Survey Shocker: Majority of central Texan busybodies tell others what to do

FRN Column | 12/09/03 | Patrick McGuinness

[WOSG]

Sources: 1. South Jersey Light rail http://www.southjerseynews.com/lightrail/o042601a.htm

2. Dallas Light rail In 1990, approximately 40,000 people rode transit to work, all on buses, in Dallas County on a daily basis. By 2000, workers using transit had dropped to 36,900 -- a decline of 3,100. http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2002/06/17/editorial4.html

3. San Jose, Phoenix light rail http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article.php/367.html 4. Portland http://www.ti.org/FS3.html 5. Sacramento light rail quote http://www.rppi.org/ps245.html#fnB23 6. Portland's 2040 plans: "This will require massive increases in the population densities of many centers and corridors. On the average, densities in the centers will double or triple while corridor densities increase by about a third. To obtain those increases, Metro will give each local jurisdiction population targets which they must zone for. The concept also specifies where new jobs will go, and local jurisdictions will also have to zone for those jobs."

[WOSG]

This column is in response to this news:

http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/1203/1208envision.html

Sources:

1. South Jersey Light rail http://www.southjerseynews.com/lightrail/o042601a.htm

2. Dallas Light rail In 1990, approximately 40,000 people rode transit to work, all on buses, in Dallas County on a daily basis. By 2000, workers using transit had dropped to 36,900 -- a decline of 3,100. http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2002/06/17/editorial4.html

3. San Jose, Phoenix light rail http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article.php/367.html

4. Portland http://www.ti.org/FS3.html

5. Sacramento light rail quote http://www.rppi.org/ps245.html#fnB23

6. Portland's 2040 plans: "This will require massive increases in the population densities of many centers and corridors. On the average, densities in the centers will double or triple while corridor densities increase by about a third. To obtain those increases, Metro will give each local jurisdiction population targets which they must zone for. The concept also specifies where new jobs will go, and local jurisdictions will also have to zone for those jobs."

[RobbyS]

The whole of the above suggests that the solution is MORE planning rather than less. The basic problem is that people want to live forty miles out in the country and drive into the city. Knowing what Austin was like forty years ago and what it is like today, one can say that if development had been according to even a minimal plan, many more people would live in the city or along public transportation routes.

[WOSG]

My point is who will be willing to follow the plan's of someone else?

Inveitably it forces people to do what they dont want to do.
How is that a 'good thing'?

[Waco]

"Please don't meddle in my business wile I'm busy meddling in yours." (Libs credo.) By the way does everyone know that Cincinnati has? a subway? An early urban planning/scam flop.

[ChipShot]

Excellent critique. I was asked by more than a few people to fill out that survey, but there was not a place for

E. None of the above.

As you say, it was rigged from the start.

[RobbyS]

Do you think the anarchy that has developed is better than
a modest constraint on the developers? We only bought from those guys because the price was right.

[mercy]

There is nothing wrong with urban planning. It's just that it should be about people not so called endangered species that are not. Austin's ONLY problem is a refusal to build roads. It is a freeking JOKE. Cut three good expressways from East to West and put a new loop ALL the way round like San Antonio and your problems will be over.

Your planners have a secret agenda. Limit growth. So YOU suffer. I hate Austin Texas. I live closer to Austin but when I have to go into a (spit) city .... I go to San Antonio. The people and services are much better anyway.

[WOSG]

"Do you think the anarchy that has developed is better than
a modest constraint on the developers?"

I disagree with the premise that the status quo is 'anarchy'.
We've had zoning in place for decades and SOS for more than 10 years now.

Zoning laws in place are hardly a modest constraint and the irony is that the density of the most-preferred choice D would require breaking zoning laws in some areas to practically force high-density development.

[WFTR]

Interesting and well-thought commentary! I think that if you could develop a city from scratch and plan around a light rail system, it might be successful. Fitting a light rail system to an existing city is not going to be successful as often. Personally, I hate big cities regardless of what they try to do to improve transportation. I hope I can avoid ever having to live in one again.

WFTR
Bill

[WOSG]

But I would add to my previous comment paranthetically that we are better off with looser zoning regulations for more central city density. It would be make for better growth patterns than just building outside the city (ie sprawl).

There is irony in decrying sprawl yet also decrying the in-building (like the Triangle project) that is needed to offset it.

[WOSG]

Thanks.

[NewRomeTacitus]

Well there it is. Classic example of a basically conservative state pushed around by a liberal elite in a small capital. Here in Nashville the light rail initiative is being pushed relentlessly but no one is willing to talk about the costs of relocations, street restructuring and dubious benefit. Like Texas, Tennessee's Democrat party is holding on by its fingernails in a gerrymander war that's going to the courts. RINO's are frightened and that is good.

[Vermonter]

We dont need a survey to figure many such answers out. Most light rail systems in the US have been boondoggles with high costs and low ridership.

