But I couldn’t escape

For over the next week or so, his opinion continued to haunt me via various RSS feeds and e-mailing list circulations and whatnot – Such that I actually found myself saving the link! And even occasionally referencing it! Until just the other day? Amidst theretofore polite conversation somebody once again brought it up, ultimately finally compelling this here blog posting. Now, since the only problem I’m having is where to begin, there’s so much nonsense involved, I’ll start at the beginning: Prior to typing his whatever you’d like to call it, Wendler had just recently read a favorite work of mine, “Urban Fortunes” by John Logan and Harvey Molotch.

“It’s a progressive, almost radical take on the economics of municipal growth (emphasis mine), and it argues that cities are structured to promote increases in rents and property values, most times decreasing existing residents’ enjoyment of their homes and lives and displacing those who can’t pay,” Wendler ably summarizes for us, “The authors distinguish between ‘exchange value’ and ‘use value.’ ‘Exchange value’ is their broad term for the economic value of land and buildings. The general theory is that the higher the total rent, which includes mortgage payments (emphasis mine), the higher the property value. Increasing value can be accomplished by adding units, increasing rent per unit, or a combination of the two. Cities increase exchange value by investing in infrastructure to allow more intense land use, zoning land for more units, allowing taller buildings, granting variances to rules or changing land-use patterns. ‘Use value’ is the personal satisfaction we get from (our homes and where we live).”

I continue developing my razor-sharp discussion

Right now I must digress in order to point out “sophisticated” is a Greek-derived word that means deceptively attractive. When used as a rhetorical basis, the word transforms into “sophistry,” i.e., subtly deceptive reasoning or deceitful argumentation apparently plausible in form but actually invalid. A person who employs such a rhetorical ploy is what’s called a “Sophist.” Why, you ask, am I mentioning this?

Here Wendler is providing us with a wonderful example of sophistry because, while correct in his summation, he only proceeds to apply Logan and Molotch’s rationale to Austin’s urban core. When, in fact? It can/should/must be applied to each and every municipality that, together, comprise the Greater Austin Metropolitan Region. I mean, gee whizz, Wendler, isn’t the overriding value of economic growth the foundation of America’s whole socio-political ideology? (To answer my own question: If there is anything approaching dogma in our national belief system, it is the idea that economic growth is the key to solving all problems.) I mean, gee whizz, Wendler, don’t all municipalities form and function to provide infrastructural investments and thus increase said municipality’s exchange value? With elected officials (at least those who want to be reelected) doing what’s good for the tax base such that use value is also increased so that their constituents won’t up and move elsewhere?

Logan and Molotch: “All (emphasis mine) capitalist places are the creations of activists who push hard to alter how markets function, how prices are set, and how lives are affected.” (To generalize, markets therefore systematically establish divergences between individual and societal well-being; they then establish an incentive to pursue individual interest at the expense of social interest because they guarantee that the rest of society cannot be relied upon to safeguard one’s individual welfare; and, therefore, each individual person comprises their own special interest group, which then joins another compatible individual’s special interest group, etcetera and so forth.) Also, aren’t individuals from outside Austin’s urban core, as speculative investors in the housing market themselves, most interested in increasing their property’s exchange value?

Benjamin Wermund: “But a vision for development that was to become the heart of the city is on life support – instead of boutique shopping, developers are trying to lure big-box retailers – and nearby residents, who bought homes based on the idea of a 43-acre, master-planned community nexus, are crying foul. Town Center neighborhood residents have lauded the City Council’s recent rejection of proposals to change the tract’s zoning from a downtown district to a planned development – which allows for generic office buildings, apartments and shopping centers — and they want to be included in any plans to rezone the area. Residents filled the City Council chambers during a meeting this month and asked the council what happened to the vision the city once had for the Town Center.”

John Maher: “Meanwhile, in Elroy, Pedro Mar said some of his neighbors are sad that (F1) construction has halted, because they (are) hoping the track (will) increase property values in the area.”

Marques G. Harper: “Lakeway officials want to get feedback from residents on Lakeway’s first 15-year capital improvement plan that identifies future projects such as improving roads and constructing new walkways and buildings for the police and parks and recreation departments.”

By confining the parameters of his argument and inferring otherwise, as Wendler is and always has been so shamelessly doing all these years, is the height of sophistry –

As well as hypocrisy

Because isn’t he himself a developer? And isn’t every developer’s very essence increasing exchange value by changing land-use patterns (in his instance from agricultural to residential) by investing in infrastructure to allow more intense land-use (in his instance, by the way, going from 0 units/acre to one unit/acre represents a 100% increase in density), increasing the rents his financiers can charge via mortgage payments and subsequently increasing his own personal ROI? Furthermore, one should keep in mind that what a person or group calls “truths” may have very little or no basis in fact; instead “truths” are often fabricated to favor that person or group’s economic interest and further their own economic aims. Thus, ideological debate becomes less an inquiry into facts than some wantonly avaricious battle for power.

