Neal Peirce / Mar 07 2010
For Release Sunday, March 07, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — Why in the world should Congress be considering a “Green Taxis Act”?
It’s because New York — plus Seattle, Boston, San Francisco and several other cities — want to switch their taxi fleets over to all-hybrid vehicles. But they’ve run into a big legal snag, and Congress may have to come to their rescue.
Switching cabs to hybrids promises some potentially stunning gains.
Take carbon emissions. In New York City, taxis alone account for 1 percent of total carbon emissions; switching them to hybrids would be the equivalent of taking 35,000 cars off the road.
Second, there’s gas consumption. A standard taxicab such as V-8 powered Ford Crown Victoria gets about 14 miles to a gallon of gas. But some hybrids, running on a combination of gasoline and electricity, get as much as 36. The hybrid advantage is especially high among taxis because they so often find themselves idling or creeping along in traffic, generating pollutants all the time. Hybrids just don’t need internal combustion energy in that situation.
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Neal Peirce / Feb 28 2010
For Release Sunday, February 28, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — Nicknaming a federal grant-in-aid program TIGER may seem an anomaly: federal disbursements, normally loaded with rules, regulations and complexity, rarely get called bold or ferocious.
But the government’s historic knee-jerk preference for roads gets a nip–maybe a deep bite–in the Transportation Department’s just-announced $1.5 billion in grants to states and cities under the “Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery” program–or TIGER.
As Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood explained to me last week: “TIGER is our opportunity to say to folks that we know you’re trying to do innovative and creative transportation things that never really fit our official formulas or program silos. This program is your opportunity to show you’re the innovators around the country.” Read More »
Neal Peirce / Feb 20 2010
For Release Sunday, February 21, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — The tea party crowd has it dead wrong. We don’t need smaller government, we need smarter government that can look ahead, saving us crises and billions of dollars in the process.
A prime example: this winter’s record-breaking snow storms that left the Nation’s Capital region, due to insufficient snow-clearing equipment, immobilized days on end, at humongous cost to citizens, governments and private businesses.
Appalled at the inefficiency, Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein came up with an intriguing idea: Why not require everyone in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia metro region to sign up for “snow insurance”?
Sure, it would cost something. Homeowners might have to pay $25 a year, businesses an average of $2,500. With the cash, local governments would guarantee no disruption of work or school after snowfall up to one foot, perhaps 36 hours maximum for a bigger storm. Read More »
Neal Peirce / Feb 13 2010
For Release Sunday, February 14, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — For America’s cities and regions, this seems the worst of times. But take a look at their partnership with the federal government. It’s a rapid turn for the better.
Check virtually any local budget and the dark side slams you in the face. Tax receipts are taking a deep dive while cities’ needs, from sheltering the homeless to employees’ health coverage to storm recovery costs, are on the upswing. With slow recovery in jobs and property values, mayors and county officials will have a torturously tough job well into this decade.
But check the Obama fiscal 2011 budget, together with companion moves the White House is making to coordinate federal assistance to cities and metro regions. There’s a silver lining to these “worst” times.
One example: the budget asks Congress to approve $1 billion for the new National Housing Trust Fund–a key way for communities to fill the yawning shortage of affordable housing for their lowest income residents. Read More »
Neal Peirce / Feb 07 2010
For Release Sunday, February 7, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
Are we ready to retire the old bugaboo that any American mayor better think twice before visiting a foreign city — that the press back home will pillory him or her for “junketeering”?
Just possibly. “Gotcha” stories about foreign travels are still feared by mayors. But they’re dangerous anachronisms. Our cities’ economies and wellbeing actually require inventive foreign connections. Trade opportunities and enriching local economies still top the list. But new considerations are flooding in — for example the well-advertised global competition for the footloose young professionals, looking for “live” local scenes and cultural diversity.
The hands-down American regional leader on learning from abroad has been Seattle with its array of highly export-oriented firms. For 17 years Seattle has sent sizable delegations (70 or more) of business, political and civic leaders to see first-hand how a major foreign city and region really “clicks.” I’ve personally accompanied three of those visits — to Sydney, Hong Kong and Berlin — and discovered they’re significant eye-openers. Recently Seattle delegations have visited such cities as Fukuoka and Abu Dhabi — hardly our grandparents’ world city list.
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Neal Peirce / Feb 01 2010
For Release Sunday, January 31, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
Swimming in red ink, deficits rolling in as far as the eye can see, what are America’s state governments to do?
The “realists,” notes government reform expert Ted Kolderie, “tell us the only options are to cut and to tax.” Their clear message, he suggests: “With more we can do more; with less we have to do less. We don’t do ‘different.’”
But they’re bitter consequences, especially in a recession. Budget cuts reduce vital services. Increased taxes just take money out of peoples’ pockets, perversely making economic recovery all the tougher.
Raymond Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association, hears lots about the monstrous budget dilemmas the 50 state governors face. The time’s at hand, he believes to “to look at new and different governance models for the delivery of services.”
I asked him for examples and he didn’t hesitate. Read More »
Neal Peirce / Jan 25 2010
For Release Sunday, January 24, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
“This may be the most calamitous fiscal year states have known in decades,” reports Rob Gurwitt in Governing magazine, the 23-year old bible on coverage of state and local governance across the continent.
And the coming fiscal year, experts are predicting, may be almost as grim as the states run out of budget gimmicks, rainy day funds and the infusion of federal stimulus money that helped them, finally, to balance their current budgets. The states’ cumulative 2010 and 2011 budget shortfalls may be about $350 billion–a third of a trillion dollars–estimates the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Read More »
Neal Peirce / Jan 16 2010
For Release Sunday, January 17, 2010
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — Most everyone agrees that efficient roads, rails and air service are vital for our economy and our quality of life. Most of us see that without them, America will have a hard time competing against rising powers worldwide.
So why is Congress stalling? Representatives and senators know well that the federal transportation program expired last September. They keep passing temporary extensions without facing up to core issues–for example the federal gas tax stuck at 18.4 cents a gallon, unchanged for 17 years, despite escalating asphalt and concrete prices.
And why do we keep on paving over more and more of our landscape instead of embracing a “fix it first” strategy? Can’t we make our roads and transit investments match our housing choices in a “post-sprawl” era? Why aren’t regions being told that they had better link roads, rail and available air service for a smarter “intermodal” future? Read More »
Neal Peirce / Jan 09 2010
For Release Sunday, January 10, 2010
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
NEW YORK — Why can’t humans–intelligence officials, for example–communicate better? And what’s a possible cure?
The close call on an airliner Christmas Day has resurrected and underscored a problem already targeted in the 9/11 investigations: highly trained officers failing to share critical intelligence clues across agency lines.
Why are we repeating the same errors? How do we “fix” the system?
A week after the near-disaster of the Detroit-bound jet, an intriguing remedy–at least a possible answer–cropped up. And not in official Washington, but rather in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s third-term inaugural address in New York City. Read More »
Neal Peirce / Dec 31 2009
For Release Sunday, January 3, 2010
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — The World Bank is becoming more pro-city. The strategy seems a major departure for an institution that long leaned toward rural areas, many of its governing officials and affiliated governments subscribing to the view that aid to the countryside would somehow stem the massive tide of people moving to cities in search of jobs and opportunity.
The new policy, officially announced by World Bank president Robert Zoellick at a November meeting in Singapore, boldly defines urbanization as the 21st century’s defining phenomenon. Manage the growth of developing world cities well, he said, and the challenges of climate change, jobs, poverty reduction and health can be dealt with proactively, and more effectively. Read More »