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Is Allen Stanford being railroaded?
I recognize that he is not the most popular fellow in Houston investment circles these days, but is anyone else but me a tad uncomfotable that the federal government is running roughshod over R. Allen Stanford? As everyone following...
Final Argument
The late Paul Newman in The Verdict playing a talented but alcoholic lawyer who gets a final opportunity to redeem a disappointing career in a difficult medical malpractice case. Enjoy....
Judge Kent cops a plea
As most local lawyers expected, U.S. District Judge Sam Kent entered into a plea bargain on the courthouse steps today. The deal derailed what would have been an extremely ugly trial on sexual abuse and obstruction of justice charges,...
You won't see this at the local Metro Light Rail station
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That's a solution?
As Congress and the mainstream media continue their muddle over the current downturn in financial markets, one of the ubiquitous "solutions" that Washington and the MSM have already decided is needed to prevent another such disruption is more and...
Stros 2008 Season Review, Part Five: Season Recap and Report Card
The Stros 2008 season has been over for over a week now, so it's time for my final review of the 2008 season (prior 2008 season reviews are here) and my grading of the Stros players for the 2008...
Metro's sleight-of-hand
Kevin Whited passes along this Bellaire Examiner article that reports on Metropolitan Transit Authority CEO Frank Wilson bragging to a couple of local Chambers of Commerce about the economic impact that Metro's new light rail projects will have on...
Fannie and Freddie fallout
Gosh, I thought the political coalition that supports inefficient light rail systems was formidable. But that coalition can't hold a candle to the one that the W$J's Paul Gigot says (non-gated version here) protected the dubious quasi-public structure of...
Comparing boondoggles
Warren Meyer has some fun commenting on the latest Phoenix-area urban boondoggle -- a three-quarter of a billion dollar state subsidy for an amusement park in the Arizona desert! Of course, that subsidy is peanuts in comparison to the...
Slugging Metro?
I'd bet that a program such as this (H/T Craig Newmark) would rival (if not exceed) the ridership on Houston Metro's light rail line. Slugging is a term used to describe a unique form of commuting found in the...
Checking out Houston on the tour bus
Randal O'Toole went on a bus tours of different parts of Houston while he was in town for the Preserving the American Dream Conference a couple of weeks ago and he chronicles his impressions with observations here (neighborhoods between...
Mayor White's management
Help me out here. I'm really trying to understand the basis of the perception among a large number of Houstonians that Mayor Bill White is an effective manager. For example, this earlier post summarized Mayor White's dubious decision-making in...
Bill King's "Let'em ride free plan"
Longtime Houstonian Bill King is a common sense fellow who serves on the Transportation Council, a group of elected officials and agency staffers that sets priorities for transportation spending in the 13-county Gulf Coast region. In this Chronicle op-ed from...
The latest boondoggle?
Anne Linehan, Kevin Whited and Cory Crow note this week's "are you kidding me?" moment from City Hall -- two Nancy Sarnoff/Chronicle articles reporting on the trial balloon that Mayor White floated about building a second large convention hotel in...
Re-evaluating boondoggles
Let me get this straight. Mayor White started out with a proposal several months ago to allow the local MLS soccer team to build a stadium at their own expense on downtown land that the City of Houston owned but...
A real train wreck
This LA Times op-ed by transit experts Jim Moore and Tom Rubin examining the LA area's MTA transit system over the past 20 years. They provide a daunting warning for those who rationalize the massive deficits of Houston's light rail...
It could happen here
This earlier post noted that a not very flattering analysis of the economic debacle that is the San Jose, California light rail system might very well describe Houston's light rail system in a few years if we don't come to...
Transit survey raises more questions than it answers
Isn't it interesting the different reactions that Anne Linehan, Charles Kuffner and Tory Gattis had to the 2007 Houston Area Survey regarding transit options? The Chronicle and other light rail enthusiasts immediately seized upon the survey as evidence that Houston-area...
The nation's worst-managed transit system
Tom Rubin is an accountant who has audited many transit agencies and is an expert in transit system accounting. Randal O'Toole channels a Rubin presentation in describing the nation's worst-managed transit system: Participants in the Preserving the American Dream conference...
Why is the Chronicle beating this dead horse?
The Chronicle continues its apparent campaign to breath life into the second largest local urban boondoggle (second only to the Metro light rail system) -- the proposed Astrodome hotel project (previous posts here). Rice professor and local political pundit Bob...
Continuing to rationalize a boondoggle
The big transit news in these parts last week was the announcement that the Metropolitan Transit Authority's board Metro's board approved the final route for the east-west University line and decided to deploy the much more expensive light rail rather...
A billion dollar boondoggle?
Kevin Whited reports that downtown Houston's night life continues to dissipate from lack of demand. This despite the fact that various local governmental entities have invested at least $1 billion in the downtown area by building a baseball stadium, a...
An easy prediction
Buried in the Chronicle's article on the Metropolitan Transit Authority's latest propaganda release regarding the proposed University light rail line is the following snippet: The study estimates say the Cummins-Wheeler-Elgin combination is the least expensive of the routes considered, at...
