Bacon's Rebellion

Is there a connection between the shape of our cities and the shape of our bodies? That’s the question posited by Ben Harder in Science News Online. Harder describes the debate this way:

…Researchers have evidence that associates health problems with urban sprawl, a loose term for humanmade landscapes characterized by a low density of buildings, dependence on automobiles, and a separation of residential and commercial areas. [University of British Columbia professor Lawrence] Frank proposes that sprawl discourages physical activity, but some researchers suggest that people who don’t care to exercise choose suburban life. Besides working to settle that disagreement, researchers are looking at facets of urban design that may shortchange health.

Frank’s research team estimates that a typical white male living in a compact, mixed-use community weighs about 10 pounds less than a similar man in a diffuse subdivision containing nothing but homes.

University of Toronto economist Matthew Turner also has studied the sprawl-obesity connection, comparing the weights of people before and after moving to “sprawl”-style neighborhoods, but finds nearly zero correlation.

Speaking from my personal experience, I am convinced that there is a connection. I know for a fact that I walked a lot more when I worked in downtown Richmond and lived in the Fan than I do now living in the Henrico suburbs. Why? Because there were destinations that could be reached on foot. In the Fan, my wife and I walked to restaurants, walked to neighbors’ houses, walked to the wine shop, walked to the corner store to pick up a can of tomato paste needed for dinner. Needless to say, we drive everywhere now — even to neighborhood parties an eight-minute walk away!

I also know that I packed on about 10 pounds after four years living in the ‘burbs. It’s only when I found that I had high blood pressure that I embarked upon a nutrition and exercise regimen that enabled me to lose that ten pounds and more. The academic studies demonstrating the sprawl-obesity connection may not yet meet the standards of scientific proof, but I don’t need proof. I’ve lived the before and after. I know.

(Hat tip to Jon Baliles for referring me to John Sarvay’s post at Buttermilk and Molasses, “Getting the Fat out of Urban Design.”)

Sen. John H. Chichester, R-Northumberland, is floating the idea of imposing a 5 percent tax on gasoline as an alternative to the grab-bag of taxes proposed in the GOP Senate-House compromise plan. If Chichester’s gambit gets traction — and it has some support in the Senate, especially among Hampton Roads Democrats — it could unravel the compromise, report Michael Shear at the Washington Post and Christina Nuckols and Warren Fiske at the Virginian Pilot.

Chichester’s gas-tax idea does have its virtues. First, it is simple and transparent; taxpayers would see the tax — an extra $1.25 per $25 fill-up — at the pump. Second, because it is transparent, the added expense will induce motorists to drive less. In that regard, the gas tax contrasts favorably to the “dog’s breakfast” (as Bart Hinkle describes it in his column today) called for by the GOP compromise. The GOP taxes are spread over so many sources of income, including General Fund surpluses, they are entirely opaque to the motorist. The end result: They would subsidize driving, not discourage it.

On the other hand, Chichester’s idea would represent an entirely new tax, raising about $600 million a year. That’s significantly more than the new revenue raised through the GOP compromise, which makes it a deal killer in the House. I have to agree with the House GOP sentiment on this: There is no justification to raise taxes while the state is running chronic budget surpluses.

Ultimately, the only viable long-term solution is to move to a transportation-funding system based upon a mileage fee to pay for maintenance and congestion tolls to raise funds for highway improvements. Nobody likes paying fees, but the idea can be sold politically because (a) the concept is simple and transparent and (b) people get something (access to roadways) in exchange for what they pay. There would be minimal disintermediation by the state political class.

Bill Turque tackles the tough stories for The Washington Post, including this one about Herndon’s blatantly discriminatory zoning regulations.

As you’d discover if you read deeply enough into the story, Bacon (pictured at left), hails originally from the Richmond area.

Be forewarned, town officials of Herndon. We’re paying close attention to this one.

Buried deep in the comments on Jim Bacon’s 25 January 2007 posting on Housing in Charlottesville-Albemarle is a 27 January posting by Anon 7:58. He / She makes a good point concerning the uses some owners of small parcels (10 to 50 acres) make of their land in the Countryside.

He / she does not state the case but also makes a strong argument for the fair and equitable allocation of all location-variable costs. Consider:

If a retired couple raises horses, rare livestock, dogs, heritage fruit and vegetables (Anon’s list – or if they raise, mushrooms, emus, wine grapes or anything else) for a living that is one circumstance.

If the wife is the spokes person for a phone company in Tysons Corner, the husband supervisors janitors in a highschool in Winchester and the kids log 20 person miles a day on a school bus and 30 hours a week in day care, and the couple raises (whatever) as a hobby, that is a different case.

Or is it?

If both couples pay the full cost of their location decisions it does not matter what the circumstances are.

The problem is that now the urban household that is also a hobby farmer is highly subsidized. Subsides come via government action at all levels, by utility suppliers who apply flat fees and by goods and service users who pay a higher cost for the necessities of a contemporary life because of the cost of serving scattered urban land uses. What else happens on the land does not lower the cost of the location-dependent goods and services necessary to support an urban lifestyle.

Citizens in a democracy with a market economy cannot afford a “Welfare State” that supports “Cadillac Welfare Queens.”

