Monthly Archives: August 2009

Path dependence, libertarianism, and HSR

There’s been a great back and forth over the past few days on high speed rail, most of it stemming from Ed Glaeser’s flawed cost-benefit analysis, and Yonah Freemark’s counter-analysis.

First, Tyler Cowen weighs in on Yonah’s HSR analysis.

Don’t do it. Given irreversible investment, lock-in effects, and required hurdle rates of return, this still falls into the “no” category. And that’s an estimate from an advocate writing a polemic on behalf of the idea. I’m not even considering the likelihood of inflation on the cost side or the public choice problems with getting a good rather than a bad version of the project. How well has the Northeast corridor been run?

…

General remark: It’s not about population density per se. It’s about how many independent, hard-to-connect nodes the system has and that is why high-speed rail on the whole works better in Europe or Japan than in many other locales. To give an example from a slightly different realm, I live right near the Metro in a high-density suburban area. Yet I don’t take the Metro to my Arlington office, which is about two minutes from a Metro stop. I’d rather do the 37-minute drive. Why? Because I stop at the supermarket and the public library on my way home at least half of the time or maybe I stop to eat at Thai Thai. If those conveniences were right next to my house I’d consider the Metro but they’re not.

Ryan Avent responds, asking why libertarians hate trains. Matt Yglesias chimes in on that, as well – adding a critique of zoning laws to the equation. Zoning is likely the reason Mr. Cowen doesn’t have Thai Thai near his local Metro stop (and why there isn’t more stuff around that Metro in the first place).

At this time, Will Wilkinson enters the fray – saying that the reasons libertarians don’t care about zoning (and don’t put up a fight to right the wrongs of past highway subsidies, thus holding new HSR systems to a higher standard) is basically a status quo bias – that we’ve set out on a dependent path.

What makes this issue so tricky for me is that the status quo pattern of settlement and transportation certainly does reflect systematic regulatory mandates, but it’s not clear how worthwhile it is to try to back out of this pattern once it has been established — even if those mandates were stupid. The way we live is indeed very much a function of choices made by government some time ago and reinforced by its ongoing decisions to maintain the established system. I think the case for the proposition that many of these choices were big mistakes — that we’d have an overall better pattern of settlement and transportation had government made different choices — is pretty compelling. Yet it remains that whole cities have formed around the suboptimal status quo system and many tens of millions of people have invested in goods like houses and cars taking for granted the structure of the status quo system.

I love the smell of the the sunk cost fallacy in the morning. While what Wilkinson writes here is true, it’s also largely irrelevant. Ryan notes the reasons why this fallacy isn’t worth perpetuating:

Libertarians, for some reason I haven’t yet grasped, seem to view the world as remarkably static. In their world, population is not growing. New entrants to the workforce aren’t choosing where and how to live. Demographics are etched in stone; the population isn’t getting older and embracing smaller family sizes. And people never, ever move house. Libertarians also seem to like the “newspaper commenter” critique of urbanist arguments: “Why do you want to make everyone live in Manhattan?” There’s no such thing as a shift at the margin in this view.

In practice, the US is far from done building. Tens of millions of new homes will be built in the coming decades. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent on transportation infrastructure. The current built environment has, as a result of decades of government policy, taken on a rather suburban, auto-centric tilt. So what? No one is suggesting that we tear down all of that and replace it with something entirely new. I, and others, are suggesting that making it easier (or, you know, legal) to build in a denser, more walkable fashion would be advantageous. Similarly, given the burden of maintaining such a large and costly road infrastructure, it might be wise to devote a larger share of dollars for new construction to substitute technologies.

Market Urbanism doesn’t agree, or doesn’t seem bothered by the sunk cost fallacy:

So, in other words, building either of the options, roads or rail both require “a large environmental sacrifice”, but all other options must be kept off the table, so let’s just sweep that under the rug. Yet, there is an other option to consider for those who really think something should be done about carbon: STOP WASTING MATERIAL AND ENERGY ON CONSTRUCTION OF INFRASTRUCTURE BOONDOGGLES THAT SUBSIDIZE TRANSPORTATION! That still goes double for roads and airports, where congestion and carbon emissions could be reduced through revenue-generating measures such as congestion tolling.

