Archive

from Breakingviews:

Review: Walking cure for cash-strapped U.S. cities

By Martin Langfield
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Many American cities, from Detroit to San Bernardino, are under financial pressure. Jeff Speck, an urban planner, has a suggestion: make them more pedestrian-friendly. His book “Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time” makes the case. Provide it, and they will come.

Creating more walkable neighborhoods brings in dollars, Speck says: home prices are higher in mixed-use areas that encourage pedestrians, and business revenue rises when downtown zones attract foot traffic. Street life fosters propinquity - frequent interaction with neighbors - which is good for innovation and serendipitous encounters. Research suggests this enhances the productivity, and hence taxable income, of both people and firms.

Speck thinks that pedestrian culture, scaled to people rather than cars, can rise in many cities as the old American model - suburban sprawl, dangerous roads and lifeless downtowns - declines. Two major demographic cohorts, in particular, need to be wooed by cities looking to prosper.

from The Great Debate:

Ray LaHood was, surprisingly, the right man for the job

Urbanists were excited by President Obama’s election in 2008, as it heralded the first time in a century that a president would come from a major city. And Obama was not just a resident of Chicago, he had worked as a community organizer. On the campaign trail he promised groups such as the U.S. Conference of Mayors that – after years of neglect under Republicans – his tenure would feature federal cooperation with, and attention to, cities.

So they were dismayed when Obama picked Ray LaHood, a Republican congressman from Peoria, Illinois, for Secretary of Transportation. It appeared that Obama had subjugated urban interests to his desire to appear bipartisan.

from Reihan Salam:

For states, Washington’s budgetary seduction proves too hard to resist

Federalism’s days appear to be numbered. The reason isn’t so much that the power of the federal government has increased, though that’s part of it. Instead, the slow-motion death of federalism flows from the fact that a wide array of federal programs have seduced state governments into playing Washington’s tune.

This week, for example, Ohio Governor John Kasich, a conservative who first came to prominence as one of the foot soldiers of the 1994 Republican Revolution, announced that he supports the federal expansion of Medicaid, one of the central pillars of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA). Opposition to ACA, and to the enormously expensive Medicaid expansion, had until recently been considered a conservative litmus test.

from Breakingviews:

Heathrow needs decisive capacity fix

By Chris Hughes

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Heathrow spent more than 36 million pounds on improving its snow defences after the chaos in 2010. The result? More bad publicity for London’s hub airport when this winter’s first blizzards hit. Heathrow’s operational upgrades have failed to address the fundamental problems it faces.

from Breakingviews:

World’s new air giant taking off at turbulent time

By Raul Gallegos
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Get ready for the world’s largest airline to take off this week. But don’t look north or east - the globe’s most valuable carrier is set to be South American. Chile’s LAN Airlines is on track to finally consummate its marriage to Brazilian rival TAM this Friday, almost two years after announcing the tie-up. But the promise of greater regional integration has fueled big expectations that economic headwinds will make difficult to meet.

from MacroScope:

NY Transit shies away from “revolution”

New York does not need to go the way of other countries and create multi-state bureaucracies to finance and build mass transit systems, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's chairman. Joseph Lhota, who runs New York City's buses, subways, commuter rail roads and major bridges and tunnels, dismissed that recommendation:

We're talking revolution - that is a complete waste of time. It just requires people to come together with a common purpose.

from The Great Debate:

A simple plan to relieve airport congestion

D.J. Gribbin, a former general counsel for the United States Department of Transportation, contributed to this column.

The bankruptcy filing by American Airlines a few months ago signals that the U.S. aviation industry is once again primed for dramatic change.  American Airlines is the last of the major U.S. carriers to seek bankruptcy protection, as most of the other big carriers have completed restructurings or mergers that have reduced the number of full-service carriers from seven in 2005 to just four today.

from The Great Debate:

The urgent need to protect the global supply chain

Every day, staggering numbers of air, land and sea passengers, as well as millions of tons of cargo, move between nations. International trade and commerce has long driven the development of nations and provided unprecedented economic growth. Indeed, our future prosperity depends upon it.

At the same time, threats to trade and travel -- whether from explosives hidden in a passenger’s clothing or inside a ship’s cargo, or from a natural disaster -- remind us of the need for security and resilience within the global supply chain. A vulnerability or gap in any part of the world has the ability to affect the flow of goods and people thousands of miles away. For instance, just three days after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear tragedies struck Japan last March, U.S. automakers began cutting shifts and idling some plants at home. In the days that followed, they did the same at their factories in more than 10 countries around the world.

from The Great Debate:

More taxis mean more traffic

“There’s something for everyone,” exulted New York City taxi czar David Yassky over the December agreement between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to expand taxi service. The disabled get 2,000 new wheelchair-accessible yellow cabs, up from around 250 at present. Outer-borough residents get the right to hail non-yellow “livery” cabs instead of having to phone for them. And the city gets a billion-dollar “one shot” from auctioning medallions for the new yellow cabs.

Oh, and all New Yorkers get something they need like a hole in the head: a permanent jolt of new gridlock from the extra taxi traffic.

from George Chen:

Not just an accident

By George Chen
The opinions expressed are the author’s own.

We’ve talked about whether China's economy will have a soft or hard landing. In fact, what China needs is a pause. Lots of things in China may be moving way too fast. Including our trains.

On Saturday, at least 35 people died when a high-speed train smashed into a stalled train in eastern Zhejiang province, raising new questions about the safety of the fast-growing rail network. For a Reuters story, click here.