Although the Antiplanner likes to keep up with the latest technologies, I’ve hesitated to use Twitter. As someone who finds it easier to write a 5,000-word policy paper than a 500-word op ed, the 140-character limit for tweets is painful to think about. But, in case you haven’t heard, I started tweeting last week under the name, of course, of @antiplanner.
So I received a tweet yesterday from the Antiplanner’s loyal opponent, Michael Setty, saying, “We improve the lives of Americans the less we force them to drive.” (Followed by, “And robocars won’t save us,” but I’ll focus on his first tweet here.)
Setty is paraphrasing Minnesota planner Charles Marohn who argues that transportation planners need to change the emphasis from increasing people’s mobility to reducing the amount we “force them to drive.” This is hardly new: the notion that some mysterious conspiracy has forced Americans to drive has underlain a lot of urban planning for the past several decades. It is pure baloney.
No one forced automobiles on Americans. Instead, automobiles liberated Americans. Not counting the war years, transit ridership peaked in 1926 at an average of just 147 trips per year. Close to half of all Americans lacked any access to transit, and even many who lived near transit lines couldn’t afford to use them very often. Most of those who couldn’t ride transit were limited to foot travel. At an average trip length of 5 miles, transit travel was less than 750 miles a year.
Today, the average American travels twenty times that many miles by car. That increase in travel has produced enormous benefits, including higher incomes, more affordable and better housing, lower-cost consumer goods, and access to almost unlimited recreational and social opportunities.
Americans in the 1920s could see the huge advantages provided by cars. When an Indiana woman was asked why her family bought a car when their home still lacked indoor plumbing, she answered, “you can’t go to town in a bathtub.”
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In 2013, the average American rode transit just 33 times. That’s not because they were forced off of transit by poor service. In fact, according to APTA, transit service in vehicle miles has more than doubled since 1926 (the earliest year for which data are available). The nation’s population also more than doubled in that time, but anyone who wants excellent transit service can have it by living in any of dozens of major cities that heavily subsidize their transit systems.
Despite the doubling of transit service, total transit ridership declined from 17.3 billion trips in 1926 to 10.4 billion in 2013. It didn’t decline because transit service was bad. Indeed, not only has service doubled, it is faster, safer, and reaches more destinations than ever before. Nor did it decline because people don’t have access to transit; nearly 80 percent of Americans have access to some form of transit, up from around 50 percent in the 1920s.
Instead, transit ridership declined because cars are so much better: faster, cheaper (especially when carrying more than one person), and capable of reaching far more destinations with door-to-door service. For example, though Chicago has one of the most extensive transit systems in the nation, its 2,700 route miles of bus and rail are dwarfed by the more than 30,000 road miles in the urban area.
When Marohn says we should stop forcing Americans to drive, he means we should design urban areas to allow people to use transit, walk, or bicycle more: in other words, higher densities, mixed uses. But there’s a good reason why urban areas are designed the way they are: people prefer the privacy and lack of noise (not to mention lower land prices) that come with low densities and separated uses. Certainly, there may be a limited market for high-density, mixed-use developments, but if there is, let developers build for the market. Don’t try to impose it based on the idea that doing so will lead people to drive less.
Marohn could also mean we should step up transit service, build more bike paths, and widen sidewalks. But transit will forever remain inferior to driving, and there is no evidence that doing these things will significantly reduce that driving. People’s desire for mobility simply outweighs the ability of urban planners to make things more accessible through creative design.
Cars aren’t perfect. They use energy, pollute, and accidents kill about 33,000 people a year. But all these things are declining. Decades of experience have proven that we can best solve the problems with cars by improving the vehicles, not by reducing people’s mobility.
“We improve the lives of Americans the less we force them to drive.”
Well sir, your first mistake was in treating anything belched out by that militant auto-hater as serious or worthy of consideration.
The Antiplanner has gone off the deep end on this one. I guess he really believes the suburban pattern was set by the “free market.” Never mind the template for current suburbia was developed by the Roosevelt administration as part of the New Deal, followed by massive government intervention after World War II.
I stand by my comments. So does Marohn.
I believe The Antiplanner is what one can term a “vulgar libertarian” (Google it; there are plenty of articles on this topic). Metrofucky is just vulgar, as we’ve all know for years.
Funny how liberals just deny that obvious. Dense city life is very heavily subsidized and yet if people have enough resources, the vast majority of them choose to live in the suburbs. And not just in the US — in every society on the planet.
With all the problems that people are asking government to help solve, I have never heard somebody complain that they “are forced to drive” somewhere, unless they are talking about TSA.
