For once, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has gotten something right, Or, at least, columnist Michael Paul Williams has, but then he usually does.
Williams says that instead of a major, $330 million ballpark and assorted retail, office and condos in Richmond's Shockoe Bottom, Doug Wilder's failed National Slavery Museum should be built there.
That makes sense. The area was the second largest slave market int he U.S. next to New Orleans. Thousands of black Africans were shipped in in chains and then auctioned off to plantations in spots farther South such as Alabama and Mississippi. Families were broken. Marriages dissolved as overseers stood by with guns and whips.
This sorry chapter in Virginia's and Richmond's history needs to be remembered and commemorated every bit as much as Confederate history is on Monument Avenue, at the museum near VCU's Medical Center and by the stars and bars hanging next to the Virginia Museum of Art.
Wilder, the cantankerous former Richmond mayor and first Black ever elected to be governor, had backed a National Slavery Museum just off Interstate 95 near Fredericksburg for years. But after seven or eight years of fundraising, the project is bust. In fact, its Website is still soliciting donations even though it is no longer authorized to do so. Characteristically, Wilder can't be found.
The region's lack of leadership led to the Triple AAA Richmond Braves bolting to an Atlanta suburb last year. The awful Diamond was just too crappy a place to play and the region did nothing to fix it.
North Carolina real estate company Highwoods Properties wants to put a new stadium in Shockoe Bottom as part of a new, privately-funded complex. But that, too, has issues since parking is already tight or non-existent in the area and it is too near the historic Church Hill neighborhood with its signature Georgian homes.
Williams' solution is a good one. Put the new stadium somewhere else and put in a slavery museum not far from the old auction blocks and the prison for slaves. The spot is literally right under I-95, a major north-south artery. Many families heading to Disneyworld could stop off and learn something. And as Williams points out, the Fredericksburg plan would have been part of a theme park, as if the tragedy of slavery is anything worth celebrating.
As for the ballpark, rebuild the Diamond. It's a great location where I-95 and I-64 meet. I've always been able to get there easily. Too bad a decent location isn't available next to the James River. But Williams' solution is the next best option.
Peter Galuszka
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
MORE VOCABULARY
A Phrase for Larry’s Lexicon and a Cure for Major Mortgage Bail Out Defect
1) We are a bit late on this but here is a phrase for Larry’s Lexicon: “Green Sprawl:” An energy efficient industrial, commercial or residential building in a dysfunctional location. It is now in the lexicon of MainStream Media. A recycled Wal*Mart with ground effects heating / cooling and a solar array on the roof (See “Big Box Reuse”) or a LEED McMansion on a five acre lot or a 10 acre horse farm.
We have to sort out if the use of a Core Confusing Word (“sprawl”) in a phrase that is clearly defined is a Core Confusing Phrase.
2) Use of “Location Efficient Mortgage” criteria for any residential mortgage bailout would cure a major problem with giving money to those who made bad decisions. The phrase is defined, there are criteria. Implementation of a location efficient mortgage criteria would solve a major problem with the criteria-less mortgages consumed by Fanny and Freddie.
Location efficient mortgage criteria and prosecution for fraud at every stage of the development process from the original raw land sale to the final loan signing including all participating agents would save the public $ billions.
EMR
1) We are a bit late on this but here is a phrase for Larry’s Lexicon: “Green Sprawl:” An energy efficient industrial, commercial or residential building in a dysfunctional location. It is now in the lexicon of MainStream Media. A recycled Wal*Mart with ground effects heating / cooling and a solar array on the roof (See “Big Box Reuse”) or a LEED McMansion on a five acre lot or a 10 acre horse farm.
We have to sort out if the use of a Core Confusing Word (“sprawl”) in a phrase that is clearly defined is a Core Confusing Phrase.
2) Use of “Location Efficient Mortgage” criteria for any residential mortgage bailout would cure a major problem with giving money to those who made bad decisions. The phrase is defined, there are criteria. Implementation of a location efficient mortgage criteria would solve a major problem with the criteria-less mortgages consumed by Fanny and Freddie.
Location efficient mortgage criteria and prosecution for fraud at every stage of the development process from the original raw land sale to the final loan signing including all participating agents would save the public $ billions.
