Roads
"No more cars" vs. "not more cars"
Advocates for more walkable, bikeable, and transit-oriented places often face criticism that we "hate cars." Gary Imhoff assumes that "nothing makes [me] angrier than automobiles." And on yesterday's thread about "green" companies giving away gas and parking, Fritz wrote, "The majority of residents of the DC Metro Area aren't like you. It's perhaps the greatest weakness among the anti-car brigades on this website: the near impossibility of recognizing that not everyone wants to walk or bike as their main mode of transportation."
Photo by lizjones112.
These responses rest on a logical fallacy. I've advocated for new development to minimize auto dependence. But many take that to mean that everyone ought to travel by train, bus, bike or foot. However, new living patterns need not resemble existing living patterns. New residents won't necessarily interact with communities in the exact same way as existing residents. We don't need to get rid of cars. What we need is to avoid adding many new cars.
Call it "low-traffic growth." Our population is growing, and our region will inevitably grow. The question facing leaders and planners is how and where that growth should take place. In the absence of infill and transit expansion, that growth will happen in Fauquier and Frederick Counties, in West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and southern Maryland. If people live there, they'll have to drive long distances, which means they will contribute more cars and more traffic.
Or, most new housing could add infill development to areas close to jobs and to transit. We could bring in new residents who don't commute by driving. That will enable the region to have more people, more jobs, and more revenue without more traffic. In DC, Arlington, Alexandria, southern Montgomery County, and other fully built-out areas, there just isn't room for more roads. We can either grow without adding traffic, as Arlington has so successfully done on the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, or see our roadways grow more and more gridlocked, lowering the appeal of jobs in our region.
We are in the middle of a paradigm shift in the design of our communities. The sprawl model of development that predominated for sixty years isn't sustainable and, more importantly, no longer what the market wants. Prices in established walkable neighborhoods are sky-high while nearby walkable neighborhoods are gentrifying rapidly. We have enough single-family homes for the next 20 years; in fact, nationwide, analysts predict we'll have 22 million too many.
There's nothing evil about wanting to live in a house with a yard and a picket fence. Some government policies may unfairly subsidize that form of living with cheap infrastructure, but it's still a totally valid way to live. It's just that there are lots of those houses. Meanwhile, there aren't enough condos and row houses in walkable neighborhoods. Many families want to live in them, but can't. But even without the families, there isn't enough supply.
Between empty nesters living longer and young people waiting longer to have children, the proportion of childless households is rising rapidly. As Christopher Leinberger explains, 50% of households had children in 1950, but only 33% do today. And in the next 20 years, only 12% of the additional households will have children. While there are 22 million too many "large lot" houses for 2025, there are 56 million too few "small lot" and attached (row house and apartment) dwellings for expected demand. If we spent the next generation building nothing but walkable urban development, there would still not be enough of it.
Sure, many singles in studio apartments will get married and move into two-bedroom condos, then have kids and move into single-family detached houses. But empty nesters will move out of houses and into apartments at an equivalent rate to the parents moving in, and new college grads will move here faster than couples with children will go to suburbs. Plus, many of the parents will stay in their walkable communities and raise their families there.
When Fritz wrote, "The majority of residents of the DC metro area aren't like you," he's missing the point. The majority of existing residents do drive to work. That doesn't mean the majority of new residents must as well. When Imhoff writes that "Bicycling and long-distance walks are the preferences of small minorities" to justify car-centric public policy in new development, he's making two unspoken assumptions. First, he's assuming that just because bicycling represents a small percentage of mode share today means that it always will. It's growing extremely rapidly. Second, he assumes that new residents will inevitably live the way he does, and so if he prefers to drive, so will they. But we already know, from the demographic data, that the relative proportions of people who move to the DC area in the next twenty years won't resemble those who moved here in the last twenty or the twenty before that.
Tom Coumaris recently suggested the phrase "no more cars," which I misinterpreted at first to mean "get rid of cars," but which he meant as "no additional cars." In effect, what advocates for livable and walkable communities want is "not more cars"
David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater. 
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So true. Most people don't understand the "no more cars" concept. They think you either have the opinion that "cars are bad" or "cars are good". This point needs to be made clear to those people.
by Justin from ReadysetDC on Aug 11, 2009 12:15 pm • link • report
Advocating for alternatives to cars does not mean it has to be bad for cars: every less car on the road makes it easier for every other car user, and is one extra parking space at your destination.
by SJE on Aug 11, 2009 12:44 pm • link • report
Thus, even if you can walk to work (and I do), and can take the Metro for most errands (and I do), there are still the majority of adults who want to own a car for reasons that go far beyond basic transportation. In fact, not only do we want to simply own a car, we want a new car, with all the bells and whistles.
You may disagree with this as a way to live one's life and manage one's money, but you can't disagree that this is how American society, today, works, and a government that serves the people, should at least realize this and make some accomodation for the fact that car ownership and driving is a major part of American culture and has been since even before WWII, the interstates, and the growth of the suburbs.
To me, there is no greater evidence of this then the "cash for clunkers" program. Even with the government rebate, it doesn't make much financial sense for most people to trade in a paid-off used car in exchange for a financed new car, especially during a recession. Yet, the program reached capacity in, what, less then a week? I drove by a few dealers this weekend and every lot was packed with people looking at cars. Even people who don't qualify for the program are out there looking at new cars.
Walking, biking, taking the train simply does not have a hold on the American public the way the car does.
The automobile is America. America is the automobile.
Trying to use the government policies to change a culture so ingrained in the American public is a recipe for nothing more than frustration.
by metronic on Aug 11, 2009 12:49 pm • link • report
by Paz on Aug 11, 2009 12:59 pm • link • report
by David Alpert on Aug 11, 2009 1:03 pm • link • report
by J.D. Hammond on Aug 11, 2009 1:08 pm • link • report
There's nothing evil about wanting to live in a house with a yard and a picket fence. Some government policies may unfairly subsidize that form of living with cheap infrastructure, but it's still a totally valid way to live. It's just that there are lots of those houses. Meanwhile, there aren't enough condos and row houses in walkable neighborhoods. Many families want to live in them, but can't. But even without the families, there isn't enough supply.
Is exactly something that I was thinking about last night, about how current (read legacy) residents complain about new multiunit housing being different in neighborhoods from what exists (single family either attached or detached), without recognizing (1) their bias for only providing single family detached/attached housing as a bias and (2) their failure to acknowledge this as a bias for a certain type of housing and (3) their failure to consider/provide for/accommodate a greater variety of housing types and household types within neighborhoods and the city generally.
Nice post. Even if most people won't be able to step back and consider their automobile-centric mobility and lifestyle paradigm.
by Richard Layman on Aug 11, 2009 1:10 pm • link • report
It seems to me that 100 years ago that statement might have been, "The train is America. America is the train."
Yet it was government policies in the post-war years that changed the culture of transportation, housing and development that had been so ingrained in the American public.
You may be frustrated by efforts to curb the dominance of automobiles in urban or urbanizing environments, but I'm frustrated every time I'm forced to get behind the wheel of a car (mostly when I'm home in Minnesota visiting my family). In fact, I moved to DC specifically to avoid ever having to drive a car again! I much prefer walking or taking public transportation to get wherever I need to go.
My motto is "if I can only get there by car, it's not a place worth going to." A value judgement, to be sure, but it's one that works for me!
In anticipation of the comments about "imposing my lifestyle on others" and being in "a very, very small minority" (gosh, those sound like the same comments I get from my homophobic relatives!), I offer these statements:
1) I recognize that not everyone wants my lifestyle, and I'm glad that there are those who don't, or I'd be priced out of my neighborhood, but 2) based on the supply and demand numbers David Alpert is citing, I'm certainly not in a very small minority of people who want to live without dependence on a car.
by David T on Aug 11, 2009 1:11 pm • link • report
But I agree with David. The automobile is not America. America is not the automobile. America is much, much more than the car. And most importantly, in the face of an impending 70s-esque energy situation, you'd better hope America can get over this car dependency.
Because the only reason gas prices have dropped recently is because demand has dropped due to the recession. And when the economy starts to recover, so will gas prices. And that might just keep the economy from recovering.
The fact of the matter is that our gas habit is unsustainable. If we don't start working on alternatives, we'll find ourself up a creek without a paddle. Or perhaps, a better analogy would be: stuck on the freeway with no gas.
by Matt Johnson on Aug 11, 2009 1:12 pm • link • report
They do, it is the Federal Employee transit subsidy, which covers most, if not all, transit cost. It would be interesting to see what will happen if that was cut and changes in Metro ridership.
by RJ on Aug 11, 2009 1:17 pm • link • report
If the Feds extended their transit benefits to non-employees, what do you think Metro's ridership would be like?
by Alex B. on Aug 11, 2009 1:20 pm • link • report
by Eileen Boswell on Aug 11, 2009 1:38 pm • link • report
The funny thing about his post is how defensive it is, as if pedestrian, bicycle and transit advocates were attacking him personally.
by rg on Aug 11, 2009 1:39 pm • link • report
But speaking of fallacies, let's talk about David's argument that there's a huge pent-up demand for condos and townhouses in walkable neighborhoods. I would include most of downtown DC as being a walkable neighborhood (numerous Metro bus and subway options; regular bikes and Smart Bikes; taxi cabs; etc.). So under David's argument, there should be very few empty condo buildings because of the paradigm shift that is occurring right now as I type.
And yet there's a whole lot of empty condos and empty, brand-spanking new (and with all sorts of green upgrades) apartments on the real estate market. I believe the stats are that we have something like a year's worth of demand in current condo inventories, with a bunch of condo projects canceled b/c of lack of interest.
And I also have to laugh at the argument that "no more cars" really means "no more additional cars." When this site has constant proposals and ideas to make car ownership more expensive, more burdensome, more challenging, and more complicated, I don't think that's being done in an attempt at making it tougher for future residents' cars. It's being done for the same reason that we increase taxes on cigarettes: because our policymakers have decided that a particular activity is bad, and therefore rather than banning it outright, we simply make it incredibly expensive to partake in. And that's perfectly legitimate public policy, so long as it's honestly explained for what it is, rather than being couched in Orwellian doublespeak ("we're not making it more expensive for you to own a car; we're just giving you more options").
There's a constant hostility on this site to people who use cars as their main mode of transportation, who choose to live out in the suburbs, and who exhibit other sorts of pre-paradigm shifting mentality. And that's fine since, as Richard Layman points out, it's what happens when people can't step back and consider their own biases and lifestyle paradigms.
by Fritz on Aug 11, 2009 1:44 pm • link • report
guilty as charged.
thankfully, a good percentage of us really do hate cars with the core of our beings, and some of us are unapologetic about it. many of us who hate cars still need to use them once in a while, but we don't apologize for the damage they do to our society day in and day out. what would be the basis for that?
i can only guess that the reason some people feel compelled to apologize for cars is that they really don't believe that cars and car culture are as destructive as they actually are. or maybe they're just afraid of a little criticism. how intentionally ignorant must one be, or how servile must one be, to grovel at the feet of car culture? seems a bit demented and sad.
we need a modern-day abolition movement to make illegitimate cars and car culture once and for all.
by Peter Smith on Aug 11, 2009 1:49 pm • link • report
Huh, not talking about Cash for Clunkers.
I bet if they did, the ridership would soar. But that is just a bet with decent odds, but no one really knows if it will big or small.
by RJ on Aug 11, 2009 1:56 pm • link • report
by MPC on Aug 11, 2009 2:05 pm • link • report
Meanwhile, these dreadful advocates try to get motorists pay their fair share, or simply accommodate other modes of transportation, but all the antis remember is the "...oh, and this might reduce car trips, a wasteful mode of transit."
by цarьchitect on Aug 11, 2009 2:10 pm • link • report
by цarьchitect on Aug 11, 2009 2:18 pm • link • report
And you think that bikers don't express themselves with their bikes? Please just go the GW parkway bike path or the Rock Creek Parkway to see how bikers express themselves on their bike.
by Jasper on Aug 11, 2009 2:20 pm • link • report
While that might have once sustained our national economy between approximately 1950 and 1995, it clearly isn't anymore. One of the main untold stories behind the credit and housing bubble that popped last fall was that the tech and housing/credit bubbles inflated because the auto/highway building/car-dependent sprawl building economy had ceased generating positive returns. The bubbles were a collective attempt to pretend that nothing had changed. They were an attempt to fill the void. In the process, they attempted to sustian the unsustainable and made the situation worse. On top of that, it is contributing to a horrible environmental disaster.
We're past the point where an auto-centric living arrangment has gone onto the other side of the curve for the Law of Diminishing Returns. We can't just keep doing what we've been doing and pretend that all the bad consequences just aren't happening.
Much of this is generational. The younger set is not so attached to their cars for personal ego as the boomers and older. We equate cars with traffic jams, not freedom. My car is a handy tool that I use to go places where there isn't transit. It comes in handy if I go to a game at car-dependent FedEx Field. I don't use it if I go to RFK or Verizon Center though. It's not the right tool to get the job done in that case.
Cars don't have the same social meaning for our generation because everyone had access to them growing up. They were everywhere. For the older set, they were less ubiquitous when they were growing up and therefore indicative of a certain economic standing. Not so with us. No big deal.
Mr. Imhoffe is a dinosaur who can't see the meteor coming from above. The game is over. It's not 1962 anymore. We as a nation don't use the policies from 1962 for 2009, except in urban planning and transportation. Why should we keep using something that maybe sort of once worked (it didn't, just take a look at the health of our cities between 1960 and 2000 until we started getting a new generation of young people who want to live in a place where you see your neighbors) but clearly has jumped the shark and is now a huge millstone around our collective neck?
by Cavan on Aug 11, 2009 2:27 pm • link • report
Now that's a bit short sighted the other way. Ever been to Great Falls? Pretty much all natural beauty in the US is mostly only accessible by car. That doesn't mean that Great Falls, the Skyline Drive or say Hale'akala National Park are not worth going to. Just an example.
by Jasper on Aug 11, 2009 2:27 pm • link • report
The problem isn't the mere existence of cars, it's the fact that in most places in this country people are forced into using them to conduct every activity that takes place outside their home.
by Phil on Aug 11, 2009 2:34 pm • link • report
by William on Aug 11, 2009 2:35 pm • link • report
by Reid on Aug 11, 2009 2:36 pm • link • report
Which is why, to me and many others, the thought of extreme reliance on a resource which is primarily acquired in a hostile and foreign land is reason enough to shift our way of thinking about transportation policy. There is a direct connection between our dependency on foreign oil and our military commitments abroad. I, for one, would much rather reserve our strength for situations that are unavoidable. 20 years of good planning could prevent us from ever having to commit our military to secure oil supplies. We could objectively assess our diplomatic relationships with hostile regimes, and pressure them to end human rights abuses. It may be idealistic, but I dream of a day when the world is unaffected by an Iranian decision to impose a naval blockade on the straits of hormuz. I dream of a day when petroleum, arguably the most precious resource ever endowed upon the earth, is used exclusively to manufacture gene therapy and cancer-fighting drugs. We will accomplish a transportation regime significantly less reliant on oil, and when we do, Americans will look back with regret that we spent decades burning so much of it just to get from A to B.
by JTS on Aug 11, 2009 2:51 pm • link • report
While I can't speak for David, I know in my writing I advocate for a hard core perspective for transit-walking-biicycling over the car, but it is a kind of affectation. It's not that I am not hardcore, but I do use cars (rental, Zipcar). I take the position I do because so much of the rest of the world and the policy community takes the laissez faire position, or at the least doesn't question the set of policies and regulatory regime that got us to where we are today--and which made a land use paradigm dependent on the automobile for efficient mobility the null position, without consideration of the various externalities from misuse of land, deconcentration, killing people overseas to maintain access to cheap oil, the necessity of a large military to protect access to oil, etc. Cash for clunkers is the least of it...
by Richard Layman on Aug 11, 2009 3:02 pm • link • report
David, And what makes a 'large lot' house too big for smaller households? In making that statement, you're overlooking the very benefit of having planning policies which encourage more car usage and not less of it.
Let's take your house (or my house) as an example. When built some 120 - 130 years ago, they would have been lived in by perhaps 6 - 8 individuals (or more). A common kitchen would have been in the rear of the basement with access to the back yard for things that depended on an outdoor space including maybe keeping your chickens and growing some vegetables. The many doored rooms would have allowed lots of 'compartmentalization' throughout the rest of the house so that different generations, as well as paying boarders, would have had their own 'apartments' throughout the house. The front room on the first floor would have been a communal but formal parlor, while the back room on the same floor would have been the everyday gathering place. Dinner and breakfast might have been served there for everyone including boarders at set times. The house would have been considered 'of right size' for the number of people in it living communally. Single people or even couples wouldn't have lived by themselves in such large quaters. They couldn't have afforded to. And those that could, would have brought in servants to make their 'large' house work. And the servants would have had some of their family members there too.
Move forward some 30 - 40 years ... Kitchens would have been set up in the former back porches (including the sleeping porches of the upper floors), heavier locks installed on doors, some new walls put up, and the houses would have been turned into multi-family housing with separate 'apartments' throughout the house ... and 'modern' appliances ... washing machine, range, ice-box ... one per apartment. The apartments might have been one per floor ... maybe more. Each of these individual apartments would have been considered 'of right size' for the families or individuals or couples living in them.
