Bacon's Rebellion

  • Toll Roads in Action

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    James A. Bacon

    I normally don’t have much good to say about transportation planning in the Richmond region, but one institution does seem to be working well: The Richmond Metropolitan Authority, which governs the Powhite Parkway and Downtown Expressway, two critical commuting arteries funded entirely through tolls.

    The RMA is in the news today because the board took the not-very-popular decision to raise tolls. While I’m not exactly excited about paying more to drive on highways I use with some frequency, I really can’t complain. Based on reports in the Times-Dispatch, I believe the money will be put to good use.

    The higher tolls will raise $80 million in projected maintenance and construction costs over the next decade: bridge repairs, installation of high-speed toll lanes, and $500,000 in annual routine maintenance (snow removal, pot-hole repair and grass cutting) that the Virginia Department of Transportation has provided until now.

    I think it’s a good thing that the RMA has the flexibility to raise tolls as needed to maintain the system and make spot improvements to eliminate bottlenecks. The thing I’m looking for more than anything when I hop on the Expressway is free-flowing traffic. One day the original construction bonds will be paid off and the RMA will be able to lower tolls. But I hope the board doesn’t eliminate the tolls entirely and turn the highways over to VDOT. I like knowing that the RMA is running the show and has a dedicated source of revenue to keep the highways in top shape and congestion-free.

    If other regions of Virginia had any sense, they’d adopt the RMA model for themselves.

  • Still a Lot to Learn about Climate Change

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    James A. Bacon

    As the governor’s commission on climate change starts digging into the impact of Global Warming on Virginia — a particular concern is the expected three-foot rise of sea levels by the end of the century — it would do well to acknowledge the evolving state of climate science. Nearly every day brings some new discovery that refines our knowledge of the mechanics of climate change. The latest, as reported by National Public Radio, highlights “the mystery of Global Warming’s missing heat.”

    While surface temperatures on the earth have been warming over the past four or five years, temperatures in the oceans have showed no warming — indeed, according to reports of some 3,000 robotic sensors scattered around the earth’s oceans, known as the Argo system, the waters might actually have cooled a bit. That’s relevant to Virginians for a couple of reasons: (a) the oceans hold significantly more of the earth’s surface heat than the atmosphere does, and (b) the warming of the ocean, which slightly expands its mass, is expected to be a driving force of rising sea levels.

    For Virginians, rising sea levels are the cutting edge of climate change. Other than New Orleans, Hampton Roads is the lowest-lying large metropolitan area in the country, and it is exceptionally vulnerable to rising sea levels. Also, the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is vulnerable to salification as ocean water displaces fresh water in the estuary.

    The new Argo system measurements appear to be inconsistent with the predictions of climate change models that temperatures and are destined to rise. Scientists are baffled. Perhaps it’s just a measurement error: The ocean’s heat might be circulating to deeper levels not tracked by the sensors. Alternatively, the earth’s natural thermostats may be allowing more heat to be released into space than expected. Or, concedes Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, there may be a dynamic at work that science has not yet identified.

    Here’s another curve ball. In theory, because ocean water temperature should account for about half of rising/falling sea levels, sea levels should not have been rising over the past few years. But they have continued to rise — about 1/2 inch over four years. Scientists guess that the melting of Greenland and Antarctic icecaps may account for the rise. There are so many variables in the climate, however, that nobody knows for sure.

    One more thing for Virginia’s climate change commission to think about: If sea levels are rising 1/2 inch over four years, that implies a rate of one inch per eight years. If the rate stays constant for the rest of the century, that implies that sea levels will be 11.5 inches higher — less than one foot — by the year 2100. As I recall, the commission is operating on an assumption that sea levels will rise three feet over that period.

    The fact is, nobody knows what sea levels will do, and anyone who speaks with certainty is blowing hot air. What we can say with some confidence is that there is a significant risk, based on our current knowledge, that sea levels will rise. We need to take those risks into account as we plan for Virginia’s future, and we need to continually update and modify our assessment of those risks to reflect the best scientific knowledge as we go forward.

    (Image credit: From Vanity Fair, a photo of what Manhattan might look like if sea levels continue to rise, “Notes of Intelligence” blog.)

  • Too Much of a Good Thing

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    James A. Bacon

    Congestion tolls are coming to the Washington metropolitan region: The big question is whether they will be one piece of a patchwork approach with modest ambitions or the underpinning of a massive, region-wide plan to raise billions of dollars for transportation priorities, mainly mass transit.

