More Evidence For A Shift Away From Driving
I’ve long contended that one of the driving forces behind HSR criticism and denial is a mentality among these older folks that nobody will ever ride trains, that California will be a decentralized car-dependent society forever. Sure, this is nothing more than an assumption that the late 20th century is the way things always will be, and as any historian will tell you, the only constant in human society is change. There’s no reason whatsoever to believe that California will inherently remain dependent on the automobile and reject passenger rail.
And as I’ve pointed out before, this shift is already occurring. Younger Americans are already driving less and have lower rates of car ownership than previous generations. Because digital connectivity matters more to younger folks than anything else, and because driving is incompatible with that digital connectivity, the car has gone from being a symbol of freedom to an albatross.
And young people are increasingly rejecting it. A new study from Toronto shows that young people “want iPhones, not cars”:
There is also growing research that younger generations do not relate to the automobile as enabling “freedom.” Instead, their electronic and social media devices–whether a smart phone, small lap top computer, music player, etc.–provide an alternate means for self expression and being free to do what they want. In the United States, kilometers driven by 18-34 year olds is declining, and this is likely the case in Canada as well (Neff, 2010). Younger generations seem to have less interest in automotive use, making apartment living in dense, walkable and transit-oriented urban areas a more natural fit for their lifestyles.
Similarly, the study found that young people are preferring renting to homeownership – just as the shift away from driving is cause for huge concern among car companies (who have provided the research I’ve been citing), the shift away from homebuying is causing huge concern among realtors, who commissioned this particular study:
Unlike in a consumer-goods fueled economy, in the growing “experience economy” people spend their time and money on experiences. Twenty years ago only the wealthy had regular spa treatments, manicures, and enjoyed frequent fine-dining. Today, individuals of much more modest incomes frequent such places. Other experiences in demand from nearly all income groups range from recreation–such as cycling, skiing, hiking–to travel to simply the daily indulgence of a Starbucks coffee.
I can certainly vouch for this. I’m 31 and my wife is 30. We live in an apartment in Monterey and have no desire whatsoever to buy a house (or a condo). We’re much happier paying affordable rent so that we have more money on experiences, whether it’s a trip to Hawaii, my wife’s knitting habit, or my frequent blogging and HSR activism. Our friends in Seattle and San Francisco share these values – even though they had plenty of opportunity to buy during the bubble and can buy a house today, they’re choosing not to. The only folks we know who bought a house did so about 2 blocks from the new Seattle light rail line, and it was the proximity to the light rail that made them choose it.
This is all part of a far greater shift in habits that is currently taking place in this country. Whereas those who came into adulthood in the 20th century defined “success” as working their asses off to afford a detached single-family home in a leafy semi-rural suburb, people of my generation define “success” as financial security and a work-life balance that enables people to have fulfilling jobs amidst a community that provides experiences and resources and opportunities outside of work.
A long commute in a car from the office to a suburban home no longer appeals to many Millennials. Sure, it appeals to some, but even then they’re running into the incompatibility between their suburban commutes and their digital lifestyles.
This matters a great deal for high speed rail. We keep hearing that nobody will ever willingly board a bullet train when they can drive instead. Already – right now, in 2010 – I believe that most Californians would indeed choose the train, and the 2005 ridership surveys suggest this is true. But by 2020, with higher gas prices and even more deeply integrated digital connectivity with social and cultural life, taking a long car trip will be seen as a huge inconvenience to most people my age. It already is for me.
To believe that HSR ridership will be low, you have to believe that these trends that car companies and realtors are charting (and they show this out of fear for their livelihoods) are ephemeral or nonexistent. You have to deny these facts, just as HSR deniers refuse to admit the truth of rising oil prices, congested freeways, or the fact that every HSR system in the world has strong ridership.
We know what the future looks like. It isn’t going to look like the late 20th century. California has an opportunity to lead the nation in developing the infrastructure of the 21st century. Let’s not allow those who deny reality to stop us from embracing change.
To all naysayers: The Cost of Highways:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd8rT7iZgAk
D. P. Lubic Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 4:41 am
This comes back to an argument I’ve been making for years: the road system and gasoline are badly underpriced, or “subsidized.” And that subsidy includes deferred maintenance.
thatbruce Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 2:47 pm
vs (most) railroads, where the risk of not performing required renewal/maintenance far outweighs the short-term gain of deferring such long-term.
Other useful stuff:
Direct link to the mentioned study in this post.
Direct link to the referenced Neff article.
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Though private railways *HAVE* been known to engage in massive bouts of deferred maintenance.
Government-owned railways have *NOT* done the same thing. This is actually the pragmatic reason why I support government ownership of track, in general.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:05 pm
What are you talking about? The government-owned unified New York City Subway engaged in deferred maintenance from unification until the system’s near collapse in the 1970s.
I don’t know how often he rides trains but we are practically praying that one of these “older folks” becomes governor.
rafael Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:31 am
Jerry Brown was a driving force behind an earlier attempt to deliver High Speed Rail in California, specifically a shinkansen link between LA and San Diego in the I-5 corridor. There’s no reason to believe he’s soured on HSR, though not on that corridor. He also won’t repeat the mistake of trying to waive environmental review in an effort to attract private funding.
That said, I do hope he wins and then institutes some changes in how the project is managed. In particular, it has become patently obvious that Gov. Schwarzenegger’s insistence on keeping CHSRA staff as small as possible via outsourcing is penny wise and pound foolish. With so few qualified planners and engineers on its own payroll, the CHSRA board is ill-equipped to push back when PBQD proposes solutions that benefit the private planning/construction industry at the expense of transportation value per taxpayer dollar.
This includes the “stake in the ground” that HSR absolutely, positively must have dedicated tracks in the SF peninsula and in the LOSSAN corridor, blithe acceptance of incompatible PTC technology and platform heights, a bi-level station and an iconic bridge in San Jose and now, palatial station architecture even for secondary stops. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, it serves merely to illustrate that allowing PBQD to put the cart (pouring concrete) before the horse (crafting efficient integrated timetables) is a really bad idea. Switching to another vendor, even if it were possible, would probably make little difference: those qualified to do the work all have construction divisions or close ties to the construction industry, so they all have a vested interest in maximizing the amount of concrete poured, earth moved etc. Only civil servants or alternatively, employees of a small state-owned corporation, could be relied on to represent taxpayer interests during the critical project-level planning phase.
It doesn’t help at all that CHSRA is to some extent in competition with Caltrans’ Division of Rail (Amtrak California) as well as bureaucrats running regional lines with county-level funding. Moreover, the state of California still hasn’t secured a small team of FRA and CPUC regulators, based in Sacramento and dedicated to eliminating antiquated hurdles to a modern passenger rail service system (both HSR and regional). Funding such a team would be peanuts compared to the huge cost of working within a regulatory framework that is heavily skewed in favor of freight rail interests.
Ted Crocker Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 9:00 am
“He also won’t repeat the mistake of trying to waive environmental review in an effort to attract private funding.”
I hope you’re right, but wondering why you think this? He’s got the unions to satisfy and the clock is ticking. Just as Jerry did on his way out of the governor’s office in the early ’80′s, Arnie has been trying to slide though CEQA exemption for this project, so why would Jerry be any different?
rafael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 1:10 pm
It’s legal to waive CEQA for individual railroad grade separation projects that are considered essential for traffic/pedestrian safety, e.g. in the wake of a horrific accident. However, to do so to force the pace of a much larger rail upgrade project is almost certainly not legal.
That’s why the folks down in Orange County (San Clemente area) and San Diego County (Del Mar area) were able to successfully challenge the waiver that the private financiers of the shinkansen project had been promised. Losing that lawsuit was a key reason why the whole idea was abandoned. Any court worth its salt would also rule against moves to circumvent CEQA in the context the present HSR project.