Move forward to the present ... and in your home (and mine) we don't have 6 - 8 or more people in them. But we probably consider them 'of right size'. And why is it possible for us (and many others in this city) to have row houses serving the needs of a fewer number of people then they did before... Well, you can thank the automobile.
There was a time when everone had to live closeby to everyone else ... and to mass transit. Yeah, there was lots and lots of land to build on in areas surrounding the cities, but you couldn't easily and cheaply get from those areas to other areas. Mass transit is cost effective in areas where you're moving large amounts of people. Not so where there are fewer people . Bikes are great (in good weather) for shorter distances.
Of course urbanists already know all this. They want all people to live closer together so that less resources get 'wasted' by having people commute. They see that side of the equation. But I have to wonder if they see the other side of the equation ... i.e., that if you don't give people the options of getting more for less by being able to rely on the type of mobility that only a motorized personal vehicle can provide, that you really do get less. You get less of 'what is the right size' of living accomodation. You return to a situation where there is all this land near cities going unused, while people are stuck doubling up and tripling up ... whether they want it or not.
In a country where the population is expanding and not contracting, you need MORE cars ... and not less. Yes, you need more transit too and it's okay if urban areas become more urbanized and provide better (and more fertile) ground for mass transit to operate efficiently where it can operate efficiently. But you still need more cars to allow the 'settling' of more of these unsettled areas where mass transit doesn't make sense.
You and I can afford to live in such 'large lot' houses (and yes, from a 19th century perspective we ARE living in large lot houses in the sense that our foot prints per individual are gigantic compared to when the houses were built) because others have the option to have that house in the suburbs ... and aren't forced because of lack of flexible transportation options, to be competing with us for our 'large lot' houses.
Only the automobile with it's inherent flexibility and efficiency in terms of time and space travelled can open up the full use of all land resources ... and give everyone more of what they want.
Go see what horrible automobile policies have done to European countries ... and how the 'space' the average person takes for granted here is really a luxury there reserved for the priviledged. Do we really want that here too?
by Lance on Aug 11, 2009 3:12 pm • link • report
As far as car flexibility, a car is only as flexible as the roads. A car without roads is a worthless tool. Cars are also huge and jam up roads easily. A car with jammed roads is not a very good tool either. The key is to provide and encourage a living arrangement that encourages transportation that doesn't cause traffic james.
Once again, Lance, you write from a perspective that assumes all the positive things about driving to be implicit to the car. They're not. They're a part of our infrastructure subsidies.
Finally, for all those luxuries you talk about that we take for granted, we also have a huge oil dependence problem. Remember last summer? $4/gal? Hmmmm. Isn't that one of the most obvious problems with a car-centered paradigm?
How about pollution? Roughly 1/3 of our CO2 pollution is from cars. Wouldn't it be better if we didn't build environments that require driving, and consequently pollution?
All that material luxury that we have over our European counterparts has not led to more happiness. We've kind of known that for years. Our car-fetish ways have led to more isolation, alienation, and by extention, depression. We have more stress as most Americans have longer and longer commutes in worse and worse traffic. What's the point of having all that stuff if you don't have a community? You are very lucky to live in such a nice place, Lance. I'm sure that you have plenty of nice neighbors that you have gotten to know well. Most Americans who spend their lives in metal generators on wheels don't have such a life.
What is more important? More stuff or a healthy human community? They're fairly antithetical in this case.
by Cavan on Aug 11, 2009 3:38 pm • link • report
by JTS on Aug 11, 2009 3:39 pm • link • report
the primary reason, rather, is that oil is a strategic source of global power, which also happens to make many Americans very rich -- that would probably be true even if America saw a 50% drop in car driving overnight -- based on the growth of driving worldwide:
More generally, the September 11 terrorist atrocities provided an opportunity and pretext to implement long-standing plans to take control of Iraq's immense oil wealth, a central component of the Persian Gulf resources that the State Department, in 1945, described as "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history" (referring specifically to Saudi Arabia, but the intent is more general). US intelligence predicts that these will be of even greater significance in the years ahead. The issue has never been access. The same intelligence analyses anticipate that the US will rely on more secure Atlantic Basin supplies. The same was true after World War II. The US moved quickly to gain control over Gulf resources, but not for its own use; North America was the major producer for decades afterwards, and since then Venezuela has generally been the leading exporter to the US. What matters is control over the "material prize," which funnels enormous wealth to the US in many ways, and the "stupendous source of strategic power," which translates into a lever of “unilateral world domination.”
Oil consumption/import breakdown: we produce about 40% of our own oil consumption, and get the other 60% from imports -- most of it from Canada, followed by good amounts from Venezuela, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia, and finally, little bits from everywhere else.
our planners want control of oil for our warships and fighter jets and tanks and things like that a lot -- and to make sure nobody else (China, etc.) controls it -- they're not so concerned about your clunker.
so, all that oil (and related invasions, etc.) is not necessarily about maintaining 'happy motoring' with access to 'cheap oil' -- but about maintaining control/domination of the world.
hey -- bikes not bombs. :)
by Peter Smith on Aug 11, 2009 3:46 pm • link • report
Government policies helped make that statement true, too, with things like massive land giveaways to the railroads. Government policies and subsidies have enormous influence on transportation and land-use patterns, but car advocates like to forget this.
by Omari on Aug 11, 2009 3:48 pm • link • report
The impression I've had of Imhoff for years is that, having opposed the excesses of Barry's mayorality and helped bringing it down, he's now tremendously offended that he opened the door to new younger residents who have failed to agree that he is right about everything else. Imhoff wanted Washington to be exactly like it was under Marion Barry, only honest; instead he has new neighbors in Columbia Heights who share his desire for honest government but also enjoy bicycling or yoga or vegan cuisine or microbrewed beer and dare to suggest that his house, which was perfectly acceptable in Barry's Washington, is now a notorious neigborhood eyesore.
by cminus on Aug 11, 2009 3:49 pm • link • report
Following that train of thought it would make sense that our own personal consumption (or lack thereof of it) would be inconsequential as to what our political and military policies must be ... except that we'd still need the political will to enact the military policies that make the control of the flow of oil possible. And if the populace felt it didn't have a stake in the free flow of this oil, it might not (through its representatives) make available those resources needed to ensure the US's control of the flow of oil. (I.e., the $s to fund the ships and the sailors and soldiers needed to man the ships and US bases, could effectively be 'withheld' if people didn't see themselves in having a stake in assuring the flow of oil).
Of course, it would be self-defeating since as you say controlling the oil brings us enornomous wealth in ways most of us probably never thought of. But that's the problem. Since we don't see/understand the true value of what the controlling oil sources and flows means, we need to have something we CAN understand ... and that, for the average person, is perhaps 'ensuring we have gas to drive around in' ...
So, while you may be correct in a theorethical way ... you're probably wrong in a practical manner. The average American has to feel they have a stake in the US's controlling the sources and flows of oil.
But of course, those advocating lessening 'dependence' on this oil are even more wrong ... because what they ultimately are advocating, a lessening of 'dependence' on oil by the US, could lead to a lose of the very sources that bring the US its great wealth ... and they, their job opportunities ... and all the other benes ... that come from living in the world's richest nation.
by Lance on Aug 11, 2009 5:04 pm • link • report
The concept of "low traffic growth" is spot on. Cars are not going to go away for a number of reasons, be it work/metro locations, schedule, flexibility, etc. However, road infrastructure is expensive, which makes it very hard to develop at the pace our region is growing.
by OddNumber on Aug 11, 2009 5:31 pm • link • report
by tdcjames on Aug 11, 2009 6:04 pm • link • report
I think this post is basically right. There's tremendous demand for transit-accessible, dense residential development with smaller unit sizes, and it's not being met by the market.
That's not a market failure; rather, it's a reflection of a regulatory environment that makes it much more difficult and expensive to build in infill locations than exurban ones. DC and jurisdictions like it cap FARs far below what the market would bear without regulation, and they force developers to jump through discretionary (and often endless) approval hoops before they can build. Just look at the Wisconsin Avenue Giant redevelopment. This regulatory environment artificially increases home prices and pushes development (and residents) out to more lightly-regulated jurisdictions.
Unfortunately, I don't think you've embraced the logical conclusion that what urban jurisdictions need is not just better development regulation, but less development regulation. You rightly support eliminating some regulations, like the DC height limit and parking minimums. But you have proposed imposing others (such as parking maximums) and often you seem to believe that the problem can be fixed just by tinkering at the margins, as with historic preservation rules.
I don't think that's right. A huge part of what drives up costs is not just that regulators make bad decisions, imposing too-low density or killing desirable projects. The uncertainty that flows from a discretionary and lengthy review process for development itself adds costs, even if the decisions ultimately made are sound. It reduces the number of housing units built in dense locations; it makes the style of living you advocate necessarily less affordable and less prevalent.
I guess my question is, since you've identified this unmet demand, why aren't you taking an explicitly deregulatory posture toward development in DC?
by Josh B on Aug 11, 2009 6:13 pm • link • report
Lance, I think you make a really interesting (albeit one I completely disagree with) point about the political will to support military campaigns for oil security lies in ensuring that the public is a stakeholder in the game. Likewise, Peter, it is fair to say that our military pursuits are more about military domination than they are ease of access for consumers.
I just have a hard time buying it. Without disregarding the State Dept and intelligence memos on the subject, I find the argument that our current reliance on oil stems more from two and a half generations of intensive lobbying and activity by corporations with a stake in oil dependent ventures (i.e., General Motors lobbying against CAFE standards, buying and disassembling streetcar systems). As the recent health care fiasco should illustrate, the odds of a small cabal of policymakers actually enacting a wholesale paradigm shift on society is small. There are too many players, too many interested parties. This is why actual conspiracies like Iran Contra and the Bay of Pigs get outed in relatively short order.
Besides, I would take issue with your assertion that we are the richest country in the world. Thanks to an unbelievable debt burden, that's true right now, but won't be forever, particularly as other countries develop and start consuming on their own. We simply can't afford the America we've created for ourselves, and we better get to work transforming it into something that can sustain itself.
by JTS on Aug 11, 2009 6:33 pm • link • report
Hybrids are a step in the right direction, and the Chevy Volt will certainly make a splash, but what happens as cars and SUVs start losing their "guilt factor"? How many people here who support "not more cars" policies would start feeling more indifferent? If all of a sudden, all the cars on the road were now electric, what would your opinion be? I'm curious.
I definitely see this as an impending problem for roadways. As people drift from transit options and instead prefer the guiltless "what I want, when I want" independence that electric cars would provide -- will new converts clog up roadways even more?
Personally, I see transit options as a land use and conservation issue much more so than a economic/petroleum issue as many posters have suggested here. While that may be the case today, I'm optimistic that it won't be in the decades to come.
@Lance -- Your comments express the erroneous and naive belief that cities can keep expanding, people can keep reaching out and buying McMansions and believing that that's what they're due. Certainly they have every right to do so, but that lifestyle is unsustainable and downright selfish. That doesn't make it wrong, but how does having a 10 acre estate and a sit-down lawnmower contribute to your community? In fact, wouldn't large estates replace the high-density that could have been more community oriented? What happens as "what is the right size" keeps getting bigger and sprawls out into the exurbs? What happens when our McMansions start competing with farmland? What happens when the cost of just holding farmland becomes more expensive than actual food production costs?
by SDJ on Aug 11, 2009 6:50 pm • link • report
i suspect a Ford F150, a Toyota Prius, and a Chevy Volt could terrorize me and other cyclists and pedestrians equally well. that's only the very beginnings of why so many people have a great yet still growing distaste for autos.
hopefully local toxic emissions will drop, though i'm not so hopeful that 'greening' autos will have anything to do with it, if it happens. the Jevons effect might see to that. i'm more hopeful that we continue to knock down highways, calm streets, etc. -- these things will have real effects.
then we can start talking about all the ridiculous battery tech we've already started subsidizing. yikes. when we start looking at full energy lifecycles, fergeddaboutit -- 'greening' cars might be the worst idea we ever had. i'd rather we just let them fade away.
cars separate us from nature, which has myriad harmful direct and indirect effects -- like the killing/maiming of wildlife and human life, noise pollution from loud exhaust systems and rubber tires on pavement, a loss of appreciation for the natural environment - which helps us to continue to kill off myriad species, and with them all their secrets and successes and etc. Cars prevent people from walking and biking places they would otherwise walk and bike to. The effect of cars on the social fabric of the US, and ultimately our politics and policies, i think can scarcely be imagined. Think of all the right-wing hate radio that is propped up by our car-dependent society. The various economic costs of cars and car culture have been mentioned on this blog before -- fire, rescue, security, police, crime (carjacking, robbery, kidnapping, etc.), repair, insurance, fraud, etc. And surely the degradation of the value of human life by way of the yearly human slaughter on our roadways can't be good for society, can it?
Really, it's not a stretch to suggest that cars are 'the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world'.
The world without cars will be a much, much better place.
by Peter Smith on Aug 11, 2009 7:18 pm • link • report
Peter, as much as we would probably agree on policy, the basis for your beliefs is full of holes.
i suspect a Ford F150, a Toyota Prius, and a Chevy Volt could terrorize me and other cyclists and pedestrians equally well. that's only the very beginnings of why so many people have a great yet still growing distaste for autos.
So what?! To be honest, helmet-less riders and cyclists who go through red lights or drift into the left lane scare the shit out of me too. Why should you have any more right to the road than a car? Just because of your moral superiority - because you don't pollute? Does that justify your right to the road more than a Prius? There's a reason why pro-cyclist bumper stickers read "Share the Road" and not "Cede the Road".
As far as connecting us to nature - do you really think the underground Metro tunnels connect you more to nature than a ride down scenic Skyline Drive? And if you've ever been out west, you know that getting in your car is the only practical way of getting to our nation's most precious natural treasures. Biking can't really get you there. And unless you've got 3 months of vacation, walking can't either.
When in excess (like the Beltway rush hour), cars are undoubtedly a problem. But you can't discount the very many positive things that cars DO provide. After all, how many local farmers markets were stocked from trailers pulled by bikes?
by SDJ on Aug 11, 2009 7:51 pm • link • report
Since then, it's become a principle of our goverment that it's okay to sacrifice civil liberties and the dignity of the people for a war effort (see any airport nowadays), but not consumer convenience (God forbid we should ask people not to take part in the Pennies for Osama drive when they go to the gas station.)
Funnily enough, we won resounding victories in the world wars, but since then our wartime record has gotten a tad spotty.
by Omri on Aug 11, 2009 8:05 pm • link • report
by Lance on Aug 11, 2009 8:34 pm • link • report
by MPC on Aug 11, 2009 9:08 pm • link • report
by Jasper on Aug 11, 2009 9:31 pm • link • report
It's not that the suburbs will disappear. They will shrink, for the demographic reasons David mentions and for the fact that the crazy debt culture which subsidized them has come crashing disastrously down. But there will always be suburbs: it's just that they can be more compact, walkable, and transit-oriented -- like the streetcar suburbs of old.
by Gavin Baker on Aug 11, 2009 10:46 pm • link • report
That can only happen if high-speed personal vehicles disappear. And as talk of the Volt and other options show, that isn't likely to happen. You can't turn back the clock. Progress can't be rolled back once the technology that makes it possible has been uncovered.
Will current car-centric neighborhoods and cities become less car dependent and more transit dependent as they grow and mature? Of course, but for every current area that transitions along to a more advanced stage of its lifecycle, 2 or 3 or 10 new places will emerge. And like all new places in the 21st century (like the 20th century), it'll be the automobile (powered by 'whatever' source') that will make these new places possible. To not understand this, is to not be thinking dynamically ... but statically.
by Lance on Aug 12, 2009 12:00 am • link • report
My point is that even if we build more of these homes there are still plenty of us out there that will not be able to live in them.
by Matt on Aug 12, 2009 12:17 am • link • report
by цarьchitect on Aug 12, 2009 8:24 am • link • report
I got to thinking of past posts on this blog about multiple families of limited means inhabiting the traditional suburban "single-family home" and wonder if density without walkability will be a defining characteristic of the slums of the future. (Probably it's a characteristic of a lot of the slums of today.)
@Lance 8:34: So given this vision of the US as a mob boss, the optimist in you hopes his kids will be level-headed enough to recognize their self-interest and join his gang when they learn where the money comes from.
by tdcjames on Aug 12, 2009 8:40 am • link • report
by ogden on Aug 12, 2009 8:50 am • link • report
by BeyondDC on Aug 12, 2009 9:17 am • link • report
um, to just restate, an electric or hybrid car can kill/maim one just as easily as an old gas burner. cars intimidate people like crazy, so we don't walk and ride. straightforward argument.
To be honest, helmet-less riders and cyclists who go through red lights or drift into the left lane scare the shit out of me too.
presumably you're driving a car, but not sure it matters -- the world is not a perfect place. when on a bike, i'm not afraid of helmet-less riders and crazy cyclists and jay-walkers and all that -- who cares? they chances of them hurting me is between slim and none. if i'm driving a car, i should feel compelled morally, if not legally, to be afraid of killing anyone, whether in another car or not -- i'm driving the dangerous vehicle so i should have to beware. simple. this is where US policy is going, belatedly, but fortunately.
Why should you have any more right to the road than a car?
because of all the reasons we talk about cars being anti-human. they're not suitable for life on earth, generally speaking, much less life in cities on earth. they pollute and terrorize and maim and kill - they don't belong and should not be tolerated. simple.
