THE
CONTEXT
Advocates
of Business As Usual like to point out that
existing shared-vehicle systems (aka, “mass
transit”) are not providing functional access
and mobility for the vast majority of the
citizens in Virginia or anywhere else in the
United States. This “failure of public transit”
is always one of the first excuses cited to
justify dumping vast sums of money on roadway
systems that support private vehicles.
Yet
it is clear that private vehicles (aka,
Autonomobility via cars, vans and pickups, SUVs
and trucks) do not provide functional mobility
and access for most of the residents of New
Urban Regions, where over 85 percent of the
citizens now live and work.
To
make matters worse, under current conditions
roadways (aka, private-vehicle support systems)
are driving the expansion of unsustainable human
settlement patterns. The crisis of New Urban
Region immobility grows worse every year.
Building more roads exacerbates the problem.
(See “Regional
Rigor Mortis,” June 6, 2005.)
The
“failure” of shared-vehicle systems has
little to do with the design of the systems
themselves. The “failure” is the result of
an imbalance between transport system capacity
and travel demand – especially in
shared-vehicle system station-areas. This
reality does not stop supporters of Business As
Usual from using the “failure” as an excuse
to promote whatever non-solution, or
semi-solution makes them and their clients
richest, fastest.
Even
if there were a concerted effort to achieve
system wide balance between capacity and demand,
there is still an imperative to create Balanced
(Alpha) Communities because Balanced Communities
will result in fewer, shorter vehicle trips.
(See “Balanced
Communities,” August 23,
2005.)
This
Fundamental Change is necessary also to reduce
the energy consumption of the existing
shared-vehicle system options. In other words
the “failure” of shared-vehicle systems is
more complex and a solution is important than
generally understood.
Not
only are the existing transport systems not
providing access and mobility but even if they
were, energy consumption per passenger mile
for both shared-vehicle systems and for
private vehicles is not sustainable.
LET'S
HEAR IT FOR PRT!
These
facts indicate a pressing need for new thinking
in the field of shared-vehicle systems. Many
suggest that this new thinking will come from
advocates of “advanced transit” systems. The
“solution” that is most often mentioned is
“Personal Rapid Transit” or PRT. (See End
Note One.)
Since
the early 80s when we first learned about PRT
from Jerry Kieffer, S/PI has been a supporter of
the basic PRT concept. (See “Rail
to Dulles Realities,” Jan. 5, 2004; “Time
to Fundamentally Rethink METRO,” Oct. 18,
2004; and “There is Still A Chance” a
Bacon's Rebellion Blog post of April 2, 2006,
which is reproduced with minor editing as End
Note Two.)
There
was much consternation among PRT supporters
following the Raytheon/Rosemont, Ill., PRT
debacle that played out in the 1990s. We and
others have been heartened by recent news
concerning planned and potential PRT systems in
Great Britain and elsewhere in the European
Union.
A
recent email suggests that we have not been
paying close enough attention to the details of
PRT advocacy and to the future of “mass
transit.” The Advanced Transit Association
(ATA) was founded in 1976 by supporters of PRT
and related transport technology. On May Day, we
received the following message from a member of
ATA about PRTs:
“A new paper entitled “The
Case for Personal Rapid Transit (PRT)” is
now available: It is 8 pages and is well
illustrated.” (Editor's Note: The link no
longer functions and has been removed.)
The
brief “white paper” written by Dr. Joerg
Schweizer, a professor from the University of
Bologna, is well done and worthy of a careful
read by all those interested in mobility and
access.
In
the larger context of creating functional human
settlement patterns, the PRT white paper raises
this question:
If
PRT is so great, why after 30 years is there
nothing of substance on the ground except the
five-stop, three-decade-old system in
Morgantown, W.V., (University of West Virginia),
and the now abandoned Raytheon-bungled Rosemont
project in Illinois? (See End
Note Three.)
The
white paper’s “Preface” and the
introductory section titled “Current Urban
Transportation Issues” provides a PRT advocate’s
view of why existing transport systems are not
working. (See End
Note Four.) The text provides useful data on
conditions in the United States and the European
Union.
