Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Get Over It

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine blasted Republicans yesterday for the collapse of the General Assembly special session on transportation, and the Republicans blasted him back. The blame game is inevitable as the pols mug for the cameras and play to the next day’s headline writers. But Kaine’s comments rang especially hollow.

As Jim Nolan reports for the Times-Dispatch: Kaine “likened what he saw in the Republican-controlled House of Delegates to a situation comedy.

“It was like a Seinfeld episode — a show about nothing,” Kaine told reporters at the Capitol, hours after lawmakers adjourned following a marathon 12-hour day, closing the six-day special session with no transportation fix for the state.

“And in the House, it was a road session about nothing.”

How rich. This comes from a governor who was so unprepared for the special session that he couldn’t even get his own party to introduce his bill in the state Senate. This comes from a governor who made zero effort to reach out to the opposition Republicans and, instead, stumped the state in series of public hearings, hoping to generate public sentiment — that never came — to pressure the Rs into capitulating.

News flash: The entire special session was “about nothing.” If you want to point the finger, point it at the guy who called the special session. That wasn’t Sen. Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax, chief muckety-muck of the senate. It wasn’t Del. William Howell, R-Stafford, head honcho in the House.

Hands down, the transportation special section has been the biggest gaffe of the Kaine administration. The sooner the governor drops the subject and moves on to other things, the better of he’ll be.

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  1. Rodger Provo Avatar
    Rodger Provo

    Jim –

    The last time Virginia passed a
    meaningful transportation package
    was in 1986, more than 20 years
    ago when Gerry Baliles was our
    governor.

    You need to research how that
    package was assembled and approved.

    Gov. Baliles did a good job of
    creating alliances to do get that
    program approved.

  2. charlie Avatar
    charlie

    amen, mr. bacon.

    Query: You’ve praised Kaine in the past for his land-use ideas. I agree with you on a lot of those. (I don’t agree with you on the crazy tolls — just up the gas tax). What happened to those? My gut tells me that Kaine didn’t really care about them either — and was more than willing to throw them into discussion as cheap barter beads.

  3. rightwingliberal Avatar
    rightwingliberal

    Governor Baliles also had 2/3 Dem majorities in the legislature. That certainly helped.

    Kaine tried the Warner-2004 playbook (shame enough RINOs into flipping), but he couldn’t coordinate with Saslaw and didn’t have Chichester and Potts clamoring for even higher taxes, and the GOP grass-roots stood up and made it abundantly clear that we weren’t going to take this anymore.

  4. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    ….. ” At the news conference, Governor Bill Howell observed that there is no transportation problem in Virginia and that calls to raise taxes to deal with it were coming from folks on another planet who were out of touch with simple realities”.

  5. Judy Avatar
    Judy

    Why is Governor Kaine acting so surprised that he received the same answer in the special session that he has been getting all along? He promised not to raise taxes when he was running for the office of Governor, he should be thanking the House Republican Leadership for helping him to keep his promise. Governor Kaine knew the outcome of the special session before he even called it so it was all a charade anyway.

  6. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “When I first got involved in Virginia politics in 1994, my dream was to see a high-speed train along the 95 corridor like the “shinkansen” train in Japan. You could get on it in downtown Richmond and disembark an hour later at Union Station in D.C. My innocent thought (I was 26) was that such a train could connect the different parts of the state so that people could live where they wanted and work where they needed to be.

    Where the hell is it? How much more time are we going to waste on the same stupid policies? Does anyone think that pouring a few thousand more yards of concrete on the Beltway is going to solve a damn thing?

    Yes, I’m frustrated. I’m angry that people in my district go to work at dawn and come home late at night — and their tax dollar is subsidizing the entire state.

    And what do we have to show for it? A lot of tiresome “no tax” sermons from the same crowd that put “In God We Trust” in every school building in Virginia (and yes I voted for that bill and yes I trust in God).

    I love this old state. Let’s be something better. “

    from Chap Petersons’ Blog
    “Lessons Learned”

    http://oxroadsouth.com/2008/07/11/lessons-learned-if-any.aspx

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The shinkasen and tren gran vitesse are not sustainable transportation any more than the Concorde was.

    Sustainable transportation needs lots of frequency and lots of destinations. If the state spent all its train money on jitneys, they would move more people more places for the same money.

