Wow, mention that a small reduction in driving can have a large impact on congestion and everyone has a theory on how it happens. (for instance: here, here, and here). Anyone else notice that not one of the proffered explanations was that we tore down housing and therefore there was traffic? Housing as the driver for congestion and traffic mayhem was curiously missing.
The Wall Street Journal found that the recent reduction in gasoline consumption–slightly different than Vehicle Miles Travelled(VMT)–was in some part based on “changes in the way Americans live and the transportation they choose…” going on further to say:
More people are minimizing their commutes by living closer to their jobs. Inner cities and surrounding suburbs are growing denser, shortening trips to work and to the mall. Between the early 1990s and 2007, the majority of metropolitan areas in the U.S. saw an increase in the share of residential permits granted near or in their downtown centers, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. One quarter of new homes constructed in the Denver area in 2007, for example, were in the central city, up from 5% in the early 1990s. In Chicago, that figure rose to 40% from 7% in the same period.
A growing number of Americans are commuting by bus or train or working from home. And even as the population continues to rise, the rate of gasoline consumption appears to be slowing. From 1960 to 1970, the U.S. population grew 13% while vehicle miles rose 54% and gasoline demand 45%, according to government data. Between 1990 and 2000, the population grew at the same 13% rate, but miles driven rose only 28% and gasoline demand by 17%.
This is back up by info from APTA, which showed that even as gas prices rose, and the economy tanked last Fall, Transit ridership continued to increase. So the reduction in traffic congestion was not just a function of the economy and job loss.
According to the New York Times, from 2003-2007 (prior to the recent job shedding), NYC saw a reduction in congestion and traffic and an increase in transit use, despite increases in housing.
The point isn’t that traffic/driving will continue to decrease forever, I’m sure it will go up and down. But instead that the discussion in Alameda is focused on one thing. Housing and the traffic it causes. And yet there are a lot of variables that affect driving (just look back at the comment section from last week’s post). Anyone who thinks that $2.25 gas is here for the long-run is extremely optimistic. There is a major demographic shift taking place in our country and region that will not be looking at sprawling suburbs as the answer to their housing dreams.
Building housing at Alameda Point as a part of a mixed-use development may be about the wisest way to deal with the congestion and environmental impacts of any development we decide to pursue.
That design MIGHT result in fewer trips per household does not change the fact that the gross number of trips through the tubes will increase greatly. Congestion in/at the tubes will get markedly worse.
The backup on the Alameda side of the tubes is caused by congestion on the other side. If there were no congestion on I-880 and Oakland city streets, the outbound tube would act as two lanes of high-speed freeway. At least as far as the outbound direction is concerned, tube traffic could be brought to a standstill even if nothing were ever built at Alameda Point or anywhere else within the city limits.
If development at Alameda Point improves public transit options, it is possible for the gross number of persons moving through the tubes to increase without increasing the gross number of vehicles moving through the tubes. This would effectively increase the capacity of the tubes without the construction of any new lanes.
The use of queue-jump lanes and other means to keep transit vehicles moving through congestion will create alternatives to driving alone on I-880 and Oakland city streets, increasing personal mobility even as vehicular congestion increases. If we forgo the chance to create viable alternatives to driving alone, we will be stuck in Oakland’s and the region’s traffic whether we Alamedans like it or not.
Traffic through the tubes is a major cause of the congestion you reference in paragraph 1. You intimate that congestion in Alameda is solely caused by Oakland, but anyone who has ever observed the 880 ramp will know that a fair bit is caused by Alameda cars. Adding more cars on this side will aggravate that, even if your “plan” reduces the avg number of trips per household.
And when you talk about persons vs. vehicles, you seem to be talking about buses. The same problem still applies: while it’s obvious that some (unknown) portion of new rsidents will ride the bus to BART or to Oakland destinations, a significant number will still drive SOV’s because the transit options are of such limited utility (ie downtown OAK & SF, little else). People whose time is valuable are not going to take the bus to Berkeley or Santa Clara when, even with congestion, driving is still faster.
I’m all for creating alternatives to driving. I rather dislike city driving. I don’t drive to work and do many errands on my bicycle. I’m not unsypmpathetic to your ultimate goal. It’s just that your arguments, and those of your cohorts, continue to be disingenuously focused on density’s alleged traffic reduction benefits while ignoring the simple numbers that more people axiomatically equals more traffic.
