Category Archives: Transportation

Government spends millions to promote another inefficient transportation program… Yay!

Posted on by
Reply

There is an innovative bike sharing program in Washington D.C. which manages to be both inefficient and expensive so of course the government will now spend millions of dollars to subsidize the program.

As reported in the Washington Times article D.C. bike-sharing program crippled by own success:

This summer, the city’s innovative bike-sharing program has been crippled by its own success when it comes to commuting during rush hour, with bike racks completely empty — or just as often, completely full, making it impossible to drop off a bike.

“Are you going to take one of these?” pleads Jeff Menzer as he props up a bike next to a full station. Several other Bikeshare members already have shaken their heads at the sight of no empty slots and churned toward another station some 10 blocks away. “I was only going five blocks, and now I’ll have to make an eight-block walk.”

Only a government bureaucrat would think spending millions of dollars to support this program is a good idea. It is a perfect example of the brilliant thinking that has driven our nation to the verge of bankruptcy.

Any person in D.C. could buy their own bike for less than a hundred dollars, ride it wherever they wish for free, park it for free and have it waiting for them anytime they need it. That simple, cost effective and efficient program fosters self reliance and requires no government spending. So of course the government must take nearly 2 million dollars from taxpayers to support a system that is inefficient and expensive.

According to the article the bike club only has 15,000 members but the federal government is going to spend $1.9 million to expand the system. At that price the feds would be better off just buying every member a bike. It would be more efficient and save the taxpayers half a million dollars!

How does China afford all those expensive trains?

Posted on by
1

Yesterday I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about General Electric opening an overseas headquarters in China. The article is behind a pay wall so I can’t link it here but as with all WSJ articles you can google the headline: GE Bases X-Ray Unit in China to read the whole thing for free. The article wasn’t anything special until I read the throwaway line in the last paragraph:

China’s central government increased its budget for spending on public health by 16% this year to $26 billion. In March, it allocated 76 billion yuan ($11.78 billion) to improving health-insurance coverage and increased insurance subsidies to 200 yuan a person, up from 120 yuan.

China only spends $26 billion on public healthcare? Really? That is less than $26 a piece. Assuming the WSJ reporter is correct that would mean China spends about 1/3rd of one percent of their $7.8 trillion gross domestic product on healthcare. No wonder China can afford to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on high speed trains that don’t run in thunderstorms and shiny new ghost towns.

For comparison’s sake the Congressional Budget Office says that the United States Government is currently spending just less than 6% of our entire GDP on healthcare and that is when you only include ” the major mandatory health care programs”. That means the U. S. spends about $857 billion or more than $2800 per citizen on just the “major mandatory healthcare programs”.

So how does China afford all those expensive trains? Obviously one way they can afford it is by spending less than 1/1000th of what we do on government healthcare programs.

So even communist China realizes you can’t spend that kind of money on both healthcare and high speed trains without breaking the bank. Too bad our own president hasn’t figured it out.

Were Atlanta schools cheating to compete with the Northern Suburbs?

Posted on by
1

Last week while I was on my electronic rehabilitation program there was an interesting article in the AJC about the Atlanta Public School cheating scandal. The headline of the article was “Scandal could hamper city’s business growth” and you can read the whole thing here.

The entire school cheating scandal is a disappointing chapter in Atlanta’s history but one of the most intriguing components of the story is the entanglement of the Atlanta business community in the sordid affair. What I found unique about this particular article is that it hints the City of Atlanta is losing businesses to the cities in North Fulton County because of our superior schools:

The Atlanta Public Schools scandal will deeply hamper the city’s efforts to attract new businesses and jobs, perhaps for years, business and company site selection experts say.

Quality of the local school system is a top factor in company location decisions, especially among large corporations with employee bases that are substantially made up of families.

****************

Atlanta in particular has struggled over the past few years as companies have located outside the city limits, especially in the northern suburbs. Instead of going downtown, the job growth of late has been with companies such as NCR Corp., which moved to Gwinnett County from Ohio, and in the numerous technology firms that now call Alpharetta home.