    RH

  8. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “The Shinkansen network boasts not only high speed -up to 300 kilometers per hour-, but also high frequency. For example, at least six trains per hour (not per day!) operate between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka Stations during daytime hours.”

    http://www.japanrail.com/JR_shinkansen.html

    next argument…

  9. charlie Avatar
    charlie

    TGV = train grand vitesse

    over 100 destinations in france, depart paris at least 8 times day.

    I’d go with you that a TGV may not work in Virginia — there isn’t enough traffic between Richmond and DC, for instance. It will almost always easier to drive. But high speed rail is very sustainable.

    And it would help bring the state together. Imagine a train to Roanoke in one hour — you could work in DC and commute there.

  10. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    there is one huge potential downside of high-speed rail in Virginia…

    It would enable longer GA sessions…

    …. this could be bad… the last thing NoVa needs is more time to deliberate from our RoVa pols.

    seriously… high speed rail is a chicken-egg proposition.

    You say.. imagine Roanoke..

    I say.. imagine Richmond, Va to Bethesda, Md – in one hour… and one less guy taking a job in Bethesda and commuting daily from North Stafford on I-95.

    the only way the “more places” concept “works” in reality is if you can go to and from those “more places” in some kind of a reasonable – and RELIABLE timeframe

    Rodger Provo talks about the need for Leadership… I agree…

    but I don’t think a leader can IMPOSE his/her vision on the populace… he/she has to be able to visualize a future that people WANT…will buy into and then try to make it happen…

    Most folks .. if you ask them if they’d want a future where one could go from Washington to Richmond in one hour would say it’s a no brainer..especially when other folks in this world already do this – have been doing it for a decade or more…

    Most folks – if you ask them if we should have more and more roads that would allow folks to go from Washington to Richmond at 80 mph would think you were crazy…..with gasoline costing $5 or more….

    People know that a future with cars and gasoline is not sustainable.

    People want mobility; they know that burning fossil fuels is not sustainable. They willing to make sacrifices ..even pay more.. if in return.. they still have mobility.

    and the thing to keep in mind.. we’re not talking about the demise of the family car… or taking the kids to soccer games or sitting down to a birthday dinner at a nice restaurant.

    We’re talking about how you get back and forth between home and work – every day – like most of the rest of the world does.

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Leadership — a good leader understands what the organization and membership needs and wants and works to get it.

    I strongly suspect that most people in NoVA want a very strong adequate public facilities law, whether or not they support tax increases for transportation.

    What do real leaders do under these circumstances?

    TMT

  12. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    I would like to thank you for helping clarify my thinking about dealing with the Other Places Myth in a chapter I am now working on for Book One of TRILO-G. I do not have the time right now to spell it all out but I have taken your last post and added some notes which may give you an idea of your contribution:

    “seriously… high speed rail is a chicken-egg proposition”

    Absolutely right you have to have Critical Mass at both ends of any trip and the faster (more expensive) the trip the larger the Critical Mass.

    High speed rail is “sustainable” but only if the shared vehicle system:

    1) Runs for long distances between stops where the speed can be utilized. (Years ago I helped put in perspective – i.e. kill – a proposal to have the Feds pay for running Mag Lev in the Dulles Corridor by pointing out a train would never get up to speed before it would have to stop again.)

    2) There is a balance between the capacity of the system and the demand generated by the mass of the terminal areas. Tokyo to X, Paris to Brussels, Paris to Berlin. Paris to Marseilles is a stretch. It is a good think booming Lyon is on the way. Even London to Paris is struggling but that is do to the fact the EU has not yet clamped down on airlines emissions. (They finally did just this week (640 to 30 was the vote) and when emissions trading goes into effect in 2012 there will be a major change in ridership.)

    “You say.. imagine Roanoke.

    “ say.. imagine Richmond, Va…”

    Yes the potential of getting a critical mass of ridership is much greater from Richmond than from Roanoke. See parameter 2) above.

    “… Bethesda, Md – in one hour… and one less guy taking a job in Bethesda and commuting daily from North Stafford on I-95.”

    Here is where you loose traction and helped me to articulate the physics of mobility and “The Myth of More Places.” There would be no station in North Stafford and none in Bethesda. There would METRO one could use to use to get from the Centroid terminal in the Federal District to Bethesda. Unless “North Stafford” grows to say 500,000 there would not be a way to justify a stop there. Check out the population of those urban areas which are served by a “station” on any of the existing high-speed systems. Portland, Boston, East Connecticut, New York, North Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Federal District and Richmond would be the stops – unless the system becomes a huge pork barrel.

