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Category infrastructure

Why does the Infrastructurist hate libertarians so much?

by Stephen Smith Among urban planners, libertarianism gets a pretty bad rap. Melissa Lafsky at the Infrastructurist goes so far as to call libertarianism “an enemy of infrastructure,” and dismisses entirely the idea that private industry can build infrastructure with a single hyperlink – to a poorly-written article on New Zealand’s economy written over a decade ago that barely says a word about transportation, land use, or infrastructure. She goes on to criticize the Reason Foundation’s transportation writers (something we too have done), and with it, negates entirely libertarianism’s contributions to urbanism. Here at Market Urbanism we’re used to these sorts of attacks from the left, and we work tirelessly to disassociate ourselves (well, mostly) from Reason’s brand of (sub)urbanist libertarianism. Normally I wouldn’t expend so much effort, but the Infrastructurist is a blog that I read daily and we’ve linked to them approvingly over the years, so I figured it merited a rebuttal. To start, I would recommend that Melissa bone up on her history. At least in North America, every great intracity mass transit system was build by private enterprise, almost without exception. From subways to streetcars, private enterprise showed a willingness and eagerness to build and profit from rail-based transit. Sure, the systems weren’t totally private and unregulated (exclusive franchise monopolies were often granted by municipal governments, among other interventions), but the system was far more “private” than the current mostly-suburban road/automobile transportation system that Reason and many other self-identified libertarians champion. While many progressives today like to blame the demise of rail-based transit on GM, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil (what I like to call the Who Framed Roger Rabbit theory of urbanist history), the truth is that progressives themselves were the ones who really did mass transit in. Through populist measures like the mandatory five-cent fare […]

Rothbard The Urbanist Part 6: Traffic Control

Maybe the delay in posts led you to believe the Rothbard Series was complete.  The good news is that there are a few more posts to go, and the ones coming up next should be the most interesting to urbanists. If you haven’t kept up with our discussion, Murray Rothbard’s classic For A New Liberty can be downloaded free from Mises.org as pdf, web page, and audio book read by Jeff Riggenbach, and you can read the first five posts: Rothbard the Urbanist Part 1: Public Education’s Role in Sprawl and Exclusion Rothbard the Urbanist Part 2: Safe Streets Rothbard the Urbanist Part 3: Prevention of Blockades Rothbard the Urbanist Part 4: Policing Rothbard the Urbanist Part 5: Diversity and Discrimination Not long ago, I posted a video from a friend showing one traffic intersection in Cambodia that appears to function well without any signaling.  Here are some other resources on the emergent order of traffic without signals: Econtalk podcast with Mike Munger on Cultural Norms Cafe Hayek: The arc of emergent order and Traffic without Traffic Signals. Kids Prefer Cheese:  Movie from atop the Arc Tom Vanderbilt: News for Traffic Signal Manufacturers Infrastructurist on the Dutch City of Drachten I caught some flak from a commenter who considered it “disingenuous” to present the video of the intersection as evidence “of a workable intersection.”  Of course I had to remind the commenter that I don’t consider these types of intersection something that I advocate as a “free market” solution: Don’t mistake me as an advocate of a world without traffic signals. I am quite certain that some sort of traffic signaling would likely emerge from a free-market street system. But, my bigger point is that when information is dispersed widely among decision-makers without government monopoly, sustainable solutions emerge from the […]

Correction, Reason.org’s Plug, and Glaeser on Jacobs

In the comments of my most recent post, insightful commenter, OldUrbanism pointed out some items that need attention: The last two factors, legal costs associated with eminent domain and opportunity costs of land, are in fact often included in typical project cost estimates for both public and private projects. The former is fairly straightforward, as it is a project-related cost. The latter, opportunity cost of land, is simply the purchase price of land. In the case of this example, where land acquisition costs are assumed as part of the project cost, OldUrbanism is exactly correct. I’m truly embarrassed for being sloppy in that statement and will correct it. Of course, I still stand by my exposure of the ignorance of land opportunity cost by those who assert that existing highways “pay for themselves.” I invite you to check out the discussion of that matter (and other items) with OldUrbanism in the comments of the post. ————— The other day, Reason Foundation’s Samuel Staley had some very generous things to say about Market Urbanism: I just ran across the Market Urbanism web site, and it has a lot of really good analysis and resources available for anyone following urban policy issues. The sub-title of the web site is “Urbanism for Capitalists/Capitalism for Urbanists”. The blog includes lots of references to F.A. Hayek, free markets, and even takes the Cato Institute to task for advocating “socialism for roads.” and This site is well organized and designed. I think it’s a great addition to the debate and discussion, and its refreshing to see a new voice enter into the fray. Thanks Samuel!! I share Reason’s objective of “Free Minds and Free Markets.” I just have to admit I found it a little ironic that he had such nice things to say after I […]

