Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

OUT OF THE OILY SLIME — FOR A MOMENT

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

A RECENT JOINT FORUM BY FEDERAL AGENCIES AND SUBREGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS INDICATES THAT THE NATIONAL CAPITAL SUBREGION HAS WASTED THE LAST DECADE BY NOT IMPLEMENTING A BROAD CONSENSUS CONCERNING THE PATH TO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE.

THE OILY SLIME IN THE GULF DOCUMENTS THAT THERE WAS NOT A DAY – MUCH LESS A DECADE – THAT CITIZENS AND THEIR ORGANIZATIONS COULD AFFORD TO SQUANDER ON THE PATH TO FUNCTIONAL AND SUSTAINABLE HUMAN SETTLEMENT PATTERNS.

WHILE AGENCIES, ENTERPRISES AND INSTITUTIONS ATTEMPT TO CONTAIN THE BP BLOW OUT, LET US TAKE A MOMENT TO CONSIDER HOW TO DISENGAGE THE HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELFARE OF CITIZENS IN THE WASHINGTON-BALTIMORE NEW URBAN REGION FROM LARGE, PRIVATE VEHICLES. DISENGAGEMENT WILL DEMONSTRATE HOW TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEM OF MASS CONSUMPTION OF PETROLEUM. IT WILL ALSO BE A MAJOR STEP TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE TRAJECTORY FOR URBAN CIVILIZATION.

On 3 May, for the first time in a long time, EMR rode METRO to the Wash COG headquarters near Union Station for a Joint Federal / SubRegional Forum. See End Note One. The forum was intended to showcase on the new Federal Agency (US DOT, US HUD and US EPA) emphasis on ‘sustainability.’ There was much good talk at the forum but not much to inspire confidence that the overarching unsustainable trajectory of society will change any time soon.

EMR was invited to the forum because he is an alumnus of the turn-of-the-century “Group of 40.” (Sounds ‘old school,’ right?) The Group of 40 was a broad based coalition from which The [Greater] Washington Smart Growth Alliance emerged. This Alliance is made up of Agency, Enterprise and Institution representatives and got off to a good start in the early 00s.

VOICES FROM THE PAST

In the post-forum communications that always spring up between old acquaintances after such an event there have been a number of useful observations and suggestions put on the table. Several of them will be addressed in this venue in the near future. Perhaps most often enunciated is the call to restate the consensus of the early 00s that has was over-washed by the feel good BOOM that ended in 2007.

One lightening rod at the 3 May forum was a statement by the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance (NVTA). The leader of NVTA called for those present to support Roadways to access ‘the places people want to live’ – aka, remote land in which sponsors of NVTA have speculative interests (aka, direct and indirect speculative ‘investments’).

For those who do not know, NVTA is an Institution sponsored by Roadway / Developer / Builder Enterprises. See End Note Two. (Full disclosure: Twenty plus years ago when building and improving SOME Roadways made economic, social and physical sense, EMR was the Chair of the NVTA Technical Committee and served on NVTA Board of Directors.)

The rational response to these statements of outrage about ‘places people want to live’ outside the logical location of the Clear Edge around the Core of the National Capital SubRegion is this:

The leader / spokesperson of NVTA had no choice.

What the spokesman says is what the owners and officers of the Enterprises who sponsor his Institution want to hear. It is also what they want Enterprise Media (aka, MainStream Media) repeat and citizens to believe for as long as possible. See THE ESTATES MATRIX – PART TWO of TRILO-G

THREE KEY REALITIES

The NVTA wish list for new Roadways and the cries of outrage about ‘places people want to live’ puts a spotlight on three key realities about the National Capital SubRegion:

1. If quantifyable location-variable costs were fairly and equitably allocated within a well-informed market context, then the places to which NVTA lobbies to have Agencies build Roadways would NOT be popular, feasible or even seriously considered by builders OR buyers.

Trust the market, but FIRST, the playing field must be leveled with valid data, analysis and quantification. A fair allocation of costs would eliminate hidden and misguided subsidies and unintended externalities.

2. The Region and its SubRegions must achieve Balance of Jobs / Housing / Services / Recreation / Amenity in each of the Beta Communities that make up the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region and its SubRegions.

The FIRST STEP to achieve Alpha Community Balance is Affordable and Accessible Housing NEAR Jobs.

3. In 2002, Radial Analysis of the National Capital SubRegion ‘Activity Centers’ documented that Job locations were center weighted in the SubRegion. The vast majority of the Jobs were INSIDE the logical location of the Clear Edge around the Core of the SubRegion. Nothing has happened since 2002 to alter that reality.

The centrality of Job locations has not been impacted by:

– The residential settlement pattern impacts of the Wrong Size House / Wrong Location caused by the Housing Bubble from 2002 to 2006,

– The Over-Servicing of scattered residential land uses by Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions, and

– The derivative and speculation and fraud driven financial meltdown from 2007 to ? that has resulted in a distinct pattern of foreclosures and short sales in the outer Radial Band beyond the logical location of the Clear Edge around the Core of the National Capitol SubRegion.

On the question of Job locations in the future:

Newswire is published by “Planetizen” www.planetizen.com an omnivore ‘planning’ web site owned by Urban Insight. Urban Insight is a Los Angles based Enterprise that describes itself as a “web design, content management and Internet strategy” corporation. The 3 May issue of Newswire summarized a Harvard Business Review note of 28 April 2010:

“The Suburbanization of Business Headquarters May be Coming to an End.”

This brief article from Harvard Business Review suggests why major Enterprises are abandoning the “office campus.” The reasons run parallel to the notes that Groveton (an Enterprise insider and new BaconsRebellion Blogger) provided recently in his comments summarizing the parameters impacting the evolution of Balance in the Greater Fredericksburg SubRegion on this Blog.

Based on SYNERGY’s analysis of Loudoun and Prince William County “employment” patterns over the past 18 years, the trend toward ‘subUrban’ office campuses was ‘ending’ long ago. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand why AOL and WorldCom made bad location decisions or how these bad decisions impacted Enterprise performance.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ACTIVITY CENTERS

Those outside the National Capital SubRegion may not be familiar with the importance of the ‘Activity Centers’ noted in Key Reality #3 above.

There is a long story – too long for this item – about the rise, demise and apparent resurrection of Activity Centers in the Wash COG sphere of influence. EMR only has first hand experience concerning the rise and demise. Somehow the idea of Activity Centers has had a revival since 2003 as suggested by the report:

“Region Forward: A Comprehensive Guide to Regional [SubRegional] Planning and Measuring Progress in the 21st Century”

This document was approved by the Wash COG Board of Directors on 13 January 2010 and handed out at the 3 May forum.

EMR intends to find out more about the revival of interest in Activity Centers and the need for Quantification but in the meantime, why are ‘Activity Centers’ important?

With a robust Vocabulary, a comprehensive Conceptual Framework and science-based Quantification – via Regional Metrics or other reality-based conceptual frameworks – Activity Centers could put citizens on the path to functional and sustainable patterns and densities of human settlement in the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region.

It was good news that the Activity Center concept is not dead. It is also good news that ideas presented in “Blueprint for a Better Region” are still on the table. Graphics from “Blueprint for a Better Region” showed up in the EPA PowerPoint presentation on Federal Agency initiatives at the forum on 3 May. See End Note Three

WASTED DECADE

While there were a number of useful exchanges at the Forum, from the perspective of one who helped forge the general consensus achieved by the Group of 40’s efforts and put content into the articulation of the Activity Centers, the 00s have been a lost decade.

The consensus that employment was center-weighted and the consensus on the need for the evolution of Balanced Urban enclaves focused on the existing employment and transport system inside the Clear Edge around the Core of the SubRegion has been honored in the breach.

One need go no further than pages 1 thru 6 of the Metro section of WaPo for 9 May 2010. NB: The Vocabulary to articulate the early 00s consensus has evolved since that time but the substance has not changed as conversations on 3 May confirmed.

It is in fact appalling that NVTA can STILL talk about ‘the places where people want to live’ – code for scattered Urban dwellings – in a public forum and have those who know better sit quietly.

