Walkable communities: the Social Justice issue of the 21 century

[Malloric]

So your solution to what you perceive as unsustainable lifestyle is to prop it up with billions of dollars of transportation funding paid for from the magic gummit honey jar that never ends? There's too much government involvement, so the solution is more government? Road construction paid for by the private sector because they're paid for with taxes? WTF?

It's certainly possible that the lifestyle we're accustomed to is unsustainable. I don't see how running a bunch of buses at a cost of $7.80 a ride (which is what it costs per ride according to my transit agency) is necessarily going to address that. Who pays the $7.80 is irrelevant, really. I mean, according to your definition of "private" spending, the entire thing is private. It's just that $6.80 of each ride is covered by the private sector in the form of taxes collected by the government.

Lots of things are important, and most all of them have seen cut backs in funding in the last few years. If you haven't been paying attention, government does not have any money. The federal government ran an 8.9% of GDP deficit last year. States are broke, dipping into emergency funding, and heading to the chopping block over and over. Municipalities are doing the same, and over the next few years you're going to see a wave of cities filling bankruptcy. Any money redirected to transportation is money that has to be cut from something else. And that's cuts on top of what we should be calling for which is austerity measures. What do you suggest? Maybe we could repeal Obamacare and cap medicare and social security spending to the revenue they bring in with payroll taxes? Free some more up by cutting the subsidies hospitals get to provide emergency treatment to indigents and tell the hospitals to kick the poor people to the curb to die? Stop paying the police a decent salary and let them survive as they do in some other countries on kickbacks and retainers from the criminals (Mexico)? You could also get rid of internal affairs which would save some money too.

[JR_C]

Why not just spend a little less on roads, and use that money on public transportation?

[AJNEOA]

Originally Posted by Malloric

So your solution to what you perceive as unsustainable lifestyle is to prop it up with billions of dollars of transportation funding paid for from the magic gummit honey jar that never ends? There's too much government involvement, so the solution is more government? Road construction paid for by the private sector because they're paid for with taxes? WTF?

Uh...so I wasn't promoting more government involvement or spending; if anything, I was saying that the government should be involved in much less. I was saying that if government is going to fund transportation, take what you have from the transporation budget and use a bit more for public transportation vs. roads.

Originally Posted by Malloric

It's certainly possible that the lifestyle we're accustomed to is unsustainable. I don't see how running a bunch of buses at a cost of $7.80 a ride (which is what it costs per ride according to my transit agency) is necessarily going to address that. Who pays the $7.80 is irrelevant, really. I mean, according to your definition of "private" spending, the entire thing is private. It's just that $6.80 of each ride is covered by the private sector in the form of taxes collected by the government.

I'm starting to think this post isn't targeted at me, but I'll respond anyway. Running a bunch of buses is kind of a generic/ambiguous statement. Of course there's more to do than just "running a bunch of buses". My thought is that if there's a target of "better" bus coverage in more metros (for example), less people will have to drive and they'll have options for getting to work/play.

Any money spent by the government, which is collected from the public is not private funds. Did I say it was something else? Also, $7.80 isn't the cost of a bus ticket everywhere (and in most places it's much less)...I'm not sure where that amount came from. In fact, fares could come down (or level of for many years) if ridership comes up.

Originally Posted by Malloric

Lots of things are important, and most all of them have seen cut backs in funding in the last few years. If you haven't been paying attention, government does not have any money. The federal government ran an 8.9% of GDP deficit last year. States are broke, dipping into emergency funding, and heading to the chopping block over and over. Municipalities are doing the same, and over the next few years you're going to see a wave of cities filling bankruptcy. Any money redirected to transportation is money that has to be cut from something else. And that's cuts on top of what we should be calling for which is austerity measures. What do you suggest? Maybe we could repeal Obamacare and cap medicare and social security spending to the revenue they bring in with payroll taxes? Free some more up by cutting the subsidies hospitals get to provide emergency treatment to indigents and tell the hospitals to kick the poor people to the curb to die? Stop paying the police a decent salary and let them survive as they do in some other countries on kickbacks and retainers from the criminals (Mexico)? You could also get rid of internal affairs which would save some money too.

Now I'm convinced you were responding to someone else (maybe a post got deleted?). This was exactly my point. The government is funding roads and other methods of transportation like crazy without adjusting the cost appropriately. In fact, the same subsidies are still encouraging more long-distances commuting and remote building that is straining the number of roads the government has to pave (and the amount of rail they need to implement...see Washington DC for example).

Your questions are the same types of questions I was referring to in my previous post. Government spending cannot continue at the current pace. As a side-effect of increased spending on some things, other things (like education) are constantly being cut. That combined with a poor economy and an increasingly poor public, is good reason to invest a larger ratio of the current transportation budget for public transit where possible. This will likely be more sustainable (not speaking about lifestyles) for those who may not be able to afford cars in the future (or as many).

