The Futile Search for “Achievable Alternatives”: What Urbanism Offers Instead

In my last two posts, I’ve tried to respond to a question from a correspondent.  His query was about a vexing traffic problem in Petaluma, the town we both call home, but the response applies to traffic issues in many towns across the U.S.

His question pertained to congestion on E. Washington Street and the traffic relief that the Rainier Connector was purported to offer.  (As a further bit of background, funding of the Rainier Connector was a key element in a tax measure on which Petalumans voted, and soundly defeated, last week.)

In my first post on the subject, I noted the reasons why arterials often become congested.  In the second, I explained why new road capacity is often sucked up by “induced demand”, so that new road construction often provides less traffic relief than hoped.  I offered a campground analogy in an effort to explain the induced traffic phenomenon, which many find non-intuitive.

The reader’s initial question had been about “achievable alternatives” to the Rainier Connector.  Having established, to my satisfaction and hopefully to his, that there no achievable alternatives and also that even the Rainier Connector wouldn’t have provided the promised benefits, I’ll close by noting the insights that urbanism provides on the subject.

The urbanism thinking falls into three categories: acceptance, alleviation, and avoidance.

Acceptance: Urbanism argues that traffic congestion, while perhaps unpleasant, is a sign of economic vitality and should be tolerated as such.  The only communities that solved traffic problems were those that managed to tank their economies.  (I haven’t visited either extensively, but have encountered few traffic problems in either Detroit or Stockton.)

The quote often put forth by urbanists regarding traffic congestion is “If you have an economically vital district with a traffic problem and manage to solve the traffic problem, you’ve probably killed the economic life.”

Alleviation: But even if traffic congestion can’t be solved, it can still be better managed.

In my last post, I offered a hypothetical example of a free campground on the valley floor of Yosemite.  It was my way to explain induced traffic.  The campground can now offer further insights.

If we decide that the campground is worth continuing, but wish to reduce the overcrowding without instituting a reservation or lottery system, what would be the best tool to reduce the number of campers?  Pricing.  Bump up the cost of an overnight stay until the demand drops to the desired level. 

Similarly, pricing is the obvious tool for managing road usage.  However, we don’t use pricing at all.  Urban streets are generally built with property tax revenues, so local residents pay the same amount whether they use Main Street through downtown once a month or five times a day.

There are three mechanisms generally available as pay-per-use models, vehicle mileage tax (VMT), congestion fees, and gasoline taxes.  All have worth, but all also have downsides.

VMT is a flat rate per mile traveled.  Car owners might report odometer readings once per  month, with the resulting mileage charge then assessed.  It’s a simple system to manage, but charges the same for a mile driven on a county road at 5am as for a mile in a congested downtown core at 3pm.  (Oregon has implemented a pilot VMT program.)

Congestion fees are daily fees for entering into districts with established traffic problems.  A fee of perhaps $10 is charged to all cars entering the district during business hours.  Charges are assessed from license plates collected by automated readers.  The logic behind congestion fees is valid, but the cost of administration generally matches the revenue generated, so there is little net revenue to address traffic improvements.  (I believe the City of London has implemented congestion pricing and several American urban cores, such as lower Manhattan and the financial district in San Francisco have begun considering it.)

Which brings us to the most significant tool available, gasoline taxes.  I’ve long advocated significantly higher gasoline taxes so the costs related to the use of gasoline, such as the geopolitical and environmental costs, can be covered by gasoline taxes rather than general fund dollars.  But higher gasoline taxes would also reduce driving and thereby reduce congestion.  Plus, higher gasoline taxes would encourage behavioral changes such as downtown living and transit use, which would also reduce congestion.

Like VMT, a higher gasoline tax wouldn’t be able to differentiate between miles driven on empty country roads and miles driven in downtown setting, but overall justification for higher gasoline taxes is sufficiently strong that this objection seems relatively minor.

Others have presented reasonable arguments that the “correct” cost of gasoline should be at least $10 per gallon, which would mean taxes in the range of $6 to $7 per gallon.  Admittedly, imposing a tax of that amount would cause significant economic dislocations, but a gradually increasing tax, perhaps at the rate of 25 cents per year, would allow a period of adjustment.

