New Geography

Tag: Transportation

  • Retro Rail Alert

    The New Zealand Government recently decided to follow the example of Montreal and Toronto by amalgamating the six City councils and the single Regional Council of the Auckland Region to create a united “Super City” of 1.4 million people.

    Like similar amalgamated bodies, the new Auckland Council, which came into being on the 1st November, 2010, has fallen for the notion of regionally determined smart growth built around a huge investment in heavy rail.

    Backed by a Regional Council totally committed to Smart Growth, every decision was driven by the need to “get people out of their cars” rather than to improve mobility. Since the 1990s they have fought for densification as a means of enabling more public transport. The bus lanes linking the north shore to the CBD are for buses only. HOVs are not allowed on and nor are shuttle buses. The planners openly argue that the near empty lane is to encourage people to get out of their cars on the congested motor way lanes and take the bus. Also they are inserting bus only lanes into our already narrow urban streets. Cars are just being crowded off the streets.

    Consequently, congestion has grown progressively worse, but this was seen as only further evidence of the need to invest in rail.

    Many of us thought that the election which replaced the Labour Government with a coalition of National and Act, two conservative-leaning m parties of the Right, would put an end to this “trip backwards to the future”.

    But, as has happened elsewhere, the Right adopted the policy while the Chambers of Commerce and similar groups championed the mega-amalgamation on the grounds of efficiency. They saw huge savings to be made in having only one Mayor and one council, and one plan, and one rate, and indeed, ideally only “one of everything”.

    Yet instead of searching for a new, modern way to develop this region, Len Brown, the left of center first Mayor of the Auckland Council has backed a “Vision for Auckland” built around an extensive rail network – including a rail link to the Airport, a CBD rail loop, light rail on the surface streets, and a rail tunnel under the Waitemata harbour.

    Residents of surrounding areas may not share this Vision – especially if they have to share the costs. This is the kind of division that led to Montreal’s recent de-amalgamation.

    The Mayor supports his Vision with claims that professional analysis and expert advice will show that these projects are viable and necessary and that Government must fund them.

    One has to wonder where he gets his advice from.

    No investment in rail in New World cities since the 1980s has resulted in a reduction in congestion. In most cases congestion has increased and public transport market share has diminished because the investment into rail has diminished funds for roads, buses and High Occupancy Toll lanes, measures that actually work to increase mobility

    The Government should also be aware that the international engineering firms at come in behind these proposals for rail investment (and similar major project works) have a proven expertise in getting a foot in the door with low bids then cranking up the costs afterwards. These projects routinely come in over budget.

    Furthermore, some research reveals that Heavy Rail (as is proposed for the Auckland network) has a worse record for cost overuns than Light Rail projects. Early projects have a worse record than more recent projects, possibly because the tendering firms have gained experience over time in how to fool the public, and the population with low ball estimates of cost and exaggerated estimates of ridership.

    “Megaprojects and Risks: and anatomy of ambition.” (Click on the link to read the Public Purpose review.)

    This has become a clearer pattern, as seen in projects as diverse as the English Channel Tunnel, the Great Belt rail-road bridge between Zealand and the Jutland Peninsula, and the Oresund road-rail bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo, Sweden.

    So this is not just an American problem.

    The “Chunnel” trains, for example, were projected to carry 15.9 million passengers in the first year of operation (1995) but by the sixth year (2001) ridership was 57% lower at 6.9 million. The cost overrun was 79%.

    The Flyvbjerg data set of international studies, including rail and road schemes, contained 258 projects.

    • 90% had significant overrun of costs.
    • Rail projects had the highest cost escalation (45% over)
    • Road projects had the lowest escalation (20% over)
    • The average ridership was 61% of forecast and the average cost overrun was 28%.

    The figures for rail alone were worse.

    An even more pessimistic summary of performance is contained in a power-point presentation by Lewis Workman of the Asia Development Bank, Predicted vs. Actual costs and Ridership – Urban Transport Projects, May 2010.

    This presentation notes that the problem is actually worse in developing countries. The Bangkok metro “actual ridership” fell short of the projections by 55%. The authors ask the question “Lies or Incompetence?” and their answer is “Probably Both.”

    New Zealand’s Minister of Transport, Stephen Joyce is well prepared to shout louder than the “one voice” of the new Auckland Council. In September 2009 he warned that the Government is committed to spending NZ$500m on the city’s rail electrification projects – but funding cost over-runs is not an option.

    His officials have identified up to $200m of potential cost over-runs in the NZ$1.6bn project, which is still on the drawing board.

    One of the first rail upgrade contracts demonstrates his concerns are justified.

    The Manukau Rail Link was initially estimated to cost NZ$40 million [2006] which subsequently rose to NZ$72 million [2008] and the latest figure is NZ$98 million. This is for a 1.8k link and station southwest of Manukau CBD.

    The Minister should hold fast to this position. But maybe he should also hold fast to the position that Auckland Council will not be compensated for any revenue shortfalls on account of lower than projected ridership.

    Maybe the Auckland Council would then take on board the remedies for these “foot in the door” feasibility studies, or get those who make the studies to stand behind them with some form of guarantees backed up by insurance.

    The recent experience with BART suggests that US politicians should learn to play equal hard-ball.

    Similarly the 5 km BART connection to the Oakland Airport (on the East Bay) was originally projected to cost $130 million and cater to more than 13,000 passengers daily. However, after a decade of delays, those forecasts have been changed to $484 million – a cost increase of say 250%, and 4,350 passengers a day – a ridership shortfall of say 60%.

    The crystal balls are not getting any clearer.

    Consequently, according to a study by transport planners Kittelson and Associates, each new passenger who uses the system during its estimated 35-year lifespan will be supported by a subsidy of $102 – on top of the fares they pay. This is more than 10 times the original projected subsidy of $9 per new passenger. This combination of cost overrun and ridership shortfall has had a catastrophic effect on the viability of such projects.

    But the boosters are not deterred. They say it should be built because “the community wants it”, which sounds familiar.

