What can Brazilian power lines teach New York about introducing private-sector competition to its public-bus system? In 1999, Brazil started to hold auctions open to both public and private sector players interested in improving the nation's trans Read More
Say this much for the "mobility tax": Unable or unwilling to find more cash in operational savings, capital cuts, or the farebox, the Ravitch Commission apparently tried to find the least-awful way to raise another $1.5 billion for the MTA. Read More
The Wall Street Journal today that the town of Avondale, AZ, will use a $2.5 million grant from the federal government's "Neighborhood Stabilization Program," signed into law by the president in July, in part to "build two additional rental Read More
As promised, here are our articles in today's newspaper parsing the Ravitch report on how to fix the finances of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority: E.J. on Me on the Read More
Today, the Ravitch commission released its report on MTA finances. We'll have more to say about this tomorrow. Here's an interesting piece of data to tide readers over 'till then: Read More
The Times today that the amount of commercial real estate on the market in Manhattan has doubled since last year, and that rents are down "20 to 30 percent from the going rents at the end of the summer — to around $75 to $80 a square foot Read More
Just for fun, our friends at Municipal Market Advisors have looked at how municipal bonds fared during the Great Depression. Read More
The Ravitch Commission is said to be mulling a payroll tax to help close large deficits faced by the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Other elements of the package reportedly would include fare increases and the acquisition and Read More