Hat Thief

Tie the Gas Tax to Prices-Voters think It's Like That Already

2008-07-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

Currently, every state's gas tax as well as the federal gas tax (a flat rate of 18.4 cents per gallon), is a flat rate, ranging from the low end of 7.5 cents per gallon in Georgia, 8 cents per gallon in Alaska and 10.5 cents per gallon in New Jersey to the high end of 32.2 cents per gallon in West Virginia, 32.90 cents per gallon in Wisconsin and 36 cents per gallon in Washington state (see the Energy Information Administration's data)

14 states allow additional flat-rate taxes at the local level (Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington), with such taxes being notably implemented in Florida, Hawaii, and Nevada.

But only 8 states, California (full 7.25% sales tax), Connecticut (6.3% gross receipts tax), Georgia (4% combined motor fuel and sales and use tax), Illinois (full 6.25% sales tax), Indiana (full 6% sales tax), Michigan (full 6% sales tax), New York (local sales taxes), Virginia (2 percent sales tax in areas providing mass transit), actually subject gasoline to some sort of sales tax and thereby allow revenues to increase as gas prices rise. Iowa (1 cent per gallon), NJ (4 cents per gallon), New York (8 cents per gallon) have additional flat tax rates.

This has been killing transportation agencies at every level this year (although I assume less so in the above states, I know that New York's Metro Transit Association is proposing a 13% fare hike over the next 2 years (to $2.25 per ride)) because revenues per gallon of gas sold have not changed, and due to rising gas prices, total gallons sold has decreased. While ridership has increased enormously on transit, fares rarely pay more than 30% of operating costs (with the exception of a few larger, very heavily used agencies like the MTA), and thus the extra fares haven't been enough to offset higher diesel prices.

My point, though, is that I saw this in a letter to the editor, which it now seems I've misread; oh well.

In the Denver post, responding to an editorial that the Denver RTD might raise fares and parking fees.

You have to be kidding me - $4 gas and RTD still has falling revenues? As an avid RTD rider who quit riding the rails over the expense, inconvenience of parking, and longer commute times for riders, I will tell RTD how to increase revenue: Do you see all those people on the interstate? They are driving because it is still cheaper to drive your car than to ride the bus. For the average commuter, it costs about $5, takes an hour and a half, with three transfers, to get anywhere around town. Forget it if your hours are not 9-5.
How about lowering prices on RTD to increase ridership and thus increase revenue? Hey, it might get so popular that lines are added instead of decreased!

Theresa A. Anderson, Aurora

So this wasn't actually about gas taxes, but just about how high gas prices should be driving people to transit.

I think it would make far more sense to raise parking fees everywhere in the RTD except rail stations, but then the businesses will whine and whine.

However, on a closer look, their specific plans make sense; they only plan to charge those who don't reside in the Regional Transportation District (and thus aren't paying the sales tax locally to support it), or those who do reside there but leave their cars for long periods of time rather than just for the day.

On Tuesday, directors will consider a plan that would have pay-for-parking in place at six park-n-Rides beginning Feb. 1: Stapleton, Airport Boulevard/40th Avenue, Montbello, Wagon Road, Thornton, and 104th Avenue/Washington Street. It would be expanded to 32 more lots by May 1.

The paid parking program calls for residents of the eight-county RTD district to get the first 24 hours of parking free at these lots and then pay $2 a day for extended stays. This is aimed at capturing revenue from those who take RTD buses to Denver International Airport for multiple-day trips.

RTD's analysis shows that of its 17,000 parking spaces that are filled daily, about 1,500 are occupied by travelers who are gone an average of four days per trip.

Those who are not RTD district residents would pay $4 a day for parking beginning the first day they use a park-n-Ride. Agency officials estimate that 1,600 spaces are filled at RTD lots each weekday by nonresidents.

That seems like a fair (or fare, since it's transit and all) idea; take a taxi or get dropped off if you're staying long term. When I flew to Austin (via Atlanta, of course) last week, I was planning to walk the 0.8 miles to the NJ Transit bus stop at Nassau St. and Princeton Ave, take the 606 bus to the newly renovated Trenton Rail station, take the R7 SEPTA train to 30th Street, then take the R1 SEPTA train to the airport (yes, three transfers); but my mother was way overwhatever about me missing my flight, so she drove me to Trenton.

But more specifically, I want to answer Theresa's question.

Ridership has been increasing heavily on the RTD, especially on the light rail.

Full-year data shows a 52% increase in total RTD ridership from 2004-2007, with an 87% increase in light rail ridership (thanks largely to the approximately 66% gain in light rail ridership from completion and beginning operations of the E, F, G & H lines (mostly running together but on slightly different routes); note that bus ridership still managed to rise a bit that year, so it was clearly taking a bunch of riders off the road).

The most recent data, from the Jan-Feb-Mar '08 ridership, shows a 55% increase in ridership between the 1st quarter of 2005 and the 1st quarter of 2008, with light rail ridership having nearly doubled (increase of 97%), and one expects the increase to have continued through the 2nd quarter of this year.

The problem is that most revenue has come from subsidies and with the fares the way they are, the massive ridership increase hasn't been enough to cope with stagnant/declining sales tax revenues and massive diesel price increases.

Still, she's right that it should be higher given the infrastructure current existing (and it will, especially with Fastracks completed).

In 2007, the Denver RTD at 62,900 trips/day ranked 9th in average U.S. weekday light rail ridership, after, in order, Boston (257,500), San Francisco (132,500), Los Angeles (127,300), San Diego (118,400), Philadelphia (106,900), Portland (104,300), St. Louis (73,200) and just barely behind Dallas (63,400/day). While, with the exception of Portland (with its much revered and possibly St. Louis (which is disgraceful to be behind since they've got one line with a branch if I remember correctly), those metro areas are bigger, and it's moved ahead of Salt Lake City and Sacramento (in 2004 it was barely ahead of Houston), it could be higher. But then again, I expect it will be.

-

So, finally, I'll just note my solution to New Jersey's transportation funding crisis:

A) Eliminate the 10.5 cent per gallon gasoline tax in New Jersey
B) Remove the exemption from the 7% state sales tax from gasoline in New Jersey and earmark (I mean really lockbox earmark) all revenues from this tax to transportation funding.

While even today, the gas tax in most states is higher than what the equivalent would be of subjecting it to the sales tax (I'm finding about 14 other states which would have an increase in revenue per gallon by eliminating their gasoline tax per gallon and replacing it with the state-level sales tax rate), this is not the case in New Jersey. In fact, New Jersey would, at current gas prices, get an additional 15.8 cents in revenue per gallon of gasoline sold (Mississippi, with the next highest gain, would be only 7.5 cents more per gallon).

And it's technically not "raising taxes" (it's just limiting exemptions from the currently existing tax) and in addition, politicians being politicians, they can claim they eliminated the New Jersey gasoline tax; though NJ residents won't likely fall for that, they rightly don't trust politicians.

Obama is Jewish after all!

2008-07-23T20:00:00.001-07:00

Would any non-Jew have a rally at the Kotel?

Surely no non-Jew (he'd have peyos but he doesn't have enough hair!!!) would be having such a deep experience at the Wall.

Steve Hildebrand at Netroots Nation (Others too)

2008-07-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

Iowa wasn't enough, New Hampshire wasn't enough. We were running against the Clintons.

Never had there been 22 state, many very large, also 6 caucus states on February 5th.

They had to be smart enough to look forward.

