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Willard Spiegelman’s Guide to Driver’s License Renewals

The good professor Willard Spiegelman brings us a lesson today about renewing one’s driver’s license. For some solid reader service, jump like Fosbury.

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Leading Off (11/13/09)

1. Our good friend from California, Lazy Man, should be happy: North Texas is apparently being punished for having tollways. Side note: Which of these stories, on the same subject, would you be more likely to read: One in which Dallas-Fort Worth leaders ”face funding roadblocks” or one in which Dallas-Fort Worth is  ”getting shafted on road projects” ? Doesn’t the Star-T win that headline battle in a walk?

2. Another week, another study ranking our relative economic strength against other metropolitan areas nationwide. This time the Milken Institute puts us at No. 13. That’s right behind Fort Worth (yes, they dared to separate the twins) at No. 12. And neither of us even make the top five in the state of Texas. Killeen and McAllen even finish ahead of us. The rankings claim to be based on job, wage, and technology growth.

3. Joel Miller of McKinney is hungry. He hasn’t eaten all month, and doesn’t plan to eat until Thanksgiving. The pastor is facing some of the same temptations that plagued Jesus during his 40 days in the wilderness. It’s like a passage straight out of the Gospel of Luke: “One day the distinct smell of bacon struck him, despite the lack of a breakfast joint in the area, and another saw a tray full of free sandwiches paraded before his eyes.” Somebody, please, take the man some food.

Reviving Biofueler Plans Dallas Locations

Never underestimate the ability of businesspeople to reinvent themselves. Case in point: the folks behind Dallas’ Evolution Fuels Inc. (formerly Earth Biofuels), best-known for co-owning Willie’s Place at Carl’s Corner Truckstop near Hillsboro. After nearly going bankrupt two years ago as the biofuels market was skidding downhill, the company says it has paid off tens of millions of dollars in debt and will focus now on selling “mid-range ethanol blends” at retail fueling stations/convenience stores.

Kit Chambers, Evolution’s executive VP, says the outfit has signed letters of intent to open two Dallas stores–at Travis/Knox and Lemmon/Oak Lawn–and is aiming to acquire other fueling stations in Alabama and Mississippi. In addition, says Kit (pictured), a new entity called Evolution Resources will launch soon with an ambitious plan to “repurpose existing assets to produce cellulosic ethanol.”

Guess it all makes sense. While the biofuels biz in general has had its problems, ethanol is one biofuel segment that the government seems intent on propping up.

American Airlines Flight Attendants to Stage Mock Strikes This Month

This, apparently, is in advance of getting permission to have real strikes.

Quick two-part question: How is a mock strike different than a real strike? Follow-up: Can you explain that again?

Is Dallas Primed for a Revolution?

On the first full week of every month, I get the pleasure of broadcasting with Adriana Bate on WRR for about a half hour from One Arts. Now that we’ve moved our offices downtown, that means I get to walk down Flora Street for our 11 o’clock date every day. My trip takes me past the Nasher, the Meyerson, the Winspear, and the Wyly. It’s lovely, especially when the weather is as nice as it is today. But I’ve been studying something on my walk that has caught my eye before: the cobblestones (or bricks, really) that pave the sidewalk. In front of the Meyerson, they are a wreck. Some are missing. Many have become dislodged. We don’t get much practice here in the United States, but over in Europe, where they’ve been at it a bit longer, they know that cobblestones make perfect projectiles to throw in times of revolution. All I’m saying is, if the workers rise up and clash with the police down in the Arts District, the police are in for a tough fight.

Warren Buffet Goes All-in With BNSF Purchase

Mega-investor Warren Buffet used gambling terminology in describing his $34 billion purchase of Fort Worth-based railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe: “Most important of all, however, it’s an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States,” said Mr. Buffett. “I love these bets.”

It certainly seems like heartening news when the country’s second-richest man is willing to continue playing his hand. But am I the only one who gets nervous when our entire economic system is likened to a poker game?

