I think my jaw literally hit the floor when I read it. It appears the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority is using the Reason Foundation and their misguided, obsolete, and flawed road-based transportation planning schemes to “craft a vision” for 30-year expansion of MDX expressways. For the vast majority of urban planners, particularly those with any understanding of best practice in growth management, transportation planning, and sustainability, this little “road party” is laughable. It’s almost like a bunch of insurance agents, smokers, and Big Tobacco lobbyists in a room together trying to envision a future of less lung disease without any real doctors present in the room. If this is what politics and planning have come to in Miami-Dade County, I see little hope for an improved, sustainable future.
Oh yeah, and $8 billion dollars? Everyone is always talking about how hard it is to fund transit projects, especially with the deplorable amount of federal aid and massive national demand. Yet it’s funny how it always seems like billions are quickly and easily available for the (road) projects that make the least sense. Eight billion would certainly go along way toward improving transit in the county. Instead, it seems like those in power are either still living in the “the vacuum” themselves, completely oblivious to consensus best practice planning and sustainability, or they’re sprawl industry insiders/backers, or they’re NIMBYs in power suits…or perhaps a combination of all three.
So, while Miami-Dade wastes its time snuggling up with the Reason Foundation and all but ensuring a self-fulfilling prophecy of congestion, pollution and sprawl into perpetuity, New York has recently hired international urban planner extraordinaire Jan Gehl as a consultant. This is a man who is primarily responsible for turning Copenhagen around from a congested, auto-centric city into one of the world’s most livable, pedestrian-oriented, and bike-friendly cities — in just 40 years. In just a short period of time since being hired by the City, plans have already been unveiled for NYC’s first Euro-style physically separated bike lane right on a busy avenue in Manhattan. Mayor Bloomberg is touring Europe as of this moment discussing environmentally-friendly solutions to urban traffic, such as Paris’ Velib bike-sharing program and London’s Congestion Pricing.
It’s simple — Miami-Dade can easily choose this path and begin to move in a new and vastly improved direction. However, if we continue down the current path, it will soon be too late.
* Correction: The original posting wrongly mentioned the MPO instead of MDX as the conductor of the 30-year road plan. However, the MDX 30-year road plan will be submitted to the MPO for inclusion in the 2035 Long-Range Plan.
Photo courtesy of http://www.pritchettcartoons.com
The way I interpreted the article was more along the lines of “This is MDX creating the groundwork for their 30-year plan” than anything. To that, I am pleased to see them finally creating a 30-year vision. As the article states, many of their ideas will not be even remotely possible (ie making US1 a multi-leveled highway with variable tolling). Many of the projects travel through homes and businesses therefore will not be possible unless they have a significantly higher budget.
On another note, this site posted a breakdown of the federal funding for transit projects a while back. That breakdown showed that the federal government is not putting money into transit projects and instead is funding highway expansions. With that in mind, communities would be out of their minds to put everything into transit funding. While I agree that highways are if anything a short-term solution that leads to long-term problems, if that is where the money is then that is where communities need to focus their development and studies.
I think that ultimately it is the federal government giving in to oil companies and auto makers that is the driving force behind our municipalities, counties, and state governments building more roadways instead of transit. When you consider that there are almost no transit projects or highways projects built in this country without some form of federal funding, it is very evident that the problems start at the highest levels of our government and then trickle down. Blame does not rest solely with MDX, the MPO, or the county commission.
Steven,
It’s true that most of these ideas have absolutely no chance of coming to fruition. You’re also right on that it’s at the highest levels of government that policy dictates this gross spending discrepancy. However, I disagree that communities should focus their efforts on road projects for future development just because that’s where the flow of federal aid is coming from. That’s exactly what the sprawl industry wants, for people to just accept this and plan in such a direction. It’s not just about transit vs. highways, though. There are many other ways to reduce congestion and provide alternatives to driving, which Jan Gehl proved through his efforts in Copenhagen. Additionally, there’s A LOT of state and local money out there which could be spent more wisely on transit-oriented projects instead of road-based projects. I’m talking about toll money that currently gets reinvested into road projects instead of transit allocation. And lastly, as we both know, the highway expansion would be unsustainable, so why do it? That would be no better then previous politicians, planners, and citizens that are responsible for the current state of Miami-Dade transportation. I don’t lay blame only on local authorities, but they certainly deserve their share.
So much for the “World Class City” Miami always claims it is becoming.
What a joke. I can’t believe they’re even mentioning building an overpass on US 1 when we already have the godforsaken Metrorail traveling down that same corridor.
They need to expand the Metrorail, something they promised doing 30 years ago. Maybe if they start now, they can have it done in 30 years.
It’s amazing how a city like Bogota, Colombia, which many people consider part of a third-world country, was able to address its traffic congestion by building the TransMilenio, while Miami-Dade is talking about expanding roads that are already served by rapid transit.
More about the TransMilenio here.