    “the only way the “more places” concept “works” in reality is if you can go to and from those “more places” in some kind of a reasonable – and RELIABLE time frame”

    That is the passage that caught my attention. This is true but not in the way I think you intended. More Places will function only when each “place” achieves Balance, either:

    1) As part of a larger urban system served by a Regional Mobility and Access system (e.g. tear down the Big Boxes and put in a METRO station at Potomac Yards), or

    2) Achieve Balance with as a free standing urban system with a Critical Mass what ever that is depending on the location and the mix of land uses. It could be a Lewenz Village in a new Sedona / Taos place but it would have to have a lot of internal bounce and not just from teleworkers.

    Some other notes:

    “Rodger Provo talks about the need for Leadership… I agree…

    “but I don’t think a leader can IMPOSE his/her vision on the populace… he/she has to be able to visualize a future that people WANT…will buy into and then try to make it happen…”

    Right on, but most citizens do not yet have the tools to understand the alternatives that are possible so leaders have to educate about realistic alternatives. That is getting harder and harder to imagine as resources are burned up propping up Business As Usual.

    “Most folks .. if you ask them if they’d want a future where one could go from Washington to Richmond in one hour would say it’s a no brainer..especially when other folks in this world already do this – have been doing it for a decade or more…”

    Good point.

    “Most folks – if you ask them if we should have more and more roads that would allow folks to go from Washington to Richmond at 80 mph would think you were crazy…..with gasoline costing $5 or more….”

    Right again

    “People know that a future with cars and gasoline is not sustainable.”

    Only 9% in a recent poll said oil and gas was the future of energy.

    “People want mobility; they know that burning fossil fuels is not sustainable. They willing to make sacrifices ..even pay more.. if in return.. they still have mobility.

    “and the thing to keep in mind.. we’re not talking about the demise of the family car… or taking the kids to soccer games or sitting down to a birthday dinner at a nice restaurant.

    “We’re talking about how you get back and forth between home and work – every day – like most of the rest of the world does.”

    Sorry, Larry. Only a small percentage of trips are home to work. Mobility and Access for the vast majority will mean shared vehicles. Citizens are going to have to walk to that restaurant, like it or not. In a Lewenz Village they would like it a lot. Driving kids to play a game. Sorry that will be off the table.

    It is the physical reality of the end of cheap energy.

    Keep up the good work.

    EMR

  13. Rodger Provo Avatar
    Rodger Provo

    EMR and Others –

    Our growth and our transportation problems were used as an issue in fast growth suburban communities
    around the state during the last
    gubernatorial campaign to tip the
    outcome in favor of the current
    governor.

    I think the current administration
    has continue to use the issue as
    a political tool against the GOP
    and has not tried to work with the
    General Assembly to create a plan
    with broad support from the public.

    Though Gerry Baliles had a majority
    of his party in the GA, he sought to build and got broad public support for what we achieved in 1986.

    Partisanship has an ugly grip on
    our state government — I think the
    public has turned against all of the players in this debate.

    The governor’s approval rating
    is declining, the GOP lost the
    Senate and ground in the House.

    We may need another election cycle
    before the forces will be in play
    for solid work to be done in our
    state government relative to solving our growth and transportation problems.

  14. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    EMR –

    I did post this:

    “The Shinkansen network boasts not only high speed -up to 300 kilometers per hour-, but also high frequency. For example, at least six trains per hour (not per day!) operate between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka Stations during daytime hours.”

    http://www.japanrail.com/JR_shinkansen.html

    Thinking of high speed rail as an “either – or” proposition belies the existing realities – that it is ENTIRELY feasible to run high-speed rail BOTH to do high-speed long-distance connect trips AND local station-to-station trips as well as hybrids of the two.

    This is an engineering problem – not a R&D problem or physical science problem.

    This is already being done… by the Japanese.. with ingenuity and computers….

    I do not believe the following:

    1. – that more asphalt is a solution

    2. – that people will move from the suburbs back to the urban cores

    3. – that high-speed rail IS sustainable – as sustainable as education, health care, water/sewer, electricity….

    4. -the automobile will never go away – more precisely – personal mobility – to have the ability to be independently mobile when you want to be and can afford it – is fundamental to personal freedom.

    5. – The “problem” is the cost and time lost twice daily at rush hour when too many people are trying to use too small a road system to get from home to work.

