Out of Control

March 30, 2007

Ted vs. Bart vs. Tom

Last week I participated in an online debate hosted by the LA Times. I tousled with Bart Reed of The Transit Coalition and we discussed all sorts of things related to transportation, transit, and urban form.

Transportation guru Tom Rubin decided to respond to one of Bart’s responses to me, and Tom has given me the green light to reproduce it here.

Below the fold I've included my post, then what follows is Bart's response, with Tom's comments embedded (indented text).

Traffic snarl: Rail or rubber?
How far should the subway system be extended? And should transit systems be subsidized? All this week, Ted Balaker and Bart Reed debate traffic, transit, and mobility in Los Angeles.
March 20, 2007

Today, Balaker and Reed look at expanding the L.A. subway system. Yesterday they debated how to reduce congestion Later this week they'll focus on transit funding, building roads and rail, alternatives to traffic, and crazy ideas to fix the traffic problem.

Run away, train!
By Ted Balaker

Bart,

Let's keep in mind that Los Angeles rail riders pay only about 3% of the overall cost of their trips. It would be easier to justify these hefty subsidies if the money were focused on helping the poor and handicapped—improved mobility works wonders for improving one's lot in life. But far too often officials spend lavishly on rail to subsidize those who already have good transportation options. And, as Environmental Defense's Robert Garcia explains, railophilia sucks up huge amounts of funds that could be used for moving people who need the only type of transit that really works for them, buses.

The price tag for the most extravagant bus system (think the Orange Line) is only about a third of what light rail costs, and light rail is downright cheap when compared to subways like the Red Line. (BTW, forget the original 376,000 daily ridership projection that was used to sell the line decades ago—we're still waiting for the Red Line to hit half of its reduced projection of 298,000). Public funds are always limited, and that means the more L.A. commits itself to rail, the less it can provide widespread transit service for those who need it most. Yet L.A. officials still back pricey rail systems because they regard them as the best way to lure relatively well-off suburbanites out of their sedans.

The typical Metrolink rider has an income of $65,000 and owns at least one car. The typical bus rider (chapter 12) has a household income of $15,000 and owns no car. But guess which way the subsidies flow? Each new bus trip costs taxpayers about a buck; each new rail trip costs about $21.

City Hall ribbon-cutters love rail, but it receives a much chillier reception among those with expertise in cost-benefit analysis. I was the lead author of a literature review (pdf) that examines economists' views on rail transit. Economists are fascinated (and annoyed) by how rail remains politically popular despite persistently failing to make good on its core promises, such as cutting congestion, getting motorists out of their cars, and cleaning the environment (operating big, nearly-empty trains wastes plenty of energy).

Economists from the Brookings Institution and UC Berkeley recently published an especially telling paper that helps answer the "how much more rail?" question. The authors examined 25 rail transit systems nationwide to figure out whether rail transit is socially desirable. And they didn't simply point out that all systems lose money; rather, they examined the larger societal benefits that rail backers often tout.

Their conclusion: "We find that with the single exception of BART in the San Francisco Bay area, every U.S. [rail] transit system actually reduces social welfare" (emphasis in original). They find that the yearly drain was typically north of the $100 million mark, and peg L.A.'s train drain (Metro) at $125 million per year. The public mistakenly assumes rail improves social welfare because "supporters have sold [rail systems] as an antidote to the social costs associated with automobile travel, in spite of strong evidence to the contrary." Their suggestion: stop building rail. I'm inclined to agree.

Ted Balaker is a policy analyst at Reason Foundation and co-author of the book The Road More Traveled: Why the Congestion Crisis Matters More Than You Think and What We Can Do About It (Rowman & Littlefield 2006).

Magical thinking theories

By Bart Reed

Ted,

Reading your constant inclusion of pointy-head wonk statistics about how transit is bad and costly but private cars are free is really making my head spin.

And, besides, actually responding to facts can be very tough. So, instead, personal insults. It is often a very effective diversion.

Ideally, any form of public transit, be it rail or buses, should serve where a good percent of the public travels, such as our dispersed areas with high job densities. These systems must transport passengers in a speedy fashion with frequent, punctual service.

True, however, at some point, it is rather important to realize that about the only type of travel where transit can really work is where there are a whole lot of people traveling along the same alignment at the same time – such as to CBD’s – which, unfortunately for transit promoters, has been steadily declining for decades. Rather than trying to respond to these new travel patterns, including the huge suburb-to-suburb commute, the response of rail promoters is to continue to pitch yesterdays solution to tomorrow’s problems – while ignoring the transit needs that can actually be satisfied reasonably well at reasonable public sector cost by non-rail transit modes, particularly if they are well managed and take advantage of proven cost-effectiveness techniques, such as competition in the provision of services.

You insist it's noble to give mobility options to "the poor and handicapped," but these folks are entitled to better-quality transportation just as those "relatively well-off suburbanites" who, you say, love being stuck in "their sedans" because alternative transportation choices don't exist.

The first attribute of “better-quality transportation” is that it actually works for the people who need it. It needs to have a stop somewhere reasonably close to where these people live and another somewhere reasonably close to where they want to go. It should operate fairly frequently and have good coverage of the hours of the day and the days of the week. It should be safe and secure and people should feel safe and secure.

Note that none of this really has much at all to do with mode – and, in fact, the professional literature is filled with studies that show that mode is simply not very significant in individual decisions to use transit. It is the attributes of the transit trip, the qualities listed above and others, that are key.

But, you say, this list ignores that all-important attribute of rail, SPEED. Yes, speed is important, but, it does not necessarily mean that rail means greater speed. U.S. light rail has an average speed approaching 16 mph and heavy rail about 20.5. Unfortunately, this is not the speed of human travel, it is the speed of the vehicles, and does not include the time to access the stations at trip ends and the wait for transfers – it takes approximately two minutes simply to walk from the sidewalk by a subway station to the station platform, plus another two minutes at the other end of the trip.

