Land Use, Transportation, and the Sustainable ReGon Curtis Johnson

w’dq riding along late last fall down a Maryland I parkway with a good friend from college days, a former theology student who later became a develop- er. A very successful developer.

We were going to winterize his boat on the east- em shore, and had just made a couple of stops, in one of those suburban centers where, to look for some- thing in a marine supply store, and then a hardware store, we had to get back into his car *and drive a few hundred feet, even though we could see the second store from the first one.

Heading toward Annapolis, I decided to test his contemporary theology a bit by suggesting that our near-absolute dependence on automobiles had run its cultural course; that it might be good for civilization if we walked more; that if we got out of the cars which seemed to reduce our standards of personal encounter from friendly handshakes to obscene finger-gestures, we might solve some other problems as well.

My friend wasn’t saying much, so I kept talking, rambling on about places I knew around the country where people were asking tough questions about the form of growth and development we’ve practiced over the p&t 40 years. I implied that big boxes and strip mdls and monotonous sub-division residences don’t always pay off economically these days, and besides, people were starting to talk again about whether the urban forms we choose - the way businesses and homes and streets sand schools are related - might have some influence over whether we can act as a community.

“WaA a minute,” said my friend, “you’re missing the main point of this business, or ma@e you’re just forget- ting how it works. I’ve done well as a developer beause I’m building exactly what people want. If there were a market for something different, we‘d be building it.”

He went on lecturing me about the vagaries of work- ing with municipal planning commissions, the costs of seeking variances, but most of al l the feasibility of sprawl as an enduring American development strategy “Even here in the east,” he said, “we’ve still got lots of land. It’s a big country, a prosperous, resilient economy. What’s wrong with extendmg the roads and sewers and building more schools and retad? People want new places. They’re pleased to pay for them.”

The statistics do seem to back up my friend’s argument. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, in the 20 years ending in 1990, while overall population gained by 2 1 percent, the number of auto trips went up 50 percent, number of miles dri- ven 82 percent, and the number of vehicles 128 per- cent. Cars are safer, fatalities are fewer, toxic emis- sions are trending down. Averdge vehicle occupancy slipped by 16 percent. During peak hours, cars aver- age 1.6 persons, 1.1 overall, with each person making 3.5 trips a day.

From 1980 to 1992, transit’s share of total trips dropped to 4 percent of work trips, 2 percent of all trips. Nine of every 10 persons over 16 years of age has a driver’s license and owns or leases at least one vehicle. The average urban commuter spend5 7 per- cent of daily wages on the work trip, compared with the 20 percent the tun-of-the-century worker shelled out to take the streetcar to work.

Fuel economy is up. Tam on fuel remain flat. In the spring of 1996 a debate broke out in Washingon over repealing the last 4.3 cents added in 1 9 3 , because the price at the pump had soared from 1950 to 1956 levels.

The picture one gets is a middle-aged baby- boomer executive driving to a S e r a Club meeting - alone - in his Jeep Grdnd Cherokee.

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But even after this cold bath of rraiisni, some of us still have suspicions that the fiordability, the mi- ronmental sustainability and the quality of coniniunity life in our region are tlire.atened by extending the pat- tern of post-World War 11 America into the 2 1st centu- ry. %at policies would have any effect on this pattern, and are they politically plausible?

If more communities were developed at higher densities with accessible transit, would it make any serious difference? Professional researchers, such as Reid Ewing of Florida International University, describe studies in search of a causal effect from high- er densities on transportation behavior. Using fairly simple analysis of variance to compare communities in Paim Beach County (Florida), band use effects appear not to significantly *dTect the number of trips, or the tendency to combine trips, or the much- observed modal split.

However, using more complex regression tech- niques, controlling for variablis such as household size, income, and number of workers per unit, he did find that crccessibili(y to transit made a powerful difference in travel times experienced. Accessibility and density also increased the prospects for “auto-shedding.”

But headways - or the frequency of senice - and the ratio of jobs to population in the community turn out to be the only reliable predictors of transit usage, along with the emergence of any truly serious charges for parking.

Just to give my friend the developer even more comfort, Genevieve Giuliano of the University of Southern California points to research showing the powerful appeal of “remote” living areas, where life is presumably safer and schools are believed better, which are factors that far outranking accessibility or affordability

She reminds us that Los Angela’ in-progress rail investment, pegged at $78.3 billion and counting, will raise the modal split there from 4.5 percent to a breath-taking 7 to 10 percent. Our in-place infra- structure around automotive travel is already so vast and likely to last so long, that nearly all changes come at the margin.

