Sprawl

Background

• Pittsburgh leads the nation in sprawl. (Pgh City Paper from May 2006)

Doing the Math on Sprawl

Source: Writer: MELISSA DROFTICA of Pittsburgh City Paper from May, 2006

Academics from Toronto and London have finally proven scientifically what visitors to Cranberry have long suspected: Pittsburgh tops the nation in sprawl. They presented their findings in the May issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics in a paper called “Causes of Sprawl: A Portrait from Space.”

The authors looked at aerial photos and satellite data and divided the continental United States into 8.7 billion 30-meter-square data cells. They calculated how much open space surrounded each house in each cell to determine the level of sprawl — and in the process, found that Pittsburgh was the most spread out.

Explains study co-author Matthew Turner of the University of Toronto, Pittsburgh’s perfect storm of hilly geography and lots of available groundwater led people to spread out far and wide, developing outside the city while leaving the city proper to decay. Hillsides don’t lend themselves to building: The study found that increases in hilliness equal an increase in sprawl, and that most of Pittsburgh is hillier than most other places. Available ground water lets people dig wells, a relatively inexpensive, one-time expense, as opposed to laying pipe long distances and paying to bring in municipal water.

Turner says that the debate about sprawl has been raging for years, but without any hard-and-fast data. He was inspired to attempt to quantify sprawl after a frustrating battle trying to cross six lanes of highway traffic on foot: He was trying to get to a sandwich shop across from a hotel he was staying at in Arkansas years ago.

“People talk in hysterical language about McMansions and Wal-Mart,” Turner says. “It doesn’t lend itself to a constructive policy debate.”

The data in the study, he says, can allow new debates about land use and urban planning.

“People have been eager to rush to policy prescriptions without a very good understanding of the underlying phenomena,” says Turner. “We wanted to try to put the policy discussion on sounder footing.” The study doesn’t answer the question of whether sprawl is hurtful, but it does allow the debate to be framed differently — other data, like road use or infrastructure costs, can be examined relative to sprawl.

Turner is careful not to criticize sprawl outright.

“There’s a lot of different kinds of people out there, people who want to live in McMansions and drive to work, and people who want to live in condos and walk to work,” he says. “Nobody’s right. People are allowed to want different things.”

Court Gould, director of Sustainable Pittsburgh, a public-policy advocacy group, says the study results don’t surprise him. While sprawl is not inherently bad, he allows, it is bad for Pittsburgh. In a city with population growth, suburban flight doesn’t harm the urban hub. But Pittsburgh’s population loss means that people who make for the great sprawling yonder aren’t being replaced in the city center, leading to blight and disuse.

Also, he says, skyrocketing fuel costs are leading more and more people to use public transportation, and not every far-flung suburb can be served by transit.

Concludes Gould: “We’re growing on the fringe and hollowing out the core.”

• Download the paper and view maps

• Sprawl-planks from Mark Rauterkus

Ongoing seasonal battles about transit.

• Understanding: It's broke. Plus, it's broken. My goal is to fix it. Others might have the goal that says fund it. Mine, however, is to fix it.

A funding fix does not equate to a transit and transportation fix.

Their proposals do not address the underlying problems with transit. Their proposals remove the handle of funding, reduce accountability and could make matters worse.

More money won't fix our situations.

• PAT's non-vehicular maintenance costs are double comparable systems elsewhere.
• PAT new infrastructure increases operating costs.

Neglect:

• The public hasn't monitored PAT's management, decision making, spending nor accounting practices.
• PAT has rejecting a citizen's request for public comment. PAT's General Counsel, Dennis L. Veraldi, determined PAT is exempt from Sunshine Laws. PAT has blocked serious engagment with the public.

• Passing guaranteed funding without significant structural changes would enable PAT to drop below the legislature's radar where it could more easily restrict opportunities for public oversight.

• Accountability cannot be divorced from funding considerations.
• failed transportation policies,
• undue influence of real estate speculators,
• agency mismanagement, and the debates they raise,
• accountability
• effective funding
• tested solutions
• corruption (Rick Earl, TV reporter investigations: $2,000 Christmas decorations, $93,000 at Heinz field.)

Stopping waste of public money

• Airport Busway

Address the issue of accountability

San Diego has the most efficient and effective light rail transit in the United States, because of accountability.

Structural Accountability:

Management of rail operations is different than for buses.

PAT is a bus company. No matter what we want and dream, PAT will always be a bus company. The fix is a separate, independent rail company.

Metropolitan Transit

The Metro Transit Board directs locations, times, charges and construction. The rest is for the bus and rail to manage their own operations independent of one another, each doing what it does best.

Eliminate the inherent problems of competition while still obtaining competitively induced efficiencies.

Historic

Many states have state constitutional provisions to restricted gasoline tax income for highway spending, not public transit.

Governor Rendell wanted to pursue a source of revenue from a larger deed transfer tax.Â

Transit dependent communities are poorer

Increasing deed transfer taxes are the wrong way.

Hindering real estate sales undermines property values and hurts distressed urban neighborhoods more than having no new transit funding.

Highly subsidizing transit, even to the point of making it free, might keep their systems going, but few new people would ride and most drivers wouldn't pay any attention;

Subsidies flush tax moneys down a drain.Â

A heavy tax on driving could get people out of their cars. But, if the money raised couldn't be spent on transit, what would they ride? A moderate tax on driving that uses the incomes to fund higher quality transit alleviates some congestion while increasing transit ridership without taxing or subsidizing either excessively.

Transit funding includes operations and capital.

California extend the state's sales tax to cover gasoline. The revenue raised in urban counties was dedicated entirely to funding transit operations, but, to get the necessary votes, the small suburban and rural counties were allowed to also use their new proceeds for roads (currently, though, most rural collections are used for buses).

It has proven effective since 1971, presently providing over one billion dollars annually to operate transit in California.

The main argument against using the gas tax for transit was that vehicle owners cover their own operating costs; the gas tax was for things such as highways, bridges, etc. Mills sidestepped the issue, obtaining passage of an amendment to allow the use of gas tax revenues for transit infrastructure (bridges, track, etc.) but not for transit operations.

Structurally increased accountability must accompany dedicated funding.

Rail is a minor part of PAT's operations.

Rail transit operations can be placed under a new, independent, regional rail agency which would be able to extend higher quality, more efficient rail transit throughout the region.Â

Bid it:

The natural choice to coordinate transit operations and for planning construction of all new transit infrastructure is the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC).

as the 10 county region's official metropolitan planning organization, its primary purpose is already regional transportation planning. The legislation needed for such restructuring should be crafted to also enable application of the model elsewhere (including possibly to SEPTA in the Philadelphia region), offering the benefits of regional rail and improved transit throughout the state.

With the above's potential for enhancing accountability, the legislature would be in an excellent position to extend the retail sales tax to gasoline sales. As in the state of California, the revenue raised in Pennsylvania's metropolitan regions would need to be dedicated exclusively to transit operations while the less populous rural counties could be allowed to use their proceeds also for roads.

By providing dedicated funding, increased accountability, and the potential for spreading the benefits of rail transit to more of the state, such a package should garner the widest possible support. It may require more legislative effort, but anything less is to be stampeded into a bad solution.

Links

Blogs

• http://deadtreeblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/for-some-time-ive-been-meaning-to-write.html#links from Jonathan Potts on a book review of a sprawl book from April 2007

Smart Growth

Blogs

• http://antirust.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/notes_on_smart_.html We're smart, you're not. From Antirust blog about Baltimore