Bus transit can be very competitive with rail modes in both transit vehicle speed and particularly in human travel speed. If light rail is a viable option in a transit corridor, bus rapid transit should also be studied. Not only are the transit guideway speeds comparable, the same bus that operates on a dedicated busway can also go through neighborhoods, allowing people to avoid the bus-to-light rail transfer, or the drive to the station. It is almost impossible to spend half as much to build a BRT line as a LRT line, as MTA is proving time and time again.

(Yes, we know that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now trying to get people to call it, “Metro,” but they are not fooling anybody.)

Of course, in many situations, there is not really much need to even go to BRT. After spending years claiming that the Orange Line BRT would be much faster than the logical alternative, Rapid Bus, in its very last revision to the Revised Environmental Impact Report, MTA actually showed Rapid Bus on Victory/Lankershim to be faster than the Orange Line. The wonder of Rapid Bus is, with guideway costs per mile of under 2% of what it costs for BRT and 1% of what it costs for LRT, dozens of Rapid Bus lines can be implemented, providing a faster transit option for dozens of times the number of people who could ever easily access rail transit.

The problem with rail is that it costs so much that there is simply not enough money to build very many stations. After over two decades, and over ten billion dollars of capital expenditures, there are currently 62 light and heavy rail stations (and, in the interests of full disclosure, 17 more currently under construction) in MTA’s 1,224 square mile service area, leaving the vast majority of greater Los Angeles many miles from an urban rail station.

There are over 25,000 bus stops in that same service area.

Quality transit service begins with there being transit service, somewhere transit users can actually get to it, and the huge cost of building rail lines means that the overwhelming majority of Los Angeles residents will never have a rail station that is useful for their daily travel – and every billion dollars spent on building more rail means that transit that could actually be useful to those who need it will not exist for them.

Subways should be built where traffic is too dense to make private vehicles, buses, and at-grade light rail trains reliable. They should also be built when there are no available right-of-ways and development is too dense to acquire property for surface routing.

… and they should only be built where they make sense as transportation options, where there are no superior options – and, at well over $300 million a mile, and climbing, frankly, there aren’t too many of these places in existence.

Admittedly, subways are inherently costly pieces of infrastructure, but you ignore the $40 million-per-lane-mile costs for roads whose capacity is a paltry 1,650 vehicles per hour.

Your 1,650 vehicles per hour is a low figure (rush hour traffic in LA will often reach 2,200), which appears to imply that you are discussing an high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane or an HOV/Busway. Are you aware that the El Monte Busway/HOV actually produces more transportation work (passenger-miles) at peak hour than all four general purpose lanes on the San Bernardino Freeway (I-10) where it runs – combined?

Oh, and an even larger multiple on what the Blue Line, American’s most heavily utilized light rail line, produces?

Or, perhaps you meant an High-Occupancy Toll (HOT) lane – you know, one of those additions that can pay for a substantial share of their own cost of construction, even the entire cost in some cases, through user fees – and can be used by transit buses as well?

Transit buses on the El Monte average over 55 mph – compared to slightly over 40 mph for Metrolink, which is most comparable rail mode.

You make wild claims that Los Angeles can get a more attractive bus system for maybe half the capital cost of rail, …

The necessary capital renewal and replacement costs for the existing MTA rail system would pay for a bus fleet well over double the size of the current bus fleet and all the capital support structures – forever.

… but ignore the huge bus operating costs.

Oh, I understand, this is the MTA rail investment philosophy – we were placed on Earth to build rail, and, in order to afford to keep doing this, we must cut out unnecessary frills – like carrying passengers on buses.

Therefore, it is vital that we reduce the number of bus passengers that we carry by raising fares, reducing service, and the most unbelievably ill-devised bus restructuring plan – “Metro Connections” – ever devised.

Rail infrastructure can last for decades or even hundreds of years.

Yes, as long as you keep pumping money into it – MTA’s rail capital renewal and replacement cost projection for the years 2001-2025 is $4.7 billion. This has nothing to do with building any new lines or stations, it is simply to keep what was built operating at an acceptable state of repair and operations.

The existing Red Line was built for $4.7 billion, but more than 304 million boardings have been made in 14 years of operations. 40 million boardings were made in the last fiscal year alone, and the number keeps climbing.

Let’s take the entire MTA bus fleet – approximately 2,700 vehicles – add the costs of bus maintenance and operation facilities, and cost them all at current market prices (the Red Line costs, by the way, are from the early 1990’s, on average) – and we get nowhere remotely close to $2 billion.

In 2005, MTA buses carried more than ten times the number of Red Line riders.

AND the number keeps climbing, or at least it will until MTA cuts bus service enough so it can build more rail lines.

Because subways are underground, they are not constrained to follow above-ground physical features such as mountains or street grids. Thus, you could build subways in any direction necessary.

Isn’t it amazing what it possible when money is no object? Other people’s money, that is.

Rail in general also promotes better uses of scarce land by bringing various services close to stations and making them accessible to pedestrians. You hate the fact that this discourages auto travel and in turn saves consumers on fuel, parking and maintenance costs. Time on transit can be spent productively, unlike driving time. You should try Metrolink and see how many laptops are in action.

By the way, it is not that anyone “… hate(s) the fact that this discourages auto travel” et al, it is that there are so many far more productive ways to spend taxpayer dollars.

For those who want to live next to rail stations to reduce their driving, well, I say, good for you, and I sincerely hope that you have this option … as long as you pay the costs, and not stick the taxpayers with them, of course.

And, if the vast majority of people world-wide have the American/Australian/French/German/Indian/Turkish/You-Name-Your-Nation Dream of a house in the suburbs, well, if you don’t mind, I’d like for them to also have the same option of being able to fulfill it.

… as long as they pay the costs – and ONLY their costs.

As a sharp divergence between your magical thinking theories and actual practice, Metro spent over $1 billion on the bus system during the Consent Decree years yet has not achieved meaningful ridership increases, hovering just over 1 million boardings a day for several years now.

In fact, here is what he said about it in a published Order to MTA to add bus service to comply with the requirements of the CD:
“… in the six-year post-Consent Decree period, the MTA has gained a total of 81.6 million annual riders. … This in stark contrast to a loss of 133.6 million annual passengers over the eleven year period preceding the Consent Decree.”

By the way, MTA is currently carrying about 1.25 to 1.30 million bus passengers a day, or, a bit over five times the number of rail passengers.

