Archives for the 'Mobility' Category
Congested Pockets
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Almost five years ago, I argued that London’s Congestion Charge was merely a wealth transfer from London commuters to the administrators of the charge. You know what? I was right:
Capita, the company that set up the system and operated it for the Mayor, was said to have been given a £250 million contract over five years, but the Mayor refused to reveal the details. Then it emerged an extra £31 million was paid to Capita in the first year, raising concerns that costs would reduce revenues promised by the Mayor. Last year Capita was paid £130 million, more than 60 per cent of the money taken in by the charge over the year.
What about congestion? TFL’s own spin figures suggests that congestion is down by a paltry 16 percent overall. However, as The Bow Group has shown, most of this relates to a drop-off in people entering London after 11am. There has been precious little effect on congestion in the rush hour. And journey times - where the real economic benefit of reduced congestion should appear - have not been affected.
Once again, an environmental tax, disguised as a market mechanism, has failed to achieve its own objectives, while making some people rich at the expense of commuters. Diffuse costs, concentrated benefits, indeed.
Cross-posted from The Really Inconvenient Blog.
Video: Railroaded in Denver
The Independence Institute just sent an email alerting us to a new video they produced on Denver’s local transportation authority and its history of violating citizens’ property rights. Daniel Gallegos tells the story of what happened to his family and their property in the 1980s, and warns other Denver residents of what may be coming as the city’s Regional Transportation District expands its light rail lines.
As Independence President Jon Caldara put it in another video, “The train is coming. The question is, are you going to be on it, or in front of it?”
Fearful Bureaucrats Ground Thousands of Flights, Stranding Travelers
Last night, I watched an ABC News segment on the latest batch of canceled airline flights. Hundreds of American Airlines flights have been canceled, stranding tens of thousands of passengers, because of obscure FAA safety rules that required airplanes to be grounded so that something minor on each airplane could be adjusted to no more than 1 inch apart rather than the current 1.25 inches. When news anchor Charles Gibson asked whether the change made any difference to safety, the reporter covering the story simply responded that rules are rules. A former safety official had noted earlier that none of the grounded planes were in imminent danger of crashing.
Why are FAA bureaucrats requiring this, and causing thousands of people to wait for days on end in airports across the country? They are overreacting to earlier stories in the news media about FAA inspectors being too lax in enforcing safety regulations. (Never mind that airline fatalities are now at an all-time low in the U.S.). Congress then held a hearing where politicians bloviated before lots of news cameras about how terrible airline safety in America is.
What this illustrates is that mindless adherence to bureaucratic rules can be crippling. Unions have long recognized this. That’s why there’s something called a “work-to-rule strike,” where employees show up for work but then paralyze their employer by ”applying to the letter rules that are normally set aside or interpreted less literally to increase efficiency,” all “in order to cause a slowdown.”
The thousands of grounded flights across the country result from the FAA’s version of the work-to-rule strike. But instead of the FAA deliberately paralyzing itself, it’s unintentionally paralyzing America’s airlines and throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of our air transport system. And that’s probably costing lives — people who travel by road to avoid canceled flights and flight delays have a higher mortality rate than airline passengers.
Virginia Lawmakers Should Reject Grantor’s Tax, and Focus on Metro
Recently, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down regional taxes to pay for transportation improvements, such as the perverse grantor’s tax on homeowners, based on the principle of no taxation without representation. Virginia lawmakers are now considering imposing new taxes to replace the invalidated taxes. They should keep two principles in mind. First, they should not revive the regional grantor’s tax, which was widely criticized as economically irrational and unreliable, unfair, and unduly burdensome. Second, if they levy any replacement taxes, they should use the revenue first to preserve the Metro subway system.
As Virginia Congressman Tom Davis noted in the Washington Post, while “Metro keeps hundreds of thousands of commuters from having to clog our already overburdened road system each day,” “Metro is teetering on the brink. It’s 32 years old, and many of the original components are beginning to break down.” Moreover, legislation is pending in Congress that would provide federal matching funds for Metro, provided that Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. enact laws earmarking at least a small fraction of their transportation revenue for Metro.
Crazy Immigration Rules Revisited
Earlier, I wrote about how immigration authorities were poised to deport Saman Kareem Ahmad because he belonged to a group that rose up against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was ousted by American troops. They claimed his opposition to the Iraqi government during “Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom” made him a terrorist!