I appreciate the job Market Urbanism does, but his assertion that we should just stop subsidizing transportation completely ignores the political realities of the day. This is one of the primary reasons many folks go insane when arguing with Libertarians. At least Will Wilkinson acknowledges the follies of path dependence – Market Urbanism seems fit to ignore the political realities we live with.

Perhaps the biggest thing to note came in Avent’s comment section: commenter ‘jack lecou’ notes that the change won’t be transformational – at least not in the immediate future. The changes that got us to our current transportation system weren’t transformational, either – they were incremental. The key in getting our transportation system back in balance is to make those kinds of incremental changes in both our built environment as well as our political environment.

This is essentially the only politically possible path to choose. It’s also the most realistic path to implement change.

NIMBYism on the Hill

Recently, this article from the Washington Examiner showed up on my neighborhood listserv for Hill East. A troublesome carry-out establishment on the Hill, previously a magnet for the drug trade and crime, has been torn down and replaced with a taller, mixed use condominium building with space for ground-floor retail.

The Examiner:

A former Hill East carry-out joint known to be magnet for drugs and violence has been reborn, to some neighborhood dismay, as a condominium and retail complex at the corner of 15th and C streets Southeast not far from RFK Stadium.

…

The criminals dispersed with the carryout’s closure, residents say. But neighbors are not unanimously celebrating its replacement — yet another condo building, one of three relatively new towers on the same block.

“You’ve created on this one block, condo alley,” said Neil Glick, Hill East advisory neighborhood commissioner. “You’ve totally destroyed the character of a residential street of houses. I don’t think it’s progress at all.”

Jim Myers, longtime Hill East activist, dubbed the redeveloped block “Condo Canyon.”

“To understand why some neighbors are irate, you must realize that they endured decades of violence outside the New Dragon and environs, and gained a few moment’s peace that was quickly replaced with the sound of heavy machinery tearing down buildings,” Myers wrote on the neighborhood listserve. “And then the new buildings went up and up until the sun and sky were not to be seen again.”

This is why I can’t stand NIMBY arguments. Mr. Myers just equated a problematic business establishment, crime, shootings, and the like with positive reinvestment in the community. The classic NIMBY defense, using the ‘shotgun’ approach of raising every conceivable objection (no matter if some of them are contradictory) and seeing what sticks.

Richard Layman offers his perspective:

In any event, the block isn’t destroyed and neither is the rowhouse character of the greater neighborhood. If the cornice/roof line of the building was decent, likely if I lived on the block the addition of this building wouldn’t have bothered me.

Richard also notes that the vast majority of housing units in Ward 6 are rowhouses.

It is true that this is change. But the way it is characterized reflects an incredibly strong parochialism, one that is pretty dismissive of providing a means for new housing to be added and different types of people to be accommodated within extant neighborhoods.

Basically what they are saying is that only people with the means to buy a single family house should be able to live in their neighborhood.

Well said, Richard.

In addition to his points, I’d challenge the NIMBY assertion that these condo buildings represent some massive degradation of their built environment. I went over to the site and snapped a few photos.

This is the building in question. The area is predominantly 2-story rowhouses, but of varying heights. Showing the context of the streets, you can see what this change really means:

I find it curious that Mr. Myers would complain about these buildings blocking out the sun and sky when the gorgeous old trees along the street are taller than the buildings in question and block out much more of the sun.

Also, this is part of DC’s L’Enfant City. The other notable thing from this picture is the width of 15th street. These buildings are hardly out of scale with the urban design of the area. These 4-5 story buildings aren’t exactly miniature Empire State Buildings.