HSR Urbanists: “We Are All O’Tooles Now”

I probably won’t make any friends today, but now I’ve read one too many urbanist (many who’s ideas I usually respect) use unsound logic to support high speed rail. This argument often includes something like this: “…and furthermore, highways and airports don’t come close to paying for themselves, therefore high speed rail need not meet that hurdle either.” Here’s some examples of the typical contradiction many usually-reasonable urbanists are making when arguing for high speed rail- Ryan Avent in an article plagued with this pseudo-logic: Government is going to build more capacity. Given that, what is likely to be the best investment, all things considered? Available alternatives, as it turns out, are not all that attractive. Roads do not appear to pay for themselves any more than railways do. Receipts from the federal gas tax come close to covering federal highway expenditures, but gas is used on highways and non-highways alike, indicating that at the federal level, highways are subsidized. and: I respect Mr Cowen very much, but I think it’s long past time we stopped listening to libertarians on the issue of whether or not to build high-speed rail. Who will ask whether road construction remotely passes any of the tests they’re so prepared to push on rail? And if we begin charging an appropriate fee on drivers to maintain existing roads and reduce congestion, what do they all think will happen to land use patterns and transportation mode share? Some have emailed to ask me why I dislike Randal O’Toole so much.  The main reason is because people like Avent will always be able to point to the government highway-lover from CATO and rashly proclaim all libertarians have forever lost credibility when it comes to transportation and land use.  Of course, Avent’s narrow-mindedness on this topic deserves contempt […]

O’Toole Under More Fire

At Streetsblog, Ryan Avent presented a scorching attack on the most notorious free-market impostor – Randal O’Toole: Taking Liberties With the Facts for his consistent hypocrisy: The Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole gets under the skin of many of those interested in building a more rational and green metropolitan geography, but in many ways he’s an ideal opponent. It would be difficult to concoct more transparently foolish arguments than his. The man is an engine of self-parody. The requisite identification of “libertarian” contradictions: This is one thing I’ve never understood about the libertarian love affair with highways; they seem utterly blind to the fact that it has required and continues to require massive government action to build and maintain the road network. The interstate highway system is perhaps the single largest government intervention in the economy in the 20th century. Reading O’Toole you’d think it was a wonder of the free market. And with ease, Ryan points out the data needed to take O’Toole to task on his persistent assertion the “roads pay for themselves”: The source of his blindness on the issue seems to be due to his belief that roads pay for themselves, and that congestion exists only because governments shift gas tax revenue to pay for transit and other smart growth projects. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In the first place, gas tax revenue comes nowhere near paying for roads. Federal gasoline tax revenues cover barely half of the annual budget of the Federal Highway Administration. Add in diesel tax revenues and you’re still short. And that’s just the federal budget picture. In response, Randal replies to critics in the comments of his latest post of his “Antiplanner” blog: The Antiplanner sees the American dream as freedom of lifestyle choices and opportunities to realize those choices […]

Rothbard the Urbanist Part 2: Safe Streets

It turns out the entire Chapter 11 called “The Public Sector, II: Streets and Roads” is actually a chapter on Market Urbanism. Bryan Caplan considers this chapter "the least convincing chapter in the book", but as a Market Urbanist, I strongly disagree. I do admit that his discussion of safety and policing of private local streets involves a great deal of speculation and reliance on faith in the action of individual agents, but the insights into road subsidization and land-use patterns was decades ahead of its time. These insights may not seem so radical now, but imagine the resistance to these ideas in the days before urbanism gained much credibility.

Block vs Poole: The Public-Private Partnership Debate

The Orange County Register’s Freedom Politics website (check out my rent control article FreePo published in March) features articles discussing two differing takes on road privatization from notable scholars Walter Block and Robert Poole. In Robert Poole’s article, he discusses the merits of the increasingly popular use of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) to fund and operate roadways: Four potential benefits are particularly important: Fewer Boondoggles: Elected officials often champion projects that yield political benefits but have costs greater than their benefits. But with PPP toll projects, nobody will invest unless the benefits exceed the costs to the extent that they can project a positive return on their investment. That’s a powerful safeguard against boondoggles. Avoiding “Big Dig” Disasters: Large-scale “mega-projects” like Boston’s notorious Big Dig are prone to large cost over-runs and schedule delays. In a well-structured PPP project, those risks can be transferred to the private sector, shielding taxpayers from those costs. Cost Minimization: Traditional highway projects are built by the lowest-bidder, which often means they are built cheaply and need lots of expensive maintenance over their lifetimes. But a PPP toll highway must be maintained for decades at the private company’s expense. Hence, it has every incentive to build it right to begin with, to minimize total life-cycle cost. Sustainable Congestion Relief: If you add ordinary freeway lanes, they tend to fill up and become congested. But today’s urban toll lanes use variable pricing (as on the 91 Express Lanes) to keep traffic flowing smoothly on a long-term basis. In contrast, Walter Block takes a more principled stand for complete privatization: Public – private partnerships (PPP) are thus part and parcel of both fascism and socialism; they constitute a partial state ownership of the means of production. As well, they are emblematic of fascism, and government is the senior […]

