American Dream

Houston's famous "wham-bam tram" has scored another ram, this one the 100th accident since light-rail service began in January 2004. That makes a total of 106 including accidents when the rail line was being tested before it was opened to the public.

There is a noticable improvement in rail safety. A year ago, the seven-mile rail line was scoring an accident every four days. During the first half of 2005 it was up to every six-and-one-half days. At this rate, they will be down to one accident every six months in less than 100 years!

For more information, go to the official Wham-Bam Tram Ram Counter.

How often have you heard people cite the shortage of landfill space as an example of how we are running out of land? Everyone remembers the story of the barge that went up and down the East Coast looking for a landfill that would take New York City's garbage.

The reality is that the waste disposal industry is suffering from a glut of landfills. If you live in Portland, you pay high garbage collection fees because Metro rakes off most of the money to pay for its 100 or so planners. But elsewhere waste disposal fees are kept low by new technologies that allow waste managers to put far more garbage in one landfill than they ever thought possible.

The above link goes to the print version of the New York Times article on this subject. If you want the illustrated version (including two photos and a chart), go here.

washingtonpost.com
Cost of Tysons Rail Plan Trimmed 25%

By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 2005; B07

Quotes:

Managers of the project to extend Metrorail through Tysons Corner announced yesterday that they have revised their drawings and cut estimated construction costs by 25 percent, reviving prospects for building the financially troubled line.

Engineers said they have reduced the estimated cost of the 11-mile Metrorail extension from $2.4 billion to $1.8 billion by shortening a proposed tunnel through Tysons Corner, altering the "architecturally significant" design of the columns supporting the elevated portions of the track and revising the design of stations.

Neither the extent of the line nor the number and position of stations has changed, the engineers said.

"Our goal was to reduce the costs, not the service," said Sam Carnaggio, project director for the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

The new price still exceeds by $300 million the project's $1.5 billion financing plan, and exactly who would foot the bill for the added expense has not been determined.

[Click heading for more]

Related articles:

washingtonpost.com
Consortium Offers Toll Road Fixes

By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 7, 2005; PW06

Quotes:

The consortium that has offered Virginia a lump sum of more than $1 billion in exchange for revenue on the Dulles Toll Road for 50 years has outlined 19 upgrades to the highway that it hopes will help sway public opinion in favor of the unusual proposal.

Topping the list are improvements to the ramps that link the eastern end of the toll road to the Capital Beltway. A new ramp would take drivers directly from the Beltway to the Dulles Airport Access Road, a separate roadway that is not part of the proposed deal. A direct link to the access road would allow drivers to avoid cutting across several lanes of traffic on the toll road, a maneuver that causes daily tie-ups.

The group also wants to upgrade the ramps that take drivers from the toll road to the outer loop of the Beltway.

The consortium said it would immediately begin repaving the eight-lane road, a project that it said could be completed in about
four months, and would refurbish several bridges and sound walls along the route.

Most of the other fixes would involve widening or lengthening ramp lanes and converting toll plazas so that fees would be paid electronically, changes that would improve traffic flow by easing backups, the group said.

The proposed upgrades include widening the long westbound exit ramp at Wiehle Avenue as well as the eastbound entry ramp. The exit lane to the ramp at Reston Parkway would be lengthened, and drivers would be able to make a continuous right turn onto the parkway. Other minor improvements for the interchange and parkway also are planned.

A separate loop ramp would be built to connect the southbound lanes of Centreville Road to the eastbound toll road. Entry and exit ramps would be widened at Hunter Mill Road.

Toll plazas at all these intersections would be upgraded and converted so that tolls can be paid electronically.

The Dulles Toll Road is a 14-mile highway connecting the Beltway to the Dulles Greenway, a privately operated toll road that is
not part of the consortium's proposal. The highway is one of Northern Virginia's most-used commuter routes, carrying about 200,000 vehicles a day.

Morning and night, it is filled almost bumper-to-bumper with traffic heading to and from some of the region's largest employment centers at Tysons Corner, Reston and Herndon. The road is also something of a main street for fast-growing communities in eastern Loudoun County and more established areas such as McLean.

Tolls on the road are 50 to 75 cents for two-axle vehicles. Tolls were increased in May to help pay for Virginia's portion of a
proposed Metrorail line through Tysons Corner to Wiehle Avenue. State officials have approved a second increase that would take effect in 2010 to help pay for the extension of that line to Dulles International Airport. State officials said they would maintain control over toll rates by the terms of any deal.

