Transit

Transit Projects: The Federal Government Should Fund
By Daniel G. Jennings
The following is a list of transit and commuter rail projects that the Bush Administration should fund to ease congestion and pollution, reduce oil dependency, increase property values and make getting around easier.
New York City: Build the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan, build a new tunnel under the Hudson to New Jersey. Put a subway tube under the Verrazano Narrows connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island. Connect the Staten Island Railroad to the Subway system.
San Francisco Bay Area: Electrify the Caltrain Commuter rail service and extend it south to Holister. Then extend Caltrain service to Monterey, Salinas and Santa Clara. Electrify the ACE (Altamount Commuter Express Service) which connects San Jose and Stockton. Extend ACE into San Francisco using existing rail bridges Then create or build a joint Caltrain/ACE line north through San Jose to Benecia connected to a line to Sacramento. Once North a new ACE line would run east to Stockton along existing tracks. Another would run north along Southern Pacific track and the existing bridge to Calistoga providing service to Napa County. Another would west over the NWP tracks another west to Ignacio. There it would connect with a commuter rail line using the NWP tracks that would connect Sausalito and Healdsburg. The South deck of the Bay Deck would be returned to rail service for light rail trains that would use these tracks and other track. Eventually a rail tunnel would connect the Presidio and Sausalito. Electric Commuter rail between San Jose and Sacramento. Electric Commuter Rail between Merced and Sacramento. Electric Commuter rail between Chico and Sacramento. Grass Valley and Sacramento. Expansion of San Jose light rail to Freemont and Santa Clara.
Denver/Colorado Front Range: Electric commuter rail connecting Colorado City south of Pueblo with Cheyenne. One line would run from Colorado City through Pueblo, Fountain, Colorado Springs, Castle Rock and Denver, then veer west and north through Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins then north to Cheyenne. A second line would run north from Denver through Brighton, Fort Lupton, Greeley and Windsor to Fort Collins. The third would run east from Pueblo to Canon City. Then north to Colorado Springs along 115. There would also be rail lines to the gambling casinos in Central City, Blackhawk and Cripple Creek and to the mountain suburbs of Evergreen and Woodland Park.
Colorado: Electrify the rail line through the Moffat Tunnel and upgrade and electrify the line up the Arkansas Valley to provide passenger rail service between the Front Range cities and the ski country in Aspen, Eagle and Summit Counties. This could include lines to Aspen, Breckenridge, Vail, and other ski areas and service to Steamboat Springs as well as improved service to Colorado’s coal mining regions. Long term plans would be a new rail tunnel under the Loveland Pass connecting Denver and Front Range.
Portland: Commuter Rail between Springfield and Longview, Washington. Extension of Trimax Light Rail into Vancouver, Washington.
Washington: Extension of Sounder Commuter Rail Service to Vancouver, British Columbia. Light rail in Spokane. Commuter Rail to Port Angeles. Electric Commuter Rail between Longview and Olympia.
Wisconsin: Creation of electric commuter rail service between Chicago and Green Bay via Milwaukee. Light rail in Milwaukee and Madison. Electric Commuter rail service between Milwaukee and Madison.
Los Angeles: Build the Expo Line light rail between Downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Scrap plans for Bus Rapid Transit in the San Fernando Valley and replace it with a light rail line or Subway line running along the 101 freeway between Universal City and Thousand Oaks. Extend the Red Line Subway from Western Boulevard down Wilshire to the Santa Monica Pier. Electrify the Metrolink Commuter Rail Service and eliminate grade level crossings. Extend Metrolink to Temecula, Perris, Palm Springs and Indigo. Extend Metrolink to Barstow. Extend Goldine light rail from Claremont to Calimesa west of Red Lands. Build a Gold Line Branch along the 210 from Pasadena to Sylmar. Extend Red Line Subway north from Universal City to Santa Clarita along Five. Build a light rail or subway line along the Harbor and Pasadena Freeways connecting Pasadena and San Pedro. Build a light rail or subway line along the 405 between Irvine and Sylmar. Build the Center Line light rail in Orange County. Build a light rail line between Corona and San Bernardino. Extend Green Line Light Rail to LAX and to Corona. Extend Metrolink to Goleta north of Santa Barbara. Light rail or Subway along 710 between Long Beach and Alhambra.
Arizona: Electric Commuter Rail between Phoenix and Tucson and Phoenix and Prescott. Light rail in Tucson.
New York State: Electric Commuter Rail between New York City and Glenns Falls and Albany and Niagara Falls.
Pennsylvania: Electric Commuter Rail between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Massachusetts: Electric Commuter Rail between Springfield and Boston.
Maine: Electric Commuter Rail between Boston and Bangor via Portland.

