Design Flaw Appears Responsible for Bridge Collapse

January 22nd, 2008
The collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis led immediately to calls for increased gas taxes for infrastructure repair. The fact that at least 20 percent of such increases would be likely to be spent on transit, and who knows how much more would be up for grabs by Congressional earmarkers, was carefully kept quiet. Now [...]

TriMet Crime Coverup

January 21st, 2008
Light-rail associated crime has been a big issue in Portland, so you would think the media would be all over the story when a woman was assaulted at a light-rail station in Portland last Christmas Eve. Instead — nothing. Normally, says the Gresham Outlook, the police inform the media about such crimes. But in this [...]

Is Gregoire hyping disaster to sell bridges?

January 19th, 2008
Gov. Christine Gregoire is eagerly sharing the happy news of her willingness to slap tolls on bridges and highways. She met with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski in Clark County the other day to discuss moving ahead on a $4.2 billion new bridge over the Columbia River on I-5. The feds would pick up most of the tab, but Gregoire is set on imposing tolls. To push her agenda, she's using last summer's Minneapolis bridge collapse to make her case for urgency. Only problem is, it turns out the Minneapolis bridge disaster wasn't a case of aging infrastructure. The ...

Milwaukie Light Rail to Cost (gasp, choke) $1.25 billion

January 17th, 2008
Actually, $1.25 billion is the low estimate for a light-rail line from Portland to Milwaukie, Oregon. Depending on the routing, it could be as high as $1.4 billion, not counting cost overruns. For those of you not familiar with Portland, Milwaukie is not some distant suburb. It is immediately adjacent to Portland. I used to [...]

Portlanders to be taxed from all sides

January 5th, 2008
Just count the tax ideas that are being reported: - Multnomah County is proposing a vehicle license fee (May) - Portland is proposing a street maintenance fee (Jan.) - Metro is considering a garbage rate increase - Metro is looking into a transportation tax (Nov 08) Not to mention… - Kulongoski is considering a gas tax (2009 Session). How can taxpayer families afford to survive?

The problems with government planning

January 4th, 2008
This seems to have become the theme of the week with New London, Conn., Derby, Conn., and now Burlington, Iowa all having their own problems with developers. Cato Senior Fellow, Randal O’Toole has wrote a piece that appeared in last week’s Baltimore Sun that deals with not so much the problems, as with the failures, of government planning. O’ Toole explains the fundamental character of government plans: “Everybody plans. But private plans are flexible, and we happily change them when new information arises. In contrast, special-interest groups ensure that the government plans benefiting them do not change — ...

Seattle’s transportation malaise is nothing special

January 3rd, 2008
Seattle perversely prides itself on its transportation stalemates, as if they're part of our brand. Alas, thinking locally, defying regional scale, and torpedoing big governmental projects is a grand American tradition, widely shared.

The Biased FTA Won’t Give Portland Its Streetcar Subsidies

December 31st, 2007
Pity the poor city of Portland. It wants to build more streetcar lines, and its Godfather Earl created a special slush fund small starts program in the recent transportation bill for such new rail lines. Only now the evil Federal Transit Administration (no doubt goaded by the evil Bush Administration) says that it will only [...]

Light Rail Follies #2: 20th Anniversary

December 11th, 2007
The nation’s worst-performing light-rail system celebrated its 20th anniversary a few days ago, and in honor of the occasion the San Jose Mercury News published a review that tries, but fails, to be positive. Thanks to the high cost of light rail and the foolish decisions of the Valley Transportation Authority’s, the article notes, VTA [...]

The Big O Covers the Antiplanner

December 10th, 2007
Today’s Oregonian features an article about the Antiplanner. The article was accompanied by a photo of a dismayed-looking antiplanner gazing at a heavily subsidized mid-rise apartment (scroll across to find this and two related photos).
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