    If you solve this problem – rush hour congestion – the rest of the transportation puzzle is benign.

    the cost and functionality of high speed rail are issues – not deal killers…no more or less than the same issues affect other important needs of society.

    finally – we cannot “undo” the beltways. They are an indelible part of urban America – for better or worse.

    We need to recognize and accept that beltways and the interstate highways system can be viewed by us – as either impediments or opportunities.

    Beltways – constitute a “clear edge” that is undeniable.

    Whether we want to accept it or not, they DEFINE urban areas in America.

    We can decide that putting together mass transit within those boundaries is a worthwhile endeavor and get on with it or we can continue to pretend that Metro “won’t work” when there is not enough “density”.

    Density -smensidy … who says that the ONLY way to provide mass transit is by rail in the first place?

    What are multi-passenger wheeled vehicles – chopped liver?

    Mass transit does not end where the tracks end – it merely becomes wheeled and of varying sizes – adjusted to meet load demands.

    What we need is to understand what comes next -after interstates and beltways…. for mobility…

    Nowhere that I know of in the world – and especially so where high speed rail already exists do I see or hear those folks talking about mobility and access being restrict to only localized balanced communities and the connecting roads torn up.

    People and goods and services ARE going to be MOBILE.

    From the day when folks made bronze implements anc clay pots fulls of wine and put them on sailing boats to trade with other people far away for silk and dates (or whatever) – trade – the movement of people and goods is fundamental to civilization IMHO.

    Can the mobility provided by the interstate highway system and urban beltways continue to be provided in a world with $500 gasoline?

    I think the answer is without question – YES.

    Will it be different and probably electricity-based? Yes.

    If we can run vehicles on electricity – and we can – then mobility will be different – in the same way that locomotives are different – but not gone – …. different…

    People are going to be mobile.

    They made that decision when they built the first sailing ship.

    the rest is …dealing with it.

  15. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    OOPS!

    I DO BELIEVE the following:

    3. – that high-speed rail IS sustainable – as sustainable as education, health care, water/sewer, electricity….

    4. -the automobile will never go away – more precisely – personal mobility – to have the ability to be independently mobile when you want to be and can afford it – is fundamental to personal freedom.

    5. – The “problem” is the cost and time lost twice daily at rush hour when too many people are trying to use too small a road system to get from home to work.

  16. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Republicans are becoming an endangered species in Virginia. Governors, state legislators, US Senators …

    Once the dust settles on the 2010 census the Republicans will go from being endangered to extinct.

    It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of idiots.

    The Republicans have derailed each and every tarnsportation plan with their mindless cries for VDOT performance audits, etc.

    I used to be a Republican (until about 4 years ago). I thought the Republicans represented fairness and honesty – even if I disagreed with some of their positions (capital punishment, for example). Now I see the exact opposite to be true. I see the Republicans as the ultimate in “say one thing, do another” scam artists. The Democrats have their problems but they are vastly more honest and forthright than the Republicans. Heck of job, Brownie!

    It’s too bad that good guys like Dave Albo and Jim Gilmore will get thrown under the train with the rest of the Republican trash. But that’s life. When you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas.

  17. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Groveton, it is OK you can tell us how you really feel.

    Now back to Mobility, Access and the human settlement pattern:

    Larry said:

    “I did post this:

    “The Shinkansen network boasts not only high speed -up to 300 kilometers per hour-, but also high frequency. For example, at least six trains per hour (not per day!) operate between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka Stations during daytime hours.”

    http://www.japanrail.com/JR_shinkansen.html

    Yes, I read that post when it first appeared.

    “Thinking of high speed rail as an “either – or” proposition belies the existing realities – that it is ENTIRELY feasible to run high-speed rail BOTH to do high-speed long-distance connect trips AND local station-to-station trips as well as hybrids of the two.”

    In the same corridor but not with the same rolling stock. I have not ridden Skinkansen – I have ridden the TGV – but I was sure as a matter of physics – that the Japanese are too smart to try to use the same equipment to run long distances, fast trains and ones that start and stop a lot.

    But you said:

    “This is an engineering problem – not a R&D problem or physical science problem.”

    “This is already being done… by the Japanese.. with ingenuity and computers….”

    Had you looked a little father down the very web page you cited you would have known what we said was correct and you were just guessing.

    You would have learned about the Nozomi (fast train with four stops in 250 miles) the Hikari (original bullet train with more stops and a half hour longer Tokyo to Osaka) and the Kodama (the local) but all called Skinkaksen and thus the original quote is right.

