Phineas Baxandall, Senior Analyst, United States Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG)
Biography provided by participant
Phineas Baxandall oversees policy and strategy development for tax and budget campaigns
for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), with a specific focus
on transportation issues.
Prior to joining U.S. PIRG, Mr. Baxandall assisted in directing the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has also worked in the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and taught political economy for Harvard’s undergraduate honors program. In 1990-91, he taught economics at the University of Budapest in Hungary. Baxandall received his doctorate in political science with a focus in political economy from M.I.T.
Last week’s federal grants for high-speed rail were successful at both supporting a few national “impact” projects and seizing opportunities for smaller projects that are expected to yield a big bang for their buck. I offer a few observations about these ARRA grants, and also recommendations for future investment from a U.S. PIRG research report that will be released next Tuesday. The states receiving the largest high speed rail grants also recently made their own new funding commitments to public transit, or approved new funding methods to do so. This holds for Wisconsin, California, Florida, metro Chicago and even Maine.… Read more
The most pressing issues concerning private investment in infrastructure aren't about how easy it should be, but how much the public should give up in return. While the business models for private investment in high speed rail and transit oriented development are still emerging, most private money has gone to toll road concessions. As our research has shown, the public has tended to give up far too much. The public has lost out in four ways: (1) The cost of tolls promised to private investors tends to exceed the costs of public borrowing due to companies’ higher capital costs… Read more
The money is working compared to the mess we'd be in without it. Unemployment would be higher. State transportation departments across the country would be like 50 anti-stimulus programs. The Economic Recovery funds aren't "working" if you expectated the legislation would already have overcome the effects of the economic crisis. That's an unrealistic expectation. States are still in cutback mode. Despite economic recovery funds, at least 48 states states were forced to address shortfalls for fiscal year 2010. That's not to say that states and localities couldn't create more jobs with their transportation stimulus funds. Spending on public transportation creates… Read more
Everybody loves safety, of course. The more difficult questions arise when evaluating which kinds of travel are safer than others. The fact that our country suffers a Korean war worth of driving fatalities every year partly reflects how dependent our country is on cars and trucks for travel. Especially on a per-trip basis, auto travel is very dangerous. A recent study in the Journal of Planning Literature shows that all driving isn't equally dangerous and some kinds of road improvement that increase the speed of traffic flow also make driving more lethal. The article, titled "The Built Environment and Traffic… Read more
With great timing for this debate, a new and highly informative paper has just been released by the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute. It specifically focuses on the cost effectiveness of VMT targets and other mobility management targets: "Are Vehicle Travel Reduction Targets Justified? Evaluating Mobility Management Objectives Such As Targets To Reduce VMT And Increase Use Of Alternative Modes" ( http://www.vtpi.org/vmt_red.pdf ) … Read more
The good news from both the administration statement and the Transportation & Infrastructure committee is that no legislation should pass and no new money should be allocated without significant reforms. Whether the next legislation covers six years or 18 months, this is an important starting point. The draft from the T&I committee contains many important improvements, such as measures to ensure that “public private partnerships” would actually benefit the public and some that would allow recognition of the benefits of streetcars. In addition to administrative changes, we hope that Congress will not shy away from commitment to forward-looking performance… Read more
Failure to support operating expenses is just another way that the federal transportation funding system is skewed against public transportation. Compared to highways, operating expenses comprise a much larger portion of total spending for public transportation. Transit agencies must pay for bus drivers, train conductors, station agents and a host of other operating expenses that don't exist on the highway side. The embedded bias against public transportation would be bad enough if it were not compounded by three other features in the current system that systematically discourage public transportation. The interaction of these biases with the lack of operating funds… Read more
It’s hard to see how the collapse of the Midway deal isn’t a sign of the times. As the opening entry alludes to, a few years ago people who make their living promoting and charging fees on the burgeoning privatization industry were predicting an inexorable wave of deals. That hasn't happened. While Midway or some other big airport might still get privatized, thre are major sea changes that are hard to ignore: 1] Private debt is no longer cheap. More importantly, the historic gap between public and private borrowing costs, which was unusually narrow a few years ago, has… Read more
The notion that the next transportation bill will bring more private financing has taken on an air of inevitability. Elected officials have little incentive to question the truism. It gives people something to say about where additional money might come from without taking political heat for mentioning new taxes or fees. But upfront money for privatized roads is not akin to money falling from trees. As the GAO’s report on this topic concludes, “there is no “free” money in public-private partnerships and it is likely that tolls on a privately operated highway will increase to a greater extent than they… Read more
America's economic competitors have developed thousands of miles of high-speed routes that will create better business connectivity while reducing oil dependence and avoiding billions of dollars in future highway or airport expansions. We are basically still at square one. Just because early investments won't immediately erase America's huge disadvantage in this area does not mean that initial steps toward building a world-class rail system are futile. President Obama is far-sighted to make high speed rail "a signature issue" when so many of the benefits will only be recognized after the next presidential election. In the meantime, there is ample short-term… Read more
If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that talk about “innovative finance” is a sign to hold onto your wallet. As I’ll argue below, the aggressively touted “innovative” private infrastructure deals also pose serious risks and fundamental conflicts with the public interest. Moreover, the current means of financing transportation are more constrained by lack of political will than by economics. Much like the mortgage industry in recent years, innovative private infrastructure deals often involve heavily leveraged debt and the trading of long-term risk. Worries that the model is not sustainable have been voiced by House Transportation &… Read more
Biography provided by participant