Yes, dear reader, I’m calling into question the reason why Wendler and his ilk (which among others include Mike Levy, Dominic Chavez, Jim Skaggs, Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Don Zimmerman in the form of these entities: Sensible Transportation Solutions for Austin PAC, Engineers Affirming Sustainable Transportation (EAST) PAC, Coalition on Sensible Transportation (COST), Austinites for Action, and the West Downtown Alliance collectivize as a special interest then try ever so hard and vociferously to bloviate other individuals into embracing unsustainable land-use sprawling willy-nilly throughout our region despite their mentality’s most obviously odious ramifications not only to general society but each of us as individually individual self-contained individuals.

Logan and Molotch: “To question the wisdom of growth for any specific locality is to threaten a benefit transfer and the interests of those who gain from it.” Do you now see how and why Wendler et al. are diverting an argument by perpetuating the most illogical of fallacies? Arguments like theirs constitute nothing less than an attack on free enterprise in order to maximize their own bank accounts and whatever reputational status they believe they may gain in our community.

But, again, I’ve been digressing

One example Wendler uses to fuel his hypocritical sophistry about how cities always act to increase exchange value is Austin’s adoption of the Downtown Plan that (and I quote) “promotes growth and advocates spending on downtown parks and infrastructure. That $300 million will be used to subsidize the area…The city’s website says that ‘we should care about downtown because its success is central to the prosperity of the city and the region.’ Reminds me of ‘what is good for GM is good for America’ and sounds a whole lot like trickle-down economics.”

So my question now becomes:  Which localities in the Central Texas Region, suburban developments or the urban core, benefits from the other the most and by about, exactly, how much?

Culled from the Downtown Austin Plan

• Downtown Austin generates $144 million in taxes each year;
• Downtown’s land area is only 0.6% of the total land area of the City, yet it generates over 5% of the City’s property tax. An area eight times the size of Downtown is needed to generate the same average taxable value as the Downtown;
• City services are concentrated and can be provided more efficiently. The Downtown has only  1 of the City’s 43 fire stations; 2 of the City’s 30 EMS centers, 2 of the City’s APD stations; and 1 of 22 libraries. The Downtown is also more efficiently served by roadways, with only 166 of the City’s 7,266 lane miles of roads (2.2%);
• And about 80 cents of every dollar generated by Downtown Austin is used to provide services for areas outside of downtown.

Culled from Hays County Cost of Community Services

• The revenues-to-expenditures ratios show agricultural and open space more than pay their fair share of local taxes, even when these lands are taxed at the agricultural valuation. For every dollar these lands generated in revenue for the county, school and public service districts, they required back only $0.33 in services;
•  Commercial and industrial lands provided a similar net benefit to the county, needing only $0.30 back for every $1 generated in taxes;
• While residential lands generated significantly more dollars in property taxes, they required even more in services — $1.26 for every $1 paid in taxes.

Culled from Austin’s Chamber of Commerce’s Take on Traffic

• To build out a comprehensive transportation system that actually reduces traffic congestion in Central Texas by 2030, we need to find at least $12.7 billion in funding beyond what we have right now. That’s about $635 million a year for the next 20 years;

And concluding with two conclusions from TxDOT/TTI’s 2011 Urban Mobility Report

• (Our) analysis shows that it would be almost impossible to attempt to maintain a constant congestion level with road construction only. Over the past 2 decades, less than 50 percent of the needed mileage was actually added. This means that it would require at least twice the level of current-day road expansion funding to attempt this road construction strategy. An even larger problem would be to find suitable roads that can be widened, or areas where roads can be added, year after year;
• And (Smart Growth) characteristics can be incorporated into new developments so that new economic development does not generate the same amount of traffic volume as existing developments. Among the tools that can be employed are better management of arterial street access, incorporating bicycle and pedestrian elements, better parking strategies, assessing transportation impact before a development is approved for construction, and encouraging more diverse development patterns.

“As the facts change, my mind changes”

In sum, all of the facts above strongly suggest to me that we, as a regional society, can no longer concentrate upon constructing more and more suburban subdivisions connected by highways, each longer and larger than the last, sprawling us farther and farther away from our urban cores, exacerbating our extreme auto-centricity in the process. Truth will emerge victorious, no? Alas, in the instance of Wendler and his what can only be described as cranky self-interested political action faction? Wherein the antithesis of a crank is commonsense? Most likely it will not, alas.