The majority of the participants said in 2002, and many of those who returned for the reunion still agreed, on the basic parameters of a sustainable trajectory but Agency, Enterprise and Institution ACTION. They have been distracted by propaganda, Geographic Illiteracy and Autonomobility Myths. The 9 May WaPo articles and commentaries focus on the problems generated by relocation of military personal and the ‘demise’ of METRO but there are many other indicators of dysfunction.

BACK TO THAT OILY SLIME IN THE GULF.

That slimy goo and those dead birds and turtles should remind us that there must be renewed, concerted effort to evolve functional and sustainable settlement patterns that Do NOT depend on Large, Private vehicles for Mobility and Access. See End Note Four

Relying on Large, Private vehicles for Mobility and Access in the Cores of New Urban Regions results in dysfunctional settlement patterns. No one can disagree the Large, Private vehicles and the settlement patterns they generate create demand for VAST quantities of energy – especially petroleum.

The effort concerning Large, Private vehicles must be similar to the Hartwell consensus on the response to climate change which is, of course, closely related to that effort. See End Note Five

There can be no more lost decades or there will be a much, much more than that lost. As important as Bayou ecosystems and economic stability are, the consequence of continuing an unsustainable trajectory will be far worse.

EMR

END NOTES

1. Now that The Shape of the Future, 4th Printing and TRILO-G are wrapped up and the new website is evolving with professional guidance, EMR has started to step outside Greater Warrenton-Fauquier. This is the first of the items that will appear from time to time under the heading ‘Current Perspectives’ at www.emrisse.com

2. The key supporters are individuals who TMT and Groveton love to hate. TMT has alerted readers of BaconsRebellion Blog that these same Enterprise and Institutional players have formed ‘The 2030 Group’ which is attempting to build support for the same goals as NVTA under the guise of ‘regionalism.’ Much more on that effort soon.

3. Reminder to BaconsRebellion Blog denizens, Google the title “Blueprint for a Better Region” to access a streaming video of the “Blueprint…” PowerPoint.

4. See “THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.” As is the case with “Blueprint…” cited in End Note Three, THE ESTATES MATRIX (noted in the text above) as well as many of the components that have been revised and included in TRILO-G, can be accessed on the web. There is a very early version of THE PROBLEM WITH CARS are accessible on line by Googleing the title. The version of THE PROBLEM WITH CARS that makes up PART THREE of TRILO-G includes the complete argument for the abandonment of Autonomobiles as the primary strategy for Urban humans to achieve Mobility and Access in New Urban Regions.

5. BBC 11 May 2010.

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Comments

76 responses to “OUT OF THE OILY SLIME — FOR A MOMENT”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Good post!

    This comment is not intended as a digression but a contribution to provide substance for the basic thrust of discussion of this Blog.

    In the comments following “Just When You though Drilling Was Safe,” Observer stated he was swearing off discussing RH’s positions. That is a good idea since the filibuster that usually results adds little to an understanding of settlement patterns.

    However, the comments following “Are You Awake Cargosquid,” “Offshore Myth Busting” and “Drill Baby – Maybe” and those in this post concerning ‘externalities’ suggest that there might be three things that need to be made clear about RH’s input:

    As a professional economist I have turned in to this Blog form time to time to catch up on settlement pattern economics as articulated by Professor Risse. I have noted RH’s frequent reference to Total Cost = Production Cost + External Cost + Government Cost.

    Translated to the Vocabulary that Professor Risse has evolved this can be expressed as

    Total Cost = Enterprise Cost + Externalities + Agency Cost.

    I have not talked to him about this specific topic but I suspect Dr. Risse would agree with application of this formula if the following two points were made very clear:

    1) Agency Costs must be transparent and fairly allocated.

    2) There must be a continuing effort to insure that there are NO External Costs (Externalities). If a cost can be quantified, it must be allocated to Enterprise Cost or Agency Cost. That is a position with which most Exonomists agree.

    The second point is critical.

    In 1873 (and for the most part in 1920) much of what is now understood about the impact of dysfunctional human settlement patterns was unknown. For example, the causes and effects of air and water pollution as well as the impacts of asbestos, oil spills, erosion, DDT, tobacco, e coli, salt, trans fats, CO2, counter-productive flood plain management, aquifer draw-down, Peak Oil, topsoil erosion, mown grass, industrial solvents, pharmaceuticals flushed into septic tanks, scattered Urban land uses and other known economic, social and physical problems were on few screens. In fact there were not many screens.

    That is not to suggest that scientist yet know all the impacts of nanotechnology, radiological waste, low power radio wave transmissions, etc. See the report by the Presidents Cancer Panel released last week concerning the impacts of a wide range of chemicals in the environment, in household and in the work place. (The potential dangers of massive use of ‘dispersants’ on the BP Blowout underscores the fallacy of massive techno ‘solutions’ until much more is known about the impacts.)

    But there are many things that are known, understandable by citizens and quantifyable. These cost must be added to the Enterprise Costs and reflected in the price of goods and services consumed OR they must be added to Agency Costs where they are clearly identified and fairly allocated. Many of these costs – and all location-variable costs – directly or indirectly impact human settlement patterns.

    JNMcC

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    JNMcC Section 2

    Further, I suspect Dr. Risse would support the broad application of the Kaldor-Hicks efficiency in Agency decision making. RH is a champion of Kaldor-Hicks.

    What the good professor would NOT agree to is that there is any real ‘value’ derived (or worthy of consideration under Kaldor-Hicks) from the speculative conversion of land from Nonurban to Urban land uses when there has been no equitable allocation of all location-variable costs. This is especially true since there is far more land now devoted to Urban land uses than can be supported by the market.

    The ‘value’ of land for scattered Urban land uses is an unsubstantiated fathom bubble that does not reflect the reality of population growth and land use for daily human activity explored by Dr. Risse in Chapter 1 of “The Shape of the Future.”

    This is not a new ‘bubble.’ The unfounded speculation about the extent of Urban land was identified as a driver of settlement pattern dysfunction in the 19th century by Henry George. That was long before the automobile became the primary exponent of Urban scatteration as point out in Dr. Risse’s “The Shape of the Future.”

    Here is an example of how land owners might be misled about the value of their land for Urban land uses. Discovery of a large deposit of asbestos might have made the land owner appear to be rich in 1960 but in 2010 that would not be the case. The same will be true when it is widely understood that dysfunctionally scattered Urban land uses are economically, socially and physically toxic.

    Finally, to suggest Risse’s “primary interest” is in the preservation of Open Land is to fundamentally misunderstand his theses and the application of Regional Metrics.

    What Professor Risse has stated over and over is that his concern focuses on the evolution of functional settlement patterns for URBAN land uses where 95 percent of the population carry out their daily activities.

    The land necessary for 95 percent of the population’s daily activities would, with functional and sustainable patterns and densities of land use, occupy 5 percent of the land in the USA. These ratios are based, not on some utopian dream but on the market for Urban land when subsidies and externalities are minimized as documented in both of Prof. Risse’s two major books.

    Risse believes that with a fair allocation of all location-variable costs, Open Land ‘will, by-in-large, take care of itself.” “By-in-large” because there is some Open Land resources such as the land that citizens vote to include in Community, SubRegional, Regional, MegaRegional or Continental ‘parks’ and OpenSpace as well as watershed protection areas, wetlands and other special resources that require Agency participation. This is well articulated in PART FOUR – THE USE AND MANAGEMENT OF LAND in TRILO-G”

    JNMcC

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Good to have a break from tossing rocks at empty pigeon holes.

    This seems like a good place to note that, as with the case of electric cars propelled by coal generated electricity, Natural Gas in NOT “the answer” to the problems generated by Large, Private vehicles.

    Sorry, Larry:

    Large, Private electric cars and ‘clean CNG cars are pipedreams because they are Autonomobiles. As Dr. Risse has documented, even ‘clean and free’ fuel will not solve the Mobility and Access Crisis in Urban enclaves.

    More important in the context of near-term strategies, neither electricity nor natural gas are ‘cheap.’

    Yes, there is a lot of coal in the United States but cheap coal means mountain top removal and land pollution.