[Click title for more]

2005.08.12
BIG MEDIA OBFUSCATION
TOLLROADSnews: Washington Post continues misreporting Dulles Toll Road offer

Quotes:

For a third time the Washington Post has misrepresented the privatization proposal on the Dulles Toll Road as a conventional offer of a lump sum payment for a toll franchise. To the contrary the proposal is to assume some of the costs of constructing a controversial passenger rail line in the median, costs which would otherwise be borne by state and county governments.

Two previous Washington Post reports referred to a mythical "lump sum" offer. Most recently on Aug 7 a third piece under the byline of Steven Ginsberg led off: "The consortium that has offered Virginia a lump sum of more than $1 billion in exchange
for revenue on the Dulles Toll Road for 50 years has outlined 19 upgrades to the highway that it hopes will help sway public opinion in favor of the unusual proposal."

The 19 upgrades in the proposal were not news to anyone who read our report, or indeed to anyone who downloaded the proposal from
the VDOT website, but what merits comment now is that Ginsberg determinedly continues to mislead readers by repeating the falsehood that there is a "lump sum" offer to the state of Virginia.

Nowhere in the proposal lodged with VDOT by Dulles Corridor Mobility Consortium (DCMC) and available on their website is
that suggested. Nor has it been suggested in the press or other presentational materials. The DCMC press release July 27 was headlined: Dulles Corridor Mobility Initiative Offers Private Investment for Toll Road Upgrades and VA's DTR share
of Rail Service Costs," and it went on in the same theme of an offer to fund tollroad upgrades and the rail project.

[Click title for more]

washingtonpost.com
Out West, a Paradox: Densely Packed Sprawl
L.A. Area Growing Crowded the Fastest

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 2005; A01

Quotes:

SIGNAL HILL, Calif. -- Sure, it looks like sprawl.

From atop this hill near the port of Long Beach, greater Los Angeles splays out through the midsummer haze as a low-rise
suburban muddle stitched together by freeways.

But take a closer look: What you knew about sprawl turns out to be wrong.

The urbanized area in and around Los Angeles has become the most densely populated place in the continental United States, according to the Census Bureau. Its density is 25 percent higher than that of New York, twice that of Washington and four times that of Atlanta, as measured by residents per square mile of urban land.

And Los Angeles grows more crowded every year, adding residents faster than it adds land, while most metropolitan areas in the Northeast, Midwest and South march in the opposite direction. They are the sprawling ones, dense in the center but devouring land at their edges much faster than they add people.

Odd as it may seem, density is the rule, not an exception, in the wide-open spaces of the West. Salt Lake City is more tightly
packed than Philadelphia. So is Las Vegas in comparison with Chicago, and Denver compared with Detroit. Ten of the country's 15 most densely populated metro areas are in the West, where residents move to newly developed land at triple the per-acre density of any other part of the country.

"If you want elbow room, move to Atlanta or Charlotte or the countrified suburbs of Washington," said Robert E. Lang, director of Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute in Alexandria. "You probably aren't going to get it in the West. There, if you and your neighbor lean out your windows, you can hold hands."

This demographic pattern is having profound effects on housing construction, commuting and the quality of urban life.

In upper-income quarters of metro Los Angeles, density can be an aesthetic kick. When wedded to smart design and careful planning, it is a high-energy stimulant for suburban ennui, luring high-end stores, protecting open space and paying for toll roads that reduce traffic. But in poorer parts of the region, especially where large immigrant families have settled, density is a just fancy word for severe overcrowding.

Ten municipalities in the nation average more than four people per household -- and nine of them are in greater Los Angeles, according to the Census Bureau. In these mostly older neighborhoods of tract houses, density has a way of turning garages into illegal apartments, while strangling public schools, overwhelming parks and choking streets with cars. Problems born of overcrowding also have a way of being ignored by politicians, since many residents are illegal or poor or both -- and do not vote.

Bursting at the Seams

Open space in the West has always seemed endless. But deserts, mountains, huge tracts of federally owned land and a pervasive lack of water make much of the region unlivable. As such, it has remained the most rural part of the country in terms of land use while becoming the most densely urban in terms of where people live.

Sometime around the early 1980s, greater Los Angeles collided with these unforgiving restraints.

Still, newcomers kept pouring into the Los Angeles Basin, at a rate of about 2 million to 3 million a decade. They had to live somewhere, and many could not afford to settle in -- or did not want to drive for hours to -- suburbs way out in the desert or on the far side of the mountains.

So sprawl sputtered to an unplanned and unheralded halt. Los Angeles began "densifying dramatically," even at its fringe, according to an analysis of federal population numbers by the Brookings Institution's Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

From 1982 to 1997, as part of a uniquely L.A. phenomenon called "dense sprawl," an average of nine people occupied every acre of newly urbanized land in metropolitan Los Angeles, the Brookings study found. That is nine times the average in Nashville during those years, four times that of Atlanta and three times that of New York.