While there’s no doubt both Jerry Brown and the construction industry are mustard-keen on creating jobs, they both know that any shortcut on the environmental review could very easily jeopardize the entire project. That still leaves some wiggle room on exactly what constitutes sufficient opportunity for public input (i.e. complaints) and an adequate response to it. CEQA requires only that CHSRA formally responds to comments made during the designated periods, but in the real world bond appropriations must be made by state politicians who want to be re-elected. Inevitably, there are and will continue to be disagreements on stuff like trenches/tunnels and if/how the cost difference could be funded. CEQA was intended as a legal check and balance on public planning bodies, but it has (almost) morphed into an instrument of blackmail against them, drawing out the permitting process and massively increasing both the construction and the opportunity costs of infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, the lawyers clock up oodles of billable hours.
I can totally vouch for this. Who wants to waste their time driving or stuck on a crowded plane when you could be reading online articles on a comfortable train?
On the flip side, though, I don’t want to see excessive amounts of money being built on unnecessarily gigantic stations. My generation has to pay back these loans, you know!
“I can certainly vouch for this. I’m 31 and my wife is 30. We live in an apartment in Monterey and have no desire whatsoever to buy a house (or a condo). We’re much happier paying affordable rent so that we have more money on experiences,”
I’m 26 and I feel the same way. This idea that home ownership is somehow inherently good is rubbish.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 4:50 am
This wasn’t always so. One of the assumptions about home ownership was that the owner would have a greater stake in the property and take better care of it than renters. Much of this may still be true; even today, I can almost always spot a rental property vs. an owner-occupied home by this. Unfortunately, as noted, the economic picture has changed, and the clock is starting to run backward–and as much as I would like to see some good old things come back, I’m not sure this is one of them.
Some of those streetcar suburbs were pretty nice, though. . .I grew up in one, although the trolleys had been gone in that section since 1938. Wished we had them back, and passenger trains stopping at the local suburban station, too, even 45 years ago, when I was 10 years old. The place seemed incomplete without them. This was in Wheeling, W.Va., a (now former) industrial city in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, Pa.
Ted Crocker Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 9:16 am
“I can almost always spot a rental property vs. an owner-occupied home by this. ”
I concur. Pride of ownership is mucher greater in R-1 neighborhoods than in R-2 and up. And this is also one of the benefits of Prop 13 in that it encourages stability within neighborhoods. I’m 48, been in my home 18 years, do all my own work on the house, know all of my neighbors on my street and surrounding streets, and this is probably one of the big reasons why I feel so protective of my community – I have a vested interest in it. I think this is an appreciation you gain with age and part of the reason there may be such a divide on the topic of how HSR should be built. I appreciate the value of older homes and established neighborhoods. Both are irreplaceable. Unfortunately, because of the computer age and the cheap cost of goods from China, today’s youth have grown up in a throw-away society where everything is replaced or disposable and nothing fixed. Quality is very hard to come by and there are few true professionals in the trades. Again, these are things that seem to be valued much more as one grows older. Again, I think this is at the source of alot of our arguments over how HSR should be approached.
Spokker Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 10:01 am
We have not trashed our apartment. Leases are a responsibility as well.
Peter Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 10:02 am
VERY true. Our apartment is still in very nice condition, even after living in it for the last 3 years with two dogs.
Marcus Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 10:44 am
It’s not that tenants trash their apartments, the issues are typically over long term maintenance, which tenants don’t have an obligation to perform and landlords often defer.
As an example, there’s a couple things that need work in my apartment. There’s some damaged acoustical tiles in the ceiling of the foyer and some peeling paint in the back staircase. If I owned the place I would have fixed both of these years ago. (I actually damaged the tiles when I moved in, my landlord told me not to worry about it.) It’s not that I have an irresponsible landlord, he repainted the exterior of the house and build us a new deck, both of which needed to be done, but he doesn’t live here, so his priorities are things that might damage the long term value of his property. Many landlords, especially in areas where property values are lower, won’t even do that and will let the buildings they own deteriorate.
Spokker Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 11:27 am
Our landlord, which is really just a giant faceless corporation, encourages us to report every litttle thing, from lightbulbs to clogs to carpet stains.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 10:29 am
Ted, the age of subsidized home ownership and Prop 13 was exactly the age of low-quality suburban prefab houses. The long-lasting buildings are usually brick apartment buildings from the pre-New Deal era.
Ted Crocker Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 8:17 pm
True. Someone was willing to build cheap and dirty, rather than consider the long term benefits.
jonah Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 11:59 am
^^^ Right… and your generation didn’t get rich inventing this “throw away” culture that you so lament ,Ted?
This is exactly the attitude that we 20/30 somethings have come to expect from the boomers and will have to fight for the rest of our (your) lives, “we were here first, we got ours, go suck an egg”
PS. my folks have owned a home half a mile from the tracks in Menlo Park for 40 years and fully support this project. If you ask anyone in our neighborhood, the far greater threat to the livability of the peninsula are the SUV driving folks who move-in and tear down all of the older homes to build their enormous ugly McMansions.
And if you track-side folks want to whine about sharing a fence with a public agency ill-attentive to your complaints, try sharing a fence with a VA hospital.
Ted Crocker Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Jonah, You seem to be forgetting that it was the baby boomers that also created the green movement. I used to proudly carry a green “Ecology” lunch box to elementary school. I’m with you on the McMansion and SUV and the VA thing and the fact that the baby boomers are responsible for that, but I hate it and am trying to change that here in my approach to HSR.
Your generation is no better. I find many of the younger generations look at me like I’m crazy when I say things like, I want to rebuild my starter, not replace it. Or, I’ll pay for parts for my car to keep it going rather than shell out big $$ for a new one with GPS and video. I don’t see 20/30-somethings doing any more than any other generation to change this. You can’t blame everything on Mom and Dad forever. Case in point, here you are pushing so hard for HSR that you are willing to accept the HSRA’s insensitive plan just to get it built. This perpetuates the throw-away problem because, as the history of (pre-CEQA) elevated highways tells us again and again, it will end up being redone down the road because it didn’t belong in the first place, and this is a huge waste of GHG’s and natural resources. Building it right the first time (pay attention to the Belgium system), even though it costs a bit more up front, saves money and resources over the long haul, while preserving communities.
BTW. I’m not clear on what my “attitude” is exactly that upsets you. Is there some sense of entitlement that you are projecting onto me? Just because I own a home you seem to think it was easy. I’m a machinist and a manufacturing engineer. They don’t make a lot of money in case you haven’t heard. There were many, many years when it was touch and go trying to hang on to my 1200 sq ft 1938 2bd/1ba home. My teenage son and daughter were sharing a room until just recently. I drive a 12 year old minivan with 175K miles. Do I want to protect what I worked hard for? You bet! Do I feel like I earned it. You bet! And you will have to, too, the same as every other generation. Let’s hope you make your millions on green technology.
PS. I’d love to have a conversation with your parents to see how much they really understand.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 11:33 am
Baby boomers did not create the modern green movement. They were teenagers when it started.
The problem is not that you want to “protect what you worked hard for.” It’s that you want the government to keep subsidizing what you have. You got to write off your mortgage, not pay taxes on the capital gains, and live in an area unaffordable to anyone who’s different from you. You get to pay low property taxes just because you moved in earlier. I don’t care how hard you think you work; people on welfare work harder, and still get less from the government than you have.
Ted Crocker Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 4:45 pm
You seem to think that when I bought my house it’s price was not at the top of the market and when I bought my house I was not paying the highest property taxes? According to your argument, everyone now should get to skip past that part of the process. You sound like the one that wants to be subsidized.
If you want to get technical about conservation and being green, it has almost always existed with every generation to some degree, but the modern environmental movement – recycling, no nukes, EPA, etc. – started in the late 1960′s and blossomed in the 1970′s. Baby boomers were born starting post WWII (1945). Sure older folks worked on it, but it got the big push from the youth of that era (the ones who protested), and they were the baby boomers.
