The Congress for the New Urbanism is having its annual convention in Denver, so some California New Urbanists chartered two private rail cars to get there. The 35-hour one-way trip cost $1,400 each, about $1,200 more than airfares.
Flickr photo by SP8254
The bragged about how they chose a “sustainable” way to travel. What a wonderful example for the rest of us! If only ordinary people had the time and money to spend 35 hours and $1,400 on a trip that would cost about four hours and $200 on a plane. The Denver Post says that at least some of these New Urban planners work for the government, so they have time and money to blow. Heck, since they are New Urbanists, they effectively all work for the government since so little New Urban development is actually built for the market.
This article will discuss some get free viagra of the reasons for poor erection quality. So, to enjoy some order cheap viagra more happy moments in the life buy Silagra and make love as being a romanticist. This medicine is purchase levitra supposed to be eaten up with the help of extensive research and clinical studies, medical experts have succeeded in inventing effective oral medicines that work by improving the overall blood circulation. Thus, steps should be taken to control body weight, which will improve erectile function. new.castillodeprincesas.com viagra properien In fact, trains might use less energy per passenger mile if you cram 80 people in each rail car. But the cars they chartered can only accommodate 10 to 12 people for an overnight trip. Their trip consumed far more energy and emitted far more greenhouse gases than if they had flown.
Flickr photo by Train Chartering & Private Railcars
As it happens, the Antiplanner once rode the Silver Solarium, the car featured in the article, on an Amtrak trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans. I haven’t taken the time to digitize my photos from that long-ago time, so you’ll have to be satisfied to see how the car looks today. Riding in a dome car, even one without all the luxury frills of a private car, is to me the pinnacle of travel. But that doesn’t make it sustainable.
“Their trip consumed far more energy and emitted far more greenhouse gases than if they had flown.”
JK: Just more planners telling others how to live while doing what they please.
Planner’s Motto: do as I say, not as I do.
Thanks
JK
Lunacy.
That trip was entertainment & obviously not sustainable.
Their emissions are probably equal to a years worth of driving.
I see that those planners are from the Bay Area.
I cannot believe it, there’s huge hypocrisy here.
I hate it & am here kind of by accident.
CNU (aka Communist New Union) is a terrible group, wanting to tell people where & how to live.
Do people realize that new urbanism is old, just re-marketed? There’s a reason those types of layouts were discontinued. So many facets of technology, choices & such, have changed, that so many things which are trying to be emulated, are really obsolete, or just quaint, but not up to the efficiency of modernity. A supermarket is one example, which needs a customer base of 10-30,000 people. Most people don’t want to get their food from the very limited selection of a corner store.
A one-way trip? Are they biking back?
“Of course, these New Urban planners work for the government…”
Doubt it.
I don’t know which individuals are riding the train but I have been to a CNU conference and the lions share of attendees work in the private sector. There are far more architects (who claim they are planners) than government planners at CNU events. I find it interesting that the Antiplanners are so harsh to public sector planners. These people are often objective, inclusive and often don’t/can’t advocate for many planning issues, problems or solutions. Calling the CNU “New Urban planners work for the government,” is a big stretch of the imagination. Plus I don’t know a lot of government employees that can spring for a $1,400 train ticket.
While I agree with many of CNU’s principals, but I understand why people like Scott hate them. While like Scott, they love to point out the problems with development (often blaming the government and planners), they just strongly advocate for solutions that conservatives happen to hate. Plus, guys like Duany refuse to sugar coat anything, which pisses people like Scott off.
p.s. I am not a government planner, but a planner none the less.
“Do people realize that new urbanism is old, just re-marketed? There’s a reason those types of layouts were discontinued. So many facets of technology, choices & such, have changed,”
This is very true. Planning is ever changing. The car, the highway, and new forms of development made old urbanism less attractive. Plus, long ago cities were very dirty and unsafe. So planners and the government (not the free market) came up with the highway system an subrubanism, which solved the problem. But guess what? Just like every other solution before it, this created problems too. This is the part of the equation that the Antiplanners refuse to acknowledge. Suburbia and massive highway expansion has created real, serious and substantive problems. The “transect,” mixed use development, and mass transit is a response to those problems. And yes, these solutions are not perfect and will create other problems down the road. So what are we to do Scott? Nothing? And don’t give me that “just let the market handle it” B.S.
“Planner’s Motto: do as I say, not as I do.”
Antiplanners Motto: F the world don’t ask me for sh*#!
Rail is just not a kind form of transit. Sure it is more relaxed while enroute . But not more pleasant for families with a ton of stuff for long trips, or old people with unique needs ( e.g. a quiet bathroom). It also ignores weather – standing on a train platform in 104 degree Fresno or a 5 degree Buffalo, and then walking in the same conditions for maybe blocks to one’s final destination. Taxi? No, sorry, that is a car.