It’s also worth noting the value to the city as a whole benefits from this kind of surgical infill development. Adding density at key locations, particularly in places such as this within easy walking distance of a Metro station (Potomac Ave) and two grocery stores, is a good thing for the city as a whole. If the NIMBY folks wanted a better retail establishment, it’s worth noting that neighborhood-serving retail in a location like this doesn’t just magically appear, it comes into being with the support of local residents. Adding density with a few condo units here and there is a fantastic way to increase the livability of the area. It’s a positive feedback mechanism – adding density provides more opportunities for retail, making the area more attractive for residents and visitors alike.

Additionally, Richard Layman already noted the benefit in having multiple price points and multiple housing varieties in a neighborhood.

Unlike Mr. Glick and Mr. Myers, I do think this is progress and Hill East will be a better place because of it.

Garden Variety Links

Garden Cities – Suburbs, back to the future…

Christopher, in the comments of my post on the American Dream, mentioned this great photo gallery over on Slate from Witold Rybczynski of Forest Hills Gardens, an American interpretation of the Garden Cities of the turn of the century. Chris notes these Garden City suburbs have all of the principles of today’s New Urbanist communities – transit orientation, sufficient density, mixed uses and mixed incomes, etc.

It’s all about access

Cap’n Transit continues on his campaign for transportation to focus on accessibility over mobility. The two concepts, of course, are intricately related, but accessibility is the more important paradigm for urbanism and city life:

Last week Grist had a well-sourced article (which came to me via Planetizen, via Portland Transport, via Streetsblog.net) that nicely illustrates how improving access without mobility can get people to drive less. And of course by driving less, we reduce pollution and global warming, increase energy efficiency, and all the rest. In this case, when stores are located within walking distance, people walk more, improving their health as well.

Transportation planners should be willing to acknowledge when there’s a possible non-transportation solution that’s worth considering, especially when they’re dealing with taxpayer money. They should then be prepared to say, “You know, you really need a business development planner. That’s not my specialty, but let me introduce you to Joe, who’s really good at fostering downtown businesses.”

This kind of integration between professional disciplines ought to be the goal. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Nevertheless, fostering regulatory environments where such holistic understandings of urbanism, transportation, and the interconnections between them ought to be encouraged.

At the same time, I don’t think we need a complete revamp of the current system – but encouraging these conversations and spreading these concepts amongst the population at large is important for planners and urbanists.

Great Station Architecture

Aaron Renn has a post on the potential of Chicago’s El and other transit systems to be not just good, but great. At the end of the post, Renn has a great collection of photos from various transit systems around the world – showing off great station architecture and high-minded design. The gallery is well worth a look.

Within that discussion, Matt Johnson has a fantastic set of posts at GGW on the basic design elements of Metro’s system (part one – underground stations; part two – above-ground stations; part three – other motifs). Matt lays out the basic elements of Metro’s stations and how they’re both constant yet varied within the system.

When it comes to creating great stations, DC’s immediate opportunity will be on the Silver line. Discussion in the comments asked about the sole underground station on the new line (at Dulles), but since that station is in the second phase of construction, we don’t have renderings of the architecture – just some basic engineering. We do have, however, renderings from the stations in phase one – and the comments in part two of GGW’s thread weren’t exactly complimentary of the architecture.

Some photos from the Dulles Metro website:

TysonsCentral123

Tysons Central 123

Tysons7int

Tysons Central 7 – interior

TysonsEastExt

Tysons East

In other station news – over in Vienna, Jarrett Walker has a post on station architecture there – focusing on the Art Noveau elements.

While we’re in Vienna…

Jarrett also has some posts on other elements of Vienna’s transit systems.

First, he has a follow up on the city’s overhead wires. Jarrett’s great photos allow the reader to decide if those wires ruin the city or not. My opinion is that they do not, and they won’t mean the end of the world for DC, either. That is, once we decide to bring our new streetcars back from the Czech Republic.

