Harsh. Point # 2 is about APA-style neighborhood decisionmaking and point # 3 is about voter referendums. You can have one without the other.

With respect to your latter points, I wonder whether you're joking. Some jurisdiction had to be the first to invest in subway systems, light rail, bullet trains, etc. Are you seriously advocating New York City (or Paris) without a subway? Subways have allowed those cities to achieve incredible density, which makes those cities efficient and green. Exclusive reliance on busses just wouldn't work there.

Moreover, as my post makes clear, the mass transit professionals were against the monorail from the start; they preferred the light rail system that the city has been building slowly. Mass transit planners make all kinds of mistakes, but if you give them a goal, they're pretty good at identifying the costs and benefits associated with competing alternatives. Better than us voters, anyway.

Well, I was trying to be sensationalistic, if not entirely joking. But, yeah -- I'd take a world with no city planners anyday, even if that led to Paris without the Metro, over a world where government (whether at the behest of misguided voters or self-serving technocrats) spends our money so profligately. I guess my question to you would be -- by what mechanism would you have such projects undertaken to ensure more Paris Metros and fewer DC metros; more NYC subways and fewer Amtraks; more . . . I can't think of any other positive examples. I'm all in favor of more density, but as Robin Hanson points out, urban planners are more often impediments to this than facilitators of it.

Lior, nice post. High quality mass transit (and Chicago is the city I am most familiar with), has huge network effects that can only occur with a system of sufficient capacity and breadth of service. I think mass transit explains the survival of NYC, Boston and Chicago. It has also been a boon for DC.

Geoff -- do you really think D.C. would be better without the Metro? I guess we all have idiosyncratic mass transit experiences, but after living in Houston for 10 years and spending most of that time on I-10, I have always thought that well-planned mass transit is an amazing thing. Yes, like any large public project, the agency problems are huge and great wealth transfers to cronies happen (like in the one mass transit experiment in Houston from downtown to the Dome). But I'm not sure the alternative is no mass transit. I guess we shouldn't have airlines either.

Although I'm not certain about the ends either (the DC Metro, for example, is notoriously under-ridden -- was it really a good idea?), I am certain the means is faulty. Here's a report on some of mass transit's endemic problems, and see chapter 11 (webbed) in this book. I'm not sure whether the airline comment was a joke, but it's pretty clear we souldn't have airlines in their current configurations (and whether we should or not, they're dropping like flies anyway).

I'm not sure what Bill is talking about, but Chicago's rail system is hardly a boon (it's done almost nothying to relieve congestion and is run but not ridden for much of the day), and DC's is a well-known joke. I recognize the upside -- the network effects and even the potential green effects. But how about a little consideration of the costs here? And what about alternatives? Any chance that money could be used better elsewhere? Say toll lanes or lobbying to relieve density-reducing municipal policies which might permit people to, say, walk to work rather than ride or drive there?

My own comment go too long, so now it's a blog post.

chicago's rail system is hardly a boon. that's quite a statement. i doubt there are very many chicagoans who would agree with you.

and i think it might be a little late in the game to expect chicago to become a city where one can walk to their downtown job.

According to the most recent report, CTA rail service (The El) accounted for more than 500,000 commuter trips on the average weekday. http://www.transitchicago.com/downloads/ridershipreports/132346may05rail.pdf
Please provide support for the statement that the El has "done almost nothing to relieve congestion" in Chicago. And this is an astute crowd, so pointing out that "there's still lots of traffic in Chicago" isn't going to cut it.

As for walking to work in Chicago, people who don't currently live here may not have heard about the substantial residential growth in neighborhoods near the loop. Construction cranes are common sites in the South Loop, West Loop, Streeterville, and the Platinum Coast (formerly a 9-hole golf course), and there has been substantial residential growth in the loop itself and on Michigan Avenue. People in all these neighborhoods can and do walk to their jobs downtown.

of course that substantial residential growth doesn't particularly help the guy who makes my lunch for $6.50/hour. he's still living in englewood. public transportation is essential for these people and for me getting my lunch. i don't mind paying a bit more in taxes to subsidize getting these people to a job.

public transportation is a ridiculously complex matter. politics play a big role (part of the reason rail lines run when there are few people on them; also part of the reason certain parts of the city have rail service when perhaps it's not "profitable" for it to be there). there are plenty of examples of misguided public transport. while chicago has its problems, i think there are far, far worse examples.

and, i might add, "consumer" satisfaction with the L seems pretty high considering it was given the third highest vote total in the recent "7 wonders of chicago" survey by the chicago tribune. i trust the judgment of the people who live in the city/suburbs and use it much more than pontificating law professors and attempts at "empirical" studies - regardless of which side they happen to be advocating.