EMR
Thursday, February 26, 2009
GREEN TECHNOLOGY BUBBLE AND BUST
On Jim Bacons post “The Coming Green Boom – and Bubble” EMR noted something like the following (with corrected spelling and clarified intent):
Green Technology and the investment in Green Technology will just be another Bubble and Bust too without:
Fundamental Transformation in human settlement patterns;
Fundamental Transformation in governance structure, and;
Fundamental Transformation in the economic system.
And THAT means there must be a Fundamentally new way to get citizens the information they need to make INTELLIGENT decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth. See THE ESTATES MATRIX
There are a number of good observations following Jim Bacon’s post and they caused EMR to give further thought to the topic:
There MAY be a Green Technology Boom.
There MAY be great future benefits from Green Technology “Breakthroughs” that are not now even imagined.
There is no evidence at this point that there will be any “Breakthroughs” with more substance than cold fusion – or is it fission? Anyway, cold.
What IS known is that whatever form Green Technology takes, is will cost a lot of money, especially in the area of energy generation, transmission and distribution. There is NOTHING as cheap as digging up (and burning up) natural capital – unless nation-states and Regions have to fight wars to get it.
What is also known is that there are already a lot of expensive ways to replace cheap energy and there are millions of things to sell that will consume resources and occupy time – if citizens had time or money.
(For the record: Those things will not solve the Helter Skelter Crisis or the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and even FREE energy for Large, Private Vehicles will not solve the Mobility and Access Crisis.)
The bottom line is that after 35 years of widening the Wealth Gap and the inevitable Global Financial Meltdown (Bust of the Household, Enterprise and Agency deficit spending bubble) there are not a lot of folks who can afford expensive energy or expensive Green Technology.
That means it will not be attractive to invest in Green Technology because the market will be small.
Those at the top of the Ziggurat – those who could afford expensive Green Technology – have demonstrated over and over that they would rather continue to ride on the Tiger because they make more money faster that way.
Over the past 35 years the US of A could have lead the World in creating a lean, educated, happy human population with an ever smaller ecological footprint and thus a sustainable trajectory for civilization.
The US of A has “prospered” by creating an obese, opinionated, antagonistic, human population with huge Mass OverConsumption driven ecological footprints. The growth in consumption, the growth in population and the growth in the Wealth Gap are not sustainable.
The net result of attempting to “enjoy” consumption based “prosperity” within dysfunctional human settlement patterns:
Over half the population is losing ground – economically and socially.
Most of the rest are Running As Hard As They Can and have no time or energy to understand why most of the benefit of increased productivity of the 95 percent is going to the top 5 percent of the Ziggurat.
The US of A ranks at the top in consumption and in an also ran in education, equity, health and happiness.
The Elephant Clan and the Donkey Clan have broken “politics” and gamed the governance structure so that one or the other – but not someone with new ideas – gets 50.5 percent of the vote.
They have done this by promising that a vote for their “principles” will allow everyone to continue to live a life based on Myth – forever.
Both the Clans try to out promise one another. It is all about short-term benefit / immediate gratification and nothing about cost long-term / cumulative cost or a Balance of rights with responsibilities.
Add to this the facts that:
The NRA (aka, gun lobby) and the individual rights advocates have armed and primed the “Deer Hunting with Jesus” crowd.
The alcohol lobby, the NRA and conflict generating agitators have armed and primed bros in the hood.
Let us not spend time creating another bubble to bust over Green Technology. Green Technology would be nice but what has surfaced so far is Green Greed. Even pure Green Technology is not what is needed.
How about creating a sustainable trajectory which requires:
Fundamental Transformation in human settlement patterns;
Fundamental Transformation in governance structure, and;
Fundamental Transformation in the economic system.
And, of course a Fundamentally new way to get citizens the information they need to make INTELLIGENT decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth.
EMR
Green Technology and the investment in Green Technology will just be another Bubble and Bust too without:
Fundamental Transformation in human settlement patterns;
Fundamental Transformation in governance structure, and;
Fundamental Transformation in the economic system.