Like we’ve been forced to eat at McDonald’s all these years. All that advertising gave me no choice but to eat there, all the pictures of Big Macs on the side of 18 wheelers gave me no choice but to overeat.
.
It’s all someone else’s fault!!
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There is a judgment day coming before the great white throne and none of this “It’s someone else’s fault, I had no choice!” defense will be worthless. Which is why the devil himself is pushing the victim mentality, it is one of his tools to destroy God’s good creation.
If you want to argue about subsidies, then of course you can come up with an argument about an indirect long term vague subsidy for anything. Almost all such subsidies weigh heavily toward dense urban areas, but let’s just let that go.
If states and cities identified their direct subsidies in their annual budget, then a huge majority of the budget will be targeted towards dense urban areas, and their revenue is heavily weighted from suburban residents. When people have enough money and want a family, they choose to get away from dense urban areas. Overwhelmingly. But urban lovers want to cater to single people for their few years between subsidized college living and when they actually take on life responsibilities.
Comment thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FONN-0uoTHI
Antiplanner: Please DNFTT!
+1 bennett
Keep it nice, guys.
Michael, the template for modern suburbs was set long before the New Deal. Look at Llewellyn Park, 1857; Riverside, 1868; Roland Park, 1903; Country Club District (Kansas City), 1909; Radburn, 1928, to name some of the most influential projects. The New Deal projects (which were awful) were pale imitations of these private projects, and post-war Kaiser and Levitt suburbs were much more influenced by the pre-1930 private projects than by the New Deal towns. Shameless self-promotion: all this is discussed in detail in American Nightmare.
I appreciate this post Mr. O’Toole. I like the posts that get to the deeper ideas that drive our arguments. I agree with most of what was said and I would like to add some ideas to the conversation. I’m not attempting to refute what was said but maybe provide some balance in an effort to reach some middle ground.
“No one forced automobiles on Americans. Instead, automobiles liberated Americans.”
Absolutely! I travel to rural and small town America many times throughout the year. I spend many hours on the Interstate and state highways. Clipping along at 75mph the rolling hills of the blackland prairie with hundreds of people all around me, I’ll find myself in awe of the efficiency and engineering of it all. At the same time, throughout human history what liberates us brings us burdens in the future. Nobody knows like the Aintplanner that government planners solve one problem by creating two others. In no way am I saying that the problems of the personal automobile outweigh everything it’s given us, I saying that the honeymoon phase with the car is over. Like Mr. O’Toole I don’t think that means we need a divorce.
“But there’s a good reason why urban areas are designed the way they are: people prefer the privacy and lack of noise (not to mention lower land prices) that come with low densities and separated uses. Certainly, there may be a limited market for high-density, mixed-use developments, but if there is, let developers build for the market.”
As I’ve said here many times on this blog, increases in density are inevitable. There are many reasons why urban areas are designed the way they are, not least of which is that they were planned that way. Land use regulation is a huge contributor to our urban form. Many developers are chomping at the bit to build high-rise developments. That often means easing of land use restrictions on density, intensity and height. Sometimes it even means easing requirements on the sacred cow that is parking. If we were to abolish land use regulation I guarantee you we would see densities increase and that puts a burden on our infrastructure, particularly roads. I understand that the Antiplanner wants to eliminate land use regulation and privatize all infrastructure. While that idea may titillate Libertarians I think it has about as much chance of happening as planners planning people out of their cars. What I’m saying is that there is no way to make land development and government bureaucracy mutually exclusive. Also, people prefer all sorts of urban contexts. The Austin downtown condo market is booming. I moved here in 2005. Four of the tallest buildings downtown didn’t exist in ‘05 and they’re all condos… and they’re all mostly full. 1.6 million people live on a 3 mile by 12 mile island in New York. Do all those people not want to be there?
“People’s desire for mobility simply outweighs the ability of urban planners to make things more accessible through creative design.”
Agreed, but I would argue that this doesn’t mean that we should abandon making things more accessible through creative urban design. Sure, I would like to see better effectiveness and efficiency in public projects but I’m not going to oppose every program because it isn’t perfect. In the spirit of not forcibly removing everything that isn’t perfect I extend my hand in the protection of mobility and human services. Certainly we don’t have to sacrifice one for the other and both can be improved upon.
We should all be able to agree that there are good things about cities and good things about being in the suburbs or out in the country.
But declaring that someone is “forcing” people to drive cars shows the progressive planning mentality at its core.
The progressives themselves do want to force others to follow their ideas as to where and how to live. So, when anyone does something the progressives do not like, they immediately declare that the person must have been forced. Only people who are forced by some evil entity would ever live contrary to the dictates of the progressives.
