Greyhound more fuel-efficient than Amtrak
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/363708_transit20.html

As a regular Greyhound rider (from Jax to Atlanta where my parents live) I was quite happy to learn this.

article that I was originally planning to put on Folio Weekly ...

 - but that wound up being more suitable for this blog.

 (reprinted at 

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/808/ )

NOT SO DRIVER-FRIENDLY by Michael Lewyn

Commentators on transportation policy sometimes write as if drivers and nondrivers are locked in a zero-sum game- that is to say, what benefits one group always hurts the other.   For example, I recently read a book that repeatedly referred to public transit and other pro-nondriver policies as “anti-automobile.” .
But after driving for a year here in Jacksonville, I have discovered that policies designed to speed up automobile traffic are not good for all drivers all the time, even if they are bad for nondrivers.
For example, San Jose Blvd. (the main street of my Mandarin neighborhood) is up to nine lanes wide in some spots.  Such wide streets are of course obnoxious to pedestrians, who have to cross twice (once to the median, once from the median to the other side of the street) unless they are very fleet of foot indeed.
But is this sort of road good for drivers? Yes if you are a long distance commuter, just passing through San Jose to get to their exurban home in St. John's County.
But what if you actually want to shop on San Jose? Even if you know exactly what you are looking for, you have to plan your trip by getting in the center lane (if you know your shop is on the left).  Then you have to make a left turn across several lanes of fast-moving traffic.   Even if you are lucky enough to be looking for a shop on the right lane, you have to remember to get in the right line a few minutes in advance.
If you don't know where you are going you are much worse off - for example, if you've heard about some interesting shop or restaurant on San Jose. If San Jose is uncongested, you have to drive so fast in order to keep up with the traffic that it is very difficult to find the shop you are looking for and still not be crushed by someone else's vehicle. Often, you will have overshot your intended destination by the time you know where you are.
And if the roads are congested, you face another problem: even if you do not have to drive 50 mph to keep up with the traffic, you will have a difficult time switching lanes, because the lanes to the left and the right of you will be clogged with traffic..
By contrast, if streets were narrower you might not be able to drive as fast (bad news) but you could switch lanes to get to your destination more easily (good news) since there would be fewer lanes to cross.
Jacksonville also requires many shops to be set back 20 or more feet from the street. In some ways, this policy is good for drivers; driving is obviously less of a hassle if you can park in front of a shop.  But this policy too creates problems for drivers.  The further the shop is from the street, the less visible its street number is. So if you are searching for a small restaurant at 9854 San Jose Boulevard, and that restaurant is 20 or 30 feet from the street, you might not be able to see the shop’s address in time to switch lanes.
Our city also speeds up traffic by creating large numbers of right-turn lanes. These lanes are not particularly helpful for nondrivers, because they effectively widen the road.
But separate right-turn lanes can create problems for drivers as well. Jacksonville is full of turn lanes that end in some sort of concrete barrier. If you know exactly where to turn these barriers are safe; you know enough not to get into the turn lane until right before your destination. But if you are not intimately familar with every inch of a commercial street (especially at night) the turn lanes turn driving into an adventure. Several types, I have gotten into a turn lane thinking I was in the right place to turn - but in fact I am turning one intersection too early. As a result, I almost ran into the concrete barrier.
Residential street design can also make Jacksonville driving an adventure.  In most neighborhoods built in recent decades, residential streets tend to be cul-de-sacs instead of grids- that is, no street connects with more than one or two other streets.   Even commercial streets do not always run from one end of town to another; for example, St. Augustine Road dead-ends at its intersection with San Jose Blvd. instead of running all the way from downtown to the county line.
Neighborhoods dominated by cul-de-sacs are good news for drivers in their role as homeowners: if your street only intersects with one other street, there will be fewer cars on it, and you will have less traffic noise to put up with.   
But if every homeowner lives on a cul-de-sac, drivers have a problem. Suppose you live on a residential street in Mandarin, and are trying to reach your job in Baymeadows.  If Mandarin had the same kind of grid street network as Riverside, you would have a wide variety of routes to choose from.  But because of the predominance of cul-de-sacs, there is only one way to go north if you live in Mandarin:  you have to use San Jose Blvd. for at least some of your trip.   Because virtually all neighborhood trips are forced onto one street, that street can become highly congested during rush hour.    In sum, cul-de-sacs are like tax evasion: fun if you are the only person to do it, not so good if everyone else does it.
 
