Bacon's Rebellion

Bacon’s Rebellion Live!

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by

James A. Bacon
in

As I usually do on Thursday, I threw a few questions out to Marc Fisher’s online chat at the Washington Post today. Since our most popular post this week was Phil’s open letter, I asked Fisher about that. He posted a link to Phil’s piece! Here’s my question and Marc’s reply:

Fairfax, Va.: Toll are going up on the Dulles Road to support extending Metro. What’s your take? Here’s what the President of the Virginia Club for Growth had to say:

Bacon’s Rebellion

Marc Fisher: At the very least, I like the fact that the PR campaign surrounding the toll hike is up front about the fact that the money is for Metro to Dulles. And even those who are wedded to their cars should welcome that, because it’s the only hope of holding down the rate of increase in congestion on the roads. Nothing will ease the traffic–only politicians pretend that that’s ever going to happen–but we do have some control over how much worse it will get and how quickly that happens.

Additionally, I found this exchange interesting:

McLean, Va.: Mark,

What’s the point of routing Metrorail to Dulles? There’s no long-term parking in Metro garages, and it’s just about impossible to get a cab to take you to-from suburban Metro stations.

Metro SHOULD be run through the Reston-Herdon business districts, focusing on Eldon Street and Monroe Avenus. Locating Metro stations at Interestate exits is a proven non-starter for smart growth. Look at the areas where Metro has stimulated urbanization, and you’ll find that the line and stations were placed along existing commercial strips. Runing Mero down the middle of a limited access highway with stations at the exists is not smart growth. It’s DUMB growth.

Marc Fisher: Agreed–superhighways do not mix well with pedestrian-oriented development or with mass transit. They’re doing it that way because the right of way exists and it’s therefore cheaper. But the Metro stops along 66 work reasonably well, so it’s all in the execution. The trick will be to build over the highways and create little villages around those stations. In Florence, they did this and called it the Ponte Vecchio.

McLean, Va.

sounds like our kind of reader.

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  1. Fredrik Nyman Avatar
    Fredrik Nyman

    Is it really realistic to expect “little villages” to be built around the proposed metro stops along the toll road between Tyson’s and Dulles? For one thing, there doesn’t seem to be much undeveloped land available along the toll road, and noise is going to be a major factor as you get close to the airport. The latter is a major issue; as soon as you build houses near Dulles, you’re going to have people bitching and moaning about the noise and demanding all kinds of restrictions. Exhibit A: DCA. And don’t forget that Loudoun’s legislators have long tried to clamp down on the urgent matter of light pollution.

  2. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    The metro stops along 66 inside the beltwy may work reasonably well, but the Vienna stop is a major contributor to congestion on I-66, as hundreds emerge from the trains and attempt to merge onto 66 at the same time, same place. when Metro was built it had to be all things to all people – both a radial transporter, and a downtown interconnector, as a result it is marginally successful at both tasks but superb at neither.

    But even Fischer seems to concede that the rail service won’t reduce congestion, and I’m not even sure it will hold down the rate of increase.

    At some point an area attracts more cars than it can support. You can then increase commerce in that area only by using alternate forms of transportation. Walking is fine transportation, but it does not support much commerce. Transit can add some additional commercial activity, but the question is whether the additional level of activity it supports over auto use is sufficient to justify the costs.

    The only other choice is to balance the level of construction with the level of auto use an area can support. That option requires that more land is used to provide more destinations in more locations to avoid the everyone at the same place problem.

  3. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Exactly! It seems to me that the best answer to sprawl is (drum roll): more sprawl!

    Maybe “smart sprawl”.

    Or maybe government officials should stand in front of the mic and tell people:

    “Listen. If you don’t want traffic, then live near where you work. If you and your spouse work in different areas, then split the difference. We’ll do our best to ease the problem but there really isn’t any solution that provides more than marginal relief. We’ve already created these disfunctional communities, and there’s no going back. If you don’t like it, move to another city with less traffic.”

  4. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    In today’s paper Mr. Schwartz, the heaad of the smart growth coalition or whatever was talking about the BRAC moves. His comment was that it was terrivble for congestion because it would increase reverse commuting etc.

    In the first place, I don’t see how he could possibly know that, it is too soon to make any kind of rational analysis.

    Just surveying my office I found that two spouses of co-workers would be affected, one would have her trip doubled, and one would be cut to near zero. Not any kind of a sample, but who knows what the real answer will be? Some people will move, some won’t, some will retire, some will change jobs. Over all people will adapt as best they can.

    Sometimes it’s not all that easy, or the adaptation is not what you would expect. I have an awful commute, and I own a house near my office. When my tenants lease is up I could move closer, except it will cost me over $50k per year to do it. Not likely.

    Schwartz’s comment was that it would increase reverse commuting. Why is that so bad? It increases the use of the half the road we are not using during morning rush hour, and therefore reduces congestion, as I see it. In that case we are sprawling into space we are already using, but using badly.