How Pricing Tolls Right Eliminates Congestion

Chris Bradford over at Austin Contrarian has been making some solid points in favor of congestion pricing. (here, here, here and here)  Chris’s core argument in favor of congestion tolling is that: congestion pricing does more than relieve congestion.  Congestion pricing tells us when a road needs more capacity.  Additional capacity costs money, and drivers are willing to pay only so much for it.  That “so much” is exactly equal to the price they are willing to pay to avoid congestion. The idea that toll profits send a signal to road operators to produce additional capacity is often neglected in discussions of the benefits of congestion pricing.  Without pricing, the only signal is the manifestation of congestion itself.  This is problematic, as the only solution is to build more roads when congestion is observed.  Actually if done right, years before congestion occurs with the help of foresight and luck on the part of transportation planners and agencies.  This problem feeds the dangerous new highway –> sprawl –> congestion –> highway expansion –> sprawl, etc., etc. positive feedback loop.  This feedback loop is quite a powerful mechanism that helps drive the unhealthy types of sprawl. Chris is on the right track, but sets a sub-ideal objective (in my opinion) when he says: The optimal congestion toll should be set just high enough to achieve free-flow (45 mph) traffic. Since the goal should not only be to avoid congestion, but to get the highest number of commuters through the system as possible, I would restate that as: The optimal congestion toll should be set at exactly the price that maximizes traffic flow. As Chris said, “Congestion pricing is hard.”  Although it seems complicated, you might be shocked at how easy it is, in concept, to price roads optimally.  That’s because it’s somewhat […]

What Would Moses Do? (Robert Moses, that is…)

(Map of Robert Moses’ unbuilt proposals via “vanshnookenraggen.”) Sandy Ikeda blogs: If Moses were around today I don’t think he’d waste any time getting every major project he could think of “shovel ready” for hundreds of billions of stimulus money. While he’s no longer with us, I do fear that, with the incentive structure of the stimulus legislation and the knowledge problems that will accompany such massive and hurried construction, we’ll soon be seeing many incarnations of Moses rising up in cities around the country. So, not only will we have to live with ill-conceived mega-projects for decades to come, we’ll be subsidizing the birth of who-knows-how-many local despots who’ll be guiding urban policy for the foreseeable future.

How FDR’s TVA Went Wrong

Jim Powell’s latest article at Reason discusses the Tennessee Valley Authority, FDR’s most ambitious infrastructure program: It was heralded as a program to build dams that would control floods, facilitate navigation, lift people out of poverty, and help America recover from the Great Depression. Yet the reality is that the TVA probably flooded more land than it protected; much of the navigation it has facilitated involves barges of coal for coal-fired power plants; people receiving TVA-subsidized electricity have increasingly lagged behind neighbors who did not; and the TVA’s impact on the Great Depression was negligible. The TVA morphed into America’s biggest monopoly, dominating an 80,000 square mile region with 8.8 million people—for all practical purposes, it is a bureaucratic kingdom subject to neither public nor private controls. The article seems like it could easily be rescripted for just about any major government infrastructure project, especially our federal highway system. As a remedy for the Great Depression, the TVA didn’t work. It created no new wealth and, through taxation, transferred resources from the 98 percent of Americans who didn’t live in the Tennessee Valley to the two percent who did. Any spending that happened in the Tennessee Valley therefore was offset by the spending that didn’t happen elsewhere. Those taxes reduced net incomes. Much like any other complex public works project, it took an inordinate amount of time to build the TVA. Only three TVA dams were completed during the 1930s. The dams themselves were small—with less than one-twentieth the power-generating capacity of big western dams like Grand Coulee. Although the building process provided work for engineers and skilled construction workers—who earned above-average incomes—the dams simply came too late to have much impact on most people in the Tennessee Valley during the Great Depression. Nonetheless, expect governments to remake the same […]

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