Other immigrants deemed “terrorists” by immigration authorities “include U.S. allies that fought against” the ”Taliban government in Afghanistan” – a regime that aided and abetted Osama Bin Laden — as well as ”Montagnard tribesmen who fought with U.S. forces in Vietnam,” and members of minority groups subjected to massacre and rape by ”Burma’s military junta and Sudan’s Islamic leaders.”
Belatedly, the immigration bureaucracy has now changed course, and will “temporarily stop denying green cards to refugees and other legal immigrants tied to groups that sought to topple foreign dictatorships, placing their cases on hold while it determines more ‘logical, common-sense’ rules for judging them.”
The prior policy of deporting opponents of repressive and genocidal regimes was only partly the result of bureaucratic rigidity, mindlessness, and incompetence. It also owed much to the very broad definition of “terrorist” in the immigration laws Congress passed, which were ”written so that the definition of a terrorist organization and activity is very, very broad.” This sad situation demonstrates that legislators should not unthinkingly vote for so-called “anti-terrorism” provisions without considering their full implications. Legislators are frequently thoughtless and illogical when it comes to immigration.
Immigration Policies Keep Out Scientists and Heroes, While Welcoming Convicts
It’s hard for educated people with valuable skills, like doctors and scientists, to immigrate because Congress won’t lift the unrealistically low cap on H-1B visas, notes the Washington Post. “H-1B visas are reserved for the world’s best and brightest, and barring their entry is economic self-sabotage. The cap keeps out doctors, engineers and other specialists — people who save lives and often create jobs for others in America.” The result is that high-tech operations set up shop abroad rather than in America, costing our country jobs and economic growth.
Meanwhile, a drug-dealing hooker and convict who would have been deported is being given permanent residency (a green card) just for telling prosecutors what she knew about Eliot Spitzer after his role in a prostitution scandal broke.
While the drug-dealing hooker is getting a special break from the requirements of immigration laws requiring deportation of alien felons, an immigrant who risked his life to help American troops in Iraq now risks being deported because he opposed Saddam Hussein! Our immigration bureaucrats say that his membership in an armed Kurdish group that fought Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after Saddam Hussein engaged in genocidal chemical weapons attacks against Iraq’s Kurdish population makes him a “terrorist“! Rules are rules, they say, and there’s no exception for Saman Ahmad, who risks torture and death if he is deported back to Iraq because he served as a translator for American troops. Under our immigration bureaucrats’ twisted definition of a “terrorist,” the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto who heroically fought Adolf Hitler’s Nazis would have been considered “terrorists.”
This is the same immigration bureaucracy that approved the student visa applications of the 9-11 hijackers six months after they committed mass murder by flying planes into the World Trade Center and killing 3,000 people.
While Congress refuses to increase the number of H-1B visas beyond their modest cap of 65,000 annually, many in Congress want to amnesty most of the 12 million illegal aliens in this country, and many left-wing politicians and activists want to give them welfare and affirmative action to boot. In the eyes of the politicians, it’s better to be an illegal alien than a legal immigrant with valuable skills.
Re: X-Prize - and yet another
Fran’s post raises an important point about trade-offs and the ossifying effects of mandates (why on earth don’t we have a much better system of cleaning our windshields if it isn’t because regulations mean we can’t develop and market-test a non-wiper-based system?).
Yet in the end, I see nothing wrong with a privately-funded prize to develop technologies on one end of the trade-off curve. As long as the resulting technology isn’t mandated so that people have to buy it, they will continue to make their own trade-offs and the value placed on the technology by the market will be recognized in the price. So far, Americans have proved resistant to voluntarily trading off safety for fuel-economy. Perhaps a 100 mpg family sedan would change that.
Is there an opportunity cost, in that developers would possibly pursue other avenues were it not for the prize? Possibly, but there is a felt need for this technology. We are likely to see funds devoted to it whatever happens. Rather than government funding, a prize is likely to lead to the most efficient distribution of resources.
We should also remember that prizes spur different approaches. The Longitude Prize was won by the inventor of the portable clockwork watch, which has been used for 200 years for a quite different purpose than the calculation of longitude at sea. Meanwhile, the “runner-up” for the prize, a set of astronomical tables, was not nearly as accurate as the winner, but actually proved to have an acceptable margin of error and was much more user-friendly. Government funding would have concentrated on one or the other approach, depending on the lobbying capabilities of the developers.
X Prize — and yet another . . .
I am disappointed that the X Prize did not note that there may be trade offs involved – that a zillion mph vehicle may well be less safe than a conventional vehicle. Also, the award criteria says that the vehicles will have “to meet safety regulations in the U.S. and other markets.”
