Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

EVEN MORE ON INTERSTATE CRIME

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by

James A. Bacon
in

EVEN MORE ON INTERSTATE CRIME

On the INTERSTATE CRIME string Charlie said:

“EMR: Regarding your first point, a lot of people would argue that this is what happened in Washington, and that is the source of traffic problems.”

Not really. The InterRegional strategy for roadways stops major limited access corridors at the Clear Edge, not the Zentrum (aka, the “downtown.”)

“Only two highways run downtown (66 and 395) — maybe 295 if you are stretching downtown a bit.”

True, some of the penetrations were blunted but that just left the Core inside the Clear Edge neither fish nor fowl. Stockholm and Paris are fish, Houston is fowl, or rather foul.

“Granted, since the Beltway was built, massive development has occurred outside.”

The InterRegional strategy has “beltways” but they are designed to serve far different land uses at the Clear Edge. You can still have “parkways” into the Zentrum as well. As noted below the issue is Balance.

“I’d argue the real beneficiary of that is not DC but the inside-Beltway suburbs.”

If anyone was a “beneficiary,” you are right, it was the Greater North Arlingtons, etc. but compared to a similar area in Stockholm or even Toronto it is not that great.

“Curious to hear your thoughts on the 66 expansion.”

I presume since it is on the front burner right now that you mean I-66 inside the Beltway. So here is my take:

“Anytime Agencies (fed, state, municipal) that control transport take actions to “expand” the capacity of a roadway without this expansion being part of a COMPREHENSIVE, Regionally endorsed and broadly understood strategy to BALANCE TRANSPORT SYSTEM CAPACITY WITH SETTLEMENT PATTERN TRAVEL DEMAND this action only postpones the day that the majority of citizens understand that Business-As-Usual will lead to Collapse.

In our Vocabulary this “enhancement” just reinforces the Large, Private Vehicle Mobility Myth (L,PVMM) spelled out for NMM below.

NMM said:

“I would suspect then that LA has poor settlement patterns OR poorly designed road system which would explain the traffic issues.”

NMM, you just cannot wing it on human settlement patterns. There are facts and there are Natural Laws that control the function of settlement patterns.

The Los Angles NUR does not have bad settlement patterns on a Regional scale based on the intensity of land uses inside the Clear Edge. And there IS a Clear Edge for most of the Urbanized area – ocean, steep topography – much of it in public ownership e.g US Forest Service.

The Los Angles NUR roadway system is not that bad either except that the interchanges take up huge amounts of land in areas that should be part of the Urban fabric and the “freeways” are impenetrable barriers between what are the logical components of Villages, Communities and SubRegions.

The traffic congestion problem in the Los Angles NUR is caused by the failure to evolve Balance at the Village, Community and Subregional scales. Period. Too many people trying to go too many places at the same time.

For the record the Los Angles NUR has the second highest AVERAGE density within the urbanized areas in the US of A. The New York NUR has the highest AVERAGE due to several very dense areas (but not ALL of “Manhattan”…).

The New York NUR is still half the AVERAGE intensity of the Toronto NUR and one quarter of that of the Paris, Stockholm, Wien NURs and other large NURs with far more functional distribution of Urban uses and Openspaces within the Clear Edge. Ever notice all those big forested areas from the Eiffel Tower?

“… The ultimate problem in this region may not be settlement patterns but road design and geographic problems (i.e. river crossing issues) Think about it of course there are going to be bottlenecks when the only way to get from Maryland suburbs to VA suburbs is over the American Legion Bridge due to the Potomac river.”

NO, NO, NO. The problem is Balance. It is not possible for everyone to live where they want, work where they want, seek Services, Recreation and Amenity where they want and then be able to create a roadway (or shared-vehicle system) so everyone can go where the want, when they want and arrive in a timely manner. (L,PVMM) IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. It is not just the settlement patterns, it is not just the River, it is IMPOSSIBLE to design or build a system to accomplish that in a large NUR.

By the way check out what TMT said about 83-million sq feet in the Zentrum of Greater Tysons Corner at 9:42 on the THANK YOU GROVETON string that started out dealing with school governance. You hear more an more planners these days admitting the L,PVMM is just that, a Myth.

