The Obama administration has endorsed these policies. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan have agreed to require metropolitan areas to adopt compact-development policies or risk losing federal transportation and housing funds. LaHood has admitted that the goal of this program is to "coerce people out of their cars."

As such, compact-development policies represent a huge intrusion on private property rights, personal freedom, and mobility. They are also fraught with risks. Urban planners and economists are far from unanimous about whether such policies will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some even raise the possibility that compact city policies could increase emissions by increasing roadway congestion.

Such reductions are insignificant compared with the huge costs that compact development would impose on the nation. These costs include reduced worker productivity, less affordable housing, increased traffic congestion, higher taxes or reduced urban services, and higher consumer costs. Those who believe we must reduce carbon emissions should reject compact development as expensive, risky, and distracting from tools, such as carbon taxes, that can have greater, more immediate, and more easily monitored effects on greenhouse gas emissions.

Smart-growth planners believe that Americans live the wrong way, and they use land-use regulation to impose on others what they believe is the right way to live. Surveys consistently show that all but 15 percent to 25 percent of Americans want to live in single-family homes with a yard, but planners think we would be better off if a much higher percentage lived in high-density apartments or condos.

Consider my former hometown of Portland, Ore., which many consider the nation's leader in smart-growth planning. To increase urban densities, planners are turning dozens of neighborhoods of single-family homes into apartments and condos. While past land-use rules set maximum densities, Portland's rules set minimum densities.

This means if your neighbors own a vacant lot, they cannot build a single-family house on it; they must build a rowhouse or apartment. In some cases, regulation is so strict that, if your house burns down, you cannot rebuild it; you must replace it with an apartment.

Portland planners soon decided that rowhouses and low-rise apartments were not dense enough, so they increased height limits to 50 feet or 60 feet to allow four- and five-story mid-rise apartments. Even that isn't dense enough, so now they are beginning to encourage high-rises.

After the first high-density developments saturated the demand, planners supplemented land-use mandates with tax breaks, below-market land sales and other subsidies to developers who built high-density housing. This means Portland neighborhoods continue to be invaded by mid-rise and high-rise developments, even though there is no more demand for dense housing.

Many of these developments are in transit corridors. Yet independent studies reveal that the people living in them don't ride transit significantly more than residents of single-family neighborhoods.

Portlanders did not welcome densification. Almost all of the targeted neighborhoods fought it; almost all of them lost. Planners followed a divide-and-conquer strategy, taking one neighborhood at a time so opponents could not build up enough momentum to stop the process.

Increased densities destroyed the small-town atmosphere that once made Portland attractive. Congestion is worse, housing and consumer costs are high, and urban services such as fire, police and schools have declined as the city took money from these programs to subsidize high-density developers.

Despite these problems, scores of cities from Missoula, Mont., to San Diego, Calif., have passed similar smart-growth regulations. Planners want to use smart growth everywhere they can, including Houston.

To get out of Portland, I moved to an exurban neighborhood 150 miles away. Like many Houston neighborhoods, we have a homeowners association and deed restrictions, so we will never have to worry about outside planners imposing some unwanted development on us.

Unlike most other cities, Houston makes it easy to create homeowners associations in neighborhoods that do not have them. Houston's system of deed restrictions puts you and your neighbors in charge of your neighborhood's future.

By contrast, smart-growth planning puts your neighborhood's future in the hands of people who may know little about you or your neighbors and whose ideas about how you should live may be very different from yours. If you want to protect your neighborhood from high-rises and other unwanted developments, then smart-growth planning is the last thing you need.

Some people blame the Federal Reserve for keeping interest rates low; some blame the Community Reinvestment Act for encouraging lenders to offer loans to marginal homebuyers; others blame Wall Street for failing to properly assess the risks of subprime mortgages. But all of these explanations apply equally nationwide, while a close look reveals that only some communities suffered from housing bubbles.

Between 2000 and the bubble's peak, inflation- adjusted housing prices in California and Florida more than doubled, and since the peak they have fallen by 20 to 30 percent. In contrast, housing prices in Georgia and Texas grew by only about 20 to 25 percent, and they haven't significantly declined.

In other words, California and Florida housing bubbled, but Georgia and Texas housing did not. This is hardly because people don't want to live in Georgia and Texas: since 2000, Atlanta, Dallas–Ft. Worth, and Houston have been the nation's fastest-growing urban areas, each growing by more than 120,000 people per year.

This suggests that local factors, not national policies, were a necessary condition for the housing bubbles where they took place. The most important factor that distinguishes states like California and Florida from states like Georgia and Texas is the amount of regulation imposed on landowners and developers, and in particular a regulatory system known as growth management.

In short, restrictive growth management was a necessary condition for the housing bubble. States that use some form of growth management should repeal laws that mandate or allow such planning, and other states and urban areas should avoid passing such laws or implementing such plans; otherwise, the next housing bubble could be even more devastating than this one.

As the mission became muddied, each surface transportation reauthorization since 1982 has included an increasing number of earmarks, divided revenues among more and more different funds, and added lengthy rules for how those funds may be spent. Each earmark, apportionment, and rule has made transportation spending incrementally less efficient.

This increasing politicization of something that began life as a fairly efficient program is the predictable result of government involvement in what is essentially a private economic activity. The inevitability of such decline is a good argument for abolishing the U.S. Department of Transportation and devolving federal transportation programs to the states.

Short of that, Congress should make every effort to return to a system where people get what they pay for — that is, transportation user fees are dedicated to systems that benefit the people who paid those fees — and people pay for what they get — that is, people pay the full cost of the facilities they use.

As a second-best solution to abolishing the Department of Transportation, this paper offers eight proposals essential for the 2009 reauthorization to achieve these goals. These proposals include

1. Apportion funds to states based on population,
land area, and user fees
2. Require that short-term plans be efficient
or cost efficient
3. Create a citizen-enforcement process that
will ensure efficiency and cost efficiency
4. Eliminate long-range transportation planning
5. Allow unlimited use of road tolls
6. Eliminate clean-air mandates
7. Avoid earmarks
8. Remove employee protective arrangements from transit law

First, before Congress approved the Interstate Highway System, it had a good idea how much it would cost. In contrast, Congress approved $8 billion for high-speed rail without knowing the total cost, which is likely to be at least $90 billion.

Second, highway users paid for interstate highways, whereas high-speed rail will be almost entirely subsidized by general taxpayers who will rarely use it.

Third, interstate highways connect all 48 contiguous states and major metropolitan areas. The FRA's high-speed rail plan consists of six unconnected networks that reach only 33 states and less than two-thirds of the nation's 100 largest urban areas.

Fourth, the average American traveled 4,000 miles on interstates in 2007. High-speed rail proponents optimistically estimate that the average American would ride the FRA's high-speed rail system less than 60 miles per year.

Finally, interstate highways improved social welfare by increasing highway safety. In contrast, far from saving energy and reducing pollution, high-speed rail would actually increase energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

For all these reasons, the United States government should not fund high-speed rail. The $8 billion in high-speed rail stimulus funds should be invested in safety improvements, not in new trains and new routes that will add to future taxpayer obligations.

But now some in the auto industry are worried about the inevitable drop in sales, since the cash giveaway caused most everyone — at least, anyone interested in free money — to accelerate their purchase plans. Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of the automotive research group Edmunds.com, observes: "Nice party, but the hangover is awful."

There's also an impending downturn in the auto repair industry. Fewer used cars to sell and service. Fewer parts to trade. Moreover, there have been and will continue to be fewer other goods and services sold. After all, if you rushed to buy a new car, there's a good chance you had to put off some other purchases.

The green eyeshade folks among us say the government shouldn't waste money like this in the future. But in the new ultra-Keynesian, post-budget deficit age, we need to think outside of the box. We need to expand the ambit of "Cash-for-Clunkers."

Let's start big. The housing market remains in the doldrums. There's a huge inventory of new and used homes pressing down prices, an excess capacity that threatens to flood the market at the faintest price uptick, and a lot of old, energy inefficient — and sometimes ugly — older dwellings. So why not a housing "Cash-for-Clunkers" program? Trade in your old, environmentally poor house for a brand new, energy efficient home and get a voucher for the value of your current property, plus $50,000. The developer would be responsible for putting the wrecking ball to your old residence; the government would keep the land for subsequent resale.

Then there should be "Cash-for-Clunkers" for home furnishings. Uncle Sam should pass out checks to anyone who trades in his wasteful furnace, heat pump, air conditioner, fan, washer, dryer, fridge, oven, dish washer, microwave, toaster, can opener, coffee maker, television, DVD player, radio, CD player, light, vacuum cleaner, computer, or other home appliance. (There's currently a modest rebate program, with no trade-in requirement, for some major new appliances. We need to think more creatively.) Sellers would render the goods inoperative while the federal government, in another job-creating program, would collect and dispose of the trade-ins.

With the rise of the Kindle, online books are now a reality. So we need a "Cash-for-Clunkers" program for wasteful old books, which have occasioned the death of so many trees. Buy a Kindle and get a $20 check for every book you turn in while purchasing the new online version. Amazon.com would be responsible for creating central collection points, where you would dump your book, after tearing it in half to render it unusable. A similar program should be undertaken for newspapers — buy the Kindle and cancel your New York Times/Washington Post/Local Mullet Wrapper subscription, and get a check.

