American Dream

Clearing the air in Atlanta:
Transit and smart growth or conventional economics?
By Alain Bertaud
Duatreb@msn.com

The above study is available at the World Bank Group website in their Urban Development section. The author is from Europe, lives in DC., and favors urban living and mass transit, yet this report is a refreshingly honest assessment of Atlanta's growth patterns. The wisdom of trying to force mass transit on the typical urban densities and consumer preferences of American cities and citizens are analysed. Alain Bertaud arrived at some very interesting and familiar conclusions.
The file can also be accessed at this link:
atlanta_bertaud.pdf

Planner Richard Carson told a North Carolina audience yesterday that Portland has changed from "the Mecca of urban planning" to "Little Beirut." Carson used to work for Metro, Portland's regional planning agency, but now is the planner for Clark County, Washington, which is just across the Columbia River from Portland.

From that position, Carson has seen thousands of people migrate from Portland to Vancouver, Washington (Clark County's main city) seeking affordable housing and relief from Portland's planners. Portland's quality of life and government infrastructure is deteriorating, says Carson. "Oregon’s great social experiment failed to measure up to political reality."

You can read more writings by Carson, who calls himself a "contrarian planner," on his web site. His North Carolina presentation was probably pretty similar to this article.

San Jose's transit agency, which is funded out of sales taxes, has increased transit fares by 25 cents and monthly passes by as much as 50 percent. Moreover, the agency says it may have to ask voters for another half-cent sales tax to keep operating its expensive rail lines.

Transit ridership has declined by 35 percent in the last four years, and the fare increase will depress ridership even further. The agency's problems are largely due to the huge debt it took on to build light rail. When the economy tanked, it couldn't keep paying interest on the bonds and run a transit system at the same time, so it cut transit operations. This led to lower ridership and further cuts in a downward spiral.

This article is in the San Jose Mercury-News, which requires free registration. Because it was published June 5, it may disappear from the paper's free portion of the web site soon. If you need a copy and can't find it through this link, email me at rot@ti.org.

Resident of Houston argues that the city's transit agency is building an empire by wasting money on rail transit rather than serving transit riders. The solution, he says, is to abolish the agency and leave transit to private operators. He doesn't offer many details but it is good to get people thinking about ideas such as this.

The New York Times reports that Jeffrey Friedman, an obesity research at Rockefeller University, disputes claims that Americans are suffering from an obesity epidemic. The data show, he says, that obese people are getting more obese, but more people aren't getting obese.

Fukuoka-Kitakyushu

Fukuoka and Kitakyushu might be considered twin urbanized areas at the northern end of Kyushu, the island just to the south of Honshu, where most of Japan lives. Kitakyushu and Fukuoka are, respectively, the last stations on the Shinkansen high speed rail line that starts in Tokyo. The larger and more prosperous of the two urban areas is Fukuoka.

If a recently released plan is approved in August, Austin, Texas will develop, perhaps, the most extensive system of tolled highways in the nation. A presentation of the plan is at: http://www.ctrma.org/ppt/ppt2.htm

The Zidell family owns land on Portland's waterfront and has supported plans for an expensive aerial tram that would significantly increase the value of their property. But when the city proposed that they pay $2.1 million of the $28.5 million cost (originally estimated to be $15.5 million), they said they couldn't afford more than a third of that.

http://www.rentalcartours.net/rac-houston.pdf

There is room to grow here. And Houston is growing. Unlike so many other US urban areas, Houston is making the transportation investments that will make it more competitive in the future, despite the billions that will be wasted on light rail. If any US urbanized area deserves the appellation of “can do,” it is Houston.

The revelation that Neil Goldschmidt had an illegal sexual relationship with a 14-year-old when he was mayor of Portland has led some to ask that his portrait be removed from the state capitol. But radio talk-show host Jayne Carroll argues it is more important to remove Goldschmidt cronies from the Oregon Transportation Commission, which is currently considering giving a $1.5 billion contract to Bechtel.

As a previous article in the Oregonian noted, Goldschmidt helped Bechtel get the no-bid contract to build Portland's airport light-rail line. One of the members of the Transportation Commission today is a former Bechtel employee who is now a partner in Goldschmidt's consulting firm. Another is Tom Walsh, the former general manager of Portland's transit agency whose family construction firm built many of Portland's subsidized transit-oriented developments.

California spent $163 million to speed a commuter train service so it would be faster than cars, especially during rush hour. But the San Francisco Examiner had a car race from San Jose to San Francisco at 4:45 pm and the car won by four minutes.

New rail service San Jose to San Francisco

Legislators want more data about light rail

Rail breaks and ongoing car repairs on Minneapolis's Hiawatha rail line have legislators feeling blindsided

Double Secret Probation: The Atlanta Driving and Obesity Study

Faber College’s Dean Wormer is fabled for having placed the Delta House on “double-secret probation” when he either couldn’t or didn’t choose to specify the reasons that action was being taken against the fraternity. The Dean’s characterization from the popular movie Animal House seems appropriate for what might be called the latest “suburbs make you fat” publicity campaign masquerading under the cover of university research.

State yanks Portland's storm water permit

Smart growth and high density policies, help create a water pollution problem for Portland

A woman is in critical condition and another has died in an auto accident related to traffic calming measures in Boulder, Colorado. The driver of the car was drunk and may be charged with vehicular homicide, but a local traffic-calming opponent points out that "these devices amplify the consequences of a mistake."

Fidel Gives Us Candy: On Visioning in Urban Planning

Teachers would tell the children to close their eyes and ask Jesus for candy. Of course, no candy arrived. Then, they were told to close their eyes and ask Fidel for candy. Fidel's superiority was demonstrated by the candy that arrived at that very moment.

This reminds me of some of the “visioning” processes that occur in urban development and regional planning exercises.

San Jose Coyote Valley a chance to get it right after 30 years of planning