    Plans are already in the works to use congestion tolls to pay for construction of new lanes along the Interstate-495 Beltway and Interstates 95 and 395 in Northern Virginia, and the Intercounty Connector in Maryland. Now in a new report the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board is exploring the idea of imposing variable pricing tolls on all major highways and parkways in the region, not just transportation arteries where new lanes can be added.

    As Eric Weiss explains in a Washington Post piece, regional transportation planners see no other option for keeping the roads moving. In an ideal world, congestion tolls would pay for new two-way lanes, as is planned for the Beltway and I-95/395, but in most cases the cost of acquiring the land for expanded roadways will make the cost prohibitive. Meanwhile, more money isn’t forthcoming from state governments. The only realistic alternative, the planners contend, is to impose tolls on roads that motorists now ride for free and to plow the money — as much as $2.75 billion a year — back into mass transit.

    Tolls would range in price from $.20 per mile to more than $2 per mile for some stretches of road during periods of peak demand — even more for crossing Potomac River bridges

    In the abstract, this a Bacon’s Rebellion fantasy come true. If new highway capacity is too expensive to build, use the price mechanism to ration it and incentivize drivers to utilize transportation alternatives from mass transit to telecommuting. Ideally, the incentives would be so powerful that they could stimulate meaningful shifts to move transportation-efficient human settlement patterns as well.

    However, there are major political obstacles, not the least of which is the fact that people tend to be hostile to tolls imposed on roads and highways they once drove for free. Additionally, while the study contends that the preferred “DC and Parkways Restrained” plan would not impact any demographic group disproportionately, it does suggest that the tolls would stimulate a significant relocation of jobs within the region. A shift in jobs would create changes in land values and the tax base of different municipalities. Inevitably, the plan would create winners and losers among municipalities and within the politically influential developer/home builder community. Just as inevitably, as soon as the potential losers understand what’s a stake, they will start agitating against the proposal.
    Click on this image for a close-up of a map published in the report. The flesh-colored areas designate where jobs will be lost — primarily in the inner ring of “suburbs” around the District of Columbia — and where jobs will be added, primarily in the urban core and outlying areas along the metropolitan periphery. Where the jobs go, property values will follow. Not only would the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board plan impose $2.75 billion a year in tolls upon a reluctant citizenry, jurisdictions such as Arlington and Alexandria would come out big losers. Are the elected representatives of those communities likely to support a plan with such an outcome?

    Another stumbling block: A massive shift of the job base westward to Loudoun County and western Fairfax may not be what many Virginia smart growth advocates have in mind.

    Bacon’s bottom line: As much as I am a huge fan of market-based solutions to transportation, this plan strikes me as overkill. The $2.75 billion-a-year cost exceeds the total $2.331 annual congestion cost for the Washington metropolitan area (as calculated by the Texas Transportation Institute). That’s plain crazy! This plan would apply a machete where a surgeon’s knife is called for. I can’t conceive of a plan like this winning public support.

    There is definitely a role for congestion pricing in addressing the transportation needs of the Washington region, but the strategem needs to be applied selectively, and the public needs to be persuaded that it has an ameliorative effect before it can be rolled out on a regional scale. Furthermore, although the authors of this study did examine the impact of the tolls on land use patterns, they did not consider the reverse: how changes in land use could make the tolls work more effectively. As Ed Risse ceaselessly points out, there needs to be a balance between the travel demand generated by land uses and the transportation capacity planned for those land uses. I could detect no sign of such a sensibility in the study.

  • ON THE ECONOMY

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    James A. Bacon

    As we point out in PART IV of THE PROBLEM WITH CARS, 15 May 2007 may be thought of decades from now as the ‘Ides of March’ of the Autonomobile – Large, Private Vehicles.

    The week that proceeded and the week that followed the 15 th of March in 2008 may be thought of as the ‘Ides of March’ for the leveraged, securitized, subsidized Global Economy, as we knew it.

    The last few days there has been a “too-numerous-to..” count, cite or link-to flood of MainStream Media coverage but there is no examination of the bottom line:

    Two items get no press.

    First the real cause of the current crisis. Behind (or perhaps underneath?) the current financial Enterprise meltdown is the very same problem that was the root cause of the Savings and Loan Crisis (mid-80s), the Banking Crisis / Commercial Real Estate Meltdown (late-80s to mid-90s). The problem?

    Dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

    We had dogs in all these fights. We also had friends who we had warned five years before they went under in every downturn since Boise Cascade was wiped out by raw land speculation in the mid 70s. Our personal, inside experience includes not just national poster children like Boise Cascade and Continental Illinois Bank but a lot of Regional ones as well.

