-suburbanites has made me sensitive to the issue. So, it was with great interest that I read the new “Asthma Capitals” report of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). This report provides a ranking of 100 United States metropolitan areas using an index of 12 factors. It is a very strange index, combining estimates of the incidence of asthma and “risk factors,” such as school inhaler access laws and poverty rates. It might be argued that these “risk factors” (9 of the 12 factors) contribute to the incidence of asthma, but there is no better measure of the prevalence towards asthma than the actual cases. Only three of the Asthma Capital criteria deal with that.

It would seem that the risk factors should predict the comparative number of incidents. They do not and by a long shot. If, for example, a score of 1 to 3 is given for each of the three incident categories rates, the worst score would be 9 (the rating is simply, worse than average, average and better than average) and the best score would be 0. The results are considerably different than the more complex index system that includes the risk factors

Looking at the list, Atlanta, considered the worst (#1) by AAFA would have a score of 7, not much worse than best (#100) Seattle, which has a score of 6. Perennial urban planning favorite, Portland, ranked in the top quarter by AAFA (#75) actually gets the worst score possible, at 9, along with a number of other areas, along with the urban elite favorites of New York, Boston and Washington. Colorado Springs is rated #95 (6th best) by AAFA, yet would also have the worst possible score in asthma incident factors, at 9, tied with Portland.

So what do the Asthma Capitals ratings tell us? Not much of anything. The best way to compare the relative risk of asthma between metropolitan areas is to identify the percentage of people who have asthma. The Asthma Capitals ratings have a potential to be misleading, given that simply are not an evaluation of the actual asthma rates in urban areas, yet have been interpreted by some in the press to be that. The problem is that the Asthma Capital ratings are largely based upon predictive factors that don’t predict very well at all.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 02:15 AM | Permalink

Randal O’Toole has provided a devastating critique of the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) report on transit and fuel efficiency.

The APTA report is not only wrong, but it also betrays naïveté in presuming that a household can simply give up a car and replace its travel --- passenger mile for passenger mile --- with travel by transit. It would do the transit funding proponents and their consultants well to try it themselves. They could abandon their own cars and try to replace their automobile travel with transit travel. They would soon be faced with the reality that it cannot be done. There is no transit service that can replace the car, except to some of the larger downtown areas and within a few urban cores. Transit takes too long or it is not even available for the overwhelming number of trips in all urban areas, whether in the United States or Western Europe (where I am on assignment).

Why is transit service not available? Because it cannot be. Automobile competitive transit cannot be provided at a price that can be afforded by any society, except to a few niche markets, principally downtown.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 03:11 AM | Permalink

To the Editor
The Washington Post
Re: "L.A., Long Ruled by Cars, Becoming a Transit Leader (December 17, 2006)

The implication that transit has been responsible for the reduction in traffic delay hours in Los Angeles is absurd.

In the period cited (1993 to 2003), road use increased more than 40 times as much as transit use (measured in passenger miles). Moreover, per capita daily miles of automobile use increased. The improvement in delay times cannot, therefore, be attributed to transit. Over the same period there have been significant improvements in traffic management and many projects to expand highway capacity and remove bottlenecks.

Putting aside the hype, the reality is that transit's share of travel remains below the modern mid-1980s peak. After that, there was a significant drop in ridership, as out-of-control cost increases forced fare increases that drove riders, especially those with low incomes, away. The fact is that transit's share of travel in Los Angeles has not recovered, despite opening a subway line with two branches, three light rail lines, an expensive busway and six commuter rail lines.

Sincerely,
Wendell Cox
Member, Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, 1977-1985
Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris

Posted by Wendell Cox at 11:35 AM | Permalink

A Washington Post article indicates the disappointment that the higher densities being built in Fairfax County, Virginia (a Washington, DC suburb) have not resulted in less intense traffic congestion.

Surprise!

County officials blame developers for not keeping their bargains to reduce car use by residents in their buildings.