How did you manage to miss Vermont's dalliance with a commuter railroad?

It was dreamed up by our current frontrunner in the Democrat presidential race who must have been deprived of a set of electric trains as a boy.

After years of the voters telling him they didn't want it, he built it anyway with federal money paying most of the cost.

A year later, with ridership at unbelieveably low levels, it was shut down by his successor.

[af_vet_rr]

Austin's ONLY problem is a refusal to build roads. It is a freeking JOKE. Cut three good expressways from East to West and put a new loop ALL the way round like San Antonio and your problems will be over.

Having lived in the Central Texas all my life when I wasn't in the Air Force, I feel like I'm an antique - somebody who lived in Austin before 1990, or even 1980. That said, there are three problems with your proposition :

1)With Austin's current rate of growth any new roads will be filled with more traffic when they are completed years from now and so your back to square one (although I doubt new roads like what you want could be finished within five years, even if they were, five years from now 10s of thousands more would have moved in, filling them up).

2)If you haven't noticed, Austin is pretty developed and dense in areas, and you cannot throw down a bunch of roads without taking a lot of property away from a lot of people and businesses which gets expensive and gets intrusive. I notice many people don't care as long as it's not their house being torn down.

3)We are not Houston or Dallas - we don't need to become another concrete jungle nor do we want a lot of continuous major construction (going back to the 1980s, it seems like a large portion of the freeways in Dallas have been under construction for decades).

My proposal? Kick out anybody who hadn't lived here before, to be nice, we'll say 1995. ;-) Okay, not a very friendly proposal.

The way Austin is laid out and maybe using current city/railroad land, they could probably run a light rail system north/south and have the buses feed into it from east/west. That's just a guess on my part.

I've lived in places where mass transit works and works well (Europe) and I've seen it work well here (Chicago and NYC), however a lot of that infrastructure was laid out when the cities were growing and perhaps the cities grew around the mass transit, I don't know, but not having to go into an area already developed (Houston, Dallas, Austin, etc.) helps a lot.

[anymouse]

More central planners run amok trying to force Texans to use (and most importantly, pay for) an ill-conceived, yet expensive light rail system.

[mercy]

Horse Pucky!

There are at least six empty canyons running E to W that would open up the VAST open undeveloped areas W of Austin to easy access. The plain fact is that you are anti-development. Which is to say anti-freedom, anti-capitalism and anti-American. If you want to live somewhere that is like Autin was twenty years ago ... Move to Llano.

[af_vet_rr]

There are at least six empty canyons running E to W that would open up the VAST open undeveloped areas W of Austin to easy access. The plain fact is that you are anti-development. Which is to say anti-freedom, anti-capitalism and anti-American. If you want to live somewhere that is like Autin was twenty years ago ... Move to Llano.

I was talking about Austin (your original comments I responded to were "Austin's ONLY problem is a refusal to build roads"), not "open undeveloped areas W of Austin" as you are now talking about. I am concerned with the fact that what would have taken me 10-15 minutes to drive 10 years ago now takes half an hour at minimum, and that more roads inside of Austin won't do much good.

Flaming me as being "anti-American", etc. when you can't come up with a half-decent rebuttal and changing the locations in between posts serves no purpose and is just a distraction from the major issues.

Either we are talking about inside of Austin or we are talking about undeveloped areas that are not a part of Austin (and which do not contribute to Austin's traffic problems and/or solutions at this time), please make up your mind.

If you want to talk about "open undeveloped areas W of Austin" then I have no problem with that and would love to discuss it, or we can discuss Austin as you originally mentioned and that I responded about. I hope that a serious traffic study is done soon for that area (west of Austin), and that some kind of regional planning goes into effect before those undeveloped areas become developed.

If something isn't done now as far as planning/development, we face adding the future traffic problems from those undeveloped areas to the already-existing traffic problems with Austin and perhaps (depending on the areas you are talking about) the Austin/San Marcos/San Antonio I-35 corridor in general.

To get back to my point about roads and Austin, even projects like Texas 130 being built east of Austin won't help Austin out. When Texas 130 is built (not "if" anymore, Texas 130 will be built), it will relieve some traffic off of I-35 (and by proxy - relieve traffic in the Austin area as I-35 backing up does flood over onto Austin streets). The flip side is- by the time it is up and operational, the region will have grown enough to fill it up as well - the NAFTA 18 wheelers and people willing to pay the toll to get north a little faster, that Texas 130 will hopefully pull off of I-35, will have their spots on I-35 taken by incoming residents, and the problem of you or I getting around Austin still won't be solved.

[RobbyS]

I agree. I am simply regretting that the city allowed somethings to get out of hand, stiffing some builders while allowing others to what the hell they wanted.

[RobbyS]

My memory is very vague, but when I-35 wasn't being planned, wasn't there talk about routing it further to the east rather than running it through the city?