Latest on the Las Vegas Monofail
With the crunch worsening over the past several weeks in the credit markets, the bankruptcy reorganization forces are gearing up and eyeing potential debtors. Well, in this Heartland blog post, Thomas A. Rubin predicts one of the probable debtors that...
Talk about a misleading P.R. campaign
Get a load of this press release (hat tip Ellen Podgor) from the Department of Justice heralding the five year anniversary of the DOJ's Corporate Fraud Task Force. Here is the press release's description of the Task Force's accomplishments in...
The influence of junk evidence on juries
What do the juries in the Conrad Black , Dr. William Hurwitz and the Enron-related criminal trials have in common? In response to the verdict in Lord Black's trial, Professor Bainbridge observed that the result appeared to be a "compromise"...
Will Houston learn from L.A.'s mistakes?
As noted earlier here and here, the Houston metropolitan area shares many of the same characteristics of the Los Angeles metro area, albeit with far lower density of population. Although rail transit is typically inefficient in areas of relatively low...
Saving for a boondoggle
Buried in this Chronicle article about increasing tolls on the Harris County toll roads and congestion on the Westpark Tollroad is the following nugget about yet another of the Metropolitan Transit Authority's decisions that is contrary to its purpose of...
Stros 2007 Season Review, Part Two
As the Stros reach the quarter pole of the 2007 season, the club's prospects on the surface seem to be somewhat improved over the dreary first eighth of the season (prior season reviews here). The Stros (20-21) stabilized a bit...
O'Toole on Houston's urban planning
Cato Institute fellow Randal O'Toole was in town last week as the invitee of a Houston Property Rights Association luncheon and, by Tory Gattis' account, provided an entertaining lecture on the overreaching nature of centralized urban planning and wasteful rail...
How to fix Houston traffic
Both surprisingly and refreshingly, the L.A. Times runs this insightful piece on several experts' proposals to address various Los Angeles area traffic problems. The experts are a level-headed bunch, including Joel Kotkin, James E. Moore, Donald Shoup and Ted Bakalar....
Metro Development Corp.
Kevin Whited over at blogHouston.net picks up on the latest boondoggle of the Metropolitan Transit Authority -- providing kickstart financing for a couple of blocks of commercial property along the Metro light rail line in Midtown. The entire deal is...
It's time for The Masters
The venerable Masters Golf Tournament begins this morning at that golfing Zimbabwe in Augusta, Georgia. Golf Digest's John Hawkins does his usual fine job of handicapping the field and, somewhat surprisingly, doesn't think that Tiger Woods is putting well enough...
Romanticizing boondoggles
This recent NY Times article caught my attention because it extols the virtues of Portland, Oregon's pretty new Aerial Tram mass transit project despite the fact that it's quite expensive relative to the number of folks who will regularly use...
More ripples from Kelo
The economic and legal impact of the Supreme Court's controversial decision last year in Kelo v. New London has been a common topic on this blog, so this Institute for Justice press release on a property dispute that arose from...
The University of Houston Master Plan
The University of Houston has been making some big plans recently, and this Matt Tresaugue/Chronicle article reviews them: UH leaders intend to transform the campus with more housing, more restaurants, more shops and other places to be outside the classroom....
Phoenix's light rail boondoggle
The dubious economic nature of Houston's light rail system is a common topic on this blog, so I took interest in this insightful Warren Meyer post that ponders why a light rail system is being built in Warren's hometown of...
Keep those buses handy
Wendell Cox reports on a little problem that occurred in St. Louis recently that ought (but probably won't) give the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority pause: Buses Replace Light Rail in St. Louis A large ice storm hit the St. Louis...
Costly assumptions
Tory Gattis over at Houston Strategies continues to do a great job of analyzing Houston Metro's proposed Richmond (or is that Westpark?) rail line (see here and here). However, I continue to be amazed by the Houston mainstream media's myopia...
A $43 million limousine service
Anne Linehan and Kevin Whited, and Tory Gattis continue to do a good job of covering Houston Metro Rail's ever-present expansion plans, which seem to be impervious to whether the expansion is actually needed. Previous posts on the boondoggle of...
Stros 2006 Review, Part Three
Where have you gone, Roger Rocket? That's the question that most Stros fans are asking at the 3/10's pole of the season (prior 1/10th of a season posts are here), but it's the wrong one. It's highly unlikely that a...
The Vegas monorail boondoggle
Tory Gattis of the smart Houston Strategies blog has been doing his typically excellent job of covering developments on the proposed expansion of the Houston Metro light rail line. Neither an over-the-top advocate nor a grizzled pessimist about urban rail...
Comparing urban boondoggles
Tory Gattis asks the right questions regarding Houston's latest proposed urban boondoggle, but it's at least somewhat comforting to know that other cities are pondering even bigger boondoggles. In Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley is floating a plan to build a...
A truly scary thought -- Metro morphs into real estate developer
The Chronicles Nancy Sarnoff writes in this article about the Metropolitan Transit Authority's latest venture to do something other than what it is chartered to do, which is to provide a flexible and effective mass transit system for citizens of...
