Mass Transit is As American as Apple Pie
Sometimes I want to say that something about mass transit drives conservatives batty. Other times I want to say that the conservative discourse about mass transit simply illustrates the fact that it’s an ideology driven by inchoate resentments rather than any ideas about policy or the role of government. Either way, this error-ridden paragraph from Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru, two of the movement’s shining starts, underscores the point:
The Left’s search for a foreign template to graft onto America grew more desperate. Why couldn’t we be more like them — like the French, like the Swedes, like the Danes? Like any people with a larger and busier government overawing the private sector and civil society? You can see it in Sicko, wherein Michael Moore extols the British national health-care system, the French way of life, and even the munificence of Cuba; you can hear it in all the admonitions from left-wing commentators that every other advanced society has government child care, or gun control, or mass transit, or whatever socialistic program or other infringement on our liberty we have had the wisdom to reject for decades.
Matthew Schmitz ably handles the allegation that mass transit is a “socialistic program” or “infringement on our liberty” by asking compared to what?
Presumably they think this because mass transit is built and administered by the government and supported, quite often, by taxes. But the exact same thing is true of highways. Would Lowry and Ponnuru denounce the Interestate system as socialistic on the same grounds?
But of course they have nothing to say about genuine infringements of liberty like minimum parking requirements, maximum lot occupancy rules, building height limits, prohibitions on accessory dwellings, etc. that are mainstays of America’s centrally planned suburbs. That’s because to them what really matters isn’t socialism or liberty (certainly nobody who cares about liberty could be as enthusiastic about torture as National Review writers are) but Americanness. Even here, though, their critique falls badly flat. The world’s largest subway systems are in Japan and South Korea—not socialistic Europe—followed by New York City right here in the United States. Multiple-unit train control was invented in Chicago, as part of the world’s first electrically driven railway. I believe that all of the world’s 24-hour rapid transit systems (NYC Subway, Chicago L, NY-NJ PATH) are in the United States of America.
PATH Station in Jersey City, Sweden
But here the problem is that merely being located in the United States of America isn’t good enough to pass the inane identity politics litmus tests of the contemporary right—New York City isn’t America (except for purposes of exploiting 9/11 on behalf of torture and aggressive war) nor are Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, DC, etc “really” American. So therefore mass transit is un-American and therefore it’s socialist, so it follows that anyone who wants to build mass transit is doing so out of socialistic hatred for the United States.
273 Responses to “Mass Transit is As American as Apple Pie”
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February 26th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Jersey City, Sweden?? No wonder I was late to work this morning
February 26th, 2010 at 10:51 am
Good grief. Subways work in very densely populated large cities. The United States doesn’t have very many of those. It’s as simple as that. What makes sense in Tokyo doesn’t make sense in Oklahoma City.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Bravo.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Perhaps it would be rude to point out that one of the fastest growing mass transit systems in the US is DART, in the socialist workers’ paradise of Dallas, Texas. I ride it every day while reading my Das Kapital.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:57 am
Good grief. Most Americans live in very densely populated large cities. But screw them ’cause we’re focused on Oklahoma City. It’s as simple as that.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:57 am
Good grief. Subways work in very densely populated large cities. The United States doesn’t have very many of those. It’s as simple as that. What makes sense in Tokyo doesn’t make sense in Oklahoma City.
Stop being obtuse. The point here is that even if a new subway system is planned for a dense area, you will certain conservatives up in arms.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:58 am
America doesn’t have large densely populated cities? Only if you don’t count the large densely populated cities as part of America, which conservatives clearly do not. Because you see, anyone who disagrees with conservatives (or lives in a place where the majority of the population disagrees with conservatives) is clearly not an American.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:58 am
There is not doubt in my mind that when I transfer at Philadelphia’s City Hall subway station, I smell 100% American urine. Take that, socialists!
February 26th, 2010 at 11:00 am
@Chris
Yes, but the reason we don’t have lots of densely populated cities is because we’ve artificially regulated the density of those places through zoning or other land use regulations. We’ve also dictated their transportation modes through public policy choices. This is not some magical free-market outcome.
If anything, New York represents the most free-market agglomeration in the US – its density was largely built up before zoning, the bulk of the subway system was built by private, not public operators, etc – that’s what you get if you let the market run its course, not Oklahoma City.
And once you realize that, the inherent disconnect between the conservative case for markets and deregulation runs directly counter to their cultural ideals for what is “American” and so on.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Good grief. Most Americans live in very densely populated large cities. But screw them ’cause we’re focused on Oklahoma City. It’s as simple as that.
If by most you mean the people who live in urban sections of a few older cities, then you’re right.
But if by most you mean > than 150,000,000 Americans, then you’ve pulled an Olbermann.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Come on people, there’s no point to mass transit. If something is close enough to walk then you should walk. But if it’s too far to walk you should drive a car. What’s so hard to understand about that?
February 26th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Street car systems were privately owned for a long time, roads have been traditionally a government enterprise. In our town, the street cars lasted a total of two years before being torn down for the automobile. The street cars lines that remained reverted to socialism because they were loss makers. This was common in the late 20s.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Good grief. Subways work in very densely populated large cities. The United States doesn’t have very many of those. It’s as simple as that. What makes sense in Tokyo doesn’t make sense in Oklahoma City.
Comments like this tell me it’s time to double the size of the House.
Then proportionate power of places like OK City or Wyoming – which is like the population of Staten Island – fall.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Yes, but the reason we don’t have lots of densely populated cities is because we’ve artificially regulated the density of those places through zoning or other land use regulations.
You are probably right about much of this. But history being what it is, we’re a little bit stuck with cities built as they are. That is, until gas hits $10 gallon, and then all the rich people will move back to city centers and the poor will be stranded and screwed in the burbs. Kinda like Europe.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:04 am
The basic fallacy in RickRan’s argument is their spoilt-bastard-child definition of what constitutes an “infringement on our liberty”. Everything proceeds from that.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:04 am
If a government program benefits them, or their loved ones, or people like them, then it’s common sense. If it benefits other people, particularly people in large racially-diverse cities, then it’s socialism.
We like to speak about politics in terms of ideology or issues, but the conservative movement is driven almost entirely by outrage and resentment at their tax dollars benefiting someone they don’t like.
Most conservatives are not opposed to the liberal ideal of a nation as a collective enterprise in which everyone contributes to build public institutions that support a wide variety of economic and cultural opportunities. Put a bunch of them together in a cozy, well-to-do suburb, and they will typically govern that suburb in precisely this way. What they are opposed to is sharing that public space with a bunch of hippies, queers, blacks, immigrants, and bums.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:10 am
True dat!
February 26th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Mass transit is fine, UNLESS the federal government forms a preference and starts to tax people with cars.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Philly’s subway system isn’t 24 hours anymore?
February 26th, 2010 at 11:16 am
The basic fallacy in RickRan’s argument is their spoilt-bastard-child definition of what constitutes an “infringement on our liberty”. Everything proceeds from that.
So true. How exactly is government subsidized child care or mass transit an infringement on liberty? I get the argument on gun control, even if I don’t agree with it, but the rest is silly.
There is not doubt in my mind that when I transfer at Philadelphia’s City Hall subway station, I smell 100% American urine. Take that, socialists!
That piss smell is as American as apple pie baby!
February 26th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Good grief. Subways work in very densely populated large cities. The United States doesn’t have very many of those.
That’s true. If you don’t count New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Washington DC, Miami, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston, then the US doesn’t have very many of those.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Morgan, you still don’t get it. The federal government has already formed a perference for government sponsored mass transportation: the interstate highway system. I’m being taxed for the preference. And it happens to be a very inefficient system. Do you think GM and Ford would have become manufacturing powers WITHOUT Ike’s decision to build the interstate highway? Of course not. He just as easily could have developed a stronger rail system, and GM would be a train company.
Conservatives have no understanding that government regulation is the PREDICATE to a market. The government creats property rights and protects them.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:18 am
The formulation of American Exceptionalism as the core of Conservatism is itself bogus.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:19 am
Public funds for roads support car travel.
Public zoning supports low-density, single-family home ownership.
The common theme is group action at the level of governance on behalf of individual action on the level of day-to-day affairs.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:20 am
I think this about high speed rail, not urban subway systems. As someone living in the sticks, let me just say that nearly everyone I know wants it.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Yes, because when we talk about mass transit, we are only, ONLY talking about subterranean mass transit.
I’d also point out that there’s probably a reason we don’t have many “densely populated” large cities. You might take note of the fact that those cities (New York, Chicago, etc.) grew up around, you guessed it, mass transit. The L train I take to the loop every day wasn’t built yesterday.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:30 am
I believe that all of the world’s 24-hour rapid transit systems (NYC Subway, Chicago L, NY-NJ PATH) are in the United States of America.
This belief is false if you count Berlin and Hamburg. Berlin has extensive and excellent tram service (usually the trams have their own right of way, and lights change for them) that runs throughout the night, with the U- and S-bahn taking a short break from around 1:30 to 3:30. Hamburg’s U-bahn runs throughout Friday and Saturday nights.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Well, Stefan, that’s if you don’t count Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Miami, New Orleans, Kansas City, Denver, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Memphis, Raleigh-Charlotte, Buffalo …
February 26th, 2010 at 11:32 am
If we’re talking about mass transit I think it’s important to distinguish between rail and buses. Rail is insanely expensive to build, isn’t flexible in terms of routes, and outside a few major cities has a fairly low ridership. Buses at least don’t have the first two problems. Yet my sense is that when people talk about promoting mass transit what they typically have in mind is more rail.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Isn’t this due to the political power of conservatives being concentrated outside of the large cities where mass transit makes sense? They just don’t want to see money spent in places where their political supporters aren’t living.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Presumably they think this because mass transit is built and administered by the government and supported, quite often, by taxes. But the exact same thing is true of highways.
Yawn. We’ve been over this numerous times. Highways are paid for mostly by special taxes levied on highway users – gas taxes, driver license fees, motor vehicle registration fees, etc. As such, these taxes are a form of user fee paid by the consumers of the good. Direct public subsidies to motor vehicle users average about 1 cent per vehicle-mile, or about 2% of the total cost of owning and operating a motor vehicle. This is completely different from mass transit funding. Transit users pay only about 30% of the cost of providing transit services to them. The rest is paid by general taxes levied on the general population, the vast majority of whom rarely or never use the transit services they are paying for.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Even if you don’t want to include Stefan @21’s list of America’s large, dense cities, you still have smaller, somewhat less-dense cities for whom non-shitty bus service or streetcar service are viable options even if a subway isn’t.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:35 am
Here’s a postcard from live free or die New Hampshire, circa 1877. And, oh no — Socialism!
February 26th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Good post Yglesias.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Put a bunch of them together in a cozy, well-to-do suburb, and they will typically govern that suburb in precisely this way. What they are opposed to is sharing that public space with a bunch of hippies, queers, blacks, immigrants, and bums.
In other words, their resentments are perfectly choate.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:37 am
And before anyone corrects me, I see that the postcard is from 1908, it merely celebrates an 1877 event.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Blackadder @29 has a good point, and Matt Y does with some frequency talk about better bus service in addition to the various rail options. Attempts at good bus service in the U.S., though, are often misguided and kinda gimmicky, like Boston’s Silver Line or DC’s Circulator. There’s also the race and class issue with buses in this country.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Yawn. We’ve been over this numerous times. Highways are paid for mostly by special taxes levied on highway users – gas taxes, driver license fees, motor vehicle registration fees, etc.
Yes, Mixner, we have. So you know full well that you are lying.
Federal highways are barely 50% funder by user fees.
State and local highways are less than 30% funded by user fees.
You’ve been confronted with this before, and you repeat your canard like a you’re a robot.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:38 am
But history being what it is, we’re a little bit stuck with cities built as they are. That is, until gas hits $10 gallon, and then all the rich people will move back to city centers and the poor will be stranded and screwed in the burbs.
Yeah, but where will they move to? Again, the artificial regulation has hurt the ability build space. When they want to move back in, they’ll face the same problems, and as always: developers believe they should be able to build anywhere while residents believe they should each have a unilateral veto on anything built within 2 miles of their homes.
Meanwhile, if we start with trains that serve only the downtown/pseudo-downtown area, it will infill to take advantage. Then it becomes worth it to expand the train. No, we can’t run OK City-wide trains, but we can run trains in a part of the city and expand the lines slowly. Even the most sprawling cities have some sort of downtown shell, which can get slightly denser with better transit. Then over a 20-30 year period, you can fill in around that shell concentrically to make yourself a real, viable public transit system.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:40 am
@10-Chris:
According to the 2000 US Census, 166,215,889 people (58.274% of the US population) live in urban areas of over 200,000 population.
Who’s “pulling an Olbermann” now?
Source: Census 2000 Population Statistics
February 26th, 2010 at 11:40 am
Awesome picture Brennan. Matt, you should file that away for your next post on the subject.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:42 am
But of course they have nothing to say about genuine infringements of liberty like minimum parking requirements, maximum lot occupancy rules, building height limits, prohibitions on accessory dwellings, etc. that are mainstays of America’s centrally planned suburbs.
Zoning regulations and other laws regulating land use are the product of the democratic process. Communities create these laws to separate land uses they consider to be incompatible, to internalize the negative externalities of higher density, and to maintain their standard of living and quality of life. If you don’t like the laws where you live you can use the political process to try and change them, or move to a place where the laws are more to your liking.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:44 am
Yes, Mixner, we have. So you know full well that you are lying.
No, you’re lying.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:47 am
If I am, Mixner, then do tell us, how much of the Federal highway system is funded by user fees? I distinctly recall it getting a $6B bailout from the general fund last year.
