-Caveat Lector- : Subject: Car Wars : Date: Tuesday, February 23, 1999 3:40 PM : : From : http://www.teleport.com/~rot/autowar.html : : : : The Coming War on the Automobile : : Table of Contents : : �Designing Cities for the Nineteenth Century : �Leading the Charge in Oregon : �Hidden Costs : �Sprawl : �Ugly Strip Malls and Sterile Suburbs : �General Motors Made Us Do It : �New Urbanism's Backers : �Fighting Back : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : The war on drugs began in the 1980s. The 1990s are witnessing a war on : tobacco. What will be the target of the great social war of the next : decade? The answer is not alcohol or fatty foods, as some might guess. : Instead, the next target of the social engineers and planners will be : automobiles and those who drive them. : : Early skirmishes in this war have been fought with increasing intensity : since the 1960s. Major battlefronts are currently located in Oregon, : Minnesota, Maryland, and Florida. But these local efforts have only modest : support from federal officials. If Al Gore is elected president in 2000, an : all-out federal effort is certain. : : The war can be traced, naturally, to a misbegotten and misguided federal : program: the Interstate Highway System. As originally conceived by : President Eisenhower, Interstates were to link cities but not pass through : them. But in the 1950s, most Americans lived in the cities. City officials : couldn't stand the thought of all that federal money being spent outside : their borders, so they quickly transformed the program into one that served : mainly commuters. : : That turned out to be a big mistake. Building an Interstate in a city : generally meant wiping out a wide swath of existing homes, businesses, and : parks. The freeways that were built ended up literally paving the way for : urbanists' flight to the suburbs--a flight motivated less by racial issues : than by people's desire to live in pleasant neighborhoods on large : houselots. : : Some freeways met with such objections from local residents and the : beginnings of an anti-automobile coalition that they never got built. In : the wake of Earth Day in the early 1970s, a spate of books were published : with titles like Road to Ruin, Highway to Nowhere, and Autokind vs. : Mankind. The authors of all of these books agreed that the automobile was : one of the greatest horrors ever invented and that Americans were victims : of a dark conspiricy coming out of Flint, Michigan. : : During this period, the most significant victory of the anit-automobilists : was the government takeover--usually with federal assistance--of virtually : all of America's urban transit systems. Transit had been in steady decline : since 1920, when autos went from being toys for the rich to mobility for : everyone. : : Transit advocates persuasively argued that, due to youth, age, or : disabilities, some people were simply unable to drive. Society owed these : people as much mobility as the auto offered everyone else, so society : should subsidize transit. But behind this argument lurked a belief that : mass transit was better than personal autos and that we would all be better : off if we could go back to the late-nineteenth century when most cities had : streetcars but no one yet had cars. : : The next big goal of the anti-auto crowd was to "bust the trust fund"--to : open up highway funds for mass transit. Since around 1950, highway user : fees in the form of gas taxes, vehicle registrations, and truck weight : taxes had paid for nearly all road and highway construction in the U.S. : (but not for many neighborhood streets, which were usually built by : developers and sometimes maintained out of property taxes). : : The federal government and most states dedicated these fees exclusively to : roads. This, transit advocates argued, created a bias in the minds of : transportation planners for more roads. Opening up the funds to all forms : of tranportation would supposedly allow planners to find the best way to : spend the money, not just automatically spend it on more roads. : : Transit advocates were unable to convince many states to go along with this : logic. But in 1982 it convinced Congress to dedicate two cents of the : federal gas tax to mass transit. Congress also agreed to allow cities that : had approved but unbuilt interstate highways to convert the funds for those : highways to funding for mass transit. : : In almost every major American city, one of the best ways public transit : agencies can improve transit is to buy more buses to add service to : existing routes. Transit riders are frequency sensitive, and doubling : frequencies can often lead to far more than double the ridership. : : The problem with this strategy is that, in most cities, buying more buses : creates few local jobs and doesn't line the pockets of the construction : companies that were expecting to build the cancelled interstates. The : solution found by San Diego, Portland, Sacramento, and several other cities : was to build a rail transit line. Rail advocates were fond of pointing out : that a single rail line could carry as many people as a four-lane freeway. : Planners predicted that a low-cost investment would reduce transit : operating costs, boost ridership, and reduce congestion on nearby roads and : streets. : : It didn't work out that way, though you would never know it listening to : the publicity generated by the transit agencies. Portland's light rail "was : built on time and under budget and carries more riders than predicted," : says G. B. Arrington, the head planner for Portland's transit agency. : : In fact, Portland's light rail cost 55 percent more, took a year longer, : and carries less than half the riders originally predicted. After funding : was approved and construction began, planners revised their cost and time : predictions upward and their ridership downward, enabling them to claim : success despite the reality of failure. : : One reason why the light rail carries so few riders is that it is slow, : averaging less than 20 miles per