Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

NOW MARYLAND IS PLANNING SOMETHING NEW

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by

James A. Bacon
in

MARYLAND IS PLANNING A NEW SETTLEMENT PATTERN STRATEGY — OR NOT

The AntiSmart Growthers (those who have consistently supported Business-As-Usual / dumb growth) are turning hand-springs of joy over the ‘news’ that, in spite of best intentions, the much ballyhooed Maryland ‘Smart Growth’ program has not panned out.

As noted in an earlier post, this is really OLD news. EMR and others suggested almost two decades before the legislation was enacted that there were not enough teeth in the ‘priority funding area’ ideas being explored to achieve success in the face of THE ROOTS OF THE HELTER SKELTER CRISIS. Of course, that was 30 years before EMR evolved a Vocabulary and Conceptual Framework to articulate his concerns.

Now a county in Maryland that prides itself on being at the cutting edge of intelligent settlement pattern evolution has taken a step that has more promise. Perhaps.

In the 11 November WaPo, a front page story trumpeted the passage of a new initiative: “Montgomery redraws its blueprint for development: Council approves plan that supports dense but car-free growth.”

The idea is a good one – intensive development in METRO station areas WITHOUT parking requirements. Just what Dr. Risse ordered (“A Picture is Worth a Thousand Lies” 8 September 2008). Right?

Well yes, BUT…

In the SAME issue of WaPo a second report by the SAME reporter tells a different story. In a Metro section there is a story titled “Montgomery officials back I-270 HOT lanes: Council also picks light rail over buses for transit way project.”

What is going on here? Well, for those in the dark, read David Owen’s new book Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability.

While the METRO station-area strategy is a good one, the HOT lanes will provide an incentive for developing scattered Urban (primarily residential) developments in Frederick County, MD (and beyond). The residents will drive to jobs and services in the I-270 Corridor of Montgomery County and inside the Beltway.

Making things worse, the light rail line will open new opportunities for lower intensity land use which will compete for dwellings, jobs and services that might otherwise land in the METRO station areas, further leveraging scatteration.

Owen does a fine job of outlining why HOT lanes and light rail lines will not support sustainable settlement patterns at the SubRegional scale.

What is the fundamental problem here? It is a matter of quantification. Long ago EMR demonstrated that if the vacant and underutilized land at half the METRO stations was used to create Balanced development – just the sort of development that Montgomery County’s the new station-area strategy is intended to facilitate – this building envelope could accommodate all the ‘growth’ projected to 2030 in the entire National Capital SubRegion. And that was before The Great Recession put a big question mark on ALL ‘growth’ projections.

Will the bright shinny METRO station idea work? Time will tell but the initial indications are not encouraging.

EMR

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22 responses to “NOW MARYLAND IS PLANNING SOMETHING NEW”

  1. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    from the article:

    " Planners predict that 200,000 people are likely to move to the county in the next 20 years, bumping the population to more than 1 million. "

    my question is this – what if that growth does not like what Montgomery County is offering and decides to to to outlying jurisdictions to get what they do want?

    It just appears to me that whatever Montgomery does – much like Fairfax – it will end up encouraging even more people to commute to the exurbs…

    Our county is full of folks who didn't like what was available in NoVa and decided they could get exactly what they wanted – for the price they wanted – 50 miles away.

    About the only thing that has changed – is that no longer will big mega roads to serve such commutes be built.

    Commuters basically have what it out there right now – with the potential of some new lanes that will be toll lanes but there will be no more Western Transportation Bypasses or Eastern Md. Bypasses or Tech Corridor Potomac bridges – unless they are tolled.

    I'm just not convinced that one county is going to substantially change region-wide development patterns.

  2. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry said:

    "I'm just not convinced that one county is going to substantially change region-wide development patterns."

    You are absolutly right on this point Larry.

    EMR's point here is that two other projects in which the County will invest UNDERMINES the potential of the one that would be best.

    The one thing that could change SubRegional settlement patterns is that the municipalities of Fairfax and Montgomery control the two 'favored corridors' of the National Capital Subregion AND

    The Great Recession has rendered the traditional drivers of decision making over the last 50 years (during which time most of the citizens now living in R = 30 plus municipalities like Spotsy moved in) MOOT.

    Do a radial distribution of foreclosures and residential real estate property value loss.

    EMR

  3. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    " The one thing that could change SubRegional settlement patterns is that the municipalities of Fairfax and Montgomery control the two 'favored corridors' of the National Capital Subregion.."

    whoa! EMR has gone rogue on Top Down solutions!

    but you know… where METRO goes …and where METRO does not go – and the future planning thereof is a regional issue.

    so am I wrong? Does it matter where Metro goes ?