Transit is cost-prohibitive without some density. It doesn’t require Manhattan densities, just the moderate densities found in places like central Alameda. The other major thing required for transit to work is a stable source of funding.
Whatever faults the SunCal plan may have, it does have the design features and moderate density required to support transit, and it does have a dedicated source of funding that will come from the new residents and businesses at Alameda Point instead of from Alameda’s existing tax base. By implementing transit improvements outside the project area, it creates alternatives to driving throughout the island, not just at Alameda Point.
The SunCal project’s layout and moderate density are also exactly what’s needed to support neighborhood retail and services, thereby turning walking and bicycling into viable transportation options instead of being merely for recreation. Removing the housing component from the plan guarantees an auto-oriented development like the Harbor Bay Business Park. Such a plan would merely increase traffic without doing anything to promote alternatives to driving alone.
I’m sorry, but at times this whole discussion seems way too programmed, as the same assertions get repeated over and over, with little reference to simple reason.
For one example, see the proposed parking fee of $5 for the ferry, which in reality will make the ferry so expensive as to discourage its use.
Then the oft-repeated assertion that “queue-jump” (short-cut) lanes for buses will speed up access to the tube — maybe for the buses from Alameda Point using those short-cuts, but not for the buses using Webster.
Then the argument that in the future a larger “number of persons” will use the tube via better transit service. The only problem is, we already HAVE transit that’s widely available and widely used, so anybody who wants transit can use it right now.
Those who won’t — or can’t — use transit aren’t likely to have a sudden change of heart.
And lastly, as is abundantly clear, a business use at AP would create a counter-commute onto the Island, so it’s not making the off-island commute any worse — and it’s not making the local trips any worse either.
Please address some of the specifics. How will the buses on Webster get access to a short-cut to the tube? What are drivers delayed at the tube likely to do? Sit there and wait or take off in a different direction? Why would many more existing commuters choose transit in the future, when the can do so right now?
The unwillingness to provide specifics comes across as cagey, whether it’s intended or not — or disingenuous, as Dave says. More detail would help.
MK:
“The other major thing required for transit to work is a stable source of funding.”
Transcription: the only thing my obsession requires is other peoples’ money.
Even at Manhattan density public transit is almost never possibile w/o subsidy. One might fairly ask why we should bother with it if it doesn’t pay its way. If it were so valuable, people would use it in numbers that would support it. (And I say this as an occasional user of it, would be daily if I worked in downtown SF)
Of course your riposte will be that auto travel is also subsidized. You will cite the cost of roads, parking, etc At the most simplistic level, yes, auto travel is subsidized — government funds are used for infrastructure & support. This little bit of sophistry, however, ignores the very significant taxes paid by automobile users: gas taxes, VLF’s, tolls, etc. In CA, funds levied from automobile users are routinely plundered for other, non-transit uses. The repeal of the VLF is widely cited as one of the root causes of the state’s budget crisis (and auto infrastructure is a relatively small piece of the state’s spending)
A quick google comes up with these 8×10 color glossies w/ circles/arrows which indicate that cars pay their way & then some:
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pdf
Now I don’t mean to shut down transit altogether, I am for it & for spending on improvments in it WHERE IT MAKES ECONOMIC SENSE.
But to echo DLM above, your dog don’t hunt. Your “plan” is based on dubious projections, willfull obfuscation of the traffic impact, and requires heavy subsidy to boot. You’d get a lot more traction & support if you candidly admitted that tube congestion will increase & that the transit plan relies on subsidy (in addition to the massive subsidy that Sun Cal’s overall plan eats). Rather than cloak the costs & realities in transit-geek-speak, disclose them openly. The clarity will win you converts. Maybe even me.
John and Michael, you’ve see this, yes?
Half of Muni routes face cuts
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/04/BAJ216SGN4.DTL&hw=muni&sn=010&sc=164
Now just imagine for a second…. you build out Alameda Pt. for 5000 new homesteads and the transit doesn’t come to fruition / gets cut.
And I’m hardly a car advocate. It’s just this darned reality thing we have to deal with here.
