Over the past 25 years, the population of the Pittsburgh urban area has remained fixed at about 1.8 million people. Driving, however, has increased by almost 50 percent.
During this period, Pittsburgh has spent hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading light-rail lines, building exclusive busways, and — in the latest project — building a $435 million transit tunnel under the Allegheny River. Despite (or because of) this investment, transit ridership has dropped by more than 25 percent.
Although the numbers vary slightly from place to place, Pittsburgh’s story is pretty typical of transit everywhere. Sure, some cities have seen ridership gains, but subsidies to transit are huge and transit does not make a notable (meaning 5 percent or more) contribution to personal mobility in any urban area except New York (where it is 10 percent).
Bill Steigerwald, an editor of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, surveys the failure of the transit industry through an interview with the Antiplanner’s friend, Wendell Cox. Cox’s comments are scathing.
Since 1970, says Cox, “transit expenditures have gone up more than 300 percent adjusted for inflation and ridership has gone up less than 20 percent. There is no other sector of the economy, including health care, where I can find escalation even close to that.”
Every time someone points out that transit is a waste of money, they are beaten down with the mantra that “transit isn’t profitable anywhere else, so why should it be profitable here?” How do we let people get away with such absurd statements?
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Cox points out that transit is profitable in some places. Tokyo, for example, has 10 private — and profitable — commuter-rail systems and two subway systems there “cover all their operating costs as well as almost all of their capital costs.” Here, a transit agency is doing good if it covers 40 percent of its operating costs and none of its capital costs.
I would add that major cities in many developing nations rely on private transit systems that are profitable. When transit-subsidy advocates say transit isn’t profitable elsewhere, they mean in Europe. And Cox points out that most European countries have stopped their national transit programs and pushed funding down to the local level. This has at least forced economy measures such as contracting out transit services to private parties, which saves taxpayers 40 to 50 percent of the cost of running a transit line.
Why do we put up with this? The answer, of course, is that transit is pork. “For most transit agencies in the United States, if they were to write a mission statement that is reflective of what they do, they would indicate that they exist for the purpose of serving their employees and vendors,” not transit riders, notes Cox.
Steigerwald asks Cox if anyone is looking at an alternative transit model. Instead of answering, Cox points out that Congress, the transit agencies, transit unions, and transit vendors all benefit from the current model too much to change it. The annual budget of the American Public Transportation Association, by the way, is $22 million, more than five times bigger than the budgets of all the highway lobbies in Washington, DC.
But there are other models. There is the jitney model, which Cox himself has promoted. There is the demand-response or smart jitney model — like the current paratransit system but open to anyone instead of just disabled people — promoted by Robert Behnke. Behnke adds a new twist to this model when he points out that wireless Internet can help dispatch transit vehicles. And there is the idea of virtual exclusive busways, which would allow buses to provide better service than almost any rail system on congestion-free roads paid for by tolled automobiles.
None of these ideas are popular among transit agencies because they don’t cost enough. So, in answer to yesterday’s question, “what is my agenda?” the agenda that Cox and I share is to provide better transit service at lower or no cost to taxpayers. But that threatens the entrenched special interests that depend on tax subsidies.
Over the past 25 years, the population of the Pittsburgh urban area has remained fixed at about 1.8 million people. Driving, however, has increased by almost 50 percent.
Why?
Can you provide any figures on investments made in auto-oriented transportation systems over the same time period? Without such information, transit investment figures don’t mean much. We need to be able to compare the two.
Why?
For an Eastern city, their density/mi^2 is very low, yet so is their per capita VMT pcVMT). In fact, Pbgh is rather remarkable in that their pcVMT is third-best in the top 30 largest metro areas – only PDX and Sacto are better, until you get way denser places like Philly, NYC, Chicago, DC, etc. They have a lot of roads per capita – only HOU and STL have more. So Pittsburgh is sort of an oddball.
Just guessing, I’d say the deconcentration of their rust-belt economy has forced folk into lower-wage service jobs farther from home, but their services must be proximate and walkable, as their VMT is so low.
Because work trips are only 1/4 of all trips, they must be taking alternate modes for discretionary trips if their VMT is up 50% and their pcVMT is so low.
DS
Most if not all of highway costs are covered with user fees. Mass transit is MASSIVELY subsidized by taxpayers, most of whom will never use it.