During these years, both the Washington and Los Angeles areas gained population at a brisk 30 percent clip. But Washington's growth gobbled up rural land at about twice the pace of Los Angeles', the Brookings study found. As a result, Washington had a 12 percent decline in overall density, compared with a 3 percent gain in Los Angeles.

Planned Communities

To understand how cheek-by-jowl western living can seem both gracious and roomy, it is instructive to look in on Susan DeSantis. She lives in a three-bedroom townhouse perched on a ridge of the San Joaquin Hills near the Pacific.

The home shares walls on two sides with neighbors. Yet from its soaring living room, neighbors seem not to exist, hidden behind landscaping that is tended daily by gardeners. From large windows and from the patio, the eye is drawn to the sky, the distant hills and Newport Bay.

"There is light and there is openness," said DeSantis, 55, a consultant in urban planning and a former director of housing for the state of California. "With housing in pods like this, you can get angles for views and privacy. It is the density that allows these design features. I can see my neighbors, if they are out on their patio, but it is very rare."

DeSantis lives in Newport Coast, a gated, master-planned development in Orange County, the nation's most densely populated suburban county. Most of the housing in Newport Coast has been built at a density of about seven units per acre. That leaves nearly 80 percent of the development's 9,493 acres as open space -- covered by chaparral, threaded with footpaths and overlooking the sea.

The master plan controls life in Newport Coast with a fussy rigor. It bans mortuaries, union halls and sanitariums for the mentally ill.
It permits gazebos, tennis courts and therapy baths. An "opaque screen" must shield all parked cars from arterial highways. "All landscaping shall be maintained in a neat, clean and healthy condition," by order of the master plan.

What it lacks in flexibility, Newport Coast makes up for in convenience. A six-lane road feeds cars in and out of the development so efficiently, DeSantis said, that in the past nine years she has never seen it clogged with traffic. The road connects to a nearby toll highway, part of a regional system of toll roads that cushions many Orange County commuters from the traffic congestion that torments much of the region.

By car, DeSantis is five minutes from the ocean, 10 minutes from high-end shopping and 15 minutes from John Wayne Airport.
She can also take commuter rail -- a station is about 15 minutes away -- to downtown Los Angeles or San Diego. Distances here are measured by time in a car. DeSantis said she has never once walked to a local grocery store, although the nearest one is 10 minutes away on foot.

Newport Coast is the final oceanfront piece in the largest private master-planned development in the United States. Begun
in the early 1960s by the Irvine Co., it is eight times the size of Manhattan and covers a fifth of Orange County.

"The Irvine Company persuaded a fairly conservative, mostly Republican market to buy a lot of attached housing by creating a product that was predictable and well-built," said Ann Forsyth,
a professor of urban design at the University of Minnesota and author of "Reforming Suburbia," a study of large planned communities. "But none of it is cheap."

Indeed, housing across Orange County is among the most unaffordable in the country. Just one out of 10 households earns the $165,000 a year needed to buy a median-priced house, which cost $702,000 in June, according to the California Association of Realtors. DeSantis bought her townhouse for $385,000 in 1996. Since then, she says, it has at least doubled in value. If she were buying now, she said, she could not afford Newport Coast.

Infill With a View

Land for new development in the Los Angeles area is all but unavailable -- at any price. Builders, though, have found a way to squeeze new housing into the old urban footprint. It is called "infill" and is widely viewed as the final frontier of home development in Southern California and across the urban West.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Graphic - Packed In:
Ten of the 15 most densely populated urban areas are located in the West.

[See the full article for more, including some pretty good photographs]

Posted at 1:15 p.m., Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Council approves tax hike for transit

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Quotes:

The Honolulu City Council this afternoon approved increasing the general excise tax from 4 percent to 4.5 percent on O'ahu to pay for a transit system that has been debated for decades.

Final approval came in a 7-to-2 vote to move ahead with what critics called the biggest tax increase in the state's history. Supporters say it is the only alternative to growing gridlock.

More than 80 people signed up to testify in a heated debate that filled the Kapolei Hale meeting room. Signs represented the differing opinions: "I will ride," and "4.5% = Taxpayer (depicted with a screw through his back)."

The financial impact of the tax has been estimated at between $245 and $450 per household on O'ahu over the 15 years of the tax.

COPYRIGHT 2005 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

State lawmakers join eminent domain fight
Supreme Court ruling sparks national push to change laws

by Margie Hyslop
Staff Writer
Aug. 10, 2005

Quotes:

The two hottest words in both Congress and the state
legislatures around the nation these days are "eminent domain," and the Maryland General Assembly is no exception.