hour from start to finish. Although : frequencies are high, many riders were lost because the transit agency : cancelled express bus service that previous covered the same distance in : less than half the time. : : Rail transit has been a failure in every American city where it has been : built in the past several decades. Even Washington, DC's extensive and : expensive rail-and-bus system carries less than 14 percent of DC : commuters--a smaller market share than the bus-and-streetcar system of : 1960. : : Nevertheless, light rail is now touted as the solution for all sorts of : cities, from Missoula, Montana, to northern New Jersey opposite Manhatten. : In fact, light rail has become a major weapon in the campaign against the : automobile. : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : : : Designing Cities for the Nineteenth Century : : To understand this growing campaign, we have to look at the work of a group : of architects who call themselves "New Urbanists" or "neotraditionalists." : New Urbanists subscribe to the idea that cars are destroying our : communities and it is up to architects and planners to save cities by : redesigning them so people can live without cars. : : To accomplish that redesign, architects first looked for cities that lived : without cars to see how they worked. The cities they chose were major U.S. : cities from around the turn of the century. In those days, more people : lived in apartments. Those who lived in single-family homes usually lived : on tiny lots, often in row houses. Housing freely mingled with retail : shops, professional offices, and other businesses. Few people drove because : few had cars, and streetcars were the most modern transportation. : : So New Urban design consists of high-density neighborhoods of apartments, : row houses, homes on tiny lots, and mixed uses all built around a : light-rail station or transit corridor. Neotraditionalists go further and : build in wide front porches, bay windows, steeply pitched roofs, and : garages behind the house if they are included at all. : : One of the first neotraditional communities was Seaside, Florida, planned : by Florida husband-wife architect team Andr� Duany and Elizaeth : Plater-Zyberk. Their strategy is not to design every building but to write : a highly prescriptive zoning code that landowners and their architects and : builders must follow. : : Seaside has narrow streets, Victorian-style homes with tiny yards, and : pedestrian walkways between many yards. While pleasant to visit, it is : merely a a resort town full of second homes, not a city full of commuters : and soccer moms. : : An early New Urban suburb, designed for commuters and their families, is : Laguna Beach, near Sacramento, California. Designed by California architect : Peter Calthorpe, Laguna Beach was supposed to have a transit center : surrounded by a core of high-density housing, which itself was surrounded : by lower density housing. Shops and other businesses were to be scattered : through the entire area. Residents, particularly in the high-density : housing, were expected to walk to the transit center to get to work. : : This much you can read in any of the many coffee-table books now being : published in praise of New Urbanism. What the books don't say is that : Laguna Beach didn't work out as Calthorpe planned. It turns out that people : don't want to be crammed into high-density housing. So the original : developer went bankrupt, and a new developer put low-density housing : everywhere. : : Since Calthorpe didn't design a parking area near the transit center, : people parked their cars in front of other people's homes. The owners of : those plush homes objected to that and convinced the transit agency to move : the transit center outside of the development. As for shops, the only : commercial use in the entire development is a quick lube. So much for : living without cars. : : New Urbanism might be fine if it were optional. Developers could build it : for those people who want to live in high-density, mixed-use communities : without cars. But that isn't enough for the New Urban planners, who want to : save our cities from the automobile by mandating New Urbanism everywhere. : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : : : Leading the Charge in Oregon : : The state of Oregon and city of Portland are leading the New Urban charge : against the automobile. Oregon's land-use board has directed every city : over 25,000 to force its residents to reduce their per-capita auto driving : by 20 percent. This may seem a strange rule for a land-use board, but a : major tenet of New Urbanism is that there is a strong link between land : uses and automobile usage. : : Following suit, Oregon's air pollution agency has ordered all employers of : 50 or more people to induce their employees to reduce their auto commuting : by 10 percent. Employers who fail to prepare and implement plans to do so : may be heavily fined. : : In Portland, a regional planning agency called Metro has dictorial powers : over twenty-four cities and three counties. Metro has developed an : elaborate campaign against the automobile that includes several coordinated : tactics: : : �Increasing highway capacities by no more than 13 percent even as the : region's population grows by 75 percent; : �Spending most of the region's federal and local transportation dollars on : light-rail transit, even though planners know that light rail will never : carry more than 2 percent of the region's trips; : �An urban-growth boundary beyond which little or no development may take : place; : �Highly prescriptive zoning within the boundary requiring landowners who do : any building at all to build to high : residential densities designed to increase congestion; : �Requiring all owners of shopping and office complexes reduce available : parking by 10 percent and eventually charge for their parking; : �"Traffic calming," a euphemism for actions that reduce roadway capacities, : such as concrete barriers limiting the flow of traffic and reductions in : the