So is Jacksonville a driver-friendly city or a driver-unfriendly city?  Yes and yes- depending on where you want to drive and what time of day you are driving.

Learning to cherish downtown

Dumb way to promote smart growth

I just got something in the mail from the Florida Association of Realtors about a conference on Smart Growth.  Ironically, the conference was scheduled to be at the World Golf Village, an area near St. Augustine that isn't really accessible via public transit.  Oops- not quite so smart!

(PS The conference was canceled due to lack of interest; I guess I wasn't the only person who thought the location was too remote).

What I have read so far this year (reviews on amazon.com and Facebook)
1.  Best Laid Plans, O’Toole
2. Torah Through Time, Cherry
3.  Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Yehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966, Shapiro            
4.  The Documentary Hypothesis and The Composition of the Pentateuch, Cassuto
5.  Peace not Apartheid, Carter
6.  The Absolutely Worst Places to Live in America, Dave Gilmartin
7.  Rybczynski, Last Harvest
8. Road to Ruin, Dom Nozzi
9.  The Provincials, Evans
10.  Schacht, An Introduction To Islamic Law
11.  Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
12.  Sacks, The Dignity of Difference
13.  Angel, Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality
14.  Levi, The Periodic Table
15.  Armstrong, The Battle for God
16.  Obama, Dreams from My Father
17.  Rosenbaum, The Holocaust and Halakhah
18.  Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew
19.  Scholem, The Messianic Idea In Judaism
20.  Obama, The Audacity of Hope
21.  Kushner, Who Needs God?

CNU blog post: statistics on overregulation....

http://www.cnu.org/node/1871

Some economists have actually tried to measure whether some metro areas regulate development more than others (rather than just relying on the generalization that anyplace with high housing prices MUST have more regulation)- results linked to in the post above.

Most interesting finding- areas that regulate sprawl aren't always the most regulatory; Portland is somewhere in the middle rather than being one of the most regulation-happy regions.

Well put!

Chesterton On Progressives And Conservatives

Blogging V

10:35 Paul gets back to basics:

Republicans used to be against the Department of Education.  Now they are for it.

Republicans used to end wars.  Now they start them.

Gets off track and starts talking about big tents. Something weird about most doctrinaire candidate talking about big tents.

After debate- Am watching local media- one likes Huck better for charm and humor, another McCain.  They agree that all five Rs "nicey nice" with each other, compared to "rancorous" Ds.  (That's how a multicandidate race is ... its a lot easier to lose votes by being negative because if A and B attack each other, the votes go to C).

I didn't think anyone had a real good night tonight.  Even though I agree with Paul on some issues, he was rambling and not very coherent a lot of the time.  Because no independents vote in Florida primaries, the other four were knocking themselves out even more than usual to pander to "the base."   Big winner: the Democrats.

Blogging IV

10 Media asks Rudy inane horse race question (how come you're down to 4th place?)

Giuliani shows wit- says he's lulling other candidates into "false sense of security."

10:08 Another inane question to McCain- how do you expect to reunite Republicans?

McCain- Hollers terrorism. 

10:10 Romney accuses Clinton of being "out of step" with American people- taxes, health insurance, Iraq.  Calls Hillary "Washington to the core."  Um, Hillary's been in Washington about a decade fewer than McCain- is this an indirect hit on McCain?

Romney promises to reunite foreign policy, social and economic conservatives- the usual blather.

10:13 Russert tries to get Romney to say how much of his own money as he is spending.  Romney evades- says he's not spending as much as Steve Forbes did. 

Romney says- "I owe no one anything.  I'm by far the biggest contributor to my own campaign."

Very candid- very good point! I can see the ads now:

"Romney - Too Rich To Steal."