    The table below shows this the Oakland Airport rail link is clearly a project that should never be started. Even the “rapid transit” speed will not be delivered.

    Politicians’ Visions reward the citizens with nightmares.

    These large multi-national engineering consulting firms have become accustomed to treating Governments – both Central and Local – as giant ATM machines.

    It’s time to take away their plastic.

    Owen McShane is Director of the Centre for Resource Management Studies, New Zealand.

    Photo by bcran

  • Beyond Grassroots and Into Congress: California High-Speed Rail

    While most of the substantial opposition to high-speed rail in California previously came from local government leaders and citizens, primarily in the Bay Area, Congressmen are now taking the issue to the entire country for debate. House Representative Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, introduced H.R. 6403, also entitled the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Rescission Act,” which would allot the remaining $12 billion in uncommitted stimulus money to the US Treasury to help relieve the national deficit of $1.3 trillion. At least half of that $12 billion is set to go to various high-speed rail projects across the country.

    Although the divergence of money to the US Treasury would not have a significant impact on the national deficit, it would greatly affect California’s high-speed rail plans. The project, now estimated to cost $43 billion, relies heavily on federal money because it will only receive voter-approved state bonds on a matching basis. No federal money, no bond money. So far, it has gotten $2.25 billion from Washington, $200 million of which has already been spent on planning. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Rescission Act would halt the development of the largest high-speed rail project in the country.

    Lewis and 27 other Republicans in the House are pushing for this bill, not necessarily because they think the Democratic Senate or President Obama will let it pass, but because they want to start a movement to stop wasteful government spending. Whether or not anything comes of Lewis’ efforts, he is forcing his fellow members in Congress to consider how high-speed rail fits into national economic priorities.

    President Obama will not abandon high-speed rail anytime soon- he has invested too much into it at this point. Therefore, if the federal government is going to put any kind of controls on funding poorly planned projects like California’s high-speed rail, it will have to come from Congress.

  • Stuck in the Station: The High-Speed Rail “Low Ball Express”

    You know that something is up when a Washington Post editorial advises that the Obama Administration do a “reality check” on its plans for high speed rail. From the beginning, there was more slow-speed than high speed rail, however both components of the plan could be in trouble. The Onion joined the issue with a satirical video announcing a federal “high-speed bus” program that would replace the high-speed rail plans.

    The Post criticized Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood for not allowing Wisconsin and Ohio to use the federal money to make needed highway improvements instead:

    “This blunt refusal to heed the fresh mandate of Ohio and Wisconsin’s voters seems hard to justify – especially since using the money for other infrastructure would have created jobs, just as building trains would have.”

    Wisconsin and Ohio: This is vividly illustrated by recent election results, when successful gubernatorial candidates in two states vowed to kill two of the slower lines that had already received substantial federal funding. Wisconsin’s Scott Walker took aim at the Milwaukee to Madison line, which would average less than 60 miles per hour, despite reaching speeds of 110. Ohio’s John Kasich says that Ohio’s Cincinnati to Cleveland train is “dead” It could have been named the “Ohio Fast Mail,” because it would have averaged 50 miles per hour, about the same as the Fast Mail over the longer New York and Niagara Falls route — in 1877! These trains would have operated at average speeds from one-third to one-fourth those achieved by the Wuhan to Guangzhou trains in China.

    Illinois: There are also problems in Illinois. That state received $1.1 billion from the federal government to ramp up Chicago to St. Louis speeds to 110 miles per hour and to make the trip in four hours. Yet, the state received only about one-third of the requested $3 billion from the federal government for this project. It is a fair question where the rest of the money is coming from. Illinois had proposed to contribute only one percent of the cost ($4 million), leaving the project still nearly $2 billion short, before the seemingly inevitable cost overruns (which are already an inflation adjusted 8 times earlier projections). Illinois, which by some accounts is in as bad shape fiscally as California, simply does not have the money to complete the job.

    Incremental High Speed Rail? One of the most cynical myths about slower speed rail is that it is a “stepping stone” to genuine high speed rail, which is now being built in some countries to operate from 200 to 220 miles per hour. Such claims are patently misleading. The slower speed 110 mile per hour trains will run on tracks shared with freight trains and there will be some grade crossings (intersections with roads where trains, trucks and cars could conceivably collide). Genuine high speed rail requires starting all over.

    Illinois provides an example. The unfunded $3 billion slower speed line is not enough. The state has also sought federal funding to plan a genuine high speed rail line that would cost an additional $12 billion, according to a Midwest High Speed Association report. However, this amount would rise substantially, since it does not include rail-cars, maintenance facilities, stations and, of course, cost overruns. There is nothing incremental about building one line and then abandoning it to build another.

    California and Genuine High Speed Rail? Maybe Not: Meanwhile, the news is not encouraging to proponents of the nation’s two genuine high speed rail lines, in California and Florida.

    For two years, the California High Speed Rail Authority has been concentrating its attention on planning for the two most expensive sections of its proposed $43 billion (before cost-overruns) line from Los Angeles (Anaheim) to San Francisco. Plans that some claim would create a Berlin Wall across the largely affluent cites of the Peninsula led to a “boondoggle rally” attended by 500 people in Palo Alto. Community concerns have also been raised about the line through Orange County and southeastern Los Angeles County.

    Now, however, the federal government has virtually steered all of promised money to the San Joaquin Valley, requiring that it be spent between Merced and Bakersfield. The provisions of the high speed bond issue will require that state funding to be spent where the federal money is spent.

    The federal department of transportation has not indicated its rationale for this decision, but the new strategy could indicate that a modicum of sanity may be at work. Clearly the state of California does not have the money to build the system. Joe Vranich and I raised this issue in our Due Diligence report on the system, published by the Reason Foundation. We noted that the proposed 2:40 travel time from San Francisco to Los Angeles Union Station would more likely erode to 3:40, because the trains will not be able to travel as fast as planned in the urban areas, and they are not likely to attain their aggressive planned speeds on other portions of the route. We also suggested the likelihood that only part of the system would be built, with trains operating at conventional speeds over conventional tracks for the final 60 or more miles into San Francisco and Los Angeles. With insufficient money, there could be pressure to cut the genuine high speed rail portion of the system back even more than that, given the federal requirement for confining construction to the San Joaquin Valley, which now barely supports minimal air service and has largely traffic-free freeways.