    The lesson for citizens is simple: Evolve functional settlement patterns or suffer the economic consequences.

    Sure, the “cause” of the current crisis is said to be the securitized sub-prime loans and securitized credit card debt that kicked over the house of cards. There were many other sub-problems too.

    However, those most who were convinced by MainStream Media ads and low initial mortgage payments to buy a $300,000 to $900,000 dollar house in the R = 25 Miles to R = 60 Miles Radius Band could have afforded a $120,000 to $500,000 dwelling in R = 2 to R = 20 Radius Band.

    The cause of the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis is this: Agency regulation and Enterprise short term profit objectives resulted in the building the wrong size house in the wrong location. The cause of the Mobility and Access Crisis is the need to rely on Autonomobiles to get from where citizens are to where they need to be.

    The second overlooked issue: The headlong rush to solve the wrong problem.

    Some – the Lame Duck White House and the lame candidates who want to next occupy the White House – are pretending there is no Recession. Recent polls indicate that around 75 percent of the citizens think, and are acting as if, there is a Recession at hand With about the same percentage of the economy dependent on consumer spending, citizens and not Wall Street Titans or Federal regulators, are the ones who will make the decisions.

    For most citizens, the past 10 years have been much like a recession as we point out in “Good News, Bad Reporting,” 5 March 2008.

    At the same time as some some are in denial, others are focused on bailing out the leveraged, securitized, subsidized fools who got us here.

    Steven Pearlstein quotes Nouriel Roubini: The current system has perfected a system of “socialized risk and privatizing gain.” E. J Dionne Jr says the Wall Street Titans have turned into “a bunch of welfare clients.”

    Yes, there is a lot to be said for Groveton’s point that now that everyone in the boat is where they are, Agencies have to bail out the fat cats that caused the problem because if not far more citizens will suffer.

    The point we make in “Good News, Bad Reporting” is that trying in vain to prevent a needed Recession may throw us all into a Depression.

    EMR

  • Congestion Pricing for the Washington Region

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    James A. Bacon

    The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board has issued its final report on value pricing (congestion pricing) for the Washington metropolitan area: “Evaluating Alternative Scenarios for a Network of Variably Priced Highway Lanes in the Metropolitan Washington Region.”

    From my quick perusal, the report does not make any recommendations. Instead, it lays out three congestion pricing scenarios for the region and lists topics for future investigation. I don’t have time to dig into the document today, but I post it here for the reference of those who would like to examine it.

    Hat tip to Jim Wamsley, who writes as follows:

    Some selected quotations from Professor Vickrey’s 1959 presentation to Congress provide an excellent starting point and context for the work reported in this study.

    “Under urban conditions we cannot have both free flowing rush hour traffic and the absence of user charges or other constraints on highway use. One or the other of these desiderata must yield.”

    “Recent technological developments in electronics have placed within reach and within reasonable cost the possibility of assessing against the users of metropolitan streets and highways a set of charges that can be tailored about as closely to the costs occasioned by the actual usage as these costs themselves can be estimated. This can be done without interrupting or even slowing the flow of traffic, and at a cost that will be minute compared to the savings produced in inducing a more economical and less congested pattern of traffic flow and a more economical apportionment of traffic between the various available modes of transportation. It would, moreover, go far toward solving the financial problems associated with the provision of the expensive facilities required to provide adequate transportation in a modern metropolis.”

    “Pricing of highway use will thus make it possible to provide at reasonable cost uncongested and speedy transportation anytime, anywhere, and for anyone for whom the occasion is sufficiently urgent to warrant the payment of the corresponding charge. Without pricing, it is very likely that during the rush hours this degree of freedom of movement would not be available to anyone at any price.”

    “It is accordingly of the utmost importance, in evaluating plans for traffic facilities, to consider the various ways by which their use may be suitably controlled.”

    Almost fifty years later we now take up again the basic principles enunciated by Professor Vickrey and many other distinguished economists, planners and engineers, and present them for public consideration in a new context.”

    Eric Weiss with the Washington Post gives his spin on the report here.

  • Schmucks Pay Taxes, Too

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    James A. Bacon

    I’m a pro-business kind of guy. I believe in free markets. I celebrate the contribution of entrepreneurs. I believe that capitalism is the greatest wealth-creating system ever created. But I’ve got a big problem — a very big problem — when businesses lobby for tax breaks from government that ordinary citizens could never hope to receive. Here in Virginia, government practitioners appear willing to hand out tax breaks to any special pleader with a story to tell, even as they jack up taxes on everyone else.