He was skeptical about Jeremy Bird in South Carolina, whether he could build by organizing.

Building capacity to have the infrastructure to win.

Some said SC wasn't a field state, but every state is if you do it right.

The initial question was whether BO was black enough, after SC he clearly was, and was shifted to being called too black.

It took Iowa for many AA voters to believe he was really able to win.

A lot of whites looking at the massive SC victory and saying "He's real"

Nobody knew when it was going to end. Nobody would've predicted 57 contests, and nobody wants to live through it again.

June of 2007, 50-state walk for change (I did it in Hoboken, NJ with some great people; saw them again at a fundraiser with Cory Booker & various other probama NJ politicians).

There were about 2,5000 walks (there was also one in Princeton, but I was in Hoboken that day)

Convergent of events, seriousness and urgency of Americans right now. People who've never been involved

Tom Delay did massive damage. To take away their power.

Texas needs 5 more House seats to take back the lower House.

It'll likely gain 4 more House seats.

Why are we running a 50-state strategy? Cause it's about a progressive majority for the future, not just about Obama. It's about the American people.

Paul Krugman at Netroots Nation

2008-07-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

Notable things he's said:

"Seymour Hersh is the Seymour Hersh of the Iraq War"

"A lot of journalists tend to be thin-skinned"

"Full of Moral turpentine"

"I took money from Enron"

Key Points on McCain-Democratic National Committee

2008-07-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

* 3rd Bush Term; 95% of the time with George Bush in 2007.

against
* Increasing the minimum wage
* overtime compensation and unemployment benefits
* expanding SCHIP to 10 million kids
For
* Extending Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest
* Raising Medicare age
* Raise the tax, but not on the wealthy
* privatize

* Wishy Washy Washington Insider
Torture-flip flopped, now pro-waterboarding.
Immigration-wrote bill with Ted Kennedy, now would vote against his own bill
Campaign Finance-Now just the Feingold bill
Bush Tax Cuts-Voted Against them in 2000, now supports them.

* Old-Fashioned, Out of Touch
Economy-Fundamentals of the economy are very strong
People know better.

Senate Recommendations For Rail Transit Spending in FY 2009 Appropriations Bill

2008-07-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and other Related Agencies released its marked-up fiscal year 2009 appropriations bill yesterday, and it is now available online.

While housing is definitely important in these times of foreclosures (granted, many of those being foreclosed on have to take some blame for buying houses beyond their means; at the same time, the real estate industry wasn't offering anything else other than the insane sprawling large subdivisions, and local governments have been completely failing to stop and even encouraging such housing), and urban development is very, very crucial, I'm going to focus mainly on the public transportation parts of the bill.

Keep in mind that the subcommittee has Senators from the following 21 states: Alabama (Shelby), Alaska (Stevens), California (Feinstein), Colorado (Allard), Illinois (Durbin), Iowa (Harkin), Kansas (Brownback), Maryland (Mikulski), Missouri (Bond), New Jersey (Lautenberg), New Mexico (Domenici), North Dakota (Dorgan), Pensylvania (Specter), South Dakota (Johnson), Tennessee (Alexander), Texas (Hutchison), Utah (Hatch), Vermont (Leahy), Washington (Murray), West Virginia (Byrd), and Wisconsin (Kohl).

While they are unfortunately still spending what I think is too much money on so-called "bus rapid transit", and far, far too little on metro-area rail transit (and, of course, even more so when it comes to intercity rail) there are still significant spending recommendations for rail. Of the nearly 1.75 billion dollars recommended, over 1.6 billion is for some sort of rail improvement

Here's a look by Metropolitan area:

Minneapolis-St. Paul

$20,000,000 for the Central Corridor Light Rail Transit Project, which will be running between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis past the University of Minnesota

$71,166,060 for the Northstar Corridor Rail Project, a commuter rail line from St. Cloud to Minneapolis

Denver

$1,031,210 for futher improvements to the Southeast Light Rail Corridor (I believe to Lone Tree, Colorado)

$70,000,000 for the West Corridor Light Rail to Jefferson County, Colorado in the Denver suburbs

Phoenix

$91,800,000 for the finishing touches for the starter line for the Valley Metro; Phoenix is, along with the auto-based (and somewhat responsible for our situation) Detroit and sprawled out the wazoo Orlando, the only metro areas of over 2,000,000 people in the U.S. without a currently active rail system of some kind [though the TECO line Streetcar in Tampa barely, barely counts]

Washington, DC

$34,700,000 for the Largo Metrorail Extension (I'm not exactly sure what this is for, but I'm guessing capacity extensions; they are desperately needed, as the system is hitting capacity in places; July 11, 2008 beat out the record set by Ronald Reagan's laying in the rotunda [so ironic given how anti-sustainability the man was])

$30,000,000 for the Dulles Corridor Rail Project, VA (Silver Line); one of a very few major airports in the Northeast lacking a high-speed transit extension [Logan in Boston has the Silver Line, which is Bus Rapid Transit, and LaGuardia oddly has no rail link; I believe every other airport servicing the Northeast corridor does, except maybe one in Providence or Southern Connecticut]

$5,000,000 for VRE Rolling Stock (New Trains)

$2,000,000 for improvements to the highly congested Rosslyn Metro Station (where the orange and blue lines branch out on the East side; it's the next stop Virginia-wards from GWU's Foggy Bottom stop

$15,000,000 for MARC Commuter Rail Improvements and Rolling Stock (New Trains and really desperately needed capacity increases; demand is now exceeding capacity for rush hour)

Charlotte:
$18,000,000 for engineering the Northeast Extension to Charlotte's successful recently opened Blue Line in its significant planned rail system
Dallas
$87,974,716 for Dallas Area Rapid Transit Northwest/Southeast Light Rail MOS, building the Orange and Green line extensions to the Dallas light rail system, doubling its length and eventually servicing both Love Field and DFW International
Houston
$10,000,000 for further planning on its hopefully-to-happen 5 line light rail system
Honolulu
$20,000,000 for work on its "High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project". There is a huge fight over this going on in Hawai'i. A Paultard scumbag from Texas (ha, I was right, she literally is a Paultard; gave him $1,000) by the name of Jamie Story is heading an astroturf operation with a few misguided locals like Eric Ryan, who founded "Stop Rail Now", to stop what is an unbelievably sensible plan.

Honolulu

A) Has the 4th highest trips/person/year taken on transit of any urbanized area in the country, coming in behind only the extremely heavily rail infrastucture, developed Washington, DC; San Francisco/Oakland, and of course the New York City metro area; it beats out places like Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston,
B) Part of the reason is that Honolulu Has to ship in diesel/gasoline/any liquid fuels at significant expense to power itself and its cars and as such, has generally had the highest gasoline prices in the nation.
C) Due to the islands being very sunny and tropical, and of course, being volcanic, and having a lot of windy areas off the islands, the Hawaiian islands can probably power themselves solely with geothermal and solar and wind. But that does no good without an electrified transportation system.