Rail

Rail: A Perfect Legacy for George W. Bush
By Daniel G. Jennings
Presidents, especially second-term presidents, want to leave something behind so future generations will think of them as more than a picture in a history book. If President Bush wants to create a legacy that future generations will notice and appreciate he should launch a program to modernize, expand and electrify our nation’s railroad system.
Americans today remember Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency most for Ike’s launch of the effort to build the Interstate Highway system in the late 1950s. Bush could leave a similar legacy behind by launching an effort to create a nationwide system of high-speed electric-powered railroads.
This plan would involve the modernization and expansion of existing railroads, and the building of new lines. These new rail lines should carry both freight and passenger trains, in particular high speed freight trains that would take a lot of freight off of the crowded freeways and out of expensive cargo planes.
Such an effort is needed because the nation’s existing railroads are old and incapable of carrying the vast amounts of freight moved on them. It is also needed because the highways both rural and urban are congested and in some cases blocked by gridlock much of which is created by trucks carrying freight. Airports and the skyways are already congested and getting worse. In particular trains could move many of the passengers who take shorter flights, freeing up the skies for long term passengers.
Unlike planes, cars, trucks and the diesel locomotives that pull most of America’s trains electric powered trains wouldn’t run on imported oil. They would be powered by electricity we can create here by using coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, natural gas and other power sources we have now. Unlike hydrogen and electric powered cars, electric trains are a proven technology that exists here and now. They can be implemented without vast amounts of expensive research and development.
To add icing to the cake, electric trains are faster and more efficient than diesel trains and require less maintenance. It is possible right now to build high-speed electric trains that run at speeds of 200 MPH which would make trains competitive with planes for passenger business on shorter lines and freight on longer lines.
Yes, modernization of our railroad system would be expensive but no more expensive than expanding the highway system or airports to meet increased demand. Railroad modernization could be easily and cheaply financed without increasing taxes by simply diverting freeway and airport construction money to rail construction.
Railroad modernization is doable, and we will see it begin within the next ten years. The question is who will start not, not if it will start.
It will take a popular president with the Bully Pulpit of the White House and support of Congress to launch railroad modernization, Bush has those things. Only somebody in Bush’s position could overcome the special interest opposition to rail modernization that exists on both sides of the aisle.
So will Bush go against special interests in his own party and anti-rail fanatics in his own Transportation Department to champion rail? That’s hard to say he did nothing of the sort in his first term but times maybe changing.
On Feb. 23, 2005, CNN’s American Morning show broadcast some remarks Bush made to a group of young German leaders during his European trip. Bush told the young Deutsch that America should rely upon “safe nuclear power.” The only way nuclear power can be used for ground transportation with present technology is to use reactors to generate electricity to power trains.
So President Bush might just end up leaving a nationwide electric rail system as his legacy. It’ll be a bold and surprising move, but that’s exactly the sort of thing that we’ve come to expect from this president.

Tech Center

A Short Visit To the Denver Tech Center
By Daniel G. Jennings
The Denver Technology Center, known popularly as the Denver Tech Center in the Mile High City, is a collection of office, industrial and retail buildings located between fifteen to twenty miles south of Downtown Denver in Arapahoe County.
The Tech Center serves as a second downtown to the Denver Metro area, in fact it is listed as the area’s number one center for employment. Basically the Tech Center is a series of office parks, industrial parks, shopping centers and housing developments strung out along Interstate 25 the main North South artery in the Denver area between I-225 and Araphahoe Road. Although the developed area around the Tech Center is creeping South towards E-470 and even Lincoln Boulevard.
From the perspective of a person driving down I-25 or more likely stuck in traffic on I-25, the highway is one of the most congested in the country and certainly the most congested in Colorado. The Tech Center looks like a bunch of office towers sticking up in the middle of open fields.
From the perspective of somebody walking, driving or taking a bus on ground level, the Tech Center looks like a long series of strip malls and low lying office buildings separated by green lawns, and a few taller buildings. The Tech Center itself is surrounded by high density suburban development tightly packed suburban houses, apartment complexes and town homes.
Once one exits the freeway and enters the actual Tech Center itself, one becomes completely and totally confused. The streets and roads follow no logical pattern they meander around like the cul-de-sacs in suburban housing developments. Many of them dead end or go round and round in nonsensical loops. The average person trying to drive or walk to a destination in the Tech Center, quickly gets thoroughly confused. It’s impossible to find one’s way there unless you’ve visited it many times.
To make matters worse for drivers, the Tech Center has been laid out like a golf course, sculpted greens complete with water hazards in the form of ponds, creeks, fountains, trees, bushes and sand traps separate many of the buildings. This makes the area park-like and aesthetically pleasing and pleasant to walk through. There are many nice walkways like those in parks and benches. One can stroll along and enjoy the pleasant sounds of birdsong. The area is beautiful in many ways.
Not that this makes much difference to those working in the office buildings they are all carefully stored away in cubbyholes called cubicles. Walking in the Tech Center on any weekday is like walking in a ghost town. One is in the middle of a city where tens of thousands of people are working and one doesn’t meet another soul. The only other people you see are driving around in cars.
Despite the walkways the buildings at the Tech Center are built too far apart for somebody to slip over to the corner store and pick up a drink or cigarettes or walk over for lunch. The place is too separated for any driving.
All the buildings are separated from the streets and nearby structures by lawns, parking lots, ponds, fields of rock, sand pits and so on. Looking at the sculpted areas surrounding the buildings and the empty space one wonders if these features are landscaping or defenses? Are the water hazards ornamentation or moats, is all the space left clear for decoration or fields of fire to give defenders a clear shot at attackers. Many of the rolling lawns look like the earthworks soldiers of the past built in the field to protect themselves from enemy fire.
So I have to wonder is the suburban office park and the modern office building a product of fear? Were they created back in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties when corporate America feared that it would soon be under attack by roving mobs of Hippies, blacks and gang bangers? Were they afraid of civil disturbance and disobedience and crime. Its no coincidence that the migration to the office parks started in the 1960s and 70s when cities were unsafe and rocked by violent crime.
Places like the Tech Center are a product of fear, fear of the common people, fear of the cities and fear of the crowd. Fear of other people and fear that society is about to collapse. Fortunately such fears to seem have dissipated but the damage they have done remains.
Walking around one wonders how much money, time and effort has been wasted on the landscaping at the Tech Center. Vast amounts of water is pumped in from Colorado’s Western slope to irrigate the lawns and trees. Armies of workers are paid to mow and tend the lawns and trees. People are paid to pick up the garbage and to clean the gutters. The Tech Center looks immaculate and a vast amount of money is spent to make it that way.
When one walks around the Tech Center, one wonders how much money spent on the landscaping there could be better spent elsewhere. How many police officers, teachers, fire fighters, soldiers, social workers and probation officers who might actually do some good for society could be hired for that money? How many fire trucks, and buses could be purchased? Or how many textbooks? One has to ask if the landscaping money would have been better spent on a light rail system designed to connect it with Denver’s older neighborhoods. Such a system is now under construction along I-25 at a cost of over $1 billion.
Walking at the Tech Center can be pleasant if one isn’t in a hurry and knows where one is going. If you are a stranger trying to find a location you would be better off elsewhere. Taking the bus to the Tech Center isn’t that bad, the area is served by several lines, unfortunately they are slow moving street lines. Express bus service only runs in the morning and afternoon. The Center itself is also served by an excellent shuttle bus system.
Despite this the Tech Center isn’t a community or an urban unit like Downtown Denver. It’s divided deeply, in fact the Tech Center is located in three different cities Greenwood Village, Englewood and Centennial.
Englewood is an old small town located directly South of Denver in the last couple of decades it has grown into a small suburban city by annexing unincorporated suburban sprawl. Greenwood Village and Centennial are new communities created to keep suburban areas from being annexed by the larger towns around them. The Greenwood Village City Hall is in the middle of the Tech Center. Although the City Hall has a brick exterior and clock tower in imitation of a traditional structure it looks more like a strip mall than a city hall and sits in the middle of an office park.
Do places like the Tech Center and Greenwood Village have a future? Yes, but I don’t what that is. I imagine their future will be as concentrated high density urban developments built on the ruins of suburban sprawl after they have been rebuilt. My guess is that in the near future we’ll see most of the tech center bulldozed in order to make way for something more sensible.

