Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed this morning how the US living and transportation patterns will not cope with high oil prices as well as European cities:
Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than cars. Long after today’s S.U.V.’s have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in subdivisions built when gas was $1.50 or less a gallon.
Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.
Over the long-run the US can adapt it’s living patterns to expensive oil by curbing it’s habit of subsidizing roadways. However, only if density restrictions soften accordingly.
If drivers were responsible for the full costs of their location and transportation decisions, they would gradually locate to more European-like locations. This will naturally increase the demand for transit. Private investment and entrepreneurship under such conditions should be able to provide innovative solutions to the chicken-and egg problem Krugman is concerned about.
I’m beginning to think that today, the problem isn’t subsidized roads (the major subsidization happened a while ago – nowadays, roads more or less recuperate their costs), but zoning and parking regulations. Though the fact that the government owns huge amounts of America’s most valuable land (roads!) and would never in a million years sell it is a big problem, too.
I’m beginning to think that today, the problem isn’t subsidized roads (the major subsidization happened a while ago – nowadays, roads more or less recuperate their costs), but zoning and parking regulations. Though the fact that the government owns huge amounts of America’s most valuable land (roads!) and would never in a million years sell it is a big problem, too.
Stephen,
While it is true that the money was spent years ago, governments have huge portfolios of highways to maintain and little incentive to repair them. I can give you dozens of examples of bridges I inspected or repaired that were in horrible shape because of neglect. In the meantime, pandering politicians talk about the new highways they are going to build.
At the same time, individual drivers do not have to behave responsibly in their driving patterns because the costs are distributed to society and other drivers.
The opportunity costs of the land these roads sit on is enormous! Highway advocates tend to neglect land cost when arguing in favor of automobile use vs transit. Highways also impose negative externalities on nearby land owners.
Indeed, zoning and parking is the other culprit.
Stephen,
While it is true that the money was spent years ago, governments have huge portfolios of highways to maintain and little incentive to repair them. I can give you dozens of examples of bridges I inspected or repaired that were in horrible shape because of neglect. In the meantime, pandering politicians talk about the new highways they are going to build.
At the same time, individual drivers do not have to behave responsibly in their driving patterns because the costs are distributed to society and other drivers.
The opportunity costs of the land these roads sit on is enormous! Highway advocates tend to neglect land cost when arguing in favor of automobile use vs transit. Highways also impose negative externalities on nearby land owners.
Indeed, zoning and parking is the other culprit.
A. For the politicians, the ribbon-cutting is everything. After that, the public facility can go rot while they move to the next ribbon cutting. Constituents do not want to hear about appropriations riders intended to regrade state highway 54E Bypass. Or, for that matter, funding for interminable signal replacement programs on transit lines.
B. Professor Krugman’s comments cut both ways: “Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than trolley cars. Long after today’s streetcars have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in cramped tenements built when tracks were in every major street.”
C. European cities are characteristically comprised of three parts:
1. Ancient inner cores that tourists flood during the summer, and imagine as being typical of Europe.
2. Outer rings of hideous post-war housing towers that look like American public housing interspersed among highways, malls, industrial uses, and ugly things that are Not Supposed To Be In Europe.
3. Preserved greenbelts and farmland. Hands off!
True, the concentration of Euro-housing projects allows for decent public transportation (though usually without air-conditioning) to take people into the hub.
To replicate Europe, New York City would be about a quarter of its present size, and filled with several dozen Co-op Cities. Surrounding, of course, a cute core of cafes filled with cigarette-smoking urbanites who always seem to have too much time on their hands. There would be many trains and buses taking people between the Co-op Cities and Manhattan.
Then there’s the Europe that people forget about, like Kiev, Bucharest, Warsaw, and so forth. Wonderful for transit, all of them — but hardly appealing.
A. For the politicians, the ribbon-cutting is everything. After that, the public facility can go rot while they move to the next ribbon cutting. Constituents do not want to hear about appropriations riders intended to regrade state highway 54E Bypass. Or, for that matter, funding for interminable signal replacement programs on transit lines.
B. Professor Krugman’s comments cut both ways: “Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than trolley cars. Long after today’s streetcars have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in cramped tenements built when tracks were in every major street.”
C. European cities are characteristically comprised of three parts:
1. Ancient inner cores that tourists flood during the summer, and imagine as being typical of Europe.
2. Outer rings of hideous post-war housing towers that look like American public housing interspersed among highways, malls, industrial uses, and ugly things that are Not Supposed To Be In Europe.
3. Preserved greenbelts and farmland. Hands off!
True, the concentration of Euro-housing projects allows for decent public transportation (though usually without air-conditioning) to take people into the hub.
To replicate Europe, New York City would be about a quarter of its present size, and filled with several dozen Co-op Cities. Surrounding, of course, a cute core of cafes filled with cigarette-smoking urbanites who always seem to have too much time on their hands. There would be many trains and buses taking people between the Co-op Cities and Manhattan.
Then there’s the Europe that people forget about, like Kiev, Bucharest, Warsaw, and so forth. Wonderful for transit, all of them — but hardly appealing.
I used to live in Bucharest, and I can tell you that it’s pretty terrible for transit. The metro doesn’t really go anywhere, and the buses are stopped in interminable traffic. The trams are pretty nice, but they don’t go far enough. Ceau?escu’s plan involved a lot of grand boulevards and areas that only poverty could make look presentable. But now that Romanians aren’t impoverished, and can afford cars, the city is horribly congested. When the NATO summit came to town, they shut down the airport and all major roads. In parts of the northern suburbs – where there is little transit, tons of single-family vilas, and tons of Walmart-style “hypermarkets” – it can take over an hour to travel just a few miles. And I promise you that there’s nothing appealing about those areas. They’re possibly even worse than the blocs, in that no one is ever going to tear them down. But the old core of the city – the part that master planner Ceau?escu didn’t destroy in the ’80s and replace with blocs and huge roads – is actually pretty large, and very nice. A lot of ugly billboards, and TONS of cars parked on the street and sidewalk, but it could be cleaned up pretty well. But anyway, the parts that are appealing are precisely the parts that are well-served by transit. It wasn’t called the Paris of the East for nothing.
I used to live in Bucharest, and I can tell you that it’s pretty terrible for transit. The metro doesn’t really go anywhere, and the buses are stopped in interminable traffic. The trams are pretty nice, but they don’t go far enough. Ceau?escu’s plan involved a lot of grand boulevards and areas that only poverty could make look presentable. But now that Romanians aren’t impoverished, and can afford cars, the city is horribly congested. When the NATO summit came to town, they shut down the airport and all major roads. In parts of the northern suburbs – where there is little transit, tons of single-family vilas, and tons of Walmart-style “hypermarkets” – it can take over an hour to travel just a few miles. And I promise you that there’s nothing appealing about those areas. They’re possibly even worse than the blocs, in that no one is ever going to tear them down. But the old core of the city – the part that master planner Ceau?escu didn’t destroy in the ’80s and replace with blocs and huge roads – is actually pretty large, and very nice. A lot of ugly billboards, and TONS of cars parked on the street and sidewalk, but it could be cleaned up pretty well. But anyway, the parts that are appealing are precisely the parts that are well-served by transit. It wasn’t called the Paris of the East for nothing.
Suburbia is a great place to place people who live their life on a human registered mass conveyor belt of inputs and outputs. That is why I prefer to look at something in between and life between buildings about using public spaces by Jan Gehl is quite interesting in that regard http://www.rudi.net/pages/8741 It is not the only way of thinking about spaces, but it is a start.
[v.o.M.]
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