Posted on 07/18/2017 12:59:41 AM PDT by gattaca
When I was attending the University of Nebraska in the early 60s, I had a job on the Ag campus, which was about 2 miles from the regular campus. Since I didn’t have a car, I rode my bicycle. (One of two on campus, the other one was owned by a fellow from California.) Lincoln issued a small plate which you could rivet onto the rear fender. Don’t think it was mandatory, but it was about $1. I had occasion to make a quick visit to the field house. Since I would not be there long, I neglected to put the lock on the wheel. It was unlocked in a small bag attached to the back of the seat. When I came out - surprise! It was gone. About a month or so later, I got a call from the Lincoln police. They had found my bicycle. It was parked and locked in a residential area east of campus. My guess was that it was taken by a football player (the football dorms were near there).
It moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
I live in DC but what I will say here applies to quite a few other large cities as well. The city core is congested. The inner ring suburbs are congested. The outer ring suburbs are regularly and increasingly congested. Every arterial road is congested. Suburbanites are spending inordinate time in their cars. They complain incessantly about congestion. And it's only going to get worse. Yet the car lobby insists that we need more capacity for automobiles. The problem, of course, is that there is simply no place inside the beltway, and very few places outside the beltway, to build new arterial roads. Can't be done. Period.
"Adding capacity" therefore takes the form of creating more traffic lanes on existing roads, and trying to speed traffic flow by restricting crossings. Every such action requires sacrificing on-street parking, tree plats, and front yards in existing neighborhoods. But the car zealots don't hesitate at all to demand the destruction of other people's neighborhoods; all they see is the perpetual traffic jam in which they sit twice a day. They are blind to the neighborhoods they would destroy. These are just drive-through country. They are insulted if you suggest that they live closer to their work, while they nonetheless advocate actions that degrade the quality of life for people who do live closer in. And at the same time, they are usually blind to the developers throwing up new housing around the outer rim, adding traffic volume much faster than the highway engineers could ever hope to add capacity.
And even if these problems could be magically solved, there is no place downtown to park additional cars.
The automobile game is basically over for downtown. More capacity ain't gonna happen. It can't for reasons of basic math. So what is happening is the development of major job centers in multiple locations around the metro area. The key question now is whether these locations are simply going to repeat the mistakes of the past, overcommit to automobiles, and built out to the limits of maximum congestion. Or will they learn from experience? Some of them are doing the smart thing and planning mixed use development with housing in close proximity to jobs, with good bus coverage and attractive pedestrian and bike options for those who are interested. This is what should be encouraged. We need to look ahead, recognize that we are at the limits to growth for automobiles, and plan for flexible and intermodal transit options.
Many people will still use their cars, and that's fine as long as other choices are not engineered out of existence. One famous example: Tysons Corner in Fairfax County is a notorious transportation nightmare. It has a daytime population of over 100,000 people. 97 percent of these people drive -- though some of the region's worst congestion -- despite the fact that Tysons is an artificial place carved out of McLean and Vienna, with Falls Church and Annandale next door. Within a one to three mile radius of the Tysons perimeter are very large, mostly upscale bedroom communities. It takes truly bad planning to make it difficult and unattractive for any of these folks to get to Tysons without a car. The whole area is basically engineered to make it virtually impossible without taking your life into your hands and going well out of your way. This is stupid. With better options, not everyone would get out of their cars, but enough will to make a difference. I live in a neighborhood where more than half of us don't drive to work. There is really no reason other than bad planning that a place like Tysons couldn't approach that level.
How many dogs chased after your grandpa? : )
See how they stop bike thieves in London at about 1:15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaRyH8utPQ8
I know. The DC area is a traffic nightmare. I commuted for many years to Chicago’s loop BY TRAIN! wouldn’t even think of doing it by car.
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