And THAT means there must be a Fundamentally new way to get citizens the information they need to make INTELLIGENT decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth. See THE ESTATES MATRIX
There are a number of good observations following Jim Bacon’s post and they caused EMR to give further thought to the topic:
There MAY be a Green Technology Boom.
There MAY be great future benefits from Green Technology “Breakthroughs” that are not now even imagined.
There is no evidence at this point that there will be any “Breakthroughs” with more substance than cold fusion – or is it fission? Anyway, cold.
What IS known is that whatever form Green Technology takes, is will cost a lot of money, especially in the area of energy generation, transmission and distribution. There is NOTHING as cheap as digging up (and burning up) natural capital – unless nation-states and Regions have to fight wars to get it.
What is also known is that there are already a lot of expensive ways to replace cheap energy and there are millions of things to sell that will consume resources and occupy time – if citizens had time or money.
(For the record: Those things will not solve the Helter Skelter Crisis or the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and even FREE energy for Large, Private Vehicles will not solve the Mobility and Access Crisis.)
The bottom line is that after 35 years of widening the Wealth Gap and the inevitable Global Financial Meltdown (Bust of the Household, Enterprise and Agency deficit spending bubble) there are not a lot of folks who can afford expensive energy or expensive Green Technology.
That means it will not be attractive to invest in Green Technology because the market will be small.
Those at the top of the Ziggurat – those who could afford expensive Green Technology – have demonstrated over and over that they would rather continue to ride on the Tiger because they make more money faster that way.
Over the past 35 years the US of A could have lead the World in creating a lean, educated, happy human population with an ever smaller ecological footprint and thus a sustainable trajectory for civilization.
The US of A has “prospered” by creating an obese, opinionated, antagonistic, human population with huge Mass OverConsumption driven ecological footprints. The growth in consumption, the growth in population and the growth in the Wealth Gap are not sustainable.
The net result of attempting to “enjoy” consumption based “prosperity” within dysfunctional human settlement patterns:
Over half the population is losing ground – economically and socially.
Most of the rest are Running As Hard As They Can and have no time or energy to understand why most of the benefit of increased productivity of the 95 percent is going to the top 5 percent of the Ziggurat.
The US of A ranks at the top in consumption and in an also ran in education, equity, health and happiness.
The Elephant Clan and the Donkey Clan have broken “politics” and gamed the governance structure so that one or the other – but not someone with new ideas – gets 50.5 percent of the vote.
They have done this by promising that a vote for their “principles” will allow everyone to continue to live a life based on Myth – forever.
Both the Clans try to out promise one another. It is all about short-term benefit / immediate gratification and nothing about cost long-term / cumulative cost or a Balance of rights with responsibilities.
Add to this the facts that:
The NRA (aka, gun lobby) and the individual rights advocates have armed and primed the “Deer Hunting with Jesus” crowd.
The alcohol lobby, the NRA and conflict generating agitators have armed and primed bros in the hood.
Let us not spend time creating another bubble to bust over Green Technology. Green Technology would be nice but what has surfaced so far is Green Greed. Even pure Green Technology is not what is needed.
How about creating a sustainable trajectory which requires:
Fundamental Transformation in human settlement patterns;
Fundamental Transformation in governance structure, and;
Fundamental Transformation in the economic system.
And, of course a Fundamentally new way to get citizens the information they need to make INTELLIGENT decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth.
EMR
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The Coming Green Boom -- and Bubble
Most prophets of doom are a relentlessly dour lot – not only do they tell you why you’re heading straight to oblivion, they scowl at you while they do it. But John Rubino is different. He leavens his gloom mongering with a joke, a grin, and tales of life in Moscow, Idaho, where he skis, hikes and rides off-road vehicles with his family. You might call him a jocular Jeremiah.
There’s no denying John’s doom-saying credentials, though. Bacon’s Rebellion highlighted his thinking in an article aptly titled, “The Housing Bubble,” in November 2003, in which he elaborated upon his book, “How to Profit from the Coming Real Estate Bust.” John, a former Hanover County resident and writer for Virginia Business magazine, followed up that book by coauthoring another, “The Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from It.”