“The city of Atlanta faces much stiffer competition than it did a decade ago,” said Ron Starner, general manager of Site Selection magazine, an industry periodical.

That’s important because school systems in the northern suburbs — some of which are nationally recognized — are generally considered stronger, which allows the metro area to stay competitive in drawing companies, Starner said. That, however, bypasses the city of Atlanta. (emphasis added)

What? Do you mean to tell me that Atlanta with all those MARTA trains and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of transit infrastructure is losing the competition for jobs because other cities including the ones in their Northern suburbs have better schools and are more conducive to raising families? Whoda thunkit?

Well there was this… and this… and this… and this…

I think you get the idea by now but if you aren’t convinced you can use the site search to the right of this screen and find dozens of examples on GA Jim which document what makes Alpharetta and our neighbors in the North Atlanta suburbs special and enables us to attract jobs even in this atrocious economic climate. We provide a superior environment for executives and their employees to raise families at a substantially lower cost than an urban environment.

It really is that simple. If you build a great city for families they will come… and they will bring their businesses with them.

Another nail in the coffin of Georgia’s proposed transportation tax increase…

Posted on by
1

The Dekalb county commission just raised property taxes 26% to cover the county’s budget deficit. As a result Dekalb County residents will suffer a 50 million dollar tax increase even as their property values have declined. In exchange for that $50 million Dekalb residents won’t receive any additional services or benefits and are already being warned that the higher taxes still may not be enough.

As reported in the AJC:

Residents also will need more money. The new incorporated tax rate is 21.21 mills. The tax hike adds $93 a year to the tax bill on the average home, which dropped in value since last year.

But tax bills increase far more where home values have remained the same, with a $420 increase, for instance, on a home that remained at $300,000.

Those kinds of hikes will hit northern and central DeKalb particularly hard, because many home values there barely dropped. Commissioner Elaine Boyer, who represents northern DeKalb, called the tax hike a “slap in the face” for her constituents.

Boyer, who with May and Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton voted against the budget, said she also worried that without long-term forecasting, no one could say another tax hike won’t be needed next year.

Dekalb taxpayers are the only Georgia residents other than those in Fulton County that already have to pay a 1% sales tax to support MARTA. The new $50 million tax increase makes it less likely those same residents will choose to pay another 1% for transportation every time they spend their hard earned money.

The coffin nails are starting to add up at what be an alarming rate for those people determined to raise taxes in Georgia and proponents of the transportation tax increase know it. That is why they are moving the vote to a time when more tax and spend Democrats will likely be voting.

But even tax and spend Democrats have a limit to what they can tolerate. One must wonder if even Dekalb County Democrats may reach that limit before the transportation tax increase comes up for a vote.

So how’s that liberalism working out for you Charlotte?

Posted on by
2

A few months ago Kyle Wingfield of the AJC wrote a column about the unhealthy habit many Atlantans have developed of pointing to Charlotte, North Carolina as an example of what we need to do here. Below is a sample:

One thing I’ve noticed since moving back to Georgia is how many people here spend an inordinate amount of time fretting about North Carolina, and specifically Charlotte. They’re building high-speed rail in North Carolina. They’re building light rail in Charlotte. They’re spending more money on incentives to lure businesses. They just landed the Democratic National Convention in 2012.

(Notice how many of the supposed superiorities in our northern neighbor concern left-wing causes; you don’t hear much about North Carolina leading the way in cutting red tape or privatizing inefficient state-government functions.)

******************

A little background: Even with things going so swimmingly in North Carolina — at least according to some people here in Georgia — the state’s voters just saw fit to turn out the majority party (the Democrats) in both chambers of the legislature. It’s the first time the state’s senate has been out of Democratic control since 1870.

