NC Media Watch

Let’s be clear, let's be real clear about Dorsey Drive funding.

Russ Steele

The approval of Governor Brown’s tax extension plan has nothing to do with the Dorsey Drive funding as suggested here, other than Brown’s desire to gut the Redevelopment Agencies and use the money elsewhere. This action by Gov. Brown has forced government agencies to protect their existing redevelopment fund accounts by committing the money to a project. Grass Valley has chosen to fund the Dorsey Drive, thus saving the redevelopment money from the Governor’s clutches.  

However, there is a Dorsey Drive funding issue that involves Prop 26 and the Gas Tax Swap that was to fund the State Transportation Improvement Program, including $10.5 million dedicated to Dorsey Drive. What was the gas tax swap you ask? The Gas Tax Swap was a combination actions to lower the sales tax rate applicable to sales of motor vehicle fuel and simultaneously raising the state excise motor vehicle fuel tax. This swap was to be effective July 1, 2010.

However, the passage of Prop 26 caused a great deal of uncertainty over the validity of the gas tax swap that was approved last March, and it may have to be re-instated.  Proposition 26 calls for a two-thirds majority vote on all tax and fee increases, invalidating the complicated tax swap that lawmakers approved last March.  As a result, California may lose $2.5 billion of the $8.5 billion it collects annually for highways and transit if the swap is not re-instated. This includes the $10.5 million of STIP funding for Dorsey Drive. 

The Gas Tax Swap Re-Do will require the cooperation of both the Democrats and Republican to reach the required 2/3 vote to pass under Prop 26.   While it will be messy process, I have been assured that the Gas Tax Swap will be re-instated, as it is revenue neutral. It does not raising taxes which would prevent the Republicans in the Assembly from supporting it on principle, and it will produce California jobs.  Both the Nevada County Transportation Commission and Board of Supervisors are supporting the reinstatement. I expect that Assemblyman Dan Logue and State Senator Doug LaMalfa will support passage of the Gas Tax Swap Re-do. Stay Tuned for an update.

Social engineering, subsidies and smart growth failure(Updated)

Russ Steele

When I was an advanced transportation systems planner one of my intellectual mentors was Joel Kotkin, who studied and wrote about urban life and the development of city suburbs.  As a social scientist I was fascinated by how people made life altering decisions to enhance the quality of life opportunities for their children.

Where familes choose to live is a complex decision that California has tried to influence with the passage of AB32 and SB375, which are attempting to force people to live near noisy, dirty, public transportation systems run by government unions. The very urban blight that many people were attempting to avoid by moving to the suburbs.

AB32 and SB375 wants citizens to live near CalTrains stations, so they can walk to the station and ride the train to work, removing CO2 generating cars from the regional freeways.  But, CalTrain depends on government subsides to pay daily operating expenses and is currently running a 30% deficit. The City of San Francisco and the other cities along the CalTrain route are broke. San Francisco, is $400 million in the hole, how much longer can they afford $30 million a year to subsidize CalTrain?

If you were a good liberal and beleived all the social engineering pap embedded in AB32 and SB375 and moved your family to live near a CalTrain station, how would you respond when CalTrains subsides were terminated and the CalTrain stations closed?

Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of SPUR, a San Francisco think tank, thinks it would be irresponsible to ask residents to relocate next to Caltrain stations if service wouldn’t be guaranteed.

“How can we ask people to make these decisions if we can’t even assure there will be transit service there?” Metcalf said.

Without a dedicated funding source, Caltrain, facing a $30 million budget shortfall, is forced to question whether it can even continue to operate in the future. Metcalf said until Caltrain finds funding, the Peninsula will not be able to move forward with any smart-growth plans."

Writing the social engineering into AB32 and SB375 was easy, implementing it is a bigger economic challenge and forcing people to adopt a life style not of their choosing is almost impossible. 

It is time for the folks in Sacramento to wake up, we cannot afford their social engineering and start moving toward solutions that meet the need of citizens. Forcing citizens to living near a dirty, noisy train station that attracts other urban blight is not the right solution, especially if there is no guarantee the train will be there after they move.

You can read more about this issue at the CalPolitical News.

Updated (03-07-11, 13:00) Update from an article at Joel Lotkin's web site: What The Census Tells Us About America’s Future

Whatever the wishful thinking by the urban-centric, big-city-based analysts and smart growth promoters, the Census has the actual numbers, America is moving to out of the city to the suburbs.

America is becoming more suburban.