People in the News

Hunter S. Thompson – Over the weekend the father of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson, blew his brains out with a shotgun. Like another American literary icon, Ernest Hemingway, Hunter seemed to have lived past his time, sensed it and killed himself before aging into an embarrassing anachronism such as Norman Mailer or Gore Vidal.
Thompson’s style of first person, opinion filled journalism influenced a whole generation of journalists and commentators. Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Howard Stern, Don Imus, all took their cue from Thompson on some level. Thompson’s writings on the 1972 Presidential campaign collected as “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” 1972 can be said to be the first blog thirty years before the term was invented.
Hunter himself was one of the few figures of the 1960s counterculture who didn’t sell out and morph into a nerdy latte-drinking busy-body practicing Taoist meditation and picketing for animal rights. Instead, like a lot of Americans he lived a sort of cowboy fantasy moving into a 40 acre ranch in Colorado, playing with guns and hanging around at the local saloon.
Eventually Hunter shot himself probably because he was in bad health, and would soon have to move into town. My guess is that we’ll see a lot of people here in the West follow Hunter’s example and blow their brains out as they approach seventy or eighty because their fantasy is no longer tenable. If the gasoline shortage or economy makes rural fantasy lifestyles like that of Hunter S. Thompson unviable we’ll see quite a few people shoot themselves like Hunter did.
Bill Moyers – The grand old man of public television has been going around the country spreading what amounts to Anti-Christian bigotry. News reports indicate that Moyers warned an audience at Harvard that the Bush administration is dangerous because it is influenced by apocalyptic Pentecostal and Evangelical Christianity.
In other words Moyers called Bush and his administration and all the Christians who voted for them a pack of ignorant Bible thumpers. There is no evidence that this is true, as far as I know no high-ranking member of the Bush administration has publicly expressed a belief that the End Times or Second Coming as predicted by the book of Revelation is imminent. Nor is there any evidence that Bush is any more religious than say Bill Clinton (who belongs to an Evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptists, and attended church every week with a Bible in his hands) or Jimmy Carter (a Southern Baptist who taught Sunday School).
Far from being apocalyptic, Bush’s policies have been extremely forward looking. He has talked about expanding the space program, returning to the Moon and mounting a Mars expedition. On Earth he has engaged in nation building efforts to build new democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has also talked of shoring Social Security up for the future. These are hardly the actions of an ignorant boob who believes that the rapture is about to occur next week. They are the work of a man who believes that America has a long future ahead of it.
Moyers should be criticized for this ignorant bigotry instead the media is ignoring his cheap hatemongering. Unfortunately, Moyers can get away with such bigotry because he is attacking Christians or more precisely working and middle class Christians in the heartland. Just imagine the criticism Moyers would get if he accused the Bush administration of being controlled by an evil Jewish conspiracy.
George W. Bush – In remarks to thirty young German leaders reported by CNN on Feb. 23, our president let the cat out of the bag so to speak. He told the leaders that America should lessen its dependence upon imported oil by taking advantage of “safe nuclear power.”
This means that Bush is going to start promoting rail as an alternative to the automobile in America. Nuclear reactors can generate lots of power in the form of electricity but there is no practical way to use that power in cars or trucks. It is very easy, on the other hand to use that electricity to power trains and trolleys which can be connected directly to the power system through third rail or cantilevers or trolleys.
My guess is that Bush will soon announce a major initiative to build new nuclear power plants, another initiative to greatly expand rail based mass transit in America’s cities (light rail and subways), a plan to electrify the mainline railroads and possibly a major high speed rail proposal. The Republican Congress will get behind these plans because the business community will be for them, manufacturers and importers will want to get their goods to market, retailers want their shelves filled, travelers will need to get to hotels and resorts and people will have to get to work. This will make Bush the target of criticism from the anti-rail libertarians and highway fanatics who voted for him in the first place.
Yes folks we live in very interesting times indeed.

Does Suburbia Have a Future?