[Malloric]

Originally Posted by AJNEOA

I'm starting to think this post isn't targeted at me, but I'll respond anyway. Running a bunch of buses is kind of a generic/ambiguous statement. Of course there's more to do than just "running a bunch of buses". My thought is that if there's a target of "better" bus coverage in more metros (for example), less people will have to drive and they'll have options for getting to work/play.

Yes. As I said, you want to prop up the existing what you consider to be unstainable lifestyle of metro areas. Metro areas are huge, all encompassing swathes of land in which most of the population has elected live on the outskirts in low-density suburbs that are extremely expensive to move around in by any means which necessitates cars as they are the most effective means of moving people in such areas, for those who can afford them).

Any money spent by the government, which is collected from the public is not private funds. Did I say it was something else?

Yes, you did. You said roads (which are built with government money, which is collected from the public, was private spending. Look up a few posts.

Also, $7.80 isn't the cost of a bus ticket everywhere (and in most places it's much less)...I'm not sure where that amount came from. In fact, fares could come down (or level of for many years) if ridership comes up.

The price of a ticket? Separate issue. A one-ride ticket is $1.50. A monthly pass is $65. I wasn't referring to the cost of a ticket. I was referring to the cost of providing one ride. The cost per ride is $7.80, $1.50 of that being covered by the cost of the ticket and the remaining $6.30 paid for out of the City's general funds. You know, the magic honey pot overfilling with money to be doled out for anything and everything.

Now I'm convinced you were responding to someone else (maybe a post got deleted?). This was exactly my point. The government is funding roads and other methods of transportation like crazy without adjusting the cost appropriately. In fact, the same subsidies are still encouraging more long-distances commuting and remote building that is straining the number of roads the government has to pave (and the amount of rail they need to implement...see Washington DC for example).

Oh, I agree. Of course, buses, like heavy trucks, do many hundreds of times as much damage to road ways than cars do. They are also far more subsidized than cars. I see no point in throwing billions of dollars at buses to service the existing exurbs. That's just more money on buses, more money repaving road, and more sprawl. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Raise the price of gas by $4 a gallon to more accurate reflect the cost of all those roads. People will react, adjust their lifestyle, and begin to demand more TOD neighborhoods and mixed-use neighborhoods that are walkable.

Your questions are the same types of questions I was referring to in my previous post. Government spending cannot continue at the current pace. As a side-effect of increased spending on some things, other things (like education) are constantly being cut. That combined with a poor economy and an increasingly poor public, is good reason to invest a larger ratio of the current transportation budget for public transit where possible. This will likely be more sustainable (not speaking about lifestyles) for those who may not be able to afford cars in the future (or as many).

It's possible to spend more money on public transportation everywhere. There's absolutely nothing stopping Modoc County (population 9,700, density 2.3/sq. mile) from buying dozens of buses, hiring several dozen bus drivers, and providing "timely and without an unholy number of transfers" service to Modoc County. It would just be asininely stupid and a waste of money. Extreme example, yes. But the same holds true for those living in the Sacramento metro. Transportation pretty much sucks in Elk Grove, a nice little middle class suburb 15 miles south of downtown Sacramento. The solution? Don't move to Elk Grove if that's important to you. The fact that communities like Elk Grove exist and that one cannot get from Elk Grove to Folsom in a timely manner and without a few transfers isn't a social justice issue. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, especially in Sacramento itself. What it means is that money spent on transit in Elk Grove is never going to net much return. Rather than squandering those dollars I'd rather see them put to the best use possible, which is pretty much what Elk Grove does do. One can get from Elk Grove to Sacramento. It's just limited to a few parts of town and takes rather a long time.

[wburg]

Perhaps there should be some comparison between difficulty of public transit and difficulty of driving? Driving from Folsom to Elk Grove ain't exactly easy. Trying to suggest that transit advocates are asking for door-to-door public transit that will beam someone in Elk Grove directly to Folsom, when driving there takes an hour or more on a good day, is a bit of a straw man.

Inherent to changes in transit are changes in neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods are particularly transit-hostile due to design and density; that's not something that will change overnight. The big challenge is encouraging future growth to follow a more transit-friendly mode, by building infill instead of greenfield, designing for walkable grids instead of cul-de-sacs, and minimizing the amount spent on the expensive highways that incentivize sprawl and make every transit mode profoundly less efficient.

Designing for transit, not entirely coincidentally, is also designing for pedestrians and bicycles, and while it isn't ideally suited for the needs of the automobile, autos can function in such an environment, and infrastructure can actually cost less if everything doesn't require high-speed highways, parking lots, etcetera. Rather than mandating transit-oriented deisgn from above, simply remove the subsidies and highway programs that force development outward, and watch it return to a mode more similar to the era when private developers built neighborhoods--and public transit systems--in a more walkable way.