New York

$197,370,000 to build the East Side Access to allow the Long Island Railroad to come into Grand Central Station, making commutes far easier for many Long Islanders

$1,103,860 for the highly successful (both in ridership and especially in redevelopment; anyone who'd been to the West Side of Hoboken 10 years ago but came back today will agree

$249,927,000 for the Second Avenue subway-studies began when my late grandfather was living there as a 2-year old in 1919. Construction began 36 years ago and was halted; it will reduce congestion and I believe put all of Manhattan Island within half a mile of a subway stop

$5,000,000 for studying a Stamford Urban Transitway, a proposed light rail system for Stamford

$75,000,000 for moving towards construction of a Midtown tunnel under the Hudson to relieve capacity strains on the Northeast Corridor and the PATH and also increase access

Hampton Roads
$57,055,734 to continue building the first link in its light rail system
Portland

$50,000,000 for the second streetcar loop for Portland

$81,600,000 for building the South Corridor Light Rail line (heading down from the Portland Mall)

Boston/Providence

$27,000,000 to increase speed and capacity on the Fitchburg Commuter Rail Line

$1,345,500 for planning for the South County Commuter Rail, Wickford Junction Station, RI from Boston to Providence

Chicago

$29,474,404 for rebuilding infrastructure and increasing capacity on the 100-year old Brown Line

$8,000,000 for continued studying to build a much-needed Circle Line to allow travel between lines without having to go through the Loop

$6,607,000 for continued studies to move forward on significant planned expansions of the METRA commuter rail service

Seattle

$28,846,735 to finish the initial Central Link for Seattle's planned light rail system (it ran into some problems after voters rejected financing the new plans last November, but most of the system will likely still be built, if more slowly)

$100,000,000 to start building the light rail link to the University of Washington [my dad got around Seattle as a grad student generally without a car, either by bike or by bus, but this'll make a car even less necessary, and students always use rail].

Sacramento
$7,000,000 to continue studying a new corridor (hopefully for rail) south of Sacramento
Miami
$20,000,000 for expansions of the Orange Line of the Miami-Dade metrorail
San Diego
$21,650,000 for building the mid-city rapid extension to the San Diego Trolley
San Francisco
$8,000,000 for continuing to move forward on the Third Street Light Rail/Subway Project
Los Angeles

$50,000,000 for building the Perris Valley Extension to Metrolink

$74,600,000 for building the East Extension to the Gold Line

Salt Lake City

$10,000,000 for engineering/studying the Mid Jordan light rail extension

$81,600,000 for final finishes to the first part of the Commuter Rail System

Likely Staten Island Congressman Has Rail as Top Priority

2008-07-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

Mike McMahon(D-Staten Island), is, thanks to Vito Fossella's drunken revelations and a terrible climate for Republicans, likely to be the new Congressman from New York's 13th district, which takes in all of Staten Island, and Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights and Gravesend Bay in Brooklyn. Cook Political Report shifted it to "Lean Democrat" on July 3rd, which it is extremely hesitant to do for seats currently held by Republicans.

McMahon, fortunately, is highly invested in getting the rail lines on the North and West Shores built.

For his part, City Councilman Michael McMahon, (D-North Shore), a congressional candidate, has pledged to make solving Staten Island's transportation woes his first priority if elected. "It's not only a question of transportation, it's an incredible economic shot in the arm for both the North Shore and West Shore," McMahon said. The borough's Republican party has yet to nominate a candidate.

The North Shore rail line "would run along the North Shore from St. George to Mariners Harbor/Arlington"

While the West Shore line hasn't been figured out yet, one idea is that it would run "partially along the West Shore Expressway median, reaching the Pleasant Plains park-and-ride (near the Pleasant Plains Staten Island Railway station) on the southern end, and the Bayonne Bridge on the northern end." It would then cross the Bayonne Bridge to theoretically connect up with the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail line (which, by the way, is superb, and is spurring fast redevelopment in Hudson County). The Bayonne Bridge, by the way, was built from 1928-1931 with extra space in which to install rail lines, but it never ever got them.

Among other things, these two lines would greatly shorten the time necessary for Staten Islanders to get to work. The Census Bureau estimates the median commute for a Staten Islander is 43.9 minutes, possibly the longest for any area they calculate (though Brooklyn and Queens aren't much better, at least their commutes are on the subway where they don't have to sit on the road in traffic).

Senator Obama, Transit Is Not Just Good for Congestion and the Environment

2008-07-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

While I'm thrilled that Senator Obama gets that we need a massive investment in infrastructure ($60 billion is what he's stated), with the caveat that we in particular need to focus on expansions in electrified rail systems.

Washington DC and Portland are both planning significant expansions of their already pretty good rail transit systems

Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Portland, Salt Lake City, Baltimore, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Little Rock, Tampa, Charlotte, Pittsburgh and Sacramento are planning significant extensions of their currently meager rail transit systems.

Phoenix, Austin and Hampton Roads are planning extensions for their under-construction rail transit systems.

Kansas City, Orlando, Birmingham, Jacksonville, Milwaukee, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Madison, Tucson, Lancaster(Pennsylvania), Columbus, Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, Santa Ana are planning to try to get something started.

So, at any rate, it's great that Obama is saying:

The federal government has to partner with the local community to rebuild the transportation infrastructure.

and

The Metro is one the best transit systems in the country and people would use more stops if they were available. I want a $60 billion reinvestment in our basic infrastructure. I want to rework the electric grid. I want to expand the reach of broad band so that more people have access to high speed internet.

However, this statement is a very tone-deaf reason to be for public transit in this day and age:

I am a strong believer in public transit. It cuts down on pollution and congestion.

Senator, the following semi- significant-sized urbanized areas had double-digit ridership increases for the 1st Quarter of 2008 compared to the 1st Quarter of 2007:

Flagstaff, AZ (bus): 24.79%
Phoenix, AZ (bus): 12.84%
Tucson, AZ (bus): 10.07%
Elk Grove, CA (bus): 20.74%
Norwalk, CA (bus): 22.60%
San Fracisco/Oakland, CA (commuter rail): 15.81%
Redondo Beach, CA (bus): 15.13%
San Francisco, CA (light rail): 12.20%
Santa Clarita, CA (bus): 13.49%
Stockton, CA (commuter rail): 13.86%
Stockton, CA (bus): 18.85%%
Ventura, CA (bus): 11.19%
Denver, CO (bus): 8.72%/10.36%
Fort Collins, CO (bus): 14.48%
Pompano Beach, FL (bus): 47.54%
Gainesville, GA (bus): 47.73%
Des Moines, IA (bus): 18.25%
Harrisburg, IL (bus): 29.70%
Rockford, IL (bus): 11.55%
Springfield, IL (bus): 11.86%
Bloomington, IN (bus): 12.37%
Fort Wayne, IN (bus): 10.44%
Indianapolis, IN (bus): 12.28%
Olathe (Johnson County), KS (bus): 32.15%
Baton Rouge, LA (bus): 21.76%
(not counting New Orleans since it's due to repairs from Katrina)
Baltimore, MD (light rail): 16.83%
PG County, MD (bus): 23.72%
Flint, MI (bus): 17.53%
Grand Rapids, MI (bus): 11.76%
Muskegon, MI (bus): 17.13%
POrt Huron, MI (bus): 27.25%
Saginaw, MI (bus): 20.70%
Anoka, MN (bus): 10.96%
Duluth, MN (bus): 12.49%
Minneapolis, MN (light rail): 16.35%
St. Louis, MN (light rail): 15.57%
Chapel Hill, NC (bus): 16.74%
NJ Transit (light rail): 12.75%
Santa Fe, NM (bus): 18.81%
Albany, NY (bus): 12.31%
Lyons, NY (bus): 10.13%)
Staten Island, NY (heavy rail): 12.29%
Delaware, OH (bus): 17.53%
Zanesville, OH (bus): 13.29%
Lawton, OK (bus): 20.66%
Eugene, OR (bus): 14.19%
Butler, PA (bus): 13.13%
Philadelphia, PA (Light rail): 54.20%
Philadelphia, PA (commuter rail): 10.42%
Beaver County, PA (bus): 13.21$
Charleston, SC (bus): 20.38%
Clarksville, TN (bus): 13.23%
KNoxville, TN (bus): 12.56%
Nashville, TN (bus): 10.67%
Corpus Christi, TX (bus): 11.53%
San Antonio, TX (bus): 10.58%
Waco, TX (bus): 12.65%
Park City, UT (bus): 11.36%
Arlington, VA (bus): 20.84%
Loudoun County, VA (bus): 20.16%
Lynchburg, VA (bus): 33.54%
Snohomish, WA (bus): 11.24%
Olympia, WA (bus): 11.01%
Seattle, WA (commuter rail): 27.92%
Seattle sounder, WA (bus): (13.20%)
Spokane, WA (bus): 11.48%
La Crosse, WI (bus): 13.97%
Parkersburg, WV (bus): 15.22%

