Blog
High-Speed Rail: A Bad Idea in the U.S., a Bad Idea in China
Today, Stuart Varney of Fox Business Network hosted Andy Kunz, the honcho of the lobbying outfit U.S. High Speed Rail Association. His advisory…
One News Now
Victory Over Rail Funding may be Short-Lived
Boston Herald
Lying with Statistics
Blog
Super-sized Convention Centers: The Boondoggles that Refuse to Die
Boston.com
Case for Bigger Convention Hall has Familiar Ring
Blog
Stated Housing Preferences vs. Revealed Housing Reality
In March, the National Association of Realtors released the 2011 Community Preference Survey. Some greeniac urbanists are touting the survey results…
Blog
STB Should Ignore Calls to Re-regulate Railroads
Yesterday, I filed a comment letter with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) on behalf of CEI regarding the board's request for comments prior to…
Comment
CEI Submits Supplemental Comments on Railroad Competition Before the Surface Transportation Board
Full Document Available in PDF On behalf of the…
Blog
House Rejects Obama-Backed, Pro-Union Amendment to FAA Reauthorization Bill
This afternoon, the House passed the FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011. Perhaps the most contentious issue debated was a provision of the legislation that…
Blog
U.S. Property Rights Protections Continue to Decline
This morning, I attended the Property Rights Alliance’s launch presentation of the 2011 International Property Rights Index. Overall, the United States declined to…
Blog
High-Speed Rail Follies: International Edition
Over at the excellent NewGeography.com, Wendell Cox has an article about the battle over high-speed rail investment in Britain. As we've seen in the…
Comment
CEI Submits Comments on Railroad Competition Before the Surface Transportation Board
Full Document Available in PDF On behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI),…
Blog
Steve LaTourette Wants More Federally Funded Transit (Highway-User Robbery)
Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), vice chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies, essentially told…
Blog
Rail Transit and Transportation Waste
Over the weekend, I appeared on Fox Business Network’s “Tom Sullivan Show,” along with John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute, to discuss…
Blog
What *The Economist* Got Right, Got Wrong About NYC Bike Lanes
New Yorker econ writer John Cassidy created quite a stir last week with this blog post that attacked bike lanes in New York City.
Boston.com
Marc Scribner on Wasteful Transit Policy
CEI Land-use and Transportation Policy Analyst Marc Scribner says rail transit policy is all about people’s love for trains.
Blog
Texas Needs Real Eminent Domain Reform, Not More Empty Rhetoric
Last month, I briefly discussed the bogus eminent domain "reform" legislation that unanimously passed the Texas Senate. Over at RedState, Texas Public Policy Foundation…
Blog
TreeHugger’s Non-Arguments in Favor of High-Speed Rail
Following George Will's article on high-speed rail as a shiny new object for wealthy liberals comes this remarkably poor defense from a TreeHugger…
Daily Caller
Government yard sale could help bring down national debt
Blog
Obama’s Transportation Agenda Continues to Get Worse
Over at the National Journal's Transportation Expert blog, Fawn Johnson asks whether or not the Obama administration's transportation agenda, as laid out in…
Comment
CEI Submits Comments on Commercial Motor Vehicle Operator Hours of Service
Full Document Available in PDF On behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Blog
Florida Governor Rick Scott Wisely Rejects High-Speed Rail
Yesterday, Florida’s newly elected governor, Rick Scott, announced he was rejecting the $2.4 billion he had received from the federal government to subsidize the…
One News Now
TX property owners unprotected
One News Now
Funding high-speed rail projects ‘a shameful act’
American City and County
PPPs are good for transportation infrastructure, bad for real estate
Blog
Texas Senate Passes Bogus Eminent Domain Reform Bill
Here’s some more bad news for those of us seeking real eminent domain reform, rather than style-over-substance feel-good legislation. Here’s the Dallas Morning News…
Blog
Arlington County Kills I-5/395 HOT Lanes Inside the Beltway
An innovative project that would have converted high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, increased highway capacity, reduced congestion, expanded transit, and improved…
One News Now
Expert: High-speed rail quota overly ambitious
Blog
Smart-Growthers Still Upset by Introduction of Newfangled Horseless Carriages
As somewhat of an anti–“smart growth” groupie, I try to keep up with their various online writings. Everyday, it’s like finding buried treasure. Take yesterday,…
Washington Examiner
Obama pushing energy agenda already rejected by voters
Blog
DOJ Wants Access to Your Data!