Interesting discussion (for the most part). I just have to comment on this bit: “But transit will forever remain inferior to driving …” That may be true for many/most areas in the U.S., but it is by no means a universal truth. In Zurich where I live, the opposite is true — for the vast majority of trips, driving is slower, more expensive and less comfortable. The same could be said for many major European and Asian cities.
Ok, you want some exceptions, I can only think of three: when you have to buy crap from IKEA, going skiing, picking someone up from the hospital.
I’d also note that Zurich is regularly ranked in the top 10 most liveable cities in the world — across the range of ranking schemes.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Michael, the template for modern suburbs was set long before the New Deal. Look at Llewellyn Park, 1857; Riverside, 1868; Roland Park, 1903; Country Club District (Kansas City), 1909; Radburn, 1928, to name some of the most influential projects.
Takoma Park, Maryland (incorporated 1890) is an example of early suburban sprawl (many of its current residents would not appreciate describing their city as sprawl, so perhaps we can call it quaint sprawl, but sprawl is what it was – and is).
The New Deal projects (which were awful) were pale imitations of these private projects, and post-war Kaiser and Levitt suburbs were much more influenced by the pre-1930 private projects than by the New Deal towns. Shameless self-promotion: all this is discussed in detail in American Nightmare.
What is now “Old Town” Greenbelt, Maryland is a New Deal-era project (first residents moved in during the year 1937) that First Lady Elanor Roosevelt was very involved with, and has aged well and is considered a desirable area. Some newer parts of Greenbelt consist of a massive garden apartment complex formerly known as Spring Hill Lake, which has frequently been considered “troubled” (see video here from 2007 for an example).
gecko55, I am not buying the Zurich argument. When I am in Zurich I stay with family on Susenbergstrasse and often travel to or by the university. Transit/walking is always at least 15 minutes, sometimes 25. Car is usually 5 or 6, rarely 15.
I traveled through Mitteleuropa last September, by car, thousands of km. Everyone has a car, even in densely packed cities. They may have to park them far away, but they own them if they can. You will only take cars away from the Germans when you pry them from their cold dead hands.
gecko55, tell us truthfully – Do you live in a densely packed part of Zurich? Do you have a car? If so, how many km a month do you drive?
I still support the free market theory. Let bus riders ride buses, let car riders drive cars, and let both pay their way, in full, no subsidies, no cheating. The real problem is how to account for the ‘real’ costs of both.
If people really prefer low densities and separate uses then wouldn’t we expect land to be pricier out where it’s less dense and presumable quieter?
Agree but maybe for different reasons. I think that cars will be owned by only rich people in 10-20 years time. The rest of us will buy “car time”, much like we buy cell phone time now. Cars will become appliance-like and no longer such a status symbol. But we’ll take as many trips and travel as many miles – if not more – in autonomous cars than we do today in our owned/self-driven cars. Perhaps car status will be defined as sharing vs. not sharing cars e.g., you’ll splurge for a car all to yourself and your companion for that Valentine’s Day evening but otherwise you’ll happily share a ride to and from work everyday with a stranger or two or three because it will be much cheaper.
“If people really prefer low densities and separate uses then wouldn’t we expect land to be pricier out where it’s less dense and presumable quieter?”
If land and housing are more abundant where it is less dense, then prices will be lower there.
Susenbergstrasse. That’s a good address. Way up on the Zuri Berg. So from there to the Uni/ETH(?) your options are: a pleasant 15 minute walk through a historic neighbourhood; a fast 5 minute downhill, 20 minute uphill bike ride; a straightforward 15-20 minute tram ride (No. 6, runs every 10 minutes); or a 5-7 minute (plus time for parking) trip by car to the parking garage? The first two are free, the public transit option costs CHF860 @ year, the car option costs at least CHF3,000 @ year. All are possible. Each has positive and negatives. In the overall scheme of things, this is in the category of “there are worse problems to have.”
Which is why it’s a liveable place. Options.
I live in a row house in the Seefeld district next to the lake. It’s flat here; I mostly move around by bike. And, yes, I have a car. It’s a nice to have. We use it to go skiing, when we’re buying big stuff, the occasional road trip, etc. We drive it about 250 miles a month. We would be better off economically using the car sharing option, but for now hang on to the car we have.
I believe that geography and historical development (for better or worse) matters a lot, and that many/most “planners” recognise that and generally try to develop logical, forward-moving solutions.
When I have in mind a place where you are “forced to drive”, I don’t think of any of those early streetcar suburbs. In Takoma Park you could walk to grocery stores, restaurants, etc. and there is a nearby Metro station. I’m thinking of those exurban areas made up of gated enclaves surrounded by arterial highways with speed limits of 45 or 50 and public streets only about every mile or so. Not sure why we can’t build areas like Takoma Park today where you can have quiet and a single family residence but still be within walking distance of stores, schools, and in some cases even a subway.