    Two more straws in the wind…

    Volkswagen. Over and above the $6 million in subsidies and incentives that the Commonwealth is paying Volkswagen to relocate its US headquarters to Fairfax County (see “Another Data Point on the VW Deal“), it appears that we will be giving VW employees exemptions on car-related taxes as well. Reports Emily Dooley with the Times-Dispatch:

    Known around the General Assembly as the “Volkswagen bill,” the legislation exempts employees at automaker headquarters and their families from paying motor vehicle sales and use taxes if they lease a car built by the automobile manufacturer.

    Volkswagen Group of America Inc. announced last fall its plans to move 120 employees and its headquarters from Michigan to Fairfax County in April.

    A nonemployee pays $750 in taxes when buying a $25,000 Volkswagen. After July 1, a VW headquarters employee would not. Each employee is allowed to lease up to four cars per year for 12 months. Then the cars are sold.

    The tax waiver was a benefit in Michigan.

    Qimonda. Will Jones with the Times-Dispatch reports today that semiconductor manufacturer Qimonda in eastern Henrico County would get an estimated $1.3 million tax cut this year as part of the county’s proposed budget for fiscal 2008-09. The semiconductor company plans to invest $1.5 billion in the plant over the next several years, and the 27 percent reduction in the machine & tool tax, writes Jones, “would help the memory-chip manufacturer weather a depressed market for its products and make Henrico more attractive for investment by the semiconductor industry.”

    Of course, those two tax breaks are chicken feed compared to the ginormous incentives that the City of Fredericksburg is offering to the Kalahari Waterpark to locate an indoor waterpark in the Celebrate Virginia project. (See “Kalahari’s $61 Million Waterpark Subsidy.“) Fredericksburg officials hand out goodies to favored businesses like Halloween candy.

    What we’re experiencing in Virginia is the slow-motion transformation of the tax code into a two-tier system: one set of rules for special pleaders who wheedle concessions from lawmakers, and a set of rules of the rest of us schmucks. As the special pleaders whittle away at the tax base, government raise taxes on the schmucks to make up the difference.

    State and local officials contend that the tax breaks represent a net gain — without them, VW, Qimonda and Kalahari wouldn’t make the investments, create the jobs and generate the taxes that are projected. What the business-welfare apologists don’t acknowledge is that the schmucks create jobs and pay taxes, too. The difference is, our economic activity is invisible to public policy makers: We don’t hire lobbyists and public relations professionals to make our case. When schmucks pay more in taxes, we have less capital to grow our businesses. Thus, we pay less in taxes in the long run.

    Maybe I should just stop complaining about unfair tax treatment and join the crowd. Maybe I can make a case that blogs are a critical component of Virginia’s emerging information economy and that they need to be encouraged and subsidized. Think anyone would buy it?

  • GREED IN THE NAME OF GREEN

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    James A. Bacon

    Not EVERYONE who works for MainStream Media is conspiring to increase the rate of consumption.

    Check out “Greed In the Name of Green: To Worshipers of Consumption: Spending Won’t Save the Earth.” It is a very good item by “Washington Post Staff Writer” Monica Hesse that ran in the Style section of 5 March issue of WaPo.

    Our favorite is the hybrid Lexus but there are a lot of good examples.

    We were reminded of this item when we went back to check out the references to “RuralZED” housing that were provided in a comment under the Atlantic Realty backfill project in Falls Church posted on 6 March by Jim Bacon.

    The item on “RuralZED” housing was on a website called “TreeHugger.” Talk about Greed in the Name of Green. The site gives new meaning to the word “news hole” vis a vis advertising.

    The site must be popular with those who buy a lot because they sell a lot of ads. When you bring up the item on “RuralZED” housing there is a framework of ads that runs for screen after screen. The story itself is very short so the impression you get is “Hey, Tree Hugger you need to buy, buy, buy…” Reminds us of the Ford Motor Company ad on page two of Unte Reader…

    By the way the second story of “RuralZED” housing makes it clear that this Unit-scale modular component system is designed to create varied Dooryard and Cluster agglomerations. Since “Zed” is used in Great Britain (and some former Colonies) for Zero, “RuralZED” may mean “Not Rural.” It is all a matter of Vocabulary.

    EMR

  • On the Energy Conservation Front…

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    James A. Bacon

    This news has come in from Dominion Virginia Power…

    • Dominion has started enrolling customers for the first of its nine energy-conservation pilot programs: the PowerCost Monitor. Sensors installed on home meters will send wireless signals to in-home displays estimating how much is being spent on electricity at any given time. The 1,000 residential customers in the pilot project will be able to track energy costs by either kilowatts or dollars for different appliances. As the appliances are turned on and off, customers will be able to view energy savings in the device display. (See press release.)