Emphasizes need to have something with "life in the private sector."

I get the sense that Russert et al have decided that the candidates are so preprogrammed, so desperate to appeal to the "base" on major domestic and foreign policy issues, that they might as well kill time by asking horse race questions. 

10:15 After being asked about religion, Romney says once people get to know Democrats,  they will come home to Rs.

10:16 Russert says "Do you still favor abolishing Social Security" to Paul?

Paul says eventually, yes.  Spouts usual orthodoxy about how Social Security is dying (which I think is questionable - depends on economic growth), favors privatization.  Not sure I understood all his details.

Paul isn't very good at explaining all his positions at sound bite level.

10:18 Huck on Social Security- big problem is fewer wage earners, more Americans getting wealth from investments.  Fair tax will create extra funding stream for Social Security, funding it out of general revenues.   (What's impact of severing link between funding source and Social Security?)

Russert asks- will you save Social Security as Reagan did in 80s by raising taxes?

Romney - Don't wanna raise taxes.  Don't wanna.  Don't wanna.  (Logical followup- if taxes are so bad, why not just abolish them and fund everything out of debt?)  Proposes compromise based on changing indexing formulas, raising retirement raise and privatization.  I can't imagine any Democrat going along with that.   

Russert asks Giuliani- why do Cubans automatically get to stay here, but not anyone else?

Giuliani hollers Communism.  Says Castro "longest standing dictator".  So what? Why is length of tenure more important than repressiveness?

10:28 Russert asks why NY Times opposes him.  He responds that there is a serious ideological difference between himself and NY Times.

10:32 McCain goes out of his way to praise Giuliani.

 

 

Blogging III

9:43 Romney shows flash of reality.  Mentions China raising price of oil by increasing world demand.  Asks Giuliani "What kinds of relations should we have with China economically"?  Very friendly question- seems to be showing off his understanding of China.

Giuliani sees China as "great opportunity."  Calls for rule of law, protection of intellectual property, usual business stuff.  "Be careful" about what we import from safety standpoint.  Sees China as potential customers, as Chinese come out of poverty.  Says we can sell advanced services (very vague it).  

Says we should increase size of military, attacking Clinton "peace dividend."  How much have we increased military spending under Bush?  This is what liberals must have sounded like in 1970s, complaining that social spending hadn't increased enough even after Great Society.

9:46 McCain asks Huck about fair tax.   Asks about regressiveness concern about fair tax.  Softball question says presumably Huck has been asked 100 times about it. 

Huck refers to "prebate" - each American, each month, gets part of fair tax back. Not sure I understand.  

Says underground economy will be paying taxes.  (Really?  Can't you have a black market to avoid sales taxes?)

Russert asks- aren't low income Americans already avoiding income tax?

Huck responds- income taxes passed on to low income Americans, so they pay too.  (Interesting but isn't this true of sales taxes, confusing).

Paul asks McCain- What's your opinion of President's "working group on financial markets?"  

McCain says he'd rely on Treasury Secretary.  (Not sure he understands question- I know I don't).

9:52 Huck hits Romney- how can you be for Brady and assault weapon ban and still support 2nd Amendment?

Romney- I support 2nd Amendment. Like the President, I would have supported assault weapon bill - and in my state, a similar ban actually liberalized gun laws.  But also says "I do not support any new legislation."  Confusing unless you have a L.L.M in Gun Law.  

Giuliani- Asks Romney a Florida related question about property insurance.  Emphasizes he supports a "national catastrophic fund", while McCain believes that FEMA should handle this. Pandering to Florida.

Romney and McCain basically say- bring in some experts and study it.

9:58 Russert- As level of greenhouse gases doubles, Florida in grave danger.  Yet you're against cap on greenhouse gases - what's up with that?

Giuliani- Technology, technology, technology. Nukes, hybrid cars, other "gizmo green" solutions.  Asserts that with caps, we'd "crush American industry" and China and India would keep polluting.

