Monthly Archives: November 2008

Bailout those that deserve it

Posted on November 20, 2008 | 7 Comments

You can guess how I feel about the #1 target from this comment I just left at this thread at gm-volt.com. Yes, the same bunch of idiots who scoffed at me and others a few months back who said the Volt wouldn’t make it because GM was going Chap 11.
Hint: Ford might be worth throwing a life-jacket to. The others? (Outer blockquote is me).

It’s also important to remember that it wasn’t only the U.S. automakers who built these lumbering behemoth trucks and SUVs. Toyota, the auto maker with the fallen green halo is slowing down production of its Toyota Tundra monster truck plant here in San Antonio. They have also stated that they do not plan to build a plug-in hybrid and have talked down GM’s progress on the Chevy Volt.

More crap from denialists.
Honda and Toyota didn’t fight CAFE kicking and screaming and getting loopholes for awful SUVs and pickup trucks. Toyota sells trucks to those who want them, sure, but hasn’t tried to create the market from those who didn’t want them and never needed them.
As for talking down the Volt, they’ve sold a million Prii. Even if the Volt was an obvious success, talking down the Volt to sell the Prius isn’t damaging to the economy, the environment, or our national security the way it was when GM spent years talking down hybrids so they could continue to sell polluting inefficient SUVs.
GM needs to die in a fire. Yesterday.

I always forget to mention GM’s role in destroying urban rail. Yes, a lot of the stuff you hear is exaggerated if not myth, but they did play a large role in it nonetheless.
If GM was a person, I have a hard time believing we wouldn’t be charging him with treason for enabling our enemies (and disabling our ability to pressure our ‘friends’ the Saudis) and destroying our environment and our economy.

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Posted in Economics, I Told You So

Don’t Let The Door Hit You…

Posted on November 17, 2008 | 4 Comments

CNN’s Campbell Brown’s words ring true in relation to this pantload, whom the media never bothered to fact-check on anything:

Brown spoke of the “false equivalency” that’s often practiced in journalism. “Our view is that when Candidate A says it’s raining outside, and Candidate B says it’s sunny, a journalist should be able to look outside and say, ‘Well it’s sunny, so one of these guys is wrong,’” she told Stewart.

Guess what? Sal Costello was wrong on almost everything he ever said. But you wouldn’t know that for reading the Statesman, or the Chronicle, or even Burnt Orange Report – and the transportation discourse has suffered drastically for it. Instead of flat-out telling their readers that Costello’s position wasn’t true, they, at best, alluded to it indirectly, assuming people would get it. They didn’t. As a result, people now honestly believe his bullshit about being double-taxed and the money supposedly diverted to ‘toll roads’ from ‘free’ways.
In this whole process, one might assume the losers are suburban motorists. Not so; the losers are central city Austin residents, both drivers and non-drivers, who have to continue the unfair process of paying for suburban commuters’ highways through both the gas tax subsidy and the property tax and sales tax subsidy. With toll roads, at least suburban commuters would have paid something closer to the cost of their choice to live out there. Now? Back to business-as-usual, meaning people who ride the bus in East Austin get to subsidize people driving in from Circle C. My environmentalist friends who think this means “no roads” are deluded – the phase II toll roads weren’t highways to nowhere like Southwest Parkway; there already exists sufficient commuting demand and more than enough political support to make these roads happen, whether ‘free’ or tolled.
Anyways, to our erstwhile Circle C Crackpot: don’t let the door hit you. And shame on you, reporters. It was raining the whole time, and you let people think there was an honest disagreement on the weather.
(The worst part? As I mentioned to a facebook friend, he actually made me feel a little bit sorry at one point for this guy. UNCLEAN).

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Posted in Austin, Don't Hurt Us Mr. Krusee, We'll Do Whatever You Want, Driving in Austin, Funding of Transportation, Republicans Hate Poor People, Republicans Hate Public Transportation, Republicans Hate The Environment, Subsidies to Suburban Sprawl, Transportation, Worst Person In Austin