    • Dominion has sold the 1 millionth energy-efficient compact fluorescent lightbulb under its CFL promotion initiative. The power company estimates that consumer savings will amount to $270 million over the multi-year life of the bulbs, and CO2 emissions will be reduced by 1.5 million tons – the equivalent of removing 264,710 cars from the road for one year. (See press release.)

    Let’s do some back-of-the-envelope math. There are roughly 3 million households in Virginia. Let’s say the average household has 20 light bulbs. The CFL initiative represents 1/60th the potential savings available through switching out light bulbs. This one, simple change could be the equivalent of getting 16 million cars off the road (more cars than there are in the Commonwealth) — while simultaneously saving Virginia families money!

    Bacon’s bottom line: Combine the CFL initiative with the PowerCost Monitor and the ability to reduce consumption by managing appliances — and let’s not forget Dominion’s other power-saving initiatives coming up — and we should have no trouble meeting the Virginia Energy Plan goal of reducing electricity consumption 10 percent from what it otherwise would be by 2022. We should set far more ambitious goals for ourselves.

  • Measure, Measure, Measure

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    James A. Bacon

    As Prince William County starts checking on the immigration status of criminal suspects, a team of sociologists and criminologists from Virginia universities will be watching. As reported by the Washington Post, the team will ask, “How does a community change when its police officers start checking citizenship?”

    The team will analyze everything from police records to public sentiment. But how do you measure such a policy’s success? If large numbers of illegal immigrants leave the county, were they driven out by police actions, out of fear or because there are fewer jobs in a flagging economy? If reported crime goes down, does it mean that fewer people are breaking the law or that more people are afraid to call authorities?

    The academic initiative has the support of local authorities, who want to make sure that police don’t engage in racial profiling of Hispanics and to evaluate whether the program is cost effective. In the background: Municipal officials want to protect the county against discrimination lawsuits. Also, the board learned recently that the cost of the crackdown will be $6.4 million the first year, more than twice as much as earlier estimated.

    County Supervisor Martin E. Nohe says the exercise will help ensure that the county’s policy is “legal, just and reasonable. … We had to not just avoid racial profiling. With this new focus on Prince William County, we had to also avoid the perception of racial profiling.”

    Without the evaluation, says Chairman Corey A. Stewart, the county would have only anecdotal evidence to judge whether the policy is achieving its purpose, and at what price.

    Bacon’s bottom line: This is a great idea. The knowledge that someone will be systematically tracking the data will, in itself, discourage police from engaging in racial profiling. At the same time, the compilation of comprehensive and objective data will make it difficult for partisans on either side of the illegal immigration debate to make sweeping claims based on anecdotes and isolated incidents.

    Who knows, this initiative could provide a template for governance elsewhere in Virginia. All too often, elected officials make decisions on the basis of incomplete data. All too often, when it comes time to re-evaluate their decisions, they still have incomplete data. (That’s why I’ve argued so strenuously for a component in Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s pre-K school initiative to track the impact of the early education on “at risk” children.) I can visualize a future in which state and local governments routinely partner with Virginia universities to measure the results of public policy initiatives.

    Imagine that: Basing decisions on hard data, not anecdote and gut instinct! That would be the greatest revolution in Virginia governance since the overthrow of the monarchy!

  • Pigs, Indians and Human Settlement Patterns

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    James A. Bacon

    Dedicated readers of this blog know that I have a special place in my heart for pigs. As one might imagine, the Bacons have adopted the pig as a family totem. Today’s debased popular culture, as I have blogged on occasion, does not accord the porcine species the affection and respect that it deserves. Regular readers also know that I am fascinated as well by the original Bacon’s Rebellion, one of the first expressions of popular sovereignty in colonial America — and inspiration for this blog.

    At long last, these two divergent obsessions have intersected. Pigs, it turns out, played a significant role in the historic Bacon’s Rebellion! (Even better: the conflict was driven by dysfunctional human settlement patterns!!)

    In “Creatures of Empire” University of Colorado historian Virginia DeJohn Anderson focuses on the critical role played by domesticated mammals — cows, pigs, horses — in the Chesapeake colonies and New England. Not only did these animals provide a means of subsistence, as they did in England, but they became a leading cause of conflict between settlers and native Indians. It was an Indian war that sparked Bacon’s Rebellion.