"Cash-for-Clunkers" also could be adapted for the antique and collectibles markets. A great deal of money, time, and resources are wasted as people visit antique shops and troll online for goods produced long ago and therefore the production of which creates no jobs today. Turn in your antique painting, chess set, silver service, china cabinet, stein, armoire, jewelry, and more, and the government will pay you the value of your item plus provide a voucher for ten percent of the purchase price of a modern replacement. Uncle Sam would take title of the goods, for possible display at the Smithsonian. Constructing several new buildings to house the government's new acquisitions would generate additional jobs.

There also should be "Cash-for-Clunkers" for old clothes and shoes. Who knows how many leisure suits still clutter up old closets? Think of all the out-of-style dresses that women hang onto, hoping that the clothes will come back into fashion. Turn in those tattered Bermuda shorts and sadly aged pumps and get a check to buy replacements. Not only will jobs be created, but Americans will leap ahead of Europeans to lead the fashion parade.

The "Cash-for-Clunkers" concept could be used for airplanes. With the downturn in air travel there is a surplus of older, less fuel-efficient aircraft. Orders for new planes have been reduced as a result. The government should provide a (large) check whenever an airline trades in an old aircraft for a new (preferably Boeing) plane. The discards could be used by the Pentagon for target practice. We'd have a stronger national defense as well as less pollution, reduced fuel consumption, and more jobs.

Finally, "Cash-for-Clunkers" could be used to eliminate the build-up of old, fatty, and calorie-filled snack products in cabinets and refrigerators across America. Bring in your potato chips or M&Ms and get a check for their value, plus a coupon for use towards the purchase of apples, carrots, or Brussels sprouts. Surrendered foods would be given to the Surgeon General for use as part of a broad-ranging educational campaign against obesity.

The end of the "Cash-for-Clunkers" program bespeaks a lack of vision. Paying people to destroy their old cars was a stroke of genius. Let's expand it to the rest of the economy.

And why stop with economics? Let's also apply the concept to Capitol Hill. Toss out your clunker of a congressman and then — and only then — get some federal pork for your district. Talk about a "Cash-for-Clunkers" program that would benefit America!

O'Toole — author of the forthcoming Cato book Gridlock — spoke at Cato University at Rancho Bernardo, California.]]> Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT http://www.cato.org/weekly/index.php?vid_id=118 http://www.cato.org/dailypodcast/podcast-archive.php?podcast_id=960 Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT http://www.cato.org/dailypodcast/podcast-archive.php?podcast_id=960 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10420 On June 17, the Federal Railroad Administration asked states for proposals for spending $8 billion of stimulus money that Congress allocated to high-speed rail. This raises a question: Would you pay $1,000 so that someone — probably not you — can ride high-speed trains less than 60 miles a year?

That's what the FRA's high-speed rail plan is going to cost: at least $90 billion or $1,000 for every federal income taxpayer.

That's only the beginning. Count on adding $400 per taxpayer for cost overruns. Taxpayers will also have to cover operating losses: Amtrak currently loses $28 to $84 per passenger in most of its short-distance corridors.

The FRA plan also has huge gaps, such as Dallas to Houston, Jacksonville to Orlando, and the entire Rocky Mountains. Once states start building high-speed rail, expect local politicians to demand these gaps be filled at your expense. And don't be surprised when the government asks for billions more in 30 years to rebuild what will then be a worn-out system.

What would we get for all this money? Unless you live in California and maybe Florida, don't expect superfast bullet trains. In Michigan and most of the rest of the country, the FRA is merely proposing to boost the top speeds of Amtrak trains from 79 miles per hour to 110 m.p.h.

A top speed of 110 m.p.h. means average speeds of only 60-70 m.p.h., which is hardly revolutionary. Many American railroads were running trains that fast 70 years ago.

The pro-rail Center for Clean Air Policy predicts that if the FRA's system is completely built, it will carry Americans 20.6 billion passenger miles a year in 2025. That sounds like a lot, but, given predicted population growth, it is just 58 miles per person.

Michigan's portion of the plan will cost more than $750 million. Proposed branches to Grand Rapids/Holland and Port Huron would bring the total above $1.5 billion or $230 for every Michigan resident, plus more than $50 million per year in operating subsidies. Michigan taxpayers will get little return for any state funds invested in this project: The average Michigander will take a round trip on the trains once every 12 years.

Most of the rest of your $1,000 will go to California, which wants to you to help pay for a costly bullet train. Even this train will do little to relieve congestion or save energy; mainly it will just fatten the wallets of rail contractors.

Who will ride these trains? We can get an idea by comparing fares between New York and Washington, D.C.

As of this writing, $99 will get you from Washington to New York in 2 hours and 50 minutes on Amtrak's high-speed train, while $49 pays for a moderate-speed train ride that takes 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, relatively unsubsidized and energy-efficient buses cost $20 for a 4-hour-and-15-minute trip with leather seats and free Wi-Fi. Airfares start at $119 for a one-hour flight.

Who would pay five times the price to save less than 90 minutes? Those who value their time that highly would pay the extra $20 to take the plane. The train's only advantage is for people going from downtown to downtown — bankers, lawyers, government officials and other high-income people who hardly need subsidized transportation.

Nor is high-speed rail good for the environment. The Department of Energy says that, in intercity travel, automobiles carry an average of 2.4 people, which makes them as energy-efficient as Amtrak. The Department adds that boosting Amtrak trains to higher speeds will make them less energy-efficient and more polluting than driving.

Michigan should use its share of rail stimulus funds for safety improvements such as grade crossings, not for new trains that will obligate taxpayers to pay billions of dollars in additional subsidies.

This raises a question for Pennsylvanians: Are you willing to pay $1,000 so that someone–probably not you–can ride high-speed trains less than 60 miles a year? That's what the FRA's high-speed rail plan is going to cost: at least $90 billion, or $1,000 for every federal income taxpayer in the country.

That's only the beginning. Expect billions more for cost overruns. Taxpayers will also likely have to cover operating losses; Amtrak currently loses $28-$84 per passenger in most of its short-distance corridors.

The FRA plan also has huge gaps, such as Dallas to Houston, Jacksonville to Orlando, and the entire Rocky Mountains. Once states start building high-speed rail, expect local politicians to demand these gaps be filled at your expense. And don't be surprised when the government asks for billions more in 30 years to rebuild what will then be a worn-out system.

What would taxpayers get for all this money? Unless you live in California and maybe Florida, don't expect superfast bullet trains. In most of the rest of the country, such as between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the FRA is merely proposing to boost the top speeds of Amtrak trains from 79 mph to 110.

A top speed of 110 mph means average speeds of only 60-70 mph, which is hardly revolutionary. Many American railroads were running trains that fast 70 years ago.

The pro-rail Center for Clean Air Policy predicts that, if the FRA's system is completely built, it will carry Americans 20.6 billion passenger miles a year in 2025. That sounds like a lot, but, given predicted population growth, it is just 58 miles per person.

Pennsylvania's portion of the plan will cost more than $1.2 billion, or nearly $100 for every Pennsylvania resident, plus more than $30 million annually in operating subsidies. Pennsylvania taxpayers will get little return for any state funds invested in this project: the average Pennsylvanian will take a round trip on these trains less than once every 20 years.

Most of your $1,000 will go to California, which wants you to help pay for a costly bullet train. Even this train will do little to relieve congestion or save energy; mainly it will just fatten the wallets of rail contractors.

Who will ride these trains? We can get an idea by comparing fares between New York and Washington, D.C. As of this writing, $99 will get you from Washington to New York in two hours and fifty minutes on Amtrak's high-speed train, while $49 pays for a moderate-speed train ride that takes three hours and fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile, relatively unsubsidized and energy-efficient buses cost $20 for a four-hour-and-fifteen-minute trip with leather seats and free Wi-Fi. Airfares start at $119 for a one-hour flight.

Who would pay five times the price to save less than 90 minutes? Those wealthy enough to value their time that highly would pay the extra $20 to take the plane. The train's only advantage is for people going from downtown to downtown.

Who works downtown? Bankers, lawyers, government officials, and other high-income people who hardly need subsidized transportation. Not only will you pay $1,000 for someone else to ride the train, that someone probably earns more than you.

Finally, high-speed rail is bad for the environment. The Department of Energy says that, in intercity travel, automobiles are as energy-efficient as Amtrak, and that boosting Amtrak trains to higher speeds will make them less energy-efficient and more polluting than driving.

An expensive rail system used mainly by the wealthy elite is not "change we can believe in." Pennsylvania should use its share of rail stimulus funds for safety improvements, such as grade crossings, not for new trains that will obligate taxpayers to pay billions of dollars in additional subsidies.

The actual Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) results will depend on the mixture of fuel-thrifty and fuel-thirsty vehicles consumers choose to buy from each manufacturer — not on what producers hope to sell. That means only those companies most successful in selling the smallest cars with the smallest engines will, in the future, be allowed to sell the more profitable larger pickups and SUVs and more powerful luxury and sports cars.

Sales of Toyota's Prius, Yaris, Corolla and Scion, for example, allow and encourage Toyota to market more Lexus 460s, Sequoia SUVs and Tundra pickups in the U.S. without incurring fines. Hyundai's success selling Accent and Elantra compacts allows it to sell 368-horsepower Genesis sedans.

Similarly, Ford has the Toyota-licensed hybrid Fusion and will soon produce the European Ford Fiesta in Mexico. Chrysler will soon have Fiats. But what does GM have?