It’s true when people choose to buy a house there they are not forced to drive – they want to drive. But what about their children and elderly parents who live with them?
All I know is, after being a bike and transit user for a few years, I enjoy the freedom and superior service my private transportation provides. I mostly use transit in cities I fly to and waste a lot of time waiting for the next bus or train when I don’t have a lot of time to waste.
I only use public transit where I live when parking is impossible and that is a couple times a year during events. Usually only to where I parked my transportation, because it is much faster to drive the rest of the way home.
I don’t see how that will change in the future.
Where is it, where people are being given cars and told they have to drive them? Nobody is being forced to drive unless you torture the word “forced” beyond all recognition.
“But what about their children and elderly parents who live with them?”
What do you suppose might happen to a parent who allowed their child to use mass transit? This, for example…
A Rockville mother decided to let her 10-year-old daughter ride a public bus to get to her school, confident it would be safe. Other “concerned parents” reported this to the principal, who called the central office, who even called Child Welfare Services.
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/16823/school-officials-fret-over-5th-grader-riding-public-bus/
What parent needs this hassle?
The state forced me to drive today. I hardly drive at all any more in dense Seattle. I walk a few blocks to work, and I also walk to the grocery store and the local brew pub. (The sidewalks are over 100 years old, so I don’t see how I’m subsidized in that respect.)
You see, I drive so little that today I discovered on my wife’s college car, which I have talked about a few times here, an orange sticker that I will never be able to completely peel off. It’s like a scarlet letter on the 17 year-old GM car, as if it needed another insult.
I’ve fallen victim to the city’s residents annoyance of what they call “car ranching“. My car hadn’t been driven in 10 days and was parked just across the road from my residence. My neighbor, who knows me, complained to the city instead of talking to me, and I get a ticket and an irremovable orange mark. WTF? Ten days?! I’ve been in Europe for two months during the summer. What then? I lose my car if I go on vacation?
The truth is the city doesn’t want you to only cut down on driving. They want you to get rid of your seldom-driven car because it annoys the Obama-loving assholes who want to park their Audis and BMWs right in front of their single-family homes on the socialized roads.
I googled “car ranching” and in one of the articles that came up, found this:
“They [city government] want the people who own cars here to have a disincentive to drive around.”
So- I guess the concept of “public servant” is pretty much dead (if such ever existed in the first place) and regular folk are left having to endure rulers who are insisting on forcing their preferences on them.
Nice.
Randall:
I get along just fine with one car in my family because I can take a commuter train to work and I lived in an older walkable suburb where I can get to many things on foot if my wife is out and about with the car. Houses in our town sit on lots between 1/8 and 1/2 acre, with a smattering of 1 acre lot mansions and also rowhomes, second floor apartments over stores and multi level apartments thrown in for good measure. Its not as if we are particularly dense or not dense. However I did purposefully arrange my life this way after living and working in other areas where there was no choice for me but to drive every day everywhere I went.
If my train line was closed, or if my office was shifted out to some remote office park, I would feel “forced” to drive since I would have no choice but to purchase a second car or triple my commute time riding a bus.
My personal view is that there is a lot of sense in traditional development patterns from the time before planning. Offices and shopping areas were located in towns, and towns were strung along rail lines like a string of pearls. Less dense housing was spread out in between towns for those who wanted it and is much more accessible now with cars.
I have no interest in killing off auto travel or restricting car ownership. I do believe that there should be areas and ways for families to live that don’t require them to own two or three cars or shoehorn themselves into a 5th floor apartment to not have to drive to work. However I am not so foolish as to think cities that never had a core rail network will ever be able to redevelop themselves to resemble the traditional rail cities (NY, Boston, Philly, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, DC), because the rights of way simply don’t exist, nor do the traditional railroad towns needed to make the rights of way work, nor does the downtown office density exist.
The marginal interurban and trolley operations were gone by 1941, when already 91% of all trip-miles were made by car long before the interstate. However at that same time, the traditional rail cities listed above retained their full commuter, subway and trolley networks without having had anything more than marginal abandonments because they made sense for those places.