For much of the past decade, there has been a constant media drumbeat about the “return to the cities.” Urban real estate interests, environmentalists and planners have widely promoted this idea, and it has been central to the ideology of the Obama administration, the most big-city dominated in at least a half century. “We’ve reached the limits of suburban development,” Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan opined last February, “People are beginning to vote with their feet and come back to the central cities.”

Donavan and others cite such things as the energy price spike in the mid-aughts as well as the mortgage crisis as contributing to the “back to the city” trend. Yet in reality the actual numbers suggest that Donavan and his cronies may need a serious reality check. The Census reveals that, contrary to the “back to the city” rhetoric, suburban growth continues to dominate in most regions of the country, constituting between 80% and 100% of all growth in all but three of the 16 metropolitan areas reporting.

This includes sprawling regions like Houston, “smart growth“ areas like Seattle and Portland  (where suburbs accounted for more than 80% of all growth over the decade) and Midwestern regions like St. Louis, which like Chicago saw a sharp decline in the urban population. The only exceptions have been Oklahoma City, Austin or San Antonio, with vast expanses still allowing for much of new development to take place within the city limits.

Is sanity returning to the electric vehicle market?

Russ Steele

Ford Motors appears to be backing away from producing electric vehicles. The Truth about Cars has the details in a article titled: Bill Ford Sounds EV Retreat. 

It has been clear from the beginning that the electric vehicle market is driven by government subsides, and their is a good possibility those subsides are about to go away. The other issue is that if politicians lose interest in electric vehicles subsides the required modernization of the electric grid will never happen, leaving a lot of only partly charged vehicles in the garage every morning. Millions of charging vehicles every night are going to require lots of energy distribution, especially in California were we will be dependent on sun and wind. The sun does not shine at night and the wind is fickle.

Bertel Schmitt In the Truth about Cars article reports that Bill Ford reminded his audience at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics Conference in Santa Barbara, that while the company has invested in EVs:

• “We still don’t know what the winning technology is going to be…We’re continuing to invest in hydrogen, we’re continuing to invest in biofuels.”

• “Prior to the Model T, a third of all vehicles in this country were electric… this isn’t a new technology. The reason it died away was the ubiquity of charging.  Today, we have the same issue.”

That charging issue is still with us today.  In California which is forecast to be a huge EV market, it is going to be even even bigger problem as AB32 mandated renewable energy comes on line. Where is all that night time charging energy going to come from? The wind?  Sun does not shine at night. The environmentalist want to tear down the hydro dams on the Klamath River, and anywhere else they can leverage public concern for the fish and frogs.

I think Ford is wise to back from the EV market, there is no assurance the existing grid will support the load, and no assurance the government will continue to cough up the subsided that are essential to the EV market and grid modernization.

Exit Question: Is this a wise decision by Ford?

Green machine does not make economic sense

Russ Steele

I just never understood the concept of plug in electric vehicles as a savior of the environment. The electricity has to be generated some where, and right now it is a coal powered power plant located somewhere.

When the battery is dead, the owner has to crank up the internal conbustion engine to get home. The question, is this an effective solution for urban transportation, does it make economic sense?  Does it make environmental sense?  

Consumer Reports issued a harsh initial review of the Chevy Volt, questioning whether it makes economic sense.

“When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn’t particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it’s not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy,” said David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center at a meeting with reporters here. “This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer.”
Click here for more news on the Chevrolet Volt.

The Volt tested by Consumer Affairs got 25 to 27 miles on electric power alone, but that was in harsh winter conditions. The range in more moderate whether however, should be around 40 miles. Champion says that a hybrid such as the Prius makes the most sense for longer trips, and that “If you drive about 70 miles, a Prius will actually get you more miles per gallon than the Volt does,”. Champion also noted that the Volt costs twice the amount of the Prius.

Emphasis was added by editor.

Exit questions: Would you buy a Chevy Volt? Why?

H/T to regular reader for this tip.

High-speed trains or effective highways?

Russ Steele

Ellen and I took a quick trip to Truckee today to check out the snow pack and have a great lunch at JAX Dinner in Truckee. They have some great home made potato chips!  I also wanted to check out the Truckee COOP  weather station that was used in a Forest Service Study of Global Warming in the Tahoe and El Dorado National Forests. More on the missing COOP in another post.

On thing this is very evident from our trip -- I-80 is falling apart.  Our teath chatter all the way from SR-20 to the Downtown Truckee exit, except where Caltrans had done some repairs this last summer.  Why are we sepending huge sums on high-speed rail when our highway infrastructures is falling apart?  Fixing the highway produces lots of jobs for a broad rage of business. 