McCain- I'm not in favor of mandatory caps, I'm in favor of "cap and trade" which worked for acid rain.  Gradual reduction of greenhouse emissions.  No treaty without China and India, supports nukes too. 

Makes key point- if we reduce greenhouse gases and there's no global warming, we still have a cleaner world.  But if we do nothing and there turns out to be a crisis, big problem.  Well put!  

An experiment: blogging GOP debate

9:04 Romney and McCain asked about stimulus proposal.  Romney tries to outbid Bush.  So does McCain.  So does Giuliani. One thing about a recession: it brings out the borrow and spend instinct in politicians- Republicans with tax cuts, Democrats with spending.  A plague on both your houses!

9:08 Giuliani takes on Sarbanes-Oxley.  Talk about a Beltway issue!

9:09 Russert slams McCain, quoting McCain as stating that he knows much less about economics than foreign policy.  McCain denies saying it.   He points out Wall Street Journal article saying majority of economists on his side. 

Huck says "We'll just borrow the 'stimulus' money from the Chinese, and it'll all get spent on retail goods from China.'"  Good point!

9:12 Huckabee suggests stimulating the economy by building two more lanes on I-95.  Yep, just build more pork, so people can drive more miles and give more money to the Saudis.  Not so good point!  On environmental issues, this guy is a disaster - more roads, more sprawl, more government.  And he's not so good on spending either! 

9:13 Romney cites his record as governor (good) then demagogues the tax issue against McCain (not so good).  Romney runs as Bush II- let's just cut taxes and stimulate the economy, just like in 2002.  He must not have listened to Huckabee mentioning the deficit.  

9:15 McCain blames midterm losses on "bridge to nowhere."  Is he kidding?  The evidence from the poll data is, as I recall, pretty overwhelming: the Republicans didn't have any trouble holding their base, they lost independents.

9:16 Paul hits stimulus issue.  He says we should stop interfering with "market" rate of interest.  He hits old-fashioned basics- no more spending, no more borrowing.  "We're literally spending ourselves on oblivion."  Kind of free associating.  But hits key point: you can't separate domestic policy and foreign policy; you can't really say "Government spending doesn't count as long as its for war."  You can spend yourself into a hole just as easily on war as on welfare.

No one in this round was real coherent.  

9:20 Russert asks everyone: after $2 trillion increase in national debt, doubling of gas prices, increase in unemployment, why trust Republicans on economics?

McCain attacks Dems, hitting all the usual bases.  Also hits Bush on pork barrel, comes out for fiscal discipline.  "We will clean up our act and we will regain the confidence of the American people ... we will balance our budget."  

Huckabee says "I wasn't in Washington".   Points out he was the only one who saw that the economy had problems a few months ago; everyone else was saying the economy was great.

  

 

blogging II

More on economy:

Romney- I'm running on my own record, being in private sector, my record as governor of Mass.  Says "Washington is broken."  He wants it both ways- on the one hand, he's for change.  On the other, he's for four more years of tax cuts, with some nods to cutting spending.  Not real coherent.  

His record as governor was, as far as I know, fine.  The big difference: Massachusetts has to balance its budget. 

Giuliani- runs on NYC record. 

Paul- runs on "old fashioned Republican program."  Perfectly believable- but unfortunately for him, everyone else is me-tooing him.  

Then questions from audience.

9:30 Q to McCain- how can you sustain Iraq when our military is on verge of breaking, and our deficit is so ruinous?

A. McCain- no problems with military; we are succeeding in Iraq.  We have American troops and no one complains because we are "defending freedom."  I don't think he gets the difference between Iraq and Germany, or more broadly the difference between Islam and European secularism.

9:31 Russert asks Romney- how do you make counterinsurgency work without a draft?

A. In Mass, we passed a GI Bill encouraging National Guard enrollment.  Proposes updated funding level for GI Bill.  Spend and spend.   Usual rubbish about "turning Iraq over to al-Qaeda" and "finishing job."  (Um, Iraq is majority Shiite- and Shiites are the primary victims of al-Qaeda and are heavily armed). 

