Transportation
Blog
Read latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Cities should think twice before embracing ‘fare-free’ transit
On Jan. 1, 2020, the InterCity Transit agency servicing Olympia, Wash., and nearby cities went “zero fare.” From 2020 through 2023, the city of Tucson, Ariz., made its public transit system “free” to ride, with the council declaring “our intention to go fare-free transit.” Activists in Los Angeles have argued ...
Commentary
Is Sacramento going to pump the brakes on your car?
Will Sacramento Invade Your Car to Limit How Fast You Can Drive?
Do California lawmakers ever sleep? It seems they stay up nights coming up with new ways to intrude into personal lives. They want to control our thermostats. Bar educational choice. Erase worker freedom. Banish plastic products. Decide how we can defend our families and homes. Now one state senator wants ...
Blog
Car-less cities campaign is the latest paternalistic fad
Car-less cities campaign is the latest paternalistic fad By Steven Greenhut | February 16, 2024 Many modern urbanists like to claim the great urban writer Jane Jacobs, author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” as one of their own. It’s easy to understand, given that Jacobs was ...
Free Cities
WATCH: Are more public transit subsidies the key to improving urban living?
Watch as Free Cities Center’s Steven Greenhut sits down with Professor William Anderson to discuss whether more subsidies for public transit are the key to improving urban living.
Blog
Learn about push for congestion pricing
Urbanists to suburbanites: Stay out of our trendy ‘playgrounds’
In New York, the city has introduced a “congestion tax” – effectively, a cordon tax – for all cars entering lower Manhattan. In Cincinnati, the City Council voted for a ban on new surface parking lots downtown. In Indianapolis, the state Legislature is trying to prevent the city from halving ...
Blog
Creating a bigger bureaucracy won’t fix Bay Area transit
Creating a bigger bureaucracy won’t fix Bay Area transit By Steven Greenhut | January 26, 2024 Note: This is a longer version of an op-ed that ran earlier this week in the East Bay Times. When government agencies face daunting problems, it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to propose some “solution” ...
Commentary
A bigger bureaucracy won’t fix Bay Area’s transit problems
When government agencies face daunting problems, it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to propose some “solution” that amounts to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic — i.e., a pointless bureaucratic revamping that does nothing to address the obvious iceberg. The latest example involves the San Francisco Bay Area’s myriad transit ...
Blog
Sorry, Urbanists, But Bicycles Will Never Save the Planet
Sorry, Urbanists, But Bicycles Will Never Save The Planet Steven Greenhut | December 4, 2024 SACRAMENTO – After my recent column chiding urbanists for their visceral dislike of suburbia and cars, I’ve been bemused by posts from a subset of their movement: hard-core bicyclists. Lots of people, myself included, enjoy an occasional ...
California
Unleash Private Sector to Repair 10 Freeway
Newsom should channel spirit of Northridge quake rebuild when repairing 10 Freeway
CalTrans veteran Jerry B. Baxter said in November 1994 that repairing the battered freeway system “posed one of the greatest challenges to the California Department of Transportation in its nearly 100-year history.” But “it also proved to be one of its greatest triumphs, testing the mettle and ingenuity of Caltrans employees in ...
Blog
Read latest about road diets
Car-free cities about social engineering, not public demand
Scientific American insists that car-free cities are the future, because the data from facial analysis caught by surveillance cameras proves that “people do not like looking at cars.” Or maybe the trend is just another planning movement led by elitists who believe their vision of a city is the only ...
Read latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Cities should think twice before embracing ‘fare-free’ transit
On Jan. 1, 2020, the InterCity Transit agency servicing Olympia, Wash., and nearby cities went “zero fare.” From 2020 through 2023, the city of Tucson, Ariz., made its public transit system “free” to ride, with the council declaring “our intention to go fare-free transit.” Activists in Los Angeles have argued ...
Is Sacramento going to pump the brakes on your car?
Will Sacramento Invade Your Car to Limit How Fast You Can Drive?
Do California lawmakers ever sleep? It seems they stay up nights coming up with new ways to intrude into personal lives. They want to control our thermostats. Bar educational choice. Erase worker freedom. Banish plastic products. Decide how we can defend our families and homes. Now one state senator wants ...
Car-less cities campaign is the latest paternalistic fad
Car-less cities campaign is the latest paternalistic fad By Steven Greenhut | February 16, 2024 Many modern urbanists like to claim the great urban writer Jane Jacobs, author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” as one of their own. It’s easy to understand, given that Jacobs was ...
WATCH: Are more public transit subsidies the key to improving urban living?
Watch as Free Cities Center’s Steven Greenhut sits down with Professor William Anderson to discuss whether more subsidies for public transit are the key to improving urban living.
Learn about push for congestion pricing
Urbanists to suburbanites: Stay out of our trendy ‘playgrounds’
In New York, the city has introduced a “congestion tax” – effectively, a cordon tax – for all cars entering lower Manhattan. In Cincinnati, the City Council voted for a ban on new surface parking lots downtown. In Indianapolis, the state Legislature is trying to prevent the city from halving ...
Creating a bigger bureaucracy won’t fix Bay Area transit
Creating a bigger bureaucracy won’t fix Bay Area transit By Steven Greenhut | January 26, 2024 Note: This is a longer version of an op-ed that ran earlier this week in the East Bay Times. When government agencies face daunting problems, it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to propose some “solution” ...
A bigger bureaucracy won’t fix Bay Area’s transit problems
When government agencies face daunting problems, it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to propose some “solution” that amounts to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic — i.e., a pointless bureaucratic revamping that does nothing to address the obvious iceberg. The latest example involves the San Francisco Bay Area’s myriad transit ...
Sorry, Urbanists, But Bicycles Will Never Save the Planet
Sorry, Urbanists, But Bicycles Will Never Save The Planet Steven Greenhut | December 4, 2024 SACRAMENTO – After my recent column chiding urbanists for their visceral dislike of suburbia and cars, I’ve been bemused by posts from a subset of their movement: hard-core bicyclists. Lots of people, myself included, enjoy an occasional ...
Unleash Private Sector to Repair 10 Freeway
Newsom should channel spirit of Northridge quake rebuild when repairing 10 Freeway
CalTrans veteran Jerry B. Baxter said in November 1994 that repairing the battered freeway system “posed one of the greatest challenges to the California Department of Transportation in its nearly 100-year history.” But “it also proved to be one of its greatest triumphs, testing the mettle and ingenuity of Caltrans employees in ...
Read latest about road diets
Car-free cities about social engineering, not public demand
Scientific American insists that car-free cities are the future, because the data from facial analysis caught by surveillance cameras proves that “people do not like looking at cars.” Or maybe the trend is just another planning movement led by elitists who believe their vision of a city is the only ...