The
second section is titled, “The Characteristics
of PRT.” We start here to outline the possible
reasons why recent and current advocacy of PRT
systems – and fundamental evolution of
shared-vehicle systems in general – have not
been and are not likely to be successful without
Fundamental Changes. We also provide suggestions
for integrating the strengths of PRT into a more
comprehensive strategy for providing functional
and energy-efficient mobility and access in New
Urban Regions.
The
order in which the problems with PRT advocacy
are addressed below will give a reader not
conversant with PRTs an understanding of the
topic.
TOO
MANY RULES
The
ATA white paper lists seven “characteristics”
of PRT systems. Because the heading lists a
number of informed pre-circulation reviewers
from around the First World, it is fair to
conclude that this well-considered list of
characteristics also might be thought of as
"the rules" -- the requirements to be
considered a PRT system. Here is the list from
the white paper:
1.
Small, fully automated electric vehicles (i.e.
without drivers).
2.
Small guideways that can be elevated above
ground, at or near ground, or underground.
3.
Vehicles captive to guideways and reserved
exclusively for them.
4.
Vehicles available for use by individuals
singly, or in small groups traveling together
by choice. These vehicles can be made
available for service 24 hours a day, if
required.
5.
Vehicles able to use all guideways and
stations on a fully connected
("integrated") PRT network.
6.
A direct origin-to-destination service,
without need to transfer or stop at
intervening stations (i.e. "nonstop"
service) within a whole network, not just down
a corridor.
7.
A service available on demand rather than on
fixed schedules.
Now,
let’s rearrange the seven PRT characteristics
into their order of priority from most important
to least important/problematic:
6.
A direct origin-to-destination service, without
need to transfer or stop at intervening stations
(i.e. "nonstop" service) within a
whole network, not just down a corridor.
Pure
physics is what makes PRT “better” than 19th
century/early 20th century shared-vehicle
systems (heavy rail, light rail, Bus Rapid
Transit (BRT), bus, commuter rail, et. al.) is
pure physics.
Physics
101: Stopping and starting wastes time and
energy unless one wants to get off the vehicle.
Going fast to make up the time lost in
acceleration/deceleration plus in-station dwell
time for others to get on and off uses energy at
exponential rates when compared to travel at a
steady speed. This is pure tortoise-and-hare
theory and practice.
Here
is a real world example: A modest pace of 30 to
40 miles-per-hour would get a PRT vehicle from
Dulles Airport to Capital Hill with no stops in
25 to 35 minutes, depending on the route. The
METRO Orange line extension to Dulles would take
three times as long because the METRO would make
25 +/- stops even though heavy rail technology
is capable of peak speeds three times faster
than the PRT. A passenger heading from
Washington Dulles Airport to the Core of the
National Capital would sit in eight +/- stations
before getting to the Beltway in Virginia.
The
start/stop problem can be overcome by building
extra track and sidings to run “express”
trains that skip stops (e.g. New York), building
two heavy rail systems with complementary
capacity and station spacing (e.g. Paris –
Metro and RER), building new lines with greater
distance between stops (e.g. London’s new
Jubilee Line) or integrating a number of
different systems (e.g. Toronto, Vienna,
Stockholm). PRT advocates favor the latter but,
as we will demonstrate, that may be less
effective than alternative approaches. Note that
all these strategies to overcome the start/stop
problem require transfers from one vehicle to
another to reach all stations on the system.
Physics
102: Vehicles that move at slower speeds can be
lighter, cheaper and safer than vehicles that
are designed to go faster. Just as important,
the superstructure/ infrastructure is less
costly to build. Cost per passenger mile for a
PRT is a fraction of heavy/fast/stop/start
systems, especially Heavy Rail but also Light
Rail, Commuter Rail and Bus Rapid Transit.
Physics
103: A Network rather than corridor-line-haul
routing is key. Think of the flexibility of
moving packets on the Internet vs sending large
files down a single wire. The Network also
addresses the critical “transfer” problem,
which along with the “waiting” problem, are
the two major physical and psychological
barriers to citizens embracing shared-vehicle
system use. More on Networks below.
7.
A service available on demand rather than on
fixed schedules.
“Waiting”
for a vehicle to arrive, along with “transfers,”
as noted above, which also frequently involves
another “wait,” is a killer for all
shared-vehicle systems. This is especially true
in a society that has been spoiled by extensive
use of private-vehicle mobility systems – even
if the immediate gratification of a
private-vehicle system is available only to
able-bodied citizens at the top of the economic
food chain.