    More important, the only way to deal with land, air and water pollution from mining and burning coal is topographic and hydrological restoration, comprehensive stack scrubbing and carbon sequestration. All three of these processes make ‘cheap coal’ an oxymoron.

    Yes, there is a lot of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale deposits and elsewhere. But check out the real long term cost of pumping out that natural gas.

    The alternative?

    Evolution of patterns of human consumption and patterns of human settlement that require far less energy and far, far less petroleum.

    AZA

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    AZA you pitched up a change of pace right down the middle:

    Let us talk about Marcellus Shale

    Many place names in Upstate New York have Greek and Roman origins. That is because when the Erie Canal opened the area from the Hudson River to Lake Erie to settlement, agriculture, forestry and industry, the United States was in the midst of a classical revival inspired by Thomas Jefferson and others. The Classical Revival (including the Greek Revival in architecture) was driven by popular reverence for democracy (Greek) and power (Rome).

    One of the places in Upstate New York that was named for a Roman hero is the Village of Marcellus, New York. Marcellus, NY is named for the Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Marcellus, NY is not far from the City of Syracuse, NY which was named for the Greek City-state of Syracuse in Sicily. Marcellus laid siege to Syracuse during the Second Punic War. Some will recall that Archimedes was killed during this siege.

    What has all this to do with natural gas?

    In the 1920s a shale bedrock formation that surfaces near Marcellus, New York was named after the Village of Marcellus. There is now ‘confirmed speculation’ that there is perhaps 500 Trillion (with a ‘T’) cubic feet of natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation.

    The Marcellus Shale formation and the associated Devonian Shale formation runs from Central New York to the Tennessee border with Georgia. It includes most of the Southern Tier of New York, most of Western Pennsylvania, all of Eastern Ohio, almost all of West Virginia, much of Eastern Kentucky and some of east-central Tennessee. Depending on what sources are believed, the extent of Marcellus and Devonian Shale runs from 75 million to 100 million acres – think Appalachia plus prime agricultural lands to the north, west and south.

    MGM

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Back to the Romans for a moment:

    Under the leadership of Marcus Claudius Marcellus and those who succeed him, the Romans defeated not just the City-state of Syracuse but Carthage and other North African and Middle Eastern City-states and Kingdoms on the way to establishing the empire of Imperial Rome.

    The voracious appetite of the Roman Empire for wood, metals, minerals, grain, wine and other products led to the deforestation, loss of top soil and eventual desertification of much of North Africa and the Middle East.

    What does this have to do with natural gas in Marcellus Shale?

    Natural gas within the Marcellus Shale can be extracted only after the shale formation is pulverized. A recent application of horizontal drilling through the shale strata and then using ‘hydrofracking’ to pulverize the shale facilitates economically viable capture of natural gas.

    At great cost to the environment.

    How so? Hydrofracking involves pumping water and chemicals into the wells. As the BP Blow Out demonstrates, it is not easy to be precise with activities below the surface. It is apparently impossible to control where the high pressure chemical slurry ends up. Wells and ground water have already been contaminated.

    Contaminated with what?

    Well, the hydrofracking witches brew is an Enterprise trade secret. No one is saying what it contains. It is so important to the commercial production of natural gas from Marcellus Shale that major petrochemical Enterprises have contract clauses that allow them to abandon involvement if “the government attempts to regulate” the hydrofracking process. That does not leave a good feeling in one’s gut about just what might be in the slurry or its long-term impacts.

    Of course, in these hills and mountains contaminated ground water becomes surface water – think acid leaching from mines in West Virginia and elsewhere on a huge scale.

    To make a potentially tragic and very long story short:

    Hydrofracking might well result in desertification of most of the Appalachia plus adjacent productive agricultural lands in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. With polluted water flowing in the streams, most tourism uses would also dry up.

    Now you see the irony of calling this Marcellus Gas: North Africa comes to North America. Humans have learned nothing about environmental stewardship in 2000 years.

    Just like the poorly understood dispersants being considered for use on the BP BlowOut, hydrofracking is a dangerous course of action to secure a few years of ‘cheap’ natural gas.

    Please read with care what is being written about Marcellus Gas. There is a lot of hype about getting rich and producing energy but there are also well documented cases of fraud, pollution and devastation.

    True conservatives say:

    Leave the gas where it is until there are very safe ways to extract it and until the market will pay to implement those safe techniques. In JNMcC’s terms No Agency costs, and No externalities.

    Consumptivies say:

    Drill Baby, Drill. Burn it up NOW so we can ride the tiger a little while longer. (MGM has read too many of Dr. Risse’s essays to pass that one up, sorry)

    MGM

  6. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    You guys are funny. EMR posts a new article at 9:36. Thirteen minutes later a series of 5 articulate and intelligent comments are posted with perfect structure, grammar, punctuation and spelling.

    In my buiness we have to deal with cyberattacks. One of the tell tale signs of an ineffective cyber attack is too much flawless coordination among various system failures. The attackers don't want to tip the system administrators to the attack so they try to make the various breaches seem random or, at least, uncoordinated.

    I think you guys all make good points. I have spent several years trying to understand EMR's vocabulary, concepts, etc. I've made some progress but I still have some areas where I am not so sure of EMR's logic. Most importantly, I am not at all sure about the big gap in people paying their full location variable costs. Maybe society isn't paying those costs in total. However, the very places which seem to rankle the functional settlement crowd the most seem to be the places where the greatest proportion of total taxes are paid.

  7. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Also – am I the only person who finds a certain irony in EMR's new web site having a Google map and driving directions to Warrenton on the first page?

    Guess I need to saddle up the ole Autonomobile and drive on over.

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    On 3 May, for the first time in a long time, EMR rode METRO

    Imagine that, RH uses Metro more often than EMR.

    RH

  9. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Groveton:

    Cyberattack? More like cybercounterattack.

    As EMR has noted from time to time there are a number of citizens – some former students – who find our posts useful in their activities.

    They have complained in comments, in Emails and when we meet that by the time they have a chance to check out a post someone has come along and shoveled manure on it.

    That is what they are paid to do and this is a free Enterprise nation-state.

    From time to time we circulate our posts to them for comments prior to posting. This time several said they had items they wanted to add. EMR let them know when we planned to post and they were ready.

    Sorry to spoil your conspiracy theory.

    EMR is surprised that you did not recognize a NetScape place holder. The site designer will be using a different host for http://www.emrisse.com . You will be the first to know when the new site is up.

    In the meantime, as a BaconsRebellion Blogger your are upon request entitled to copies of both or EMR’s long books. Then you can just put the CD in your computer and find the answers to all your questions.

    Keep up the good work…

    EMR

  10. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Thank you for the information on Marcellus Shale, MGM.

    What scares EMR the most in his reading about what is going in New York and Pennsylvania is that the myth of easy money from land ownership – no externalities – so there is a complete disregard concerning the potential to destroy the future.

    In a way it is just like the myth of Urban scatteration. Urban land speculation is thought to make land owners rich. In exchange for creating dysfunctional settlement patterns they abandon the productive use of the land resource.

    Farmers will continue to farm if two things happen:

    The myth of quick profit form sale for Urban use is put to rest. That will happen if the land owners pay the full cost of extraction of coal and gas, AND

    If farmers are paid a fair price for their food and fiber.

    Did someone say humans will have to pay much more in taxes, fees, goods and services to maintain anything like the current Urban society?

    Seems to EMR, he has heard that somewhere…

    EMR

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    We hope Larry G read End Note Four. He needs to pay attention to his reading and stop talking about stealth arguments as he did in his comment on “Drill, Baby – Maybe.”

    Also Larry and Groveton have to stop assuming only “guys” are submitting comments.

    JNMcC

  12. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    "In the meantime, as a BaconsRebellion Blogger your are upon request entitled to copies of both or EMR’s long books. Then you can just put the CD in your computer and find the answers to all your questions.".

    Consider the request made. I am leaving for Asia on Sunday so I'll have a lot of airplane time to read some of your material if there is some way to get it by then.

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    ‘sustainability.’

    At least you stuck it in quotes. Everybody seems to want sustainability, and no one agrees on what it is.