No independent reviewer suggests that the Chevy Aveo and Cobalt are credible contenders in the small car field. Even the president's auto task force finds the electric Chevy Volt "unviable," since it will lose money unless priced above a Cadillac CTS. The Opel-engineered 2011 Chevy Cruze will face tough competition from Asian cars whose reliability is better established. Launching such new models will be even tougher in the future, now that GM has lost control of Opel.

GM accounted for about 19% of vehicle sales so far this year, but the company had a much smaller share of the market for small cars and SUVs (which accounted for 20% of total sales through May). To continue offering a Toyota-like array of larger cars and trucks under ever-tighter CAFE rules, GM would have to capture a much larger share of the market for small and/or diesel-powered vehicles. Unfortunately, European and Asian car makers have decades more experience building reliable subcompact cars and diesel engines for their local markets — where consumers face steep taxes on gasoline and large engines.

General Motors does produce competitive cars and trucks, but not one of them is small. Consumer Reports recommends three GM cars and three GM trucks. The recommended cars are the Chevy Malibu (the unrecommended hybrid has been dropped), the large Buick Lucerne and the Cadillac DTS. Consumer Reports recommends the Chevy Avalanche and Silverado and the GMC Sierra trucks. Car enthusiast magazines insist on adding Camaro, Corvette and the 556-horsepower Cadillac CTS-V to that list.

Among those nine best GM vehicles, only the four-cylinder Malibu achieved as much as 25 mpg in Consumer Reports testing. The others get 12-17 mpg, yet they are no less fuel-efficient than comparable foreign brands. The Environmental Protection Agency rates the mileage of the Toyota Sienna van and Nissan Titan pickup as worst in their class, and comparable Chevys as best. Unlike GM, however, Japanese car companies sell enough small cars to offset the large and thus hold down the average figures.

General Motors is likely to become profitable only if it is allowed to specialize in what it does best — namely, midsize and large sedans, sports cars, pickup trucks and SUVs. The company can't possibly afford to scrap billions of dollars of equipment used to produce its best vehicles simply to please politicians who would rather see GM start from scratch, wasting more taxpayer money on "retooling" to produce unwanted and unprofitable subcompacts and electric cars. The average mileage of GM's future cars won't matter if nobody buys them.

Politicians are addicted to CAFE standards because they create an illusion of doing something sometime in the future without voters experiencing the slightest inconvenience in the present. Tighter future CAFE rules will have no effect at all on the type of vehicles we choose to buy. Their only effect will be to compel us to buy larger and more powerful vehicles from foreign manufacturers. Americans will still buy Jaguars, but from an Indian firm, Tata, rather than Ford. They'll buy Hummers, but from a Chinese firm, Tengzhong, rather than GM. The whole game is a charade; symbolism without substance.

As a matter of practical politics, rescuing GM from strangulation by CAFE will require offering economically literate environmentalists a greener alternative, i.e., one that works. Luckily, the government has two policy tools that, with minor modifications, really could discourage people from buying the least fuel-efficient vehicles.

One is the federal excise tax on "gas guzzlers," which could take some fun out of the horsepower race except that it applies only to cars, not to SUVS, vans and trucks. Why not apply this tax to all types of gas guzzling vehicles? Owners of trucks used for business could deduct the tax in proportion to miles used for business, as they do with other vehicular expenses. Phase it in after 2011 to encourage buyers to snap up the unsold inventory of gas guzzling trucks quickly — a timely "stimulus plan."

Second, the federal fuel tax is highest on the most efficient fuel (diesel) and below zero on the least efficient fuel (ethanol). Cars get about 30% better mileage on diesel than on gasoline, and cars running mainly on gasoline get about 30% better mileage than they would using 85% ethanol.

To stop distorting consumer choices, simply apply the same 24-cent-a-gallon federal tax to gasoline and ethanol as we do to diesel. This would add funds to the depleted federal highway trust. More importantly, it would remove an irrational tax penalty on buying diesel-powered cars — arguably the most cost-effective way to improve mileage without reducing car size or performance.

These two proposals are a greener alternative to CAFE, because they'll work. But they'll only work if Congress totally and permanently abandons the charade of CAFE. It is arguably worthwhile to accept a modest tax increase in exchange for an end to harmful regulations, but that exchange is effective precisely because it is not painless.

Unifying fuel taxes and broadening the excise tax on gas guzzlers makes sense as an alternative to CAFE. Otherwise it's just more pain with no gain.

If politicians insist on tightening fleet average mileage standards for bankrupt auto companies, how could those rules be enforced? The only penalty for violating CAFE rules is a big fine. If consumers keep refusing to buy enough small cars from GM and Chrysler to allow them to meet the CAFE rules, how are those companies expected to pay the fines?

The government is already planning to spend about $50 billion bailing out General Motors plus $7 billion for Chrysler. Will President Barack Obama provide Detroit auto makers with even more subsidies to pay CAFE fines?

Maybe so. That would be only slightly more bizarre than current plans to bribe folks with $4,500 to sell their "clunkers," or to offer huge tax credits to those rich enough to buy a $73,000 hybrid Cadillac Escalade or an $88,000 Fisker Karma.

The bottom line is that CAFE standards are totally unenforceable and ineffective. Regardless of how much damage the rules do to GM and Chrysler, Americans can and will continue to buy big and fast vehicles from German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Indian car companies. CAFE standards might just be another foolhardy regulatory nuisance — were it not for the fact that they could easily prove fatally dangerous for any auto maker overly dependent on the uniquely overregulated U.S. market.

One thousand dollars per taxpayer is only the beginning. Count on adding $400 for cost overruns. Taxpayers will also have to cover operating losses: Amtrak loses $28 to $84 per passenger in most of its short-distance corridors. In 2001, it lost the most - $84 per passenger in the state-subsidized Raleigh-Charlotte corridor.

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) plan includes huge gaps, such as Dallas to Houston, Jacksonville to Orlando, and the entire Rocky Mountains. Once we start building high-speed rail, you can expect local politicians to demand these gaps and others be filled at your expense. And don't be surprised when the government asks you for another $1,000 or so in about 30 years to rebuild what will then be a worn-out system.

What would you get for all this money? Unless you live in California, don't expect super-fast bullet trains. In Florida the FRA is considering trains with top speeds of 125 miles per hour. In most of the rest of the country, the FRA is merely proposing to boost top speeds of Amtrak trains from 79 to 110 m.p.h.

A top speed of 125 m.p.h. means an average speed of only 75 to 85 m.p.h., which is hardly revolutionary. Many American railroads were running trains nearly that fast 70 years ago.

The pro-rail Center for Clean Air Policy predicts that, if the FRA's system is completely built, it will carry Americans 20.6 billion passenger miles a year in 2025. That sounds like a lot, but, given predicted population growth, it is just 58 miles per passenger.

Florida's portion of the plan will cost at least $11 billion, or $600 for every Florida resident, plus tens of millions more per year in operating subsidies. For that, the average Floridian will take a round-trip on the train only once every 15 years.

Most of the rest of your $1,000 will go to California, which wants you to help pay for a 220-m.p.h. train. Even this train will do little to relieve congestion or save energy; mainly, it will just fatten the wallets of rail contractors.

Who will ride these trains? We can get an idea by comparing fares between New York and Washington, DC.

As of this writing, $99 will get you from Washington to New York in two hours and fifty minutes on Amtrak's high-speed train, while $49 pays for a moderate-speed train ride that takes three hours and fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, relatively unsubsidized and energy-efficient buses cost $20 for a four-hour-and-fifteen-minute trip with leather seats and free Wi-Fi. Airfares start at $119 for a one-hour flight.

Few people who pay their own way will spend an extra $79 to save an hour and twenty-five minutes of their time. But anyone who values their time that highly would be willing to pay an extra $20 to save an hour by taking the plane. The train's only advantage is for people who are going from downtown to downtown.

Who works downtown? Bankers, lawyers, government officials, and other high-income people who hardly need subsidized transportation. Not only will you pay $1,000 for someone else to ride the train; that someone probably earns more than you.

Nor is high-speed rail good for the environment. The Department of Energy says that, in intercity travel, automobiles are as energy-efficient as Amtrak, and that boosting Amtrak trains to higher speeds will make them less energy-efficient and more polluting than driving.

High-speed rail will cost you a lot of money and provide little benefit to anyone except a few bankers, lawyers, and bureaucrats. That's not change we can believe in.

Already California, Florida, Illinois and other states are applying for funds under the president's plan. But, except for rail contractors, Americans should find little reason to like this proposal.

Although every taxpayer would share the cost of these trains, high-speed rails are not about serving the common people. Instead, they are aimed at the elite. Japanese and French high-speed trains are attractive to tourists, but they're not heavily used by local residents. Residents of Japan and France on average ride their bullet trains less than 400 miles a year.

Pricey option

Amtrak charges a minimum of $99 for its high-speed Acela from New York to Washington, but only $72 for its conventional train. Fares for unsubsidized buses on this route start as low as $20 (including free Wi-Fi), while airfares start at $99. Only the wealthy and those whose employers cover the cost will pay the $99 rail fare.

Obama's 9,000-mile high-speed rail plan reaches just 33 states, yet the $13 billion he proposes to spend would cover about 2.5% to 25% of the cost, depending on how the system is built. In contrast with the interstate highway system, which paid for itself out of user fees, high-speed rail fares would not cover the capital costs and only part of the operating costs.

Most of Obama's plan should really be called "moderate-speed rail," as it would upgrade existing freight lines to run passenger trains at top speeds of 110 mph. At around $5 million per mile, the total cost would come close to $50 billion.

