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Given
the sorry state of transport in the
Commonwealth, ideas to save money and improve
mobility and access are always worth
considering. However, focusing on ways to raise
money or ideas to improve efficiency – whether
the ideas are good, bad or inconsequential –
mask an important reality: In 21st century First
World New Urban Regions there are almost no
transportation facility solutions to access and
mobility dysfunctions, there are only land use
solutions.” (See End
Note One.)
With
the election just a week away, it is clear that
no candidate on the ballot will come forward
with a rational, comprehensive position on
transportation. (See “Transport
in the November Election,” July 11, 2005.)
That means the ball will be punted onto the
field of legislative chaos where the
“more-money-is-the-solution” advocates have
staked out the field and lobbyists fill the
stands.
In
this context, former VDOT Commissioner Philip A.
Shucet’s nine page letter to the recently
appointed Statewide Transportation Analysis and
Recommendation Task Force (START) is being
widely hailed in some quarters. (See Steve
Haner’s Oct. 17, 2005, blog column “Diamonds
in the Sand.”) Before everyone runs off
and nominates Phil (or Steve) for sainthood
because he has illuminated the path to mobility
and access in the Commonwealth, let us all take
a deep breath. (See End
Note Two.)
Whatever
Shucet’s past contributions, his Ten Ideas
presented to START are not the Ten Commandments.
In fact they demonstrate that Shucet still has a
lot to learn about achieving “mobility and
access” in 21st century New Urban Regions and
Urban Support Regions. To his credit, Shucet
uses the words “mobility and access” and
also states the need for a relationship between
land use and transportation. But do his ideas
make a real contribution? Since these ideas and
similar ones will be the focus of the upcoming
legislative gyrations, they are worthy of a
close examination.
As
noted above, there is a bigger issue than the
details of these ten ideas, or any similar list.
We will focus on this overarching concern in the
conclusion of this evaluation. The
following is a report card on the Ten Ideas
presented in Shucet’s Oct. 20, 2005, letter
to the Statewide Transportation Analysis and
Recommendation Task Force (START).
1.
Outsource
Maintenance
C
This
idea may score points in the partisan
ideological battles that are fought with flying
wedge issues such as “privatization” and
“small government” but outsourcing
maintenance does not necessarily improve
mobility and access.
Outsourcing
maintenance is not a bad idea per se, but from a
citizen’s perspective, a private work force
offers no great advantages over a well managed
public staff.
The
asphalt, stone, equipment and labor needed for a
quality maintenance program cost about the same
whether the work is done by a public staff or by
private contractors absent featherbedding, kick
backs, sweetheart deals and corruption that
would be eliminated by good management and a
rational governance structure.
Any
long term savings from negotiating low-ball
private contracts will be eaten up by the cost
of oversight and audits to insure quality
performance. If you think private contracts are
a guaranteed way to improve functionality and
avoid political corruption, check in with New
Jersey or Louisiana DOTs. There are a lot of
maintenance improvements options that can be
considered but no silver bullet. (See End
Note Three.)
For
80 years or more, knowledgeable observers have
warned that infrastructure engineers –
especially roadway engineers – could not
continue to rely on “can-do” optimism and a
goal of laying as much asphalt as possible.
Failing infrastructure is a very significant
problem and is not limited to roadways. (See End
Note Four.)
Because
of existing and historic construction standards
in the Commonwealth and the Untied States, as
compared to those in most European
nation-states, roadway maintenance is going to
be very, very expensive regardless of what
management tactics are employed. For
decades the emphasis has been on laying the most
asphalt, not on building the best infrastructure
– or creating the most functional settlement
patterns. Those sins of expediency and
compliance with political wish lists are coming
home to roost.
As
we note in “Interstate
Crime,” Feb. 28, 2005, the Interstate
program was skewed to lay asphalt, not pay the
total cost of the creation of a new limited
access roadway system. The Interstate system is
not the first example and not the last example
– just the most blatant – of wasting land
and money to lay asphalt rather than provide
mobility and access. The downside is reflected
in the escalating costs and the resulting
revenue shortfalls that are documented by the
facts with which Philip Shucet opens his October
28 letter. The difference in cost of maintenance
between private and public staffs will not make
a dent in this deficiency.
Make
no mistake, escalating maintenance burdens are a
problem. What is the real solution? In the long
term the only way to drive down annual
maintenance cost is to raise the construction
and reconstruction standards. But that increases
the total cost in the short run. There is no
free lunch.
