A new brief from the Brookings Institution says American cities should “expand transit and compact development options” in order to reduce their “carbon footprints.” The brief is based on a study, but frankly, I don’t think the study supports the conclusions.
The study compared per-capita carbon emissions from transit systems with a crude estimate of carbon emissions from driving. But it failed to note that per passenger mile carbon emissions from transit tend to be more than from driving. The study also looked at residential carbon emissions, but not emissions from other sources. The study used so many shortcuts — for example, estimating carbon emissions based on miles driven rather than using actual fuel consumption data — that it is likely rife with errors.
McKinsey, the famous consulting firm, recently published a much more responsible study. McKinsey looked at more than 250 different ways to reduce carbon emissions and concluded that the U.S. in 2030 can produce significantly less greenhouse gas emissions than it does today if it focuses on strategies that reduce emissions at a cost of less than $50 per ton of CO2 equivalent. The main transportation strategy that meets this test, McKinsey said, is building lighter, more fuel-efficient cars. Hybrid cars, McKinsey estimates, would actually cost close to $100 per ton.
Based on data from various sources, I estimated the cost per ton of CO2 abatement from other transportation improvements. Traffic signal coordination can reduce CO2 (and save people’s time) at a cost of about $11 per ton. But transit improvements will cost far more than $50 a ton.
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Most Diesel buses emit far more CO2 per passenger mile than autos. Only commuter bus lines that carry an average of more than 20 or so riders do better than the average passenger car, and only those few lines that carry more than an average of 25 to 30 people approach the emissions of the most fuel-efficient cars on the road.
Converting Diesel to biodiesel or hybrid buses can save some emissions, but it is expensive. Converting to biodiesel is nearly $200 per ton. Hybrid buses are more than $1,000 a ton.
When you count the carbon footprint from building rail transit, rails will almost always lose, especially in regions where fossil fuels are used to generate most of the electricity. The Minneapolis light rail is one of the more successful light-rail lines in the country (which isn’t saying much). It actually reduced carbon emissions, but at a cost of nearly $5,000 per ton — not counting the carbon emitted during construction. If that was counted, the cost would be much more.
Even in regions that rely on hydro and other “renewable” energy for electricity, rail transit loses when you count both the construction cost and the carbon emissions from the feeder bus systems needed to support the rail lines. As I’ve previously documented, many transit systems end up consuming more energy and emitting more greenhouse gases after they open new rail lines because of extensive, but little-used, feeder bus networks.
Brookings also recommends more compact development. I haven’t crunched any numbers yet, but Wendell Cox estimates that reducing greenhouse gas emissions through compact development costs on the order of $50,000 per ton.
Any study that recommends ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without estimating the cost of those reductions is inadequate and its proposals are probably pretty wasteful. The Brookings report falls in this category.
JK: The Green idiots and planners love to ignore costs of their plans for the rest of us.
Thanks
JK
I didn’t realize that Antiplanners even cared about reducing greenhouse gases.
“I didn’t realize that Antiplanners even cared about reducing greenhouse gases.”
They don’t. They’re just excited about data that might proove planners wrong.
I didn’t realize that D4P cared about greenhouse gases. I’ve been under the impression that what he really cares about is government controlling the behavior of free people – kind of a fetish of sorts.
Greenhouse gases are just a convenient excuse to mask the real motive.
what he really cares about is government controlling the behavior of free people
I guess I can assume you oppose all laws, including those relating to rape, murder, property rights, etc.
Do you prefer some kind of vigilante system?
On May 30th, 2008, bennett said:
“They don’t. They’re just excited about data that might proove planners wrong.”
So, existing data that disproves planners falls under emotive, and data that supports an idealistic change of human nature through the forced imposition of lifestyle defined by individuals who are self-proclaimed experts on how the world should live based on some projection of a positive result that might occur if and when this transformation might occur, does not. Interesting.
“Greenhouse gases are just a convenient excuse to mask the real motive.”
Maybe you’re right. But greenhouse gases are still a serious issue, and somehow I don’t think the Antiplanner solution (building more highways and buying more fuel efficient cars) is going to solve anything.
“So, existing data that disproves planners falls under emotive, and data that supports an idealistic change of human nature through the forced imposition of lifestyle defined by individuals who are self-proclaimed experts on how the world should live based on some projection of a positive result that might occur if and when this transformation might occur, does not. Interesting.”
Touché. It goes both ways for sure. I still wonder however, are the Antiplanners out there, truly concerned about nasty emissions and their effect on us all. If so, they have to have something better the buying more efficient cars, don’t they. I’m all ears.
Read ‘Cool It – The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming’ by Bjorn Lomborg to get an intelligent discuttion of global warming and how we should respond.
If you look at the report’s summary of 100 cities and the map showing the quintiles for per capita carbon emissions, you will quickly notice that the policy recommendations do not follow from the report’s findings. For example, a number of cities in the top 20 have no rail transit, many of them have low-density, “sprawling” urban structures, and many of the highest emitting cities are in the denser, eastern parts of the U.S.