Does Suburbia Have a Future?
By Daniel G. Jennings
The above question is one that seems to be preoccupying American thinkers both suburban apologists like David Brooks who assure that suburbia is our future and suburban critics like James Kunstler who assure us that suburbia has no future. The Sustainable Futures Society is even crossing the country showing a documentary called “The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream.”
The proper answer is that suburbia as we know it has no future but some sort of suburbs will remain. The Sustainable Futures Society is right the classic 20th Century suburb where everybody drives everywhere is doomed unless technology can greatly increase the oil supply or offers an workable alternative energy source. Yet suburbs themselves will remain for traditional core cities are simply too small to contain everybody and most middle class Americans won’t want live in the core city anyway.
The answer is that the suburb will change in the next few years to something more akin to the original suburbs of the 19th and early 20th centuries. That is a denser community where most residents commute to work and other destinations by rail.
We see the beginnings of this in places like Denver, Dallas, St. Louis, Houston, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Portland where local governments are investing vast amounts of money to construct rail lines. Many of these new rail lines are centered around development schemes or designed to serve fast growing suburbs where lots of development is taking place. Transit bus lines are also reaching farther and farther out into suburbia, in Denver the busy 0 bus on Broadway runs all the way to Highlands Ranch, dozens of other buses go out even farther. Long distance express buses connect Downtown Denver with suburbs as far thirty or forty miles away. At the same time we see many suburban communities trying to take on a more urban identity, Lakewood, Colorado, for example is transforming an old shopping mall called Villa Italia into an urban center complete with loft apartments and high density development.
Although the traditional picture of suburbia is rows of ranch houses with a car parked in each driveway. The reality is far more complex, many suburbs have apartment houses, town homes and condos, there are older suburbs built to traditional patterns such as Riverside and Redlands, California. In my hometown of Denver suburban patterns range from traditional small towns like Golden and Littleton, classic 1950s style developments, Lakewood, industrial parks in Aurora, highly urbanized Downtown Englewood and the office parks of the Denver Tech Center.
This of course reveals the true nature of suburbia to us, instead of conformist sprawl you get a massive mish mash of different urban designs and architectural styles. You get a ranch house on a large lot with a corral for horses located just a few blocks from an office park composed of skyscrapers and a trailer park within walking distance of fashionable shops and loft apartments. Empty farmland abutting high density housing developments and office parks and industrial buildings on the edge of National Forest wilderness. You have Wal-Marts in the middle of traditional neighborhoods of Victorian Houses, suburban style office parks in the middle of the core city, and big box stores sprouting everywhere.
To make matters worse Suburbia itself is getting denser and more urban. Recent suburbs like Highlands Ranch, Colorado, and the far south of Orange County, California are composed of extremely densely packed houses. Pictures of these neighborhoods remind one more of the 19th century row housing of Queens or Baltimore than the ranch homes and cul de sacs of the sixties and seventies. Dense urban commercial developments such as that in Highlands Ranch are creating what amounts to Downtowns. Dense office developments like the Denver Tech Center also give suburbia an urban feel.
How do you get order of such a mess? I don’t know, although if automobile usage falls as predicted we’re going to have find out. My guess is it’ll be done in a messy piece by piece way like the development of suburbia itself. Instead of planning we’ll have a groping for answers.
A groping that seems to have begun both by New Urbanists who have questioned suburbia and developers who seem to be open to trying new things. Thousands of new loft condos are going up in Denver and several massive new transit developments are planned in my hometown. Numerous new transit developments are planned all over the country and many developers are interested in downtown and core cities again. Development interests are pushing local and regional governments to invest in rail particularly light rail which is well suited to serve suburbs.
Obviously this change in development patterns reflects widespread uncertainty in the future of traditional suburbia and the automobile on the part of real estate developers. Since developers are hard headed if often flighty business operators this can’t be motivated by idealism or concern for community and the environment but on worries that the traditional model is no longer working.
The massive gridlock facing many American cities shows the failure of the highway system and the automobile. The impending oil shortage will make matters far worse, many Americans won’t be able to operate cars or have to use them less. At the same time many average Americans are trying to limit their car usage out of economy or convenience. Developers are trying to take advantage of these trends.
So what will the suburb of the future look like? It’ll be denser and transit oriented. Far fewer people will drive, more people will take transit and a great many goods and services will be delivered. There will be more delivery trucks on the streets and many more trains and streetcars. People will probably spend more of their money on clothing and recreational activities such as sports or hobbies like the Japanese do. We’ll see crowds of costumed teenagers hanging around on the streets and lots of people taking the train to the NASCAR race. Many Americans will invest their money in electronic gadgets both for home entertainment and entertainment on the bus or train; computers, video games and TVs would be examples of such gizmos. Dining will be a major activity with people going out to all manner of restaurants, and spending vast fortunes on wine, beer and food.
The pace will be more hectic than today’s suburbs yet a little more civilized. There will also be a lot of nostalgia for the good old days of cul de sacs and lawn mowers. The golden age when everybody had a car and teenagers drove to high school.
But yes, folks suburbia does have a future. Suburbia’s future is as a dense, urbanized transit place. A place where a lot of people will pine for the good old days of ranch homes and shopping malls.