Geoff, to answer the truly compelling question of your post: the prawfs a while ago coined "ChicawgoBlawgo" for the UCblawg, but come to think of it, the UCBlawg would be another option too.

I think Professor Ribstein's point that "politics play a big role" is quite hard to deny, and is a good reason to prefer low-capital public transit (buses and jitneys) over high-capital (trains).

Lower-capital transit makes it harder for politicians to entrench choices and easier to keep the market open to competition, which coincidentally can function as a check on various sorts of government abuse.

(Of course as Professor Strahilevitz points out elsewhere, buses are low-capital only if we take city streets as given, but I think the average wear-and-tear a bus imposes on the city street is still much less than the average fixed cost of subway tunnel construction.)

I'm actually not Professor Ribstein (though I have studied under him so perhaps some of his good sense has rubbed off on me). I'm just a student who is honored to share his first name.

I agree with your point that low-capital public transit like buses should be preferred, in large measure because there can be competition amongst companies. However, I think in high density areas (like Chicago, NYC, London, etc. as opposed to places like Tampa or Charlotte) rail service is an excellent (perhaps essential) idea and I find it difficult to figure out how to do it without it being a government run/controlled monopoly. And when they're set up that way, it seems like you have to hope for the best.

Will: I would guess that the Larry who doesn't "mind paying a bit more in taxes to subsidize getting these people to a job" cannot be Larry Ribstein.

(Blush) I thought that was strange! Mea Culpa.

Although I'm happy to engage the debate, my point was not that Chicago's mass transit system is an abject failure. Maybe it is one of the few mass transit planning successes. But if it is, it is likely by accident, not by design.

My point (lost in the shuffle, I suppose) was that the system of government technocrats designing and implementing rapid transit plans in response to political incentives is a fundamentally flawed one, and Seattle's experience is one data point in support of that position.

First -- Larry: I may be a pontificating law professor (i.e., blow-hard) living in Oregon, but I also lived for about 9 years (as an adult) in Chicago, most recently in 2000. So let's just assume that what I have to say on the CTA is a product of the latter and not the former.

Lior: 500,000 trips sounds like a lot, and certainly if every one of those trips moved from rapid transit to highways and surface streets during rush hour, congestion would be worse. But, of course, they wouldn't. Some people who commute to downtown would move closer in, some would move to New York (some to Portland). Some folks would stay where they are and change their work schedules. Some would carpool with existing drivers, and some would work from home. Some of those 500,000 are double-counted (the statistic measures turns of the turnstile, not round-trips). Some would work in the 'burbs. At the same time, it looks like the transit share for Chicago is around 3-4%, suggesting to me that congestion reduction by mass transit is pretty small (although I don't really know how much a 4% increase in highway traffic would affect congestion, and I don't know how reliable that number is). These are pretty hard numbers to measure, and I don't have the precise figures you're looking for, but one can't infer too much from your statistic.

But I also know that ridership on the CTA has been steadily declining, at a rate faster than Chicago's population has been decreasing, and the CTA has been plagued by serious budget shortfalls in recent years. At the same time, service on the El is often reported to be pretty sub-standard. See source 1; source 2, but you can find hundreds more.

If this is success, give me failure.

Interesting. I'm in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area, and our light rail has very heavy use and a very high level of public support.

It is interesting to read discussions on other systems.

ah, yes. people complaining that service is substandard while is the same breath opposing a fare hike - long overdue - that would go towards fixing many of the problems that people are complaining about. of course, one of the other problems with a government running something is that necessary fare hikes are delayed for political reasons.

five years ago seems like quite a long time. and if your experience is with the green line - well, that is one of those lines that does not make particularly much sense and the service often reflects that. rail service in many parts of the city simply should never have been started. and, of course, the circle line and the express service to the airports (the cta rail expansion proposals floating around) will only further the problems.

but, all in all, i must say i've never had much trouble with the red and brown line service. i think a lot of people expect some kind of high class rail service and i'm not sure why. it's a train to get you from point a to b. if it's safe, basically on time, and basically clean, i don't think there's much more to ask of it. and it seems the cta fills that role far more often than not.