Just because of your moral superiority - because you don't pollute?
life is full of decisions -- we all have to decide what we want for ourselves and our families and our communities. i do think there is a very strong case to be made that folks who don't pollute are, in fact, morally superior, in at least that regard, to folks who choose to pollute, but that's neither here nor there. for the record, i do think hippies and folks like that -- composters, and gardeners, and recyclers, etc. -- are the types of people we should all aspire to be. i hope that doesn't shock anyone.
Does that justify your right to the road more than a Prius?
yes. we should follow the green transportation hierarchy -- and that's really a name that does not do the concept justice. sure, walking and biking are really green, but that's a very small part of the story -- we should rename it to the Quality of Life Transportation Hierarchy, because that's what it really produces.
There's a reason why pro-cyclist bumper stickers read "Share the Road" and not "Cede the Road".
those stickers may be well-intentioned, but they're really just a bad joke. the idea that a pedestrian or cyclist is going to equitably 'share the road' with a deadly monster is not based in reality -- the end result is that pedestrians and cyclists do, in fact, 'cede the road' to motorized traffic.
As far as connecting us to nature - do you really think the underground Metro tunnels connect you more to nature than a ride down scenic Skyline Drive?
no, but not sure what this has to do with anything. see the green transportation hierarchy for how we should think about designing our transit systems in the places we live -- you'll notice cars receive the lowest priority -- that is, they are least desirable, for many reasons, including their ability to disconnect us from nature -- while they actively destroy it. transit is much more friendly to nature, for myriad reasons, and connects us to nature much better than cars -- and even more so for walking and biking.
And if you've ever been out west, you know that getting in your car is the only practical way of getting to our nation's most precious natural treasures.
i've ridden over the Golden Gate Bridge a ton of times. I've ridden Skyline Drive. I've ridden most of the California coastline, including Big Sur. But sure, the dismantling of our train infrastructure makes it difficult to get to many/most places without a car. That's why I'm arguing for boosting transit instead of cars.
But you can't discount the very many positive things that cars DO provide.
National Socialism (aka Nazism) did lots of positive things, too. It provided jobs and money and power and a keen sense of purpose and meaning to millions of Germany's citizens. We could go on and on about the medical and technological achievements of the Nazi regime -- their contributions to the world of science alone are just massive. Does that mean we should promote Nazism? I don't think so. We have to decide as a society whether the limited 'good' that cars provide is worth the incredible 'evil' they provide. I've already made up my mind.
by Peter Smith on Aug 12, 2009 9:58 am • link • report
In other words, I don't know or care if Imhof or Fritz thinks that you, me or anyone else is anti-car. I *do* care that they are being dishonest in their attempts to mislead the public as to the nature of the debate over optimum transportation choices for the future of our community.
FWIW, Lance's lengthy post above is another example of this dishonest tactic: he is pretending that active transportation proponents want everyone to live in overcrowded communal housing (On top of that his info is all wrong. Bethesda, Clarendon and Del Ray are all neighborhoods that predate the automobile, with nicely-sized lots and detached housing, for people who like that sort of thing.)
by Jonathan Krall on Aug 12, 2009 10:16 am • link • report
/ Ding-dong - Special message:
You just confirmed Godwin's Law.
However, by conventional netiquette, you've now also lost the debate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
/Ding-dong, end of special message
by Jasper on Aug 12, 2009 10:21 am • link • report
Godwin's Law - a truly just law, unlike most bike laws - makes no such claims about the validity of Nazi comparisons, thus we only have our arguments to decide who has won or lost the debate. From your link:
The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases as the discussion progresses.
For my part, "I'd like an answer to the question, Judge." Do you, or do you not, believe that the benefits of cars outweigh the costs?
:)
by Peter Smith on Aug 12, 2009 10:40 am • link • report
Not at all. I am pointing out that that is what you will get when you kill the release valve that is the personal automobile. Without the possibility of relatively cheap new construction that is only accessible by automobile (i.e., a road is far cheaper to construct than a train system), everyone ends bidding against each other for something in established areas ... pushing up prices, which in turns means subdividing existing land and houses and building higher (where code allows). End result IS more crowded housing. (I never said or implied communal housing.) Now do those advocating 'no more cars' (or really 'no more roads') understand this inevitability of what they are proposing? Probably not. They should take a trip to Europe and see what these same disasterous policies have inflicted on those least able to buy their way out of the 'utiopias' of well intentioned planners.
by Lance on Aug 12, 2009 10:49 am • link • report
by tt on Aug 12, 2009 11:05 am • link • report
...there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress. This principle itself is frequently referred to as Godwin's Law. It is considered poor form to raise such a comparison arbitrarily with the motive of ending the thread.
It is irrelevant whether your argument is right, true or whatever. Your argument is of incredibly poor taste and hence will be ignored by people who are trying to have a civil and decent debate. In a sense, you "lost" your right to argue.
I tend to hang strongly on this. Decent and civil debate is very important. As we see around the country these days, many people have taken to arguing cable-news style, by shouting the loudest and thinking that makes them win the argument. It doesn't work in real life, because unlike Olberman or O'Reilly, in real life, you can't cut the mic of your opponent.
by Jasper on Aug 12, 2009 11:34 am • link • report
We are in the middle of a paradigm shift in the design of our communities. The sprawl model of development that predominated for sixty years isn't sustainable and, more importantly, no longer what the market wants.
I think this is just wishful thinking on your part. There is no serious evidence of a fundamental shift in the preferences regarding housing and transportation that Americans have exhibited over the past 50 years. In fact, I don't think you really believe it yourself. If you did, you wouldn't invest so much time and effort in trying to persuade people to turn against sprawl and driving.
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 12:12 pm • link • report
poor taste? how so? because i mentioned Nazism? what other words and concepts are off-limits? do u know of a better comparison I could have used to show the vacuousness of the "but cars do lots of good, too!" argument? the argument stands on its own, and as requested, i'd still like an answer to the question, Judge.
as for Godwin's Law -- unlike debating the relative merits of one particular flavor of UNIX over another - like many early-stage newsgroups that were around during the formation of Godwin's Law, we're actually trying to talk about things here which are important. they matter not just to how we live our lives locally and within the United States, but how our policy actions can, have, and will continue to have profound effects on the way billions of people around the world live and die. car folks don't necessarily want to think about, much less talk about, the disastrous consequences our policy decisions are having on people around the world -- i get that -- but it's my job to force them to think and talk about it. uncomfortable for them? good -- maybe they should be uncomfortable.
i understand that many car-oriented people feel very threatened by the 'gathering storm' of recognition of the destructive nature of car culture, but that's no excuse to try to shut down debate. as mr. chomsky said, "It is a poor service to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust to adopt a central doctrine of their murderers."
I tend to hang strongly on this. Decent and civil debate is very important.
so you declare that someone has 'lost the right to argue'? awesome.
As we see around the country these days, many people have taken to arguing cable-news style, by shouting the loudest and thinking that makes them win the argument. It doesn't work in real life, because unlike Olberman or O'Reilly, in real life, you can't cut the mic of your opponent.
actually, you can, but again, why would you, like those town hall 'protesters', attempt to shut down debate? is that what you 'hang strongly on' -- shutting down debate?
by Peter Smith on Aug 12, 2009 12:18 pm • link • report
First off, no one subsidizes road construction. It is paid for via property taxess, gas taxes etc. And even if you really believe that it somehow gets paid for out of the general taxes of all taxpayers, than those being subsidized aren't the wealthy, but rather the poor. Minus the kind of road access we have, the poor would be forced to pay more for lack of alternatives. If you really think that all you have in the burbs are McMansions, then you really don't know suburbia very well. There's a reason we've had what you call 'sprawl' for years. People could get more for less. So, if any subsidization is occuring, it is a subsidization of the less wealthy. The wealthy can always buy what they want, where they want. They don't need new cheap land out in the burbs to help them find a home. Read up a few posts from the guy talking about wishing he could afford to live in the Rockville town center or in downtown Bethesda ... He can't on his budget ... unless he's willing to 'make do with less'. I guess your agenda is to take away this choice from people whose economic circumstances don't let them buy their way out?
by Lance on Aug 12, 2009 12:27 pm • link • report
http://freepublictransit.org/index.php?pr=Externalities
by fpteditors on Aug 12, 2009 12:35 pm • link • report
Brandon, you make a very good point. When I read some of these comments I sometimes have to wonder 'Do these people ever get out?' In my experience while the well to do are moving back into the city centers which the upper and middle-class had abandoned in mid-20th century, the suburban areas are continuing to explode in number and scope. To think that the city centers are filling back up with the middle-class at the expense of the suburbs is mixing two trends. (1) the return of the upper classes to the city centers of metro areas that are now much larger than they ever were, and (2) the accelerated proliferation of new, larger, and more widespread suburbs and exurbs anchored by these stronger and much more wealthy city centers. It's not one area at the expense of the other, but rather a growth of both areas (city center and suburb/exurb) albeit in different ways. Bottom line is that it's a better and more efficient use of resources than what we had when there existed a donut hole of poverty and unsafe areas in the middle of the metro area, but it doesn't mean we're losing the donut itself. It's just getting it's jelly filling ... and becoming a better tasting, more desireable donut.
by Lance on Aug 12, 2009 12:40 pm • link • report
"The auto-system is heavily subsidized, even before counting direct bailouts, loan guarantees, and cash-for-clunkers. It not a matter of love or hate. The auto-system is a clear and present danger to human race. We will stop it or it will stop us. Here are some of the externalities:" ftpeditors
I've advocated for new development to minimize auto dependence. But many take that to mean that everyone ought to travel by train, bus, bike or foot.David Alpert
by Lance on Aug 12, 2009 12:44 pm • link • report
by Jasper on Aug 12, 2009 12:46 pm • link • report
Hooray For Electric Cars! (But we still need transit)..
...There are actually many reasons why we will still need robust public transit in our cities even if we could make cars that have absolutely no impact on the environment. Two of the most important are: traffic congestion and land use.
The first is traffic congestion and its limiting effect on growth. Once a city or metropolitan region reaches a certain size, it needs a rapid transit system to prevent crippling traffic congestion, especially during the morning and evening peak hours. Heavy rail systems like the Washington, DC Metro or New York's Subway carry far more people per hour than expressways can. And without transit, a city and its metropolitan region will face limits to growth. That's why we see cities like Houston, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Charlotte building new rapid transit systems or expanding their existing systems. This is also why local chambers of commerce are often the biggest pro-transit boosters. They know that without transit, a city becomes clogged in traffic, productivity drops, and businesses begin looking elsewhere...
by DMIJohn on Aug 12, 2009 12:55 pm • link • report
Between empty nesters living longer and young people waiting longer to have children, the proportion of childless households is rising rapidly.
The proportion of childless households has been rising steadily since about 1963. That's almost 50 years. Average number of members per household has been steadily falling. And yet average housing size has been getting bigger over the same period, not smaller. Public transportation has lost market share to private automobiles, not gained share. Even if this long-standing trend stops or reverses in the near future, our transportation system is now so overwhelmingly dominated by cars and roads, our built infrastructure so overwhelmingly dominated by low-density car-oriented development, that walkable urbanism and transit-oriented development would still remain small islands in an ocean of cars and sprawl for many decades to come. And there's no serious evidence that the trend has reversed. Suburbs are still growing faster than central cities. The old, dense, transit-oriented cities of the northeast are still losing population to the new, sprawling car-oriented cities of the south and west.
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 12:56 pm • link • report
by fpteditors on Aug 12, 2009 1:03 pm • link • report
The first is traffic congestion and its limiting effect on growth. Once a city or metropolitan region reaches a certain size, it needs a rapid transit system to prevent crippling traffic congestion, especially during the morning and evening peak hours.
The primary cause of congestion is DENSITY, not size. Congestion generally increases if you build taller and closer together, not if you build out. Congestion is inversely correlated with density. The more a metropolitan area sprawls, the less congestion it is likely to have. In dense cities, transit can alleviate congestion, but cannot provide the speed, comfort and convenience of car travel in sprawling cities. New York has both the highest share of commutes by public transportation and the longest average commute time.
That's why we see cities like Houston, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Charlotte building new rapid transit systems or expanding their existing systems.
The new light-rail lines that have been built in American cities over the past few decades may make transit proponents feel good, but their impact on the overall transportation market is negligible. They typically consist of just a few miles of track in and around the downtown area. They are no faster or only slightly faster than the bus routes they replace. And they have very low ridership. Light rail provides only about 4% of the total number of passenger-miles and total number of trips by TRANSIT in the United States, and an infinitesimal share of total passenger-miles and trips by motorized transportation.
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 1:23 pm • link • report
Why not? How do you know it isn't "sustainable?"
Yesterday, GM reported that it expects its first-generation plug-in hybrid car, scheduled to go on sale next year, to get the equivalent of 230 miles per gallon in city driving, and over 100 mpg overall. That's between four and nine times the fuel efficiency of a conventional vehicle of comparable size and power. And that's just the first generation. Nissan expects its Leaf first-generation all-electric car, also scheduled to go on sale next year, to get the equivalent of 367 miles per gallon. In terms of energy-efficiency, these numbers blow mass transit out of the water.
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 1:40 pm • link • report
Before you write the obituary of mass transit, remember that mass transit will likely be the first vehicles to benefit from these new forms of propulsion. Diesel-electrics were in submarines first, then buses, and now diesel-electric may finally make it to passenger cars. Same goes for fuel cells.
And do you seriously believe the automakers' marketing hype about 200 and 300 mpg? I don't.
by bikermark on Aug 12, 2009 2:36 pm • link • report
Then explain Northern Virginia, Brandon.
by Omri on Aug 12, 2009 2:50 pm • link • report
I'm not sure that density and congestion are directly related. In the DC area, Arlington is less congested than the communities bordering the beltway like Tysons, and central DC has very little traffic congestion. In New York City where I live, we've been gaining population for over a decade and adding jobs to the economy, yet traffic congestion has remained flat. This is because new residents and workers are using other modes. Of course, if you don't build a robust transit system, people won't be able to use these other modes and congestion will surely increase.
As for the "comfort and convenience of car travel in sprawling cities," I would argue that that is a value statement. For me, I find well developed mass transit to be much more convenient than personal automobile use. I enjoy having the nearly infinite possibilities of a large city at my disposal, accessible by transit. Additionally, I don't miss the days when I had to worry about oil changes, flat tires, filling up with gas, finding parking, aggressive drivers, waiting for the left turn light, and the occasional breakdown on the side of the road.
To your point about light rail: the impact of these systems is still small because they are new systems. Expand the systems and you will see more riders. People cannot ride a system that doesn't exist. The lines that do exist are gaining riders even faster than transit planners expected.
by DMIJohn on Aug 12, 2009 2:55 pm • link • report
This isn't even discussing the non-transportation aspects of 'sprawl' that contribute to its unsustainability. There are massive infrastructure investments - not just roads, but electrical grids, sewer systems, communications, fiber optics. There is the degradation and eventual disappearance of arable farmland. And call me an elitist, but there is a cultural loss as well. America's cultural identity is in its wilderness spaces, not its pristine lakes dotted with 10,000 sf homes 70 miles from the nearest city. We are losing the ability to be alone in this country at an alarming rate. Again, I know it sounds stupid, but its important to me.
PS - The Chevy Volt numbers are ludicrous. You could get an infinite number of mpg if you drive it a certain way, especially when you pretend that sapping electricity off the grid to charge the battery is somehow a renewable endeavor. Let's also not forget the huge energy requirements that manufacturing the Volt requires. I mean, the battery weighs 500 pounds, and will eventually need to be disposed of.
by JTS on Aug 12, 2009 3:06 pm • link • report
Before you write the obituary of mass transit, remember that mass transit will likely be the first vehicles to benefit from these new forms of propulsion.
Urban rail transit (light rail and subways/elevated rapid rail) already benefits from the efficiencies of electric power and propulsion. Bus transit is likely to become somewhat more efficient in the future through further electrification (some cities already operate large fleets of hybrid-electric buses), but the potential for efficiency improvement isn't nearly as large as it is for the nation's fleet of private automobiles. The fundamental limitation on mass transit efficiency is load factor. Buses and trains waste huge amounts of energy hauling around empty seats, because there is no much variation in demand. Running buses and trains at off-peak hours with only a few passengers on board is terribly inefficient.
Today, the energy efficiency of the nation's mass transit system overall is no better or only slightly better than the energy efficiency of the nation's auto fleet, which today averages 22 mpg. With the huge leaps in automobile energy efficiency that plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles will provide, I don't see how it's plausible that mass transit can remain competitive with cars on "sustainability."
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 3:23 pm • link • report
Because more people fit in a bus than a car, so it doesn't require moving nearly as many of them?
by Gavin Baker on Aug 12, 2009 3:26 pm • link • report
The relationship has been studied extensively by urban economists. There may be individual exceptions, but in general the higher the density of an urban area, the higher the level of congestion. And it makes perfect sense to me intuitively also -- the more people, houses, shops, worksplaces etc. you put into a given area of land, the more congested it is likely to become.
To your point about light rail: the impact of these systems is still small because they are new systems.