Even the celebrated LUTRAQ Project in the Portlml arc3 gets only 10 percent reduction in vehi- cle use and peak-hour vehicle travel from a major shift in Imd-use policy. And those effects are mostly trace- able to a proposed trmsportation deniand policy of making trmit free while charging drivers a rate pegged to Portland’s parking market.

My friend \vould admit one thing, though: ;tutonio- bile travel is subsidized every way we can think of. He conceded that car owners don’t pay for the pollution they generate, or the conse(~uences of road congestion, or emergency sen~ces, or even dl road repairs. Those costs are benignly buried in the property VLY bills of fel- low citiwns. Direct fees for car ownership in America are the world’s lowest, and parking remains free for most workers and shoppers. Smd wonder that mostly the poor f a r the decline of transit.

On the other hand, we Americans are a road-run- ning, gks-guzzling, pack of individuals who don’t see much practical limit to the land we can consume or the energy it takes to do it. For those of us with suspicions about the sustainability of all this, what would it take to make a dent in our smug, sprawl-stuck car culture?

First, ue should try some boiiesty in pricing. Whether it’s fixing the problem on a congested local interstate or extending sewer interceptors to where growih is going, let’s tell the truth about what it’s going to cost and suggest a way to get the funding from the folks who’re producing the demand. That means giv- ing toll roads a tq, mounting demonstrations of con- gestion pricing for high-demand corridors and peak times; and demanding realistic impact fees for new growth. (In some states, including Minnesota, these fees not only aren’t common, they aren’t even legal.)

While it makes obvious sense to confront our communities with the mounting costs of modern American forms of development *and transportation, it strikes few people as politically realistic. Whose cam- paign for office wants to wonder aloud if our dominant forni of development and its transportation conse- quences have degraded our environment, stretched the fabric of community to the breaking point, and created an infmstructure so vast that keeping it func- tional is producing costs people don’t want to pay?

For a half century now, we have worshipped the notion of unfettered freedom to choose the location of our homes and businesses. The role of public policy has been to see that the bill gets sent to our neighbors.

We have consistently chased individual decisions about business ,and residential locations with new infrastructure. People, acting in rational self-interest, go to where the prices are lowest for the value they get. Developers work where regulations are the fewest. Then everybody turns to the public sector. If the roads are gravel-covered, we do a quick bow and pave them. If they’re too narrow, we widen them. Someone shows up at a city council meeting and says they aren’t safe, so we add shoulders and semaphores. We replicate the police stations, fire stations, retail centers, medical clinics, and schools, even if that leaves idle capacity - sometimes not yet pdid for - behind.

At the same time, the most recent round of Clean Air Act amendments created pressure for metropoli- tan planning organiations (MPOs) to rip out of their twenty-year transportation improvement plans all the road improvements for which they don’t have pre- dictable revenues. In region after region, the emerging message, though not yet well heard, is: “The roads you see out there, folks, are the roads you’re going to have for the next generation.”

/f we want more people to buy or build near the infrastructure we’ve already built, or hate any choice about usingpublic transportation, then let’s create the rkht incentives.

For example, the Minnesota Legislature in 1995 offered a commercial industrial tax break to new busi- nesses willing to locate within a quarter mile of a tran- sit stop - a small step but in the right direction.

How about trying location-efficient mortgages for individuals, as they are doing around the revitalized Green Line transit senice in Chicago - offering a lower interest rate, or lower down payments, or high- er dowdble house payments to people buying homes close to major transit investments? This policy recog- nizes and rewards the prospects of less reliance on the car. It institutionalizes con6dence in transit.

If we were serious, other incentives spring to mind: How about cashing out hidden parking benefits, or charging the users what they actually cost? Or converting auto insurance to a pay-as-you-go system, collected at the pump? Seeing that now occasional cost show up in the 50 to 70 cent per gallon range every time you Ell up is estimated to have a 15 percent near-term and 40 per- cent long-term effect on vehicle miles traveled.