    Proponents have been mouthing fairy tales about French, Chinese or Japanese investment in the system. Can they be so naive to believe that French or Japanese taxpayers will pay for high speed rail system in California? In fact, any such “investment” would be loans and would have to be paid back. Around the world, virtually all private investment for high speed rail has been either lost or bailed out by taxpayers.

    Perhaps the best that proponents can hope for is that some 220 mile per hour track will be built on the flat-as-Kansas agricultural land in the San Joaquin Valley. Trains could continue from the northern terminus (Merced) to San Francisco and from the southern terminus (Bakersfield) to Los Angeles and Anaheim on upgraded conventional rail tracks. This would bring the now discarded slower speed rail vision of Ohio and Wisconsin to California. Trains might well average 70 miles per hour or somewhat more.

    It could be even worse. Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design (CARRD) reveals that the California High Speed Rail Authority has revealed “Plan B.” Its October 2009 application to the US Department of Transportation indicated that “In the event of significant delays or abandonment of the HST program, the Merced/Fresno Program would have created rail crossing benefits, as well as provided the potential for significant improvement to the existing San Joaquin intercity passenger service operated by Amtrak and underwritten in part by the state.”

    Florida: People were also having second thoughts about the genuine high-speed line between Orlando and Tampa. The two cities are so close together than even if the train reached the speed of light, given waiting in a rental car line and driving to and from the stations, car travel could be faster.

    Congressman John Mica, who seems likely to be Chair of the House Infrastructure and Public Works Committee in the next congress, has suggested that the line be truncated to a local operation between Orlando International Airport and Disneyworld. Governor Elect Rick Scott is now reviewing the project.

    International: The international news is barely any better. The Chinese government is now reviewing the wisdom of its huge expenditures on high speed rail, as a result of a critical report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. And, as in California, communities are resisting along a proposed high speed rail line in England. Moreover, cost overruns have been routine, as have been revenue and ridership shortfalls relative to the always rosy projections.

    At least in the United States, the high-speed rail “low-ball express” remains stuck in the station. The actual costs, however, will certainly rise well above the low-ball estimates.

    Photo: The Fast Mail (1877 Average Speed Equal to Cancelled Ohio High Speed Rail Train): Harper’s Weekly, 1877.

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

  • Amtrak Fails To Weather The Storms

    Why do I persist in riding Amtrak, the short name for the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, a company originally owned by the freight railways, but now subsidized by Congress and run like a Russian bureaucracy, complete with late trains, sullen employees, myriad petty regulations, budget deficits, cold coffee, feather bedding, broken seats, clogged toilets, rail cars that feel like buses, and a schedule that serves the interests of congressmen, lobbyists, unions, budget stimulators, and small-town mayors, but rarely passengers?

    Isn’t it time to let Amtrak go the way of such failed railroads as the Nickel Plate, Erie Lackawanna, Chicago & Alton, Rock Island, Maine Central, Wabash, Missouri Pacific, or the New York Central, lines that outlived their corporate incarnations and were either wound up or merged into larger entities?

    Amtrak was set up in 1971 to replace the passenger rail network that was killed off by government regulations, the Interstate Commerce Commission, subsidized air and road travel, and urban blight. The new entity went to work hauling passengers on a route system better adapted to 1921 than 1971. The earlier trains were faster.

    It’s hard to imagine Leland Stanford or E.H. Harriman buying into the Amtrak business model. Forty years after Amtrak’s creation, little of its plan has changed. It offers corridor services on the East and West coasts and, in between, a meandering schedule of trains that account for less than one percent of all intercity travel.

    Buyers could easily be found for the Northeast Corridor service between Boston and Washington. Better yet, allow competition on the line, and auction off the franchise rights, using the proceeds to pay down national debt.

    England had the dreadful network that operated as BritRail. After it was privatized, Britain’s rail service became competitive, passenger friendly, faster, and more comfortable.

    Compare the new British private train system with the Amtrak experience (“Enjoy the journey”). Think about New York’s Pennsylvania Station, a subterranean strip mall with dank corners, uncomfortable chairs in cheerless waiting rooms, confusing destination boards and dreary platforms that have seen few improvements since I first used them in the early 1960s.

    Passengers buying Amtrak tickets in Penn Station stand in a line that feels like Ceauşescu’s Romania. Only one or two agents are on duty, the tickets are expensive, you need you an identity card to buy one, and getting on the train has the feel of descending into a Chilean mine.

    At the cost of billions, there’s a plan for a new “Moynihan Station” across the street, although much of what’s wrong with Penn Station could be fixed if Amtrak outsourced the operation to Hyatt.

    Its shoddy service explains the rise of discount bus lines that are now digging into core Amtrak passenger revenue between Boston, New York, and Washington. Companies such as Bolt Bus charge $15 or $20 to get from New York to Boston, while Amtrak costs $67 to $95, depending on the day and time.

    Bolt leaves from West 34th Street, and departures are punctually on the hour. The seats are cramped, but the buses are clean and have Wi-Fi. The trip takes less time than many trains, when you add in inevitable Amtrak delays. Nor is there a surly Amtrak conductor reading the riot act at each station.

    To get a flavor of Amtrak’s attitude toward its passengers, read the cheerful words of its CEO in the on-board magazine: “Our identification policy, random screenings in stations, random on-board ticket verification process and more interactive police efforts—including our K-9 teams—are some of the visible activities we have been working on.” Trains used to advertise comfortable berths with sleeping kittens.

    Killing off Amtrak would mean the end of long-haul passenger service, the sleepers that are the heirs to trains like the Twentieth Century Limited. I would deeply regret the absence of long-distance train travel in the United States. But, were Amtrak spun off, its overpriced and indifferent service might be replaced by a network of private operators that would compete to take Americans around a glorious country that longs to be seen by rail.

