If Fisker ends up building electric vehicles with Foxconn Technology Group in Wisconsin, as seems likely, the stunning new development could make a huge winner out of what was an economic-development disaster — and put the state back into the business of making cars for the first time in 13 years. read more »
Transportation
High-Speed Rail: An Evaluation
Note: This article is adapted from the recently published Reason Foundation report Assessing the Results of the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program, by Wendell Cox read more »
Will COVID Kill Robotaxis?
One of the victims of COVID-19 may be robotaxis and with them one path towards a future of autonomous vehicles. Before the pandemic, there were two views of how driverless cars would take over the road. read more »
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Work Trips in the CSAs with the Largest CBDs
This article describes the reduction in work visits, by counties within the six combined statistical areas (CSAs), also called commuting zones, that include the nation’s six largest downtown areas (central business districts, or CBDs) by employment. CSAs are combinations of adjacent metropolitan and micropolitan areas that have strong work trip commuting connections, but not as strong as within metropolitan areas (MSAs). read more »
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The $25 Billion Theft
The states siphoned off 21 percent of gasoline taxes and other highway user fees to pay for mass transit and other non-highway activities in 2019, according to table SDF of the 2019 Highway Statistics, which was posted this week by the Federal Highway Administration. read more »
Evidence on Post-Pandemic Telecommuting
More studies have been published indicating that telecommuting is likely to be far more important after the pandemic than it was before. A University of Chicago study published early this month concluded that “22 percent of all full work days will be supplied from home after the pandemic ends, compared with just 5 percent before.” read more »
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Amtrak Continues to Lie
Amtrak is maintaining the twin fictions that subsidies from state taxpayers are “passenger revenues” and that depreciation isn’t a real cost even though its accountants list it as an operating cost on its consolidated financial statements. read more »
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Watching the Sausage Get Made
Amtrak ridership is down by 87 percent, so Amtrak needs a $2.9 billion rescue from Congress, the company’s executive vice president, Stephen Gardner, told a congressional subcommittee yesterday. Transit ridership is down 70 to 90 percent, added American Public Transportation Association president Paul Skoutelas, so the transit industry wants a $32 billion bailout from Congress. read more »
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High Density and Sustainability
The proponents of currently fashionable planning doctrines favouring density maintain, among other factors, that high-density planning is more environmentally sustainable. Policies based on these doctrines are being applied in Australian capital cities--- Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and to some extent Darwin and Hobart.
The assumption that high-density is environmentally superior seems to be based on intuition as no proof is provided to support this claim. Rather, considerable evidence is emerging that this is not the case. read more »
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The Need to Reboot and Rebuild Public Transit
If you didn’t have time to watch my transit presentation from Milwaukee, I distilled a few of the themes into my October column for Governing magazine. Here’s an excerpt: read more »
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