    I once had a reverse commute from Alexandria to Gainesville, after my company moved it’s headquarters. Over the years I did it, the commute changed from easy to difficult as new job centers sprouted in Merrifield, then Vienna, Fair Lakes, Centreville, and Manassas.

    Why were all those peole commuting out instead of in? Probably for them, it made more sense.

    Sprawl is far from cost free, but Paul is right, it does not have to be always the awful examples we sometimes see. As expensive as sprawl is, it is probably a lot, lot cheaper then rail transport that doesn’t work.

  5. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    Ray said: “As expensive as sprawl is, it is probably a lot, lot cheaper then rail transport that doesn’t work.”

    Hear, hear! Can someone please get Gov. Warner to start reading this blog?

    Barnie, since you have the connections with the Warner folks, how about lending a hand here?

  6. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Ha. I dunno Phil. Why do I think that if they created a metro that somehow cut people’s taxes, you’d be for it?

  7. Fredrik Nyman Avatar
    Fredrik Nyman

    Here’s a question for our resident transportation experts: to what extent is sprawl and congestion caused by bad municipal government?

    A very large number of people — about 500,000 — have fled DC and Baltimore for the suburbs since 1970.

    When we’re discussing congestion and sprawl, shouldn’t we discuss what it would take to improve the cities enough to induce people to live there?

  8. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Frederik –

    That was true until recently. DC’s population is increasing once again and there are truly nice places to live in the city.

    Also – you can pretty much count much of Arlington as an extension of DC (the density is the same or sometimes greater), and Arlington is booming in population as well.

  9. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    I think there are too many variables. Some people left the city because of crime and poor schools, parking mismanagement, etc. I lived in the city, but was so disgusted with Mayor Barry that I left.

    In town living is still pretty unfriendly for those with kids, but there are plenty of people that choose that lifestyle. Plenty of others want a back yard with an RV in it.

    Somewhere there is a BLOG for urban pioneers working on re vitalizing decaying neighborhoods. Reading their complaints on the BLOG you wonder why anyone would subject themselves to this.

    Arlington has increased in population, but not near as fast as it has in jobs: it is still unbalanced. Are people moving there because of the lifestyle, or are they just paying dues to get at the jobs?

    There are nice places to live in the city, and Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax. The urban forest is more extensive than we frequently imagine. There are some slummy looking places that are actually nice neighborhoods, and there are some hellholes.

    Maybe we take the job density, the traffic density, the residential density, the church density, and the liqour store density and come up with some kind of index for what kind of range of values work and which ones don’t. As it is now we don’t know what works or what direction a community is heading, except subjectively.

    My guess is that plenty of parking, large yards, and low taxes would attract people to the city…..

  10. Fredrik Nyman Avatar
    Fredrik Nyman

    Can you really draw parallels between DC and Arlington? While Arlington is reliably liberal, the adults in Richmond tend to slap them down before things get out of control. Not so for DC; Marion Barry and Sharon Pratt Kelly did much to run the city into the ground. It took an act of congress (the appointed control board).

    Also, Arlington never had the same middle-class exodus as DC, nor with the related problems with drugs, gangs, crime and failing schools.

  11. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Fredrik – Arlington DID have that exodus. It’s only now coming back. I live in a neighborhood that used to be straight ghetto…until they bulldozed it and put up townhouses everywhere.

    Northern Alexandria is another example. Del Ray used to be quite a crime ridden place. Not so anymore. It’s on the ups.

    DC’s transformation, in the last 10 years, has been nothing short of AMAZING. Places like Adams Morgan that used to be slums are now great places to live. Directly north of the capital (NE) has become a luxury area…a decade and a half ago you wouldn’t want to walk around at night.

    The same thing is happening at the waterfront in the SE and in pockets in various places in the NE.

    You’re starting to see big box retailers MOVE INTO THE CITY. And it’s an amazing commercial success. Think of that Seinfeld episode where they go to the mall in New Jersey because the shopping centers in NY have closed down. Now that population levels are coming back in cities, we’re starting to see more commercial development. Just yesterday Mayor Anthony Williams said something that stunned liberals (but was right on the mark). He said “I fully support big boxes.” Of course he does! and he wants them in teh city instead of way out in Potomac Mills.

  12. Fredrik Nyman Avatar
    Fredrik Nyman

    So — does Anthony Williams (and congress) deserve some credit for helping turn the city around, or would the turnaround have happened even with a Barry or Pratt-Kelly as mayor?

    Is there any reason the same turnaround can’t happen in Baltimore?

  13. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    Paul: Since Metro is a bottomless pit when it comes to sucking-in our taxes, I wouldn’t worry much about your rhetorical question. But if such a utopian transportation system could be developed–i.e., one that resulted in tax cuts instead of tax increases–I’d be inclined to support it, assuming it made sense. Heavy rail makes no sense in this day and age.

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