American Dream

Steven Greenhut, senior editorial writer for the Orange County Register, calls New Urbanists "totalitarians" in his latest column. Greenhut, who helped stop a light-rail line in Orange County and who has written a book, Abuse of Power, on eminent domain, encourages people to "take notice" of New Urbanism while "there is still time to oppose it."

"The suburbs are not uniform or soulless," says Greenhut. Instead, "even the most sprawling older suburbs (such as those in north Orange County) are bubbling with life, as immigrant businesses revamp strip malls."

Greenhut will speak on eminent domain issues at the 2005 Preserving the American Dream conference.

Thirty years ago, urban planners in Philadelphia had a great idea: close a street of thriving retail shops to cars and turn it into a transit mall. Within five years, they managed to turn the street into "an abandoned, windswept strip."

It took ten more years to convince them to open up the street again and another ten to find the money to do it. When the cars were back, "almost mysteriously, so were people."

"There's a certain vibrancy, I think, that started after they opened up the street to cars," says one of the street's new retail developers. "There's so much more today, people moving up and down the street, than there was four or five years ago."

What a surprise. Of course, smart-growth planners today don't want to close streets to cars, they just want to "slow" the cars. But anything that reduces auto access is likely to harm retailers.

Thirty years ago, urban planners in Philadelphia had a great idea: close a street of thriving retail shops to cars and turn it into a transit mall. Within five years, they managed to turn the street into "an abandoned, windswept strip."

It took ten more years to convince them to open up the street again and another ten to find the money to do it. When the cars were back, "almost mysteriously, so were people."

"There's a certain vibrancy, I think, that started after they opened up the street to cars," says one of the street's new retail developers. "There's so much more today, people moving up and down the street, than there was four or five years ago."

What a surprise. Of course, smart-growth planners today don't want to close streets to cars, they just want to "slow" the cars. But anything that reduces auto access is likely to harm retailers.

Thirty years ago, urban planners in Philadelphia had a great idea: close a street of thriving retail shops to cars and turn it into a transit mall. Within five years, they managed to turn the street into "an abandoned, windswept strip."

It took ten more years to convince them to open up the street again and another ten to find the money to do it. When the cars were back, "almost mysteriously, so were people."

"There's a certain vibrancy, I think, that started after they opened up the street to cars," says one of the street's new retail developers. "There's so much more today, people moving up and down the street, than there was four or five years ago."

What a surprise. Of course, smart-growth planners today don't want to close streets to cars, they just want to "slow" the cars. But anything that reduces auto access is likely to harm retailers.

Portland's transit agency has fired the driver of the light-rail train that demolished a fire truck in January, based on an investigation that blamed the accident on the driver. The driver claimed that he had been told that light-rail trains had priority at all traffic signals, so he did not slow down quickly enough when one signal stayed red.

In fact, emergency vehicles have priority over all traffic signals, with light rail being given secondary status and automobiles tertiary status. The transit agency insists that it instructs its drivers to "operate from signal to signal," not from light-rail stop to light-rail stop as the driver was doing. The transit driver's union has indicated that it may challenge the firing.

The accident totally destroyed a brand-new, $300,000 fire truck. The truck was heading to a fire that ended up doing $150,000 damage to a home and killing a family dog. The accident also injured eight people, including the driver who suffered a broken collarbone, four broken ribs, and a collapsed lung. The driver has been on paid administrative leave since the accident until April 1, when he was fired.

This is at least the second accident between a Portland light-rail train and a fire truck. While transit agencies try to blame such accidents on others, the act of putting one-hundred ton vehicles in the same city streets as pedestrians and one- to two-ton autos is inherently dangerous.

After receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to high-density housing, a streetcar, and other developments, downtown Portland is thriving -- at least relative so some other downtowns. But it has some of the highest vacancy rates in the region and crime is going up as well.

The Oregonian frets that the new city council won't be as interested in continuing tax subsidies and other support for downtown as the previous one, which was led by a mayor who grew up in New York City. As the paper reports, the former mayor "loved downtown Portland as only a former New Yorker could love it." The writer probably didn't remember that New York City once was nearly bankrupt due to all the subsidies it handed out to companies to stay in or move to Manhattan.

New federal standards make it unlikely that the proposed BART extension to San Jose will ever be part of a Bush administration budget -- a critical blow to a project that was already struggling to find funding.

Federal officials have long worried that the extension will not carry enough riders to justify its $4.2 billion cost, and now they are planning to measure it against a new cost-effectiveness standard it cannot possibly meet.