The first couple of conclusions to be drawn are that 1) the source of fuel for electricity generation matters greatly, and 2) climate also matters greatly. Both of these conclusions help explain the fact that many southern and western cities are among the quintile of lowest emitters. In particular, Pacific coast cities are aided by a combination of hydroelectric and other low-carbon fuel sources and, in the case of California, exceptionally high electricity prices.
Randal,
Do you have a paper in which you explain the calculations and data sources used in the carbon abatement cost estimates? If not, could you provide that information here?
“I didn’t realize that Antiplanners even cared about reducing greenhouse gases.” — D4P
I’m not surprised to hear that from you considering how hell bent you are on painting “anti-planners” with a broad brush that only uses paints you’ve chosen.
“how hell bent you are on painting “anti-planners†with a broad brush that only uses paints you’ve chosen.”
Speaking of going both ways…
But it failed to note that per passenger mile carbon emissions from transit tend to be more than from driving.
And The Antiplanner continues to fail to note the increasingly tall stack of studies showing the leverage effect of transit in reducing automobile usage, let alone the fewer miles driven in denser areas even without rail transit.
It appears a study is valid in The Antiplanner’s eyes if the results support his viewpoint, but a study isn’t valid if it contradicts that viewpoint.
The study compared per-capita carbon emissions from transit systems with a crude estimate of carbon emissions from driving. But it failed to note that per passenger mile carbon emissions from transit tend to be more than from driving.
You’ve trotted out this tired trope a few times, and it’s a shame that no one has pointed out the failed logic. The reason for measuring per capita carbon emissions is because the environment doesn’t care how far you travel, and frankly, neither do people. In the suburbs, it takes a much longer to get somewhere, so you have to drive more miles. In a city, because of increased density (which of course the Antiplanner always equates with mandatory density, rather than recognizing that they’re merely allowing people to build densely on property that they own), it doesn’t take as many miles to get somewhere. There is no added utility in driving to a supermarket that’s 40 miles away rather than taking the train four miles away. So, even if the train pollutes twice as much per passenger mile as the car, it’s going to pollute less overall.
I’ve mentioned this before, but the Antiplanner has never responded, and continues to use the “per passenger mile” metric (be it with cost or carbon output), when a far more relevant measurement would be “per capita” or “per trip.”
I can’t seem to find it now, but I thought I showed – like Randal’s fudging of the Houston VMT earlier this week – that Randal fudged the fleet mileage some time back by omitting SUVs in order to make fleet mileage comparable to transit.
Nonetheless, I do appreciate Randal pointing out that GHG reduction is important, and this paper – written by authors including Socolow and Pacala – notes that abatement strategies are not going to break the bank. I also note that the report stresses behavioral changes such as changing driving habits (pg xvii) as a potential strategy for abatement (but not explored in the report (Shell is contributor, perhaps?).
DS
I think what bothers a lot of the Antiplanner’s critics is they don’t like being challenged on their environmental purity. Or rather, they like to think they’ve cornered the market on care for the environment. It’s a nice cozy narrative – us versus all the bad people who deliberately want to destroy Mother Earth. The cozy narrative becomes snuggly fresh when you convince yourself that the solutions are as easy as fingering the bad guys – government programs headed by brilliant planners!
And because it’s such a neat and tidy storyline, anyone who doesn’t accept the infallible logic of D4P, Dan, MSetty et al must truly be bad, bad people . . . which, of course, reinforces the narrative.
That’s certainly more comforting that acknowledging that A) they may be wrong and/or B) someone with an economics outlook rather than a political one might do a better job at identifying efficiencies than command-and-control wannabes.
The reason for measuring per capita carbon emissions is because the environment doesn’t care how far you travel, and frankly, neither do people.
We see this point illustrated here, where the sprawling west has a much higher per capita emission profile, in part due to higher VMT and prevalence of less-efficient SFD housing. A very cool YouTube of the carbon emissions here.
DS
Economics outlook:
Energy consumers typically don’t pay the full cost of their consumption, which should (but typically doesn’t) include costs associated with pollution, climate change, etc.. As a result, the actual level of energy consumption exceeds the socially-optimal level.
The same can be said for consumers of construction, which uses energy, pollutes, fills wetlands, removes trees, etc.
Antiplanners appear to believe that individuals should be “free” to impose these costs at will on other organisms.
Close:
your argumentation is based on a false premise: that Randal’s proclamations are true (or that they approximate being true). That, or you wish to believe what he says because it’s easier.
See, what Randal failed to tell you about the report he likes so much is that efficiency gains in the POV fleet – that he is implying to you will be better than transit – will not do anything because
Not a problem, though. See, most of society is starting the debating about how to actually do something. Only a small minority are still arguing about who picks what nit.
No one wants to take away your pwecious car or steal your snout-house in the McSuburb. Society is talking about alternatives that allow greater choice. I
f offering more choices scares you, that’s your problem, not society’s.