4b.
These vehicles can be made available for service
24 hours a day, if required.
Running
24/7 is also key for flexible use and maximizing
use of infrastructure. (See “For
People Only” below.)
4a.
Vehicles available for use by individuals
singly, or in small groups traveling together by
choice.
Privacy
and the ability to travel in small,
self-selected groups also are key for those
spoiled by private-vehicle mobility systems.
Demand pricing can enhance the attractiveness of
sharing PRT vehicles. Slug lines, publicos,
jitneys and spontaneous curbside taxi sharing
suggest that “small groups by choice” is an
important way to achieve the efficiency of
shared- vehicles as compared to private
vehicles.
(NB:
We have separated Rule 4 into parts 4A and 4B
because of the emphasis in Rule 4A on “small”
that will be addressed below.)
5.
Vehicles able to use all guideways and stations
on a fully connected ("integrated")
PRT network.
The
concept of a “Network” in contrast to
line-haul corridors is, as noted above, very
important. The flexibility of routing packets
over the Internet vs. running them down a single
wire from point A to point B is a powerful
metaphor. PRT advocates like to stress the
ability to serve small-volume destinations with
non-stop service. That is a good thing.
However,
with the emphasis on “small” in Rule 4A. and
the characteristic of every vehicle being able
to access every station in Rule 5, the TRUE
BELIEVER problem, related to the “purity” of
a PRT system discussed below, becomes a factor.
Perhaps
a system in a specific New Urban Region would
work most efficiently if all links and all
stations did not have to accommodate all the
vehicles that were able to use the spine of the
system. The integration of line-haul capacity
and PRT characteristics is illustrated by the
line running from Dulles Airport to the
Anacostia River sketched out in End Note
Three.
Seamless
integration between service to high-volume
station-areas and to lower intensity areas
outside the stations is another example. A
Dulles Airport passenger may have a destination
in Reston Town Center more than a mile distant
from a Reston Avenue Station situated above the
the Toll Road. A PRT network could cover all
parts of Reston because rational density, 10
persons per acre at the Alpha Community scale,
makes every neighborhood accessible from Dulles.
Likewise,
a Dulles passenger may want to go to one of the
lower density office parks or residential areas
far from any of the four Tysons Corner spine
stations where higher capacity cars have access.
Note that speed is not a question here. All
riders could get to the desired station at the
same speed, without stopping and without a “transfer”
or “wait.”
Now
we come to the first three “characteristics”
in the original PRT advocates list. These
criteria raise the most significant barriers
to effective application of the PRT concept.
1.
Small, fully automated electric vehicles (i.e.
without drivers).
Small
is beautiful, and perhaps most PRT vehicles
should be thought of as “small.” But do all
the vehicles have to be the same size? Not if
the network is designed properly. Heavy vehicles
capable of carrying large numbers of passengers
would be limited to designated corridors;
smaller lighter vehicles could travel on parts
of the network with light infrastructure. If two
or three people want to go from Dulles Airport
to a place such as Annandale, off the main
network spine, they would take a four-seater.
If 10 people want to go Bethesda, they might
choose a larger vehicle with at least 10 seats
that cost less and hauled more people. Variable
pricing would sort out the demand and the desire
for privacy vs. efficiency.
A
range of vehicle sizes could accommodate
atypical “game night” traffic anywhere on
the spine of the system. It is unlikely that
there would be crowds going to or from an
Annandale on the Network unless someone was
silly enough to build a stadium
there.
Horizontal
Elevators in airports and the Docklands Light
Railway in London have shown that automated
vehicles work just fine for 10-, 20- or-30
passenger vehicles and in “trains” with
multiple cars. Even cars of this size that can
be quite light if they do not need to go fast to
make up time wasted in repeated stop / starts.
(See End Note
Five.)
There
is no reason why the larger vehicles could not
hold 30 passengers each and be linked in three-
or four-car trains as they are in some
Horizontal Elevator applications. This
configuration would work well for the Dulles
Airport to Anacostia River example in End
Note Six. It would get large groups from
Dulles Airport to the new Supreme Court Complex
on the Anacostia River or the new Learner Field
near the Anacostia River far faster than METRO
could.