Suburbia's Future

Does Suburbia Have a Future?
By Daniel G. Jennings
The above question is one that seems to be preoccupying American thinkers both suburban apologists like David Brooks who assure that suburbia is our future and suburban critics like James Kunstler who assure us that suburbia has no future. The Sustainable Futures Society is even crossing the country showing a documentary called “The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream.”
The proper answer is that suburbia as we know it has no future but some sort of suburbs will remain. The Sustainable Futures Society is right the classic 20th Century suburb where everybody drives everywhere is doomed unless technology can greatly increase the oil supply or offers an workable alternative energy source. Yet suburbs themselves will remain for traditional core cities are simply too small to contain everybody and most middle class Americans won’t want live in the core city anyway.
The answer is that the suburb will change in the next few years to something more akin to the original suburbs of the 19th and early 20th centuries. That is a denser community where most residents commute to work and other destinations by rail.
We see the beginnings of this in places like Denver, Dallas, St. Louis, Houston, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Portland where local governments are investing vast amounts of money to construct rail lines. Many of these new rail lines are centered around development schemes or designed to serve fast growing suburbs where lots of development is taking place. Transit bus lines are also reaching farther and farther out into suburbia, in Denver the busy 0 bus on Broadway runs all the way to Highlands Ranch, dozens of other buses go out even farther. Long distance express buses connect Downtown Denver with suburbs as far thirty or forty miles away. At the same time we see many suburban communities trying to take on a more urban identity, Lakewood, Colorado, for example is transforming an old shopping mall called Villa Italia into an urban center complete with loft apartments and high density development.
Although the traditional picture of suburbia is rows of ranch houses with a car parked in each driveway. The reality is far more complex, many suburbs have apartment houses, town homes and condos, there are older suburbs built to traditional patterns such as Riverside and Redlands, California. In my hometown of Denver suburban patterns range from traditional small towns like Golden and Littleton, classic 1950s style developments, Lakewood, industrial parks in Aurora, highly urbanized Downtown Englewood and the office parks of the Denver Tech Center.
This of course reveals the true nature of suburbia to us, instead of conformist sprawl you get a massive mish mash of different urban designs and architectural styles. You get a ranch house on a large lot with a corral for horses located just a few blocks from an office park composed of skyscrapers and a trailer park within walking distance of fashionable shops and loft apartments. Empty farmland abutting high density housing developments and office parks and industrial buildings on the edge of National Forest wilderness. You have Wal-Marts in the middle of traditional neighborhoods of Victorian Houses, suburban style office parks in the middle of the core city, and big box stores sprouting everywhere.
To make matters worse Suburbia itself is getting denser and more urban. Recent suburbs like Highlands Ranch, Colorado, and the far south of Orange County, California are composed of extremely densely packed houses. Pictures of these neighborhoods remind one more of the 19th century row housing of Queens or Baltimore than the ranch homes and cul de sacs of the sixties and seventies. Dense urban commercial developments such as that in Highlands Ranch are creating what amounts to Downtowns. Dense office developments like the Denver Tech Center also give suburbia an urban feel.
How do you get order of such a mess? I don’t know, although if automobile usage falls as predicted we’re going to have find out. My guess is it’ll be done in a messy piece by piece way like the development of suburbia itself. Instead of planning we’ll have a groping for answers.
A groping that seems to have begun both by New Urbanists who have questioned suburbia and developers who seem to be open to trying new things. Thousands of new loft condos are going up in Denver and several massive new transit developments are planned in my hometown. Numerous new transit developments are planned all over the country and many developers are interested in downtown and core cities again. Development interests are pushing local and regional governments to invest in rail particularly light rail which is well suited to serve suburbs.
Obviously this change in development patterns reflects widespread uncertainty in the future of traditional suburbia and the automobile on the part of real estate developers. Since developers are hard headed if often flighty business operators this can’t be motivated by idealism or concern for community and the environment but on worries that the traditional model is no longer working.
The massive gridlock facing many American cities shows the failure of the highway system and the automobile. The impending oil shortage will make matters far worse, many Americans won’t be able to operate cars or have to use them less. At the same time many average Americans are trying to limit their car usage out of economy or convenience. Developers are trying to take advantage of these trends.
So what will the suburb of the future look like? It’ll be denser and transit oriented. Far fewer people will drive, more people will take transit and a great many goods and services will be delivered. There will be more delivery trucks on the streets and many more trains and streetcars. People will probably spend more of their money on clothing and recreational activities such as sports or hobbies like the Japanese do. We’ll see crowds of costumed teenagers hanging around on the streets and lots of people taking the train to the NASCAR race. Many Americans will invest their money in electronic gadgets both for home entertainment and entertainment on the bus or train; computers, video games and TVs would be examples of such gizmos. Dining will be a major activity with people going out to all manner of restaurants, and spending vast fortunes on wine, beer and food.
The pace will be more hectic than today’s suburbs yet a little more civilized. There will also be a lot of nostalgia for the good old days of cul de sacs and lawn mowers. The golden age when everybody had a car and teenagers drove to high school.
But yes, folks suburbia does have a future. Suburbia’s future is as a dense, urbanized transit place. A place where a lot of people will pine for the good old days of ranch homes and shopping malls.

terrorism

Is Iraq a Cause of Terrorism?
By Daniel G. Jennings
Is the US military adventure in Iraq, a cause of terrorism? Opponents of the war have long claimed that American occupation of Iraq would inspire devastating new terror attacks against the US and its allies.
The answer is yes and no, yes the Iraq War is a rallying cry for Jihad - even incoming CIA Director Porter Goss echoed these sentiments in his first appearance before Congress in that capacity on Feb. 17. The war is used as a justification for the crimes of extreme Islamic terrorists and a recruiting aid.
It must be pointed out, though that there was no US occupation of Iraq on Sept. 11, 2001. Without the American occupation of Iraq Bin Laden was still able to attract thousands of recruits to his camps in Afghanistan and inspire them to mount a deadly suicide attack against the USA.
If there were no war in Iraq, the terrorists would find some other pretext for their war against us. Our support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, our decadent culture or just the fact that most Americans don’t subscribe their version of Islam would be enough to inspire the fanatics.
The real roots of Islamic terrorism lie in the psychology of certain Moslem men who can’t or won’t adapt to the modern world not in any event in the real world not in the political or economic situation anywhere in the world. These men are driven to terrorism by their desire for power, glory and fame and their personal inadequacies. Their war is not with the real United States or its policies but with an imaginary great Satan that exists only in their comic book fantasies. Only defeat in the real world at the hands of America and its allies will snap these fools back to reality.
So is Iraq a front in the war on terror and should we worry about terrorists from Iraq? Yes, Iraq is an important front in the Great Terror War, Porter Goss has noted that the experience and training terrorists get in this war could enhance their ability to mount attacks elsewhere. Goss is afraid that when the terrorists loose their war in Iraq they’ll move elsewhere and use the skills they learned there to mount new attacks.
The more terrorists we kill or capture in Iraq will reduce the capacity of the Jihad forces to wage war on us. The war in Iraq also diverts terrorists and their resources away from attacks elsewhere such as the US. Yes, we could see a few thousand American deaths in Iraq but I would rather see thousands of Americans dead in Iraq than tens of thousands dead on our soil from a nuclear or biological attack.
An American pull out from Iraq at this time would enable terrorists to operate openly in that country and set up bases from which to attack us. Using Iraq’s oil wealth and infrastructure they could manufacture weapons of mass destruction to turn against us. They could set up camps and schools to train a new generation of highly proficient terrorists dedicated to our destruction. Look what Bin Laden was able to achieve with the limited resources available in Afghanistan.
A successful Iraqi government on the other hand could keep a lid on terrorism and offer the people of the Middle East a real alternative to the Jihad stupidity. It would also deprive terrorists and American peace activists of a pretext for war and isolationism.