Dave,
Before I respond in more detail, I have a question: Do you have any other evidence to support the claim that “cars pay their way & then some”?
The report you found breaks down California’s general fund revenue sources and expenditures. Adding up “Highway Users Taxes” and “Motor Vehicle Fees” gets you to $9.4 billion, and although the general fund expenditure for “Business, Transportation & Housing” is only $2.3 billion, the total expenditure for “Highway Transportation” (specifically excluding public transit) is a much, much higher $11.8 billion:
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/StateAgencyBudgets/2000/2660/department.html
Your report on the general fund doesn’t seem to tell the whole story. Also absent is any consideration of highways, roads, and streets that are not built and maintained by the the state. Then again, maybe I was so distracted by the circles and arrows that I overlooked the paragraph on the back of each page explaining how it was to be used as evidence against me.
MK: How much evidence do you have that the proposed transit improvements in Alameda will actually appear on schedule and as planned? At least these budget figures are hard numbers for once, not doctrinaire assumptions.
What’s more, many regions in the state do not “support” transit (as we’ve so often heard), so some percentage of the state funds spent on auto use goes to those regions, which probably don’t wish to subsidize transit systems. Another percentage is spent on the maintenance of roads used by transit vehicles.
So that’s part of the darned reality, right?
MK,
You are correct, what I posted on the general fund does not tell the whole story. The link I posted does not show the state gasoline tax, which is dedicated to road & auto infrastructure uses, nor does it show federal highway funds granted to the state which are generated by federal gas taxes. Nor does it show bridge toll and other auto generated revenue, as these are alos outside the scope of the general fund.
I know this is a lame excuse but I’m catching this right before bedtime, promise to have more 8×10 glossies in the morning. Lacking specifics at the moment, the point stands: from a public treasury POV, cars usually pay their way, transit seldom does.
Dave,
Your assertion that “cars usually pay their way” is not supported by the facts.
The costs of auto-dependence are not just the identifiable governmental subsidies of roads, streets, and the rest of the auto-infrastructure, which Michael Krueger has pointed out. The costs of our insistence on personal (single-occupancy) infernal combustion vehicles extend far beyond what we pay to put down asphalt and concrete, as in the following examples:
*respiratory illnesses like asthma, directly attributable to auto and truck emissions (especially diesel particulates), cost California millions of dollars each year in medical expenses and productivity losses, especially around ports;
*thousands of acres of prime agricultural land are lost to urban and suburban sprawl every year in California as they are paved over for malls, McDonald’s, and parking lots;
*autos contribute substantially to global warming, which is already causing worldwide economic and physical disruptions;
*motor vehicle accidents cost Californians millions of dollars every year in medical costs, time loss from work, disability, and public health subsidies for uninsured victims and drivers without adequate medical insurance or auto insurance.
These are just a few of the “social costs” of driving that you might not find in the CalTrans budget numbers. But they are legitimate costs of driving just like a gas tax.
Fair points all, JS, and the reasons for which I’m generally supportive of transit that makes economic sense. But as the general subject is the Suncal bullshit, er PLAN, and its attendant costs & benefits, I’m keeping the discussion on financial costs only.
A lot of interesting issues have been raised here, but please let me put the “cars pay their way” issue to rest. To cut to the chase, cars do not pay their way even in the most narrowly defined sense, and they most certainly do not pay their way when larger social costs are considered. However, I agree with the economists who have studied the issue and conclude that this is not necessarily a bad thing.
The larger point is that no form of transportation “pays its own way.” I’ve never really understood why we even have this expectation for transportation, but not for other government services. Do we expect the fire and police departments to “pay their own way”? Of course not, and we should not have the same expectation for public investments in transportation.
So, to back up the claim I made in the first paragraph, here is the conclusion of a very thoroughly researched paper entitled “Do motor-vehicle users in the US pay their way?” published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Transportation Research:
[Emphasis added.]
MK, to add to your argument…. .gov spends billions protecting our oil supplies through the military. So I agree that our national addiction to oil is indeed very costly. When gas at the pump is 2.20/gallon, the real cost is somewhere over $5.
Back to our little island…. (am I on ignore here? what happened to the host??) …. MUNI could be cutting their services in half.