Jarrett also notes about the excellent network effects within Vienna’s system – including cross-platform transfers. Making transfers easy is an important part of a great system – even in DC, plenty of people I know hate to switch lines, especially at off-peak hours when trains run more infrequently. Jarrett notes:

In talking about transit planning I’m constantly stressing the need to think in terms of interconnected two-dimensional networks, not just the one-dimensional “corridors” that are the focus of so many transit studies. It’s a hard point to convey because (a) interconnectedness implies connections, also called “transfers,” which people supposedly hate, and (b) networks are complicated and abstract and hard to think about, which is why I’m always trying to create and promote tools for making them simpler.

What’s more, network effects are really hard to photograph. The closest you can come is a photo of a really smooth cross-platform connection.

A cross platform transfer allows a rider to switch lines by simply crossing the platform to a different train without having to switch levels, as you currently have to do at Metro Center or the other main DC transfer points. This diagram from Wikipedia shows how a cross-platform transfer works in Hong Kong’s MTR:

Basically, the train lines weave for you – thus the passenger does not have to navigate stairs/escalators to get to a different platform to switch lines. Each train stops twice in this one ‘station’ – one stop facilitating a transfer to the other outbound line, the second to the other inbound line.

Jarrett also references one of his other posts, where he notes why transfers are good and why we should try to make them easy – they really make the system as a whole function smoothly.

Sorry for the convenience

Escalator temporarily stairs!

DCist and GGW note a post from Unsuck DC Metro about old studies on converting some of Metro’s escalators to stairs. The relevant document is available on WMATA’s website. As anyone who’s ridden Metro regularly knows, the system has a lot of escalators and they tend to break down quite often.

Zachary Schrag notes in his great history of Metro that escalators were one of the design principles of the system – futuristic, modern stairs. The original concept wanted to free Metro from the old conceptions of rapid transit, such as the cramped mezzanines and fare gates of legacy systems in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and others – and one idea was to completely eliminate the mezzanine and deliver passengers directly from the street to the platform. As it turned out, mezzanines serve a rather useful purpose, so they’re in the design – but the escalators remain.

Despite Metro’s escalator issues (they cost, on average, $51,000 per escalator per year to maintain), they do indeed serve a purpose. WMATA’s criteria for potential stair replacements only looked at stations with redundancy (i.e. where the removal of an escalator would still leave 2 operational escalators) and relatively short vertical distances (less than 30 feet – which is still a fair hike – three flights of stairs).

DCist doesn’t think those criteria were inclusive enough:

A look at the minutes from the 2006 Customer Service, Operations and Safety Committee meeting finds that Metro could save some $1.2 million in annual operating expenses by replacing escalators with stairs — you know, turning the escalators off — at some 14 Metro stations. Stations with three or more escalators were only to see one set of escalators turned into stairs (but why?), while stations with those 12 kilometer-long escalators like Tenleytown would be unaffected (but why not?).

It’s my understanding that the disabled and the elderly are advised to take Metro’s elevators and to plot their Metro routes by elevator availability whenever using Metro. So the argument that strikes me as the obvious case against stairs is mitigated. On the other hand, stairs promote health and would save the Metro system money. On the other other hand, it seems that at any given time there are a fixed number of Metro escalators that are (broken) stairs anyway.

Actually, WMATA’s criteria make a lot of sense. First, simply turning the escalators off isn’t a viable option. The stair heights vary and they’re actually bigger than your usual code-abiding staircase. Plus, stairs are required to have landings every so often. Second, that’s not a long term solution. The shuttered escalators would still require maintenance to ensure that they don’t fall apart.

With regard to replacing those longer escalators, that’s a non-starter. First, it most definitely would affect ridership if people were forced to walk long distances up stairs. The shorter vertical distances that WMATA selected don’t have that issue. Second, due to those landings and step heights, replacing longer escalators is more problematic than short ones. Notice a station that already has stairs alongside escalators – such as Stadium-Armory – and the staircase ends up in a mini-canyon because of the different rates of rise of staircases and escalators. For longer distances, this is a bigger problem.

Finally, escalators are faster. They move people off the platforms faster, and given the relative congestion of many important stations, this cannot be overlooked. You only need to look at the congestion that can happen at a busy station if the escalator is a temporary staircase for proof that they can move more people through a station faster than a staircase.