    The story begins in England. In a country where land was scarce and labor abundant, English animal husbandry favored the input of labor over land. Traditional farming practices called for the close human supervision of animals and considerable investment in barns, sties and, above all, fencing to keep the animals from wandering onto a neighbor’s property. In the American colonies, the situation was the reverse: Land was abundant but labor scarce. As a practical matter, the colonials turned the animals loose and let them forage in the woods.

    The colonials’ pattern of agriculture in the New World required more land than English farmers needed back home: four or five acres of woodland for the animals to forage in for every acre of land put under cultivation. The land-intensive pattern of settlement acted as a multiplier for the growing number of settlers: Land-hungry Englishmen pushed deeper into the frontier and came into conflict with the native Indians.

    Conflict, when it occurred, most frequently centered on animals. The Indians, who had no concept of animals as private property, captured pigs that ran loose and unsupervised in the woods. Englishmen, who considered that theft, often retaliated. Eventually, Indians came to understand that English concept of animals as property, but that did not resolve the tension. In the Chesapeake particularly, English settlers let their animals rove great distances for weeks and months at a time. Turning feral, the pigs proved a great nuisance to the Indians. The prolific, fast-breeding beasts found unfenced Indian corn plots a tempting source of food. When Indians killed the marauding hogs, their English owners sought retribution. Later in the century, as the pressure of the English settlers and their unsupervised animals became unbearable, Indians lashed back by killing cows and pigs for no immediate cause.

    A treaty establishing peace between the English and the Pamunkey Indians articulated the problem quite clearly. Writes Anderson:

    Article 4 claimed that the “Violent Intrusions of diverse English” onto native lands had forced Indians “by way of Revenge, to kill the Cattel and Hogs of the English,” helping to spark “the late unhappy Rebellion.”

    I will let others draw conclusions regarding the baleful consequences of dysfunctional, land-intensive human settlement patterns in the 17th century and their implications for today. As for me, I will simply note that it is high time that scholars acknowledge the pivotal role of pigs in early American history.

  • Good to Be Home

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    James A. Bacon

    Well, the Bacon family is back from Jackson Hole, one of the most wonderful spots on the face of the planet. My wife and son enjoyed loads of skiing, while I got to work out and read. No skiing for me, though. I remain as determined as ever to stay off the slopes. You can’t go anywhere in Jackson without encountering someone with a leg in a cast or an arm in a sling, all from skiing accidents. I even saw one young woman in a restaurant wearing an elaborate back brace. And the stories… Everyone in Jackson has a story about skiing accidents, one worse than the others. Fools! Crazy fools!

    For me, the highlight was a sled ride into the Elk refuge right outside of town, where we could observe a herd of 2,000 elk up very close and personal. We saw our first moose, lounging near a stream — there are moose, too, living near my daughter’s apartment inside the town limits, but we didn’t see them. On the way to the airport, we saw a conga line of mule deer working its way across the side of a butte, just a couple hundred yards from the highway. We also heard reports of recent wolf sightings — apparently, a pack has migrated down to Jackson Hole from Yellowstone National Park. What an amazing place!

    Many thanks to Ed, Norm and Peter — not to mention our regulars on the comment boards — for keeping the blog alive in my absence. Judging by the large number of comments, the blog was more controversial than ever. I’ll start posting again shortly.

  • NOTE ON GROVETON’S USE OF NUR

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    James A. Bacon

    In the comments on the 9 March AFFORDABLE AND ACCESSIBLE HOUSING – FROM BAD TO WORSE post, you made several comments to which we wanted to add a note:

    First, thank you for using ‘New Urban Region’ and ‘NUR’ in your comment.

    By using the comprehensive geographic scope implied by use of NUR you made a strong case for your view of the future of the Elephant Clan. (We agree with your view by the way.)

    A cause of continuing misunderstanding – which is helped when you use the term NUR – is that many who live and work in a NUR (for example in the Fredericksburg Subregion of the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region such as House Speaker Howell) do not “think” they live in “Northern Virginia.”

    Second you said:

    “EMR – A suggestion. When you learn a new language the teacher does not just hand you a dictionary and say, “All the words are in this book”. Instead, the teacher starts with basic words and phrases and expands after they are learned. Is there a “Top 10” set of clear words that should be learned first?”

    We think you are right and if there were more time EMR and S/P would like to find a more effectively approach to understanding of a new Vocabulary.

    That was our intent in publishing APPENDIX TWO, Core Confusing Words. The idea was to suggest words to avoid and let new alternatives filter up in informed dialogue. So far that has been seen as a threat to the independence of 12 1/2 Percenters.