Joe Keohane: “Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.”

Brendan Nyhan (lead researcher on the Michigan study):  “The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong.” The phenomenon – known as “backfire” – is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”

“Certitude is the last disease of old decrepit kings”

Wendler: “As a born here Austinite, I keep trying to put my finger on what’s different about the New Austin. It’s similar to the experience of seeing an old friend who looks different. You aren’t quite sure what’s changed. Plastic surgery? New hairstyle? Maybe just new glasses?…In many ways, this City Council is the most pro-growth, go-go council in memory.”

So let’s borrow for a minute the Panglossian lenses through which Wendler views how he wishes things should remain, with folks moving out to what were once rural Central Texas counties despite the fact that, at least I’m about to suggest the fact that we’ve essentially run out of land in which to sprawl. Between 2000 and 2010, Williamson County’s population grew 69% and Hays County’s increased 61% while Bastrop County’s population grew by 28.5%, all of which are well above and beyond Texas’ overall 20.6% population growth; also over that time period, according to Metrostudy  more than 15,000 new subdivision homes were built in Hays County, another 2,227 in Bastrop County and, in Williamson County, the number of households increased from 86,766 to 162,773.

Eric Dexheimer and Tony Plohetski: “Where the developments and the brush meet is the tectonic fault line of wildfire danger known to fire experts as the wildland-urban interface. In an adaptation of the old philosophical question, if fire breaks out in an empty forest, it is noiseless. Adding people and homes, however, dramatically alters the equation, creating a cacophony. Not only do humans ignite the vast majority of wildfires, their presence demands that firefighters and equipment rush to the scene to protect life and property.”

Jon White (director of Travis County’s Natural Resources and Environmental Quality Division): “It’s the developments that are the danger.”

Paul Maldonado (State Fire Marshal): “We have known about, and anticipated, these incidences.”

We all recall what happened out in Bastrop County this past September and, it must be pointed out, our society must once again subsidize the costs imposed by mindlessly unconstrained suburban sprawl.

Brenda Bell: “The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Friday announced the allocation of $31.3 million in emergency aid to help Bastrop and nearby communities recover from the devastating Labor Day wildfires… Along with the $16.5 million allocated to date by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the HUD program brings the federal government’s investment in the recovery effort in the Bastrop area to $47.8 million… Another pressing need: coming up with the money needed to match the millions of federal dollars flowing to Bastrop. Every $3 from FEMA for debris removal and assistance to fire victims requires $1 in matching local funds.”

Lisa Falkenberg: “Volunteer firefighters on the front lines are rushing toward the flames in tread-worn boots that don’t fit, fire suits too hot and heavy for the job, and sometimes, quite literally, in blue jeans. Fire chiefs across the state describe being outmatched, underfunded and ill-equipped to fight the unprecedented onslaught of fires fueled this year by unceasing drought.”

Ciara O’Rourke: “Windy, dry weather this weekend could set the stage for wildfires. The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday (1/21/2012) from west and along a line from Georgetown to Pleasanton, about 35 miles south of San Antonio.”

To begin summarizing my argument, the Greater Austin Metropolitan Region, very much including all the cities that comprise it, is nothing but an ongoing, dynamic social experiment; despite all these facts and verbiage I’ve delineated above, Wendler and his cronies will only further assert that we should continue highly subsidizing its, shall we say, stagnation; even when stagnation, in and of itself, only leads to regression rather than progression; and isn’t Progress supposed to be the thing that makes America so great?

As Thomas Jefferson said?

“No generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.”

Most economists are asserting that this young generation of ours will fare worse than their parents’ generation, the first time that that has happened in American history. And it still amazes me how wannabe entrenched plutocrats like Wendler, Levy,  Chavez, Skaggs, Strayhorn and Zimmerman have been and are still willing to sacrifice another and yet another generation upon future generations even when staring at the End Game of this un-sustainably contrived, heavily subsidized contrivance our society calls “sprawl.” With that being said, shouldn’t we all be hoping for a brighter future for the Greater Austin Metropolitan Region? I cannot relay the following sentiment any better:

Fritz Steiner: “The challenge is clear; we live in a growing city and region. The population is expected to increase by 750,000 by 2039. The metropolitan region is home to more than 1.7 million people and is expected to rise to almost 4 million by 2040. To address this growth, Imagine Austin advocates that new development be focused in centers – places to concentrate new residents and for economic growth. This concept has evolved from the efforts of Envision Central Texas…However, Imagine Austin’s idea is no mere carbon copy of Envision Central Texas or CAMPO; it envisions a much more refined definition of centers. In addition to the regional centers (25,000 to 45,000 new people; 5,000 to 25,000 new jobs), derived from Envision Central Texas and CAMPO, the Imagine Austin draft presents approaches for town centers (10,000 to 30,000 new people; 5,000 to 20,000 new jobs), and neighborhood centers (5,000 to 10,000 new people; 2,500 to 7,500 new jobs). The plan also proposes mixed-use corridors and job centers. In addition, the draft plan designates open-space networks, high-capacity transit and transit stops, highways and streets, and other development both inside the existing city limits and within the extraterritorial jurisdiction. As a result, ideal locations for future conservation and development are explicit.”