number of lanes on major streets; : �Banning on any new shopping malls and "big box" stores such as Costco or : WalMarts; : �Promoting and subsidizing instead small shops in mixed-used areas. : : Planners lovingly paint of picture of people living in high-density or : mixed-use areas, walking to the grocery store and taking the train to work. : The reality, planners quietly predict, is that no more than 12 percent of : all trips in the Portland area will be on foot, bicycle, or mass transit. : While this is a 50 percent increase from today's 8 percent, it means that : the share of trips by auto decline by less than 5 percent from 92 to 88 : percent. : : With the expected 75 percent increase in population trying to drive at : least 67 percent more miles per day on a road system that is just 13 : percent larger, planners predict that their plan will lead congestion to at : least triple. Portlanders will spend more time in traffic trying to get to : and from work. : : To planners, congestion is a feature, not a bug. They know that Americans : respond to congestion by living closer to work. This means Portlanders will : be happy to live in the high-density housing that planners have assigned : them to. Congestion, says Metro quietly, "signals positive urban : development." : : A series on National Public Radio's All Things Considered was more : forthright. Noting that most transportation planners try to ease : congestion, NPR said that Portland planners "are embracing congestion; they : want to create more of it." : : Planners proudly point to certain Portland neighborhoods that they consider : to be their ideal: Northwest 23rd, Southeast Hawthorne. These are : relatively dense older neighborhoods with many apartments surrounding a : busy street of small charming shops. : : "People are learning to walk more in these neighborhoods," says Metro : planner Mark Turpel. They have to: The areas are so crowded with cars that : people often to park many blocks away to get to the shops. The residential : streets are lined with cars on both sides, and the busy streets are one : continuous traffic jam. This, according to Portland's New Urban : congressman, Earl Blumenaeur, "is the kind of congestion that is exciting." : : The one thing that all Oregonians agree upon is that they don't want : Portland to be like Los Angeles. Metro convinced Portland-area voters to : give it dictatorial planning powers in 1992 by promising to save Portland : from turning into L.A. : : In 1994, Metro planners compared fifty American cities to see which one was : most like the Portland they wanted to create. They learned that one city : simultaneously has the highest population density, the lowest number of : miles of freeway per capita, and is spending the most on building a new : rail system. : : What city was it? Los Angeles. Los Angeles, Metro planners concluded, : "represents the investment pattern we desire to replicate." Of course, they : never mention that in any of the four-color brochures that they pass out to : the public. This quote is from a dry, data-rich document that is available : only to Portlanders willing to pay a $10 fee. Even so, it is astounding : that planners admit that they want to turn Portland into the very city that : they promised to save Portland from. : : What is the reasoning behind the campaign against the automobile? New : Urbanists say that automobiles are evil because: : : �They impose huge hidden costs on society; : �They lead to sprawl; : �They create ugly strip malls and sterile suburbs; : �They are forced upon unwilling Americans who would rather rely on mass : transit. : : : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : : : Hidden Costs : : Enemies of the auto tote up a huge list of costs that autos impose on : society and subsidies that society must pay to support auto drivers. When : added together they total billions of dollars each year, which typically : averages out to several dollars of subsidy or social cost per mile driven. : : Yet the vast majority of the costs they claim are neither hidden nor : subsidies. The entire federal highway trust fund is often described as a : subsidy even though it is entirely paid by highway user fees such as gas : taxes. Transit advocates seeking to divert gas taxes to transit don't say : they are asking for a subsidy; they say they are reducing the subsidy to : highways. : : As previously noted, highway fees generally pay for all tollways, freeways, : highways, and roads. Neighborhood streets, however, are generally : maintained with local taxes, usually property taxes. While auto opponents : call this a subsidy, it is reasonable to expect local homeowners to : contribute to the streets and sidewalks in front of their houses because : they will use them whether they drive or not. : : In trying to arrive at as high a cost as possible, auto opponents also : include the cost of automobile insurance, highway and bridge tolls, and : parking--even though these are all paid for by auto drivers or (in the case : of some parking) people seeking the business of auto users. one anti-auto : economist counts a $21 billion subsidy equal to the income taxes the : government would collect if employers charged for employee parking and : increased employee pay to cover the cost. : : Auto opponents add in the cost of state highway patrols, highway : administration, and interest on highway bonds--all of which are paid for : out of user fees. Then they add the costs of highway congestion, which : again are paid for by users and which have increased in recent years mainly : due to the efforts of the anti-auto lobbies. : : One auto opponent counts half the cost of America's military presence in : the Persian Gulf as a subsidy to autos. Yet the U.S. gets little oil from : the Gulf--most goes to Europe and Japan--and the U.S. has military in many : places with no oil. : : About the only legitimate social cost that can be tallied against the auto : is air pollution and associated health costs. But even the most virulent : auto opponents agree that this totals to no