Apples to apples comparisons would be an efficiency test of fee-based systems. Transit isn’t a fee-based system so it doesn’t qualify. It’s an orange. Rather, it’s a lemon.
Rather, it’s a lemon.
They are both lemons. But transit is a lemon because it can’t compete with big government.
Most if not all of highway costs are covered with user fees. Mass transit is MASSIVELY subsidized by taxpayers, most of whom will never use it.
Highways are MASSIVELY subsidized by taxpayers as well. You have to look beyond the surface. You can’t just look at the highways themselves, but the local and feeder roads that are not usually paid with any user fees.
Automobile transportation is subsidized through property taxes, tax free bond issuances, forgone property taxes on road and highway land (which is usually neglected in these cost analysis), Tax Increment Financing, Highway Patrolling, untaxed capital used to build the roads, funding of State, County and Local DOT bureaucracy, tax money to pay for cleaning and maintenance, drainage systems that handle water runoff of roads, and any other way tax money is diverted from productive business to fund roads or incentivize driving. The parking of cars is locally subsidized, either by zoning mandates or street parking.
All of the socialism of local roads leads to MASSIVE subsidizing of Highways. Then add in opportunity costs of capital that would have been invested in profitable business, had capital not been diverted to roads. Plus the negative externalities highways impose on nearby property owners, which drives down the land values.
Can you really call transit a lemon if you look at the MASSIVE subsidizing and socialization of driving? How can it possibly compete against the 2nd most socialist, yet beloved industry in the US? (1st being education)
Most if not all of highway costs are covered with user fees.
And the roads that take the bulk of all traffic – arterials, collectors, and local access roads are not.
Many county and state highways are subsidized as well, with bonds. Highway lighting is often paid for out of the general fund by the municipality.
I broke down the subsidies for these road types and attendant expenses in a recent Houston comment thread.
DS
Mass transit requires density. Every municipality in the United States limits density and mandates minimum parking lot sizes. What do you expect?
And there is the idea of virtual exclusive busways, which would allow buses to provide better service than almost any rail system on congestion-free roads paid for by tolled automobiles.
1. How do virtual exclusive busways differ from the system in India that you were criticizing recently?
2. Why do you believe that auto users should subsidize busways?
Mass transit requires density. Every municipality in the United States limits density and mandates minimum parking lot sizes.
IIRC Seattle Metro says it needs 7.0 DU/ac to be viable.
Gee, let’s listen to the crowd here bemoan such density, let’s imagine the NIMBYs shriek and wail, let’s picture Denver neighborhoods ululate over R-2 upzoning…
DS
“listen to the crowd here bemoan such densityâ€Â
Another strawman, Slobber Boy.
“Highways are MASSIVELY subsidized by taxpayers as well.â€Â
So, let’s be fair. No subsidies for nobody. Aside from the unicorn level of impracticality over implementing such an equitable scheme, what might the outcome be?
Demand for $5 LRT rides? Or demand for $1 auto tolls? Most (not all, save your strawmen for another point) with sufficient wealth will maintain a personal auto. Which is most people. If already paying depreciation, fuel, etc on a personal vehicle, why would that person want to pay for a share on a communal vehicle on a fixed route and schedule?
“Why?â€Â
Because people persist in working for a better life. Or some other broad philosophy. Unless one is arrogant enough to believe he can know, and also explain, the preference sets of 1.8 millions of individual actors.
Dan?
So, let’s be fair. No subsidies for nobody.
Want to be fair? Privatize every form of transportation. Not half-privatization by making it tax exempt, but fully privatized and tax-paying / market-rate-bond-paying / not using condemnation / not planned by some bureaucratic DOT agency. Will highways be the preference of each of the 1.8m individual actors in a true free market?
Do you really think each of those drivers will choose to drive as they currently do when tolls reflect the true capital cost and don’t spread across the suburbs?
why would that person want to pay for a share on a communal vehicle on a fixed route and schedule?
because tolls wouldn’t be only $1, like on a conventional communal highway
Of course, those who can afford it (and there would still be plenty) will still drive. They’ll enjoy a quicker, congestion free drive, but they’ll actually pay for it.