An added bonus!

Imagine Austin’s concept dovetails nicely with our national trends.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers’: “Next-generation projects will orient to infill, urbanizing suburbs, and transit-oriented development. Smaller housing units-close to mass transit, work, and 24-hour amenities – gain favor over large houses on big lots at the suburban edge. People will continue to seek greater convenience and want to reduce energy expenses. Shorter commutes and smaller heating bills make up for higher infill real estate costs.”

Robert “Boom-burb” Lang: “Bedroom communities now must rethink their future and become a little less sprawly, a little more village-like with clustered development, denser housing. The irony is that if they want to keep growing, they must grow as cities, which is diametrically opposite of how they got so big in the first place.”

The current state of our disarrayed regional society today is not much of a recommendation for following that much-traveled path of subsidizing with such obscene sums for such, at the very most, negligible returns from suburban sprawl. We must learn from our historical collective experience in order to overcome these obstacles and flourish. Although it will take years to repair the damage done by such atomistic economic development strategies as Wendler’s, today all of us who comprise the Greater Austin Metropolitan Region need to ask ourselves how we as a society wish to be judged by future generations – Because if we follow such misguided egotistical-driven advice as that gentleman’s?

Boy oh boy you’d better believe we’ll be most sorely judged.

 Edwin Shrake (May 10, 1965):

“But like most of the places in the U.S. that are wild and free, the Hill Country in its present form may be disappearing. Because of the popularity of Lyndon Johnson, tourists are entering the Hill Country, though as yet somewhat timidly. There are picnic-lunch sacks crumpled on the banks of the Blanco River where it rushes, clear over the limestone and blue in the channels, near the high blue ridges of The Devil’s Backbone. More dude ranches are opening. Some of the working ranchers are selling out to syndicates from Dallas and Houston. There are grand plans for resorts—hunting and fishing and horseback-riding motels with neon signs and leatherette couches and mustard and catsup in little plastic boxes and, God knows, maybe even Scopitone, which may become known as the last defeat of civilized man. But the Hill Country has one weapon, perhaps an ultimate one, against encroachment, and that is the stubbornness and loneliness of the land itself.

“It is not the place for everybody.”

Ben Wear (Results mixed on MoPac lane changes): “At the same time, MoPac in that stretch went from two lanes northbound to three lanes. The idea, of course, was to improve the overall flow of the expressway with an extra lane (50 percent more capacity), even if that meant a little pain for some people trying to join the parade on one fewer lane (50 percent less capacity).”

Our Most Senior Fellow (just over a year ago; found in full here): “Welcome, dear audience, to the Braess Paradox, which ‘states that in a network in which all the moving entities rationally seek the most efficient route, adding extra capacity can actually reduce the network’s overall efficiency.’ This dynamic inverts as well. That is, reducing network capacity can actually improve the system’s effectiveness. Furthermore, Dietrich Braess also noted that ‘in a user-optimized network, when a new link is added, the change in equilibrium flows might result in a higher cost, implying that users were better off without that link.’

“With this restriping plan, among other issues drivers entering MoPac from 6th will have to merge into that new third lane – And as we all know how Austinites do nothing but embody the Braess Paradox when it comes to properly merging, especially onto an expressway. Thus, the bottleneck TxDOT is supposedly rectifying will be dispersed into several smaller bottlenecks in those areas where merging must occur.”

Wear: “Based on a follow-up study by the Texas Transportation Institute, the backup for the Cesar Chavez drivers in the afternoon has increased by an average of 1,500 feet. If we assume about 25 feet per car, counting the space between cars, that would be about 60 extra cars crawling for more than an extra quarter-mile…to sum up, to help South Austin folks get north much faster in the morning, and maybe a bit faster in the afternoon, downtown workers are getting a good long look at the lovely concrete back wall of Austin High School.”

Statesman reader Owen Pelligrin: “The solution isn’t to try and make more space for cars. The solution is better public transportation that goes from where people live to where people work. So long as people are encouraged to drive themselves everywhere, there will be traffic problems in Austin.”

