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Correcting Misconceptions about Autonomous Vehicles: Reason Magazine Edition
In the June issue of Reason, one of my favorite publications, Greg Beato has an article discussing the public policy implications of autonomous vehicles, such…
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Government’s Chinatown Bus Shutdowns Based on “Statistical Malpractice”
Reason’s Jim Epstein has an article up that does a nice job debunking a National Transportation Safety Board study, prompted by a 2011…
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Sorry, Progressives, But The ASCE Infrastructure Grade Boost Wasn’t The Result Of Obama’s “Stimulus”
I am generally very skeptical of the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) "Report Card for America's Infrastructure," as this self-interested group 1) gives…
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Will Regulators Fail To Learn From The Past Mistakes Of U.S. Railroad Regulation?
The history of U.S. railroads provides an interesting case study on federal regulation. They were the first sector of the economy to come under heavy…
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The Case Against The McDonnell Transportation Plan
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s transportation plan is on life support after two proposed alternatives died yesterday in the Senate. Only McDonnell’s plan, slightly modified…
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LaHood Out At DOT, But Is There Hope For A Qualified Transportation Secretary?
After months of confusing double-talk on whether or not he would stay on in a second Obama term, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced he…
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TSA’s Body Scanner Shuffle Continues, Agency Still Flouts The Law On Body Scanners
A great deal of news coverage today has been given to the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) decision to remove backscatter X-ray strip-search machines from U.S.
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Virginia’s Uranium Mining Moratorium Should Be Buried, But What About Property Rights?
The earth below the United States contains 5 percent of the world’s known recoverable uranium deposits. More than a quarter of U.S. uranium is…
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Feds Say Hybrid Electric Vehicles Too Quiet, Noisemakers Should Be Mandated
Green paternalists often gush about the great potential for hybrid electric automobiles to reduce negative externalities, or social costs, such as local air pollution and…
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Update On D.C.’s Driverless Car Legalization Legislation
In November, I noted in The Washington Post and here on Open Market that a bill introduced in the D.C. Council contained two dangerously flawed provisions and…
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Sierra Club Transportation Report Unsurprisingly Trashes (Some Bad) Road Projects, Praises Transit And Bike Waste
The Sierra Club's Beyond Oil Campaign recently released a report [PDF] highlighting what the environmentalist group claims to be the 50 best and worst…
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New I-495 Express Lanes Present Challenges, But Remain Best Option
This past Saturday, the innovative I-495 Express Lanes opened on the Washington Beltway. The 14-mile high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes — which were built and are…
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D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh Still Doesn’t Understand Driverless Cars
Last Sunday, The Washington Post published my op-ed criticizing the approach taken by Councilmember Mary Cheh's introduced legislation to legalize driverless cars in Washington,…
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Fred Weekly: Rent-Seeking Vs. Advancing Capitalism
In this latest episode of “Fred Weekly,” CEI President and Founder Fred L. Smith, Jr., discusses advancing free markets in an increasingly politicized world. Watch…
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Devolve Infrastructure Decision-Making To Promote Efficiency, Foster Innovation
Last week, Walter Russell Mead had an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing that traditional infrastructure spending will no longer provide the services…
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China’s High-Speed Rail Disaster Is Not A Model For The U.S.
After taking office in 2009, President Obama aggressively marketed high-speed rail in the United States. (I noted at the time that most of what…
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In Rejecting EPIC’s Petition On TSA’s Strip-Search Machines, Court Effectively Orders Rulemaking Timetable
This afternoon, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s (EPIC) petition for writ of mandamus, which called on the court…
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Driverless Cars Legalized In California
Just after 1pm PDT, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB 1298, which explicitly legalizes the use and testing of driverless cars in the…
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Can We Please Have A Grownup Discussion About Distracted Driving?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has released a new study on distracted driving [PDF]. According to the agency, 9 percent of total…
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The Sad, Early History Of Railroad Regulation: From Subsidies To Nationalization
CEI has long made it its mission to highlight to downsides and dangers of economic regulation. One classic example is the experience with America's railroads…
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Modernizing Air Traffic Control In The United States
In The Washington Examiner, a story citing me provides an overview of where the United States is in modernizing its air traffic control system.
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Tampa Express Lanes Planning Director Corrects Record Distorted By Honolulu City Planner
Over at Peter Samuel’s invaluable TOLLROADSnews, we learn that Marty Stone, director of planning for Tampa’s successful all-electronic reversible tolled Lee Roy Selmon Expressway,…
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Fred Weekly: Assaults On Capitalism
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What The New York Times’ Ron Nixon Doesn’t Understand About Northeast Corridor Travel
In today's New York Times, reporter Ron Nixon has a remarkably misleading article on travel in the Northeast corridor (NEC). Three major distortions stick out:…
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Update On TSA’s Lawlessness Over Body Scanners
As I noted previously, the Transportation Security Administration has failed to comply with a court order demanding that they initiate a notice-and-comment rulemaking regarding…
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CEI Files Amicus Brief In Support Of EPIC’s Petition To Force A TSA Rulemaking On Strip-Search Machines
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) filed a brief of amici curiae in support of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's (EPIC) petition for writ…
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Sign A Petition Requiring The Transportation Security Administration To Follow The Law!
