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Most
would agree that there is no transport
infrastructure project currently under
consideration in the National Capital Subregion
that is more important than:
It
is also true that there is no transport
infrastructure project that has greater downside
– cost and functionality – if these two
objectives are achieved in the wrong way.
On Sunday, 02 December, Jim Bacon summarized the
latest news on “Rail to Tysons / Dulles” in
a post titled “Big
Tysons Landowners Fear Billions in Windfall
Profits May Be in Peril.” The 62 comments
on this post document:
A.
The level of interest in METRO to Greater
Tysons Corner, and
B.
The depth of misunderstandings about the
reality of this project.
Many
of the comments are heartfelt, earnest and based
upon the commentators’ understanding of their
experience. As is often the case with statements
regarding human settlement pattern / transport
– especially those concerning shared-vehicle
systems – many of the comments are not
congruent with the reality of Greater Tysons
Corner’s current context.
In
this column we lay out what we mean by
“context.” (See End
Note One.)
The
Big Picture
Before
outlining the Greater Tysons Corner Context, one
should be clear on the goal of extending METRO
to the Core of Greater Tysons Corner and beyond.
We suggest that the goal of building a
shared-vehicle system to serve the Core of
Greater Tysons Corner should be to enhance
Mobility and Access. Specifically, the goal
should be Mobility and Access that supports the
evolution of an Alpha (Balanced) Community in
Greater Tysons Corner. An Alpha Community is a
place that optimizes citizen happiness, safety
and prosperity. In other words the multi-billion
dollar investment should optimize citizen well
being.
To
achieve functional and affordable Mobility and
Access for Greater Tysons Corner there must be
Balance. In this context, Balance has three
major components:
1.
Relative Balance of Jobs / Housing / Services /
Recreation / Amenity (J/H/S/R/A) for the entire
Community as defined in GLOSSARY.
2.
Balance of the whole Community also requires
relative Balance of J/H/S/R/A in each of the
projected four station areas proposed to serve
the Zentrum of Greater Tysons Corner.
3.
The most important aspect of Alpha Community
Balance is Balance between the travel demand
generated by the settlement pattern throughout
Greater Tysons Corner and the capacity of the
Mobility systems that serves the Alpha
(Balanced) Community, including pedestrian
travel.
A
functional shared-vehicle system – and to a
lesser extent a supportive, but not dominant
private-vehicle system – is what creates the
ability of “relative” Balance to be
sufficient to achieve Alpha status.
The
alternative is an “absolute” Balance in the
organic components of Greater Tysons Corner.
Without a shared-vehicle system serving the Core
of Greater Tysons Corner, the Balance would have
to be nearly perfect which is not possible in
the current reality – a Global marketplace –
where the smallest component of human settlement
pattern that can achieve sustainability is the
New Urban Region.
The
Greater Tysons Corner Current Context
There
are millions of factors that make up the
comprehensive Context but there are six major
factors that may be considered the controlling
elements of Tysons Corner Contextual Reality:
1.
Landowner / Land and Building Developer
Objectives
It
may seem too obvious to mention but it is
critically important to understand that land
owners and land and building developers
(here-in-after “land owners”) make more
money by developing and owning some land uses
than they do from other land uses.
Many
land uses required to achieve Balance do not
generate a profit, at least not an immediate
profit. Others support the whole Community but
do not directly benefit any specific
individual, Household or Organization.
Less
expensive space for Affordable and Accessible
Housing and for Enterprise and Institution
incubators are the most commonly noted “below
market” needs but functional, accessible
Openspace is another important one.
It
is also important to recall that land owners
focus on the land uses that make the most
money, the fastest. That is what Enterprises
are created to accomplish.
Finally,
land owners lose money every day if they do
nothing with the land in which they have
invested.
2.
Too Much Land
Although
it is not obvious to most because they do not
bother to run the numbers, there is vastly more
development potential in the four METRO
station-areas than can be adsorbed by the market
in a time frame that would return a profit on
investment. In addition, there is a need for the
creation of a Critical Mass in each station area
to achieve Balance. There cannot be four partial
station-areas over a long time period. (See End
Note Two.)
For
a further discussion of the fact that there is
far more land than market, see Backgrounder “It
is Time to Fundamentally Rethink METRO and
Mobility in the Nation Capital Subregion,”
18 October 2004, and the column “Rail
to Dulles Realities,” 4 January 2004.
Land
owners have information and/or the ability to
gather data and create intelligence on the
evolution of functional human settlement
patterns. However, information is power and they
use their power to enhance their economic
leverage; they do not use it to create more
functional human settlement patterns. That is
what they are in business to do.
With
too much land already set aside for future
development and higher densities anticipated
with the advent of METRO, not all land
owners/developers can be successful. Knowing
this, Enterprises jockey for position to limit
the amount of land that can be developed by
other Enterprises. For example, they scoff at
Air Rights over land that the public owns –
unless the particular entity does not own land.