And do tell, how much of the state system comes from user fees in states that don’t even have a fricking gas tax? Also, do tell, how much my home town derives from user fees to do road resurfacing when it has no user fees for car ownership, no gas tax, no nothing ?
February 26th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Shorter Mixner @42: we conservatives like our government regulation because we got it passed in our communities, so leave or pass your own government regulations, which are the SOCIALISM, not like ours.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Mixner @42:
You mean this is the result of government regulation. If you like the regulation, you call the government a democratic process. If you don’t like the regulation, you call it socialism.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Andrew,
Dude, we wanted our cars. Government didn’t decide. We did.
You are looney tuns if you think Ike could have “decided”
You are watching Obama make a a decision right now.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:56 am
“Zoning regulations and other laws regulating land use are the product of the democratic process.”
But of course, the same could be said for any laws that limit what individuals and businesses can do with their own property, no matter how restrictive and intrusive the regulations are.
Zoning regulations and other laws regulating land use are wholly inconsistent with libertarian/conservative ideals of private property, and subsidies oriented toward building certain types of neighborhoods amount to social engineering. In practice, as always, y’all are perfectly willing to accept a massively intrusive state as long as it pursues a course of action that suits your lifestyle choices.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:57 am
If I am, Mixner, then do tell us, how much of the Federal highway system is funded by user fees?
Mixner will not do that, because Mixner’s standard tactic is to lie, demand that people prove he is lying, lie about how proof that his lies are lies isn’t really proof that he lies, and then whine when people call him out as a liar.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Zoning regulations and other laws regulating land use are the product of the democratic process. Nations create these laws to separate land uses they consider to be incompatible, to internalize the negative externalities of higher density, and to maintain their standard of living and quality of life. If you don’t like the laws where you live you can use the political process to try and change them, or move to another country where the laws are more to your liking.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Mass Transit is As American as Apple Pie
And, as Abbey Hoffman once pointed out, so is violence.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
If I am, Mixner, then do tell us, how much of the Federal highway system is funded by user fees?
As I said, direct public subsidies to motor vehicle users are about 20 cents per gallon of gas, or about 1 cent per vehicle-mile, or about 0.7 cents per passenger-mile. This is just a tiny fraction of the total cost of automobile travel, about 2%. Mass transit users, in contrast, pay only about one third of the cost of providing transit services. About 70% of the cost of providing bus and train rides to transit users is paid by taxpayers. Transit users are making out like bandits.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Guess what? Mixner commutes in a cherry-picker.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
“Transit users are making out like bandits.”
But it’s a good trade, because municipal areas get something out of those passengers’ transit use: less traffic congestion, less parking demand, less pollution, and fewer traffic accidents. If New York City closed the subway tomorrow, all the money it got back in the budget wouldn’t be worth the transportation nightmare it would cause. That’s even true with much less effective transit systems, like BART in the Bay Area. Communities want to subsidize mass transit use, because it’s worth encouraging.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
You did not answer the question, Mixner.
How much of the highway system is funded by user fees?
Give a number from 0 to 1, Mixner.
How much for the state highways?
Can you name a state where the DMV transaction fees are enough to cover the salaries of the DMV clerks?
February 26th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
You mean this is the result of government regulation. If you like the regulation, you call the government a democratic process. If you don’t like the regulation, you call it socialism.
I haven’t called anything “socialism.” You might try responding to what people actually write, instead of what you think they might have written if they were the strawman that exists only in your fevered imagination.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
@Chris: In some sense, most people in the U.S. DO live in “large cities”, but it depends a bit on how you define a large city. If by large city, one means “metro area with over 1 million people”, then from the U.S. Census Bureau,
166 MILLION PEOPLE LIVE IN LARGE CITIES IN THE U.S.
So there’s at least some justification in using “most”. Either way, the issue is really more of a question of lifestyle. Given the choice, would Americans actually use mass transit?
February 26th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Mixner, quick thought experiment: would you WANT a car if you could not drive it on paved streets or outside of your town, or park it in your neighborhood?
If there were no road between DC and New York, would you WANT to drive there or maybe take the train?
February 26th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Zoning regulations and other laws regulating land use are the product of the democratic process.
So is mass transit.
Don’t the trains run 24 hours in Singapore?
February 26th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Philly’s subway system isn’t 24 hours anymore?
It stops at midnight, but buses run along their exact routes when the underground shuts for the night, so service is continuous (but slow).
February 26th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
But it’s a good trade,
How do you know it’s a good trade? Show us your cost-benefit analysis demonstrating that taxpayers get more in benefits from mass transit than they pay in subsidies for it.
You have no such analysis, of course. Because you’re just making things up. Faith-based public policy. Wishful thinking.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
re: philly overnight service.
some of the trolley lines run all night, but the main subways have bus replacement.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Andrew @ 22:
Ford and GM were global manufacturing powers prior to the Interstate system and GM was THE diesel-electric locomotive manufacturer for 40 years.
blackadder @ 29:
Yeah, but we like trains.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
It’s amazing how flustered and irritated liberals get when you helpfully point out to them that the vast majority of Americans have no desire to live in their magical fairytale dreamland of urban “walkable” cities; which entails living in sardine cans stacked on top of each other, and cramming into a bus or subway car with tons of other people to get to work or the grocery store. There’s a reason these zoning restrictions that you don’t like were passed. People wanted them!
February 26th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
GREAT post, Matt.
But actually, I doubt that conservatives despise trains purely because places that already have trains vote liberal; if that were the only reason, you’d see them putting trains in Houston.
No, the reason conservatives hate trains is because of the culture trains create. When you sit on a train, you come into close contact with people of many different races, social classes, religions, etc. Not just that, but you form some slight bond of commonality with those people; you’re all just trying to get where you’re going, and you’re all dependent on the same machine.
Conservatives hate that bond of commonality. American conservatives have spent the last few decades trying to make America into the kind of country where a minority can shut itself up into homogeneous gated communities, defend itself with guns against intruders, and drive to work in SUVs that provide massive armor-plated protection against contact of any kind with the teeming polyglot of America outside. More than anything else, they want enclaves where you can grow up as a white evangelical Christian and almost never have to interact with anyone who is not a white evangelical Christian.
THAT is the liberty that conservatives want to defend, with gun rights (which, to be fair, I support), with government-planned suburban sprawl, and with government subsidies for larger and heavier vehicles. And THAT is the liberty that trains threaten. Not the liberty of an individual, but the liberty of an ethnic group to collectively withdraw from the rest of America.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
“It’s amazing how flustered and irritated liberals get when you helpfully point out to them that the vast majority of Americans have no desire to live in their magical fairytale dreamland of urban “walkable” cities; which entails living in sardine cans stacked on top of each other, and cramming into a bus or subway car with tons of other people to get to work or the grocery store. There’s a reason these zoning restrictions that you don’t like were passed. People wanted them!”
Then why is housing in those awful cities so sought after by yuppies like me that the prices have stayed high in this collapse while the suburbs are being hollowed out ? If there was no demand for walkable city living, heaven knows my rent would be lower.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
New York City isn’t America (except for purposes of exploiting 9/11 on behalf of torture and aggressive war) nor are Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, DC, etc “really” American.
Of course those cities are “really” American. But they are also very old. They were established and became major cities long before mass ownership of private automobiles. Long before there was any form of motorized transportation, in fact. The layout of the central areas of those cities reflects a very primitive transportation system based on horse-drawn vehicles and walking. We’re not building any more cities like that. Our newer cities are all designed around private motor vehicles. That isn’t likely to change. Get used to it.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
PanAmerican,
I appreciate you cleaning up my sloppy post. I didn’t mean to suggest that cars would not have served a purpose, or didn’t do so, until the Interstate Highway system. But merely to show how the primacy of automobiles over other modes of transportation was solidified by government regulation. I think it’s interesting (and supportive of my argument) that GM USED to be a train manufacturer.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Preach it, Yggy!
But of course they have nothing to say about genuine infringements of liberty like minimum parking requirements, maximum lot occupancy rules, building height limits, prohibitions on accessory dwellings, etc. that are mainstays of America’s centrally planned suburbs.
Word. And I would add that righties like these jackasses tend to favor Neighborhood Associations, which tend to infringe on liberties like disallowing basketball hoops in driveways. Has there ever been anything more Un-American than not letting a kid put up a basketball hoop in his or her driveway?
Fuck.
No.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Perhaps Mixner will enlighten us with his cost benefit analysis that includes the price of car congestion, municipal parking lots and all of the automobile induced peripherals. The “benefit to taxes” is a canard, an empty talking point, unless you begin to evaluate the usefulness of public transportation in context.
I’ll join Mixner in his implicit call for rising the gasoline tax a few dollars a gallon to make highways truly funded by the user base.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
There’s a reason these zoning restrictions that you don’t like were passed. People wanted them!
Certain incumbents controlling large areas wanted them, not potential new entrants into those areas. If there wasn’t demand among potential new entrants for the sorts of development being forbidden, there would be no need for the zoning restrictions.
In other words, all this is only possible because potential new entrants don’t get a vote on local zoning issues until they actually enter, and the incumbents are, among other things, voting to keep out these potential new entrants.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Rich Lowry should have his knees smashed with a lug wrench, his car torched, accounts and credit sucked dry, and forced to rely on mass transit to get around. You can’t reason with these people, they’re like those ignus fatuous above the clouds parasites from the old Star Trek episode who could care less about Society, others less fortunate than them, anything but their own material comforts. Mass transit is for what the swinehoont Leona Helmsley used to call “the little people”. Lowry and his dopey friend pretty much have to be beheaded for them to ever get the point.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
There’s a reason these zoning restrictions that you don’t like were passed. People wanted them!
There’s a reason those segregated bathrooms and restaurants existed. People wanted them!
February 26th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Our newer cities are all designed around private motor vehicles. That isn’t likely to change.
Where’s your cost-benefit analysis that shows this, and the likelihood of it not changing?
You have no such analysis, of course. Because you’re just making things up. Faith-based public policy. Wishful thinking.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
And, as always, Mixner pulls off the same bait and switch.
Note from his second link that less than 60% of highway funding comes from user fees. Note that “highway funding” is distinct from “city streets” and “county roads” which are almost entirely funded through property taxes. Note that most of the vehicle-miles traveled are in major urban areas, but an awful lot of the highway miles are in Montana. If you’re a suburban commuter, you’re subsidizing other people’s transportation.
By framing the issue in terms of direct public subsidies as a percentage of the total cost of automobile travel, Mixner lets the cost of owning and maintaining a car carry the weight of the comparison. People who own a car have to spend a great deal of money on it. People who choose to buy an extremely expensive car also distort this percentage.
People who ride transit spend money on transit. But they also pay half or more of the cost of maintaining highways and roads, they indirectly pay the gas tax through their bus fare, and they pay all those indirect subsidies to build car-oriented suburbs. The comparison is more complicated.
Now, consider a model of urban planning in which the government spends little or no money on mass transit and everyone has to depend on cars to get around. If you live in that community, you have a massive, non-optional deduction from your paycheck to support your own vehicle-miles traveled.
Non-optional expenses. Effectively, taxes.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Perhaps Mixner will enlighten us with his cost benefit analysis …
Er, I’m not the one claiming that the enormous subsidies we provide to transit are “a good trade.” It is up to the person who made that claim to support it.
Here’s a study from the Brookings Institution, that well-known conservative lobbying group, on the economics of rail transit in the United States. The authors concluded that of the twenty five urban rail transit systems they studied, only one, San Francisco’s BART, produced more in benefits to taxpayers than it consumed in public subsidies. Quote:
February 26th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Yeah.
Right.
*sniff*
February 26th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
You still haven’t answer the question, Mixner: how much of the Federal highway system is funded by user fees?
How much of the state/local highway system is funded by user fees?
Two numbers you refuse to provide because you know you are lying.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
It’s amazing how flustered and irritated liberals get when you helpfully point out to them that the vast majority of Americans have no desire to live in their magical fairytale dreamland of urban “walkable” cities; which entails living in sardine cans stacked on top of each other, and cramming into a bus or subway car with tons of other people to get to work or the grocery store.
If by “sardine cans stacked on top of each other” you mean “three-story townhouses”, and if by “cramming into a bus or subway car with tons of other people to get to work or the grocery store” you mean “walking to work and the grocery store and occasionally riding a bus or a subway for food or entertainment”, you have just described the suburban neighborhood I’m hoping to buy in.
Except it’s about twice as expensive to buy there as in the car-oriented neighborhood down the street that I currently live in. Must be because no one wants to live there.
There’s a reason these zoning restrictions that you don’t like were passed. People wanted them! In the 1960s! And now many of them don’t! And you might find yourself paying taxes and following zoning codes that support their market choices just like they have been doing to support yours for the last half-century. So sorry!
February 26th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
If we’re talking about mass transit I think it’s important to distinguish between rail and buses. Rail is insanely expensive to build, isn’t flexible in terms of routes, and outside a few major cities has a fairly low ridership. Buses at least don’t have the first two problems. Yet my sense is that when people talk about promoting mass transit what they typically have in mind is more rail.
When talking about rail, it is important to distinguish between subterranean heavy rail, and LRT. Subways in North America cost about 10x/km to build what LRT does.
Of course the capital investment in mass transit is only part of the game. While it is certainly cheaper to buy buses than build an LRT line, it is much cheaper to *operate* an LRT line than buses: buses have to be replaced at a much higher rate than streetcars, and because buses have much smaller capacity, you need both a lot more buses and a lot more drivers to move the same number of people.