    Even today, Amtrak trains run near full capacity, and the potential to tap into a travel-happy country of 300 million ought to interest a few hedge funds and stock jobbers, not to mention flourishing overseas rail companies.

    Already there are nascent private companies and sleeping car owners that offer rail trips to national parks, art museums, jazz festivals, baseball games, and the homes of famous writers. Deregulate the passenger industry, and companies like these will flourish. Railroads are in America’s entrepreneurial DNA.

    Recently, for $325, less than the cost of a cramped night in an Amtrak “Slumberette” (emphasis on the “ette”), I rode round-trip in a private rail car, New York Central 3, owned by Lovett Smith III, from New York to Pittsburgh.

    Along the way, I sat on the open, rear platform from which presidential candidates whistle-stopped across America, and took in the sweep of the Philadelphia skyline, the majesty of Amish country (I loved the teams of horses pulling plows), the arched bridge across the Susquehanna, the engineering marvel that is the Horseshoe Curve, the path of the Johnstown Flood, and the remnants of the steel industry around Greensburg. Inside the car, I chatted with my fellow passengers, ate elegant meals, and sampled Italian wines (a group on board had organized a tasting). Were Amtrak a service company, not a protection racket set up to bleed government money into padded contracts, it would have the imagination to operate similar excursions.

    Instead, Amtrak wants to position itself as the paymaster for a national rail plan. The Department of Transportation recently issued a strategic plan called Moving Forward: A Progress Report. (If Amtrak were to issue a report to its passengers, it could be entitled, “Sorry for the Inconvenience: Due to a Track Incident, We’re Being Held in Baltimore.”)

    Amtrak imagines itself as the federal agency that should be hired to spend $117 billion, over thirty years, to build a segregated high-speed rail system between Boston and Washington, and for additional billions, to operate Core Express Corridors between cities less than 500 miles apart.

    Such visions of grandeur come from a company that needs nine hours and fifteen minutes to run a train the 444 miles from New York to Pittsburgh; that’s an average speed of 48 m.p.h.

    To be fair, not all of Amtrak’s failings are its fault. Most of the tracks on which it operates are owned by freight companies that find passengers a nuisance, and think nothing of shunting aside “the varnish” to send through more coal and containers.

    Amtrak, however, is responsible for a corporate culture that makes a mockery of “customer service.” In many ways, it is the perfect metaphor for everything that is wrong with letting Washington have a heavy hand in the economy, or for imagining that an economic revival can be built around companies with federal guarantees.

    Amtrak lacks direction, lives off subsidies and stimulating money, and now wants $117 billion to operate high-speed rail that, for the cost differential, would be only marginally better than the private bus companies now competing up and down the East Coast, with fares of one third or less than what Amtrak charges.

    Americans would happily pay for low-speed rail, if the food was good, the seats spacious, the broadband fast, and if, on the rails, they could surf, shop, eat tacos, and watch movies.

    At the moment, I am riding an Amtrak train that is four hours behind schedule on its way into North Carolina. So far, to use a phrase from railroading legend, the services have not been worth a “plated nickel.”

    Photo By Kyle Gradinger, Amtrak Keystone Snowstorm I. Amtrak AEM-7 locomotive 904 leads a Keystone Corridor train through the snow in Rebel Hill, King of Prussia, PA.

    Matthew Stevenson is the author of Remembering the Twentieth Century Limited, winner of Foreword’s bronze award for best travel essays at this year’s BEA. Growing up, he was a “Central” man, but loved the majesty of the old Pennsylvania Station. Together with his father, now 91, he recently has waded through a 1969 edition of the ‘Official Guide to the Railways’. He lives in Switzerland.

  • Rasputin’s Tunnel?

    First, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie cancelled the proposed intercity and suburban rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan because of the financial obligations its out-of-control costs could impose on the state’s taxpayers. Then he delayed the final decision, under pressure from Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and other supporters of the tunnel. In the end, the proponents were unable to provide the financial guarantees necessary to keep New Jersey from having to pay more than it had committed and Christie cancelled the tunnel for good. Or so it appeared.

    Now, the tunnel may be back. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City has studies underway that could lead to extending subway Line 7 from a station at 34th Street and 11th Avenue to New Jersey instead.

    Early press reports suggest the line can be built for $5.3 billion, which is approximately one-half the cost of the previous proposal. It is more likely that Governor Christie will buy the Brooklyn Bridge with tax money than this amount is in the “ball park.” The subway tunnel would be only four blocks (15 percent) shorter than the cancelled tunnel.

    The previous tunnel had the less than attractive name, “Access to the Regional Core.” Given the back and forth history of this project, a more appropriate name might be “Rasputin’s Tunnel,” after the Russian mystic whose enemies failed in multiple attempts to murder (though in the end, they succeeded).

  • How Liberalism Self-destructed

    Democrats are still looking for explanations for their stunning rejection in the midterms — citing everything from voting rights violations and Middle America’s racist orientation to Americans’ inability to perceive the underlying genius of President Barack Obama’s economic policy.

    What they have failed to consider is the albatross of contemporary liberalism.

    Liberalism once embraced the mission of fostering upward mobility and a stronger economy. But liberalism’s appeal has diminished, particularly among middle-class voters, as it has become increasingly control-oriented and economically cumbersome.

    Today, according to most recent polling, no more than one in five voters call themselves liberal.

    This contrasts with the far broader support for the familiar form of liberalism forged from the 1930s to the 1990s. Democratic presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton focused largely on basic middle-class concerns — such as expanding economic opportunity, property ownership and growth.

    Modern-day liberalism, however, is often ambivalent about expanding the economy — preferring a mix of redistribution with redirection along green lines. Its base of political shock troops, public-employee unions, appears only tangentially interested in the health of the overall economy.

    In the short run, the diminishment of middle-of-the-road Democrats at the state and national level will probably only worsen these tendencies, leaving a rump party tied to the coastal regions, big cities and college towns. There, many voters are dependents of government, subsidized students or public employees, or wealthy creative people, college professors and business service providers.