The latest urban boondoggle
Houston's light rail system is a depressing black hole that gobbles huge amounts of money, so we are reduced to feeling somewhat better about that waste by stories such as this one that portend an even bigger urban boondoggle: A...
One of the effects of mass transit choices in New Orleans
Awhile back, I participated with local bloggers Tory Gattis, Anne Linehan and Kevin Whited, Laurence Simon, Owen Courr�ges and several others on a lively thread regarding the causes and effect of the public policy choices that Houston is making in...
The latest Dome redevelopment plan
Following on these earlier posts (here and here), this Chronicle story reports that an outfit named Astrodome Redevelopment Corp. has obtained a preliminary $450 million financing commitment to redevelop the Astrodome into a Gaylord Texan-type hotel and entertainment complex. Astrodome...
Review of the Tournament Course at Redstone Golf Club
As noted in this previous post, the Rees Jones-designed Tournament Course at Houston's Redstone Golf Club opened for play earlier this month to generally positive reviews. The Tournament Course -- the new specially-designed home of the Shell Houston Open PGA...
The Power of Pork
Tory Gattis and I recently generated some interesting discussion regarding mass transit generally and light rail in particular in a series of posts (here, here and here). Part of the psychology in favor of the light rail projects discussed in...
The psychology of light rail
Tory Gattis (Houston Strategies) recently authored this insightful post that explores the vexing question of why many people passionately support light rail in the face of the overwhelming economic arguments against it? Tory concludes that it has something to do...
Watch out!
The Chronicle's Rad Sallee reports on one category in which Houston's Metropolitan Transit Authority is surely leading among the country's transit systems: MetroRail logged its third collision in four days Friday, making 29 this year and 96 since fall 2003,...
Light rail where? In New Mexico?!
The economic pox of light rail is even filtering down to New Mexico, which enjoys one of the least densely populated areas in the nation. Despite the absurdity of this economic boondoggle, this common sense analysis keeps a straight face...
More on the black hole that is Metro
In the "could-it-possibly-be-any-worse" department, this Rad Sadlee/Chronicle article reports on the just-released external audit of Houston's Metropolitan Transit Authority. It's not a pretty picture: Comparing Metro's numbers for fiscal years 2001 and 2004, the audit shows a 29 percent rise...
A picture of Metro, 30 years from now?
This post from last year addressed the economic failure of the urban rail system in Washington, D.C. Now, the Washington Post is running a series of articles (first one here) that is examining the dubious economics and management of D.C.'s...
The black hole that is Metro
The economic lunacy of light rail has been an occasional topic on this blog (here, here, here, and here). However, blogHouston.net has a much more impressive archive of insightful posts over the past year on the foibles of the Houston...
Hope for the Warwick?
This Chronicle article reports that the owners of the chic Hotel ZaZa in Dallas have acquired one of Houston's oldest hotels, the venerable Warwick in the Museum District in between downtown and the Texas Medical Center. For many years, the...
Super problems
This previous post expressed skepticism that the city of Jacksonville would be able to handle the logistical nightmare of Super Bowl XXXIX. In this article, ESPN's Bill Simmons -- who believes that the Super Bowl should be played only in...
The Las Vegas Monofail
Houston's light rail boondoggle has been the subject of several previous posts here. Given that misery loves company, this Washington Post article provides Houstonians with some comfort that Las Vegas may have managed to generate an even bigger rail boondoggle...
Thinking about football statistics
While Bill James and his Sabermetrian disciples revolutionized analysis of baseball over the past generation, no similar movement took place in regard to analysis of football. However, as this NY Times article reports, football at the highest levels is increasingly...
2004 Weekly local football review
Broncos 33 Texans 13. After a month of strong performances, the Texans looked absolutely awful against the Broncos. The offensive line play was horrible, and David Carr -- who does not throw particularly well under pressure -- was mediocre (22/41...
Reviewing the track record of an urban boondoggle
Earlier posts here and here explored the economic absurdity of urban rail systems in modern American cities, which is a hot topic in Houston these days given the recent launch of Metro's Light Rail System earlier this year. Now, the...
Red hot Stros dust off Reds
Lance Berkman cranked two yaks and a double and knocked in four RBI's as the red hot Stros crushed the reeling Reds on Monday night in Cincy, 11-3. The Stros have now won four straight and 12 out of their...
More on Houston's light rail boondoggle
Following this earlier post on the economic absurdity of light rail systems, Randal O'Toole, one of the economists over at The Commons, cites the Houston light rail system as one example why cities such as Denver and Austin should reject...
Southwest Airlines CEO resigns
James F. Parker, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines' CEO, unexpectedly resigned yesterday after just three years. The publicly stated reason for the resignation was the ubiquitous "personal reasons," such as the "draining" nature of the job. Airline CEO's are becoming as disposable...
The economic absurdity of light rail systems
Molly D. Castelazo is a research associate and Thomas A. Garrett is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. They authored this article that analyzes the bad economics of the St. Louis light rail system and...
Campaign Reporting on Steroids
The NY Times has put together a blog for the 2004 Presidential Campaign that is continuously updated. It is reported and edited from the Times' Washington bureau. The "Trail Mix" section highlights issues, candidates, and regions. In the meantime, The...
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