Now he’s written a third, “Clean Money: Picking the Winners in the Clean Tech Boom,” the first chapter of which lays out a case for looming environmental disaster that’s as alarming as anything coming out of Greenpeace. Yet, in characteristic Rubino fashion, while sounding the alarm for peak oil, rising energy prices, chronic water shortages and a host of environmental maladies from overfishing to soil erosion, he manages to find that profitable silver lining. Technology may not single-handedly save modern democratic capitalism, he says, but it will help prop it up. He’s a great believer in the power of the marketplace to clean up its own mess.
John’s themes are so similar to those we explore in Bacon’s Rebellion, and our way of thinking is so similar, that I plan to dedicate this and my next two blog posts to explicating his views on our current predicament. In this first post, I plan to sketch out his doom-sayer bona fides. In subsequent posts, I will delve into the rise of renewable energy and the smart grid, and then reinventing the automobile. Even before Obama’s porculus package promised to inject billions into “green tech,” venture capitalists were stuffing the technological pipeline for several years. A wave of innovation is about to burst upon us that will change the economics of energy.
Before we get into all that, let us return to the reasons for John’s pessimism.
First, John very clearly foresaw the outlines of our current economic crisis: Too much debt. “The basic thesis [of “The Coming Real Estate Bust”] was definitely right. We were borrowing too much money, and we were doing it via our houses. People would borrow against their houses to pay off their credit cards, and they would max out their credit cards to pay their mortgage.” The phenomenal run-up in debt was unsustainable. And when the housing bust finally occurred, it didn’t just lay waste to the residential housing industry, it took down consumer spending with it.
Sound familiar? Sounds like a no-brainer now. But John was saying that five years ago.
Is there anything he would have changed? If anything, John says, he was too prescient. It was 2003 when he predicted the popping of the housing bubble -- too early. “From an investor’s standpoint, that’s almost as bad as being flat-out wrong," he says. "If it had come out in 2006, it would have made a lot of people a lot of money.”
A sidebar to John’s prediction of the real estate bust was the collapse of the dollar. That hasn’t happened yet, but he’s still convinced it will. There is no pain-free solution to the U.S.’s economic woes. “We have only two choices – collapse under all the debt, like the Great Depression. Or repudiate the debt by cranking up the money supply.” The latter path, the one the U.S. currently is pursuing, will ineluctably lead to inflation and a plunging dollar. “We’ll borrow as much as it take to keep consumers spending and banks from collapsing. We’ll end up destroying the dollar.”
John has little faith in the Washington politicians. The Obama administration is making the same mistakes as the Bush administration – but on a larer scale. “Crisis is paradise for politicians,” he says. “There’s no limit to what they can spend. They’re actually under pressure to spend more. They’re enjoying themselves right now. … But if they understood economics, they couldn’t think they were actually fixing anything. Historians will not be kind to the people in charge for the last 20 years – or the voters who put them there.”
Following the Bush borrowing binge with an even bigger borrowing binge will only hasten the inevitable reckoning. The Bush/Obama presidencies may well create a brief spell of economic growth, but the next economic cycle will lead to an even bigger bubble and a bigger bust-up down the road.
Not only are our economic policies unsustainable, so are our environmental policies, John argues. “Even if we had a healthy economy, we’re facing a resource-related crisis that’s pretty big challenge. Even in good times, it would be hard to fix.”
The fiscal crisis limits our ability to make major changes right now, but it needs to be done. One of the few redeeming features of the Obama spending plan, says Rubino, is the billions of dollars he will be pumping into new technologies. A whole slew of companies have been launched with a slew of interesting technologies. All that government money will create a “huge tail wind” for them, creating the next generation of fabled growth companies. Some of these companies will become household names like Amazon.com, E-Bay and Microsoft – with valuations to match.
In all likelihood, the next financial bubble will be tied to green tech. Just as the Internet bubble transformed the economy in a mostly positive way, so should the green tech bubble. It may not be pretty when it ends, but it will re-shape our economy for the better. Although the trends John describes are national in scope, they will play out here in Virginia. If we don't understand the nature of the problems we're confronting, we cannot hope to address them.
There’s no denying John’s doom-saying credentials, though. Bacon’s Rebellion highlighted his thinking in an article aptly titled, “The Housing Bubble,” in November 2003, in which he elaborated upon his book, “How to Profit from the Coming Real Estate Bust.” John, a former Hanover County resident and writer for Virginia Business magazine, followed up that book by coauthoring another, “The Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from It.”