EMR

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15 responses to “EVEN MORE ON INTERSTATE CRIME”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I just keep going back to a reality check with you

    How are you going to force people to live and work at the same place. People change jobs all the time and thats not even considering two person working households as well.

    You can’t erect a fence in Ashburn and demand that you have to work in Loudoun County. So instead of perfecting your vision of utopia. Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on what can be done to improve the current situation.

    Believe it or not thats what I am trying to do. Why are certain areas not desireable in the inner core and what can we do to make them more desireable. What changes when you go from single to starting a family and what causes people to choose to change how and where they live. These are actual useful exercises

    As opposed to EMR in a nutshell. We are all going to die unless we do things my way. I don’t care about costs or reality on the ground it has to be done my way right now. Anyone who questions me is an idiot.

    NMM

  2. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    this is my basic issue with EMR’s concepts also.

    I have yet to see – anywhere – a settlement pattern that can and does deal with changing economic conditions where businesses are created, changed, expand, contract and go away – and with them the migration of folks who work.

    The average person is does not have a single job for his/her entire career and many average people “complicate” their lives by getting married and having two job/careers to juggle.. and then they have kids and no longer can live in a place that is fine for singles but not appropriate for kids.

    People – they work for businesses – and if we did not understand before the current upheaval, we should now – that people who work for businesses – are affected by the businesses they work for.

    The businesses itself can and does change. They are not static.

    Most don’t work for one business in one location for their entire career.

    In years past, more folks used to spend their entire career with a business and so it was possible to live close in the same house – for your whole career.

    But those times have long since gone and IMHO.. attempts to define settlement patterns that essentially rely on this previous home/work model are just not realistic.

  3. charlie Avatar
    charlie

    EMR, thanks.

    After thinking it through, I’ve added a few more highways: GW Parkway and Clara Barton.

    I mostly wanted to contrast your views with what I think a majority of commuters would say is the problem with Washington traffic: not enough highways into downtown.

    Your original point about funding was excellent: concentrate our new funding on real interstate highways and not into highways past the clear edge.

    However, as politics is the art of the possible, I suspect that is going to be a hard sell. Keeping 66 as a semi-parkway thus seems to be a positive goal.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I presume that a COMPREHENSIVE, Regionally endorsed and broadly understood strategy to BALANCE TRANSPORT SYSTEM CAPACITY WITH SETTLEMENT PATTERN (and job pattern) TRAVEL DEMAND, would include a strategy to put more jobs near where people live.

    RH

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “But those times have long since gone and IMHO.. attempts to define settlement patterns that essentially rely on this previous home/work model are just not realistic.”

    Larry is right. I tried to keep my home near my job, but in the end it was impossible – and uneconomic. No shared vehicle system with dedicated ways can ever offer the flexibility of the auto/truck.

    We will be better off to work on solving the problems with the system we have than with hypothesizing about some settlement pattern that will neer be built, designed to subsidize mass transit that won’t do the job
    needed.

    RH

  6. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    I spent a week traveling through the part of Georgia East and South of Atlanta and west and north of Savannah.

    We went through town, after, town after town – of what used to be “balanced” communities with grid streets, and wonderful modestly-sized homes with local schools and libraries – now ravaged by the loss of their local industry – usually mills and other small manufacturing.. their plants now shuttered and rusting hulks.

    the towns are barely hanging on with mostly the older generation – the younger people gone – looking for work wherever they can find it.

    There was a time when these small towns defined the phrase that EMR uses – “right size homes in the right location”

    …but no more…

    many of the homes are vacant…because there is no one to live in them….

    so.. these places were once “balanced” and now they are not and no amount of “planning” can keep a company from leaving and in doing so.. turning these places into “un-balanced” or.. in EMR’s terms – dysfunctional communities.

    Moral of the story – businesses are free to move and when they do – the settlement pattern left behind may no longer be “balanced”.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “It is not possible for everyone to live where they want, work where they want, seek Services, Recreation and Amenity where they want ….”