Why we should subsidize more projects like The Domain

Posted on November 5, 2008 | 4 Comments

Quick reminder as I prepare to go on a business trip. The reason we need to subsidize projects like the Domain, and especially Mueller, is that existing crappy strip malls actually cost us (the city) more money than they make but thanks to our suburban zoning code, they are the only thing that can be built without special subsidy or regulatory relief.
Read that again. You heard me right – Brian Rodgers’ strip malls are already getting subsidized via the tax code and already get regulatory preference in the zoning code. We tax by land and improvement value rather than assessing based on the costs generated by retail – and strip retail is the worst on this scale, since, for one simple example, if you want to visit a half-dozen different stores on Anderson Lane, you may have to move the car 6 times(!). That’s not good for Austin, and it shouldn’t be subsidized – but if we can’t change the tax/regulatory code, and the neighborhoods won’t let us do that, then at least we can attempt to level the playing field by subsidizing their more sustainable competition.
I’ll try to fill this argument in with some backing data when I get more time, but I thought it important to say this right after the election, since he and SDS are making noise about how close they got. The only reason it was that close is because most people have no idea how much of the status quo isn’t natural or ‘choice’; but actually the result of public policy that has favored suburban crap like strip malls for decades.
It makes it even harder when a project like Mueller faces so much opposition from nearby neighborhoods that affordability has to be ‘bought down’ rather than provided through more reasonable density entitlements (subsidizing affordable housing is less efficient than getting the ridiculously low-density zoning out of the way and letting the market provide more supply, but local neighborhoods hate that, so we had to settle for this far-inferior option). No, Virginia, Mueller isn’t going to be high-density, not even close – the area around the Town Center, if it’s ever built, will approach but not exceed the density of the Triangle – i.e. moderate density mid-rises.
Update: Austin Contrarian argues that retail subsidies are bad but leaves a “design subsidy” hole large enough to admit both the Domain and Mueller, arguably. I’d have no problem dressing my position up in a similar fashion except that I suspect this is too nuanced for the average “corporations bad!” voter to accept.
PS: I believe on this issue that I’m now More Contrarian Than The Austin Contrarian. Woo?

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Posted in Austin, Economics, I Told You So, Republicans Hate Poor People, Republicans Hate Public Transportation, Republicans Hate The Environment, Subsidies to Suburban Sprawl, Urban Design, When Neighborhoods Go Bad

BRT (or Rapid Bus) is NOT a stepping stone towards light rail

Posted on November 4, 2008 | 4 Comments

As part of an excellent series of takedowns of BRT, the San Francisco Bike Blog has written an excellent rebuttal to the frequent claims that BRT or Rapid Bus plans can function as stepping stones towards light rail. One relevant excerpt relating to a transitway in Ottawa that was designed to be convertible to LRT::

The study concludes that with limited financial resources, it is better to invest in new rapid transit corridors than to replace an existing one. It is not considered cost-effective to convert the Transitway to LRT at this time.

Please check out the rest. There’s a lot more good stuff in the other links from Jeff’s collection as well, including impacts on the urban environment from smelly, noisy, uncomfortable buses versus electric trains.
In our case, our potential investments in our completely useless Rapid Bus plan are completely nonportable to light rail (the stations are on the wrong side, for instance). Ironically, as the linked story points out, every improvement that could be made to make Rapid Bus more like Bus Rapid Transit would make it less likely we’d ever see light rail on the #1 corridor.

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Posted in Austin, Don't Hurt Us Mr. Krusee, We'll Do Whatever You Want, I Told You So, Rapid Bus Ain't Rapid, Republicans Hate Poor People, Republicans Hate Public Transportation, Republicans Hate The Environment, Transit in Austin, Transportation, Urban Design, Walking in Austin (Pedestrian Issues)

Dear Entire Talk Radio And Internet, Part Deux

Posted on November 4, 2008 | 3 Comments

These guys LOST TO OLE MISS. AT HOME.
No, Ole Miss isn’t magically superpowered because they happen to be in the SEC. Here’s where Florida stacks up against Penn State so far this year:

Rank (Sagarin PREDICTOR)	Team	Result
14	Georgia	Florida 49, Georgia 10 (Neutral Site)
15	Ohio State	Penn State 13, @Ohio State 6

Looks pretty good so far, right? Not so fast. The next entries for Florida:

Rank (SAGARIN PREDICTOR)	Team	Result
23	LSU	@Florida 51, LSU 21
30	Ole Miss	Ole Miss 31, @Florida 30

Huh. One thing sure seems to jump out at you, doesn’t it? But surely this doesn’t show anything, right? Penn State hasn’t played anybody that good at home, right? Let’s expand that section of the table:

Rank (SAGARIN PREDICTOR)	Team	Result
19	Oregon State	@Penn State 45, Oregon State 14
23	LSU	@Florida 51, LSU 21
27	Illinois	@Penn State 38, Illinois 24
30	Ole Miss	Ole Miss 31, @Florida 30
39	Wisconsin	Penn State 48, @Wisconsin 7
52	Tennessee	Florida 30, @Tennessee 6