9:34 McCain- "the war in Iraq was justified because of the threat of Sadaam Hussein . . . we will have peace and success."  Yikes!

Giuliani- the same thing. McCain has stolen his hawkish clothing.  

9:35 Paul attacks war. "We should never be a country that starts war needlessly."

9:36 Huck says there was a potential of WMD- takes orthodox hawk line.  Says just because we didn't find them doesn't mean they were not there (dumb).  Its easy to second guess President. 

9:37 Romney (who's waffled on this issue before) seems to echo the others.  Shame! 

Says Iraq success prevents al-Qaeda from having a "safe haven."

Let me help you, Mitt. Al-Qaeda has a safe haven RIGHT NOW.  It is called PAKISTAN (or more precisely, the "tribal zone" bordering Afghanistan).  Pakistan has weapons of mass destruction too (in fact, nukes, which Sadaam never had).  

But this Administration dare not do anything about it, because the country that is harboring Bin Laden is pretending to be our ally.   

 

 

Blogging from the law profs' convention
Last week I went to the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) convention, attended by law professors from all fields and (I suspect) virtually all schools.  In addition to doing some networking, I went to numerous panels, some of whihc were quite interesting.

The highlight was a panel on teaching Jewish law.  The panelists pointed out that there are a variety of ways of teaching: some focused on comparing Jewish law and American law (usually either “private law” issues of property and contract, or divisive social issues - also legal methodology issues such as the role of precedent and checks and balances in these systems), others focused on Israeli law’s issue of Jewish law, others compared Judaism with Christian legal traditions, and still others focused more on the broader theoretical differences between Jewish and secular legal systems.  

Some of the panelists pointed out that regardless of the subject matter of the course, classroom time couldn’t be organized the same way as a regular course.  Instead of reading a large amount of reading in a cursory way, students of Jewish legal texts have often focused on reading a paragraph or two intensely at a time- so one teacher had groups of two or three focus on texts a paragraph at a time.  The teachers were all over the lot on writing.  Some assigned long papers, others a short paper every week or two.

One thing I got from all the presentations: an appreciation of the difficulty of getting materials for such a course.   The Talmud is available on CD-ROM.   However, later codes (such as the Mishneh Torah) should be available- and this means that if you are not in a school with a sizable Jewish law collection, the school has to invest a few hundred dollars in its library to start one.

On the Friday of the conference (which lasted from Thurs. the 3rd to the following Sunday morning) the Federalist Society held a kind of counter-conference.  The first panel was on Kelo (the Supreme Court decision reiterating that cities can employ eminent domain where a legitimate “public purpose” was involved.  The most interesting panelist pointed out that Kelo is not as broad as both its supporters and critics think; one of them noted that a taking which is a “pretext” for redistribution to a private beneficiary may also be unconstitutional under Kelo, even if there is some possibility of a public benefit.  For example, taking decrepit property to give to a collection of businesses is clearly OK, but giving the same property to one company that happens to be a major campaign contributor to the mayor may be suspicious.

There was also a lunchtime debate on the 2nd Amendment.   The key issue was the role of the “well-regulated militia” clause of the 2nd Amendment.  Does this clause limit the “keep and bear arms” clause by limiting firearms ownership to the “militia” (whoever that is)?  Nelson Lund of George Mason argued that the militia clause was irrelevant, just a “sop” to fears of a standing army.  Why?  Lund drew an analogy.  Imagine an announcement sent by my Dean to the class, saying “Prof. Lewyn being sick, class is canceled today.”  Even if I am faking, class is canceled.  Similarly, even if the militia doesn’t exist, the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms still exists.  

I have to admit I wasn’t completely persuaded by the analogy.  The “sick teacher” situation is a one-time problem, not a Constitutional clause intended to last for 200 years.  In the first situation, there is no way to reconvene the class later if the teacher is discovered to be faking.  By contrast, the practical impacts of the Bear Arms Clause can be adjusted if there is no militia.  A better analogy would be to an announcement stating “Because Prof. Lewyn is dead, his class is canceled forever.”  If I am discovered to be alive, class can reconvene.