    That is why we need a good transportation system: to get them from where they are stuck, to where they need to be.

    “It is not just the settlement patterns, it is not just the River, it is IMPOSSIBLE to design or build a system to accomplish that in a large NUR.”

    Exactly what I have been saying: the expense and complexity of large dense places prohibit truly economic and efficient opertions. You need more and smaller places. However, roadways and private autos offer far more flexibility and accessibilty than shared vehicle systems, so they solve more of this problem better than mass transit can.

    “The Los Angles NUR does not have bad settlement patterns on a Regional scale based on the intensity of land uses inside the Clear Edge. And there IS a Clear Edge for most of the Urbanized area – ocean, steep topography – much of it in public ownership e.g US Forest Service.”

    Funny, I seem to recallyou blasting Wendell Cox when he made that argument.

    “The traffic congestion problem in the Los Angles NUR is caused by the failure to evolve Balance at the Village, Community and Subregional scales. Period. Too many people trying to go too many places at the same time.”

    Sounds like you are saying it is too big, and should be more and smaller places.

    ” no amount of “planning” can keep a company from leaving and in doing so.. turning these places into “un-balanced” or.. in EMR’s terms – dysfunctional communities.”

    So, we can only have planning and control when it comes to residential development?

    “businesses are free to move and when they do – the settlement pattern left behind may no longer be “balanced”.”

    That is only half the story. The other half is that they may choose to try to move too much business into and area, in which case it will also be unbalanced.

    We would not allow that with non-attainment areas (air movement capacity) or stream carrying capacity, why shoud we allow it with roadway or employee movement capacity?

    RH

  8. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    NMM, you are not listening…

    You said:

    “… Why are certain areas not desireable in the inner core and what can we do to make them more desireable. What changes when you go from single to starting a family and what causes people to choose to change how and where they live. These are actual useful exercises”

    That is right and what do those changes result in? Balance.

    A fair allocation of costs and an understanding of the real alternatives will result in citzens making Fundamentally different decisions than they did in the past.

    “As opposed to EMR in a nutshell. We are all going to die unless we do things my way. I don’t care about costs or reality on the ground it has to be done my way right now. Anyone who questions me is an idiot.”

    This is just silliness.

    Check out the six overarching strategies for transforming human settlement patterns in Part Four of The Shape of the Future. They cover all the points you make and more.

    I still plan to get that line-by-line of your recent post done. Perhaps that will help you see that you are not that far from understanding but keep jumping off the wagon becasue of idological ghosts and Myths.

    Larry:

    See above re allocation of cost. Citizens are subsidizeing most of the reasons that imBlanace occours in the Countryside of Georgia (including in those formerly quite Balanced urban enclaves) and everywhere else.

    Charlie:

    You are right with respect to what most “commuters” believe. They believe that because that is what they have been told over and over.

    You will note we did say Parkways could (and should) go inside the Clear Edge (Clara and George). I like your idea of calling I-66 a parkway.

    EMR has driven to the Zentrum of every one of the great places we noted in the post. It is not that you cannot drive. But for those who go there often a shared-vehicle alterantive is far better and cheaper for everyone IF THE TOTAL COSTS ARE FAIRLY ALLOCATED.

    Groveton made this piont re the World Trade Center. EMR, in a former life, like to stay at the Governors Island BOQ. Coming and going we visited Wall Street, Park Avenue, Greenwich Village, Columbia U and lots of other places via auto but not mid-day, mid-week.

    When there was work to do at a Wall Street investment house or a Park Avenue board room, however we took the train to the Zentrum and then took the Subway. the only way to get there is to drive.

    EMR

  9. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    re: small places that used to be “balanced communities”.

    these Georgia towns are not recent developments. Many are a century or older and they have main streets – with virtually every business space – now empty and boarded up.

    they didn’t start out that way.

    re: “planning and control”

    … of NEW proposed growth – residential AND commercial – as evidence by the tumult over Tysons.

    What “planning and control” cannot do – is PREVENT people and business from LEAVING a place – and when businesses decide to leave – jobs go with it and with those jobs – money to pay for goods and services as well as residential.