Not satisfied with moderate-speed trains, California says it wants half of all federal funds so it can build brand-new 220-mph rail lines. But it's unlikely other states will settle for the slower trains if California gets the faster ones. Building fast trains nationwide would cost at least $500 billion. (By comparison, and adjusting for inflation, the 47,000-mile interstate highway system cost about $425 billion.)

Little congestion relief

Besides the high costs, these trains do little to relieve congestion. "Not a single high-speed track built to date has had any perceptible impact on the road traffic" in Europe, says Ari Vatanen, a European Parliament member. California predicts its 220-mph trains would take just 3.5% of cars off of roads. California highway traffic grows that much every two years.

Moderate-speed trains would do even less. Nor would such trains be good for the environment. Amtrak diesel trains are only a little more energy efficient than flying or driving, and pumping those trains up to 110 mph would reduce their efficiency. Because planes and cars are growing 2% more energy-efficient per year, rail would fare poorly by such measures over the next 15 to 20 years.

Moreover, high-speed rail consumes enormous amounts of energy and emits enormous volumes of greenhouse gases. These would cancel out any operational savings over cars and planes.

Interstates paid for themselves out of gas taxes, and most Americans use them almost every day. Rail requires huge tax subsidies and would regularly serve only a small elite. Which is the better symbol for the America President Obama wants to build?

If the proposed fuel efficiency standards were in place today, Edmunds.com reports that only two cars — the 2010 Toyota Prius (50 mpg) and the 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid (42 mpg) — would meet the standard. Angry environmentalists might thus find themselves key-scratching "gas guzzlers" such as the 2009 Honda Fit (31 mpg), the 2009 Mini Cooper (32 mpg) and the 2009 Smart ForTwo (36 mpg).

There is little dispute that, as a consequence, cars would become more expensive and industry profits more scarce. Even the Obama administration concedes that automotive costs would increase by $600 per car on average and that industry revenues would decline by $13 billion to $20 billion a year. Others offer larger figures, but it's difficult to peg costs with any certainty.

What do we gain by this? Very little.

We wouldn't reduce our reliance on foreign oil: If we reduced global demand for crude oil, the most expensive-to-produce oil would go away first, and that oil is not in the Middle East. It's in North America.

Consumers would not be better off: If gasoline prices remained in today's neighborhood (that is, near their historical average, adjusted for inflation), the fuel savings from these new hybrids would not offset the higher sticker prices.

Moreover, many consumers would be forced to buy cars they don't want.

Greenhouse gas emissions might not decline much, if at all. U.S. emissions would likely decline, but reduced U.S. demand for crude would mean reduced global crude prices, which in turn would increase demand for — and consumption of — oil outside the USA. Eventually, most if not all our reductions might be offset by increases elsewhere.

Finally, drivers and passengers would be less safe. Plenty of hard evidence suggests that smaller, lighter cars equal more highway injuries and fatalities.

Reduced fuel consumption is not an end unto itself. It is a means to an end. These means wouldn't achieve the advertised ends.

Saving energy and reducing pollution are worthy goals, and if high-speed trains could achieve these goals, the president's plan might be a good one. But since they cannot, it isn't.

Obama's proposal should really be called "moderate-speed rail." His $13 billion won't fund 200-mile-per-hour bullet trains. Instead, it is mostly about running Amtrak trains a little faster on existing freight lines.

Outside of the Boston-Washington corridor, the fastest Amtrak trains have top speeds of about 80 to 90 miles per hour and average speeds of 40 to 50 miles per hour. Obama proposes to boost top speeds to 110 miles per hour in some places, which means average speeds no greater than 70 to 75 miles per hour.

This is not an innovation. The Milwaukee Road, Santa Fe and other railroads routinely ran trains at those speeds 70 years ago — and still couldn't compete against cars and airlines.

Moderate-speed trains will be diesel powered. They will consume oil and emit toxic and greenhouse gases, just like cars and planes.

According to the Department of Energy, the average Amtrak train uses about 2,700 British thermal units (BTUs) of energy per passenger mile. This is a little better than cars (about 3,400 BTUs per passenger mile) or airplanes (about 3,300 BTUs per passenger mile). But auto and airline fuel efficiencies are improving by 2 percent to 3 percent per year (for example, a Toyota Prius uses less than 1,700 BTUs per passenger mile).

By contrast, Amtrak's fuel efficiency has increased by just one-tenth of 1 percent per year in the past 10 years.

This means, over the lifetime of an investment in moderate-speed trains, the trains won't save any energy at all. In fact, to achieve higher speeds, moderate-speed trains will require even more energy than conventional trains and probably much more than the average car or airplane 10 or 20 years from now.

California wants to build a true high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles, capable of top speeds of 220 miles per hour and average speeds of 140 miles per hour. The environmental analysis report for the California high-speed rail projects costs of $33 billion for 400 miles, while the Midwest Rail Initiative projects costs of $7.7 billion for 3,150 miles of moderate-speed rail. That's $82 million per mile for true high-speed rail (partly because the California project goes through some mountains) and only $2.4 million for moderate-speed rail. All else being equal, high-speed rail will cost 10 to 12 times more than moderate-speed rail. A true, national high-speed rail network would cost more than half a trillion dollars.

Construction of such high-speed rails will consume enormous amounts of energy and emit enormous volumes of greenhouse gases. Since future cars and planes will be more energy efficient, there are likely to be no long-term environmental benefits from investment in high-speed rail.

Electricity would power the California trains. But, because most U.S. electricity comes from coal or other fossil fuels, these high-speed trains won't reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. As we develop more renewable sources of electricity, we would do better using it to power plug-in hybrids or electric cars than high-speed rail.

Americans who have ridden French or Japanese high-speed trains often wonder why such trains won't work here. The problem is, they don't work that well in France or Japan.

France and Japan have each spent roughly (after adjusting for inflation) the same amount of money per capita on high-speed rail as the United States spent on the interstate highway system. Americans use the interstates to travel nearly 4,000 passenger miles and ship more than 2,000 ton-miles of freight per person per year.

By comparison, high-speed rail moves virtually no freight and carries the average resident of Japan less than 400 miles per year, and the average resident of France less than 300 miles per year. It is likely that a few people use them a lot, and most rarely or not at all.

Interstates paid for themselves out of gas taxes, and most Americans use them almost every day. Moderate or high-speed rail would require everyone to subsidize trains that would serve only a small elite. Which symbolizes the America that Obama wants to rebuild better?

But when I looked at the details, I discovered that — while high-speed rail may be good for tourists — it isn't working very well in Europe or Japan.

Japan and France have each spent as much per capita on high-speed rail as we spent on our Interstate Highway System. The average American travels 4,000 miles and ships 2,000 ton-miles per year on the interstates. Yet the average resident of Japan travels only 400 miles per year on bullet trains, while the average resident of France goes less than 300 miles per year on the TGV — and these rail lines carry virtually no freight.

Throughout the world and throughout history, passenger trains have been used mainly by a wealthy elite and have never given the average people of any nation as much mobility as our interstate highways.

Moreover, the interstates paid for themselves out of gas taxes and other user fees, while high-speed rail requires huge subsidies from general taxpayers.

Personally, I would much rather ride a train than drive anywhere. But I have to admit that automobiles are the most egalitarian form of travel ever invented. Throughout the developed world, people of all income levels regularly travel by car, while only a small number of people regularly ride trains. For example, the average American drives for 85 percent of their travel; the average European 79 percent — not much difference.

The environmental benefits of high-speed rail are also questionable.

President Obama's plan actually calls for moderate-speed rail: 110-mph passenger trains sharing tracks with freight trains. These moderate-speed trains will mostly be diesel-powered, and for safety purposes they will be heavy. By the time these trains start operating, both cars and airplanes will use less energy and emit far less greenhouse gases per passenger mile than the moderate-speed trains.

True high-speed rail — trains moving at 200 mph or faster — requires costly dedicated tracks: a national network would easily cost more than a half-trillion dollars. Considering that both airplanes and cars are getting more fuel-efficient all the time, the environmental costs of constructing these lines will never be recovered in any operational savings.

True high-speed trains are electrically powered, but if that electricity comes from fossil fuels, it will produce as much greenhouse gas, per passenger mile, as autos or planes. As we develop more renewable electricity, we would do better to dedicate that power to plug-in hybrids than to build expensive but little-used train lines.

We have a choice between a transportation system that everyone uses and that pays for itself, or one that requires everyone to pay through their taxes but that is used by only a small elite. Which is the better symbol for the America that President Obama wants to rebuild?

Given the size and scope of such interventions into the economy, it's important to remember that big government programs often have results that are very different than what was intended. We can gain particular perspective by reflecting on the experience of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's most ambitious infrastructure program, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

It was heralded as a program to build dams that would control floods, facilitate navigation, lift people out of poverty, and help America recover from the Great Depression. Yet the reality is that the TVA probably flooded more land than it protected; much of the navigation it has facilitated involves barges of coal for coal-fired power plants; people receiving TVA-subsidized electricity have increasingly lagged behind neighbors who did not; and the TVA's impact on the Great Depression was negligible. The TVA morphed into America's biggest monopoly, dominating an 80,000 square mile region with 8.8 million people—for all practical purposes, it is a bureaucratic kingdom subject to neither public nor private controls.