And right now Our Most Senior sees fit to both quote Charles De Gaulle, who said “when I am right, I get angry,” and conclude with words by the incomparable Jonathan Swift: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this infallible sign: That all the dunces are in
confederacy against him.”

I find myself once again thinking how what effects the region effects downtown and what effects downtown effects the region.

And how we as a society can no longer continue to grow this way:

For the past coupla years I’ve been covering stuff for The Elgin Courier. Right now I’m feeling neglectfully remiss about not posting those articles forthwith on this site. So accordingly I’ll be remedying that by posting them momentarily. Although they may not be timely,  per se, they may be timeless, and at the very least they may serve to bring one up to speed with a more regional perspective.

But I’ll get a bit ahead of myself because, in fact, where today’s wildfire is occurring now is sorta kinda near where there is an annexation/ETJ issue between the cities of Bastrop and Elgin, which is proving to be most interesting.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be getting back to nervewracking over whether the wind’s gonna shift while hoping that it don’t.

Hortensia’s still chill though

Two-year-ish old Source: Even more perniciously, officials are expecting to use excess toll revenues as collateral for leveraging funding for new toll roads – as evidenced by the plan CAMPO recently approved to use the excess toll revenues from 183A, which has bond insurance, as a substitute for bond default insurance on 290E because bond insurance has now become unaffordable as a result of the credit crisis.  This is a financial tactic that Minsky might very well term “Ponzi Borrowing.”[vii]  Furthermore, “Standard & Poor’s experience indicates that optimism bias is a consistent trend in toll-road traffic forecasting.  Bondholders and lenders should, therefore, view these forecasts with some degree of caution as they attempt to identify the inherent risks that these forecasts pose for credit quality.” [viii]  And so it comes down to these questions:

• Has TxDOT and/or CAMPO and/or CTRMA been cooking their traffic count books? [viv]
• What happens if TxDOT defaults on its bond for 183A? [x]
• What happens if toll roads, which are now so called Public-Private Partnerships, are fully privatized? [xi]

…Yawn…Stretch…Yes it’s been awhile since we here at The Placemaking Institute last left you, albeit for very good reason…

Because sometimes one must take steps back in order to stop observing individual trees so that one can begin seeing the forest again…And now is the time Our Most Senior Fellow sees fit to roust himself and once again say the same ol’ thang he’s been saying for the past several years now: rail must run right up the middle if it is ever going to be considered both a short- and long-term success.

There are several folks (among them Wear , Dahmus and Austin Contrarian [albeit the latter recently expressed the same sentiment that'll be relayed below, as does this 2009 dialogue between the latter two]) who’ve been sorta somewhat rightfully raising concerns that, according to the City of Austin’s current “urban rail” plan, trains would “share traffic lanes with cars for about half of the 16.5-mile route,” which may increase congestion and reduce mobility. Their concerns are shared by a goodly number of folks around town, the general sentiment reflected by this observation a thoughtfully funny friend made the other day: “Leffingwell’s administration can’t even get out of its own way and it’s expecting people to get out of the way of streetcars?!” (There are, however, two things to point out: one, a greater percentage of shared lanes would socially engineer an increase in transit ridership and, two, dedicated lanes require infrastructure that impedes walkability and, in proper locales like Congress, streetcars sharing lanes would reactivate the streetscape.)

But in the greater scheme we here at The Placemaking Institute believe that’s not worth arguing about. Because what’s the root cause of having such a high percentage of shared traffic lanes?

The Institutional Gibralter that is the University of Texas; just one look at the City of Austin’s proposed route map shows the needless infrastructural replications and cost inefficiencies that it’s causing just so it can turn its share of Speedway into a strictly pedestrian mall:

UT’s stranglehold on Speedway must be breached so that efficiencies leading towards the greatest good for the entire community are achieved, the result being:

(Plus: Dean Keeton west to Guadalupe, north to the Triangle and ultimately north on Lamar; Dean Keeton east to Manor Road and to the Mueller Development.)

UT’s very own 2009 Greenhouse Gas Inventory (based on data from 2000-2006) only buttresses Our Most Senior Fellow’s position.

Within that document one learns that UT breaks down its emissions into three scopes. Scope III includes the costs of commuting, which comprise 16 percent of that scope. Overall, approximately 6 percent of UT’s 2006 emissions result from commuting. In UT’s own words:

“The voluntary ‘carbon offset’ markets in the United States, and the regulatory markets in Europe and Japan, provide a price range with which to estimate the cost of proactive offsetting or the eventual cost of future regulations: $5-30 per MT CO2e, depending on the provider and quantity purchased; $1.5-9 million to offset the total estimated 2006 Core Emissions.