Speaking again of post-baby boomers who think they can get something for nothing (in general terms, of course), I recall the dot.Com boom when 101 was clogged with 20 year olds driving brand new BMWs who couldn’t be bothered to use their blinkers because they thought their S&^* didn’t stink. We all know where that ended up. Being older, wiser, and ethical, I saw right through the smoke and mirrors of that time, and as a result I sleep well at night knowing I did not suck some investors dry without earning it.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:47 pm
It doesn’t matter what the price of your house was when you bought it relative to other houses; what matters is the price today versus the price then. Unless you live in one of the few places where property values haven’t increased, you’re paying a very low property tax, despite sitting on a huge asset.
Silent Spring was published in 1962, at which time the oldest boomers were still teenagers. The people who protested early tended to be college students in the early and mid-1960s, i.e. late Silents and very early Boomers. Most Boomers just piggybacked on it when it was considered safe to protest.
The .com boom was pan-generational. A lot of Xers tried to become entrepreneurs and just sucked other people’s money; so did a lot of Boomers. A lot of Xers tried to become top software engineers and became unemployed; so did a lot of Boomers. Millennials were still in school when the bubble collapsed.
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:05 pm
“Unless you live in one of the few places where property values haven’t increased, you’re paying a very low property tax, despite sitting on a huge asset.”
You’re referring to California, of course; other states don’t have that Prop 13 bullshit.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:39 pm
It’s that you want the government to keep subsidizing what you have. You got to write off your mortgage, not pay taxes on the capital gains,
Those concepts have been around for much longer than baby boomers. Saint Ronnie of Reagan wasn’t elected by boomers, some weren’t even old enough to vote in 1980. All of that was enacted by the Greatest Generation….
Alon Levy Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 9:24 pm
I know, I know. And as I said in another comment in this thread, many of those tax subsidies were not intentionally put there, but instead evolved from unrelated legislation. For example, all interest income was tax-exempt until the explosion of credit cards. It’s Reagan who made sure that when the rules were rewritten the mortgage exemption remained, yes.
That said, Reagan was quite popular among the young. (And yes, I’m well aware that Prop 13 was passed by people who were old at the time – Jarvis was an early Greatest. But the benefit cascaded down to Silents and Boomers, who could buy before the real estate booms.) Under-30 voters only started trending more Democratic under Clinton.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Interest income was always taxed and still is. That’s why the bank sends you a 1099 for the $1/52 your checking account earned last year. Before the tax hikes of the Reagan era interest you paid was deductible…. since it was income to whoever was receiving it. Way back then it was a good deal for the government, since interest income was usually received by corporations which way way back when actually paid income taxes broadly.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Yes, I was talking about interest you pay. Thank you.
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:03 pm
There’s a major difference between home ownership and mortgage ownership.
If you can afford to buy a home outright, it generally saves you a lot of money relative to renting. This is also true if you can finance with, say, a 10-year mortgage with 50% down, and pay it off through income.
But who can do that any more?
A 30-year mortgage isn’t home ownership economically, it’s an expensive rent-to-own scheme. Legally, it’s ownership, but not economically.
YesonHSR Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 8:28 am
very true here in Cali were owning a NEW home usually means a 40-70 mile commute into the big cities or a small city condo
Ted Crocker Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 10:42 am
So buy an older, smaller, fixer-upper (with good bones) closer in. You don’t have to own a big, fancy (and usually poorly built) new house.
Emma Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Hello, I have to agree with you. The whole movement towards suburban lifestyle costs people and the government (infrastructure) more. I would always prefer a neighborhood were all important stores are in walkable distance over a suburban neighborhood where I have to drive 10-15 minutes to the grocery store.
But a big home would be nice too.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Define big. Small houses in trolley suburbs are over 1000 square feet. That gives you three decent sized bedrooms a bath and half, eat in kitchen, formal dining room and a living room. Not a McMansion but very livable. Medium sized houses in trolley burbs are around 1500, four bedroom two bath size. 2500 square feet isn’t unheard of in trolley burbs.
ks Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 6:40 pm
I believe suburbs can still be transit-friendly. All you need are bike lanes and park-and-ride facilities.
additionally, even if young folks were interested in buying a home, it’s so absurdly expensive relative to most people’s income, even after the housing crash, that for all intents and purposes you might as well make your peace with renting.
rafael Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:33 am
That’s pretty much why young professionals in Japan have been living the “experiential lifestyle” for decades now.
I fell breifly under the “homeownership is the end all be all” spell at the beginning of the bubble. It wasn’t the end all be all, it was a major time and money sucking pain. Now I rent practically on top of two subway systems (bart and muni) with a total of 12 lines (jklmntf ric/con/dub/fmt/mil and another at least 10-15 muni bus lines plus several ggtransit and smtransit lines within a block of the front door. not to mention being within walking distance of my job and practically every other need. This means the majority of my time is my time to use and not wasted commuting. I feell this way. If I work 9-5 and I get paid for 8 hours, why in hell would I want to spend 45-90 minutes commuting at each end – job related but not getting paid? Sounds like a big rip off to me.
Not to pat myself on the back but in addition to being a 100 percent car free public transit user ( and have been for the majority of my adult life) I also make my living in public transit, recycle at home and work, use only energy efficient lighting and appliances, and live in a city that has something like a 70 percent total recycle/compost rate (working towards 100 percent) So I’m doing my part. And you know what, its not that difficult. I’m no progressive greenie by any means, but frankly, once you get in the habit of making the right choices, there’s nothing to it.
and yes the rent is high, but no higher than the combined cost of moving to the burbs and then paying to commute back in. Its a break even there, but this way I get my time and you can’t put a price on time.
Al-Fakh Yugoudh Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Actually, a recent article in the Economist showed that people perceptions on energy use are incorrect. People tend to overstate energy saving of certain choices and understate energy consumption of appliances. For example most people think they can save a lot by using fluorescent bulbs, when in fact the savings aren’t that huge, while at the same time people tend to underestimate the energy consumption of certain appliances, such as washers and dryers. Using a cold wash cycle instead of a hot water cycle for example, saves the energy equivalent of scores of energy efficient light bulbs.
May I recommend Jim, that besides using energy efficient bulbs, you also go to work a little funkier. Washing your clothes less often saves a lot of energy, much more than switching from cars to trains. Also making lighting more efficient could increase energy use, not decrease it. This due to induced demand (or so says a study published in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics by Jeff Tsao of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico).
jimsf Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 3:14 pm
I’m one person and I do one load of wash a week. AS for lighting there are a total of 4 bulbs in my house (not counting the one in the oven and the fridge) No lamps. My average pge bill for the last few years has been between 12-17 dollars a month. Going to work stinking is not an option and quite frankly I’m up to here with these losers who don’t bathe. Its not cute in any way shape of form. I have to keep the febreze at my counter and spray them. Much as I love SF, I swear this is the filthiest most disgusting city on earth. Any of you who are saving the environment by not bathing and washing your clothes. KNOCK IT OFF!
Donk Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Jimsf if you were truly an environmentalist, you would not live alone – instead you would cram 15 people into your apartment so that you can share a couple light bulbs for 15 people, do do multiple laundry loads at once, only use one stove or oven for 15 people at a time, and sleep in the 5 beds in your apartment in three 8 hour shifts so as to maximize the use of the sheets on the beds. You would also only flush your toilet after at least 5 deuces have been dropped in it. Imposter…
wu ming Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:37 pm
a lot varies by climate as well. jim would probably have a harder time line-drying his clothes in SF than i can out here in the valley, where i can get 2 or 3 loads of clothing dried most of the year because it’s so damn hot and dry out here. but then he doesn’t have to run his AC, and most people out here w/out good insulation and mature landscaping have to.
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:08 pm
And in the spirit of misperception, in most climates the vast majority of your energy use is heating and/or AC.
