Tuesday’s headlines

23 comments

1. High-speed rail reaching out to us – NYC to Montréal and NYC to Niagara Falls.

   http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story/Governor-announces-10-7B-plan-for-high-speed/CHZ_Z39LBU-0TUzxK2C2yw.cspx

2. I like how the Comfort Zone piece talks a great deal about Andrew Fazio’s accidental GHB overdose without mentioning the widely-held belief that Fazio was a GHB dealer.

   It also did not mention how during the first raid, not only patrons but even staff and DJ’s were beaten and bloodied by police, with one DJ even having his head crushed by a cop’s boot, all proven by photos taken after the raid. Great treatment by a justice system that is supposed to presume innocence, right?

   Hopefully true justice is served and the police are put in their place.

3. I’m so glad to see someone -anyone!- being critical of Richard Florida. I don’t really buy this article’s final argument, but he does make some really good points.

4. Interesting article on Richard Florida in the Post.

   I never thought i’d find a writer opposed to what Mr. Florida says, but i found one. A sign of many interesting discussions on Mr. Florida’s theories i’d imagine.

   I’d also suggest anything by Charles Landry. He sees things from a more “human” approach, rather than technological.

   http://www.charleslandry.com/

5. in that same issue of the Atlantic with Florida’s latest, there’s an article by Sandra Tsing Loh (putatively a review of a reissue of a book on class in America) that really takes Florida and his ilk to task.

   http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/class-system

6. andrew,

   Thanks for the link. It looks like a good companion piece to Dean Barker’s The Conservative Nanny State, which is in my reading que……

   “The key flaw in the stance that most progressives have taken on economic issues is that they have accepted a framing whereby conservatives are assumed to support market outcomes, while progressives want to rely on the government. This framing leads progressives to futilely lash out against markets, rather than examining the factors that lead to undesirable market outcomes. The market is just a tool, and in fact a very useful one. It makes no more sense to lash out against markets than to lash out against the wheel.

   The reality is that conservatives have been quite actively using the power of the government to shape market outcomes in ways that redistribute income upward. However, conservatives have been clever enough to not own up to their role in this process, pretending all along that everything is just the natural working of the market. And, progressives have been foolish enough to go along with this view.”

   The whole book can be downloaded

   http://www.conservativenannystate.org/cnswebbook.pdf

7. I think there are a few good insights (A FEW) in what Florida says but I also think that the conclusions he reaches from these insights are woefully unsupported, especially with respect to the economy of the future. The report that he recently co-authored for the province was tripe, and not very original tripe at that. Kudos to the NDP for seeing it for what it was. As a visionary or guru, I think he’s vastly over-rated — and I think his 15 minutes are up.

8. Kevin: Also see yesterday’s Globe article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090309.CLUB09/TPStory/TPNational/Ontario/

9. In Richard Florida world nobody makes anything, we just all think about stuff and be creative as we shuttle back and forth on the Roch-Buff-Tor- whatever loop.

   But seriously Florida comes up with solutions for the “new” economy while dismissing the millions of people living in the current economy. Just once I would like to hear him say that in the future somebody will have to manufacture stuff and farm stuff and transport stuff around and that rural people will still exist/matter. I still cringe when people try to elevate his urban navel gazing to the level of Jacobs and others. His whole creative class thing is what used to be called the used book store theory.

10. The Globe article mentions more complaints against Adam Vaughan but, as much as I find fault in his plan for the Entertainment District, I am hesitant to claim he is the force behind the crackdown at the Comfort Zone.

    It would not surprise me, but I have seen little evidence besides the fact that it is in his ward. TPS is its own monster, it doesn’t need help from elected officials.

11. It’s too bad that today’s roundup didn’t include the Star’s Porter flying in the face of city hall, just because its comments contain the single best piece of criticism I’ve ever heard of David Miller: if he hates the island airport so much he should go build a new airport in Pickering.

    You think I’m kidding, don’t you?

12. The many voices starting to be raised against Florida’s smarm restores a small faith in humanity’s potential intelligence.