The U.S. Supreme Court -- relying in part on language from the Maryland Court of Appeals -- ruled June 23 that local governments have wide latitude in taking private property. A firestorm over property rights has ensued, and lawmakers are responding.

The Maryland Attorney General's Office says that state law on eminent domain mirrors the high court's decision, and in fact local governments here may have broader powers to seize private property.

Lawmakers in about half of all states are working to draft limits on use of eminent domain. Action is also expected in
Congress to try to limit the effect of the ruling.

Last week, Alabama's legislature approved extra curbs in a special session, and Alabama's governor signed the measure into law.

In Annapolis, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) and lawmakers from both parties predict a flurry of bills limiting eminent domain will be considered when the legislature reconvenes in January.

Ehrlich "is not pleased with the direction the [U.S.] Supreme Court took" when it ruled in a New London, Conn., case that local governments could force the sale of private property to permit redevelopment that would increase jobs or tax revenue.

The governor is looking at "all options" to protect landowners, Ehrlich spokeswoman Shareese N. DeLeaver said, adding that he is a strong supporter of private propertyrights.

Lawmakers are drafting a range of proposals from amending the state Constitution to bills that would ban or limit a government's ability to take private property for public use.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. said a proposal to change Maryland's constitution to limit use of eminent domain would pass "overwhelmingly" if it goes on the ballot.

But Miller said he is not sure that such a measure could garner the support of two-thirds of both Senate and House members that it needs to go to voters.

"I think it's an issue that should go to voters," said Miller (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach.

If local governments do not want their use of eminent domain curbed, Miller said, they must convince state lawmakers.

The attorney general has issued two opinions in recent weeks on the local effect of the national ruling.

Robert A. Zarnoch, assistant attorney general and counsel to the General Assembly, wrote July 18 that Maryland courts have long recognized the power of local government that was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.

"Ironically, if there is any impact from [the Supreme
Court's decision] in Maryland, it might be a limiting one," Zarnoch wrote.

A second opinion issued Aug. 1 said Maryland's constitution does not define public use, but leaves it for courts to decide,
Assistant Attorney General Kathryn M. Rowe wrote in response to a request from Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. (R-Dist. 31) of Glen Burnie.

"Court of Appeals cases, particularly those interpreting the Maryland Constitution, have long recognized that property can be condemned for economic development purposes," Rowe wrote.

"... This power exists whether or not the property to be condemned is blighted or substandard," she continued, noting that in its decision on the Connecticut case the Supreme Court cited Maryland Court of Appeals cases which found that providing jobs and economic benefit is a "public use."

She said it appears that Maryland's highest court has not found an eminent domain case to involve a private use.

Lawmakers could change statutes to impose restrictions on the use of eminent domain, Rowe said.

Senate Minority Whip Andrew P. Harris said he will propose revising the constitution's Declaration of Rights to prohibit governments from taking private property except in cases of clearly and strictly defined public needs such as roads, schools and libraries.

Use of eminent domain to cure "blight" -- the grounds on which New London won its case -- should be very limited, Harris said. He wants to require that any condemnation for blight to go to voters for approval.

"One man's blight is another man's home," said Harris (R-Dist. 7) of Cockeysville.

That's something Harris' constituents, particularly in east Baltimore County, know from a bruising battle five years ago over the county's effort to seize homes, apartments and small businesses to create upscale residential and retail development along the Middle River.

Harris was one of only four senators to vote against SB 509 in 2000, which authorized taking the property.

The legislature backed the Middle River land condemnation by a larger margin in the House, where many delegates said they supported it because most Baltimore County lawmakers did.

"I don't want local courtesy to cloud this issue," Harris said.

Del. Richard K. Impallaria (R-Dist. 7) of Middle River helped lead the revolt against SB 509, working with other business owners and residents to gather 40,000 voters' signatures to force the measure onto the ballot.

Impallaria said he favors a many-pronged approach.

Impallaria said he expects next year to see bills that would limit the scope of eminent domain statewide -- and in as many individual jurisdictions as possible. He said the bills would mandate a referendum on any land condemnation that is not clearly for a public use and would require that if seized land is not used, it would be offered back to the owner for the price the government paid and in the same condition.

Del. Jean B. Cryor said she hopes that a bill would be sponsored by a member of the House Judiciary Committee, which would first consider such legislation, because a committee member would be best positioned to work it to a floor vote.