A higher gasoline tax is an idea that has come.  Indeed, its time came ten years ago but we’ve managed to ignore it thus far.  But we should ignore it no longer.

Avoidance: This is the point when urbanism truly shines.  Don’t like spending a good part of your day stuck in traffic?  Live in a walkable urban setting where much of your daily life can be accomplished on foot or on bike and where transit is readily available for longer outings.  Living in an urban setting doesn’t necessarily mean living without a car, but it might mean putting one’s car in a garage and not thinking about it for a week or more.

Admittedly, there are still too few urban residences where this kind of life can be lived.  And the ones that do exist are often expensive.  But following the alleviation steps above can begin to remedy those deficiencies.  Indeed, that’s the central thrust of urbanism.

Okay, this subject has been well and fully covered.  Next up, I’ll return to the topic of incrementalism versus vision, offering a few illustrative examples.  And then I’ll summarize the successful Urban Chat meeting on the re-use of the Sonoma Marin Fairgrounds.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

The Futile Search for “Achievable Alternatives”: Why the Apparent Solution Fails

In my last post, I introduced a question from a correspondent about “achievable alternatives” for traffic congestion relief.  The particular question pertained to the congested E. Washington Street in Petaluma and the proposed Rainier Connector that many believe would provide relief, but the question could apply to overloaded arterials everywhere.

In the earlier post, I explained how E. Washington Street became congested.   I also presented the Rainier Connector as the apparent solution in the minds of many.  Today, I’ll try to offer an explanation on why that conventional wisdom is wrong.  In my next post, I’ll offer the alternative ways of thinking about traffic that are provided by urbanism.

The Problem with the Proposed Solution:  The reason that the Rainier Connector likely won’t provide significant traffic relief is induced traffic.  It’s a concept that I’ve noted before, but today I’ll try to provide a deeper and more complete explanation.

Economists have a well-evolved vocabulary for many of the concepts I’ll try to explain below.  But I’m not an economist and would likely trip over my word choices if I pretended to be one.  So I’ll write in my own lay words.  And if the economists among the readers want to recast my arguments into the economist dictionary, please do so.

The root of traffic congestion, and the resulting problem of induced traffic, is related to how public agencies set, or don’t set, prices on scarce resources.

In the private world, the free market system with its rules of supply and demand usually governs.  Given tee times to fill at a top-rated golf course, the green fees are set high.  If surplus demand still remains, the green fees are bumped even higher until the demand for tee times eventually matches the number of tee times available.  Given rooms to fill at a nice hotel, the same rules apply.  Diamonds to sell?  Same rules.  Adjust the price until supply and demand meet.

The supply and demand system is marvelously elegant and intuitive.  And for the most part, it works well.  Some may not like the answers that pop out, but the market usually tends toward logical and rational.

But we, as represented by our various levels of government, typically have an aversion to the applying the same market rules to public resources.  We don’t want the best camping places going to millionaires driving tricked out recreational vehicles.  And we don’t want to dole out hunting permits only to the well-heeled.

So instead, we devise a range of non-price systems to allocate scarce resources.  Have a campground that’s usually full all summer?  Institute a policy that requires advance reservations on a first-come, first-served basis.  Managing a trail that has excess demand?  Devise a lottery for hiking permits.  Afraid that unfettered fishing will exhaust a stream?  Implement rules like catch-and-release, closed seasons, and catch limits to reduce pressure on the fishery.

But there are also public resources to which we don’t choose to apply significant impediments.  At the top of that list is street capacity.  Given that most people already have cars and drivers licenses, the only barriers to driving extra miles, whether on open country roads or congested downtown streets, is the incremental vehicle wear-and-tear and the cost of gasoline, neither of which is a significant barrier.

To understand the implications of this absence of obstacles to driving, let’s try a thought experiment.

Presumably all are familiar with the scenic wonders of Yosemite National Park.  Access to Yosemite is well-regulated by entrance fees, high cost hotel rooms, advance registration campgrounds, and hiking trail lotteries.