    If it is not profitable, it is not sustainable, but there are lots of other definitions.

    RH

    I'm afraid that when a federa agency is talking about sustainability, they mean their OWN sustaianability.

    RH

  14. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    I agree with MGM on this one …

    "True conservatives say:

    Leave the gas where it is until there are very safe ways to extract it and until the market will pay to implement those safe techniques. In JNMcC’s terms No Agency costs, and No externalities.".

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Total Cost = Enterprise Cost + Externalities + Agency Cost.

    That is a fair translation, with the understanding that costs include the negative costs of benefits where those occur.

    Also, this is a systems level analyisis, so the Enterprise is defined not as some faceless corporation or something, but it is the total thing or things that produce whatever it is we are talking about. We may be talking about the production costs of carbon sequestration through forestation, where the "Enterprise Cost" would be all forestry in Brazil, or something.

    ———————————

    1) Agency Costs must be transparent and fairly allocated.

    Not sure I see the point.

    The total costs is the sum of all the costs on the right hand side. Just because the Agency has hidden those costs or kept them off budget somehow, does not change the value of Total cost.

    Likewise, just because the costs are not allocated fairly, doesn't change what the costs are.

    And it is also possibe that both the Agency and the Enterprise generate external costs, because all that is are costs that still accrue to people who are not involved in the transactions related to production and use, or taxation and oversight.

    The equation works as it is and this addition restriction adds nothing.

    —————————–

    There must be a continuing effort to insure that there are NO External Costs (Externalities).

    Well, as a professional economist you should know that this is not true, and also not possible.

    Everything we do affects someone else. And externalities may be POSITIVE externalities as well as negative ones.

    The proper goal is to get the lowest total cost, which never comes at the point at which you have eliminated all externalities.

    However, a similar goal is to see to it that all externalities are fairly compensated. Not that there are none, but that they are paid for. Both the positive ones and the negative ones.

    In that regard the compensation can be allocated to either the Agency or the Enterprise, but the idea of eliminating all externalities directly is laughable, and it does NOT result in lowest social cost, which means we would be wasting resources in one area that ight be better used in another.

    RH

    RH

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I suspect Dr. Risse would support the broad application of the Kaldor-Hicks efficiency in Agency decision making.

    Well that is good news to me. i certainly have never seen any inkling of that idea in his writings. Just the opposite in fact.

    RH

  17. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    But there are many things that are known, understandable by citizens and quantifyable. These cost must be added to the Enterprise Costs and reflected in the price of goods and services consumed OR they must be added to Agency Costs where they are clearly identified and fairly allocated.

    I think you are missing the point, just as Larry constantly does.

    Suppose you have an externality of 10,000 lives lost per year. You reduce that externailty by adding $21 billion in externality prevention costs to the Enterprise side and $5 billion in costs to the Agency side to regualate and oversee that the Enterprise does as required.

    Some time later you find that you now have an externality of only 1000 lives and that is a pretty good success.

    It also puts a price on lives saved. $26 billion / 9000 = 2.8 million dollars per life saved.

    For comparison, after the Exxon Valdez disaster the price per sea otter saved was $43,000.

    2.8 million per life saved is close to what some agencies use as the statistical value of human life, which is used to calculate cost benefit ratios for various government policies.

    You are still losing 1000 lives a year. If you go after them youwill find each of them gets successivly and geometrically more expensive to save. So maybe the next 900 cost you not 2.8 million per life saved but 28 million, for a total Enterprise cost of $231 billion.

    How many Enterprises can stand that? And you are still losing 100 people a year.

    Assuming the Enterprise CAN stand that, those costs will be transferred right back to their customers. The customers can either accept an external cost or a direct- out of pocket cost.

    For the first round of savings (if they are truly educated as EMR requires) they would see that the costs roughly equal the benefit, based on a Statistical Value of Human Life of $2.7 million.

    But for the second round they will pay ten times as much to save each life, which still has a statistical value of only $2.7 million. They should rightfully complain, and it is about this time that you hear grumbling about excess regulation.

    Nor are they the only people that should complain. Because if some OTHER program or policy can save lives at only $1.5 million each, shouldn't we do that first? the members of THAT cohort are going to see that other peoples lives are being valued more highly than their own: they are not getting equal protection.

    RH

  18. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    That 2.7 million per SVHL isn't picked out of the air. It comes from analysis of who gets paid what for jobs of varying levels of risk. It is a real number (with some considerble margin of error) based on real choices, real dollars and real lives: how much we are willing (typically) to sell our lives for.

    So with that in hand we have to ask the hard question: if that's what we sell for, why would we pay more than that to buy it back?

    And that is the problem with the contention that there should be no externalities. Not only is it impossible, we can't afford it.

    ———————————-

    Now, who pays the Agency costs?

    RH

  19. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    What the good professor would NOT agree to is that there is any real ‘value’ derived (or worthy of consideration under Kaldor-Hicks) from the speculative conversion of land from Nonurban to Urban land uses when there has been no equitable allocation of all location-variable costs.

    How about we don't confuse the concept with support for EMR's favorite charity?

    Here is all there is to Kaldor Hicks: simple fairness.

    You, me, We or somebody coes up with a plan to save the community money by retaining open space.

    It saves everybody money except the poor guy whose open space was "saved" by reducing its value.

    And so those who did save should gladly contribute to alleviate his externality as long as they still come out ahead.

    So now we can easily see the circular logic in italics above. If the costs were fairly distributed in the first place, there would be no savings to be made from the new proposal and no reason to propose making this guy take a loss which needs to be compensated.

    You cannot have it both ways, but under Kaldor – Hicks compensaton you get the open space preserved ( At least as much of it as you can afford, wich is the same total cost equation/problem described above.) If all the costs are fairly allocated, then the land owner can do whatever he wants, and no one wlse would hae any basis for complaining about what he is doing.

    RH

  20. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    In JNMcC’s terms No Agency costs, and No externalities.".,

    And no civilization, either.

    It can't work that way. No agency costs means no government and no government means no control over externalities.

    RH

  21. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Finally, to suggest Risse’s “primary interest” is in the preservation of Open Land is to fundamentally misunderstand his theses and the application of Regional Metrics.

    What Professor Risse has stated over and over is that his concern focuses on the evolution of functional settlement patterns for URBAN land uses where 95 percent of the population carry out their daily activities.

    ——————————-
    Sorry, I don't believe a word of it. The impression I get from reading him is that all that urban mumbo jumbo is just an elaborate foil for his real goal – saving 95% as open space..

    I might be wrong and be misrepresenting his real goal, but I'm not wrong about the impression he gives. He needs to seriously reconsider his presentation, and puul his CD for re-write before he gives a lot of other people the wrong impression, too.

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "Well, the hydrofracking witches brew is an Enterprise trade secret. "

    Well now you are into something I know a little about.

    That witches brew is mostly clay and water, with some soap and other lubricants, and shims.

    It is about as secret as recipes for oatmeal cookies.

    RH

  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Then you can just put the CD in your computer and find the answers to all your questions.

    Why do they have braille on the drive in menus?

    RH

  24. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    well I found this little tidbit rather shocking:

    http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/05/negative-equity-by-state-q1-2010.html

    I wonder how this plays into the current discussion?

  25. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    c

  26. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I've spent way too many hours on Tysons Corner and other development issues in Fairfax County, but I've also learned a few things.

    Urbanism, new or old, should be a choice for people and a tool for local governments. It makes sense to have locations where people can live close to transit, mixed use development and employment, even though many residents will not work there or take transit. But it's not a panacea. Taken to extreme, such as with Tysons, New Urbanism is a disaster.

    The market is demanding energy efficiency in new and remodeled construction.

    If I understand EMR at all, I think we also need more places. The idea that Tysons Corner or Downtown Washington should be THE PLACE or even of the THE PLACES is absurd. It's also yet another attempt by a few, privileged landowners to manipulate public policy for personal gain. Moving more good jobs to the exurbs (still not sure what EMR calls them) is likely to be as beneficial for rationalizing and balancing work and residences.

    Teleworking and virtual organizations, facilitated with broadband access, are more important than many think.