We've been building them for decades now. Even the light rail lines that were built in the 70s and 80s and have been operating for decades tend to have low ridership. Light rail is very expensive, much more expensive than buses. So in general only a few short routes within a metropolitan area are even serious candidates for light rail. Typically, routes within or close to the downtown area of the central city, where density tends to be highest. The only viable form of transit outside these routes is buses. That's why we have so many more bus routes than light rail routes, and why buses carry so many more passengers than light rail.
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 3:45 pm • link • report
Traffic has fallen on Wilson Boulevard since the 1970's. The reason why is because people living there now take the Metro and/or walk to their destinations. Hence less car traffic. Because of the extra human activity, no one uses it for through traffic. The cars driving there are overwhelmingly going to/from the corridor.
Downtown DC is another example. It is the densest place in our region. Yet, it doesn't have traffic jams, except on selected commuter routes and only during rush hour. All those people walking on the sidewalks to get around don't have to use cars to get anywhere. Imagine the car traffic if they had to.
Persistently heavy car traffic is a result of building a place so that the only way to get anywhere is to drive. Tysons Corner as it exists today would be an example of this. In Tysons, it's not the density. It's the fact that it is laid out so that it is unsafe and unusable to anyone not in a car.
I don't really want to waste my time refuting what else you're wrong about since you couldn't get that huge point correct.
by Cavan on Aug 12, 2009 3:49 pm • link • report
The sprawl model isn't sustainable because we're running out of land.
You've got to be kidding. The population density of the United States is vastly lower than western Europe, and western Europe has also been sprawling for decades.
This isn't even discussing the non-transportation aspects of 'sprawl' that contribute to its unsustainability. There are massive infrastructure investments - not just roads, but electrical grids, sewer systems, communications, fiber optics.
Huh? Why are these investments "unsustainable?" If they are, why isn't investment in non-sprawl urban forms also "unsustainable?"
There is the degradation and eventual disappearance of arable farmland.
What degradation and eventual disappearance of arable farmland? Is there a shortage of arable farmland in the U.S.?
And call me an elitist, but there is a cultural loss as well. America's cultural identity is in its wilderness spaces, not its pristine lakes dotted with 10,000 sf homes 70 miles from the nearest city. We are losing the ability to be alone in this country at an alarming rate. Again, I know it sounds stupid, but its important to me.
I don't see any serious risk to the nation's wilderness spaces from sprawl. The trend has been for the government to protect and preserve more and more land in the U.S., not less. And if you really think this is a problem in the U.S., you must think it is a nightmare in Europe. They have vastly less wilderness and pristine land than we do. Is Europe even more "unsustainable" than the U.S., in your view?
PS - The Chevy Volt numbers are ludicrous. You could get an infinite number of mpg if you drive it a certain way, especially when you pretend that sapping electricity off the grid to charge the battery is somehow a renewable endeavor. Let's also not forget the huge energy requirements that manufacturing the Volt requires. I mean, the battery weighs 500 pounds, and will eventually need to be disposed of.
You don't seem to understand the methodology. Electricity use is converted to an mpg-equivalent. Yes, different drivers will get different mpgs, depending on their driving/recharging patterns. But even the least-efficient drivers will do far better than a conventional midsize sedan, which gets about 25 mpg in city driving. The 230 mpg figure is an estimated average for city driving. Some drivers will get less, others more. I don't know why you think this is "ludicrous." Fuel economy estimates for conventional vehicles also involve assumptions about driving behavior.
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 4:07 pm • link • report
Why is parking "unsustainable?" You may prefer that the land be used in some other way than for parking, but that doesn't make it "unsustainable."
Because more people fit in a bus than a car, so it doesn't require moving nearly as many of them?
Again, so what? How does this make cars "unsustainable?"
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 4:24 pm • link • report
With respect to economics, they are very unsustainable. With respect to the environment, I recommend tailgating at FedEx Field in the multi-acre parking lot and then at RFK under some trees and you'll see just one problem with them. The runoff from the impermeable surface is harmful to our watersheds, too. There is much more.
by Cavan on Aug 12, 2009 4:32 pm • link • report
I can't find any clear argument in that post as to why parking lots are "unsustainable." Perhaps you could state your argument for this proposition clearly and concisely. But first, you really ought to define "unsustainable" as you are using the word, because you seem to be using it to mean something like "uses resources in a way I oppose."
Sprawl, more or less by definition, consumes more land for a given population than "compact development" or "walkable communities." Some of that land will certainly be used for parking lots. But that doesn't make sprawl "unsustainable," any more than a 1,000 sq ft condo in a compact development is "unsustainable" simply because it consumes more land or floor space than a 500 sq ft condo.
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 6:36 pm • link • report
Brandon, the perfect example that counteracts your assertions that density causes traffic if the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.
I'm not sure what you mean by "counteracts" above. The Rosslyn-Ballston corridor may or may not be an exception to the general relationship I described. As I said, "There may be individual exceptions, but in general the higher the density of an urban area, the higher the level of congestion."
The general relationship has been established by systematic study of density and congestion in American urban areas. Here's how Ed Glaeser summarizes it in his paper Sprawl and Urban Growth:
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 6:59 pm • link • report
OK, since you've got my attention in this thread, I'll spell out for you what I mean by unsustainable since you either didn't read my post or don't get what "opportunity costs" are.
In a car-dependent environment, the costs of infrastructure construction and maintenance is greater than in a human-scale town. That is because a car-dependent place has more lane-miles of asphalt for a given unit land area. There is other infrastructure like sewers and power lines. A low-capacity sewer line (just one line) that serves a low-density subdivision costs roughly half as much as a higher capacity sewer line. However, you have to build more sewer lines farther distances because of the low-density land uses. Now, you have more costs associated with fuel consumption due to having to spend more to move things like school buses, firetrucks, and policecars longer distances. So far we have higher absolute costs for roads, sewers, and basic services.
Now, because of the low density, there is fewer economic activity (such as residences and businesses) that pays into the system. So more costs, yet less tax revenue. Got it so far?
OK, so for the past 60 years, how has a jurisdiction filled in that gap? Easy. Collect development fees on new sprawl development.
Then, the new development costs more to serve than it collects in taxes and the cycle repeats itself.
You know what that's called? A Ponzi Scheme. It's really that simple.
Now, why did Arlington County build the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor after fighting so hard to get I-66 routed away from it and getting the Orange Line underground? It's really simple. See, if you had read that link I put up, you would have read that Arlington, being a small jurisdiction in terms of land area, was running out of undeveloped land to feed the Ponzi Scheme. They had two choices: 1) face long-term fiscal insolvency as the cost of services increase and they have no tools to increase their tax base or 2) start growing up in selected places. Rosslyn-Ballston wasn't some grand experiment. It was Arlington County taking a mulligan on their land use. It was about making an unsustainable situation more sustainable.
Now, why is Fairfax County so eager to redevelop Tysons using the Silver Line as a planning tool? It's not purely because of a profit motive, although there is plenty of that since those parking lots aren't generating any money for the landowners and they'd love to have billable square feet on them instead. Tysons Corner fills the bulk of Fairfax County's tax revenues. It is hitting a limit on how much economic activity it can sustain because of all the traffic jams from the lack of transit and walkability and because of all the lost opportunity costs of the parking lots. That's lost tax revenue to the county in addition to lost rent money.
If you had actually read my link rather than just saying that it's not up to your standards, you would have got those concepts. I'm sure that plenty of others who read it did.
You can listen to Ed Gleaser all you want but that's like going to the Dairy Lobby to find out about the benefits of an all-cheese diet. Gleaser always comes to conclusions that don't fit with real urban planning studies.
And to sum it up, the places in our region that are human-scale walkable urban places and have low car traffic are hardly the exception. First off, how many of them existed in 1990? Second, how many other places around the world are similar to them? Try Towson. Try Hoboken, NJ. Try Cambridge, Mass. Try South Philadelphia. The list goes on and on.
Gleaser is the same type of economist who didn't see the financial crisis coming because they were too busy touting all the so-called "innovation" on Wall Street. They saw what they wanted to see. Gleaser's conclusions are just more elegant versions of Randall O'Toole.
by Cavan on Aug 12, 2009 9:02 pm • link • report
by fpteditors on Aug 12, 2009 10:09 pm • link • report
by Brandon on Aug 12, 2009 10:35 pm • link • report
Privacy: The car is my private sanctuary. Wherever I go in a car I'm by myself in my bubble. It's a nice, comfortable bubble and it's very easy to get used to. I don't mind spending long periods of time there because I can make my bubble my own. I can eat, drink, play music, books on CD or radio at my own volume without headphones, talk to others or even myself unselfconsciously. I feel like I can be whatever I want to be inside of a car. I have lots of room and space to spread out and can take almost anything I need for any trip. Even with traffic, I can choose different routes or shortcuts to get to my destination. I am autonomous. I can leave whenever I want and not wait. I can drive cross-country on a whim. If I get a bigger car I feel safer and more powerful on the road. A flashier, more expensive car makes others notice me and increases my status. However, whatever my car is or is not, it is MINE.
Public: Public transit is just that, for the PUBLIC. It is a shared resource. I am unafraid to share this resource with others from all walks of life. I take heart know my use of this resource alleviates traffic while still getting me through the heart of activity in my metropolitan area. While traveling with others I can get in and out of the busiest areas of the region without having to park, to gas up, to worry about, to babysit...my CAR. I am free to walk, to jog, to bike, to rollerblade with others in areas I never would've imagined, like next to the White House, where my car can't go. Because I live around areas where a car isn't necessary, I learn that a car isn't always necessary for me because there are other resources I can use besides always getting around in my own private car. I walk more, especially outside, because the places nearby are walkable and as I've done more of it, I'm less scared of it. Because I've used the Metro and commuter trains, I've opened up to using trains to get from city to city like when I've gone to Richmond or Philadelphia from Union Station using Amtrak. Buses to NYC don't scare me like they do my friends in the suburbs. I feel more freedom because I'm not tied to planning everything around my car and how I'm going to drive to everywhere I need to go. And I do that because I'm not afraid to ride with others.
My question: How do we reconcile these different mindsets?
by DCresident on Aug 12, 2009 10:59 pm • link • report
That's easy.
By embracing then both! I can tell you I do. Like anything, 'driving', 'walking', and 'mass transiting' are all good in moderation. Choosing one exclusively at the exclusion of the others is where an imbalance occurs.
In a city I love to walk. But I can just as much enjoy driving when going outside the city. Flexibility is the key word. Keep a car (garaged) in the city for those times you need to leave that city ... And no, zip car is NOT an alternative ... for all the 'privacy' reasons DCresident states.
by Lance on Aug 12, 2009 11:25 pm • link • report
I think you omitted what is probably the single biggest reason why people tend to favor cars over transit: time. Time is very valuable to people. For the vast majority of trips for the vast majority of people, driving is simply much faster than taking a bus or a train. Not always, but in the vast majority of cases. I don't think most drivers are against mass transit in principle. They'll happily use transit when they visit New York or San Francisco, where driving is difficult and parking is a nightmare. And they're willing to pay taxes to subsidize transit for others. But at home they want their car, because it just works so much better for them. And I think this is generally true whether they're single, married but childless, or a parent with children.
by Brandon on Aug 13, 2009 12:20 am • link • report
You can read the Glaeser's misguided work here. His premise, at the beginning of the real estate bubble, is that people use cars because they save time in sprawl and that sprawl is a natural consequence of american culture and economics.
There's a joke that you might have heard, which goes like this: An Austrian School economist is walking down the street and sees a $100 bill on the sidewalk. He takes a good look at it, but walks away; if it was actually $100, someone would have picked it up already.
Take a look at the Wilson Boulevard Corridor. As mentioned, it's gotten less congested since smart growth policies were enacted, or that congestion has moved to more space-efficient mode of transit, like Metro or biking. You say that that has to be an exception, because the model shows a correlation between commute times. Like Herr Freidrich von Rothbard above, you aren't looking at all the conditions, and instead are viewing the situation from an ideological angle.
You should be asking yourself, "Why is Wilson Boulevard doing better?" If the model fails, hand waving is not the answer; it suggests that the model is incomplete. Now, Arlington was planned in a way that has achieved less congestion, has efficient transit (too efficient, actually!), made walkable neighborhoods where most automobile trips can simply be cut, development has mixed uses, and lastly, are quite enjoyable. It's no surprise that most people in the profession of urban planning look to Arlington for the future. If that kind of density works, then why should it not be encouraged? It's actually banned in many places, one of many ways the market has been gamed against real urban life.
Smart Growth planners have seen 60 years of sprawl lead to endless wasteful expenditures, the loss of pedestrian life, massive energy-inefficient houses, and a general inflexibility of those areas. And they've seen 40 years of success in Arlington. Their planning is empirical. It's not based so much on mathematical abstractions, but it is still empirical. On the tother hand those dreams of cities based around the automobile, the Garden City, the Ville Radieuse, and Levittown, have only led to more of the same problems as before, and even created new ones.
By embracing then both! I can tell you I do. Like anything, 'driving', 'walking', and 'mass transiting' are all good in moderation. Choosing one exclusively at the exclusion of the others is where an imbalance occurs.
I agree, Lance, make choices possible. Oh wait, in the suburbs, which are built to the automobile, you don't have a choice. You can take the car... and all other trips are unreasonably hard.
by цarьchitect on Aug 13, 2009 1:50 am • link • report
by цarьchitect on Aug 13, 2009 2:54 am • link • report
Glaeser's finding about the effect of density on congestion is based on an analysis of transportation and population data from dozens of MSAs, and has been confirmed by other academic research, as cited in his paper. I'm not sure why you think your assertions and speculations about what has happened in the "Wilson Boulevard Corridor" represent any kind of serious challenge to this finding. In fact, I'm not even sure if you are challenging it. Your basic claim seems to be that in Arlington, density "works." I don't know what that claim is even supposed to mean in any kind of clear empirical sense, let alone what it has to do with Glaeser's point.
Sprawl isn't something that Americans consciously chose as an end in itself. It's the result of their long-standing housing and transportation preferences. They generally prefer single-family detached houses to multi-family condos and apartments. They generally prefer private automobiles to buses and trains. Their voting and purchasing behavior has reflected these preferences. The same basic trend towards bigger housing and travel by car is clearly evident in Europe, which has also been sprawling for decades. Perhaps these preferences will change dramatically in the future, but it doesn't seem likely. If there is a shift back towards density and public transportation, it is likely to be a modest one. "Walkable communities" and "compact development" will remain rare anomalies in a sea of sprawl for the foreseeable future.
by Brandon on Aug 13, 2009 3:49 am • link • report
Sprawl in Europe: perhaps, but the key differnce is that planners and developers always build complete streets. I'm reminded of the last time I was in the Netherlands for work. I was in Delft, a beautiful suburban town about 90 min south of Amsterdam. I was staying in a spanking new hotel on the far edge of the city. Nevertheless, for the entirety of my stay, I left my car in the parking lot, because my office was a pleasant 25 minute bike ride from the edge of town to the city center, and I could use one of the hotel's free loaner bikes and ride it on a 12 foot dedicated lane until I got to Delft's car free center.
I think your misconception is that GGW and many TOD supporters are anti suburb or anti car. (many of us) are not. I know I had a wonderful upbringing in the suburbs and want that for my children; but I refuse to raise them in a community where they can't bike or walk anywhere they want. It's pretty simple.
by JTS on Aug 13, 2009 6:59 am • link • report
I grew up outside a small town about 50 miles from Atlanta. Today the sprawling metropolis has gobbled it up into the 28 County Metropolitan Leviathan.
At the time I finished high school, there was no transit service in my county. I took a job in northern Atlanta and started driving to an outlying Metro (MARTA) station. This commute worked well, except that after whizzing past stopped traffic while on a sleek silver train in the median of the North Atlanta Tollway, I got in a car and sat in gridlock for 10 more miles.
One day, I was sitting in the driver's seat. It was hot. It's always hot in Atlanta. I had the window down, 80s music blaring from my radio. Traffic was moving. Slowly. Like 5 miles per hour. That was pretty good for a PM commute.
And then I had an epiphany. Right there in the second lane from the right.
(Epiphany, n. - a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.)
Five feet to my left, sitting alongside me in traffic was a middle-age woman with a book. She might have rather been home instead of on this concrete ribbon with me, but she was gonna enjoy her time here anyway. So she sat and read.
And then her bus inched forward a little and I couldn't see her anymore.
The next day, I got up 30 minutes earlier than usual. I drove in the pre-dawn darkness to the northernmost park and ride lot in Fulton County. And in the cool morning air, I hopped on a MARTA Blue Flyer express bus. From then on out my commute was "shorter" despite taking a little longer.
I count commute time only as time when I can't be doing something else. If I'm driving or walking or biking, I can be listening to music, but really that's about it.
On the bus or in the train, while waiting at the stop or riding in a carpool, I have the freedom to read, or type, or draw, or do just about anything.
And the best part is, when I get home, I'm not stressed and dog-tired.
How we deal with the conflict between public and private transportation is up to each of us individually.
However, as a corporate body, as a society, we have to decide based upon what is best for the whole in what we support through policy.
Many excellent points have been raised on both sides of the issue in this thread. Reasons for supporting both transit and cars along with every other alternative mode have been raised.