    This process — driven in large part by the liberal attachment to economically regressive policies such as cap and trade — cost the Democrats mightily throughout the American heartland. Politicians who survived the tsunami, such as Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia, did so by denouncing proposals in states where green policies are regarded as hostile to productive local industries that are major employers.

    Populism, a traditional support of liberalism, has been undermined by a deep suspicion that President Barack Obama’s economic policy favors Wall Street investment bankers over those who work on Main Street. This allowed the GOP, a party long beholden to monied interests, to win virtually every income segment earning more than $50,000.

    Obama also emphasized an urban agenda that promoted nationally directed smart growth, inefficient light rail and almost ludicrous plans for a national high-speed rail network. These proposals appealed to the new urbanist cadre but had little appeal for the vast majority of Americans who live in outer-ring neighborhoods, suburbs and small towns.

    The failure of Obama-style liberalism has less to do with government activism than with how the administration defined its activism. Rather than deal with basic concerns, it appeared to endorse the notion of bringing the federal government into aspects of life — from health care to zoning — traditionally controlled at the local level.

    This approach is unpopular even among “millennials,” who, with minorities, represent the best hope for the Democratic left. As the generational chroniclers Morley Winograd and Michael Hais point out, millennials favor government action — but generally at the local level, which is seen as more effective and collaborative. Top-down solutions from “experts,” Winograd and Hais write in a forthcoming book, are as offensive to millennials as the right’s penchant for dictating lifestyles.

    Often eager to micromanage people’s lives, contemporary liberalism tends to obsess on the ephemeral while missing the substantial. Measures such as San Francisco’s recent ban on Happy Meals follow efforts to control the minutiae of daily life. This approach trivializes the serious things government should do to boost economic growth and opportunity.

    Perhaps worst of all, the new liberals suffer from what British author Austin Williams has labeled a “poverty of ambition.” FDR offered a New Deal for the middle class, President Harry S. Truman offered a Fair Deal and President John F. Kennedy pushed us to reach the moon.

    In contrast, contemporary liberals seem more concerned about controlling soda consumption and choo-chooing back to 19th-century urbanism. This poverty of ambition hurts Democrats outside the urban centers. For example, when I met with mayors from small, traditionally Democratic cities in Kentucky and asked what the stimulus had done for them, almost uniformly they said it accomplished little or nothing.

    A more traditional liberal approach might have focused on improvements that could leave tangible markers of progress across the nation. The New Deal’s major infrastructure projects — ports, airports, hydroelectric systems, road networks — transformed large parts of the country, notably in the West and South, from backwaters to thriving modern economies.

    When FDR commissioned projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, he literally brought light to darkened regions. The loyalty created by FDR and Truman built a base of support for liberalism that lasted for nearly a half-century.

    Today’s liberals don’t show enthusiasm for airports or dams — or anything that may kick up some dirt. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Deanna Archuleta, for example, promised a Las Vegas audience: “You will never see another federal dam.”

    Harold Ickes, FDR’s enterprising interior secretary, must be turning over in his grave.

    The administration would have done well to revive programs like the New Deal Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps. These addressed unemployment by providing jobs that also made the country stronger and more competitive. They employed more than 3 million people building thousands of roads, educational buildings and water, sewer and other infrastructure projects.

    Why was this approach never seriously proposed for this economic crisis? Green resistance to turning dirt may have been part of it. But undoubtedly more critical was opposition from public- sector unions, which seem to fear any program that threatens their economic privileges.

    In retrospect, it’s easy to see why many great liberals — like FDR and New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia — detested the idea of public-sector unions.

    Of course, green, public-sector-dominated politics can work — as it has in fiscally challenged blue havens such as California and New York. But then, a net 3 million more people — many from the middle class — have left these two states in the past 10 years.

    If this defines success, you have to wonder what constitutes failure.

    This article originally appeared in Politico.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University and an adjunct fellow with the Legatum Institute in London. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.

    Photo: Tony the Misfit

  • Car Wars: Should Autos Rule The Road? Part II

    We have a severe drug problem, we’ve been told, that mostly affects suburbanites. The dangerous drug is not taken by mouth, nor by injection, yet it is used daily by every family member and must be stopped before we, as a nation, are utterly destroyed. According to many experts, our “dependence” on cars must stop.

    Internet rumors abound that we are about to be legislated out of our stupor, and be taxed into high density, inner core cities. Should this rumor become fact, let’s look at what effect it will have on our economy, and, quite frankly, on the American Dream of home ownership.

    Today, the housing market is still dealing with the disaster of plummeted prices. Since 80% of the new home market this past decade has been suburban, it would be safe to say that 80% of Americans that bought in this century are the hardest hit, because these new homes have dropped to pre-boom pricing. It has been young families, generally, that have driven out to the suburbs to find new homes, the promise of lower density, and newer safe schools. In addition, many (most) of these families believed that their homes were a source of income; after all, values were increasing 10% or more annually, and that equity could be tapped in loans, (both suburban and urban).

    While many think of the suburbs as pure white, that is no longer true. The suburbs today, in general, are intermixed with all races. But the new race being ridiculed by many is the “suburbanite”. The suburbanite yearning for his or her daily fix of the car, consuming our fuel, and spewing carbon into our atmosphere must be eradicated at all costs.

    So how do we eradicate this vermin? There are rumors of a carbon tax that will place a financial burden on those vehicular junkies. Who cares that this major portion of America’s population is under the most financial pressure since the depression. If we tax these infidels, that will surely bring them to their senses , and we can cure their dependence on Chevys, Fords, and Mini-vans. Let’s break their backs once and for all, so that these families will abandon what is left of the suburbs and be forced back to the inner core. If reason does not work, we can just legislate it.

    Let’s imagine this new future filled with promise of a new America. In this fantasy, we visit the Smith family, who moved from their 10,000 foot suburban lot into the urban core. Adam Smith, the father, now must take the bus to the train station for the new light rail line that goes to Edenville, his job out in the suburb as a plant manager (it seems that his place of employment did not make the move). With connections, he can make it to work within an hour, whereas his 10 mile commute from suburb to suburb took 20 minutes.