Removing
the need for drivers is a key to keeping costs
down and safety up. The most potentially
disastrous wreck on METRO in recent memory
happened when a driver fell asleep and backed an
empty train into (and onto) an occupied one.
2.
Small guideways that can be elevated above
ground, at or near ground, or underground.
Small
(light/inexpensive) guideways are a key to
keeping down costs in places where there is low
demand and thus low revenue. Small guideways
that are somewhat less intrusive may be useful
when trying to integrate links of a PRT system
into existing urban fabric. However,
over-the-street alignments have a limited appeal
even if light and airy. When designing the
renewal of urban fabric, the mobility system
should be integrated into the design of the new
fabric so the system need not run over a “street”
or confined public Openspace. With rare
exception, it is not possible to make an
overhead system attractive except to the
engineer who designs it.
The
key point is that in places where demand is
higher and there is no premium for light, less
costly, lower volume service – like the median
of the Dulles Airport Access Road – “small”
may not be best. On these links heavier
infrastructure that will carry capacity vehicles
may be needed. There is nothing inherent in the
PRT non-stop/ off-line-station concept that
forecloses this possibility.
8.
Vehicles captive to
guideways and reserved exclusively for them.
This
consideration may explain the passive rejection
of the PRT idea by those who favor private
vehicles and those who want to make money from
mobility systems. (See the discussion of PRIVATE
PAYOLA and PUBLIC PORK below.)
The
PRT-like system that Ford Motor Company designed
for the Planned New Community we planned for the
Weyerhaeuser Corporation in North Carolina just
before the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo employed a
vehicle that ran on the spine of the system but
could access lower density areas. The concept
was similar to some Bus Rapid Transit
applications, except that it didn’t require a
driver and a heavy vehicle capable of high
speeds. The “smart cars” by Mercedes Benz
and others that are finally making their way to
the US market provide a visual prototype.
Private
vehicles would give the well-to-do the option of
having a special vehicle they could park
somewhere remote from their destination until
they needed it again. Storage of automobiles in
the Core Alpha Communities of New Urban Regions
is one of the most costly and disaggregating
forces impacting urban fabric. The parking and
maneuvering of the private vehicle takes up at
least four times as much space as the office of
the senior employee who drives it to work.
Differential
pricing, a slam dunk in a closed PRT system,
could level the playing field. Riders would get
the level of privacy that they paid for. HOT
lane advocates should love this aspect of PRTs.
PRIVATE
PAYOLA/PUBLIC SECTOR PORK
This
profoundly important and complex topic may have
even more impact on the failure to consider PRT
systems and other shared-vehicle system
innovations than TOO MANY RULES considered
above. It is, however, easier to understand this
issue after considering PRT system rules in some
detail.
“Payola”
and “pork” are separate phenomena but are
considered under one heading because in the “real
world” they are interconnected by the odious
phenomenon of excessive political party
contributions.
Public
Pork
Daniel
Hudson Burnham famously suggested with respect
to evolving human settlement patterns: “Make
not little plans: Little plans have no magic to
stir men’s blood.”
Unfortunately,
this truism has been interpreted as calling for
planning big projects and tall buildings, not
creating comprehensive plans for New Urban
Region-wide mobility systems or New Urban Region
Cores made up of Balanced Communities where
there are affordable and accessible dwellings
served by functional mobility systems.
Politicians
avoid projects with long time frames unless
there are campaign contributions involved or
there is overwhelming citizen’s support for a
project or program.
Campaign
contributions come from those who seek to profit
from land speculation and from big, expensive
payola projects, especially public-private
partnerships where there are multiple troughs
with guaranteed returns.
Private
Payola
No
one makes a lot of money from conservation,
especially in the short term. In the spheres of
energy, natural resources and human settlement
patterns, all citizens benefit from conservation
in the long run but that does not translate to
short term profits.
For
this reason there is little support for projects
that are Small/Conservative/Simple. There is
extensive support for projects that are
Big/Consumptive/Complex. (See End
Note Six.) This truism applies not only to
military hardware contracts. There is no better
example than the protracted PRT project in
Rosemont, Ill., that the Raytheon Corporation
ran into the ground during the 90s. The design
team continued to pile on bells and whistles
until the proposal collapsed under its own
weight. The story is more complex, but
participants and observers have confirmed that
this summary is apt.