(See “All Aboard,”
16 April 2007.)
3.
Limited METRO Capacity
The
“Silver Line” has very limited capacity to
move riders from the Dulles / Tysons Corridor
into and out of the Zentrum of the National
Capital Subregion. The new service will share
tracks and tunnels with the Orange and Blue
METRO lines, as we document in “It
is Time to Fundamentally Rethink METRO and
Mobility in the Nation Capital Subregion,”
18 October 2004. Almost everyone has now
admitted this fact.
Even
the S/P’s “Turquoise Line” proposal from
the 1980s has less-than-optimum capacity due to
flaws in the original METRO system concept. For
that reason S/P has, since the late 90s,
advocated extending METRO to Greater Tysons
Corner and then creating shared-vehicle service
to Washington Dulles Airport and Reston via a
new system with a station in Greater Tysons
Corner but with technology and alignment that
would get travelers from Dulles to Capitol Hill
in 5 stops vs. the 25 stops now envisioned.
Because
of METRO’s limited capacity, the
“relative” Balance at each station must be
much closer to “absolute” Balance. This
makes the first two contextual realities far
harder to address.
4.
What makes “Mass Transit” Work
The
optimum shared-vehicle system from a revenue
perspective is one that serves at one end a
Gulag where everyone lives (Houses) and at the
other a Gulag where everyone works (Jobs). There
is a stop in the middle where all the
Services/Recreation/Amenity are located. The
three stops are too far apart to walk between,
and there is no alternative for vehicular
access. In this hypothetical system, the seats
are filled 24/7 because everyone has to ride.
Not many would be happy in this settlement
pattern configuration.
The
optimum station-area settlement pattern for
quality of life of citizens and Households,
prosperity of Enterprises and Institutions and
ease of administration by Agencies is one where
citizens have to resort to a vehicle of any sort
infrequently to assemble a quality life. In the
hypothetical three-station system of this type,
every station-area has a relative Balance of
J/H/S/R/A. This means that far fewer citizens
have a need or desire for a vehicle.
Existence
of a shared-vehicle system is what makes this
settlement pattern possible, and system-wide
Balance of the shared-vehicle system capacity
with travel demand is what makes it
economically feasible.
The
private-vehicle system must be the cherry on the
top of the sundae, not the only way to get from
any A to any B.
Given
the minimum capacity of a single METRO line
extension, the lack of balance is a back breaker
for all the simple-minded “transit
feasibility” tests that the U.S. Department of
Transportation generates.
5.
Business as Usual Support for Growth and
Consumption
Most
Enterprises, many Institutions and some Agencies
see any new transport system as “progress”
and believe that “growth” is good and
“raises all boats.” These Organizations jump
from supporting one proposal to supporting
another. Their only criteria is that they do not
get taxed to pay for any new Mobility and Access
services.
This
is what the activities that were reported in the
original WaPo story upon which Jim Bacon posted
on 2 December were all about.
6.
Political Process
The
process by which decisions are now made on new
transport services is a process controlled by
politicians. The first priority of
politicians is getting re-elected, not creating
functional human settlement patterns or
Balancing travel demand with transport system
capacity.
To
get reelected politicians must make as few
voters mad as possible because positive
results of any major decision on Mobility and
Access are from two to
five election cycles away.
Politicians
must rely on land owners, developers and other
practitioners of Business As Usual for
contributions to finance their campaigns
intended to convince uninformed potential voters
that they are doing the right thing and deserve
to be elected.
The
conflict is obvious:
Because
of the dysfunctional settlement patterns that
have agglomerated – since 1920, especially
since 1950 and overwhelmingly since 1990 –
the cost of any alternative Mobility and
Access system is very high.
The
political process involves uninformed and
misinformed citizens as demonstrated by comments
following Jim Bacon’s 2 December post. Many
are well meaning and believe they are acting in
their best interest. Others are just trying to
confuse the ill informed.
One
Other Note: The "Circulator"
Recent
“news” coverage of shared-vehicle systems
serving Greater Tysons Corner suggests there is
one other factor to consider. This is not
another “reality” but rather a vivid
indication of the failure to understand the six
realities listed above, especially the first
two.
The
topic in question is the “Circulator”
outlined in “Tysons Planners Thinking
‘Circulator’: Transit Idea Needs Funding
Strategy” by Amy Gardner (WaPo, Loudoun Extra,
20 Dec 2007). The headline says it all. The idea
of a “Circulator” has many advocates:
But
mainly a Circulator sounds good to those who do
not understand the contextual reality of Greater
Tysons Corner. First, let us be clear:
Circulators,
often in the form of “Horizontal Elevators”
or “Personal Rapid Transit” or “PRT,”
have a role in the stable of shared-vehicle
systems. Airport Circulators have spread from
Tampa / St Pete and SeaTac to almost every
airport in the First World. Even Washington
Dulles is spending hundreds of millions (or is
it billions?) on a circulator after finally
admitting that Funny Buses do not work.