However,
by applying a principle you hear about often in
these columns, there is an answer. The only sane
strategy is to fairly allocate total costs, not
contract gimmicks. Congestion is primarily
caused by scattered urban land uses. (See “The
Physics of Gridlock.”) However, heavy
goods vehicles (aka, big trucks) cause 100 times
+/- the wear and tear (aka, maintenance demand)
of a private car or a service van. Studies
across the country have shown that heavy goods
vehicles pay less than one tenth their fair
share of roadway damage in total fuel and
license fees.
The
answer to high maintenance costs and the cost of
reconstruction required to bring existing
roadway infrastructure up to par is fair and
equitable weight-distance charges.
Raising
the cost of heavy vehicles will provide an
incentive to shift heavy goods to rail which is
far more energy efficient, especially in
corridors such as I-81 where truck traffic is a
significant percentage of the vehicle use and
most of that truck traffic is long haul. Farming
out maintenance is a minor solution under the
best of circumstances, a fair allocation of
costs is a major solution.
2.
Develop Access Management Plans
C-
Access
Management Plans (Strategies) are a good idea,
but ... Shucet oversells these plans by
suggesting that they would be a step toward
linking land use and transportation. That is
getting the cart before the horse. First the
Commonwealth must have regional land use and
transportation plans for every region – every
New Urban Region and every Urban Support Region.
The land use and transportation plans for each
region need to be a single unified strategy
established by one multi-level process, not two
processes and not just a process controlled or
initiated by the state or by municipalities.
With comprehensive regional land use and
transportation plans in hand, the Access
Management Plan becomes a detail. Along with
Rational Design Standards, Access Management
Plans are a good idea but a small element of the
overall strategy.
Focusing
on a detail like Access Management Plans
obscures the imperative of Fundamental Change in
the way new settlement pattern is created or
existing settlement pattern retrofitted as well
as how travel demand is balanced with transport
system capacity.
3.
Invest in Smart Signal Systems
A-
Who
can argue with smart signals? Well, there
are some who say heavy reliance on smart signals
is an invitation to an over emphasis on thru-put
(mobility) over access or roadway function
over street function. (See Jim Bacon’s column
“Lost in Suburbia”
for a demonstration of the need for balance.) A
true balance of roadway and street function can
only be achieved where there is first a balance
between the vehicle trips generated by the human
settlement pattern and the capacity of the
transport system.
Another
practical problem with a big investment in smart
signals is that if a traffic signal system
exists and that system needs to be retrofitted
to make them “smart” there is already a
traffic congestion problem. The only long-term
solution to an existing congestion problem is
Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns.
Tinkering with the lights will only encourage
more citizens and entrepreneurs to make location
decisions based on the false assumption that
once this project is completed, there will be
unlimited capacity and no constraints on
location decisions.
The
long-term key to functional roadways is to
evolve functional human settlement patterns.
These patterns, among other things, rationalize
the distribution of vehicle trip origins and
destinations and make it possible to achieve
mobility and access. In addition to providing
mobility and access the issue of safety can be
addressed and the opportunity to design, build
and enjoy inspiring, public works at reasonable
cost is provided.
4.
Improve Safety
B+
Safety
is important, especially pedestrian safety,
which is not mentioned by Shucet. That is why
this statement of the issue rates only a B+.
5.
Complete our Highway Network
F-
Now
we know why the Northern Virginia Transportation
Alliance (aka, Developers for Business-As-Usual
Roadways) turned handsprings of delight when
Shucet made an earlier presentation to START on
Sept. 20. Shucet’s blanket endorsement of the
laundry list of Business-As-Usual roadway white
elephants is proof that Shucet still has a lot
to learn.
To
repeat: First Virginia needs regional plans that
create balanced and functional land
use/transportation relationships, then a state, regional and
community (not municipal) process can determine what new roadways
are really needed. The Commonwealth may already have
most of the facilities that are needed if
functional human settlement patterns evolve and
rationalize the pattern of demand – the
origins and destinations of vehicle trips.
Changing human settlement patterns by creating
functional components of Balanced Communities if
far faster and far cheaper that trying to build
new facilities to provide mobility for
dysfunctional settlement patterns.
Shucet’s
list of eight contentious projects to
“complete our highway network” includes at
least four that we know from professional
experience to be of questionable utility based
on VDOT’s own studies given current and
planned land use patterns and densities. (See End
Note Five.)
The
bigger problem is that if you build these
roadways without making Fundamental Change in
human settlement patterns, the existence of the
new roads will not “complete” the network.
Instead these new roadways will generate the
need for ever more roadways.