“Automobile transportation is subsidized through property taxes…locally subsidized, either by zoning mandates or street parkingâ€Â
I challenge the implied meaning. When I pay my local property taxes, I expect a major share to be spent on public works. This view is almost universal, although we disagree on the nature of the works (eg, a few want car-free bike pavement and zero auto pavement). I do, and all can, look at proposed and adopted budgets to see that my public works desires are fulfilled after the property tax revenue gets slushed through the general fund.
Local paved r-o-w, with collectors and arterials are a service essentially all people demand of local government. That’s part of why they pay the property tax to live in some urban place.
It is not subsidy in the same bald coercive sense as using a general sales or income tax to fund infrastructure. Any income tax revenue slushed through and spent on roads is a more direct subsidy to transport. I may not need any road to make my money, nor use any, but I must pay just because I was productive.
There are delightful anarchist arguments for no local government, with infrastructure paid for at the time and point of use. But that’s really unicorn fantasy territory. To insist that local property tax is local transport subsidy is devoid of practical meaning. To insist that local infrastructure (however funded) is a subsidy to inter-urban infrastructure has even less merit.
Nearly every human action in the USA has some supporting component of subsidy somewhere. This is a result of government. Not a judgment in this case, but a truth. We can move from today’s conditions toward more government, or toward less. Most action would very likely keep to the same patterns. Whatever distortion (if it is distortion, and not the default sociology) government brings, is only a distortion, not a wholescale transformation of the needs and desires of people.
Therein is the perceived problem of government. It is a less-fully-informed agent distorting exchange. Imagine playing baseball with one eye closed. The game will still continue, but the action will be different, and take more effort to get through nine innings.
Do you really think each of those drivers will choose to drive as they currently do when tolls reflect the true capital cost and don’t spread across the suburbs?
I like your blog and all, and a large fraction of the population is stuck in places where they need to jump in the car to go to the bathroom.
You’ll need to phase this scheme in slowly so they can Tiebout sort to more efficient/desirable locations. That way the infrastructure, schools, services can have time to locationally adjust, redevelop and accommodate.
Just a thought – I think this migration you describe will happen anyway when cheap energy goes away (operating at slower scales than yours).
DS
foxmarks, what are the differences between your arguments and arguments for universal health care or public housing?
Regardless of transparency, you have decisions being made by planning entities with distorted information and public opinion, and in effect, usually over-allocating resources to something less productive.
Local paved r-o-w, with collectors and arterials are a service essentially all people demand of local government. That’s part of why they pay the property tax to live in some urban place.
But, why shouldn’t one argue against sidewalks, paved r-o-w, collectors, and arterials with the same cost/passenger mile metrics the (Anti)planner uses to argue against transit?
You’ll need to phase this scheme in slowly so they can Tiebout sort to more efficient/desirable locations. That way the infrastructure, schools, services can have time to locationally adjust, redevelop and accommodate.
Of course, look any country recovering from socialism. It can’t happen overnight. Plus, adjustments in real estate development will take time to accommodate preference shifts.
“Do you really think each of those drivers will choose to drive as they currently do when tolls reflect the true capital cost and don’t spread across the suburbs?â€Â
They might. I don’t know. And neither do you. (Dan thinks he does)
I would be excited to run the experiment in the meat world. My guess would be a temporary densification of 3rd-ring suburbs, until the freer exchange made people wealthy enough to continue spreading apart from one another. I also expect a change in real property ownership patterns, as people would move their housing to more closely correspond with job changes.
I do not expect a major rush to communal transport, nor an increasing impetus for downtown living. Communal transport represents a lower living standard than personal transport. Changing the funding and payment schemes wouldn’t reduce the total transport wealth in the US. We’re not poorer, so we’re not going to cram ourselves onto the bus.
The current fuel cost adaptations might be a good surrogate. Communal transport has doubled ridership to half 1970s levels. Personal transport better meets transport needs, and doubling the major felt cost has not emptied the highways.
“because tolls wouldn’t be only $1â€Â
So, what would they be? $2? I pulled the figure out of my butt.* I think it is high, but depends on how far I go and what natural barriers I cross. Do I get to charge the ambulances and fire trucks for their trips? This is why it is unicorn land: to establish some estimate of an “alleged true cost†of totally directly funded r-o-w, we have to make too many ludicrous assumptions.