    TMT

  27. Mimi Stratton Avatar
    Mimi Stratton

    Geez, from that state-by-state mortgage negative equity chart, immigration is the least of Arizonians' problems.

  28. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Groveton, Concerning Autonomobiles:

    Do not confuse EMR with Mahatma Gandhi.

    Yes, we own an Autonomobile.

    We have the smallest, most fuel efficient vehicle in which we feel safe driving on Roadways that we must share with:

    Sleep deprived truckers herding 40,000 GVW and 60,000 GVW vehicles with faulty breaks;

    Stressed out citizens talking on cell phones; and

    Texting teens.

    We are all sharing the same Roadways at the same time where 40,000 citizens are killed each year because of direct and indirect subsidies and the because of lack of a choice of modes and vehicles to achieve Mobility and Access.

    It is currently cheaper and faster for some and the rest accept the risk because there is no alternative.

    When the 1973 OPEC Oil Embargo illuminated the shape of the future, our Household gave up a van, a sports car and full size sedan to drive two of the smallest, most efficient vehicles available.

    Neither would carry all the Household members at once and for long trips that required a bigger vehicle we rented one for the duration.

    We were concerned with the dependence on foreign petroleum and the ecological foot print that results from massive use of Autonomobiles. We were also concerned about the dysfunctional settlement pattern spawned by over use of Autonomobiles but had not yet quantified this impact. See 10 X Rule.

    At the time we had faith that Agencies and Institutions would help Enterprises and Households transition to more functional settlement patterns and more efficient vehicles – both shared and private. See the Overhills section of Chapter 33 – What Did I Tell You in PART TEN of TRILO-G

    That did not happen. After nine years an employer, embarrassed that a key employee was driving an old rabbit, bought a Porsche and a 4X4 for EMRs use.

    Over the years our Household has attempted to buy the most functional vehicle available to meet our travel needs.

    Until recently, our Household had two drivers and three vehicles – one was a bicycle. However, in four years we had driven the two Autonomobiles a total of just a little over 4,000 miles a year so we sold one. Our household gasoline consumption with two or one vehicle is far less than the “average” Household driving a hybrid.

    When you come to visit we can demonstrate for you why even living inside the Clear Edge around a small Urban enclave in the Countryside, we need an Autonomobile in spite of the downsides outlined in THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.

    Groveton Concerning Shipment of CDs:

    I will need an address where you want the CD’s sent

    EMR

  29. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    TMT:

    EMR is sorry you are having so much trouble understanding some of what EMR writes.

    You said:

    “Urbanism, new or old, should be a choice for people and a tool for local [municipal] governments. It makes sense to have locations where people can live close to transit, mixed use development and employment, even though many residents will not work there or take transit.”

    Right on! And the vast majority of Households would live in those areas IF ALL COSTS WERE FAIRLY ALLOCATED.

    “But it's not a panacea.”

    True

    “Taken to extreme, such as with Tysons, New Urbanism is a disaster.”

    For the 10th? time, the current Tysons Corner planning is NOT “New Urbanism” the ‘plan” applies and misapplies SOME concepts that New Urbanism advocates espouse but as you OFTEN so clearly point out, what is planned is warped to fit the desires of those in control of the process.

    “The market is demanding energy efficiency in new and remodeled construction.”

    Yes

    “If I understand EMR at all, I think we also need more places.”

    We do.

    “The idea that Tysons Corner or Downtown Washington should be THE PLACE or even of the THE PLACES is absurd. It's also yet another attempt by a few, privileged landowners to manipulate public policy for personal gain.”

    “Moving more good jobs to the exurbs (still not sure what EMR calls them)…”

    You sure do not. “ExUrbs is a Core Confusing Word for the area beyond the “subUrbs” another Core confusing word. ‘Ex’ is former, ‘sub’ is less than these terms are meaningless.

    What EMR would say is that moving good jobs to other Beta Comminutes within the Clear Edge around the Core of the SubRegion…

    “…is likely to be as beneficial for rationalizing and balancing work and residences.”

    Right on as long as you get the right place to evolve toward Balance in every Beta Community.

    “Teleworking and virtual organizations, facilitated with broadband access, are more important than many think.”

    More important than many think but still the vastly more important issue in economic and social activity is FACE to FACE. Telework, distributed work, satellite offices etc., etc. can help for sure but the vast majority of humans feel more happy and safe in places where they are face to face with other humans with whom they identify.

    EMR

  30. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    To TMT Part II

    Here is a quote from a recent Email exchange on the topic that may help:

    ……………

    Your comment …

    “… (Northrop Grumman?) had chosen VA for its headquarters over DC and MD. I suppose there’s still a bit of hope for relatively urban VA but I’m not holding my breath. I can’t remember the last time a corporation chose to locate in DC.”

    … documents the need for a robust Vocabulary and comprehensive Conceptual Framework that reflects economic, social and physical reality in 2010, not governance borders that speak to early 19th century reality.

    The Zentrum of the National Capital SubRegion includes land that is in the Federal District and in the states of Maryland and Virginia. Some of the land in 'DC' is not that 'Urban' [in the sense that is would be a good place to locate Jobs] and some of Virginia the SubRegion is quite Urban — and even urbane — at least the citizens who live there think it is.

    With the METRO armature — if station-areas had rational and BALANCED patterns and density of land use — there is the potential for Northrop Grumman to locate in a number of the 20 plus or minus Beta Communities that make up the Core of the SubRegion.

    On the other hand with the current station area land use distribution, most of the METRO trains leave most of the METRO stations most of the time essentially empty.

    ……………..

    Does that help?

    Now look at the article by Marjorie Censer on page 7 of the new WaPo Weekly Capital Business titled “Thinking Ahead Along the Silver Line” concerning plans by SAIC, Booz Allen, etc.

    THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF REVITALIZING TYSONS SHOULD BE BALANCE, NOT JUST ADDING MORE JOBS.

    Adding 200,000 Jobs and only 100,000 new residents is foolish.

    So is failure to spread around those new Jobs to many of the other 20 + / – Beta Communities.

    Does that help?

    EMR

  31. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Groveton said:

    "Most importantly, I am not at all sure about the big gap in people paying their full location variable costs. Maybe society isn't paying those costs in total."

    Clearly the case. Look at status of infrastructure, Agency debt, Househods debt, the underwater houses in the graph for which Larry provided a link.

    "However, the very places which seem to rankle the functional settlement crowd the most seem to be the places where the greatest proportion of total taxes are paid."

    Paying the high taxes per capita in some places, yes.

    Not the highest. Check your Census Tract vs one in Georgetown Becon Hill or on the East Side.

    High taxes yes but still paying far less than true costs.

    See 10 X Rule.

    EMR

  32. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    OK

    I give up on RH too. He will not give up his insane perspectives.

    Perhaps others are right. That is what he is paid to do.

    JNMcM

  33. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I think the RH factor is that he is searching for flyspects to discredit anyone who questions the idea of building urban dwellings on his wife's farm.

    AZA

  34. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    EMR – the jobs/residence balance is an interesting and complicated issue. Clearly, having more people live and work within Tysons would be good.

    However, Fairfax County teaches residences generally consume more government services than they pay in taxes. Therefore, unless only rich singles, couples without children live in Tysons, moving many more residents to Tysons will create a bigger fiscal problem for the County. However, if only "rich" childless people live in Tysons, there is no residents/jobs balance. For balance to exist, there must be economic diversity. Some of the retail clerks, admin. assistants, teachers, police, etc. must also live in Tysons, along with the rest of their families.

    Also, despite the hollow promises of Bill Lecos and his crowd, none of the landowners want to build much housing (except for multi-million condos) near the rail stations and absolutely no affordable/workforce housing there. Despite years of denial, they now whine that high-rise construction is incredibly expensive. Indeed, it is.

    So we have huge tensions — we need mixed housing – but the landowners cannot afford to build it as the market will not pay the costs for building. The County cannot afford to have lots of new residents consuming more services than they pay in taxes, even though they need those people.