I am in complete agreement with you on the wastefulness of trying to recreate the interurbans with Light Rail, or of attempting to run rail lines that recapture their operating costs at a pitiful level like 10, 20, or 30%. They end up with those numbers because these places were never developed with rail in mind and so cannot be redeveloped short of saturation bombing or mass bulldozing to make rail work. At the same time, I’d like to think we are a big enough country that the parts of the country in the south and west that never developed with rail could let those of us who live in areas that did dedicate our transportation dollars towards those systems without this causing a political disturbance. 75% of gas tax revenues are developed from driving on local streets paid for by property taxes. In my city of Philadelphia, because we have an extensive transit network, we are able to make do with a very minimal highway network – we have fewer total freeway lanes into the city (8) than a single freeway in Houston would have. Why shouldn’t we be able to take our transportation tax money and put it in part towards somethign that continues to allow us to not have a huge freeway network to pay for?
Today I’m headed off to pick up the grand-kids, so my son and daughter-in-law can have the evening To themselves. It will take me about 15 minutes a couple dollars of gas one way.
To take transit it would be between a hour and a half and 2 hours and between 2 or 3 transfers one way,for $2.50 .00.
Coming back with two toddlers it would be another $5.00 and worrying about bathrooms for the kids, pushing a stroller to the next stop and weather.
Forced to drive? This is a “no brainer”, my car that climate control ( a roof and heater) a radio, no transfers and it is fast. Plus it carries all the kids things and I don’t have to pack them on my back.
Suburb to suburb in a few minutes by choice.
While I mostly agree with the Antiplanner about public transit, I do support a basic low cost public transportation system once cities/towns reach a certain size, even with a public subsidy.
But what I most strenuously oppose is even the idea that a town/city should “redesign” itself so as to make public transit more popular or efficient. That is so so wrong and anti-freedom. It is like surgery on the foot to shoehorn it into a show, instead of designing a show to fit the foot.
The main reason I oppose all global warming initiatives isn’t that I don’t think the world is getting warmer, but because the policies advocated are the same old stuff from the left wing and they don’t even substantially address the global warming scare if you take it seriously.
@Sandy Teal – Do you consider it just as wrong and anti-freedom to shoehorn cars into cities that weren’t built for them?
If my train line was closed, or if my office was shifted out to some remote office park, I would feel “forced” to drive since I would have no choice but to purchase a second car or triple my commute time riding a bus.
If the place you’re living doesn’t allow you the transit options you desire, you are free to move someplace that does offer those options, aren’t you? You’re not “forced” to drive unless you choose not to relocate to where the transportation options you prefer exist. And in that case, you’re not really being forced- you’re choosing to accept things the way they are, where you are.
Do you consider it just as wrong and anti-freedom to shoehorn cars into cities that weren’t built for them?
I’m not Sandy, but I’ll offer my thoughts nonetheless. The question should be- “What do people want?”
Do they want the ability to come and go where they choose on their own schedules as they please or do they want to depend on the government to determine where they can go and when?
Does government exist to serve the people or is it the other way around?
ahwr said
@Sandy Teal – Do you consider it just as wrong and anti-freedom to shoehorn cars into cities that weren’t built for them?
—————————-
I’ll take a shot at this to.
Do you feel it is wrong and anti freedom to force density and transit, into a low density auto oriented suburb.
transitboy wrote:
When I have in mind a place where you are “forced to drive”, I don’t think of any of those early streetcar suburbs. In Takoma Park you could walk to grocery stores, restaurants, etc. and there is a nearby Metro station. I’m thinking of those exurban areas made up of gated enclaves surrounded by arterial highways with speed limits of 45 or 50 and public streets only about every mile or so. Not sure why we can’t build areas like Takoma Park today where you can have quiet and a single family residence but still be within walking distance of stores, schools, and in some cases even a subway.
Sounds like you do not know Takoma Park very well. From most of the City of Takoma Park (except the parts hard by the border with the District of Columbia, since the Takoma rail station is in D.C.), a walk to the rail station is excessive.
The people and groups that denounce “suburban sprawl” tend to dislike places where it is possible to have one or more cars (even a garage in some places) – which is exactly what most of Takoma Park is. Also, if you look at the presence of grocery stores in Takoma Park, there aren’t any, except at its north end on Md. 193 (University Boulevard East).
It’s true when people choose to buy a house there they are not forced to drive – they want to drive. But what about their children and elderly parents who live with them?
Most elderly people can (and do) drive, and in spite of claims to the contrary from pro-transit groups, consider that elderly people that cannot drive probably cannot use public transportation either.
Learned a lot by reading this great thread. Thanks for the details about Takoma Park C.P. Thanks also to Not Sure and sprawl for their contributions.
Well, I have been forced to make a decision that forces me to walk most days. As mentioned, my wife’s 18 year old car was growing moss and making the neighborhood look bad being parked on the same streets as Lexus, Mercedes, and other luxury cars. Since I was driving it about once every two weeks (and she is driving my car to work), neighbors complained, and it was ticketed.
