On transportation, stuff you can't make up

Gov. Janet Napolitano is not so tough when it comes to dealing with the real power in Arizona. Thus, we have this story broken last week by Capitol Media Services:

Gov. Janet Napolitano agreed to take home builders off the financial hook for paying for new roads in exchange for a $100,000 donation to a campaign to persuade voters to boost their own taxes.

The deal, outlined in a letter obtained by Capitol Media Services, resulted in the recrafting of the $42.6 billion transit improvement initiative shortly before it was filed Tuesday to remove a provision to raise at least some of the money from fees on new developments — fees that would be added to the cost of new homes.

Instead the final version of the initiative — the one being circulated for signatures — calls for the entire costs of new highways, widened roads and mass transit projects to be paid for with a 1-cent increase in the state sales tax, an increase of 18 percent from the current 5.6 cent state levy.

I suppose this could be shrewd if it delivers long-needed Phoenix-Tucson rail service and commuter rail to Pinal County, not merely more roads. But it comes at a huge price, may never be approved, and will face the usual rear-guard attacks by the Legislature.

If the measure goes forward it carries two big pieces of baggage. First, it adds more of a burden on poorer Arizonans with sales tax. Second, it does nothing to discourage leapfrog development and other land-use disasters that make transportation a costly catch-up game that can never be won.

The builders -- with their style of sprawl development and implacable opposition to sensible planning or a tax structure to pay for all this wonderful "growth"  -- are the cause of the transportation problem. For decades, house builders and developers have made huge profits in Arizona while pushing the public costs of their handiwork onto the public, or into some distant future. As a result, urban Arizona is decades behind in infrastructure and the state's quality of life continues to erode. On a deeper level, because real infrastructure costs are not included in housing, the state continues to subsidize unsustainable, costly population growth. That growth has failed to deliver a diverse, competitive economy, or good public schools, or...the list goes on. Indeed, it has made all those things more difficult to attain.

(And be suspicious of local headline writers, who display stories about roads under the label "transit").

Meanwhile, the Republic ran a letter to the editor today that reads like something from the Daily Show. Unfortunately, the writer seems quite serious:

Does every major city in the United States have to follow the socialist central planner's edict that we all must live in a high-density area and take mass transit?

Besides the fact that it is an incredibly stupid and inefficient idea to force travelers into these 19th-century modes of travel such as rail, most people prefer the independence that the automobile brings. This independence is, of course, exactly what the central planners cannot allow because it removes the traveler from their control. (Mass transit is an especially wasteful idea in a low-density metropolitan area like Phoenix.)

Why not retain at least one major city in America that is friendly to the automobile? Let's build adequate freeways and city streets and parking and tell the world that we are proud of our independence and that we want to be known the world over as a city that believes in individual liberty. Let's broadcast the message that if you like to drive your car, Phoenix will welcome you. - Roy Miller,Phoenix

Like many Zonies, Mr. Miller may not get out much, or his experience of the world was limited to a suburb in the Midwest and now a suburb of Phoenix. The unfortunate truth is that almost every city in America is "an automobile haven." That's part of our problem in a future of higher gasoline prices. Even if you want a city without any choice except endless driving in soulless suburbs, the reality of our energy future will make it more and more expensive. Cities that come in only one flavor also have a difficult time drawing the talented workers needed to be competitive.

It's also amusing to hear the Valley yokels scream about density while living in these pods of ugly, lookalike tract houses crammed into minimal space for maximum profit. I'll take the quality density of, say, Portland's Pearl District, any day.

The most competitive cities offer choices. Not everyone wants to be dependent on an automobile. So even here in Seattle, a very car-centric city, people can (and do in huge numbers) take the bus, commuter rail, streetcar and ferry, as well as multiple daily trains to Portland, as well as Amtrak to Chicago and Vancouver, B.C. Compact development, with real neighborhoods and commercial districts, makes it easy to walk and bike to work and amenities. I am in walking distance of almost anything I need in a beautiful downtown neighborhood. There are plenty of suburbs, too, if that's your thing.

What's apparently beyond the grasp of many such Mr. Millers is that we've been subsidizing the automobile for a long time while largely putting off or ignoring its huge public costs. Global warming and the new energy paradigm will change that. Progressive places are already retrofitting suburbs to offer transit choices (which the right-wing opposes with a fetishistic fervor -- more understandable is the opposition of the oil companies and house builders).

It will be a very difficult shock for these folks when their inefficient 1950s mode of auto transportation and sprawl development becomes more and more of a liability. Will they lead a revolution to keep their "lifestyle"? Send our legions even more deeply into the Middle East to secure cheap gas to keep the SUVs running a few more years?

Meanwhile, the more advanced world cities will keep expanding very 21st century transportation choices, from light rail to bullet trains. Phoenix is already an "automobile haven." It just hasn't wrapped its mind around the consequences.

Comments

[kb]

That was either the stupidest letter or the best jape the Arizona Republic ever printed.

[Mark Sanchez]

Jon: Governor Napolitano let developers off the hook; $100k is a small ransom to pay for a public appeal that will never pass.

There are too may Roy Millers there who regard sprawl as a sacrament and a testament to personal liberty. It is neither, but he may be onto something regarding light rail, although not for any inherent problem with this transportation mode: "Mass transit is an especially wasteful idea in a low-density metropolitan area like Phoenix." I'm a Phoenix native living within Portland's urban growth boundary since 1981. Infrastructure is cheaper and more practical to install within that circle, and the resulting population densities put more people on the bus and light rail lines here. Cleaner air, less sprawl, and no assault on our sense of personal liberty. Mr. Miller's overall theme is distressingly accurate: Phoenix is a car culture. That fact alone has fed the Valley's sprawl and uglification. In truth, the area may be too far gone for any mass transit strategy to succeed. Phoenix is forever married to freeway expansion and beltways. I no longer recognize the place -- and I was there just last week.

[Joe Schallan]

Another high cost associated with the automobile is how much of our cities it requires to be paved over. Zoom in on an aerial shot of Phoeix on Google Maps and you'll see just how much of any given area is dedicated to broad streets and parking lots. What could be yards, gardens, parks and trees is just asphalt. Besides its ugliness, the stuff sits there and gets unbelievably hot in summer. We're so used to it we can't see it anymore, but it's worth pausing the next time you're heading out of a Fry's Supermarket to look around and note just how much of what you are seeing is asphalt.

[Brad Hubert]

Not that I agree with him, but I would point out that Roy Miller actually lives in Encanto, within a mile of your old house in Willo. It's just that he's a hardcore Libertarian who sees every issue through the prism of individual liberties and believes that any government activity is an attempt to restrict freedom.

[Don Gardner]

The natives are getting restless. In a recent azcentral article comparing Austin and Portland to Phoenix, there are 20+ pages of comments, 90% of which are critical of the government, the developers and the general direction Phoenix is going in. Not nearly so much finger-pointing at the illegals now as reality sets in. Even a post saying, "Jon Talton, all is forgiven, come home."