It’s too bad that WMATA didn’t act to replace a few of these escalators. Many of the replacements would have been major improvements not just for WMATA’s bottom line, but also for the circulation patterns within stations. My ‘home’ station, Potomac Avenue, has three escalators from the mezzanine to the platform. One was on the list for possible replacements. On the inbound side of the mezzanine, there are two escalators side by side. On the outbound side, there’s one escalator and the elevator. That lone escalator is usually moving in the direction of most commuters – that is, going down to the platform in the morning, and up to the mezzanine in the afternoon.

One annoyance of mine is to get off the train at one end of the platform, only to discover that the escalator there is running in the wrong direction, forcing passengers to walk the length of the platform and go up the other side of the mezzanine. If that escalator were a staircase, the directionality wouldn’t matter and passenger flow through the station would be more efficient. Several other stations could benefit from these changes as well.

Rethinking the American Dream

The American Dream is an awfully broad thing – probably best described by taking phraseology from the Declaration of Independence – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Somehow, during the past 200+ years of American history, that dream got far more specific and universal, meaning home ownership. Not only did that mean home ownership in terms of property ownership, but the various rules and regulations covering zoning, transportation, housing finance, and the like have resulted in a dream framed by a specific kind of home ownership – the detached, single family home, a nice yard and a white picket fence.

It’s worth noting that this specific conception of the American Dream is a relatively recent one, and it’s one that coincides with some specific policies from the Interstate Highway System to VA home loans, as well as some specific historical moments – most notably, the baby boom.

Given the relative turmoil of the past year coming on top of longer trends of reinvestment in American central cities and walkable places, it’s a fitting time to re-think this particular notion of the American Dream. Considering the role that housing finance specifically played in our near economic collapse (and current malaise), the relentless pursuit of home ownership is no longer the ultimate goal.

With that, there are several takes on what the new Dream should be. First, Carol Colletta, CEO of CEOs for Cities:

Signs of the new American good life are everywhere. Young adults, with their pursuit of 24/7 lifestyles, led the way back to the city. By 2000, they were 33 percent more likely than other Americans to live in neighborhoods close to the center of town. The interest in cycling has exploded, with commensurate responses by municipal governments in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago and, just recently, Boston, to make cycling easier and safer. Similarly, the local food movement has gained a foothold with the mainstream, with farmers markets popping up in the most unlikely places. More Americans are choosing dense condo living than ever before. Households without a nuclear family inside are now the majority, just as “non-traditional” students now dominate college enrollment. Suburbs are being remade with the addition of commercial uses and public space to introduce new vitality into these places. Zipcar has made the idea of Americans sharing their assets almost normal.

Perhaps the biggest upset of all is that Americans have reduced their driving for the first time since World War II.

The problem is this: These remain only disconnected signals. To date, Americans are unable to see the new pattern that is developing. There is not yet a compelling narrative about this emerging good life into which Americans can project their own lives—certainly nothing with enough power to counter the stories we tell ourselves about what is “normal.”

Carol wants to try and define a “new normal” for the American dream, one that’s urban, diverse, etc.

Aaron Renn chimes in:

I’m not sure I’d personally say “replacing” the American dream. I’m not anti-suburb. Nor do I think people were conned into moving there. Do I think there are huge subsidies to encourage suburban migration that ought to be cut off? Yes I do and I’ve written about them here. But I have to respect that there are those who have made a fully legitimate choice to live that lifestyle.

But there are plenty of others who made that choice by default, without careful consideration. If given an alternative vision about how they could achieve their personal aspirations in an urban environment, they might be open to being convinced – particularly if there is as much Madison Ave. behind it as there was behind suburbanization for the last 60 years.

Renn concludes by noting this:

Again, I’d say that I don’t personally think we need to have just one definition of the good life. In an every more diverse society, we need ever more diverse ways of living to meet people’s aspirations in life. But right now we’ve only got one version of “normal” and that’s the suburbs. If nothing else, to renew our cities we need to put out a credible alternative vision of “the good life” in an urban context.