Then came an exchange on American legal education.  Prof. Shepherd of Emory discussed the cartelization of American legal education; until the 1920s and 1930s, the bar exam was not particularly difficult, and law school was not required for law practice (let alone attendance at an ABA-accredited law school).  Then the big time lawyers got the states to clamp down and eliminate most of the poorer law schools, thus limiting the supply of law schools and lawyers and thus raising the price of both.  (What Shepherd didn’t mention is that the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better; the ABA is thinking of requiring a minimum bar pass rate of 70 or 80 percent for accreditation).

Shepherd added that there was no reason to believe that the status quo is essential for quality education: business school is not a requirement for entry into business, yet there are academically sophisticated business schools and American business somehow seems to function without barriers to entry.

Some avenues for further research: how exactly do business schools differ from law schools?  In particular, how do non-elite business schools compare to non-elite law schools?  Are they cheaper?  Do they produce a worse product in any significant way? What happens to their graduates?  And do states that allow non-ABA schools (e.g. California) have cheaper legal services?

Prof. Schwarzchild of San Diego discussed the evolution of American legal education in recent decades.  Good news: much more scholarship; 30 years ago, only elite schools showed much interest in scholarship.  Bad news: crushing tuition increases leading to crushing debt burdens.

Dean Garvey of Boston College defended American legal education and explained the purposes of high tuition.  There has been lots of criticism (especially from clinicians and lawyers who believe law schools should have more clinical training) of American legal education.  Garvey asked: if our law schools are so bad, how come foreigners come here for LLMs?  Why do students take on so my debt if legal education is so worthless?

He also addressed the tuition issue.  He pointed out that faculty salaries have not kept up with the increase in lawyer salaries, so that’s not the cause.  Instead, the issue was student-teacher ratios, which are much lower now than they were in 1980. Why?  Because when tuition was cheaper, everyone took the same big courses, so you only needed enough faculty for the first year curriculum and a few other courses.  Since then, law schools have added legal writing faculty and clinicians (to handle demand for more “practical” experience), and a variety of new specialties (to teach some of the many new specialties that have arisen in recent decades, such as civil rights and environmental law).

Another interesting panel was one on originalism.  Today, originalism doesn’t just mean a belief that the intent of the Framers is binding and/or leads to conservative policy results.  Neo-originalist scholars argue for originalism, but focus on the broad values animating constitutional provisions - for example, on the Fourteenth Amendment’s goal of preventing a “caste society.”

The most interesting presetnation, however, was by Prof. Rappoport of San Diego, who argued for originalism not on the traditional “rule of law” or “judicial restraint” grounds* but on the grounds that rules enacted by a supermajority (such as the Constitution in its original form) are more likely to lead to good policy results than an interpretation endorsed by a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court.  Why? Because the former rule was created by something approaching a societal consensus**, which means that the voters were not acting based on narrow partisan concerns.  Admittedly, the 18th-century majority is sometimes out of touch with today’s societal consensus- but Rappoport argued that if nonoriginalist justices stop trying to “fix” the Constitution so it evolves with the times, the amendment process will solve everything.

*”Rule of Law” argument means that to enact a constitutional provision by definition means to enact its original meaning, otherwise any interpretation is plausible.  
“Judicial restraint” argument means that originalism is likely to lead to a less aggressive judiciary because the Framers meant to outlaw very little- a factual claim that it is itself the subject of wide disagreement among scholars.

**At least of propertied white males- but there is no reason to believe that a broader electorate would have opposed the Constitution as written, except for provisions related to slavery which in any event were not good law after the Reconstruction Amendments were enacted. 