“There is additional meaning to these numbers: they capture the financial burden that would result from proposed federal or regional legislation. This burden would appear largely via higher energy prices. Such regulation would also embed additional cost in activities that lead to Scope III emissions. The University shares these emissions – and therefore also the financial risk – with students and employees who commute…The low end of the range (appropriate for short-term estimation) is based on voluntary offset markets and the initial evidence from a limited compliance market in the US. Medium-run estimates of a cost of carbon (under US legislation) go above $30 per MT CO2e, and European markets have already traded around $50. This higher range ($30-50) suggests…a shared (Scope III) burden in the neighborhood of $7-12 million.”

This $90 million plus very pedestrian mall will do nothing to reduce these burdens, the effect being much like putting lipstick on a congested pig.

Wouldn’t it be tragic to waste money on a system that fails to serve the community by connecting destinations in an optimum way? Because “if you make one little concession, then two, then five,” warned Flaubert, “And soon all is lost.”

Last week the City of Austin and the FTA held 5 public meetings to commence the Environmental Impact Statement. This process has a web site with a form to collect public opinion.

Please consider submitting a written comment online regarding the route before April 29.

If Austin weren’t always so hampered by short-sighted politicians and citizens in a tizzy against virtually everything, it would now be the best test case for land use paradigm change of emerging mid-sized American cities. This article explores Austin’s underutilized urban geography before discussing future lifestyle, economic and environmental benefits that can potentially be gained, not by continuing to embrace sprawl, but by optimizing density via infill.

Infill development generally occurs by rezoning formerly vital neighborhoods that have been lost over decades of change, which instigates private investment. An infill project should be appropriately scaled and leave a neighborhood significantly better off than before. Furthermore, transportation systems are pulmonaries through which any urbanized area breathes while its downtown is the heart that pumps its vitality. They are inextricably entwined; if one underperforms, stress is added to the other, which then adds stress to the other – until soon the whole urban structure begins collapsing into itself.

Streetcar systems facilitated the original growth of most American cities, including that of Austin; its first day:

Unfortunately those responsible for the advent of the automobile destroyed these rail systems; its last day:

The process of reinstituting streetcars running right “up the middle” will be facilitated by the near perfect grid of existing streets. With destinations like the CBD, the State Capitol Complex and UT, the market clearly exists for this. The potential to densify many centralized zones is tremendous. Streetcars can once again serve Austin’s most intense population concentrations while unlocking development potential of areas between and beyond.

Today, alas, Austin is not unique when it comes to having crosstown arterials that are lined by retail and low-density buildings. These auto-dominated thoroughfares divide neighborhoods and deny pedestrian corridors that could instead be interconnecting adjacent neighborhoods. Redeveloping these arterials into medium density, transit enabled, walkable, mixed-use continuous corridors could provide housing for thousands of people.

While many cities have brownfield sites due to former industrial land uses, Austin has “black holes” in the form of changed land uses. For example, the State of Texas owns many tracts of land around the city. As state institutions move, consolidate or disappear, land will become available for redevelopment by the private sector, ultimately filling most of the urban black holes. The zones adjacent to and north of the State Capitol Complex are totally automobile-oriented and, therefore, presently lifeless both day and night. A great opportunity exists to inject mixed-use development and urban life into this huge (80-block) area.

Many good examples of graceful increases in density and, of course, the subsequent corresponding increase in property values already exist in Austin. Central Park (38^th and Lamar) and The Triangle are already established while Plaza Saltillo (the site of abandoned rail switching yards just east of the CBD and IH-35) and Mueller are currently being redeveloped as walkable, mixed-use New Urbanist communities. Others include the University Neighborhood Overlay that favors dense student housing, and the Rainey Street neighborhood at the intersection of IH-35 and Lady Bird Lake.

The Central Business District of Austin has traditionally been the center of the region. Very recently it has again become the focus of urban living and, as a result, the CBD is reemerging as a place of retail activity while also experiencing a hotel building surge. But two major problems exist: first being the brutal superimposition of IH-35 over historic East Avenue; the second being the yet-unrealized opportunity for approximately 91 acres (52 city blocks) of downtown redevelopment potential on the shores of Town Lake (AKA Lady Bird Lake). Because the latter is Austin’s most important amenity and most valuable real estate, it has the potential to become Austin’s “green lung” if done right. Encouraging sustainable development of privately-owned land along its edges is a short-cut to enhancing tax base and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Thousands of people could live and work here, and the whole Central Texas Region would be infinitely better off as a result.