    Lilly Smith (his new wife, as the old one refused to move into a 20 story inner city high-rise) works at Bester Buy on the edge of the city. She needs two bus connections to get there Having a car is not an option, since parking costs are prohibitive in the city. Luckily, the kids are old enough to be left alone; Josh is 8 years old, Jane is 12, and Joey, who is 15, watches over the siblings. Today is a holiday and they are home from school, but the cold rainy day keeps them inside, along with hundreds of other kids who play in the vast corridors.

    Lilly arrives at work, only to remember that Jane had a dentist appointment which she forgot about. She shivers, thinking about the old days, and the warm comfort of the Mini-van she once relied on to take her kids to appointments. She breaks out into a sweat and falls into a stupor. Her fellow workers recognize the symptoms, as they too have been weaned of their dependence upon personal vehicles. Her manager, Ralph, lets her take a week of sick leave to get help.

    Ralph is lucky. He lives in a single family neighborhood on the edge of the city. He has his own large lot, a spacious 35 feet wide and 90 feet long. He and his wife each posses a car. His luxury two story home, setback five feet from the sidewalk, is 25 feet wide and 50 feet deep; the house itself is a massive 2,500 square feet, over twice as large as the Smiths inner city apartment. He also has three children who enjoy the privacy of their back yard. The garage adjacent to the 12 foot wide alley consumes 440 square feet of their remaining 1,200 square foot rear yard. Still, with 760 square feet of green space, the kids are lucky.

    Ralph and his wife, Mary, both drive electric cars. Mary has the larger vehicle, with a 50 mile range per charge on a warm day. Their daughter wants to play with a cousin who still lives in the suburbs, 20 miles away. This is a cold day, which reduces the range of the vehicle to 35 miles, and their cousins do not have a charging station, so their 11 years old daughter is driven to the Light Rail station, a mile away.

    A week later, back at the Smith apartment, an argument starts between Adam and Lilly about her desire to get out of the city. Even if they did move out to near Adam’s plant, they would need Lilly’s paycheck to make ends meet, so she would need the light rail and two bus connections to get to work. Lilly begins to sweat and shake again… When Josh asks what is wrong with Mommy, Adam explains about the days when Americans were drugged out on their cars, the days when people were free to go when and where they wanted. As he describes those terrible times, he too yearns for those days. Adam and Lilly dream of moving out to a place with space, if only the carbon tax on moving out of the city could allow it, but alas, it’s only a dream that only the wealthy can now afford.

    A fantasy? Here is what I’m experiencing as a planner. When I met with a city official a few weeks ago I was admonished for a proposal that included attached garages. I explained that attaching the garage reduces 40 feet of exterior wall to be built, and here in Minnesota, an attached garage means you do not have to shovel snow between the home and the garage, nor slip on the ice. Why would I detach a garage, I asked? The city official explained that according to his planning staff, the space between the garage and the home is a social gathering spot where neighbors can stop and talk about their day. I had thought that’s what that large front porch we are proposing on the homes was for.

    There is a movement to prevent the toxic drug — the car — from infecting our lives. For me, no way you are taking me off my ERPT — Extremely Rapid Personal Transport — dependence.

    This is the second of a two-part series in which different authors examined the centrality of the autombile in urban and suburban life.

    Photo by Rick Harrison of the author’s ERPT — his Porsche.

    Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. He is author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable and creator of Performance Planning System. His websites are rhsdplanning.com and performanceplanningsystem.com.

  • Car Wars: Should Autos Rule The Road? Part I

    We’ve decided to become a one car family. Denver has proven to be the ideal locale for this experiment, of sorts. The “Mile High City,” and particularly our new neighborhood, provide a range of mobility options beyond the four-wheel variety for trekking from place to place.

    The metropolitan area is naturally blessed with a mobility-favorable landscape. It is approximately 10 miles by 10 miles. More importantly, our neighborhood possesses what I affectionately refer to as “accessible proximity” to local amenities such as grocery stores, coffee houses, parks, and specialty shopping centers. The immediate area is not only safe, it’s engaging in its physical and social makeup, with stately homes and troves of dog-walkers along suburban style streets.

    Recently, our daughter, who is eight, remarked “Ya know, at our old home it seemed like we always needed a car to go places, while here in Denver, we can actually walk places and enjoy the clean air.”

    The website Walkscore, an online index, which ranks communities nationwide based on access by foot to restaurants, coffee houses, schools, businesses and other frequent destinations. Denver’s score provides tangible evidence of my daughter’s contention: According to the site’s analytics, our Denver address registers a whopping 88 out of 100, defined as ‘very walkable,’ meaning that “one is able to accomplish most errands by foot. Our residence in Folsom, California — from which we recently relocated — stumbled in at a paltry 48 out of 100, defined by Walkscore as ‘car dependent’.

    Why is this such a big deal to us, as well as to growing numbers of Americans? I would contend that it is affordability. As Americans continue to struggle financially amid the worst economic times since the great depression, the argument could be made that location efficient neighborhoods offer a cost effective alternative to those that are exclusively auto-centric. In an era where expenses associated with automobile ownership, maintenance and fuel represent a significant slice of our household budgets, policy makers would be wise to expand options that encourage alternative forms of mobility.

    Automobiles are still the transportation mode of choice for most working commuters, and for good reason, as most Americans still live a reasonable distance from where they work. But alternative forms of transportation are gaining momentum, as many struggle with insurance and other automotive related expenses.

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s recently released American Community Survey (ACS), bicycling is becoming a viable option for Americans willing to pump the pedal on their way to work. Portland leads the U.S. in terms of the most bike commuters, with almost six percent of its residents using a bicycle as their primary mode of transportation to work in 2009. Minneapolis (3.86%), Seattle (2.99%), San Francisco (2.98%), and Oakland (2.53%) round out the top five.