Cryor (R-Dist. 15) of Potomac said she stands ready to sponsor a statewide bill that also would prohibit the use of state or local government money for purchases that are not clearly a
public need, as well as a measure to limit land condemnation in Montgomery County.

"Anywhere I go in my district, people are bringing it up to me, and they're angry and disgusted," Cryor said.

Senate Judicial Proceedings Chairman Brian E. Frosh said he wants to read the Supreme Court decision before deciding whether raising the bar on eminent domain's use in Maryland is warranted.

"Typically, in a case that's controversial, you get strong public reaction," but it is necessary to read the opinion to determine if the reaction is warranted, said Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda, who is a lawyer.

[See also [Md. House Speaker] Busch cools talk of eminent domain amendment for a follow-up story.]

washingtonpost.com
Welcome to Washington, And Now You're on Your Own
Minimalist Metro Decor Makes Life Tough for Out-of-Towners

By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 10, 2005; B01

Quotes:

They are easy to spot -- wearing backpacks and sneakers, traveling in teams with strollers and small children, leaning into the left lane on the escalator or looking around hesitantly when train doors open and a rush-hour crowd stampedes past.

These tourists are the rookies of the rail system, and during the summer, 5 million to 6 million of them share the trains with commuting professionals.

For visitors to Washington who come from freeway-reliant reaches of Middle America, riding the Metro can be an attraction in itself. But a few trips riding the rails in their comfortable shoes show that the experience can be more than a little bewildering, too.

"We come from a little town, so this is pretty neat," said Teri George, 51, of Mount Vernon, Mo., while her two young grandsons raced up and down the platform at the Smithsonian Station. They were headed to the National Museum of Natural History to see the hissing cockroaches.

But since getting into town three days earlier, they'd had plenty of mishaps. With no public transportation experience, George said, "we didn't know what we were supposed to do."

The first challenge was simply buying a Farecard.

"That ticket machine is awful," she said. "We finally figured it out by just pushing all the buttons."

Many visitors have echoed that complaint after spending several minutes in front of a machine with a SmarTrip pass option, a credit card reader and a Farecard value window staring back at them. They were also perplexed by the menu of prices per station, rather than a fixed price, like on the New York subway system.

Chris Zimmerman, a Metro board representative from Arlington, said the small signs reflect the "minimalist aesthetic" that was popular when the stations were designed more than 30 years ago and aren't necessarily user-friendly.

"We still have a long way to go to be accessible to people who aren't natives and who aren't necessarily going to the same places," Zimmerman said.

Dan Tangherlini, director of transportation for the District and a recent Metro board appointee, said the problem extends citywide, beyond Metro.

"Traditionally, we've approached this with this assumption that everyone already knows how to find their way around," he said. Or it's as if "we are trying to fool invading parties -- not let them know where they are going."

He said the city could experience a large return in revenue if it could direct tourists more effectively to different attractions in other neighborhoods, so they don't spend all their time in free museums.

"In order to do that, we need to show them how to get off the Mall," he said.

Zimmerman and Tangherlini said improvements are in the works. Last year, Metro started testing new signs at the Gallery Place-Chinatown Station, a busy transfer point that gets lots of tourist traffic. Officials set up more illuminated signs and posted horizontal signs overhead, similar to those found at airports. They hope to install more signs, which have been well received by riders they surveyed, systemwide. But so far, Metro hasn't dedicated money for the improvements.

Despite some confusing rides, many visitors said riding public transportation is a worthwhile adventure.

"I love it," said Leslie Fraser, 30, in town from Fresno, Calif., where she said she's usually stuck in her car. With a camera around her neck and her Frommer's guide opened to the Metro map, she easily found a Dupont Circle-bound train.

"I wish they had these all over the place," she said.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

washingtonpost.com
Bush Signs $286.4 Billion Transportation Bill

By Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 10, 2005; 2:42 PM

Quotes:

President Bush signed into law a massive $286.4 billion transportation bill Wednesday that includes more than 6,000 pet projects of lawmakers across the country that range from a crucial parkway linking two interstates in Illinois to a snowmobile trail in Vermont.

Bush signed the 1,000-page bill at a Caterpillar Inc. factory in Montgomery, Ill., and called it a "fiscally responsible bill" that will upgrade the country's network of roads, bridges and mass transit systems. He said the six-year bill will "finance needed road improvements and ease traffic congestion in communities across the country."

Critics of the bill called it a bloated, expensive piece of legislation filled mainly with the pet projects of congressmen. Some of the transportation projects included in the bill were $223 million for a bridge to replace a 7-minute ferry ride in Alaska, $2.3 million for landscaping along the Ronald Reagan freeway in California and $400,000 for bicycle and trolley trails in Columbus, Ga.

