Here is some interesting reading, courtesy of Ray Hyde (the quote selections and accompanying commentary are mine, not his):
You Can Build Your Way out of Congestion! Tory Gattis, author of the Houston Strategies blog, summarizes a new Reason Foundation study that the construction of 104,000 lane miles at the cost of $533 billion dollars (2005) over the next 25 years would eliminate “all serious congestion” in America’s cities.
Concludes Gattis: “I suspect that the reason Houston is in so much better shape than most other metros is we never abandoned or slashed highway capacity expansion plans as many have, and they’ve fallen into a much deeper hole as a result. We’ve also stayed more realistic about what transit can and can’t do, and invested in more cost-effective transit solutions (like HOV express buses, vanpools, and carpools instead of commuter rail).”
However, Gattis does not discuss the concept of “induced demand,” in which the construction of new roadway capacity, by temporarily reducing travel times, induces people to move to more distant locations in the search of less expensive housing, thus generating more Vehicle Miles Traveled over time and more congestion. The 25-year period envisioned by the Reason study is more than enough time to change human settlement patterns, and congestion, for the worse.
The False Promise of Metro. Washingtonian Sam Smith, documents in his City Desk blog how the Washington Metro has contributed to congestion in the region: (a) falling far short of the ridership projections used to justify construction, and (b) driving out of business the local, privately owned bus companies that had served many of the same routes. “DC’s power-brokers — led then as now by real estate developers — weren’t really interested in transportation. They were more concerned with land speculation, with exploiting outer suburbia.”
Shades of Rail-to-Dulles. Who will pay for the extension of Metro to Dulles airport? The public. Who will make windfall profits? The landowners. Mechanisms exist for tapping some of that windfall to help finance the $4 billion project, as illuminated on this blog. Failure to do so amounts to legalized theft.
Why Charlotte Will Have Light Rail and Raleigh Won’t. According to North Carolina’s Innovation Online blog, Charlotte leaders planned their land use with light rail in mind, encouraging mixed uses and higher densities along the anticipated light rail routes. The resulting development was better able to support light rail. As a result, Charlotte will start up a 10-mile, $427 million light rail line in November 2007, while Raleigh has given up on its ambitions to run a commuter train through the Research Triangle and Durham.