Buses and even those on dedicated busways lack the capacity to handle passengers, as demonstrated by the too-popular Orange Line.

You see, before you get into the question of how much a line can carry, you first have to address the problem of, does anyone really want to ride it?

There is no real functional capacity problem on the Orange Line – all MTA has to do is to “platoon” buses, running two of them together when the demand is there.

The stations were specifically designed to be more than long enough for MTA to do this, one just wonders why MTA isn’t.

Also, the cost of moving passengers by rail is historically less than doing the same on buses on a mile-per-mile basis, largely due to constantly increasing labor costs.

Here’s the deal – first, when rail capital costs are 70-85% of the total costs, while bus capital costs are more like 15-30% of the total, yeah, I can see why rail proponents want to focus on something other than capital costs.

However, when you compare bus and rail in similar transportation corridors, and get away from all the lesser used lines where bus is utilized because rail is way too expensive to be even considered, you know, guess what?

Bus is generally a lot cheaper.

For example, on Line 720, the Wilshire/Whittier Rapid Bus line, the operating subsidy per passenger is well under half what it is for MTA light rail – and capital cost is chump change for this bus line, compared to any type of rail.

Worse yet, buses must be replaced after 500,000 miles, which is only 5 years of service for Orange Line buses, versus 30-50 years for rail cars.

OK, let’s do the math. (Some of the numbers may be a bit off, but not much.)

On weekdays, MTA operates 171 Orange Line bus trips in each direction, for a total of 342 in both directions. The end-to-end distance is approximately 13.8 miles, so this works out to approximately 4,720 revenue miles each weekday.

MTA utilizes 26 buses at peak, and, if we assume the usual 20% spare factor, that means that there will be 31 buses (I gave you the benefit of the doubt and rounded down), in total operating on the Orange Line.

Divide 4,720 miles per working weekday by 31 buses and you get 152 miles per bus per day, working weekdays.

MTA operates fewer Orange Line trips on Saturdays, Sundays, and Holidays than it does on working weekdays, but, let’s give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that the number of trips is the same each day.

So, multiply 152 miles per bus per day times 365 days per year and you get 56,000 miles per bus per year (I rounded up again).

Let’s add in some additional miles to get from the bus garage to the Orange Line, driving around the bus garage, and whatever, and call it an even 60,000 miles per bus per year.

That’s very high for MTA bus, or any bus, but that’s a lot less than 100,000. If MTA actually took these buses out of service after 500,000 miles – which is highly doubtful – that would be a life of about 8 1/3 years.

MTA paid $633,000 for each bus. Over an 8 1/3 year life, that’s $76,000 per year.

Each bus has 57 seats. That’s about $1,333 per bus seat per year.

Now, let’s look at light rail cars. MTA’s newest light rail car, the Ansaldobreda 2250, cost $2.9 million each. Using the Federal standard 25-year life (yes, it would be possible to operate these cars for 50 years, but only with at least one complete rebuild, which would cost a lot of money – and you can rebuild buses to extend their useful lives as well, so let’s not go there), that’s $116,000 per car year of life.

Each car has 76 seats, so that’s $1,526 per rail seat per year.

Ah, Bart – bus wins.

Now, it is certainly true that you can get a lot more standees on a light rail car than on a bus, so, if your idea of good transit is to stand while you ride, please, go ahead and make the adjustments that you’d like to these figures. Of course, I could come back and talk about the time value of money, where the full $2.9 million for the light rail car has to be paid out all at once, but, for the buses, it is $633,000 spread in three installments over almost 17 years, and there is a time value to money, but, really, do we really need to get into this kind of detail?

After all, when the cost of light rail guideway is well over double the cost of a bus rapid transit guideway, and the cost of bus and rail cars are a pretty small portion of the total cost of the respective guideways, can we just say, we’re done here?

Ted, reality is quite unlike the strange social theories you promote, as you could move more people with less operating and capital costs on rail than on bus.

A fanciful bus system would be more costly and less attractive than a rail system in the long run. But for you, a supporter of the concrete, asphalt and rebar industries, efficiency is not part of the mantra.

Bart, you can keep repeating that rail is cheaper, but that just doesn’t make it so.

In virtually every case, you compare bus and rail in a similar transit corridor, and the capital and operating costs for bus will be far lower than those for bus in most cases.

I’m sorry you don’t like the way the facts play out, but that doesn’t change the facts – bus is a whole lot less expensive to build and operate in the vast majority of cases, which means that a whole lot more people can be carried on bus than on rail.

Repeating false statements many times, and calling people names, simply does not alter that.

Posted by tedb at 10:59 AM

A skinless chicken breast in every pot

I know an army moves on its stomach, but I'm not sure about the electorate. According to this story Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is taking his campaign to the Food Network to warn about the dangerous threat of childhood obesity.

(Alas, the story is gated but it is short. Full text below)

LITTLE ROCK (AP) - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is taking his presidential campaign to an unlikely forum - the Food Network.
Huckabee will be featured on the network Saturday night on a segment focusing on childhood obesity, his exploratory campaign announced Thursday.
Huckabee, who lost more than 110 pounds after being diagnosed with diabetes, focused on children's obesity during his term as governor and pushed for regular screenings of the body mass of school children.
His campaign said Food Network producers traveled to Arkansas last fall to interview him about the state's efforts to reduce the number of overweight children in the state.
"While I was governor of Arkansas, we made great strides in addressing the dangers of childhood obesity," Huckabee said. "Removing vending machines from elementary schools, conducting body-mass-index testing and working to increase physical activity in the schools has played a big part in increasing health awareness among children."
Huckabee, a Republican who left office in January, this year formed a presidential exploratory committee for the 2008 race.

Well.

Now, using the sovereign power of a state to police school vending machines is no doubt a burning issue at many PTA meetings across the country, but I'm not certain it is the kind of thing that qualifies one to become "leader of the free world." No doubt the founding fathers had a more modest vision for the new form of government they were struggling to build.

"Give me lean cuisine or give me death" isn't exactly the kind of slogan to warm one's soul during a winter at Valley Forge.