The
Cores of New Urban Regions with the most
effective multi-mode, shared-vehicle systems
often have several sub-systems that might be
called Circulators. Some are “historic” such
as in Wien and Toronto, and some are
experimental such as Toronto’s Mag Lev
extension of the Green Line to Scarborough
Centre.
Of
the 23 “Zone 1" and “Zone 2"
shared vehicle systems in the world, most have
several Circulators. Berlin, London, Madrid, New
York, Paris, Boston, Montreal, Munich and San
Francisco, among those we have ridden, come to
mind. We have direct experience with two
Circulators of the scale envisioned for the Core
of Greater Tysons Corner – Zentrum Miami
(“Downtown Loop”) and Docklands Light Rail
in the Core of London.
A
Circulator would make a lot of sense for the
Core of Greater Tysons Corner if there were only
one METRO station in the Core. Miami has only
one station of the Regional-Core-serving
Metrorail Green Line in the Zentrum.
A
Circulator in the Core of Greater Tysons Corner
that already has four METRO stations would be a
foot of icing on the cake. It would be like
spending money and space to create separate
roadway systems: One for small cars; One for
SUVs and delivery trucks; and one for all the
thru traffic with no origins or destinations in
the Core of Greater Tysons Corner. Right now
there is one roadway system that all three can
use – albeit not optimally.
A
wild proliferation of mobility systems might be
nice -- if it could be afforded. To keep a
Circulator out of the way of the other
activities of urban life it would have to be at
a separate plane from every other activity –
METRO, roadways, pedestrian ways, parking
access, deliveries, etc. (See “All
Aboard,” 16 April 2007.) As a matter of
economics and physics, a “Circulator” is a
non-starter.
Worse,
the Circulator idea indicates that those
“planning” the Core of Greater Tysons Corner
have no grasp of the six realities that provide
the context for creating a shared-vehicle system
to serve Greater Tysons Corner.
Most
importantly, advocates of a Circulator do not
grasp the notion that there is already too much
capacity for urban land uses in the four-station
areas. We avoided spelling out the numbers on
this issue (2. Too Much Land) above. We did this
in the hope that the absence of spoon-fed
numbers would inspire some who do not already
know the facts to see what a FAR (Floor Area
Ratio) of 10 does for the land within .25 miles
of the station platform. In the context of
a Circulator the numbers cannot be avoided.
Four
stations generate 55 million square feet each
just in the prime walk radius, if citizens are
to take full advantage of the billions spent to
bring METRO to the Core of Greater Tysons
Corner. (See “All
Aboard.”) A Circulator designed to achieve
shared-vehicle system access to the other 1,200
acres of the Core of Greater Tysons Corner would
generate another 150 million-plus square feet of
built space at a modest FAR of 3. That means
just a little less than two Mid Town Manhattans
(200 million square feet) in the 1,700 acre Core
of Greater Tysons Corner.
Then
there is the new space needed to achieve a
relative Balance in the three lower density
Village-scale agglomerations (Greater McLean,
Greater Vienna and Greater GeoDomLewinsSpring)
that are part of Greater Tysons Corner. There
would be four Village-scale agglomerations
outside the Core of Greater Tysons Corner if
Greater Merrifield does not emerge as an Alpha
Community.
Add
it all up and you have a really big “place.”
You also have a perfect example of what happens
when one (or many) fails to understand the
importance of context and human settlement
patterns.
What
the Tysons Context Yields
In
the six-element Context outlined above, a
stalemate is fine with the majority of citizens.
Some are NIMBYs and say, “I have mine you need
get yours somewhere else,” while some just see
no upside from change.
The
cumulative result is least-common-denominator
settlement patterns and sub-optimum Mobility and
Access.
The
studies and meetings go on endlessly.
Politicians hire staff trained to not make
uninformed citizens mad and they in turn hire
consultants with the same objective. In this
context, there are no advocates for intelligent,
Fundamental Change. (See Backgrounder “The
Role of Municipal Planning in Creating
Dysfunctional Human Settlement Patterns,”
23 January 2002.)
That
is the current Context of Tysons Corner in which
decisions will be made on an extension of METRO.
That
is why a functional media – a subject of the
four part Backgrounder “The Estates Matrix”
– is so important.
--
December 27, 2007
End
Notes
(1).
As we noted in our comment of 8:44 PM, 3
December , “Jim Bacon’s Post is on target
within “the current context.” At the request
of several readers we have revised and expanded
our post of 5 December titled “TYSONS CONTEXT."
(2).
The topic of Critical Mass will be explored
in an up-coming column. In The Shape
of the Future there are 15 specific
references to “critical mass.” Taken
together, these references define Critical Mass,
however the term is not separately defined.
One task in creating the expanded GLOSSARY is to
define terms that were overlooked seven years
ago. Critical Mass will be added to
GLOSSARY in the near future.
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