>Audie Bock, the new Green Assembly representative from Cal. has a >question for us. She asked, about transit issues. She quotes: "I have >the impression that mass transit and highway planning are treated as two >separate and distinct issues. I believe that when planning our highways >in California we could incorporate mass transit. What is the economic >feasibility of providing genuine mass transit throughout California? >Should we, as legislators view these items as interrelated from an >economic standpoint?" > >-- > >Michael Perelman >Economics Department >California State University >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Chico, CA 95929 >530-898-5321 >fax 530-898-5901 How willing is she to promote the tear-down of blocks of bungalows in Berkeley and their replacement with five-story apartment buildings, or to promote the tear-down of large houses in Palo Alto and their replacement with townhouses? Mass transit seems to require much higher densities than we have at present in California--even largely-urban California, outside of a very few regions. And the currently chi-chi forms of mass transit--light rail a la BART--appear, as best I can judge, to suck down huge amounts of money that could be better spent on more busses and bus lanes. But it's not my field. And land-use and transit planning is genuinely very hard... Brad DeLong -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- "Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing the quantity theory of money] is probably true.... But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. **In the long run** we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." --J.M. Keynes -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- J. Bradford De Long; Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley; Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives. Dept. of Economics, U.C. Berkeley, #3880 Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 phones (510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 faxes http://econ161.berkeley.edu/ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