    Denver is one of a handful of cities that is actively promoting the use of bicycles as a viable short-run commute option. This year, the city introduced the first large-scale bike-sharing program in the U.S. A partnership between Humana, Trek Bicycle and the advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, this initiative flows from the shared belief that bicycles should serve as vehicles for positive health and environmental change, as well as important parts of a community’s transportation ecosystem. It’s this latter point that has gained the attention of Denver hotels and the convention center, which are seeking to provide visitors with mobility tools that compliment the downtown’s free bus system and walkable grid.

    The dilemma continues to be how to efficiently travel short distances that are too far to walk. Like Pavlovian dogs, many of us are conditioned to reach for the car keys, even for the shortest of trips. This behavior is deeply embedded in our consciousness;, an auto-centric mindset that has been nurtured in us for years.

    Chris Wiggins of the Folsom, California based Glide Electric Cruiser believes that a huge demand exists for short-range transportation options. His invention is ideal for short commutes and has virtually no impact on the environment. What is it? A series of motorized electric scooters with top speeds of up to 38 miles per hour. Currently in a first production run stage, these “cruisers” have attracted a wide swath of interest, from law enforcement agencies to senior groups. “I personally believe they have the potential to revolutionize short-range commuting in the U.S. and beyond,” says Wiggins. “My greatest hope in developing them is that they will have a meaningful impact on the quality of life, as well as improve the environment.”

    Recognizing that car-based travel will continue to be a reality for most Americans, innovative companies like Zip Car and Car2Go have adroitly positioned themselves for where I believe the auto market is headed: Short-term, just-in-time rentals that eliminate the expense of owning a car. And since my family has only one car, I personally am exploring these and other options to assist with those commutes beyond my immediate, local area.

    There are many factors affect the viability of a mobility option. Density currently receives the greatest amount of air-time. I’m often reminded of a business trip several years ago to the wonderful island community of Bermuda. I was intrigued to discover that because of its dense configuration and its size, cars weren’t allowed on the island until 1946. Today, only residents are permitted to drive cars on the island, and only one car is allowed per household. As Bermuda is a heavily trafficked tourist destination, I wondered what forms of transportation were available. An amused hotel bellman directed me to a lot full of mopeds and scooters.I discovered that these low-power transporters were the predominant form of transportation for residents as well as visitors to the island.

    While it could be argued that population density is the raison d’etre for alternative mobility options, there are other factors that should be taken into consideration. Much talk of late has centered around a concept called “intersection density,” which refers to the number of intersections in an area. The greater the intersection density, the shorter the blocks, and it is these short blocks that are the main contributing factor to neighborhood walkability. In Travel and the Built Environment: A Meta Analysis, which appeared in the summer 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association, Reid Ewing and Robert Cervero, urban planning academics at University of Utah and U.C. Berkeley respectively, found that of all the built environment measurements, intersection density has the largest effect on walking — more than population density, or distance to a store or to a transit stop, or jobs within one mile. According to the authors, it’s this ease of accessibility that spurs walkable foot-traffic to high destination nodes such as shopping and recreation.

    Density, unfortunately, is often associated exclusively with large urban environments that possess tightly packed, downtown center-cities. This undermines the enormous advantages of many suburban style cities such as Naperville, Illinois; Traverse City, Michigan; and Glenwood Springs, Colorado, all of which offer a plethora of local amenities within walking distance of their adjacent neighborhoods.

    Our deeply ingrained auto-centric habit makes it hard to say if any of these lessons in metropolitan mobility will gain traction, and if so, where they are likely to lead us. But one thing is for certain: A new narrative for how to approach short-distance trips is fostering a debate that is, at the very least, a carbon footprint in the right direction.

    This is the first of a two-part series in which different writers examine the centrality of the automobile in urban and suburban life. Tomorrow, read a very different viewpoint in Part Two.

    Photo by Michael Scott of the author’s Denver neighborhood.

    Michael P. Scott is an associate with Centro, Inc, a Denver-based consulting firm focused on the future of our city centers. He can be reached at michael@becentro.com

  • Livability and All That

    Livability is one of those once innocuous words, like sustainability, that now receive almost unquestioned acceptance in the bureaucracy, academia and the media. After all, words like sustainability and livability have no acceptable negative form. Who could be in favor of anything unlivable, insensitive, unhealthy or unsustainable?

    Back in the late seventies, when I served as Special Assistant for Information Policy in the Office of the Secretary, our shibboleth was “balanced”. Can anyone be in favor of unbalanced transportation? It didn’t matter that the word had no meaning and we couldn’t explain it to others, it still became standard in the rhetoric of secretarial officers. In an unkind moment a reporter asked the present DOT Secretary Ray LaHood what he meant by livable, given that the department had just added it to its criteria for giving away money. He replied vaguely it was something about being able to walk to work and the park and a restaurant, to a doctor and a few more things.

    Well it turns out I was living the livable life style when I was growing up in Queens, New York in the fifties and didn’t know it. Here all along I just thought we were poor.

    Aside from seeking to have the same modal shares of America in 1910, or Tajikistan today, this idea fails on both theoretical and practical grounds. Theoretically, whatever merit the idea might have, livability means very different things in a tenement in Brooklyn, or a place in Billings, Des Moines, or Peoria. I can recall being sent to the store for milk or lettuce by my Mom after school. If I didn’t get there in time the four heads of iceberg lettuce (I was 16 before I found out that there were other kinds) were gone. The milk was “milk”. Today in a supermarket the milk section is bigger than the grocery store I went to as a kid. There’s skim, 1%, 2%, whole, lactaid, acidophilus in quarts, half-gallons, and gallons and 86 kinds of lettuce. The typical market today has above 50,000 items. That means that the market shed for such stores is far broader than it was back in the day.

    We were three generations of the family in the same household and we all had the same doctor who lived two blocks away. Today I don’t have a doctor – I have half a dozen – none of them selected on the basis of distance. When one selects doctors, best, not closest, matters. Hospitals are growing in size but declining in the number of facilities per thousand population. All of this is simply representative of the immense trend towards specialization in our society – an increasing division of labor in all activities and an accompanying division of tastes and preferences in an increasingly affluent society. If you want a loaf of wonder bread there’s a 7-11 down the street; if its ciabatta with sun-dried tomatoes there’s this really great place I know a few miles off of exit 29 on the freeway.