    The other residents of Fairfax County are sick and tired of the many problems caused by over-development and under-recovery of facility costs. Many are also very angry about the mass construction dysfunction caused by Dulles Rail and HOT lanes. They are not in the mood to subsidize what Tysons needs. The landowners realize that they cannot pay what is needed to give them the density that they want. And some of them might well be in foreclosure soon anyway.

    What a mess. What a mess.

    TMT

  35. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    EMR – in your view, does a Metrorail car or bus that picks up about as many people as it drops off an indicia of a balanced community? Just trying to understand a different paradigm.

    TMT

  36. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    same question for commuter buses …

    if a commuter bus takes 40 cars off the road and that bus is pretty much full and unlike METRO, they can add or subtract the numbers of buses to keep a fleet of them full rather than empty .. is that also "balance"?

  37. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    U.S. "dependence on foreign oil" fell to a seven-year low of 71.59% of U.S. demand for crude oil and petroleum products in 2009, down from the peak of 75.51% in 2007, and the lowest level since 2002 (see chart above, data from EIA for U.S. consumption of crude oil and petroleum products and U.S. production of crude oil).

    Reasons: a) Domestic oil production increased in 2009 by 7.25%, or 131 million barrels, the first annual increase in domestic oil production since 1991, and b) U.S. demand for oil fell to the lowest level since 1997, due to the recession.

    ==============================

    Now we have a pretty good feeling for how much pain and effort it takes to reduce dependence on foreign oil. It should give us some pretty good insight on what calls for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions will mean.

    RH

  38. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    if a commuter bus takes 40 cars off the road

    The premise is wrong.

    RH

  39. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    every morning I watch 40 cars park in a park and ride lot and board a bus.

    that's 40 cars that sit in that lot all day and are not on the roads.

    what is it about that, that is wrong?

  40. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    We know from studies that it isn't a one to one correlation as you describe.

    Besides, those cars still have to drive to the commuter lot: they are not "off the road".

    To drive to the commuter lots they use roads that are relatively underutilized, and therfore have a much higher cost per use than some other roads. EMR might argue that providing the commuter lot encourages MORE driving.

    I don't know what the shape of the curve is but at one end you have increasing costs due to land cost and engineering complexity,and at the other end you have increasing costs due to insufficient use.

    We screw up by not looking at the SYSTEM that gets us the lowest cost overall. We will never actually hit it, because settlement patterns change, but if there is some point at which it no longer makes sense to consrtuct a quadruple deck highway then we should stop doing it.

    On the other hand, where we have underutilized roads we should (probably) encourage more development to get some use out of our investment.

    We gotta stop being partisan and stupid and start getting smart.

    RH

  41. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    U.S. "dependence on foreign oil" fell to a five-year low of 69.62% of U.S. demand for crude oil in 2009, down from the peak of 72.65% in 2007, and the lowest level since 2004 (see chart above, data from EIA for U.S. consumption of crude oil and U.S. production of crude oil).

    Reasons: a) Domestic oil production increased in 2009 by 7.25%, or 131 million barrels, the first annual increase in domestic oil production since 1991, and b) U.S. demand for crude oil fell to the lowest level since 2000, due to the recession.

    =================================

    Now we have a pretty good feeling for what pain and effort such a reduction requires.

    Think about that as you ponder proposed 80% cuts to reduce greenhouse gases.

    RH

  42. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "I give up on RH too. He will not give up his insane perspectives.

    Perhaps others are right. That is what he is paid to do."

    My insane perspectives were taught to me in a repected graduate school of envirnmental and systms engineering.

    I have no political affiliation and almost no social affiliation beyond my church.

    My environmental philosophy starts with the preamble to the constitution and basic principles of the "golden rule", then I build upward from there. The foundation I work from is so simple, so basic, and so obvious that I can't understand how anyone gets to a higher conclusion that violates them

    As a scientist and an economist I see that the laws of economics derive from the laws of nature which cannot be broken.

    What is insane is to think you can get something for nothing, whether you intend to do that by perpetual motion machine, magic science, or by stealing it from your neighbor.

    I have a really low tolerance for faulty thinking of the type that falls into the easily recognized argumentative fallacies: " Every right thinking American knows…."

    If I call it to your attention, don;t take it peronally, just try to make a better argument.

    Calling me insane isn't one of them. If you have a plan that you think will work, explain it to me. Show me how it will be paid for fairly, and tell me how long it will take.

    RH

  43. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "High taxes yes but still paying far less than true costs."

    EMR and I agree on this, but it means everyone, not just the new guys. If residences aren't paying enough it is a historical problem, not just a new one.

    We arrive at this agreement from different routes. EMR refers to his own 10x rule, which as far as I can tell is unsuppported and unsupportable.

    RH

  44. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    in your view, does a Metrorail car or bus that picks up about as many people as it drops off an indicia of a balanced community? Just trying to understand a different paradigm.

    You are going to always find that mdetrocars operating near the center are more likely to board and unboard roughly equal people ate each stop.

    Station at the end of the line are always unbalanced, for obvious reasons: there is no more "place" afterthe last stop.

    Every community or rail system has edges where the gradient density changes.

    Calling them unbalanced or dysfunctional doesn't add much to understanding what is actually happening.

    RH

  45. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    TMT asked:

    “EMR – in your view, does a Metrorail car or bus that picks up about as many people as it drops off an indicia of a balanced community? Just trying to understand a different paradigm.”

    Almost on target, TMT.

    First METRO:

    Drop off equal to pick up for most of the day indicates Balance IN THE STATION-AREA, especially if there is little or no Autonomobile parking.

    Station area Balance is hard to achieve but is doable. There are examples, as we have noted on other shared-vehicle systems around the world.

    System wide Balance in which almost all the station-areas have Balance is even harder. The station at RFK Stadium or other large venues will be harder to achieve Balance. But see the emerging pattern around Wash Nats Park. There are similar mixes at Mile High, etc. While much harder, it is doable if all the stakeholders understood the wisdom of Balance.

    Here is where PRTs could play a key role in expanding the accessibility of larger station-areas and stations serving large, periodic use venues.

    See http://www.ultraprt.net Look at their most recent newsletter (I got mine dated 9 May) and tell Steve Raney hello. The graphics are a little funky because they highlight the pretty system, not the performance. PRTs should be like well mannered kids – do what they should do but not be seen. Putting a lot of grass around the buildings and running the PRT over the grass is foolish. See the diagrams in our 16 April 2007 column “All Aboard” and our 8 September 2008 column “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Lies” on Tysons ‘solutions’ – the Ziggurat etc.

    Bottom line is that the Core of a New Urban Region with over 2 or 3 million must have a mix of shared-vehicle systems.

    Now buses:

    A vanilla bus service does not generate confidence that it will be there in 10 years and therefore it is harder to evolve the mix required for Balance around a ‘bus stop.’ One bus every 10 minutes does not have enough capacity to make much difference to an investor.

    Shift up to BRT and put in ‘stations’ and it helps but as Curitiba demonstrates eventually you need to go to rial and six or eight car trains to support major station areas.

    Many light rail system were developed to overcome the vanilla bus problem and they work in smaller Urban agglomerations and on lower intensity corridors. 22 New Urban Regions and SubRegions are now reinstalling Street Cars for the same reasons.

    In our view, new technology not old technology would be better. PRT can serve larger and smaller concentrations of trip ends.

    Commuter Buses?

    The Commuter Bus (or Commuter Rial) serving Urban populations outside the Clear Edge around the Core must have at least a relative Balance in the station-areas. Serving 2 to 5 percent of the resident work force can function but it is not a long term solution to New Urban Region-wide Mobility and Access.

    We hope that helps, TMT

    (Larry, you already knew the answer because it the 10th time you have asked it and the answer is always the same.)

    You TMT is right what is happening now is “a mess” and it is getting worse.

    I just got an Email from a PR flack for Trnasurban that says the Beltway Hot Lanes in “more than just an innovative transportation solution” … it is a “globally-leading transportation solution.”

    That is just as bad as saying we need more Roadways to “where people want to live.”

    Keep up the good work.

    EMR

  46. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I think the RH factor is that he is searching for flyspects to discredit anyone who questions the idea of building urban dwellings on his wife's farm.