Those same citizens cannot afford to support the costs of dysfunctional human settlement patterns. A typical bundle of urban lifestyle-supporting goods and services cost 10 times as much as the same services cost in a functional settlement pattern. (The Cost of Services Curve and the 10 X Rule.)

In addition, while some enjoy the spacial disaggregation (and really enjoy the subsidy), the market documents that the vast majority prefer the same house in a functional location. (The 10 Person Rule.)

Some who want to keep the reality of human settlement pattern relationships confusing suggest that settlement patterns relationships developed by S/PI are too generalized. As we note in “The Shape of the Future,” the same could be said for accounting for the actions of gas molecules via Boyles Law and other relationships found in natural systems.

The Anon poster was concerned about regulations preventing the non-urban land uses from being carried out and prohibitions against land subdivision of land to create small parcels. He / She would be happy to see to availability of land for such uses increase (and the cost go down) when the use of land for scattered urban land uses are no longer subsidized.

Those who now, or hope in the future to profit, from the current subsidies and the settlement patterns that the subsidies engender wail about property “rights” without taking into account the community “responsibilities” that come with 21st Century urban life.

EMR

There is a debate raging in the United Kingdom about the nation’s transportation future. As in the United States, traffic congestion is getting worse, it’s taking a major toll on the economy and people are moved to do something about it. Controversy has come to a head with the release of “The Eddington Transport Study,” a voluminous report that outlines a series of recommendations for action by Parliament.

I will confess: I have not read the entire document, but I have hit the highlights. A number of key findings are worth considering here in Virginia. Some excerpts:

• Travel demand is growing rapidly due to continued economic success and is densely concentrated on certain parts of the networks at certain times of day. As a result, parts of the system are under serious strain. If left unchecked, the rising cost of congestion will waste an extra 22 billion [pounds sterling] worth of time in England alone by 2025. Then 13 percent of traffic will be subject to stop-start travel conditions.



• The economic case for targeted new infrastructure is strong and offers very high returns — the best schemes offer returns in the region of 50-10 pounds for each pound invested. … Smaller projects which unblock pinch-points, variable infrastructure schemes to support public transport in urban areas, and international gateway surface projects are likely to offer the very highest returns, sometimes higher than 10 pounds for every pound spent.
• “Build it and they will come” is a dangerous approach to transport projects which attempt to regenerate areas and regions. Often the result is a two-way process in which local businesses actually lose out as more productive and competitive firms from other regions can access the area and compete for previously protected markets.
• Provided it is well targeted, a national road pricing scheme … could reduce congestion some 50 percent below what it otherwise would be in 2025 and reduce the economic case for additional strategic road infrastructure by some 80 percent. … Given the pace of economic change, pricing also offers considerable flexibility once in place. With pricing it becomes possible to respond to unanticipated change through changing prices much sooner — and at much lower cost — than bringing forward new infrastructure.

I’ve blasted the Richmond Times-Dispatch for ignoring the land-use dimension of the transportation debate, so it’s only fair that I acknowledge when it does touch upon the issue. Olympia Meolo and Julian Walker tackle the subject in today’s newspaper.

As always, I take issue with the coverage. The editors buried the two articles on page B-3, and the reporters focused on Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s approach to the problem while totally ignoring the proposals in the GOP compromise package. But I guess beggars can’t be choosers.

The Kaine administration wants to put the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority in charge of running the $4 billion Metrorail-to-Dulles heavy rail project — one of the largest public works projects in Virginia history — but the authority asserts that it is completely exempt from federal and state information disclosure laws.

The MWAA claims that its status as an “interstate compact” puts it outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act, reports Examiner.com.

Let’s add it all up.

(1) The MWAA has institutional interests distinct from those of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
(2) The MWAA is governed by a board, the majority of whose representatives come from Maryland and Washington, D.C.
(3) Under the Kaine plan, the MWAA will set the toll rates along the Dulles Toll Road, affecting tens of thousands of Virginia commuters.
(4) Under the Kaine plan, the MWAA will control who gets the design and build contracts for the heavy rail line.
(5) And now we find that the MWAA deems itself exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

Stewart Schwartz sums up the situation nicely: “It simply reinforces our contention that the Airports Authority is too unaccountable to be given responsibility over the toll road, its revenues and the Dulles rail project.”

The GOP transportation plan has run into a potential roadblock: It’s called the state constitution. Report Christina Nuckols and Warren Fiske with the Virginian-Pilot:

A transportation plan for Hampton Roads will collapse if individual cities and counties can opt out of regional taxes, several lawmakers said Thursday. But some voiced doubts that they can constitutionally force local governments to collect taxes against their will.

The issue is a major disagreement hanging over a long-sought plan that would generate about $210 million annually for Hampton Roads’ top-priority road projects. The Hampton Roads plan is part of a larger roads package that includes statewide money for road construction and maintenance and regional aid for Northern Virginia.

House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, said he thinks the Hampton Roads plan is unconstitutional without an escape hatch for cities that don’t want to participate in the regional taxes. “I think there is a constitutional problem in forcing someone to opt in,” he said. The constitution says the legislature “can’t raise local taxes,” he said.