*The $5 for communal is a rounded-down total cost per trip on my local toy train. It’s actually about $5.30 per ride, by 2006 figures. If it actually had any of its claimed benefits, say replacing enough motorists by doubling ridership, the cost would come down. But then the value of less congested roads goes up and the non-monetary cost of riding in crowded terrorist-target germ factories subject to transport union shenanigans rises.
“what are the differences between your arguments and arguments for universal health care or public housing?â€Â
They are much the same. As people sort themselves into like-minded enclaves which either support or deny the necessity of paying their housekeepers to live nearby, each gets what they desire.
This is why I suggest the core issue is the proper role and limits on government. Roads are in the USA Constitution (although I think we’ve way overshot the mandate). Welfare payments are not.
We might save a lot of time if I declare myself a Georgist. I prefer the classical anarchist model in theory, but an LVT might actually be implemented somewhere in a few lifetimes. And anarchists in the meat world just end up as prisoners of one form or another.
They might. I don’t know. And neither do you.
What I do know is that microeconomics tells us that as prices go up, quantity demanded goes down. Quantity of highway use, whether miles/per trip (relocating to urban areas) or number of trips (switching to transit) will decrease as users of communal highways pay for the full capital and opportunity costs of highway use.
Supply/demand also applies to transit. But, since costs per mile would be higher for all transport choices, most people will locate closer to their destination regardless of their choice to use transit or cars.
“Cox’s comments are scathing.” – and not all of them are correct, either. The idea of giving poor people rented cars a) locks them into an automobile welfare state, and b) will complete the crisis of congestion.
In my lifetime, small shops have closed down in the UK, leaving people more dependent on the car that ever. This is only likely to be compounded, if more people have cars. This is moving in the wrong direction. What’s more, the new welfare state will imprison the people who use these cars in povery more securely than anything that the more ardent apologist for a welfare state would do.
The only reason why roads in the UK and the USA haven’t locked up completely is that there is a minority of people who don’t drive. Wendell Cox wants to increase (yes, increase) the number of cars.
A virtual exclusive bus lane is a lot more sensible, and is the sort of thing that is required to getting transit within distance of the private automobile. As is sorting out the ‘last mile’ problem.
““Cox’s comments are scathing.†– and not all of them are correct, either. The idea of giving poor people rented cars a) locks them into an automobile welfare state, and b) will complete the crisis of congestion.”
Wait – aren’t all of those poorer workers in their newly leased cars going to go on the magic new HOT/HOV lane roads that will suddenly appear overnight at a cost of 1% of what transit would have cost, fully funded by the aforesaid poor people, with instant access to downtown and all other retail centers, with no political, environmental, or community opposition???? Transit is the devil – this world sounds more plausible!
If I have a choice of being dependant on a car that takes me where I want to go and get me there fast.
Or take transit that does not go to where I need to be and takes twice as long.
I would pick being dependant on a car over transit.
d4p asked
“Over the past 25 years, the population of the Pittsburgh urban area has remained fixed at about 1.8 million people. Driving, however, has increased by almost 50 percent. – Why?”
Probably because of women entering the workforce. This hypothesis can be tested if you have access to Pittsburgs gender breakdown of drivers involved in property damage crashes for the last 25 years. I don’t but that gender effect explains two-thirds of the traffic growth in New Zealand over the last 30 years.
Market Urbanism,
The forgone property taxes on road and highway land (which is usually neglected in these cost analysis)needs to be balanced by the proportion of property taxes attributable to land value created by proximity to good road access (which is also neglected in these cost analysis).
Also bear in mind that local roads are provided as a consequence of America following British Common Law (but eschewing British statutory laws). The Right of the King’s Highway is the reason you have local roads. A right that is a a thousand years older than the auto.
What proportion of local street funding is spent on the sealed carriageways required by autos and what proportion is spent on sidewalks, kerbs, street lighting, storm water drainage, and other pre-auto street features?
Highway patrols are funded from the federal gas tax. Local traffic policing tends to be highly profitable, as are parking meters.
@craig: If you limit yourself to that choice, of course you’re going to choose the car. But why limit yourself to two totally unsatisfying outcomes, when you could really antiplan and eliminate the massive government intervention in land use that has huge implications for transportation and housing choices?
rationalitate said:
@craig: If you limit yourself to that choice, of course you’re going to choose the car.