Over at the White House’s “We the People” site, a petition rapidly gathering signatures that demands that the Transportation Security Administration abide by a…
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Highway Bill Passes Congress, WSJ Blasts “Fiscal Accounting Hocus Pocus”
This afternoon, both the House and Senate approved the conference report of the largely Senate-crafted MAP-21 surface transportation reauthorization. The bill, which is expected…
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The Highway Bill’s Sleeper Funding Provision: Pension Smoothing
Things appear to have turned around for the stalled surface transportation reauthorization talks. Conference committee members worked over the weekend trying to come to a…
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Support Rep. Diane Black’s MTI to Halt Misguided Federal Support for “Distracted Driving” Laws
Today, Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) issued a notice of her intent to offer a motion to instruct (MTI) [PDF] highway bill conferees to oppose…
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Norfolk, Virginia, While Abusing Eminent Domain To Seize 78-Year-Old Business, Attempts To Silence Free Speech
I’m a month behind on this story, but something terrible is underway in Norfolk, Virginia, that should disturb all Americans who value property rights…
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Sen. Rand Paul Introduces Bills to Dramatically Rein in TSA
Yesterday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced two bills aimed at reducing the power of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). S.3303 would end the TSA’s…
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Support the Broun Motion to Instruct; Oppose Future Highway Trust Fund Bailouts
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Long Commutes Will Kill You? A Brief Response to Matt Yglesias’s Post
Slate blogger Matthew Yglesias, a center-left economics writer whose work I generally enjoy reading, has a new post up with the title, "Long Commutes…
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Techno-Phobic California Politicians “NHTSA” Google’s Driverless Car
Last week, I wrote about Google’s amazing new self-driving car, which CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman and I had the opportunity to test-ride in…
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Rep. Nick Rahall Responds, Agrees with Me on MAP-21’s “Sleight of Hand” Pay-Fors
This morning on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Nick Rahall (D-W.V.) was read a passage from a blog post…
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The Future of Automobility Is (Almost) Here: Google’s Self-Driving Car
[caption id="attachment_55209" align="alignleft" width="350" caption="CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman about to take a spin in the Google car. (Photo by Marc Scribner)"][/caption] This morning,…
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The Highway Bill and Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s Anti-P3 Propaganda
I've written extensively about federal surface transportation reauthorization, which is currently pending in conference. CEI, along with The Independent Institute and Reason Foundation,…
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The Awful Truth about the Highway Bills
If you ever needed additional proof that the politics of Washington are not just broken, but soaked with gasoline and set ablaze in a ditch…
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Department of Transportation Bureaucrats Fail Tolling 101
Peter Samuel's extremely valuable TOLLROADSnews brings us this gem, "FHWA Office of Highway Policy Information - sloppy & stupid”: So under Toll Facilities, New…
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Fred Weekly: Crony Capitalism
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A Response to Cato’s Tim Lee on “Private” Turnpikes
Cato Institute adjunct scholar Tim Lee has an article up on The Atlantic‘s website, entitled “The Mirage of Free-Market Roads.” In it, he lays out his…
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House Should Reject Senate Highway Bill, Move for Another SAFETEA-LU Extension
Just before 1pm today, the Senate passed its surface transportation reauthorization bill, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21, S. 1813). MAP-21…
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Senate Should Reject Anti-Tolling Highway Bill Amendment
I previously wrote about Sen. Herb Kohl’s (D-Wisc.) terrible amendment to the Senate’s MAP-21 bill that would allow the Department of Justice and Federal…
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Airline Carbon Taxes: The EU vs. the World
On Tuesday and Wednesday, representatives from 23 nations gathered in Moscow to discuss their response to the European Union’s mandatory airline carbon taxes. CEI’s Fran…
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Lame Duck Sen. Herb Kohl Continues Quixotic Battle Against Rail Carriers in Senate Highway Bill
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), who will not be seeking reelection this November, decided that he would make one last-ditch attempt to get his awful piece…
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Media: If You Wear Headphones while Walking, You’re as Good as Dead
Various media outlets are trying to scare the bejesus out of us by reporting on a new study published in this month's issue of Injury Prevention,…
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Congressional Democrats Join Republicans’ Call for GAO Investigation into California High-Speed Rail Boondoggle
In a letter sent Tuesday to the Government Accountability Office, 11 House Democrats called on the watchdog agency to investigate California's high-speed rail program. The…
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Driving Continues to Decline in 2011
October 2011 marked the eighth straight month [PDF] of declining year-over-year vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. Compared to October 2010, driving was down…
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NTSB Recommends Useless National Ban on All Mobile Phone Use while Driving
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) yesterday called on all states to ban "the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices (other than those designed…