And although LRT lines certainly lack flexibility, this is actually a plus when it comes to promoting urban development. Precisely because there is a large initial investment, developers along an LRT line (and especially at transit hubs) have more certainty that people will actually want to live there.
Finally, I would concede that people likely prefer to travel by rail instead of bus. So what? Since we all benefit when people use mass transit instead of cars, if it takes rail to get people to use transit, then why is this wrong?
February 26th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
That’s an unusually weak reply. My point is that there are only a handful of US cities where the subway system really works: NYC absolutely. Chicago is great for many. Boston for many but less so. DC maybe, but the system still loses money. San Fran for tourists. I’ve been able to avoid Philly, so I don’t know.
Someone mentioned Atlanta and St. Louis. I’ve ridden both light rail systems, and they are nice. They are not used by a majority of commuters, because neither housing nor jobs are centralized in such a way that mass transit works for them.
Finally, there are over 200,000 people in Hialeah, Florida. Are you wanting to build a subway there? That’s a real question.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Don’t the trains run 24 hours in Singapore?
No, says he, who learned this to his detriment as he (late by 30 seconds) watched the last train of the night pull out of the Singapore airport on his most recent trip there…
February 26th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
DTM,
Certain incumbents controlling large areas wanted them, not potential new entrants into those areas.
Yes, our political system provides more power to the people who actually live in a community to decide the land-use and transportation policies in that community than people who live thousands of miles away on the other side of the country. How outrageous. What allegedly superior alternative do you propose? The federalization of all land-use laws? But wait, even that would prevent “potential new entrants” from other countries from having an equal say. Clearly, we need to make all land-use policies a matter of international law.
In other words, all this is only possible because potential new entrants don’t get a vote on local zoning issues until they actually enter, and the incumbents are, among other things, voting to keep out these potential new entrants.
If New York City allowed developers to build lots of new residential properties in what is now Central Park, it would greatly increase the housing supply in New York and likely reduce housing prices, making it easier for “potential new entrants” to move to New York City. Are we to understand that you think the law preventing Central Park from being converted into high-rise apartment buildings is bad public policy, selfishly maintained by New Yorkers to keep out “potential new entrants,” and that congress should pass a law overriding it?
February 26th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
“Dude, we wanted our cars. Government didn’t decide. We did.”
Dude, our GRANDPARENTS wanted their cars. Government adapted to THEIR choices in an era of $0.29/gallon gasoline and cheap, plentiful land surrounding cities. God forbid we think for ourselves and adapt to changing circumstances.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
I don’t think I’ve ever met a tourist that ever used SF’s Muni system.
You know that SF’s public transit is bigger than just the trolley cars, right?
February 26th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
You still haven’t answer the question, Mixner: how much of the Federal highway system is funded by user fees?
How much of the state/local highway system is funded by user fees?
Two numbers you refuse to provide because you know you are lying.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Note from his second link that less than 60% of highway funding comes from user fees.
What part of “direct public subsidies to motor vehicle users are about 20 cents per gallon of gas, or about 1 cent per vehicle-mile, or about 0.7 cents per passenger-mile. This is just a tiny fraction of the total cost of automobile travel, about 2%” don’t you understand? If highway subsidies were eliminated, it would have only a tiny effect on the cost of driving. If mass transit subsidies were eliminated, transit fares would have to triple to cover the costs of providing transit services.
Note that “highway funding” is distinct from “city streets” and “county roads” which are almost entirely funded through property taxes.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about, as always.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Yes, our political system provides more power to the people who actually live in a community to decide the land-use and transportation policies in that community than people who live thousands of miles away on the other side of the country
Funny then, how my community’s campaign to get a local streetcar line extended to us took FOUR DECADES to get started because the Feds were constantly interfering with it in favor of bus lines. And we weren;’t offered a choice when I-95 cut our town in half. (Medford MA, BTW)
Mixner, you really are a nasty piece of work.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
You know that SF’s public transit is bigger than just the trolley cars, right?
Yep. We bought some kind of pass that was unlimited trolleys, buses, and maybe non-BART trains. I don’t remember the details, but it was fantastic. The BART was nice too: to the airport, Berkeley, and the A’s game. I am not arguing that subways aren’t great in densely populated urban areas; I’m arguing that there aren’t very many of them in the US. Just cause you live in one doesn’t mean everyone else does too.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
That’s true. If you don’t count New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Washington DC, Miami, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston, then the US doesn’t have very many of those.
Conservatives don’t understand that those cities are actual cities where people work and live, and not actually giant urban themeparks for exurbanites.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
What part of “direct public subsidies to motor vehicle users are about 20 cents per gallon of gas, or about 1 cent per vehicle-mile, or about 0.7 cents per passenger-mile. This is just a tiny fraction of the total cost of automobile travel, about 2%” don’t you understand?
What part of “less than half of the federal highway system’s budget comes from user fees” don’t you understand?
What part of “less than half of the state/local highway system’s budget comes from user fees” don’t you understand?
Wait. You do understand. You understand it fully. You’re just a pathological liar.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
That Brookings study sure is interesting. I really liked the part where they claimed in the intro that only the Bay Areas’s BART increased social welfare, while their own chart showed that Chicago’s CTA was also in the black. I was even more fond of their mathematical proof that New York City would be up a half billion dollars’ worth of social welfare if it would just get rid of the damn subway. Terrific stuff, really.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
“Wrong, wrong, wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about, as always.”
Prove it. The chart refers to “Highways”. DOT statistics distinguish “highways” from “public roads”.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
That Brookings study sure is interesting. I really liked the part where they claimed in the intro that only the Bay Areas’s BART increased social welfare, while their own chart showed that Chicago’s CTA was also in the black.
Apparently, “some dude” thinks -46.2 million is a positive number.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
“If highway subsidies were eliminated, it would have only a tiny effect on the cost of driving.”
I’m sure when the bridges collapse and the city streets are filled with potholes, it will have only a tiny effect on the cost of driving.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
lafollette,
Prove it. The chart refers to “Highways”. DOT statistics distinguish “highways” from “public roads”.
Sorry, you don’t get to demand proof before proving your own prior claims. You claimed that ““city streets” and “county roads” … are almost entirely funded through property taxes.”
Prove it.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
#2-
This is a chicken and egg problem. The means of transportation shape the geographical evolution of cities. Older US cities (NY, Philly, Boston, SF, Chicago) grew during periods when mass transit was the dominant means of transportation. Patterns of population growth tended to follow the mass transit lines. During the ’50s, highway construction boomed and mass transit was suppressed (conspiracy theories about this are actually true). As a result, cities that have developed more recently (LA, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta) have widely dispersed patterns of population growth.
Logically, we should try to reverse the trend that occurred since the ’50s and promote a return to more densely populated urban areas. However, I believe that we have to be careful how we do that, and simply building mass transit isn’t always the answer. For example, IMO the DC Metro has actually tended to enhance sprawl by having Metro lines that extend well out into the suburbs. Thus, people are actually moving further out into the suburbs, so that they can then drive to suburban Metro stops that are surrounded by enormous parking lots (like Greenbelt, MD) and then commute by Metro into DC.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Mixner, you really are a nasty piece of work.
Omri, you are a lying, ignorant, moronic buffoon.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Apparently, “some other dude” can’t read a chart. The -46.2 figure represents the social welfare cost after a dubiously figured 10.2% adjustment for “exhaustive public spending” is made.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Then why is housing in those awful cities so sought after by yuppies like me that the prices have stayed high in this collapse while the suburbs are being hollowed out ? If there was no demand for walkable city living, heaven knows my rent would be lower.
Omri is right. The continually high prices of NY real estate indicate a tremendous unmet demand for transit-oriented, walkable communities.
Of course some of the demand represents people wanting to live specifically in NYC, because of its unique concentration of cultural scenes, knowledge industries, etc.
But if there were more cities with large, high-quality, mixed-use urban neighborhoods, the kinds of scenes and industries that exist in NYC could more easily exist elsewhere as well.
These kind of sectors depend heavily on density: people running into each other on the sidewalk, train, or bus, sitting in bars or cafes, or mingling at nightclubs or galleries.
When people get together — as often as not, by accident — deals are made, projects are launched, shows are booked. All of these things happen much more easily and naturally in dense urban environments.
Much as Mixner and his type hate to acknowledge, American city life has been on a tremendous upswing for the last few decades. The best and brightest of the younger generations are following their older Gen X siblings into the cities.
At the same time, some boomers are actually moving into cities as they get older, finding that the density, the walkability, the transit, and the profusion of services make them ideal for retirement.
Mass transit is on a corresponding upswing. NYC, DC, Miami, Dallas, Denver, LA, Seattle, and lots of other cities have all broken ground on transit expansion projects over the last decade.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Mixner, you really are a nasty piece of work.
I like to think that trolls like Mixner play a valuable role in the blogospheric ecosystsem by making sure that things like
Funny then, how my community’s campaign to get a local streetcar line extended to us took FOUR DECADES to get started because the Feds were constantly interfering with it in favor of bus lines. And we weren;’t offered a choice when I-95 cut our town in half. (Medford MA, BTW)
get written.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
When you sit on a train, you come into close contact with people of many different races, social classes, religions, etc. Not just that, but you form some slight bond of commonality with those people
You know, I’ve used the subway system a fair amount in Chicago, D.C., and NYC, and I’ve never noticed a bond of commonality among the riders. The general view seems to be that you pretend as best you can the other people aren’t there.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Sorry, you don’t get to demand proof before proving your own prior claims. You claimed that ““city streets” and “county roads” … are almost entirely funded through property taxes.”
Mixner, my street is potholed, worn out, and needs resurfacing.
Where will the money come from, if not property taxes?
Can you name a single town in the US that does not use property tax to fund road maintenance?
And you still have not answered my question: what portion of the Federal highway budget comes from user fees?
February 26th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Berlin’s system is 24 and I would be very surprised if they were the only such system in Europe: http://www.visitberlin.de/bilder/verkehr/24-stunden-netz.pdf …I think they just make a less big deal of it there.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
During the ’50s, highway construction boomed and mass transit was suppressed (conspiracy theories about this are actually true).
What conspiracy theories? How do you know they’re true?
Logically, we should try to reverse the trend that occurred since the ’50s and promote a return to more densely populated urban areas.
How is that “logical?”
You’re another one who obviously doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Sprawl, the growth of car travel, and the decline of mass transit, aren’t uniquely or even characteristically American phenomena. They are the norm in almost all wealthy democracies. They have nothing to do with “conspiracies.” Sprawl, and the associated car-based transportation patterns, is the virtually inevitable outcome whereever a society becomes wealthy enough for mass ownership of private automobiles, and it is not precluded by geography.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
That’s what the slogan “United We Stand” meant. Americans were standing united with semi-American New York.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
RE #96:
Well, let’s see. Just to start with your own link, 8.2% of highway spending by local agencies comes from gas taxes and tolls, 67.6% comes from property taxes, general fund appropriations, and other taxes and fees, and the balance comes from bond and investment proceeds, which are paid for by past or future tax revenues.
The catch is that majority of this funding comes from general fund revenues, which would include sales and income taxes.
Now where I come from, city and county-maintained roads were primarily covered by property taxes. And city streets and county roads are not referred to as highways. But this country is a big and diverse place. I’m perfectly willing to amend my statement to say that city streets and county roads are almost entirely funded through property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, and fees unrelated to vehicle use.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
That’s all true. But totally dwarfed by the assault on liberty represented by low land taxes.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Sorry, you don’t get to demand proof before proving your own prior claims.
And off Mixner goes on his usual attempt to cover his lying ass. He really should learn that there’s something pathetic about a long-time troll spouting the same old material.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Apparently, “some dude” is a moron. He thinks he can just ignore part of the costs of rail transit.
And he’s desperately grasping at straws. Even if Chicago’s system did produce a net benefit, that would still be only two out of twenty five systems. Urban rail transit is an incredible waste of money.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
mixner wrote,
This overlooks the fact that mass transit has positive externalities captured by drivers.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Much as Mixner and his type hate to acknowledge, American city life has been on a tremendous upswing for the last few decades. The best and brightest of the younger generations are following their older Gen X siblings into the cities.
Oh, it’s gone past that. The original “Park Slope Moms” moved in far enough ago that their kids are in high school.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
It might be of interest that many subway systems — certainly the oldest two divisions (IRT and BMT) now operated by MTA/NYC Transit — were started in the early 20th century as public-private partnerships. An investor-owned company was granted (by bid) a franchise to operate infrastructure that was then largely (though not in all cases) publicly financed and built. The model did not work in the long run because the franchisees were intended to be rationally regulated natural monopolies, but political pressures kept the fares too low for economic viability. In 1940 NYC stepped in to fully “municipalize” the IRT and BMT and merge them with its own fully publicly financed and operated division, the IND. Similarly, but even more private-sector oriented, the PATH system operated since 1962 by the Port Authority of NY and NJ, was actually built and operated by the investor owned Hudson and Manhattan Railway, which went into long-term decline after opening of the PA’s Hudson River vehicular crossings. As usual, there are great wikipedia articles on all this stuff.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Try to remember that the full name of the Interstate Highway System is “The Dwight D. Eisenhower National Interstate and Defense Highway System.” Conservatives love it primarily because it’s a way to transport divisions of troops around in comfort and style.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Arguing with Mixner, and with many “conservative” tribalists, is like trying to pick up water with your bare hands.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
The thing most people don’t realize about trolley systems is that they didn’t go away because people didn’t like them or because of the market.