I would argue that those mandated safety features act as “floors” and can restrict innovation by forcing design features into certain areas, which can lead to neglect of other areas that could provide greater safety or to unintended consequences. (Think of the air bag mandate’s effects on children riding in the front seats of vehicles.)
Market forces may have more quickly led to other safety features, such as accident avoidance technology – sensors for proximity to other vehicles, blind spot alarms, rear sensors and cameras, which, as you have noted, have been introduced on pricier vehicles.
The X Prize criteria includes other mandated safety features – windshield wipers and washers, seat belts and restraints, rear and side view mirrors, lamps, lighting, horn, indicators, brake lights and reflective devices consistent with safety regulations.
Wouldn’t it have been more interesting to let innovators come up with their own safety features – after all, windshield wipers were invented in 1903 and became standard on cars in 1913 – and let competition and consumer choice move technology forward?
It’s a Great Idea (But We’ll Have to Make Trade Offs)
Fran,
I think the Progressive Automotive X Prize is a great idea. It may work where the government has failed.
Existing government programs to do similar things–particularly the calamitously impractical Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles–have failed to produce real breakthroughs. Toyota and Honda beat American-based companies to the market with practical, highly fuel efficient hybrids largely because they focused on what consumers wanted (practical, fuel efficient cars) rather than trying to adhere to goofy government mandates. By setting the bar very high, 100 miles per gallon, furthermore, the X Prize sponsors are pretty much forcing the use of some sort of breakthrough technology.
When and if a 100 MPG car comes to market, however, it’s likely to involve some sort of trade-off for consumers. The last car with a fundamentally new drive-train system–the first generation Toyota Prius–was a tiny, expensive, probably-not-too-safe car that, in its base configuration, lacked such expected features as automatic windows and a CD player. It sold well enough, however, to convince Toyota to build a truly viable, big-enough-for-a-family second generation version of the car with every expected amenity. Any first generation product is going to have to have lots of trade-offs. If we ever have a 100 MPG car, one can bet that it will, indeed, look at lot like the first generation Prius. In time, I think, people can figure out which trade-offs they want to make for fuel economy. And, of course, there’s almost no way getting around the fact that the first 100 MPG car is going to be smaller and less safe than a standard-issue SUV. There’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, it’s the way progress happens.
X Prize automotive competition — inside CEI discussions
The X Prize Foundation has announced a $10 million automotive prize:
The newly renamed Progressive Automotive X PRIZE is an international competition designed to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles. The independent and technology-neutral competition is open to teams from around the world that can design, build and bring to market 100 MPGe (miles per gallon energy equivalent) vehicles that people want to buy, and that meet market needs for price, size, capability, safety and performance.
When I first read an email about the announcement, I asked if “safety” would be one of the criteria, as often some of the tradeoffs involved in designing cars are not recognized, especially through government mandates, for example, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standard doesn’t recognize that smaller and lighter cars may get greater gas mileage but are often less safe than larger heavier cars when they are involved in accidents.
This led to a rapid exchange of views among CEI staff – see further postings.
I then learned that the vehicles have “to meet safety regulations in the U.S. and other markets.”
On this point I have some strong views, but I’ll continue my posting after other staffers post their own comments on the X Prize.
Defending Liberty in India
CEI’s friends at the Liberty Institute in New Delhi have launched a new website, InDefenceofLiberty.org. Of particular interest to openmarket readers might be the sections on the development of the new Tata Nano, the $3000 car that offers the hope of genuine mass automobility to the Indian people.
How to Fix Virginia’s Transportation Mess
Virginia’s governor, Tim Kaine, plans to call the state legislature into special session to try to come up with new taxes to replace the regional taxes recently overturned by the state supreme court. Last week, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down taxes levied by regional transit authorities, broadly applying the principle of no taxation without representation. The court said that the legislature couldn’t delegate its power to tax to unelected bodies. (The transit authorities’ boards consisted of officials who were elected to county boards or city councils, but not to the regional transit authorities themselves.)
Before the court ruling, the governor wanted to raid the state’s transportation trust fund to pay for pre-kindergarten programs (which are often a waste of taxpayer money) and other new social programs, something even some of his staunchest supporters admitted was a “bad idea.”
He also wanted to increase the sales tax on autos. Now, he wants to raise taxes to pay for the transportation revenue lost as a result of the state courts’ ruling. But the sensible solution would be, as Prince William County Board Chairman Corey Stewart conceded, to “slash spending in other areas,” not raise taxes.