more than a few cents per mile : driven. : : In contrast, the subsidies to transit are enormous. Farebox revenues : typically cover less than a quarter of the cost of urban bus service, and : often cover less than 5 percent of the cost of recently built rail lines. : Most capital costs are paid for out of highway user fees, while operating : costs are paid out of various local taxes, mostly paid by auto drivers. So : the real subsidies are from autos to transit riders, not the other way : around. : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : : : Sprawl : : Everyone knows that American cities are sprawling across the countryside : and that the U.S. is rapidly running out of prime farmland and open space. : It is to prevent this sprawl that New Urban planners seek higher densities. : Since the auto makes sprawl possible, anything that will discourage : driving, including congestion and parking fees, helps to cub sprawl. : : As usual, what "everybody knows" turns out to be wrong. Nationwide, all of : America's urbanized areas cover only about 2.6 percent of the area of the : lower 48 states. The U.S. has more than twice this area of prime farmland : that isn't even used for growing crops--it is used as pasture, forests, or : is lying fallow. Total U.S. agricultural lands amount to nearly twenty : times the area of our cities. Urban areas are growing, but when they start : out at such a small proportion of the total land base that growth isn't : having much of an impact on open space or farms. : : One of the things that bother New Urbanists is that suburbanites are : choosing to live on larger lots. Average lot sizes have grown from about : 5,000 square feet in 1960 to 8,000 square feet in 1990. But residential : land typically amounts to only about a third of urban areas. So doubling : lot sizes does not automatically translate into double the total urban land : area. : : As eastern and midwestern cities decline, America's fastest growing cities : are in the West and South. It is here where the concerns about sprawl are : most frenzied. Yet if "sprawl" is defined as growth of urbanized land at a : rate faster than the population growth, then few western cities are : actually sprawling. Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, : and many other cities are growing in population faster than they are in : land area. Ironically, one western city that is sprawling is Portland, the : city most regulated by New Urbanist rules. : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : : : Ugly Strip Malls and Sterile Suburbs : : As New Urbanists have noted, American cities in 1900 were characterized by : high densities and mixtures of residential and commericial uses. But the : leading thinkers of those days believed that crowding was unhealthy and : mixed uses were dangerous and harmful to property values. So urban planners : of the 1910s and 1920s developed zoning for the specific purpose of : protecting low-density neighborhoods of single-family homes from the : nuisances of apartments, offices, and stores. : : Zoning codes typically limited commercial uses to busy streets. : Single-family residential areas were set well back from such commercial : areas. Apartments and other higher-density housing formed a buffer between : the commercial areas and single-family neighborhoods. : : One result was that the busy streets turned into strip developments. : Another result was that wealthy homeowners in low-density suburbs sought : increasingly low-density zones to protect their property values. In short, : the planning ideals of the 1920s became the planning scourges of the 1990s. : : Some cities, notably Houston, survive without zoning, relying instead on : protective covenants and neighborhood associations to maintain property : values. Such cities may still have strip malls, but to a considerable : extent, the things the New Urbanists object to are mistakes of past : generations of planners, not the workings of the free market. : : Strip malls and supposedly sterile suburbs may offend the aesthetic : sensibilities of New Urbanists, but they undeniably attract many people. : Sociologist Herbert Gans spent two years living in a traditional, : high-density urban neighborhood and another two years living in a tract : suburb. He found that people in the suburbs were just as happy and had just : as much of a sense of community as people in the central city. : : As long ago as the 1960s, Gans noted that "hysterical mythmakers" : complained "that individualism was dying, suburbanites were miserable, and : the fault lay with the homogeneous suburban landscape and its population." : Yet Gans found no evidence that this was true. : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : : : General Motors Made Us Do It : : If autos are so bad, auto opponents explain their ubiquity by claiming that : Americans have been forced to drive when they would rather not. The most : potent support for this claim Los Angeles, whose streetcar system was : purchased by General Motors, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil, who quickly : scrapped the streetcars and replaced them with rubber-tired, oil-burning : buses. Since New Urbanists claim that buses are less efficient than : streetcars, they see this not just as a way to sell buses but as a dark : plot to run the transit system into bankruptcy and force everyone to drive. : : The simple fact is that every rail transit system in the country lost money : throughout the 1930s, late 1940s and 1950s. With three or four exceptions, : they all scrapped their streetcars and replaced them with buses. Buses are : more flexible and cost much less to operating and maintain since they share : the cost of roadbed maintenance with autos. : : Numerous cities, including San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, and : Chicago, have built or maintained extensive rail transit systems. Yet the : auto has more than 80 percent of the market share of commuters in these : cities, and transit's market share has generally declined. Only in New York : has