Now he’s written a third, “Clean Money: Picking the Winners in the Clean Tech Boom,” the first chapter of which lays out a case for looming environmental disaster that’s as alarming as anything coming out of Greenpeace. Yet, in characteristic Rubino fashion, while sounding the alarm for peak oil, rising energy prices, chronic water shortages and a host of environmental maladies from overfishing to soil erosion, he manages to find that profitable silver lining. Technology may not single-handedly save modern democratic capitalism, he says, but it will help prop it up. He’s a great believer in the power of the marketplace to clean up its own mess.
John’s themes are so similar to those we explore in Bacon’s Rebellion, and our way of thinking is so similar, that I plan to dedicate this and my next two blog posts to explicating his views on our current predicament. In this first post, I plan to sketch out his doom-sayer bona fides. In subsequent posts, I will delve into the rise of renewable energy and the smart grid, and then reinventing the automobile. Even before Obama’s porculus package promised to inject billions into “green tech,” venture capitalists were stuffing the technological pipeline for several years. A wave of innovation is about to burst upon us that will change the economics of energy.
Before we get into all that, let us return to the reasons for John’s pessimism.
First, John very clearly foresaw the outlines of our current economic crisis: Too much debt. “The basic thesis [of “The Coming Real Estate Bust”] was definitely right. We were borrowing too much money, and we were doing it via our houses. People would borrow against their houses to pay off their credit cards, and they would max out their credit cards to pay their mortgage.” The phenomenal run-up in debt was unsustainable. And when the housing bust finally occurred, it didn’t just lay waste to the residential housing industry, it took down consumer spending with it.
Sound familiar? Sounds like a no-brainer now. But John was saying that five years ago.
Is there anything he would have changed? If anything, John says, he was too prescient. It was 2003 when he predicted the popping of the housing bubble -- too early. “From an investor’s standpoint, that’s almost as bad as being flat-out wrong," he says. "If it had come out in 2006, it would have made a lot of people a lot of money.”
A sidebar to John’s prediction of the real estate bust was the collapse of the dollar. That hasn’t happened yet, but he’s still convinced it will. There is no pain-free solution to the U.S.’s economic woes. “We have only two choices – collapse under all the debt, like the Great Depression. Or repudiate the debt by cranking up the money supply.” The latter path, the one the U.S. currently is pursuing, will ineluctably lead to inflation and a plunging dollar. “We’ll borrow as much as it take to keep consumers spending and banks from collapsing. We’ll end up destroying the dollar.”
John has little faith in the Washington politicians. The Obama administration is making the same mistakes as the Bush administration – but on a larer scale. “Crisis is paradise for politicians,” he says. “There’s no limit to what they can spend. They’re actually under pressure to spend more. They’re enjoying themselves right now. … But if they understood economics, they couldn’t think they were actually fixing anything. Historians will not be kind to the people in charge for the last 20 years – or the voters who put them there.”
Following the Bush borrowing binge with an even bigger borrowing binge will only hasten the inevitable reckoning. The Bush/Obama presidencies may well create a brief spell of economic growth, but the next economic cycle will lead to an even bigger bubble and a bigger bust-up down the road.
Not only are our economic policies unsustainable, so are our environmental policies, John argues. “Even if we had a healthy economy, we’re facing a resource-related crisis that’s pretty big challenge. Even in good times, it would be hard to fix.”
The fiscal crisis limits our ability to make major changes right now, but it needs to be done. One of the few redeeming features of the Obama spending plan, says Rubino, is the billions of dollars he will be pumping into new technologies. A whole slew of companies have been launched with a slew of interesting technologies. All that government money will create a “huge tail wind” for them, creating the next generation of fabled growth companies. Some of these companies will become household names like Amazon.com, E-Bay and Microsoft – with valuations to match.