Bush said one of the key projects of the bill was a parkway in Illinois that would connect two interstate highways. He called such projects "crucial for economic progress."

Officials say substandard road conditions are a factor in nearly one-third of the country's 42,000 traffic fatalities a year. They also say that every $1 billion spent in highway construction creates 47,500 jobs.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Seduction by pork

August 9, 2005

Quotes:

GAS PRICES a pain? No worries. A soothing new bridge, wider road or bike trail - plus a tax write-off to buy a hybrid car - is headed your way courtesy of Congress. Depressed or worse about the Iraq war? A boost to the local economy from federal subsides for corn or coal might help, Congress hopes.

However disappointed taxpayers may be in the general trend of things in Washington, Congress is betting they will at least find something appealing on the list of nearly 6,500 pet projects and $14.6 billion in tax breaks that lawmakers are back home boasting of to their constituents.

It's a wildly irresponsible practice. Like repeatedly giving candy to a child to shut him up. But it works so well to shield individual lawmakers from anger at Congress in general that Republicans who once preached tight-fistedness have embraced it with a zeal that more than matches the record of free-spending Democrats.

Voters shouldn't sell out so cheaply, especially when the money involved is theirs.

Some of the individual spending projects might be worthwhile. But tacking them on to the massive transportation and energy bills enacted last month ensures that the spending items aren't evaluated on their merits but according to the political clout of their sponsors.

For example, Rep. Bill Thomas, chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, was able to deliver the equivalent of $1,128 per person in transportation bill goodies to his Bakersfield, Calif., district, while the statewide average was about $78 per person, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Maryland's $375 million in so-called earmarks amounts to $72 for each resident. Some of that money has been designated to design and build seven hiking and biking trails in various parts of the state and a "park and float" lot to serve water taxi stops in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

In the meantime, lawmakers must be held to a higher standard than how well they can bargain - or blackmail - in the back room.

Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun

Thursday, August 4, 2005
Car. Happy. California.
There are reasons to love our automobiles and reasons neo-Puritans hate us for loving our automobiles

Steven Greenhut
Sr. editorial writer and columnist
The Orange County Register

Quotes:

You wanna separate the Puritans from everyone else? Ask them their opinion on the Hummer, any one of the three models. Or about the new Ford GT supercar.

Normal, non-Puritanical folks will wax poetic about sports cars, convertibles, even minivans and station wagons. They will go on and on about their first car, and associate different vehicles with different stages in their life. They associate their cars with glorious road trips, taken with college chums or the family.

We love our cars. We love looking at other people's cars. We might not choose one, but normal folk do not mind when other people haul their families and gear around in an SUV. We get a kick out of the sheer bravado of the new Chrysler 300C, a 340-horsepower Bentley-esque creation that is an understandable hit among rap stars. And we get a chuckle out of the Hummer, especially the H1.

Who needs a military vehicle to cruise around Orange County? To the neo-Puritans, that's terrible. A waste of resources and a potential danger. They would never have allowed such a travesty to ever grace the streets. To the rest of us, the excess is the point. I wouldn't want one, although I have enjoyed zooming up the Oceana dunes in one of them, but if someone else wants that style statement, more power to them.

That's what separates the Puritans from the rest of us. Their world is one of dour sameness: egalitarian, gray, environmentally conscious. No one would stand out or choose anything that didn't express a drab PC ethos. Light rail, buses and trains would be the preferred mode of transit.

SUVs are the Great Evil.

Cars, trucks and even SUVs are practical, fun, flexible. They haul lots of stuff. They allow families to travel places comfortably together. They look nice, and there's something about the sound of a revving engine. They epitomize freedom and mobility.

Even if gas prices hit the roof, we'll keep driving. I always laugh at the emails I routinely get from environmentalists warning me that our current lifestyle will collapse as soon as supplies of gasoline evaporate. I shouldn't expect environmentalists to understand markets, and realize that alternative fuels will become widely available if and when they become an economically reasonable alternative.

I don't care if my car is powered by petroleum, hydrogen or rabbit pellets, as long as it does 0-60 in under 8 seconds.

Click the title for the full column.

I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Steve at the P-A-D conference in Minnesota recently, and he has the gift of writing in the same style as he speaks.

August 8, 2005
That Hissing Sound
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Quotes:

This is the way the bubble ends: not with a pop, but with a hiss.

Housing prices move much more slowly than stock prices. There are no Black Mondays, when prices fall 23 percent in a day. In fact, prices often keep rising for a while even after a housing boom goes bust.

So the news that the U.S. housing bubble is over won't come in the form of plunging prices; it will come in the form of falling sales and rising inventory, as sellers try to get prices that buyers are no longer willing to pay. And the process may already have started.