    For now we only have time to use the words and phrases we find most useful. Many have obvious meanings from the context except to those who are trying to not understand. For those words and phrases that are not transparent, one can check them in the GLOSSARY.

    Keep up the good work.

    EMR

  • C’VILLE / ALBE SHARED-VEHICLE SYSTEMS

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    James A. Bacon

    At the request of several readers from Greater Charlottesville / Albemarle, we are posting this clarification:

    Back on 18 February Jim Bacons posted “Bus Rapid Transit Studied for Charlottesville.”

    We agree with Jim’s comments about the need for an authoritative analysis and who should pay for any shared-vehicle system.

    Given our experience with shared-vehicle systems and our past work in the Charlottesville / Albemarle Subregion, we do not have high hopes for BRT penciling out.

    At 6:30 PM we made the following comment on the original post (edited for clarification):

    OK, no one seems interested in this topic so here are some thoughts:

    BRT is primarily an “in-the-median” shared vehicle system.

    In US of A, applications of BRT would work for a “two or three big stops” subsystem. For example Air and Space Annex / Dulles South Terminal, Dulles North Terminal and an Intermodal terminal in Tysons Corner.

    (We should have noted a potential station at Reston Town Center. There would be vastly more demand and an existing limited access roadway with exclusive Airport Access lanes in this application as compared to a C’ville Zentrum to C’ville airport along US Route 29.)

    In smaller agglomerations — e.g. Ottawa — BRT does not live up to its potential because there is not the nodal intensity to generate trip demand.

    Unless there are Core stations underground as in Seattle, (very expensive) the system works best with when the station is under a big platform over the ‘expressway’ of which the BRT occupies the median.

    Platforms such as employed in the U-Bahn service to Nordvest Zentrum in Frankfort AM would work well.

    South American applications — e.g. Curitiba — have broad ‘Boulevards’ that separate Village-scale Superblocks.

    C’VILLE does not have the Critical Mass to support any of these spacial distribution strategies.

    What happened to the Street Car / Trolley idea for C’VILLE?

    (Sean Tubbs of Charlottesville Tomorrow provided information on the Trolley proposal and provided other resource links in the original string which are very helpful.)

    Following a post concerning the need for a “compelling vision”

    EMR noted (again with editing for clarification):

    The “compelling vision” must be a vision of future, functional settlement pattern, not of this or that Mobility and Access system. The Mobility and Access System comes after there is a decision on the desired settlement pattern.

    This comment was misinterpreted by a commentor as being a suggestion that: “unless the plan is to Nuke C’VILLE and start all over”

    There is a pervasive misunderstanding that it is hard to evolve functional settlement patterns from those that exist now.

    Human settlement patterns are organic systems and they are continually evolving. The problem is that current Agency and Enterprise projects, programs, incentives and controls are not geared to evolving functional settlement patterns because alternatives make more money and / or gain more benefit for some in the short term.

    “how does C’VILLE or any area that already exists and cannot be torn down and recreated – evolve to more optimal settlement pattern?”

    (See above)

    “If I understand EMR correctly, it is futile to be thinking in terms of different ways of accomplishing access and mobility if the settlement pattern itself is dysfunctional.”

    (No, it means that the first step is to create a plan for functional settlement patterns.)

    (It also means that it is futile to try to spend money on a shared-vehicle system in hopes that a functional settlement pattern will just evolve due to the new system. The settlement pattern and the Mobility and Access system must be planned and evolve together.)

    There are many individuals and several groups that would like to see a clear rendition of what the shape of the future should be in Greater Charlottesville / Albemarle

    Once those images are clearly articulated, a number of shared vehicle systems should be examined to see which (one or more) systems best serve these settlement patterns.

    One of the many weaknesses of the Blog format is that posters, commentors and readers must be ever vigilant lest intentional or unintentional attempts to misinterpret comments mislead those who are seeking an understanding of complex issues related to human settlement patterns.

    Comments on the original C’ville post by Jim Bacon and especially on the proceeding post by Jim titled “Heavy Rail and Flying Pigs” are prime examples of comments by those who have an agenda to (and/or are paid to) confuse and confound useful dialogue.

    Our thanks to those who were confused by the comments and contacted us directly for clarification.

    We hope this clarification is of use to those who are trying to bring functional settlement patterns in the Charlottesville – Albemarle Subregion.

    EMR

  • SERENEDIPITY

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    When someone has been working for nearly 50 years to answer a set of questions it is splendid to come across another person who has arrived at many of the same answers to those questions via a much different route.