Election in Iraq

The Iraq Election
By Daniel G. Jennings
I’ve refrained from commenting on the Iraqi elections because I think the story has been exaggerated to the point of distortion by the media.
It’s wonderful that a successful election has been held in Iraq and great that a majority of Iraqi voters turned out for it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that democracy and the rule of law are coming to Iraq. Elections in themselves, even successful ones don’t guarantee those things.
China had a rather successful election back in 1912 or 1913, it still doesn’t have democracy over ninety years later. There were several successful elections in Germany between 1918 and 1933 that didn’t keep Hitler out of power. Nor did elections in Latin America prevent dictatorship. In the 1910s and 1920s the US military held very fair and scrupulous elections in a number of countries including Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua those countries quickly fell into dictatorship. Recent Russian elections didn’t prevent Vladimir Putin’s march to authoritarianism.
So what will guarantee democracy and the rule of law in Iraq? Simple a successful government dedicated to the rule of law, freedom, democracy and the common good. That is far harder to create than it sounds.
The Founding Fathers did it here in the United States but they had it far easier than the Iraqi government will. The Founders didn’t have a well armed, well organized and homicidal insurgency dedicated to their destruction like the Iraqis do. Nor did they have several thousand years of history to deal with. The Thirteen Colonies were a multi-ethnic society but there was no history behind it. The Dutch in New York had no reason to hate the Puritans in Massachusetts and the Germans in Pennsylvania no reason to fear the Scotts Irish in Virginia. The only group hated and feared were Native Americans who had been pushed into the wilderness.
Even in the United States it took two centuries, a bloody civil war and dozens of elections to create a constitutional democracy that protects the basic rights of all Americans. Many Americans would say that we still haven’t arrived there yet.
Judging by history it’s going to take a lot more than one election to create a successful constitutional democracy in Iraq. It can be done but it’s going to take a lot of blood, sweat and tears and cost a lot lives - some of them American.

culture of dishonest

Culture of Dishonesty
By Daniel G. Jennings
What amounts to a culture of dishonesty seems to have developed on some of our college campuses particularly in the liberal arts departments. A culture of dishonesty that seems to be spreading into other areas of American life at an alarming rate.
Take the case of University of Colorado Indian Studies professor, Ward Churchill. Churchill has based his whole career on his self proclaimed Native American heritage, yet a check of Churchill’s genealogy by Rocky Mountain News reporters found no verifiable Native American ancestors in his family tree. The extent of his heritage: one of his male ancestors was married to a Cherokee woman back when George Washington was President. Nor is Churchill a legally recognized member of any Indian Tribe. He was enrolled in one for awhile but tribal leaders took his name off the books when he couldn’t verify his ancestry.* Other aspects of Churchill’s life have been called into question, he claims to have been in combat in Vietnam yet records indicate he was a heavy equipment operator. Churchill also claims to have been involved in the American Indian Movement in the 1970s, yet other members of that group have said he wasn’t there.
So in other words we have a man who is basically a liar and perhaps a fraud teaching at a major university he even served as a department head there for two years. Nor is Churchill alone, Joseph Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize winning history professor at Mt. Holyoke College regularly lied to his students telling them that he had been in combat in the Vietnam War (he hadn’t) and exaggerating his political activities. Ellis’s punishment for lying to his students: a one year suspension, despite his flagrant disregard for the truth Ellis kept his professorship.*
In other words our universities are tolerating fraud on the part of supposed academics, and it’s easy to see why. Many of the so called liberal arts faculties have turned their backs on truth and replaced it with ideology.
The basic beliefs many academics buy into lend themselves to dishonesty for example Marxism. The history of Communism calls Marxism into question and debunks much of it yet vast numbers of college professors teach watered down Marxism to their students. Marxism can only be taught if the true history of the Communist states is ignored or denied. The tiny matter of 100 million people dead at the hands of Communists or the spectacular failures of the communist states must be excluded.
Then there is anti-Americanism this can only be supported by a selective revising of American history in which the achievements of Americans in the past are ignored and atrocities real and imagined played up. For example teaching 19th Century American history in terms of atrocities against Indians while ignoring accomplishments such as the railroads, industrialization and democracy. In many cases, historical events are taken out of context or misrepresented to support Anti-American lies.
Only a culture of dishonesty could support the belief system that has taken root in our so called Liberal Arts faculties. Seeing that the facts don’t support their theses these pseudo scholars either ignore or reinterpret them to support their prejudices. Truth, is effectively vanquished and reality kept out.
Nor is the left alone in propagating the culture of dishonesty. Phillip Johnson, a prominent professor of law at the University of California (who once clerked for US Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren) denies the scientific truth of evolution because it offends his religious beliefs and gets hailed as a hero. Instead he promotes intelligent design a return to 18th century scientific beliefs.
If this culture of dishonesty were restricted to the liberal arts schools it might be of no concern to us but this culture is seeping out into other aspects of our society. We see it in journalism where a number of journalists including a staffer at the mighty New York Times Jayson Blair falsified stories to advance their careers. Influential producers at CBS ran story attacking a politician they didn’t like even though it was based on fabricated documents. We see it in Hollywood where a piece of political propaganda, Fahrenheit 911 is passed off as a documentary and a propagandist, Michael Moore, is hailed as a hero by many. We even see it in the highest councils of government when Presidential staffers deliberately lied to the public, congress and our allies about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq in order to sell the war.
All these cases of deception have one thing in common, the people behind the deception were the products of the universities where the culture of deception has taken hold. They feel they have a right to lie to us, deceive and manipulate us as long it is in a good cause. Truth has no real value to these people all that matters to them is forcing their beliefs on others.
So how do we fight the culture of deception? The answer is simple tell the truth and in the process expose the liars and lies upon which the culture of deception is based upon for what they really are. Then demand higher standards from our colleges and their administrators and demand that honesty and truth be restored to college classrooms before it is too late.
* "Prof’s genealogy is sketchy he offers little clarification" Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 5, 2005.
* "Dismissing Controversial Professor Would Set a Frightening Precedent" Eugene Volokh, Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 5, 2005.