Oops. Last para should read:
No one wants to take away your pwecious car or steal your snout-house in the McSuburb. Society is talking about alternatives that allow greater choice. If offering more choices scares you, that’s your problem, not society’s. You’ll simply likely pay more for your choice if its not efficient.
DS
Why doesn’t the Antiplanner consider walking/biking/etc. in his analysis?
“No one wants to take away your pwecious car or steal your snout-house in the McSuburb. Society is talking about alternatives that allow greater choice. If offering more choices scares you, that’s your problem, not society’s. You’ll simply likely pay more for your choice if its not efficient.”
Reminds me of when my mom used to tell me I’m really not a bad kid, I’m just grounded for 2 weeks.
“So, even if the train pollutes twice as much per passenger mile as the car, it’s going to pollute less overall.”
I don’t think you’re thinking this all the way through. Yes, at this point in time with barely any trains serving any place, they pollute less overall. But what happens if every major metro goes out and builds 10,20, 30 new rail lines over the next 20 years? What would the OVERALL level of pollution be? It’s like Andre the Giant’s 7 year old kid taunting his dad, Andre the Giant, that he eats less food. If you think you’re not eating a lot now kid, just wait 20 years when you’re 8′ and then we’ll see.
I don’t think you’re thinking this all the way through. Yes, at this point in time with barely any trains serving any place, they pollute less overall. But what happens if every major metro goes out and builds 10,20, 30 new rail lines over the next 20 years?
Given that per capita emissions (and the “capita,” I assume, doesn’t mean everybody, but rather just those who use the trains) are lower, a shift from road to rail would mean lower emissions. Can you explain why you think the overall emissions would be higher? Because I don’t really get it…
Most Diesel buses emit far more CO2 per passenger mile than autos. Only commuter bus lines that carry an average of more than 20 or so riders do better than the average passenger car, and only those few lines that carry more than an average of 25 to 30 people approach the emissions of the most fuel-efficient cars on the road.
Another example of the Antiplanner only opposing certain plans. The reason that mass transit carries so few people is because of the relatively low density of the areas they serve. This is because of municipal plans (in the form of zoning and land use regulations). The Antiplanner, though, is not interested in opposing these plans. And when he does, as was the case with the articles about Houston and its absence of formal zoning, he is sloppy and fails to mention all of the ways that places like Houston actually do plan. Actually, that’s not entirely true – he mentions it, but makes no attempt to quantify or figure out which effect is more prominent – the anti-planning regulations, or the pro-planning regulations – and how it actually affects development in the region. He makes no attempt to survey developers and see what they view as the most onerous restrictions, instead just deciding that the anti-planning regulations outweigh the planning regulations, with no real rigorous methods employed.
Good point, r, about pointing out:
only those few lines that carry more than an average of 25 to 30 people approach the emissions of the most fuel-efficient cars on the road.
Right, as I said above, Randal fudges the numbers about the entire fleet, omitting entire fleet mileage. And as I also stated above, he omitted the fact that increasing fuel efficiency in the future, using BAU, will be negated by the increase in VMT.
So Randal must cherry-pick to make his point.
During peak times, also, many rail cars are full (see any recent news story for a citation), making them much more efficient than cars sitting in traffic, inefficiently stopping-and-going. And that mile on the train title=”section 4.4″translates to 1.4-9 fewer miles in a car in the Bay Area (that would be a ‘behavior change’ that Socolow and Pacala talk about).
And under Randal’s scheme, everyone must be mobile by car, including the under 16 and over 70 set, few of whom drive. This limits these groups’ freedom.
I guess its ‘less freedom for thee but not for me’ solutioning, eh?
———-
Lastly, this passage from a paper that compares Randal’s faulty number fudging to actual things on the ground is relevant to a couple of other threads this week that contained faulty reasoning as well:
DS
When it comes to reducing total oil consumption (that is CO2 emmissions), this entire discussion seems like a mute point, a pipe dream…
The fact that so many users are lining up to buy oil at $125/berell is indicative of a demand that will be impossible to curtail by behavior modification. It is confirmation of a situation where all the oil extracted from the earth anywhere on the globe WILL be burned somewhere, somehow by somebody.
Therefore, to the extent that behavior modification regulation manages to reduce oil consumption in certain areas (i.e. urban motorists) the oil saved will be immediately picked up by the next most useful use.
Barring technological breakthroughs, attempts to curtail oil consumption by behavior modification alone seem futile. What behavior modification can possibly succeed in making the 2/3rds of the world population that currently uses per capita 1/10 of the oil the western world uses, to accept a future where they consume even less? Seems like trying to kill Godzilla with a knife.
The day that oil producing nations say “Geez!, we’d better stop extracting oil from the earth, nobody seems to want it anymore anywhere in the world, apparently it has no more uses as a fuel†are a long ways away, and if that day ever comes, it will be certainly because of some technological breakthrough, not regulation aimed at behavior modification.
Oh, look:
the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials say that we should:
o Reduce oil consumption 20 percent in 10 years.
o Double the fuel efficiency of passenger cars and light trucks.
o Double transit ridership by 2030.
o Increase the percentage of those who car pool, walk, bike, or work at home.