Of course, some people still deny that there's a housing bubble. Let me explain how we know that they're wrong.

One piece of evidence is the sense of frenzy about real estate, which irresistibly brings to mind the stock frenzy of 1999. Even
some of the players are the same. The authors of the 1999 best seller "Dow 36,000" are now among the most vocal proponents of the view that there is no housing bubble.

Then there are the numbers. Many bubble deniers point to average prices for the country as a whole, which look worrisome but not totally crazy. When it comes to housing, however, the United States is really two countries, Flatland and the Zoned Zone.

In Flatland, which occupies the middle of the country, it's easy to build houses. When the demand for houses rises, Flatland metropolitan areas, which don't really have traditional downtowns, just sprawl some more. As a result, housing prices are basically determined by the cost of Construction. In Flatland, a housing bubble can't even get sstarted.

But in the Zoned Zone, which lies along the coasts, a combination of high population density and land-use restrictions - hence "zoned" - makes it hard to build new houses. So when people become willing to spend more on houses, say because of a fall in mortgage rates, some houses get built, but the prices of existing houses also go up. And if people think that prices will continue to rise, they become willing to spend even more, driving prices still higher, and so on. In other words, the Zoned Zone is prone to housing bubbles.

And Zoned Zone housing prices, which have risen much faster than the national average, clearly point to a bubble.

In the nation as a whole, housing prices rose about 50 percent between the first quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of 2005. But that average blends results from Flatland metropolitan areas like Houston and Atlanta, where prices rose 26 and 29 percent respectively, with results from Zoned Zone areas like New York, Miami and San Diego, where prices rose 77, 96 and 118 percent.

Nobody would pay San Diego prices without believing that prices will continue to rise. Rents rose much more slowly than prices: the Bureau of Labor Statistics index of "owners' equivalent rent" rose only 27 percent from late 1999 to late 2004. Business Week reports that by 2004 the cost of renting a house in San Diego was only 40 percent of the cost of owning a similar house - even taking into account low interest rates on mortgages. So it makes sense to buy in San Diego only if you believe that prices will keep rising rapidly, generating big capital gains. That's pretty much the definition of a bubble.

Bubbles end when people stop believing that big capital gains are a sure thing. That's what happened in San Diego at the end of its last housing bubble: after a rapid rise, house prices peaked in 1990. Soon there was a glut of houses on the market, and prices began falling. By 1996, they had declined about 25 percent after adjusting for inflation.

And that's what's happening in San Diego right now, after a rise in house prices that dwarfs the boom of the 1980's. The number of single-family houses and condos on the market has doubled over the past year. "Homes that a year or two ago sold virtually overnight - in many cases triggering bidding wars - are on the market for weeks," reports The Los Angeles Times. The same thing is happening in other formerly hot markets.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

washingtonpost.com
The Cost of Dulles Rail

Monday, August 8, 2005; A14

THIS PAGE HAS generally supported the plan to build a 23-mile Metrorail link through Tysons Corner to Dulles International Airport and points farther west, despite misgivings about the project's staggering cost and the fact that it may do little or nothing to ease traffic. We have argued that Dulles rail -- the nation's third-largest planned rail transit project -- holds the promise of lending focus, coherence and better access to Tysons, an economic dynamo whose 115,000 jobs make it the region's second downtown. But two recent developments have intensified our misgivings about the project's cost and invite closer public scrutiny and public engagement.

The first was the news last month that the first of Dulles rail's two phases, which would run from West Falls Church through Tysons and west to Reston, would cost $2.4 billion rather than the previous estimate of $1.5 billion. That revision, a 60 percent increase, has shattered the federal, state and local funding assumptions on which the venture is based and thrown everyone involved with it for a loop. For the past several weeks, engineers have scrambled to devise ways by which the new estimated cost might be shaved, say, 20 percent, possibly by running an unsightly rail bridge through Tysons instead of an expensive tunnel, or by deviating from (translation: downgrading) Metrorail's usual construction or design standards. Nonetheless, it is worth bearing in mind that since the project is split into two phases, it could conceivably end up costing $5 billion or more.

Then came the report by The Post's Peter Whoriskey last week that the Dulles rail project was the subject of a recent legislative gift, courtesy of Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), that allows it to pass a test for federal funding it would otherwise have flunked. Mr. Warner inserted an exemption into the transportation bill that cleared Congress last week enabling the project to remain eligible for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding even though it merits only a "medium-low" rating for cost-effectiveness -- the second-lowest of five categories. In other words, Dulles rail is starting to look like a vanity project, kept alive by its powerful friends despite the growing realization that most similarly rated projects around the country would never see the light of day.