Gary Kelly’s Costume: Dorothy From Oz

The Nuts About Southwest blog today answers  my question from yesterday: CEO Gary Kelly is off to see the wizard, and then presumably Milwaukee, where the airline is launching flights this weekend.

Note to Woodall Rodgers Park Blog: Get to Blogging!

This weekend Woodall Rodgers will again be closed to demolish another bridge. We can watch this activity from our 21st-floor windows, high atop St. Paul Place. It’s been interesting. So this morning I checked in on Common Ground, the blog for the Woodall Park, to see what was what. Maybe some pics. I don’t know. But something.

We’re all struggling to do more with less. It’s hard to keep blog populated with good content when there are other matters demanding your attention. But the last post on Common Ground, as of 9:54 this morning, was from October 25, announcing that Woodall Rodgers had just reopened. Let’s go, people. Ask Fingers of Fury to help out, if necessary. I’m sure he could throw you a few words.

Rookie Dallas Police Officer Makes Up An Offense, Charges Awesomely Named Lady With It

The charge: being a non-English speaking driver.

The lady: 48-year-old Ernestina Mondragon.

Glenn Hunter Is a Big, Fat Liar

The sprinkler system in our office just went off because Glenn Hunter’s pants are on fire. A source is telling me that he took DART to work this morning, even though he said he would stay off their trains. WTF, Fire Pants?

Troy Aikman to Pimp for Katy Trail

Tomorrow from 6 to 7 p.m., Troy Aikman will be hanging out on the Katy Trail to kick off the Friends of the Katy Trail’s first-ever membership drive. Laura, that sounds like your beat, runner woman.

Experiment in Good Urbanism Goes Bad; Or, Why I Won’t Be Taking DART Anymore

Krista, I hate piling on a person or an agency when they’re down, but I’ve got another big bone to pick with DART. Here it is: Like a good little fledgling urbanite, I vowed to make a habit of taking the light rail from home to our new downtown offices–and did so last week. The upshot? The very first day I parked the family vehicle at the White Rock transit station–less than a mile from our house in Merriman Park–criminals ripped away at the passenger-door lock, ransacked the car and made off with a bunch of stuff, including the entire center-console bin. This, after I’d parked outside our house in our driveway every night for the last 9-plus years–and never had the car touched once. Now, I’m aware this sign looms over the White Rock park and ride facility: “Not Responsible for Theft or Damage to Vehicles.” But I’m sorry; that ain’t good enough. Why shouldn’t DART have to secure its parking facilities for its paying customers? Until it does, I’m staying off their trains and out of their lots.

Leading Off, No. 3, Ctd.

Tim, you’re right to be skeptical about DART’s sudden about-face on the bus deal. To me it’s all about a win-win for Mayor Tom Terrific: If and when he does run for higher office, his green bona fides (as per this arrangement) will be beyond reproach; plus, it won’t hurt for Leppert to have ‘ol deep-pockets Boone in his corner. While I guess it makes sense to support compressed natural gas when the Barnett Shale’s in your backyard, should that be the deciding factor? Besides diesel’s advantage on bus cost, the executive director of the Maryland-based Diesel Technology Forum points out that there’s an “infinitesimal” difference between clean diesel and natural gas in terms of air pollution. Allen Schaeffer also notes the big-time “retrofitting” costs for natural-gas bus systems, and says that 80 percent of new-bus orders nationally are going the clean-diesel route. Then he adds this kicker: Transit decisions in favor of natural gas are inevitably “influenced by ‘deals’ arranged with the gas suppliers … when in many cases the economics are not favorable” for the natural-gas option. Could that have anything to do with DART’s new fuzzy math?

Baggage Fees Weigh Down American Airlines

Southwest Airlines has stuck to its guns, refusing to charge customers fees for checking bags. I’m amused by the subtlety of the dig they take at other air carriers with their “Grab Your Bag. It’s On” campaign.

