Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

How Biased Numbers Could Kill Mass Transit in Richmond

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by

James A. Bacon
in

It’s not often that you see someone seriously arguing for mass transit in the Richmond area, but Ford Weber, director of the Virginia Local Initiatives Support Corporation, makes the case on the Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed page today.

The Richmond metropolitan planning organization is conducting a major study evaluating the region’s mass transit needs over the next 25 years. Trouble is, writes Weber, that study is basing its conclusions on Virginia Employment Commission’s projections of future population and employment growth. “The VEC projections … call for unending suburban sprawl over the next 25 years.”

The VEC numbers do not take into account significant shifts in development patterns, especially the increasing popularity of New Urbanism projects in the region, rising fuel prices or demographic changes. “Nor,” Weber writes, “do the VEC’s projections reflect mass transit’s ability to proactively shape growth by channeling high-density development into targeted transit corridors.”

Ironically, it appears that the decision to use VEC numbers will create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fact that scattered, disconnected low-density development makes mass transit uneconomical will bias the study to conclude that the region cannot afford the mass transit option. Such a conclusion will undermine political support for funding mass transit. The lack of a politically viable mass transit option will relieve municipalities from the necessity of planning for nodes of denser development capable of supporting light rail and buses. Thus, sprawl will continue and the VEC will be proved right.

What a mess. As readers of this blog know, I don’t believe in dumping money blindly into mass transit projects. Indeed, I think that mass transit should be required to pay its own way, just as roads should. In “Midlothian Leviathan,” I’ve shown conceptually how this can be done by redeveloping land around the train stations and capturing some of the increased property value to pay for the up-front capital costs.

Still, it would be a shame to kill off the mass transit option simply through unintentional biases in the selection of data used in the study. Ruling out a major transportation alternative on the basis of a flawed methodology would be a grievous mistake.

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13 responses to “How Biased Numbers Could Kill Mass Transit in Richmond”

  1. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Interesting….

    we had a road issue here in Fredericksburg a few years ago and VDOT was justifying a 4-lane road deep into the more rural part of the area based on – you guessed it – VEC population projections…

    As I recall.. VEC was also citing projections given by UVA’s Weldon Cooper department.

    VDOT usually claims that such roads “follow development” not the other way around…

    so… is it a self-fulfilling prophecy?

    Many years ago before the auto.. trains would spawn “suburbs”

    then it was discovered when roads were built to “connect places” like a town with a favorite recreational area – just houses and side roads would spring up off the main road.

    so .. what is going on here…appears to me – to be a stealth advocacy for more roads to support “inevitable” scattered development that just so happens to be projected to be where the road “will follow”.

    I think it worthwhile to challenge VEC and Weldon Cooper on how they do future geographic population projections.. or at least have them better/more fully explain their rationale…

    and to challenge the MPO to find at least one other credible source that might validate VEC’s opinion before relying on it for essentially making regional settlement pattern decisions by where they put or don’t put road and transit.

    This is the downside of MPOs and Transportation Authorities…

    they can be dangerous.. and especially so if they’ve got real money to spend and they are “guided” by those who subscribe to pre-conceived ideas of where and how growth should occur or not.

    Bloggers here often rail about government by dictate.. from the evil planners…

    but the MPO/Trans authorities and regional commissions engage in the same behavior sometimes on a much more grandiose scale that has much more profound and longer-term impacts.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Nor,” Weber writes, “do the VEC’s projections reflect mass transit’s ability to proactively shape growth (and transfer wealth) by channeling high-density development into targeted transit corridors.”

    If the winners can pay off the losers and still come out ahead…..then you have a public benefit.

    Why is it that if a road allows some development it is a self fulfilling prophecy, but mass transit promotes proactive development?

    Where is the transparency that allows us to figure the net benefits of one vs the other, and who should pay for the benefits received?

    Or do we just have dual standards?

    RH

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Unfortunately or fortunately, the VEC numbers are specified in the Code of Virginia as the “official” population projections of the Commonwealth and state agencies and the governor are required to use them although honored in the breech.

    Second, Weldon Cooper does population ESTIMATES as part of the Census Bureau’s cooperative program. The CB estimates total state population and the CC, in cooperation with the CB, distributes them among the cities and counties.