Forget all that stuff about bulbs and washers, you need to re-insulate your walls, ceilings, and floors if they don’t have modern insulation.
Of course if you’re renting, you need to pitch this to your landlord as a money-saving scheme. (It often pays for itself within a year or two.)
If you watch one of those property shows featuring people from the USA buying houses in exotic locations, they always prefer the houses close to amenities “because then we can walk everywhere”. These are the same peopel who have to drive everywhere in the USA, because they have no choice – but given teh hcoice, they opt for not driving!
Al-Fakh Yugoudh Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Many of the people you mention on those shows (HGTV for example) are young couples (or retired couples) with no kids. Most families prefer single family homes or townhomes with yards to apartment living. That is what has driven people to the suburbs. The only thing that would change that is a drastic increase to the cost of driving, i.e. high gasoline tax and/or road tolls. Short of that, the love/hate affair with cars will continue with Americans, at least as soon as they start having a family and want to move out of the city.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 3:16 pm
That and nobody zones for three or four bedroom condos….
Elizabeth Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 4:14 pm
These are the essentially the only units that have been built in Palo Alto over last 5 years.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:48 pm
That link is being broken. Many young families I know are staying in the city – whether it’s SF or Seattle.
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:09 pm
That’s just plain wrong. I’ve met very few families who cared about having a yard. The vast majority of families with kids don’t give a *damn* about yards. Yards are hated.
ks Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:53 pm
I think people are less inclined to drive in unfamiliar locations – Car ownership may be costly; traffic regulations may be different; officials may be ‘unkind’ to foreigners… And if you travel to UK, Japan, India, Singapore or Australia, driving on the left side of the road can be a challenge. The fact that Americans in foreign land prefer houses “close to amenities” does not indicate that they would opt for not driving back home.
But, based on the same assumption, HSR may appeal to tourists…
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:09 pm
The reason I don’t know how to drive is that I turned 18 as I was moving from Singapore to New York. I didn’t see any point in learning to drive on the left side of the road, and then in Manhattan I don’t have the time or inclination to battle the bureaucracy.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:56 pm
People in the US go on vacation in places in the US that are walkable. It’s one of the things landlords put in their summer rental ads. There’s whole swaths of East Coast seaside resorts that are dense walkable neighborhoods. People pay outrageous prices to rent them…
The recently-published American Community Survey also notes this trend of fewer people driving. This survey documents commutes to/from work. One of the biggest changes is the number of people who telework. There was also impressive growth in the ped/bike share (admittedly from low levels).
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010/10/13/transit-mode-share-trends-looking-steady-rail-appears-to-encourage-non-automobile-commutes/
Robert says:
“I can certainly vouch for this. I’m 31 and my wife is 30. We live in an apartment in Monterey and have no desire whatsoever to buy a house (or a condo). We’re much happier paying affordable rent so that we have more money on experiences,”
Spokker says:
“I’m 26 and I feel the same way. This idea that home ownership is somehow inherently good is rubbish.”
——————–
I used to think the exact same thing when I was your age. However you’ll discover that later in life, with family and all, your feelings will change and you’ll find home ownership in a tract house or townhome, with a little bit of yard, inherently rewarding and more appealing than living on top of each other on a busy, albeit vibrant, city street.
And this is from someone who grew up in apartment buildings in central Florence, Italy and for a while here in the Bay Area as well. Therefore it’s not that I’m someone from the Midwest prairies not used to apartment living. It’s just that when the social buzz of your 20′s and 30′s are gone, you don’t care much about living walking distance from a bar or disco.
The only thing I never subscribed to, is the long crazy American commutes to the exurbs. I’d rather live in my modest townhome just across the bay, than in a mansion out in the exurbs of Tracy or Antioch. That’s the European spirit that still lives in me. Driving 40-50 miles each way to a house that you can’t even enjoy is masochism.
jimsf Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 3:17 pm
I want everyone to move to the suburbs so I can have the city all to myself!
Spokker Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Does Robert even want a family?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Yes. And I’d like to have one in a walkable neighborhood served well by transit.
Donk Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:52 pm
And have the kids go to the local inner city public school…
That’s my biggest problem with living in the city. I own a modest house in a great location in LA, but I am unfortunately getting the hell out of here once I have kids and they are old enough for school.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Which is why you’re already seeing a big effort in urban cities to reform the schools. I don’t necessarily support the Michelle Rhee-style privatization “reforms,” but it’s a sign that the public is starting to take an intense interest in urban school systems and not just following the well-worn path of white flight to better suburban schools.
Spokker Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 10:33 pm
I guess we are just averse to having kids and that probably keeps us out of McMansions. I mean, as women make more money and have more opportunities, birth rates drop. Since she’s a lawyer, she’s sort of part of that trend, I guess.
Ted Crocker Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 10:31 am
And that is what Burlingame is right now – a walkable neighborhood served well by transit (see link). On top of that, the mature neighborhoods are lovely to walk in. There is a reason it is expensive. It is a very desireable place to live, and access is a big part of that. Unfortunately some of you can’t understand why we wouldn’t want to give up the very things that most cities strive to obtain. When it comes to HSR, you lose all sense of scale or aesthetic, too. I don’t get it. Unless it is derived out of jealousy, which, as I read so many of these blog entries, it seems to be, the greater good argument is not a reason to undo that which is already good. We should aim to add to it, not shift it. This is what CEQA is all about.
http://www.walkscore.com/score/burlingame-ca
Clem Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 2:03 pm
a walkable neighborhood served well by transit
Burlingame is very poorly served by Caltrain, compared to what it could be with four tracks e.g. between San Mateo and Redwood City. If you’re trying to get to Palo Alto at rush hour, you might have to wait 40 minutes for the next train. And forget using Broadway. Perhaps it feels “served well” but it isn’t by any objective measure… rush hour service in Burlingame is sacrificed to make way for the Baby Bullets.
What Burlingame could get out of the HSR project is every-15-minutes service to all major destinations on the peninsula, even at the height of rush hour. Why Doty & company aren’t even lifting a finger to sell such benefits to you is quite mystifying to me.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Astonishing, indeed.
The lesson I’ve taken from Doty, who was styled as as the Saviour of Caltrain — and for whom I fell hook, line and sinker for many years — is: “once an old Bechtel dude, always an old Bechtel dude.” They can’t be educated, they can’t learn, they can’t adapt: they just do the same crappy pour-the-concrete, screw-the-passengers things they did at the time of their youthful indoctrination in the ways of comically oversized bents, stringers and girders
If we can’t exterminate these hopeless US-based basket cases root and branch, and replace them 100% by real professionals with real skills whose first language is not English (and hence were not brain damaged at birth on the transit planning front), then there appears to be less than no hope.
Incompatible platform heights! CBOSS. 100% separate stations for HSR and regional! Two terminals in SF. Two terminals in SJ. Regional service forced to terminate outside the CBD, by choice!!!!!. Refusal to allow fast-slow train overtakes. Refusal to consider timed transfers.
These people are completely f*cking basket cases, with absolutely no redeeming professional or personal value, and need to be put out of misery ASAP. Passengers? Who the hell are those? Neighbourhoods? Screw them. Train service? Who cares. Just pile up the concrete!
It really is that bad, sadly.
J. Wong Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 2:15 pm
HSR isn’t going to effect most of the neighborhoods in Burlingame. You already have the Caltrain ROW. You would just be adding two more tracks making them all aerial, which contrary to the propaganda would not “loom” over anything so it would scale well, and with the proper input from the citizens of Burlingame, could be as aesthetically pleasing what is currently there, if not more. Be a little forward-thinking here!