New Urbanists are fine, even quite innovative at the Building level. The next level up of trying to force a different transportation ethos is where the ideas weaken.
mimizhusband said:
Rail is just not a kind form of transit. Sure it is more relaxed while enroute . But not more pleasant for families with a ton of stuff for long trips, or old people with unique needs ( e.g. a quiet bathroom). It also ignores weather – standing on a train platform in 104 degree Fresno or a 5 degree Buffalo, and then walking in the same conditions for maybe blocks to one’s final destination. Taxi? No, sorry, that is a car.
New Urbanists are fine, even quite innovative at the Building level. The next level up of trying to force a different transportation ethos is where the ideas weaken.
THWM: Though the irony here is that you are trying to dictate how some one else travels, as apose to letting them decide, freedom comes with a price. Also if some one wants to stand on the platform that’s their choice or they can go back inside the station.
This is just pure slander on NU. It’s funny that the more ROT has complained about NU over the years, the stronger it has gotten.
The price includes meals and sleeping accommodations for more than two days, BTW. I’d still fly like most people, though.
Scott: “Do people realize that new urbanism is old, just re-marketed? There’s a reason those types of layouts were discontinued. So many facets of technology, choices & such, have changed, that so many things which are trying to be emulated, are really obsolete, or just quaint, but not up to the efficiency of modernity.”
ws: Discontinued? Scott, maybe you should learn something about the built environment or cities in general, but connected series of streets is not a discontinued layout – every city in the world uses them. Yeah, New York city is kind of expired, you’re right Scott. We should probably level every city.
I forgot, windy cul-de-sac roads that go nowhere are somehow “efficient”. You’re becoming more entertaining than Karlock.
bennet, Many of the first freeways were privately built (as well as other roads & bridges). They were usually referred to as turnpikes.
What are we to do? Raise gas tax $1. Add more highway lanes. Reduce transit subsidy.
Stop new LRT construction & other pork projects which are very cost on the per passenger-mile.
Technological improvements continue on increasing mpg & battery storage.
Initial electricity generation is still a problem; nuclear & coal are fine.
Urban areas should be allowed to grow outward. High density creates more congestion.
It’s a simple math concept: more cars per area.
Overall, in most areas that the government meddles, conditions are made worse.
Government should generally follow the will of the people.
There are still Constitutional limits (which are usually ignored).
Is it fair for the majority to take from or impose on the minority?
That’s been allowed for over a century, due to an amendment which is inconsistent with many principles.
Also, the majority in a city can be against growth (NIMBY, BANANA, etc).
So, these selfish people should not be allowed to push policies against other people.
highman, You are continually mixed up between the mention of drawbacks about transit, and the restriction of freedom.
Bus-stops don’t have buildings to shelter from elements. Many rail stops don’t either. That wouldn’t work very well anyway: all of the passengers exiting the building immediately to board.
ws, In my saying “layout of NU,†that was vague, & I probably had a poor choice of words in being brief. I wasn’t really referring to the “connected series of streets.†Although there are many drawbacks to that, including slower transport. The superblocks (w/ the 1-mile grid) and the hierarchical street pattern is more efficient than each street at about 500’ being equal.
ws, The cul-de-sac is efficient & useful. Your ignorance is showing again. People enjoy privacy & reduced noise in those neighborhoods. Enabling streets of different volume/speed allows variations. Below the top of freeways, are the high-speed, limited access avenues. At the bottom are small, residential streets. Overall, car transportation is greatly improved. Within each superblock, there could be many dead-end residential streets, and still, there would be easy access to drive (or walk) to the main thoroughfare.
At the risk of being too personal, but for the purpose of giving an example of medium density living, I grew up in suburban Chicago, on a ½ acre lot on a cul-de-sac. The neighborhood had an average lot size of 1-acre. Nobody complained about being 1-mile away from the nearest major road or being 1 ½ miles from any store. There was one bus route, 1 mile away, running once/hour. The whole suburb was fairly dense, at 4,000pl/sq.mi. The largest shopping mall in the country (now 5th) was 3 miles away. Most of the suburbs had grid patterns in the old core, but beyond that, none.
Duany does sugarcoat, or rather exaggerates the negatives of sprawl & the positives of NU. For example, he like clear perpendicular corners on roads, to reduce time “from 11 seconds to 6 seconds” (his words) for pedestrians crossing. He seems to avoid the fact that this increase driving time.
He also hates golf course.
Regardless of the sport, that is some beautiful open space.
Scott:Enabling streets of different volume/speed allows variations. Below the top of freeways, are the high-speed, limited access avenues. At the bottom are small, residential streets. Overall, car transportation is greatly improved. Within each superblock, there could be many dead-end residential streets, and still, there would be easy access to drive (or walk) to the main thoroughfare.”
ws:…You can still have streets designed for different traffic volumes with connected street network. Wash. DC is a great example of this with the its boulevards.