    As one who has worked in the field for a number of years, the standard practice is to use low, medium and high projections since the deviation of the projected numbers from the subsequent census counts and estimated increased in the out years.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Right. And we can look back and see how accurate their predictions have been, whether ther are any measurable trendlines towards new or different patterns of habitation. If there are not, then there is no reason to postulate or plan for something that may never come to pass. To be successful it is better toplan for what is happening rather than what some might like to happen.

    On the other hand Bacon raises a point. If there is a way to pay for transit (that can eventually support itself) with additional taxes form additonal development around the transit stations, and if we can show that there is a net social benefit to defining and enforcing such a plan, then failing to consider such a condition and forge ahead with business as usual would be a mistake.

    Here is the problem. We don’t have the knowlege to prove this is possible, and the available evidence is strongly against it. But, conditions may be changing rapidly in a direction favorable to Bacon’s idea.

    Even so, I don’t see how we can beat up on the proven data we have, when we don’t have any data to show otherwise. We might, eventually have some, but we can;t bet transit money on that.

    Finally, a directed plan to increase development in one area will necessarily amount to fewer opportunities in other areas. Even if local taxes pay ALL the upfront cost for construction, and local users pay ALL of the operating costs (the combination of which is unheard of, anywhere transit exists) then the mere fact that government planned and greased the skids for this to happen represents an unfair advantage for some citizens over others.

    If we ever get to the point where we have the data to show that the project is feasibly possible at its own expense, and that it is a net social benefit, then we still have to figure out how to distribute that net benefit equitably.

    That’s the part that is missing in Bacon’s argument.

  5. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “Finally, a directed plan to increase development in one area will necessarily amount to fewer opportunities in other areas. Even if local taxes pay ALL the upfront cost for construction, and local users pay ALL of the operating costs (the combination of which is unheard of, anywhere transit exists) then the mere fact that government planned and greased the skids for this to happen represents an unfair advantage for some citizens over others.”

    so .. when they took all gas tax from all of RoVa and built I-95 – they screwed over most of RoVa?

    Many of the folks actually born in the Fredericksburg Area would have been quite happy to have seen all that gas tax money NOT spent on I-95 or to have it put where VDOT wanted to put the Western Transportation Corridor.

    See .. I think that is where the VEC way of “projecting” growth is circular in logic…

    they say.. “the growth will be over thar” so that’s where you ought to put that road… and sure enough..you put that new road “over thar” and presto changeo.. that’s where the growth goes.

    Dang slick process if you ask me.

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Some people are never happy.

    Planning for growth causes growth. only the new people should pay for growth. Since they aren’t here they can’t plan it or pay for it, so don’t let them come.

    Planning for roads mean you get houses where the roads are and not planning for roads means you get houses where the roads aren’t.

    But it’s OK to build transit that will never pay for itself – because the cost is covered by growth.

    Why not just admit you hate people and be done with it?

    RH

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    w”hen they took all gas tax from all of RoVa and built I-95 – they screwed over most of RoVa?”

    I wouldn’t say it that way. The rest of ROVA has, for the most part pretty unciongested travel conditions. And they get a lot of other money coming back downstate. I don’t see their beef. By focusing on only the gas tax, you create a false argument, as usuual. It is the system level transfers that count, and we don’t know, can’t agree, or don’t want to agree on what they are because it would (or might) screw up our predetermined political beliefs.

    When I-95 was built, did it result in a net social benefit, or not? If not, we should not have built it. If so, then we should have figured out who got the benefits, and who got to pay for the benefits, and then figured out a way to equalize things.

    Too bad we don’t actually work that way. If we did, you would have a lot less to complain about.

    If Bacon’s plan comes to pass and the winners pay a reasonable amount to the losers, I don’t have a problem.

    RH

  8. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “Why not just admit you hate people and be done with it?”

    It’s actually quite the opposite.

    What I’m in favor of is each person paying their fair share of what is required to provide the facilities that are needed as a basic fairness to everyone but also because when folks are not required to do that – then they are, in essence, getting something for nothing and that promotes an economic incentive for them to further game the system and argue for the status-quo (to protect their interests).

    I think it is FAIR for buyers of new homes to pay for the infrastructure that they need – no different than they should rightly pay for their granite counter tops or their Andersen windows.