    Those towns in Georgia. They could not keep their mills from closing down and leaving.

    and when they left.. they took the jobs.. and the money used to pay for services.. and residential… leaving empty homes and towns who had to lay off employees down to their current skeleton levels.

    Now it could be – that if a place gets big enough – like a NUR – that the loss of businesses is offset by new businesses…

    …perhaps…

    but if that were always true, then we’d not have Detroits and Pittsburgs…

    so …even NURs are subject to world economic trends…

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Been to Pittsburgh lately? They have almost no traffic problems or congestion. Check out the Texas traffic study. all you have to do is lose enough jobs.

    I rest my case.

    All I’m saying is tha Larry and others have suggested at onece that 1) we cannot control what business or employers do or where they go. and 2) we absolutel can control and have the right to control where residential development goes.

    I submit that this is silliness, if we have the right to control one, we can control the other. And furthermore, we already have examples of how this might work based on community/environmental requirements that we not overstress existing resources like non-attainment areas or streams or traffic resources.

    However, Larry is right, this would NOT prevent those Georgia fctories from packing up and going to Taiwan where their workers get free health care. But it would prevent places like NOVA from paying an unauthorized and unvoted for tax equivalent of $1000 per person while encouraging the surplus to move to places like Georgia.

    ————————-
    EMR can contend that NMM’s interpretation “listen to me or die” is just silly, but even EMR would hae to concede he is a little heavy on the doom and gloom. As in “What we need is fewer people consuming less resources”.

    Stalin had a similar approach to resource management.

    ——————————–

    a shared-vehicle alterantive is far better and cheaper for everyone IF THE TOTAL COSTS ARE FAIRLY ALLOCATED.

    Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.

    If ALL the costs are fairly allocated the shared system will be more expensive, slower and less conveneient. Even after you ALSO allocate all the costs of autos, especially if you subr=tract all the subsidies auto drivers pay to support shared vehicle systems.

    Only if you allocate costs according to EMR’s desires would this be true.

    NMM is right, there are costs associated with true balance that EMR has not even remotely considered. These costs are basically unsupportable and that is why we have the situation on the ground that we have: lousy schools in rundown areas, with high crime rates, that are physically, spritually, and economically unattractive.

    The way you fix one of these places is smash it to a pulp and start over, like Greenville or New Orleans. then you have to create a new place for low income/no income people to live, someplace else, and tht is another cost that is unsupportable in todays political environment.

    So to achieve the kind of balance EMR is talking about you have some really high and unsupportable costs which you would have to allocate fairly.

    No one (who has the money) is going to agree to that. Witness the current situation in which those who have paid their mortages are outraged that they will have to contribute $4000 or $5000 in future taxes to bail someone else out.

    (And that is AFTER we held an election to throw the bums out. No wonder people are disaffected. We never had a chance to vote on the bailout directly, nd it is one of the biggest expenses we will ever have.)

    The point of all of this boils down to one word: IF.

    IF the costs are fairly allocated, ER might be right. But like so many of his other hypotheses we will never know because the premises are beyond preposterous.

    RH

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Citizens are subsidizeing most of the reasons that imBlanace occours …”

    That’s because special interests use subsidies as a way to steal property from others. The whole point of this process is to CREATE imbalance that favors the special interests.

    But, even if you took away all of those, you would still have imbalance because we trae in things that are not owned and not priced: things like public space, roadways, clean air, and clean water, flood control, schools, police and fire protection.

    You have to fairly sort out the ownership of what we have before you can go squawling about subsidies, because some subsidies are there to offset other (naturally occurring) imbalances and externalities.

    And then thereis the little fact that you don;t seem to have a problem with negative subsidies as n lets make autos less convenient and more expensive. This is just simply stealing because it amounts to a way of subsidizing YOUR preferred kind of property, without you having to pay for it.

    RH

  12. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    Ray – you can control what comes – whether it be commercial, residential, industrial – etc….

    It’s called “planning”.

    You don’t want a property owner putting up a slaughterhouse in the middle of residential (despite all the talk about “rights”).

    What you CANNOT “control” is when commercial, residential, industrial – LEAVES.