Scott:“there could be many dead-end residential streets, and still, there would be easy access to drive (or walk) to the main thoroughfare.”
ws:Yeah it would increase drive time and overburden larger roads.
Scott:ws, The cul-de-sac is efficient & useful. Your ignorance is showing again. People enjoy privacy & reduced noise in those neighborhoods.
ws:Cul-de-sacs are not efficient for automobile traffic – they lengthen the time of driving and overburden arterial roads. Care to post countering data to mine? They also cost more because emergency response times are increased ultimately leading to more public dollars being spent on emergency response infrastructure:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/static/images/pdf/CNUPresentation.pdf
Driveways that lead to a garage are very unsafe:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5455743
“The actual research about injuries and deaths to small children under five is that the main cause of death is being backed over, not being driven over forward,” he says. “And it would be expected that the main people doing the backing over would in fact be family members, usually the parents.”
Scott:“Duany does sugarcoat, or rather exaggerates the negatives of sprawl & the positives of NU. For example, he like clear perpendicular corners on roads, to reduce time “from 11 seconds to 6 seconds†(his words) for pedestrians crossing. He seems to avoid the fact that this increase driving time.”
ws:5 seconds longer is an amazingly long time to be in a street where a vehicle that can kill you is coming straight at you. If we design local streets so cars don’t have to stop while turning and walking is made unsafe, pedestrianism at a neighborhood level is completely ruined.
Designing for pedestrians in mind does not ruin automobile use in neighborhoods, but designing solely for cars completely ruins walking in neighborhoods. So a car slows down to take a turn. What a travesty!
Turnpikes were around a long time before there were expressways.
Golf courses aren’t bad either. http://acspgolf.auduboninternational.org/
I’m surprised some of you haven’t yet said some thing like: “Why do we need sidewalks, we have cars!”
Scott: For example, he like clear perpendicular corners on roads, to reduce time “from 11 seconds to 6 seconds†(his words) for pedestrians crossing. He seems to avoid the fact that this increases driving time. People enjoy privacy & reduced noise in those neighborhoods. Enabling streets of different volume/speed allows variations.
ws, You have contradicted yourself in typing about hierarchical streets (DC) & then saying that major streets would be overburdened. I haven’t looked for studies or data on this. Much is common senses & experience. I live in the downtown core of San Jose (SF is incredibly worse); older cities have more inefficient continuous grids, such as my hometown of Chicago. I hate driving around here because of the grid & stopping every 400’. When I get to the freeway or farther away to main thoroughfares (45 mph, limited access) I can travel much faster. The fact that are feeder roads does not increase time, as you claim. Travel time is greatly reduced with these different road types.
In a uniform grid, you would have about 10 parallel roads per mile, stopping about every 500’. Very inefficient, & usually for density above 7,000. In a superblock, there are major streets every mile (sometimes ½ a mile), with minor streets that feed into those. Some examples are Tucson, Phoenix, OK City. Traffic moves fine & each superblock “inside†is more peaceful.
In crossing a residential street, 5 seconds is not an incredible amount of time. Please attune yourself to reality. It’s not crossing an interstate or even close. We’re talking about a stop sign anyway. Regardless, traffic is low & slow enough in residential areas to cross mid-block. If the street pattern was like you wanted, there would be much more traffic. Also, for major intersections, curved turning lanes are efficient (& w/porkchops). Realize: pedestrians & vehicles take turns, based upon lights.
Cul-de-sacs can increase driving distance by ~1/4 mile (varied, depends), but they enable there to be major roads with faster speeds & fewer stops, which also allows for higher mpg. Cul-de-sacs also allow for more privacy & safety, & less noise.
Scott:“You have contradicted yourself in typing about hierarchical streets (DC) & then saying that major streets would be overburdened.”
ws:No I have not. Your continual misinterpretation of what I say is irritating at best. There’s a difference between hierarchical connected streets and hierarchical dead-end cul-de-sac streets. The first example allows a user (car, pedestrian, biker) to use many different road options (including a main boulevard, arterial), the other example provides limited options and the traffic for a given area is all placed on 1 (or more) main arterials.
Hierarchical connected street grids do not over-saturate main roads because of these distinctions.
Scott:“Cul-de-sacs can increase driving distance by ~1/4 mile (varied, depends), but they enable there to be major roads with faster speeds & fewer stops, which also allows for higher mpg. Cul-de-sacs also allow for more privacy & safety, & less noise.”
ws:Smaller-scale neighborhoods can still be designed to take advantage of an unimpeded arterial road w/ fewer stops. Unfortunately, so many of them are designed where they bifurcate existing or future neighborhoods instead of connecting them.
Scott:“In a uniform grid, you would have about 10 parallel roads per mile, stopping about every 500’.”
ws:An intersection does not always indicate a stop, especially with light priority give to cars on main roads. A light may be present every 500′, but you are not stopping at every light. Furthermore, intersections can be designed to have one side of traffic stop and the other not to stop.