This
same phenomenon impacts all shared-vehicle
systems. The bigger the project, the higher the
cost, the larger the contracts, the larger the
commissions for money agents, real estate
agents, lawyer agents...
(This
issue is explored with respect to extending the
METRO Orange Line to Dulles Airport in “Rail
to Dulles Realities,” Jan. 5, 2004.)
Payola
generates political party contributions and
for-hire (aka, think-tank) champions for
non-solutions or semi-solutions that make some
rich fast. These projects include private
toll roads and HOT lanes.
Payola is a major driving force behind the
failure to balance the travel demand generated
by human settlement patterns with mobility
system capacity reviewed in THE CONCLUSION,
below, and will be explored in more detail in a
future column.
FOR
PEOPLE ONLY
As
important as PORK and PAYOLA are in getting a
project designed and started, failure to
consider the movement of packages and freight on
shared-vehicle systems is probably more
important for the long-term effectiveness of a
system.
Start
with the reality that Balanced Communities are
places where the location and balance of
jobs/housing/ services/recreation/amenity create
environments where citizens need and want to be
most of the time. (See “Balanced
Communities,” August 23, 2005.)
Even
under these conditions, there is still a need
for mobility and access to meet the needs and
desires of contemporary society. And it is not
just people but also goods that need mobility
and access.
Even
maximizing Telework and other IT marvels still
leaves a lot of daily and weekly needs that
cannot be sent over a wire. Things like food and
clothing, household and hygiene supplies,
furniture and bedding, electronic and kitchen
equipment, recreational and gardening equipment
and supplies. These goods may have intraregional
or interregional sources but a PRT system that
delivered “the goods” as well as “the
people” would help make use of the
infrastructure 24-7. With packages and freight
network routing and widely dispersed, (walk-to)
distribution/ staging areas/drop-off points the
system could save billions in transport
expenses. It is a rare when the nine households
in our Dooryard are not visited 20 times by big
Brown, White, Yellow and Red White and Blue
trucks in a week.
In
the delivery of telecommunications services
there is much talk about the “last mile” to
get broadband service to the Unit level. For
freight and package goods it is the last 1,400
feet or 500 feet.
And
what about services? How much more efficient
would it be for home, appliance, electronics,
pet and personal services to be delivered by a
small vehicle that arrives at a nearby station
and exits to the street/pathway system and comes
to the unit than for trucks and vans to run up
and down the highways?
A
colleague and I first proposed the use of an
island-wide “transit” system to carry people
and goods in the late 60's when working for the
Puerto Rican Planning Board. Since that time we
have seen precious few examples of these
applications. There is more fervent enforcement
of the separation of people and goods than the
separation of church and state. New
interregional freight transport schemes have
included massively expensive underground vacuum
tubes and of course, the “next generation”
of the Interstate Highways (aka, “Superhighway
Corridors.”) (See “Interstate
Crime,” Feb. 28, 2005.) But there are few
intraregional ideas for goods and people on
shared vehicle systems. PRT applications would
be a place to start.
UNTRANSPORTABLE
SETTLEMENT PATTERNS
In
our experience, PRT advocates may have spent too
many hours and worked too hard trying to show
how PRT systems could provide mobility and
access to settlement patterns that are not
transportable because of the physics of mobility
and access.
Readers
of “The Shape of the Future” columns at
Bacon’s Rebellion do not need a briefing on
this topic. Others may want to check out “Spinning
Data, Spinning Wheels,” Sept. 20, 2004, or
“Regional
Rigor Mortis,” June 6, 2005, at Bacon's
Rebellion. Also see “The
Physics of Gridlock.” (See End
Note Seven.)
INADEQUATE
GRAPHICS AND IMAGES
The
email from ATA noted that the white paper was
“well illustrated.” There are 11 graphics in
the eight-page paper, most of them are small.
Several, such as the network diagram, are
helpful in communicating the PRT story.
The
biggest graphic depicts an isolated office park
that would be hell to work in no matter how you
got there. Shared-vehicles make synergistically
located urban land uses accessible. Isolated
office parks are dysfunctional regardless of how
one gets to the building.