Was offered $80 to scrap it. Ha. Sold it yesterday for $400 to some poor people who drove an hour and a half from Tumwater for a cheap car none of the richy rich people in Seattle want parked on the socialized streets in their fancy neighborhoods.
Thanks again, Seattle, for your war on cars and war on the working poor! Keep forcing out those older and unattractive cars! Soon, only rich people will be able to afford to drive here.
@Not Sure
Which people? The real estate interests who held land outside the city? Or the ones living in the path of the highway who were evicted from their homes? Or those who lived near the highway and were cut off from their friends, family, school, jobs, and stores when the highway was rammed through their neighborhood? There are places that developed after the 50s, where there is plenty of room for cars. But in areas developed before then you had to make room. Should suburbanites ten miles away have greater say over what happens to a decrepit highway today than those who live nearby?
@Sprawl
It depends what you mean by force, and it depends which suburb you are talking about. If you are talking about ones close in, and the force you have in mind is simply removing development restrictions, no I don’t think that’s wrong and evil. If there is a mandate to have a minimum number of units in the building, that would be wrong. I wouldn’t ask for parking maximums in general, though there may be some places where they make sense – Manhattan CBD for instance – I wouldn’t consider it wrong or evil to stop forcing the construction of a minimum amount of parking.
@CP
The original Takoma Park development was centered around the train station. The food co-op on Ethan Allen is pretty centrally located, why doesn’t that count?
“But in areas developed before then you had to make room.”
BS. City streets are wide because when they were established, people needed lots of room to park their horses and carriages, which occupy more space than a car.
There was already room for cars, and assertions otherwise is the type of revisionist drivel place like Seattle use to justify their war on cars, which includes removing parking for bus and bike lanes and mini-“parks”. From the ultra-liberal Seattle Times:
“The push to improve mobility and livability leaves less room for cars along the curb. The quick drive to the dry cleaner, the five-minute run to the minimart, having a friend pick you up outside your apartment — simple parts of a daily routine all have become harder, sometimes impossible.”
Impossible! Cars are over, Seattle! You will be forced NOT to drive!
Frank all the people who lived in the path of I5 would beg to differ. I was talking about highways, not local streets. Just like there wasn’t room for a highway through Takoma Park, but many government planners and auto groups pushed to build one there.
That said, the idea that streets were ever so exclusively the domain of horses and carriages or streetcars as they are for cars today is ridiculous. They were much less hostile environments for pedestrians, who are now crammed onto narrow sidewalks in dense areas.
“Frank all the people who lived in the path of I5 would beg to differ. I was talking about highways, not local streets. Just like there wasn’t room for a highway through Takoma Park, but many government planners and auto groups pushed to build one there.”
Agreed. Imminent domain is immoral and the Interstate Highway System should be opposed by libertarians on that basis alone.
Streets “were much less hostile environments for pedestrians” before cars.
I suppose it depends on your definition of hostility, but I call more BS as you will see below.
Stepping in horse manure? Maybe not hostile, but certainly not pleasant. The “omnipresent stench” doens’t sound great and “‘Crossing sweepers’ stood on street corners; for a fee they would clear a path through the mire for pedestrians. Wet weather turned the streets into swamps and rivers of muck, but dry weather brought little improvement; the manure turned to dust, which was then whipped up by the wind, choking pedestrians and coating buildings.” Oh, and disease-breeding flies swarming manure. A bit hostile, no?
As for streetcars being a “less hostile environment” for pedestrians, history would beg to differ. The Brooklyn Dodgers got their name from the term “Trolley Dodgers” because of all the death and maiming that occurred after the introduction of electric street cars. And it wasn’t just Brooklyn where trolleys mowed down pedestrians trying to dodge them; in 1894, Chicago and Philly had a combined total of more than 100 street car deaths.
By the way, NYC pedestrian deaths are at an all time low, lower even than when street cars and horses and carriages careened down the street.
Finally, perusing the NYT’s archives reveals many stories about pedestrian and horse/carriage accidents from 1870s to the 1910s.
Here’s an interesting article from 1880 about the “safe” streets:
Run Over by a Horse-Car
Mrs. Bridget O’Neil, of No. 5 Monroe-street was run over by car No. 128 of the Second avenue line, in Oliver-street, last evening. Both of her legs were broken, and the right one, which received a compound comminuted fracture, will have to be amputated. She was taken to the Chambers-Street Hospital. Dr. Moore, the House Surgeon, said it was doubtful if the woman could survive the operation. William Scully, the driver of the car, was locked up in the Oak-Street Police Station. He said he did not see the woman until after the accident.
Her’s another good one from 1880:
Fatal Runaway Accident.
