Boy, 11, steals a bus and takes it on a joyride through German city
Nicely done! The passengers thought he was the consummate professional, or something. More after the break.
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The Monster That Devoured Denver | The Antiplanner
Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah, to the great light rail god! More beyond the cut. Portland Metro: More Lies Per Capita | The Antiplanner
. . . which leads them to lie about every single thing involved in a new rail transit project. Read more below the fold! Public Transportation Ridership: Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back? | Newgeography.com
For most all it takes is a single ride on public transit to realize anything else would be better. "The Bureau of Transportation Statistics recently released preliminary data summarizing public transportation ridership in the United States for the calendar year 2015. The preliminary data from the National Transit Data program showed transit ridership in 2015 of 10.4 billion annual riders approximately 2.5% below the 2014 count and also smaller than the 2013 count. The American Public Transit Association using a slightly different methodology released data showing 10.6 billion annual riders versus 10.7 billion in calendar year 2014, a 1.26% year-over-year decline. Such differences between sources are common, resulting from differences in methodology and definitions, and unsurprising, given that data is preliminary and national data is dependent upon reporting from hundreds of different agencies. It is important to recognize that it’s extraordinarily difficult to consistently grow transit ridership. We have had growing population, a rebounding economy, growing total employment, and an aggressively argued hypothesis that the millennial generation is meaningfully different than their forefathers—with urban centric aspirations and indifference toward auto ownership and use. Yet, transit ridership has remained stubbornly modest." The surprise in not that ridership is modest, but that it is as high as it is today. This is a testament to the problems our cities have created for commuters. The gold standard is prompt, safe, quick, on demand, door-to-door transportation. The transportation modes which fit this best are automobile, and aircraft. public transit, rail, and other modes do not even come close. Here in Portlandia, transit is difficult, slow, and unpleasant. The more one rides public transit, the less one likes to ride public transit. Add to that the fact that the Portlandia light rail is cannibalizing the bus system, which causes longer waits for fewer buses, and eliminated bus lines. The system is ripe for an Uber like door-to-door carpool service, which would charge low rates for routine scheduled pickup service of multiple riders. And, of course, the coming self drive auto carpool service. Transit is doomed by the fact that better, closer to gold standard, and truly low cost services are coming. Good thing we are spending billions on long term money wasters like new light rail lines! It would be terrible not to allow government to waste all that money. Metro sank into crisis despite decades of warnings
. . . nearly every other light rail, and heavy rail system is at or soon will be at the same place. More after the fold! Surprise! TriMet Wants More Light Rail | The Antiplanner
. . . even though it can't maintain its current train set. "In a move that surprised no one, the staff of TriMet, Portland’s transit agency, wants to build light rail instead of bus-rapid transit between Portland and Sherwood." Brilliant! Build a low capacity, high cost rail line to a place with few commuters. "TriMet’s last light-rail line cost about $168 million per mile. This proposal is for an 11.5-mile line that will cost at least $2 billion, or $174 million per mile. Of course, that cost is likely to go up. By comparison, Portland’s first light-rail line cost only about $28 million per mile in today’s dollars. A state auditor says TriMet, Portland’s transit agency, is falling behind on light-rail maintenance. TriMet’s general manager says that the agency’s pension and health-care obligations are so great that it will have to cut all transit service by 70 percent by 2025 to meet those obligations. So naturally, it makes perfect sense to talk about spending $2 billion that the agency doesn’t have on another low-capacity rail line." The delusion of light rail grandeur runs deep. "Of course, TriMet’s staff memo about the project repeatedly calls light rail “high-capacity transit.” But light-rail transit can be no longer than a city block or they’ll block traffic every time they stop for passengers. Since downtown Portland has some of the smallest city blocks in the country, TriMet can only run two-car trains, making it one of the lowest-capacity light-rail systems in the country. And since the “light” in light rail is short for “light capacity transit,” Portland’s is low-low capacity transit." The MAX rail cars are more like articulated buses than rail cars they are so short. Building a light rail line here is like building a bus-rapid transit lanes but at 10 or 20 times the cost. Best yet, these rail cars are pretty much empty except for a few hours each day, and then usually only in one direction. Portland (not all metro area) commuters total transit use is 11.9% for all modes, breaking that down, about half of transit commuters use rail, and half use bus (and a small number of other modes), or about 6% each. In Portland, bicycle commuters account for 6.1% of all commuters. For all trips the total transit share is minuscule at about 2.3% of all daily trips in the Portland metro area. "The memo also claims that light rail has a lower operating cost per passenger than buses. But that’s only true if you don’t