WS, I just stay here for the comedy, with the libertarians freaking out over mass transit, like it was the boogeyman.
It’s scarry and funny at the same, the mind set is the same with people who hate, Obama, because of his skin color or think he’s satan.
“THWM: Though the irony here is that you are trying to dictate how some one else travels, as apose to letting them decide, freedom comes with a price.”
That is not true.
ws, I agree that I misinterpret some of what you say, please forgive me. There are hierarchical grid patterns (w/ fewer levels/gradations), in addition to a grid pattern where every street is equal. However, when off the major road (ie within a superblock), the street configuration can vary & stops every 500’ are inefficient; more flowing streets can be longer, yet faster.
It’s true that every intersection is not necessarily a stop. There’s still a big difference in regular grids w/an average speed of <20mph, compared to major arteries w/ an avg speed of 40mph. Yes, navigating to lower levels of streets might be a little longer in distance, but it saves time. These kinds of areas are auto-centric, so bringing up walking is irrelevant. To walk to places, there are dense areas & the grid usually prevails.
In driving through standard grids vs. areas of 5-6 levels of street hierarchy (dead-ends thru freeway), the grids take longer, except for a super-grid (which is mixed w/many non-grid type roads).
Have you ever driven through Manhattan or SF (the 2 densest US cities) or similar cities? Traffic is terrible & there are not really major thoroughfares. DC might be okay (not familiar), but there are major arterials & diagonals. Theoretically, there could be non-grids & dead-ends between those major streets. However, for a city of that density (~9,000) & with its daytime population more than doubling, DC is not even close to being a candidate for having suburban features.
hman, There is not hatred of transit here. I see 2 foci: expose transit for not fulfilling the promises that many claim; try to reduce the misallocation of resources that favors transit. Face it: transit gets an incredible amount more gov support on a per passenger-mile basis than roads.
BTW. The dislike of BO has nothing to with his color. He is disastrous for the US & has a very leftist, anti-capitalist, anti-US ideology, ant-business, anti-wealth production stance. He is lowering the US defense against adversaries; he is taking away incentive to work; he is rewarding sloth; he is unfairly burdening the future (debt will be 100% of GDP in 2 yrs). I could go on. Read from these experts (they’re all black):
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/archive.shtml
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell?bio=t
http://www.hoover.org/bios/steele.html
prk166 said: “THWM: Though the irony here is that you are trying to dictate how some one else travels, as apose to letting them decide, freedom comes with a price.â€Â
That is not true.
THWM: Then why are most of you so hostile to transit?
You want some thing from society, you are getting it. Then you turn around and want to stop others from having things.
Didn’t Al Gore take a train in Europe while his luggage was driven to his hotel, to receive his award for his movie.
Mayor Adams(Portland Or) is now taking transit and bikeing, now that he got in a auto accident, in his PU truck.
We had a bunch of people come in to Portland a while back, to see and ride our Light Rail. Metro Chartered a Max car and picked up the group, at the airport. They didn’t make any stops, to pick up anyone as they went to their motel. You would not want them to mix with the regular riders. Their Luggage was picked up by a truck and delivered to their motel.
highwayman, You continually ignore the counters to your claims. Your last post is proven ridiculous w/the post right before it.
Selective reading & not acknowledging reality & just making things up does not make validation.
To repeat: there is not hostility to transit or a push for all to drive.
There is opposition to general taxes which pay for <4% of people.
You transit riders have freedom to live near a hub, but you cannot expect transit to lines to be made amongst low [or even medium] density.
Many are trying to force others to ride transit, whereas there is no push for people not to ride transit.
For an urbanized area, consider access to transit (within ~1/3 of a mile), might be available in 5-25% of the area (varies, depends).
So, locate your home there & find a job & shopping, etc., within that area. Cars can reach all destinations, faster.
Scott: To repeat: there is not hostility to transit or a push for all to drive.
There is opposition to general taxes which pay for <4% of people.
THWM: Ok, so you are hostile to transit. I don’t use my city’s library to often, though I don’t want it shut down. I’ve never had to call the fire department, though I don’t want it shut down either.
THWM,
Emergency protection insurance (fire) is needed by all & comes under a very different category than transportation.
Libraries are education for all.
You really need to take advantage of that.
It’s a shame that you neglect education.
Education is available, to all, at no extra charge, for K-12. Why did you drop out?
Thanks for the link (comment #11) to the NPR story on cul de sacs. It reports
“A recent study backs up Kellerman. It showed that buyers will pay 20 percent more for a home on a cul-de-sac.”
Twenty percent of a house price is a huge amount of money. Planners must be very smart to know that cul de sacs are actually less desirable places to live!
So you just want to argue semantics, like O’Toole slaping himself in face over smart growth. What ever floats your groat!