In all likelihood, the next financial bubble will be tied to green tech. Just as the Internet bubble transformed the economy in a mostly positive way, so should the green tech bubble. It may not be pretty when it ends, but it will re-shape our economy for the better. Although the trends John describes are national in scope, they will play out here in Virginia. If we don't understand the nature of the problems we're confronting, we cannot hope to address them.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
EVEN MORE ON INTERSTATE CRIME
EVEN MORE ON INTERSTATE CRIME
On the INTERSTATE CRIME string Charlie said:
“EMR: Regarding your first point, a lot of people would argue that this is what happened in Washington, and that is the source of traffic problems.”
Not really. The InterRegional strategy for roadways stops major limited access corridors at the Clear Edge, not the Zentrum (aka, the “downtown.”)
“Only two highways run downtown (66 and 395) -- maybe 295 if you are stretching downtown a bit.”
True, some of the penetrations were blunted but that just left the Core inside the Clear Edge neither fish nor fowl. Stockholm and Paris are fish, Houston is fowl, or rather foul.
“Granted, since the Beltway was built, massive development has occurred outside.”
The InterRegional strategy has “beltways” but they are designed to serve far different land uses at the Clear Edge. You can still have “parkways” into the Zentrum as well. As noted below the issue is Balance.
“I'd argue the real beneficiary of that is not DC but the inside-Beltway suburbs.”
If anyone was a “beneficiary,” you are right, it was the Greater North Arlingtons, etc. but compared to a similar area in Stockholm or even Toronto it is not that great.
“Curious to hear your thoughts on the 66 expansion.”
I presume since it is on the front burner right now that you mean I-66 inside the Beltway. So here is my take:
“Anytime Agencies (fed, state, municipal) that control transport take actions to “expand” the capacity of a roadway without this expansion being part of a COMPREHENSIVE, Regionally endorsed and broadly understood strategy to BALANCE TRANSPORT SYSTEM CAPACITY WITH SETTLEMENT PATTERN TRAVEL DEMAND this action only postpones the day that the majority of citizens understand that Business-As-Usual will lead to Collapse.
In our Vocabulary this “enhancement” just reinforces the Large, Private Vehicle Mobility Myth (L,PVMM) spelled out for NMM below.
NMM said:
“I would suspect then that LA has poor settlement patterns OR poorly designed road system which would explain the traffic issues.”
NMM, you just cannot wing it on human settlement patterns. There are facts and there are Natural Laws that control the function of settlement patterns.
The Los Angles NUR does not have bad settlement patterns on a Regional scale based on the intensity of land uses inside the Clear Edge. And there IS a Clear Edge for most of the Urbanized area – ocean, steep topography – much of it in public ownership e.g US Forest Service.
The Los Angles NUR roadway system is not that bad either except that the interchanges take up huge amounts of land in areas that should be part of the Urban fabric and the “freeways” are impenetrable barriers between what are the logical components of Villages, Communities and SubRegions.
The traffic congestion problem in the Los Angles NUR is caused by the failure to evolve Balance at the Village, Community and Subregional scales. Period. Too many people trying to go too many places at the same time.
For the record the Los Angles NUR has the second highest AVERAGE density within the urbanized areas in the US of A. The New York NUR has the highest AVERAGE due to several very dense areas (but not ALL of “Manhattan”...).
The New York NUR is still half the AVERAGE intensity of the Toronto NUR and one quarter of that of the Paris, Stockholm, Wien NURs and other large NURs with far more functional distribution of Urban uses and Openspaces within the Clear Edge. Ever notice all those big forested areas from the Eiffel Tower?
“... The ultimate problem in this region may not be settlement patterns but road design and geographic problems (i.e. river crossing issues) Think about it of course there are going to be bottlenecks when the only way to get from Maryland suburbs to VA suburbs is over the American Legion Bridge due to the Potomac river.”
NO, NO, NO. The problem is Balance. It is not possible for everyone to live where they want, work where they want, seek Services, Recreation and Amenity where they want and then be able to create a roadway (or shared-vehicle system) so everyone can go where the want, when they want and arrive in a timely manner. (L,PVMM) IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. It is not just the settlement patterns, it is not just the River, it is IMPOSSIBLE to design or build a system to accomplish that in a large NUR.
By the way check out what TMT said about 83-million sq feet in the Zentrum of Greater Tysons Corner at 9:42 on the THANK YOU GROVETON string that started out dealing with school governance. You hear more an more planners these days admitting the L,PVMM is just that, a Myth.