Posted by mikef at 08:02 AM

March 24, 2007

Is Muni Wireless Losing Its Political Luster?

In one of the more balanced articles I’ve come across about municipal wireless, Bryan Zandberg, reporter for the on-line Canadian publication The Tyee, looks at how 2007 may become the year of reckoning for many municipal wireless systems.

He turns to wireless consultant Craig Settles, who, while not completely anti-muni, has been critical of the tendency of city administrators to overpromise, particularly when in comes to in-building coverage and free service.

“This is the year where a lot of things are going to come to fruition,” said Settles in an interview with The Tyee. “A lot of theories are going to be proved out and a number of folks are going to be a little disappointed.”

Moreover, by the end of 2007, Settles tells Zandberg, setting up networks for the general public will be “the weakest pillar” when governments make their case for going wireless.

“I’m still not convinced that the idea of free Wi-Fi around the city is going to fly, in this city or in any city.”

Zandberg’s angle was ongoing delays in Vancouver, which announced it would build a city wireless network last year. The city still has not finalized on a plan.

Meanwhile, the novelty of municipal wireless is wearing off. Recall that one of the drivers of these plans has been political vanity: big city mayors looking to stamp their towns with the “first-to-be-all-wireless” cachet. Trouble is, how trendy and pioneering can you be when places like Fredericton, New Brunswick, not to mention Addison, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, and already have limited WiFi systems covering downtown areas and public parks?

But in an interview last week, [Vancouver City Councilor Peter] Ladner admitted it’s getting a little late in the game to come out looking like a world leader. Along with many high-tech business leaders in Vancouver’s new media sector, he now just wants to avoid the embarrassment of failing to keep up with the Joneses.

“Fredericton got a return from the branding of being the first [to do it] and being a very happening town. But now that everybody’s doing it, it doesn't really pay back that much.”

And in politics, that’s a killer.

Posted by steve.titch at 07:54 AM

March 23, 2007

Traffic Snarl--Day 5

The final question from the week-long LA Times debate: God just gave L.A. $100 billion to fix traffic. What would you do?

Him:

It's been a pleasure brawling against your esteemed institution and your version of logic. Now, back to reality: Given the the generous contribution, the most ambitious item on the list is indeed the most obvious one: $10 billion to extend the Wilshire Boulevard subway to Santa Monica, with stops at Century City and UCLA. Another $7 billion would be used to create either a subway spur or a separate light rail line to connect the San Fernando Valley with LAX and Westwood. This line would tunnel between UCLA and Sherman Oaks and continue north on Van Nuys Boulevard above ground.

Me:

Lanleyesque

Here's some of what I might do with the dough:

Reduce transit bus fares to recreate the 40% increase in ridership from the 50-cent fare of the early 1980s—except, this time, I would also increase bus service and make it last.

Fund a ballot initiative to require every member of a transit agency board to take transit at least four times a week—no exceptions.

Install some queue-jumpers so motorists could hurdle over intersections, expand roadway capacity where it makes sense, unclog some of the worst bottlenecks (101/405), and build some tunnels. The first tunnel would fill in the missing link in the 710. Apart from the improving traffic flow, the project would provide a Euro chic vibe, as it would be very similar to the tunnel project on the A86 in Paris.

Whole day's exchange here.

All five exchanges archived here.

Posted by tedb at 04:23 PM

Traffic Snarl--Day 4 (Day 5 coming soon)

More from the LA Times online debate ...

Me:

Angelenos could bank on rail transit and go through the same old Groundhog Day routine of expressing shock when the latest rail line costs more (Blue Line cost escalation: 700%); does less (Red Line hasn't reached half its daily ridership projections); and takes longer to finish than originally advertised (back in 1980, Prop A money was supposed to buy us 11 lines). Or we could snap out of it and realize that strategic road building offers more congestion-relief bang for the buck.

Him:

I love the anti-choice dictate you want to force upon us. Transportation has never been, nor will ever be, a one-size fits all solution. A rural environment in West Texas, for example, will do better with cars and roads, but an urban environment will need rail when and where large freeways cannot be realistically built.

Complete Thursday exchange here.

Posted by tedb at 08:14 AM

March 22, 2007

Municipalities pooh-poohed this one, too

Someone or something disrupted service for 1,000 of the 3,800 users of Moorhead, Minn.’s municipal wireless network in late February, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is reporting.

Let’s recall that early critiques of municipal systems mentioned that radio systems that use unlicensed spectrum, as Moorhead’s does, would be prone to interference from everything from microwave ovens to garage door openers to radio controlled remote control toys.

More chilling was the city’s response. Purely on the say-so of GoMoorehead network administrator Kevin McClain, who believed the source of the interference was a local residence, police shut down power to the house and executed a search warrant for “a directional antennae” (it’s not clear whether the newspaper or the search warrant made muddled the use of the singular indefinite article and the Latinate plural of antenna).

You’d need a lot of radio power to jam wireless service to more than quarter of GoMoorehead’s user base. Although the interference stopped when the power was cut off, police found nothing at the home and no arrests were made. So either the interference was unintentional or the home itself was not the source of the problem.

So what happened? Police are still investigating. The paper does not report the perspective of the hapless homeowner. My money’s on the likelihood that the interference stemmed from a problem within the network itself, not a malicious attack. It’s not as if Moorhead has no history of interference problems. Here’s a trade paper report from last October on Moorhead’s use of a device to detect and resolve RF problems.

“It's alarming just how much interference is out there that you don't know about,” Travis Durick, wireless network engineer for the city, told SearchNetworking.com.

At [Minnesota State University-Moorhead], cordless phones and microwaves often interfere with or create trouble on the wireless network, Durick said. In one instance, four small wireless surveillance cameras installed in one building tucked behind lighted exit signs interfered and made the wireless channel unavailable. Complaints came pouring in. Durick said he found the access point that wasn’t working and replaced it, but there was still no connectivity. Using Spectrum Expert, he was able to determine why the access point wasn’t transmitting and was able to fix the problem.

The city of Moorhead’s Wi-Fi deployment created a different set of challenges. In many cases, too many devices were operating on the same channel and were canceling one another out.