[AJNEOA]

Originally Posted by Malloric

Yes. As I said, you want to prop up the existing what you consider to be unstainable lifestyle of metro areas. Metro areas are huge, all encompassing swathes of land in which most of the population has elected live on the outskirts in low-density suburbs that are extremely expensive to move around in by any means which necessitates cars as they are the most effective means of moving people in such areas, for those who can afford them).

I'm not claiming we should run buses to every corner of a metro. My argument has been somewhat ambiguous, mainly because actual planning is more indepth, but I feel you're perceiving my vision is to run bus service to every single burb (exurb, suburb) in the metro. This is not what I'm promoting. What I'm saying is that neighborhoods with close proximity to the city (which hopefully have higher density) that have poor bus coverage should be expanded to provide riders with options.

Originally Posted by Malloric

Yes, you did. You said roads (which are built with government money, which is collected from the public, was private spending. Look up a few posts.

I finally found what you were referring to; sorry, you were right. My quote was meant to point out that the private sector in this country is what generates wealth in the US, and that by taking tax money from the private sector and using it for public spending is a disservice to the concept of creating "jobs" for the US economy (which is what's sold to the public in terms of paving more roads, implementing HSR, etc.). It doesn't make the US any wealthier. I did a poor job of working this in there, but it's not all that relevant. Also, it's obviously applicable to both roads, trains, planes, etc.

Originally Posted by Malloric

The price of a ticket? Separate issue. A one-ride ticket is $1.50. A monthly pass is $65. I wasn't referring to the cost of a ticket. I was referring to the cost of providing one ride. The cost per ride is $7.80, $1.50 of that being covered by the cost of the ticket and the remaining $6.30 paid for out of the City's general funds. You know, the magic honey pot overfilling with money to be doled out for anything and everything.

That's fine, and I don't disagree, but I think all methods of transportation should have rate increases. They should be slow/tiered, but it needs to happen. I don't think we disagree here, unless you believe that roads aren't HIGHLY subsidized, alongside fuel and suburban development.

Originally Posted by Malloric

Oh, I agree. Of course, buses, like heavy trucks, do many hundreds of times as much damage to road ways than cars do. They are also far more subsidized than cars. I see no point in throwing billions of dollars at buses to service the existing exurbs. That's just more money on buses, more money repaving road, and more sprawl. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Raise the price of gas by $4 a gallon to more accurate reflect the cost of all those roads. People will react, adjust their lifestyle, and begin to demand more TOD neighborhoods and mixed-use neighborhoods that are walkable.

I agree with this, and perhaps both of our visions could work together to accomplish the goal. By running better transit in neighborhood that are feasible (not exurbs or crazily sprawlish development), it would encourage and/or provide more people the option of leaving their cars parked more frequently. This, alongside of raising the cost of gas to cover the large expenses of roads/emergency vehicle service/state troopers/etc., would encourage people to further demand it in places that it's not extended.

Another thing that would need to be done is to have better quality service. The government does a pretty poor job of running transit in quite a few places. Slowly privatizing the system, alongside the raising of gas prices, would allow for increased service and quality of service over a period of time.

Originally Posted by Malloric

It's possible to spend more money on public transportation everywhere. There's absolutely nothing stopping Modoc County (population 9,700, density 2.3/sq. mile) from buying dozens of buses, hiring several dozen bus drivers, and providing "timely and without an unholy number of transfers" service to Modoc County. It would just be asininely stupid and a waste of money. Extreme example, yes. But the same holds true for those living in the Sacramento metro. Transportation pretty much sucks in Elk Grove, a nice little middle class suburb 15 miles south of downtown Sacramento. The solution? Don't move to Elk Grove if that's important to you. The fact that communities like Elk Grove exist and that one cannot get from Elk Grove to Folsom in a timely manner and without a few transfers isn't a social justice issue. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, especially in Sacramento itself. What it means is that money spent on transit in Elk Grove is never going to net much return. Rather than squandering those dollars I'd rather see them put to the best use possible, which is pretty much what Elk Grove does do. One can get from Elk Grove to Sacramento. It's just limited to a few parts of town and takes rather a long time.

No disagreement here. Wburg's post does a nice job addressing some considerations previous to this post.

At the end of the day, I don't think we really disagree. I was never meaning to give the illusion that I want to run bus service everyplace in a metro, spending billions of unnecessary dollars with no ROI. I was simply saying that transit should be more thorough, because there are people who want/need to take it, but it's not available (and not everyone is able to up and move or choose where they live; probably our biggest disagreement). The more quality coverage you have, the better ridership numbers will get. However, I'm all for demand first; the government simply needs to change its policy of subsidies.