And now a few facts that may help explain the political upheaval:

  • During the 2009 through 2012 fiscal years, North Carolina has had bigger budget shortfalls than Georgia all four years in absolute terms, and in three of the four years as a percentage of the state’s budget. This year, their budget shortfall is projected at $3.8 billion to our $1.7 billion.
  • North Carolina’s unemployment rate, at 9.8 percent, is just about the same as our 10.2 percent.
  • North Carolina was cited by the Tax Foundation as having one of the nation’s 10 worst business tax climates; Georgia is in the middle of the pack at No. 25.

The reason I bring this up again is that this weekend I saw an interesting post about Charlotte’s Mecklenberg county on Twitter:

House hunting in SC 2day. Our property taxes going up $2000 next year. $2000 tax increases might be fine in NJ & CA. Bye, bye MeckCo & #CLT

So a metro Charlotte resident is going to move across state lines because their taxes just went up $2000 a year in a horrible economy? Huge tax increases in Charlotte? That couldn’t be right… could it? Well it is according to a blogpost titled Our 6.3% Property Tax Increase:

By the time you read this our top elected local Socialist – I’m writing of course about Jennifer Roberts –  will have graciously presented you with a 6.3% property tax increase. We now have a property tax rate of $.8166 per $100 of accessed property. A revenue neutral rate would have been $.7678 per $100. This 6.3% increase will soak you for another $50 MILLION. For some reason the percentage increase was never mentioned by that bastion of journalistic integrity – The Charlotte Observer – in their breathless advocacy for the tax increase prior to Tuesday’s budget vote by the BOCC.

If you live in Charlotte (85% of Mecklenburg County residents) you have already been the highest taxed individual in North Carolina for the past ten years.In the FY 2009 budget year (last available statistics), Charlotteans were clipped on average $2,360. The median average in North Carolina was $1,304. That’s a mere 44% difference if you’re mathematically inclined. Thanks to Roberts, you are padding your lead.

One of the leading bastions of liberalism in the Southeast is now raising taxes during an economic depression because they have to pay for the expensive policies that many influential Atlantans want to duplicate. Makes me glad I live in Alpharetta, Georgia. My property taxes will actually decrease this year.

So how’s that liberalism working out for you Charlotte?

Congratulations Mr. Lowery you did it. Now it’s time to put the deck of race cards away.

Posted on by
2

The referendum on Georgia’s transportation tax increase won’t be on the ballot for more than a year but the Reverend Joseph Lowery is already playing his race card. In writing about the process surrounding the transportation project selection Mr. Lowery writes:

Originally, the committee was composed of all white men, mostly from the suburbs. This glaring imbalance prompted Rep. David Ralston, Speaker of the state House of Representatives, to intervene and request that Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed be added to the executive committee.

The painful truth is that Ralston, a white Republican from the north Georgia mountains, should not have been involved in such a local issue.

It’s also telling that other committee members failed to recognize that they did not reflect the region’s diverse demographics. It certainly was obvious to many average citizens in Fulton, DeKalb or the City of Atlanta, who collectively represent 40 percent of the vote within the 10-county region.

A similar misstep was brought to light by Mayor Reed last month. During a meeting of the Regional Roundtable, Reed pointed out that a team of consultants selected to manage the $5 million referendum campaign is also exclusively composed of white men.

You can read Mr. Lowery’s column here.

Of course the appearance of the race card during the transportation tax debate isn’t the only time Mr. Lowery has used it lately. Just a few months ago the news broke that the Reverend filed a lawsuit to dissolve cities in the state of Georgia because of he believes the incorporation of the cities were racist acts. You can read about that issue here.

It is sad to see a man with such a proud history stuck in the past. I have spent nearly 5 decades living in Georgia and I remember how things used to be. I am also well aware of the role that Mr. Lowery played during the civil rights movement. I respect what he did and I am grateful that my children will never be exposed to the kind of racism Mr. Lowery fought.