    If in the process of having to pay for necessary infrastructure -it puts a “squeeze” on their desires to have granite counter tops then I do not see this as unfairness but rather irresponsibility if they choose the counter top over the infrastructure.

    We’d all like to not have to pay for infrastructure but it’s not fair to others because someone WILL have to pay for it and what is most fair is for EACH of us to pay our fair share to start with.

    I see that as “fair” no matter what we did in the past and in fact, think it was unfair in the past to have existing residents pay for others infrastructure.

    And the reality is that existing residents STILL pay for infrastructure because roads, water/sewer and schools are purchased with bonds that are paid back with taxes on everyone anyhow.

    If a road is truly needed – then fine – build it – and charge the folks that use it to pay for it – rather than using a bogus process to choose that road over another one and then make the folks who did not get a road also pay for the road for someone else.

    If we want to have a system where one group agrees to their taxes to be diverted to roads for others then the contract should be a quid pro quo – date certain – when their road gets built instead of being put on a list that never results in a road.

    This is little more than a scam.. where the guy tells you to put money in an envelope and then later you get the envelope back with others money in it…

    That’s the way we do our road funding right now and it’s basically a scam that if done as a securities transaction would send those selling those securities to jail.

    If someone wants to use inefficient appliances or use electricity when it costs 8 times more than non-peak , then I think they certainly should have every right to do so but they also have a personal responsibility as a basic fairness to other people to pay those costs and not have others pay them.

    So this is a Pro-People position that basically advocates that each of us pays our own costs – as a basic fairness to others who would have to pay them if we don’t.

    You often characterize transactions as “stealing”. I do too but in a very different way than you because “stealing” is NOT changing the status quo if the status quo is also merely “traditional” stealing.

    Take the subsides out of the equation, let folks pay their actual costs and THEN advocate the status quo.

    I’m not in favor of the status-quo no matter how long it has been a practice – if, in fact, it violates the “pay your own way” ethic. In those circumstances, the status quo is little more than an advocacy to continue what is basically unfair to start with.

    I “bend” on the “pay your own way” idea when it comes to helping those who cannot help themselves but that is all.

    and I totally reject the “we have to figure out all the nooks and crannies” before we can change – argument – which I consider nothing more than “I like it the way it is and don’t want to change unless you prove to me that the current way is unfair” argument.

    Let the marketplace determine the costs and then let folks decide if they want to pay those costs for things that they want or not.

    and an important aspect to the above is that each of us IS responsible for the pollution that we generate and no.. I do not consider exhaling or other silliness as ‘pollution’; I’m quite satisfied with addressing the pollution that we know for a fact is harmful.. then one we get that all sorted out and allocated fairly then we can figure out faux pollution issues.

    You could call my philosophy “Compassionate Libertarian”.

    I strictly believe that subsidies promote economic inequities that “hate people” as you put it.

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “I strictly believe that subsidies promote economic inequities that “hate people” as you put it.”

    What’s frustrating is that we agree so differently.

    I agree that subsidies promote economic inequities. That being the case, you either have a free market, or you don’t.

    “This is little more than a scam.. where the guy tells you to put money in an envelope and then later you get the envelope back with others money in it…”

    And yet, this IS a process that sometimes works well. In NOVA the Korean and Vietnamese communities do exactly this to help each other start new businesses. And a successful business, once started helps the pool grow faster.

    You have hit part of the problem on the head. government can afford to take such a long view of things – when the money comes back – that from an individual perspective, it is stealing his life.

    You have a far more stringent view of when some are paying for (perceived) bad decisions on the part of others than I have, and consequently you are far mor willing to mandate that they not be able to make those decisions or to mandate that we put in place some fantastical method of making them pay for the decisions. You seem to want a free market, so long as the government ontrols the prices in a way to obviate (other people’s) bad decisions.

    I tend to think that we got to where we are by a long chain of political events that were seen as necessary, and fair, at the time. To be sure, there is a good deal of special interest, and business as usual in the mix. Unfortuantely, that is the political way of doing trade studies.

    I think your pay your own way ethic is a sham, primarily because of the way you draw the boundaries in time and space. You seem to think it is OK, and right, to set the charges for automobiles to “pay their own way” high enough that they can also pay the way for transit.

    I don’t know how you get around the problem here. You have temporal disconnects, regional and locational disconnects, income disconnects, and service disconnects. Even if you agree to define transportation as a multimodal system, some people will wind up paying for services other people get.