Hint: This was not due to increased traffic (traffic has been down this year) or to concern for the environment (Americans just aren't yet THAT concerned yet).

It's due to gas prices. Yes, gas prices.

Ridership numbers are still not as high as one might hope, though. This is largely because Washington Republicans did every they could to avoid planning ahead in the 1980's and 1990's, squelching every transit improvement they could.

In particular, Senator John McCain.

McCain has been so bad on rail transportation that it (and his other less-than-bonafides to conservatives) led Paul Weyrich, one of the Great Satans of social conservatism (but a huge rail supporter), to refuse to support him against Hillary Clinton (no word yet on his support versus Senator Obama):

Weyrich's comment came during his discussion of the latest developments in the behind-closed-doors give-and-take negotiations at the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission (NSTPRSC) regarding his effort to see that electric railway (streetcar) transit is given its due in the final commission report. (See last week's column America's Crumbling Transportation System.)

Weyrich knows that Senator McCain, throughout his career, has been very anti-rail, and in that respect "would be [even] worse than the present [Bush] administration," whose Transportation Secretary Mary Peters (a big highway booster) has fought tooth and nail (as commission chairman) to block the pro-rail efforts of Weyrich and others allied with his 9-to-3 commission majority.

McCain "would fight us on everything," Weyrich opined, and not just on rail issues, but also regarding several conservative concerns such as the Arizona senator's open-borders stance on immigration — and "He hates talk radio. He [McCain] has indicated he would favor shutting it down. He hates the religious right."

So, Senator Obama. That may just be something to point out.

Rough Ranking of Urbanized Area Transit Systems By Grade

2008-07-11T13:47:00.000-07:00

A: New York City (generally as good as or better than any city in the world)
Heavy Rail (i.e. subway/el, etc)

NYC Subway-26 lines, with a 27th under construction

Staten Island Railway-1 line

PATH train-4 lines

Light Rail/Streetcar

Newark Light Rail-2 lines

Hudson/Bergen Light Rail-2 lines

Commuter Rail

NJ Transit-9 lines/10 branches

Long Island Railroad-4 lines/branches

Metro North Railroad-3 lines/5 brances

Shore line East-1 line, connects to Metro North

Bus Service

MTA New York City Bus-243 lines

NJ Transit-247 lines (some operate in Philly area)

Suffolk County Transit-53 lines

Westchester County Bee-line-63 lines

Many other smaller or private bus companies

There are also several ferryboat systems to aid in getting across the Hudson and other waterways in the NYC area

Total trips in 2006: 3,556,942,008
Trips/2000 urbanized area resident: 199.83

A-: San Francisco/Oakland (very, very good within the relatively small by today's standards city of San Francisco, but less so in Oakland, and commuter service has some issues)
Light Rail/streetcar
* Muni Railway-7 lines and 1 streetcar lines
Cable Cars
* Muni Railway-3 lines
Trolleybuses
* Muni Railway-17
Heavy Rail
* Bay Area Rapid Transit-5 lines (functions somewhat as commuter rail as well)
Commuter Rail

Buses

Muni Railway-54 lines

SamTrans-55 lines

AC Transit-105 lines

Golden Gate Transit-52 lines

Western Contra Costa Transit-16 lines

Union City Transit-5 lines

Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board lines

Total Trips in 2006: 420,202,662
Trips/Urbanized area resident in 2000: 140.27

Black Registration Percentage Up 0.21% in Alabama from January

2008-07-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

The Obama campaign is not spending more than minimal resources in Alabama.

This makes sense, as Alabama has some of the most conservative (if not outright racist, and it has a good number of those) whites in the country, and though it was Jimmy Carter's 9th best state in 1980 (after Minnesota, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland and West Virginia), Democrats seem to have been doing relatively worse and worse there each year.

1984: Mondale's 27th best state (lost by a little over 22 points)
1988: Dukakis' 35th best state (lost by just under 20 points)
1992: Clinton's 42nd best state
1996: Clinton's 43rd best state

While Gore did slightly better relatively

2004:Kerry did not; it was his 44th best state, doing worse only in Alaska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Utah and Idaho.

It'll possibly be even worse for Obama, as he's actively contesting Alaska, North Dakota, and Nebraska's 2nd district (since Nebraska splits by electoral vote) [granted, Obama may do worse in Kentucky/WV/TN that in Alabama)

In particular (especially where Obama is concerned), it is the least heavily African-American of the 5 Deep South states (SC, GA, AL, MS, LA), only a little over a quarter black (the others range from nearly 30% black to 3/8 black in the case of Mississippi)

However, there are two competitive House races in which Democratic victory will depend heavily on African-American turnout. Both are located in Southeast Alabama.

While AL-3 (designed by the Democratic state government to elect a Democrat, but electing Mike Rogers instead of Joe Turnham in 2002) has shown, if anything, smaller gains than the state,

However, the open AL-2 seat has shown bigger gains (at least up 0.30%, possibly more or a small bit less depending on the way Montgomery County's gains divide up), which will be helpful in Bobby Bright's quest to pick up the open seat.

This seat went Republican in the 1964 anti-Civil Rights Act backlash. The last time this area was represented in Congress by a Democrat, there was a grand total of 11 Republicans (William Cramer in St. Petersburg, Edward Gurney of East-Central Florida, Charles Jonas in Charlotte, James Broyhill in the Blue Ridge Foothills just west of Charlotte, the 2 always Republican East Tennessee districts as well as the slightly more swingy Chattanooga district, Bruce Alger of Dallas, Ed Foreman of very, very sparsely populated at the time West Texas, Joel Broyhill of Northern Virginia, and Richard Harding Poff of Shenandoah) in Congress from the 106 Congressmen representing the 11 former Confederate states

These days (admittedly with 25 more Congressional districts), there are 75 Republicans in Congress from these states out of a total of 131 members of Congress, down from 77 at the beginning of this session of Congress and an all-time high of 82 at the beginning of the 109th Congress; .

With any luck, we can get that number down below 70

Note: my data comes from the Alabama Secretary of State's Excel files of Voter Registration Data and Dave Leip's Election Atlas.

Councilman Jim Graham Holds Up DC Streetcars

2008-07-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

After all, they've already got the second most heavily-ridden city fixed-route system (heavy rail, light rail, cable car, trolleybus combined) in the country despite only existing for a bit over 30 years.

DC has by a significant margin the 2nd-most heavily ridden city rail system (although it's a far, far far, far second to the NYC subway; not even close). It does, of course, take on some commuter rail on the heavy rail lines.