But with all due respect, this is 2011 and the world is not the same as it was in the 1950’s and 60’s. Children born today are 50 years removed from the segregationist policies that Mr. Lowery fought so valiantly. The vast majority of young white people think of segregation as something that might as well have happened in the stone age.

I am 46 years old and the Civil Rights Act was passed before I was born. People born today are farther removed from institutionalized racism than I was from the Great Depression and the depression seemed like ancient history when grown ups talked about it back then.

Time moves on… so do societies. Leaders need to move on as well.

I’m not saying that racism has been wiped off the face of the Earth any more than greed, lust or avarice have. But the world of 2011 is nearly a half a century removed from the racism that the Reverend Joseph Lowery is still fighting. Someone needs to help him understand that he tarnishes his place in history by continuing to fight battles that are already won. Incorporating a city and raising the taxes on every Georgian are policies we can debate but that does not make them racist acts.

Congratulations Reverend Lowery. You did it. Racism may not be extinct but it has been vanquished. It’s time to put the deck of race cards away.

Is transportation the new housing?

Posted on by
1

Kyle Wingfield wrote a column discussing crony capitalism in the case of Fannie Mae that gave me an epiphany of where the next government created disaster will occur.

Kyle’s column explored the idea that political elite of both political parties in the United States have been guilty of spending taxpayer money to benefit themselves, their friends and their supporters. Wingfield used Fannie Mae to point out that the crony capitalism inherent in our current political system is the driving force behind our nations rush toward bankruptcy and that the backlash to this unsustainable trend has given birth to the Tea Party movement. I suggest you read the whole column here.

One particular section of Kyle’s column struck me because I see a clear parallel between what occurred with Fannie Mae and what is now going on with the sudden rush to subsidize transportation and transit projects with more taxpayer money. Below is the section I am referring to:

Fannie Mae co-opted relevant activist groups…. Fannie ginned up Astroturf lobbying campaigns….

Fannie lavished campaign contributions on members of Congress. Time and again experts would go before some Congressional committee to warn that Fannie was lowering borrowing standards and posing an enormous risk to taxpayers. Phalanxes of congressmen would be mobilized to bludgeon the experts and kill unfriendly legislation.

Fannie executives ginned up academic studies. They created a foundation that spent tens of millions in advertising. They spent enormous amounts of time and money capturing the regulators who were supposed to police them.

A government entity co-opting activist groups, ginning up academic studies and spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to finance astroturf lobbying campaigns? Well that might have happened when Fannie Mae spent hundreds of millions creating a housing bubble that drove this nation into a depression…. but something like that couldn’t happen again. Could it?

Surely government organizations like the Federal Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Authority and the Environmental Protection Agency would never spend hundreds of millions of dollars promoting ideas and policies that will lead this nation further down the path toward bankruptcy… would they? Well according to the Center for Transportation and Livable Systems:

The U.S. Department of Transportation supports a network of University Transportation Centers throughout the nation to advance technology and expertise in transportation through combined efforts of research, education, and technology transfer. Within the federal SAFETEA-LU legislation, the Center for Transportation and Livable Systems (CTLS), formerly the Center for Transportation and Urban Planning, was designated the University of Connecticut’s University Transportation Center in August 2005. CTLS began its first year of operation in 2007 and since then has supported dozens of researchers and students through its research activities and helped inform the public and the scientific community in its workshops, seminars and symposia.

The theme of the Center for Transportation and Livable Systems is Livable and Sustainable Transportation Systems for Smart Growth — a holistic theme that incorporates walking, bicycling, transit and automobiles in an integrated multi-modal system

But that must be an isolated example. It’s not like the federal government would spend $175 Million on some ridiculous initiative to expand transit into low density suburban and rural communiites. Would it? Apparently so according to this press release on the Federal Transit Authority website: 

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced the availability of up to $175 million in livability grants to help urban, suburban and rural communities develop transit options to better connect people to where they live, work and play.  Local transit agencies will be able to compete for livability dollars from the pool of up to $175 million. The competitive grant program will
begin accepting applications when announced in the Federal Register during the week of June 20.

