Insider Politics and Unions are Taking Our Tolls

Overview
History of Urban Transit
Six Problems with Rail Transit
Six Myths of Rail Transit
Private Transit Solutions

"The Government Accountability Office has shown, for example, that buses can provide service as fast and frequently as light rail at a lower operating cost and for about two percent of the capital cost."    Randall O'Toole

...............................................................

How Insider Politics Saved California's Train to Nowhere

The high-speed rail line may never be built, but it will save a few Democratic seats.

The more people read and heard about the train, the more they disliked it. A string of Field and Los Angeles Times polls this year have shown that voters would block the train by a two-to-one margin if it were put up for a referendum. In 2008, 55% of voters approved the rail bond.

....................................................................

The Atlanta Transit Tax: For the 1 Percent

Voters in Atlanta, with some of the worst traffic congestion in the nation, are being asked to approve a new tax that would spend more than 50% on transit, in an urban area where transit carries only 1% of travel (Figure). No one is naive enough to think that the new billions for transit would improve traffic congestion. Worse, the distorted program would contribute to worse congestion by spending on billions on transit, which cannot reduce traffic congestion, instead of on roadways, which is the only way that traffic congestion can be reduced


.
....................................................................

Off the Rails

How union power plays could crash spectacularly in California

10 July 2012

The arrogance displayed last week by California’s legislature and its union comrades-in-arms can scarcely be exaggerated. In rejecting Governor Jerry Brown’s surprisingly ambitious pension-overhaul plan in favor of a proposal that defines minor tinkering as “reform,” Democratic legislative leaders have ignored how crippling the pension crisis has been for local governments, as well as the bipartisan supportthat exists for serious reform. And in approving on Friday Brown’s plan to spend $5.8 billion in federal and state funds on a troubled high-speed rail project—the so-called bullet train—Democratic leaders have dismissed mounting public skepticism about the project as well as substantial evidence from independent evaluators and journalists that it could become one of the world’s biggest public-works boondoggles.