They went away because of fraud perpetrated by Automobile companies.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
I agree with the comment that the use of the term “mass transit” in the original article was most likely a misstatement and meant to refer to high-speed intercity rail developments. As for mass transit, it clearly has a social impetus here in Cincinnati as the bus system is financially inefficient by any comparison with auto travel, but we have a community with many folks who cannot drive for one reason or another. And yet, as they are members of our community, they must have some reasonable mobility in order to take part in communty life which is clearly a prerequisite to enjoying “liberty”. Call this socialism if you want to, collecting taxes to enhance the liberty prospects of fellow citizens is a valid use of the power to tax – plus you do get significant economic benefits in places like NYC where it is much more justified on a plain dollars and cents level.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
“Arguing with Mixner, and with many “conservative” tribalists, is like trying to pick up water with your bare hands.”
But it’s amusing to see exactly how far he’s willing to move the goalposts before fleeing the scene.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
the conservative discourse about mass transit simply illustrates the fact that it’s an ideology driven by inchoate resentments rather than any ideas about policy or the role of government
Great point which can’t be said enough, but I think you mean incoherent, not inchoate.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
This overlooks the fact that mass transit has positive externalities captured by drivers.
No it doesn’t. And what positive externalities are you referring to? What is the economic value of those externalities? Did you see the study of the economics of rail transit I cited? The authors concluded that every rail transit system in the United States except one reduces social welfare rather than increases it.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Um… in the case of Atlanta, it’s more like racist whites won’t allow MARTA to expand to “housing” areas like Marietta. So, the system is used primarily by poor people. I know this; I spent a year living in Atlanta working as a lifeguard/busboy. There is no way in hell I could have afforded a car. And you know what, between the train and a bicycle, I could get across town in half an hour. My unlimited-use pass cost $13 a week.
I’m sure you’ll say that I was a lucky ducky, that my ability to barely scrape out a living and get around town was a net drain on society. Whatever. Plenty of people rode those trains. They may have been poor, they may have been black, but if it weren’t for MARTA then there would be nobody to clean shit up and bus your table.
Ever think of that?
February 26th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
The thing most people don’t realize about trolley systems is that they didn’t go away because people didn’t like them or because of the market. They went away because of fraud perpetrated by Automobile companies
No, they went away because people didn’t like them. They were slow, inflexible and inefficient, and were displaced first by motor buses and later by private automobiles.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
It’s amazing how flustered and irritated liberals get when you helpfully point out to them that the vast majority of Americans have no desire to live in their magical fairytale dreamland of urban “walkable” cities; which entails living in sardine cans stacked on top of each other, and cramming into a bus or subway car with tons of other people to get to work or the grocery store.
Yes, those cities are so absolutely croweded with people that no one wants to live there….
Logic: it’s what’s for dinner.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Amazing, isn’t it, that so many other countries keep building these high-speed rail systems? Why aren’t they imitating our obviously superior transportation system? They must all be stupid.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Apparently, “some dude” is a moron. He thinks he can just ignore part of the costs of rail transit.
No, I think that the authors of the paper distinguished between two sets of numbers, one including an arbitrary adjustment for which they include no convincing rationale, for a reason.
And he’s desperately grasping at straws. Even if Chicago’s system did produce a net benefit, that would still be only two out of twenty five systems. Urban rail transit is an incredible waste of money.
Or maybe it’s just possible that these guys are calculating social benefit in an incredibly fucking bizarre way that leads to conclusions like “New York would be better off without its subways” and “The fact that New York, Chicago and Boston are incredibly rich centers of global financial, political and cultural reach is in spite of and in no part because of the density allowed by their much beloved urban rail, which density has nothing at all to do with their status as world class centers of higher learning.”
February 26th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Well scarshapedstar, the MARTA runs right through the heart of Buckhead, so it’s a little tough to argue that rich, white racists are keeping the rail out of their neighborhoods. I mean, the good liberals in Georgetown would never try to keep the Metro from running through their neighborhood, for example.
A smarter answer is that Atlanta is FAR FAR FAR too spread out to ever build an effective rail system. It’s not even close.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Here is a completely different study that draws different conclusions and discusses the positive economic externalities of transit.
Amazingly, studies that start with different assumptions draw different conclusions.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
The authors concluded that every rail transit system in the United States except one reduces social welfare rather than increases it.
The authors define “social welfare” exclusively in terms of whether the transit system takes in enough money to cover its operating costs. That’s a ridiculous definition of the social welfare of a transit system.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
No, they went away because people didn’t like them.
Mixner is now in full-on sockpuppet mode, in the hope that nobody asks him to prove this assertion.
Only a matter of time before a bunch of sockpuppet supporters show up to cheer him on.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Well, let’s see. Just to start with your own link, 8.2% of highway spending by local agencies comes from gas taxes and tolls, 67.6% comes from property taxes, general fund appropriations, and other taxes and fees,
No, it doesn’t say that. You’re lying yet again.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Mixner, my street is potholed, worn out, and needs resurfacing.
Where will the money come from, if not property taxes?
Can you name a single town in the US that does not use property tax to fund road maintenance?
And you still have not answered my question: what portion of the Federal highway budget comes from user fees?
February 26th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
The authors define “social welfare” exclusively in terms of whether the transit system takes in enough money to cover its operating costs.
No they don’t. Did you even read the study?
February 26th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
“No, it doesn’t say that. You’re lying yet again.”
May I direct you to Exhibit 5-2 in the second link you provided:
http://transportationfortomorrow.org/final_report/chapter_5.aspx
To get the percentages I quoted, you merely have to extract the “local governments” column from the table, and perform some junior high-level math.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Here is a completely different study that draws different conclusions and discusses the positive economic externalities of transit.
Ah, yes a “study” from the “Victoria Transport Policy Institute.” This “institute” consists of one man with a web site producing self-published “studies” extolling the supposed virtues of mass transit on a computer in his home. No government or academic affiliation. No peer review. No recognized expertise. It’s laughable.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
To get the percentages I quoted, you merely have to extract the “local governments” column from the table, and perform some junior high-level math
Your claim is: “8.2% of highway spending by local agencies comes from gas taxes and tolls, 67.6% comes from property taxes, general fund appropriations, and other taxes and fees”
I have no idea how you think the data in that table supports that claim. You seem to have a real problem with reading comprehension.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Then you either fail at junior high level math, or you are lying, Mixner
February 26th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
I see. So dozens of links to government data and peer-reviewed studies don’t count if they’re assembled by a liberal activist. But one link provided by a random troll on the internet constitutes proof.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the conservative movement.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
“I have no idea how you think the data in that table supports that claim.”
It’s called “math”, Mixner.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
It’s called “math”, Mixner
Show us your “math.”
February 26th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
So dozens of links to government data and peer-reviewed studies don’t count if they’re assembled by a liberal activist
Hilarious. Do please show us these dozens of examples of government data and peer-reviewed studies that report that the benefits of transit exceed the costs.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I did show you my math. I cited the table and gave you the percentages. There is nothing stopping you from taking that data set and proving me wrong, except for the part where you’d have to invent a whole new system of mathematics.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
The Trig Palin level math is this: The $2,234 m in fuel and vehicle tax plus $1,398 m in toll revenue equals $3,632 m, which is 8.27% of the $43,895 m local governments spent on highways according to the chart. Which I believe you linked to in the first place.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Take the 1st column of the local government section of the table, Mixner, and multiply each cell by 100/43895.
Add the top two cells. Tell us what you get.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Federal funding from gas taxes and tolls as percentage:
(31179+0)/33070 = 94%
State funding from gas taxes and tolls as percentage:
(49176+6356)/77725 = 71%
Local funding from gas taxes and tolls as percentage:
(2234+1398)/43895 = 8%
Total funding from gas taxes and tolls as percentage:
(31179+0+49176+6356+2234+1398)/154690= 58%
Are you retarded or something?
February 26th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
“Hilarious. Do please show us these dozens of examples of government data and peer-reviewed studies that report that the benefits of transit exceed the costs.
The citations are right there in that link for you to review.
I find it hilarious that a blog troll who freely admits that he can’t calculate percentages is lecturing me about academic rigor.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
No, I think that the authors of the paper distinguished between two sets of numbers, one including an arbitrary adjustment
It’s not an “arbitrary adjustment.” It includes all the costs of transit rather than just some of them.
Or maybe it’s just possible that these guys are calculating social benefit in an incredibly fucking bizarre way …
“Maybe it’s just possible.” Yeah, go with that. Faith-based public policy yet again.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Not to mention that a condensed version of that paper WAS published in a peer-reviewed journal.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
The citations are right there in that link for you to review.
Show us the citations that report that the benefits of transit exceed the costs.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
It’s not an “arbitrary adjustment.” It includes all the costs of transit rather than just some of them.
If you’d read the paper you’d see that it’s a explicitly arbitrary number meant to represent the deadweight loss of taxation. Again, there’s a reason it was presented distinct from the topline number.
“Maybe it’s just possible.” Yeah, go with that. Faith-based public policy yet again.
I’m all for challenging the CW but when your math shows that New York would benefit by between half and a quarter billion dollars a year by getting rid of the subway system your math is wrong.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Read it for yourself. Then get back to us on how your efforts to learn math are proceeding.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
We’re now into the “evade and deny” stage of a standard Mixner troll. This will continue until comment 200 at very least.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Federal funding from gas taxes and tolls as percentage:
(31179+0)/33070 = 94%
State funding from gas taxes and tolls as percentage:
(49176+6356)/77725 = 71%
Local funding from gas taxes and tolls as percentage:
(2234+1398)/43895 = 8%
Total funding from gas taxes and tolls as percentage:
(31179+0+49176+6356+2234+1398)/154690= 58%
Are you retarded or something?
Are you a complete moron, or what? The claim in question is that “8.2% of highway spending by local agencies comes from gas taxes and tolls, 67.6% comes from property taxes, general fund appropriations, and other taxes and fees.”
You do understand that FUNDING does not mean the same thing as SPENDING, right? And that “spending by local agencies” doesn’t mean the same thing as “funding by local agencies,” right?
February 26th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Hahahahaha. I love that Mixner was so embarrassed by the idiocy of post #152 that he used a sockpuppet name.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Read it for yourself. Then get back to us on how your efforts to learn math are proceeding.
You still haven’t identified a single solitary citation of government data or a peer-reviewed study that reports that the benefits of transit exceed the costs.
Still waiting for your “math” supporting your claim that “8.2% of highway spending by local agencies comes from gas taxes and tolls, 67.6% comes from property taxes, general fund appropriations, and other taxes and fees.” Among your many confusions, you don’t seem to understand the difference between “funding” and “spending.”
February 26th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
In context Table 5-2 is clearly showing spending broken out by revenue source. To wit, just below the chart we read “State revenues accounted for just over 50 percent of total funds spent for highways in 2005.” In the chart we see that state government is tagged at 51%. This could have been more clear, but hey, Mixner is the one who cited it as an unimpeachable source of truth.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Hilarious! I believe the goalposts have now left the stadium.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
If you’d read the paper you’d see that it’s a explicitly arbitrary number meant to represent the deadweight loss of taxation.
More nonsense. If you had read the paper you’d see that it is an estimate of the deadweight costs of taxation, from a study published in the Journal of Political Economy. And you’re quibbling over details regarding a single transit system to avoid confronting Winston and Maheshri’s overwhelming conclusion that rail transit is a huge waste of money.
I’m all for challenging the CW but when your math shows that New York would benefit by between half and a quarter billion dollars a year by getting rid of the subway system your math is wrong.
If you seriously think “the math is wrong,” then describe the alleged mathematical error.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
In context Table 5-2 is clearly showing spending broken out by revenue source.
No, Table 5-2 shows funding data, period. It doesn’t contain any data on spending, let alone show “spending by local agencies.” “Spending by local agencies” is funded from other sources in addition to local taxes.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Mixner, my street is potholed, worn out, and needs resurfacing.
Where will the money come from, if not property taxes?
Can you name a single town in the US that does not use property tax to fund road maintenance?
And you still have not answered my question: what portion of the Federal highway budget comes from user fees?
And by the by, what the fuck are you talking about here?
No, Table 5-2 shows funding data, period. It doesn’t contain any data on spending, let alone show “spending by local agencies.” “Spending by local agencies” is funded from other sources in addition to local taxes.
Very astutely observed! Yes, Mixner, and those other sources are listed in the other columns in that table. What the fuck is your point?
February 26th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Suggestion to all:
Open up a file cabinet drawer. Insert your head. Slam drawer shut. You will find this much more productive than responding to “Mixner.”
February 26th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
We’re now into the “evade and deny” stage of a standard Mixner troll. This will continue until comment 200 at very least.
161 and counting…
February 26th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
i expect that any moment our right wing citizens will renounce arabic numerals…
February 26th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
I ride from St. Louis to Hannibal, MO on a four lane highway, after going throught town it is 20 minutes on an Interstate spur to Quincy, IL, from there it is a recently built four lane highway to Macomb, IL, after passing through town it is four lanes to Galseburg, IL where you hit several Interstate Highways. These used to be two lane that are now four lane “back roads” have sprung up all over the heartland. Aside from the cost of construction, bridges, drainage ditches etc, you have essentially double the cost of maintenance.
Wonder how many high speed rails we could have built with the moiney instead.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
I haven’t read the study that says the New York should scrap its public transportation, but here someone has calculated how much of Midtown and Lower Manhattan would have to be turned into parking lot and how much of the East River would have to be covered by bridges to take the same number of people in each workday as currently ride the subway (not counting the PATH, Metro North, the LIRR, etc.)
February 26th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
“Open up a file cabinet drawer. Insert your head. Slam drawer shut. You will find this much more productive than responding to “Mixner.”