    Your idea that each pay exactly what he owes is even worse than my insistence that we think about these things in a common way, using common rules, because to do what you suggest would require far more analysis than I suggest. We don’t know what everybody owes, and can’t agree on a methodology to figure it out.

    Until we have that, your plan is doomed to fail. And anybody who comes up with a new disparity, is free to change the rules retroactively: you can’t plan, and you cant recover damages. Even worse, your plan excessively localizes the costs, focusing the levy on fewer and fewer people, which gurantees nothing can get done. Individually we don’t have enough for anything, which is why we have corporations and government.

    You think ROVA paid for I-95, but you ignore all the money going the other way, and how much of that I-95 made possible. Sure, there are people in F’burg who would be happier if none of this had happened, but they knew what the rules were when they moved there. They knew they did not control all the land, the land use decisons, or the road decisions that have impact outside their area.

    If you think there is a simple solution to a problem, it is almost certainly wrong. And you are correct, the solutions will change over time, but that does NOT mean that we don’t owe consideration to those that made plans according to the previous solutions. You don’t barge into someone else’s poker table and demand new rules to suit the cards in your hand.

    “I “bend” on the “pay your own way” idea when it comes to helping those who cannot help themselves but that is all.”

    Maybe you should learn that flexibility is a form of great strength. The rules on silt fence are both inflexible and inconsistent, and as a result, they cause waste (that other people have to pay for). In addition there are times when temporary subsidies DO make sense. We just need to make sure the purpose and duration are well stated and adhered to.

    “Let the marketplace determine the costs and then let folks decide”

    The market place doesn’t always determine the costs, just the price.

    “this is a Pro-People position that basically advocates that each of us pays our own costs – as a basic fairness to others who would have to pay them if we don’t.”

    How do we know what those costs are, unless we do a “fair” analysis? How do we know what the costs are FOR until we figure out where and WHEN the benefits arrive? It’s a nice idea, but it requires a tremendous amount of work, and if the work costs more than the result will save,then the idea cannot achieve the desired result of being fair. You might have to take a second best approach that amounts to splitting the check, in which case some unfairness is unavoidable, in the quest for lowest cost.

    BUT, if you really want a free market, then you need to have a free market and be done with it. No oversight. It will cause severe “unfairness” but it will also resolve them quickly.

    Certainly, I don’t have any problem with incorporating the costs of pollution prevention into the products we buy. But I think you take an incomplete view of what ALL of those costs are, and the environmental movement as a whole has gone far beyond that. I also think we need a much better definition of what the costs of pollution are, so that we can make effective trade offs.

    I don’t see any point in spending in making the urgent argument that we need to spend $100 billion to save a million lives 50 years in the future if we have another opportunity (which might not be environmental related) to spend $100 million and save a half million lives this year. We are responsible for a LOT MORE than just the pollution we produce. As imprtant as that is, it isn’t the ONLY thing. It should compete on a level playing field, and not be entitled to some absolutist underpinning.

    Where I have a problem is when we incorporate the costs of preventing pollution, or preserving the environment, or quality of life, into things we DON’T buy. THEN, it is stealing, enslavement, or both.

    When it comes to development and infrastructure, we should EITHER set a price that we can accept, and then shut up: live with the bargain we made, OR if the true case is that we just don’t want development (I think this is the true situation, despite what you say, it is NOT about the cost of infrastrucure) THEN we ought to go buy the property and not develop it.

    THAT would be a free market, and then we would bear the costs and the benefits of our decisions.

    RH

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “The home of the Kyoto Protocol is finding there’s an easier way to cut global-warming emissions: Write a check.

    Japan, already having plucked the low-hanging carbon emissions reductions fruit, is finding that buying carbon credits from developing countries is a bit cheaper.”

    You tell me, what are the locational and temporal trade offs in this scheme? I can create all the industrial pollution and associated wealth that I want here at home, as long as I “offset” my pollution by paying other people not to become as wealthy as I am?

    RH

  11. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “That being the case, you either have a free market, or you don’t.”

    “not true. binary thinking. It’s like saying that someone who has lied once in their life is a liar and no better than someone who lies with every breath.

    “And yet, this IS a process that sometimes works well. In NOVA the Korean and Vietnamese communities do exactly this to help each other start new businesses.”

