Saturday, April 03, 2004
HOT Lanes
Dan Klein and Gordon Fielding came up with the HOT-lane idea more than ten years ago. Introduce much needed time-of-day pricing on U.S. highways by converting underused HOV lanes; make access available to anyone willing to trade cash for time; make it a variable toll sensitive to regular changes in demand; even raise highway money this way. Bob Poole, Ken Orski and many others have been working hard to promote the HOT-lane idea since then. There are even a few in existence in the U.S. Southern California has two, a segment of the SR-91 in Orange county and another segment of the I-15 in San Diego county.Yet, progress has been slow. The current federal transportation reauthorization bill is full of political pork favorites (3000 election-year hand-outs according to the WSJ). Politicians prefer to build rather than manage capacity because that is where the money is. They love rail transit, even though hugely wasteful (30 years of documentation notwithstanding), because, unlike highways, this is where they get points from builders AND from from Greens.
Why, then, be optimistic about pricing? Because good ideas do have a slow inevitability. The few U.S. HOT-lane demos and now London's pricing success have slowly moved the idea into the mainstream. Perhaps the biggest push has come from London where it has been promoted by the City's Mayor, "Red Ken" Livingston. Just as it takes a Nixon to go to China, a Rabin to shake hands with Arafat (not a great idea but a show of great courage), it takes a card-carrying Socialist to give us a serious road-pricing clinic.
City-center pricing as in London is not useful in the U.S. where few go to the traditional centers. Rather, HOT-lanes are the way to go. The next logical step is to have them over an entire metro area's highway system, not simply on an isolated link here and there. The results would be dramatic and eye-opening, just as in London.
Friday, April 02, 2004
The Pollies
It turns out that some folks actually track and rank campus silliness, in this case campus PC. The Polly Awards (Pollies) are given to the nuttiest campus PC episodes. The Collegiate Network gives first price to Yale for its "Sex Week". No kidding. Actually, just part of First Place (it's a tie) goes to Yale's Sex Week (see the site for the co-recipient). My own favorite is Duke University and its Chairman of the Philosophy Dept who defends the school's 17-1 left leaning political line-up of faculty by claiming that Duke will not hire dummies -- and conservatives tend to be stupid (not a direct quote; see the web site).
How about an Unintended Self-Parody Award, the USPA. Well, perhaps Pollies sounds better.
A recent discussion in the NY Times Book Review about an author who had not been heard from in years, mentioned that he was working on an academic spoof. One of the commentators noted that this is always a sure sign that the poor author had run out of material.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Tall Tale
Prospects for personal freedom and economic opportunity have attracted immigrants to the U.S. for hundreds of years. Yet, the class warfare view requires that the mobility story is overlooked and the focus is on the widening gap between rich and poor. Statistical evidence that most people do not spend a lifetime in any one income stratum is treated as if it were not there. This is intellectually dishonest; comparing income distribution snapshots taken at different times makes no sense. It does not compare the progress made by real people. Yet, what is one to do if one's world view is at stake?Just when you thought that the link between urban sprawl and obesity (claimed by CDC researchers, among others) is silly, have a look at the current New Yorker and discover that redistribution explains stature (The Height Gap). Americans used to be taller than Europeans because they were richer, ate better and were likely to be healthier. Yet, data now show that Europeans have surpassed Americans. How and why? We keep too many people poor (and short) because we do not redistribute the wealth as effectively as the Dutch, the writer speculates. Never mind that he does cite the fact that Mexicans in the U.S. are, on average, taller than the ones in Mexico.
When one's worldview is at stake, a few leaps are seemingly OK among the smart set.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Regional Government (again)
Bismarck may have been the first to warn about politics and sausage making: if you enjoy either one, you do not want to observe either being made. Many people have figured this out. Many now realize that politics can cause them grief. Perhaps they also book fewer guided tours of sausage factories. Most Americans also own a risky asset portfolio, having the largest share of their wealth tied up in the real property that is their home. They, understandably, have a demand for property rules, including zoning and subdivision laws. Professor Bill Fischel has written most clearly about the "homevoter hypothesis" and points out that people look to local government to protect their prime asset. Their interest in municipal government is, therefore, greatest.
Among municipal governments, Americans seem to balance their skepticism of local government with their demand for its services by moving to smaller cities. Between 1980 and 2002, most growth has been in the mid-sized cities, those with a population in the range of 50,000-250,000. Not only have these gained the greatest population share but this group is the one with the most of the newly incorporated cities. The numbers are in Table 29 of the latest Statistical Abstract. It is always wonderful to see what one learn just by looking.
People suburbanize for many reasons and most of these newly incorporated places are in the suburbs. What else do we know? We know that most big-city leaders and their acolytes want "regional government" whereby the escape to small cities that so many people choose would be denied them. It is a safe bet that most of the regional government advocates want Microsoft to compete but are reluctant to do so themselves.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Modern-day Luddites
The Luddites are always on the wrong side of history and, looking back, a source of some bemusement. Yet, as Brink Lindsey has forcefully demonstrated (Against the Dead Hand), the sentiment can be costly beyond imagination. Lindsey considers the industrial counter-revolution, the widespread reaction to fast-paced change, and connects it to most of the bloodshed of the 20th century. Populist and protectionist politicians (and their ideological allies), then, are playing with fire. Learning and teaching history, therefore, is more important than ever. Yet, we now do less of it than ever. Much of what now passes for history instruction dwells on victims and their oppressors; these stories are usually connected to a vague anti-Western platform. Not only are many young people left essentially defenseless in the face of election-year rhetoric but a widespread response to terrorist abominations boils down to: "Why do they hate us so much?"
Hubris may be distasteful and dangerous but so is its craven opposite.
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Progressive Talk-Radio
Can one simultaneously hold all three of the following beliefs? 1) Rational policy analysis and policy making are feasible; 2) It is unethical and/or foolish to try placing a dollar value on human life; 3) a robust public sector is desirable. Yes, many people do, in spite of the obvious inconsistency. This morning's NY Times Magazine has a short piece inspired by the Frank Ackerman-Lisa Heinzerling book, Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing that challenges the idea of valuing a statistical life but does not address the implications re the cited inconsistency.There has also been some buzz about the arrival of liberal ("progressive") talk radio as well as hand-wringing over why it took so long. If conservatives can gain ratings by tossing red meat at their audience, why can't liberals do the same? I am tempted to bet that liberal talk radio will fall short. If so, there will be many explanations. One may simply be incoherence. There may be more due diligence applied to radio talk than to candidates' utterances. Voting for one of the presidential candidates is a one-time thing. Voting for radio favorites is a steady on-going activity.