    That makes the rest of what you believe somewhat suspect but we go on…

    Just one further note on Japanese Mobility and Access: Japan has a national rail system with at least 14 classes of surface rolling stock plus the subways. They also have a national air system and these three shared vehicle systems (plus other special service systems) are designed to work in harmony to balance travel demand generated by the settlement pattern with the system capacity.

    You may have heard the need for Balance discussed before?

    “I do not believe the following:
    “1. – that more asphalt is a solution”

    Right on. We have plenty and much of it is in the wrong place. As luck would have it one can grind it up, re-heat it and use it again.

    “2. – that people will move from the suburbs back to the urban cores”

    There you go confusing yourself with the use of meaningless words. What is a “suburb?” Recall that only 12.5 % of the dwellings at the Dooryard scale are in patterns that if agglomerated in functional Clusters and Neighborhoods would be viable components of Alpha Villages.

    Later you amended the following from things you did not believe to be things you do believe:

    “3. – that high-speed rail IS sustainable – as sustainable as education, health care, water/sewer, electricity….”

    I am not sure I know what you mean but an urban system that has a high quality provision of these goods and services is sustainable – with the right design and with Balance.

    “4. -the automobile will never go away – more precisely – personal mobility – to have the ability to be independently mobile when you want to be and can afford it – is fundamental to personal freedom.”

    It would be best to leave “automobile” out of this sentence because the last part of the statement is correct. The “automobile” for which the Interstate highway was originally designed is already gone except for antique auto shows.

    The bigger issue is what percentage of the population can afford what level of Mobility and Access. If the Wealth Gap continues to widen, democracy and market economies will be threatened and then disappear because of the disparity in “personal freedom.”

    “5. – The “problem” is the cost and time lost twice daily at rush hour when too many people are trying to use too small a road system to get from home to work.”

    You need to get out more. Reliance on the Autonomobile is extending the “rush” form before the old AM Rush to after the old PM Rush and, as we say repeatedly the lack of Mobility and Access is getting worse and worse.

    “If you solve this problem – rush hour congestion – the rest of the transportation puzzle is benign.”

    Not so.

    “the cost and functionality of high speed rail are issues – not deal killers…no more or less than the same issues affect other important needs of society.”

    That is true if location-variable costs are fairly allocated.

    “finally – we cannot “undo” the beltways. They are an indelible part of urban America – for better or worse.”

    I am not sure what a “beltway” is. It is true that there is a need for circumferential movement system in large urban agglomerations.

    “We need to recognize and accept that beltways and the interstate highways system can be viewed by us – as either impediments or opportunities.”

    Like the Ring-Strassa in Wien, the old wall can become a great shared-vehicle system.

    “Beltways – constitute a “clear edge” that is undeniable.”

    They may be edges, barriers or “clear edges” but they are not Clear Edges. Clear Edges are between the Urbanside and the Countryside.

    “Whether we want to accept it or not, they DEFINE urban areas in America.”

    Almost all are now buried within the urban fabric.

    “We can decide that putting together mass transit within those boundaries is a worthwhile endeavor and get on with it or we can continue to pretend that Metro “won’t work” when there is not enough “density”.

    You may recall our proposal for the METRO Purple Line over the Capital Beltway with the stations being at the center of compound Ziggurats. See All Aboard.

    “Density -smensidy … who says that the ONLY way to provide mass transit is by rail in the first place?”

    The alternative to shared vehicles is walking. It is a matter of physics. Do not shoot yourself in the foot with another Japanese Bullet.

    “What are multi-passenger wheeled vehicles – chopped liver?”

    No they are shared-vehicle systems. The test is to create Balance between … see above.

    “Mass transit does not end where the tracks end – it merely becomes wheeled and of varying sizes – adjusted to meet load demands.”

    True but how does this relate to the above?
    “What we need is to understand what comes next -after interstates and beltways…. for mobility…

    “Nowhere that I know of in the world – and especially so where high speed rail already exists do I see or hear those folks talking about mobility and access being restrict to only localized balanced communities and the connecting roads torn up.”

    Where did you get such a silly strawperson as “mobility and access being restrict to only localized balanced communities and the connecting roads torn up”?

    “People and goods and services ARE going to be MOBILE.”

    Within the limits of physics, economics and achieving Balance, especially at the New Urban Region scale.