Some
of the white elephant roadways would carry
interregional traffic, but the majority of the
“congestion” that these facilities are
intended to relieve is generated by scattered
urban land uses and dysfunctional human
settlement patterns. After these facilities are
completed the pre-construction levels of
congestion will return and become worse unless
there is Fundamental Change in the pattern and
density of land use. (See “Self
Delusion and Fraud,” June 7, 2004.)
6.
Use More Design-Build
C
Like
outsourcing maintenance, Design-Build can save
money. However, it will save a lot of money only
if there is gross waste in the present system.
This inefficiency would not exist in a well
administered system. Design-Build
“solutions” do not put private investment
resources in play unless the private sector
accepts a significant risk and if it does, the
contractor, and not public need, will dictate
the location and design of the facility.
Like
outsourcing maintenance, it is easy to oversell
the advantages of Design-Build. Let us agree
that competition is critical in getting the best
job for the least money in many circumstances.
However, are multi-million dollar (and now
multi-billion dollar) infrastructure projects
that are conceived, promoted and then bid on by
a limited number of multi-national firms really
“competition” or is this just a process to
divide up the territory? (“You take this
project, we will take that project and we will
let Transcore, Autostrade and Fluor have the other one.”)
With
the resources to spend millions on
pre-engineering, promotion plus direct and
indirect political contributions, Design-Build
consortia have demonstrated they can warp the
definition of “need.” Just mentioning Halliburton,
Unisys, Boeing, et. al. makes this point based
on experiences in other sectors of the economy.
As
Design-Build projects get bigger and more
complex the location and function of the
facility is driven by what makes the most money
for the contractor, not by what project or what
design creates the best mobility and access for
citizens. Even more important, no one asks what
facility location or design supports the most
functional human settlement patterns at the
community, subregional and regional scales. See
“Self
Delusion and Fraud,” June 7, 2004, “The
Perfect Storm,” July 12, 2004 and
“The Commuting
Problem,” Jan. 17, 2005.
7.
Hold Rural Areas Harmless
F-
Here
is the clincher. Let us all wake up to the 21st
century. There are no “rural areas” in
Virginia. Yes, there are low density areas in
some parts of the Commonwealth, and many fall
outside the three New Urban Regions in the
state. These lower density areas are in Urban
Support Regions and they are not “rural
areas.”
It
is a fact that less than four percent of the
households in Virginia make a majority of their
livelihood from agricultural, forest or other
activities that were once (correctly) called
“rural.”
What
creates roadway needs in these low density areas
is urban traffic generated by the 96 percent of
the citizens, not traffic generated by the four
percent who rely on agricultural or forest
activities for their livelihood. Low density is
not “rural.” “Rural” is an emotionally
loaded and disorienting word.
There
is some interregional traffic in low density
areas but most of the travel demand is the
result of dysfunctionally scattered urban land
uses. This scatteration causes urban residents
to drive long distances for jobs, services and
recreation. Most of the deterioration of the
roadways in low density areas is caused by a
failure to fairly allocate the cost of operating
“heavy goods vehicles” as noted above.
Questioning
the use of “rural” may seem like a semantic
detail but failure to acknowledge this reality
will lead to more decades of pandering to
ruralaphilia.
Roadway
needs in “rural areas” is a misnomer rooted
in the fact that the VDOT Districts have not
evolved to reflect contemporary economic, social
and physical geography. There are no “rural”
VDOT Districts. All the VDOT districts serve
urban areas and most include part or all of a
Metropolitan Area. The Culpeper District is a
good example. It took a number of us years of
concerted effort to get the “Northern Virginia
District” pried out from under the Culpeper
District. The “Northern Virginia District”
still covers only a fraction of the Virginia
portion of the National Capital Subregion. Most
of Culpeper and two other VDOT Districts are
within the Virginia portion of the
Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region. See “Where
is Northern Virginia,” Aug. 11, 2003.
8.
Telecommuting
D
As
one of the first advocates of moving work to a
larg enumber of people via telecommunications in a
specific development plan
(submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development 35 years ago next June) we are
always pained by attempts to oversell Telework
in all its forms including telecommuting. S/PI
advocated the adoption of telework and
telecommuting to ease transport demand in the
early 1990s with a program initiated by Speaker
Howell and led by then Secretary of
Transportation John Milliken. Telework
techniques have since morphed to become integral
parts of almost every good management strategy
– public and private. (Is that your cell phone
ringing?)
Telework
is, however, not a transport panacea.
Telework’s most important land-use
pattern/transport application today is as a
stopgap measure to easy the pain of
dysfunctional transport while functional
settlement patterns evolve and supporting
mobility and access facilities are constructed
to serve them.
9.
Create a True Surface Transportation
Department
C-
Moving
the deck chairs will not help the titanic
mobility and access problem. The real need is
for Fundamental Change in governance structure.