Granted, it's only that high because it also acts to a significant extent as commuter rail

13 stations entirely outside of the beltway (8 on the red line, 2 each on the blue and orange, and one on the yellow line; 11 of the 12 stations on the silver line to Dulles now in the final design stage will be outside of the beltway

An additional 20 inside the beltway but outside the original 100 sq mile city limits (the original city included Arlington County and most of Alexandria City, which contain 14 total stations)

4 on the red line

8 on the green line

4 on the orange line

4 on the blue line

1 station on the future silver line

Every station on any future purple line

Only 39 stations are in the city itself, and only 53 in the old original city.

Actual commuter rail in DC isn't close to as strong:

there are 5 lines, 2 in Virginia (Manassas branch and Fredericksburg branch) with no real expansion plans [a study was done from 2002-2004, but no actions; the Republican-controlled legislature is significantly to blame) and 2/3 in Maryland (Brunswick, Camden, Penn line, an extension to Newark, DE to link up with SEPTA planned for 2015, but no new lines, say to Southern Maryland; the Camden and Penn run close to each other and are both basically the same corridor/direction, the lines have insufficient capacity as well)

By contrast, ...

Boston has 12 commuter rail lines on the MBTA (and is constructing several extensions and planning a few more), in addition to a commuter line run by Amtrak to Portland, ME [the Downeaster]. New Hampshire is moving towards a rail line/extension to Boston as well.

Chicago has 11 commuter rail lines (Metra) as well as the Chicago/Milwaukee link used by some commuters, and is planning/actively moving forward on at least 2 lines.

San Francisco is harder to say, as BART is not really city rail, but a hybrid of city and commuter rail which is all electrified. Probably has 5 commuter lines, and there's also the CalTrain, which alone gets more riders than the 3 MARC lines combined. SF could also do better on the commuter rail

Philadelphia technically has 13 regional rail lines (since they go through center city on the same line).

Even Los Angeles, which I'd give a C grade to, is better, with 7 commuter rail lines and somewhat more ridership.

However, this does make dense city transit/reurbanization more favorable.

They're trying several things.

Pike Transit, a modified streetcar proposal, is moving into preliminary design for Arlington.

For the city proper, they are pushing streetcars/BRT (if they're smart, streetcars, since Bus Rapid Transit never gets the right-of-ways it needs, and if it does, is about as expensive) to fill areas lacking Metro access (Georgetown, northwest between Georgetown and the red line, Northwest between the red line and the yellow/green line, and much of southeast/southern northeast).

But Jim Graham's trying to hold this up.

I wish I were in DC so I could go to the hearing.

Unfortunately, it's too late to get someone against him in the primary, but I would try to get something done as best I could if he kills this.

“My concerns run pretty much the gamut from A to Z,” Graham said. “As best I can determine, we have never really had a focused oversight hearing on this rather large expenditure of funds.”

Graham has issued a resolution to disapprove a budget request that would shift $11 million from the long-planned 11th Street Bridge project to the streetcar project to fund initial construction of the line this fall.

The action delays the funds transfer and gives Graham time to hold a public hearing, set for July 14.

Vancouver City Council Votes for Light Rail Extension

2008-07-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

Of course, this doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen, although I would at least like to think that in these days of no cheap way to power automobiles, rail transit projects will have less trouble moving forward.

But it's a good start towards extend transit in the Portland, which I'd currently put in the B range of metro area transit systems, along with San Francisco/Oakland, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and probably Seattle, Honolulu and a bunch of college towns [State College, Ames, Champaign, Iowa City, Ithaca and perhaps Gainesville], because their solid bus systems makes up for their non-existent [or meager in Seattle's case] current rail systems (New York alone rates an A [specifically, an A+, though even it could be quite a bit better], although San Francisco/Oakland is close).

Portland is, however, moving quickly towards an A rating, given the area's relatively small size and the way it's moving forward on projects:

A 4th light rail line (Green), South to I-205/Portland Mall is under construction, opening next year.
A commuter line from Beaverton to Washington County opens this fall
A 5th light rail (Orange) running directly East of the river to Milwaukie is being planned
A 2nd streetcar line just received a thumbs-up on its no-significant impact environmental assessment; a request for funds is pending

I'll probably do a post rating metro transit systems later.

VANCOUVER -- The MAX Yellow Line should extend from the Portland Expo Center, cross the Columbia River and through downtown Vancouver to a terminus at Clark College next to Interstate 5, the City Council decreed Monday night

...

The Vancouver council voted unanimously to support a new bridge, but 5-2 for light rail. The two council members who voted no said light rail is too expensive.

The notion of light rail entering Clark County has been an emotional flashpoint before and after a 1995 vote rejected raising property taxes to pay for a line extending from Portland.

But Monday night a council majority said it is time for light rail in Vancouver.

"Light rail to me is a regional asset," said Councilor Larry Smith. "I'd rather be part of Portland than be a separate entity ourselves."

I wish the District of Columbia metro area, where I go to school and the people who fund this stuff do their funding, was doing half as much to get to an A ranking.

McCain's 1337 5ki11z!

2008-07-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

Carly Fiorina, who, the consensus at Slashdot says nearly destroyed Hewlett-Packard is being touted by the idiots at the Los Angeles Times as meaning McCain is down with technology.

This is the man who DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO USE A COMPUTER!

Granted, we shouldn't have expected him to have that ability. After all, he was Chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee for quite a few years.

This Committee is in charge of regulating the Internet, and was, before Dan Inouye (who, in fairness, may not know how to use a computer; it hasn't been revealed yet, though), and after John McCain, chaired by Ted "It's a Series of Tubes" Stevens. So yeah, kind of a problem.

My grandparents are/were all at least 9 years older than McCain, and all but one of them (and this one was a terrible technophobe; he continued practicing law until about 1987, and used a manual typewriter for the entire time, because an electric one was too advanced).

But never mind, cause Carly Fiorina says he gets it.

How The Free Market Solves Problems

2008-07-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

Global warming (and probably overpopulation) is hurting people today.

Of course, the natural free market is dealing with it in West Timor

Here's how:

According to a joint survey by aid groups Church World Service, Helen Keller International and CARE, more than 50 percent of children under 5 in West Timor are suffering from malnutrition. In some areas it's as high as 70 percent -- a higher percentage than areas of Africa.
...
Of those, nearly 1 in every 10 children suffer from acute malnutrition, meaning they are near death, according to organizers. The study also found that 61 percent of the children suffer from stunted growth.

The main fear is that unless something drastic is done now, whole generations could be lost to acute and chronic malnutrition.

See, the population will drop drastically through thousands and thousands of deaths, and then eventually there will be enough food for the remaining people.

Matthew Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition hates Israel and Jews

2008-07-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

Matthew Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition (an organization approximately as ironic as Jews for Jesus [self-explanatory] or Christians United For Israel [have Jews in control of Israel so Jesus can come back and Jews can then convert or die as Armageddon ensues]) has the audacity to question Barack Obama's support for Israel

I call it audacity because I've taken a look at Matthew Brooks' donations to federal candidates, and it comes out looking pretty poorly

Here's what I have found:

He donated to Spencer Abraham in 1993.