    It’s voluntary.. and philanthropic not government mandated.

    ” to mandate that they not be able to make those decisions or to mandate that we put in place some fantastical method of making them pay for the decisions”

    nope. charge folks what it costs via the free market without govt interference. Bad decisions become the responsibility of those that make them – not others.

    ” You seem to think it is OK, and right, to set the charges for automobiles to “pay their own way” high enough that they can also pay the way for transit.”

    I’m pretty circumspect on this but I’m also pretty convinced that if drivers had to pay the full costs of maintaining the infrastructure that they want that it would cost quite a bit more.

    One lane of highway cannot carry even 1/2 of what one “lane” of transit can carry under typical conditions.

    ” I don’t know how you get around the problem here. You have temporal disconnects, regional and locational disconnects, income disconnects, and service disconnects. Even if you agree to define transportation as a multimodal system, some people will wind up paying for services other people get.”

    perhaps but we need to have folks pay as much of their own costs as possible rather than thinking in terms of .. if they cannot even for 1% then it justifies a 98% subsidy.

    That’s the problem with your thinking on this.. you tend to think if it can’t be a pure system then there is no reason for it to minimize subsidies at all and I think of it as attempting to obtain as high a compliance rate as can be obtained. Every opportunity to do so – should be done.

    “Your idea that each pay exactly what he owes is even worse than my insistence that we think about these things in a common way, using common rules, because to do what you suggest would require far more analysis than I suggest. We don’t know what everybody owes, and can’t agree on a methodology to figure it out.”

    if we did things your way – everyone would pay a set price for milk service and everyone would get as much milk as they wanted because we are unable to figure out all the externalized costs….

    let the market decide … the costs….

    “Until we have that, your plan is doomed to fail.”

    actually no. Until I see car dealers giving you any car on the lot for one price that everyone pays… then we are not doomed to fail.

    “And anybody who comes up with a new disparity, is free to change the rules retroactively”

    it’s NOT a NEW disparity.. it’s a wrongheaded situation that was tolerated… very similar to folks who had a “right” to smoke in restaurants… same idea…traditional does not justify status quo of wrongheaded things.

    “you can’t plan, and you cant recover damages.”

    Businesses plan all the time for the risks associated with changes that they cannot control.

    and no… no one “owes” you anything if you were relying on something that was inherently not fair to others to start with and they finally got around to dealing with it.

    Your duty was to recognize early on that something was not justified and therefore subject to change.

    “You think ROVA paid for I-95, but you ignore all the money going the other way,”

    and this is how you start down the road to “you pay and I pay and we both get what we want”… mindset.

    Everyone puts their money in the barrel and then everyone gets to figure out how to get their money and then some out of the barrel.

    “but they knew what the rules were when they moved there”

    how about the folks who did not move there?

    “but that does NOT mean that we don’t owe consideration to those that made plans according to the previous solutions. You don’t barge into someone else’s poker table and demand new rules to suit the cards in your hand.”

    agreed.. but if the game is rigged to favor some players, you do.

    “Maybe you should learn that flexibility is a form of great strength.”

    flexibility is NOT a system that encourages irresponsibility with respect to folks paying their own fair costs of what they consume

    flexibility means allowing a user pays system to serve the needs of those who are willing to pay for what they want – as opposed to a system that forces some to pay for what others want but don’t want to pay for themselves.

    “The rules on silt fence are both inflexible and inconsistent, and as a result, they cause waste (that other people have to pay for).”

    this is mostly urban legend stuff combined with the binary thinking and it goes back to people being responsible for their actions in the first place.

    Because some people will not prevent runoff from their own property that, in turn, damages others property, the government must establish rules to keep those in check who save money by not using proper runoff protections.

    so .. then yes.. you can find some bad rules/implementations .. 1% of the rules as opposed to the whole program being bad… so things that are dumb/unfair need to be fixed but you don’t do away with the program because it’s not 100% perfect.

    “In addition there are times when temporary subsidies DO make sense.”

    I AM “flexible” on this as I do agree but again it’s incrementalism.. along the lines of “well we allow it for this… why not for that…..”

    “We just need to make sure the purpose and duration are well stated and adhered to.”

    we need Performance Standards to ensue that the claimed ROI from subsidies is met and if it is not met then stop the subsidy.

