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A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

strongtowns.org

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Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#21

Post by ta_egdhs »

komali2 wrote: post #13

>Collin County has traffic problems. Collin County's traffic problems are a function of its land-use pattern—which spreads development extremely thin on the landscape, and segregates uses, ensuring that people have to make lengthy motor vehicle trips to accomplish pretty much every one of their day to day needs. The offered solution: >For automobile flooding (congestion), the only way to deal with it and still have a…

/r/neoliberal has a fantastic slogan/soundbite for you to use.

"legalize housing"

a people ideologically against government intervention should be all for removing government barriers to building what you want where you want. that includes corner stores and town houses. they naturally should be against the gov telling you how much setback you need and how tall you can build.

don't phrase it as we need to zone for corner stores. phrase it as we need to legalize corner stores.

Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#22

Post by ip26 »

closeparen wrote: post #20
ip26 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there isn't usually a direct counterargument to be found. One of ST's core points is, hey, you're deluding yourself because you're not accounting for eventual repair costs of all the infrastructure you've already got. There is either no reply- because, heads in the sand- or the reply is that all the new people who will move there and the growth of the tax base will make it affordable. Which, while not exactly…

I'll try: Strong Towns' predictions of future maintenance-debt doom are already true today of the urbanist, transit-centric alternative. If any group of Americans had sufficient motivation and resources to maintain a good public transit system, it would be New Yorkers, and they empirically don't. The MTA is deteriorating rapidly despite the best efforts of one of the richest cities in the world. That's textbook "unsu…

That is a good point, public transit is not immune to ignoring future costs. However-

The real doom is when people abandon the town or city because property taxes have to be hiked dramatically to pay for the bill come due. This drives people to leave, which drives taxes higher, which drives people to leave... This kills the city.

New York & the train system there has big problems. But because there are so many people paying into it, nobody is leaving New York over the cost of fixing it. It is troubled but not failed.

ST's core raison d'être is abandoned, decaying suburban sprawl. Growing up in Silicon Valley, I didn't really get ST until I was walking through vast, crumbling suburbs in the midwest.

Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#23

Post by lewis500 »

closeparen wrote: post #20
ip26 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there isn't usually a direct counterargument to be found. One of ST's core points is, hey, you're deluding yourself because you're not accounting for eventual repair costs of all the infrastructure you've already got. There is either no reply- because, heads in the sand- or the reply is that all the new people who will move there and the growth of the tax base will make it affordable. Which, while not exactly…

I'll try: Strong Towns' predictions of future maintenance-debt doom are already true today of the urbanist, transit-centric alternative. If any group of Americans had sufficient motivation and resources to maintain a good public transit system, it would be New Yorkers, and they empirically don't. The MTA is deteriorating rapidly despite the best efforts of one of the richest cities in the world. That's textbook "unsu…

Strong Towns is much more focused on NOT building new roads than on building new transit. Overall, the message is that new infrastructure of all kinds can be unsustainable financially.

Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#24

Post by lewis500 »

komali2 wrote: post #13

>Collin County has traffic problems. Collin County's traffic problems are a function of its land-use pattern—which spreads development extremely thin on the landscape, and segregates uses, ensuring that people have to make lengthy motor vehicle trips to accomplish pretty much every one of their day to day needs. The offered solution: >For automobile flooding (congestion), the only way to deal with it and still have a…

Why would you have to increase taxes to let people build corner stores? They aren't proposing government-run corner stores.

Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#25

Post by closeparen »

ip26 wrote: post #22
closeparen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll try: Strong Towns' predictions of future maintenance-debt doom are already true today of the urbanist, transit-centric alternative. If any group of Americans had sufficient motivation and resources to maintain a good public transit system, it would be New Yorkers, and they empirically don't. The MTA is deteriorating rapidly despite the best efforts of one of the richest cities in the world. That's textbook "unsu…

That is a good point, public transit is not immune to ignoring future costs. However- The real doom is when people abandon the town or city because property taxes have to be hiked dramatically to pay for the bill come due. This drives people to leave, which drives taxes higher, which drives people to leave... This kills the city. New York & the train system there has big problems. But because there are so many people…

New York isn't so much fixing it as adapting to a long-term future with fewer, slower, less predictable trains. Their only hope is a multi-decade-scale IT project (positive train control) which is to say, they have no hope.