But imagine if Yosemite management decided that the barriers to park use were too high.  To allow more folks to partake of the park, they clear a meadow on the valley floor, throw a fence around it, and open it to unlimited camping use.  No reservations, no fees, no designated camp sites.  Just an open gate.  People could pitch tents wherever they wished, with no standards about how far they needed to be from other tents.  (To be clear, I’m not suggesting this idea.  I’m only offering it for thought purposes.)

What would happen?  Obviously, the campground would fill quickly and campers would soon be stepping on each other’s toes.  Some campers would give up and go home, deciding that a vista of Half Dome wasn’t worth being unable to warm one’s hands at one’s campfire without burning one’s backside on a neighbor’s campfire.  But plenty of campers with a high tolerance for crowding would remain.

Now let’s say that Yosemite management, looking at the “success” of the new campground, decided that the concept was valid, but that the overcrowding had become too burdensome.  To allow more spacing between tents, they decide to open a second campground with the same set of rules, arguing that the density of campsites will thereby be halved.

But that’s not what would happen.  Remember the campers who went away, turned off by the lack of space between tents?  They’d come back, happy to camp with even a little more space.  The congestion in the second campground would quickly rise to nearly the same level as the first campground.

Obviously, there would some number of campgrounds that would satisfy the demand for cheap, no-frills Yosemite experiences, but the entire valley floor might be consumed before that point is reached.

And that’s exactly what happens with congested city arterials.  Some may argue that traffic congestion would disappear with new road capacity, but the reality is that campers, I mean drivers, who had previously deferred trips would return to congest the new roadway.

Nor is this a hypothetical supposition.  Study after study shows that a large chunk of new roadway capacity is consumed on the day it opens, with the remainder consumed in next few years, even in the absence of new development.

This finding is why the State of California is implementing new rules to judge environmental impacts based on traffic generation, not congestion.  Unwilling to await the new state rules, the City of Pasadena implemented their own rules to the same end.

(Side note: When the Petaluma Planning Commission reviewed the Draft Environment Impact Report for the Rainier Connector, some Commissioners noted the surprisingly small congestion relief benefits projected as a result of the new road.  But under the pending revised California rules, which measure traffic generation in place of congestion relief, the balance would make the outlook even worse.  Instead of a minor benefit, the traffic impacts of Rainier Connector would be judged a negative.)

So when the correspondent asked about “achievable alternatives”, his underlying supposition was flawed.  Not only are there no achievable alternatives, but even the preferred solution of the Rainier Connector wouldn’t provide the promised benefits.  Induced traffic undermines any attempt to reduce traffic congestion by building new roads.

Urbanism can’t solve the problem of induced capacity, but it can offer a different land-use paradigm and set of tools that would make traffic congestion less of a daily problem.  The paradigm and those tools will be covered in my next post.

Schedule Reminder

The meeting of Petaluma Urban Chat to take a renewed look at the Sonoma Marin Fairgrounds is rapidly approaching.  It’ll be Tuesday, November 11.  To accommodate the anticipated larger than normal attendance, the meeting has been moved to Taps at 54 E. Washington Street in the River Plaza shopping center.  We’ll convene at 5:30 and likely conclude shortly after 7:00.  Please be on time because the evening is expected to be full.

Some have asked about a recap of earlier meetings.  The topic of the fairgrounds was originally broached back in July.  As the early meetings progressed, two updates were provided here and here, and then a couple of points required clarification.  The coming meeting won’t necessarily build on the earlier meetings, but familiarity with the previous conversations may be useful.

I look forward to a successful meeting and to chatting with many of you.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

The Futile Search for “Achievable Alternatives”: Defining the Problem

I recently attended a meeting of North Bay writers talking about the business of writing.  Among folks with filmed screenplays and published novels, I felt presumptuous calling myself a writer based on this modest blog, but hoped that, if I can kept my ears open, I might learn something.

I was correct.  Among other insights from the evening, a novelist suggested that I should remain continually aware of barriers to new readers.  Readers who don’t have a grasp on the rudiments of urbanism might not glean as much from a blog post, so might be less likely to become regular readers.