    “From the day when folks made bronze implements anc clay pots fulls of wine and put them on sailing boats to trade with other people far away for silk and dates (or whatever) – trade – the movement of people and goods is fundamental to civilization IMHO.”

    We are not talking about absolutes but rather Balance.

    “Can the mobility provided by the interstate highway system and urban beltways continue to be provided in a world with $500 gasoline?

    “I think the answer is without question – YES.”

    The Interstate Highway system is a product of cheap energy, $500 dollar a gallon (or of a barrel) is not cheap.

    “Will it be different and probably electricity-based? Yes.”

    “If we can run vehicles on electricity – and we can – then mobility will be different – in the same way that locomotives are different – but not gone – …. different…”

    “People are going to be mobile.”

    Within the limits of physics and economics.

    “They made that decision when they built the first sailing ship.”

    Or when they stood up on two legs, or when … wait a minute fish are mobile …

    “the rest is …dealing with it.”

    And the way to deal with it is to achieve Balance.

    Take a deep breath and try to understand what 6.5 billion people are going to have to do create a sustainable trajectory, not what you would like to see.

    EMR

  18. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    EMR – Are there any balanced communities of size in the world? In the U.S.?

    TMT

  19. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Pot, meet kettle.

    I found this exchange especially hysterical.

    Mr. Taxonomy-inventor whines that someone useing words understood by 99% of the planet is using “meaningless words”; he writes:

    “2. – that people will move from the suburbs back to the urban cores”

    There you go confusing yourself with the use of meaningless words. What is a “suburb?” Recall that only 12.5 % of the dwellings at the Dooryard scale are in patterns that if agglomerated in functional Clusters and Neighborhoods would be viable components of Alpha Villages.”

    Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, chortle, belly laugh, morning coffee coming out the nose …

    Mr. Personal-Ontological-Taxonomy strings together complete gibberish here. He babbles on using his persona bubble of “land use” colloquialisms and has the incredible arrogance to condescendingly chastise others for daring to use the English language instead of speaking his pet “Alpha-Dog-Alpha Community” gibberish.

    Give me a break. Heck, give us ALL a break. Let’s drop the new urban-speak gamesmanship and communicate using normal conversation, shall we? This blog isn’t a classroom for self-important PhDs to lecture their unenlightened students on how intelligent their professor is as they share their work on their next doctoral thesis.

    Dude, we all know what a suburb is – I’m sorry the term doesn’t fit your doctorial thesis on human settlement patterns and it bothers you because it reveals the failure of the masses to succumb to your preferred language; thus obstructing your visionary Grande scheme of reinventing the world in your own image so that everyone will accept the views of enlightened academia and social progressives.

    You know, the need to manipulate language in an effort to better frame the supposed “need” to abolish freedom and personal choice in favor of enlightened fascism? The need to surrender complete governmental authority to elitists pimping their utopian plans whose success is predicated upon the control of every facet of how the non wealthy must be forced to live, forced to move from point A to point B, and forced to pay for a world they don’t really want. A world that the self-anointed social engineering gurus feel is needed “for their own good”.

    A world in which the well understood term “suburb” shall no longer be allowed to uttered of used in daily conversation.

    You see, every pompous manipulating Elite knows that their goals of “reshaping” society begin with their desire to reshape language.

    Yawn.

    Can we give it a rest, please?

  20. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    ANSWER TO TMT RE BALANCED COMMUNITIES

    TooManyTaxes asked the question: Are there any Balanced Communities – a Balance of J / H / S / R /A at the Alpha Community scale – in the US of A or on the Planet?

    Good question TMT! You will need to decide for yourself after you do some research based on some tips I provide below.

    I am very sure there are enough places that are close enough to being Alpha Communities so that it is clear that moving toward Balanced Communities is the direction human settlement pattern must evolve.

    What may have been Balanced two years ago may not still be today because as an organic system, settlement patterns is always evolving. What is a Beta Community today can evolve to an Alpha Community in the future.

    Balanced (Alpha) Communities are not the “answer” but they are requirements of evolving sustainable New Urban Regions, the basic building blocks of contemporary civilization.

    If I were to start to look for the answer to TMT’s question I would start with the Planned New Communities in the Stockholm New Urban Region. Karsta and Vallingby would be the first stop. Kista is the silicon valley of Sweden but is divided by the Tunnel Bhan (sp) – sorry this is all off the top of my head so the spellings may be off – into a employment half and a residential half.