—————
Please explain how choosing a car that takes me to where I need to be using my schedule in a timely manner carrying the things I need for work and play is is a bad choice.
I have used transit in many cities and I live near a light rail line, that does not serve my needs because it is too slow and does not go to where I need to be.
I was in Atlanta and tried to go site seeing on transit one day. It was very slow and I spent more time on the trains, buses and stations and walking instead of being at the places I wanted to be. The next day I rented a car and the door to door service was very fast and I spent most of my time at the places i wanted to be and little time in the car..
I choose using a car because it serves my needs.
I don’t choose transit because it does not serve my needs.
That is a choice with totally satisfying outcomes
Please explain how choosing a car that takes me to where I need to be using my schedule in a timely manner carrying the things I need for work and play is is a bad choice.
It’s not a bad choice – it’s the most rational choice given the institutional limitations of the country/state/city/neighborhood you live in. That’s why everyone owns them. However, the institutional arrangement is perverse and market-distorting (zoning laws, minimum lot sizes, maximum density, mortgage write-offs, mandatory minimums with respect to parking), thus giving you only two options: drive, or take the shitty mass transit.
I was in Atlanta and tried to go site seeing on transit one day. It was very slow and I spent more time on the trains, buses and stations and walking instead of being at the places I wanted to be. The next day I rented a car and the door to door service was very fast and I spent most of my time at the places i wanted to be and little time in the car..
Right – those are your two options under the present framework. Like I said, I’m not saying that the only other option – and the one you should take – is the present shitty status quo in mass transit. I’m saying that we should demand that our governments stop planning for us, so the market is able to provide the transportation and land use that best suits people. Likely it would involve a lot more mass transit (privately-funded, not publicly-funded), and the kinds of places Americans live in now would not exist as they do. Everything would be different, so don’t look to mass transit as it exists today as an indicator of what it would be like.
That is a choice with totally satisfying outcomes
It’s all relative. But you’ve never seen and can’t even really imagine a world without regulations (that’s the miracle of markets – no one can predict what it’ll look like, because if they could, then socialism could actually work – but people can’t know, so planning can never work; that’s the thesis of this blog, I thought?).
The forgone property taxes on road and highway land (which is usually neglected in these cost analysis)needs to be balanced by the proportion of property taxes attributable to land value created by proximity to good road access (which is also neglected in these cost analysis).
Your notion makes an excellent case for transit and high density development near transit hubs.
Nonetheless, highways actually decrease the value of properties along the highways because of negative externalities such as noise. Sure, the neighborhoods that are a quick drive to the highways benefit, but less accessible neighborhoods don’t see any benefit.
I don’t see how overall value is created by accessibility, it is just redistributed. At the same time, large amounts of otherwise productive land is used for highways.
It’s all relative. But you’ve never seen and can’t even really imagine a world without regulations (that’s the miracle of markets – no one can predict what it’ll look like, because if they could, then socialism could actually work – but people can’t know, so planning can never work; that’s the thesis of this blog, I thought?).
Rationalitate, I think I’ve agreed with every coment you’ve made.
For many individuals transit doesn’t make sense. That’s fine, nobody said you have to use it if it doesn’t work for you. But, for some people it does make sense. When I commuted from suburban Chicago to downtown, I took the Metra train for $4 each way. It’s actually pretty nice. Everyone gets a comfortable seat and you can read, work on the computer, or catch up on sleep during the commute. This is opposed to sitting in gridlock every day and paying $25/day for parking. Transportation choices effect us most for the trips we make every day, like the work comute.
Local traffic policing tends to be highly profitable, as are parking meters.
Then why isn’t there a parking meter in front of every home in America?
By what metrics are parking meters profitable in the relatively few locations they do exist? Do they earn a profit above the opportunity cost of the land used by the spot? Do they earn a profit above the construction costs of paving that space? Or are they profitable only if you consider the maintenance and patrol costs of the street?
And if they are so profitable, why hasn’t the private sector stepped in to compete?
I’m sure there are isolated instances of true profitability, but those are instances
where the demand is high enough for the private sector to step in and provides parking on private lots and garages, which they do in such cases.