Is the Left Evil?

The Banality of the American Left
By Daniel G. Jennings
In the last few days quite a few people have called CU-Boulder Professor of Indian Affairs Ward Churchill and his extreme left wing beliefs “evil.” One of Churchill’s former students called him that in a newspaper article and the Colorado State legislature has branded Churchill’s writings “evil.”
Churchill’s writings are certainly repugnant he has called for more Sept. 11 style attacks, branded America an evil empire, the destruction of the United States, praised the Sept. 11 hijackers and compared victims of Sept. 11 to Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust.* But are the tenured professor and former department chair and those who share such beliefs such as MIT linguist Noam Chomsky “evil?”
We should obviously be hesitant to brand anybody or anything evil but there is some truth in the characterization. No, Churchill, Chomsky and company aren’t evil monsters in any sense of the word but there is a sort of evil to their beliefs. A banal evil that explains much of the appeal and power of the Far Left in America today.
After observing Adolph Eichmann in Israel in 1961 where he was on trial for his crimes after years of exile in South America, author Hannah Arendt wrote of the banality of evil. She was struck by the ordinary and even mundane humanity of Eichmann who was recently working as an electrician at a Mercedes factory in Argentina. The architect of such terrible evil was an ordinary little man who didn’t seem different from those around him.
A similar thing can be said of Ward Churchill and his fellow leftists. If media reports can be believed Churchill lives a fairly ordinary upper middle class existence he lives in a large ranch house in a suburban cul-de-sac outside Boulder and drives to work everyday in his pickup truck. * At work he is a fairly ordinary college lecturer who teaches a few classes and participates in the administration of his department. Obviously a nice life but also a boring hum drum existence.
Yet by buying into extreme left wing ideology, Churchill can transform himself into something else. When he dons his leftist cape and cowl Ward Churchill, middle aged chain smoking college professor from Boulder, Colorado, is transformed into Ward Churchill great Indian warrior and brave and bold revolutionary. Churchill becomes a sort of left wing super hero living in a comic bookish alternate reality.
In the alternate universe of Churchill’s comic book ideology; the United States is an evil empire that has long oppressed poor indigenous people and terrorized the world, average middle class Americans are evil Nazis and Christopher Columbus an evil super villain. That’s not any sort of legitimate ideology or philosophy it’s a very sick fantasy.
So what Ward Churchill and a lot of other leftists such as Michael Moore are doing is living out a fantasy. Churchill has dressed up as Che Guevera, he falsely claims to be a Native American and a leading member of the American Indian Movement (which has repudiated him).* Every year he and some fellow activists travel to Downtown Denver and disrupt the local Columbus Day Parade because it celebrates genocide against Indians. He and his ilk have compared the parade marchers, a few elderly and middle aged Italian Americans celebrating their heritage, to the Ku Klux Klan. Obviously, disrupting the Columbus Day parade boosts Churchill’s ego and lets him establish his credentials as an “activist.” It does nothing to help Native Americans or change the world.
The Churchill case demonstrates what makes the Far Left so popular in America today. It allows ordinary people to live out a fantasy of being activists fighting the forces of evil. In other words the Far Left may have more in common with Star Trek fandom or fantasy role playing than a legitimate political movement. A group of bored middle and upper class people dressing up in costumes and acting out a fantasy regardless of the consequences. This explains why people participate in meaningless demonstrations that often hurt the election prospects of liberal candidates.
Is there a danger from this kind of banal fantasy? Yes, there will always be a tiny minority of true believers in such fantasies who will try to make them a reality. Remember Timothy McVeigh he tried to make the sick racist fantasies in the Turner Diaries a reality and killed several hundred people in Oklahoma City? Or Bin Laden he’s certainly living out a sick fantasy of some sort, the little man hiding in the cave in Pakistan believes he’s the leader of Islam and future conqueror of the world.
Churchill, Chomsky and company are no threat to anybody. They’ll never risk their comfortable middle class existence, their nice salaries, big houses, big cars and country club memberships for their beliefs but there will be others probably living on the margins of society who will.
It’s not Ward Churchill we should worry about it’s the Wal-Mart maintenance man who still lives with his mother and has a shelf full of Chomsky and Churchill’s works. When he isn’t reading Churchill, the maintenance man is down in the basement studying old army manuals and practicing his bomb-making skills. Sooner or later this nut will blow up something and kill a bunch of innocent people. Then he’ll be arrested and put on trial for his crimes and start spouting Churchill and Chomsky’s rhetoric and get mad when his heroes don’t show up to defend him.
Yes there is evil to Ward Churchill’s beliefs, the evil of a banal fantasy designed to excite and empower bored bourgeois. Unfortunately Nazism, Communism and Radical Islam are also banal fantasies that appeal to the middle class and those beliefs started wars, inspired terrorism and led to the deaths of millions of innocent people.
The question facing us is how do we stop the banal fantasies of nasty little men like Ward Churchill from turning into an ugly reality?

* “Some People Push Back On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” Ward Churchill, Pockets of Resistance #11, Sept. 2001. Posted at www.darknightpress.org
* “Churchill defiant in face of outcry” Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News Feb. 5, 2005.
* “Prof’s genealogy is sketchy; he offers little clarification” Kevin Flynn Rocky Mountain News Feb. 5, 2005.