Hi All. I am interested to receive some input or opinion on the following observation. I initially found this site looking for information regarding strategic planning and decision making under conditions of extreme uncertainty. The title “Antiplanner” and subtitle “Dedicated to the Sunset of Government Planning” immediately caught my attention. The subtitle indicates an extremely radical position, and naturally I found this appealing, as radical positions can often provide challenging assumptions, information and argumentation for consideration and research. However, in reading the posts, and looking at the number of postings in various categories- dominated by news commentary and transportation- I do not interpret coherence with the Antiplanner’s subtitled thesis on the elimination of government planning. In fact, the impression I am receiving is the majority of the articles and information are in direct contradiction with the stated goal. An extremely radical position is being argued to maintain the status quo!
It is obvious government planning, at the federal, state and municipal levels has played a role in the development of the current built environment, including, and perhaps as an exemplar- the transportation system. The current state is an outcome which includes governmentally planned and executed activities. These activities have biased the trajectory of the system. Yet most of the articles and posts seem to, instead of offering either theoretical or empirical information on the difficulties or impossibility of effective planning, are staunchly defending the current state of the system, and against any attempt at altering the already biased trajectory. It would seem to provide argument against government planning, more information needs to be provided on the deficiencies of and how the current built environment has been shaped by government policy. The great extent to which government policy has and continues to effect and essentially determine the structure of the built environment can be demonstrated by very simple experiments and empirical observation through direct experience. For example, find a lot for sale in a subdivision and offer to buy the lot so you can, with your own effort, build a cob house on it and indicate you are going to commute on the local arterial by llama. Or, go to the city planning department and say you want to buy a large piece of land with a community of others and build mud homes without roads, parking or garages. Indicate a doctor will be on site and the homes will not be flammable so no emergency services are needed. Or try to get a building permit because your neighbor has agreed and you want to live in a small tree house in her front yard. Try to build a small home for your elderly mother with a full kitchen in your backyard or on the side of your “private property”. Offer to buy an existing large suburban house because you want to divide it into a number of smaller apartments to rent them out to extended family members. Buy a large suburban home and try to turn it into a school for troubled children. Convert your front yard into a community vegetable garden, or try to sell the produce from a stand on your driveway. Try to get a permit to build a clock tower on your house so morning commuters will know the time in your city’s planned CBD, which, due to government planning, may be in another time zone. Try to move in with more than three unrelated people into a large old downtown Victorian in a university town. Offer to your employer, since your office building has a cafeteria, showers, fitness center, and your own office space, to let you live at your place of work for a reduced salary. Since one can receive a tax deduction for buying a hybrid car, request an equivalent or larger deduction for not owning a car or joining a car sharing service. In most cities, most or all such efforts will be denied or thwarted by a vast maze of government rules and regulations.
The urban form frequently defended on this site is a direct result of government planning. One cannot exalt the purported optimality of this form as a method to criticize government planning. Logically one is making the opposite argument, unless one can prove the FHA, VA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Highway Administration and the state and municipal planning departments with their associated permits, laws and codes, despite the significant monetary, material and information flows have had no impact on the current state of the built environment.
Statistics indicating 85% of commuters drive cars, or that the vast majority (what is the approximate number, 75%?) live in suburbs are presented as an indication these systems are representative of a functioning free market or a system maximizing individual choice. Logically, what this posits is taking a vast domain of variation in culture and individual personalities, experience, income, knowledge and preferences can be input into a function that outputs a relative constant. This is exactly the opposite effect of what one would expect from a function representing either a truly functioning free market or an actual expression of the total variation of individual preferences. Anytime a virtual monopoly is developing in either land use or transportation choice, one can typically point to government interference, usually under the influence of individuals, companies or other organizations attempting to gain control of the market through promoting restrictive legislation, as the suggested experiments above can easily reveal.
Any input or opinions or criticism is welcomed. But please be polite! I am not offering these arguments because I necessarily believe them, but I would like to try and reveal some of the underlying theory behind the discussion of the Antiplanner’s various data points and how these points are apparently supportive of the argument to sunset government planning.
“THWM: Then why are most of you so hostile to transit?
You want some thing from society, you are getting it. Then you turn around and want to stop others from having things.”
So when you were a young strapping lad and a chica wouldn’t hit the sack with you she was a lesbian and hated sex, eh?
See, it’s not racist if BLACK writers criticise the president too.
Though it is slightly marginalizing to claim the president is ANTI-US. Nevermind that whole pesky issue of having an overwhelming number of US citizens voting for him and subsequently agreeing with his policy. Damn evidence.
Borealis: “Twenty percent of a house price is a huge amount of money. Planners must be very smart to know that cul de sacs are actually less desirable places to live!”
ws: Of course they sell for more, however, they put a burden on an entire municipalities’ transportation and emergency services. The same people who like their cul-de-sacs and closed off neighborhood streets are going to be the same people who don’t want to pay for traffic mitigation of an over saturated arterial road. Go figure.