Adapting to worse mobility is also a thing you can do with roads. Drive slower over the potholes, close the lanes that are too far gone, revert to gravel if need be.

I guess you could say that dense cities are so singular and compelling, people will be willing to put up with poor mobility in exchange for the other opportunities they provide. Whereas exurbia is so abundant and generic, people will flee to an equivalent municipality with better mobility.

Strong Towns' message is more compelling for very small towns, which could be entirely walkable. Then there's no transportation infrastructure needed. People can walk on anything. But for small and mid-sized cities, it has some weaknesses.

Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#26

Post by closeparen »

lewis500 wrote: post #23
closeparen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll try: Strong Towns' predictions of future maintenance-debt doom are already true today of the urbanist, transit-centric alternative. If any group of Americans had sufficient motivation and resources to maintain a good public transit system, it would be New Yorkers, and they empirically don't. The MTA is deteriorating rapidly despite the best efforts of one of the richest cities in the world. That's textbook "unsu…

Strong Towns is much more focused on NOT building new roads than on building new transit. Overall, the message is that new infrastructure of all kinds can be unsustainable financially.

Unless your town is so small that you can get away with purely walking, you're gonna need either roads or transit.

Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#27

Post by zbyte64 »

epakai wrote: post #11

What is the counterpoint to this argument? I feel like I'm only getting half an explanation here. It's apparent from looking up Charles Marohn that he's contributing to a lot of pieces on the web to push this idea, but I don't buy that infrastructure expansion is a straight up ponzi scheme.

Found this article to be the other half of the explanation: https://granolashotgun.com/2017/07/12/an-open-letter-to-chuc...

Tldr: Zoning isn't going away, that will take educating multiple generations.

Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#28

Post by chx »

ip26 wrote: post #22
closeparen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll try: Strong Towns' predictions of future maintenance-debt doom are already true today of the urbanist, transit-centric alternative. If any group of Americans had sufficient motivation and resources to maintain a good public transit system, it would be New Yorkers, and they empirically don't. The MTA is deteriorating rapidly despite the best efforts of one of the richest cities in the world. That's textbook "unsu…

That is a good point, public transit is not immune to ignoring future costs. However- The real doom is when people abandon the town or city because property taxes have to be hiked dramatically to pay for the bill come due. This drives people to leave, which drives taxes higher, which drives people to leave... This kills the city. New York & the train system there has big problems. But because there are so many people…

> property taxes have to be hiked dramatically to pay for the bill come due. This drives people to leave

This is surprising to me, although I live in Canada and property taxes are a pittance. https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/residential.a... So that's like two thousand dollars a year for a million dollar home.

Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#29

Post by distances »

larrydag wrote: post #14

I lived in Collin County for almost 20 years. I've seen the suburban sprawl explode. I like the explanation brought forth in this article but I think its much more complex than investing locally. There are so many reasons why people choose their home, job, and transportation. In my opinion the best way to change behavior is to make an incentive for that behavior. Reduce taxes on urban areas and housing. Unregulate bu…

> giving large exemptions to big corporations.

I agree that giving tax breaks to large companies gets it backwards. Small companies, due to larger overhead, are probably employing more. Thus, the rational thing would be to tax larger companies harder, as they generate proportionally less wage taxes.

Giving tax breaks should be illegal altogether though. It's distorting the marketplace. It's perhaps beneficial for a town that gets the Amazon delivery center, so the legalization should be on a higher, perhaps federal level -- not sure if that's possible.

Re: A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

#30

Post by quotemstr »

> $12.6 billion: The amount Collin County says it needs to spend on new roads in the next 30 years.

Why should we accept that roads should be that expensive? [1] is an article that provides a good overview of the rise in construction costs that eventually stalled new highway construction projects. One can imagine this trend in costs being reversed: in particular, 1) we should be able to reduce labor requirements through relaxation of work rules, 2) streamline community and environmental review to reduce administrative costs of construction, and 3) raise revenues with direct usage fees instead of relying on increasingly precarious fuel taxation, decreasing the amount of highway funding that needs to come from the general budget.

I feel like a lot of people are too eager to declare that new roads are no longer feasible and that we should adapt society to the degraded transit infrastructure of the future, but this attitude is defeatist and will impose a burden that will fall on everyone in society. Roads are good. Transportation is good. We should be devoting our energies to making roads cheaper, not finding elaborate ways to justify inaction.

[1] https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-1993/why-california-stop...

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