This discussion of the rail vs highway issue is from the National Journal Transportation Blog  High-Speed Rail vs. Modal Neutrality
 
Isn't it curious that an Administration devoted to the principle of  multi-modalism is so obsessively determined to promote a single mode of its own preference -- that of high-speed rail? All three governors who rejected the federal HSR grants --- Govs. Walker, Kasich and Scott --- told Sec. LaHood that their states could badly use that money for more urgent needs of fixing roads, bridges and transit systems and, in the case of Gov. Scott, rebuilding Florida's ports in anticipation of the Panama Canal expansion. Yet Sec. LaHood turned a deaf ear to those requests, insisting that the stimulus money must be spent on high-speed rail --- even though money spent on other modes could have been just as effective in creating jobs. After justly condemning "stove pipe" mentality and modal biases in federal decisionmaking it is ironic to find  the Administration ignoring its own principles of modal neutrality in such a blatant manner.

Exit Question:  Should we continue to pursue high-speed rail and let our higway infrastructure collapse?

More on California's High Speed Rail

Russ Steele

A number of readers have jumped in to defend high speed rail citing examples of rail success in Europe.  Ellen and I have traveled by train multiple times in England, Scotland, and France. On one trip we brought a rail pass with car rental at each stop. We were staying in country cottages and visiting our oldest daughter attending York University.

On another trip we took the high-speed train from London to Paris with our youngest daughter who was finishing an education abroad semester. On a previous trip to France,  Ellen and I used regional rail. All the train trips were an enjoyable experience. On the Eurostar train to Paris, the three of us and one other couple were the only ones in our rail car. With only five people to serve we received incredible attention from the staff.

I wondered at the time, with so few riders on the Eurostar, how could it be profitable. According to a Skynet story here it has never been profitable and even with record number of passenger, who are avoiding airline hassles, it is not projected to operate in the black. 

Thomas Sowell has some thought on California's high-speed rail in his article Reckless Spending at TownHall.com

Building a high-speed rail system between Los Angeles and San Francisco may sound great to people who don't give it any serious thought. But we are a more spread-out country than England, France or Japan. The distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco is greater than the distance from London to Paris-- by more than 100 miles.

In Japan, the distance between Tokyo and Osaka is comparable to the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco. But the population of Osaka alone is larger than the combined populations of Los Angeles and San Francisco-- and Tokyo has millions more people than Osaka. That is why it can make sense to have a "bullet train" running between Osaka and Tokyo, but makes no sense to build one between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

However little President Obama knows or cares about economics, he knows a lot about politics-- and especially political rhetoric. "High-speed rail" is simply another set of lofty words to justify continued expansion of government spending. So are words like "investment in education" or "investment" in any number of other things, which serves the same political purpose.

The problem with California's high-speed rail is it will suffer same fate as the Eurostar, it will never be profitable. After the Federal government gives California money to build it, then the California tax payers will have to foot the bill for operations and maintenance. It will be just another black hole sucking in our tax dollars for ever. Not a good bargain, just for the the bragging rights of having a high- speed rail.

Exit Question: How can California HSR every be profitable? Please explain!

Joel Kotkin on California's High-Speed Rail

Russ Steele

I have been a follower of Joel Kotkin for years, I have found his insightful analysis of demographics and urban growth spot on when I was working on advanced transportation systems projects for TRW in the 1990s. 

Perhaps nothing so illustrates President Obama’s occasional disconnect with reality than his fervent advocacy of high-speed rail. Amid mounting pressure for budget cuts that affect existing programs, including those for the inner city, the president has made his $53 billion proposal to create a national high-speed rail network as among his top priorities.

Our President may be an intelligent and usually level-headed man, but this represents a serious case of  policy delusion. As Robert Samuelson pointed out in Newsweek, high-speed rail is not an appropriate fit for a country like the U.S. Except for a few areas, notably along the Northeast Corridor, the U.S. just lacks the density that would make such a system work. Samuelson calls the whole idea “a triumph of fancy over fact.”

Arguably the biggest problem with high-speed rail is its extraordinary costs, which would require massive subsidies to keep operating. Unlike the Federal Highway Program, largely financed by the gas tax, high-speed rail lacks any credible source of funding besides taxpayer dollars.

Here is what Joel had to say about California's High-Speed Rail program.

How will PEV owners pay fair share of road maintenance fees?

