by Ryan Avent
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If the grass looks greener, it’s important to understand the nature of the fence 0
Posted 1 month ago One of the things about politics is that solutions always seem easier to implement and more promising before they stand a real chance of being implemented. Read More -
The assumption of inconvenience 0
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago Early this week, I noticed a number of my favorite bloggers linking to a Elisabeth Rosenthal essay at Environment 360, on the mysterious greenness of European nations. The average American, as it happens, produces about twice as much carbon dioxide each year as your typical resident of Western Europe. Read More -
Off the rails
Washington Post features rail hack job from Robert Samuelson 4
Posted 3 months ago Today, the Washington Post's lame excuse for an economics columnist, Robert Samuelson, wrote an extremely regrettable piece arguing that investments in high-speed rail are misguided. But this is no honest entry into the discussion of how best to invest in transportation infrastructure. It's a hack job, plain and simple. Read More -
A poor strategy for halting climate change
Reducing emissions isn’t an economy killer 0
Posted 8 months ago The last thing we need at this juncture is for Americans to begin thinking that efforts to address climate change will plunge the economy back into the throes of deep recession. Read More -
The Transit Authority: Done with the Gipper
The aging of the Boomers means it’s time for new priorities 0
Posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago Why is transit funding still based on the priorities of the Reagan era? Ryan Avent says it's time to shake off Boomer-led policies. Read More -
The Transit Authority: A looming crisis
Transit budget cuts are disasters in the making 2
Posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago Here is the lowdown: Transit fares generally don't cover operating expenses. Transit systems do not, unfortunately, turn a profit. In many conservative circles, this is considered a damning indictment of the whole idea of public transit -- which is itself a damning indictment of the analytical powers of the guilty conservatives.We should expect those who benefit from a technology to pay for it. This is the basic idea behind a market economy -- people aren't in the habit of giving away something for nothing, and the best way to allocate scarce resources is to let buyers and sellers agree… Read More
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Command and control
Let’s not pretend the government isn’t encouraging suburbs 2
Posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago There are a great many ways in which the government shapes our land-use patterns. Sprawl apologists often argue that low-density, suburban-style development has dominated the American landscape over the past half century because it is clearly superior to alternatives. Now, there's no doubt that many Americans prefer suburban life.At the same time, it's impossible to ignore the overwhelming way in which government policy has encouraged such development, intentionally, and unintentionally. The government didn't necessarily intend for a massive network of (largely) free-to-user highways to spur suburban growth and gut urban centers, but that's what happened. Similarly, the government's long-term… Read More
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Gender bias in commuting
Transportation policy and the working married woman 6
Posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago Progressives in favor of congestion pricing on highways and in central cities tend to argue for those policies on progressive grounds (shock!) -- that such pricing systems reduce emissions, improve air quality, and fund transit improvements, which benefit lower- and middle-income households. Those are all nice benefits to congestion pricing programs, but we shouldn't neglect the congestion reduction function.Congestion costs America some $80 billion per year, in the form of lost time and wasted fuel. And as it turns out, commutes extended by congestion have other effects, as well:
There is a strong empirical evidence demonstrating that labor… Read More
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Big Rail
A pro-rail coalition should be much larger 1
Posted 10 months ago As a big supporter of rail and transit, the creation of the OneRail coalition is quite heartening. It is, in a nutshell, a group of rail advocacy organizations that have banded together to lobby for rail investment. The Hill reports:Several trade and issue advocacy groups are part of OneRail, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Amtrak, the American Short Line & Regional Railroad Association, the Association of American Railroads, and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership.
If I have a complaint, it's this: A broader coalition is necessary. When highway funding is on the table, the heavies get into… Read More
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The Transit Authority: Stimulus miss
Bills for highways, no change for transit 10
Posted 10 months ago Think all news is bad news during this epic recession of ours? Think again -- over the past three months, real wages have increased 23 percent, an enormous gain. At a crucial period for many working families, paychecks are going a lot farther than they did back in the summer.The explanation is simple: wages are flat, prices are down. The labor market operates on a bit of a lag, so while the recession affected oil demand and prices very quickly, layoffs and falling wages are emerging more slowly. Eventually, the weak economy will catch up to workers (those… Read More
