Transportation
Blog
A not so Brightline: California’s other bullet train boondoggle
It’s happening. This time, it’s really happening. That’s what dignitaries at the pseudo-event told themselves on April 22, 2024 — the day Brightline West “officially broke ground on the nation’s first true high-speed rail system.” Bureaucrats, politicians, and civic leaders predicted nothing but sunshine for the long-sought HSR route linking ...
Blog
California Took Homes for the 710 Freeway Extension. The Extension Was Never Built
Drive through parts of El Sereno, Alhambra, South Pasadena, or Pasadena, and you will notice something strange. Homes sit behind aging fences, looking like they should belong to families, except they do not. For decades, they have been owned by the State of California, waiting for a freeway that was ...
Blog
American suburbs are better than most people think
American suburbs are better than most people think By Randal O’Toole | July 24, 2026 Economist Noah Smith writes that suburbs are “not my personal cup of tea, but there are good reasons people like them.” Most of those reasons will be familiar to Antiplanner readers [and to readers of the Free Cities ...
Blog
E-bikes are fun, but cities need to enforce reasonable traffic laws
On a fine October day in 2024 I was walking my Pomeranian show dog, Ollie, to my favorite Irvine coffee shop, the Lost Bean on Barranca Parkway. Suddenly I was on the ground. Two youths on e-bikes were riding on the sidewalk at maybe 25 mph and one cut in ...
Blog
Who Wants To Ride California’s Bullet Buses?
With a grand high-speed rail project struggling to lay its first track nearly two decades after voters approved it, California seems to be moving on to its next transportation fiasco: A high-speed bus system connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco that reaches an implausibly brisk 140 mph along the way. It seems more likely ...
Blog
The Trump administration tries to kill aid to dependent cities
You know about the bridge to nowhere. The electric tugboat? Probably not. In 2020, the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District received a unique grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Awarded under the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA), the $2,017,660 subsidy paid for the eWolf, “America’s first all-electric ...
Blog
Broken Promises: The California High-Speed Rail Might End Up Being Little More Than A Regular Train — A Particularly Expensive One
Newsom denied that the cost — once a paltry, in comparison, $33 billion — had soared to $231 billion. “We’re actually making this project work,” he claimed. Newsom told Maher that the train “goes back three administrations” and he “inherited a mess” — both of which are true. It’s also true that the want-to-be-president governor ...
Blog
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe By D. Dowd Muska | June 5, 2026 BOOK REVIEW: “The Great Train Heist: The California SMART Taxpayer Rip-off” They tried in 1990. It didn’t work. They tried in 1998. Nothing doing. They tried in 2000. Voters declined. They tried in 2006. No dice. ...
Blog
Not seeing much progress: The failure of cities’ Vision Zero
But as is often the case with feel-good, word-salad progressivism, Vision Zero’s results fall somewhere between mixed and disappointing. San Diego, Portland, Las Vegas, Denver, Charlotte, Philadelphia — the list of underperformers isn’t short. One elected official in Seattle grew so frustrated, he requested an investigation. In April, Rob Saka ...
Blog
Where Americans ride transit
A close look, however, reveals that the map is deceptive in two ways. First, it is based on pre-pandemic data. The map includes Ann Arbor, Mich.; Baltimore; Champaign, Ill.; Pittsburgh; Portland; and State College, Pa., in the 5-10% category, but none of these areas qualify today. Second, the map ...
A not so Brightline: California’s other bullet train boondoggle
It’s happening. This time, it’s really happening. That’s what dignitaries at the pseudo-event told themselves on April 22, 2024 — the day Brightline West “officially broke ground on the nation’s first true high-speed rail system.” Bureaucrats, politicians, and civic leaders predicted nothing but sunshine for the long-sought HSR route linking ...
California Took Homes for the 710 Freeway Extension. The Extension Was Never Built
Drive through parts of El Sereno, Alhambra, South Pasadena, or Pasadena, and you will notice something strange. Homes sit behind aging fences, looking like they should belong to families, except they do not. For decades, they have been owned by the State of California, waiting for a freeway that was ...
American suburbs are better than most people think
American suburbs are better than most people think By Randal O’Toole | July 24, 2026 Economist Noah Smith writes that suburbs are “not my personal cup of tea, but there are good reasons people like them.” Most of those reasons will be familiar to Antiplanner readers [and to readers of the Free Cities ...
E-bikes are fun, but cities need to enforce reasonable traffic laws
On a fine October day in 2024 I was walking my Pomeranian show dog, Ollie, to my favorite Irvine coffee shop, the Lost Bean on Barranca Parkway. Suddenly I was on the ground. Two youths on e-bikes were riding on the sidewalk at maybe 25 mph and one cut in ...
Who Wants To Ride California’s Bullet Buses?
With a grand high-speed rail project struggling to lay its first track nearly two decades after voters approved it, California seems to be moving on to its next transportation fiasco: A high-speed bus system connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco that reaches an implausibly brisk 140 mph along the way. It seems more likely ...
The Trump administration tries to kill aid to dependent cities
You know about the bridge to nowhere. The electric tugboat? Probably not. In 2020, the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District received a unique grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Awarded under the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA), the $2,017,660 subsidy paid for the eWolf, “America’s first all-electric ...
Broken Promises: The California High-Speed Rail Might End Up Being Little More Than A Regular Train — A Particularly Expensive One
Newsom denied that the cost — once a paltry, in comparison, $33 billion — had soared to $231 billion. “We’re actually making this project work,” he claimed. Newsom told Maher that the train “goes back three administrations” and he “inherited a mess” — both of which are true. It’s also true that the want-to-be-president governor ...
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe By D. Dowd Muska | June 5, 2026 BOOK REVIEW: “The Great Train Heist: The California SMART Taxpayer Rip-off” They tried in 1990. It didn’t work. They tried in 1998. Nothing doing. They tried in 2000. Voters declined. They tried in 2006. No dice. ...
Not seeing much progress: The failure of cities’ Vision Zero
But as is often the case with feel-good, word-salad progressivism, Vision Zero’s results fall somewhere between mixed and disappointing. San Diego, Portland, Las Vegas, Denver, Charlotte, Philadelphia — the list of underperformers isn’t short. One elected official in Seattle grew so frustrated, he requested an investigation. In April, Rob Saka ...
Where Americans ride transit
A close look, however, reveals that the map is deceptive in two ways. First, it is based on pre-pandemic data. The map includes Ann Arbor, Mich.; Baltimore; Champaign, Ill.; Pittsburgh; Portland; and State College, Pa., in the 5-10% category, but none of these areas qualify today. Second, the map ...