Don Boudreaux to the Washington Times:LETTER TO EDITOR: Roads don't need new taxesThursday, July 24, 2008Upset that Virginians' taxes were not recently raised to construct more roads, State Delegate Brian J. Moran, Alexandria and Fairfax Democrat, declares that "Government has an … [Read more...]
Urban[ism] Legend: Density is Bad for the Environment
This is a topic I want to cover more thoroughly, but for now I present a one hour documentary video on green buildings for you leisurely viewing.I came across the snagfilms website from a recent Wall Street Journal article. Most of the documentary videos lean towards "progressive" tastes, but … [Read more...]
How to Obscure Reality to Make Planners Seem Important
Regular reader, Bill forwarded this article from the New York Daily News calling it an "outstanding collection of anti-density and anti-market propaganda presented (as always) as objective journalism." The article is riddled with misconceptions (aka Urbanism Legends) about zoning and development … [Read more...]
CTA “Super Station” Mothballed
Photo by flickr user mss2400 Thanks, DBM for the tip: Faced with runaway costs, the CTA and City Hall slammed the emergency brakes Wednesday on ambitious plans to build a "super station" in downtown's Block 37 to speed express trains to both Chicago's airports.A combined $213 million has been … [Read more...]
CATO Podcast: Transportation
Today, I was listening to CATO's Daily Podcast about transportation with Samuel Staley of the Reason Foundation. I started listening to him talk about the best ways to plan highway systems and said to myself, "Oh boy, here we go again another so-called "free-market" person talking about how the … [Read more...]
Happy 125th, Chicago’s L
Stephen Smith at rationalitate picked up on a Wired article and posted Thomas Edison builds the first el: today is 125th anniversary of the debut of Thomas Edison's elevated electric railway demonstration in Chicago. The project was financed with $2 million in private funds, through the … [Read more...]
Market Incentives to Conserve Resources
The economics blog, Knowledge Problem on how prices effect individuals incentive to conserve: Conservation of resources: Prices change everything Steven Stoft, at the EU Energy Policy Blog, observes that market driven conservation is a slow process:Conservation is the main way consumers respond … [Read more...]
Krugman: Stranded in Suburbia
Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed this morning how the US living and transportation patterns will not cope with high oil prices as well as European cities: Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than cars. Long after today’s S.U.V.’s … [Read more...]