If “frequency” is the critical variable in building higher transit use, then let’s get bold enough to try it. tb federal funds for transit disappear, transit in most American regions is a terrible tale of higher prices and lower service. Let’s put a radically different proposi- tion to state legislatures: fund time-limited experi- ments, stepping up the frequency of bus service to neighborhoods in the urban core. Make it possible for anyone who’s chosen an urban lifestyle to get to work and other daily destinations without using a car. Make service so frequent that no one has to learn a sched- ule. Keep fares affordable and measure the results. It would take a lot of money to try this ... almost as much as we might save in the long run.

For incentives to be real& powerfill, more choices are mcessav.

How many business travelers would walk right by the car rental counter if there were real confidence in finding taxi service? In most American cities, taxis are a regulated scarcity, When Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith set his sights on his city’s taxi policies, he found that customers had to call or search out locations where taxis were stationed. It was actually illegal to hail a cab. No more. Now even some innovative jitney ser- vices are showing up along congested corridors.

Of course, along the dense comdors of the Atlantic seaboard, there are transit choices, but dark storm clouds hang over their fiscal future. And else- where around the countly, the climate for higher qual- ity transit has created its own clouds.

Over the pat twenty years, some cities have launched or restored some rail service, in the hopes of guiding development and reducing congestion. Results are modest so far. But in most American regions the prospect for creating new choices has

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been squandered in an endless argument over light rail. In the Mn Cities we raised this squabble to the level of a civic art form.

It is now time to forget, in all our regional dis- cussions, who was right or wrong. The realities are clear: if transit is to become a major factor in shaping a region’s growth or serving more than the poor, it will come in a planned series of smaller steps.

The first step? Build demonstration transitways along corridors where there is day-long demand for transit. Connect high-tr&c destinations. Pay for it with highway construction funds. After all, it’ll be a real road, on which vehicles with rubber tires will travel. Make it bus-exclusive. The difference: people can see what it’s like to take ‘an express trip that does- n’t compete with the traffic - without spending a for- tune to find that out. As congestion mounts on roads, transit use will likely grow. When revenues and rider- ship mdke the case, rails can be put down and new rolling stock ordered. In Pittsburgh and Otkawd, cor- ridors started out as busways -and became railways.

In most regions, it doesn’t take much searching to find some existing rail track not being fully used, and often this track is in right-of-wdys that make sense for transit. Where track is available we should borrow from recent European development of “rdil-buses,” transit cars designed to run on regular rail track!, powered by efficient diesel engines - a system that costs a tenth of new light rail construction.

In most American rqons, rail, a we’ve considered it and argued over it, is just too expensive for what it delivers. We can still have exclusive corridors for transit, though, at much lower prices, and have a powerful effect on the quality of the region’s infrastructure.

Choices are dreddy making a comeback in urban residential form, with a wave of neo-trdditiond corn- munities showing up in both re-development and new development. Don’t mistake this trend for a pasing fancy in architectural design. The driving energy is social, and it’s about rtxonnecting with c d ~ other.

fiat’s why the lots are smaller and common spaces larger. It’s the rrison for seeing sidewalks

again. It’s the logic of having civic spaces in a neigh- borhood square, sand the convenience of mixing in services and shops within footreach.

Not everybody wants a conununity with walkable destinations ,and transit accessibility, with smaller lots and larger parks, with narrow streets and shorter set- backs. But what’s the case for making that choice largely illegal, as most zoning codes manage to do? Surely it’s possible at least to remove the legal barriers to this form of community development.

While there is noticeable pressure to change the pol- icy framework that shapes our communities - city by city, town by town - it is a c u l t to imagine much progress without success in redefining what the community is.

The most exciting recasting of the question is going on at the regional level. Whether it’s the Mn Cities Metropolitan Council confronting its community with growth management strategies, or Atlanta reaching for 41 priorities developed through a multi-year consensus process, or Portland with its !@-year reach into the next century with a rqonal commitment to the shape and quality of their community, it is becoming clear that the real drama is set on a regional “citistate” stage.

Few people are interested in a “government” answer to our problems. But most people who have tried new public processes are prepared to say that “governance” is the answer. We simply must find ways to make public commitments on difficult questions across entire regions.

Issues of land use and transportation are win- dows through which to see the challenge. And in most regions, the greatest successes in regional decisions have come in the process for deciding transportation improvement priorities under the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA).

As the close of the century opens our minds to w h d the future holds for the American experiment, we can find good news in remembering how much we can do - rcrjon by region - if we have a consensus to act. Rediscovering the connections between land use and transportation and effective communities is local stuff. We don‘t have to change the world, just our community.