I wouldn’t expect much considering who makes the decisions at the MDX. Lets look at some of the directors:
Chair: Maritza Gutierrez - appointed by the County. I’m sure its not because she is a long time political crony of Natacha Siejas…
Jorge Vigil: Appointed by Jeb, lawyer for sprawlville developers and specializes in suing Castro for confiscated properties.
Gonzalo Sanabra: Founding member of Century Homebuilders. Need we say more?
Arthur Noriega: Ex. Director of Miami Parking Authority.
Felix Lasarte: Land use attorney representing Shoma Homes. Campaigned for moving the UDB.
Robert Holland: Attorney specializing in “government relations and land use”.
Good points, Dave.
I’m a daily reader of this blog. I’m a believer in holding the line on the UBD, pushing future growth toward density rather than sprawl, creating a more pedistrian friendly building code, and shifting more of the tax burden onto polluters rather than labor and capital. But, I am also a long time follower of the Reason Foundation and know that they have never been in the bussiness of promoting the use of private cars.
The people at the Reason Foundation are at the cutting edge of the application of economic science to more efficienctly allocate scarce resources, like roadways, especially at the local government level. The fact remains that there are still many people who prefer a house with a yard and a car instead of an apartment with a train and a park. Until we change their minds or become fasciast dictators who can force them into a more comunal lifestyle, we need to have input from people like Bob Poole who can help make our roadway system more efficient.
The good folks at the Reason Foundation were promoting congestion pricing back in the 1970’s, long before it became popular. They were also pushing for more of the costs of expressway construction to be paid for by the car drivers, rather than the government. They were very progressive and ahead of their time on many other transportation issues as well.
The Lebowitz article made it clear that Mr. Poole was promoting a project in the middle of the urban core, not the sprawl inducing projects in the far out suburbs. Also, he specified that it should be a tollway. He never suggested taking funds away from trains or busses to pay for it.
Let’s save the nasty invectives for the people who deserve it, like construction industry big shots who want to destroy the Everglades to make a buck, not concerned citizens who are just trying to improve our urban life.
Check out Reason for yourself at http://www.reason.org
I know about Reason and I’m sorry but you cannot tell me that they’ve never been in the business of promoting private cars. Reason has a very, very long track record supporting road-based solutions that go hand-in-hand with sprawl.
And just because the project is in the urban core doesn’t mean it won’t have a negative effect on communities or that won’t induce more automobile traffic. In fairness, the truck tollway project may not be a bad idea if it’s done right. I also agree that Big Construction deserves plenty of blame, but let’s not let Reason off the hook for their hand in influencing the landscape in a way that allows these other sprawl industries to thrive.
One reason why Reason tends to criticize transit over roads is the simple fact that the more direct control our state/federal/local government has over anything, the more f**ked up it invariably ends up. Look at Metrorail, with convenient & frequent service every THIRTY FREAKIN’ MINUTES. And buses that show up one after another, then vanish from the roads for almost an HOUR. The fact is, it’s a lot harder for the government to screw up a road. And if it does (potholes, etc), there are more self-help options available to the average person (buying an offroad 4×4 with better suspension, etc). When the trains don’t run on time, there’s not a whole lot an individual can do to make an end-run around a dysfunctional government and solve their own problem (besides buy a car and forget about transit, of course).
The day after a hurricane hits central dade, someone with a car can drive to Broward and go shopping. If Broward’s screwed up too, they can keep going to WPB, or (a day or two later) head across I-75 to Naples if they really HAVE to (say, to buy the last remaining generator south of Atlanta from the Sears over there, like I ended up doing). Someone who depends on transit is screwed, and better hope FEMA shows up to hand out free food and ice until the local stores reopen (or MDTA resumes service in a week or so).
If better roads “induce” more travel, that’s great. It means the road enabled and empowered more people do do something that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do. If a supersonic maglev subway were built from New York to London, it would most certainly “induce” travel between the two cities. Normal people view increased personal mobility as a GOOD thing.
The fact is, thanks to America’s freeway network, middle-class Americans today enjoy a lifestyle and standard of living that only the wealthiest Victorian-era professionals could have ever hoped to enjoy. Everyone else was stuck living in 2-room tenements within walking distance of wherever they worked, paying inflated prices because everyone else had to live within walking distance of where they worked, too.
Suburbia isn’t perfect. Just about everyone agrees that single-use euclidean zoning has been a complete disaster in practice. But you know what? Go hunt down someone who lives at Celebration, or Seaside, and actually has to go to work every day. Guess what? The vast majority of them don’t work nearby, and drive 20 miles to work, just like everyone else. And if THEY live within convenient walking distance of their job, their spouse almost certainly doesn’t. And regardless of where they work, when it’s time to go shopping for a pallet of toilet paper and enough food to feed a Nigerian village for a month, they don’t go to the quaint corner market… they hit the freeway and head to Sam’s Club or Costco, just like everyone else.
Anon,
You’re making a common mistake that Reason often makes by oversimplifying urban transportation as if it exists in a vacuum. You’re also failing to grasp the concept of sustainability, which I’ll touch on in a moment.