That would include the evolution of regional
land use and transportation agencies (as well as
parallel organizations at the subregional,
community and village scales so that the level
of control is correlated with the level of
impact). The Commonwealth should focus on
interregional mobility and primarily play an
advisory role in the intraregional mobility and
access issues. This issue is explored in Part
Three of “Reality-Based
Regionalism,” Oct. 17, 2005.
10.
Realign the Commonwealth Transportation
Board
C-
See
9. Above.
There
you have it. The grade on Shucet’s Ten
Ideas averages out to be somewhere between a C
and a D. That is not the path to Sainthood in
mobility and access.
Conclusion
As
noted at the outset, the most significant
problem is not the details – the pluses and
minuses of Shucet’s ideas or similar ones. The
overarching concern is that listing and
discussing these “solutions” obscures the
whale on the beach.
More
money (or saving a dime here or there) will not
improve mobility and access without Fundamental
Change in human settlement patterns.
In
fact “incremental improvements” and
“contributions to a solution” only give
those who profit from Business- As-Usual and the
pandering politicians that they support an
excuse to further delay consideration of
Fundamental Change.
Shucet
opens his 20 October letter with a summary of
why more money is needed. More and more citizens
have come to the realization that before the
Commonwealth raises money for transportation,
the state government must have a good idea what
facilities are really needed and VTRANS does not
do that.
This
reality is explored in “Transport
in the November Election,” July 11, 2005,
and the sources cited therein. Until that
is understood, that will be no support for
half-baked, partial solutions. That has not kept
the legislature from considering and passing
such ideas.
Shucet
closes his 20 October letter with a suggestion
that START should invite Dr. Gary Allen to
discuss the “influences on fuel
consumption.” We do not know what Dr. Allen
might offer. Hopefully he will make it clear
that the future of vehicle mobility lies in
shared vehicles that have the potential to far
more efficiently serve the mobility and access
needs of citizens within functional human
settlement patterns. This issue will be
addressed in detail in future columns.
--
October 31, 2005
End
Notes
(1)
This is a quote from our 2 December 2002
column “Wrong Solution, Wrong Problem” The
statement is a paraphrase of sage advice from
Wilford Owen, eminent Brookings Institution
transportation scholar, who raised fundamental
questions about land use and transportation
issues for nearly 50 years. His core concerns
were largely ignored by the Business-As-Usual /
build more roadways advocates. With rising
energy costs, deteriorating transport
infrastructure and ever more aware citizens who
are less and less unwilling to just throw money
at transport congestion, the time for
reassessment and Fundamental Change is at hand.
Jim Bacon reports that this very point was made
in Roanoke last week by the current Secretary of
Transportation. (Road to Ruin, post of Oct,
28, 2005.)
(2)
No one should question the fact that while Mr.
Shucet was VDOT commissioner, he made valuable
contributions to the administration and function
of the agency. That was, however, not hard to do
given the state of VDOT after being decimated by
the two prior administrations. In this context a
glowing evaluation of Shucet’s role in the
Warner administration is understandable. VDOT
was in such a sorry state it would have been
hard for Shucet not to improve the crippled
organization. VDOT and its predecessors have
been driven by partisan politics, a warped
geographic perspective (aka, Geographic
Illiteracy) and self-serving economic interests
since 1920s. Any semblance of rational policy
and action created over the years by generations
of dedicated and well-intended professionals at
VDOT were dismembered by political hatchets
during the terms of Governors Allen and Gilmore.
To blame VDOT’s the problems on Dave Gehr was
reprehensible. It is surprising that Gilmore
still appears in public and talks about his
“contributions” to transportation without a
paper sack over his head.
(3)
If one applies the “clean broom” theory
it may be wise to switch back and forth from
public work force to private contractors every
10 years. Another approach is what we call
“The Mohawk Valley Intergovernmental
Contracting System.” This system was
used very effectively for snow removal in the
upper Mohawk Valley of New York. In this program
the township contracts with the villages within
the township and with the county to clear county
roads in the township, the county contracts with
state to clear state roads in the county and
Thruway Authority clears Interstates. Of
course, this requires a rational governance
structure at the neighborhood, village,
community, subregional and regional scale which
existed in the 60s but does not now due to
scatteration of urban land uses.
(4)
For a summary of national infrastructure
status see the Infrastructure Report
Card by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
There is a state by state breakout with the
details on Virginia.
(5)
One of the eight roadways (The Coal Field
Expressway) is so bad it caused Jim Bacon to
abandon a candidate for governor who lobbied for
it.
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