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:15 pm
You’re still thinking within one particular American regulatory regime. The reason most Americans live in the suburbs isn’t that they inherently want to; it’s that between the 1930s and 60s, it was impossible to get mortgages in the inner city, because patrician reformers were against investment in neighborhoods they deemed to be slums. Similarly, the reason most Americans own houses is that the government gives them all sorts of incentives: the mortgage tax credit, higher property taxes on rental units than on owner-occupied units, no capital gains tax on people buying and then selling at a higher price, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Some of those incentives just existed by default for unrelated reasons, but the federal aid for mortgages starting with Fannie Mae is again a 1930s artifact of patrician reformers.
The bar and disco have nothing to do with walkability. There are stable walkable middle-class neighborhoods, where people of all ages walk to schools, community centers, etc. They have bars and a few discos, but not more than any other neighborhood. In American cities, those command a large price premium, and are derided by hipsters as stroller ghettos. Furthermore, because of the ongoing development, they can support tall condos and are thus very dense: the Upper East Side and Lakeview are their respective cities’ densest areas.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Spot on. Thank you.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:27 pm
the Upper East Side and Lakeview are their respective cities’ densest areas.
Yes, dense neighborhoods breed crime and chaos and are only inhabited by society’s poorest members… oh wait…
D. P. Lubic Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 8:17 pm
These comments here make me think we are missing something, and that something is that there are individual requirments that are not all the same (some people prefer a house and family life, others prefer an apartment and town life), and also, the range of the requirements can vary enormously.
For instance, an apartment doesn’t have to be in a 20-story skyscraper as Wendell Cox would have you believe. I once spent a summer working for R. L. Polk (the city directory people), and one of the things I got to see, in interviewing various residents, was a 3-storey apartment building in Wheeling, W.Va. that had been built in the 1920s (and it had an appropriate period elevator!) that was apparently lovingly maintained; I still recall how the floors shone in that building. Talk about a step back in time! Other places I got to see included Civil War era buildings in rows, grand mansions originally built by people in the steel, glass, coal, and gas business, assorted modest houses, again from the 19th century, that had been built for working people (and such people were still in the houses then), other such houses that were like townhouses, with what amounted to pedestrian tunnels through them for access to back yards, apartments over stores, and former trolley suburbs like my own.
The latter were characterized by relatively narrow streets (only three lanes, two of which were used for parking; you had to pull into an empty parking space to let someone pass), with sidewalks on each side, seperated from the street by a narrow grass strip. Large trees also grew in this strip, and in the summer they would turn such a street into a green tunnel. (My father didn’t appreciate these enormous trees because he hated raking leaves–but that was something I liked, so he didn’t mind too much thanks to that.) The construction dates of the houses in question ranged from the late 1800s (my parents’ house, in which one of my brothers still lives, dated to 1899), to the late 1920s, and a few from the early 1930s (these were likely projects started just before the effects of the depression were being felt). These houses could be relatively large–my parents’ house was about 30 feet wide, perhaps 33 to 35 feet deep, had two living levels and a finished attic, all on top of a relatively tall cellar (overall height was probably about 40 feet) and in addition to this, had full-width porches front and back. This house was on a lot that was just wide enough for a narrow driveway down one side, and a minimal walkway on the other, with a front yard maybe 10 feet deep and a back yard that was perhaps 25 feet deep, and partially occupied by a garage that, in the form it was when we bought the house, would accomodate a Model T, but not the 1959 Dodge my dad owned in the mid-1960s. In short, it was not uncommon to find relatively large houses filling up relatively small lots–yet we also had a wonderful streetscape with all those trees, and in addition to this, could walk to everything you needed, including a branch post office, branch library, two barbershops, two beauty salons, two small grocery stores (one of which was an IGA affiliate run by a next-door neighbor), a supermarket (A&P, my father worked there), a laundry, a bakery, a public school, two drug stores, a flower shop, two or three banks, four churches, one of which was Catholic, which also ran its own school (built in 1912), and, although not in service in this time, a railroad station, a theater, and a bakery. Need something more? A bus ride, running on what had been the trolley route, took you into town and its assorted department stores, five-and-dimes, clothing stores, shoe stores, jewelry stores, restaurants, theaters, and clubs. This was in the 1960s, and much was still around into the early 1970s.
The point of all this is that our housing choices and living styles are not limited to just Brutalist high-rise apartments and McMansions with acres of grass to mow. There is a tremendous range that goes beyond that, if we would have the sense to study the past and learn from it.
Oh, I did some of that city directory work in auto suburbs, too; I can personally tell you it was the slowest and hardest part of the job because it didn’t pay to move a car from one house to the next, yet the walking distances were sometimes awkward. In contrast, my leafy former trolley suburbs and the in-town stuff, which included some magnificent mansions, were just so much more pleasant to walk around, were more productive on that account, and were just cooler, not just to look at, but because of those trees.
Now, if only we had had the sense to keep the trolleys running, and the passenger trains, too. . .
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:14 pm
You’ve just described some of the most popular and attractive neighborhoods for younger people today. Only defect is most of the buildings are so old they’re not ADA-accessible – - and the trolleys have been ripped out.
If we were building new neighborhoods, we could address both problems.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:50 pm
From what I’ve seen in SF and Seattle, this isn’t true. While the specific amenities one wants when you’re a 20-something single person and when you’re a 30-something parent are different, my peers who have kids still want walkability and an urban experience. I’ve not yet seen a flight to the suburbs and I’m not sure I ever will.
The “flight to the suburbs” was the product of a specific place and time. What I am arguing here is that it is not likely to be repeated. The experiences of older generations are NOT universal.
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:12 pm
B*U*L*L*S*H*I*T.
As people get older and have kids, they want larger living quarters.
But the attractiveness of lawnmowing does not increase. If anything it gets less popular.
The supply of 4-bedroom apartments, brownstones, and similar “large” city housing, unfortunately, is quite limited. This is why they are so expensive. So people move to the suburbs because they cannot find the larger houses they want at the right price.
They actually hate living in the suburbs.
Well, that’s people in my age bracket anyway (30-40).
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Or, apologies for rudeness, maybe I misread you.
Maybe the “small tract houses” and “townhomes” you’re referring to *are* the high-demand virtually-yardless buildings which are so popular.
The vast majority of tract houses in the US suburbs, unfortunately, are not. Even as little as 1 mile out of town.
Another story on the NJ Governor looking to kill of the train tunnel, and others looking to do likewise to big spending projects.
US shuns some big public works projects
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101021/ap_on_bi_ge/us_will_to_build
….In Wisconsin, Ohio and California, Republican candidates for governor have vowed they won’t endorse high-speed rail projects, despite the promise of billions of dollars from Washington.
If only California would come to its senses and kill off the HSR porject.
Donk Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Just curious Morris – aside from it being in or near your backyard, what is your argument for why the CAHSR project is not needed? What alternate solution (if any) would you propose to accommodate the increased population and traffic and mitigate the pollution that will come with it?
mgimbel Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 4:22 pm
He’s interested in spending over $100 billion in 3,000 miles of additional highway lanes, 90 new airport gates, 5 new runways, and all of the additional pollution that comes with such expansion projects.
jimsf Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 4:33 pm
he won’t answer the question.
Al-Fakh Yugoudh Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:00 pm
“what is your argument for why the CAHSR project is not needed?”
He needs no argument. All one needs is a conservative talking head on TV or radio saying so.
Tea Party Ditto Heads don’t need reasons. They just follow orders from their leaders.
The funny thing is that in Italy the NoHSR movement is left wing, and the Italian right wing ditto heads (a.k.a. “Berluscones”, or Berlusconi’s cojones) are all for it in an incredible reversal of roles. Maybe you could exchange Tea Party ditto heads for Berluscones for some support among conservatives here.
Loren Petrich Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Why does the Italian Left dislike high-speed trains? Why does the Italian Right like them? Or at least the Berlusconi groupies.