No
one would want to live or work in places
depicted by several of the graphics. In fact the
“bad” automobile- dependent building with a
brick and steel fence and dormant landscaping
looks more attractive than some of the “good”
images.
Two
of the eight graphics are devoted to showing how
a lightweight guideway can be installed over a
street. What is the first thing a village or
neighborhood-scale area does to improve the
amenity of the “main street?” It takes down
the poles and overhead wires, which are deemed
ugly by the vast majority of people taking
visual preference surveys. “Els” are widely
considered blight generators when located over
confined public spaces.
There
is no way to make an overhead application of a
shared-vehicle system “attractive.” In some
cases a short over-the-street segment may be
necessary until an alternative is feasible, but
it never is a long-term “solution.”
We
understand the message PRT advocates want to get
across, but this set of graphics does not do the
job. More importantly, the fact that PRT
advocates believe these graphics are convincing
is disturbing.
TRUE
BELIEVERS
PRT
supporters are a committed and passionate lot.
As the RULES outlined above suggest, there may
be too much emphasis on the purity of the system
and too little on providing mobility and access.
It has also been noted that there are several
types of PRT systems, each with its own subset
of advocates. We expect this column to generate
some emails in ALL CAPS – NO, NO, NO,
All the vehicles must be small, uniform and
never leave our system. (See End
Note Eight.)
MAGNET
FOR LOONIES
Finally,
the PRT idea seems to be a magnet and playground
for loonies and shills for Business As Usual.
Someone recently told us they had read a note
from a detractor suggesting that PRT would not
work because prospective riders would not want
to get into a vehicle in which there is physical
evidence of the last occupants fornicating in
the “back seat.” For every one of these “problems”
there is a response as suggested by in End Note Six.
At
some point one gets tired of beating down these
straw villains.
IN
CONCLUSION
Aside
from the confusing Neural Linguistic Frameworks
triggered by the phrase “mass transit,” what
is “wrong” with shared-vehicle systems? Why
has there been so little evolution of shared
vehicles since 1920, even as the need to
functionally serve urban agglomerations has
grown exponentially?
First:
Let us be clear that “cause” of the “failure”
of existing shared-vehicle systems – Heavy
Rail, Light Rail, Bus Rapid Transit, Trams, Bus,
Horizontal Elevators, etc. – has little to do
with the design of the system. The “failure”
is that human settlement patterns in the station
areas (and for non-station systems, in the
service areas) have not evolved to balance and
support the transport system.
New
Urban Regions such as Toronto, Vienna and
Stockholm that use a variety of system types to
match a range of settlement patterns do a better
job, but they are not optimum: They do not solve
the “transfer” and “wait” problems. (For
a glimpse of the anatomy of a failed process to
evolve functional station-area settlement
patterns see “METRO WEST, 22 YEARS TOO LATE”
a posting on Bacon’s Rebellion Blog from
March, 28, 2006, which is reproduced with minor
editing in End Note
Nine.)
There
must be a balance between the trip-generation of
the human settlement pattern and the transport
system capacity. No shared-vehicle (or
private-vehicle) system can function efficiently
without this balance.
That
is why most of the METRO trains leave most of
the stations, most of the time, essentially
empty. (See “It
is time to Fundamentally Rethink METRO,”
Oct. 18, 2004.)
Second:
Even if existing shared-vehicle systems were
better supported by functional settlement
patterns, they would consume far more energy
than necessary or sustainable. Simply not using
fossil fuels directly is not a panacea. Current
systems use vast amounts of energy that must
come from some source.
Providing
mobility takes up between one third and one half
of the energy consumed in the United States,
depending on how the data is manipulated. A lot
of the rest of the energy is used to heat and
cool dispersed and inefficient buildings that
comprise the human settlement pattern.
One
cannot have too much money or conserve too much
energy. On a finite planet, if citizens do not
find a way to conserve energy far more energy,
there will be no money, public or private. This
reality suggests the need for:
1.
Balanced Comminutes
2.
Innovation in shared-vehicle systems.
PRT
is a place to start looking for innovation but
the advocates may be their own worst
enemies.