I could also point to the nice homes in a traditional neighborhood (in Portland) that are smaller, have fewer amenities, need major repairs, etc. and are selling 20% higher than most homes in the suburbs with cul-de-sacs. So, it’s all relative.
You could also design small cul-de-sacs on major roads, if that is preferable. That is a much different typology than the typical cul-de-sac road that is very long. I had a picture somewhere…
rob: “In fact, the impression I am receiving is the majority of the articles and information are in direct contradiction with the stated goal. An extremely radical position is being argued to maintain the status quo!”
ws:Yeah, he’s a free-market impostor:
http://marketurbanism.com/category/free-market-impostors/
rob:“Statistics indicating 85% of commuters drive cars, or that the vast majority (what is the approximate number, 75%?) live in suburbs are presented as an indication these systems are representative of a functioning free market or a system maximizing individual choice.”
ws:It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, really. If we put that huge parking lot in front of every development and make every walk (or bike ride) 500 more feet than if it had a smaller parking lot, of course people are going to only drive because walking has become entirely burdensome. If not burdensome then completely unsafe, or uninviting, etc., etc.
And I happen to agree that a lot of government planning is not appropriate and often ends terribly. Planning for everything in a city is nearly impossible. In that regards, I do agree with the “sunset” of some planning practices. But, I won’t defend the anti free market, autotopia moonscape colloquially known as suburbia. The only defenders of that are the impostors.
Getting rid of dead-ends is just another way of how some people tell you where & how to live, & to worsen your living conditions. Street efficiency is higher & faster with 5-6 levels of hierarchy. Grids can only have about 2-3. Connectivity is a minor point for overall efficiency.
rob, Some thoughtful observations. Zoning isn’t mentioned much here. It’s true that zoning can be said to restrict freedom in not allowing certain things. Zoning, mainly via separation of uses, does protect individual freedom from being infringed upon, mainly residential areas protected from interference by other uses. Noise & odor are 2 main items, such as prevention of industrial uses near homes; preventing extra traffic is another item. Zoning often goes overboard with 20+ types, & even within each type, there are many requirements.
The biggest problem that I see in zoning is preventing any type of building, which is a clear violation of eminent domain. Many property owners cannot build (or sell to a builder), because zoning maintains certain land as a farm or nothing (open space).
prk166, Good notice on the potential reason for highman’s faulty reasoning: when rejected by a woman, he labels her a lesbian. The point is that just because a person doesn’t favor or use something (transit) does mean hostility. Highamn, you have many bad ideas. That doesn’t mean that people hate you. But then again.
tg, I suppose that you agree with all of the other negative qualities of BO’s ideology, other than the his anti-US stance. Well, for that, you need to pay more attention. I can give you plenty of examples, but that would take plenty of space & time. His recent speech in Cairo showed thatâ€â€how he apologized for the US (including untrue things), and came out as being very pro-Islam (& anti-Jew). Obviously, not all Muslims are terrorists, but all [recent] terrorists are Muslim. The fact that a majority voted for BO is not evidence. BTW, Carter was more popular in his first 3 months. Many people voted for BO, to prove themselves as not being racist. A white with BO’s ideology could never have gotten past the primaries. There are many in the US who hate part of the system. Bush didn’t help & he actually did not support the free market; gov spending & regs increased greatly under him.
ws, This burden of dead-ends is exaggerated. What the hell is an extra ¼ mile gonna do? It actually allows for faster travel on major streets. Arterial streets might occur every mile or somewhat less. How do deadens saturate them? You could instead have connected-grid streets between the arterial streets. That won’t change the amount of traffic feeding onto the artery. Higher density is what saturates major streets. People often forget that car use has gone up considerably since the time that many streets were laid out (30-60+ years ago).
ws, You are mixing up cause & effect. People freely choose cars & move away from transit. That’s been happening for a century. Please pay attention. Parking capacity is needed to accommodate how people move. If you want high density with walkability & high transit use, then you have a choice of 6-10 core cities to live in, with of few of their close suburbs (esp in NJ). Suburbs grew out with low density in favor of the car; if you don’t like, then don’t live/visit there.
Scott:“Getting rid of dead-ends is just another way of how some people tell you where & how to live, & to worsen your living conditions. Street efficiency is higher & faster with 5-6 levels of hierarchy. Grids can only have about 2-3. Connectivity is a minor point for overall efficiency.”
ws:I’ve already stated the case that this type of land-use burdens all of the city and not just the individuals of it. In a libertarian spirit, this is wrong.
Scott:“ws, You are mixing up cause & effect. People freely choose cars & move away from transit. That’s been happening for a century. Please pay attention. Parking capacity is needed to accommodate how people move. If you want high density with walkability & high transit use, then you have a choice of 6-10 core cities to live in, with of few of their close suburbs (esp in NJ). Suburbs grew out with low density in favor of the car; if you don’t like, then don’t live/visit there.”
ws:The environmental impacts, energy use and thinning of municipal services of sprawl are too great for me not to be concerned. The market infractions of low-density sprawl is simply too great for me to avoid it all by living “somewhere else”, as you point out.
