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:
-
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:
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:
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
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