Rather than having me say things, I'll just quote Debbie Schlussel on Spencer Abraham

As we've written (and that column was quoted in The Washington Post), Abraham favored pan-Islamists from HAMAS front group CAIR and others from Islamic charities raided by Customs Agents for laundering money to Al-Qaeda. He invited a man tied to one of the Al-Qaeda-related charities to the Bush White House to give out post-9/11 "awards." Abraham also took campaign contributions from Nijad Fares, the son of then-Hezbollah installed Deputy Prime Minister of Lebanon.

Pro-Hezbollah AND pro-Hamas? And yet Matt Brooks gave him money?

There's Michael Steele. Steele is well-known for his belief that the Final Solution of the Nazis was like stem cell research, a "best new thing [that is] going to save lives"

You of all folks know what happens when people decide they want to experiment on human beings...I know that as well in my community, out of our experience with slavery, and so I'm very cautious when people say this is the best new thing, this is going to save lives."

And there's Marilyn Musgrave, who has been endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, and has never denounced and/or rejected it.

He's also donated to Paul Cronin, George W. Bush, and Norm Coleman, who are clean on Israel and anti-Semitism.

But that's pretty bad. In a political system where there are few anti-Semitic and anti-Israel politicians, Matt Brooks has made half of his donations to such candidates.

He needs to first explain these donations before he has any credibility.

Are These Gender Gaps for Real?

2008-07-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

The anti-Democratic party/Barack Obama Pissy Unsatisfied Morons Association (PUMA) claims that the Obama campaign and the Democratic was extremely sexist and anti-woman towards Hillary Clinton. Also, that they didn't defend her and orchestrated a conspiracy to get Barack Obama elected so deep and convoluted (I believe it begins in the 1930's in Hawaii) that it makes the 9/11 truth movement look plausible in comparison.

However, the vast majority of women don't seem to be taking this view.

Poll after poll is showing an astronomical gender gap in general election polls between Barack Obama and John McCain this cycle.

Of course, Democratic presidential candidates

State	Gender	2000		2004
		Gore	Bush	Kerry	Bush
AL	Men	37%	63%	30%	69%
	Women	50%	50%	43%	57%
	Gap	26		26

How Can Government Lower Our Fuel Bills?

2008-06-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

Any politician who claims that they can actually lower the cost of gasoline in the next 5 years is a liar.

Increases in supply, pretty much all of which are really terrible for the environment, will take at least 5 years to get started:

1. Offshore drilling is sadly probably the best of these.
2. Should the so-called Green Freedom process be able to use solar or wind energy and yet remain cost-competitive, it would be the best option.
Frankly, it still might be the best option even with nuclear, though the cost is $4.60/gallon. I would think that since an industrial process doesn't require a baseload (assuming the manpower required for actual operation of the oil from CO₂ and water plant is low, I would guess that production could be halted whenever the sun isn't sufficient for high-temperature solar thermal collectors like linear Fresnel reflectors; it's not like electricity where lack of a baseload means no use of lights, TV, computers, dishwashers, electric stoves, ovens, refrigerators, air conditioning, washing machines, dryers, toasters, etc. whenever the sun isn't out or the wind isn't blowing), solar and wind would be especially suited for this process (especially if the carbon dioxide can be stored effectively or, better yet, is coming from a coal power plant)
3. Liquid coal and shale oil are, when ignoring their sky-high environmental costs, likely economical these days, but that requires moving backwards on the environment, and we're screwed aside from energy if we don't move forward on slowing global warming.

So the government (whether federal, state, county, municipal, and it goes without saying school board) cannot actually lower gas prices.

But can government do anything to lower our fuel bills?

The St. Petersburg Times asked people who theoretically know something about the issue from all ideologies and areas:

Italicized and parentheses are my pre-article reading thoughts

Glenn Robertson, budget director for both Republican Governor Bob Martinez and moderate to liberal Democratic Governor Bob Graham (So he's probably got some elements of sanity to him, at least):

Donna Arduin, budget director for Republican Governors Jeb Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger; also president of Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics (Yes, that Laffer is Arthur Laffer, the guy who pushed the idea that there is a single local maximum in a graph plotting tax rates with tax revenue [clearly it will be 0 at a 0% tax rate, and low (not zero, but quite low) at 100%, but his idiot idea inspired Reaganomics and today is probably costing America as much as $100 billion each year of extra interest on the national debt), not to mention the trillions of dollars of debt. As such, she's almost certainly an idiot)

Democratic Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink (One hope's she'd be good)

Sean M. Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Competitiveness in the College of Business Administration at the University of Central Florida (business school types are all over the map; who knows?)

Dominic M. Calabro, president and chief executive officer of Florida TaxWatch (TaxWatch? He's almost certainly as much of an idiot as Donna Arduin, possibly more so, as she at least might possibly [though I doubt it] learned something from being a budget director)

Raymond Arsenault, the John Hope Franklin Professor of History at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg (Likely has some idea of what's been tried [and failed or succeeded] in the past, but that may or may not be useful to apply to today; history professors tend to be liberal, but can range across the board ideologically)

Mike Jackson, chairman and chief executive officer of AutoNation, America's largest auto retailer (Let me guess; it doesn't involve doing anything that would reduce the number of single occupancy vehicles on the road [and therefore probably doesn't involve doing anything unless he claims drilling is going to happen soon])

Susan Story, chairwoman of the Florida Chamber of Commerce and president and chief executive officer of Gulf Power (Chambers of Commerce are often surprisingly good on public transportation, at least in theory; but damn they hate regulation; Gulf Power is a subsidiary of Southern Company, which skews more heavily both coal and nuclear than U.S. power as a whole; expect emphasis on that

Mark Wilson, president and chief executive officer of the Florida Chamber of Commerce (Same as with Susan Story, surprisingly decent on transit, but hate regulation)

After reading

Obviously, there were the ideological themes, at least on the right:

the 2 Chamber of Commerce types, Tax Watch guy, and Laffer woman predictably pushed "tax & spending cuts are our Savior, because the government doing nothing about energy has worked out so well so far"

Anyway, there were a bunch of common themes:

No We Can't (pessimistic but probably sadly realistic as well): Everyone but the Chamber o Commerce; AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson "there is no quick fix." Same by the history professor, and to a lesser extent by the others. I forgot that Chambers of Commerce are the anti-Chicken Littles; Story and Wilson both say, in essence "We're in a 'transition' period, but the outlook is great!"

Public Transit-Pushed by everyone except TaxWatchman, no-solution Autonation CEO man, and Laffer lady.

Carpooling-Most, even the TaxWatchman.

The bipartisan budget director had the most ideas, most of which sound good,

• City and county governments could provide an accessible and user-friendly "Jump in the Pool!" Web site to help people carpool. The site could connect people who live and/or work in similar areas of town. The site could suggest a reasonable amount that each passenger pays to offset the driver's gas bills and inconvenience, and is less than the passengers would pay if they drove their own car.

• A government-sponsored "Save Me Some Money" Web site (message board) could allow citizens to contribute and access ideas that can help cut costs or save money in many different areas (e.g. food costs, energy usage, home maintenance, and car maintenance and operation).

• A government "Help-A-Neighbor-In-Need" Web site could be established where people needing help can request it from others in the community.

• Local governments could sponsor "Community Gardens" in various areas of cities and counties where especially lower-income families could access fresh vegetables that may be getting sacrificed to pay for gas and other higher-cost necessities.

• Local governments could more actively promote visiting homes in their area to evaluate energy-saving possibilities and maybe offer assistance to lower-income families if energy use and expense can be cut.

• In a special session, the Legislature could authorize grants to local governments to do any or all of these things from nonrecurring funds.