Al-Fakh Yugoudh Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 12:11 pm
HSR investment is profitable, commuter trains are not. Hence Trenitalia (the State owned train operator) has invested heavily in high speed (which are used primarily by business travelers, i.e. primarily the center-right) to the detriment of local commuter trains (which are used daily by the working masses, i.e. the left) which are often crowded during peak hours and not necessarily in the best conditions. There are also some environmental concerns for some new lines going through some mountain valleys.
Berlusconi likes to inagurate new HSRs because they present excellent photo ops for a politicians to show his achievements. And if he likes it, the Berluscones like them too.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:03 pm
I don’t want to speak for Morris, but an alternative solution is a blanket No Build. I oppose such a solution for California, but will support it if its construction cost rise to Northeastern levels. In such a case, no new major transportation infrastructure would be added to handle the increased population and traffic demand. The government could reduce congestion somewhat by instituting higher gas taxes or road tolls instead; it could also reduce air congestion somewhat by forcing the airlines to fly larger planes on the LA-SF market, on the model of Japan’s internal flights. California would deal with more congestion and more difficult travel, and forgo all the benefits of HSR, but would also not have to pay the costs.
jimsf Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:43 pm
I sometimes wonder about this other option for dealing with growth… what would happen if you didn’t do anything. No new roads, No more transit, no new runways. No expenditures. As population increased, life would become unbearable and at some point people would either leave, stop coming, or both. The problem solves itself.
In theory anyway. I guess the downside is that we all have to be really miserable for a long time and hope we can hold out till the other guys move out first.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:15 pm
It doesn’t have to be miserable. First, there are relatively low-cost operational treatments, like using 747s on domestic flights and tolling the highways. Second, people take over-capacity transit lines all the time, for example in Tokyo and parts of New York and Paris.
New infrastructure is not a must-do. It’s a useful thing to build, especially in the face of nonzero costs of doing nothing, but it has both benefits and costs. The point is to figure out which is bigger.
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Unfortunately, there is evidence that the level of awfulness at which people will actually start leaving in numbers sufficient to reduce the population can be very, VERY high. Consider Calcutta.
Andy Reply:
October 24th, 2010 at 10:22 am
The answer to this question is in Robert’s original post. He correctly pointed out that people are going to need to travel less and less as they seek tele-work, social networks and virtual experiences – reducing the need for car ownership and public transit. I expect these trends will accelerate as millennials enter the workforce and have families.
Robert correctly pointed out that people assume too much that current trends will continue unabated – he just didn’t take his point about people not needing cars to it’s ultimate conclusion – that they won’t need public transportation as much either. The HSR business plan already assumes that the bullet train will capture more than 100% of current air travel between SF and LA. That assumption by itself isn’t credible, but they also ignore Robert’s important observation that the assumed growth in need for travel – particularly commuting, which is what really clogs the infrastructure – is unlikely to continue at historic per-capita rates. If people don’t own cars they don’t use the highway so you don’t need to build new highway capacity. If they choose virtual experiences and tele-work, they don’t need public transportation either. This of course puts an already un-economic business plan for HSR completely over the edge into deep red ink.
I am willing to bet that:
1) HSR (if actually built) will far exceed its projected construction cost of $40B
2) HSR will never reach its ridership projections
3) HSR will need large, ongoing operating subsidies
Many might not care about the failing economics of HSR if the shortfalls just come out of someone else’s income tax bill, but the other thing that’s been observed about millennials is that they care far less about wealth creation. That means that the 80% of income taxes that are covered by the top 5% of wage earners is unlikely to continue as large numbers of people choose quality of life over income (particularly as the incremental benefit of earnings goes down with rising marginal income tax rates). As a result the burden of large public works projects like HSR will likely pinch everyone far more than you’d expect from a static analysis.
jimsf Reply:
October 24th, 2010 at 10:41 am
did the state water project pinch everyone in relation to the economic benefits generated to the state over all? How the aqueduct? How bout the UC system? The state highway system… was that a greater cost or a net contribution to the state’s economy? Regardless of how people wrk in the coming decades, hsr isn’t primarily designed for people commuting to and from work. State tourism will be the biggest beneficiary.
California is number one:
Top U.S. States of Destination Traveling Residents (Among person-trips) 1. California
and
Top Ten States by Domestic and International Traveler Spending for 2000 (in $billions)
1. California $78.13
Impact of Travel on State Economies Highlights
California is the most visited state in America, and accounts for 11.5 percent of all domestic travel in the U.S.
Los Angeles County receives the most domestic tourism in the state with approximately 53 million person trips.
Californians themselves are the mainstay of the state’s travel and tourism industry, comprising 86 % of domestic travel, or 265 million person-trips. Out-of-state visitors account for 44 million person-trips.
As the number one travel destination in the United States, California annually generates more than $75 billion in direct travel spending into the economy.
Travel directly supports jobs for more than 1 million Californians and generates $5 billion in direct state and local tax revenue.
Tourism is California’s 3rd largest employer and 5th largest contributor to the gross state product.
Travel and tourism expenditures in 2003 amounted to an estimated $78.2 billion annually, provided employment for more than 900,000 Californians, and generated $5 billion in state and local tax revenue.
California was the destination of an estimated 309 million domestic travelers and approximately 7 million international travelers, leisure and business, in 2002, the most recent year available.
Andy Reply:
October 24th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Jim,
If your statement is true that HSR is not intended for business travel (a reasonable assumption since HSR will take 3 hours to go SF-Irvine versus 1 hour by plane and will likely cost the same or more – depending on the subsidy) then the HSR business plan is even more full of holes than I suspected because that plan relies heavily on taking business travellers from the airlines. Business travel represents the bulk of airline revenues up and down the west coast. If you can’t appeal to them you are toast economically.
I drive I-5 reasonably regularly – if that is the main source of potential passengers for HSR you won’t have enough to fill the projected train every 6 minutes that you need to make it economic and if you are giving up on business travelers (as you state) the whole proposition spirals even more into the red. You can’t raise fares because train passengers will move back into their cars if you do so you are left with big subsidies – pinch.
You can talk all you want about the benefits of dam projects (which many people want to tear down to protect fish). The main benefit there was to a relatively small number of farmers, so you can argue the benefit to the rest of us. If the benefit was cheap and abundant agricultural products – why wouldn’t a private investment have worked just as well.
The UC system DOES pinch today – most of the state’s budget (from an 10.3% top marginal tax rate – one of the highest in the country) goes to education – both primary/secondary and college/university. At least there you can argue that education benefits potentially everyone in the state, not a small number of people who what to take the train to go to Disneyland. As an aside, I do wonder whether just giving every Californian who wants to go to college a grant to go to a private college would have been more effective than having the state own hard assets. I don’t feel like I get my money’s worth from what is a very expensive public eduction system.
Tourism is a great economic benefit for California, but HSR doesn’t connect most of the travel you talk about. I don’t see how HSR will affect interstate travel – HSR doesn’t go out of state and no one is going to fly to LA just so they can take a 3 hour train ride to San Francisco. You might love trains (I loved them too – when I was 10), but most people optimize for time (by taking a plane), or cost (by taking a car). I reject the notion that an expensive train ride will become a popular mode of tourist travel just for snicks and giggles. People try to make comparisons to Europe, but European cities are closer together and more compact which makes rail travel far more effective. California (especially southern California) just isn’t laid out that way. Even with these advantages, many European rail systems are un-economic. The other reason that people drive between cities in California is because they anticipate needing their car when they get there. HSR won’t change that. Until you can get me Laguna Beach I will eith fly and rent a car or drive. HSR is stuck in the middle – neither the most economic, nor the fastest.