count maintenance costs, which might be appropriate considering TriMet’s apparent policy of letting trains break down rather than spending money on maintaining the infrastructure. The memo frequently uses the term “cost effective” but never performs an analysis to prove whether rail is actually more cost effective than buses." Remember, he is discussing operating costs per passenger, not total amortized costs per passenger. Rail transit never charges the passenger for the initial up front capital costs, here estimated to be $2 billion, or the 40 year capital maintenance cost which will be nearly an identical $2 billion. Amortizing these costs would obviously blow the costs per ride sky high, even if we consider the initial construction costs to be a "freebee" that would still drive the costs through the roof. Depending on actual ridership it would likely increase the per trip cost by at least $10-20. TriMet also receives very little from the fare box, commonly 20%, or so, of operating costs. Taxpayers pay for nearly the entire cost of TriMet. The Antiplanner ends, "In short, the memo is filled with the same old specious ideas that led TriMet to blow $1.5 billion on the Milwaukie light-rail line and other boondoggles. Portland doesn’t need to blow another $2 billion building more light-rail miles that TriMet can’t afford to maintain." While sage, this advice will never be followed. Portland will extract about $1.5 billion from federal coffers, match that with another $500 million that Oregonians don't have, and build the light rail line incurring 50% cost overruns, finagle the additional costs with the feds, and open the line to great fan fare, but ultimately few riders. Then in 2025, TriMet will run out of other peoples money to pay some of the most lavish public employee benefits in America, and the wheels will begin to fall off this buggy. TriMet under pressure to reduce generous health benefits "TriMet pays 100 percent of health premiums -- among the most expensive for U.S. transit agencies -- for union workers and retirees 55 or older who leave the agency with 10 years of experience or more. The workers, retirees and their dependents pay no deductibles. A doctor visit typically costs $5 or less." Benefits so lavish they are forcing the agency to cut bus routes, and raise fares. Although to be fair, the agency has had to cut bus routes to make the budget work for a very long time. Rail is much more expensive then TriMet lets on, and to keep the trains running, it takes loads of money, money which increasingly comes from closing bus routes or reducing bus service, injuring the poor who ride buses more than the middle class who ride trains. The Portland to Sherwood line would be an attempt to collect mostly upper middle class commuters driving in from the wine country southwest of Portland. The Antiplanner continues, "The memo also claims that light rail would attract more riders than buses. This isn’t at all clear from TriMet’s experience. TriMet’s transit ridership peaked in 2009 and has since declined despite opening several new miles of light rail in 2010 and the city’s rapid recovery following the 2008 recession. The Portland Business Alliance’s annual census of jobs in the downtown area, where most transit riders commute to, says that the area had 16 percent more jobs in 2014 than 2009. The census found that transit carried about 1,000 more people to work in 2014 than 2009, but TriMet carried 8 percent fewer riders in 2014 than 2009." The agency is slowly dying, while the Portland metro area is growing, and the non-urban counties within the TriMet service area, are rapidly growing. The gig economy, ride share programs like Uber and Lyft, and the self drive car will all deal transit serious blows. Fixed rail lines will be unlikely to survive these changes. Some bus transit will be able to survive for a while due to flexibility but even these will likely fail. The gold standard for all personal transportation should be door to door transportation. The public's cost in this should be limited to an antipoverty assistance amount, and should only be accessible by the actually poor. Today we pay for the middle class and the wealthy transportation when they choose public transportation. There is no reason to subsidized these transportation costs, much of which comes from the poor themselves! If we assume the 15% of the US population who are poor drive only 10% of the miles, and pay only 10% of the gas tax, it means of the $2 billion or so TriMet will receive from the feds ($1.5 billion plus more for the cost overruns or about $2 billion), $200 million will come from the poor. This money will go for a light rail line to transport the wealthier, in class, and comfort, leaving the poor to ride the bus. Brilliant! In Praise of Plain Old Bus Service | Newgeography.com
. . . and specifically discussing Portland's, pre-Portlandia, bus system, and why it was so great. Sadly, the author did not interview Maddogsson about how the current Portlandia bus system is no longer like the wonderful bus system Portland had in its pre-Portlandia days. Today the bus system is demarcated by long wait time outside of rush hour, and spotty on-time service. This means the poor have a much harder time with transit than they should. Read the whole article it is very good. You Want to Spend How Much on a Low-Capacity Rail Tunnel? | The Antiplanner