I-25

I-25 Plan Bypass Makes Sense
By Daniel G. Jennings
The Front Range Toll Road Company's plan to build a superhighway and rail corridor east of major Front Range cities as an alternative to I-25 makes a great deal of sense.
One of the biggest problems facing Colorado at this time is traffic congestion on major arteries such as I-25. Much of the congestion is caused by big trucks and other through traffic that has no choice but to go right through crowded metropolitan areas such as Denver. I-25 is perhaps the worst example of this, right now someone driving from Albuquerque to reach I-80 at Cheyenne would have to go right through Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Denver on I-25 there is no practical alternative route.
The Front Range Toll Road Company proposes to build such a route east of the Metro areas a super highway and toll road much like E-470. This would get trucks and other traffic out of the metro areas and it would be financed by tolls. Some of the plans call for a rail line along the new highway that would enable trains to bypass the metro areas. This would free up rail lines for use as commuter rail, (the existing tracks between Denver and Pueblo could be used for passenger train service like the Los Angeles Metrolink) or light rail lines and open up parcels now used as rail yards for development.
Critics would claim that such a toll road might promote development further out. The current plan calls for a limited access road surrounded by open space. This would limit development, if the state and county governments were to restrict development around the new highway they could prevent the spread of sprawl. This highway could serve as a development boundary to keep urban sprawl penned in on the Front Range and encourage higher density development. Especially if a growth boundary like those employed in Oregon was set up.
Using tolls to finance the new highway makes a lot of sense as well. Tolls are only paid by those who actually use the road while fuel taxes are paid by all drivers including those who may not use the highways they finance. For example a little old lady who lives in Denver and only drives on the city streets. Why should she have to finance the construction of a new highway to benefit truckers and long distance travelers?
This toll road scheme makes a great deal of sense, unfortunately it isn=t going to happen without the support of the State Legislature and local governments. It will also probably require some sort of statewide vote similar to the one that made T-Rex a reality.
Unfortunately this Toll Road Scheme would require real vision, courage and leadership on the part of Colorado's politicians. That is probably too much to ask for from our so called leaders.

Free Speech

Free Speech in an Age of Terror
By Daniel G. Jennings
What restraints need to be placed upon the right to free speech during the war on terror and how do we protect our nation from terror while preserving the freedom of speech that is our birthright? These are questions we must ask ourselves in particular they are questions raised by the case of Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Right after the Sept. 11 attacks Churchill wrote an essay called “Some People Push Back: On the Price of Roosting Chickens” in which he said the victims in the World Trade Center deserved their fate. He compared the dead at Ground Zero to Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann and wrote that terrorists should attack America with chemical or biological weapons. Churchill has never retracted or disavowed these horrendous statements.
So what should be done to Churchill, should an individual makes such statements be allowed to remain in a public position such as college professor and should the government take action against Churchill? The knee jerk response in our age is that Churchill is guaranteed freedom of speech by the First Amendment so we can’t do anything about him and his antics. Yet given the Sept. 11, atrocity such a response seems too simplistic for our consideration.
Individuals as disparate as University of Colorado Chancellor Phillip De Stephano and David Horowitz, a well known right wing critic of left wing excesses on college campuses have defended Churchill’s right to free speech. Horowitz has gone so far as to say that Churchill’s right to a job is guaranteed by the First Amendment because his speech is political. A judgment that seems to be out of pace with the times.
The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of the speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Obviously the First Amendment doesn’t state that those with unpopular political opinions are guaranteed employment. The amendment is so vague that it gives us little guidance in these matters. So it is up to us, our elected political leaders, our lawyers and our judges to interpret it or reinterpret it to meet the needs of our age.
The primary needs of our age are to protect the nation and its people from terrorism and protect the rights of the citizens at the same time. This is where the case of Ward Churchill gets so tricky.
Churchill is openly praising the actions of our nation’s deadliest enemies and claiming that their crimes are justified. Yet there is no evidence that he is actively participating in terrorist activities or helping the terrorists in any way, shape or form. So how should Churchill be treated and what are the limits of his speech?
Perhaps the best standard is that the great Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes came up with during World War I. Holmes’ prescription accepted by the court, was that the right to freedom of speech ended when the speech started causing actual physical harm. Holmes’ example of prohibited speech was a man yelling fire in a crowded theater when there was no blaze and causing a panic in which people might be hurt. A person has no right to free speech when their speech has no merit and harms others.
So we have to ask ourselves has Churchill done harm with his speech? Well he hasn’t helped the terrorists or their cause or hurt the national war on terror.
Yet his speech has harmed the University of Colorado at Boulder and its students and faculty. Churchill’s ignorant ravings have certainly hurt the university, they’ve given it a bad name and the reputations of legitimate scholars and hardworking professors on the school’s faculty have been harmed. The University, its students and faculty may also be in physical danger from Churchill’s antics. Some deranged individual angry at terrorism and Churchill’s apologies for it might attack the CU Boulder campus with a gun or bomb. Obviously the campus administration has an obligation to protect their people from such an attack. Churchill has done a great deal of damage with his moronic and irresponsible behavior. It is apparent that Ward Churchill is not a responsible individual and doesn’t deserve his position of trust at CU Boulder.
If Churchill was operating in a vacuum where his speech and actions had no effect there would be no discussion here. Nor would this have been much of an issue ten years ago when terrorism wasn’t regarded as a major threat to America and Americans. Unfortunately, terrorism is the major issue on our agenda, especially after the death and destruction done on Sept. 11.
The Churchill affair challenges us to ask whether we should restrict freedom of speech in the terror war and if so how much? Civil liberties absolutists will say there is no cause to take such actions but I can think of many scenarios in which freedom of speech will have to give way for the common good.
What happens if a journalist or news outlet starts publishing or broadcasting the details of investigations into terrorism, the secret methods and details of military operations or intelligence work or the names of agents or informants? Putting agents, informants or military personnel in the field and innocent civilians in danger. Or if a journalist or other public figure begins claiming that there is no threat from terrorism when the threat is real putting the public in danger? What if a public figure starts exposing secret information that helps terrorists? Or if a news outlet begins running stories falsely branding large numbers of Arab Americans terrorists and deliberately encouraging racist hysteria?
Shouldn’t the government have the power to stop such reprehensible actions and punish those responsible? Yet giving the government such power would limit our freedoms and violate the First Amendment. Unfortunately it might be necessary to do so to protect the nation and its citizens from harm in this terrible age.
I’m not comfortable thinking along these lines but in these terrible times we have no choice but to consider these unthinkable scenarios. If we do we might be able to find ways to balance our freedom and our need for security. Perhaps we should thank Ward Churchill for challenging us to think along these lines?