Back in 1933, David Lilienthal, one of the founding directors of the TVA, vowed, "The Tennessee Valley Authority power program is not a taxpayers' subsidy. It is a business undertaking." In fact, for more than 60 years, Congress appropriated funds to cover the TVA's losses.

Although the TVA no longer receives congressional appropriations, it continues to receive large subsidies. The TVA pays none of the federal, state, and local taxes that private businesses pay. A 1993 study by Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett, a consulting firm retained by investor-owned utilities, estimated that annual cost-of-capital subsidies exceeded $1.2 billion, including the taxes that the TVA avoided. As a government-backed entity similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the TVA can borrow money cheaper than private businesses. Currently, the TVA has about $26 billion of debt.

Moreover, the TVA doesn't have to incur the costs of complying with myriad federal, state, and local laws. Energy consultant Dick Munson reported that the TVA is exempt from 137 federal laws, such as workplace safety and hydroelectric licensing. The TVA can set electricity rates without oversight by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has jurisdiction over private utilities. The Securities & Exchange Commission has only limited jurisdiction to oversee the TVA. On top of that, the TVA is exempt from federal antitrust laws and many federal environmental regulations. It's also exempt from some 165 laws and regulations in Alabama and hundreds more laws and regulations in other states in which it operates. When the TVA wants to acquire more assets, it doesn't have to haggle, because unlike private businesses, it has the power of eminent domain. More than 15,000 people were expelled from their property to make way for the TVA.

Established by President Roosevelt in May 1933 as part of his first 100 Days, the TVA's roots actually go back to 1918 when President Woodrow Wilson decided that the federal government should get into the gunpowder business after German submarines sank several ships bringing nitrates from Chile. At the same time, E.I. du Pont de Nemours, the world's most experienced gunpowder manufacturer, wanted to build a gunpowder manufacturing facility at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, on the banks of the Tennessee River, and his company proposed building a hydroelectric plant to provide the power that was needed.

"Progressive" politicians were wary that du Pont might make money on the deal, so the decision was to have two gunpowder manufacturing facilities: one built by du Pont and the other by the federal government. The du Pont facility was finished for $129.5 million and produced 35 million pounds of canon powder before the Armistice (November 1918), while the government's facility produced nothing at all. Wilson's Muscle Shoals project became the starting point for the TVA.

It's run by three directors, each appointed by the president to staggered nine-year terms. Although the directors are sure to be political supporters, the unusual length of their terms gives them considerable independence, and they're not subject to constraints by investors, customers, or voters.

As a remedy for the Great Depression, the TVA didn't work. It created no new wealth and, through taxation, transferred resources from the 98 percent of Americans who didn't live in the Tennessee Valley to the two percent who did. Any spending that happened in the Tennessee Valley therefore was offset by the spending that didn't happen elsewhere. Those taxes reduced net incomes.

Much like any other complex public works project, it took an inordinate amount of time to build the TVA. Only three TVA dams were completed during the 1930s. The dams themselves were small—with less than one-twentieth the power-generating capacity of big western dams like Grand Coulee. Although the building process provided work for engineers and skilled construction workers—who earned above-average incomes—the dams simply came too late to have much impact on most people in the Tennessee Valley during the Great Depression.

To the degree that the TVA had any impact, it appears to be negative. The most important study of the effects of the TVA, conducted by energy economist William Chandler, estimated that in the half-century after the TVA was launched, economic growth in the Tennessee Valley increasingly lagged behind non-TVA southern markets. Chandler concluded, "Among the nine states of the southeastern U.S., there has been an inverse relationship between income per capita and the extent to which the state was served by the TVA...Watershed counties in the seven TVA states, moreover, are poorer than the non-TVA counties in these states."

In the non-TVA southern markets, there was a greater exodus of people out of subsistence farming into manufacturing and services, which offered higher incomes. Ironically, electricity consumption has grown faster in the non-TVA southern markets, because it tends to correlate with income. Subsistence farmers might be able to afford light bulbs, but they could not afford the electrical appliances that people in non-TVA southern markets were buying. Furthermore, despite the vast sums spent building TVA dams, water usage grew faster in the non-TVA southern markets.

In any case, it was a delusion to believe that there was one "key" (such as TVA-subsidized electricity) to eradicating poverty. Subsistence farmers needed equipment such as tractors, trucks, and hay bailers (which are powered by diesel fuel, not electricity). They needed to develop more skills, more sophisticated farming practices, and so on.

Backed by the power of the federal government, the TVA promoted electricity for home heating--even when oil and natural gas were cheaper. To the extent the TVA's home heating campaign was successful, it still squandered resources.

As for flood control, the TVA has flooded an estimated 730,000 acres—more land than the entire state of Rhode Island. Most directly affected by TVA flooding were the thousands of people forced out of their homes. And while farm owners received cash settlements for their condemned property, black tenant farmers received nothing.

As one might expect with a government monopoly that can ignore so many laws, there have been frequent reports of waste and possible corruption. According to TVA's own inspector general, these include lucrative executive perks, cozy consulting contracts, costly building leases, and much more. The TVA spent $15 billion building nine nuclear power plants—and none of them worked. The TVA hired a former Navy admiral to fix them, but he was charged with cronyism and bad judgment. Congressional investigations followed.

Although the TVA was established to build dams, it has expanded relentlessly (as bureaucracies do) to include 11 coal-fired power plants and three nuclear power plants as well as 49 dams—apparently with ambitions to expand the TVA's power-generating monopoly beyond the Tennessee Valley. Among other things, this has raised environmental concerns. Ralph Nader charged that the TVA "has the poorest safety record with [nuclear] reactors." On December 22, 2008, at the TVA's Kingston, Tennessee coal-fired plant, the dike of a 40-acre holding pond broke, spilling as much as a billion gallons of coal sludge with elevated levels of arsenic. The sludge covered some 300 acres up to six feet deep, damaging homes and wrecking a train. This spill reportedly was much bigger than the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez tanker that went aground in Alaska.

As the TVA's long record illustrates, voters rarely receive what they signed-off on when it comes to massive government programs. Despite all of the harm it has done, the TVA has grown into a powerful and politically unstoppable special interest that has done a grave disservice to the Tennessee Valley. Too bad today's advocates of a new New Deal seem determined not to learn from their predecessors' mistakes.

In fact, the Washington Metro is a prime example of the failure of our socialized transit model, and why transit systems should be privatized.

In 1964, most of America’s transit systems were private and the industry as a whole was profitable. Then Congress passed the Urban Mass Transit Act, not—as some believe—to help low-income people who couldn’t afford cars, but because railroads threatened to terminate money-losing commuter trains into Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Congress justified federal support for those trains on the grounds that some of them crossed state lines. Politically, however, supporting transit in those urban areas meant supporting transit throughout the country, whether or not that transit crossed state lines.

Washington, Atlanta and San Francisco then spent billions of dollars building new subway and elevated rail transit lines. These systems completely failed to live up to their promises, costing far more and carrying fewer riders than projected, and they did little to relieve congestion.

Yet transit agencies could not admit they had wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, so they proclaimed these lines to be great successes. Certainly, the people who ride them appreciate the heavy subsidies they receive, but the share of commuters and other travelers riding transit in these regions continued to decline.

For example, the 2000 census revealed that the Washington, D.C. urban area had gained more than 100,000 new jobs since 1990 and that virtually all those commuters drove to work.

Moreover, more than 21,000 commuters who took transit to work in 1990 switched to driving by 2000. You won’t hear that from Washington Metro officials.

Nevertheless, Congress opened the floodgates of federal funding for new rail transit lines, and the number of urban areas with expensive rail transit climbed from 10 in 1980 to nearly 40 today.

To cover the high costs of rail transit, many transit agencies ended up cutting bus service, contributing to declines in per-capita transit ridership.

Nor do transit officials ever mention that the cost of reconstructing rail lines every 30 years is almost as great as the original construction cost. Agencies invariably fail to plan for this cost and hope instead for federal bailouts.

The Chicago Transit Authority is "on the verge of collapse" as it needs $16 billion to rehabilitate its tracks and trains. New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in serious trouble because it is short $17 billion needed to rehabilitate its rail lines.

Washington’s Metrorail suffers increasing breakdowns because no one has found the $12 billion it needs to keep the system running.

Rail advocates argue that all transportation is subsidized so we should pay no attention to the transit subsidies behind the curtain. Yet transit subsidies are vastly out of proportion to other transportation support and have made transit the most expensive way to travel in the U.S.

Including subsidies, Americans spend 15 cents per passenger mile flying, 24 cents driving, and 80 cents on urban transit. While less than 4 percent of the cost of driving and less than 10 percent of the cost of flying is subsidized, three-fourths of the cost of transit comes from subsidies.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, all transit is not subsidized. Atlantic City, NJ, has a private bus system that runs 24 hours a day without subsidies. San Juan, Puerto Rico residents ride private buses known as públicos that carry more people, without subsidies, than the city’s tax-supported public buses and trains. Yet most American cities and states outlaw private competition to government’s monopoly transit systems.

We won’t fix transit’s woes by throwing money at it, especially not by building new rail transit lines, which will only impose huge obligations on future generations to maintain (or dismantle) those lines.

Instead, we need to return to a private transit model, allowing competing transit companies to provide innovative transit services that people will use at no cost to taxpayers.

The Park Service wants to build and rebuild housing for its employees. The Forest Service proposes to remove excess fuels from private forestlands. The Anchorage transit system promises to create 12 jobs at a cost of $729,000 each. Amtrak wants $30 billion to $40 billion to build a new high-speed rail line from New York to Washington.