Long Branch, June 1. —A german named Daniel Krous, known here as “Dutch Jake,” was run over this afternoon by a horse and wagon belonging to Squire Pitcher, which he was trying to stop. The horse stepped on Krous’s head, and the wheels passed over his body, injuring him severely. He will probably not live through the night.
Jumping ahead to 1890, we get this sensational headline:
“MISS TAYLOR’S SHOCKING DEATH.; KNOCKED DOWN AND TRAMPLED UPON BY AN UNMANAGEABLE TEAM”
If you want the gristly, details, here you go.
But yeah. Streets were sooooooooooooooooo much safer before cars. Riiiiiiiiiight. If that’s the narrative anti-auto types need to tell to help them feel better, tell it elsewhere please and thanks.
ahwr wrote:
@CP
The original Takoma Park development was centered around the train station. The food co-op on Ethan Allen is pretty centrally located, why doesn’t that count?
It is not a grocery store. In the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland metropolitan area (IMO</strong), grocery store means operations like Giant, Safeway, Harris Teeter, Wegman’s, Wal-Mart SuperCenters, Weis Markets, Aldi, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Graul’s, Shopper’s and Mars.
If we spent our resources connecting markets and empowering the individual to make their own opportunity, there would be a better life for everyone. If we had good roads connecting remote rural areas to the interstate system, and solving the traffic congestion urban areas by expanding roads to serve markets, economic opportunity would be better accessible to all residents. Free Markets level the playing field – this is simple economics. All this time we work to limit access to markets with “public transit”, and “planned growth” only serves to limit individual opportunity, cultivate economic extremes, alienate markets, and individuals from access to opportunity. The additional income tax revenue, reduced welfare rolls, and additional gas tax revenue would more than pay for the additional infrastructure.
No one is forced to drive. The problem is that it’s extremely time consuming and $$$$$$$$ to rent or buy in dense neighborhoods. Too often the housing stock – what little there is to choose from relative to the overall size of the metro – is substandard both in terms of amenities ( tiny closets, no central air, etc. ) and, worse, in terms of energy efficiency. So people compromise – as Dan in Aurora showed us long ago- by buying in the middle ‘burbs or even exurbs.
This problem could be mitigated if central cities right-sized their houshing regulations. Not only have major cities failed to do this but their leaders have too often embraced the anti-change crowd in fighting scrape-offs. The irony of it all is that many of those who seem to espouse the need for equality and the dangers of the income divide are embracing policies that have turned central cities into the most highly income divided places in our country.
“The real estate interests who held land outside the city? Or the ones living in the path of the highway who were evicted from their homes? Or those who lived near the highway and were cut off from their friends, family, school, jobs, and stores when the highway was rammed through their neighborhood?”
You’re off to a start on a list, but you left some out. Like… the real estate interests in town who stand to benefit from a new rail line, the builders of the rail cars, the contractors who’ll lay the tracks and the tranist union folks.
I’m sure there’s more. Lots of people to represent, no doubt. So- why not answer the other question:
“What do people want?”
Do they want the ability to come and go where they choose on their own schedules as they please or do they want to depend on the government to determine where they can go and when?
In re-reading Mr. Mahron’s original post, the main problem I have is that he implies that all the meaningful time reductions have been made that can be made when it comes to roads. Sure, the long distance routes in the state of Minnesota have reached that point. You can’t shave off much more time when it comes to travelling from Duluth to Rochester than what you see now. MnDot has shut down the last 2 traffic lights on the route and replaced them with a proper freeway interchange.
The problem is, the Twin Cities – responsible for 3/4th of the state’s economic output – has a lot of congestion that is costing the state’s economy big $. Shaving 2 minutes off a commute may not amount to much compared to it’s costs when it comes to Brained, it does add up to significant numbers in the Twin Cities. For example, Texas A&M estimates the cost of congestion in the last 30 years in Minneapolis-St. Paul has gone from $50Million to nearly $2Billion. In the 16th largest MSA in the country, small gains in mobility will lead to large reductions in cost.
@Not Sure
Which people? If someone wants to move to the suburbs from the city that’s their choice. If they then say they want their old apartment building torn down to make room for a highway to quicken their commute they can go to hell. Tyranny of the majority is tyranny all the same.
@prk
Try and relax density prohibitions or parking mandates in cities or near in suburbs to bring down insane urban prices and Randall and his good buddies at the American Dream Coalition will scream bloody murder.
@Frank
WNYC counted 143 pedestrian deaths last year, there were ~135 a few years ago. (2011 or 2007) They might have counted some that happened in parking lots that DOT ignores, or something along those lines to explain the discrepancy. It was a cold winter, wait for a mild one and you’ll see deaths go back up a bit. By 1912 deaths by automobile were more than 200 per year, ~95% pedestrians, and had surpassed deaths from crashes with streetcars or horses, I wonder how fare back you have to go to get under 130 pedestrian deaths, whether from auto, streetcar, or horse.