13. What impresses me about Florida is his books — and talks — are full of data. Drowning in data. Critics and etc keep things kosher and are necessary — but we’d be better served if critics took on the data, rather than just the high level salesmanship. Dude knows how to sell his ideas. You can take issue with that, but it seem like a cheap shot (I think Canadians in general would be a bit better off it we could be a little more American about how we sell ourselves/ideas — just a bit) — but I’m impressed when people take on the data and meat of the argument, and challenge that. That takes more than a paragraph.

14. Regarding the GO fare hike, some context:

    Under the proposal, GO from Union to Oakville will now cost $6.25, or $205 monthly. That’s a trip of about 36 km or 30-35 min. A comparable trip in other cities would be:

    ———–

    Metra – Chicago to Villa Park, $3.80 / $102

    NJ Transit – NYC to Linden, $6.50 / $186

    Metro North – NYC to Glenwood, $7.75 peak / $6 offpeak / $191

    LIRR – NYC to Lynbrook, $6.50 peak / $8.25 offpeak / $181

    Caltrain – SF to Hawyard Park, $4.25 / $113

    MBTA – Boston North Station to Wellesley, $5.25 / $163

    VRE – DC to Franconia, $6.25 / $172

    WCE – Vancouver to Coquitlam, $6.75 / $161

    AMT – Montreal to Beaconsfield, $5.50 / $109

    Tri-Rail – Miami Airport to Ft. Lauderdale Airport, $3 / $80

    SEPTA – Philly 30th to Glenside, $5 peak / $4.25 offpeak / $142

    ———-

    Perhaps surpisingly, GO is not quite the most expensive system on the continent (which is more than can be said for the scalp-hunting TTC). New York’s dense rail network is more costly, probably because relative to toll and congestion filled car commuting, rail is still a bargain there at almost any price. DC, Vancouver and Montreal are comparable to GO on a single fare basis. If one was generous and threw in the Canadian dollar conversion (which is not really fair), even Boston is about the same as GO.

    However, GO does seem to be outrageously expensive when it comes to monthly fares. GO requires more than 32 trips to break even, which is 16 workdays or almost a full month of travel if you throw in a holiday and a couple days of being out of the office at a meeting, etc. Other systems break even much faster. Has anyone ever noticed this before?

    Certainly are some deals to be had in the more lightly used commuter systems in the US – the cheapest deal for a ride on an old GO train is definitely the ride from Miami airport…

15. “GO does seem to be outrageously expensive when it comes to monthly fares. GO requires more than 32 trips to break even.” Too true, but more outrageously true for the TTC: needs 24 return trips comparing the 12 month pass versus tokens. Essentially five days of every week of the year, just to break even: never mind holidays, sick days or vacations.

16. How about the fact that when go raises fares by the same amount ($.25 in this case) for every trip, it is not a “fair” fare increase on a distance-based fare system.

    For example, if I am travelling from Danforth to Union, it currently costs $3.85, with the new increase it will be $4.05. Crude math tells me that’s a 6% increase.
    If I’m travelling from Oshawa to Union, which currently costs $7.75, the new fare will be $8.00. That’s a 3% increase.

    It serves to penalize any of those that may choose to take GO for a shorter distance. It’s not equitable.

17. YRT is the most expensive transit system in Canada: $3.25 for a single ride within one zone. And the service atrocious compared to other GTA transit systems with similar ridership.

18. Taxis are a fare-by-distance mode with a minimum pickup charge. Not much different from the GO system.

    GO prioritises passenger-kilometres over passengers. As long as the system is running at capacity, that’s how we save the most CO2, not ensuring empty seats at Danforth GO.

19. Iceland was a ‘creative economy’.

20. Glen, interesting article on Iceland’s economic meltdown in Vanity Fair.

21. Thanks Adam!

    This anecdote had me rolling on the floor;

    “No one thought that Icelanders might have some natural gift for smelting aluminum, and, if anything, the opposite proved true. Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called “hidden people”—or, to put it more plainly, elves—in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.”

22. I haven’t had a chance to speak with my lone born-and-raised Icelandic friend but that along with a few other generalizations make me want to find out from her if the writer got it right or was making a Michael Moore-like point about Canada being a perfect little country where everyone keeps their front door unlocked.

23. @Mark:

    Right, because it’s all about CO2.