But my main point wasn’t the one you focused on. My main point was that Robert’s original post pointed out a bigger trend that makes HSR even more un-economic and unnecessary – the trend towards virtual experiences and work and away from travel generally. Much of the argument for HSR is predicated on a predicted explosion of cars on the road and planes in the air – more than we’ll be able to handle. Robert pointed out that he believes this to be untrue as more and more people like him just won’t own cars to clog the freeways and will work from home or live in smaller urban homes near work. If the growth doesn’t happen (as Robert predicts it won’t) then the hysteria about overloaded transportation infrastructure as a reason to build HSR just isn’t true.
political_incorrectness Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Someone forgot to replace the coffee with a fresh brew.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:08 pm
The NJ Governor is an idiot. He’s also right about the ARC tunnel’s being too expensive, at least as currently proposed. The reason I call him an idiot is that he ignores the fact that the alternatives analysis pointed to a cheaper, more useful alternative, which was mothballed around 2004 due to agency turf battles.
Anyway, California is probably going to see more money, not less. According to 538, the Republicans have an 8 in 9 chance of winning in Ohio and Wisconsin, but only an 18% chance of winning in California. If Ohio and Wisconsin return the money, then it will probably be redirected to California and Florida. Furthermore, if New Jersey returns federal money, then it will probably be redirected to Los Angeles’s 30/10 initiative, which is the boldest in the nation and most in need of funds; since LA is preferring to spend its currently available money on Crenshaw, the extra money will probably end up going to expedite the more useful Subway to the Sea, which will offer strong connecting transit for HSR.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:24 pm
which was mothballed around 2004 due to agency turf battles.
… and the fatal flaws it had…
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:50 pm
…like thinking the MTA was interested in sharing tracks at Grand Central.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 8:07 pm
The LIRR is an MTA agency. Metro North is an MTA agency. Do you think in the decades they have been planning East Side Access for the LIRR it didn’t occur to someone to use the platform capacity at Grand Central for LIRR trains? Do you think if it was technically possible the MTA…which runs the LIRR and Metro North… would piss away billions of dollars?
The Park Avenue tunnels are near capacity. How are you going to wedge another 25 trains an hour into them? Build a shiny new tunnel to New Jersey. How do you redesign the western interlockings at Penn Station and maintain service? Where do you put all the new passengers?
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Yes, I think the MTA would piss away billions of dollars. It’s been doing that all over.
The Park Avenue tunnels aren’t the issue; ESA can have its own tunnels into Grand Central, which, for the record, has 40-something platform tracks.
The western interlockings of Penn aren’t a problem – ARC Alt G is supposed to have minimal switching moves, with new-tunnel trains going to tracks 1-4 and continuing to Grand Central, and old-tunnel trains going to the middle tracks. Neither is passenger capacity: by design, ARC Alt G would move many passengers to a far roomier train station.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 9:49 pm
ESA can have its own tunnels into Grand Central
Which sounds great until you figure out how to move all the skyscrapers on either side of Park Ave out of the way while you build them. Pesky city dwellers and office tenants….
Neither is passenger capacity: by design, ARC Alt G would move many passengers to a far roomier train station.
Tracks 1 -4, for that matter 1-21 are what they are. You aren’t going to make the platforms wider without eliminating tracks. You may have noticed when you are at Penn Station that there’s a big arena hovering over the station and a office building or two. Those big steel girders that pierce the platforms and are between the tracks would be very difficult and expensive to move.
…. there’s always the option of shutting the station down for a decade and rebuilding it. But then the tunnel you have to build to carry all the buses that replace the service would be a bit of an expense.
The western interlockings of Penn aren’t a problem – ARC Alt G is supposed to have minimal switching moves
The option on 34th doesn’t have any at all. The trains begin to sort themselves out west of Secaucus and west of Portal. Trains on the Morris and Essex lines won’t even interact with the NEC.
continuing to Grand Central
Through the Sixth Ave IND and the BMT or under them? If it’s under them how does that affect the arrival in Penn Station? How do they get to the platforms in Grand Central? Through the Flushing line or under it? Gonna eat bit of space on the concourses too.
jimsf Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 4:49 am
Since new york city doesn’t seem to be averse to unbridled anything goes growth and development ( and they seem to revel in it… and a bunch of them are out here trying to inflict that on sf and we won’t let them)… why not, instead of tunneling into manhattan…. just bring trains in over new hudson and/east river bridges and run modern built Els across town over the streets. like here on 33rd for instance next to nyp or
here on east 45th
next to grand central. Its not like there’s anything nice to preserve or nature to worry about…. the whole place is a concrete nightmare already, whats a couple of elevateds added to the mix when you can avoid the tunneling costs.
Joey Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 6:51 am
Any sort of bridge over the Hudson would be quite a challenging feat. As for elevated lines, they would have to run dead straight through Manhattan (almost never any room for curves), and you still have to figure out where to put stations, which require more width than just two tracks on an aerial.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 11:28 am
First, continuing to Grand Central would require going under Herald Square, yes. It would still be shallower than the 7. Alt G wasn’t killed because of Herald Square and you know it.
Second, the problem with Penn Station is both the narrow platforms and the scarcity of staircases on the NJT platforms. One of the local ARC opponents, Joe Clift, proposed adding staircases. NJT said it’s impossible because “the station is old,” as if the LIRR didn’t add staircases in the 1990s at the same station.
Third, enabling the trains to sort themselves at Secaucus is a feature, which allows moving transfers away from Penn. Forcing trains to sort themselves at Secaucus is a bug.
Fourth, not that ESA is very relevant other than as an example of an even more expensive tunnel, but a subsurface option did not require demolitions. It would require going under the existing Park or Lex tunnels, which would be annoying and expensive, but still much less expensive and more useful for passengers than a cavern.
Look, Alt P can be done very well – namely, cavern-free, with through-running and better station circulation (which isn’t that big of a deal anyway by the standards of People’s Square or Shinjuku). I still think that Alt G at is best is better than Alt P at its best. But the current proposal is Alt P at its worst. It takes special incompetence to top the costs of Transbay, and fortunately the MTA and NJT are fully up to the task.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:28 pm
I give up. The commuters that currently crowd Penn Station will magically get the urge to gor from Elizabeth to Flushing without getting off in Manhattan. The ones who do get off in Manhattan will shinny up to street level in the pneumatic tubes abandoned by Western Union. The trains will magically not conflict with each other across the interlockings. When Water Tunnel 1 ruptures everyone will drink Evian instead of tap….
Alon Levy Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Stop it, Water Tunnel 1 isn’t in danger. The Alt G connection would be shallower than the 7. And as for the interlockings, I challenge you to go to the AA for Alt G and name to me the place where the current interlockings would create a conflict. Go ahead.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:47 pm
what part of ‘I give up” was unclear?
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:40 pm
“what part of ‘I give up” was unclear?”
The part where you acted like you hadn’t listened to a word he’d said and attempted to mock him? Poorly and incompetently?
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:31 pm
The Alternative G tunnel would run under Park Avenue, partly through the *existing* tunnel originally built for horsecars to come out of GCT to the south. The *first* point at which it would run under skyscrapers would be the *last* block (34th-35th west of Park) where the curve would be needed.
Yes, that is an issue, but apparently one they were *unwilling to even consider*. An extra $5 BILLION dollars for the deep cavern versus a couple of skyscraper foundations? Hmm. Likely they could could buy all the necessary skyscrapers for less than that.
I don’t know why you’re full of fantasy, adirondacker. The *facts* are about two thirds of the commuters from NJ would switch to GCT (approximately) and about a third of the commuters from Metro-North territory would switch to Penn. The asymmetry is good because Penn is overcrowded and Grand Central isn’t.
Alternative G actually WOULD eliminate conflicts across the interlockings except for peak trains (morning extra inbounds, evening extra outbounds), for blatantly obvious reasons — I don’t know why you’re mocking this.
Yes, it would require a bunch more dual-mode catenary-and-third-rail trains. This is feasible and not absurdly expensive.
Joey Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Penn Station as it is needs better pedestrian circulation/access. Terminating ARC in a new cavern won’t change that significantly.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Except for all the new pedestrian entrance/exits they are adding.