Given what's now known about Dulles rail's likely cost, taxpayers are entitled to a full airing of the project's pros and cons -- and alternatives including innovative rapid bus service and road improvements. If there are acceptable revisions that would trim the price, those should also be given the maximum public exposure.

The benefits of Dulles rail as a spur to development in Northern Virginia still strike us as persuasive. But with $5 billion at stake, it is more important to consider the venture closely than to let its already considerable momentum and powerful political allies sweep away all reasonabledoubts.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

City Journal Spring 2005
How to Save the Subways—Before It’s Too Late
Nicole Gelinas

Quotes:

As New Yorkers learned in January, when a fire in a signal-relay room knocked out service for the half-million people who ride the A and C trains daily, Gotham’s subways are in deep trouble. Bad enough that the inferno showed that any bum (or terrorist) with a lighter could paralyze New York; worse still was New York City Transit chief Larry Reuter’s announcement that this critical lifeline for Brooklyn and Queens residents would be out for three to five years. When transit officials responded to riders’ outrage by getting most service up and running within two weeks, public relief mingled with anxiety that transit brass didn’t understand how their system worked or that they were responsible for keeping it going, no matter what.

Perhaps most troubling of all was the revelation that this essential element of the region’s economy depends on fragile technology that predates the Great Depression. And further, though all this equipment desperately needs updating, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the state agency that runs New York City Transit and the region’s commuter trains, doesn’t have the money to replace it or even maintain it properly, and will have even less wherewithal for vital infrastructure investments over the coming decade. The MTA faces bills now coming due for decades’ worth of poor operational and financial management—for which not just the bloated and clueless MTA but also Governor Pataki’s political leadership are ultimately to blame.

Below all these ills lies a still more fundamental problem, also the fruit of politics. State and local pols ensure that the price of a subway ride falls far short of the actual cost, but refuse to make up the difference with reliable subsidies. Meanwhile, the political clout of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) ensures that that cost is outrageous, thanks to lavish labor contracts and pension benefits. So the MTA, squeezed from both the cost and the revenue sides, runs chronic operating deficits that are about to become unsustainable.

Here’s why the numbers will never add up. The MTA will rake in $3.5 billion in mass-transit fares this year, plus $1.1 billion from its bridge-and-tunnel tolls. That $4.6 billion covers less than half the agency’s $9.4 billion in expenses. Correspondingly, the $2.8 billion in fares that 1.4 billion subway riders will pay this year is barely half of what it costs to run the trains. So dedicated taxes must provide a $2 billion dump into the MTA’s coffers each year. State and city subsidies add another $600 million, along with the bridge-and-tunnel profits. And it’s still not enough.

So the MTA has increasingly turned to debt, and looming interest costs will soon widen today’s huge operating gaps and constrict capital investment for decades. The 12 percent of revenues (and subsidies) that the MTA must spend this year on interest will rise to 21 percent by 2008 and 24 percent within a decade, while city and state subsidies remain flat and fare revenues creep up by single digits. This is a blueprint for physical asset deterioration—and for a serious breach of safety.

All that debt is just a symptom of the real problem. The MTA can’t rationally budget its capital spending without first paring back its out-of-control operational costs—because new revenues now would just go to fund waste. As it is, the $6.2 billion needed to pay the MTA’s 55,000 workers covered under 62 separate contracts will exceed fare and toll income by nearly $1.7 billion, or 35 percent, this year, and so will chew up a chunk of the dedicated taxes and subsidies originally earmarked for capital, not operational, spending.

The Transport Workers Union opposes any real cost-cutting efforts, such as a plan to restructure all above-ground rail operations into a single new subsidiary, and all bus operations into another—a consolidation that could save $210 million over three years. Why the resistance? The new bus division would have the authority to cut civil-service protections for new employees—who would still have their union security, of course, but transit workers are accustomed to two layers of insulation from management.

The one modest consolidation that Kalikow did get labor to accept carried a stiff condition that means it will save only millions instead of tens of millions, as the MTA had first hoped. In 2002, bus lines in Brooklyn and the Bronx—formerly private lines that the MTA had purchased decades ago—were merged with the rest of the MTA bus operations. Until then, these lines operated as separate units, so that a mechanic from a Brooklyn depot could not repair a Bronx bus that had belonged to a private company decades previously, even if the bus had broken down across the street from the Brooklyn depot. But when the TWU accepted the consolidation, the MTA had to give legacy employees of the formerly discrete bus units full MTA benefits, including 12 days of sick leave each year instead of five.

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