But total deaths aren’t what I had in mind when I was talking about hostility. I don’t know why you put safe in scare quotes, I never used the word. A streetcar that comes every two minutes is a very different environment from one where cars come every two seconds in each lane, with several lanes to cross. The light finally changes and cars are supposed to stop to let me cross? In NYC a plurality of pedestrian serious injuries and fatalities (not fatalities alone) occur when the pedestrian is crossing in the crosswalk with the light. Just about everywhere else you have to navigate around cars trying to make a right on red too. I know how dangerous streetcars, buses, trucks, trains and other large vehicles can be. You know that fancy high line park in NYC? It’s built on the remains of a rail line that was elevated because people kept getting run over by the trains (well part of it was elevated, part is still at grade, part is in a trench under the henry hudson, and is actively used, it carries amtrak trains between Penn and Albany). They are more deadly than a car, absolutely. But when there is one streetcar instead of fifty cars that gives me control to avoid a collision in a way that I don’t have when everyone drives. That sense of control breeds complacency, there’s a real danger in that.
When I was in Lake union park SLUT tracks were closer, but didn’t bother me nearly as much as the cars on Valley. It’s the constant roar, the disgusting exhaust from the cars. And when I’m ready to leave and want to cross the street I see there are cars whose path I must cross. The glare on the windshield makes it impossible for me to see if they see me, and I have no way to be certain that the car behind them won’t get tired of waiting and whip around, running me over. There’s a persistent danger. I would much prefer the silence when no streetcar is nearby, and to look, see there is no streetcar for five hundred feet, know that even if it’s racing it won’t move at a hundred feet per second, and I won’t need five seconds to cross the tracks, so I can know it’s safe to cross. Maybe I’m not doing a good job here Frank, but do you get an idea of what I mean when I’m talking about streetcars producing a less hostile environment than cars?
@prk
You might want to read some of the strong towns posts on congestion.
http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012/10/23/embracing-congestion.html
http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2013/8/21/is-traffic-always-bad.html
@ahwr
What about the need to connect people and business to markets? If government, say, takes away a remote community’s access to natural resources, such as timber, isn’t it obligated to connect that community to other markets, so they have the opportunity to compete, including safe highways to connect them to interstate corridors? If congestion is limiting access to markets in urban areas aren’t we obligated to increase road capacity so people and markets can continue to be served, and remain competitive, and grow to employ, and guarantee opportunity to all skills, and interests?
@ahwr- You still didn’t answer the question:
“What do people want?”
Do they want the ability to come and go where they choose on their own schedules as they please or do they want to depend on the government to determine where they can go and when?
“If someone wants to move to the suburbs from the city that’s their choice. If they then say they want their old apartment building torn down to make room for a highway to quicken their commute they can go to hell.”
Really? Even if the lanes from the road they want enlarged were originally taken away in order to install a light rail line? That seems pretty cheesy to me. Maybe light rail fans should have been told to go to hell in the first place? Just a thought…
@not sure
In city there is finite public space. It doesn’t belong to motorists. If some of it is repurposed for other public uses, bike lanes, pedestrian plazas, rail lines, busways etc…that doesn’t mean motorists are entitled to replacement lanes. And to answer your question, many are not able to drive, or do not want to drive. Some want to be close enough to destinations to walk or bike, at least for some trips, and did not leave their home to move to the suburbs. That some people did want more space, or to drive does not mean they are entitled to destroy neighborhoods in cities they do not live in to make room for there car when they want to visit. What suburbanites want is not the only consideration when determining use of public land in cities. Local residents should be given greater consideration. If they are better served by busways, bike lanes, or pedestrian streets then that’s what there should be more often than not.
@tombdragon
There is no obligation to widen roads. There is no obligation for government to bail out small towns with dying industries.
@ahwr
That isn’t what I asked! “What about the need to connect people and business to markets? If government, say, takes away a remote community’s access to natural resources, such as timber, isn’t it obligated to connect that community to other markets, so they have the opportunity to compete, including safe highways to connect them to interstate corridors?”
IF communities are required to provide and fund public safety, for instance, and government artificially limits opportunity, isn’t government obligated to connect those remote communities to markets, so they can meet the income and expenditure requirements of the state? The industries were killed by government regulation, they were not “dying”! I said NOTHING about roads – I said connecting markets. and the first thing that comes to your mind is roads. You admit that the most efficient way to connect markets is with adequate road capacity to facilitate commerce, then?