Continue reading "The Joke is on Fairfax County: University of Reality Needed" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 08:28 AM | Permalink

The transport journal Access (University of California Transportation Center) added what appears to be a theology column in a recent issue. Floating Cars was an indictment of automobile ownership and bemoaned the fact that many cars were left behind in New Orleans, demonstrating an “excess” of automobiles and seems consistent with the anti-automobile religious dogma so rampant in urban and transport planning these days.

Continue reading "Articles of Faith: That Abomination the Automobile" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 04:15 PM | Permalink

Letter to the Editor
The Chicago Tribune

Dear Editor:

The $1.25 million "Drive Less, Live More" program announced by Chicago-area transit agencies ("Campaign Pushes Car-Less Commute," December 15) says a lot about what is wrong with mass transit in the area.

It is complete nonsense to assume that if people just knew more about transit they wouldn’t drive as much. People are not as daft as city planners believe. They know what it costs to drive. They also know there are economic and social costs associated with switching to transit services, which are slower and often don’t even go where they need to go.

There is no question about the value of the area’s mass transit services to downtown Chicago, where more than half the workers commute by transit. Elsewhere though, most who use transit do so because their low income deprives them of cars.

State Transportation Secretary Tim Martin was quoted as saying "it’s all about expanding service." Indeed it is, and this publicity program does nothing in that regard. People will get out of their cars when transit is a viable option. If that should ever happen, they wont need the state or transit officials to tell them.

Sincerely,

Wendell Cox
Senior Fellow, Heartland Institute
Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers

Posted by Wendell Cox at 02:45 PM | Permalink

One thing is sure --- the now hundreds of billions of additional transit spending have done nothing to increase transit’s share of urban travel or to reduce traffic congestion. Indeed, transit’s share of work trips has fallen nearly two-thirds since 1970, at the same time more than one-half trillion dollars ($500,000,000,000) in subsidies have been spent. In effect, taxpayers have been paying transit to not carry people.

The United States Bureau of the Census American Community Survey (ACS) indicates that working at home is well on the way to catching up with transit work trips. Since 1990, there has been an increase of 1,400,000 people working at home in the nation, while transit work trips have risen only 100,000.

Moreover, outside the New York metropolitan area, which accounts for 40 percent of transit ridership, working at home already leads transit, and by a large margin. ACS estimates the in 2005, 4.5 million employees worked at home, while 3.7 commuted to work using transit.

Perhaps it is time to think about paying people to work at home rather than paying transit to not carry people.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 04:13 PM | Permalink

For any who perceive that “urban sprawl” (a pejorative term for suburbanization) is an American phenomenon, the new European Environmental Agency report Urban Sprawl in Europe: The Ignored Challenge provides a radically new perspective. Yes, there is suburbanization in Europe, and plenty of it.

Regrettably, Urban Sprawl in Europe is far from an objective, comprehensive review of urban trends. It blindly repeats dogma and, most importantly, fails to consider the momentous advantages that the land use developments of the last one-half century have provided in Europe.

Continue reading "European Commission Sprawl Report Needs Rewrite" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 06:31 PM | Permalink

A large ice storm hit the St. Louis area last night and power is out to nearly one-half of the area. The area’s light rail line, Metrolink, has suspended service for much of its alignment and is providing substitute bus service.

Meanwhile, there appears to be no instance of light rail providing replacement for buses anywhere in the metropolitan area --- for that matter probably never in history, anywhere. Another demonstration of the flexibility of urban rail.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 08:58 AM | Permalink

A Baltimore Sun editorial talks about transit, transit elections and reducing traffic congestion. What the Sun misses is that transit and traffic congestion are completely different subjects. No level of transit investment, anywhere in the world, has materially reduced traffic congestion.

Continue reading "Transit Envy at the Baltimore Sun" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 06:27 AM | Permalink

India's Tata Motors plans to market a $2,200 car that could make it possible for millions of households to obtain personal mobility and its economic advantages.

Continue reading "Hope for 3rd World Poor: The $2,200 Car" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 12:17 PM | Permalink

As is the case with all new rail systems, the Delhi metro system opened to praise and hosannahs a few years back. To read the mass transit press, it would not be hard to imagine that the metro had transformed Delhi, especially by significantly reducing the Indian capital’s horrendous traffic congestion. The reality, however, is quite different. While the usual cheerleaders maintain their chorus, the stark reality raises serious concerns. The Metro is consuming world record subsidies while doing nothing to reduce Delhi’s world class traffic congestion.