Books I read in 2007

1.  Rosenberg, Abraham: The First Historical Biography
2  Heilman, Sliding to the Right (interesting!)
3.  Lappin et al, Jewish Voices German Words
4.  Soloveitchik, Days of Deliverance
5.  Neusner, Is Scripture the Origin of the Halakhah?
6.  Kunstler, The Long Emergency (interesting!)
7.  Barry, Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits
8.  Humphreys, The Miracles of Exodus (interesting!)
9.  Winston, Unchosen
10.  Roth, The Plot Against America
11.  Efron, Real Jews
12.  Eisner, The Plot
13.  Wolfson, The Art of Jewish Living: the Passover Seder
14.  Gillman, Traces of God
15.  Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories
16.  Goldstein, The Price of Whiteness
17.  Stone, A Responsible Life
18.  Balish, How To Live Well Without Owning A Car (really liked this one, of course)
19.  Goetz, Death by Suburb
20.  Bess, Till We Have Built Jerusalem
21.  Stephen Carter, God’s Name in Vain
22.  Gula, Nonsense
23.  Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World (old but good!)
24.  Unterman, A Light Amid the Darkness
25.  Fackenheim, The Jewish Return Into History
26.  Lamm, The Jewish Way In Death and Mourning
27. Perowne, Hadrian
28.  Nuland, Maimonides
29.  Beck, An Underground Life
30.  Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers
31. Elkins, Moments of Transcendence: Inspirational Readings for Rosh Hashanah
32.  Rashi/Chumash, Metsudah edition
33.  Palatnik & Burg, Gossip
34.  Kenneally, Schindler’s List
35.  Crowe, Oskar Schindler
36.  Broyde, The Pursuit of Justice in Jewish Law
37.  Colbert, I Am America (And So Can You)
38.  Lucy and Phillips, Tomorrow’s Cities, Tomorrow’s Suburbs (very good!)     
39.  Toobin, The Nine
40.  Planetizen , Contemporary Debates in Urban Planning
41.  Kellerman, Sacred and Profane
42.  Kellerman, Street Dreams
43.  Spilman, The Pianist
44.  Kellner, Maimonides on “The Decline of the Generations” and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority (interesting)
45.  Brokaw, Boom!

 If you want my opinions about these books, reviews of nearly all of them are on amazon.com

Property tax hysteria

The state legislature here in Fla. has spent most of the year figuring out how to cut the local property tax burden.  What I want to know is, if the state legislature thinks we're overtaxed, why doesn't it cut state taxes and state spending? Where do these people in Tallahassee get off dictating what local governments must do?

I had grown up with the quaint belief that the levels of government closest to the people are the most trustworthy.*  So naturally local governments are preferable to state government. 

At a minimum, local governments should be able to run their own affairs.  If the government of Jacksonville is overtaxing its citizens, the local electors can throw it out.  Certainly, local voters know more about Jacksonville's city government than does the state legislature.

Of course, this fiasco illustrates a broader problem with a federalist system: higher levels of government are always going to be tempted to shift difficult decisions down to local levels.  Federal governments impose unfunded mandates upon the states, getting political credit for popular regulations while making state and local governments raise taxes (or cut other popular programs) pay the price.  Similarly, here the Florida state government is making local governments cut taxes; this means the state gets credit for the tax cuts, while cities and counties get the blame for cutting services to pay for the tax cuts. 

Since cities and counties are responsible for the government services that really matter (i.e. schools and cops and fire), this is really dangerous: it means fewer cops and firefighters.   Thus, the state legislature's irresponsibility is a threat to public safety.

Florida needs a constitutional amendment all right- but not a constitutional amendment that micromanages local government.  Instead, the Florida Constitution needs to say:

Local finances are the business of local voters and not of state government.  Accordingly, no state action may force local governments to spend additional funds, or affect local taxes.

 

*Though I now realize this is not true in certain situations- for example, where local behavior creates regional externalities (e.g. affordable housing problems due to exclusionary zoning).

My article on Jax's decaying inner suburbs, online at
http://works.bepress.com/lewyn/44/

The best case scenario

This weekend I drove to work on a Saturday night (when, in my part of the city, there is almost no traffic).  Total commute time: 17 minutes (15 car, 2 walking to office).

I also had my shortest timed transit commute ever a couple of days later (about 33 minutes, roughly half of which was walking).

So to sum up: car commute has ranged from 17-26 min, transit 33-50.  So there is a fairly consistent 2-1 ratio: the best transit commute is twice the length of the best car commute, the worst transit commute is twice the length of the worst car commute.  Your results may vary.