--
May 15, 2006
End
Notes
(1)
German and Japanese investigations of MagLev
have proven that this technology has less
applicability than advocates claimed when first
widely discussed in the 1980s.
(2)
The following is a slightly edited version of
the 2 April 2006 post on the Bacon’s
Rebellion Blog titled “THERE IS STILL A
CHANCE”:
It
is now clear that governance practitioners, land
speculators, design-build investors and their
agents have moved the status of mobility and
access in the northern part of Virginia to the
brink of chaos. When Bacon’s Rebellion
and the Metro section of WaPo agree, it
is time for profound concern. (See 2 April 2006
WaPo story “Fairfax Frets Over Tysons as
Dulles Rail Evolves.”)
Disaster
can be predicted based on the mix of:
-
Nineteenth
century technology
-
Ballooning
costs driven by public and private actors
trying to load the train with pork and
payola
-
A
perfect vacuum of regional or subregional
plans and planning to balance human
settlement patterns with mobility systems
There
is still a chance to snatch mobility from the
jaws of gridlock. The following three points
summarize and slightly revise a sketch plan that
would provide mobility and access for the
National Capital Subregion. It is based on a
plan S/PI outlined for a client several years
ago:
A.
Extend the METRO Orange Line from West Falls
Church to Tysons Corner. Pay for a substantial
part of the cost expansion through long-term
leases on the air rights for 150 +/- acres of
station-area development at three or four
stations over VA Route 123 and VA Route 7. (See
“Blueprint for a Better Region: Putting
Development in the Right Places.”)
B.
Build a 21st century PRT system from Dulles
Airport to the Anacostia waterfront. The line
would provide service to Reston (three stations
with station-area development on platforms with
leased air-rights over the DAAR) Tysons Corner
(tie to METRO Orange Line) and cross the Potomac
to the Massachusetts Ave. Corridor, serving
Georgetown, and making a connection North of M
Street with a tie to METRO Red and Green lines),
Union Station (tie to METRO Red Line, AMTRAK,
VRE and MARC), Capitol Hill (tie to METRO Orange
and Blue Lines) and South Capital Corridor to
Anacostia (tie to METRO Green Line).
C.
Build out the changes in METRO and other systems
called for in “It
Is Time to Fundamentally Rethink METRO,”
Oct. 18, 2004.
The
alternatives look very bleak as depicted in both
Bacon’s Rebellion and WaPo. The
very worst prospect for the future of mobility
and access is the Python Plan by the Northern
Virginia Transportation Authority. (See “Reality-Based
Regionalism,” Oct. 17, 2005.)
(3)
The Miami Downtown Circulator, London’s
Docklands Light Railway and a number of airport
and office park applications of Horizontal
Elevators demonstrate the functionality of a
number of PRT system components.
(4)
The white paper summary of the current
reality is “on track” except that it
compounds misunderstandings about the function
of shared-vehicle systems by parroting the
common misconception that a key “problem” is
that there is a “limited space in urban areas.”
The fact is that there is already too much land
devoted to urban land uses – especially
in the United States. The fundamental problem is
dysfunctional distribution of those uses, not a
lack of land.
(5)
If there is concern with the need for “supervision”
in big cars, then some who want to ride at a
discount pay their way by becoming licensed car
monitors with distinctive hats and an
instant-message cell phone. Airports avoid this
security issue by having numerous uniformed
employees riding back and forth all the time on
the Horizontal Elevators.
(6)
We address this issue and the need to
transcend “winner-take-all” economics while
preserving a market economy and democracy in
Chapters 30, 31 and 32 of "The Shape of
the Future."
(7)
“The Physics of Gridlock” is a bonus
PowerPoint program that is included on the CD
with the third printing of "The Shape of
the Future" available at Bacon’s
Rebellion.
(8)
We have known Jerry Kieffer for three decades,
have met Ed Anderson and Peter Mitchell and
corresponded with Steve Raney and Jerry
Schneider. All are dedicated advocates of PRT.
It has occurred to us that some of them and/or
others may be such True Believers as to be
inflexible on the application of the core PRT
ideas.
(9)
The following is a slightly edited version of
the March 28, 2006, post on the Bacon’s
Rebellion Blog titled “METRO West – 22
YEARS TOO LATE:”
The
second most important thing to understand about
the great victory (replanning and rezoning of a
mixed use development called METRO West finally
approved in March 2006) at the Vienna/Fairfax/GMU
METRO station in Virginia is that it is just 22
years late.
