Large employers like hospitals, universities, and big corporations often contract with private transit operators to ferry their employees around, usually between parking lots and office buildings or other facilities. Would there be a resulting economy of scale if these services were consolidated into, say, the transit operations of a public agency?
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The governor wants to figure out a strategy to grow the state. It’s going to have to start with investing in things that matter to real people, rather than things that matter to quarterly earnings reports for automakers. But it’s not that gloomy. There’s plenty of opportunity to think about how to do this.
Read MoreA new research paper assesses the perceived happiness of households that have gotten rid of their car. Turns out that it might actually be good for your brain! There is a catch, though, and it’s not going to work for everyone.
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In one of the farthest-north suburbs of Detroit, a municipality’s elected representatives are discussing the possibility of eliminating fixed-route transit, which has the support of an overwhelming percentage of the electorate, to save around $800,000 per year. In this guest co-editorial, Calley Wang and Nat Zorach argue that this is a really, really terrible idea.
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A rare, intense blizzard in the Midatlantic US snarled traffic on I-95, leading us to wonder: how is the car obsession even so engrained on the East Coast that people can’t imagine not driving cars?
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Nat is attending the Michigan Association of Planning’s annual conference. It’s going great– especially with regard to figuring out new ways to refashion state agencies that aren’t doing their jobs.
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Representatives of Michigan’s Department of Transportation have, at two recent public meetings, firmly pushed back on the proposal that the agency must tie a reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to funding considerations for new projects– using a dubious rationale.
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Our second podcast is finally out. I take responsibility for the delay. There were some technical issues I ran into,
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The Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole has a really terrible take on transportation investment that grossly misrepresents how money and economic efficiency work.
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Can autonomous cars save us? Well, no, but they can provide some vital innovation to our society. Provided we play our cards right, that is. Anthony Townsend’s book gives us the lowdown.
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