Sprawl wins in a solar world, bribing commuters to ride transit, new option to Dallas, downtown's progress, lessons from Chicago and Atlanta
First, an event announcement: long-time readers know I don't do official political endorsements (this is a policy blog), but I have admired Bill King's strong stand on the city's pension crisis (among others), a topic most politicians seem to shy away from. You can learn more about his Back-to-Basics campaign and ask all the questions you like (the man can definitely engage seriously on policy discussions) at his kickoff fundraiser Monday from 5:30 to 7 at Cadillac Bar. Details here.Moving on to this week's items:
- Vonlane's luxury bus service is finally opening on the Dallas-Houston route, although without many frequencies to start. They're having trouble building the buses fast enough. I suspect this will be a popular service. I am hearing increasing complaints about packed crowds and bad service on Megabus, although it is clearly popular.
- Atlanta is bribing commuters to take the bus with toll credits. Something Houston should consider?...
- Aaron Renn (The Urbanophile) has a great piece on Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the deep, deep troubles of Chicago. Definite cautionary tale for Houston not to fall down their slippery slope, especially when it comes to unions and pensions. (Not so) fun fact: their local obligations add up to $83,000 per household!!
- Really impressive set of slides on what's going on downtown and their strategy moving forward. It's coming along really, really well. Hat tip to Erik.
- The Atlanta Journal Constitution has done a major series of articles critiquing Atlanta as falling far behind its peer cities. Everybody knows the worst case scenario for a city is Detroit, but Atlanta is a more realistic cautionary tale for Houston: a city that can't unify to solve big problems like transportation, infrastructure, and education. It has especially underinvested in their freeway network - including a lack of loops/beltways - which is coming back to haunt them. Had we not done Beltway 8 and now the Grand Parkway, we could be in the same situation. They also did in-depth profiles of two peer competitor cities doing much better than them: Dallas and Charlotte, including well done short profile videos. I'm not surprised they didn't choose Houston, where the comparison is muddied by the oil boom (Dallas much less so). And if you're curious for more backstory, Aaron Renn (the Urbanophile) wrote a prescient piece on Atlanta's decline back in 2010.
- Dallas professor points out that suburban sprawl makes more sense than forced density in a world of autonomous electric cars charged by solar panels. Hat tip to Curtis.
The solution to these issues, as proposed by Townsend, is "solar-powered, self-driving sprawl." The thinking goes like this: sprawl is the ideal land use pattern for developing a solar grid that can power the electric cars of residents while still providing the electricity that the region needs to function. He quotes from a paper issued in 2013 by University of Auckland researchers:
"[S]uburbia is not only the most efficient collector of solar energy but that enough excess electricity can be generated to power daily transport needs of suburbia and also contribute to peak daytime electrical loads in the city centre... While a compact city may be more efficient for the internal combustion engine vehicles, a dispersed city is more efficient when distributed generation of electricity by [photovoltaic solar cells] is the main energy source and [electric vehicles] are the means of transport."
Labels: autonomous vehicles, costs of congestion, density, development, mobility strategies, perspectives, politics, sprawl
posted by Tory Gattis @ 9:20 PM
7 Comments:
Not everyone's a fan of sprawl. This recently appeared in the Chronicle:
http://www.chron.com/business/real-estate/article/Report-Sprawl-damaging-to-health-and-the-economy-6148584.php
“Sprawl costs the U.S. economy more than $1 trillion each year, as cities like Houston and Atlanta spend more on infrastructure, public service delivery and transportation, according to the report, which was written for New Climate Economy and authored by Victoria Transport Policy Institute in partnership with LSE Cities. In addition, people who live in sprawled neighborhoods are between two and five times more likely to be killed in car accidents and twice as likely to be overweight than those who live in walkable neighborhoods.”
Many, many flaws in that study. We're working on a rebuttal.
I have been very surprised at how "pro-sprawl" instead "pro-market" your new institute has come across. Houston's strength is not subsidized sprawl, it is the ability to build whatever the market is demanding. This is especially clear, in comparison to other cities, with all the projects in the loop that have been increasing density. Suburbia is de facto encouraged (despite the words that come out of planners' mouths) in every metro, Houston is unique in actually allowing de jure increases in inner city urbanism.
I agree that the media has taken our "pro market" stance and called it "pro sprawl", which I'm not thrilled with. Agree that we're better at building core density.
Sprawl or Density, Houston reportedly has quite a bit of criminality. Newsflash:
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/7-dead-in-30-hours-in-Houston-6152976.php#photo-7017819
7 killed in 30 hours in Houston: A 'heavy summer' for homicides coming
Dylan Baddour, Houston Chronicle | March 23, 2015 | Updated: March 23, 2015 1:30pm
Houston
Population: 2,180,606
Violent Crimes: 20,993
Murder and manslaughter: 214
Rape: 618
Robbery: 9,891
Aggravated assault: 10,270
Property Crime: 110,919
Burglary: 23,733
Larceny: 73,591
Motor Vehicle theft: 13,595
Arson: 708
__
With such rampant vehicle theft, using public transportation looks better than ever. Too bad Houston Metro just postponed expanded rail line availability until this May (at the soonest).
Not sure there's much correlation there. Chicago has a massive rail network, and is one of the murder and violent crime capitols of the country...
I wonder if Chicago has as many vehicular thefts per capita as Houston, though. ;-)
Having said that, Chicago's demographics are slightly different from Houston's:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/17/1714000.html
Worse still, like Detroit Chicago has had its share of leaders head off to jail setting "fine" examples. Houston: not so much. Jesse Jackson's son (a former federal legislator for Chicago) and also former Chicago federal legislator Blagojevich come to mind.
At any rate, I have heard that crime increases in neighborhoods when they become mass-transit accessible. Perhaps that's merely a misinterpretation of increased populations and greater economic growth though; I don't know.
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