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Category Archives: Planning Disasters

Urban Planning “Saves” Another Neighborhood

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters, Regional planning
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At one time, Argay Terrace was a boring suburban neighborhood, housing middle-class families whose lives were so dull they didn’t even know they were missing the excitement of lively streets. Now, thanks to Portland’s urban planners, Argay has become a vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood that offers retail and service business so residents don’t have to drive to get everything they need.

“When I was in school,” says a local resident, “we used to call Argay Terrace ‘snob hill’ because that’s where all the rich kids lived.”
Photo by ORTEM.

Unfortunately, the retail and service businesses are drugs and prostitution, which have grown by almost 300 percent in the last four years alone. The streets today are so vibrant that longtime residents are afraid to walk around at night without a concealed weapon, and many strangely prefer a little less vibration and have moved out.

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Mustang Kicks Air Travelers

By | | Planning Disasters
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The Denver International Airport (DIA), one of the 20th century’s great planning disasters, has been cursed with an angry blue mustang that threatens to stomp anyone who says anything bad about the airport. Built at a cost of $4.8 billion — $2 billion more than originally projected, the Denver airport is 25 miles from downtown Denver — or, as the locals say, halfway to Kansas.

Halfway to Kansas.
Flickr photo by thomas23.

DIA was such a bad idea that even the planners objected. I once found a document prepared by the Denver Regional Council of Governments predicting that the airport would be way to expensive, and to pay for it they would have to raise gate fees, which would cause Denver to lose one of its hub airlines. That is exactly what happened: rather than participate in this boondoggle, Continental moved its hub to Houston.

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Here’s What’s Wrong with Bush & the Neocons

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters
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The Antiplanner is not too excited about the presidential primaries, which seem to be little more than a reality show for political activists. It certainly has kept them chattering about who will get thrown off the island for over a year. But it has also not only kept them from noticing how bad our government really is, they haven’t even noticed that nearly all the people running are the ones who were responsible for making it so bad.

Instead, we imprint our own images of how we think things ought to be on a candidate and then imagine how wonderful life would be if only our candidate were to get elected. If our candidate should happen to get elected, there will be plenty of scapegoats to blame things on when we fail to achieve nirvana. All of this has become greatly exaggerated now that election campaigns are lasting two full years.

Some may call me cynical, but as Lily Tomlin says, no matter how cynical you are, you can’t keep up.

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OHSU: Let’s Extend the Tram to Florida

By | | Planning Disasters
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Long-time readers of the Antiplanner will remember Portland’s aerial tram, which went 280 to 1800 percent over budget, depending on what you consider the original budget to have been. While Portland taxpayers paid about $8 million of the cost, most of the $57 million cost was covered by the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU), which was at one end of the tramway.

OHSU said it was going to anchor the other end of the tram with a major biotech center, creating hundreds of jobs and $1 billion in annual sales by 2006. It persuaded the Portland city council to pony up the $8 million subsidy by saying that, if it did not get to build the aerial tram, it would put the biotech center in some other Oregon city.

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Condo Booms Go Bust

By | | Planning Disasters
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A couple of years ago, it seemed like every major downtown in America was experiencing a condo boom, lending support to planners’ claims that baby boomers and others were moving back to the inner cities. Now most of those booms are busting: Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, Portland — all the hip places.

Condo and office towers under construction along Portland’s South Waterfront.

Of course, real estate prices are declining almost everywhere. But there was supposed to be this huge pent-up demand for downtown living. Planner Harriet Tregoning, who once held the exalted title of “Secretary of Smart Growth” in Maryland, even wrote about the “coming oversupply of single-family home” in a recent book on urban planning. (Her article is given added credibility by being preceded by one by the Antiplanner.) Continue reading →

Another Light-Rail Transit Agency Self Destructs

By | | Planning Disasters, Transportation, Urban areas
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The head of St. Louis’s transit agency, Larry Salci, says he doesn’t care what transit riders or taxpayers think about him. All he cares is what his board of directors thinks. Oh, yes, and he cares about what his headhunter thinks in case he has to get a new job.

Although using light-rail vehicles, St. Louis’s rail cars run on an exclusive right of way, and so they are at least safer, if not any more cost-effective, than most other light-rail systems.
Flickr photo by lordsutch.

Of course, considering that he has been earning $225,000 a year, plus at least $25,000 a year in bonuses, plus a $4,800 a year “vehicle allowance” so he never actually has to set foot on a transit vehicle except for a photo op (and only reluctantly then), he probably has enough to retire now. (Something to think about this Labor Day: Why are transit agency heads often paid more than mayors and even governors?)

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Why Housing Is Expensive

By | | Planning Disasters, Regional planning
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I previously posted about a growing antiplanning movement in Britain and a conference held on the impact of planning on housing prices. Someone sent me a PowerPoint show (7.2 MB) that was given at the conference that graphically demonstrates the problem with finding a place to build a home in England.

Click the image to see a larger picture.

The show is a bit large but worth the download. It was presented by Kate Moorcock Abley, who is affiliated with Audacity, one of the groups that put on the conference. Audacity’s director, James Heartfield, will be speaking at this November’s American Dream conference in San Jose.

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Will Seattle Spend $10.8 Billion on 50 Miles of Light Rail?

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters, Regional planning
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Sound Transit, which is way overbudget in the construction of Seattle’s first light-rail line, now wants voters to approve a measure to build 50 more miles of light rail for the modest cost of $10.8 billion (in 2006 dollars). That’s a mere $216 million per mile, which is about four to five times the average cost of light-rail construction elsewhere.

I suspect this is going to be an uphill battle for the transit agency, if only because the Seattle Times article reporting this story emphasizes a much-higher figure of $23 billion (which includes projected inflation and some finance charges). Newspapers that want to promote light rail usually underplay the cost, but the Times feels burned by the last rail plan, which it supported, and which ended up costing far more than was projected.

Sound Transit, which wants to build 50 more miles of light rail, is also running commuter trains. Ridership proved so far below forecast levels that the agency ended up selling many of the commuter cars it had purchased for the operation.
Flickr photo by MGJeffries.

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Denver Rail Still on Track — Barely

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters, Transportation
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The latest estimates say that Denver’s FasTracks rail projects are only $1.5 billion overbudget, not the $1.8 billion originally reported. The $300 million savings comes from such things as single-tracking light-rail lines that were originally planned to be double tracked.

Denver’s Regional Transit District (RTD) plans to make up the $1.5 billion by selling $800 million more bonds (thus making for a longer pay-back period), and asking the federal government for more money. But officials still expect a $400 million or so shortfall.

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Making California Housing Affordable

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters
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A bill being considered by the California legislature aims to make the state’s housing more affordable. According to this analysis, the bill amends the state’s Planning and Zoning Act by requiring cities and counties to take more steps to keep housing affordable.

The bill is supported by various home building associations as well as some non-profit groups such as the California Council of Churches, St. Vincent DePaul, and the California State Firefighters Association, which worries that firefighters and other public employees can’t afford to live in the cities they serve.

Is California’s housing system broken? This house would cost $150,000 in Houston, $400,000 in Bakersfield, $950,000 in Marin County, and well over $1.2 million in San Jose.

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