EMR
On the INTERSTATE CRIME string Charlie said:
“EMR: Regarding your first point, a lot of people would argue that this is what happened in Washington, and that is the source of traffic problems.”
Not really. The InterRegional strategy for roadways stops major limited access corridors at the Clear Edge, not the Zentrum (aka, the “downtown.”)
“Only two highways run downtown (66 and 395) -- maybe 295 if you are stretching downtown a bit.”
True, some of the penetrations were blunted but that just left the Core inside the Clear Edge neither fish nor fowl. Stockholm and Paris are fish, Houston is fowl, or rather foul.
“Granted, since the Beltway was built, massive development has occurred outside.”
The InterRegional strategy has “beltways” but they are designed to serve far different land uses at the Clear Edge. You can still have “parkways” into the Zentrum as well. As noted below the issue is Balance.
“I'd argue the real beneficiary of that is not DC but the inside-Beltway suburbs.”
If anyone was a “beneficiary,” you are right, it was the Greater North Arlingtons, etc. but compared to a similar area in Stockholm or even Toronto it is not that great.
“Curious to hear your thoughts on the 66 expansion.”
I presume since it is on the front burner right now that you mean I-66 inside the Beltway. So here is my take:
“Anytime Agencies (fed, state, municipal) that control transport take actions to “expand” the capacity of a roadway without this expansion being part of a COMPREHENSIVE, Regionally endorsed and broadly understood strategy to BALANCE TRANSPORT SYSTEM CAPACITY WITH SETTLEMENT PATTERN TRAVEL DEMAND this action only postpones the day that the majority of citizens understand that Business-As-Usual will lead to Collapse.
In our Vocabulary this “enhancement” just reinforces the Large, Private Vehicle Mobility Myth (L,PVMM) spelled out for NMM below.
NMM said:
“I would suspect then that LA has poor settlement patterns OR poorly designed road system which would explain the traffic issues.”
NMM, you just cannot wing it on human settlement patterns. There are facts and there are Natural Laws that control the function of settlement patterns.
The Los Angles NUR does not have bad settlement patterns on a Regional scale based on the intensity of land uses inside the Clear Edge. And there IS a Clear Edge for most of the Urbanized area – ocean, steep topography – much of it in public ownership e.g US Forest Service.
The Los Angles NUR roadway system is not that bad either except that the interchanges take up huge amounts of land in areas that should be part of the Urban fabric and the “freeways” are impenetrable barriers between what are the logical components of Villages, Communities and SubRegions.
The traffic congestion problem in the Los Angles NUR is caused by the failure to evolve Balance at the Village, Community and Subregional scales. Period. Too many people trying to go too many places at the same time.
For the record the Los Angles NUR has the second highest AVERAGE density within the urbanized areas in the US of A. The New York NUR has the highest AVERAGE due to several very dense areas (but not ALL of “Manhattan”...).
The New York NUR is still half the AVERAGE intensity of the Toronto NUR and one quarter of that of the Paris, Stockholm, Wien NURs and other large NURs with far more functional distribution of Urban uses and Openspaces within the Clear Edge. Ever notice all those big forested areas from the Eiffel Tower?
“... The ultimate problem in this region may not be settlement patterns but road design and geographic problems (i.e. river crossing issues) Think about it of course there are going to be bottlenecks when the only way to get from Maryland suburbs to VA suburbs is over the American Legion Bridge due to the Potomac river.”
NO, NO, NO. The problem is Balance. It is not possible for everyone to live where they want, work where they want, seek Services, Recreation and Amenity where they want and then be able to create a roadway (or shared-vehicle system) so everyone can go where the want, when they want and arrive in a timely manner. (L,PVMM) IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. It is not just the settlement patterns, it is not just the River, it is IMPOSSIBLE to design or build a system to accomplish that in a large NUR.
By the way check out what TMT said about 83-million sq feet in the Zentrum of Greater Tysons Corner at 9:42 on the THANK YOU GROVETON string that started out dealing with school governance. You hear more an more planners these days admitting the L,PVMM is just that, a Myth.
