Monthly Archives: April 2015

Why Buses Are Inferior

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by Michael Lewyn

Critics of rail often argue that buses are superior; they are cheaper, more flexible and (sometimes) run almost as fast.  But in a recent blog post, Houston planning student Maggie Colson explains why trains are better than buses, even if the train isn’t much faster:

The train system was much easier to maneuver than the bus system. I found the bus system to be more complicated because you had to find the correct bus stop with the bus number labeled on it. In addition, you could easily end up going in the wrong direction – the buses did not have the directions labeled like the trains. On the bus you also had to know where you needed to get off. Unlike the train system, the bus did not stop at every stop and instead you had to push a button to request for the bus to stop. While this is not necessarily an issue once you know the route, trying to navigate for the first time was stressful. Without the use of my smartphone, I would not have found or gotten off at the correct bus stops.

In other words, with buses you really have to know what you are doing.

(Cross-posted from cnu.org)

Libertarian-Friendly Drought Control

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by Michael Lewyn

In response to California’s drought, Gov. Jerry Brown recently issued an executive order proposing a wide variety of water restrictions. For example, paragraph 3 of the order provides that the state Department of Water Resources shall “lead a statewide initiative… to collectively replace 50 million square feet of lawns and ornamental turf with drought tolerant landscapes.” In particular, the state will fund “lawn replacement programs in underserved communities.” It is not clear from the order whether the state plans to mandate replacement of every square inch of lawn in California, or merely to fund local governments who wish to do so.

This initiative certainly seems to have reasonable goals. In fact, one-third of all residential water use involves landscape irrigation of some sort, and it seems to me that lawn-watering is a wasteful use of water compared to agriculture or bathing or drinking. But cities and states can reduce lawn-watering through means less expensive and coercive than policing individual consumption or even spending taxpayer money on lawn reform.

Some local zoning codes require homeowners to have lawns or even to water them. A drought-sensitive local government would of course eliminate such restrictions—but since not every local government is equally enlightened, California could both reduce water use and expand homeowners’ rights by amending its zoning enabling legislation to prohibit local governments from enacting such restrictions. Statewide legislation would eliminate the primary excuse for lawn-watering regulations: that green lawns maintain property values. If state laws make green lawns scarce, homeowners are less likely to view green lawns as necessary for neighborhood desirability. Continue reading →

Cars Are Expensive (And Other Things The Census Taught Me)

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by Michael Lewyn

I just learned that national tables from the 2013 American Household Survey (AHS) are public. These tables contained a variety of information that I thought was at least mildly interesting. To name a few items:

  • Cars are really expensive—even when gas is cheap. The average household spent $800 per month on car-related costs. (Table S-04C). Only $200 of this sum was on gasoline—which means that even if gas was free, cars would still cost $600 per month. About half of household spending was for car payments, 15 percent was for insurance, and the rest was split between parking and maintenance.
  • Single family housing dominates the landscape. Sixty-four percent of all occupied housing units (and 62 percent of units built over the last several years) are detached single-family houses (Table C-01). This is especially true for owner-occupied units: even in central cities, 79 percent of owner-occupied units are detached houses (Table C-01-00).
  • Most single-family housing is not dense enough to support public transit. The average owner-occupied housing unit takes up 0.3 acres, as does the average housing unit built in the last several years. Thus, most blocks probably contain about three or four units per acre; basic bus service requires at least seven units per acre to be economically viable. (Table C-02). Continue reading →

What Density-Phobia Gets Wrong

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by Michael Lewyn

Some prosperous American cities have a housing supply problem: they have made zoning more and more restrictive over time, thus causing limited housing supply, thus causing escalating housing prices. And because some people fleeing high housing prices move to automobile-dependent suburbs or smaller cities, restrictive urban zoning means more suburbanites with more cars, creating more pollution everywhere.

So one might think that the logical solution is to build more housing in urban areas, especially in the costliest markets. Yet in a recent article, the Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Inga Saffron wrote: “Density has to be relative to what already exists … so neighborhoods can step up density gradually.” In other words, don’t build too much stuff because…why? Most of her article seems devoted to the evils of tall buildings.

As far as I can tell, there are three myths underlying Saffron’s article.

Myth 1: “Beware! The high-rises are coming!” Saffron writes that some unnamed “hard-line” density proponents “assume there is only one way to achieve real density. They use density as a rallying cry to justify the construction of more and bigger high-rises, in both America’s thriving cities and its hollowed-out ones.” Continue reading →

Can Short Pump Be Salvaged?

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Short Pump. Photo credit: Henrico Monthly

Short Pump. Photo credit: Henrico Monthly

by James A. Bacon

The Short Pump area of Henrico County, the largest retail concentration in Central Virginia, is a fascinating test case for the proposition that it’s possible for state and local governments to build their way out of traffic gridlock. My verdict: Henrico has managed to beat the odds so far, but future prospects look bleak.

I focused on the transportation challenges of Short Pump in a cover story published this month in Henrico Monthly. A rural crossroads thirty years ago, Short Pump in Western Henrico County has exploded with development. Ranked by traffic counts, the stretch of West Broad between Interstate 64 and Pouncey Tract is the second busiest non-Interstate road in the entire Richmond region. Given the profusion of stop lights, it may be the most congested. With the Short Pump Town Center and other top-of-the-line retail, Short Pump is a location that Richmonders love to hate. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

Henrico County planners and elected officials are acutely aware of the horrendous traffic conditions, and they have responded as suburban governments always have — by laying more asphalt. More than $150 million in state and local dollars have or will be spent between 2011 and 2017 to improve mobility in and around the area. For a while at least, the road projects seemed to be doing the job. After peaking at 69,000 vehicles per day in 2006, traffic counts along West Broad declined to 50,000 vpd by 2012. How much was due to the 2007 recession and how much due to Henrico’s road construction program isn’t clear. But there are indications the decline was only temporary. In 2013, the most recent year for which figures are available, the county spiked back up to 69,000. Continue reading →