Continue reading "Delhi Metro Subsidies: More than GDP per Capita" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 08:22 AM | Permalink

This week the United States celebrates its 300 millionth resident. Never in human history has one nation achieved such a high standard of living for so many people. Today, American average incomes are a third higher than that of the EU-15, the European Union before expansion to Eastern Europe.

All of this has been achieved as our people have pursued the American Dream of homeownership and personal mobility. Nonetheless, a powerful special interest lobby is doing all it can to make sure that the American Dream becomes the province of the few, not the many

Continue reading "The American Dream: For 300 Million" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 01:17 AM | Permalink

A report by the Center for Housing Policy relies on data that is at odds with consumer expenditure data as reported by the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report modeled transportation data that was readily available in consumer expenditure reports. The Center’s report generally puts the cost of transportation at more than double the figures reported by the Department of Labor. As a result, it would appear that the report, A Heavy Load is of dubious value.

The report does, however, rightly recommend measures that would make automobiles more readily available to lower income households.

Continue reading "Serious Questions About “A Heavy Load” Report" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 06:35 AM | Permalink

There are few public policy issues more driven my myth than land use and the currently fashionable strategies of “smart growth” or “urban consolidation.” Virtually all of the arguments made in support of smart growth’s densification and land restriction policies melt away when subjected to the light of scrutiny. Now data shows that European work trip travel times for suburban residents are less than those of city residents, which is the opposite of claims by smart growth advocates.

Continue reading "Europe: Commuting Faster in Suburbs than Cities" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 09:49 AM | Permalink

In 1998, the voters of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County approved a sales tax to finance a rail transit system. They were told that the tax would provide funding to build five rail and busway lines and that there would be less traffic congestion as a result. The overall cost to voters was to be less than $800 million. They are not yet riding the system, but they have surely been taken for a ride.

Any number of experts (including this author) attempted to warn local officials and the local media that the system could not be built for the advertised price, but to no avail. In 2000, it was apparent that costs were rising rapidly and I predicted in Breach of Faith that the cost of the system would rise to nearly $1.5 billion. More recent estimates are as high as $6 billion.

Continue reading "Apply Lemon Laws to Transit Taxes:
Light Rail in Charlotte" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 09:50 PM | Permalink

letters@economist.com

Of course the UK’s new suburbs have not attracted people out of cars and into public transport (“Field of Dreams”. July 29, 2006). For the vast majority of trips, whether in the suburbs of Northampton, Phoenix or Paris, public transport is at best a slower, poor substitute for travel by car. Often, it is not even available. Public transport is about the core, the only destination to which public transport can compete with the car. Urban travel has long since been much more dispersed than that. It is a reality the planners would best stop ignoring.

Wendell Cox

Continue reading "The Economist: Daft on Automobiles" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 05:57 PM | Permalink

One of the most enduring urban planning mantras is coordinating land use and transportation. While no one can dispute the desirability of coordinating land use and transport, the current strategies do exactly the opposite. That is because urban planning has been captured by an anti-automobile dogma that has the equation backwards. The idea is to densify and locate as much as possible adjacent to existing transportation infrastructure. The result, of course, is to significantly increase transportation demand.

Continue reading "Coordinating Land Use and Transport: Getting it Wrong" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 10:25 AM | Permalink

Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente suggests that “TTC” --- the initials of the Toronto Transit Commission --- really means “take the car.” In a July 22 column, she notes that ridership has fallen substantially and that it takes longer to travel by transit than car. Moreover, she sees through the usual “we ought to be like Paris” blather, noting that most people in Paris live in the suburbs and get around by car.

Continue reading "In Toronto TTC Means “Take the Car”" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 08:43 AM | Permalink

The Belleville News-Democrat the largest suburban daily newspaper in the St. Louis area has severely criticized the local Bistate transit system for its failures arising from the recent strorms. In particular, the paper cites the poor planning for bus replacement service for the light rail system that was knocked out of operation by storm related power losses. (Urban rail systems have proven to be particularly unreliable in natural disasters, see Washington Metro at the Trough).