But the question is this: With ever-growing cities, with a finite amount of land within a reasonable commute distance of major cities, with valuable farmland and resource areas threatened with permanent degradation by development, and with a finite (but unknown) amount of petroleum reserves left in the world; do we want to continue to heavily subsidize a mode which, while granting enormous freedom of movement, pollutes, kills tens of thousands of Americans annually, encourages the inefficient use of land for development, parking, and transportation infrastructure, enables development patterns which cost more to maintain than they bring in in revenue, and further socio-economic disparities between citizens (especially with regard to housing choice), OR do we want to direct our limited financial resources to limiting these impacts?
(Incidentally, I don't think we're going to come to a conclusion here, but it is something to think about.)
by Matt Johnson on Aug 13, 2009 8:52 am • link • report
I am not sure this is true. In fact, there is very little sprawl in Europe. Virtually nobody lives in a cul-de-sac. Cities have grown because the population has grown. But there is very little American-style sprawl. Since expansion plans are largely government-made, they always include transit options. In fact, the development scandals in Europe seem to be focused on the failures of massive transit projects that failed for some reason.
In the Netherlands, for instance, they made a suburb with very few parking spots, to encourage people to use the many transit options. Problem was that they started full blast 12 min bus services the moment that they started building the neighborhood, but nobody lived there yet. Obviously, that was ridiculous, so at some point the buses got scrapped. At which point everybody that had moved in in the mean time bought an extra car, and a huge parking problem arose.
Anyway. I don't think that Europe and the US can be easily compared. The population density is way lower in the US. Europe has way more tiny little towns that provide for easy growth centers, or are annoying stand-in-the-ways for growth when the neighboring cities "eats" them. Also, the average distance between large cities is much shorter. "Large" meaning hundreds of thousands inhabitants in Europe, where it's millions in the US.
One big difference is that city-to-city rail is way more affordable in Europe. However, the US can learn from Europe's urban planning and transit systems. Actually, the US can learn from pretty much any developed country in the world when it comes to transit.
by Jasper on Aug 13, 2009 9:29 am • link • report
Where have you guys been over the last decade? There are MOUNTAINS of evidence that a shift is going on. Central cities are now growing faster than most of their suburbs, rail systems are opening in cities all over the country that never would have wanted them just a few years ago, conventional zoning is being overturned in jurisdiction after jurisdiction, transit ridership is way up, TOD is catching on all over the place, etc etc etc
Whether the shift has reached Joe Suburbanite yet is debatable, but to deny that a major shift is under way is simply wrong. Every indicator says it is going on.
by BeyondDC on Aug 13, 2009 9:53 am • link • report
... and Brandon wonders why my previous post changed from being very polite to being frustrated and sarcastic.
Most recently, there was an article in the Post about Prince George's County changing their zoning rules away from a car-dependent paradigm. Prince George's is always the last in our region to get something. They have seen the successes elsewhere and now want in on it. The motivation is both environmental and economic, just like elsewhere in the region.
by Cavan on Aug 13, 2009 10:43 am • link • report
This is actually a point for questioning. Has anyone seen hard evidence about people's preferences about lifestyle/location? I would think this data must exist, perhaps as market research by homebuilders or something. I've never been able to find it, except silly surveys by Pew that ask people if they would like to move somewhere else.
by DMIJohn on Aug 13, 2009 10:48 am • link • report
I think that is the best data you can find.
by Cavan on Aug 13, 2009 10:52 am • link • report
Not all density is the same, and neither is sprawl. By treating them as substances, like cheese or wine, you frame the issue incorrectly. The functioning of a city, in terms of commerce and travel depends as much on the infrastructure, land use, climate, economic structure, and geography as it does on the average density. In this way, close observation and case studies are much more useful than high-level statistical evidence, until a study that accommodates the significant differences between regions. In this way, non-scientific but rational examination is empirical. Application elsewhere of the planning strategy used in Arlington has shown itself to be more than a fluke, but rather a much more cost-effective allocation of land, energy, and human capital.
IÂ’m not claiming that sprawl is unnatural. It certainly exists in most urban conditions, and has since the 1870s. Nonetheless, the ratio of sprawl to urban space has been unbalanced by government policy and land use laws that game the market against good design and density. Policies in Europe are similar. Their midcentury planners had the same ideas ours had. Many of the ideas behind the current paradigm of suburban development are based on pipe dreams and fantasies of human behavior, developed in the first half of the 20th century, with no observation and study at all.
by цarьchitect on Aug 13, 2009 11:32 am • link • report
Cavan, you're basing your argument on the assumption that the prices being asked in the far off suburbs were reasonable to begin with. They weren't. To borrow your term ... they weren't 'sustainable'. The suburbs are where everything new happens, and like in anything to do with what is essentially a 'wild west' environment of growth, trying new things, etc., prices are going to fluctuate wildly as it gets 'settled.' I.e., you have a very different situation there to begin with. Yes, city prices have risen tremendously and not fallen. However, most of that rise was simply a catchup of 30 years of the inner cities being unsafe and undesireable. They're now safe and desireable ... and the bursting 'bubble' hasn't changed that. So why should prices fall there? There's no reason. Counter that to what happened in the suburbs where prices escalated not based purely on what had already been developed out there ... but partially based on what people assumed would be developed out there with the expansion that was going on. When the expansion stopped (albeit in my opinion only temporarily), the anticipation of immediately having all those new amenities stopped ... and the premium people were paying for things they didn't yet have disappeared ... and prices dropped.
Long story short ... What happened has NOTHING to do with whether there is mass transit or not. Like Brandon pointed out only a miniscule 4% use it. That 4% isn't going to influence anything in the large scheme of things.
As your example with Holland shows though, the danger is that this radical fringe can influence politicians to the point where bad decisions are made. Running a train out to nowhere ... ?! ... The market makes better decisions. The fact that 96% of American don't use transit regularly should be enough of a hint as to its limited applicability in the grand scheme of things.
by Lance on Aug 13, 2009 12:01 pm • link • report
That's an interesting statement ... and one I could agree with 100% if you didn't include subjective words such 'unbalanced' and 'good design and density'. These government policies occured because that is what 'the people' wanted. They weren't foisted on us by some marginal, small part of the population. The government was simply responding to the needs being put forth out there. That is different, for example, then the lobbying efforts we are currently seeing in our DC Planning Office by a small, marginal group who are ready to experiment on the greater population not because the greater population wants it ... but because 'they' (that small, marginal group) thinks it knows what is best for all of us. And the more you (or others) use subjective terminology such as 'should', 'good', 'bad', the more it is clear to me that you think you know what is best for the rest of us. And usually those who think they know what is best for the rest, don't know.
by Lance on Aug 13, 2009 12:15 pm • link • report
by GWL on Aug 13, 2009 12:34 pm • link • report
I would like to quickly point out that no free market could have ever created the U.S. interstate system. In no way did this massive government program rely on the free market. I truly believe that if the federal government had invested even half as much money into transit as it did highways, the mode share of transit would reflect those investments.
by DMIJohn on Aug 13, 2009 12:35 pm • link • report
Say that when gas is five dollars a gallon.
by JTS on Aug 13, 2009 12:42 pm • link • report
And, do you know what the percentage of Americans is, that have actual access to transit? Do we know the percentage of Americans with access to transit that use transit?
I am totally ok with folks in central Montana and north Alaska not using transit. It is useless out there.
As your example with Holland shows though, the danger is that this radical fringe can influence politicians to the point where bad decisions are made. Running a train out to nowhere ... ?!
Actually, it was my example. Anything can influence politicians to make bad decisions. In the US, it seems to be money that influences politicians to make bad decisions. Interestingly, "radical fringe groups" tend not to have money, so no need to worry there. I mean, you are aware of the folks involved in the bridge to nowhere, right?
By the way, why are you calling transit proponents a 'radical fringe group'?
by Jasper on Aug 13, 2009 1:19 pm • link • report
Baltimore is a perfect example of what happens when you rip transit out of a city that was built on transit. What you see in Baltimore is the fact that all those neighborhoods were built around streetcars when the streetcars were ripped out in 1961. If you somehow magically restored the rail transit service to those places, you would see the exact same process that we have seen in DC in places such as DuPont Circle, Logan Circle, Adams Morgan, Silver Spring, etc.
Those neighborhoods have a lack of amenities because they don't have the customer base they had back when the streetcar stopped close by. As they are now, they don't have the advantages of urban living such as proximate amenities and short commute times. The lack of demand for them reflects the lack of transit.
by Cavan on Aug 13, 2009 1:52 pm • link • report
Right. And 99.999999999% of Americans don't commute to work in rocket ships, which goes to show that Americans just fundamentally detest rocket-based transportation.
(And back before the Interstate Highway Act created the infrastructure--and automakers scrapped the streetcars--the lower levels of automobile use no doubt proved their limited applicability in the grand scheme of things. Right?)
I mean, seriously? This is pretty much straight out O'Toole's facile little playbook.
by jack lecou on Aug 13, 2009 2:19 pm • link • report
Are you kidding?!? Virginia, hardly a hotbed of transit oriented development, recently outlawed cul de sac development. Developers can build them, but Virginia won't provide services. Too expensive.
by Jonathan Krall on Aug 13, 2009 2:53 pm • link • report
It is true. Here is how the EU summarizes the passenger transportation and land-use trend in Europe, in its Panorama of Transport report:
And here's a summary by architecture critic Witold Rybczynski, from his Slate review of Sprawl by Robert Bruegmann:by Brandon on Aug 13, 2009 5:44 pm • link • report
Prices of all types of housing have declined since the real estate bubble burst. There is a huge inventory of unsold condos in central city areas that are now on offer for far less than their owners paid for them, or that are in foreclosure. While the bubble was inflating, real estate investors bid up the prices of these units hoping to flip them for a quick profit. Then demand collapsed, just as it did in the suburbs and exurbs. To the extent that prices declined more in lower-density areas than in higher-density areas, it is because lower-density areas is where most of the new supply was built. There is no evidence from the real estate bubble of any basic shift in housing preferences.
If Americans wanted lots of high-density housing and mixed-use development, they'd have it. They are free to vote for whatever kind of zoning laws and land-use policies they like. They are free to vote for new taxes to fund transit expansion. They are free to vote for new taxes to subsidize transit-oriented development. They are free to buy whatever kind of housing they prefer. The fact that the kind of housing you want people to live in is such a small share of the total market is a consequence of the fact that most people just don't want to live the way you want them to live.
by Brandon on Aug 13, 2009 6:21 pm • link • report
Again, it's not the suburbs new urbanists are against, it's poorly planned (if planned at all) ones. Nobody reasonable is saying Americans shouldn't have the right to live wherever they want to; Market forces should be the primary determinant of living arrangements. However, it should be imperative of us to mandate development in a manner that encourages walkability, bikeability, and other forms of multimodalism so that people can choose to live where they want without having to take transportation options into consideration.
So, this argument isn't about the suburbs vs the cities, it's about bad suburbs vs. good ones. We have a surplus of bad ones in this country, and Europe does not. I've seen them; they are distinctly suburban, yet there are still eyes on the street. Many of these new communities have taken from the best aspects of both worlds, perhaps most remarkably in Vauban, Germany (2)
A question: regarding depopulation of european cities, what is the relationship between that phenomenon and population decline as a whole? This is certainly something we aren't dealing with here, but many countries in Europe have made great efforts to encourage larger families.
Finally, there is no doubt that, unlike the US, Europe has been remarkably consistent in ensuring equitable, proportional funding for all forms of transportation. We'd be a very different country if we did the same.
by JTS on Aug 14, 2009 12:41 am • link • report
I assume that by "mandate" you mean a law or government policy. Laws and government policies are products of the democratic process, of how people vote. You can't force people to vote for things they don't want to vote for. Given the relative lack of laws and policies that encourage walkability, bikeability and other forms of multimodalism, people just don't seem to value those things very highly. What people seem to value more are the things that result in sprawl -- spacious, affordable housing, and travel by car. Yes, some people put a lot of value on walkability, bikeability, access to mass transit, etc. But not enough people to make those things very common in America. I don't know why "new urbanists" can't just accept this. Live and let live.
by Brandon on Aug 14, 2009 1:24 am • link • report
These preferences you highlight - spacious, affordable housing, travel by car, are unprecedented in modern history. We are living in an age of abundance that, through generations of policies that weren't always democratic, and weren't always about the public good, has made some a lot more abundant than others.
Why the 'new urbanists' cant accept it: because it shouldnt be impossible to walk to a freaking grocery store. Why should a child born in Exurb, USA, not have the freedom to bike or walk to school? why are sidewalks illegal? These things are crazy! And the democratic process you seem to have a lot of faith in is, simply put, woefully inadequate to overcome the immense corporate influence that challenges it. It is much more profitable to a select few to have 300 million people driving, buying gas, and occupying vast tracts of space than it is to have them in situations that would afford them the option to live and move as they choose. So, yes, I agree with you, live and let live. But that is going to require a bit of a gun fight with the vast array of private influencers that completely disagree with the right to walk, or bike.
by JTS on Aug 14, 2009 1:57 am • link • report
And the democratic process you seem to have a lot of faith in is, simply put, woefully inadequate to overcome the immense corporate influence that challenges it.
Well, if you think most people really want the "mandates" you seek and that the reason we don't have those mandates is that the democratic process is fundamentally broken, I guess there's not much you can do. I think there's no serious evidence that your housing and transportation preferences represent the will of the majority and that you're just refusing to confront the fact that most people don't want to live the kind of lifestyle you want them to live. As I pointed out earlier, Europe has been following the same trend as the U.S. So have Canada and Australia and every other industrialized democracy, as far as I can tell. Have their democracies all been subverted by corporate power, too?
Why the 'new urbanists' cant accept it: because it shouldnt be impossible to walk to a freaking grocery store. Why should a child born in Exurb, USA, not have the freedom to bike or walk to school? why are sidewalks illegal? These things are crazy!
If you think everyone in America should live within walking distance of a grocery store and that every child should live within biking or walking distance of his school, you are free to lobby for laws to force these restrictions on everyone, but I think you're going to be disappointed. But I guess you're prepared for that since you think American democracy is so thoroughly corrupt.
by Brandon on Aug 14, 2009 3:02 am • link • report
by Froggie on Aug 14, 2009 6:51 am • link • report
In previous post of mine, I outlined why car-dependent places are economically unsustainable. Well, in addition to using new development fees, local governments would move funds from sustainable human-scale walkable urban places to subsidize unsustainable car-dependent ones. An excellent example (though one that works and was planned that way so isn't parasitic) is Rosslyn-Ballston. Over 33% of Arlington County's tax revenue comes from Rosslyn-Ballson. It covers 8% of the land. That loss of funds (in unplanned situations like what largely existed in the 20th century) contributes to a lowering of services and decrease of amenities from the sustainable place. Basically, the sustainable human-scale places have been forced to shoot themselves in the foot by subsidizing car-dependent rather than keeping their own place up. That is hardly democratic.
Many bad pieces of policy have been passed by the democratic process. Weren't things like poll taxes passed by democratically elected state legislatures during the early to mid-20th century? That doesn't make them right. Those wrong, yet democratic, policies had to be revised and corrected in more recent decades. That's what's going on here. In fact, here's a quote from a M-NCPPC Prince George's member from today's Post:
I'm not just making this stuff up. That's a real planning professional in a major jurisdiction in our region who said the exact same thing. To the media, even. And you know that no one says anything like that to a reporter unless it's been vetted.I clearly have a preference for one living arrangement over another. I live in downtown Wheaton, a ten minute walk from the Metro and all the amenities that small town has to offer. I use transit when I'm going somewhere where I have that choice. However, I'm not so arrogant as to think that everyone should be like me because of preferences. I got into this advocacy thing because I see, due to both environmental and economic reasons, that if we don't update our ways we will be collectively worse off. History doesn't care whether you prefer a town/urban neighborhood or a McMansion. The forces of nature won't care when we have lots of people starving in their remote houses because we can't afford to maintain the roads. Nature won't care that we won't be able to keep our grocery stores stocked because they are so far away and therefore more expensive to ship goods to. Nature won't care when we don't have enough farmland left to feed ourselves. Nature won't care if we have too many impermeable parking lots so the runoff causes our rivers to go anoxic.
We have to plan for ourselves or else we will go broke in more ways than we can imagine. When those policies were first passed, people had no idea about the unintended consequences. It's ok of you have a scoop or two of ice cream. It's a real problem when you eat the whole container in one sitting. It's much worse when you have to borrow money to buy another container.
by Cavan on Aug 14, 2009 9:45 am • link • report
Which is still four times that of the NYC metro area. Apples and oranges and so forth. Try again.
More generally, we all know there is some sprawl all over. But we also know that some low density fringe is probably necessary and good--especially if it is transit accessible.
What we're complaining about is lots of "car-only" sprawl, and I think most of Europe is still lagging us there. Of course, to the extent Europe does have some of that, it's just as undesirable as it is in the US. (And probably just as much a product of misguided government interventions.)
(I would also note that one always needs to be very careful with average density numbers. For example, depending on the boundaries chosen, a sprawled out, car-only city might easily have roughly the same average density as a "greater metro area" encompassing a center city together with several moderately dense satellite cities/suburbs--all separated by ample greenspace. Simple density comparisons would be misleading. The latter cities individually could all be reasonably dense, and easily connected with transit.)
by jack lecou on Aug 14, 2009 10:33 am • link • report
Forgive Brandon, he has never read Chomsky, and therefore has never heard of the 'democratic deficit,' and could scarcely imagine his beloved government could be anything but perfect.