MK… don’t you see the risk of developing Alameda Point under assumption of mass transit and then it gets cut or underfunded and what that will do to Alameda? I see it as a very high risk.
I don’t think you will ever acknowledge the human nature factor (Californians will show up with their cars and use them) so I will just focus on my above question.
I am still plowing through the state transportation dept’s extremely complicated budget statements. It is time consuming to locate the various gas taxes, bridge tolls, federal grants and automotive contribution to sales tax & come up with a bottom line. I believe that I can prove my above assertion whenI have time to complete it.
That said, I don’t disagree with the real environmental & social costs of automobiles being well above their cash contributions, though a firm number on such things is very difficult to ascertain. For example, what is a case of asthma worth? How many dollars to assign to autos’ role in 1 cm of sea level change? It’s impossible to come up with a number but it doesn’t strain credulity to say that number would be high.
However, if one is factoring in such unquantifiable debits, one must also account for unquantifiable credits. Automobiles add tremendous quality to their owners’ lives. The ability to go where & when one wants adds a lot out human happiness. Cars also facilitate employment & economic growth. Want a new job that’s off the bus route? Car gets you there. Shopping & vacationing, to name just 2, are greatly faciliatated by autos. Such contributions to economic growth, and tax revenue, are very difficut to measure vs. a bus-only world, but they certainly do exist. Point being that autos have significant real benefits to go along with the real costs mentioned above.
But let’s just say for moment that MK is right — hypothetically, I am not conceding the point — that autos don’t pay their own way. Two questions from that assumption:
1) To make autos pay from a public policy standpoint, they must be taxed more heavily. To do puts them out of reach of many consumers without returning to them any benefit of utility. Take away cars from these likely lower income consumers & you remove many employmnet & education opportunities from them. Whatever trade off they receive in incremental public transit services (a less unreliable 51 bus, a BART extension to SJ are two that once can envision, and even these are years off and extremely expensive) generally does not compensate for the lost oppourtunites of a car. Well they should move to a denser area if they must rely on transit, you might say, with smug self-gratification that this would achieve HOMES’ overarching goal, but is forcing people to forgo opportunity & move out of desperation any kind of freedom? To say nothing of how this would countermand HOMES position on Measure A….
2) If you believe that cars don’t hit their bogey, even you must admit that BART & AC Transit require even greater subsidy than do automobiles. Is it responsible government to redirect energy from a less subsidized method a to one that eats more cash?
We’re starting to get very macro here, so I’ll bring it back to the original point: Suncal’s plan doesn’t hold financial water, nor trafiic water either. It increases congestion on the Island. Any mitigation of that would require significant additional subsidy, if it’s achievable at all. Add to that the extremely high costs of a cleanup to residential standards and the risk that fails also & we wind up with a plan that just doesn’t make any cents.
Jack, I’m not intentionally ignoring anyone here; there’s just a lot to cover, and I see that Dave has already posted more in the time it took me to write this! I’ll try to cover one issue at a time, and the next one on the docket is the example of Muni as a cautionary tale.
First of all, there is a big difference between “cutting their services in half” and “Half of Muni routes face cuts.” Although half of the routes are affected in some way, the maximum total amount of service that would be cut is only 6.4 percent, even under the “worst-case scenario.”
The focus on routes is especially important in the case of Muni. Unlike AC Transit, which undertook a major restructuring of its lines to provide as much service as possible with extremely limited resources, Muni’s route structure hasn’t changed much since they heyday of streetcars. Muni was cobbled together from several private companies that operated competing service in the same areas, often on parallel tracks. Ever wonder why the 26-Valencia covers nearly the same territory as the 14-Mission, only one block away? It’s because one company ran streetcars on Mission St. and and another ran an interurban train service on separate tracks on Valencia St. On Market St., there were even two competing sets of tracks laid in the same street!
Muni’s redundant, inefficient streetcar-era routes have been maintained to this day because of intense political pressure. People make such a stink about any changes to the bus lines that the S.F. Board of Supervisors actually winds up ruling on the fate of individual bus stops! So, to make a long story short, many of the cuts described in your article are actually part of a long overdue restructuring of Muni service.
