Gleaned the dialogue (both the online and offline) generated by the column “The Problem with ‘Mass’ Transit” are the following observations:
It is important to keep in mind several axioms that can be distilled from the principles found in The Shape of the Future:
• Limiting citizen’s access erodes quality of life, eliminating the need for a vehicle to achieve access enhances quality of life.
• Eliminating the ability to make trips erodes citizen’s quality of life, eliminating the necessity of making vehicle trips (except for joy-rides and touring places like Tuscany, Bavaria and the Alsace) enhances quality of life.
• Shared-vehicles are more efficient and provide access to more destinations than private vehicles due to the space required to move and park private vehicles.
• Shared-vehicles can support a much higher flux and diversity of the sort of places that citizens need and want to be, Autonomobility disaggregates origins and destinations of vehicle trips and thus creates dysfunctional settlement patterns.
• Balanced Communities create places where citizens are already where they want and need to be.
It is also important to understand as documented in our three columns on settlement patterns starting with “Wild Abandonment” 8 Sept 2003 at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com that:
- The market values on property in the Untied States demonstrate without fail that citizens most highly value those places that meet the criteria for viable components of Balanced Communities.
- Citizens are willing to pay far more for functional places on a square foot basis than for places that required vehicle trips to get everywhere they want or need to be.
- Viewed from the perspective of maintaining a democracy with a market economy, desirable mobility options are far different than when viewed from the perspective of traditional transportation agencies geared to providing a vehicle (private or shared) for every desired trip.
- Business-As-Usual makes money from building and running big, expensive vehicles (private or shared) and the systems to support them. BAUI agents never fail to attack any alternative.
It will require a broad understanding of these axioms and relationships before citizens can move beyond providing for homes, places to work and places to seek services, recreation and amenity for Jim Bacon’s Pod People.
Also note the “Housewatch” column by Katherine Salant on page F 5 (Real Estate Section) in the Saturday 20 May WaPo. “Today’s Housing Model Is Unsustainable for the Long Haul.” Now that the builders of houses in dysfunctional locations are desperate to advertise, WaPo can run this sort of column without fear of the advertisers boycotting the paper. Look for BAUI agents to attack.
EMR