Russ Steele

President Obama wants to put a million electric cars in the road. Market research reports are warning our political leaders that there will surge if plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in Los Angles, San Francisco and the Sacramento Metro Area. Details here.

The questions is if we have a lot people driving cars which don’t use gasoline or diesel where will the road taxes used to maintain state highways come from?  Who will make up this shortfall? The taxpayer? And states are not too happy about the loss of gas and diesel fees, either.

States have historically relied on motor fuel taxes to fund highway infrastructure, but with revenue declining, cash-strapped states could turn instead to high tech "road user fees" to build and fix our roads.  I wrote about his issue in December of 2004 for the Capitol Journal:  Ridin' with a tax collector onboard.

Working in parallel with Minnesota, the Oregon Road User Fee Task Force looked at 28 different revenue sources to replace the lost motor fuel tax revenue. The Oregon Legislature adopted the Task Force findings, which recommended a road user fee based on the distance traveled, phased in over twenty years. The fee would be calculated based on vehicle miles traveled using an electronic odometer and GPS location system, with the information downloaded over a wireless transmitter at the gas pump.  Vehicles without the electronic odometer, such as transit vacation vehicles (RV's) from other states, or older vehicles without the internal electronics  and computers, would continue to pay motor fuel taxes at the pump. An onboard Global Position System will determine when the vehicle is in Oregon.  

Oregon tested this road pricing concept as part of a one-year alternative gas tax collection program. The Oregon DOT launching the 12-month pilot program in April of 2006 to test the technological and administrative feasibility of this concept. The program included 285 volunteer vehicles, with 299 motorists, and two service stations in Portland. The test program was a success. The test results can be downloaded here.

Based on the Oregon results, I think it would be appropiate that all plug-in electric vehicles have an onboard data collection systems and that downlaods the miles traveled whenever the vehicle is plugged into a tax payer subsidised charging station. Details on taxpayer subsidized charging stations at the bottom of this article.  The miles traveled can be recorded and billed to the plug-in electric vehicle owners, with fees due at registration every year.  One, this would help defray road mantainece cost. Two, it could discourage plug-in electric vehicle owners from using tax payers susidized charging stations.

Is their a cure for Range Anxiety?

Russ Steele

Writing the other day about a surge in plug-in electric vehicles here reminded me of a conversation I had in the early 1990s about electric vehicles with Pat Kelly, a former Air Force navigator and at the time fellow employee at TRW. The GM EV1 was not on the market yet.

Both Pat and I were electronic warfare officers and navigators in short range aircraft, he in Tactical Air Command and me in Strategic Air Command. He had spent a tour over Thud Ridge in the back seat of an F105 Wild Wessel confronting North Viet Nam surface to air missile batteries and I had been a right seater in the SAC FB-111.

While we shared a common back ground, at times were rivals in the Air Force. He was a TAC guy and I was a SAC guy, even thought we were both working on the same problem.  How to get immediate electronic intelligence into computer driven electronic warfare systems under combat conditions. We just viewed the world from a different point of view. His was a tactical warfare perspective and mine was more strategic nuclear warfare.   

Pat and I were enjoy a scotch and soda in a motel bar, we had just spent the afternoon listening to the genius at Cal Tech Pomona talking about the future of electric vehicles. Part of our mission at TRW was to look for new ideas, emerging technologies, and connect the dots to future business opportunities.

Without introduction, Pat said, “They will never sell”  “What will never sell,” I asked.

“Electric cars,” he answered. “Range anxiety!”  This was an insightful comment on a condition that is slowing the sales of electric vehicles today.

If you were broke, would you build a gas station before the need existed?

Russ Steele

No, I did not think so. But, in San Franciso they are building a $5.7 Million dollar Hydrogen Gas Station at the airport.

If you could buy a hydrogen powered car, it would cost you a $1 million dollars and you would have to pay $10.00 a gallon for fuel. This for a car that only gets about 38 miles per gallon. 

The real problem is that none of those car exist in San Francisco today, and affordable hydrogen powered vehicles are still about 10 years away.

However, this is not stopping the local government agencies in the bay area. They will spend $5.7 million to open up a hydrogen gas station at the San Fran airport. According to airport officials this station will farther their goals of cutting vehicle emissions.  I guess if you build the stations the cars will come, and if you can afford to pay a million dollars for a car, the $10 dollars a gallon would not be a problem. Having to return to the airport to refuel might get old.

Exit Question: When will going green Nevada City open their hydrogen service station for cars that will exist some day?  

H/T to Cal Political News and Hydrogen Car Info