    In 1961 while standing in what we now call a Cluster (Lewisburg Square) in a place of the scale we now call a Village (Beacon Hill) in the Boston New Urban Region we were finally able to articulate questions that had bounced around in our head while growing up on a farm, in the desert and in what we now call the Northern Rocky Mountain Urban Support Region.

    The complexity of the questions was magnified by studying forestry, physics, mathematics, architecture and philosophy in Montana and Hawaii and by military service and travel in most of states of the US of A.

    It took until 2000, aided by more studies, teaching at three universities, extensive travel in Europe, the Carribean and North America as well as working for some very smart clients to be in a position to set down a comprehensive Conceptual Framework and the Vocabulary necessary to address these questions in The Shape of the Future.

    Imagine our delight at encountering the work of Richard Register! We have not met Register and do not agree with everything he writes but we do agree on a lot. The areas of agreement range from the problems with settlement patterns that require extensive or exclusive use of Autonomobiles, to the level of energy and resource efficiency one can expect from functional human settlement patterns, to what is happening to put citizens back in jeopardy in the New Orleans New Urban Region, to what Bill Gates and Warren Buffett could better be doing with their money.

    Register’s base of operation and his current hands-on projects are focused in the Community and Subregion where we went to law school so we have an appreciation for the places he is trying to make better. His work takes him around the world and his observations about the places we have also experienced are on target. His insights into those we have not yet seen are enlightening.

    Where does serendipity come in? We found out about Register when we contacted a college roommate to congratulate him on being named a Professor Emeritus at the University of Montana. His daughter, Kristin Miller, works with Register in Oakland, a Zentrum in the San Francisco Bay New Urban Region. We quoted Kristin in PART I of THE PROBLEM WITH CARS. We have not met Kristin either but heard about her years ago when her father was a struggling grad student at the University of Texas. Miller and Register are hard at work getting ready to host the seventh International Ecocity Conference (www.ecocityworldsummit.org )

    We will be quoting Register in PART IV of THE PROBLEM WITH CARS and will be reviewing his book “Ecocities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature.” in Chapter 16 of TRILO-G. (Back in 1973 we started planning, building and managing what became the Village scale enclave of Burke Centre with the logo “Community in Harmony with Nature.” Burke Centre is home to around 20,000 citizens living in as much harmony with nature as is possible in National Capital Subregion and stay within the regulations of Fairfax County, VDOT, et. al.)

    Register’s main web site is www.ecocitybuilder.org He maintains a Blog on that site where he post his current thinking. You can learn about the Denis Hayes Paradox – “Why are environmental Organizations winning so many battles and losing the war?” and the Richard Register Pledge: “This is the last new car I will every buy.”

    Ecocity Builders publishes an enewsletter. It was a “perspective” in the March – April 2008 edition titled “Enduring Civilization” that cemented my respect for Register’s thinking. He outlines four parameters and two guidelines for future action. They have the heft of Fundamental Change.

    Unfortunately the enewsletter is not accessible from the web site. If you would like a copy, send me an email and I will forward it.

    We are calling attention to Registers work not so much for the Denizens who post comments on Bacons Rebellion Blog but for those who follow our columns and posts and communicate with us directly. We are chagrined to say some who find our work useful refuse to post or comment on a web site that is listed in some sources as being a “right” site and has contributors who are identified as being “right of center,” libertarian or conservative.

    Our view is that if those who believe that it is imperative that civilization achieve a sustainable trajectory do not stop tossing rocks at one another then an evolution toward sustainability will never happen. See “Good News: Bad Reporting” 5 March 2008.

    Alas, we will probably never be friends with Register because he has centered his work around developing “Ecocities.” We have found that the word “city” is a Core Confusing Word. But then he is working on “urban Villages” so there may be hope.
    OK, we will not mention Core Confusing Words when we meet Richard Register.

    EMR

  • What About Doug?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    In our latest Agree to Disagree column, Thad Williamson and I don’t disagree about much when it comes to the Richmond mayor’s race.

    Barring a huge change in existing conditions, this is Doug Wilder’s race to lose. Should he decide to run again, that is.

    And that is really the question: will Doug run again? I’d place a small wager that he does. If so, he sweeps the field, but has a much harder time doing so than in his first outing back in 2004, when he rolled up 80% of the vote and carried each of the city’s nine wards.

    However, if he decides there is no more good china left to smash on Broad Street and decides life was better in Charles City after all, then I expect the field to grow by leaps and bounds…and provide local political junkies with the show of their lives.

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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