OH BOY!
Mr. Bacon came forward with his 10 percent concern about the SYNERGY take on INFRASTRUCTURE and it is a WINNER!!
EMR agrees with almost 100 percent of Bacon’s 10 percent reservation.
What is even better, his ‘reservation’ is a big fat pitch right over the heart of the plate.
More on that in a moment, but first:
WHAT MR. BACON SAID:
“OK, I’m back for a second try… As usual, I agree with 90% of what EMR says here. There *is* a housing and affordability crisis, there *is* a mobility and access crisis, dysfunctional human settlement patterns *are* at the root of both, and the key to reforming human settlement patterns *is* (a) governance reform, (b) devising rules by which people pay the location-variable costs of where they live, work and play, and (c) (my emphasis) dismantling the zoning/regulatory policies virtually mandate the scattered, disconnected, low-density pattern of land use that plague us today.
“Also, let me say that I enjoyed EMR’s perspective on the tradeoffs between affordability, fuel mileage and safety in autonomobiles — a fresh analysis I had not seen anywhere before.
“That said, it is inevitable in a conversation to focus on areas of disagreement. While I agree with EMR that the economics of building a transportation system around autonomobiles has reached a dead end, I can’t say I’m enthralled with the alternatives.
[Mr. Bacon said: I CAN’T SAY I’M ENTHRALLED WITH THE ALTERNATIVES!!
BACON IS RIGHT…
IF HE MEANS THE ALTERNATIVES MOST OTHERS HAVE PUT ON THE TABLE.
But so far in these three perspectives on infrastructure, EMR has only talked about WHAT DOES NOT WORK and why citizens and their Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions must understand what makes Urban settlements functional BEFORE they build INFRA to support their STRUCTURE.]
“Yes, redesigning the urban space can make it possible for people to take more trips on foot and by bicycle (or, who knows, by Segway). That we should do. But let’s be realistic, bicycles will never be more than a niche mode of transportation, and walking is useful only for very short trips.
[The future of AFFORDABLE Mobility and Access requires that the vast majority of Urban trips be VERY SHORT TRIPS. In the most functional Urban places, they already are — that is what makes them great places to live, work and seek Services.]
“My reservation about buses, light rail, heavy rail and high-speed intercity rail is that they all require massive subsidies.”
[Because of the current station area settlement patterns as demonstrated in the case of Tysons Corner. The Silver Line could pay for itself IF it was not a give away to adjacent land speculators. Right TMT?]
“ Creating more functional land use patterns undoubtedly would improve the dismal economics of buses and perhaps light rail, but there is no getting around the fact that the up-front capital costs of heavy rail are extremely high, that projects routinely experience massive cost overruns, and they will continue needing operating subsidies on an ongoing basis. Do we really want a transportation system with those characteristics as we hurtle towards Boomergeddon?
“Say what you will about roads and highways, it is possible to make them pay their own way through user fees (gas taxes, mileage taxes, tolls, whatever) in a way that is not possible with mass transit.”
[When roadways do pay their full cost, then roadways and the private vehicles to use them will be more expensive than most Households will be able to pay.]
“ Here in Virginia, Gov. McDonnell has veered away from the user-pays principle, trying to pay for road improvements by means of anything but user fees. But conceptually, switching to a user fee basis of paying for roads/highways is easy, even if the political will is lacking. The end result may be that roads will cost more than people would like, or roads will be more congested than they want, or more people will be driven to buses, vans, carpools, but the basic principle of people paying their location-variable costs would be maintained.
“By contrast, there is no way to get people to pay the location-variable costs of using heavy rail. The best you can hope for in places like Tysons Corner is to reduce the subsidies by introducing more functional human settlement patterns. (There may be niche cases where rail can be made profitable, but I doubt we can build an entire transportation system around them.)
[The Hong Kong heavy rail shared vehicle system is a money making proposition – at least it was when the Brits walked away, not telling what it is with Chinese accounting – but that does not solve the problem for most large Urban agglomerations.]
“Bottom line: I say we have to reform human settlement patterns, make people pay their location-variable costs, and then let the market decide. I am a transportation mode agnostic. I don’t see how subsidizing heavy rail is any more virtuous than subsidizing roads and highways. If I’m wrong about the economics of heavy rail, if someone can figure out how to make heavy rail pay (without offloading all the risk to the taxpayer), then I’m all for it. If I’m right, then I guess we’re stuck with cars and shared-vehicle systems (buses, vans, carpools) that can run on road/highway infrastructure as our alternatives.”
[As one can see there are some small quibbles but EMR is 99 percent on board. One other quibble below.]
BACON IS 99 PERCENT RIGHT ABOUT HIS 10 PERCENT RESERVATION
To be specific Bacon says “buses, light rail, heavy rail and high-speed intercity rail” are NOT THE ANSWER.
That does not mean that Large, Private Vehicles and roadways ARE the answer, only that there must be an alternative. A fair allocation of costs is a place to start as Bacon suggest, BUT…
The fact that there must be an alternative is EXACTLY what EMR demonstrates in WHAT COMES AFTER THE CAR (Forthcoming,)
The topic could be left there but will take it a step further:
The REASON that “buses, light rail, heavy rail and high-speed intercity rail” are NOT THE ANSWER is that each example of each mode has a native sweet spot on The Cost of Services Curve for STATION AREA land use patterns and densities.
The proof of this settlement pattern axiom can be found in moderate scale Urban agglomerations such as Goteborg, Sweden and Freiburg, Germany where light rail matches the settlement pattern for most of the Urban fabric. Goteborg is the best example because the Urban agglomeration has grown up around a light rail armature.
However, No large Urban agglomeration is uniform and so one size cannot fit all. And, none of the candidates that Bacon lists achieve optimum Mobility and Access at rational cost for the variety of settlement patterns at the Cluster, Neighborhood, Village and Community scales that are economically viable AND ecologically sustainable where the vast majority of Urban citizens can be happy and safe.
The Large Urban agglomeration with the best Mobility and Access FOR THE LARGEST PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULATION, especially those who cannot afford a LARGE, PRIVATE VEHICLE (Stockholm, London, Paris, Toronto, Vancouver, Berlin, Wien, and others) employ a variety of different shared vehicle systems. But none achieve optimum Mobility and Access at rational cost for the full spectrum of settlement pattern alternatives that are economically viable AND ecologically sustainable where the vast majority of Urban citizens can be happy and safe.
ONE OTHER QUIBBLE.
Jim too often jumps to the conclusion that something that will cost a lot for Agencies to provide (aka, massive subsidies) is bad per se.
Not so.
Urban civilization is VERY expensive. Humans have been living on natural capital – not
just stored cheap energy but that is the big one.
If humans are to continue to enjoy civilization as it has evoked to date EVERYONE WILL HAVE TO PAY MUCH MORE:
HOUSEHOLDS,
AGENCIES,
ENTERPRISES,
INSTITUTIONS.
That does not take away form the fact that WHAT FOLLOWS THE AUTONOMOBILE will need to be flexible. The good thing is that on a seat-mile basis it will be far, far cheaper – but not free and not even cheap.
More in WHAT COMES AFTER THE CAR.
EMR
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