Either way, the city’s reaction was overkill and serves as another example of why municipalities shouldn’t be in the broadband business in the first place. Say what you want about the phone and cable companies, but they can’t turn off your electricity on a mere whiff of suspicion.

Posted by steve.titch at 02:31 PM

March 21, 2007

Traffic Snarl--Day 3

Day three of my Dust-Up in the LA Times:

Some from him:

Rail alone will not reduce congestion, either. However, it has been shown that it can reduce the rate of congestion growth. Cities that offer complementary rail service experience congestion growth at a slower rate than those with auto-only infrastructure.

Some from me:

You say rail reduces the rate of congestion's growth, so let's look at one of these "success" stories. In post-rail St. Louis, the increase in driving dwarfed the increase in transit ridership. Transit captured less than 1 percent of new travel, and light rail grabbed even less. In other words, rail's impact was too tiny to affect congestion. Bart, when you say rail restrains congestion's growth, you remind me of the kid who sends his piggy bank to DC and says he helped restrain the growth of the federal deficit.

Whole day's exchange here.

Posted by tedb at 05:02 PM

Brits Cool to Network Neutrality

Regulators in the United Kingdom favor a cautious approach to network neutrality, stating that the European policy framework has safeguards in place to prevent an Internet service provider (ISP) from abusing its position in the information supply chain, according to a report from ZDNet.

Network neutrality would prevent an ISP from offering a content or applications provider such as Google or Amazon transmission prioritization, regardless of whether there is an added fee.

Speaking at a March 20 event organized by Westminster e-Forum, a London-based conference producer, Dougal Scott, director of policy development for the U.K. Office of Communications (Ofcom), the British counterpart of the FCC, said those insisting that ISPs treat all Internet services equally constitute the “most extreme” fringe of the net neutrality lobby. “There are real advantages to consumers in treating certain types of applications differently to others,” Scott said.

Claire Hobson, head of U.K. telecommunications policy for the Department of Trade and Industry, citing mass server networking, Web caching and other forms of data acceleration performed by Internet servers and routers, said the Internet was already non-neutral (Thank you, Lord!). “As long as users understand what they are getting, and can switch broadband provider easily, there should not be a problem,” she said.

Posted by steve.titch at 01:00 PM

March 20, 2007

Traffic Snarl--Day 2

The LA Times online debate featuring the Transit Coalition's Bart Reed and your truly is in its second day.

Today's questions: How far should the subway system be extended? And should transit systems be subsidized?

Some from me:

Some from him:

Reading your constant inclusion of pointy-head wonk statistics about how transit is bad and costly but private cars are free is really making my head spin. Ideally, any form of public transit, be it rail or buses, should serve where a good percent of the public travels, such as our dispersed areas with high job densities. These systems must transport passengers in a speedy fashion with frequent, punctual service.

Whole exchange here.

Once they link to it, you should be able to sound off here.

Posted by tedb at 03:13 PM

March 19, 2007

Traffic Snarl

Each day this week I'll be mixing it up in the LA Time's new online debate forum.

The topic is traffic congestion/mobility.

Check it out here; sound off here.

Posted by tedb at 04:35 PM

FTTH Council Video Makes the Case for the Unregulated Internet

The Fiber to the Home Council has produced a short, eloquent video that speaks to the importance of resisting Internet regulation.

Without mentioning “network neutrality,” the video discusses the oncoming “exaflood”—the explosive growth of Internet traffic now being driven by high-def video and massive multiplayer gaming.

This won’t be a problem, says the video, if the industry is allowed to prepare for it. That means retaining incentives to invest, not erecting regulatory barriers to prevent it, which network neutrality certainly would do because it would prevent content and applications providers from purchasing specialized network services that can improve their customers’ experience.

It’s worth noting that the FTTH Council is primarily an organization of manufacturers, and there are no telephone or cable companies among its members. Some of its members, in fact, are municipal power utilities with telecom operations, such as Provo Power and Bristol Virginia Utilities, which have no love for the incumbent side. Seems the prospect of Internet regulation is keeping more than the CEOs of AT&T and Verizon awake at night.

View the video here.

Posted by steve.titch at 12:46 PM

March 16, 2007

States Press Both Industry and Feds on RFID

Controversy over the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) continues to grow as New Hampshire has reintroduced legislation to regulate the use of RFID chips in consumer products and entirely ban their use in government documents such as driver’s licenses.

A bill in New Hampshire, HB 686, reflects growing legislator and voter concerns over the increasing use of RFID chips by large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target to track inventory as it moves through the supply chain. At least other three states have drawn up legislation against government plans to incorporate RFID chips into passports and drivers licenses. One New Hampshire legislator, who described himself as a civil libertarian, told me he felt that the chips and the information they gather can lead to wholesale invasions of privacy.

The New Hampshire bill would require retailers to label any products, such as food, apparel, or appliances, that contain RFID chips. It would exempt devices that incorporate RFID and other radio tracking technology as part of their essential mechanisms, such as cell phones, WiFi cards, and global positioning system (GPS) receivers.

The bill, introduced in February, revives but clarifies a 2005 bill that many felt was overly broad in its definitions, especially of radio tracking devices.

The bill would also prohibit forced implantation of an RFID chip in a person. Police would have to obtain a court order to use RFID to track an individual electronically.

The bill itself, like at least 17 others that have been introduced in state houses around the country, reflects the two sides of the RFID coin, commercial and government.

Concerns in the latter case have led to resolutions rejecting the U.S. government’s Real ID Act of 2005, which aims to standardize the information on state driver’s licenses and require them to contain RFID chips. Maine legislators approved such a resolution in January. Similar bills are pending in Georgia, Massachusetts, Montana, and Washington. New Hampshire has also introduced a bill, separate from the RFID proposal, that would prohibit the state from participating in any national ID card system.

Industry groups such as the Smart Card Alliance say RFID labeling laws raise costs for business and hit small retailers especially hard. The Smart Card Alliance also the privacy threat has been overhyped and misportrayed in the media. In reality, supporters of the technology say, RFID helps reduce manufacturing costs and protects consumers by keeping counterfeit products out of the supply chain. The Smart Card Alliance advocates a series of policy steps for both retail and government applications that include deactivation of any RFID chips embedded in a package or product upon purchase and the use of encryption in documents.