The
most important thing is that there is still time
to make amends, but it will cost a lot more than
if the station-area had been intelligently
planned 25 years ago.
In
the early 1970s the 1960s decision to end the
METRO Orange Line at what became known as the
Vienna/Fairfax GMU station was reconfirmed. The
original decision and the reconfirmation was
based on the facts that there were nearly 800
acres of vacant and underutilized land there and
that the alternative site (Tysons Corner) was
“all built out.” Since that time the
1,500-acre Tysons Corner has intensified by a
factor of four. Adding METRO or some other
shared-vehicle system to make Tysons Corner
functional will cost billions and is predicated
on the further doubling of intensity to meet
threshold shared-vehicle system standards.
(There is a current plan to extend a branch of
the Orange Line to Tysons Corner and build four
stations as part of the “Rail to Dulles”
initiative.)
In
the 1970s and early 1980s the Fairfax “comprehensive
plan” provided incentives for land assembly to
create transit oriented development (long before
the term TOD was coined) so that the capacity of
the METRO Orange line could be used in both
directions in peak periods.
Public
agency actions reduced the available vacant land
to 100 +/- acres by the time the Orange Line got
under construction beyond Ballston. Subdivision
recycling projects for the METRO West site and
others surfaced as the opening of the station
neared.
To
thwart the Virginia Center plan on still-vacant
land, the county’s “comprehensive plan”
was amended to strip out the incentives for
parcel consolidation. Project after project with
METRO supporting patterns and densities of
land-use have been turned down by the County.
The
main players on the public side for this
activity were former county supervisor and now
state Del. Jim Scott, D-Merrifield, and former
county supervisor, county board chairperson and
recently appointed Secretary of the Commonwealth
Kate Hanley.
But
for their efforts, there would already be the
sort of development that the market documents is
in the greatest demand. The Orange line would be
carrying more people in the off-peak direction,
it would be taking in more revenue and would
come closer to being part of a functional
shared-vehicle system. Hundreds of acres now
must be recycled at great cost and disruption to
evolve a real METRO-oriented enclave.
There
is a silver lining: 45 +/- acres of land in
public ownership lies at the heart of this area
and is being wasted in road rights-of-way,
surface parking and deck parking with no urban
uses on the top. To make matters worse there is
no provision to add them without tearing down
the garages.
This
45 acres could be decked over and at modest
density replace the employment uses at AOL/World
Com/ Wal*Mart-in-the-Weeds in Loudoun County and
with the adjacent 400 +/- acres within one half
mile of the METRO platform create a
village-scale station-area urban agglomeration
with a relative balanced of jobs/housing/
services/recreation/amenity.
It
would have cost so much less to do it right the
first time. We would have saved thousands of
acres of Countryside and provided the sort of
places the market demonstrates that people want
to live, work and play. Will METRO West perform
as advertised? We will all have to wait and see.
The current project has one hand tied behind its
back by the pattern of land use on the rest of
the 800 acres that were part of the original
reason to put the METRO station in this
location.
Any
analysis of the project will be hamstrung by the
failure to create a comprehensive plan for the
station area and to develop an intelligent
vocabulary to describe the organic components of
the station-area settlement pattern. (See “Words
Matter” and our Dec 2005/Jan 2006 three part
series on Vocabulary at www.baconsrebellion.com.)
There
are three overarching lessons from this
experience to date:
1.
The loss from the scrapping of an intelligent
plan to capitalize on the METRO potential at
Vienna/Fairfax/GMU that evolved from the late '60s
to the early '80s can never be fully recovered.
2.
The lost of opportunity due to the refusal of
the public agencies (especially between 25 and
20 years ago) to allow the market to reflect the
potential of METRO access effects not just this
municipality but the entire Virginia portion of
the National Capital Subregion.
3.
The loss of potential public revenue due to the
failure to create public-private partnerships to
assure public benefit from the public
expenditure on the METRO would pay for much of
the needed public infrastructure and services
needed to support an urban enclave.
The
record shows there were many of us who spoke out
on these public agency failures at the time.
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