Market Urbanism said:
For many individuals transit doesn’t make sense. That’s fine, nobody said you have to use it if it doesn’t work for you.
—————-
But we are forced to pay for a choice we do not chooes.
But we are forced to pay for a choice we do not chooes.
So do we who do not drive. My point isn’t that transit is great. it’s that driving is overfunded, just as transit is. One should not bash paying for transit he doesn’t use without bashing paying for roads he does not use. I bash both, plus I bash paying for airports I do not use.
That’s fine, nobody said you have to use it if it doesn’t work for you.
But the government does, every day, stop people form making voluntary choices that would contribute to transit’s greater profitability and reach. Transit requires high densities, which are precluded from the vast majority of communities by maximum density and minimum parking laws.
But the government does, every day, stop people form making voluntary choices that would contribute to transit’s greater profitability and reach. Transit requires high densities, which are precluded from the vast majority of communities by maximum density and minimum parking laws.
I agree with you. However, people still make voluntary choices based upon the choices available. The problem is that the market has been mis-planned in many ways as you mentioned, thus the choices available do not lead to optimal overall productivity.
Through planning of land use and transportation, productive resources have been redirected away from economies of aglomeration into sprawl. Thus, people make rational choices based upon the system that has been mis-planned for them.
The biggest market distortion in favor of high densty (and transit) may not be the monetary subsidies that they receive, but rather the fact that, under smart growth central planning, everybody is constrained to live inside a very small geographical boundary, the UGB. This is what Portland the model city of smart growth has done. Without the UGB the only free market densification that Portland could hope for is a small number of boutique high density neighborhoods which attract cetain types of people (perhaps myself too).
If you draw little islands that represent 0.5% of the US surface and say that “everybody has to live inside these islands†then of course they are going to get dense. Common sense folks.
The biggest market distortion… …UGB
Yes, there are distortions that favor density, but nowhere near the scale of distortions opposed to density created by socialization of roads, subsidiation of the automobile and suburban density restrictions.
When did Portland start it’s UGB? Property rights have been restricted by central planning of density and land use long before “Smart Growth” was a concept. And it has affected every city, not just Portland.
So since the typical zoning may have imposed a maximun density of, say 6 dwellings per acre, the max one dwelling per 80 acres outside the UGB is just a minor increment – a minor logical variation? Isn’t that an intensification of restrictions by 3 orders of magnitude? How can you pretend to support market urbanism and view that as a minor detail? You get on-board the concept of stuffing the greater part of the US population into UGBs representing 0.5% of the land area of the US, and call that Market Urbanism? Who falls for that?
Once constrained into a land area that is 1/200th of the total land area, Americans will voluntarily build high density neighborhoods. Well, what else can they do?
Craig,
You asked “Please explain how choosing a car that takes me to where I need to be using my schedule in a timely manner carrying the things I need for work and play is is a bad choice.”
For you it is not a badchoice. For all the people whose health you are tresspassing on with your car’s tailpipe emissions it is definitely a bad choice. If your paid compensation to those who are making suffer for your convenience then there wouldn’t be any problem as far as I am concerned. The tech to make this possible does exist and isn’t prohibitively expensive. The real problem would be delivering the compensation to those you are harming rather than it just becoming yet another pork-barrel slush fund.
Kevyn Miller.
Please explain how the air is cleaner than it was 30 years ago. While driving (VMT) has increased.
Please explain how electricity in made using coal?
Please explain how much energy is used to build light rail?
Please explain how a bus is green if the average bus only carries 10 passengers while burning diesel fuel?
What is more green a suv with 4 passengers or a full size bus with 10 passengers?
The real problem is living in a dense area has more pollution than a low density suburb.
Craig,
Were you mad (annoyed) when you wrote that list of please explained. I assume they are rhetorical so you actual don’t want technical explanations.
1) Because the federal government imposed a limit on tailpipe emissions in a way which loaded the compliance cost onto the auto user.
2) Essentially using Victorian era technology. There are newer cleaner ways of making electricity. If coal state congressmen weren’t so good at pork barrelling they might even be cheaper than burning coal.
3. The same way it is used to build/widen freeways.
4. Precisely, to which you can add noise and soot. The torque of a diesel engine can be easily delivered by an electric motor, a bus has enough wasted space to accomodate a gas turbine/battery array. So this is where federal hybrid incentives should be focused if they are to be anything more than a token gesture.