The State Highway Transportation Officials say we should double transit ridership to help cut carbon emissions.
Huh.
DS
“Another example of the Antiplanner only opposing certain plans. The reason that mass transit carries so few people is because of the relatively low density of the areas they serve. This is because of municipal plans (in the form of zoning and land use regulations).”
Exactly! Every one I know can’t stop bitching about having a back yard and having to deal with the noise pollution from their neighbors leaf blower. When I tell them the stories about waking up in the middle of the night to hear :
a) gun shots
b) drunken neighbors geting off the elevator
c) a cabbie on the street honking their horn not for an emergency but to let their passenger know they’ve arrived
d) people puking on my elevator
e) not having a washer and dryer in my place
f) the pain of finding a parking spot at night
g) the people at the yoga studio who keep parking in our lot
h) et al.
…when I tell them of these things they just gush “god damn it, I miss living in dense neighborhoods! I wouldn’t have chosen to live in Suburbia Park had I not realized that I’d get more living space, modernly designed living space, quiet neightbors, have a yard bigger than a thymbol, better schools and all sorts of other annoying things for 2/3 the price of what I’d have to spend to live in the city. It really sucks.”
please excuse me while I attempt to pry my tongue from my cheek.
Bennet: “Touché. It goes both ways for sure. I still wonder however, are the Antiplanners out there, truly concerned about nasty emissions and their effect on us all. If so, they have to have something better the buying more efficient cars, don’t they. I’m all ears.”
If more fuel efficient cars do the best job why do they have to be taken off the table? If a new technology were invented that allowed for cars that used no resources and created no pollution (technology was not available for mass transit) would you still put your hands over your ears when discussing that solution?
@prk166:
Of course there are benefits to living in the suburbs, but if it were really what people wanted, zoning regulations wouldn’t be necessary to give them it – that’s the beauty of supply and demand. However, the reality is that people live in the suburbs not because that’s what the market decided, but because that’s what the regulations require. The vast majority of developers in every region of the country believe that zoning and regulations are a very significant impediments to non-low density building (Zoned Out by Jonathan Levine for that little tidbit). If you want to argue that people don’t realize what they want and the government needs to plan their consumption, then alright, but I think you should come out and say that, and affirm that you are not an antiplanner. (I know you’re not the Antiplanner, but I’d like to think that everyone here understands the virtue of the free market.)
“If more fuel efficient cars do the best job why do they have to be taken off the table?”
1. The don’t do the best job. See Dan #26.
2. Let me clarify. I don’t think they should be taken off the table. I think fuel efficient cars are great, espicially if you trying to save $$$ at the pump. The A.P’s are claiming that it is “THE” answer. That is what I take off the table. It is a small part of a solution, not “THE” solution.
“If a new technology were invented that allowed for cars that used no resources and created no pollution (technology was not available for mass transit) would you still put your hands over your ears when discussing that solution?”
NO. But that’s a stupid question.
After reading about all this constant whining over transit. I’m surprised Mr.O’Toole isn’t busy trying to reestablish “Jim Crow” laws in the USA.
“the reality is that people live in the suburbs not because that’s what the market decided, but because that’s what the regulations require.â€Â
What a total freaking moonbat statement. Where are the regs requiring people to decamp from the sustainable urban core? I must have been stuck on the train while the forced exodus to Suburbia Park was covered in urban history class.
And those AASHTO goals Slobbering Dan posted do not include a reduction in the amount of personal auto travel. Add a hundred million people and communal transit ridership could sure double (to what, 12 riders…?). Petroleum use as motor fuel could easily drop 20% while miles driven increase (exponentially), with any significant advance in energy storage technology.
If we have to pretend that “Carbon Footprints†matter, then internalize the externality and let people choose. Ham-fisted attempts at mandates fail. And make educated people look like morons. Y’all are on some crusade against motorists…it ain’t the driving that allegedly warms the globe, it’s the freakin’ carbon.
But, no…chumps like bennett can’t even be bothered with the possibillity that pollution externalities could be solved by technology. All that matters is killing cars.
“Another example of the Antiplanner only opposing certain plansâ€Â
Why, yes, that’s true! It says right up there in the “About†paragraph that AP seeks the end of government plans. Any of y’all planning geniuses gather enough private money to create a utopia, we’ll see how smart you really are. Until your own ass is on the line, you’re petty moralists hiding behind the guns of the state.
highwayman, Jim Crow is no longer needed. Even without the law people segregate themselves. It’s wonderful that USA law has become blind to color. People, however, remain prejudiced. Why not save time and just compare AP to Hitler?
Dan, When did it become a fact that increasing fuel efficiency in the future, using BAU, will be negated by the increase in VMT. I notice your quote is from page 11, didn’t you continue reading to page 43 and discover that this assumes that oil will cost $59 a barrel in 2010? Since we are nudging double that figure right now it tends to somewhat invalidate the reference case used by McKinsey. It is much more likely that the long term growth in transport emissions will be -1.3% p.a. rather than +1.3.