Joey Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Or aren’t adding, as it turns out.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:13 pm
If they don’t build the tunnel there won’t be need for more entrances/exits. Well there has been since the late 70s but if they cancel the tunnels they will cancel the entrances. If the plan goes ahead there will be many new entrances/exits. They connect with the current station as well with the addition.
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:23 pm
You don’t understand through-routing, do you?
The “alternative G” plan involved taking Metro-North trains and running them to Jersey (yes, it requires the dual-mode trains) instead of reversing them at GCT.
All off-peak and reverse-peak services on Metro-North, LIRR, and NJT would be provided by trains through-running from Jersey to LI or the Bronx. No extra trains in the Park Avenue tunnels.
The plan was simply to use station capacity much more efficiently, by avoiding all those reversals at GCT and Penn with trains crossing each others’ paths. Only “extra peak” trains would reverse at GCT, West Side Yards, or Sunnyside; all other trains would run through.
It actually *saves on operating costs* while allowing increased service due to the aforementioned elimination of crossing paths.
Donk Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Alon, what are your “probably”s based off of? I have read articles where people in NJ think the funds can be redirected to highways in NJ. And what information do you have suggesting that the HSR funds in OH and WI would be sent to CA? There are many other states that could use HSR funds, especially those that are whining because they cannot come up with a 20% match. CA might end up being a victim of its own success, and might not get any the OH and WI funds since they will be able to get a larger share of the future 20% match funding.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 8:03 pm
New Jersey plans to redirect only the state’s contribution to highways. The federal contribution is specifically earmarked for ARC; if ARC is canceled, it’ll go somewhere else, probably another mass transit project since the transit/highway funding ratio is predetermined by political compromise.
I do not have any special information about where the money will be redistributed. But if OH and WI return the money, then there aren’t that many places for it to go to other than CA and FL.
AlanF Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Not many places to go besides CA and FL?? How about IL for more improvements on the Chicago-St Louis corridor, Michigan for Chi-Detroit, WA & OR for the Cascades, VA & NC for the SE HSR corridor, PA for Keystone East and Lackawanna cutoff, NY state, or the NEC? Lots of other intercity rail projects that could use the money. Regardless of the election outcome, WI is not likely to return the funds because the state is obligating much of the funds and starting construction quickly. The next governor might to eat $200 to $300 million to cancel a $800 million award of 100% federal funds. Ohio won’t have nearly as much of it’s funds committed, so the 3C project is very much on the bubble.
If Secretary La Hood were to ask me for my advice on where to reallocate the Ohio funds, I would tell him to give them to a neighboring state, MI or PA, to make a point. The $400+ million Ohio grant is a good match for the PA Keystone East application. Get that corridor up to 125 mph operation.
jimsf Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:11 am
I’d like to cascades upgraded tp 110 or 125 – they already use nice talgos – maybe gt the sea-pdx time down from 3.5 to 2.5 hours
Alon Levy Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 11:01 am
Top speed is not important in this range. More important is to allow the Talgos to turn curves atat least the same speeds as non-tilting TGVs.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 10:59 am
Well, PA and MI are getting Republican Governors, so they probably won’t commit their own money to anything. In IL the Republicans are 79% favorites. VA already has a Republican. NY, maybe – the administration likes Cuomo. But CA can match everything 50% and FL is nearing full funding of phase 1, so the administration might like them more.
Alan Figgatt Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Not all Republican governors are anti-rail. In VA, under McDonnell, the state rail fund will provide some $90 million to start a Northeast Regional to Norfolk service (south of the James river). I think in the states with current regular passenger rail service, the political atmosphere is much more favorably inclined to improving and expanding passenger rail. It is the states that have little rail service beyond perhaps a couple of Amtrak LD trains such as Ohio is where the Republican candidate staked out a position against passenger rail. Wisconsin does have the Hiawathas to Milwaukee, but that appears to have little visibility to many voters in the rest of the state.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Things have changed since then, and I think it’s unlikely that a Republican who does not explicitly bil himself a moderate who rejects the Tea Party will be wiling to commit more state funds for rail. Once some party members staked out an anti-rail position, others can’t be seen to waver. It’s like how after Gingrich and Palin decided that Cordoba Center was a terrorist recruiting camp, Republicans like Romney who otherwise wouldn’t care much about the issue had to issue statements opposing the center’s construction.
Nathanael Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Agreed, NC has at least a billion more in plans, VA likewise. NY can assemble that much in a pinch. Illinois can too, probably quicker.
OR and WA actually did get most of what they asked for and could probably only swallow half a billion more or so.
Daniel Krause Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Morris,
So you seem to be admitting that you are a true anti-infrastructuralist. Maybe you just believe more asphalt is the only answer. Either way, no new infrastructure, or new infrastructure limited to automobilies will doom the younger generations to a maddeningly inadequate infrastructure. An auto-based infrastructure will be more inefficient and WILL cause more deaths from auto accidents than embarking on a rail-based infrastrcuture effort. Boy this generation thing seems to really be getting toxic. What if people like yourself succeeeded in stopping the infrastructural revolution in the country that was begin in 1950s (interstate system, water system, etc., etc., etc.)? How would you have felt about that? I guess it is true, most human beings are so selfish that once they get theirs and they are ensconsed in their comfortable existing after a life of hard work, they could care less about the future their kids and grand kids. That is the ultimate form of selfishness, to not even be concerned about one’s own offspring and the future they have to live in. We need a culture of elders who look out of the future. But in America we seem have very few elders offering their wisdom. I say all this as a generalization, as obviously their are surely a few good elders out using their wisdom for the betterment of future generations, but I wish they would speak up more.
Good thing that people with that point of view (spending $$$ on highway and runways) are predominately of the older boomer generation, who’s voting power is decreasing every election cycle.
My wife and I are in our late 20s and early 30s. I don’t mean to start a generational war, but if the WWII era was the Greatest Generation, the boomer era was the Worst Generation. Their mommies and daddies built all the great infrastructure and technology they enjoy (dams, interstate highway were built in the 30s~60s, and quantum physics, semiconductors, and ARPANET were all invented before 1970), but they refuse to pay enough tax to properly maintain it and insist on tax cuts (tax cut in 80s to now). On top of that they don’t want to do real work and exported all the manufacturing jobs and imported illegal immigrants for agriculture. Now we, the offspring of the boomers, are left with a crumbling infrastructure, a mountain of debt, AND we still have to pay for all their entitlement benefit and medicare knowing that we probably won’t get to enjoy those same benefit when we retire.
oh well, the boomers did give birth to us and made good music…
Alon Levy Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 8:04 pm
You’re deeply wrong. The good music was made by people born in the 1930s, who’re part of the Silent Generation, between the GI Generation and the Boomers.
Evan Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Music back than was so good it was silent, right?
Alon Levy Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Yep, the Beatles were silent.
Spokker Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 3:48 pm
George Harrison was a Tea Party guy.
I’m not sure how many posts Robert can make on this subject while ignoring the simple reality of race. It’s no coincidence that Generation X and the Millenials came after immigration reform which radically reshaped the diversity of the US. The old tactic of using cars and suburbia to do what racial covenants and segregation could not simply has fallen victim to demographics. Ownership still has benefits to be sure, but more people will undoutedly embrace a less consumptive lifestyle like Robert’s as time passes. You simply can’t threaten nonwhite Millenials with the threat of living near someone who is nonwhite, which is exactly the tactice used to proliferate modern postwar urban planning in the United States.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 2:53 pm
I don’t ignore race at all, I just don’t focus on it as much on this blog. You make a very powerful point in this post, though.
Risenmessiah Reply:
October 24th, 2010 at 9:39 am
I appreciate the hat tip, Robert. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t expect you focus on it, and do agree that younger people in general are souring on buying stuff that they no place to put. I just can’t help but notice that every time you put up a post topic similar to this, nobody ever talks about race. So I do it, but as you can see, I only get a response from you.