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "not enough teeth in the ‘priority funding area’"

    There wasn't enough funding in the priority funding areas.

    RH

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "but there will be no more Western Transportation Bypasses or Eastern Md. Bypasses or Tech Corridor Potomac bridges – unless they are tolled."

    You are kidding yourself. When there is enough outrage, the roads will get built – even if they have to take down people's homes to do it.

    RH

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "Do a radial distribution of foreclosures and residential real estate property value loss."

    Yes, do that. And you will find million dollar properties in Arlington in forclosure.

    Do a radial distribution of forclosure and figure the dollar cost per square foot.

    RH

  7. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    " You are kidding yourself. When there is enough outrage, the roads will get built – even if they have to take down people's homes to do it."

    never going to happen…guy

    first you gotta come up with he money or being willing to pay tolls or taxes…

    then you gotta convince the EPA to lift the non-attainment status

    The ICC was the last hurrah…

  8. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    how is this explained:

    " The face of a changing Columbia Pike

    Most of the area's revitalization plans are on track, with new housing, retail and transportation"

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111112866.html

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Take a look at the environmental economics blog. Th professor posts one of his exam questions:

    Is the widening of US HWY 421 in Boone efficient (i.e., a potential Pareto improvement)? Use these resources to answer the question below:

    •Estimated Cost: Construction $16.2 million
    •Length: 1.1 miles
    •About 45,000 vehicles use the road there daily…….

    ————————–

    there is some more stuff, but the bottom line is that the benefit to cost ratio for this project ranges from 205/16 to 59/16 depending on the discount rate.

    Now, if you are a government practitioner and someone comes to you with a project with paybacks like that, how do you turn it down, unless you have something a lot better to spend the money on?

    If the argument is that we will NEVER be able to build new roads in non-attainment areas, then we need to build some new places – Masybe in Boone, NC.

    But what happens when we turn to electric cars and non-attainment isn't an issue? (My new Prius will go 25 miles or so on battery alone.)

    At that point the only issue will be whether the benefits of building a new road exceed the costs of tearing down homes and businesses to build it. Or tunneling under, as they do with Metro.

    Or, just building new stuff for new growth someplace else.

    We ARE going to make those decisions: it is only a question of whther we make the right ones or the wrong ones. If we make the wrong ones, it is not green.

    I'm not standing here suggesting that the right decision is always to builf more roads for more cars, nor am I suggesting that the right decision is always to build more rail and station are development.

    What I'm suggesting is that we do not know the right answer because fatheads who have already made up their mind can't be bothered to look at the facts.

    WE don't have an agreed upon procedure to go find out what the answer is most likely to be. Instead we spend 30 years in court while the costs escalate and the benefits evaporate.

    The ICC will probably never pay for itself now, but if it had been built 30 years ago the answer might well have been very different.

    We will never know, but whatever the answer might have been, we are now stuck with the answer we got.

    RH

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "so am I wrong? Does it matter where Metro goes ?"

    Metro would have been a much better system if it had been more nuclear. Smaller with more stations closer to town, and more stations in more parts of town, instead of the spoke configuration it developed.

    But, it could never have been paid for that way. It needed to embrace the sprawl and autos that make it possible.

    RH

  11. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    they've already done the cost benefit.

    adding more car pollution will cause more costly health problems.

    The non-attainment says that the cost/benefit threshold has been reached – beyond which more infrastructure for more auto traffic will result in unacceptable (increased) damage to people's health.

    Non-attainment, in case you've forgotten allows new roads that are congestion-reducing without adding more overall capacity.

    it will also eventually allow more cars – if the air quality does improve – from newer less polluting cars and more HOV/transit use.

    We already do the cost-benefit.

    Some folks just don't agree with it.

  12. Politically Incorrect Avatar
    Politically Incorrect

    EMR doesn't get it.

    Rioting minorities cause sprawl, not roads. Metro does not help that.

    DC population was 809,000 in 1968. Today after billions of $ on Metro it is 591,833.

    Metro wasn't needed for a more functional human settlement pattern.

    Character of the population is the number one factor.

    Prediction: The ICC will be so successful that the outer beltway will be built to the benefit of the whole region.

    Prediction: As crime increases around Metro Stations the jobs and population will move even farther out.

    Prediction: Higher costs and taxes associated with subsidized transit systems will promote more sprawl.

    Command and control solutions proposed by Ed Risse will only lead to more poverty.

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    adding more car pollution will cause more costly health problems.

    That is one small element of the cost side. It does not constitute a CBA. Despite what you prefer to believe in the absence of evidence, it is entirely possible that a very expensive road still benefits more than it costs.

    It is also possible that it doesn't. but you don't find out by prejudicing the issue.

    RH

  14. Gooze Views Avatar
    Gooze Views

    Larry G.
    EMR can't go "rogue" He's already gone as "rogue" as is humanly possible.