5. What percentage of SUV miles carry 4 passengers? Remember, the ten passengers on fullsized buses is averaged over 100% of the miles travelled.
6. True, the concentration of pollution is higher even though the pollution per capita is lower. The same is true when comparing exurbs with suburbs and farmland with exurbs.
You missed the main point of my comment. The benefit you derive from travelling by auto is at the cost of trespassing on other people’s clean air. It is perfectly reasonable that you should compensate those whose rights you are trespassing on. In fact it’s called market forces. If you lived between my home and my kids school would you accept me removing some fenceboards so my kids could take a shortcut across your property to get to school in a timely manner, without asking your permission?
Market Urbanism,
As I see it, the only way your conclusions can be derived from your observations is if your line of reasoning begins with:
1) Roads and transit meet the same needs in different ways.
2) Land is never rezoned as a city develops
The first is not a good starting point because there are some key differences between roads and transit. Rail transit and freeways carry prople and/or goods from one access point to another access point. Roads and, to a lesser extent, buses carry people from any roadside property to any other roadside property. Roads transport two things that buses don’t:- goods and utility services.
Limited access highways serve a different purpose from local roads and conventional highways. They also have completely different impacts on property values.
Limited access highways have the same impact as railways. Property all along the way gets the disbenefit of noise and visual pollution while propoerties close to access points get all the mobility benefits. When a city’s growth increases traffic on a main road to highway volumes the extra traffic will make access to roadside properties less convenient, essentially creating a quasi-limited access highway.
This doesn’t intrisicly reduce land values, rather it alters the most valuable use for that land. What was a leafy outer urban street of upper middle class family homes fifty years ago becomes an arterial road, too noisy and busy to be attractive to upper middle class home owners. If the municipality is wise the land along this evolved highway will be rezoned for apartments or commercial use. As such the high traffic volumes become an asset and land values will rise making it viable for home owners to sell and move to a newer leafy street in the suburbs.
If the municipality has never had zoning regulations then market forces should cause this process to happen smoothly, without the jolting dislocations that occur when municipalities prevaricate about rezoning land because of minority pressures from those trying to resist market forces, be they developers aiming to buy cheap – sell expensive or misguided residents vainly trying to protect the “character” of a neighbourhood long after time and city growth have already diminished that character.
The foregoing relates only to the impact that the changing nature of a road has on property values. The intrisic value of roads is there use as corridors for moving people, goods and utility services to all locations. Unless rail and transit corridors are also used as utility corridors they will never have the same economic value as roads.
You don’t see how overall value is created by accessibility? Ask a real estate agent what would happen to the price if you subdivided your property and sold the back section without any access to the outside world compared with providing a driveway to the road. Alternatively consider building on a rural lot. To connect your home to the utility services you will have to pay for the in the vicinity of $10 per yard of cable. It makes a big difference to the land value when the cost of connecting to services is $50,000 instead of $1,000.
Clearly the economic value of proximity to roads is greater in rural areas when house building or access to markets is the objective. In cities distance from the right sort of road is crucial. After all the three most important things about real estate prices have always been location, location and location.
Kevyn Miller said:
For all the people whose health you are tresspassing on with your car’s tailpipe emissions it is definitely a bad choice.
————–
The air is cleaner, and transit is not greener than most of the new cars and suvs that families drive with a full load.
How can you pretend to support market urbanism and view that as a minor detail? You get on-board the concept of stuffing the greater part of the US population into UGBs representing 0.5% of the land area of the US, and call that Market Urbanism? Who falls for that?
Ettinger, relax. I don’t know why you feel the need to be so aggressive.
If you had read my comment more carefully before flipping out, you would see that I did, in fact, agree with you that UGBs are a significant distortion. Can you explain why you think I have endorsed it?
Regardless, let me be more clear: I DO NOT ENDORSE UGBs, or smart growth in practice.
I am merely trying to argue that a truly free market in land use and transportation would have prevented much of the sprawl that the “smart growth” people despise in the first place.
My point was that density restrictions have been nearly ubiquitous throughout the US over the better part of the last century, while smart growth has been practiced in a handfull of places for much less time.