Even a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill won't cover more than a small fraction of these wish lists from the states, let alone the current $50 billion. Here are four rules responsible legislators should use to decide which projects to fund:

(1) At least half the cost of any project must be spent within nine months after any infrastructure bill passes. It is not enough for projects to be shovel-ready. Many ready-to-go projects will take years to complete. Projects that follow this rule will maximize primary benefits.

(2) Projects must be largely completed within a year to produce secondary benefits that are just as, if not more, important than the primary ones. Transportation projects, for example, will have the greatest stimulative effect if they lead to significant unsubsidized development. Projects following this rule will maximize these secondary benefits.

(3) User fees must cover all operating and most capital costs. Not all infrastructure is created equal. Bridges to nowhere are infrastructure. The dirigible tower on the Empire State Building is infrastructure. To produce secondary effects, infrastructure must be useful to people.

The best test of infrastructure value is whether users are willing to pay for it. The ideal stimulus package would not be grants but low-interest loans to be eventually repaid out of user fees. At the very least, user fees should cover half of construction costs and all future operational costs. Funding projects out of user fees also avoids deficit spending.

Many, if not most, wish-list projects fail this test. House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar, Minnesota Democrat, wants to increase transit's share of federal surface transportation funding from 15 to nearly 30 percent. But transit riders pay only a third of the operating costs and none of the capital costs of transit, while highway users pay 80 to 90 percent of highway costs. This suggests transit will not have anywhere near the stimulative effect of highway spending.

Even if it is publicly owned, most infrastructure is privately used. However, years of taxpayer subsidies have loosened the ties that should connect users and providers of infrastructure. Any infrastructure bill should encourage state and local governments to return to user-fee-funding of infrastructure projects.

(4) Attempts to achieve secondary objectives, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, must be cost-effective. For example, McKinsey & Co. estimates the United States can reduce greenhouse gases 50 percent by 2030 if it invests in projects that cost no more than $50 per ton of reduced emissions. Funding a project that costs $5,000 per ton means forgoing investments that could have eliminated hundreds of times more emissions.

Coordinating traffic signals saves people time and fuel and reduces greenhouse gas emissions for about $10 per ton. Converting buses to biodiesel costs about $200 a ton. Replacing diesel buses with hybrid electrics costs more than $1,000 per ton. Rail transit, when it saves emissions at all (and don't forget to count emissions from construction), costs more than $5,000 a ton.

The Federal Highway Administration estimates three-fourths of the nation's traffic signals are poorly coordinated with nearby signals. No city that still has an uncoordinated traffic signal should invest a dime in rail transit.

Some economists argue that past efforts to use fiscal stimuli to recover from recessions have rarely succeeded. Perhaps it was because the governments involved failed to follow the above rules. But if Congress follows these rules and the infrastructure bill still fails to stimulate the economy, at least it will cost-effectively produce other benefits that users want and need.

I mean, really, really expensive. The average mile of light-rail line costs two to five times as much as an urban freeway lane-mile. Yet in 2007 the average light-rail line carried less than one-seventh as many people as the average freeway lane-mile in cities with light rail.

Do the math: Light rail costs 14 to 35 times as much to move people as highways.

The Government Accountability Office found that bus-rapid transit—frequent buses with limited stops—provided faster, better service at 2 percent of the capital cost and lower operating costs than light rail.

If light rail is so expensive, why are cities building it? Starting in the 1970s, Congress offered cities hundreds of millions of dollars for transit capital improvements. If they bought buses, they wouldn't have enough money to operate those buses.

So cities like Portland and Sacramento decided to build light rail—because it was expensive. Only light rail would use up all the millions of federal dollars. Other cities that wanted their share of federal pork soon began planning light rail, too.

How successful is light rail? In 1980, before Portland began building light rail, 9.8 percent of the region's commuters took transit to work. Today, it is 7.6 percent.

Since 1980, Portland has spent more than $2.3 billion, half the region's transportation capital funds, building light rail. Yet light rail carries less than 1 percent of Portland-area travel. That's a success?

In 2002, Dallas opened a new light-rail line, doubling the number of miles in the city's light-rail system. The new line attracted some rail riders, but the region lost more bus riders than it gained rail riders.

This often happens because rail's high cost forces transit agencies to cut bus service. When Los Angeles started building rail transit to white, middle-class neighborhoods, it cut bus service to black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The city lost more bus riders than it ever gained in rail riders, and an NAACP lawsuit forced the city to restore buses and curtail its rail plans.

Is light rail good for the environment? Hardly. Dallas and Denver light-rail lines consume about as much energy and emit about as much greenhouse gases per passenger mile as the average SUV.

Engineering, construction, and rail car companies make huge profits from light rail. Their political contributions promote new rail lines. Siemens Transportation donated $100,000 to Denver's light-rail campaign and was rewarded with a $184 million railcar contract.

Some people say San Antonio should build light rail because Dallas and Houston have light rail. To paraphrase American mothers, if Dallas and Houston jumped off a cliff, should San Antonio jump as well?

Taxpayers lose because their money is wasted on rail when buses could do the same thing for less. Transit riders lose when transit agencies cut bus service to pay for rail. Commuters lose when money spent on rail, which does nothing to relieve congestion, delays projects that actually can reduce congestion.

Light rail is a giant hoax that makes rail contractors rich and taxpayers poor. San Antonio should be proud to be America's largest city that hasn't fallen for this hoax.

But there were many other heroes that day, most notably the crews and boats of NY Waterway ferries. Videos of the rescue operations show ferryboat after ferryboat pulling up to the floating airliner and throwing out life preservers to passengers. A total of 14 boats from the NY Waterway fleet assisted in the operation. Curiously, the captain of the first boat on the scene is named Vince Lombari.

Contrary to those who say that all transit has to be subsidized, NY Waterway is a private company that normally receives no subsidies for its operations. The company was founded in 1986 by Arthur Imperatore, one of five brothers who owned APA Trucking. Arthur had acquired land on the New Jersey shore of the Hudson River, and decided to go into real estate development a la Donald Trump. He planned his developments to center around a new ferry service that he would offer between Manhattan and New Jersey.

One of the developments is a restaurant called Arthur's Landing. Passengers rescued by NY Waterway boats were ferried to this restaurant where they were given dry clothes, food, and drinks. (The article doesn't say, so it is possible they paid for their food.)

Most of Imperatore's other grandiose real-estate plans did not work out, but the ferries were a great success. When he began, people referred to the idea of unsubsidized ferries as "Arthur's folly." Instead, it eventually grew to offer service between three terminals in Manhattan and ten terminals in New Jersey. The Antiplanner has taken several of these ferries and they are very nice. Once you get off a ferry in Manhattan, you can take a NY Waterway bus to several destinations in the city at no extra charge.

NY Waterway also contracts with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to operate the Haverstraw-Ossining and Newburgh-Beacon ferries. The MTA received federal capital grants to start service on these routes and contracted it to NY Waterway, which apparently receives no operating subsidies for the service.

NY Waterway appears in the National Transit Database for the first time in 2007, though I am not sure why as normally only agencies and companies that get Federal Transit Administration money are in the database. The company profile says that it receives 100 percent of its revenue from fares. In 2007, it earned $33.1 million on $21.4 million of expenses.

Imperatore is not a free-market ideologue who is above taking government money. After 9/11, he received FEMA money, passed through the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PATH), to expand his ferry service to make up for PATH trains that previously shuttled between New Jersey and the World Trade Center. He also borrowed $20 million to expand his fleet for this service. This was a mistake: subsidies ended and patronage fell when PATH trains were restored in 2004.

Unable to meet the mortgage payments, the company nearly went out of business, but was rescued when it sold those routes to a Manhattan lawyer who persuaded the Port Authority to reduce its terminal fees. As a result, NY Waterway now serves only five New Jersey destinations. (The profile for the new company shows that it, too, is unsubsidized, though it earns only a third of the gross revenues of NY Waterway and its 2007 profits were $0.)

Sadly, the Imperatore family's trucking company went out of business in 2002. It was possibly another victim of 9/11 as it abruptly terminated operations due to a credit crunch a few months after the attack. The company had been known for its "clean" reputation; a representative of the Teamsters Union once said, "If everyone was like Arthur, we probably wouldn't have unions."

Despite these setbacks, NY Waterway shows that private entrepreneurs can develop public transportation services that even public agencies did not consider worth providing. Anyone who assumes that subsidies are needed for most U.S. transit both lacks faith in the entrepreneurial skills of private businesses and has too much faith in the altruism of government bureaucrats.

Have a happy inauguration day.

Close scrutiny of these plans reveals that they do not live up to the hype. As attractive as 110-to 220-mile-per-hour trains might sound, even the most optimistic forecasts predict they will take few cars off the road. At best, they will replace for profit private commuter airlines with heavily subsidized public rail systems that are likely to require continued subsidies far into the future.

Nor are high-speed rail lines particularly environmentally friendly. Planners have predicted that a proposed line in Florida would use more energy and emit more of some pollutants than all of the cars it would take off the road. California planners forecast that high-speed rail would reduce pollutionand greenhouse gas emissions by amere 0.7 to 1.5 percent—but only if ridership reached the high end of projected levels. Lower ridership would nullify energy savings and pollution reductions.