Her comment was appreciated.  Within the constraints of relatively short blog posts, I think I do reasonably well at staying in touch with the fundamentals of urbanism, but it would be impossible to begin each blog post with a complete recap of urbanist principles.  Therefore, I’ll begin 2015 with a series of posts laying out the urbanist philosophy as perceived and expounded by me.  My hope will be to attract new readers whose New Year’s Resolutions included greater community involvement.

Meanwhile, the exercise will also be good for me because my grasp of urbanism has deepened, broadened, and evolved since I began this blog.  It’ll be helpful for me to recheck and to solidify the fundamentals of my own understanding.

So if you have friends who have been interested in this blog, but have been unsure where to start, tell them to mark January 5th on their calendars.  On that day, I’ll begin a recap that will hopefully provide benefits to all.

But even while acknowledging that some potential readers might need a remedial symposium on the fundamentals of urbanism, I felt comfortable that my current readers had a good grasp on the principles and the logic of urbanism.

It’s possible I was wrong.

In an email exchange about Measure Q and the proposed Rainier Connector in Petaluma, a reader advised me that traffic congestion was a continuing concern to him and that he was likely to support the Rainier Connector “in the absence of a good achievable alternative”. 

The reader was someone with whom I’ve chatted many times, both electronically and face-to-face, so his position surprised me.  And to the extent it reflected a misunderstanding of the nature of traffic congestion, it was a rebuke to me and my apparent inability to correctly convey the pertinent information.

Accordingly, I’ll use the Rainier Connector as an example to present urbanist thought on traffic congestion.  It’s a bigger topic than I want to cover in a single day, so today I’ll define the problem as created by town planning and as generally understood by the public and then identify the generally perceived “solution”.  In my next post, I’ll explain why the solution doesn’t work and what urbanism offers instead.

The Problem: Like most cities that grew in the years after World War II, the street system of Petaluma is largely organized in a hierarchical form, with arterials at the top and local streets and alley at the bottom.  The expectation is that drivers will use local streets to access collectors and then arterials which they’ll use to reach their general destination, at which point they’ll return to local streets for the final distance.

(In comparison, consider older cities such as San Francisco or New York.  A street hierarchy still exists, but the extent of the differentiation is reduced.  Market Street is still a major arterial, but Mission, Folsom, and Howard offer alternative routes that more hierarchical towns don’t.)

When a town such as Petaluma is divided by a river or another geographical feature, traffic is further concentrated on arterials.  The costs of bridges or tunnels allow fewer crossings, forcing all traffic to the limited crossings available.  That concentration becomes troublesome as population growth, increased affluence, and land use decisions result in increased traffic.

Which brings us back to Petaluma.  Many destinations are clustered in two areas, the downtown and the development around the freeway.  E. Washington Street, which crosses over the Petaluma River, is the most direct route between the two, so is the logically preferred route for many.

There are three alternatives to E. Washington Street that also cross the river.  However, Corona Street is too far north for many drivers, Lakeville Street is oddly skewed across the city grid and doesn’t meet the needs of many drivers, and D Street is well located, but heads into a limited capacity residential neighborhood east of the river.

So, E. Washington Street remains the preferred route for many.  And, as traffic grew over the years, many became convinced that the street was impossibly congested.

(To be fair, the congestion can be a matter of perspective.  The traffic consultant on the Petaluma Station Area study, having heard horror stories about E. Washington, spent time studying it.  He reported back that he found the congestion far less than reported.  Instead, he noted that the development pattern along the street is ugly and that drivers are more frustrated by congestion when their surroundings are unappealing, so over-report congestion.  He thought that E Washington was an aesthetic problem as much as a traffic problem.  I suspect there is at least some truth in his comments, although I doubt that public perception was swayed by his argument.)

So that brings us to today.  E. Washington Street is perceived as congested and the existing alternatives don’t provide much relief.

The Solution: The most generally understood solution is the Rainier Connector, a new street that would cross the Petaluma River between E. Washington and Corona and connect into the existing street grid on both ends.  (The Caulfield Extension and Bridge might actually be more effective than Rainier, but hasn’t grabbed the public attention.)

The Rainier vision is appealing, but the likely practical effect is less promising.  The reasons for the shortfall are complex, but I’ve already taken too much of your attention today.  I’ll defer the discussion to my next post.

And be sure to remember January 5.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)