The implantation of RFID chips in individuals remains a hotly debated topic. Even so, some of the anti-RFID literature comes off as a bit paranoid at first blush. Then you come across companies like VeriChip Corp., of Del Rey Beach, Fla., which sells FDA-approved RFID chips, about the size of a grain of rice, designed for human implantation. The chief application right now is health care. Some 500 hospitals nationwide use VeriChip’s RFID-based patient information technology, so we are talking about technology that is used here and now.

Some of the applications are hard to argue with. Implanted RFID tags can provide doctors with life-saving information in event the patient is unconscious or incapacitated. In Florida, VeriChip and the Alzheimer’s Community Care Association of Palm Beach and Martin Counties Inc. have begun a two-year study to determine whether it’s practical to implant tiny computer chips containing medical records in dementia patients.

“People with Alzheimer’s and dementia are our most vulnerable population, particularly during hurricane season. We’re hoping this kind of technology creates a safer environment for them and creates higher efficiency in the emergency room,” Mary Barnes, president and chief executive of Alzheimer’s Community Care told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

But I’m a little leery of getting Americans getting too comfortable too quickly about RFID implantation in humans. A visit to VeriChip’s Web site finds rather breathless copy that tries too hard to paint a smiley face on the idea of human chip implants while barely masking a corporate vision that all but shouts, “If they move, tag ‘em!” And these days I think it’s fair to be worried about anything that involves the U.S. health care system, where government bureaucrats seem more than happy to legislate what they think is good for us, not what we would choose. They’ve already started banning trans fats and mandating, in New York City’s case, registration of diabetes cases with local health agencies (a process once required only for highly contagious diseases). In this environment, voluntary RFID implantation can easily become required RFID implantation.

Posted by steve.titch at 03:18 PM

March 15, 2007

Another KO victory for Franchise Reform

The Missouri General Assembly has overwhelmingly passed legislation that would allow statewide franchising authorization for cable TV competitors. The Missouri House of Representatives voted yesterday 143-4 in favor of the measure, known as the 2007 Video Services Providers Act (SB 284), a revised version of a bill that passed the state senate 32-2 earlier in the month. The legislation must now return to the Senate for final approval.

The votes recall the lopsided majority franchise reform legislation received in California last August (33-4 in the Senate, 70-0 in the Assembly) and confirms the bipartisan support video choice and competition have over barriers and regulation.

The Missouri bill caps franchise fees at 5 percent, but permits local franchise authorities to impose the same formula for PEG channel support as it does on the incumbent. Incumbents may apply for a statewide franchise when a competitor enters a local market. There is no outright build-out requirement, just the provision that within five years, at least 30 percent of households where service is available must qualify as low-income. The same build-out clause has appeared in the Wisconsin and Illinois bills as well, and may signal a new direction as to how states are approaching the issue.

Franchise reform continues its groundswell in the states. Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin are just three of least 12 states that have introduced statewide video franchising legislation. The others include Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, Tennessee, Utah and Washington.

Posted by steve.titch at 01:30 PM

March 14, 2007

The thought brings tears to your eyes

Matthew Hussey, director of Telecom & IT task force for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), spells out the benefits of franchise reform in this op-ed in The Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader. Missouri is one of at least 12 states so far this year to introduce video franchise reform legislation in a trend that continues to criss-cross the country.

Hussey notes that a statewide cable franchising would speed competition, resulting in greater consumer savings and more innovation. But you’ve got to love the way he puts the current local franchising process, where negotiations can take 18 months or longer, in perspective:

“The current local franchise model deters competition from the market because cable video providers have to separately negotiate contracts with approximately 700 municipalities in the state. Just imagine if you had to go to every county and apply for a driver’s license instead of just a state DMV.”

Posted by steve.titch at 06:13 PM

March 13, 2007

The FCC and Franchise Reform

When the FCC released its Section 621 Order last week, ostensibly pre-empting local franchise authorities on what they could and could not include in their agreements with cable TV and phone companies, the two sides broke predictably. Chairman Kevin Martin, the Republican appointee of President George W. Bush, and his two fellow GOPers, wrote of the need to break down barriers to entry that still exist within the franchising process, despite past efforts by the FCC to bring them in line with the spirit, if not the letter, current federal cable TV law.

The two Democrats, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, let their dissent be known.

Martin is right but not because he’s a Republican. The pity is that fight over video franchise reform, like network neutrality, is largely political. I can easily imagine, in some inverse dimension, that a Democrat FCC chairman is in favor of franchise reform while a Republican minority lines up against it. After all, William Kennard, FCC chairman under Clinton, clearly understood the way technology was changing the regulations and was quite pro-market. And in the past, Republicans have had issued with federal pre-emption.

Martin is right because he understands the way video entertainment is changing. Competition stands to boost bandwidth, choices and services. He’s also correct to ask if the Cable Act and the FCC’s earlier requirements really working to spark competition.

Economists such as Thomas Hazlett have doubted it for a long time. Hazlett is particularly critical if build-out requirements, which are specified in the name of creating a “level playing field,” but in fact have the opposite effect.

Hazlett wrote in a 2006 paper:

“A widespread provision in existing cable franchises states that the operator is required to build-out any part of the market where density is thirty homes per mile or more (average U.S. cable density is approximately 100 homes per mile). Assuming standard industry costs for a state of the art system and national averages for penetration (subscribers per home passed) and gross operating profits produces a financial analysis showing that a monopoly cable franchise can expect to break even at just under 30 homes per plant mile, i.e., below the density of the build-out requirement. But using precisely these numbers to gauge the entry of a competitive firm reveals that break even build-out occurs at about 65 homes per mile. With only about half as many anticipated subscribers and prices expected to decline by at least fifteen percent, the entrant is heavily taxed by imposition of a provision that costs the incumbent monopolist nothing, as the territory “required” to be built would be profitable to serve on its own.”

In addition to build-out requirements, the FCC specifically came out against negotiation delays and “nonprice concessions,” the practice of extracting as many municipal freebies as possible from the franchisee, ranging from parking lots to swimming pools.