Sigh! This really is not difficult, but we make it impossible by allowing yammerheads to have control over public funds. Public rail transit was a great idea during the 19th century. It remained a good idea during the first few decades of the 20th century, but it ran its course well before mid-century. Its revival today is like a bad joke, funny but ridiculous. Rail uses up lots of land, costs a gargantuan amount of money, moves few people, but is retro-steam-punk-cool! So, we buy it. Then we have to cannibalize the functioning bus system to pay for the retro-steam-punk-cool crap. This hurts the poor the most, and "helps" the upper middle class the most. Why would any sane society subsidize its upper middle class transportation? Here in Portlandia, the urban, and transit planners are incapable of seeing or understanding changes like the self drive auto. They live in a linear, zero sum world. This mindset is very difficult to understand since it is seldom replicated in nature. It seems to be a function of government employment, and is likely driven by the zero sum nature of government budgeting. Portlandia just finished a $1.4 billion, 7 mile long light rail line, which will never move more than an insignificant number of people. Burned money, doesn't move people - win/win! The lede comes from the first comment. Questions on cables’ safety demand 24-hour Metro shutdown, Wiedefeld says
. . . Metro is 40 years old, and the lack of a complete system rebuild from ground up is leaving Metro a dangerous, unsafe, "national embarrassment." Electric rail transit requires full tear down and replacement of nearly everything but the ground every thirty to forty years. But the cost of this is horrendous, and none of the transit providers charges a sufficient fare to even approach paying for daily operations, let alone this massive additional cost. Just to be clear, this full tear down and replacement cost is usually about equal to the initial build cost, which for most locations was paid for with majority assistants from the federal government. But the feds don't pay for this, only the original capital construction. So, cash strapped by the shockingly high operating costs, the agencies simply dither, hoping the problem will go away, or succumb to the point source repairs which Metro performs. Obviously that does not work. The Portlandia East Side light rail is now 30 years old, and past the point where it needs a full tear down and replacement. TriMet is not performing, nor does it have scheduled anything similar. TriMet riders should begin to plan appropriately. The East Side trains will begin having more and more problems, there will be increasing shutdowns, and disrupted service. It is time for a conversation about whether performing this retrofit, which will likely cost $500 million dollars, or more, would be worth it, or whether Portlandia would be better off replacing this with a bus service which could span the short time until the share ride self drive car obliterates transit completely. Or, more likely, TriMet can dither, allowing fires, track breakages, electrical failures, computer failures, and collisions to mount. Then the people will vote with their feet, and bikes, and cars, until there is nothing left. Trouble In Smart Growth's Nirvana
"Recent developments in Portland and Oregon suggest that smart growth is having only a modest effect, while driving down housing affordability, increasing traffic congestion and losing popularity in neighborhoods." Hold on! Smart Growth is supposed to make housing affordable, not unaffordable, and all those billion dollar light rail projects are supposed to decrease traffic congestion. It's almost like it's some sort of bait and switch scheme. Hold on . . . Maddogswif is speaking to me sotto vocce . . . She says it is a bait and switch scheme. Mon Dieu! Who would have guessed? Government lying to the taxpayers, what's the world coming to? Answer: Expensive bullshit, that's what the world is coming to. "Despite the claims of the transit-media complex, Portland’s anti-highway policies are failing. The 2000 Census shows that transit’s work trip market share remains 20 percent below the 1980 Census rate, which preceded opening of the first light rail line. And, Portland’s highway congestion has become the worst of any metropolitan area of its size." Great, we are in reverse and accelerating! "The most destructive result has been Portland’s “green-lining” of housing opportunity by the urban growth boundary. According to the National Association of Homebuilders, Portland’s housing affordability declined at a far greater rate in the last decade than in any other major metropolitan area. At the same time, housing affordability improved in faster growing areas, such as Atlanta, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Raleigh-Durham." The verdict is in, Urban Planners are imbeciles. The whole Smart Growth thing is nothing but one of those Gorian secular religions, similar to the great gorical's Gaiastic Apocalyptic Global Warming religion. And Smart Growth comes with the same outcomes, the opposite of the prophecies. This is like a 3rd rate SciFi POC (piece of crap). Luckily, I live mid stream of the River Effluent, er, Portlandia, or ground zero as it is known by those remaining rational in the area. So Where Should People Live in the Future? Probably exactly where they want to live, because from what I can see, that's where they end up living. Sorry, time for a detour . . . "What was perhaps most intriguing was that the top ranked city for unhappiness is Portland, Oregon, the city that many planners hold up as Nirvana." Well, only for the Smart Growth Urban Planners, and people who believe the press tongue bathings, er, news. For us who live here, especially those of us who have lived here for a long time (1972 for me), this is OBVIOUS, TANGIBLE, AND PALPABLE. Loud enough? Terrible traffic, unaffordable housing, idiotic transit which mangles everything from roadways, to bicycle riders. Will Portland Streetcar ever find a way to prevent bike-rail crashes? - BikePortland.org "Twelve years after Portland Streetcar added its rails to city streets, it’s still a Portland rite of passage to crash your bike on its tracks — and it’s still a maddening problem for the handful of people trying to solve it. “'I just can’t believe that in a place like Amsterdam or any number of European cities where they have had girder rail — I can’t believe that somebody hasn’t figured this out,' Portland Streetcar consultant Carter MacNichol said in an interview Wednesday. 