    I have not visited all the Planned New Communities in England and Scotland but they have suffered a number of detours, and unlike those in Sweden are not served by a major New Urban Region shared-vehicle system. Milton Keynes is by far the largest and the last time I was there it looked to be going quite well. Before leaving England one has to stop at Docklands which is in the Core of the London New Urban Region.

    Across the channel and in the same scale as Docklands is La Defense in Paris. The planned expansion of Paris in the Marne Valley is the 50,000 acre, 500,000 population Marne La Valle – the 10X Rule :>). It is clear there are difficult social issues related to putting immigrants in “sub” urban locations that cloud any evaluation of Balance in France. The same is true in Germany but there are some great Village-scale extensions of older urban enclaves – Bonn for example.

    The Reunification of Berlin has led to a lot of building but my impression the last time we were there is that is all about ARCHITECTURE and URBAN DESIGN (in caps) and not about building Balance.

    Of course every New Urban Region in the EU starts with a lot more Balance at the Neighborhood, Village and Community scales.

    There is a great farmers market and an urbane Village scale residential enclave across the square from KaDaWe.

    London’s “first suburb,” Hampstead is a must see and is on the Tube.

    Japan for decades and more recently China have been trying to evolve freestanding Balanced Communities. You will have to do your own research to find which has become or is most likely to become Balanced.

    Here in the US of A every Planned New Community since the three New Deal Era ones have sought to become Balanced. Most never got close, often because jobs (J) never matched housing (H).

    Some like Reston have overshot with jobs because of Subregional location.

    In spite of the best efforts of Jim Rouse, Bob Simon and others there is also a lack of Balance in housing affordable to those who work in them.

    Your tour has to include Savannah :>), Columbia, Reston, The Woodlands and Irvine. The big problem is knowing what to look for.

    There is a chapter in The Shape of the Future that deals in greater detail on the US of A Planned New Communities.

    Hope that helps.

    EMR

  21. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    What will happen to the evolution of settlement patterns if plug-in electrics with 100 mile ranges become a reality?

    Perhaps this question is irrelevant to EMR .. but I ask it as a way to move away from the idea that the cost and/or availability of oil/gasoline will cause fundamental change/transformation.

    In other words, if this is the premise -what happens to it – if electricity essentially replaces gasoline – or let’s say it replaces half of it… or 3/4 of it.

    no.. we’ll probably never have electric-powered airlines but it would seem to me that electric-powered ground transportation – both solo and multi-passenger vehicles is clearly achievable.

    so .. my simple question to EMR is – if electricity replaces gasoline – what happens to fundamental transformation?

  22. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    Good question!

    The cost of electricty is going up. CO2 and other controls will make new generation more and more expensive.

    As I keep pointing out half of all the energy that goes into making electricty is wasted in generation, transmission and distribution.

    One of the biggest hidden costs of disaggregate settlement patterns is electrical distribution which is chaged on a flat rate, regardless of how far the low voltage distribution lines run.

    The amount of energy necessary to replace gasoline as the power for Mobility and Access will raise the demand and thus the marginal cost of added capacity to generate electricty higher and higher.

    Yes new technology will drive down some of these cost but not all.

    Electric vehicles will grow ever smaller and lighter to hold down cost.

    Electric vehicles will be less compfortable to ride for long distances — unless they are shared vehicles.

    The long and short of it is that the same results as raising the cost of gasoline — settlement patterns will matter more and more.

    EMR

  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “The shinkasen and tren gran vitesse are not sustainable transportation any more than the Concorde was.”

    A train running at 180 burns more than twice the fuel as one rinning at 130.

    Tren Gran Vitesse: A hundred destinations out of how many? You call a whole city a “destination”?

    Shinkasou:For example, at least six trains per hour (not per day!) operate between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka Stations during daytime hours.” I’ll bet they don’t all disembark on the same track. That would be cutting it damn close at 300kmph.

    RH

  24. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Beltways – constitute a “clear edge” that is undeniable.”

    What about the beltways that have multiple concentric beltways?

    RH

  25. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    In the same corridor but not with the same rolling stock. And not on the same tracks, either.

    RH

  26. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “The cost of electricty is going up. CO2 and other controls will make new generation more and more expensive.”

    A clean environment costs money. See, I told you so.

    RH

  27. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    ” regardless of how far the low voltage distribution lines run.”

    What about the high voltage distribution lines?

    RH

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