But are they leaving money on the table, money that passengers have shown they’re  willing to pay? In September the airlines reported a 275% growth in revenue from bag fees in the second quarter this year compared to last year. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars more.

But Portfolio.com looked deeper and found that the two major airlines that don’t charge baggage fees — including Southwest — actually performed better revenue-wise than did those that charged fees. Look how they compare to Dallas-Fort Worth’s other big dog:

American Airlines, for example, generated an industry-leading $118.4 million in bag fees during the second quarter, a 219 percent year-over-year jump, says the BTS. Yet its total revenue in the second quarter dropped 20.9 percent to $4.88 billion from $6.17 billion in 2008’s second quarter …

Just as in the first quarter, the only carriers to keep their second-quarter revenue declines in single digits were the two airlines that still permit free checked bags. Southwest was down 8.8 percent

So you tell me: Have passengers “accepted” these fees?

Something I Think We Can All Get Behind: New On-Road Restrictions on Cell Phones

I know some people (*cough*TreyGarrison*cough*) will cry “nanny state!” when discussion turns to the push to restrict cell phone usage while at the wheel, at the state and federal level. NOT ME. If I had a nickel for every time someone repeatedly swerves into my lane and, when I catch up to that person, I notice they have a phone pressed to their ear or, more often, their head pointing down toward the blue glow of a text message, I would have approximately 4,090,518,641 nickels. I think you would agree that is a ton of nickels. It’s like the entirety of Coit Road is an AT&T commercial. Also, they’re paying so little attention to the road, they fail to see even one of my extended middle fingers, let alone both.

Carty Optimistic on Virgin America Capital Plan

Don Carty, the ex-AMR CEO who’s now chairman of Virgin America, which was founded by Sir Richard Branson, says he’s “confident” the feds will OK a new investment group for the discount airline. Approval is important for Virgin, which targets business travelers, because it’s been dogged by controversy since two big U.S. hedge funds sold their 76 percent stake in the airline earlier this year. Virgin rivals say that means the California-based carrier is really controlled by Branson’s Virgin Group Ltd., which would be a violation of rules against foreign ownership of domestic airlines. So, is there a timetable for the U.S. Transportation Department to OK Virgin’s new shareholders? “God only knows,” Carty (pictured) joked last night, hosting a party for a local nonprofit at his home in Dallas. DOT’s plate is “pretty full” right now, he added, including with a pending decision on the American Airlines/British Airways alliance.

From the Great Headlines Department

An alert FBvian draws our attention to this story on NBC Channel 5’s website. It ain’t so much the story, which isn’t local, but the headline. The one on the website right now reads: “Self-Loving Trucker Flips Rig, Loses Load.” But check the URL. You can tell someone made the headline writer tone it down a bit. The original was: “Masturbating Trucker Flips Rig, Loses Load.” [standing, clapping] There are a couple gems in the story itself, too.

Party Over the Trinity on Friday

This Friday evening, the Trinity Trust Foundation is throwing what it’s calling a “bridge fair” on the Continental Bridge to celebrate the progress being made on the Marget Hunt Hill Bridge (full release after the jump). Santiago Calatrava will be in attendance. The band Boys Named Sue will play, and the foundation promises other “delectable delights.” Tickets cost $150, a price point established, I believe, to keep Jim Schutze from attending. D Magazine is a media sponsor, so I’ll be there. Look for me wherever the delectable delights are located.

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Willard Spiegelman: “I’m No Tollway Scofflaw!”

Sweet, long-suffering readers of the “print product” are familiar with the name Willard Spiegelman, the bow-tie-wearing SMU professor who regularly writes for us. Well, the good professor has gotten himself crosswise with the NTTA. He seeks advice, after the jump.