By in large, better living conditions of the city and inner suburbs will be enhanced by further investment and population growth of the city’s core. A city cannot compete well with an unfair market.
Scott:“Higher density is what saturates major streets. People often forget that car use has gone up considerably since the time that many streets were laid out (30-60+ years ago).”
ws:Sure, it can, but that does not take away from the fact that inefficient sprawl creates congestion too.
Scott: The point is that just because a person doesn’t favor or use something (transit) does mean hostility.
THWM: You might not like a particular flavor of ice cream, which is fine.
Though if you want to prevent other people from even having that flavor of ice cream to begin with, then that’s hostile.
What gives you the idea that I’m trying to prevent you from licking whatever you want or riding whatever you want?
How are you mixing up government’s main role in prevention of harm & the unfair redistribution of wealth (ie general taxes paying for <4%)?
You can have your flavor, but it’s only offered in certain places (according to demand).
People want more highways about everywhere.
Are you trying to prevent more lane-miles?
Hi Scott. You again have good points regarding the maximization of freedom, but be prudent with the brief argumentation and the logical implications of statements. If we accept the government’s main role as the prevention of harm, a necessary conclusion is the US government has the obligation to eliminate the use of automobiles, conclusively supported by the approximate 40K+ deaths and 250K+ injuries which occur each year. The number one cause of death between ages 0-44 in the US is automobiles (http://www.disastercenter.com/cdc/). Automobile manufacturers, after almost 100 years of production have not yet reached a technological level where they can produce a product which can keep its occupants unharmed within the force envelope automobiles can produce. Until such time, and with acceptance of the primary role of government in the prevention of harm, the government has both the right and obligation to ban the use of automobiles with both philosophical and empirical support.
Also, as I pointed out in a post on another topic, regarding individual freedom there exists a fundamental asymmetry in human constructed environments designed around the individual (the level of concern to maximize individual freedom) and those designed to allow mobility of large machinery. The environment designed around basic human physiological capabilities, the human scale environment, does not necessarily limit the mobility of any individual. The environment designed in regard to maximizing mobility of large machinery, which requires the spatial expansion and dissection of the human scale environment, only benefits the owners and operators of such machinery, while negatively impacting or destroying mobility of individuals not choosing or incapable of owning or operating such machinery. From the first principles approach of maximizing individual freedom of mobility, a pedestrian human scale environment is necessarily derived. In principle, any mobility enhancing technology must conform to and not disrupt the human scale environment. Those who argue for more highways and lanes are attempting to reduce their own travel times at the expense of the fundamental mobility of children, the elderly and the handicapped and expanding the necessity for all to conform to a system resulting in tremendous levels of death and injury.
Rob: If we accept the government’s main role as the prevention of harm, a necessary conclusion is the US government has the obligation to eliminate the use of automobiles, conclusively supported by the approximate 40K+ deaths and 250K+ injuries which occur each year.
JK: Right after they close down all light rail lines because light rail kills at twice the rate of automobiles.
Of course we must also enforce dietary standards.
And exercise.
And a bunch of other Naziesque crap.
Thanks
JK
Hey Rob,
Death by cars is an accident. The government prevention of harm to a person is mainly under the guise of stopping a person from initiating force on another.
Reducing accidents comes under the category of safety, which is another issue.
Do you have difficulty distinguishing between the two?
This claim of gov stopping anything where a death occurs is a non-constructive, smart-ass, sarcastic attempt to obfuscate the issue. If your logic was to be used, than nothing would be allowed, since deaths occur from many actions.
Rob is right, there is a great irony involved here.
You guys just hate transit, that’s it & that’s all.
Hi Scott and Jim. Read Scott’s post again, he did not indicate the government’s main role in the prevention of harm was distinguished from the concept of safety, or related specifically to preventing one person from initiating force on another. How is this information expected to be derived from the sentence in the post? There is no qualification or condition placed on the statement. I gave a logical argument derived from this statement. I do not agree with the statement, and gave the argument as an incentive to be prudent about making such broad statements without qualification.
Hi Highwayman. There does appear to be a substantial contradiction here regarding opposition to government planning while trying to advance the system resultant from it. But I hold to the assumption Scott and Jim do not just hate transit. They seem philosophically opposed to certain methods of financing construction and operation of such systems. If you disagree, try to explain in detail why you disagree, what are the arguments which support the advancement of public transit? This is obviously a broad and fairly controversial, at least in the US (which is an interesting topic in itself), topic and there are perhaps many and varied arguments supporting public transit, even highly subsidized transit. Although ultimately you may just disagree from a fundamental value position, and in this regard your views and Scott’s and or Jim’s may be incommensurable, and you will likely not be able to have constructive discussion with them.