On just about every major public policy issue, a super-majority of the American people agree on what we want with regards to war, global warming/kyoto, healthcare, nuclear weapons proliferation, etc., yet those policies fail to come to fruition -- why? It's not rocket science, you just have to pay attention and be willing to accept a truth you won't see supported on tv.
as for the earlier Nazi talk, this is not what my comparison was about, but it is interesting when we look at what is going on with the town hall meetings right now. the 'descent into barbarism' can happen here, too, and grievances are real, not invented. this blog, imo, is doing as good a job as any at attacking fundamental problems with 'the system', so the more it/we keep looking at things like 'openness in government' and 'process', the better off we'll all be.
by Peter Smith on Aug 14, 2009 10:41 am • link • report
We would be, but probably not for the better. As I had a French cousin explain it to me 'We have to make it difficult for most people to own and operate cars in France, otherwise there wouldn't be room for everyone to drive. We'd be stuck in traffic". He said this as he was speeding along at 200km plus an hour, in his 8 cylinder car, on the autoroute from his 'maison bourgiouse' 45 minutes out of Paris to his 'usine' on the outskirts of the city, where of course he'd have parking waiting.
The assumption to his thinking is of course that 'there ain't anywhere else to build ... so we need to ration what we have ... and that rationing should be based on ability to pay.' I prefer the American assumption that 'we can just build more ... and allow even those with little in monetary resources the opportunity to build their share of the American dream. That's the kind of thinking that's allowed us to settle a continent, add 100 million people in 50 years, and made it such that almost all of the largest cities in this country today were literally 'cow towns' a hundred years ago or even desert outposts. Part and parcel of that is making it 'easy' for anyone with a piece of land to develop it. Roads are cheap to build. Railroads aren't. If the economics of building dispersed housing were bad, these places wouldn't get built. But they do get built. And they get built because they are apprporiate for their stage of development. Yes, as a place grows it requires more centralized transportation options. But to mandate these options before a place has reached that stage is putting the cart before the horse. It's forcing upon the developers (or the government) an unneccesary and not recoupable cost. And it effectively negates the development of areas that otherwise would be developed. An analogy would be telling a recent college grad that they can't move out of the house until they buy a 5 bedroom townhouse. They can't afford it, they don't need it, and without the opportunity of being able to take baby steps by renting that small apartment first, they'll never be able to afford (or need) that 5 bedroom townhouse.
by Lance on Aug 14, 2009 10:47 am • link • report
by Peter Smith on Aug 14, 2009 10:58 am • link • report
I remember my dad telling me how he'd walk to school some many miles away in the snow ... in the cold New England winter when he was a kid. And how lucky I was to have a school bus and parents with a car (note I said "a" car ... this was in the days when there was a 'family' car). There's never been a guarantee of kids having an easy walk to school. And anyone who thinks the automobile somehow changed a utopia into a nightmare, hasn't done their research as to what people had to go through before the automobile eased a lot of the daily burden of people in the 20th century.
by Lance on Aug 14, 2009 11:11 am • link • report
You are confused. The political unit corresponding to Greater London is New York City, not the entire NYC metro area. Greater London has about as many people as New York City, but in twice the area of land. London, like most European cities and most American cities, has been sprawling for decades.
re: the population of Paris -- as best I can tell it's been growing for the past 10 years straight. happy to be wrong.
There's been a tiny increase over the past decade, but as Rybczynski noted the city's population is down by around a third since the 1920s. Over the same period, the population of the metro area has exploded. All the new people are living in the suburbs, not in the city.
by Brandon on Aug 14, 2009 1:39 pm • link • report
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2486235784907931000&hl=en
It names names and has the detail on how the U.S. streetcar system was deliberately dismantled. In 1920 Philadelphia streetcars carried over 900,000,000 trips. To begin to re-level the playing field, you can make public transit free in your town. It only costs 60 basis points of tax and the benefits are immediate, long-lasting, and recuperative.
by fpteditors on Aug 14, 2009 1:40 pm • link • report
This is, again, a profoundly ignorant statement which could only be based on an utterly facile analysis.
On what basis? How many lane miles do you need to replace a rail line? How many acres of parking lots and interchanges? How much greenspace and farmland is being paved over, and what is its value? How many more lane miles will you need to add in two years due to induced suburban demand? In five years? Ten years? How many sewer lines? How do maintenance costs compare? How about the health costs of walkable neighborhoods vs. infrastructure that makes them impossible?
If the economics of building dispersed housing were bad, these places wouldn't get built.
And this is the best of all possible worlds, and there are no such things as market or public choice failures.
Right. Keep dreaming.
by jack lecou on Aug 14, 2009 1:42 pm • link • report
But it's moving in our direction. Europe is sprawling, not densifying. Just as in America. Its central cities have been shrinking and its suburbs and exurbs have been growing dramatically. Just as in in America. Growth in Euopean travel has been overwhelmingly dominated by cars and planes. Europe's motorization rate (number of cars per thousand people) has been steadily growing. Its motorway and road networks have been steadily growing. For historical, demographic and economic reasons, Europe will probably never become quite as sprawled as the U.S., but it's clearly been following the same trend as America.
by Brandon on Aug 14, 2009 1:56 pm • link • report
Glad to see that Lance has revised his opinions about increased density in DC.
by tt on Aug 14, 2009 2:01 pm • link • report
No, even if that's the case (the equivalence of political units being rather debatable), political units have pretty limited bearing on the question, especially in cross national comparisons. The correct unit is some kind of statistically derived "metropolitan area" (hopefully both derived in a similar manner).
And I'll reiterate that comparisons of average density are often highly misleading. What's important is the distribution of densities within the region, and their connectivity.
There's been a tiny increase over the past decade, but as Rybczynski noted the city's population is down by around a third since the 1920s. Over the same period, the population of the metro area has exploded. All the new people are living in the suburbs, not in the city.
I don't have time series handy, so I won't speak to trends, but according to wikipedia, over 86% of the people in the "metropolitan area" of Paris live within the "urban area", at an average density of over 9000 per square mile. That doesn't seem especially suburban to me.
Again, the political unit of the city proper is of very limited utility.
I'll add though, that all this talk of Europe is quite a distraction. "What Europe does" is not AT ALL the same thing as "What is the best policy". Specific examples and studies can be useful for comparison, to learn about both the good and the bad, but this "Oh yeah, well things are going this way in Europe too" is fairly meaningless.
by jack lecou on Aug 14, 2009 2:04 pm • link • report
In previous post of mine, I outlined why car-dependent places are economically unsustainable.
As far as I can tell, you haven't even defined "sustainable" as you are using the word. You seem to be using it to mean something like "more expensive" or "consumes more resources" or "uses resources in a way I personally disapprove of." You just seem to be drawing an arbitrary line relating to consumption and resource usage and declaring anything over that line to be "unsustainable." It's silly.
by Brandon on Aug 14, 2009 2:04 pm • link • report
I don't know how Wikipedia defines it, but the U.S. Census Bureau defines "Urban Area" to include all but the lowest-density forms of development. An Urban Area, as defined by the CB, includes central cities, suburbs and exurbs. Everything else is classified as "rural." The vast majority of Americans, and presumably Parisians, live within an Urban Area, but most of those people live in low-density, car-oriented suburbs and exurbs.
And I'll reiterate that comparisons of average density are often highly misleading. What's important is the distribution of densities within the region, and their connectivity.
And I'll reiterate that mass transit use in Europe has been flat for decades, while driving has exploded. Europeans living in suburbs and exurbs are not clustered into high-density islands where they can get around mainly by transit or walking. They're spread out in low-density urban forms and do most of their travelling by car. Same as in America.
by Brandon on Aug 14, 2009 2:24 pm • link • report
What rate of increase would be acceptable to you?
but as Rybczynski noted the city's population is down by around a third since the 1920s.
lots of reasons for that, including the 'trauma' of early 20th century city living. i'm not sure why arbitrarily picking some date out of thin air is supposed to lead us to believe that your cause gains any credence - it doesn't. there's a definite trend towards growing cities going on right now -- you don't have to agree with it, but it's happening nonetheless.
Newsflash! Cities are growing! Yes -- Up and Out! Developing...
Over the same period, the population of the metro area has exploded. All the new people are living in the suburbs, not in the city.
is this really what you are going on about? whether a city is a city, and where the city boundary is? sounds very troll-esque to me.
We know that most of the world's population now lives in cities:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0112/p25s02-wogi.html
Take it up with the UN.
by Peter Smith on Aug 14, 2009 2:29 pm • link • report
What does the ease of development of exurbs and completely new cities (as I was talking about in the post) have anything to do with 'increased density in DC'?
TT, please try to understand what is being said before you personally attack others. Better yet, quick personally attacking others. It doesn't help your case or make you look good. Actually, it does rather the opposite.
by Lance on Aug 14, 2009 2:37 pm • link • report
If you don't know how it's defined, you probably shouldn't be attempting the comparison. Clearly whatever French statisticians designate as an urban area is quite dense:
- 20% of Parisians live in the city proper (either 33.6 or 40.5 sq mi -wikipedia is of a mixed mind- for a density of 54,000-65,000 depending on which it is).
- 86% of Parisians live in the "urban area" (about 1000 sq mi, at an average density of over 9000/sq mi)
- the rest live on the fringes of the "metropolitan area", which is over 5600 square miles.
Now, probably those units aren't directly comparable to the various US Census Bureau definitions of "urbanized area" and "urban fringe" and "central place" and so forth, so you'd need to do some translation to compare that properly. And again with the average density caveat. Still, by US standards, the Paris area seems pretty darn dense.
As a further note: 54-65 thousand people per square mile in the city proper is pretty frakking dense. Is it really surprising that some of that population is spilling out? I don't think it is. The question is how dense the spillover is, and whether it's in cul-de-sacs, or in more walkable suburban places.
by jack lecou on Aug 14, 2009 2:40 pm • link • report
I'd like to see a cite for this. (Is this "riders" in absolute numbers? Trips per capita? Percent of population that uses transit sometimes? Which countries? Which systems?)
Some of these wouldn't especially surprise me, and I could probably find something, but since you've stated it a couple times now I assume you've got something in mind.
by jack lecou on Aug 14, 2009 2:44 pm • link • report
by jack lecou on Aug 14, 2009 2:50 pm • link • report
If you don't know how it's defined, your original comment is irrelevant.
Still, by US standards, the Paris area seems pretty darn dense.
Er, 9,000 people per square mile is a little higher than the population density of Los Angeles. Your definition of "pretty darn dense" seems rather strange. Los Angeles is not generally considered "walkable" or "transit-oriented" or "compact." The vast majority of travelling in Los Angeles is done by car. You seem to be making my case for me.
As a further note: 54-65 thousand people per square mile in the city proper is pretty frakking dense.
Yes, "the city proper" is dense. But the vast majority of people in the Paris metropolitan area don't live in the city proper. They live in the suburbs and exurbs, where the density is much lower, and most travelling is done by car. Same as in America.
by Brandon on Aug 14, 2009 3:57 pm • link • report
Uh, yeah. Los Angeles is really a very dense city. One of the densest in the States. Like I said - pretty darn dense by US standards.
As for walkability and transit-oriented, this is obviously not the same thing as density (density is actually kind of secondary - a side effect, not a synonym). That's especially true when the "density" in question is an average over a large, heterogeneous metro area. You need to look more closely.
For what it's worth, the right transit infrastructure probably could transform much of LA into a fairly walkable (and even denser) place without too much disruption. It's not as if the whole city is cul de sacs.
Yes, "the city proper" is dense. But the vast majority of people in the Paris metropolitan area don't live in the city proper. They live in the suburbs and exurbs, where the density is much lower, and most travelling is done by car. Same as in America.
You just managed to entirely miss the point of that paragraph, as well as the context. Should I use smaller words?
by jack lecou on Aug 14, 2009 4:46 pm • link • report
The difference between LA and Paris is the extent of their public transit. You are completely wrong, brandon. Just for everyone's edification, a map of the Paris Metro, and one from LA. Helps to explain why, without congestion charging (which was believed to be politically untenable since it would adversely affect working class people in the suburbs), Paris was able to reduce automobile usage by 20 percent within the greater Paris metropolitan area in less than six years.
An excerpt:
[Mayor] Delanoë and [Deputy Mayor for Transportation] Baupin decided instead to rethink how the public right-of-way was divvied up on Paris streets. In 2002, they launched Quartiers Verts ("Green Neighborhoods"), an initiative to improve pedestrian space and reduce traffic in residential areas. The administration anticipated especially strong opposition to the parking policies in the plan -- higher rates, a reduction in the amount of on-street parking, and the elimination of free parking altogether. To counteract the expected outcry, the city tied those reforms to the introduction of residential parking permits, which are now available for a nominal yearly fee. With RPP still fresh in New Yorkers' minds following the congestion pricing debate, could permits be an effective carrot in a similar overhaul of parking policy here?
Delanoë's next major initiative -- Espaces Civilisés ("Civilized Spaces") -- took aim at Paris's most car-friendly boulevards. The first such project, on Boulevard de Magenta, trimmed a six-lane road down to two traffic lanes and two bus lanes, with the remainder going to sidewalks and street trees. This substantial redistribution of space did not happen overnight. Launched in 2002, Espaces Civilisés yielded its first finished boulevard in 2005. About half a dozen such transformations have been completed so far, with plans for another on the way.
Food for thought.
by JTS on Aug 14, 2009 4:46 pm • link • report
Er, no it isn't. It doesn't even make the top 100. But you're missing the point anyway. As with Los Angeles, only a small part of the Paris metropolitan area is dense enough to support a "walkable, transit-oriented" lifestyle. The vast majority of Paris consists of low-density, car-oriented suburbs and exurbs. And for 50 years, the population of the "city proper" has been declining while the population of the suburbs and exurbs has been growing. And this has been the typical pattern for cities in both Europe and the U.S. Sprawl is not limited to the U.S. It's been happening throughout the developed world.
by Brandon on Aug 14, 2009 6:20 pm • link • report
As far as cities are concerned, Los Angeles is actually the most dense city in America
No it isn't. You need to read your sources more carefully. The Los Angeles Urbanized Area is the densest in the nation. Denser even than New York's Urbanized Area. So why does New York have so much more transit than LA? Why is New York so much more walkable than LA? Because a UA is not the same thing as a city, as I explained above. The NY Urbanized Area population is heavily concentrated in a few very dense areas such as the lower half of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens. The LA Urbanized Area population is much more evenly distributed. In fact, most parts of the NY Urbanized Area are no more "walkable" and no better served by transit than Los Angeles. They are low-density suburbs and exurbs where almost everyone gets around by car.
Paris was able to reduce automobile usage by 20 percent within the greater Paris metropolitan area in less than six years.
No it wasn't. You have again misunderstood your source. The blog post you link to states only that private auto use in the city of Paris has declined. Only about 20% (and falling) of the Paris metro area population lives in the city of Paris.
by Brandon on Aug 14, 2009 6:43 pm • link • report
You keep saying this as if repeating it enough made it true. But you need evidence for this claim - average density numbers aren't sufficient, especially because they tend to contradict your claim. (4000/sq mi is higher than even LA, and a lot higher than Atlanta, and it's an average.) You need to look at these places in a much more detailed way.
But taking a step back, you also need to explain how this is relevant, even if you can establish that Paris is somehow Atlanta with baguettes. Is this actually part of a broad trend in Europe? Is it actually due to something about cars, and not other trends in depopulation, immigration, interest group politics, or infrastructure contingencies? And why should we care what the trends are in Europe? Why aren't they just as wrong?
by jack lecou on Aug 15, 2009 11:31 am • link • report
by jack lecou on Aug 15, 2009 1:30 pm • link • report
No, they absolutely support my claim. The "city proper" has over 2 million people in just 34 square miles, so, as you say it's "pretty frakkin dense." Around 60,000 people per square mile.
But the vast majority of the Paris metro area is not the "city proper." It is suburbs and exurbs that surround the "city proper." The population of the metro area excluding the city is around 9 milliom. The land area of the metro area excluding the city is about 5,600 square miles. That's a population density of only around 1,600 people per square mile. Only around one-thirtieth the population density of the city of Paris itself. Far less, even, than the 8,200 people per square mile in the city of Los Angeles.
by Brandon on Aug 15, 2009 9:23 pm • link • report
Read it and weep
by Brandon on Aug 15, 2009 9:27 pm • link • report
nevertheless, a couple of critiques of his book:
http://www.robertbruegmann.com/_images/reviews/Landis.pdf
http://www.planetizen.com/node/20044
Also, all this is fine and well, but those graphs he created reflect a transportation regime aided in large part by significantly cheaper fuel. None of this holds up when gas is 4-5 dollars a gallon (which it surely will be, if as you seem to believe, everyone wants to live in the suburbs, including the Chinese). The Volt and cars like it are certainly not the answer: 230 MPG, even if it really is that efficient (it isn't), still relies on an electrical grid to charge it. This grid is running over capacity as it is. How would you propose paying for a total overhaul of the grid? Should that too extend into the far reaches of the hinterland?