Since the transit commutes nearly always include about 15 minutes of exercise and some reading, I think on balance I am better off taking the bus when I can (i.e. when I am not (a) in a hurry to get to work or (b) combining going to work with other errands).

Your results may vary. 

The contrarian myth

For some reason, defenders of the sprawl status quo are often referred to as "contrarian."   For example, if you google "Joel Kotkin" and "contrarian" you get 449 hits.   By contrast, if you google "Andres Duany" (a leading New Urbanist architect) and "contrarian" you only get 78.

But what the heck is contrarian about defending the status quo, especially when that status quo is defended by the wealthiest, most powerful forces in this country?  Who benefits from sprawl?  A big chunk of the Fortune 500: Auto companies, oil companies, tire manufacturers.  And at the state and local level: developers and road builders.  (Representatives of most of these groups are on the board of the American Highway Users Alliance, a leading pro-road group).  

And against these groups, who?  A few environmentalists, and a few architects and planners who've been persuaded by the environmentalists, and, um, um....

Saying that sprawl defenders are "contrarian" in America makes about as much sense as saying that it is "contrarian" to be Muslim in Saudi Arabia.  

Negative-sum road policies

Sometimes people arguing about transportation policy (occasionally including me, I have to admit) act as if drivers and nondrivers are locked in a zero-sum game.

But this isn't really the case.  Policies designed to favor drivers don't always favor all drivers all the time, even if they are bad for nondrivers.

For example, San Jose Blvd. (the main street of my neighborhood here in Jacksonville) is up to nine lanes wide in some places.  Bad for pedestrians, who have to cross twice (once to the median, once from the median to the other side of the street) unless they are very fleet of foot indeed.  

Is this sort of road good for drivers?  Yes if you are a long distance commuter, just passing through San Jose to get to their exurban home in St. John's County.

But what if you actually want to shop on San Jose?  Even if you know exactly what you are looking for, you have to plan your trip by getting in the center lane (if you know your shop is on the left) or in the far right lane (otherwise).  Then you have to risk death by making a left turn across several lanes of fast-moving traffic. 

If you don't know where you are going you are much worse off - for example, if you've heard about some interesting shop or restaurant on San Jose. If the roads are uncongested, you have to drive so fast in order to keep up with the traffic that it is very difficult to find the shop you are looking for and still not be crushed by someone else's vehicle. Often, you will have overshot your intended destination by the time you know where you are.   If you see your destination before you get there, you have to switch lanes again and again.  For example, if you are in the right lane, you may have to switch lanes three times before taking a left turn- not an easy thing to do when everyone else is driving 50 mph. 

And if the roads are congested, you face another problem: even if you do not have to drive 50 mph to keep up with the traffic, you will have a difficult time switching lanes, because the lanes to the left and the right of you will be clogged with traffic (thus making it harder to switch lanes).  

By contrast, if streets were narrower you might not be able to drive as fast (bad) but you could switch lanes to get to your destination more easily (good) since there would be fewer lanes to cross.

Another questionable policy is Jacksonville's pattern of having a right-turn lane every other block.  These lanes are not particularly helpful for nondrivers, because they effectively widen the road.

But they are not so great for drivers either.  San Jose is full of turn lanes that end in some sort of concrete barrier.  If you know exactly where to turn this is fine; you know enough not to get into the turn lane until right before your destination.  But if you are not intimately familar with every block (especially at night) the turn lanes turn driving into an adventure.  Several types, I have gotten into a turn lane thinking I was in the right place to turn - but in fact I am turning one intersection too early.  As a result, I almost ran into the concrete barrier.  (Fortunately, I drove slowly enough to stop in time, turn into the last "normal" traffic lane, and then turn again at the next intersection). 

 

The Chinese disagree

Joel Kotkin and other promoters of the status quo keep telling us that outside the United States, sprawl is the wave of the future.

But the Chinese disagree; they are planning to build six new subway lines in Beijing. 

 http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20071017/104833.shtml