More productive? Sure. More entertaining than watching someone start with a strong claim and reduce himself to staking his pride on the distinction between “funding used on highways that was collected by local agencies” and “local spending on highways”? Oh, hell no.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
I haven’t read the study that says the New York should scrap its public transportation,
If you’re referring to the W&M study I cited, the authors do not recommend that New York scrap its public transportation. They don’t even recommend that it scrap its rail transit. They conclude that the public costs of New York’s rail transit exceed the public benefits. The city has obviously become enormously dependent on its rail transit system and the sudden elimination of that system would cause huge disruption. But it could be gradually scaled back, over time, allowing people to adjust, with much less disruption.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
If you’re referring to the W&M study I cited, the authors do not recommend that New York scrap its public transportation. They don’t even recommend that it scrap its rail transit. They conclude that the public costs of New York’s rail transit exceed the public benefits.
Talk about a distinction without a difference (your stock in trade).
If the costs outweigh the benefits, why should New York City NOT scrap the subway???
And you still have not answered the question, Mixner:
what portion of the federal highway system’s budget comes from user fees?
February 26th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
My perspective on urban density is that it is ultimately not just about lifestyle choice but also about preparing for the inevitable long term rise in transportation costs that will make the “happy motoring” pattern of suburban spawl uneconomical for more and more people. We are going to end up with a less energy intensive society one way or another, the question is whether it will be by choice or by necessity of survival.
I also found the Brookings rail systems paper above to be quite interesting. Although I confess to not taking the time to completely understand the derivations of their results, I also think that a model that would suggest that New York City would actually benefit from shutting down its transit system tomorrow is making some questionable assumptions about the degree to which traffic gridlock would affect economic activity.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Note that “highway funding” is distinct from “city streets” and “county roads” which are almost entirely funded through property taxes.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about, as always.
No, Mixner, you are wrong, as regards my home state at least. Federal interstates are funded by a formula which has the feds paying approximately 2/3 of the cost, and the state DOT paying the rest, raised through statewide taxes such as vehicle registration fees, truck license fees, tire disposal fees and the like. Occasionally general revenues are also used to top up the road fund; those revenues come from property and severance taxes.
Local roads in a county or municipality are jointly funded by the state and the locality. State funding again comes primarily from user fees. Local government contributions come from local taxes, but usually gross receipts and sales taxes, and not property taxes.
Federal law (particularly SAFETEA-LU, with which I am sure you are familiar) mandates that states share in the cost of road construction and maintenance. Every state can fund its share differently, usually either through general taxes or user fees and licenses that apply mainly to those who actually use the roads.
However, it appears from your comments that you are not very familiar with federal law regarding transportation funding and infrastructure, or you would know that no blanket response can correctly represent the method of highway funding for each of the 50 states (plus DC and territories, naturally). If you are interested in learning, I recommend you read the SAFETEA-LU legislation, encoded in Title 23 of the USC.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Ok, fine. You win. Roads don’t pay for themselves either. I just really like cheap driving. I have this gas guzzlng conversion van with lots of candy and video games in the back, and boy I just need cheap driving from place to place.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
The continually high prices of NY real estate indicate a tremendous unmet demand for transit-oriented, walkable communities.
No, the continually high prices of NY real estate don’t indicate any such thing. Housing prices tend to rise with density because housing costs tend to rise with density. Land costs are higher and construction costs are higher. The higher the cost of supply, the higher the price suppliers must charge to buyers to cover their costs.
Much as Mixner and his type hate to acknowledge, American city life has been on a tremendous upswing for the last few decades. The best and brightest of the younger generations are following their older Gen X siblings into the cities.
The evidence shows that in recent decades, as in previous ones, Americans have continued to migrate out of high-density central cities and into low-density suburbs and exurbs.
Mass transit is on a corresponding upswing. NYC, DC, Miami, Dallas, Denver, LA, Seattle, and lots of other cities have all broken ground on transit expansion projects over the last decade.
No, they’ve broken ground on rinky-dink transit expansion projects that provide only token amounts of transportation and are dwarfed by the growth in roads and car travel.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
I hate to admit it, but quibbles aside, Mixner is right.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
No, they’ve broken ground on rinky-dink transit expansion projects that provide only token amounts of transportation and are dwarfed by the growth in roads and car travel.
Like the restart of the Second Avenue subway in NYC? That will serve millions of riders each year?
You really do live in a fact-free zone.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I thought Moscow had the largest subway system. Mexico City has a big one too. I guess if you are looking at the total size of all metro systems in each country, South Korea and Japan are up there, but then we would not just say “New York City” would we?
Also, I think big public projects, particularly for mass transportation, are a bit of a divisive topic in Japan. The past government was big on supporting infrastructural stuff that amounted to net negative social value, if I am not mistaken. The DPJ promised to cut spending on infrastructure as part of its platform, which turned out to be pretty popular.
It does not take a rocket scientist to see that shnazy metro systems are a better idea for some large cities, and probably a bad idea for, mountain town USA. So, I guess I don’t get what some of the above posts are really trying to say. No offense to those talking about real research and stuff.
The US has both large cities and Lost Springs, Wyoming. In any case,I think that this question really amounts to a cost-benefit analysis of the more dreary variety. Number crunching and those green visors that accountants wear.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Perrin,
I have no idea how you think anything you wrote above supports the claim that ““city streets” and “county roads” … are almost entirely funded through property taxes.” Do you ever bother to actually read the statements you’re responding to, or do you just mindlessly cut and paste them?
February 26th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
re: #172; see #129.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
And, of course, the number of miles driven in the U.S. has actually declined by 1.6% from 2008 to 2007(the latest comparison I could find quickly). That’s probably an effect of increased gas prices and the recession, but your data are still wrong.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/08dectvt/index.cfm
February 26th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
I have no idea how you think anything you wrote above supports the claim that ““city streets” and “county roads” … are almost entirely funded through property taxes.” Do you ever bother to actually read the statements you’re responding to, or do you just mindlessly cut and paste them?
I wasn’t trying to support the first statement, which was also wrong, and I didn’t say I was. What I said was that YOU were wrong, and you were, in offering a blanket response to the comment. Every state funds its portion of federal interstates differently. Every state funds its own state, county and other local roads differently.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
And I am probably not going to make any headway with a troll, but you should understand that the persuasiveness of your argument is inversely proportional to your level of invective.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
My perspective on urban density is that it is ultimately not just about lifestyle choice but also about preparing for the inevitable long term rise in transportation costs that will make the “happy motoring” pattern of suburban spawl uneconomical for more and more people.
Keep up that wishful thinking. Have you checked the fuel economy figures for the Toyota Prius? Or the coming wave of PHEV and electric vehicles? The Nissan Leaf, a 5-passenger electric vehicle to be introduced later this year, will get the equivalent of 367 mpg. And that’s just a first-generation model.
… I also think that a model that would suggest that New York City would actually benefit from shutting down its transit system tomorrow …
The “model” does not suggest that NYC would benefit from shutting down its transit system tomorrow.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Here’s some more data. Miles traveled on roads and streets remained stagnant from 2008 to 2009:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/09dectvt/index.cfm
So Mixner’s statement that “No, they’ve broken ground on rinky-dink transit expansion projects that provide only token amounts of transportation and are dwarfed by the growth in roads and car travel” is demonstrably false, according to the FHWA’s own data, as it relates to car travel.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
The “model” does not suggest that NYC would benefit from shutting down its transit system tomorrow.
Save yourselves some time and see the bottom of this thread to see Mixner descend into madness trying to defend that hackish Brookings paper. (If we want some entertainment, maybe we can just paste things in and do a replay!)
I especially like the claim that “costs > benefits” on an ongoing basis somehow DOESN’T mean you should shut something down.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
I wasn’t trying to support the first statement, which was also wrong, and I didn’t say I was.
You quoted a claim, then quoted my response that the claim is wrong, then claimed I am wrong. Make up your mind.
Every state funds its portion of federal interstates differently. Every state funds its own state, county and other local roads differently.
So what? I didn’t say otherwise. So what the hell are you claiming I am “wrong” about?
February 26th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
And, of course, the number of miles driven in the U.S. has actually declined by 1.6% from 2008 to 2007(the latest comparison I could find quickly).
And has since risen again.
That’s probably an effect of increased gas prices and the recession,
Yes.
… but your data are still wrong.
WHAT data? What are you blabbering about now?
February 26th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
You’re right, I should also have made clear that the other guy was wrong. OK?
Now will you admit that your claim that all new mass transit projects are rinky-dink and are “dwarfed” by increases in car travel are flat-out wrong? I’ve even provided you with links!
February 26th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
You forget that the US interstate system wasn’t built for us citizens. It was built and paid for the purpose of providing rapid transit of TANKS and other military gear. The state highways were built for the same purposes of our state militias (a.k.a national guard).
So you see, in a conservative’s mind, the fact that the INTENDED PURPOSE is for the military, it’s ok. Doesn’t matter that 99.9% of the use is by us leeching citizens…..
February 26th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Save yourselves some time and see the bottom of this thread to see Mixner descend into madness trying to defend that hackish Brookings paper.
Or, rather, see the bottom of that thread for the demented jack lecou desperately trying to think of increasingly implausible reasons why the Brookings paper is wrong.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
And has since risen again.
Again, a statement made on faith, and without any support. The link I provided showed that car miles traveled did not rise in the following year (which takes us to Dec. 09. FHWA has not made public more recent data that I could find).
Your CLAIM (you’re right again — I should not have said “data” because you provide none) that car travel increases “dwarfed” increases in mass transit is wrong.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
No, the continually high prices of NY real estate don’t indicate any such thing. Housing prices tend to rise with density because housing costs tend to rise with density. Land costs are higher and construction costs are higher. The higher the cost of supply, the higher the price suppliers must charge to buyers to cover their costs.
When I buy a house, I bargain down to the least amount of money I can offer for what will suit my needs. If it cost the seller more to build it than I am offering, tough shit.
Housing csts in New York are high because people want to live there.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Matthew, this isn’t just tribalism. It’s something else. Right-wing gasbags like Lowry and Ponnuru take the position, consciously or unconsciously, that ANYTHING that makes their opposition look good, is, ipso-facto, bad.
Power–and being “right”–is everything with these guys. They really are like two-year-olds in adult bodies. This has been the right-wing way for a very long time. Millenia, even.
These guys know that anything that benefits the Commons, the People, will be very popular and successful if administered properly. They know that their bankrupt ideology is a little more bankrupt every time something that benefits the Commons works as intended.
Thus, they will fight anything and everything that proves them wrong, because they just hate being wrong, more than they care about their country, or their tribe, for that matter.
I’ve often wondered if the reason gilded-age robber-barons, and their contemporary compadres (like the Koch family, the Coors family, Richard Mellon-Scaife, Murdoch, and similar) fought–and fight–modest wealth-redistribution (through progressive taxation and other measures to benefit the Commons) so savagely and so viciously is because they all know that programs to benefit ALL the People are uniformly popular, and would expand exponentially if given any chance at all.
The weird part is that these robber-barons of then, and now, would still be unimaginably wealthy…just a little less so.
That part I’ve never understood. It’s very, very strange. Deeply self-destructive really, because these barons cannot thrive in a society reduced to penury. Perhaps robber-barons of any age–and their enablers like Lowry–are always 2-year-olds at heart.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
What are you blabbering about now?
Very old material.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Now will you admit that your claim that all new mass transit projects are rinky-dink and are “dwarfed” by increases in car travel are flat-out wrong?
I didn’t say “all.” But you haven’t produced evidence that any recent mass transit project, including the Second Avenue subway, has provided or will provide more than a token amount of transportation in comparison to the growth in car travel.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Yes, the defensive use of the word “blabbering” is probably a good indication that Mixner realizes he is wrong.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Or, rather, see the bottom of that thread for the demented jack lecou desperately trying to think of increasingly implausible reasons why the Brookings paper is wrong.
And then Mixner run off with his tail between his legs for some reason…
Really. Some hilarious stuff down there.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
@174 Will: “I thought Moscow had the largest subway system. Mexico City has a big one too. ”
Moscow is third. Shanghai recently overtook New York City as the city with the largest rapid transit system (total track length).
The United States has the largest overall rapid transit system, with 1,225 kilometers of total track, nationwide. China, presently, is second, with 979 kilometers of total track.
China will overtake the United States in this category by 2012, and will have 3,000 kilometers of total track by 2020.
Note: Mexico City has a substantial subway system — roughly the world’s 10th largest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems
February 26th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
A couple points about Japan:
Japan has an amazing train system that makes it possible to get to travel to nearly any populated part of the country without requiring a car. It’s not really comparable to the US at all, since you have both a high penetration of local transportation links along with long-haul lines like the Shinkansen. The US barely has the former in a few areas, and the latter basically doesn’t exist.
Also, in Japan there have been a lot of make-work public works projects that are basically pork projects for legislators to bring to their districts. I can certainly see the public souring on those kind of efforts (think “bridge to nowhere”). However there’s a big difference between “let’s build a new line so you can get from point A to point B 10 minutes faster” and lacking the infrastructure to be able to get between point A and point B at all.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Again, a statement made on faith, and without any support.
No, a statement based on knowledge, unlink your ignorant ramblings.
The link I provided showed that car miles traveled did not rise in the following year
Travel in Millions of Vehicle Miles, Year to Date:
2008: 2,925,728
2009: 2,932,374
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/09dectvt/09dectvt.pdf
Even you should be able to figure out which number is higher.
Still waiting for that transportation data on recent mass transit projects.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
What you wrote was:
No, they’ve broken ground on rinky-dink transit expansion projects that provide only token amounts of transportation and are dwarfed by the growth in roads and car travel.