    “The market place doesn’t always determine the costs, just the price.”

    I agree and externalized costs not incorporated into the price – is a subsidy. That’s how we have mercury in our rivers.

    ” How do we know what those costs are, unless we do a “fair” analysis?”

    because it is a seller/buyer quid pro quo agreement in a true marketplace.

    He offers it and you decide if it is “worth” it to you – without outside interference.

    why would you want others to figure out what YOU should Pay instead of You?

    “It’s a nice idea, “

    It’s the free market RH.. not just a nice idea… the free market does not require an in-depth study by the government to decide the “value” of something – the consumer does that.. for every transaction.

    “the idea cannot achieve the desired result of being fair.”

    you’re confusing “fairness” with “inequities”.

    Many folks consider it “not fair” that they cannot afford a Mercedes but that is not an inequity.

    It becomes an inequity when money is collected from everyone so that some folks can afford a Mercedes that they could not afford without other folks money.

    “You might have to take a second best approach that amounts to splitting the check, in which case some unfairness is unavoidable, in the quest for lowest cost.”

    Have you every “split” the check?

    I have and I can tell you how it works.

    The people who strive to pay their fair costs – get screwed – everytime by those who evade their costs.

    ” BUT, if you really want a free market, then you need to have a free market and be done with it. No oversight. It will cause severe “unfairness” but it will also resolve them quickly.”

    this IS the purpose of a free market.

    ” Certainly, I don’t have any problem with incorporating the costs of pollution prevention into the products we buy. But I think you take an incomplete view of what ALL of those costs are, and the environmental movement as a whole has gone far beyond that. I also think we need a much better definition of what the costs of pollution are, so that we can make effective trade offs.”

    It’s funny. You advocate figuring out all the costs BEFORE we change the status quo… but not for the original pollution apparently. Why?

    “I don’t see any point in spending in making the urgent argument that we need to spend $100 billion to save a million lives 50 years in the future if we have another opportunity (which might not be environmental related) to spend $100 million and save a half million lives this year.”

    few examples are that easy.

    what is the calculated cost of mercury that causes a decrease of 10 points of the IQ of a child?

    what is the calculated costs of someone who lives a full life but with pain and a lowered quality of life – from pollution?

    how do you calculate damages?

    “We are responsible for a LOT MORE than just the pollution we produce. As imprtant as that is, it isn’t the ONLY thing. It should compete on a level playing field, and not be entitled to some absolutist underpinning.”

    Pollution is harm to others.. it’s not like saying some folks like Red cars and others Blue cars so we should have “equal consideration”.

    Your logic is like saying that we need to consider the costs of police verses a few folks that get their faces cut up from thugs or some Lady gets raped.

    It does not work this way.

    rape is not a “trade-off” nor is pollution that harms and maims.

    “
    When it comes to development and infrastructure, we should EITHER set a price that we can accept, and then shut up: live with the bargain we made, OR if the true case is that we just don’t want development (I think this is the true situation, despite what you say, it is NOT about the cost of infrastrucure) THEN we ought to go buy the property and not develop it.”

    No “bargain” is forever. It’s reappraised on a regular basis and subject to change per both parties to a quid pro quo arrangement.

    If you listen closely – you’ll know that I FAVOR development as inevitable, necessary and good IF it results in increased quality of life for those affected.

    Better schools and libraries and roads IS … GOOD GROWTH.

    It’s when growth lowers folks quality of life that they rebel.

    You don’t have to agree with it necessarily but if you don’t like anti-growth sentiment.. this is what you need to pay attention to if you want the situation to improve and go the other way.

    we’re back to the “split check” and some folks who want to pay their fair share and others seek to evade paying their fair share – and more than happy with any system that allows them to continue to not pay their fair costs.

    That’s why the infrastructure debate is about.. that’s what subsidies are about.

    Saving money – at the expense of others – is not saving money – it’s taking it…

    what you gain as a result of your own effort rightfully belongs to you.

    what you gain that was not due to your own efforts is what -something you deserve anyhow?

    It’s sort of like finding money and you know who lost it but now it is yours…

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Nah, you either have a free market or you don’t, you have faith it will fix its own problems or you don’t.

    The Korean and Vietnamese business clubs are not philanthropic. They exist tor promote their own members. They exist specifically because they ARE successful in using a pool of funds to bootstrap individuals over time. The point is that the process can be made to work, and there is no reason Government can’t make it work just as well as a handfull of immigrants.