I think it’s true – there is no comparable urban version of the old American Dream of a detached suburban house with a driveway and a garage. But part of what makes urban spaces great is that there is no such single definition. Looking at urbanism through the lens of walkability, ‘urban’ can be anything and everything from an old streetcar suburb of primarily detached houses to Midtown Manhattan. Similarly, a more abstract criteria like ownership should not be the primary concern, as the recent policy changes of the Obama administration indicate.

My rhetorical question is this – is it even possible to come up with an urban American Dream? The variations in urbanism are what make it great. It’s important that we hang on to that diversity within our urban areas, while at the same time realizing that multiple different kinds of urbanism fit into a more sustainable world.

Inter and Intra, all at the same time…

Following up on an idea from previous posts on HSR…

Several HSR skeptics have raised the point that we should invest more in urban mass transit than in intercity rail service. My gut response was “do both!” Yonah Freemark articulates things a bit more coherently:

High-speed rail is convenient to people living or working in center-city locations, not true for air travel. Meanwhile, car travel, while “convenient,” since one can drive directly from one’s driveway, encourages sprawl in a way not true of high-speed rail if stations are positioned only in inner-city cores, as they should be.

Arguing that improving urban transit should be prioritized over high-speed rail is acceptable, but ignoring the needs of long-distance travel is not. The United States has a serious need to invest in both intercity and intracity travel, and for trips of between 200 and 600 miles between large cities, high-speed rail is usually the most appropriate investment. In the pursuit of better transit within a city, we cannot forget that we also need to get between cities.

I think there’s a tendency to lump HSR and mass transit together, since they’re both seen as ‘transit’. The reality is, as Yonah points out, that there are huge needs amongst the various travel corridors and distances. Lumping these two disparate tasks together because they both use trains isn’t a helpful distinction.

It’s also worth noting that airspace isn’t infinite. Airspace around major airports (Chicago and New York in particular) is very crowded and there’s not a lot of room for more flights. Add in the fact that airplanes have no particularly viable fuel alternative to petroleum, and so many of those cheap, short-hop flights we enjoy today may well go the way of the Do-Do.

It’s all about using the right tools for the job. Just as we’ve applied the car to all out urban transportation needs when it’s not the best tool, we’ve used the airplane for all our intercity needs when it’s not the best tool.

More High Speed Notes

Freakonomics blogger Eric Morris seeks to “start the debate” on high speed rail with his buddy Ed Glaeser, except that I don’t usually seek to start debates with authoritative titles like “the bottom line on high speed rail.” Yesterday, Stephen Dubner did him one better by categorically denying peak oil – which kind of misses the point of what the broadest definition of peak oil means.

I’ll give the folks over at Reason this – they’re far more honest with their headlines.

Sam Staley, Reason‘s transportation guy, has a post up criticizing high speed rail’s role as a job creating stimulus program. Given where politicians on both sides of the aisle set the bar with their hyperbole, this isn’t saying too much. Staley writes:

In April, President Barack Obama claimed “my high speed rail proposal will lead to innovations in the way we travel” and new rail lines “will generate many thousands of construction jobs over several years, as well as permanent jobs for rail employees and increased economic activity in the destinations these trains serve.”

Even House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who voted against the stimulus bill, now wildly praises rail’s job-creation potential, writing, “It is estimated that creating a high-speed railway through Virginia will generate as many as 185,500 jobs, as much as $21.2 billion in economic development, and pull nearly 6.5 million cars off the road annually. Providing a high-speed rail service from Washington, D.C. to Richmond will drive economic development throughout our region for many years to come.”

Now, the political realities of the day mean that everyone wants to talk about creating jobs, whether you’re the President or a member of the minority party with a chance to bring home some money to your district. The numbers on jobs are grossly inflated, enough so that they don’t pass the smell test.