Yes, there is, of course, heartburn associated with this kind of change. But in the end thousands of people will be able to walk to their destinations. And, by living closer to where they work and play, literally tens of thousands of people will begin reducing the vehicle miles they travel rather than crowding streets with more commuter cars. With that said, let us now explore the benefits that could be gained by optimizing Austin’s density on just a few opportune sites.

Of the thousands of acres of unutilized and underutilized land inside the Austin city limits, we selected only five sites to explore the implications of walkable, mixed-use developments at a gentle level of density.  These five sites, representing about 10% of the opportunity in the region, included Green Water Treatement Plant, the West 5^th Street Corridor, the Southbank at the Pecan Groves, the Statesman site just east of Congress, and the Northshore just east of IH-35.  After both the Riverside Corridor and the Brackenridge Tract master plans were completed, we added those numbers to the statistical analysis.  A brief summary of the impacts for the seven sites show (we’ll be addressing our assumptions in another posting):

• Total area of non-public land for development: 1674 acres holding 44,500 housing units
• Area of sprawl preempted: 13,150 acres
• Length of new lake edge made open and accessible to the public: 3.1 miles.
• Potential tax base creation: $12.87 billion
• Mileage not driven due to shorter commutes: 1,118,495 miles daily
• Gallons of gas saved daily: 57,675 gallons daily and 16,437,304 gallons annually
• Amount of commuter time saved from sitting in traffic: 6,095 hours daily and 1,737,190 hours annually
• Amount of CO2 emissions saved: 577 tons daily and 164,373 tons annually

The Austin Metropolitan Region is ever-verging upon violating the Clean Air Act. When this does indeed occur, we the people will have no choice but to densify in a manner quite similar to this proposal. It’s always better to act now rather than reacting later. While the five county regional vision of Envision Central Texas points the way towards a sustainable future, Austin needs visionary leadership and cooperation among jurisdictions that enables compact, walkable towns and neighborhoods linked by rail transit that is structured around the downtown core. The conditions are in place for paradigm change, to create a new “Geography of Opportunity” for our Central Texas Region.

The Great Streets 2025 Plan

Dark Blue: Pedestrian-Dominant Street; Green: Rapid Transit Street; Red: Commuter Boulevard; Orange: Commuter Street; Light Blue: Bicycle and Local Access Street; Yellow: Mixed-Mode Street; Purple: Pedestrian and Bikeways

Near-Term Downtown Transportation Plan

The Devil in the Details; Downtown Great Streets Plan stalled by commuter roadblocks (same canards used by opponents of 2010′s Prop 1)

William H. Whyte: “The street is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center.”

(Please note that the following was born to fruition on 4/29/2010, thus before a lot of relevant stuff happened.)

Transportation systems are the pulmonaries through which any urbanized region breathes while its Downtown is the heart that pumps its vitality.  They are inextricably entwined and, if one underperforms, stress is added to the other, which then adds stress to the other until soon the whole system begins spiraling downwards towards inevitable collapse.  According to the City of Austin, their Great Streets Master Plan “is founded on the vision set forth in the Council-adopted Downtown Austin Design Guidelines of a dense, vibrant downtown with a strong sense of place and strong concern for the public (that also)integrate(s) all modes of transportation into a balanced system of streets and sidewalks.” Yet ten years later one of the main underutilized infrastructural resources in Downtown Austin remains its streets, our most important and pervasive public space and common ground.

Today, with only a handful of exceptions, they are neither balanced nor active nor destinations, nor are they being used in a manner that manages congestion – All of which violates Austin’s very own guiding principles for Great Streets design. Furthermore, the City is currently in a state of flux regarding the need to broaden its transportation modality away from extreme auto-centricity. This ongoing debate of how to best implement such infrastructural improvements as Urban Rail, bicycle boulevards, transit transfer facilities, rerouting/eliminating certain bus lines and implementing Bus Rapid Transit and a Transportation Management Association, provides Austin with a tremendous opportunity to synchronize its efforts and leverage existing underutilized and undervalued resources in an efficient manner so that the most optimal end possible is achieved.

It is argued here that incorporating Great Streets into any and all of the infrastructural improvements cited above would be an excellent investment, one with comparatively low short-term costs but very high long-term benefits that would permeate throughout the Region.

The key component of Great Streets is promoting mobility and accessibility, and the complete street concept has been embraced by an increasing number of cities, from Los Angeles to St. Louis and Chattanooga to Washington D.C. By moving beyond just viewing streets as concourses for cars and opening them to cyclists, pedestrians, and loungers, converting one-way streets back to two-way streets and sometimes even into car free public plazas, these cities are instigating and accommodating diverse street environments, which as you know are integral to sustainable urban economic development strategies. While there has been no study of the economic benefits of the Great Streets program per se, the value of improving walkability has been quantified by several researchers.