Besides, how long can this model keep up? Statewide franchising is a step in the direction of deregulation, at that alone makes it praiseworthy. It will accelerate competition, but in the long run, it essentially migrates a local regulatory regime to the state level, especially when PEG channels and build-out requirements are retained.

The overall significance of the FCC ruling is that it attempts to push local franchise authorities to deal with media delivery in 2007. Whether the FCC is successful is another thing. But groups like the National League of Cities, which continue to fight for the status quo, may not only be on the wrong side of debate, they may be caught on the wrong side service evolution. Internet and TV are melding. PEG channels may indeed be costly and unreasonable when there’s YouTube. I’ve written before that the local franchise model is tied to the cable model developed more than 40 years ago. While the era of the programming grid may not be over, many people don’t watch “regularly scheduled programs” anymore.

Ironically, if franchising rules keep the cost of competitive entry high, that by itself may accelerate the push for alternate means of video delivery, starting with various forms of IPTV. The ultimate franchise “reform” may turn out to be slow devaluation of franchises over time.

Posted by steve.titch at 08:02 PM

March 12, 2007

Paging David Ricardo

Providing the latest evidence that state legislators often have too much time—and tax revenue—on their hands, this story describes Iowa lawmakers’ intention to make the “Hawkeye State” ‘energy independent’ by 2025.

Already approved by a House Committee, the legislation would create a Director of Energy Independence, an advisory council of experts who would set goals and issue fuel mandates and create an Iowa Power Fund to spend $100 million taxpayer dollars ‘investing’ in renewable energy research. (Apparently the private sector missed the memo that their might be a market in renewable energy.)

State Senator Rob Hogg offered this astute observation in support of the proposal:

"We are hemorrhaging billions of dollars ... to out of state and out of country fossil fuel producers," Hogg said. "We need to reverse that trend."

No word on whether Sen. Hogg feels empathy for those out of state consumers who are hemorrhaging billions on Iowa corn products. Perhaps once the state is weaned off foreign oil, this Prairie Pericles can next promote Iowa textile mills to make the state independent of foreign t-shirts or find a way to reverse its dependence on foreign built TVs.

Of course, this flight of fancy might be funny if it weren’t tax dollars from the paychecks of actual Iowans funding this nonsense.

A couple years ago, the Iowa Legislature created the Grow Iowa Values Fund, to provide venture capital for the state’s economy. A recent state auditor report found that the program had widely missed most of its goals.

No doubt the lofty goals of ‘energy independence’ will meet the same end. Too bad taxpayers’ wallets will be $100 million lighter.

Posted by mikef at 09:40 AM

March 09, 2007

Reason in the news

Two quick excerpts from today's news--

The Contra Costa Times reports:

The United States isn't likely to save electricity from the extended daylight-saving time that starts Sunday, contrary to Congress' reasons for ordering the change, two UC Berkeley economists concluded in a study released Thursday.

The study in question is here. Reason's David Nott wrote about the dim daylight-saving idea last year: Putting the Cuckoo in our Clocks.

And from the Fresno Bee:

The Valley air district today will release an updated smog cleanup plan that calls for scrapping 30,000 polluting passenger cars....The district proposes to identify the worst polluters through state smog-testing records. Owners would be approached and offered $5,000 apiece to sell their cars. The district will destroy the vehicles it purchases. If all 30,000 are taken off the road, two tons of pollution would be eliminated each day.

Reason's Joel Schwartz made the case for focusing California's Smog Check program on voluntary scrap of gross polluters here.

Posted by skaidra at 04:29 PM

March 07, 2007

Municipalities Hop on Net Neutrality Bandwagon

Forget the state efforts at passing net neutrality laws (read massive Internet regulation), now cities are getting into the act.

Madison, Wisc., Alder Austin King reportedly was to introduce a resolution supporting network neutrality at last night’s meeting of the city Common Council. It is due to be voted on March 20.

Resolution language can be found here.

Since King is especially concerned about preserving free access to all Internet sites, he may be interested in how network neutrality policies have worked out in this regard for municipal networks that have implemented them. The results have been reported here.

Posted by steve.titch at 02:54 PM

March 06, 2007

New Planning blog

Planetizen.com, the most active portal for the professional planning community, has created a blog called Planetizen Interchange. Sam Staley is regular contributor, and his first post is on moblity and planning:

After reading through dozens of long range transportation plans, I have to wonder if the planning profession is serious about improving mobility. By mobility, I mean improving the ability, speed, and efficiency of getting from point A to point B.

Read the entire post here.

Posted by samstaley at 12:55 PM

March 04, 2007

Road PPPs and Accountability

Richard Little from the Keston Institute had a nice commentary in the Mercury News on this. Looking at the push away from PPPs many California leaders feel and some of the ways to deal with it.

Posted by adrianm at 08:02 PM

March 02, 2007

Molding Young Minds through Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic, & Collectivism

From Washington state, a story guaranteed to make freedom-loving parents squirm:

Some Seattle school children are being told to be skeptical of private property rights. This lesson is being taught by banning Legos.
A ban was initiated at the Hilltop Children's Center in Seattle. According to an article in the winter 2006-07 issue of "Rethinking Schools" magazine, the teachers at the private school wanted their students to learn that private property ownership is evil.

According to the article, the students had been building an elaborate "Legotown," but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore "the inequities of private ownership." According to the teachers, "Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."

The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown "their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys." These assumptions "mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society -- a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive."

Enjoy a tall glass of Pepto before you read the full story here. What's truly unjust and oppressive is that these kids' parents are forking over thousands of dollars per year to have their children indoctrinated with this collectivist blather. Luckily for them, they have the ability to vote with their pocketbook and place their kids in another school.

Makes you wonder though...if private ownership and capitalism are so evil, then isn't just a tad hypocritical that these teachers are working for a private school? Way to walk the talk, guys...

One commenter to the piece summed this up pretty accurately: "This is nothing more than barcolounger communism and brainwashing."

Posted by lengilroy at 02:49 PM

Rural IPTV

Once again reality defies the doomsayers as broadband and cable TV competition has reached the rural town of Lufkin, Tex.