These assessments are confirmed by the actual experience of high-speed rail lines in Japan and Europe. Since Japan introduced high-speed bullet trains, passenger rail has lost more than half its market share to the automobile. Since Italy, France, and other European countries opened their high-speed rail lines, rail's market share in Europe has dwindled from 8.2 to 5.8 percent of travel. If high-speed rail doesn't work in Japan and Europe, how can it work in the United States?

As megaprojects—the California high-speed rail is projected to cost $33 to $37 billion—high-speed rail plans pose serious risks for taxpayers. Costs of recent rail projects in Denver and Seattle are running 60 to 100 percent above projections. Once construction begins, politicians will feel obligated to throw good taxpayers' money after bad. Once projects are completed , most plans call for them to be turned over to private companies that will keep any operational profits,while taxpayers will remain vulnerable if the trains lose money.

In short, high-speed rail proposals are high cost, high-risk megaprojects that promise little or no congestion relief, energy savings, or other environmental benefits. Taxpayers and politicians should be wary of any transportation projects that cannot be paid for out of user fees.

Although media reports suggest that many people are taking public transit instead of driving, actual numbers show that recent increases in transit ridership account for only 3 percent of the decline in urban driving. Also, contrary to popular belief, rail transit does not save energy. Many light-rail operations use more energy per passenger mile than the average sport utility vehicle, and almost none uses less than a fuel-efficient car such as a Toyota Prius. People who respond to high fuel prices by taking transit are not saving energy; they are merely imposing their energy costs on someone else.

Rail transportation is also much more heavily subsidized than other forms of travel. Where highway subsidies average less than a penny per passenger mile, and subsidies to flying are even lower, Amtrak costs taxpayers 22 cents per passenger mile and urban transit costs 61 cents per passenger mile.

Even if rail transport did save energy, spending more money on rail will get few people out of their cars. People who want to save energy should plan to buy more fuel-efficient cars and encourage cities to invest in traffic signal coordination, which can save far more energy at a tiny fraction of the cost of building new rail transport lines.

The additional cost of housing in regions that use growth management can be called the planning tax. In many parts of the country, this tax averages hundreds of thousands of dollars per home. Growth management attempts to control either the rate of a city's or region's population growth or the location of that growth. Either way, it limits the ability of homebuilders to meet the demand for new housing. Thanks to growth management, someone buying a four-bedroom, two-and-one-haft bath home would have to spend more than $1,100,000 in San Jose, Calif., which has practiced growth management since 1970, and more than $550,000 in Seattle, which has practiced growth management since 1985. That same house would cost less than $250,000 in Raleigh and other cities that have no growth management, such as Houston (Tex.), Kansas City (Mo.), and Louisville (Ky.).

The most popular form of growth management today is called smart growth, which uses urban-growth boundaries and other tools to restrict development beyond the urban fringe and instead promote high-density development in the cities. Such restrictions drive up land prices and particularly increase the cost of the type of housing that most people prefer: single-family homes with a yard. When new home prices rise, the cost of existing homes follow as homesellers see that other homes are getting more expensive. This means that any policy that makes new homes more expensive--whether it is growth boundaries, impact fees, or a lengthy permitting process--will make all housing less affordable.

Although American cities have been planning and zoning since before 1920, growth management only began in the 1960s, when a few cities and states adopted policies aimed at restricting the rate of growth or controlling where growth would take place. Boulder, Colo., for instance, limits the number of building permits that can be issued each year and purchases land outside the city limits to prevent developers from building at the urban fringe. In 1961, Hawaii passed a statewide growth-management law requiring all cities to write such plans. Oregon followed in 1973. California passed a law in 1963 that gave cities control over the rural areas in each county; this unintentionally became the state's growth-management act.

The most telling fact about the recent housing bubble is that it did not occur everywhere. As economist Paul Krugman notes, prices rose most in what he calls "the zoned zone," regions where land-use restrictions "made it hard to build new houses." In the rest of the country, prices rose not much faster than the rate of inflation. In fact, all but one of the states that saw rapid home price increases have state growth-management laws or local government restrictions on housing supply. The one exception, Nevada, is 90% owned by the Federal government. Prior to 2000, the state's growth was enabled by Federal land sales but, when such sales slowed, homebuilders in Las Vegas and Reno literally ran out of private land. So Nevada's growth management effectively resulted from Federal--rather than state or local--policies.

At the same time, all but one of the states that have passed growth-management laws saw housing prices increase rapidly after 2000. The one exception, Tennessee, passed its law in 1998, and the law's implementation has yet to restrict new home construction.

Growth management is responsible for much of the recent subprime mortgage crisis. Because state and local restrictions on housing supplies sent prices soaring, families who ordinarily would have qualified for prime loans were compelled to borrow at subprime rates. When the housing bubble burst, housing prices dropped, leaving many families with mortgages greater than the value of their house. The resulting credit crisis has shaken the American economy to its core.

This was not the first housing bubble the U.S. has experienced, but it was the first to affect so many homes. A bubble took place in the 1970s in just the few states that then had growth-management laws. After more regions wrote growth-management plans, a second bubble in the 1980s affected several more states. The most recent bubble covered about 40% of the nation's housing.

There is a strong correlation between the year states and regions write growth-management plans and the year, usually very shortly afterwards, when housing prices begin to rise sharply. Historically, U.S. housing prices have risen at about the rate of inflation but, when regions or cities write growth-management plans, prices suddenly accelerate and housing quickly becomes unaffordable.

Research by Harvard University economist Edward Glaeser has found that land-use restrictions not only increase housing prices, they makes those prices more volatile. "If an area has a $10,000 increase in housing prices during one period, relative to national and regional trends," says Glaeser, "that area will lose $3,300 in housing value over the next five-year period."

Note that prices never fall to their original levels. This means that home prices in places like California, which has seen three booms and busts since 1970, become more unaffordable with each new boom. Of course, prices are higher in California partly because California incomes are higher than in many other states. A more valid measure of housing affordability is median home price divided by median family income, known as the price-to-income ratio. If the price-to-income ratio is less than 3.0, a median family can pay off a six percent mortgage on a median home out of 30% of its income in less than 15 years. At a ratio of 5, the family would have to spend 36% of its income to pay off the loan in 30 years. Since prime loans generally limit mortgage payments to about 30% of income, high price-to-income ratios force more families to get subprime mortgages.

Not surprisingly, the states with the highest price-to-income ratios are those with growth-management laws, such as Hawaii and California. The average price-to-income ratio in California is more than 8 and, in some of the state's urban areas, it is more than 10. By contrast, the price-to-income ratios in several fast-growing states with no growth-management laws, including North Carolina and Texas, are 2.5 or less.

Nationally, people who bought homes in 2006 were socked with more than $250,000,000,000 in planning taxes. About half of this was in California. Most of the rest was in nine states with mandatory growth-management laws--Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington--or in urban areas such as Denver (Colo.) and the Twin Cities (Minn.) that have adopted regional growth-management plans without state mandates. It is not clear that homebuyers are getting anything for this tax. Planners say the goal of growth management is to make cities more livable, but is there anything planners have done to make, say, San Jose (Calif.) more livable than Dallas (Tex.)? If the benefits are murky, it certainly is clear that planners have made San Jose, where the price-to-income ratio is more than 9, far less affordable than Dallas, where it only is slightly more than 2. No wonder that, since 1990, the Dallas urbanized area has grown by 40%, while Silicon Valley, the heart of the nation's fastest-growing industries, has grown by 10%.

The planning taxes paid by buyers of new homes simply are absorbed by the higher costs of home construction. Other than the impact fees collected by local governments, they mostly are a dead-weight loss to society. The planning taxes paid by buyers of existing homes at least have the virtue of not being a total loss, as they become windfall profits for the homesellers. Yet, homeowners may find that the benefits they get from growth management partly are an illusion. While they can borrow against their increased equity, they run a greater risk of seeing prices decline and owing more than their homes are worth. The only way they truly can realize their gains from high housing prices is to sell and move to an area that has not adopted such strict land-use policies.

Homeowners in high-priced markets who want to move to a larger house in the same region face the same cost barriers as first-time homebuyers. The worst cases are when--perhaps due to job transfers after a housing bubble has burst--people have to sell their homes "short," that is, for less than the amount remaining on their mortgages. Even if some homeowners profit nicely from growth management, this raises another issue: people who already own their own homes tend to have higher incomes and be wealthier than first-time homebuyers. So, the planning tax is a reverse-Robin Hood program: taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

A study by an Oregon economist, Randall Pozdena, found that, if all states had adopted his state's smart-growth policies before 1990, more than 1,000,000 fatuities that had become since 1990 would not have been purchase their homes. At least one-quarter of those families would be minorities, leading Joseph Perkins, a black radio and newspaper commentator in the San Francisco Bay area, to observe, "Smart growth is the new Jim Crow."

Nationally, more than 72% of white families own their own homes, but only 46% of black and Hispanic families are homeowners. High housing prices actually are driving black families out of the San Francisco Bay area. Intentionally or not, smart growth has become just one more impediment to families trying to escape poverty.

To make up for the loss in housing affordability, many areas that have passed growth-management plans have followed with rules requiring homebuilders to sell or rent a certain percentage of their homes to low- or moderate-income families at below-market prices. However, research by economists at San Jose State University has proven that this is self-defeating because homebuilders merely pass the costs onto other homebuyers, thus making the overall housing market even less affordable than before.