This is not a statement that admits to any exceptions, and I stand by my use of “all”. Especially in response to someone so utterly critical of others’ sloppy usage. If you’re going to demand perfectly precise English from others, use it yourself.
Your response also doesn’t make sense. You wrote: But you haven’t produced evidence that any recent mass transit project, including the Second Avenue subway, has provided or will provide more than a token amount of transportation in comparison to the growth in car travel. I don’t know what an “amount of transportation” is. Are you talking ridership, number of miles traveled or what? When you talk about “car travel” it’s reasonably clear that we’re talking about car miles driven in any given period. An “amount of transportation” is a meaningless phrase unless you make clear what metric us being used to measure that “amount”.
Furthremore, I don’t need to produce any more evidence. You claimed that the increases in transportation were “dwarfed” by, among other things, the growth in car travel. I showed you evidence that car travel declined. Unless YOU can show evidence that mass transit ridership, or miles traveled on mass transit, declined in 2007-2009, you can’t show that such miles traveled were “dwarfed” by miles traveled in cars. You’re just completely refusing to admit that your statement that car travel increases dwarfed mass transit is wrong and contradicted by the data from the past two years.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
And as we approach comment #200, Mixner’s “evade and deny” turns into “grasp at straws, change the subject.”
It can now be assumed that Mixner knows his previous claims are unsupportable.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Japan has an amazing train system that makes it possible to get to travel to nearly any populated part of the country without requiring a car. It’s not really comparable to the US at all, since you have both a high penetration of local transportation links along with long-haul lines like the Shinkansen. The US barely has the former in a few areas, and the latter basically doesn’t exist.
Japan is a densely-populated mountainous nation with very little land available for development. Its transportation system reflects that geographical constraint. If Japan had the huge amounts of land suitable for development that the U.S. has its transportation system would likely be very different, and much more car-oriented.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Even you should be able to figure out which number is higher.
And even you should be able to figure out that an increase of under 7,000 miles traveled on over 2,900,000 miles traveled is statistically insignificant, and is why the FHWA said there was a 0% increase, and why I used the word “stagnant.” You are utterly dishonest.
I also love your strategy of making a factually unsupported statement (that “No, they’ve broken ground on rinky-dink transit expansion projects that provide only token amounts of transportation and are dwarfed by the growth in roads and car travel.”), and then demanding more and more date to refute it.
Why don’t you show some date to support your erroneous statement?
February 26th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Japan has an amazing train system that makes it possible to get to travel to nearly any populated part of the country without requiring a car. It’s not really comparable to the US at all, since you have both a high penetration of local transportation links along with long-haul lines like the Shinkansen. The US barely has the former in a few areas, and the latter basically doesn’t exist.
Robert Cervero’s book The Transit Metropolis has an interesting study of how some of this came to be. Basically, it was a historical accident where a few large Japanese real estate companies found themselves in possession of huge tracts of land suitable for rail right-of-way. So they used the rail lines to link up and increase the value of their real estate developments – capturing some of the huge land use benefits to rail infrastructure that usually can’t be directly captured by rail operators. As a result, the infrastructure/cultural development history of the latter half of the 20th century in Japan played out very differently than in the US. Nowadays, I believe most of those lines are actually straight up profitable, even not considering the real estate benefits.
(Those benefits, incidentally, are among those not considered in Mixner’s favorite little Brookings paper.)
February 26th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
SoSo, Mixner, how much of the federal highway budget comes from user fees?
You still have not answered the question.
How much of the state highway budget comes from user fees?
How much municipal road spending comes from user fees?
Still dodging. Still evading. Still making the most monumentally stupid claims, Mixner..
Answer the question, Mixner.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
I’m still waiting for Mixner to address the points that went unaddressed in his precious Brookings paper, such as the seeming correlations between transit and density and between density and supporting a robust complex of first-rate universities. Judging by that other thread others have been waiting even longer, though.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
And, of course, I mean “data” not “date”. Typing too fast.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
I don’t know what an “amount of transportation” is.
Passenger-miles and trips are the standard measures of transportation benefit.
Furthremore, I don’t need to produce any more evidence. You claimed that the increases in transportation were “dwarfed” by, among other things, the growth in car travel. I showed you evidence that car travel declined.
You showed me evidence that car travel declined across a single calendar year. I’m still waiting for you to show me that any recent mass transit projects have provided or will provide more than token amounts of transportation in comparison to the growth in car travel over a comparable period of time. Or did you seriously think I meant only the single year of 2008?
February 26th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
You didn’t say what years you meant, so I used the most recent data available from FHWA. And I showed you evidence that it declined one year, was stagnant the next. Because you chose to engage in hyperbole, and use the word “dwarfed”, you are now in an indefensible position, and you know it.
And I am still waiting for your evidence in support of your statement. I don’t have to refute unsupported assertions, any more than I already have.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
I’m still waiting for Mixner to address the points that went unaddressed in his precious Brookings paper, such as the seeming correlations between transit and density and between density and supporting a robust complex of first-rate universities.
What “seeming correlations between transit and density and between density and supporting a robust complex of first-rate universities?” What about them? If you have an actual argument to make, then make it. Vague allusions to alleged correlations are not an argument.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
And here, for your dishonest self, Mixner, is a projection from MTA projecting that the Second Avenue subway will have a ridership of 200,000 per day once completed:
http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/
Now, put up your data in support of your erroneous statement, or shut up.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
For the next 50 comments or so, Mixner will pretend that he hasn’t spent the previous 200 comments failing to support his original assertions.
This is the “holding pattern” which runs alongside trying to change the subject sufficiently to make new assertions that he can quibble over and then run away from as the comment count creeps towards 300.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Yeah, I’m done with him. Should have listened to mama’s advice about feeding the trolls.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
“Perrin”
You’re rapidly approaching the “too stupid to bother with” level. If you have a response to anything I have written that is more than endless quibbling, produce it. You can expect further quibbling to be ignored. You can expect further claims that I am “wrong” without a clear description of what I am supposed to be wrong about to be ignored. You can expect vague references to “data” without a clear identification of what data you mean to be ignored.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
FWIW, this paper by Resources for the Future, a well-respected research organization, comes to a very different conclusion about transit operating subsidies than Winston & Maheshri.
http://www.rff.org/rff/documents/rff-dp-07-38.pdf
February 26th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
You’re rapidly approaching the “too stupid to bother with” level
In other words, you are unable to refute anything I’ve said, or point to any data that support your claims. Thanks!
February 26th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
You’re rapidly approaching the “too stupid to bother with” level
And back to the old material. Bo-ring!
February 26th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Troll supervisor, you are the best!
February 26th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
For the next 50 comments or so, Mixner will pretend that he hasn’t spent the previous 200 comments failing to support his original assertions.
What I don’t get is his motivation. Everytime Mixner shows, he or she is literally blown out of the water, and his/her “arguments” are shown to be mere naked assertions, or thin tissues covering his/her own abject failure to understand the full implications of the evidence cited (or, for that matter, basic math).
I’ve kinda entertained the idea from time to time that he/she’s just actually that bad at math and logic, but at some point it’s gotta just be naked lying. Especially because the arguments shift around so much. But if he/she knows they’re wrong, why so persistent? Most trolls run off back into the swamp when they see their bull’s been called. He/she just sticks around for more abuse…
February 26th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Republicans/conservatives like to feel like victims — it allows them to believe they are lonely warriors for the truth against the ignorant liberal elites.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
I also love that the person who complains about “endless quibbling” is the one who argues with my characterization of a statistically insignificant increase of less than 7000 miles traveled from a base of 2,900,000 as stagnant or no growth.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Republicans/conservatives like to feel like victims — it allows them to believe they are lonely warriors for the truth against the ignorant liberal elites.
I guess there’s the “lying for Jesus” mentality. If that’s it, it’d be interesting to know the REAL reasons Mixner thinks cars are sacred and transit is evil.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
[...] I just can’t fathom how idiotic the Right can [...]
February 26th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Jesus drove a Buick. And it’s well known that in his Third Letter to the Ephesians St. Paul decried public transportation as a source of sin.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
FWIW, this paper by Resources for the Future, a well-respected research organization, comes to a very different conclusion about transit operating subsidies than Winston & Maheshri.
No, it doesn’t. W&M’s analysis in based on total subsidies. Parry and Small consider only operating subsidies plus vehicle subsidies, and ignore all other transit infrastructure subsidies. They also look at only three cities, and only two of them are shared with W&M’s analysis. In fact, P&S explicitly say that their findings do not conflict with W&M because they (P&S) did not include all subsidies in their analsyis.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
I also love that the person who complains about “endless quibbling” is the one who argues with my characterization of a statistically insignificant increase of less than 7000 miles traveled from a base of 2,900,000 as stagnant or no growth.
Didn’t you get the memo? It’s only quibbling if it’s someone ELSE’s argument. At least we haven’t descended into any epic Humpty-Dumpty-style battle over the meaning of the words “stagnant” or “increase” or “miles”.
Yet.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Well, thanks for the support Troll Supervisor and Jack Lecou. Gotta go back to work now — for my state DOT!
February 26th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
NYC is one of the most energy-efficient places in the US. Average per capita gasoline consumption for NYC is roughly the same as the national average in the 1920s. Average annual electricity consumption in NYC is about 1/4 that of Dallas. It is a logical and efficient configuration of living space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_New_York_City
To address one of “Mixner’s” arguments re the Brookings Study concerning the ineffectiveness of urban rail construction:
I actually tend to agree with this point. However, the reason is because we have been trying to insert rail systems into urban systems that grew during the automobile age. This doesn’t work. Rail systems that attempt to service sprawling metropolitan areas are very expensive, underutilized, and ultimately ineffective in reducing automobile usage and preventing increased sprawl. As I noted above, this has been a problem for the DC Metro, which IMO has actually promoted sprawl.
In my view, mass transit construction should be concentrated in central urban areas where it can be most heavily utilized. This would also make urban living more attractive and advance a reconfiguration of the way people live and commute in the US, a process that is already well underway in many cities. Gas prices will take care of the rest.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
W&M’s analysis in based on total subsidies.
Your W&M paper is a dead letter, Mixner.
As I rather patiently explained to you in the thread I linked to above, their analysis DEPENDS on being a COMPLETE balance sheet of costs and benefits, but they fail to consider large sources of benefits, such as land use changes. Furthermore, it’s rather suspect that, considering the weakness of their analysis, they proceed to make overreaching claims about how sad they are that policy makers continue to fund transit despite it’s oh so obvious boondoggleishness.
There’s also the small matter of finding that BART produces positive benefits, suggesting the rather bizarre conclusion that we should first shut down most existing transit systems, and then build BART-style systems everywhere.
You were unable to respond to those criticisms with anything better than “You talk nonsense that I don’t understand.” You still aren’t. Give it up.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Speaking of zoning rules that are infringements on liberty, how about the suburban prohibition on line-drying of clothing? Now there’s an issue that libertarians and right-wingers should dig their teeth into.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
NYC is one of the most energy-efficient places in the US. Average per capita gasoline consumption for NYC is roughly the same as the national average in the 1920s. Average annual electricity consumption in NYC is about 1/4 that of Dallas. It is a logical and efficient configuration of living space.
The annual per capita electricity consumption of a city is influenced by numerous variables, including climate, incomes, housing sizes and the types and amount of commercial and industrial activity within the city. Lower consumption of either electricity or gasoline does not imply “a logical and efficient configuration of living space.” The average New Yorker almost certainly uses more of both than, say, the average rural Chinese. Good luck persuading New Yorkers that it would be more “logical” and “efficient” for them to live like rural Chinese.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Speaking of zoning rules that are infringements on liberty, how about the suburban prohibition on line-drying of clothing? Now there’s an issue that libertarians and right-wingers should dig their teeth into.
Gibberish! Global warming isn’t real. So why should happy suburban people want to dry their clothes outdoors like communists or poor people?
Anyway, that prohibition is the result of a democratic process, so it’s perfectly fine! (Unlike California high speed rail, or the continued operation of the DC Metro, which are taxpayer subsidized boondoggles imposed on us by authoritarians!)
February 26th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
As I rather patiently explained to you in the thread I linked to above, their analysis DEPENDS on being a COMPLETE balance sheet of costs and benefits,
Repeating your stupid and false claims won’t make them any less false than the first time you made them.
but they fail to consider large sources of benefits, such as land use changes.
What “large sources of benefits” from land use changes or other sources? How do you know they’re benefits? How do you know they’re large? Where’s your evidence? Where’s your analysis?
There’s also the small matter of finding that BART produces positive benefits, suggesting the rather bizarre conclusion that we should first shut down most existing transit systems, and then build BART-style systems everywhere.
More jack lecou gibberish. What is “BART-style system” supposed to mean? And how does the finding that BART has a net social benefit suggest that we should do this, even if it were possible?
February 26th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Walking to a Wal-Mart is next to impossible.
February 26th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Repeating your stupid and false claims won’t make them any less false than the first time you made them.
Calling claims you don’t understand “stupid and false” without logical support doesn’t even rise to the level of an argument.
What “large sources of benefits” from land use changes or other sources? How do you know they’re benefits? How do you know they’re large? Where’s your evidence? Where’s your analysis?
Environmental benefits: reduced need for parking and roadway space results in higher densities, thus resulting in shorter average (distance-wise) motorized trips, and dramatically more walking trips. It also reduces the need to develop environmentally useful green spaces on the fringes of urban areas, and improves the efficiency of service delivery like sewage, water, power etc. Health benefits: more walking trips has obvious health benefits. Density benefits: cultural, social and business relationships all benefit from denser concentrations of people where face-to-face meetings are convenient, and where chance encounters can occur.