Studies into the correlation between improved energy efficiency and energy consumption have found that it is insignificant compared with correlation between income and energy consumption. This explains why average VMT, TV screen sizes and refrigerator cubic capacity have all increased at similar rates over the past quarter century despite the fact that dramatic energy efficiency improvements for autos and refrigerators occurred in different decades and there have been only minimal improvements in TV set energy efficiency.
In #26 you imply that the fuel efficiency rebound effect is 100%. Google that phrase and you will find plenty of good research which can summarised:
1) If petrol was rationed and free the effect will be 100% rebound because personal transport budgets are now measured in gallons.
2) In a free economy personal transport is normally budgeted in time and/or dollars so income growth and fuel cost as a percentage of transport costs are very important so the rebound effect is typically less than 20%.
rationalite,
You argue that “The reason for measuring per capita carbon emissions is because the environment doesn’t care how far you travel, and frankly, neither do people.”
This is a good argument when the subject is the need to travel long distances and options to reduce those needs. But when directly comparing modes for the existing trip matrix then per occupant mile travelled is the correct measure to use. I haven’t seen any research showing that transit has been an effective means of encourage densification in the last half century so I would be reluctant to use per capita emissions in any discussion of transit. Between 1850 and 1950 transit enabled ribbon sprawl along rail and streetcar lines. In more recent decades autos allowed the sprawl to spread laterally to fill the space between those ribbons. As you correctly argue, unless minimum lot size regulations are nuked to allow infill and apartments as the market desires there is little benefit to be gained from investing in transit other than to induce more use from existing users.
However there is plenty of research supporting walking and cycling as effective alternatives to autos in the most carbon intensive trips, the very short ones of a mile or two. This is where emissions per trip is a valid measure. Especially when arguing in favour of scrapping the single use zoning favoured by planners during most of the 20th century.
Where are the regs requiring people to decamp from the sustainable urban core?
Zoning regulations. Minimum parking regulations. Minimum lot sizes. All forms of planning, all of which force low density onto people who otherwise wouldn’t want it. Just take a look at surveys of developers that ask what they believe the biggest impediment to high-density growth is. Here’s a hint: it’s not insufficient market demand, but rather municipal land use regulations.
As you correctly argue, unless minimum lot size regulations are nuked to allow infill and apartments as the market desires there is little benefit to be gained from investing in transit other than to induce more use from existing users.
This explains perfectly why the Antiplanner chooses to ignore the plans that don’t mesh with his conception of the automobile as the apotheosis of transport. Because if he opposed the plans that enable the automobile to be so nice (who’d want to drive if everyone lived in places that even approached Manhattan-style density?), his statement that the “automobile is the greatest invention of the last 200 years” might seem a bit silly.
-foxmarks “it ain’t the driving that allegedly warms the globe, it’s the freakin’ carbon.”
It’s the old guns don’t kill people, bullets do argument. Champs like me understand that technology can overcome externalities. So can competitive markets. Government regulation too.
rationalitate is correct in #38. Zoning is what is keeping high density from happening, but what I think the A.P’s are starting to freak out about is that many of these regulations are reforming and high density is coming. Some places are even enacting maximum parking regs.
As for planners being “petty moralists hiding behind the guns of the state” I think that planners live life on both sides of that gun. Even if planners work for the “state” they tend to be hated by elected officials and free marketers alike.
it ain’t the driving that allegedly warms the globe, it’s the freakin’ carbon
What about the “urban heat island effect”…?
Let’s assume for a minute that indeed some regulations are successful in reducing CO2 emissions from motorists in America’s cities.
Can someone, planner or anti-planner, explain to me how does that translate to less of the world’s total current oil production ending up being burned? (That is, ending up as CO2 in the atmosphere?)
In other words, how is every possible combustion use of oil, all over the world, going to be regulated to the point that OPEC nations say: “Well, let’s reduce oil production by 30%, nobody seems to want that much oil any more. It does not seem to sell for even $20/barellâ€Â.
The bottleneck to the amount of oil burned is by far oil production, not regulations (as evidenced by oil selling for $125/barell).
In that sense, is the desire to limit VMT, or CO2 emitted my urban motorists anything more than a feel good project? Realistically, at the end of the day, we will still have: (Oil Burned) = (Oil Extracted) regardless of how much oil American urban motorists burn.
“supporting walking and cycling as effective alternatives to autos in the most carbon intensive trips, the very short ones of a mile or two. This is where emissions per trip is a valid measure.â€Â
It is not clear to me how short trips can be a significant factor. The total carbon released in driving a mile on local streets just can’t be that much. The motor isn’t running long enough. And there, on short trips, non-petrol auto technology already works well.
This leads into another complaint about the enviro-righteous types. Cycling or walking is seen as a paragon of virtue, but those trips are comparatively short. To make a worthwhile difference in carbon, wouldn’t one have to replace long (20+ minute) drives with human powered trips? And, what about the carbon emitted in producing and delivering food to power the humans for those trips?
