The Shape of the Future

E M Risse


 

How About Sustainable Logic?

 

In the community of people who think seriously about economic development and the natural environment, "sustainable" has a specific meaning. In Virginia, that meaning has been corrupted by loose usage.


 

What madness afflicts those who collect pay from public bodies on the pretense of providing Mobility and Access (aka, transport) “leadership”? That question is inspired by Jim Bacon’s Blog post “Transit Sustainability” quoting Kevin Page, Virginia’s director of rail transportation who espouses the concept of “transit sustainability.”

 

Gro Harlem Brundtland, we hope you did not hear about this!

 

“Transit” (aka, shared-vehicle Mobility and Access Systems) are systems to support human settlement patterns. They are not facilities or systems that are “sustainable” any more than a sewer system is “sustainable” in the now (almost) universally accepted meaning of the term as defined by the Brundtland Commission (the World Commission on Environment and Development) in "Our Common Future" (1987).

Governments are created to provide, and/or ensure the provision of, systems to support the health, safety and welfare of citizens. Providing for Mobility and Access for its citizens is a function of governance.

Let us start with the basics. Before citizens and their governments can decide which Mobility and Access system makes sense, they have to know which human settlement patterns support a sustainable society.

 

The first step is to determine what patterns and densities of human settlement pattern citizens desire, are willing to pay for and can be sustained in the natural world. This determination must be made on a New Urban Region-wide and Urban Support Region-wide basis. It cannot be done by the municipalities that have acknowledged they already have a Mobility and Access Crisis.

 

A good place to start identifying functional human settlement patterns is to examine the patterns and densities of land use that are favored in the marketplace.  To realistically sort out these settlement patterns two conditions should exist:

  • Citizens have a choice, and

  • Individuals, Households, Enterprises, Institutions and Agencies pay the full location-variable expenses.   

The next step is to examine the existing settlement patterns and determine the best way to evolve these patterns from the current dysfunctional conditions to achieve new patterns and densities of land use that meet the needs of the citizens in the Region, not just a few at the top of the food chain.

 

To test if the patterns and densities that now exist are functional it is useful to ask three questions:

  • Is there a Mobility and Access Crisis in your Region in your Region?

  • Is there an Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis in your Region?

  • Is there a Helter Skelter Crisis in your Region?   

There is broad agreement regarding the first two crises in most New Urban Regions and Urban Support Regions in the United States.

 

The Helter Skelter Crisis listed refers to the scatteration of urban land uses across the Countryside. Scatteration is a direct cause of the first two crises and is an underlying cause of air, water and land pollution, excess energy consumption, high cost and low quality of public and private services and other indicators of dysfunction. If unchecked, the dysfunctional settlement patterns characteristic of the Helter Skelter Crisis leads to economic stagnation, social conflict and physical collapse.

 

Now that you are comfortable with the need for Fundamental Change, here are two guidelines to use in evolving from the existing conditions to a sustainable future settlement pattern:

  • Save and renew the best of the existing urban fabric, and

  • Build new fabric so that functional, Balanced components of human settlement pattern evolve

The goal of the process is to create sustainable New Urban Regions and stable Urban Support Regions made up of Balanced Communities. Balanced Communities consist of Alpha Villages that are in turn composed of Alpha Neighborhoods made up of Alpha Clusters with Alpha Dooryards containing Alpha Units. Alpha Units are home to safe, happy households. Outside these urban enclaves in both New Urban Regions and Urban Support Regions one would find viable Countryside.

 

When broad settlement pattern goals are established by democratic processes:

 

THEN there can be discussion and decisions on the facilities and systems that provide Mobility and Access for the desired, sustainable patterns and densities of land use.

 

Of course this is not a linear process but rather an iterative one. The reason for cycles of consideration and reconsideration is that some settlement patterns that might seem attractive in the abstract cannot be provided with Mobility and Access. The same would be true if the desired pattern was sketched out to have all the structures floating 30 feet in the air: Gravity would have something to say about such a scheme. Just as gravity limits the location of structures, the laws of physics and economics limit the options of establishing settlement pattern / Mobility and Access Balance. We explore this issue extensively in Bacon’s Rebellion columns, most recently in “Solution to the Commuter Problem,” 5 February 2007.

 

Why do so many governance practitioners find it impossible to understand the rational process to determine the range of functional Mobility and Access systems? They intentionally ignore reality.

Municipal and state governance practitioners, land development interests and the transport community do not want land use and transport alternatives considered as a single, integrated issue.

When land use and transport are considered together, economic, social and physical reality intrudes on the fiefdoms of governance practitioners, land development interests and the transport industry. This reality limits their ability to maximize short-term profit.

 

Another way to say this is that requiring a comprehensive view of land use, human settlement patterns and transport options informs the market and allows citizens to make better decisions in the voting booth and in the market. No one would suggest this process was followed in the current attempt to bring Rail to Dulles. (See “All Aboard," 16 April 2007, and “The Phase 1 Contract: Read It and Weep” on the Bacon’s Rebellion Blog, 12 July 2007.)

Reality crimps the ability of enterprise (especially corporate enterprise) to make short-term profits and hampers political clan fund raising.

Now back to “transit sustainability”...

 

It is clear that such an idea is silly, especially coming form a public official who is paid to help provide Mobility and Access. Perhaps Kevin Page meant that a shared-vehicle (transit) system should “pay for itself” but that is silly too.

 

No one suggests that private-vehicle systems or airlines pay for themselves. Canals and railroads could not have started without vast government “contributions.” Again, Mobility and Access is a function of government. One part of it cannot be separated out and required to pay for itself any more than the police, fire and public safety or education can “pay for itself.”

 

There is no question that the Commonwealth is facing a Mobility and Access Crisis. In the MainStream Media, Bacons Rebellion blog and in other fora, there has been an abundance of discussion of how public officials are going to solve the Mobility and Access Crisis. Most of it is madness, pure simple madness akin to the idea of “transit sustainability.”

 

Chris Zimmerman, an Arlington County Board member and chair of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, sums up this madness well. In speaking of the scheme to raise $300 million for a few of the “transport solutions” on municipal wish lists with a scatter shot of taxes and fees he said: “Now we have a chance to actually do something. It’s not ideal, but it’s basically this or nothing.”

 

HELLO!

 

Doing more of the same without Fundamental Changes in human settlement patterns will just make congestion worse. There must be a Balance between the travel demand generated by the settlement pattern and the capacity of the Mobility and Access System.

 

This is a case where "nothing" is better than "something" because the "something" gives the illusion of making things better but Community-wide and Region-wide makes the Mobility and Access Crisis worse. By the time that is obvious to citizens this generation of governance practitioners has retired.

 

First there needs to be a strategy to evolve functional settlement patterns THEN citizens can decide on what Mobility and Access facilities are needed.

 

Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns will require a Fundamental Change in governance. Guess which two governance practitioners are at the top of the list of those who have not gotten the message?

 

Oh yes! The Build More Roads Now, Forget About the Future lobby (aka, the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance) issued a Friday the 13th “Alert” titled “Success!  Authority Enacts New Sustainable Transportation Funding.”

 

I am not making this up. Sorry Ms. Brundtland.

 

-- July 16, 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ed Risse and his wife Linda live inside the "Clear Edge" of the "urban enclave" known as Warrenton, a municipality in the Countryside near the edge of the Washington-Baltimore "New Urban Region."

 

Mr. Risse, the principal of

SYNERGY/Planning, Inc., can be contacted at spirisse@aol.com.

 

Read his profile here.