I don’t have or NEED a specific dollar figure to cite. It’s enough to simply point out that W&M ignored these benefits completely, rendering their analysis fatally incomplete.
More jack lecou gibberish. What is “BART-style system” supposed to mean? And how does the finding that BART has a net social benefit suggest that we should do this, even if it were possible?
A BART style system is one which possesses the mysterious quality that renders BART ‘profitable’ under W&M’s analysis. The x-factor quality they fail to identify. Since replicating this quality would result in net benefits as in SF, their analysis tells us that we should work to identify that quality and, if possible, replicate it in other cities.
IF AND ONLY IF that X-Factor is identified and determined to be impossible to replicate would W&M’s nominal numbers support their conclusion that transit systems should be scaled back. Logically, since we don’t even know what the x-factor is, yet alone whether or not it’s replicable, scaling back transit is NOT a conclusion supportable by their paper. The fact that they (and you) try to leap to such a conclusion anyway is rather damning. (And of course, their numbers are probably wrong too. See above.)
February 26th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
When I buy a house, I bargain down to the least amount of money I can offer for what will suit my needs. If it cost the seller more to build it than I am offering, tough shit.
The cost of supplying housing tends to rise with density. Therefore, the price of housing tends to rise with density. Therefore, the size of the market tends to decline as housing density rises. Builders are not conspiring to deprive people of high-density housing. They build less of it because the market is smaller.
February 26th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
It is called the law of supply and demand for a reason. Prices are high because the demand for housing in dense urban neighborhoods and many first tier suburbs is high, so high that it outstrips supply. This is not some sort of NYC SF exclusive phenomenon.
Prices are higher on average in Boulder CO than in the nearby suburbs. Because more people want to live in Boulder. Prices are higher in the single family houses on walkable gridded streets in Boulder CO than for the single family houses on walkable gridded streets in Longmont CO. Because more people want to live in Boulder. If the yuppies in Boulder have you internally sneering prices are higher near downtown Louisville CO than in more suburban neighborhoods in Louisville CO. Because more people would rather live near downtown Louisville than near the highway. Louisville is also more expensive than Lafayette. Prices are higher in Boulder than in all of those surrounding towns despite the fact that near their Old Town centers the surrounding suburbs have similar housing stock.
If no one wanted to live there they would not be able to sell at higher prices. Just because you cannot understand why its desirable does not mean that many people do not find it desirable. Also a certain section of the population requires walkability and/or transit accessibility because they cannot drive cars at all.
February 26th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Mixner #229 -
The comparison to rural Chinese is, well shall we just say, misplaced. The average annual income among rural Chinese is under $700. The average annual income in NYC is around $35,000. The average annual income in Dallas is around the same, with more than four times the per capita electricity consumption. I didn’t get the statistics on per capita gasoline consumption but I am certain that the contrast between Dallas and NYC would be even more dramatic.
Doesn’t your computer crash when you try to type in such stupid statements?
BTW, I really don’t get the ideological contentiousness on an issue like this. Trying to figure out ways to sustain middle class lifestyles while reducing energy consumption ought to be something everybody can agree on. Just like reducing the radical disparity in access to healthcare ought to be a non-ideological issue. Right wingers seem to take perverse joy in the fact that Americans are energy-wasters or that we let people die because they don’t have health insurance. Real men drive Hummers (until those Commies took them away) and enjoy watching homeless people drop dead!
February 26th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Calling claims you don’t understand “stupid and false” without logical support doesn’t even rise to the level of an argument.
Making claims without logical or empirical support doesn’t even rise to the level of an argument.
Environmental benefits: reduced need for parking and roadway space results in higher densities, thus resulting in shorter average (distance-wise) motorized trips, and dramatically more walking trips.
Huh? Why is “dramatically more walking trips” a benefit?
It also reduces the need to develop environmentally useful green spaces on the fringes of urban areas,
How does it do that? Why is that a benefit? How do you know how much “environmentally useful green spaces on the fringes of urban areas” is “needed?”
and improves the efficiency of service delivery like sewage, water, power etc.
How do you know it does that? How are you measuring “efficiency?”
Health benefits: more walking trips has obvious health benefits.
Then it also has obvious costs: time and discomfort, for example. Show us your analysis demonstrating that the benefits of more walking trips outweigh the costs.
Density benefits: cultural, social and business relationships all benefit from denser concentrations of people where face-to-face meetings are convenient, and where chance encounters can occur.
Again, how do you know these are benefits? And how do you know the value of these alleged benefits of density outweigh the costs of density, such as more expensive housing, more noise and more congestion?
I don’t have or NEED a specific dollar figure to cite. It’s enough to simply point out that W&M ignored these benefits completely, rendering their analysis fatally incomplete.
No it isn’t. You haven’t shown that the things you list are benefits at all, let alone that they are benefits large enough to affect the conclusions of the study. Simply asserting “X is a benefit and they didn’t consider X” isn’t a serious rebuttal to any cost-benefit analysis. You have to produce evidence that your asserted benefit is in fact a benefit and is significant enough to matter. You haven’t done that.
February 26th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
A BART style system is one which possesses the mysterious quality that renders BART ‘profitable’ under W&M’s analysis.
Well, don’t keep us in suspense. What mysterious quality is that? And what makes you think it can be reproduced elsewhere?
The x-factor quality they fail to identify.
They weren’t trying to identify an “x-factor.” They were comparing public costs with public benefits.
Since replicating this quality would result in net benefits as in SF, their analysis tells us that we should work to identify that quality and, if possible, replicate it in other cities.
There you go again. What “quality?” How do you know this “quality” could be replicated in other systems? How do you know that the benefits of replicating it, if indeed that is possible at all, would outweigh the costs? Where is the evidence to support all the assumptions you keep piling on top of one another?
February 26th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
It is called the law of supply and demand for a reason. Prices are high because the demand for housing in dense urban neighborhoods and many first tier suburbs is high, so high that it outstrips supply.
You are confused. The fact that a product has a high price does not imply that there is an imbalance in supply and demand for that product. The market clearing price of high-density housing tends to be high because the cost of supplying high-density housing tends to be high. Builders can’t make a profit on it unless they charge a high enough price to cover their costs.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
The comparison to rural Chinese is, well shall we just say, misplaced. The average annual income among rural Chinese is under $700. The average annual income in NYC is around $35,000. The average annual income in Dallas is around the same, with more than four times the per capita electricity consumption. I didn’t get the statistics on per capita gasoline consumption but I am certain that the contrast between Dallas and NYC would be even more dramatic.
You claimed that a New York lifestyle is more “logical” and “efficient” than a Dallas lifestyle because it involves a lower per capita consumption of gasoline and electricity. But rural China has a lower consumption still. So either you believe that a rural Chinese lifestyle is more logical and efficient than a New York one, or you concede that there is something wrong with your conception of a logical and efficient lifestyle.
Trying to figure out ways to sustain middle class lifestyles while reducing energy consumption ought to be something everybody can agree on.
Absolutely. But you’re using words like “logic” and “efficiency” to mask differences in lifestyle that most non-New Yorkers would probably perceive as costs, such as smaller housing (you can get a mansion in Dallas for the price of a small condo in NYC) and dependency on mass transit (because the costs of getting around by car in NYC are so high).
February 26th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Huh? Why is “dramatically more walking trips” a benefit?
People emit less smog and CO2 than automobiles.
How does it do that? Why is that a benefit? How do you know how much “environmentally useful green spaces on the fringes of urban areas” is “needed?”
I don’t. But W&M clearly don’t either. It’s their conclusion depends on the answer.
Then it also has obvious costs: time and discomfort, for example. Show us your analysis demonstrating that the benefits of more walking trips outweigh the costs.
Show me W&M’s analysis where they establish that it’s a wash. This is what their conclusion requires.
Again, how do you know these are benefits? And how do you know the value of these alleged benefits of density outweigh the costs of density, such as more expensive housing, more noise and more congestion?
So, W&M established conclusively that these factors balance out precisely? Where did they conduct this analysis? This is what their paper requires to be valid.
No it isn’t. You haven’t shown that the things you list are benefits at all, let alone that they are benefits large enough to affect the conclusions of the study. Simply asserting “X is a benefit and they didn’t consider X” isn’t a serious rebuttal to any cost-benefit analysis.
It absolutely is enough. In all other respects, M&W claim to be producing an exhaustive accounting of ALL costs and benefits, no matter how potentially trivial. They do this even when they decide they can neglect something, as they did, for example, when they explained why they believed that the direct environmental benefit of rail vs. automobile miles was a wash, or the direct economic benefits of development around transit.
But indirect land use benefit is one of the major justifications for “transit-oriented development”. Any paper purporting to dispute those justifications needs to address them fully. They should at the very least have mentioned it and then explained why it could be neglected. Instead, they either forgot about it completely, or deliberately omitted it because the lack of data would have undermined their preferred conclusion.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
The cost of supplying housing tends to rise with density. Therefore, the price of housing tends to rise with density.
Land prices are by far the largest component of construction costs in denser places, so “high costs of supplying housing” is perfectly consistent with the conclusion that housing in dense areas is more valuable and desirable.
If you mean that construction costs rise with density (i.e., it’s more expensive per unit to build a high-rise, mid-rise or row house style building than single family detached), please show us some numbers.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
If you mean that construction costs rise with density (i.e., it’s more expensive per unit to build a high-rise, mid-rise or row house style building than single family detached), please show us some numbers.
Actually, never mind. The fact that land prices rise with density is enough to rebut you all on it’s own.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Mixner’s now going to have a conversation with himself for the next 20 comments. He does that a lot. He uses glove puppets when he does the voices.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
The reason conservatives hate mass transit is because it is the smart thing to do. And the reason this is how it works is this:
In Conservativeland, smart people are not really American. If you have a smart idea, you’re not *supposed* to make it real. If you’re stupid enough that Rush Limbaugh won’t mock you, then you’re Doing It Right.
And that’s just how it is. Do not be smart, or else Limbaugh will make fun of you.
It’s the bully-ocrisy.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
People emit less smog and CO2 than automobiles.
But walking is slow and exposes you to the elements. So how have you concluded that “dramatically more walking trips” is a benefit at all, let alone a significant one?
I don’t. But W&M clearly don’t either. It’s their conclusion depends on the answer.
If you cannot produce evidence that your asserted benefit is in fact a benefit at all, let alone a significant one, they don’t need to consider it. So where is your evidence?
Show me W&M’s analysis where they establish that it’s a wash.
They don’t need to establish that it’s a wash. You need to produce evidence that walking is a significant benefit for it to matter at all. Ditto for your alleged benefit of density. You haven’t done that.
It absolutely is enough. In all other respects, M&W claim to be producing an exhaustive accounting of ALL costs and benefits, no matter how potentially trivial.
No they don’t. And merely offering a list of possible benefits isn’t remotely enough to rebut their conclusions. Show us evidence that your asserted benefits are in fact benefits.
But indirect land use benefit is one of the major justifications for “transit-oriented development”.
And eternal life with God is one of the major justifications for becoming a Christian. Just because someone asserts a benefit doesn’t make us obliged to accept the assertion. Where is your evidence of this “indirect land use benefit?”
February 26th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Land prices are by far the largest component of construction costs in denser places,
No, land prices are not a “component” of construction costs at all. Land prices are the costs of purchasing the land on which the housing is constructed. Construction costs are the costs of constructing the housing on that land. Apparently, even this is too complicated for you to understand.
If you mean that construction costs rise with density ..
Yes, I do mean that “construction costs rise with density.” That’s why I wrote that as density increases, “construction costs are higher.” What part of that didn’t you understand?
The fact that land prices rise with density is enough to rebut you all on it’s own.
More hilarity. Since I explicitly said that land costs tend to rise with density, I’m not sure how you think this “rebuts” me. Your ability to thoroughly confuse yourself never fails to amaze.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
As you stated earlier initial land costs are high why do you suppose land costs are initially high? Because demand for nearby land is high and in dense developed areas the supply is very short.
If you think that demand is less important to land costs then by all means put together some money to buy an empty lot in East New York and then put together the money to buy an empty lot in Park Slope. Put the stacks next to each other.
In New York the presentation of said piles would in all likelihood be accompanied with an energetic “I got your demand right here”
New York developers sometimes pay their low density neighbors for “air rights”. The right to build taller than usually permitted in order to produce more units in a neighborhood that is considered desirable. If demand did not vary by location they would not bother with such byzantine zoning games.
It is not the only factor in high housing costs but I have heard location is kind of important in real estate. Access to transit is one factor that can drive demand. It is more desirable for a neighborhood if that transit is underground instead of running right next to your apartment window or on the street in front of your house. Walkability can be another factor. Proximity to work, the speed of your commute etc. Density makes amenities possible that some people find desirable or necessary.
The fact is that “walkability” and “access to transit” and “suburb” do not have to be contradictory. I should know I live in the suburbs.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
So how have you concluded that “dramatically more walking trips” is a benefit at all
Follow closely:
- Walking has environmental benefits.
- Walking has health benefits (which also translates into happiness benefits).
- Walking has social and cultural benefits (such as running into friends or discovering new places and services).
- Walking has costs (such as sometimes being inconvenient).
The first three bullets are missing from W&M’s “benefits” column. The latter one is missing from W&M’s “costs” column.
All four points are potentially non-negligible line-items whose omission is completely unjustified by W&M. Although they took pains to explain why substituting rail trips for car trips does not result significantly change emissions, they fail to even consider the possibility that foot trips could be substituted in as well because of land use changes.