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Dept. of Bad Taste: TxDot’s New License Plates

Until the new plates arrived in the mail for the lovely and talented Christine Allison’s new car, I didn’t know that Texas had decided to redesign them. Oh, I had noticed them on other cars here and there, but I thought that those were just car owners with bad taste. Unfortunately, the bad taste is meant to spread over the entire state. In changing the license plates from old-style printing to digital production,  someone at TxDot decided to redesign the plates from scratch. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a good redesign. But my rule is, if you’re going to design something, it’s usually a good idea to hire a designer. It’s an even better idea to have people with good taste and design experience serve on the selection committee for the final choice. TxDot did neither. In fact, it ordered up several new versions (from employees, I take it, since nobody is credited) and put the options up for a vote on the internet. The result is one more argument against democracy. 

The old license plates had the benefit of not being obtrusive. They also had a nice suggestion of irony, playing with the Texas myth while playing on it. But irony is a subtle instrument. In the linoleum halls of the world’s largest buyer of concrete, subtlety is probably not top of mind.

As for me, I’m going to blame it all on Rick Perry.

A Handful of Not Great But Possibly Edifying Photos From Today’s Inaugural Ride on the Green Line

After the jump, you’ll get what the headline promises. And captions, which weren’t promised, but were probably implied.

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Leading Off (9/11/09)

1. The Green Line rail opens four stops on Monday, including Deep Ellum and the South Dallas area near Fair Park. People hope it will help revitalize these areas. Spoiler alert: It will help once these areas are revitalized. Sorry to break it to you.

2. Dallas’ longest-running creepy HBO drama, The Clergy, has clearly jumped the shark. I mean, a stockbroker-priest scandal? Ridiculous.

3. And congrats to the Midlothian middle-schooler who saved a classmate who was choking on a chocolate muffin. And now, please fill the comments holding bin with immature comments that will make me giggle before I delete them.

Rod Dreher: Airline (May Have) Lied to Me

The estimable Rod Dreher is taking on American Airlines this morning, saying the Fort Worth-based airline shafted him on the price of a ticket change. Now that Rod’s post has appeared, wonder how long it will take for AA to have a change of heart and cough up the dough it allegedly promised?

Dallas-Houston Bullet Train: Economics Brawl!

Is a high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston practical?  In a four-part series for the New York Times, Harvard professor Edward L. Glaeser used the example of a possible Dallas-Houston line to do his back-of-the-envelope calculations on whether it is worth the money. His conclusion: as much as he would like to be pro-rail, the cost-benefit ratio doesn’t justify it. Economist Robert Samuelson then used Glaeser’s numbers to denounce high-speed rail as a “boondogle”  in the Washington Post, a piece that was quickly attacked by economics writer Ryan Anent as a “hack job.”

On Tuesday, transportation researcher Yonah Freemark delivered another sharp rebuttal to Glaeser:

The problem is that–through a sorry mix of omission, oversimplification, distortion, and deficiency–his calculations bear no relation to the effects he is claiming to consider. So it’s important to show that “the numbers” do not at all undermine the viability of HSR in the US, even outside the northeast and California. In fact, they tend to support it.

Using projected population figures for 2019 (it would take ten years to build the line), Freemark concludes the only rational conclusion is to “build, baby, build.”

Yesterday, George Mason economist Tyler Cowen took a pencil to Freemark’s numbers, and did not like what he found:

I’m not sure what discount rates he is using but even if we put that problem aside this screams out: don’t do it.  Given irreversible investment, lock-in effects, and required hurdle rates of return, this still falls into the “no” category.  And that’s an estimate from an advocate writing a polemic on behalf of the idea.  I’m not even considering the likelihood of inflation on the cost side or the public choice problems with getting a good rather than a bad version of the project.  How well has the Northeast corridor been run?

We link. You decide.

Cool DART Time-Lapse Video of Green Line Art

In the current issue of the “print product,” the lovely Laura Kostelny brought us a ditty about Brad Oldham and Brandon Oldenburg, who’ve built an enormous sculpture for DART’s Green Line Deep Ellum stop called Traveling Man. You loved Laura’s piece, didn’t you? (Name of my next band: Lovely Laura’s Piece.) Well, then you’ll love this cool video produced by DART, showing the skin going up on the sculpture (which was shown naked in our magazine).