It seems everywhere I look there are indications that the federal government along with many state and local officials have begun the process of screwing up America’s transportation infrastructure the same way they managed to destroy the nation’s real estate industry. But it isn’t just politicians. It is also their cronies in the infrastructure and real estate development industries that are helping to create this mess.

Remember the first scandal to break for Georgia’s new Speaker of the House, David Ralston, back in 2010? Maybe a clip from this AJC article will refresh your memory:

House Speaker David Ralston and his family spent part of Thanksgiving week in Europe on a $17,000 economic development mission paid for by lobbyists interested in building a high-speed train line between Atlanta and Chattanooga.

Commonwealth Research Associates, a D.C.-based consulting firm, paid for the trip, which also included Ralston’s chief of staff Spiro Amburn and his spouse, to Germany and the Netherlands the week of Nov. 21-27, according to records filed with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, formerly known as the State Ethics Commission.

The trip was the most expensive single expenditure reported by a lobbyist since at least 2005.

Coincidentally another article explains that Speaker Ralston is now proposing that the state of Georgia use the train those lobbyists wanted as leverage in the water wars between state of Tennessee and Georgia:

Georgia’s House speaker says leaders from his state need to sit down with Tennessee officials and discuss trading transportation enhancements for access to the water in the Tennessee River.

During a recent radio interview with WABE-FM in Atlanta, Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said his state might be willing to offer improved rail, roads or other links between Chattanooga and Georgia air and sea ports in exchange for access to the river.

Isn’t that special? Sure is funny how the push for inefficient and unbelievably expensive trains shows up in the oddest places.

Between the early 1990’s and 2008 the federal government along with willing accomplices at the state and local level worked hand in hand with banks, governmental agencies, developers, builders, land speculators and a host of other cronies to create a real estate bubble that has staggered this country. In the process a lot of people made a lot of money at the taxpayers’ expense.

I see many of the same people doing almost the exact same thing now. The only difference is that now they are salivating over the billions of dollars to be made from creating a transportation bubble.

So the question I leave you with is this: Is transportation the new housing?

The Yin and the Yang of Senior Transit in Atlanta

Posted on by
3

First there was Yin in the AJC:

Metro Atlanta seniors beware:  By 2015, 90 percent of area residents 65 and older are expected to live in neighborhoods with poor or nonexistent access to mass transit.  That’s the worst showing among metropolitan areas with more than 3 million people, according to a new study released Tuesday, “Aging in Place: Stuck Without Options.”

The study was conducted by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and released by Transportation for America, groups that advocate for sustainable development.

**************

According to the American Association of Retired Persons, when older people lose transportation options they make 15 percent fewer trips to the doctor and far fewer trips to family, friends and other places.

The groups called for a federal investment in mass transit expansion.

You can read the whole Yin here.

Then there was Yang from the CATO Institute:

Most seniors don’t ride transit. Census data show that more than 12.5 percent of all Americans are over 65, yet data from the American Public Transportation Association show that only 6.7 percent of transit trips are taken by senior citizens. The average American rides transit less than 34 times a year; the average senior citizen less than 18 times a year.

*****************

Transportation for America wants transit agencies to extend frequent bus or rail service to every remote suburb where there might be a few people over 65 — not because those people want to ride transit, but to simply give them “options.” In order to pay for service extensions to suburbs, many transit agencies have reduced transit service in the central cities where most transit riders are actually located. As a result, since 1985, per-capita transit ridership has plummeted in such major urban areas as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta.

Congress expects to pass legislation this year that will decide how to spend $40 billion in annual federal gas tax revenues over the next six years. In recent years, 20 percent of those gas taxes have been spent on transit. Transportation for America’s goal is to further increase that share. But after decades of huge transit subsidies, per-capita transit ridership today is no greater than it was in 1970 — mainly because the subsidies have focused on extending transit service to those who don’t need it rather than providing better service to those who do.