    You CAN “control” what is built – where – because, for instance, we don’t want to put a probation center for perverts next to a school… even if the property owner had the “right” to develop that property.

    The fundamental problem – with FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION – is that you cannot control the jobs.

    You certainly cannot keep them from leaving.

    And you can’t guarantee that they will come – in the first place – if the requirements for locating are so restrictive that the owners/investors have better alternatives….

    This is why most localities, including Tysons – would never, ever say “no” to more jobs…

    …there’s way too many other places that are literally dying because they cannot attract jobs…

    EMR’s thesis about Functional Settlement patterns – ASSUMES – that the jobs will always be there – and never go away.

    and he proceeds to explain how to design/build “balanced communities” – on the premise – that the jobs are there – and always will be…

    and we have ample proof that jobs do go away… leaving behind lots of residential and commercial that are no longer viable (balanced or not).

  13. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    perhaps – a better question for EMR –

    “how do you “re-balance” communities that have lost jobs?”

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Ray – you can control what comes – whether it be commercial, residential, industrial – etc….”

    So, why haven’t we done it? Why do we have commercial areas we cannot support, even with heroic transport systems?

    Because, like many other things we didn’t know it was a problem until too late. We got in it incrementally. But, now we have a chorus line out there chanting tht we need more “environmentally frindly”, sutainable, dense urban areas.

    We have apparently decided the fix before identifying the problem.

    ——————————–

    “What you CANNOT “control” is when commercial, residential, industrial – LEAVES.”

    Where is it going to go, if you have congestion limits, like we have non-attainment areas?

    It can go overseas, of course. I get it as far as your Georgia example goes, but how many of those places might have been saved if Atlanta had been stopped at some reasonable point? What is th epoint of abandoning 100 acres of small town every day and then building 100 acres in Atlanta?

    But in our discussions about congestion in Fairfax or residential growth in F’burg, people leaving isn’t the problem.

    ——————————

    Sure, we do not want a slaughter house in a residential neighborhood, I get it. That hasn’t been my compliant. My complaint is that people in partially completed residential neighborhoods want to prevent further residential development. the slaughter hous argument is a re herring.

    People in partially completed residential neighborhoods want to reverse plans that were previously made.

    Back to the salughter house. Suppose this guy has done his market study and found te perfect spot: where he moves the cattle the least distance and moves the beef the least distance afterward. he knows that he can make so much money on this that hea can afford to buy up all the houses around him, pay all the moving expenses, the closing and mortgae difference, if any, pay a 10% premium on top of all that and still make money.

    But the neighbors turn him down. So they get nothing except “no change” and he gets nothing except the loss involved in making the effort and failing.

    Now you have a hypothetical situation in which the change is good for everyone, and yet it still cannot happen. Compare that with an eminent domain situation in which the “payment” may well be a lowball, and yet the change happens anyway.

    What we need is a different way at looking at property rights, and how they are protected. In our slaughterhouse example, our entrepreneur has developed intellectual property that si worth far more than all the physical property on site, but his intellectul property has no protection, and everyone is worse off because of it. The existing owners have made a “claim” of superior rights, and made it stick.

    So, on the one hand they claim, these are the rules, you can’t change them no matter what you willpay us, but on the other hand, if they want to prevent further RESIDENTIAL development, they say, “Hey, we can change the rules and owe you nothing”.

    RH

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “This is why most localities, including Tysons – would never, ever say “no” to more jobs…”

    But, they would say no to more air pollution, more water pollution, or more residential pollution if they overwhelmed the available resources.

    Jobs are no differnet. We cannot prevent them from leaving, but we can and should prevent all of them from going to one place, same as any other problem from garbage to prostitutes.

    What you are saying is that this is a view of employent that isn;t widely understood, yet. TMT can see it though.

    My plan isn’t a total solution, but it should be considered along with all the other tools we have. Sure, Bivalve, VA will shut down when there are no more bivalves, but bivalve isn’t Tysons or Seven Corners, or Mclean, or K street.

    My plan won;t help Bivalve, but it might help F’burg ….. and Tyson’s.

    RH

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