'But apparently they haven’t.'" Said the Portland Streetcar Consultant, excuse me, idiot. The Antiplanner is not as uninformed as this idiot Portland Streetcar Consultant, there is a fix: "There’s one good thing about the streetcar, at least if you are a Portland auto driver annoyed by the city’s aggressive cyclists. More than two-thirds of Portland cyclists surveyed in 2008 said they’ve crashed on the streetcar tracks. There’s an engineering fix–putting rubber flaps on the rails that are flexible enough for the streetcars to push out of the way but too stiff for bicycles to sink into. But Portland Streetcar doesn’t want to install them because it’s too expensive and they’d have to replace them every two or three years." Why is government so willing to hire know-nothing consultants, when a bit of perusing around the Internet would answer most of their questions? Yeah I know, they hire them because the politician want a cushy job once they fail out of "public service" and nothing is as cushy as a job which requires not one whit of knowledge, like Portland Streetcar Consultant! It's the old I'll scratch your back two step. The cure is simple, get rid of the streetcar, and light rail. I can already hear the shrieks from the transit Mafia. But as the Antiplanner observes, "[c]onsidering that the 2013 American Community Survey found that more than 18,000 workers living in the city of Portland bicycle to work while only 7,800 take some form of rail transit–including both streetcars and light rail–it seems like the city has its priorities exactly backwards. I hope officials from other cities who look to Portland as a model for transportation planning take the time to read these audits." So, rail transit in Portlandia, which carries about one half of all transit riders, only takes 7,800 workers each day? Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ! We spent billions on this crap, and it carries less than 8,000 people to work? Taxis would have been cheaper, and with those impossibly low ridership numbers the roadways wouldn't notice the increased carriage. Sorry for the detour, back to the question of where people want to live. Portlandia's Smart Growth Urban Planners know exactly where people want to live, in the city, in a high density environment. You know like rats in a packed maze. This was confirmed by the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project's national survey assessing where people would like to live: "A new national survey by the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project finds that nearly half (46%) of the public would rather live in a different type of community from the one they're living in now- a sentiment that is most prevalent among city dwellers. When asked about specific metropolitan areas where they would like to live, respondents rank Denver, San Diego and Seattle at the top of a list of 30 cities, and Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati at the bottom. Other survey findings include: • Americans are all over the map in their views about their ideal community type: 30% say they would most like to live in a small town, 25% in a suburb, 23% in a city and 21% in a rural area. • By a ratio of more than three-to-one, Americans prefer living where the pace of life is slow, not fast. A similarly lopsided majority prefer a place where neighbors know each other well to one where neighbors don't generally know each other's business." Ok, so the Portlandia Smart Growth Urban Planners lied, through their teeth. People want to live in lower density, with a slower pace, and where neighbors know each other. That pretty much redlines cities, where no one knows, or cares about the neighbors. Ironically, we have had a number of friends who became enamored with the Pearl District a trendy urban neighborhood in Portlandia. The ones who moved to the Pearl all followed the same pattern, point by point, it was like a comedy bit their behavior was so predictable. They would first become enamored, then they would watch the Pearl's housing prices, and notice the housing prices were going up, up, up. So, they would buy in, and instantly become wildly excited about The Pearl. They would throw 6 or more parties the first year, where before they might have thrown a single holiday party. The second year they would remain enthusiastic, but the parties would fall to perhaps three. The third year they might throw a holiday party, but no more. The fourth year we would meet them at someone elses party, and they would have moved back to the suburbs. They weren't talking about the Pearl. It was a comedy bit! Some did well with home prices, especially the early adopters, but the latecomers, I suspect got burned. While I asked softly about why, I could only get something along the lines of, "we missed our neighbors in [the suburbs]." Well, yes, and all the concrete, and hard surfaces of the city would get old, as would being trapped with only one car. Plus, we would only go to one party per couple, per year. Parking was a bitch, and I was not about to prostrate myself on the altar of Smart Growth. I suspect they found that with time fewer, and fewer people would trek down to parking hell to visit, which meant they were always doing the driving. If hell is other people, the city is surely hell. Leave it for the young to populate, and with experience, realize they don't like the city as much as they thought they would. Remember, Portlandia is a cautionary tale. |
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