For the 100th time, nobody is saying people don't have the right to live where they want. Some of us are arguing in favor of a complete streets lifestyle, where these inevitable costs can be somewhat mitigated through multimodalism. Europe may have its sprawl (again, I've seen it), but it is complete, networked, and multimodal.
by JTS on Aug 15, 2009 9:53 pm • link • report
by JTS on Aug 15, 2009 10:00 pm • link • report
None of this holds up when gas is 4-5 dollars a gallon
Er, we had $4 gas last year, and it had only a small effect on driving and mass transit use. If gas prices rise dramatically and remain high for a lengthy period, Americans can adapt by switching to more fuel efficient vehicles. Gas prices in Europe have long been 2 to 4 times higher than they are in the U.S., but Europeans have been sprawling for decades just like Americans. As the chart I linked to shows, car ownership rates and driving in Europe have skyrocketed over the past 50 years, while mass transit use has barely increased at all. In fact, car ownership rates have been increasing faster in Europe than the U.S. for at least a decade. The U.S. market is close to the saturation point, and Europe is catching up.
In addition, new fuel and propulsion technologies will dramatically increase automobile fuel efficiency over the coming decades. Your claim about the electrical grid is simply false. There is abundant excess capacity at night and on weekends. That's why off-peak electric rates are only a fraction of on-peak rates. And the transition to electrical power will occur gradually, anyway. There won't be tens of millions of GM Volts and Nissan Leafs on the road in the next few years. Electric generating capacity will be gradually increased, as necessary, as electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles gradually displace conventional vehicles in the nation's auto fleet.
Some of us are arguing in favor of a complete streets lifestyle, where these inevitable costs can be somewhat mitigated through multimodalism. Europe may have its sprawl (again, I've seen it), but it is complete, networked, and multimodal.
If "a complete streets lifestyle" refers to the lifestyle associated with transit-oriented, compact, walkable, mixed-use development, then as I have already explained to you, half a century of voting and buying behavior by the American people demonstrates that the vast majority of them don't want it. And Europeans don't want it, either. Your response to this -- the assertion that Americans really do want it but that evil corporations have hijacked the political process -- is almost too laughable to bother with. Have the evil corporations hijacked the political process in Europe too? And Canada? And Australia? For 50 years? All across the country?
And I have no idea what "complete, networked and multimodal" sprawl is supposed to mean, or how it is supposed to differ from American-style sprawl. Another one of your bizarre formulations.
by Brandon on Aug 16, 2009 2:29 am • link • report
And it is well known that vehicle, oil, and rubber companies worked together to dismantle America's public transportation system, so I'd hardly call my (or anyone's) formulations bizarre.
You can have the last word, I'm finished with this thread.
by JTS on Aug 16, 2009 3:24 am • link • report
For some reason (two guesses about what that reason is, but I'll try to be generous) you keep eliding the fact that there is a middle ground between the Paris "city proper", and the massive 5600 square mile area they're calling the "metro area". As I've pointed out at least two or three times now, over 86% of Parisians live within a much smaller 1000 square mile inner belt, at a correspondingly higher density. And it's probable that the bulk of even that population is actually living in even denser clusters, probably roughly in rings of decreasing density radiating outward from the city proper. (Aside: it'd be awesome if someone wanted volunteer to calculate some kind of weighted density for a few European cities...)
Anyway, the upshot is that the effective number of people left to live in anything resembling your US-style auto-oriented cul-de-sacs is vanishingly small. At most, maybe there's a handful of people like that scattered through the sparser parts of the inner donut, then some of the 13% or so of population in that 4600 square mile outer donut--but I'd guess even most of the outer donut's people are clustered in small, but individually denser, communities.
As JTS said, you need to go try to find some actual cul-de-sacs. Preferably enough to house even a tiny fraction of Paris' 11 million people. Stop repeating your little Paris canards.
(And, incidentally, I did notice you trying to get away with being slippery with the definitions again: comparing LA's city proper density with Paris' entire metro area. The LA metro's density is actually more like 3500. Compare that to the 9000/sq mi minimum density of the places in which the very vast majority of Parisians actually live.
by jack lecou on Aug 17, 2009 12:02 am • link • report
Uh, well, one graph of somewhat dubious provenance. I think I'll save my tears for now. (Not that I would have been crying anyway. What a weird thing to say. It's hardly unsurprising that Europe has been following similar trends - at least until recently.)
Anyway, maybe I'll get around to digging up the original source for that graph, and maybe some more recent/relevant data. I expect Europe wide data going back that far is somewhat hard to come by, but who knows.
Until then, a couple quibbles:
One, it'd be nice to actually see both kinds of transit actually stacked together -- the way the graph is drawn tends to make both look flatter than they would be combined.
Two, and more importantly, passenger miles is far from the best way to compare different transportation nodes. Using it is kind of a dead giveaway that you haven't thought seriously about the dynamic effect of transportation infrastructure on development pattern - and that's kind of the whole point. Someone living in a city takes a 1 or 2 mile metro ride to work, even shorter rides, or just a walk, to get their groceries, to a restaurant, to the movies; total: a very small handful of "passenger miles". Someone living in a suburb drives to all those things, total: dozens of passenger miles. So you'd expect total transit passenger miles to be far lower than automobile miles - and for automobile miles to grow faster as the built environment conforms to the needs of automobiles and everything is forced to stretch out. I'm sure the effect is not going to completely change the picture painted by that graph, but it'd certainly look a hell of a lot less dramatic.
by jack lecou on Aug 17, 2009 12:23 am • link • report
Much like the infamous condition of the Cuyahoga River represented the sincere desire of consumers and the electorate for a toxic and highly flammable waterway. Amiright?
by jack lecou on Aug 17, 2009 12:32 am • link • report
by Froggie on Aug 17, 2009 6:49 am • link • report
by fpteditors on Aug 17, 2009 8:54 am • link • report
by Froggie on Aug 17, 2009 10:35 am • link • report
by Michael Perkins on Aug 17, 2009 10:37 am • link • report
http://ideas.repec.org/p/nex/wpaper/fullcostintercityhighways.html
by Michael Perkins on Aug 17, 2009 10:40 am • link • report
by Froggie on Aug 17, 2009 11:08 am • link • report
As I've pointed out at least two or three times now, over 86% of Parisians live within a much smaller 1000 square mile inner belt, at a correspondingly higher density.
The Urban Area population density outside the "city proper" is about 7,200 per square mile. Only about one-eighth the density of the city. Less dense even than the city of Los Angeles.
Anyway, the upshot is that the effective number of people left to live in anything resembling your US-style auto-oriented cul-de-sacs is vanishingly small.
Laughable. You just don't know what you're talking about. The vast majority of the people living in the Paris metro area live a "US-style auto-oriented" lifestyle. Outside the tiny 34-square-mile "city proper," there simply isn't enough transit or a high enough density to support a "transit-oriented" lifestyle. Hence the explosion in the rate of car ownership and car travel. And what is this obsession with cul-de-sacs? Are we to understand that it's not sprawl you object to, but merely cul-de-sacs? Sprawl is okay as long as it doesn't involve cul-de-sacs? Is that it?
by Brandon on Aug 17, 2009 1:57 pm • link • report
It isn't? According to JTS, the cause of the trend in the U.S. is not that most people prefer the bigger housing and car-based transportation system that results in sprawl, but a broken-down political process, hijacked by evil corporations, that has thwarted the true wishes of the people for transit-oriented, compact, walkable, mixed-use development. If this is indeed the true cause of sprawl, it seems rather surprising that it's also happened all over Europe, and in Canada and Australia, too. And that it's been going on for so long, half a century or more. All of these democracies are fundamentally broken, are they? The true wishes of the people for transit and density have been thwarted in all these places, for all this time, have they?
Someone living in a city takes a 1 or 2 mile metro ride to work, even shorter rides, or just a walk, to get their groceries, to a restaurant, to the movies; total: a very small handful of "passenger miles". Someone living in a suburb drives to all those things, total: dozens of passenger miles.
So what? Population data shows that virtually all the population growth has been occurring in suburbs where, as you concede here, most of the traveling is done by car. The central cities, where people can get around by metro or walking, have LOST population. The population of the city of Paris is down by about a third since the 1920s, remember? That's why, as the chart shows, passenger-km of travel by rail and bus has barely changed, while passenger-km of travel by auto has skyrocketed.
by Brandon on Aug 17, 2009 2:23 pm • link • report
If zoning laws and development approval are blocking the transit-oriented, compact, walkable, mixed-use development that JTS, cavan, and jack lecou claim people want, why don't the people vote to change the laws? Why don't the people make their grievances known to their elected representatives? Why don't the people vote those representatives out of office when they fail to respond to the people's wishes? Why don't the people vote for higher taxes to fund transit expansion, transit-oriented development, etc.? Why don't the people demand greater restrictions driving and parking? Why don't the people vote for higher gas taxes to discourage driving?
Oh, wait. I forgot. It's because evil corporations have somehow disenfanchised the people and prevented them from voting and lobbying in accordance with their true wishes. For 50 years. And not just in America, but in Europe and elsewhere too. Yes, that must be it.
by Brandon on Aug 17, 2009 2:39 pm • link • report
Wow, just... Wow.
The 7200 figure is fine - I assume that's the density of the inner urban belt (~1000 square miles) MINUS the city proper. I get about 7300 for this, but whatevs.
You then compare this to the density of LA proper. Not even the metro area. LA proper.
.
.
.
!
You see what's dishonest about that? Like, laughably dishonest? Like not even dishonest anymore, but almost cute? Like a kid with cookie crumbs dripping down his shirt claiming to know nothing?
The comparable figure for LA is obviously not the LA city proper. It's the LA urban area MINUS LA proper. (Still likely not a perfect comparison, because the boundaries are probably not derived exactly the same way, but it's at least not ludicrously unreasonable.)
So, calculated that way, Paris's urban belt has ~7300 people/square mile. Los Angeles' has... 2033/square mile. But, no, I'm sure Paris is just the same. It's ranch homes and cul de sacs all the way.
Seriously, who do you think you're fooling?
by jack lecou on Aug 17, 2009 4:23 pm • link • report
Umm. Right. Because your thesis is that government--including local government--is only f'ed up in the US and is perfect everywhere else? French people and Canadians and Germans are all immune from the effects of ignorance and externalities, it's just people in the US that ever suffer from those problems?
Really?
by jack lecou on Aug 17, 2009 4:28 pm • link • report
That too, absolutely. And don't forget NIMBY's. (Brandon certainly does...)
by jack lecou on Aug 17, 2009 4:29 pm • link • report
Besides facilitating this car addiction, our governments don't insist on rational residential development of largely unused metro-station neighborhoods but pander to the desire for residential McMansion growth instead toward Frederick and Loudoun counties.
Electric cars are a part of a solution, but DC is making no plans for charging stations in new developments or public access ones for residents. When electric cars do come (and the Chinese will ensure they do), DC will be the only place they are impractical.
by Tom Coumaris on Aug 17, 2009 11:11 pm • link • report
You don't need to assume. As I already told you, it's the density of the Paris "Urban Area" outside the "city proper."
The comparable figure for LA is obviously not the LA city proper. It's the LA urban area MINUS LA proper.
You are confused. Again. Even the city of Los Angeles isn't dense enough to support a transit-oriented, walkable lifestyle. The vast majority of people in Los Angeles get around primarily by car. They don't walk. They don't take the bus. They don't ride a train. They get in their car and drive. And the city of Los Angeles is significantly denser than 7,200 people per square mile.
Because your thesis is that government--including local government--is only f'ed up in the US and is perfect everywhere else?
No, I don't think the government is "perfect" anywhere. I do think the assertion that the government is so fundamentally broken in both America and Europe, and has been so for half a century or more, that the laws and public policies relating to land-use and transportation are fundamentally inconsistent with the will of the people is absurd. If the people wanted different zoning laws, they'd vote accordingly. If the people wanted to spend more on transit and less on roads, they'd vote for that too. They haven't voted for those things because THEY DON'T WANT THEM. You need to come terms with that fact.
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 1:38 am • link • report
What ABOUT NIMBYs? NIMBYs are part of the political process. People band together and organize politically to defeat proposed changes to their communities that they oppose. It's democracy in action.
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 1:49 am • link • report
Oh, I see where you were going. You're right, I was confused. Arguments from false premises tend to do that.
For at least the second time: downtown Los Angeles is more than dense enough to work as a walkable/transit oriented community.
There's something of a car culture in operation there, so I won't say that it is NOW exactly. It doesn't really look the part, and amenities might not be laid out particularly conveniently for a low-car or no-car lifestyle. But it's certainly possible. The level of raw density isn't in itself a problem. In fact, that's probably about the density I'd expect from nice transit oriented suburbs, probably even higher.
For proof, let's just look to Paris again: despite having a density that supposedly makes it impossible, the Paris suburbs are substantially more transit friendly than LA. Hell, you don't have to take my word for it. Take Wendell Cox's: 23% of households in the Paris suburbs don't even own cars. About two thirds of the trips within Paris, and almost that many trips between Paris and the suburbs take place using public transport. Only for trips within the suburbs themselves do the majority take place by car. And even 15% of those take place by transit. That's huge for a supposedly car-oriented place. It's true that the majority of trips around Paris and the suburbs take place by car but it obviously pretty easy to navigate those suburbs by transit, which is all anyone is really asking.
Name me a US suburb where transit has even close to a 15% share for suburb-suburb trips. Paris evidently has suburbs that are more transit oriented than even the downtown cores of major US cities. These are not suburbs on the US model. Just give it up.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 3:14 am • link • report
Answer my question about the Cuyahoga river.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 3:16 am • link • report
Right?
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 3:17 am • link • report
Local government means that a suburban NIMBY has absolute control over zoning.
Where's the vote of the person who'd like to move in and increase the density, but can't because, say, multi-unit dwellings are illegal.
Suppose the number of people who would potentially want to move in far outnumbers the number already there. Where's their vote? How do they excercise it?
Is that democratic? What is democracy exactly?
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 3:21 am • link • report
The American city concept is like New York with the huge density and height at the center with everything concentrated in the "downtown". Most American cities, but not Washington, are like this.
In Europe metropolitan areas are planned with high density throughout the mass-transit metro area and "exurbs" are rarely allowed in preference to green belts. Paris for example is 6 stories throughout with greater height in some suburbs. Washington was planned much like Paris.
Here there are so many metro stations that are practically barren while developers insist on wider roads and transit to exurb locations and higher height in already popular urban residential areas.
by Tom Coumaris on Aug 18, 2009 9:34 am • link • report
by JTS on Aug 18, 2009 11:22 am • link • report
You're hilarious. You seriously think an area in which cars are used for 85% of trips is not "car-oriented?" As Cox suggests, transit's share would be even lower than 15% if not for the concentration of low-income households in the Paris suburbs. It's not that these households don't want to drive; it's that they CAN'T AFFORD to drive. As the rate of car ownership continues to rise, transit's share of trips in the Paris suburbs will almost certainly decline further.
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 5:00 pm • link • report
The same way everyone else does. If they want to change the local zoning laws in a locality they do not live in, they can either move into the locality and vote in the local elections, or they can vote to override the local laws at the county, state and/or federal level. If you think people should have no greater control over the zoning laws in their own local community than people living outside that community, you are free to lobby and vote to abolish local zoning laws entirely, but I rather doubt you'll find many supporters for that proposal.
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 5:26 pm • link • report
I guess you just haven't been following the discussion. I'm not sure what a "mass-transit metro area" is supposed to be, but in general the only areas with enough density and mass transit to support a "transit-oriented" lifestyle, in both Europe and the U.S., are central cities. Central cities typically comprise only a small fraction of the total land area of the metropolitan area they occupy, and contain only a small (and declining) fraction of the total population of that metro area. Most of the metro area population lives outside the central city, in low-density suburbs and exurbs with very limited mass transit, and gets around primarily by car.
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 5:45 pm • link • report
Absolutely. Don't you?
It certainly may be that having a car is higher status - that's especially likely if the transit options are bus, not rail- and perhaps generally more convenient, at least for 'burb-'burb trips (although I expect even higher status would be to live in the city itself). However, a 15% share for transit is very good for a so-called "suburb". That and 25% car-free households clearly indicate that it's quite feasible to get around only with transit if you have to (or want to), and things are likely to be arranged in a way that aren't exclusively for cars, like shopping and dining options arranged in a slightly more 'urban' manner-- e.g., street facing retail with sidewalks, and parking around the corner, rather than strip malls surrounded by expanses of parking lot.
Now, while 15% transit share is not car-oriented, it's also not exactly transit-oriented. Still, it's obviously a completely different situation from almost all US suburban places. (And a lot of US urban ones...).
For yet another data point, there's Portland, Oregon, which has a density of only just over 4000/sq mi. Yet Portland has a similar transit share - 13% - and it's widely considered something of a US transit mecca. I think that while that's oversold a little, and they could benefit from a lot more rail and street car lines, it's definitely the case that despite the "low" density, it's got a lot of really walkable neighborhoods, and it's easy to get where you need to by transit.
As the rate of car ownership continues to rise, transit's share of trips in the Paris suburbs will almost certainly decline further.
Or, alternatively, as the inner suburbs continue to grow (thus growing more dense), congestion will increase, demand for higher status transit options like Metro will rise, and the transportation and density profile of the suburbs will grow toward that of the center city.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 7:33 pm • link • report
Again, if you really believe that, I invite you to explain how things like water pollution, asbestos, global warming and ag subsidies are all first-best economic outcomes created by our infallible, panglossian democratic system that (contra Arrow, for one) always perfectly aggregates the oh-so-enlightened preferences of voters and consumers.