That someone chooses a 20-minute pedal over a 5-minute drive tells me that person puts a low value on time. It seems the opposite of virtuous to waste time. (sure, someone can try to convince me that they enjoy wasting the extra 15 minutes. Probably true in about the same percentage as those who, like one of my pallys, enjoy their 45-minute one-way auto commute as personal “quiet timeâ€Â)
===
“It’s the old guns don’t kill people, bullets do argument.â€Â
No, chump, the old argument is: guns don’t kill people, people kill people. And how is that relevant to the “carbon footprint†excuse for behaviour control? Make the logical link for me. I’m clearly too stupid to see your reasoning.
“Where are the regs requiring people to decamp from the sustainable urban core?
Zoning regulations. Minimum parking regulations. Minimum lot sizes. All forms of planning, all of which force low density onto people who otherwise wouldn’t want it.â€Â
See, your original claim was that people are forced out of density toward the less-dense fringe. Your reply is a non-sequitur to my challenge. Nobody is forced to move. (unless you want to make some moonbat claim that victims of eminent domain represent the general majority of USA relocations)
That government is an impediment to people meeting their needs through voluntary exchange is axiomatic. You seem to assume somebody here is arguing that government should be involved in land use decisions. It ain’t me, it ain’t AP, so where did you come up with that canard?
The heat island is a result of shifting toward pavement and structure and away from vegetation. The island would exist, and be most pronounced, primarily in Central Densetown, not in Suburbia Park. So, what was your point?
foxmarks :â€Â…And, what about the carbon emitted in producing and delivering food to power the humans for those trips?â€Â
Extra food carbon footprint would probably wipe out any gas savings.
I had made the same argument (#11,#15) with a few rough numbers… but I was then told that there is yet another (what else?) plan …to fight obesity by forcing people into the one time burning of stored up fat.
Realistically, at the end of the day, we will still have: (Oil Burned) = (Oil Extracted) regardless of how much oil American urban motorists burn.
Dude, econ 101: equilibrium quantity is a product of supply and demand.
To make a worthwhile difference in carbon, wouldn’t one have to replace long (20+ minute) drives with human powered trips?
Where are you going that’s 20 minutes away? Why are you going there? Why are the two things – you and wherever your going – where they are? Must they inherently be 10 miles away, or would a denser population allow that trip to be shorter? Why is the density as it is? Is it because that’s how the market built, or is it because municipal land use regulations require and/or encourage that sort of development?
Nobody is forced to move
If you can’t see how regulations don’t corrupt markets, in a very general sense, and why this is in many ways like forcing something into something, then I think you need to rethink your premises. There’s more to government than just taxing and spending – regulations play a huge part in determining outcomes, even if they aren’t as easily quantifiable as just finding the percentage of roads paid with user fees.
You seem to assume somebody here is arguing that government should be involved in land use decisions.
The Antiplanner is clearly okay with a lot of regulations (mainly municipal regulations on mandatory low-density). I know this not because he’s come out and said it, but because though he fancies himself as an all-around antiplanner, he focuses a lot time on this blog on discussing the follies of New Urbanism, when traditional mandatory low-density zoning codes and other regulations are by all measures far more pervasive. It would be kind of like me calling myself the Antiracist and then spending all my time railing against affirmative action without mentioning the drug war – you get the feeling that the person isn’t really an antiracist. I’d be very interested to get the Antiplanner’s views on the rights of municipal zoning boards, and whether or not he believes that they represent an organic market force (in which case the Antiplanner would support him), or whether he believes they are a layer of government regulations and planning that ought to be opposed. If he said the first, then obviously you see how he would be a hypocrite. If he claimed the latter, then he ought to get his priorities straight.
foxmark,
The fact that almost every OECD home has a TV tells me that almost every first-world person puts a low value on time. What’s a better use of yuor time, a 15 minute stroll to the convenience store or 15 minutes of Mythbusters/Days of Our Lives/Fox News? If we were that worried about wasting time we’d all live right next to our workplaces, just like our great-grandparents did.
“And, what about the carbon emitted in producing and delivering food to power the humans for those trips?†Ettinger’s comparison was with the energy content of gasoline sans delivery energy. Then one would have to account for the typical daily diet rather focussing on a single energy intensive food source such as steak or fish. Possibly it could produce more carbon but, from my involvement in agricultural production, I would be most surprised if the carbon required to produce the food needed to provide the energy to propel a 90kg person a few miles would come close to the energy needed to propel that 90kg person plus a 1,800kg auto the same distance.