Routing issues aside, the deeper issue here is funding. Transit agencies make cuts when they don’t have enough funding to cover expenses. Page 8-7 of the Alameda Point Specific Plan calls for a transportation assessment to fund “transportation improvements and ongoing transit operations.” The second part is the Holy Grail of transportation funding: All too often, there is a one-time source of money to build capital improvements, but no stable source of funding for ongoing operations, which must be funded in perpetuity.
A fair question about the plan is how much money the transportation assessment is expected to raise, and whether that can be realistically expected to cover the operating costs of the system that is envisioned. Nevertheless, the importance of any kind of commitment to an ongoing assessment should not be underestimated. This is something that sets the current plan apart from run-of-the-mill suburban-style development plans that don’t even mention transit service, to say nothing of a written commitment to a dedicated source of revenue for operations.
For myself, I wish that every cent spent in Iraq could have been spent here, on alternative energy research and on building (and operating) transit systems, and on housing, education, and so on.
I see a double standard here, that for me at least is the root of the problem: we are asked to consider research on the cost of driving and to do so in a reasonable, open-minded fashion, but when it comes time to recognize the very real traffic constraints that we face in Alameda, all of sudden reason disappears. To make matters worse, we have the spectre of very serious damage to the city’s bridges and tunnels and infrastructure and whatever else, which also should be recognized and has not been.
And getting back to increased delays at the tube: as a matter of common sense, I think that drivers delayed at the tube will find another route off the island, and I think further, that this “detoured” traffic will probably spill over onto side streets if the main routes become too congested. I’d still like to hear from MK or JKW on this topic.
Muni cuts and BART fare increase and downsizing of service.
This talk, talk, talk from Mr. Transportation. When they take public transit away, what do you get?
Traffic, traffic, traffic…
When you keep pointing to the ideal, and the papers keep pointing out the obvious reality–cuts across the board–then how in the world can anyone believe in your ideal?
Your ideal just ain’t real.
Reality: 4,000 new dwellings means 4,000-6,500 more cars.
Unless there are really going to be decent jobs here, there will be more cars and more traffic and more pollution. SunCal promised Tesla to Albuquerque and Tesla moved to L.A. instead. Meanwhile, we got us a %$@t-load of empty commercial space. If that were all full up, we would be having bad traffic and more cars and pollution to, but ain’t nobody talking bout THAT!
I just finished exercising & I was thinking about this thread while sweating (damn, that’s pathetic). It occurred to me that I may come off as a raving anti-transit lunatic or a GM rep. Not so. I previously mentioned that I’m an occasional user and would use more if I commuted very far or if the buses were remotely reliable.
What I’m really opposed to are the lies, circumlocution, disingenuity, material omissions, denials of facts, unalloyed cynicsm & steaming bullshit that are being used to sell this deeply flawed plan. The transit line discussed here is but one aspect, there are others such as the financing scheme and environmental risks. DLM alludes to these & other problems with far clarity than I can muster whn she speaks here & elsewhere about the lack of reality-based thinking that drives otherwise intelligent people to say that 5000 homes wil not affect tube traffic, etc.
“What I’m really opposed to are the lies, circumlocution, disingenuity, material omissions, denials of facts, unalloyed cynicsm & steaming bullshit that are being used to sell this deeply flawed plan.”. That covers it.
If there were land between here and Oakland, if the site were some reasonable distance above sea level and not on fill, then I would not be so opposed to this project. I’m not against housing obviously, but it has to be workable and this just isn’t. “Denial of fact” has become so commonplace that I’ve often given up on stating the obvious, because it seems to be futile.
First of all, nobody has ever said that 5,000 homes won’t affect tube traffic. If you’re going to make this claim, please indicate who you believe said it, where, and when.
I also don’t understand the accusations of a “lack of reality-based thinking.” As far as I can tell, this just means “the facts you present don’t represent ‘reality’ because they don’t agree with my hunches and gut feelings.” How else is one to understand things like the unsubstantiated claim that transit ridership could not possibly increase because “anybody who wants transit can use it right now”? Right, right, our current transit system is so wonderful that it couldn’t possibly be improved in ways that would attract new riders…now that’s what I call a “lack of reality-based thinking”!