The Virginia state budget has exploded in recent years, far outstipping inflation and population growth (and economic growth, too). And property taxes have skyrocketed, enriching city and county governments.
Freezing non-transportation spending could provide plenty of revenue to pay for transportation spending, and would help offset and undo the effects of past raids on the transportation trust fund (which has been diverted from transportation to pay for public employee salaries). State Senator Ken Cuccinelli has introduced legislation that would earmark a small portion of the existing sales tax to transportation to remedy the gross imbalance between transportation funding (which has greatly declined as a share of the state budget) and the budget as a whole (which has rapidly increased).
If such remedies are politically impossible (given the enormous power of the public employee unions), then the invalidated taxes (which, bizarrely enough, fell principally on homeowners) should be replaced with fairer taxes and fees that fall primarily on those who actually benefit most from the roads.
Virginia Courts Strike Down Taxation Without Representation
The Virginia Supreme Court today struck down a state law giving unelected bodies the power to levy taxes in Marshall v. Northern Virginia Regional Transportation Authority. It blocked regional transit authorities from levying taxes to pay for regional transportation projects. (Some of the money is being wasted on pork-barrel projects).
I earlier criticized the biggest tax imposed by the transit authorities, the regional grantor’s tax, in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Examiner, noting that it violates the “user-pays” principle, and economic common sense, by making homeowners, not motorists, pay for transportation (Many motorists using Northern Virginia roads are from out-of-state; the grantor’s tax applies only to Northern Virginia homeowners, including elderly people who seldom drive).
The decision will lead to demands that the legislature itself (or local governments) raise taxes to replace the invalid regional taxes. In an ideal world, the revenue needed for transportation should be generated, not with regional tax increases, but with cuts in public employee compensation (such as their overly generous pension and health benefits), which has outpaced inflation in recent years. (Northern Virginia has some of the region’s worst roads and most ornate municipal buildings. Arlington, Virginia teachers typically have compensation packages that exceed $100,000 per year, reflecting salaries of over $70,000 and generous benefits worth nearly $30,000 — and they’re not even the best paid public employees!).
But given the clout of the public employee unions, that may not be possible. If it isn’t, then the legislature should avoid reimposing the grantor’s tax, and use more transportation-related user-fees. If it does raise any taxes, they should be taxes related to transportation, like a gas tax increase, not taxes on homeowners or businesses that create jobs.
Plug-in Hybrids the New Target
Biofuels have recently come under attack from their erstwhile supporters in the liberal environmentalist movement for increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Now it’s the turn of the plug-in hybrid. So much for the “Who killed the electric car?” line of argument.
The fact is that environmentalists won’t be satisfied until personal automobility is crippled and we are all living within walking distance of “sustainable” work. For those who want to “save the planet,” however, there will be exemptions.
Immigration Law: Utterly Dysfunctional
American immigration law is utterly dysfunctional. Legal immigrants who fight for America in Iraq and Afghanistan wait years to become citizens. Skilled workers needed by the high-tech industry and hospitals are blocked from entering the country. The economy suffers.
Yet, at the same time, “local governments are stupidly providing welfare for illegal aliens, such as taxpayer subsidies for day-laborer centers for unskilled illegal aliens who cannot even lawfully work in the country. And politically-correct newspapers believe that illegal aliens have a constitutional right to such welfare, and that they should receive preferential treatment at state colleges” over legal immigrants.
It now costs someone already in the country legally over $1,000 to apply for a green card to remain in the country. My wife, a legal immigrant who already has a green card, will have to pay another $650 to apply for yet another state in the immigration process (naturalization).
Yet in last year’s senate amnesty deal, illegal aliens could get stay in the country and get a renewable “Z” visa for just $2,000 (and non-working dependents could be sponsored by an illegal alien taking advantage of the amnesty).
What incentive is there to come legally?
My wife, a legal immigration, began her time in America as a “legal alien” whose restricted visa only permitted her to work for embassies or international organization (she started work for the Gabonese Embassy at $12,000 per year). She could have made far more money coming illegally and working on the black market. (The average illegal-alien household in the Washington, D.C. area has an annual income of about $60,000 — lower than most natives, but far higher than the minimum wage).
Yet there are silly people who claim that illegal aliens are so oppressed that they deserve to receive “tax-paid government benefits” even if they “don’t pay taxes,” as letter-writer Nicholas Holsen-Smith did in the February 22 edition of the Washington Examiner.
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