On Sunday, 02 December, Jim Bacon summarized the latest news on “Rail to Dulles” in a post titled “Big Tysons Landowners Fear Billions in Windfall Profits May Be in Peril.” So far there are nearly 60 comments following this post.
As we noted in our comment of 8:44 PM on 03 December “Jim Bacon’s Post is correct “in the current context.” Many of the subsequent comments are heartfelt, earnest and based on the commentors’ understanding of their experience. As is often the case with statements on human settlement pattern / transport – especially those concerning shared-vehicle systems – many are out of alignment with the reality of Greater Tysons Corner’s current context.
Before outlining the Tysons Context, one should be clear on the goal of extending METRO to Tysons Corner and beyond. We suggest that the goal of building a shared-vehicle system to Tysons Corner should be to enhance Mobility and Access. Specifically, the goal should be Mobility and Access that supports the evolution of an Alpha (Balanced) Community in Greater Tysons Corner. An Alpha Community is a place that optimizes citizen happiness, safety and prosperity. In other words maximizes citizen well being.
To achieve functional and affordable Mobility and Access for Greater Tysons Corner there must be Balance. In this context, Balance has three major components:
1. Relative Balance of J / H / S / R / A for the entire Community as defined in GLOSSARY.
2. Balance of the whole Community also requires relative Balance of J / H / S / R / A in each of the projected four station areas proposed to serve the Zentrum of Greater Tysons Corner.
3. The most important aspect of Alpha Community Balance is Balance between the travel demand generated by the settlement pattern throughout Greater Tysons Corner and the capacity of the Mobility systems that serves the Community, including pedestrian travel.
The existence of a shared-vehicle system – and to a lesser extent a supportive, but not dominate private-vehicle system – is what allows there to be “relative” Balance rather than “absolute” Balance in the organic components of Greater Tysons Corner.
Now the Greater Tysons Corner Current Context:
There are millions of factors that make up the Context but there are six major ones that may be considered the controlling elements of Tysons Corner Contextual Reality:
1. Land Owner / Land and Building Developer Objectives
Land Owners and Land and Building Developers (here-in-after “land owners”) make more money from some land uses than from other land uses. Some land uses required to achieve Balance do not generate a profit, at least not immediate profit. Others support the whole Community and do not directly benefit any specific individual, Household or Organization.
Less expensive space for Affordable and Accessible Housing and for Enterprise and Institution incubators is the most commonly noted “below market” needs but functional Openspace is another important one.
Land owners focus on the land uses that make the most money, the fastest. That is what Enterprises are created to accomplish.
Land owners lose money every day if they do nothing with the land in which they have invested.
Land owners have information and / or the ability to gather data and create intelligence on the evolution of functional human settlement patterns. However, information is power and they use their power to enhance their economic leverage, they do not use it to create more functional human settlement patterns. That is also what they are in business to do.
2. Too Much Land
There is vastly more development potential in four METRO station-areas than can be adsorbed by the market in a time frame that would return a profit on investment. In addition, there is a need for the creation of a Critical Mass in each station area to achieve Balance. There cannot be four partial station-areas over a long time period.
For a further discussion of the fact that there is far more land than market, see Backgrounder “It is Time to Fundamentally Rethink METRO and Mobility in the Nation Capital Subregion.” and the Shape of the Future column “Rail to Dulles Realities” 4 January 2004.
Not all land owners / developers can be successful. They know this and so Enterprises jockey for position and try to limit the amount of land that can be developed by other Enterprises. For example they scoff at Air Rights over land that the public owns – unless the particular entity does not own land. See “All Aboard” 16 April 2007.
3. Limited METRO Capacity
The “Silver Line” has very limited capacity as everyone has now admitted.
Even the S/P’s “Turquoise Line” proposal from the 1980s has less than optimum capacity due to flaws in the original METRO system concept. For that reason S/P has, since the late 90s, advocated extending METRO to Greater Tysons Corner and then creating a different shared-vehicle service to Dulles via a new system with a station in Greater Tysons Corner but with technology and alignment that would get travelers from Dulles to Capitol Hill in 5 stops vs the 25 stops now envisioned.
Because of METRO’s limited capacity, the “relative” Balance at each station must be much closer to “absolute” Balance. This makes the first two contextual realities far harder to address.
4. What makes “Mass Transit” Work
The optimum shared-vehicle system from a revenue perspective is one that serves at one end a Gulag where everyone lives (Houses) and at the other a Gulag where everyone works (Jobs). There is a stop in the middle where all the Services / Recreation / Amenity are located. Finally the three stop are too far apart to walk and there is no vehicle alternative. On this hypothetical system, the seats are filled 24 / 7 because everyone has to ride.
Not many would be happy in this settlement pattern configuration.
The optimum station-area settlement pattern for quality of life of citizens and prosperity of Enterprises and Institutions as well as the residents / workers is one where the citizens have to resort to a vehicle of any sort infrequently to assemble a quality life.
Existence of a shared-vehicle system is what makes this settlement pattern possible and SYSTEM-WIDE Balance of capacity with travel demand is what makes it economically feasible. The private-vehicle system is the cherry on the top of the sundae, not the only way to get from any A to any B.
Given minimum capacity of METRO this is a back breaker for all the simple minded “transit feasibility” tests that US DOT generates.
5. Business as Usual Support for Growth and Consumption
Most Enterprises, many Institutions and some Agencies see any new transport system as “progress” and believe that “growth raises all boats.”
These Organizations jump from supporting one proposal to supporting another. The only criteria is that they do not get taxed to pay for any new Mobility and Access services.
This is what the activities that were reported in the original WaPo story upon which Jim Bacon posted were all about.
6. Political Process
The process by which decisions are now made on new transport services is a process controlled by politicians. The first priority of politicians is getting elected again. The first priority of politicians is not creating functional human settlement patterns or Balancing travel demand with transport system capacity.
To get reelected politicians must make the fewest voters mad as possible since results of any major decision are from two to five election cycles away.
Politicians must rely on land owners / land and building developers and the denizens of Business As Usual for contributions to convince uninformed potential voters that they are doing the right thing.
The conflict is obvious. The land owners / land and building developers want the public to pay for the shared-vehicle system and any other actions needed to achieve Balance so that they can optimize their profits.
Voters want the opposite.
Because of the dysfunctional settlement patterns that have agglomerated – since 1920, especially since 1950 and overwhelmingly since 1990 – the cost of any alternative is very high.
The political process involves uninformed and misinformed citizens as demonstrated by comments following Jim Bacon’s post. Many are well meaning and believe they are acting in their best interest. Others are just trying to confuse those who are not well informed.
In the Tysons Context, a stalemate is fine with many citizens. Some are NIMBYs, some say “I have mine you need get your own somewhere else” and some just cannot see an upside from change. The result is least common denominator settlement patterns.
The studies and meetings go on endlessly. Politicians hire staff trained to not make uninformed citizens mad and they in turn hire consultants with the same objective.
See Backgrounder “The Role of Municipal Planning in Creating Dysfunctional Human Settlement Patterns,” 23 January 2002.
In the current Tysons Context, there are no advocates for intelligent, Fundamental Change. This the Context in which decisions will be made on an extension of METRO.
That is why a functional media – subject of the four part Backgrounder “The Estates Matrix” – is so important.
EMR
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