Both Staley and Morris, despite my disagreement with their conclusions, raise interesting points about alternative avenues of investment. Staley harps of freight rail while Morris angles for more investment in urban mass transit. What both miss, however, is that high speed passenger rail improvements are complimentary programs to improved freight rail and urban mass transit.

Given the (apparent) early favorable returns for ‘high speed’ rail projects that fall just a bit short of TGV-esque speeds, the kinds of improvements to existing freight rail corridors (grade separation, signaling improvements, etc) will benefit passenger trains and freight trains alike. Since railroads are mostly privately owned, they don’t have a lot of incentive to undertake expensive infrastructure upgrades for modest increases in speed, even though they’ll gain a great deal from them. Throw in a little incentive from the government, however (in exchange for improved passenger rail operations), and you’ve got a different situation.

Likewise, passenger rail can deliver people directly to city centers and other walkable places. Eric Morris argues that that money should be spent on urban mass transit – but a cursory look at urban mass transit needs shows that the overall needs are so great, it’s kinda useless to split hairs at this point. We need money for both inter and intra city transport infrastructure.

Rail stations are the kind of focal points that make great trip generators for mass transit systems. However, Staley points out the catch-22 of this argument – while Morris wants more transit, Staley uses the lack of transit as an argument against rail:

Consider a trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco, or Chicago to St. Louis, for a typical high-speed train traveler. You’ll likely have to drive to the train station and pay to park. Once arriving in downtown St. Louis or San Francisco, you will likely have to take a taxi or rent a car to get to your hotel or meeting place (which is likely to be outside the central business district). The reliable, diverse, and nimble transit system that many advocates envision surrounding high-speed rail stations simply doesn’t exist in most cities today, limiting the appeal of trains.

When determining whether to build the chicken or the egg first, why not start and do both at the same time?

Hmmmmm. If only we had some sort of national transportation law to guide us on this…

High Speed Nonsense

Ed Glaeser, what have you started?

First, you post a series of articles over with the New York Times on how the math for High Speed Rail doesn’t add up. The poor assumptions force guys like Ryan Avent to rip these articles to shreds. Any back of the envelope calculation will involve a lot of assumptions, but the kinds of assumptions Glaeser makes defy credulity.

Now, you’ve inspired copycats. Avent again:

Today, the Washington Post’s lame excuse for an economics columnist, Robert Samuelson, used numbers from Glaeser’s analysis in writing an extremely regrettable piece arguing that investments in high-speed rail are misguided. But this is no honest entry into the discussion of how best to invest in transportation infrastructure. It’s a hack job, plain and simple.

From an urbanism perspective, the most egregious error Samuelson makes (as Avent points out) is his treatment of American space and density.

Samuleson:

What works in Europe and Asia won’t in the United States. Even abroad, passenger trains are subsidized. But the subsidies are more justifiable because geography and energy policies differ.

Densities are much higher, and high densities favor rail with direct connections between heavily populated city centers and business districts. In Japan, density is 880 people per square mile; it’s 653 in Britain, 611 in Germany and 259 in France. By contrast, plentiful land in the United States has led to suburbanized homes, offices and factories. Density is 86 people per square mile. Trains can’t pick up most people where they live and work and take them to where they want to go. Cars can.

Of course, stating that passenger rail is ‘subsidized’ without putting that into the context of all transportation subsidies is somewhat useless. But that error can be forgiven in a persuasive piece. The density argument cannot.

The US is a big place, but we’ve got a whole bunch of nothing out in the western portions of the country. In fact, most of our population has clustered in several key mega-regions that all contain the proper distances and densities for high speed rail travel. No one’s arguing for high speed trains between San Diego and Portland, Maine – but that’s exactly what Samuelson’s average density figure would imply.