Why worry about trips of one or two miles. Firstly because they produce up to 100% more carbon per mile than longer trips due to the combination of cold start conditions and the use of non-arterial roads. Secondly if you look at the data from household travel surveys you will find that trip lengths aren’t normally ditributed about the mean. Don’t be too surprised to find that a mean trip length of 6 miles actually disaggregates into two clusters, one-third around 14 miles the other two-thirds around 2 miles. Thus the short trips account for 22% of VMT and 27% of CO2 emissions and gas consumption. Unless you are an anally retentive clock watcher the small amount of additional travel time cost from substituting a slower travel mode for these short intra-suburb trips wont exactly give you a nervour breakdown. The same can’t be said for trying to substitute the longer trips with slower modes – ever waited for a bus when you need to be on time for a meeting and you know there’s only a 5 minute timetable gap between your bus’s scehduled arrival time at the station and your train’s departure time? The reason for targetting the short trips is that although they are only a quarter of the problem it is an easier and cheaper part of the problem to solve. And there are a multitude of ways to tackle the change, almost all of them market and lifestyle driven. As a rule of thumb the longer the trip the harder it is to change modes. or localities.
This was writen by some one wearing a “Reynolds Wrap” hat.
http://nbbusinessjournal.canadaeast.com/front/article/305349
Cars are The answer to traffic snarls
Every week day, here in the heart of the nation’s capital – within two blocks of Parliament Hill and within a single block of the urban-chic Byward Market – 18-wheel transport trucks and gargantuan double-length public transit buses clog Ottawa’s main drag, relentlessly spewing exhaust fumes from idled engines into grid-locked intersections. For people in cars, trapped between trucks and buses, passage through this greenhouse-gas dumping ground requires a significant sacrifice of finite lifespan. In accordance with orthodox wisdom, buses are pampered (exclusive lanes, high-priority right-of-way); cars are punished.
Ottawa has produced a master plan, however, to rid its grimy downtown streets of buses and bus fumes (although perhaps not of trucks and truck fumes). As part of a $4-billion, 20-year public-transit program, Ottawa is set to buy a light-rail commuter service with routes ambitiously running in all directions – north and south, east and west. For $550 million, Ottawa will replace its downtown bus stops with an underground light-rail subway service. Ottawa’s articulated buses will nevertheless retain the elite status to which they have grown accustomed. They will gain another 60 kilometres of “transitway-” highway lanes reserved for the exclusive use of uber-buses.
Think of it. For roughly the cost that Panama will incur to double the capacity of the Panama Canal ($5 billion), Ottawa will build itself a fashionable public-transit system that will probably waste more energy and will probably discharge more greenhouses gases – though perhaps not directly up the noses of parliamentarians.
Buying bulk people-movers is old paradigm. As American environmental economist Randal O’Toole observed in this space the other day, light-rail service was a fad of the past generation that sought to replace heavy buses (average weight: 30,000 pounds) with heavier rail cars (average weight:100,000 pounds). With few exceptions, the cities in the United States that opted for light rail – a term laden with irony – incurred far more cost than anticipated. Twenty-year projects always do. (Boston transit authority, citing a single example, is $5 billion in debt. And most light-rail systems carry fewer people – because light-rail (on fixed routes) still requires the preservation of the big buses (on flexible routes). You get the worst of alternative transit systems and diminishing returns.
Exclusive bus-only lanes, like the semi-exclusive HOV (“high occupancy vehicles”) lanes that are common in the U.S., further lessen the inherent efficiency of cars. O’Toole calls HOV lanes “fampool lanes-” because family size alone determines the number of people in any particular car at any particular time. (He calculates average car occupancy this way: family size minus one.) In the U.S., a number of states have eliminated HOV lanes in favour of HOT lanes – high-speed toll lanes available to any car, with any number of people. Bus-only lanes have the same fault as HOV lanes – they cause congestion for many, mobility for few.
From an environmental perspective, highway construction makes a relatively good investment. O’Toole: “Each mile of urban highway typically provides far more passenger miles of travel than a mile of light-rail transit line. The average mile of U.S. light-rail line, for instance, (provides) only 15 per cent as many passenger miles as the average lane mile of urban freeway.” Yet all drivers know the anguish of driving at a crawl on expressways – alongside an exclusive, empty bus lane.
Worst of all, big light-rail projects require a generational commitment. You’re building something that must last for 40 years or 50 years to make any economic sense. You must necessarily build with today’s technology – and then you must necessarily forego technical advances that become available in the decades ahead.
“Can you imagine trying to write a transit plan for today 20 years ago,” O’Toole asks, “when no one had heard of the Internet, and all the ramifications of the Internet? Yet we see governments all the time, sitting down and writing 20-, 30- and 50-year plans for their cities – which is totally absurd.”
O’Toole advises cities, instead, to help cars operate efficiently. He proposes tolls on all future highways and advocates toll-lanes on expressways. He favours peak-hour tolls in all congested parts of town. He calls for the smartest traffic-light technology than money can buy. Congestion, he says, is not a fault of cars; rather, he says, it is a fault of urban planners.
As for the environment, O’Toole says that a one-per-cent increase in new cars on the road produces more benefits – in energy efficiency and in greenhouse-gas reductions – than any light-rail system can produce. This kind of transformation, he suggests, can be accomplished with “minimal incentives.” Further, hybrid-electric cars save energy and cut CO2 emissions far more effectively than trying to induce people to use public transit.
