Two years ago, two trains on Metro's red line collided killing nine people in DC. In response to this tragic accident, Metro is spending $1 billion to improve the system's safety. WMATA's interim General Manager told the Washington Post: “The system is absolutely safer than it was a year ago,” said … [Read more...]
Irrational, or responsive to incentives?
In the Washington Post Brad Plumer editorializes on the choice of many Americans to accept longer commutes by car in exchange for larger homes far from their workplaces. He says that consumers are unable to accurately calculate the cost of their commutes, including time spent driving, leading them … [Read more...]
Five union work rules that harm transit productivity
Since Alon's comment a few weeks ago that union work rules, not wages and benefits, are the real problem with labor unions at America's transit authorities, I've been looking into the matter, which seems to be something that a lot of transit boosters don't like to talk about. It's an uncomfortable … [Read more...]
A fresh rejection of commerce from Metro
Stephen has previously written on DC Metro's potential to make money by leasing its valuable real estate to vendors, but Metro officials have now further entrenched the organization against making efficient use of its property. WMATA denied a weekend farmers market use of the parking lot at the … [Read more...]
Not Marshmallows, but a Really, REALLY Big Lollipop
In the last post, commenter AWP helped me realize that the marshmallow mountain analogy could be improved upon, since one person eating a marshmallow prevented another person from eating that same marshmallow. But the road cannot be subdivided as simply. Yes, a nit-picky implication of the … [Read more...]
Urban[ism] Legend: Transportation is a Public Good
In a recent post, commenter Jeremy H. helped point out that the use of the term "public good" is grossly abused in the case of transportation. Even Nobel economists refer to roads as "important examples of production of public goods," ( Samuelson and Nordhaus 1985: 48-49). I'd like to spend a … [Read more...]
When are user fees just redirected sales taxes?
Ben Ross at Greater Greater Washington has an excellent post about the pernicious habit of states (and maybe the federal government?) mislabeling sales taxes as user fees. Sorry for pulling such a long bit, but it's good: Maryland is considering raising its gas tax. This long-overdue measure would … [Read more...]
Links
1. Systemic Failure calls out the Bay Area for giving an award to a textbook example of greenwashing in urbanism: Ironically, this project was recently promoted on the SF-Streetsblog website by “New Urbanist” developer Peter Calthrope for its “highest level” of green technology. What does it say … [Read more...]