Noting a planned fare increase, the News-Democrat concludes If we expect people to rely on public transportation rather than private cars, fares have to be reasonable and service has to be good. Every additional fare increase, and every fiasco like the one Wednesday, give people more reasons to just keep driving, even at $3 a gallon.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 08:27 AM | Permalink

Bus service routinely substitutes for rail service cancelled by severe weather. The latest case is in St. Louis.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the local light rail system (Metrolink) shut down due to a severe storm in the area on July 19. Another article in the same edition notes that “long string of buses” were deployed at Busch Stadium to carry people who could not return to their homes (or cars) by light rail. This is, of course, at odds with the claims of transit funding advocates to the effect that urban rail systems are crucial during emergencies.

Continue reading "Vulnerable Urban Rail System Shuts Down: Chapter 2" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 09:52 AM | Permalink

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (July 19, 2006) carried an advertisement by Missourians for Smart Growth endorsing Joe Brazil, a candidate for the Missouri Senate. An examination of the website indicates that the organization equates “smart growth” with opposing eminent domain, which is laudable. Moreover, it is encouraging that Missourians for Smart Growth does not appear to endorse so-called smart growth strategies (such as urban growth boundaries) that have destroyed housing affordability in many urban areas of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand and have virtually stolen the future from many younger households who will be relegated to renting for the rest of their lives. Nor is there any reference to the anti-mobility strategies that would stop roadway construction, seek to heard people onto mass transit services that don’t go where they need to go and drive business expansion to other urban areas. If our reading is correct, this is smart growth worth supporting.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 10:09 AM | Permalink

It’s time to stop pretending about transit. That is the message of the new Statistics Canada data that shows the average transit commuter spends three hours more time weekly traveling between home and work than the average automobile driver or rider. The complete story is outlined in my National Post oped Travel Times Prove Transit a Non-Starter. The National Post is Canada’s second largest national newspaper.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 05:40 AM | Permalink

The imperative for improving the nation's freight infrastrucutre was stressed by UPS Chairman and CEO Michael Eskew in a recent address to the Philadelphia World Affairs Council. The reality is clear. China, increasingly America’s most dynamic competitor, is building new seaports, expanding its rail system and is in the process of developing an interstate standard highway system more extensive than our own Eisenhower system. Eskew notes that the nation’s freight transportation system --- its highway, navigable waterway freight rail and air system --- has received poor or even failing grades in an American Society of Civil Engineers 2005 review.

Continue reading "The Imperative for Improved Infrastructure" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 12:18 PM | Permalink

Dr. Ronald D. Utt of the Heritage Foundation writes today that a measure that would grant $1.5 billion to Washington’s Metro transit system may be “the biggest pork barrel earmark in history.” Washington’s transit system, with its bloated costs, has long fought attempts to implement cost effective reform, instead convincing policy makers that the answer to every question in transit is more money See: Transit: One-Half Trillion Dollars for Nothing. The proposed funding would be released to the transit agency if jurisdictions in the area enacted dedicated taxes of a similar amount. I have previously written that this is both unnecessary and unhealthy.

Continue reading "Washington's Metro at the Trough" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 09:34 AM | Permalink

I highly recommend Randal O’Toole’s Plague of the Planners which appeared the Canada’s largest national newspaper, The Globe and Mail on June 26, 2005.

Continue reading "Smart Growth is No Growth 3: Planner’s Plague" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 07:34 PM | Permalink

Most people, if asked, would probably respond that buses or subways are the most frequently used method of mass transit in the United States. They would be wrong. One of the best kept secrets in transportation statistics is the extent of school bus ridership. Part of the reason is that statistics are not as readily available for school buses as they are for other modes of transport. Every school day, school buses carry 65 percent more travel than the nation’s transit buses, subways (metros), light rail, trolleybuses (electric buses), commuter rail and dial-a-ride services combined.