    You can’t just trash the idea, because we know it works and we have good (and bad) examples. WE need to make it work better, not do away with it.

    —————————-

    “Charge people what it costs via the free market without govenment interference…”

    What?

    ————————–

    I don’t deny that if drivers paid the full costs through direct user fees that the user fees would be higher. But, we have a system where drivers do NOT pay all the costs because drivers are not the only beneficiaries. We collect some road money from sales and income taxes, and for good reason. But at the end of the day almost everyone who pays those taxes is also a driver.

    How can we say, then, that drivers are not paying their way? Are we suggesting that user fees and all those other beneficiary taxes should rise until we are paying enough: 100% of every possible cost?

    Anyway, you dodged the question. More user fee money is not going to roads where they are most needed. Most likely those moneys will go to transit. Transit riders already only pay half of their costs, even though transit riders are also drivers, for the most part. More and mmore drivers will be paying their full costs and transit costs as well.

    When do we give up the charade that drivers are not paying their way? If drivers are also paying for transit, when transit falls short of funds, do we encourage more driving to raise revenue?

    “One lane of highway cannot carry even 1/2 of what one “lane” of transit can carry under typical conditions.”

    This is nonsense, how many times do we have to go around on this?

    The fact is that transit systems actually carry nowhere near what the claims are. You do the math this time: Orange line trains travel six to eight minutes apart, and they have trouble keeping that schedule because they cannot get people on and off the trains.
    The orange line is maxed out at around 10,000 passengers per hour,

    During rush hour the whole Metro system only averages around 8,000 passengers per hour, per track. What is possible and what happens are different.

    Take a mile of Metro track, inbound. Riders on that track are going to or near a metro stop. Takle a lane mile of 66, those riders may be going ANYWHERE, and they all have a seat. The two systems do different jobs and any such comparison as this is meaningless, especially if it is also WRONG.

    If you are going to charge drivers 100% of full external costs, then you need to do the same for transit. One exteranalized cost of transit is that you don;t et a seat. One is that it goes where it goes, not where you go. Etc. Etc.

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    “if we did things your way – everyone would pay a set price for milk service and everyone would get as much milk as they wanted “

    I never ever said any such thing.

    “Until I see car dealers giving you any car on the lot for one price that everyone pays”

    The cars on the lots have many different features, and the salesmen are heppy to explain it to you. But, pretty much everyone who buys a car with a particular engine or radio pays (close to) one price for that engine or radio.
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    “it’s NOT a NEW disparity.. it’s a wrongheaded situation that was tolerated.”

    That is your opinion. Take the atmosphere or environment. It had no price on it and we all used it without cost. We enjoyed low cost goods and we paid for it with air pollution. Now we claim ownership of the environment, and we charge people to use it. We didn’t buy the atmosphere before we started charging for it, we just took it. That is a new claim, based on ginning up a new claim of ownership and a new harm due to externality.

    Businesses plan all the time for risks they cannot control, but those are market an natural risks. Businesses also expect to have a stable legal climate where their rights and property are protected. Neither business nor anyone else should expect government to stab them in the back, for the benefit of someone else.

    “if you were relying on something that was inherently not fair to others to start with”

    That depends on when you start, doesn’t it? That was the whole argument about what happened in Oregon.

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    And this is a whole different thing where consumers are paying extra for environmental protection when they buy a product when they know (the manufacture of it) damages the environment, than it is when we require environmental protection and buy nothing from those that provide it.

    Wild game is part of the natural environment: we all own it and the government controls how much we can take. That doesn’t mean you have the right to hunt on my farm. For all intents and purposes, I take care of the game, and its my game. The public can hunt public game on public land, or rent land.

    Unless it is an endangered species. Then I get to take care of the game, at my expense, (which belongs to everyone) and I get nothing. We didn’t buy the habitat before we took control of it, we just claim a new externality, and a new inherent wrong.

    (This is a hypothetical argument for the purpose of illustration, but it is one of many possible examples.)

    —————————–

    The fact that something was “inherently” wrong before doesn’t mean the solution should be inherently wrong. Barging into someone else’s game is still wrong if you think the game is rigged. Some counties make new residents sign a lifestyle affadavit, just to prevent that from happening.