• State and local governments could actively introduce many different initiatives to save gas and energy as a model to citizens. Show some political leadership.

I don't know how much they would do, but they sound decent and are among the most that could be done, probably.

Some are stupid:

All the "cut taxes/end regulation" proposals

Toll holiday, proposed by Alex Sink and Sean Snaith; tolls help push people to public transit and are crucial to fund transit projects and keep roads from falling apart

However, both Democratic official Alex Sink and far-right crazy Laffer woman Donna Arduin agree on one thing-a gas tax holiday is extremely stupid.

Arduin:

Do Not:
Legislate temporary gas tax cuts, or any similar gimmick. Gas tax cuts would subsidize the oil industry and not help bring about any of the needed "substitution effects" that high gas prices cause, like buying more fuel-efficient vehicles and using mass transit more.

(so even she realize that mass transit use is a good thing)

Sink:

Don't try reducing gasoline taxes. "Every time that's been tried, the gas companies just take it for themselves. That leaves us without the revenue we need for our infrastructure. So some people are losing their jobs."

I guess only a solution-lacking pandering crazy old man would propose such a thing.

Michelle Obama's Whitey Tape Released

2008-06-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

At long last.

Right here

Hey America, look at Europe

2008-06-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

Germany's gas prices are $9.40 per gallon, leading to this sort of thing:

A German man doused his BMW with gasoline and torched it on Friday in protest at skyrocketing fuel costs, police said.

The unemployed 30-year-old man drove the black 1995 BMW 3-series sedan onto the lawn outside Frankfurt's convention center grounds at about 7:30 a.m., police spokesman Karlheinz Wagner said.

So we should be considering ourselves fortunate.

Now, sure, we're going to end up having to drill offshore, but again, even John McCain admits that the only benefits we'll see in the near future from that will be psychological rather than financial.

Transit is the only thing that can save Americans money on gas bills in the short term. Hopefully Scott Walker won't veto the referendum for a sales tax increase to fund transit in Milwaukee County (income tax would be the best way, but counties probably are loathe to do that and states are not willing enough to fund transit).

Even the federal government's overwhelmingly passed emergency transit funding bill was met with opposition from some idiot Republicans.

Although the transit measure passed overwhelmingly, on a 322-98 vote, some Republican lawmakers ridiculed it as a poor substitute for expanded domestic oil drilling.

Rep. Frank D. Lucas (R-Okla.) complained that his constituents not only must pay higher gas prices, "but now they have to subsidize people in big cities with the luxury of access to public transportation."

25% of Lucas' district residents, by the way, live in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. While they don't have access to transit, they could, as OKC has probably the worst transit of any million person plus metropolitan area; perhaps if Rep. Lucas pushed for a decent transit system, they could.

Is this really the best use for subway cars?

2008-06-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

In artificial reefs? Does no other system or planned system possibly have a use for them (with refurbishing)?

They carried commuters across New York City for 40 years, but in less than two hours Thursday, 44 subway cars from the Big Apple were sunk off the Virginia coast, becoming part of a large artificial fishing reef.

About six miles off Chincoteague on the Eastern Shore, a specially rigged crane dropped the 16-ton cars, one by one, off a barge and into about 65 feet of water. The impact each time created a loud smack and sent thick spray into the air.

The steel shells, stripped of their doors, windows, seats, plastics and asbestos, joined surplus Army tanks and 50 other rail cars from New York City that had been similarly deployed here several years ago as part of Virginia's man-made reefing program.

Five more loads of subway cars will be sent to the ocean bottom in the coming years, under a contract between the state and the New York City Transit Authority. Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina and Georgia also utilize New York's old subway cars in this manner.

Bill providing $1.7 billion in funds for transit agencies on the House Floor

2008-06-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

This bill, designed to allow transit agencies to keep from raising fares and to increase services, is very important, and likely to pass.

Of course, $1.7 billion is far from enough, and they need to provide more money to build & expand rail systems. In areas with fairly extensive rail and bus systems, like the DC metro area, they are now having capacity problems.

Trains are full at peak commute hours, and they simply can't get more trains for a while, even if they ordered them immediately.

While companies can, at least to some extent (and Metro is encouraging them), spread out work hours to create several peak travel times, and move Metro ridership from 500,000 on weekdays to 640,000 on weekdays, freeing up more money to, for instance, provide welcome extensions to the Metro system.

Here's to hoping that, at the very least, the federal government will help out Metro. I'm working 10:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. days. Although such a late day is unlikely to work well for most people, I expect that there's a decent range that wouldn't be all that bad for people, and of course, most transit systems already run more frequently at peak ranges.

For instance, consider the bus I take to work, the NJ Transit 606 from Princeton Shopping Center through Trenton to Mercerville's 5 Points (usually with extensions to the Princeton Care Center and Hamilton marketplace).

In the Princeton direction (full route and every stop not done by every bus)
It first runs at 5:25 a.m.. Then from 5:50 to 7:20 [to accomodate the poorer people who live in Trenton but work [presumably relatively low-wage jobs] at the University or in town or other places; we actually do reverse commuting here] it runs every fifteen minutes. It then runs every half hour until 9:20, at which point it begins running in 40 minute intervals until 1:15, at which point it runs in half hour intervals till 2:50, when it runs 20 minute intervals until 4:20. Then it runs half hour intervals until 6:15, one 40 minute interval, then hour intervals until 11:40.

In the Trenton direction (again not every stop)
It runs first at 5:15, again at 6:45 and 7:27. At that point, it runs at twenty minute intervals until 9:10, at which point it runs at 9:40, then every 40 minutes until 2:20. Then it runs at 2:50 at 3:10, then runs in half hour intervals until 4:40, where it runs 20 minute intervals for the evening commute till 5:20, then at 5:50, then 40 minute intervals till 7:40, then hourly intervals until 1:00 a.m.

Of course, the ridership isn't close to as heavy as in more urban areas, and New Jersey is great because (although admittedly, it works better in NJ than it would in states with less core metro areas) the system is statewide, and in much of the state it runs not only in (and usually through) the central city (Trenton, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, New Brunswick, Edison, Paterson, Passaic, etc.) but it also runs a lot of intercity buses.

Granted, the system is far from perfect. When I worked for the Educational Testing Service in Ewing in 2006, I had to take the 602 to Ewing and then transfer to the 606 to get home, which was an hour and a half trip. Since I had to be there by 8:00 a.m., I just couldn't do it in the morning (my dad drove me as it's at least in the same direction as his work, if farther out)

Anyway ...

If riders spread out their rush-hour trips, instead of crowding into the "peak of the peak," Metro could accommodate an additional 140,000 trips on the subway, Metro's Bottigheimer said.

And again, this could help pay for Metro extensions and projects:

For instance, they are considering tunnels to link nearby stations on different lines; seems like solid ideas.

I've taken the orange/blue line to Metro Center and transferred to the red line quite a few times.

Of course, it's annoying to go through Metro Center, and I've wished that there was a station connecting Farragut West and Farragut North. They are studying a tunnel to connect them, as well as one to connect Metro Center to allow people to avoid having to either transfer twice or have to ride down to L'Enfant Plaza to get from the Yellow/Green line (the primary purpose of the yellow line was to allow a direct route across the Potomac from downtown to Alexandria instead of having to through Arlington); the line has only 2 of its own stations, one in Alexandria and one just outside the beltway in Fairfax; similar to how the blue & orange run together from the Potomac to the Anacostia and then branch to provide, in the east, access to two parts of PG County (and more importantly, the Marc Penn line; by the way, that ought to be extended to Newark, Delaware; then I'd be able to get home from school in DC by taking only local trains), and in the West to go to both west out through Arlington and Falls Church in the Loudoun direction, and to go south down to Arlington to the VRE station at Franconia Springfield.