Furthermore, I don’t think there’s a double standard when it comes to analyzing traffic constraints. Consultants Fehr & Peers first studied these in 2005, in conjunction with the original Preliminary Development Concept for Alameda Point:
http://www.alameda-point.com/pdf/TSwebDec05.pdf
A subsequent study by WRT/Solomon expanded the Fehr & Peers analysis to cover two additional transit-oriented scenarios and compared them to the original PDC:
http://www.alameda-point.com/pdf/5-5-08wrt.pdf
It’s worth remembering that the WRT/Solomon study, funded by a grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), was commissioned by the City in October 2006, before SunCal had even entered the picture. This study found that a transit-oriented scenario would generate millions of dollars per year for public transit, enough to fund improvements that will benefit the whole island.
People love to say, “I’m all for creating alternatives to driving alone,” but when you propose building things in ways that have been proven to do just that, their support suddenly evaporates. “Walkable communities,” “de-emphasizing the automobile,” all of that goes out the window, and suddenly an automobile-oriented business park is the cat’s meow. If we continue to focus all of our planning on accommodating single-occupant vehicles, then—surprise, surprise—all we will ever build are automobile-oriented developments.
While you are careful not to declare so, your quote excerpted below indicates a belief that the new homes will have little or no effect:
The backup on the Alameda side of the tubes is caused by congestion on the other side. If there were no congestion on I-880 and Oakland city streets, the outbound tube would act as two lanes of high-speed freeway. At least as far as the outbound direction is concerned, tube traffic could be brought to a standstill even if nothing were ever built at Alameda Point or anywhere else within the city limits.
==============================
A few issues with this quote also:
People love to say, “I’m all for creating alternatives to driving alone,” but when you propose building things in ways that have been proven to do just that, their support suddenly evaporates. “Walkable communities,” “de-emphasizing the automobile,” all of that goes out the window, and suddenly an automobile-oriented business park is the cat’s meow
Speaking personally, I live in the East End of Alameda BECAUSE it is a walkable community. I moved my business to Alameda so I could walk/bike to work. I prefer & have always sought out walkable communities ever since I left my parents’ home. If money, cancer & trafiic were no object, I’d be happy to see one of your Smart Growth Master’s Thesis communities built there.
Trouble is, money, cancer & traffic ARE hurdles, esp the money. While the infrastructure build out is generally fiscally neutral via Mello-Roos financing, the cleanup to residential standards is not. Plans are to finance it through the existing TID to the tune of somewhere btw 200-700MM depending on whom you believe. If one naively chooses the low end, that’s still 40M per house + Mello Roos + other encumbrances on the homes before ground is even broken. (And I’ll bet you dinner at Pappo every night for a year that the final tally will be much greater) That starts to make the rather uneconomic, and effectively dooms many of the fancy amenities SunCal is “promising.” And regardless how much of a tab the TID runs up, the incremental property tax dollars that the base would generate will never flow to the general fund, thus crimping the city’s finances in perpetuity and placing a greater burden on the rest of the city to pony up for essential services.
Financially it’s a bad deal. The auto oriented business park you mention so derisively has a far better chance of economic success. Aleady there is a fair amout of industry operating at the base; allowing these tenants to sign long term leases or purchase the land outright would greatly facilitate expansion of this. It could be accomplished with far less and perhaps even no subsidy and would result in a revenue plus for the city. Of course such an idea has the fatal flaw of not matching meddlesome idealists’ dreams, but the dreams don’t pay.
And after the money, what of health & traffic? The health question has no definitive answer yet; we won’t know until after the fact just how many people are sickened by the toxins, but the risk is there. If you are so willing to let others risk cancer, are willing yourself? Will YOU move there & raise children?
We’ve beaten that poor dead traffic horse enough already, but suffice to say there are some very sound reasons why people who otherwise like walkable communities oppose your pet project.
Again, yes. I will introject only one thing, as I’d like to see a response to Dave’s comments — the “Solomon” of WRT-Solomon is a colleague of Peter Calthorpe, and a strong proponent of New Urbanism, so the odds that the WRT study would come up w/ a different set of conclusions than Calthorpe et al. are vanishingly small. And no, I am not saying that they’re “in cahoots”, but I’m tired of people — Calthorpe included — claiming that this is an objective confirmation. According to what I’ve read, Calthorpe and Solomon are both “founders” of the New Urbanism movement.