    AZA

    ===================================

    Your are an idiot if you actually believe that. It is slanderous and you should stop it. However you are welcome to your opinion.

    What I question is the rationale (and the sanity) of anyone who thinks that farming my wifes farm is a good idea: either for us or for the larger community.

    On the other hand, if it is so good for the larger community, why do they insist on charging me twice as much in taxes as they say I cost them?

    Whatever happend to fair allocation of costs?

    RH

  47. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "Geez, from that state-by-state mortgage negative equity chart, immigration is the least of Arizonians' problems."

    Hah! good point.

    RH

  48. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    It's also yet another attempt by a few, privileged landowners to manipulate public policy for personal gain.

    And the way you stop that is to become bloodthirsty about what property rights are and are not. Then you let people buy and sell, in which case a trade will not happen unless BOTH parties benefit.

    RH

  49. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    It's also yet another attempt by a few, privileged landowners to manipulate public policy for personal gain.

    And the way you stop that is to become bloodthirsty about what property rights are and are not. Then you let people buy and sell, in which case a trade will not happen unless BOTH parties benefit.

    RH

  50. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    EMR – Thanks, this helps. Follow-up question. A transit stop in an urban area outside or within the clear edge. Total boardings outbound are approximately equal total unloadings inbound for a day. That does not suggest to me a balanced community, but rather, only that most commuters taking transit in the morning return by transit in the evening.

    I would think that a better measurement is total inbound being approximately equal to total outbound for the same period of time, e.g., morning peak, evening peak.

    Am I close?

    TMT

  51. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I would think that a better measurement is total inbound being approximately equal to total outbound for the same period of time, e.g., morning peak, evening peak.

    Thats what I would think.

    RH

  52. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Found the answer to a previous question.

    "when the EIA reports "consumption" that is "finished" gasoline – ie RBOB + Ethanol.

    So, when, today, the EIA reported we used 9.2 Million barrels of gasoline/day last week, that works out to approx. 8.37 million bpd of gasoline, and 0.83 million bpd of ethanol."

    RH

  53. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    " The Commuter Bus (or Commuter Rial) serving Urban populations outside the Clear Edge around the Core must have at least a relative Balance in the station-areas. Serving 2 to 5 percent of the resident work force can function but it is not a long term solution to New Urban Region-wide Mobility and Access."

    Still not sure of the answer although it sounds kind of like "no".

    All things being equal – most commuter bus/van lots serve an area roughly 5 miles or so in diameter.

    Once they board the buses (which are usually full) then they make on trip to the destination then return at end of the day (also full) so in terms of efficiency, they are among the most efficient, least consumptive on a per passenger mile of energy – even more efficient than most metro trains and buses which don't run full every trip.

    If energy use is a proxy for sustainability commuter buses have three legs up.

    1. first they use less energy per passenger per mile than just about any other mode.

    2. they are imminently configurable in terms of load balance (just add or subtract as needed)

    3. most important – they can adapt much more easily to shifting settlement patterns, i.e they easily adapt to different origins and destinations whereas a fixed guideway is… well.. fixed..

    Buses are what will make the BRAC changes to Fort Belvoir and Quantico "work" and will do so almost immediately while the METRO guys will still be going around in circles trying to figure out how to plan for MeTRO to serve those "places".

  54. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Once they board the buses (which are usually full) then they make on trip to the destination then return at end of the day (also full) so in terms of efficiency, they are among the most efficient, least consumptive on a per passenger mile of energy – even more efficient than most metro trains and buses which don't run full every trip.

    Energy efficiency is only one cost.

    The capital cost of the bus and the lot and its utility rate have to be considered.

    A half million dollar bus that makes two trips a day costs $125 before it moves a foot.

    RH

  55. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    cost? and you think buses are more expensive than METRO stock?

    ha ha ha?

    I wouldn't mind see a apples to apples comparison for both capital and operating costs though.

    the most important thing about buses is they adapt to changing conditions with jobs and residential… they are imminently configurable AND expandable whereas fixed guideway is not.

    Even BRT is not because BRT needs dedicated lanes and Commuter buses can and do go anywhere the general purpose surface streets go.

    The Bail-out mode for METRO and VRE when they crap out is….. that's right…buses…

  56. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Exactly.

    But no one is interested in a true comparison becasue everyone is partisan to one mode.

    Configurability, yes. need more locations, make the buses smaller.

    We call them cars, and you don't need to hire a driver. (just kidding).

    You asre right about Metro costs. It does one thing very well: work to your strengths.

    Actually Metro does two things very well, but we don;t talk about it. A US Rep. told me that anyone who thinks Metro is about transportation has rocks in his head. His view was that Metro was simply another National Monument, that people happen to ride on.

    He may be right.

    RH

  57. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    I don't think New York could function without the subway.

  58. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I don't think New York could function without the subway.

    Even in New York, about 80% or better of it functions without the subway.

    RH

  59. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Here is an experiment.

    Make the buses and subway "free, no cost" for a month. Take the money out of the general fund and raise taxes to pay the bill.

    Measure the reduction in pollution (if any) and measure the change in the economy. See how many move closer to the bus stop.

    If it doesn't work out well, go back to business as usual.

    ===============================

    I was fisrt introduced to Bacon's Rebellion by a county supervisor or executive of some sort. She suggested I read BR to understand what was happening in Fauquier and surroundings.

    She later gotrfired so maybe she didn't fit in the politco-cultural elite.

    One of the first posts I read was one by JB who used the phrase "free – no cost".

    That jarred against every reality I ever knew and averything I had ever been taught. I've been here ever since trying to disabuse that notion.

    JNMcc claims to be a professional economist. I'd love to know his salary and who pays him.

  60. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I’ve been speaking eyeball-to-eyeball with entrepreneurs all across the country — in places like Pittsburgh, New York City, Richmond, Va., and Fresno, Calif. — and when I ask them how they did in the fourth quarter of 2009 or the first quarter of 2010, I keep getting responses like, “amazing,” “fantastic,” “record-breaking” and even “best we’ve done in years.”

    The funny thing is that despite their recent success, most of these folks seem reluctant to acknowledge that things have gotten better. Why? Well, I have two theories about that: one, people feel so burned by the last few years that they still fear a double dip — and they’re still waiting for another shoe to drop. Two, I think some people are staying quiet because they don’t want to give anyone in Washington credit for the recovery. They feel that they have recovered due to their own innovation, creativity and hard work and not due to anything related to the stimulus.

    But regardless of why no one is talking about it, the recovery is happening."

    Jack Stack, President of SRC Holdings

    =================================

    I have no doubt that EMR will eventually be right with all his doom and gloom, but I wonder that he doesn't tire of being WRONG while he is waiting.

    RH

  61. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    TMT said:

    “EMR – Thanks, this helps.”

    You are welcome.

    “ Follow-up question. A transit stop in an urban area outside or within the Clear Edge.”

    Way off target here with the Vocabulary:

    There would be no shared-vehicle stations ‘outside the Clear Edge.’

    Every Urban agglomeration has or should have a Clear Edge to function as an Urban area.

    To repeat:

    The Clear Edge around the Core of the Region (or SubRegion) is the Urbanside and is made up of many Communities. From 70 to 80 percent of the total population of the US of A now lives inside the logical location for these Clear Edges around the Core of New Urban Regions.

    All the land outside the Clear Edge around the Core of the Region (or SubRegion) is Countryside. There is Countryside in both New Urban Regions and in Urban Support Regions.

    Within the Countryside there are Urban enclaves. Some are larger (Spokane, Billings, Amarillo, Des Moines, Mobile are all a long way from the Core of the nearest of the 69 largest New Urban Regions) but most of the Urban enclaves are small.

    Warrenton, VA and Warrenton, MO both have Clear Edges.

    Warrenton, VA’s Clear Edge is established by both official documents and citizen perception.

    Warrenton, MO’s Clear Edge is more a case of land owners understanding economic reality. Larry likes to look at Google Earth and has noted some classic Clear Edges such as Waterloo, Iowa.

    By definition, there is never demand sufficient to support any high capacity shared-vehicle system in smaller Urban places that are not with in New Urban Regions. They will have to rely on vans / minibuses and much more efficient small private vehicles.