Blog
Obama’s State of the Union Address: More of the Same on Trains
For the second year in a row, President Barack Obama has fretted over the “faster trains” of Europe and China in his State of…
Blog
How to Cop Proof Your Cell Phone
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVCROjpgCB0 285 234]…
Blog
Vincent Vernuccio on Unions’ Public Image
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxnvlndMyjY 285 234]…
Blog
An Incrementalist Approach to Transportation Extremists
Architecture writer Karrie Jacobs has a new article up at Metropolis magazine’s website, “The Incrementalists,” in which she derides the supposed slow-and-steady course chartered…
Multi-Housing News Online
Not All Public-Private Partnerships Are Created Equal
In recent years, policymakers have taken to promoting public-private partnerships (PPPs) as somewhat of a silver bullet to various problems. They typically tout them…
Study
Put Mobility First in Surface Transportation
Liberate to Stimulate Index Surface transportation policy has become less rational and more ideological in recent decades. Environmentalists, urban planners, and their…
AASHTO
Competitive Enterprise Institute Report Examines Limitations of PPPs
NCPA
The Limitations of Public-Private Partnerships
Blog
Villaraigosa: Brown’s Elimination of Redevelopment Agencies “a Non-Starter”
Pro-smart-growth, “green” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is upset with Governor Jerry Brown’s remarkably sensible decision to shut down the state’s 425 redevelopment agencies, including…
Study
The Limitations of Public-Private Partnerships
Government at all levels in the United States has been slowly moving away from grand central planning schemes and toward markets. One result has been…
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards cited in Competitive Enterprise Institute report as example of bad public-private partnerships
Blog
Fred Smith: Government Force vs Personal Choice
Blog
Media Continue Spreading High-Speed Rail Misinformation
Following the Obama administration’s decision to revoke Ohio and Wisconsin’s High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) Program funding that was included in the American Recovery…
Blog
Highway Trust Fund’s Funding Guarantees are the Problem
Streetsblog laments incoming Republicans’ alleged attempt to “hoard” Highway Trust Fund dollars as a budget gimmick. At issue is a proposed change to…
Blog
The Streetcar Delusion: Minneapolis Receives Funding to Bolster Wasteful Rail Transit
Delusional Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood continues to flush taxpayer dollars down the toilet on increasingly idiotic rail programs. The latest example of LaHood’s anti-mobility…
One News Now
High court turns deaf ear to jilted business owners
One News Now
Ohio, Wisconsin Reject High-Speed Rail Funds
Blog
High-Speed Rail as the New Political Football?
Over at National Journal‘s Transportation Experts blog, Fawn Johnson asks whether or not high-speed rail has become a new political football in the United…
One News Now
States backing out of railroad projects
Blog
Supreme Court will not Hear Columbia University Eminent Domain Case
It was announced today that the U.S. Supreme Court will not take up a challenge to the Empire State Development Corporation’s property takings in…
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Rail in Ohio (Letter to the Editor)
Blog
The Insanity of Ethanol Policy
Blog
Vincent Vernuccio on the Federal Pay Freeze
Blog
Seattle Land-Use Regulation Liberalization Redux
Stephen Smith of Market Urbanism responds to my response to his question, asking if I thought Seattle’s proposed land-use liberalization bill was a…
Blog
Brian McGraw on China’s Green Economy
Blog
Seattle Land Use Liberalization Bill Fails to Address Key Problems
Stephen Smith of Market Urbanism asked me what I thought of proposed legislation in Seattle that would remove some restrictions on land use…
Blog
Vincent Vernuccio on TSA Unions
Blog
Real Estate Development and Generation Y
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I came across this article in Urban Land magazine, “Housing Gen Y: The Next Challenge for Cities,” by John McIlwain. In…
Blog
TSA Backlash Directed at Failed Screening Methods, Not Airport Security
Contrary to what mouth-frothing Obama apparatchiki claim, critics of the current TSA screening practices are not hyper-partisan corporate shills. Nor are we irrationally…
Blog
High-Speed Rail in China: On Track for Failure
In recent years, Western media reports have been filled with fawning descriptions of China’s investment in high-speed bullet trains: “China Leads World In High-Speed…
Blog
Minnesota AFL-CIO Pushes for Wisconsin “High-Speed” Rail
I’m currently in my home state of Minnesota, a place known to non-lefty residents as the People’s Republic of Minnesota, a place where the state’s…
Blog
Greg Conko on “Frankenfish”
Blog
Union Members: Where Do Your Dues Go?