    Peter Galuszka

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "The non-attainment says that the cost/benefit threshold has been reached -…"

    Actually, no it doesn't. What it really says is that we aare going to set an ARBITRARY value on one portion of what might be a cost benefit analysis. Essentially, they are assigning infinite value to one kind of property rights, to the detriment of all others.

    That might be the right thing to do or it might be a huge waste. But, as it stands now, it represents a big subsidy to suburban or rural areas that are outside the non attainment zone.

    When I have a few truckloads of brush, I can push them off into the woods and let it rot or I can pile it up in a safe place and burn it. But if I were in Fairfax, Id have to hire the several trucks to come in and haul it away – with covers on the trucks. And they would drive it some considerable distance in their diesel trucks to a recyclinc center where another diesel engine operates the tub grinder, and some more diesel engines pile into a mountan of mulch, whereupon the citizens come and get it and take it back ome to put on the ground. And all of that effort and fuel is used because they are in a non-attainment area and this is supposed to be the green thing to do.

    It is just as politically Incorrect notes: if you make life a big enough hassle in one place, people will go someplace else. In the meantime, you make enemies out of them, whichis one activity that very seldom has a positive benefit/cost ratio.

    RH

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "Non-attainment, in case you've forgotten allows new roads that are congestion-reducing without adding more overall capacity."

    It is really big of them to "allow" something that is physically impossible. When was the last time you saw a road built that didn't add capacsity?

    For that matter when did a road EVER reduce congestion? If you want to reduce congestion, then put up a forest. But as soon as you put a road thrugh the forest and put two vehicles on it – then you have congestion and pollution. A very low level of congestion and pollution but congestion and pollution none the less, which you did not have when it was just a forest.

    If the option is to drive a hundred miles around the forest, creating even more congestion and more pollution, then it might be green and cost effective to knock down some forest.

    But before we can even begin to argue about the result of some BCA we need an agreed upon procedure for conducting one. Under such a procedure any reasonable person would look at the result and conclude that it was fair and reasonably accurate.

    It might not be 100% accurate but close enough so that most projects can be rank ordered close enough. Absent that, what we have is ridiculous and unfounded claims like yours that the BCA for non-attainment areas has been done and it is a settled issue.

    What we have done is politicized BCA's, so we have a situation that no BCA in favor of the ICC will be accepted by some people but those same people would readily accept a totally bogus BCA if it suggested we should tear the ICC up and let it revert to old growth forest.

    You cannot, at the end of the day, politicize the actual facts: either people will be better off because of the ICC or they won't.

    What we need is a BCA procedure capable of making an accurate prediction, rather than one which is manufactured to support a preselected political position.

    RH

  17. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "…it will also eventually allow more cars – if the air quality does improve – from newer less polluting cars and more HOV/transit use.

    We already do the cost-benefit."

    A perfect example of complete and utter nonsense. Even if we had perfectly clean cars we might still not want more of them in certain areas because the congestion ALONE, absent any pollution, might result in a negative BCA.

    But, we have allowed EPA to claim superior property rights and this would be the kind of stupid result we get.

    —————————

    Incidentally, the biggest single source of airborne particulate matter in the city environment is diesel exhaust, right?

    Nope, it is ground up rubber tires.

    RH

  18. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "The report, by Environment Texas, says that the Lone Star state’s carbon-dioxide output from fossil fuels fell by 10 million metric tons between 2004 and 2007–more than any other state except New York."

    Texas? You heard it right.

    Of course Texas is also home to ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips: it spews more carbon dioxide than any other state in the U.S., and more even than all of Canada.

    But Texas has reduced its emissions tremendously because of a shift to natural gas and because of wind energy development. And the economy slowdown has also reduced emissions.

    But what do you suppose was the single biggest cause for a drop in emissions in Texas?

    The biggest reduction came from lower industrial consumption of natural gas, as producers shifted manufacturing to cheaper locations. It’s relatively easy to improve a region’s greenhouse-gas profile when industries move elsewhere.

    From Environmental Capital

    RH

  19. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Smart growth — like at Tysons Corner? Making a walkable, urban community will require expanding the Dulles Toll Road to 13 lanes from 8.

    TMT

  20. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Calling Darrell…

    I just got back from a week in India. I've been out of the loop on the local weather. I hear that there is substantial flooding and damage in Tidewater. You OK? How is the Tidewater area doing?

  21. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "Smart growth — like at Tysons Corner? Making a walkable, urban community will require expanding the Dulles Toll Road to 13 lanes from 8."

    ———————————

    Nice.

    What does EPA have to say about that?

    RH

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Settlement pattern? are you still drinking the risse Kool-aid?

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