Transportation
Blog
State Budget Week - Learn how the Newsom Transportation Budget Furthers the "Train to Nowhere"
The Newsom Transportation Budget: Newsom Continues to Embrace Costly, Unrealistic State Bullet Train
Progress. The California high-speed rail project has made progress. If progress can be defined as finally laying the first track for a bullet train that is at least a couple of decades behind schedule. Hard to put any faith, though, in the promises and bragging when the HSR is running ...
Blog
Will Trump finally put nail in coffin of CA's high speed rail boondoggle?
Can California Find Other Uses For Bullet Train Infrastructure If The Project Is Canceled?
If the incoming administration doesn’t end the great train robbery, then Congress might. Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley of Rocklin plans to introduce legislation that eliminates federal funding “for the failed California High-Speed Rail project.” Vivek Ramaswamy, who with Elon Musk is leading the Department of Government Efficiency, called the California bullet ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
SF’s Muni punishes its own riders for funding shortfalls
Muni’s latest data shows ridership on the city’s system of buses, cable cars, streetcars and light rail has rebounded dramatically from pandemic levels. It reports that ridership is at 74% of pre-pandemic levels and 92% of those levels on the weekends. The agency also trumpeted reductions in the number of ...
Blog
Read about the latest victory in the war on cars
A Great Highway . . . But Not for Driving
Prop. K will permanently close a two-mile stretch – more than half its length – of the four-lane highway along Ocean Beach between Lincoln Way and Sloat Boulevard. It will become a public recreation space. The idea goes back to the early days of the COVID-19 panic. “In response to ...
Blog
When Ambition And Ideology Outpace Reality And Prudent Policymaking
Turns out the electric trucks aren’t selling well, so manufacturers will be able to build more diesel trucks than regulations were allowing them to. Yet again, the state tacitly acknowledges that its net-zero ambitions are unrealistic. It was a lesson learned late, though. Several states that followed the California model ...
Blog
Read the latest about California's high speed rail boondoggle
Despite the promises, bullet train is lesson in ‘sunk costs’
Unfortunately, California officials pay no attention to sunk costs, which are reflected in the spending for the California High Speed Rail System. If there is a classic lesson regarding “sunk costs,” the ongoing project of building a bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles is the poster child. Yet, ...
Business & Economics
Learn more about how taxes harm economic activity
Does San Diego County’s Measure G measure up?
There’s no denying that the crumbling section of the coastal bluff near Del Mar that holds up the only rail line linking San Diego to the rest of California needs to be shored up. But is a tax hike necessary to get the job done? No, but that’s never stopped ...
Blog
Western cities double down on taxes for failing transit
Western cities double down on taxes for failing transit By D. Dowd Muska | October 24, 2024 Well before COVID-19, transit was in big trouble. A 2018 analysis found that “factors such as lower fuel costs, increased teleworking, higher car ownership and the rise of alternatives such as Uber and Lyft” ...
Blog
Transit carried only 74.9% of 2019 riders in June
Transit’s failure to recover from the pandemic is due largely to its downtown-centric orientation in most urban areas. Before the pandemic, almost half of all transit commuters in the nation’s 50 largest urban areas worked downtown, and almost half of downtown workers commuted by transit whereas less than 6% ...
Blog
‘Vision Zero’ is latest utopian fad designed to frustrate drivers
As of February 2024, 59 U.S. cities had adopted Vision Zero, including 13 in California. Indianapolis is one of the latest to jump on the bandwagon, and it has already begun implementing some of its strategies. These include reducing speed limits to 20 mph and banning right turns on red ...
State Budget Week - Learn how the Newsom Transportation Budget Furthers the "Train to Nowhere"
The Newsom Transportation Budget: Newsom Continues to Embrace Costly, Unrealistic State Bullet Train
Progress. The California high-speed rail project has made progress. If progress can be defined as finally laying the first track for a bullet train that is at least a couple of decades behind schedule. Hard to put any faith, though, in the promises and bragging when the HSR is running ...
Will Trump finally put nail in coffin of CA's high speed rail boondoggle?
Can California Find Other Uses For Bullet Train Infrastructure If The Project Is Canceled?
If the incoming administration doesn’t end the great train robbery, then Congress might. Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley of Rocklin plans to introduce legislation that eliminates federal funding “for the failed California High-Speed Rail project.” Vivek Ramaswamy, who with Elon Musk is leading the Department of Government Efficiency, called the California bullet ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
SF’s Muni punishes its own riders for funding shortfalls
Muni’s latest data shows ridership on the city’s system of buses, cable cars, streetcars and light rail has rebounded dramatically from pandemic levels. It reports that ridership is at 74% of pre-pandemic levels and 92% of those levels on the weekends. The agency also trumpeted reductions in the number of ...
Read about the latest victory in the war on cars
A Great Highway . . . But Not for Driving
Prop. K will permanently close a two-mile stretch – more than half its length – of the four-lane highway along Ocean Beach between Lincoln Way and Sloat Boulevard. It will become a public recreation space. The idea goes back to the early days of the COVID-19 panic. “In response to ...
When Ambition And Ideology Outpace Reality And Prudent Policymaking
Turns out the electric trucks aren’t selling well, so manufacturers will be able to build more diesel trucks than regulations were allowing them to. Yet again, the state tacitly acknowledges that its net-zero ambitions are unrealistic. It was a lesson learned late, though. Several states that followed the California model ...
Read the latest about California's high speed rail boondoggle
Despite the promises, bullet train is lesson in ‘sunk costs’
Unfortunately, California officials pay no attention to sunk costs, which are reflected in the spending for the California High Speed Rail System. If there is a classic lesson regarding “sunk costs,” the ongoing project of building a bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles is the poster child. Yet, ...
Learn more about how taxes harm economic activity
Does San Diego County’s Measure G measure up?
There’s no denying that the crumbling section of the coastal bluff near Del Mar that holds up the only rail line linking San Diego to the rest of California needs to be shored up. But is a tax hike necessary to get the job done? No, but that’s never stopped ...
Western cities double down on taxes for failing transit
Western cities double down on taxes for failing transit By D. Dowd Muska | October 24, 2024 Well before COVID-19, transit was in big trouble. A 2018 analysis found that “factors such as lower fuel costs, increased teleworking, higher car ownership and the rise of alternatives such as Uber and Lyft” ...
Transit carried only 74.9% of 2019 riders in June
Transit’s failure to recover from the pandemic is due largely to its downtown-centric orientation in most urban areas. Before the pandemic, almost half of all transit commuters in the nation’s 50 largest urban areas worked downtown, and almost half of downtown workers commuted by transit whereas less than 6% ...
‘Vision Zero’ is latest utopian fad designed to frustrate drivers
As of February 2024, 59 U.S. cities had adopted Vision Zero, including 13 in California. Indianapolis is one of the latest to jump on the bandwagon, and it has already begun implementing some of its strategies. These include reducing speed limits to 20 mph and banning right turns on red ...