    Greater Fredericksburg, VA and Greater Frederick, MD are examples of a larger Urban agglomerations that are outside the Clear Edge around the Core of their Region / SubRegion. Depending on size they may support a stop or two of a shared-vehicle system that takes a small percentage of the resident workers into the Core as noted earlier.

    Now back to your statement.

    “Total boardings outbound are approximately equal total unloadings inbound for a day. That does not suggest to me a balanced community, but rather, only that most commuters taking transit in the morning return by transit in the evening.”

    That is right. This is the core problem with the original concept for METRO. See Time to Fundamentally Rethink METRO and Mobility and Access in the National Capital Subregion.

    To use an organic example think of the size of a heart an elephant would have to have to pump just twice a day.

    “I would think that a better measurement is total inbound being approximately equal to total outbound for the same period of time, e.g., morning peak, evening peak.”

    Now you are talking. That is what I thought you were asking in the first place earlier.

    “Am I close?”

    You are right on but I wanted to add a note to clarify your use of words.

    Keep up the good work….

    EMR

  62. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    You are right about the efficiency of the trip from the commuter lot to the work place if everyone gets off the bus at the same time and the bus driver works at the same place or uses his bus to drive between buildings until it is time to go home.

    That is only determinative of the use of energy if the bus driver and all the riders are camping at the commuter lot, all their children go to school in the bus shelter, Wal*Mart delivers food and goods to the lot, etc. You get the idea.

    The prior answer holds. See Column “The Commuting Problem” 17 January 2005. Nothing has changed.

    You also said:

    “Buses are what will make the BRAC changes to Fort Belvoir and Quantico "work" and will do so almost immediately …”

    Only if all the folks who work at BRAC Relocation One live at Commuter Bus Lot One and all the folks that work at BRAC Relocation Two live at Commuter Bus Lot Two, etc.

    Give it up Larry.

    There is no alternative for which resources will exist except Balanced Places. That means less ‘freedom’ that humans enjoyed when they could live off of and waste Natural Capital but those days are gone.

    “while the METRO guys will still be going around in circles trying to figure out how to plan for METRO to serve those "places".”

    That would be impossible so they need to spend their time trying to figure out how to evolve Balanced station-areas before the whole system Collapses.

    EMR

  63. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Larry said:

    I don't think New York could function without the subway.

    He is right.

    RH said:

    Even in New York, about 80% or better of it functions without the subway.

    He is dead wrong.

    As pointed out by Owen in Green Metropolis, New Yorkers do not have to ride on the Subway to do most of what they need to do.

    RH has recently stated he will never be convinced by facts so one can expect him to continue to spin and spin..

    AZA

  64. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    AZA said:

    "As pointed out by Owen in Green Metropolis, New Yorkers do not have to ride on the Subway to do most of what they need to do."

    I think you mean that because of the settlement pattern that evolved because of the Subway, New Yorkers do not have to use ANY vehicle to need what they need to do.

    When the need to make a special trip, the Subway is there.

    DRP

  65. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    EMR – What do you think about Fairfax County Planning Commissioner Walter Alcorn's proposal for Tysons Corner? It is available at http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/planning/tysons_docs/031710walter_alcorn_statement.pdf

    From where I observe, I think this proposal, with some additions and small changes, will likely be the framework for the new Comp Plan for Tysons.

    Perhaps, you want to make this a new posting.

    TMT

  66. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    TMT:

    There is a lot to like in Alcorn's summary.

    Two things are missing and you might guess what they are from EMRs earlier answers to you.

    First is a COMMITMENT to BALANCE.

    BALANCE OF J / H / S / R / A

    1. At every METRO staion area

    2. At every staion area of a PRT circulator

    3. For all of Greater Tysons Corner

    Second:

    Implementation of the "Next Higher Component RePlanning / ReZoning Process." That will insure that every step along the way is a step towards Balance.

    EMR

  67. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    There would be no shared-vehicle stations ‘outside the Clear Edge.’

    None? not even buses or car pools?

    Those that are near the clear edge will not be balanced in time/direction analysis.

    RH

  68. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Besides that, Owen is responding to adifferent question, AND he is wrong.

    New Yorkers can do much of what they do without the subway.

    But, New Yorkers cannot survive without the legions that arrive via mass transit AND auto.

    RH

  69. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    When the need to make a special trip, the Subway is there.

    So are taxis.

    RH

  70. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    That would be impossible so they need to spend their time trying to figure out how to evolve Balanced station-areas before the whole system Collapses.

    Close,but no cigar. I'll repent and give you a D in PhD economics.

    What they need to do is figure out how to pay for balanced station areas to support their tranist system instead of asking others to do it for them as a giant subsidy.

    RH

  71. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Tmt, of course is going to take the opposite course on this.

    RH

  72. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    more efficient small private vehicles.

    By george hes got it.

    Give that PhD an A-.

    RH

  73. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    First, thanks to whoever deleted the personal attacks by RH.

    Based on our reading of his work, this is how I believe Dr. Risse would address the substantive comments that are worth responding to:

    RH said:

    “There would be no shared-vehicle stations ‘outside the Clear Edge.’

    “None? not even buses or car pools?”

    Bus, van and car-pool stops would be INSIDE the Clear Edge around Urban agglomerations that are outside the Clear Edge around the Core of the Region of SubRegion.

    Parking lots that are pickup / drop off locations that are NOT inside Clear Edges around Dooryard, Cluster, Neighborhood and Village scale components just encourage use of private vehicles that are larger than they need to be for the purpose.

    In the context of the original statement, it might have been better to say “… no LARGE CAPACITY shared-vehicle system stations…” But the original is still right if you understand the Vocabulary and the Conceptual Framework.

    RH said:

    “Besides that, Owen is responding to a different question,”

    True

    “AND he is wrong.”

    Not true

    “New Yorkers can do much of what they do without the subway.”

    “But, New Yorkers cannot survive without the legions that arrive via mass transit AND auto.”

    No one, not even Owen, suggests New York is ‘perfect,’ he just says that some patterns and densities in New York City demonstrate very important lessons. Such as:

    Large Urban agglomerations cannot be supported ‘primarily’ by Large, Private vehicles.

    Every large Urban agglomeration on the planet has gotten more congested when new facilities are built to bring more Large, Private vehicles inside Clear Edges. In every case the Mobility and Access of the average AND median traveler (based on income / cost, time and distance) has gotten worse and those who suffer the most loss of Mobility and Access are those at the bottom of the Ziggurat.

    RH said:

    “When the need to make a special trip, the Subway is there.”

    “So are taxis.”

    Yes, but if the true cost of taxis were fairly allocated they would be much smaller and much more fuel efficient. Even then, most of the citizens would not be able to afford ‘single occupant with driver’ vehicles.

    RH said that:

    “That would be impossible so they need to spend their time trying to figure out how to evolve Balanced station-areas before the whole system Collapses.”

    should be replaced by:

    “What they need to do is figure out how to pay for balanced station areas to support their tranist (sic) system instead of asking others to do it for them as a giant subsidy.”

    There is some truth to this statement because too often Agencies become addicted to subsidies but at it’s core the statement misrepresents the role of Agencies in the provision of Mobility and Access for citizens.

    I hope Dr. Risse would agree with all this.

    Former TRB Staffer

  74. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    It all sounds good except that Owen's key theme has to do with per captia consumption.

    Dr. Risse makes a number of good observations in his review of the book.

    AZA

  75. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    No one, not even Owen, suggests New York is ‘perfect,’ he just says that some patterns and densities in New York City demonstrate very important lessons. Such as:

    Large Urban agglomerations cannot be supported ‘primarily’ by Large, Private vehicles.

    Despite the fact that new york has the highest transit use of any city in the US, 80% of its transportation depends on large private vehicles.

    Spin that any way you want. Even New York only demonstrates those "important lessons" at a very small margin.

    I argue that if you actually charged the full fair and efficient cost for EVERYTHING, Dr. Risse would not like the result.

    RH

  76. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Since I got deleted, i'll say it again.

    JNMcc claims to be a professional economist. I'd like to see his bio, becdause I don't believe him.

    RH

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