Journal Sentinel
Stop pretending that it’s high-speed rail
On Nov. 2, voters across Wisconsin made their voices clear on government-run passenger rail: Don't build it. Voters in Dane, Kenosha and Racine counties soundly…
NCPA
High-Speed-Train Wreck
The National Center for Policy Analysis discusses revamped rail systems with Iain Murray and Marc Scribner. The Obama administration and high-speed rail proponents…
Blog
Pro-Pedestrian Advocates Push Deadly Policies
One thing that never surprises me is how often anti-car zealots fail to consider trade-offs before blindly screaming for their preferred policies. Take, for example,…
Blog
Sam Kazman on Cigarette Warning Labels
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaNCeIN0Ka8 285 234]…
Trib Live
High-speed train wreck
Appeared in: The Bellingham Herald, Lexington Herald-Leader, Athens Banner-Herald, The Sacramento Bee, Great Falls Tribune, Fort Worth…
Blog
America: Where “High-Speed Rail” is Not High-Speed Rail
Yesterday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood addressed a crowd of Midwest rail fans, saying, “Twenty-five years from now, because of the president’s vision, we will…
Blog
Vincent Vernuccio on Card Check
Watch the interview on YouTube. …
Blog
Chris Horner on Overestimation of Emissions
Blog
Smart Growth Decreases Housing Affordability
Wendell Cox had an interesting article this week on his new findings on land-use regulation and housing prices. Long a critic of smart-growth…
Blog
A Bizarre Defense of High-Speed Rail
Perhaps “bizarre” is not the appropriate word, as Matthew Yglesias is employed by the Obama administration’s barely unofficial think tank/PR shop Center for American…
Blog
Assaulting Campaign Materials: An American Political Tradition
Blog
Angela Logomasini On The Risk of BPA
Blog
Obama Pumps More Money into “High-Speed Rail” Boondoggles
The Department of Transportation announced today that another $2.4 billion is being doled out to high-speed rail projects around the country. This is on…
Blog
William Lind’s Absurd “Conservative Case” for More Transit [Waste]
Over at enviro-blog Grist, conservative William Lind is interviewed on the subject of transit. Lind is an anomaly of sorts in the center-right transportation camp in…
Decatur Metro
Who Needs an Atlanta Streetcar? “Most Americans Prefer to Drive”
Infrastructurist
TIGER II Proposals Already Under Attack by Auto Interests
Washington Examiner
We’ve Been LaHood-Winked on Transportation Mobility Grants that Push Big Green’s Anti-Car Agenda
On Wednesday, President Obama’s Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, announced the grant recipients of his department’s $600 million Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER II)…
Blog
Ray LaHood’s Smoke and Mirrors
This morning, The Wall Street Journal‘s Washington Wire quoted me “disapproving” of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s TIGER II grant picks. LaHood “countered” critics of…
Wall Street Journal
Ray LaHood: The Man With the Money
Progressive Railroading
USDOT doles out TIGER II grants for 75 transportation projects
E&E News
Free-market group decries DOT’s ‘sloppy social engineering’
Blog
Building Height Restrictions: Where I Agree with Matthew Yglesias
Matthew Yglesias of the Center for American Progress links to a Washington Post article that notes that office rents in downtown D.C. are now…
Blog
Ben Lieberman on Consumer Costs of Regulations
Watch the interview on YouTube. …
Blog
“Livability” versus Mobility: TIGER II
Since the early 1990s when advocates of so-called Smart Growth took control of federal transportation infrastructure policy, we have increasingly heard transportation projects described as…
Blog
Vincent Vernuccio on Public Sector Unions
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYSkSxWFWo8 285 234]…
Blog
Ben Lieberman on Government Regulations
Watch the video on YouTube…
Blog
Status Quo Elitist Attacks Contrarians for Being Elitist Members of the Status Quo
Michael Lewyn, a law professor and anti-“sprawl” activist, has a post on Planetizen about how he and his ilk are supposedly unfairly maligned as…
Blog
Our Driverless Future?
Google has been making headlines after the company revealed over the weekend that its driverless cars have logged nearly 140,000 miles on public roads…
Blog
How Not to Tackle Congestion
The Transport Politic’s Yonah Freemark today posted an article praising the anti-automobile policies of Paris’ Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoë and delivering what he seems to believe…
Blog
Vincent Vernuccio on Union Shutting Down GM Plant
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31i-rRUnMc8 285 234]…
NCPA
Sharing Isn’t Caring
Blog
Sharing Isn’t Caring
Late last month, Washington, D.C. launched its Capital Bikeshare (“CaBi” to its groupies) program to much acclaim from the usual suspects — New Urbanists and…
Blog
Distracted Driving Kills, But What About Dysfunctional Policy?
The Obama administration, having succeeded in bringing about economic recovery and having nation-built a democratic Afghanistan, has set its sights on another pressing…
Blog
Unions hire non-union protesters?
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqm5RRBCmiw 285 234]…
Forbes
Hurricane Katrina, Houston And The Humanitarian Case Against Zoning
On a Monday morning in late August 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the…
Blog
The Dangerous Minds of Urban Planners
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo v. New London decision, significant attention has been paid to the way government interacts in the property…