In the end, the O’Toole Option is persuasive because cars are the urban-transit system that can most quickly exploit technological advances – the only urban-transit option that can be simultaneously light and rapid.
Neil Reynolds, a former editor-in-chief of the Telegraph-Journal, is the Ottawa-based national affairs columnist for the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. He can be reached by e-mail at reynolds.globe@gmail.com.
“The fact that almost every OECD home has a TV tells me that almost every first-world person puts a low value on time. What’s a better use of yuor time, a 15 minute stroll to the convenience store or 15 minutes of Mythbusters/Days of Our Lives/Fox News? If we were that worried about wasting time we’d all live right next to our workplaces, just like our great-grandparents did.”
Just because others value TV differently than you doesn’t mean they don’t value their time.
The big thing for me with the short trips isn’t the time of one trip but the frequency. I can get away with 3-5 trips to the grocery store each month instead of a dozen or more. I just can’t carry all the stuff on my bike that I can with my car. Plus it changes my choices. The Target’s further away & it’s a pain in the rear to bike 3 – 4 miles with all that stuff on the bike. It handles differently and I just can’t carry as much.
“Zoning regulations. Minimum parking regulations. Minimum lot sizes. All forms of planning, all of which force low density onto people who otherwise wouldn’t want it. Just take a look at surveys of developers that ask what they believe the biggest impediment to high-density growth is. Here’s a hint: it’s not insufficient market demand, but rather municipal land use regulations.”
I agree that there are rules governing maximum density that do cause problems. When I lived in Minneapolis I saw proposed tall buildings get shot down due to NIMBYism. As long as it was downtown it was okay. But if you wanted to build something like that in a neighborhood, that was wrong. Nevermind that it was a city full of people who regularly preached about how wrong sprawl was; sprawl was wrong as long as it didn’t mean a big building next door.
And that’s why I find it hard to believe that without these regulations most people would be living in high rises or at least miles upon miles of 4-6 story buildings. People really want to live in that? Maybe I hang out with the wrong crowd and have an unusual set of co-workers but I never hear them say “I wish I didn’t live on 1/4 acre” or “someday when I get more money I’m going to live downtown”. I have heard them say things like “I wish my lot was twice as big” or “maybe someday we’ll buy a place with 5 acres”.
I don’t know what things are like in Houston or a lot of places. I have first hand experience from my youth with my parents buying in a township that had minimal lot sizes. One reason was so that there wouldn’t be a need for them to provide city-like services them self. They could contract with the county for police, etc. But another was that there was no sewer nor city water. Homes had to have their own septic system and well. It just wasn’t safe to have that well & septic too close together both for individual lots and how close they were to others.
@prk166:
“Of course there are benefits to living in the suburbs, but if it were really what people wanted, zoning regulations wouldn’t be necessary to give them it – that’s the beauty of supply and demand. ”
You mean that city’s don’t implement zoning because it seen as a tool for implementing their vision for their city? What about once you’ve moved into that home with 1/8 acre lot, that it’s seen as a tool to make sure someone doesn’t tear down the house next to you and build an office building? Or that they don’t run a lawn care business down the street, maybe along with a couple others, so that your once quiet street has a lot of traffic? Zoning isn’t only about density, after all.
And if people wanted this density, why have cities had so few people buying condos downtown compared to new housing on the edge? Why do the urban cores have neighborhoods that for decades haven’t filled up with a bunch of middle class people snapping up a house that would allow them to walk to the corner store?
@prk166:
Once again, you confuse regulations with market forces. Just because people are willing to use the police power of the state to enforce rules on their neighbors’ properties doesn’t mean that’s what they’d want if they’d have to pay the full cost. If you equate municipal zoning regulations with the market, then how can you attack anything any level of government does? After all, we live in a democracy, so that must be what people want, right? Obviously you see how this logic is wrong when it comes to municipalities wanting light rail, but why do you consider the demand legitimate when it comes to regulations that mandate minimum lot sizes and maximum densities?
And there are many ways for the market to ensure that you don’t live next to a petrochemical factory or whatever you’re worried about. The biggest one is simply the cost: residential and commercial properties need to be in central locations to earn money, even though those central locations cost more. Similarly, a petrochemical plant isn’t going to generate much added utility by situating itself on high-value land. So, there’s that. Also, there’s the fact that developers can buy large pieces of property so that they control the surroundings. This, of course, doesn’t work when everyone buys their own house, but widespread home ownership itself is pretty antimarket – it only really got started in earnest when the government started subsidizing mortgages. Around the turn of the century, the vast majority of non-rural residents rented rather than owned. It was only after WWII when the government started extending very cheap mortgages to people that they started owning their own homes in large numbers. Today, the government does this with mortgage write-offs, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc. I know it doesn’t quite vibe with your vision of the American dream, but I’d like to think that living in a capitalist society is a more important part of the American dream than owning a single-family home, a car, and having municipal ordinances on your neighbors property ensure that they can’t maximize their profits by renting/selling their land to a developer who’ll put in a non-single family home.