ATIS

People are driving less, so we need more roads.

By Matt the Engineer on July 16, 2008

The Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Prospectus blog has an, um, interesting commentary today talking about how much we need to more road capacity, financed by private corporations who will toll us for the privilege.

Apparently the logic goes like this:
1. Gas prices have gone up. Therefore:
2. Driving has decreased. Therefore:
3. Revenue for building more roads is down. Therefore:
4. ??? Therefore:
5. We need to build more roads.

I haven’t quite figured out step 4 of the logic, but the rest looks solid. One might guess that less driving should result in needing fewer new roads, but I’m sure step 4 will clear up that misunderstanding.

I’m having less success with another line of logic in the piece. See if you can figure out what I’m missing:
1. We can’t afford new roads. Therefore:
2. We can have private companies build new roads. And:
3. They can toll us to make their money back. And:
4. Although this will cost us more, they’ll be able to build roads faster.

Maybe the previous step 4 will clear up not only why we need more roads, but also why we need them faster. Oh, and how paying more for them will make them affordable.

(I’ve asked for clarification on this step in the comments, but “comments are screened for tone” and sarcasm might not make it through the filter)

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Railroads- Really Big

By serial catowner on March 30, 2008

This might seem really obvious, but railroads are really big. And this has a consequence- the capital base of the railroad is too large to ever return more than 2-3% on the investment, and that’s if the road doesn’t go bankrupt, which almost all of them did with clockwork regularity.

Consequences have actions, and in this case the action is the so-called PPP, or Public Private Partnership. If you’ve been watching the rail mess in England, you might think ‘PPP’ was an acronym for ‘blood-sucking vampire’, and if you were Ken Livingston, you’d be right to think that.

So, be afraid, very afraid, when Arnold Schwartzenegger brings the depth of his economic expertise to building a high-speed rail system in California. If something goes wrong, it would hardly be the first time that a ‘public private partnership’ turned into a feast at the trough for the ‘private’ part and a snafued boondoggle for the public.

There are exceptions to the rule of railroad unprofitability and they are generally exceptions that prove the rule. The exceptions are worth all the study you can muster, as they chronicle a century of adaptation to the challenges to the railroads. In general, though, railroads are too big to be privately financed.

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