First, though, it’s a fallacy to say that the more control government has over anything, the more dysfunctional everything is. If everything was privatized, especially government (as has been done in a few American towns), you’re likely to have serious problems with your public spaces. In the case of Miami-Dade, you’re right — the longer headways are make for slow, inefficient transit during certain times of the day. This is not inherently the case with all transit systems. If more resources were dedicated to transit and transit was expanded at the same time surrounding land use is intensified, logistical problems like these probably wouldn’t arise. They certainly don’t in cities with extensive transit systems.
As for the hurricane bit, I think you are generalizing evacuation strategies for all cities based on what you witnessed with New Orleans before Katrina. Trains (and buses) can carry many thousands more people per hour than highways, which makes quality regional transit essential for evacuation purposes. Did you see how the Houston metropolitan area reacted when they were forced to evacuate prior to Rita’s landfall? It was highway gridlock everywhere for as far as one could see. Plus, you can’t assume that everyone can even afford a car (thankfully, they don’t), which is the case for about a quarter of Miami’s population.
As for induced travel, no, it’s not great for roads. It’s flat out unsustainable, and creates several problems. Induced travel is a multimodal effect, but transit has a much greater capacity for handling this than do roads, without most of the harmful externalities. Again this comes back to sustainability. Auto-centric urban areas have much less capacity to absorb growth in population and mobility than do denser, more pedestrian-oriented areas. Think of it like this; due to the spatial ratio between cars and people, you could say that for every one car you could fit at least 15 or 20 people in the same space. This does not even consider the space that is required for through traffic or storage (parking), which could easily inflate this ratio even further. Using the more conservative figure of 15:1, however, this means that two urban areas of roughly the same size would be able to absorb vastly different populations while still offering comparable mobility. If the auto-oriented area has 100,000 people, the transit-oriented one could absorb 1.5 million in roughly the same space. This is evident when you compare a place like Manhattan or Brookyln to a place like Atlanta. At just 23 square miles, Manhattan has a population of over 1.5 million. However, a place like Atlanta, with about 6x the land area and only 1/3 of the population of Manhattan, has similar or worse levels of traffic congestion because it’s predominantly an auto-centric city. Because of this fact, cities that build in an auto-centric fashion are destined to reach a congestion threshold much faster than a transit-oriented city. This is why it’s never a good idea to design cities around cars because even if all vehicles were emissions-free, they’re size alone puts them out of proportion with an urban context and thus are unsustainable. So in a metro like Miami-Dade, which is already large and is experiencing tremendous population growth, it makes little sense to continue developing along an auto-centric paradigm.
As for freeways and the middle class, are these the same freeways that decimated inner city communities in every major city in America? Again, it’s a total fallacy to say that “everyone else was stuck living in 2-room tenements”, because it’s obviously not true. The middle class flight to the suburbs was heavily incentivized, thanks in large part to biased mortgage and loan policies, redlining, zoning, etc. But to say that the freeway network is mainly responsible for allowing middle class American’s to enjoy “the lifestyle of Victorian-era professionals” assumes that this could not (and was not) the case in cities. Completely untrue, for both logical and more complex reasons.
The point about hurricanes was not about evacuation, it was about maintaining direct control of your own personal destiny. If you’re forced to depend on transit for your mobility, your realistic options in the face of a natural disaster are basically whatever our dysfunctional government decrees them to be. Having a car, and good road network, dramatically expands your options, and empowers you to do whatever the f**k you want, regardless of whether or not it has the government’s blessing or aligns with its goal of the week.
It’s not a coincidence that totalitarian societies have traditionally emphasized mass transit over cars — the ability to indirectly exercise control over the personal mobility of citizens is incredibly powerful. If government leaders don’t want people to be able to go somewhere, they can delay the trains and make up lies to excuse the delays. It’s a lot harder to orchestrate an intentional shutdown of an urban freeway network without being totally obvious about it. Totalitarianism is as much about public relations as it is about direct coercive force. If a government sends officials out to openly block a roadway, there’s a major risk of wholesale civil disobedience. Slow down and delay the subway, and you just have a thousand pissed off people stuck in a hot station waiting for the next train, with little to do but give up and go home.
And I wasn’t referring to New Orleans or Katrina. I was specifically referring to Miami after Hurricane Wilma — a hurricane that, thanks to our government’s determination to micromanage and assert its control, ended up being more miserable than the immediate aftermath of ANDREW. At least after Andrew, you could buy anything you wanted if you didn’t mind getting ripped off. After Wilma, you couldn’t buy stuff, period, because the rented U-Hauls full of supplies bought at Home Depots and grocery stores across northern Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, and destined for resale at 200-400% of their original purchase price, never showed up at all. How does this relate to transit and cars? People with cars could say ’screw it’ & go shopping in West Palm Beach. People dependent upon transit were helpless to do anything besides wait for Wise Government Leaders(TM) to solve their problems for them.
Try walking up to a random person the next time there’s a disaster and saying, “I’m from the government. I’m here to help.” Make sure you have a hidden camera ready to videotape them rolling on the ground, laughing so hard they can’t breathe. That’s the cold, hard reality of government in America — wholesale incompetence and screw-ups.