And there are quite a few rail system expansions planned:

* Rail extension to Dulles, which apart from La Guardia [yes, surprisingly, La Guardia] is I believe the only airport in a metro area with rail on the Northeast Corridor without a rapid transit extension (though the Silver Line to Logan Airport in Boston is Bus Rapid Transit). I've never flown out of Dulles and would prefer they actual start construction on high-speed rail so I can get from DC to, say Chicago or Atlanta or Detroit or Nashville in 10 hours or less (and since it's warranted on that already highly traveled corridor, build that maglev from Boston to at least Richmond (if not Charlotte or Atlanta) so flights between cities on that corridor can be eliminated (certainly on the Boston/Richmond)
* Streetcars on Columbia Pike through Arlington to Fairfax
* Build the purple line as light rail fully from New Carrollton to Bethesda to provide quick dense inner suburb to inner-suburb transit.
* Build the 5 transit corridors as streetcars to fill in nearly all the gaps in rapid transit currently existing in DC

If that was all done (along with VRE and MARC extensions) it would make the DC metro area unequivocally the #2 transit metro area [of course, that would only be true if the others don't improve a lot as well) in the country (a step down, of course, from the NYC metro area); it's now sharing the #2 spot with Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston and Portland.

Of course, they've got real problems there as well due to sprawl and the unwillingness of (white, anyway; a far larger percentage of Latinos and blacks have been used to carpooling for years due to the expense of car ownership) Americans to become community types.

Sprawl prevents Americans from walking and (although this would take time, it's more feasible; I've been bicycling to the bus stop to get to work, although frankly I could walk to the closer one, it's only .8 miles from our house; I have to walk about that far from the road in front of the Bristol-Myers Squibb complex to the actual office, due to the silly way they built it ) bicycling to the rail station. Unwillingness to become community types means that there's insufficient parking to accommodate everyone who wants to "park & ride" to work.

We should, of course, complain heavily about the criminal insanity of our land development, car (i.e. CAFE standards; we needed an increase 10 years ago)and transit use policies.

Then again, the American people quite willingly threw out Jimmy Carter in 1980, and the Democratic Congress in 1994 (after it passed an act that hasn't been funded on rail transit). Moreover, they've elected people across the country who've allowed very, very stupid entirely unplanned sprawl to get built up on farmland over the last 40 years, because people, naturally, wanted big houses with nice lawns (and, admittedly in many cases, they also wanted to get away from the "scary black people" who'd moved into the cities). The free market, while quite good in most ways, has no way to accomplish long-range planning, and the American people have elected governments that totally failed us in that respect.

But again, nothing can be done about that.

Very few Democrats (ifThere are enough Republicans representing

Keith Ellison gives Fox News the Disrespect They Deserve

2008-06-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

In a piece on FoxNews.com about Senator Obama apologizing to the women from the Detroit metro area who were kept out of the background seats by a staffer due to their headscarves, Fox News uncovers shocking evidence (ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!) of how it was "the Muslims" who made him apologize.

Specifically, Representative Keith Ellison(D-MN), who represents Minneapolis, was born in Detroit and can trace his American-born ancestors to before the civil war, which I believe is longer than Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity.

So of course Fox News wanted to interview him, and UNCOVER HIS SECRET MUSLIM AGENDA ZOMG!!!!

Ellison's response to their query:

Ellison refused to discuss the exchange with FOX News. “I can talk to you about my tie,” said Ellison who declined to elaborate on what he said to Obama.

Obama's "Drop" in Oregon and SUSA sampling.

2008-06-23T11:33:00.001-07:00

The latest SurveyUSA poll (conducted June 17th to June 19th of 547 likely voters) of Oregon has Barack Obama narrowly leading John McCain 48-45.

This seems like a significant drop from the poll a month ago (May 16 to May 18th of 600 likely voters) which had Senator Obama leading John McCain 49-39

However, a look at the crosstabs makes it seem like differences in the poll results are due mostly to changes in the samples.

By Party:

Party May June
Dem 48% 42%
Rep 32% 41%
Ind 20% 15%

Such a shift in the Republicans favor is highly unlikely (a shift in the Democrats favor would still be unlikely, if a bit less so).

Which one is right?

Well, currently in Oregon, Democrats have a 43% to 33% registration advantage, so one expects the correct party divisions are somewhere in between the May and June numbers.

Zionist Organization of America endorses extermination of the Jewish People

2008-06-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

Louis Brandeis must be turning over in his grave. I've just found out that the Zionist Organization of America, which under Morton Klein has already become a terrible organization, has taken the step over the edge.

With their defense of David Duke foil John Hagee, they've now stepped into anti-Semitic territory.

It's true that quite a few Jews (I don't; I think God has, at the very least, been inactive for a rather long while) do think that the Holocaust was God's will.

I would guess that much fewer would agree that Adolf Hitler was a prophet/messenger/hunter who God sent to kill 6,000,000 Jews (and about 5,000,000 non-Jews; Roma, homosexuals, Poles, the disabled, Communists, Slavs, POWs, and other dissidents) so that most of those remaining in Europe would move to Israel.

That in itself is extremely disturbing, as Israel would have been established as a Jewish state in any case due to (albeit slower) Jewish in-migration due to Zionism and (less deadly) anti-Semitism combined with the Immigration Act of 1923 virtually eliminating the ability of Jews to come to the United States (where many Jews were fleeing to), only it's quite possible that had it been more gradual it would have created far less Arab anger (among other things).

35,000 Jews came between 1882 and 1903, with another 40,000 arriving by the start of World War I.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising favorable reception for a Jewish homeland helped spur faster immigration, 40,000 between 1919 and 1923 (about 10,000 a year) and after the U.S. passed the Immigration Act, 80,000 between 1924 and 1929 (about 20,000 a year).

This speed continued till 1933. Between 1933 and 1936, as a result of Hitler, over 50,000 came per year. But then the British closed down immigration (why would God do that?) and Hitler moved towards starting to eliminate the Jewish people. Surely if God was using Hitler to get Jews to Israel, he would've kept discrimination/second-classness at the 1933-1936 levels in Europe for Jews and had the British continue to allow immigration rather than killing 6,000,000 of them; that would've been another 600,000 Jews by 1948. Even without World War II, this immigration would probably have been enough to get the British to allow a Jewish homeland.

But the really disturbing part is that Hagee's pronouncement highlights his end goals. Let's not forget that the reason, in Hagee's mind, that God wants the Jewish people back in Israel is that, in Hagee's theology, that is necessary so that Jesus can return. At this point Jews who fail to convert to Christianity are slaughtered and burn forever in hellfire.

The point being, Hagee could care less how many Jews are murdered, as long as the bare minimum (I think 144) are around for Armageddon. In fact, he almost certainly favors bloody wars as bringing on his perceived end times. This makes the man as much of a threat to Israel as, say, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Welcome to the Hillary Bloggers!

2008-06-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

Good to see you here, NewHampster and campskunk (among others). Hope you all have it in your hearts to cast your ballot for president for the same person that Hillary will.

You are probably wondering about something.

The truth is that everything I know, I learned from the Clinton campaign.

Ann Lewis told me everything.

Everything