From 1940-60, U.S. homeownership rates grew from 44% to 62%. Since 1960, they have grown a mere seven percent. Many other countries, including Ireland, Italy, and Spain, enjoy much higher homeownership rates. Growth management is a major reason for the slowdown. Homeownership in California and Oregon peaked in 1960, while it has continued to grow in most states with no growth-management laws. Without growth management, overall U.S. rates would be well above 70%.

Why is homeownership so important? Studies show that owner-occupied homes create more stable neighborhoods, provide a better environment for raising children, and are a generator of wealth. Homeowners tend to take better care of their dwellings than renters. This means people who own their own homes usually live better than those who rent, and neighborhoods dominated by owner-occupied homes more likely are nicer than those dominated by renter-occupied homes. This especially is important for families with children. After adjusting for the income and education of their parents, children in families who own their own homes do better in school than those in families who rent--and the difference is greatest in low-income families.

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto attributes the wealth of the U.S. in part to the ease with which people can buy their homes and then leverage the equity to start small businesses. "The single most important source of funds for new businesses in the United States is a mortgage on the entrepreneur's house," de Soto stresses.

Some people think homeownership has a downside. A study in Britain found that homeownership actually is an impediment to finding a job--but this, too, is due to growth management. Britain has practiced growth management since 1947, and price-to-income ratios there are between 6 and 9. British neighborhoods with high homeownership rates, the study found, also had high unemployment rates. When housing costs are so high, people cannot afford the realtor fees to sell their homes, so they remain jobless rather than move to a place where they can find work.

So far, this is not widespread in the U.S., where states and regions that do not practice growth management act as relief valves for the ones that do. However, "places with rapid price increases over one five-year period are more likely to have income and employment declines over the next five-year period," Glaeser notes.

Politically, the key to keeping housing affordable is to make sure that homebuilders have access to developable land outside of city limits. So long as this remains true, cities will welcome development within their boundaries to avoid losing property and sales tax revenues. If, however, cities can restrict development in rural areas, as they can under California's 1963 law, then they will feel free to impose high impact fees, add red tape to the permitting process, and otherwise increase the cost of home construction within their boundaries

Promoting compact cities

Smart growth explicitly seeks to give cities such control over rural development in order to promote more compact dries. Planners say this is needed to limit urban "sprawl," a pejorative term for the way most Americans live: in single-family homes with large yards. Moreover, this is the way most people say they aspire to live. Surveys show that more than 80% of Americans would rather live in a single-family home with a yard than live closer to shops, jobs, and transit. Moreover, this is not an exclusive American preference, as European cities also have suburbanized, and their suburbs, indicates urban historian Peter Hall, are "almost indistinguishable" from those in the U.S.

It is easy for people who already own their own homes to imagine that all future residents of their cities or regions will be happy to live in condos or apartments, but this is why growth management leads to unaffordable housing. Most people are not happy living in high densities, so the price of single-family homes goes up.

Contrary to some claims, there is no evidence that sprawl causes obesity or other health problems. Although research shows that people who are obese are slightly more inclined to live in the suburbs than others, the suburbs are not responsible for their health problems--nor do we need to curb sprawl to protect the environment. As Robert Bruegmann, author of Sprawl: A Compact History, points out, "The environmental effects of sprawl are benign."

Despite the impression you might get if you drive exclusively on Interstate freeways, urban growth does not threaten our farms, forests, or open spaces. The Census Bureau says that all U.S. urban areas occupy less than three percent of the nation's land. You might think that, as the nation's most populous state, California is overrun with sprawl. In fact, the state's growth-management plans have jammed 95% of its residents into just 5.1% of the state's land, making California urban areas the second most dense in the nation (trailing only New York City). If California residents had been allowed to "sprawl" at the same densities as other urban areas, they would occupy 8.5% of the state. Even the most ardent lovers of open space should find it hard to argue that tripling the state's housing costs is a fair price to pay for saving a mere 3.4% of the state's rural open space.

In most other states with growth-management laws, the amount of open space those laws protect is even more insignificant. Oregon's 1973 law restrains most development to within urban-growth boundaries that cover just 1.25% of the state. Yet, if Oregon's urban densities were the same as those in the rest of the nation, the additional sprawl would cover merely one-third of a percent more of the state's land.

Of course, when we say a particular law has "protected" open space from development, we usually mean that the law has denied rural landowners the right to use their property as they see fit. Because landowners receive no compensation for this taking of their property rights, it should be viewed with even greater outrage than the Supreme Court's recent decision allowing cities to take people's land by eminent domain--with compensation--and give that land to private developers.

Zoning originally was created to protect residential neighborhoods from the pollution of industry or the traffic generated by shopping malls. However, it is one thing to say, "You can build a house next to my house but not a factory because the factory will make me and my neighbors sick." It is quite another to say, "You can't develop your land at all just because I like the idea that every rural acre stays rural forever."

Russians say that Americans do not have any real problems, so they have to make them up. Urban sprawl is one of those made-up problems. Unfortunately for U.S. citizens, efforts to control sprawl have led to very real difficulties: unaffordable housing, higher land costs for business and industry, housing bubbles and busts, and increasing barriers to homeownership for low- and moderate-income families.

States that have passed growth-management laws should repeal them. States that have not passed such laws should avoid them--only then will we see homeownership rates rise and more individuals achieve the American dream of owning the home of their choice.

This costs almost as much as the original construction, which means for taxpayers that rails are a "pay now, pay more later" proposition.

The Chicago Transit Authority is on the verge of financial collapse. The agency estimates it needs $16 billion it doesn’t have to rehabilitate tracks and trains.

To keep the trains running, the agency siphoned money away from the city’s bus system and lost a third of its bus riders between 1986 and 1996.

Newer systems face other financial challenges. San Jose’s light-rail system put the city’s transit agency so far in debt that when sales tax revenues fell short early in this decade, it was forced to cut bus and rail service by 20 percent.

Rail construction almost always costs more than the original estimates.

Denver voters approved a 119-mile rail system in 2004 on the promise that it would cost $4.7 billion to build it by 2017. The current estimate is up to $7.9 billion, and the regional transit agency says the system might not be complete until 2034.

Once built, light-rail systems never live up to their promises, even in places like Portland. Before building light rail, Portland’s bus system carried 9.8 percent of the region’s transit riders to work. Today, thanks to cutbacks in the bus system forced by the high cost of rail, transit carries just 7.6 percent.

Nor is rail transit good for the environment. Most U.S. light-rail lines use more energy, per passenger mile, than an SUV.

Considering that most of Missouri’s electricity comes from fossil fuels, a Kansas City light rail, like the ones in Dallas, Denver and Cleveland, is also likely to produce more greenhouse gases per passenger mile than an SUV.

Buses can provide better, faster, safer transit service than light rail at a far lower cost.

Light rail is a hoax perpetrated on taxpayers by companies that profit from designing and building rail lines.

Rail advocates tell Kansas Citians that they need to catch up with other cities that have rail transit. I suggest instead that Kansas City should be proud not to fall for the light-rail hoax.

Marsella says "no one could have predicted" that rising steel, concrete and energy prices would drive up the cost of FasTracks from the promised $4.7 billion to the current estimate of $7.9 billion. Yet, as Danish planner Bent Flyvbjerg points out in his book, Megaprojects, something like this always happens in projects of this scale.

Flyvbjerg observes that megaprojects like FasTracks inevitably suffer from "optimism bias." RTD's financial plan, for example, assumed the Denver economy would not suffer a single recession between 2004 and 2017. Because that proved false, RTD now says sales tax revenues will fall $2.8 billion short of its earlier expectations.

FasTracks promoters were also guilty of what Flyvbjerg calls "strategic misrepresentation" (i.e., lying) when they repeatedly told the public that RTD has built all its light-rail lines "on budget." In reality, both the Southeast and Southwest lines cost far more than RTD's original estimates.

When the costs of those lines went up, RTD revised its budgets upward, allowing it to later claim that they were built "on budget." The 68 percent increase in FasTracks costs is about par for RTD's course.

Environmentally, light rail is a disaster for the region. For every passenger mile carried, light rail consumes four times as much land as Denver-area freeways. It also uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gases, per passenger mile, than the average SUV.

Light-rail riders don't save energy; they merely make someone else pay their energy bills.

Marsella now says RTD has three choices: scale back construction, delay completion of FasTracks until as late as 2034, or raise taxes again. But there is a fourth choice: cancel FasTracks.

Without the tax increase voters approved in 2004, RTD can improve bus service in every FasTracks corridor, operating buses as fast and as frequently as the proposed FasTracks rail lines.

RTD's own analyses of FasTracks corridors showed that bus rapid transit using a combination of high-occupancy lanes and existing roads would cost less and do more to relieve congestion than rail.

So why did RTD pick rail, the high-cost, low-benefit solution?

One answer is that rail lines create lots of profits for the companies that supported the FasTracks campaign. For example, Siemens donated more than $100,000 to the FasTracks campaign and was rewarded by RTD with a $187 million no-bid contract for light-rail cars.

The other support for FasTracks comes from those who want to socially engineer Colorado lifestyles. They use light rail as an excuse to build tax-subsidized high-density housing projects on properties taken from their owners by eminent domain near planned rail stations. Yet few Americans aspire to live in such dense housing, and such compact development makes little sense in a state that is 97 percent rural open space.

Canceling FasTracks will save taxpayers billions of dollars and allow RTD to make almost immediate improvements in bus service, rather than having to wait years to complete rail lines. This is the best solution for both taxpayers and transit riders.