I have made several posts over the last week, and in this activity I have come to the conclusion the blogging format is not entirely conducive to enabling efficient discussion. The manner in which comments are interspersed creates a difficulty in following the argumentation, with several conversations often occurring simultaneously, and frequently only a few sentences in comments and responses (compared to a technology like the telephone, the bit rate is terrible!). But I do enjoy reading the articles and posts. Keep up the discussion, but please remain amiable and do not resort to the pejorative or the profane. There is no more effective education than to be challenged by values, information and analysis which contradict our own (but that can be debated).
Hey Rob, It is true that the premise of government’s main purpose being the “protection of individuals by preventing harm from others initiating force†(re-worded to be more specific from my original postulate) can be expanded into many areas. Preventing accidents & such can be easily construed from preventing harm. Prohibiting almost all actions & activities where injury can occur is a big step beyond the intent.
Of course, gov laws, programs & such go way beyond the primary purpose of protection. Many “secondary†functions (no clear definition on those) are agreed upon by the majority, such as schools, libraries, parks, museums (the amount of money is often debated). Then there are many tertiary objecitves & beyond which are disputed. Discussions here continually go down tangential paths.
The main focus of this site is urban “stuff†& even within that, we are clearly past the point of this thread. I won’t further explore the scope of “police powers.†For this current broad point, I’ll close with this: Government spending (all levels) is now over 40% of GDP (it was roughly 33% around 2003). How much gov do we need/want? Are people willing to pay? How fair is it to make others pay? Keep in mind that gov spending takes from private. Look at the current Federal deficit ($1.7 tril), which is 12% of GDP, helpful? It takes from the private sector.
In regards to public transit, it is true that some people misinterpret the resistance to the forced financing from general taxes, for the benefit of very few, to be against transit wholly. Those same people, usually ignore the fact that roads benefit all (ie deliveries, goods transport, visitors), & are directly used by about 85% of adults [as drivers], & are over ¾ paid for by user-fees (mainly gas taxes), which could be raised (~$0.40/gallon) to be 100% user-financed. There are many reasons that transit ridership has gone from ~90% to <4% in a century.
Yes, the discussions are haphazard in several going on within one thread, and some posters bring in non-sequiturs, w/no relevance.
Scott said: Of course, gov laws, programs & such go way beyond the primary purpose of protection. Many “secondary†functions (no clear definition on those) are agreed upon by the majority, such as schools, libraries, parks, museums (the amount of money is often debated). Then there are many tertiary objecitves & beyond which are disputed. Discussions here continually go down tangential paths.
THWM: Mass transit, isn’t any different civic function wise than schools, libraries, parks or museums.
Then there’s also the USPS that goes back to Ben Franklin’s time.
Scott:In regards to public transit, it is true that some people misinterpret the resistance to the forced financing from general taxes, for the benefit of very few, to be against transit wholly. Those same people, usually ignore the fact that roads benefit all (ie deliveries, goods transport, visitors), & are directly used by about 85% of adults [as drivers], & are over ¾ paid for by user-fees (mainly gas taxes), which could be raised (~$0.40/gallon) to be 100% user-financed. There are many reasons that transit ridership has gone from ~90% to <4% in a century.
THWM: That’s bullshit. Roads have been around longer than cars.
Limited access highways only make up 2% of all roads in the US.
The other 98% of roads in the US are paid for by property taxes.
TWHM, Rail is a lot different than libraries, parks, museums & postal.
I don’t think that your fig of highways being 2% of roads is correct; you might be referring to interstates. Although, the amount of passenger-miles on highways is well over half. Prop taxes pay for local roads, so what? Local roads benefit all, whereas transit <4%.
What’s BS? A blanket statement has no meaning. Please point out any errors that you perceive.
What do some roads being over a century old have to w/anything?
You have no point, again. Before cars, they were dirt roads.
I think you’re trying to say that roads had other uses before cars.
Would you like to use horses instead?
I would guess that over 90% of roads have been made since the advent of cars.
Scott:“TWHM, Rail is a lot different than libraries, parks, museums & postal.”
ws: Transit isn’t a public service?
Transit is a public service.
It used to be mostly private, until alternatives were more affordable.
All public services are not equal.
There are big difs between transit & the above mentioned.
Transit is more of a private good which is publicly provided.
The USPS is basically a private service, paid by postage.
Education & nature are far different purposes than transportation.
Scott said:
Transit is a public service.
It used to be mostly private, until alternatives were more affordable.
All public services are not equal.
THWM: The government pumped A LOT of money into roads.
Scott:There are big difs between transit & the above mentioned.
Transit is more of a private good which is publicly provided.
THWM: Cars are private goods benefiting from publicly provided infrastructutre.
The USPS is basically a private service, paid by postage.
Education & nature are far different purposes than transportation.
THWM: There’s UPS & FedEx for that matter.