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freeways."  But a "major shift" turns out to be 2,600 cars

out of 360,000, or a reduction of about 1.2 percent.  Rail

in Dallas's North Central Corridor "would reduce regional

vehicle-miles traveled by 96,560 miles daily."  But since

Dallas residents drive well over 20 million vehicles-miles

per day, that is a reduction of less than 0.5 percent.

No matter what was claimed in prose, no EIS presented

any data suggesting that rail construction would signifi-

cantly reduce congestion, VMT, auto usage, or pollution or

significantly increase transit ridership or transit's market

share over levels projected for the low-cost transportation

system management alternatives.  That did not stop planning

agencies from always proposing to use federal funds to build

rail.

One reason for those proposals is that rail is an

important part of New Urban planning.  John Fregonese of

Portland's Metro expresses that view.  Light rail "is not

worth the cost if you're just looking at transit," he ad-

mits.  "It's a way to develop your community at higher

densities."72

The False Panacea of Planning

A major innovation of ISTEA is a requirement that

states and urban areas produce state and regional transpor-

tation plans.  ISTEA ties those plans and federal transpor-

tation funding to federal air quality standards.  Cities

that violate those standards, for example, are required to

spend federal dollars mainly or exclusively on activities

that supposedly will reduce air pollution.

The prime lesson of the 20th century is that government

planning does not work.  Compared with economic freedom as

expressed in the market, planning has three strikes against

it.  Planners simply cannot get enough data about current

problems, future needs, and public preferences to write an

efficient and sensible plan.  Even if planners could deter-

mine the public interest, giving government the power to

plan creates opportunities for special interests to tilt the

planning process in their favor.  And even if special inter-

ests can be overcome, the constraints that planners place on

personal freedom inevitably result in unintended conse-

quences that are often the exact opposite of the planned

goal.

Traditional state transportation (mainly highway)

planning minimized those problems by minimizing planning's