Kevyn Miller,
As I see it, the only way your conclusions can be derived from your observations is if your line of reasoning begins with:
1) Roads and transit meet the same needs in different ways.
2) Land is never rezoned as a city develops
I would revise that:
1) highways and transit meet some of the same needs in different ways.
2) land is usually not sufficiently rezoned as a city develops, nor sufficently zoned in the first place.
This doesn’t intrisicly reduce land values, rather it alters the most valuable use for that land. What was a leafy outer urban street of upper middle class family homes fifty years ago becomes an arterial road, too noisy and busy to be attractive to upper middle class home owners. If the municipality is wise the land along this evolved highway will be rezoned for apartments or commercial use. As such the high traffic volumes become an asset and land values will rise making it viable for home owners to sell and move to a newer leafy street in the suburbs.
Your argument conflicts with my understanding of Urban Economics: The desirability of the location is decreased by externalities. Somehow that makes the land economically viable for more costly, higher density development? Yes, at specific nodes, values for destination uses do increase, but between the nodes I guess I just haven’t witnessed the phenomenon you mention. What I have witnessed is that property values along the highway are much lower, thus location-insensitive industrial uses move in. As a real estate developer, I would not be a bit interested in developing the land along highways where you say “land values will rise”, unless there are other agglomerative reasons to build there.
You don’t see how overall value is created by accessibility?
I do see how value is created for certain people by improving accessibility for those people. However, I think it is a huge stretch to assert that it creates overall value, if you scratch below the surface. Accessibility doesn’t just fall from the sky. Resources must be appropriated (by planners) from productive activity (whether of present or future generations) to fund your accesibility. In such a system, all decisions of who will be more accessible are made by planners of some sort or another. Do you think those planners who built highways have done a good job appropriating resources, while others haven’t?
Also Kevyn,
Unless rail and transit corridors are also used as utility corridors they will never have the same economic value as roads.
This may be true for a majority of rural and suburban locations… But, it is a very closed-minded assertion to use the word “never”. It is absolutely false when land values are very high, such as dense CBDs.
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Cars, Tail Pipe. Progress. No way back. By Joel Schwartz
http://americandreamcoalition.org/pollution/nowayback.pdf
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Market urbanism,
I too would like to see what kind of new developments and transit may materialize in a more liberal zoning environment like, say, a Houston like environment with the additional freedom of no minimum lot sizes.
However, I find odd your self characterization as a market urbanist with your constant bashing of places like Houston while turning a blind eye to the much more opressive places like Portland’s master government planned living.
So far, your comments (and Rationalitate’s) on this site I’ve summarily interpreted as follows:
“Let’s ignore the fact that 98% of the US land surface (rural area) is zoned 20-40-80-160 acres minimum (which BTW is a mandate opposed by virtually all the rersidents living on it) and let’s concentrate on why stubborn residents of the remaining 2% (urbanized area) do not want to abolish 20-40-60-90 year old covenants and upzone from single family residential to multiple family, mixed use etc.â€Â
So, at the end of the day, if one aimed at liberalizing zoning, where would it make sense to start from? Libealizing the zoning for 98% of the land area which is currently zoned to near zero denisty, is nearly uninhabited and whoose residents would welcome the upzoning,
or
Force upzoning on the remaining 2% of the land area, inhabited by residents who do not seem to want to upzone (foolishly so in my opinion, but that is another issue).
Is it not 98% of the land area of the US enough space for new high, mid, low, whatever density planning experiments? And why should the government have a monopoly on such experinents (as in Portland where bureaucrats banned all experiments outside the UGB) rather than private entities (as in Houston – under some admittedly debatable constraints)?
Ettinger,
98% of the land might be free of maximum density restrictions (though, is that really true?), but I’d bet that about 98% of people live in areas with maximum densities. Okay, maybe not 98, but you get the point. People need to live near each other…it’s a matter of survival. Real estate isn’t about “density, density, density,” it’s about “location, location, location.” Cities fetch higher prices than rural areas, which means they are more desirable.
And, by the way, Houston’s landscape – like many other places’ – is shaped largely by the roads that planners choose to erect. While the financing might come out almost on the profitable side (if you assume zero opportunity cost, which would absolutely never happen in private business), the spending is still allocated by planners. Houston, by the way, has planning regulations requiring much larger streets than other places.