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    “…as opposed to a system that forces some to pay for what others want but don’t want to pay for themselves.”

    You mean like when someone is requred to support an endangered species that others want and won’t pay for? You mean like when someone sends their kids to private school, covering their own costs, and still has to pay for other’s children?

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    Because some people will not prevent runoff from their own property that, in turn, damages others property, the government must establish rules to keep those in check who save money by not using proper runoff protections.

    Sure, but the government has no business establishing rules that keep some people in check, but not others, and it has no business establishing rules that cost more than the damage caused.

    This isn’t urban legend stuff, this is stuff you can see every day if you look. $60 million in wrecked boilers because they didn’t spend $100,000 on water softeners. You think the glitches are 1%, I think it is more like 40%.
    I never suggested that you do away with a program because it isn’t perfect. I only suggest that we allow those who have a complaint a fair hearing, without demonizing them as anti-environmentalists, profit seekers, etc.

    “we need Performance Standards to ensue that the claimed ROI from subsidies is met and if it is not met then stop the subsidy.”

    Which is the crux of my entire argument.

    I once watched several hundred tons of dirt get excavated, placed in plastic bags and driven 800 miles, to be buried someplace else. The reason for this was a few parts per billion of PCB’s.

    My opinion was that the trucks, backhoes, plastic bags, and the gallons and gallons of solvent to do the analysis was far more damaging than the PCB’s warranted.

    That’s my opinion. I can’t prove it because we do not have the necessary performance stndards. We dont have a true seller/buyer quid pro quo in that marketplace. What we have is more or less hysteria that claims any cost is worth the “savings”.

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    I don’t confuse fairness with inequity. I’m not an idiot.

    “It becomes an inequity when money is collected from everyone so that some folks can afford a Mercedes that they could not afford without other folks money.”

    Not if everybody gets a Mercedes, and everyone is measurably better off as a result. The winners pay off the losers, and still come out ahead. You can get a nice discount on a fleet of Mercedes, but if each person has to pay his own individual costs and negotiate alone, that won’t happen.

    Splitting the check with four people is a lot different from splitting it with 400,000. If the individual bookkeeping costs more than the maximum “inequity” who cares? You still come out ahead.

    ——————————–

    You advocate figuring out all the costs BEFORE we change the status quo… but not for the original pollution apparently. Why?

    It’s a question of when you start, isn’t it? It’s a question of when new property rights were asserted and whether the property was ever paid for.

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    “few examples are that easy.”

    There are more than enough of such examples that we will run out of money before we fix them all. Every time we make a wrong choice we are doing exactly what you claim is wrong. It is causing waste that other people have to pay for.

    “what is the calculated cost of mercury that causes a decrease of 10 points of the IQ of a child?”

    Good question: there are people that figure such things out. It is exactly the kind of thing we need performance standards for. Not what the costs are, but how we figure them out, and how we apply them fairly.

    If 10 PPB mercury causes a 10 point decrease in IQ and bad teachers cause a 10 point decrease in IQ, where do you spend your money?

    I’m not inclined to beleive that just because mercury is an environmental problem and teaching is a social problem that the environmental problem is neceesarioy more important. But then, I don’t have any way of knowing without the standards.

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    How do you calculate damages and values? We have lots of ways. We know that certain jobs are more dangerous than other jobs. We know how much more dangerous, and what the pay difference is. From that we can calculate the value of the “damages”.

    We know how far and how often people will travel to the parks, from that we can figure the value of parks and other open spaces.

    The Europeans are WAY ahead of us in figuring this stuff out and applying it.

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    “It’s reappraised on a regular basis and subject to change per both parties “

    Unless the situation was wrongheaded to begin with right? I think it should be subject to change per both parties regardless. No one has the right to unilaterally impose costs for a newly defined externality.

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    “Saving money – at the expense of others – is not saving money – it’s taking it…”

    And that is the basis for my entire argument.

    RH

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I don’t have to care about “the growth situation” one way or the other. I’m sitting on both sides of that fence, and my bets are covered.

    I do think that the anti-growth thing is going to hit some kind of limit: you can see it in the affordable housing debate. When the economy really tanks I think you will hear a lot less anti-growth sentiment.

    Spain just unleashed a huge WPA type proram to pump up their economy.

    RH

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