February 26th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Dense housing is a lot more expensive to build.
Single-family, detached housing:
- Cheap, mass-produced materials (wood, block, stucco, siding) and designs
- Cheap, unskilled labor
- No heavy equipment needed
- Easy access to entire structure
- Entire structure is residential space
Multi-unit high-rise housing:
- Expensive materials (steel, reinforced concrete, glass) and custom designs
- Lots of skilled labor required. Difficult and dangerous working conditions.
- Heavy equipment needed (cranes, lifts, etc.)
- Need to build lots of extra, non-residential common areas for access (hallways, lobbies, stairwells, elevator shafts) and features (elevators, water tanks).
- More stringent fire and safety regulations.
February 26th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
And eternal life with God is one of the major justifications for becoming a Christian. Just because someone asserts a benefit doesn’t make us obliged to accept the assertion. Where is your evidence of this “indirect land use benefit?”
Don’t be stupid. The idea that density has benefits is not something I just invented. It’s obviously still an active area of research, so nobody has any exhaustive list of all the factors or a bottom line, but it’s clearly at least potentially huge: for example, large reductions in VMT and CO2, dramatically lower infrastructure costs (e.g., sewer, roads), more rapid innovation, higher productivity, etc., etc.
It’s something anyone with any clue about the issue is going to have to talk about.
The complete omission from the W&M paper of even any discussion of the issue is nothing short of shocking.
February 26th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
You’re still not listening. You haven’t produced one iota of evidence that more walking would be a net benefit at all rather than a net cost, let alone that this alleged benefit would be significant. Ditto for “density,” and all your other asserted benefits. Nor have you produced any evidence of a causal relationship between your asserted benefits and the presence or absence of New York’s rail transit system. You just pile one assumption on top of another. If you think you can make a serious, empirical case that NYC’s rail transit has produced significant benefits that are not included in W&M’s analysis, then make that argument.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
The idea that density has benefits is not something I just invented. It’s obviously still an active area of research, so nobody has any exhaustive list of all the factors or a bottom line, but it’s clearly at least potentially huge: for example, large reductions in VMT and CO2,
You just get funnier and funnier. The National Academies study you cite in support of your speculations about CO2 concluded that the effects of density on CO2 emissions are small, and that it would take a huge increase in density, sustained for decades, to produce just a small reduction in CO2 emissions. Ditto for the Glaeser paper you cite in support of your speculations about innovation. Glaeser’s argument is about effect of urbanization, not density. His primary example is Silicon Valley, a sprawling, low-density, car-dominated community that has absolutely nothing to do with NYC rail transit. Your own citations rebut your speculations.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Construction itself is more expensive but to suppose that the cost of land is, on anything other than a theoretical and rhetorical level, separate from the cost of construction on said land is to be deliberately dense and/or misleading.
Costs for individuals in cities go into housing instead of into transport. (Even if transit prices tripled in many cities it would still be cheaper than owning and operating a motor vehicle.) It is a trade off that people make but it has benefits for people who do not want to make it themselves.
The benefit of transit oriented development is that the residents are not spread out all over the land and trying to drive on the road with you all the time. If you gave residents of large cities the same amount of land and space for their, now very necessary, cars that you have in the average post war suburb their would not be a whole lot of room for anything else.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
I love that Manchester H.R.R. postcard being used to argue that government belongs in public transportation. It was a private company, as was nearly every other pre-twentieth century streetcar operation. (I only say “nearly” because I’m not familiar with every system out there. In my experience, every one of them was privately-owned and operated.) The nineteenth century was as close as we’ve ever come to a laissez-faire system.
As far as people’s opposition to publicly-funded mass transit while being in favor of publicly-funded highways, you’re right to point out the contradiction. They should be private, just like the railroads and any other elements of our transportation system. But I know you leftists can’t conceive of how that might actually work without assuming that there’d be “whites-only” roads or tolls of $1 million each way. So it’s possible that those other people–the ones who don’t argue consistently–are just picking their battles and that opposition to existing public roads is of a lower priority than some misguided, new high-speed railway system.
Or maybe it’s just ‘cuz they agin them furriners. (You people love your strawmen, don’t you?)
February 26th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
As you stated earlier initial land costs are high why do you suppose land costs are initially high?
Higher density by definition means more demand per unit area of land. More demand per unit of supply means a higher unit price. Hence, land costs tend to rise with density. This has nothing to do with developers conspiring to undersupply dense housing. It simply follows from the meaning of “higher density” and the effects of supply and demand on prices.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
higher productivity, etc., etc.
Yet another citation that doesn’t support your speculation. First, the authors measure productivity without regard to differences in the cost of living, as if $100,000 buys as much in New York City as it does in Houston. So the results provide no support for your speculation that density provides a real benefit in productivity rather than just a nominal one. Even worse for your speculation, the authors acknowledge that the reason for the higher productivity in dense cities may simply be that workers in those cities work longer hours.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Higher density -> higher “construction costs.” What? What? A 10-story apartment building costs more to build than a 2,500sf house? Who knew! Wow.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
You just get funnier and funnier. The National Academies study you cite in support of your speculations about CO2 concluded that the effects of density on CO2 emissions are small, and that it would take a huge increase in density, sustained for decades,
A huge increase sustained for decades you say? Like the difference between, say, NYC and the national average?
A 25% decrease in VMT due to the density enabled by the subway would certainly be something you’d think they’d want to include in their model, no?
Why do you think they didn’t?
February 26th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
A huge increase sustained for decades you say?
Yes. Read your own link.
Like the difference between, say, NYC and the national average?
No, not like that.
A 25% decrease in VMT due to the density enabled by the subway would certainly be something you’d think they’d want to include in their model, no?
No. Why would they want to include it in their model? And where did you get “25%” from? And where is your evidence that a 25% decrease in VMT would produce a net benefit rather than a net cost?
February 26th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Transit was run by private companies but private companies frequently allowed transit facilities of all kinds, that spurred economic growth for entire neighborhoods and individual businesses, to fall into disrepair as they became less profitable. Entropy really messes with the bottomline.
There was the 13 mile long Merrick to Jamaica plank road on what is now Merrick Road in Nassau and Queens. A kind of glorified boardwalk for horses and carts. Private, paid for by tolls it was a great improvement over the other roads and a success for a while but user fees alone did not cover the cost of maintainence. It fell into disrepair and caused delay and economic disruption for the people attempting to use it and for the people near it.
It was purchased by the government and macadamized. To give you a feel for how long ago this was the main beneficiaries of the macadam were the new fangled bicycle-men. This trend reasserts itself with street cars, subway lines and bus routes in city after city, decade after decade. After private interests could not make sufficient profit they were either dismantled entirely or taken over by the government. The benefits are difficult to measure for those adjacent to the transit resource so there is no fair and practical way to assess a fee on users and indirect beneficiaries only; so the resource is subsidized by everyone.
Your arguments seem to boil down to the idea that no one should ever pay for a service, benefit or policy that they don’t use directly or approve of. In that case I want my War on Drugs refund check and when the bill comes due for the Iraq War I will be sure to pass it down the table to the right.
I never said anything about a conspiracy so I am done. I don’t argue with people who are busy arguing with the voices in their own heads.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
No. Why would they want to include it in their model?
Because it’s at least a 25% decrease in CO2. M&W took great pains to discuss the possibility that using trains might result in a CO2 reduction. They evidently consider this an important benefit to consider.
They ultimately reject the idea, concluding that trains also consume fuel*. But even if cars and trains consume the same fuel per passenger VMT, the logic of this rejection is cast into doubt by the possibility that rail transit might have the second order effect of actually reducing VMT by a large fraction.
No, not like that…And where did you get “25%” from?
I quote:
So, yes like that. They also point out that other studies show as much as a 12% reduction in VMT for each doubling of residential density. Figures like that would put New York pretty far ahead. (Seriously: this is pretty intuitive. Somebody who lives in Brooklyn or Manhattan or Boston not only doesn’t drive 50 or a 100 miles everyday, they also don’t ride the subway 100 miles everyday. Everything is simply closer together.)
And where is your evidence that a 25% decrease in VMT would produce a net benefit rather than a net cost?
Why would it produce any costs? VMT isn’t an intrinsic good by any means, and the reduction in VMT isn’t also a reduction in trips. People still go to places they want. It’s just that in a denser place, those places are closer.
If there are costs, you’re welcome to find out what they are. W&M should have included any of those too.
————-
*Their reasoning is actually kind of shoddy on this–just some handwaving about ‘trains use fuel and energy too’, ‘load factor is low’, a single cite to a study of car ownership duration, and what appears to be a math error about the gas saved by Portland’s light rail–but I digress. It’s just one error in a paper full.
February 27th, 2010 at 3:11 am
[...] And that last item sets off Matthew Yglesias: [...]
February 27th, 2010 at 8:02 am
[...] source). Matthew Yglesias—I know, I know, I may as well be reading Krugman—today argues that opposition to mass transit stems at its root from jingoism. This is a familiar refrain and [...]
February 27th, 2010 at 11:34 am
[...] Matthew Yglesias: But of course they have nothing to say about genuine infringements of liberty like minimum parking requirements, maximum lot occupancy rules, building height limits, prohibitions on accessory dwellings, etc. that are mainstays of America’s centrally planned suburbs. That’s because to them what really matters isn’t socialism or liberty (certainly nobody who cares about liberty could be as enthusiastic about torture as National Review writers are) but Americanness. Even here, though, their critique falls badly flat. The world’s largest subway systems are in Japan and South Korea—not socialistic Europe—followed by New York City right here in the United States. Multiple-unit train control was invented in Chicago, as part of the world’s first electrically driven railway. I believe that all of the world’s 24-hour rapid transit systems (NYC Subway, Chicago L, NY-NJ PATH) are in the United States of America. [...]
February 27th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
i have to say that as wrong as mixner appears to be most of the time, i really do appreciate him. he’s a sort of conservative version of the “question authority” bumper sticker so beloved by bumper-sticker loving progressives. his exortations to at least consider the possibility that some closely-held progressive assumptions might need to be verified is welcome, even if his own attempts to discredit them seem to fall short. the question here – does public/mass transit really bring net social benefits – is one that progressives have come down firmly on the “yes” side of for decades. jack is doing a fine job of showing just why that is, but it doesn’t hurt to have to revisit this kind of underpinning assumption every so often, just to check that one hasn’t forgotten something. even if mixner isn’t doing a great job with facts to show that, indeed something has been forgotten, i appreciate the questioning attitude.
i hope that he’s as questioning of the assumptions that underpin his own worldview.
February 27th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
That is a great article. I really think it will turn out to be a valuable piece of information in the future for me.
February 28th, 2010 at 9:54 am
As a Southerner, this seems easy to explain to me.
They suppose that Mass transit is a benefit to blacks.
They also suppose that Highways are a benefit to whites.
Now, I certainly don’t feel this way, but you cannot understand Southern conservative politics without understanding that the color line is always there somewhere. I well remember the “populist” arguments against MARTA in Atlanta (it will just give black burglars a quick means of getting in and out of the North Side!). I heard this crap with my own ears. And, of course, right here in DC there was the opposition to the metro from people in Georgetown (they didn’t want to give “undesirables” an easy ride in). This feeling is still there, just expressed in a more coded fashion. And it explains a lot about which programs, in particular, these conservatives will rail against.
February 28th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Mixner is wrong.
Do I win the thread?
March 1st, 2010 at 9:50 am
Jay Warner wrote a critique of the Winston and Maheshri Brookings paper and found many methodological errors and unwarranted assumptions.
http://www.vtpi.org/warner.pdf
Conclusions about the Winston and Maheshri Brookings paper:
• The analysis excludes commuter rail — transit from suburbs to metropolitan areas. This would be a major oversight for evaluating inherently multi-modal transit networks.
• The cost of destination parking for alternative transport is not considered. The authors may underestimate highway congestion costs for alternative transport. Destination street congestion costs are not considered. Some train benefits are neglected, or willfully dismissed.
• The authors do not include alternative costs of transportation for non-drivers.
• The authors’ treatment of pollution reduction benefits is intellectually questionable at best, and deceptive at worst.
• Due to auto correlation, statistically independent data is restricted. New York City data frequently is an outlier, distorting possible interpretations.
• Overfitting of data gives a severely distorted picture of model precision, and raises questions of predictive validity.
• Tests of exogenicity may be misinterpreted, hiding significant relationships of the data.
• Inherent characteristics of the data make the mathematical model suspect, limiting the significance of any conclusions.
• The model predicts that the most socially beneficial action would be to shut down all urban train systems, a result that in New York City has recently been flatly contradicted. Ridership from 2002 to 2006 on the eight newest systems has also indicated the invalidity of this conclusion.
• The analytic model either does not apply beyond 2000, or does not predict accurately. Therefore, its usefulness to planners and payers is nil.
March 1st, 2010 at 11:05 am
Moscow is third. Shanghai recently overtook New York City as the city with the largest rapid transit system (total track length).
Having been to both cities I find it very hard to believe that Shanghai has a larger rail based rapid transit system than Tokyo. You have a source for that?
Just look at the maps
Shanghai subway, note that several of the lines are not completed yet. (Though they are being completed at a remarkably fast pace.)
For Tokyo you need three maps.
Tokyo Metro
Tokyo Toei Metro
Tokyo JR line Yamanote
And there are various JR lines that effectively work as commuter lines which aren’t included in the maps and which Shanghai has no equivalent.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:34 pm
The PATCO system is also 24hours– connecting New Jersey to Philadelphia.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:56 pm
If you lived in Real America you would understand why we don’t consider NYC, Boston, Chicago, SF, etc. to be part of it.