I dare you.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 7:41 pm • link • report
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 7:53 pm • link • report
You're stubborn to the point of absurdity, jack. If you seriously believe that an area in which 85% of trips are made by car does not qualify as "car-oriented," just how high does the percentage have to be, in your opinion, to qualify as "car-oriented?"
Or, alternatively, as the inner suburbs continue to grow (thus growing more dense), congestion will increase, demand for higher status transit options like Metro will rise, and the transportation and density profile of the suburbs will grow toward that of the center city.
Well, you can always dream. Unfortunately for you, the evidence suggests your dream is unlikely to come true. The rate of car ownership is growing, the share of travel by car is growing, and almost all the population and job growth is occurring in the outer suburbs, where there is even less transit than in the inner suburbs and density is even lower.
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 8:23 pm • link • report
Well, it depends. It really has nothing to do with the share of trips. I suppose that in theory a place could have 100% car use (for medium to long range trips) and still be built in a halfway people friendly way - although I'd guess that wouldn't necessarily be a stable situation long term.
So the 15% transit share is suggestive, not conclusive. There are tipping points, where development is going to have to accommodate pedestrians and transit users. What those are exactly is going to depend on local conditions, but I expect they're lower than 15% most of the time, and that's even without the high density of the Paris suburbs, or the cultural influence of a nearby high-status and extremely walkable place like Paris.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 8:32 pm • link • report
I have no idea what you think your invitation has to do with the point under discussion. If the people want to abolish local zoning laws and control all zoning at a higher level of government (county, state or federal), why haven't they done so?
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 8:34 pm • link • report
It has nothing to do with dreaming. Either growth patterns reflect their true costs and unintended side effects, or they don't. In the first case, more power to them. In the second case, something needs fixing, whether it's naively popular or not.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 8:35 pm • link • report
Seriously? So even if every single trip were made by car, and there were no trips by transit at all, that still wouldn't qualify as "car-oriented," in your view? Because it has "nothing to do" with the share of trips.
Never mind, then. I think the absurdity of the position you have talked yourself into here is self-evident.
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 8:40 pm • link • report
I await your analysis of the true costs and unintended side effects of different growth patterns. Any factual claims need to be supported with evidence, of course.
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 8:46 pm • link • report
Because all of those things demonstrate that "democracy" or not, laws and economic patterns are not created on a blank slate. You have to start from the institutions that already exist, and stasis is easier than change; on top of that, consumers and voters demonstrably don't have perfect knowledge of even their OWN best interests, never mind externalities and unintended side effects.
Take your notion that people (from outside the local jurisdiction) can somehow just "vote" to eliminate local zoning laws. How?
I expect the institution of local control and zoning dates back one or another to at least the middle ages. That doesn't mean it's optimal, just that it's got a lot of inertia to it. Because of that sort of historical contingency, I'd be mildly surprised if it was even precisely legal to override it at the state or federal level (without the acquiescence of the localities), never mind politically possible. And even if it is legal, you'd then have to overcome the inertia involved. Look at how hard it is to pass something like healthcare reform - and that's something with a clear precedent. Trying to go to a state legislature to remove zoning control is just going to get you funny looks. Then you have to deal with a thousand little interest groups, all shocked that you would dare to interfere with their ability to keep the undesirables out, and try to somehow get everybody else excited about the difficult-to-explain benefits of zoning reform.
It's a path dependency working to preserve a kind of political externality. The historical artifact of local zoning control effectively gives a few the right to impose huge opportunity costs on the many.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 9:07 pm • link • report
Yes, seriously. Car-oriented is about the built environment. The share of trips interacts with the built environment and vice-versa, but it's obviously not the same thing.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 9:09 pm • link • report
Maybe you'd care to go back and review the earlier part of the thread.
And I'd note that you're the one making the factual claim here: that suburban growth patterns must somehow by definition be optimal. I'm just expressing skepticism.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 9:12 pm • link • report
Do you really not understand how the political process works? The basic process is that candidates run for public office on a set of policy positions and voters choose the candidates whose positions most closely match their own preferences. States also provide a more direct form of democracy through ballot propositions on specific issues. Including, by the way, land-use and transportation issues. So if the people favor the abolition of local zoning laws, why haven't local zoning laws been abolished through the political process? If the people favor zoning laws that permit or encourage higher densities, or mixed-use development, or transit-oriented development, or whatever else it may be, why aren't those laws on the books? If the people want higher public spending on mass transit, why don't we have higher public spending on mass transit? Sprawl isn't an isolated or short-term phenomenon. It's been going on for at least half a century. All over the country. And all over Europe too. And in Canada, and Australia, and pretty much every other wealthy democracy that I am aware of.
Again, if you really believe that democracy is so fundamentally broken that it has been unable to produce laws and policies that reflect the true wishes of the people on land-use and transportation issues for 50 years, in every state in the nation, and all over Europe too, I'm not sure why you think you have any hope of ever getting the changes you seek.
And if you think democracy cannot produce laws and policies that reflect the will of the people on land-use and transportation, why do you think it can produce laws and policies that reflect the will of the people on anything else, such as health care, climate change, and U.S. policy in the middle-east?
Maybe you'd care to go back and review the earlier part of the thread.
I just did. Still waiting for your analysis of the true costs and unintended side effects of different growth patterns. With substantiation of any factual claims you make.
And I'd note that you're the one making the factual claim here: that suburban growth patterns must somehow by definition be optimal.
I don't know what "suburban growth patterns must somehow by definition be optimal" is even supposed to MEAN. "Optimal" with respect to what? I certainly haven't made that claim. Nor have I claimed that democracy is "perfect" or that voters have "perfect knowledge." In attacking those made-up claims, you're arguing against a strawman.
by Brandon on Aug 18, 2009 11:20 pm • link • report
Economically optimal. Reflecting all the true costs, or at least close.
And if you think democracy cannot produce laws and policies that reflect the will of the people on land-use and transportation, why do you think it can produce laws and policies that reflect the will of the people on anything else, such as health care, climate change, and U.S. policy in the middle-east?
I don't believe that there is any such thing as the "will of the people" in the first place. It's 1) a fictional concept - people have a lot of different wills, and resolving them in any consistent way is impossible, and 2) I'm not sure we'd want to if we could - people in general aren't especially wise or knowledgeable about specific policies, and there certainly isn't any rule that voting can somehow produce any "wisdom of crowds" in the same way that (well-functioning) markets can.
I do think democracy usually bumbles around better than the alternatives, but there'll always be plenty of work to do to try to educate, cajole, reform and make things a little better here or there.
And this,
Nor have I claimed that democracy is "perfect" or that voters have "perfect knowledge." In attacking those made-up claims, you're arguing against a strawman.
Seems to be something of an answer to the question you pose here:
So if the people favor the abolition of local zoning laws, why haven't local zoning laws been abolished through the political process? If the people favor zoning laws that permit or encourage higher densities, or mixed-use development, or transit-oriented development, or whatever else it may be, why aren't those laws on the books?
Either that or a flat contradiction, I can't tell which.
Note that I don't claim that people favor the abolition of [many] local zoning regulations. Quite the contrary: I claim that they're not engaged, knowledgeable, or altruistic enough to know that they even should favor any such thing. Or even know that it exists. (If everyone did, I suppose we could make lots of nice utopian changes very easily. But it doesn't work that way.)
If you're really NOT claiming that democracy is perfect, or voters perfectly knowledgeable, I'm not sure we have much to disagree about. But that would seem to be inconsistent with your claims that the development patterns of the last half century are necessarily some kind of ideal state of affairs.
by jack lecou on Aug 18, 2009 11:52 pm • link • report
In addition to all the caveats about "will of the people" above, I'd also point out that while this is a perfectly accurate description of the democratic process, it's not nearly detailed enough. It does not explain how an off-the-radar third or fourth tier issue like zoning reform is necessarily going to make it through the very narrow signaling channels here. Even issues that could have broad support, but are technical and boring, or not perceived as immediate needs, are going to have an awfully hard time running the gauntlet.
For example, when you choose a candidate, you basically vote yes or no on a large bundle of very generalized policy positions, only a few of which the candidate is likely to really fight for, and you usually can't tell which those are. Even assuming the candidate is being perfectly honest, their stated package of preferences is unlikely to ever match perfectly with your own, so you're going to need to pick maybe your top two or three and make a decision on that basis.
Direct democracy initiatives might be better in some ways--and I note that transit initiatives often DO succeed on a straight public vote--but they've got their own problems. I really have doubts that people are ever particularly well versed in the details (or even the broad strokes...) of the policies they vote for this way--especially the trade-offs and long term consequences--and that goes double if there are dozens of initiatives on a ballot (which is of course what you'd need to cover all the third and fourth tier type issues).
And none of that really addresses the problems that occur if institutional or jurisdictional structure privileges certain outcomes, as with the zoning thing, or the US Senate. Even if it's objectively optimal to have some large scale change, it's often effectively impossible structurally. It's very hard to do anything, let alone something radical like redraw state boundaries, or reforming the fundamental jurisdiction of local governments, even when there is a lot of direct support. And there usually isn't, because the problem in the first place is that the mal-adapteed institutions or (mis)fragmentation of jurisdiction are creating mis-aligned incentives. It's very analogous to a kind of externality or collective action problem: you could imagine that every individual voter would not want to give up control over their own locality, even if collectively everyone would be better off if everyone else did. Everyone is effectively locked in, by little more than historical accident.
The other alternative is to become more involved. Send letters, go to meetings, volunteer, educate, etc. This is perfectly democratic, but obviously only people especially passionate about an issue will go to the trouble. And then you open yourself to smug criticism exactly like we see in this thread- that it's just a handful of "transit fanatics" trying to manipulate democracy in opposition to the supposedly already perfectly expressed "will of the people", and "good luck convincing anyone".
by jack lecou on Aug 19, 2009 12:43 am • link • report
@Lance- The free market laissez-faire approach is only valid if the true social costs in increased health costs from ozone pollution, water collection, and warming are put onto the cost of auto use. If they were the price of driving would be staggering.
The modern American hatred of rational planning means that we only react to a crisis. That crisis is coming rapidly in DC. When traffic slows to 5 mph on the freeways, the air is unbreathable on many days, the costs of energy skyrockets, water pollution kills most rivers, or some other man-made disaster arrives we will react. Until then we will champion laissez-faire.
by Tom Coumaris on Aug 19, 2009 11:03 am • link • report
You can blame me for the stereotype.
by O2 on Aug 19, 2009 5:12 pm • link • report
As I said, I haven't claimed that "suburban growth patterns must somehow by definition be optimal," economically or otherwise. If you think some growth pattern other than suburbs is economically optimal, present your case for that proposition.
I don't believe that there is any such thing as the "will of the people" in the first place ... I do think democracy usually bumbles around better than the alternatives
Huh? If there's no such thing as the will of the people, why is democracy better than the alternatives?
Either that or a flat contradiction, I can't tell which.
More obscurantism. What contradiction do you see? Quote the allegedly contradictory statements and explain why you think they contradict each other.
Note that I don't claim that people favor the abolition of [many] local zoning regulations. Quite the contrary: I claim that they're not engaged, knowledgeable, or altruistic enough to know that they even should favor any such thing.
Yet another bizarre statement. Why "should" people favor the abolition of [many] local zoning regulations? Which local zoning regulations do you think people "should" favor abolishing, and why?
And again, if democracy is fundamentally broken, I'm not sure why you think you have any hope of ever getting the changes you seek. On any issue, not just land-use and transportation.
by Brandon on Aug 19, 2009 5:24 pm • link • report
Then I'm not sure how a "mass transit metro area" can be both "planned with high density" and "mainly patches of weeds."
I'll guess that what you're trying to say is that the areas around metro stations in Europe are generally "planned with high density," while the areas around metro stations in the U.S. are generally unplanned and neglected and as a result tend to be "mainly patches weeds."
Whether or not that's true, it really doesn't have much to do with basic land-use and transportation patterns and trends. Only a small share of the population on either continent lives anywhere near a metro station, and only in a few central cities with extensive metro systems is the metro a practical substitute for cars.
by Brandon on Aug 19, 2009 5:46 pm • link • report
I couldn't say precisely what is optimal, but we know for certain that the current level of suburban growth ISN'T. All the externalities point the other way. Whatever "optimal" is exactly, it certainly lies further over on the walkable/transit-oriented side of the spectrum.
As a first approximation, we should obviously try to price most of the externalities, reduce or remove obvious inefficiencies like parking minimums, put transit funding on even footing, and then see where we land.
----
Huh? If there's no such thing as the will of the people, why is democracy better than the alternatives?
I suppose democracy is preferable to the alternatives because at least you can fight to change things in a semi-organized way if things are going badly. (That's totally different from tautologically assuming things must be going well just because nobody already made things better, e.g., "If people want this, why hasn't it already been passed"...)
----
More obscurantism. What contradiction do you see? Quote the allegedly contradictory statements and explain why you think they contradict each other.
You ask:
So if the people favor the abolition of local zoning laws, why haven't local zoning laws been abolished through the political process?
The answer is quite obviously something like "because democracy isn't perfect". The only reason you would even have to ask the question is if you assumed that it was. And yet you also say:
Nor have I claimed that democracy is "perfect" or that voters have "perfect knowledge." In attacking those made-up claims, you're arguing against a strawman.
By my reading, you either answer your own question, or contradict yourself. I welcome clarification.
----
Yet another bizarre statement. Why "should" people favor the abolition of [many] local zoning regulations? Which local zoning regulations do you think people "should" favor abolishing, and why?
You haven't really been paying attention much, have you? Parking minimums, for a start. As well as all the other regulations that make building new rowhouses at historical densities in DC effectively illegal. Most or all regulations that artificially restrict density in contravention of market forces (or at least these should have to be justified economically - e.g., height limits might be justified in terms of viewscape externalities), etc., etc.
(But we're getting off topic: you're not actually addressing the point. If you don't think zoning regulations should be changed, fine, but it was only an example to illustrate flaws in the political process. If you prefer, just imagine a generic esoteric issue with hard to popularize benefits.)
----
And again, if democracy is fundamentally broken, I'm not sure why you think you have any hope of ever getting the changes you seek. On any issue, not just land-use and transportation.
Let's try this very slowly:
1. Democracy is quite flawed, which means the status quo at any given moment is unlikely to be optimal. Neither economically, nor in terms of any nebulous "will of the people"
2. It's our duty to actually use the corrective mechanisms within democracy (you know, the democracy part) to fight to correct the inefficiencies we see.
Where's the contradiction? Democracy is flawed, so change isn't instantaneous, frictionless, or infallible. Nevertheless, changes can eventually be made with a lot of hard work.
by jack lecou on Aug 19, 2009 7:01 pm • link • report
Take your spats to e-mail.
by MPC on Aug 19, 2009 7:27 pm • link • report
How do you know with any degree of confidence, let alone "certainty," that the current level of suburban growth isn't optimal? How do you know that "all the externalities point the other way?" Even if they do, it doesn't address the question. If the "economically optimal" growth pattern is the one that produces the highest ratio of benefits to costs, then to determine the economically optimal pattern you need to add up all the benefits and all the costs. The negative externalities of the current level of suburban growth, whatever they may be, may be more than offset by benefits such as cheaper housing and shorter travel times. So where's your cost-benefit analysis?
As a first approximation, we should obviously try to price most of the externalities, reduce or remove obvious inefficiencies like parking minimums, put transit funding on even footing, and then see where we land.
Okay, let's do that. "Putting transit funding on an even footing" would mean massively reducing transit subsidies and restructuring transit fares. Transit users pay only about one-quarter of the cost of providing the transit services they use. This is extremely inefficient. It encourages massive overconsumption. Transit fares are also generally independent of distance. This is also extremely inefficient. It encourages massive ovreconsumption of long trips relative to short trips. Let's apply efficient pricing to both transit use and car use, and see where we land. I am confident that it would make using cars a bit more expensive, and using transit a lot more expensive.
I suppose democracy is preferable to the alternatives because at least you can fight to change things in a semi-organized way if things are going badly.
So what? According to you, there's no such thing as the will of the people, so what's the benefit of being able to fight to change things?
By my reading, you either answer your own question, or contradict yourself.
You're just repeating what you already said. It doesn't help me understand what you're trying to say. Explain the nature of the alleged contradiction, or state the question and the answer that you think I have provided
by Brandon on Aug 19, 2009 8:39 pm • link • report
But any regulation that "artificially restricts density in contravention of market forces" might be justified in terms of externalities - noise, privacy, litter, pollution, congestion, crowding, crime, etc. Where is the "externality justification" for transit subsidies? Or zoning laws that, say, prevent Walmart from building a new Supercenter in the middle of Arlington, Virginia?
Democracy is flawed, so change isn't instantaneous, frictionless, or infallible. Nevertheless, changes can eventually be made with a lot of hard work.
You keep ignoring the scale and longevity of your defeat. Sprawl isn't an isolated, short-term phenomenon that might plausibly be attributed to "flaws" or "imperfections" in the political process. It's been the overwhelmingly dominant form of urban development in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia for 50 years. It seems to be the inevitable result of a society becoming rich enough for mass ownership of private motor vehicles. If you haven't managed to defeat it yet, why do you ever expect to defeat it?
by Brandon on Aug 19, 2009 9:30 pm • link • report
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