    In today’s job market don’t we expect that people will be willing to go farther to find the job they want or can get? If the average travel time is about 25 minutes and a half-hour commute is acceptable, how long is one unemployed before the acceptable becomes 45 minutes or an hour? In this period of housing constraint in which people are even more locked into their homes by underwater mortgages, the commute will grow as people get desperate.

    In my town of College Point, Queens when the factory whistle blew a few thousand walked in the gate and out again when the whistle blew in the evening. People don’t live outside the factory gate anymore and haven’t for awhile. Again, specialization and division of labor are the main factor. Job groupings are far smaller today, and the rate of job turnover means more people won’t/can’t move every time they change jobs. Moreover, about 70% of workers live in a household with other workers – whose job will they live next to?

    More importantly, the great competitive strength of America lies in access to skilled workers. Employers will be reaching out farther and farther to find the specializations and skills they require. We should expect work trip lengths to grow not become walking trips. It won’t be inner city oriented either. The metropolis of today is of immense size because many employers need a market of hundreds of thousands of potential workers to reach the ones they need. The Atlanta region with 26 counties is not a great economic engine because it is 26 charming adjacent hamlets, but rather because the market reach of employers, suppliers, customers and job seekers spreads over several million residents.

    In this environment it takes massive transportation capability to assure that market shed. The questions are how many potential employees can I reach in half an hour; how many suppliers, how many customers? In the future more of us will be free to live where we want and work where we want. Most will not be willing to trade living floor space for a close-by sidewalk café. Americans will drive to where they want to walk.

    There remains, of course, lots of room now within the existing land use distribution to make it easier for those who wish to live closer to shops, jobs or entertainment. People also are free to go to the nearest store or nearest doctor. The fact that so few do so reflects the oft-forgotten fact that people have their own notions of what is most important. Trying to coerce them to live the way government – particularly the upper bureaucracy – thinks they should live holds many perils. The American people have no obligation to live in ways that make it convenient for government to serve them. Government isn’t smart enough to know how people should live or to order their lives in more “convenient” arrangements.

    On the practical side:

    It’s on the practical side that the concepts of livability really fail. The central failure inheres in what the Europeans call subsidiarity, proposes that any necessary activity of an authority should be conducted by that level of governance closest to the problem that can effectively address it. Having livability rise to become central principle of federal transportation investment planning is an egregious failure in our historical system of decentralized government. If sidewalks and bike paths are federal then everything is federal.

    The mayors of our cities love it. Why not? It is the closest they have come to being able to lay claim to direct federal funding, getting those pesky states and suburban communities where the majority of Americans live out of the way. They see it as finally being their turn at the money from Washington. In these times, when every government level is broke, livability and sustainability can prove a potential lifeline, and a bonanza as well to developers – often themselves subsidized – who focus on the inner city.

    The livability criterion is ultimately centralist: fed-centric. It is not up to local people if they want to densify or not, but real power will rest with a really “smart” guy behind a desk in Washington. Proposals for federal “performance measurement” degenerate into a charade that produces pre-ordained results. Now I can fund my friends, who are as right-thinking as I am!

    The problem here is a total disconnect between what people in a diverse democracy want, and what the central bureaucracy, and their academic allies, wish to impose. The livability agenda may be popular in the press and among pundits, but for most communities and people it’s neither popular nor remotely democratic.

    Alan E. Pisarski is the author of the long running Commuting in America series. A consultant in travel behavior issues and public policy, he frequently testifies before the Houses of the Congress and advises States on their investment and policy requirements.

    Photo by Mastery of Maps

  • HSR Just Doesn’t Fit

    According to many economists, including the well-respected Robert J. Samuelson, the federal government’s effort to fund high-speed rail lines is like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. If one really breaks down the numbers, the Obama administration’s goals of reducing green house gas emissions, traffic congestion, and oil consumption with these rail lines are idealistic to say the least, and this idealism may cost states more than their budgets can handle right now.

    The administration wants to build rail lines in 13 urban corridors throughout the nation, 12 of which span distances of less than 500 miles. High-speed rail in these areas would compete with car and air travel, but statistics indicate that this would not save a significant amount on energy costs. Assuming daily air passengers, about 52,934 people in the 12 corridors in 2007, switched to high-speed rail, the result would amount to only a 2.5% drop in air passenger totals. Driving is even less likely to decrease seeing as 85% of the 140 million Americans drive to work each day. If you take the example of the Northeast corridor with 45 million commuters, only 28,500 of which take Amtrak, high-speed rail will not divert enough drivers to cut the amount of energy costs that the administration claims it will.

    However, they use high-speed rail models from Europe and Asia to justify spending upwards of $10.5 billion on this infrastructure of the future. The problem with this is that the successful high-speed rail lines, the most successful of which are the Paris-Lyon and the Tokyo-Osaka lines, are located in densely populated urban areas. The United States became heavily suburban in the past half century and the percentage of the metropolitan population living in central cities dropped to 32% in 2000. As a result, jobs spread out to the suburbs and more Americans are even working from home. Rail service to big core cities will be even less useful as this trend continues.

    Washington will end up footing most of the bill for these high-speed rail projects, especially in states like California that have massive budget woes and few interested private investors. In fact, California is asking for $19 billion for its now $42.6 billion project. That’s almost twice as much as the administration has paid for all the high-speed rail projects in the nation combined (currently $10.5 billion). If this starts happening in every state waiting to get high-speed rail, even if it is on a smaller scale, the federal government will have little money to address the country’s more pressing needs, such as education.

    Some state governments are starting to wise up. Not wanting to waste money on unfruitful high-speed rail lines, they are simply rejecting federal money for these projects because they would not be able to spend the funds on things they really want, like better roads. Obviously, the federal government won’t be able to force high speed rail on Americans for long.

    There is no doubt the Obama administration has good intentions for high-speed rail, but good intentions don’t always translate to success. Rather than try to wedge its idealistic vision of a new transportation infrastructure into the realities of recession-ridden America, it should evaluate what the country truly needs.