There are some who believe it is worth the effort to educate citizens about the importance of evolving more functional human settlement patterns. These patterns and densities of land use could spur the evolution of Balanced Communities in sustainable New Urban Regions.
One of the major problems these educators face is the ease with which some who have nothing to contribute but their personal opinions can present unfounded material. These “views,” “comments” and “observations” unfortunately impact rational thinking. The Internet makes this problem much more critical.
A perfect example is the second comment following the post “METRO WEST – 22 YEARS TOO LATE” below.
Let us start with Geographic Illiteracy and Spacial Ignorance:
The most important land from the perspective of recovering the cost of building a shared-vehicle system is the land within ½ mile of the station platform. The use of this land is also critical in balancing the ridership of any shared-vehicle system to help offset the operating cost.
There are 500 acres in each R= ½ mile station area. 45 acres is less than 10 % of that area.
There are 125 acres within 1/4 miles of the platform and 45 acres is less than 36 % of that area.
The 45 acres in public rights-of-way at Vienna / Fairfax / GMU are the most important because they are closest to the platform and thus the place to focus transit oriented development. See our backgrounder “It is Time to Fundamentally Rethink METRO” at https://www.baconsrebellion.com/ for details.
How about economics?
The cost of site per square foot of building on a platform vs a non-platform site balances out around FAR 4. This is the case if:
The developer can eliminate much of the need for parking due to distance to METRO platform and take advantage of the reverse ridership potential.
It also helps to not to have to pay for getting rid of the prior site uses. The cost of recycling underutilized development on the site can be significant.
Also important is the fact that there are few site holding costs because the public already owns the land. Interest costs for land holding is a huge factor on big / complex / multi-phased projects.
Last, the rents on the resulting development are much higher because the market documents that this is where tenants want to be.
Data on air rights over the Dulles Toll Road confirm the intelligence of platform development. They also support S/PI’s suggestion for putting the Purple Line under the Beltway to take advantage of urban density economics in Maryland. Running down I-66 with METRO might not be such a bad idea if the potential of METRO capacity was utilized.
“Who in their right mind would want to live on a concrete slab?”
One might ask who in their right mind would want to look at an expressway and parking lots?
In fact, most of the residential area of a balanced station-area enclave would end up on the “other” 455 acres. See above re the precentage of the site on a platform over the rights of way. teh
By the way there was a great stand of mature oaks and poplars with a splendid understory of American Holly that would have been saved by Virginia Center. It was cut down to make room for uninspiring garden apartments. There is almost nothing but ashalt and buildings on the site now.
But that is not the end of the “in their right mind” story.
There are a many of “out of their right mind” folks who pay premium dollar for employment, service and residential uses in and near the Prudential Center / Copely Place in Boston (over I-90 / Mass Pike and railroad lines). You may have heard of Back Bay? There are others who have paid premium dollar per square foot for a lot of years on Park Avenue in New York City (over the New York Central lines into Grand Central Station).
In the National Capital Subregion, how about the Air Rights buildings in Bethesda?
Development on a platform could look a lot better than the best of the Rosslyn / Ballston Corridor or Reston Town Center.
When we were planning Virginia Center the Fairfax County planning director suggested we check out Nordvest Stadt in Frankfort. It was not the staff of 25 years ago that lacked vision, it was pandering politicians who were concerned about the next election. They are the same ones who cite “input” from the likes of the “who in his right mind” poster who were and are the problem. They will not change until citizens demand intelligent decisions.
A lot of the “public opposition” to the Airport Authority taking over METRO to Dulles is created by the contributions from adjacent land owners who know that there is enough land over 500-foot wide right-of-way of the Dulles Toll Road to adsorb all the employment land uses for the northern part of Virginia for decades. If the Authority is as smart as we think they are, they will build platforms at the three Reston stations because they already own the land.
There are engineering problems with platforms but they are solvable.
The engineering problems are a lot easier to solve than keeping those who know absolutely nothing about the topic and / or have an economic dog in the fight from distracting rational evolution of human settlement patterns by broadcasting their opinions.
As careful readers of our work know, we have no problem with those who want their urban dwelling to be on one, five, ten or 50 acres — so long as they pay the full cost of location variable goods and services.
EMR