rail maintained a significant market share, yet transit carries just 25 : percent of commuters in the New York metropolitan area, while cars have 65 : percent. : : Americans have shown that they are willing to put up with enormous amounts : of congestion in order to avoid the inconveniences and indignities of mass : transit. The typical response to increasing congestion is not to shift to : transit but for employers and homeowners to move closer to one : another--which explains why many business are moving to the suburbs. : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : : : New Urbanism's Backers : : The ease with which the auto's enemies arguments can be dismissed does : little to dispell their persuasiveness. For one thing, many of their points : resonate stronly with Americans, particularly with concerns about loss of : farms and open space and the ugliness of strip developments. The idea that : we could ride fast, convenient trains instead of sitting in traffic is also : appealing--although it turns out most people hope that everyone else will : take the train so they can drive without congestion. : : New Urbanism's real strength, however, comes not from these myths but from : several very real interest groups that will benefit from increasing urban : congestion. These include: : : �Central city officials eager to maintain the prominence of their cities : over the suburbs; : �Downtown interests desiring to reverse the "declines" of downtowns : relative to suburban "edge cities"; : �New Urban planners interested in trying their theories out on various : cities; : �Urban environmentalists opposed to more freeways and the automobile in : general; and : �Engineering and construction firms looking for federal dollars to spend on : urban public works projects. : : All but the last of these benefit from congestion. And while construction : firms would be just as happy building highways as rail lines, they won't : complain if New Urbanists promote congestion so they can build gold-plated : light-rail systems. : : These groups have combined to dramatically shift the federal role in urban : transportation. Even in the Interstate highway era, that role was rather : passive, being limited to doling out funds for projects designed primarily : by state and local highway engineers. But with passage of the Intermodal : Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991, the federal : government is now strongly promoting New Urbanism throughout the country. : : ISTEA requires cities to use a long-term planning process that is easily : captured by New Urbanists. The law encourages cities to blow all their : dollars on rail projects that no one will use rather than build highways : that will be used. In cities with air pollution problems, ISTEA actually : forbids the use of federal funds for expanding road capacities, even though : congestion is often the greatest cause of air pollution because slower cars : pollute more. : : ISTEA is up for reauthorization by the 105th Congress. Unfortunately, most : of the debate inside the beltway is on which states are going to get the : most highway funds, not whether those funds will be spent on highways or : rail boondoggles or whether the federal government should even be in the : urban transportation business. : : Senator Connie Mack and Representative John Kasich have proposed to : eliminate most federal gas taxes and let the states or cities fund and plan : urban transport. But transportation funding has become an important form of : pork, as indicated by the fact that the largest committee in Congress is : the House Transportation Committee. No one on that committee wants to give : up federal allocation of funds. : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : : : Fighting Back : : More than four out of five American workers drive to their jobs, and more : than 90 percent of all non-job-related trips are also by car. Yet auto : drivers are remarkably unorganized and easy prey for the anti-car : coalition. : : Auto users have been made to feel so guilty about their desire for safe, : efficient, and convenient transportation that they often accept the : congestion offered by New Urbanists as their just desserts. Groups such as : the American Automobile Association and National Motorists Association are : barely aware of the anti-auto campaign. : : The real opposition to the New Urbanists will come from the suburbs. People : who have escaped the crowded cities don't want congestion and density : imposed upon them by planners whose ideal lifestyle is in Manhatten. But : most suburbs remain as unorganized as auto drivers in general : : So, if you live in a suburb, if you drive to work or anywhere else, if you : like shopping at Costco or Sam's Club, then get ready for the next big : social war. You will be the target of social engineers who want to control : where you live, where you work, where you shop, and how you get from one to : another. If the New Urbanists win, the cities of the future will be more : congested and polluted, have higher taxes and housing costs, and less open : space within them than you are used to today. : ------------------------------------------------------------------------ : Electronic Drummer | Urban Growth | Articles : : : : : : ~~~~~~~~~~~~ : A<>E<>R : : The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking : new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust : + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + : Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved : the absolute rejection of authority. -Thomas Huxley : + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + : Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed : + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + : In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material : is distributed without charge or profit to those who have : expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information : for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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