Continue reading "School Buses: The Largest Mode of Transit" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 12:35 PM | Permalink

One of the great pleasures in my professional life was to serve on the Amtrak Reform Council with Joe Vranich, who certainly is among the most sincere and clear-thinking people to be found in public policy. Today, he authors an article in the New York Sun drawing a parallel between the tragic Mumbai train bombings and the dreadful state of the commuter rail tunnels under Manhattan, through which perhaps 500,000 commuters travel each day. Those commuters are daily subjected to a system that provides insufficient avenues for evacuation and faulty ventilation.

Continue reading "Mumbai and the Senators from New York & New Jersey" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 02:27 PM | Permalink

Syndicated columnist George Will presents one of the best popular descriptions of the economic gains that have resulted from the Interstate Highway System, which is now 50 years old.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 09:10 AM | Permalink

Canadian transit officials are seeking to follow the “pied piper” of US transit policy. A prestigious group of large city mayors has called for a national transit program, claiming that Canada is the only G-8 nation without one. In fact the only high-income nation with a national transit program not scheduled for discontinuance or major reductions is the United States (as I argue in the July 7 Globe and Mail, Canada's largest national newspaper).

Continue reading "Canada Seeks to Mimic Failed US Transit Policy" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 09:04 AM | Permalink

Former presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis provides a textbook example of how large infrastructure projects are sold using myths rather than reality. In a recent Los Angeles Times opted entitled L.A – S.F. Train is a Quick Traffic Fix, Dukakis and co-author Arthur H. Purcell tout the purported potential of the proposed California High Speed Rail System to reduce traffic congestion, both on highways and in the air. They should have read the planning documents, which say no such thing. In fact, even with high-speed rail, traffic congestion between California’s largest urban areas will rise by more than one-quarter by 2020. Further, the gold-plated highway alternative considered in the planning reports would result in less traffic congestion and more cost effectively (who knows how much better it would have been if excessively high roadway building costs had not been used?).

Continue reading "Dukakis Selling Rail Myths, Again" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 05:36 PM | Permalink

Los Angeles Daily News reporter Maria Garza decided to give up her car for and use transit instead for a month. She describes her experiences in an article published on July 2. In Bus Experience Now Happily in Rear View Mirror,” Ms Garza details the difficulties of commuting on public transit and expressed pleasure at being able to return to her car.

Continue reading "Reporter Explains Why People Don't Take Transit" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 03:52 PM | Permalink

Barely a year goes by that a new transit tax is not proposed for some urban area. Regrettably, the new taxes and the many ones already in place do little beyond increase the cost of transit’s current output. Over the past 35 years, transit expenditures have risen at more (per passenger mile) than the costs of medical care (based on the Consumer Price Index). If the costs of eggs had risen as much since 1970, a dozen would cost more than $6.00 today, instead of $1.00, a gallon of milk would cost over $13.00, the price of gasoline would be nearing $6.00 and an entry level car, such as a Toyota Corolla would cost more than $40,000, instead of $15,000 or less.

Continue reading "Transit: Half-A-Trillion Dollars for Nothing" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 03:49 PM | Permalink

Smart parliamentarians avoid the transport portfolio in Australia’s largest state, New South Wales. That truth was reinforced this week, when traveling on foot proved to be faster than the train. On paper, at least, Sydney, the nation’s largest urban area, has a world-class rail system. Routes radiate from Central Station, at the south end of downtown and provide convenient access by underground stations to the central business district and the large business district of North Sydney, just over the famous Harbor Bridge.

Continue reading "Can Rail Compete with Feet?" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 05:14 PM | Permalink

Proposals to create dedicated taxes to support Washington’s Metro and bus service are both ill advised and unnecessary. It is likely that such a tax would simply increase the demand for future taxes, while providing the national capital area with little, if any new service. Worst of all, Congressman Tom Davis (R-VA) has introduced a bill to give $1.5 billion in federal taxes if local officials approve the same amount in additional funding (for a total of $3 billion). Taxpayers from Miami to Nome would be justified in throwing a Potomac Tea Party in protest against this taxation without representation.