EMR
Monday, February 23, 2009
MORE INTERSTATE CRIME
Some may recall the story about the Howard County Exec who won an upset campaign against the ruling party establishment in the 70s and then spent the next four years proving to those who voted against him that he would NOT do what those who voted for him were counting on him to do.
Looks like a similar scenario is evolving because the new administration has a Secretary of Transportation that was chosen for ‘bipartisanship’ (NOT antiPartisanship) and who has little transport credibility. See “LaHood Talks of Mileage-Based Tax: White House Dismisses Controversial Idea to Fund Transportation Projects. WaPo 21 Feb 2009.
In an attempt to not rock too many boats at once the White House has apparently nixed one of the most important opportunities to improve Mobility and Access now available. They could also reverse one of the three catastrophic mistakes in implementation of an InterRegional roadway system. See “Interstate Crime” 28 Feb 2005
In summary the three problems are:
1. Running the Interstate roadways inside the Clear Edge (or the logical location for the Clear Edge) instead of stopping at the Clear Edge as called for by the earlier InterRegional Highway plans. Stopping at the Clear Edge is the normal practice for limited access roadways linking New Urban Regions in Europa.
2. Artificially holding down the true cost of the Interstate system by limiting the damages paid to Urban citizens in severance damages due to isolating land owners and citizens from the components of settlement that supported their quality of life and their property values. The Urban landscape is littered with orphaned Clusters, Neighborhoods and Villages. NonUrban land owners WERE compensated. This is one of the prime drivers of both Abandonment and Scatteration discussed in the first two chapters of ROOTS OF THE HELTER SKELTER CRISIS.
3. Failing to develop a fair allocation of the cost of use of the Interstate System and Federal Aid Highways by failing to instituting a equitable weight distance levy on roadway use.
Now for some reason correcting the only error that is still correctagle without massive expense is viewed as “controversial.”
How can it be more “controversial” than Lexus Lanes or raising the gas tax enough to make a difference?
Footnote: This post was drafted on 22 February. On 23 February WaPo carried a lead editorial that said about the same thing about the usefulness of considering at least a step toward fair and equitable weight / distance levies. Credit where credit is due.
Now if WaPo could just focus on settlement pattern dysfunction...
EMR
Looks like a similar scenario is evolving because the new administration has a Secretary of Transportation that was chosen for ‘bipartisanship’ (NOT antiPartisanship) and who has little transport credibility. See “LaHood Talks of Mileage-Based Tax: White House Dismisses Controversial Idea to Fund Transportation Projects. WaPo 21 Feb 2009.
In an attempt to not rock too many boats at once the White House has apparently nixed one of the most important opportunities to improve Mobility and Access now available. They could also reverse one of the three catastrophic mistakes in implementation of an InterRegional roadway system. See “Interstate Crime” 28 Feb 2005
In summary the three problems are:
1. Running the Interstate roadways inside the Clear Edge (or the logical location for the Clear Edge) instead of stopping at the Clear Edge as called for by the earlier InterRegional Highway plans. Stopping at the Clear Edge is the normal practice for limited access roadways linking New Urban Regions in Europa.
2. Artificially holding down the true cost of the Interstate system by limiting the damages paid to Urban citizens in severance damages due to isolating land owners and citizens from the components of settlement that supported their quality of life and their property values. The Urban landscape is littered with orphaned Clusters, Neighborhoods and Villages. NonUrban land owners WERE compensated. This is one of the prime drivers of both Abandonment and Scatteration discussed in the first two chapters of ROOTS OF THE HELTER SKELTER CRISIS.
3. Failing to develop a fair allocation of the cost of use of the Interstate System and Federal Aid Highways by failing to instituting a equitable weight distance levy on roadway use.
Now for some reason correcting the only error that is still correctagle without massive expense is viewed as “controversial.”
How can it be more “controversial” than Lexus Lanes or raising the gas tax enough to make a difference?
Footnote: This post was drafted on 22 February. On 23 February WaPo carried a lead editorial that said about the same thing about the usefulness of considering at least a step toward fair and equitable weight / distance levies. Credit where credit is due.
Now if WaPo could just focus on settlement pattern dysfunction...
EMR
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