Consolidated Communications, the local telephone company serving the city of 32,709 people and 12,247 households, inaugurated digital IPTV this week, offering some 200 local and premium TV channels as well as video on demand (also demonstrating that broadband is not the sole purview of the big cable companies and the former Bells).

Personally, I’ve driven through Lufkin on several occasions. Probably its principal commercial advantage is that it is located at the intersection of two major highways, U.S. 59 and 69, that cut through east Texas.

If we listen to the voices who rail against video franchise reform (which passed in Texas) and in favor of costly municipal broadband projects, this is the sort of thing that wasn’t supposed to happen. Rural markets are undesirable, goes the conventional wisdom. No one wants to serve them. Market mechanisms, we have been told, have failed.

Still, Lufkin residents now have three choices for broadband—phone, cable and satellite.

Posted by steve.titch at 02:34 PM

Innovative Solution to Saving the Environment

Today's Wall Street Journal praises Sen. Barbara Boxer for her bright idea of making the federal government more energy efficient by such innovations as turning off the lights and computers at night. Its estimated that the feds consume about a third more energy per square foot than the average buliding...this inefficiency costs us at least a $1 billion a year.

The WSJ correctly suggests a better idea though, "the best way to make the federal government more energy efficient would be to undertake a government-wide policy of . . . lights out, permanently. Save the environment; kill a federal program."

Finally an environmental program I can embrace.

Posted by geoffs at 10:11 AM

Edgeless Cities and Rail Transit

From my colleague Bob Poole:

Much of the debate about urban land use and mass transit is driven by misconceptions. All too many elected officials (and a declining fraction of transportation planners) still have the mental model of the mono-centric city—a single huge downtown where the majority of jobs are, able to be served effectively by radial transit lines from the suburbe. Think New York and Chicago—or more accurately Manhattan and the Loop.

One of the first popular challenges to this mono-centric view was Joel Garreau’s 1991 book Edge City, which identified the growing phenomenon of large-scale office and retail developments in the suburbs. More recently, Robert Lang of Virginia Tech provided a more sophisticated look with his 2003 book Edgeless Cities. Lang found that a large and growing fraction of commercial development actually exists in smaller and more scattered forms across the whole urbanized area. And that pattern, of course, makes transit (and especially rail transit) a far more difficult proposition.

Lang and two colleagues recently published (via the National Center for Real Estate Research) a further analysis, which I commend to your attention. “Beyond Edgeless Cities: Office Geography in the New Metropolis” presents the results of analyzing 13 large urban office markets, using a geographical information system (GIS). They describe what they call the new suburban metropolis, which is urban in function but not in form. “Many suburbs now have essentially all the elements that make a place urban,” but arrayed in a form that differs considerably from the mono-centric model. The new metropolis “is mostly low-to-mid density, automobile dependent, and dispersed.”

The new analysis finds that edgeless cities account for almost 40% of the total office space in those areas, while their downtowns averaged 33% and their edge cities just 14%. The balance fell into “urban envelopes” (5.2%), “corridors” (3.8%), and “secondary downtowns” (1.2%).

The most fascinating aspect of the report is not the averages but the differences among these large urban areas. Atlanta and Miami have the smallest fraction of office space downtown, at just 6.7% and 8.7% respectively. The edge-city champions are Houston (33.3% edge-city space), Detroit (27.1%), and Washington, DC (23.3%). And the metro areas with the largest fraction of their office space in edgeless cities are Miami (72.1%), Detroit (54.1%), Philadelphia (54.3%), and Denver (50.8%).

The final sections of the report discuss policy implications. Citing a 1977 study by Pushkarev and Zupan which found that 8,000 people per square mile was the minimum threshold for rail transit, Lang and colleagues parsed their data to determine the amount of edgeless city office space located in neighborhoods with at least that much density. Atlanta had zero, and another seven had only single-digit percentages. The most promising were Los Angeles (36.7%), San Francisco (27.8%), and Miami (13.8%). Those portions of those metro areas were suggested as feasible candidates for rail transit—and all three of them do have various rail projects in being and others under way.

Note: the Boris Pushkarev and Jeffrey Zupan book is Public Transportation and Land Use Policy: Indiana University Press, 1977.

Posted by adrianm at 06:35 AM

March 01, 2007

Everyone knows there's no good reason to use trans fats!

So say the health cops. Should we believe them?

See Jacob Sullum on Korby Kummer's new piece in The Atlantic.

Posted by tedb at 01:52 PM

Candidates just not getting your juices flowing?

Maybe "Mediocracy" is to blame.

From a recent NBER Working Paper:

a political party may deliberately choose to recruit only mediocre politicians

Posted by tedb at 10:24 AM

The Muni Broadband Hall of Shame

A Pacific Research Institute survey of 52 municipal broadband systems has found that they have soaked up $840 million in local taxpayer money over the past 20 years, while failing to gain the traction of positive cash flow amid greater and greater debt..

Wi-Fi Waste: The Disaster of Municipal Communications Networks, by Sonia Arrison, Dr. Ronald Rizzuto and Vince Vasquez, represents the latest round-up of municipal broadband financial performance, confirming again what past studies have shown: municipal broadband systems invariably costs more and deliver less than promised. They heavily on loans and transfers from established municipal utilities such as electricity and water. Even with the power of the public purse, 77 percent of the time, muni networks can’t pay their way, the report states.

Dalton, Ga., (est. 2005 population 32,140) gains the dubious distinction of the nation’s top municipal “money pits,” accounting for $171 million, or $5,320 per capita, of the $840 million spent across the 52 cities studied.

The other nine cities are:
Tacoma, Wash, $110.9 million
Grant County, Wash., $76.4 million
Jackson, Tenn., $63.7 million
Alameda, Calif., $59.3 million
Provo, Utah, $45.7 million
Newnan, Ga., $41.8 million
Bristol, Va. $37.8 million
Marietta, Ga., $25.9 million
Muscatine, Iowa, $22.9 million

Together, the ten systems account for 78 percent of the total government-initiated spending within the telecom industry.

Download the 90-page report here.

Posted by steve.titch at 09:57 AM