Continue reading "Unnecessary Dedicated Tax for Washington Metro" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 08:47 PM | Permalink

Chicken Little Makes Policy: "Global warming" has become the latest weapon of the anti-automobile crowd. This may be best illustrated in Montreal, where public officials and the local media object to virtually every road improvement and suburban development on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Never mind that Environment Canada data shows automobile GHG to be so small that if all Canadians gave up their cars and began walking tomorrow, the nation would still fall far short of meeting its Kyoto agreements. (See Housing and Transportation in Montreal – How suburbanization is improving the region's competitiveness .)

Continue reading "Replacing Transit with 5 Light Bulbs" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 10:19 PM | Permalink

Rhetoric versus Reality: The mind-numbing drum beat goes on as advocates of transit funding use even the 50th anniversary of the interstate system. In a Jun2 28 USA Today article (Note 1), representatives of the Sierra Club and the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) extol the virtues of transit and talk of the “resurgence of light rail” in places like Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas and Houston. It is well to keep this discussion in context.

Continue reading "Transit’s Impossible Dream" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 07:11 AM | Permalink

Selling a White Elephant: According to a story in the The Las Vegas Sun, the Las Vegas Monorail continues its financial slide. The system, financed by tax-exempt bonds downgraded to junk bond status by Wall Street, was to carry more than 53,000 riders daily in its first year of operation, according to “investment grade” ridership projections. Into its second year of operation, daily ridership is at 20,100, which is near the midpoint of the range I projected in a 2000 report (Las Vegas Monorail Report). According to The Sun, both ridership and revenue are dropping.

Continue reading "Junk Bond Las Vegas Monorail Nears the Brink" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 10:23 AM | Permalink

High Speed Rail Proposal A high-speed rail system has been proposed for California, which would serve San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, the San Joaquin Valley and the San Francisco area. Planners place the cost at $37 billion and claim that the alternatives would cost more. History suggests that projects such as this virtually never achieve their objectives and experience exorbitant cost escalation. Taxpayers beware!

Continue reading "California High Speed Rail: Taxpayers Beware!" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 06:20 PM | Permalink

America’s interstate highway system is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It is hard to imagine an infrastructure project that has provided greater economic and social returns. The interstate system has been instrumental in the widespread affluence that has occurred since it was established in 1956. At the same time, the interstate highways system has saved hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of injuries.

Continue reading "The Interstate Highway System: At the 50th Anniversary" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 10:09 PM | Permalink

A study published by the Montreal Economic Institute notes the potential for improved competitiveness for the Montreal metropolitan area Housing and Transportation in Montreal – How suburbanization is improving the region’s competitiveness (also available in French: Transport et logement à Montréal – Comment le développement de la banlieue rend la métropole plus compétitive .

Continue reading "Toronto's Land Use & Transport Policies Make Montreal More Competitive" »

Posted by Wendell Cox at 09:13 AM | Permalink

An op-ed New Urbanism=New Feudalism in Canada’s National Post decries adoption of what it calls Toronto’s “new fuedalism” urban policy, which proponents call “new urbanism” or “smart growth.” Peter Shawn Taylor notes that the program “is a deliberate strategy to curb suburban growth and force more people into downtown high-rise apartments -- thus frustrating the hopes and dreams of many young potential homebuyers across Southern Ontario.” He also notes that the policies will lead to “greater income stratification,” an inevitable outcome of a land rationing system that forces up the price of housing in relation to incomes. The plan would impose densities double that of the ville de Paris according to Taylor. the National Post is Canada's second largest national newspaper. The previous day the paper featured an op-ed by Wendell Cox How Toronto's Policies Improve Montreal's Competitiveness outlining the potential opportunities that the Toronto program provides to Montreal, which has far less restrictive land use and transportation policies

Posted by Wendell Cox at 08:44 AM | Permalink

Claims of transit ridership increases greater than autos rely on
"apples to oranges" comparisons calculated from an unrepresentative
base year.

Calls to "Dump the Pump" and use transit to avoid higher gas
prices are baseless rhetoric. The reality is transit is not available
for most urban trips and cannot be made available at a price society
can afford.

The Public Purpose #89

Posted by Wendell Cox at 10:09 AM | Permalink