(I can’t recall where I saw this, but blog comments in reaction to this piece somewhere likened Samuelson to the tale of the statistician who drowned trying to wade across the river. Shouldn’t have been a problem, as the average depth was only 3 feet…)

Thankfully, Ryan Avent’s done a masterful job at debunking the faulty assumptions in these articles (as have several others). Now, Yonah Freemark has put together a competing back of the envelope plan to rival Glaeser’s. Yonah’s plan is available on Infrastructurist, and unsurprisingly reaches a different conclusion:

That may even to have been Glaeser’s intent in writing the series. The problem is that–through a sorry mix of omission, oversimplification, distortion, and deficiency–his calculations bear no relation the effects he is claiming to consider. So it’s important to show that “the numbers” do not at all undermine the viability of HSR in the US, even outside the northeast and California. In fact, the tend to support it.

By populating his model with a better set of assumptions, we hope to show how badly the economist missed the mark even on his handpicked example of an HSR link between Houston and Dallas. In reality, a well-designed high speed intercity rail project between the two largest cities in Lone Star State would likely produce a net economic benefit–nothing at all like the white elephant Glaeser conjures up. In this more comprehensive model that takes into account trivialities like regional population growth and a reality-based route, the total annual benefits $840 million compared with construction and maintenance costs of $810 million. Which is to say, our numbers show that HSR pays for itself rather handily.

Yonah’s analysis is worth a read. It’s still a simplistic back of the envelope calculation, but based on a far more realistic set of assumptions. Thank you for interjecting some sanity into the discussion.

Downtown Open Space

Last week, DC Metrocentric floated the idea of leaving the old convention center site free from development, turning the area into a park, plaza, or some other sort of space. Matt Yglesias rightfully shot the idea down. The map accompanying his post makes the reasons why abundantly clear:

Substantial, underutilized park spaces flank the site. Mt. Vernon Square and Franklin Square are the two big ones, while the small triangular park on the north side of New York Avenue between 11th and 12th is the remnant of one of the original ‘town squares’ of the L’Enfant plan – the square will be completed, returned to its original form (at least, in terms of building setbacks) with a similar triangle on the southern side of New York Ave between 10th and 11th. To visualize, the asphalt on this particular section is slightly darker than the rest of the parking lot in the above aerial photo.

Common complaints about Franklin Square (and frankly, all of DC’s downtown parks) is that they’re not well programmed for urban space – often overrun with unhoused people, panhandlers, and the like. They feel unsafe.

In short, a lack of open space isn’t the issue – it’s the programming of that space. This isn’t a new complaint, particularly with NPS managed properties. GGW’s post on Tourmobile operations set off a nice discussion in the comments about the trouble NPS has in addressing the very different needs of wild parks (Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Teton, etc.) and urban ones (the Mall, Farragut Square, Philadelphia’s Independence Mall, etc.).

Also, consider the historic urban design implications of parkland in this space. From an urban design perspective, the combination of DC’s dense core, height limit, and uniform building setbacks provide for a great sense of place. The streets of the L’Enfant plan are not just traffic arteries, they are public spaces framed by the development around them. Open space here disrupts the L’Enfant plan now, and it would as parkland, too.

Finally, consider the opportunity cost of not developing this land. Adding the proposed office, residential, and retail at this location will be a tremendous asset to the city. As everyone knows, the current commercial real estate market has seen better days, but the opportunities this site presents are just too good to pass up. The additions to the tax base, the additions of more residents living downtown, the additions of more retail space – as well as the proximity to transit at Gallery Place and Metro Center are all positives for the city.

Potomac Avenue Square – Update

Potomac Ave. Image from M.V. Jantzen on Flickr

Last week, David Alpert put together a nice Google map interface showing off DDOT’s Transportation Improvement Plan. Of particular interest to me is the new traffic circle/square/oval/rhombus at the intersection of Pennsylvania, Potomac, and 14th St SE. I’ve delved into the plans for the intersection previously (here and here).

The takeaway is that $1.45 million are allocated for the project in the upcoming Fiscal Year 2010, in addition to $200,000 allocated for the current fiscal year – money that likely paid for the initial studies referenced in the previous posts.

Now, if someone at DDOT can convince WMATA to add a nice canopy to the station, maybe the escalators won’t be out of service so often…

City Block

a work in progress…