Lucas Oil Stadium walkable? Round 3, here we go.

by selxic on Feb 11, 2012 2:04 pm • link • report

"Cities should pay more?: Two rural Maryland state state senators want to make urban areas of the state pay more tax in order to fund transit."

The implied (but delusional) message from these guys is clear: we don't want to pay for your infrastructure.

The reality is: urban areas subsidize rural infrastructure. If these two guys don't want to pay for Balto-area transit, fine. But then Balto-area residents shouldn't have to pay for all the lavish road, highway, and bridge improvements that rural Maryland has enjoyed ever since WWII. Could the Eastern Shore pay for its state highways all by itself? Doubt it.

Isn't one of these guys - Colburn - a rabid secessionist? I wonder how well the Eastern Shore would do if it was cut off the subsidy teat (the rest of Maryland)?

by Marc on Feb 12, 2012 5:54 pm • link • report

@Marc, Perhaps what you say happens in other states, but in MD there's a long history of highway money going disproportionatelyto Baltimore. To the point that DC's MD suburbs have loudly complained that while it provided the bulk of tax revenue it couldn't get the state to even fund the ICC.

by Lance on Feb 13, 2012 12:06 am • link • report

I for one am grateful that Metro knows it can and should close the entrance to a Metro station when it is dangerously overcrowded. Now they need to do that at Gallery Place/Chinatown.

by rdhd on Feb 13, 2012 8:05 am • link • report

@Lance
Perhaps the money goes disproportionately to Baltimore at the expense of the DC suburbs which are still urban on the urban/rural divide. However I am sure rural Maryland, like all rural counties everywhere in the US get more money for roads then they contribute.

I suspect if the money was proportionately divided Baltimore would get less, DC suburbs more, and rural areas a lot less.

by bathaniel on Feb 13, 2012 8:32 am • link • report

@Lance: The Eastern Shore and other parts of rural (i.e. not urban or suburban) Maryland have a very short memory when it comes to roadway welfare: Before Willie Don raised their outrage by calling them an outhouse, wasn't the Eastern Shore thrilled with the myriad road-widening programs he lavished upon them?

As with all other kinds of infrastructure, the wealth accumulated in built-up areas is always used to subsidize improvements in rural (yet to be built-up) areas. If it wasn't for various 20th century federal and state programs, most rural areas in Maryland (and the rest of the country) would still be struggling to get by without electricity, modern bridges, and paved roads. That was what rural life was like before we started transferring infrastructural welfare there.

Wealth transferred from urban/suburban areas made it possible for non-farmers to live an urban lifestyle in a rural setting even though many of these folks still fancy themselves living a "rural lifestyle." If Colburn + Edward's attitude reflects a rural consensus, then it seems these folks don't want to pay the bills for their costly "rural lifestyle" privilege, preferring instead to accuse the Balto and DC areas of unfairly taking "their money."

by Marc on Feb 13, 2012 10:18 am • link • report

Ahhh...the Indianapolis Walk-ability story.

As a native, I'm so glad my hometown is getting such positive reviews. However, outside of the (quite small, really) downtown area, it is the furthest thing from walkable.

The public transportation infrastructure is some of the worst I've ever experienced (a large source of the problem is the general lack of It). Buses are intermittent and scattered, routes are difficult to navigate. A commuter rail line to a populous northern suburb has been stalled in the planning stages for years. And the only way to get to and from the airport, aside from drive-and-park, is to take a taxi. (Which is fine if you're a visitor; frustrating if a resident.)

So let's not get too congratulatory about Indianapolis's pedestrian-friendly design. They're onto some good things in a few places (aside from downtown, Mass Ave, Broadripple and Fountain Square are good, walkable neighborhoods...but getting from one to the other is a bit troublesome), but need much, much more.

(One of the phrases I heard from folks over and over is that the Super Bowl is nothing compared to the largest single-day sporting event -- the Indy 500. The Speedway is NOT walkable or transit accessible, for what it's worth. Perhaps that's a point that should be reconsidered.)

(Also, Lucas Oil is walkable in terms of distance, but much of it is surrounded by surface parking and old industrial infrastructure. Some in-fill development would be nice, and do much to improve the walk in practice. Also -- walkable from where? Downtown hotels and a few (very few) residential neighborhoods. Not your average game attendee. Hence all the surface parking.)

by Elle on Feb 13, 2012 10:34 am • link • report

I think Marc and bathaniel have it right.

The NY Times just printed an excellent article on the transfer of taxes nationally from urban to rural states. I think the same distribution pattern from urban to rural also occurs within states.

Over in Virginia the State government has for years drained transportation tax dollars from the wealthy DC suburbs to fund projects throughout the state. Apparently this has occurred to such an extent that the General Assembly passed a special measure allowing the DC suburban counties to raise a new commercial property Add-on tax to replace the taxes the state had appropriated away from them!

Nowadays Virginia is enraptured with the idea of building toll roads with excess tolls collected to fund additional transportation needs. Clearly the majority of tolls collected from these roads will come, again, from the DC suburbs. But don't get your hopes up that these dollars will be used fund needs here at home. The state has said taxes collected will not necessarily be spent locally. My guess is they will not.

by JeffB on Feb 13, 2012 10:45 am • link • report

JeffB is absolutely correct. While the General Assembly is busy creating new regulations on abortion and voter ID requirements, the people in NOVA are fuming that nothing is being done about the far more pressing problem of transportation. I think the next election will be less about Dems vs. Repubs and more about NOVA vs. Rest of VA. Already, we've seen the NOVA county governments (Ds and Rs) band together to fight road devolution which will cost NOVA taxpayers millions in lost state funding.

by Falls Church on Feb 13, 2012 11:07 am • link • report

@Elle
The story definitely was from a perspective of someone who was visiting and staying downtown rather than a local. Also Lucas Oil field seems to have less surface parking than most NFL stadiums. I think it even has less than RFK. Is it objectively some urbanist paradise? No, but it fares much better than most.

And as hard as it is to make a football stadium part of a walkable urban environment, it is not nearly the challenge of doing so with a 2.5 mile oval (the golf course doesn't really help either). Walkable, urban race tracks are pretty much confined to street course races in areas where it's already urban and walkable (like the Baltimore Grand Prix in the Inner Harbor). Indianapolis should have better mass transit, but I have a hard time imagining a feasible mass transit system that could serve a significant portion of race day traffic. I think your best bet is encouraging motor coaches (which as I recall there were a ton of the last time I went in the mid 90s) and running special shuttle service from key locations. But I imagine at that point you are just running either something between park and ride and a remote parking lot service.

by Steven Yates on Feb 13, 2012 11:17 am • link • report

@Steven

I totally agree to all of your points, and again, don't fault any of the authors of these celebratory articles TOO much.

Indy is a GREAT convention/event city. Truly.

But the things it's being lauded for only really serve tourists, and I suppose that's the point I was trying to make.

by Elle on Feb 13, 2012 12:02 pm • link • report

Elle, wrt Indianapolis, would you mind sending me an email to richard@bicyclepass.com ? Thanks.

by Richard Layman on Feb 13, 2012 1:40 pm • link • report

Having been to the Indy 500, I actually thought the event was fairly pedestrian-friendly in a sort of college football, park-the-cars-on-the-front-lawn-and-tailgate sort of way. The streets were overwhelmed with pedestrians, the sheer volume and distance required to walk from where you parked to the track makes for quite a throng of people (as one would expect from an event that draws 400,000 people at once).

by Alex B. on Feb 13, 2012 1:48 pm • link • report