Americans will be better off by privatizing transit. Private operators will provide better service to those willing to live in denser, transit-friendly neighborhoods without wasting a lot of money trying to attract a few suburbanites out of their cars.

You can read the whole Yang here.

I remember attending a transportation charade charrette once where I had a discussion about senior transportation with Alpharetta’s Director of Engineering and Public Works, Pete Sewczwicz. Pete suggested that it would good if the city of Alpharetta could use excess capacity in shopping center parking lots as transit stops for seniors that weren’t able to drive to the doctor’s office. I then pointed out to Pete that if seniors couldn’t drive to the doctor’s office they couldn’t drive to the shopping center either and it was doubtful they would be walking the several miles from their homes to catch a bus.

As the Yang points out, most seniors have no intention of giving up their cars and the only transit helpful to those unable to drive is the kind that picks them up at their house. MARTA already spends millions providing door-to-door transportation for some elderly residents but Georgia’s taxpayers simply can’t be expected to provide door-to-door transportation for every senior citizen in the metro Atlanta area. It might be nice if every senior citizen could get free transportation but unfortunately the service wouldn’t be free, it would be paid for by taxpayers that are already facing 10% unemployment in the worst economic environment of our lifetimes.

Yin may seem like a sympathetic cause but government’s attempt to provide for every possible need of its citizens is simply not sustainable nor desirable. Put me down for Yang on this one.

North Fulton In Case You Missed It (ICYMI) 6/15/2011

Posted on by
Reply

Councilman Jim Paine officially declared his candidacy for Mayor of Alpharetta, Georgia this week: http://bit.ly/kukRBH

Fulton County made North Fulton county’s high school redistricting plan official: http://bit.ly/jcR8B3

The North Fulton CID enlists the city of Roswell to help them expand: http://bit.ly/jOTTkt http://bit.ly/ix5QeD

With advocates like that mass transit doesn’t need enemies

Posted on by
3

A few years ago I was completely baffled by the fact that expensive, inefficient transit projects were sucking up billions of taxpayer dollars while more efficient methods of relieving congestion were constantly denigrated by politicians. As my curiosity led to some research I stumbled upon an entire subculture of people referred to as “transit advocates”.

Author Michael Barone discussed this “transit advocate” phenomenom in his recent piece The folly of fixed rail projects which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner. Mr. Barone concluded:

“as a form of transportation, fixed rail makes little sense in most parts of the United States. The fact that promoters of fixed rail almost inevitably produce hugely optimistic projections of cost and ridership indicate that we are dealing here with people who are less committed to rational argumentation than they are to the promotion of something which for them takes on the importance of a religious faith.”

Over the years I have reviewed numerous materials that “transit advocates” use to support their positions and I usually get a good laugh from them. Almost inevitably the document being cited documents that public transit is not the solution to transportation problems.

For example this morning I ran across this tweet from @Transit_Tripp on Twitter:

Study: “Roads Cause Traffic ”  http://tiny.ly/Rp1p

Yes I know the headline is nonsensical but that is to be expected on Twitter. Saying roads cause traffic is like saying roads cause drunk driving but the headline did get my attention so it was effective. I read the article and suggest you follow the link and do the same. Once you have finished come back and compare notes with what I read. I’ll wait for you here………

……….

……….

Ok, all done? So here is what I read:

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

The Toronto economists were careful to point out that adding transit options has no effect on highway congestion: so long as highway capacity is plentiful and free, there will always be new drivers to take the place of those who switch to transit. This doesn’t mean, though, that more rail routes and frequencies shouldn’t be provided, it just means that more transit won’t reduce congestion
unless it is coupled with policies that make it costlier or harder to drive.

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

So transit advocates tout the news that transit does not relieve congestion? And the transit advocate solution to traffic is to make it “harder and costlier to drive” thus forcing people onto trains that are expensive and inefficient? With advocates like that mass transit doesn’t really need enemies.