In his Economic Value of Walkability, the Victoria Transport Policy Institute’s Todd Litman states: “Walking and walkability provide a variety of benefits, including basic mobility, consumer cost savings, cost savings (reduced external costs), efficient land use, community livability, improved fitness and public health, economic development, and support for equity objectives. Current transportation planning practices tend to undervalue walking. More comprehensive analysis techniques, described in this paper, are likely to increase public support for walking and other nonmotorized modes of travel.” Other studies have proven that walkable communities not only have higher housing values and cost taxpayers less but reduce commuting costs and attract tourists and “new economy” workers as well; they also function better than auto-centric communities at capturing emerging “lifestyle” retail markets and, thus, they have become a relocation incentive for businesses. One case in point: Downtown Lodi, California, which launched a $4.5 million public-private pedestrian oriented project, including a retrofit of five main street blocks from building face to building face. The City credits these improvements for 60 new businesses, the drop in the vacancy rate from 18% to 6% and 30% increase in Downtown sales tax revenues.

Another powerful example of how Great Streets can redefine a place by incorporating principles of walkable sustainability and building from the spirit of the place itself is the unquestionable success of Austin’s own Second Street District. Once a virtual land use vacuum, now this premier, mixed-use retail spine serves as a wonderful predicate for what the rest of Downtown can become; Great Streets is the only variable that distinguishes it as an economic catalyst. This paradigm should be the impetus for City of Austin leaders to begin both designing and implementing more Great Streets in order to help fulfill its goal of drawing new residents to Downtown (as portrayed in the aforementioned Downtown Austin Design Guidelines). While the Caesar Chavez Conversion, 23^rd Street, and Brazos Streetscape Improvement & Reconstruction Projects are underway, other integral projects are languishing, including most particularly Third, Colorado, Congress (note: targeted for update, revitalization!), Guadalupe and Lavaca. All five of these underutilized streets are in some way being studied as prime transportation corridors for implementing everything from Urban Rail and a Transit Transfer Facility to bicycle boulevards and Bus Rapid Transit – Yet since 2002 there has been virtually no mention of Great Streets whatsoever (of course with the exception of, among several others, Katherine Gregor [for one example, please read her Gone and Quartered]).

This is an oversight that must be rectified before a tremendous opportunity to make Austin a much more Livable place in a relatively cost-efficient manner is lost. As such, this proposal for research funding includes the following scope of work:

• Examining relevant pre-existing research reports (as cited above)
• Applying the knowledge gained from these pre-existing research reports into the City of Austin’s urban context
• Determining the economic impact of Second Street versus that of non-Great Streets
• Generating a quantifiable number or, better, scale of numbers that will be applied to the tax-base of non-Great Streets in a “what could occur” economic development projection scenario
• Determining the job creation impact/multiplier effect of implementing Great Downtown Streets
• Establishing how those economic development benefits will impact the surrounding environs
• Suggesting changes to the Great Streets Development Program’s Reimbursement Cap Criteria
• Helping coordinate construction timelines so that Great Streets are incorporated into any and all of the potential congestion-mitigation strategies (as cited above), reducing inefficient overlaps and ensuring achievement of the most optimal results
• Creating a Great Streets Transportation Plan that maximizes the extant street grid’s capacity in a manner that improves mobility and accessibility with a relatively minimal capital improvement outlay

In the current sociopolitical environment, endeavoring to maximize value-capture of such a vastly underutilized if not outright forgotten infrastructural resource as Downtown’s existing street grid should be considered a no-brainer must win-win situation for all involved. And, if the City of Austin does invest in this modest research proposal, it, like the Great Streets Strategy itself, will prove to have very low short-term costs that instigate many quantifiable long-term benefits – As well as those so beautifully unquantifiable:

(Addendum: Although The Placemaking Institute is on record as to the many mistakes made during the City’s campaign for Proposition 1, needless to say, thankfully it was approved by voters…The multi-modal ball has begun rolling, and from here on in its momentum must continue to be instigated. How? Again, by quantifying regional benefits, learning from past mistakes, and working to forestall the opposition’s arguments.)

While I’m sure there are those who are, and should be, dancing in the streets about this victory, the final result (as well as what led up to it) very much troubles The Placemaking Institute, especially upon taking into account the big picture.

Why?

Mayor Leffingwell’s belief that Prop 1 would be accepted by 85% of the voters is on the record. He also said, “I’ve heard about polls that indicate this is going to be a close contest. We had not expected that to happen. I think that’s entirely due to a large infusion of money by opponents into media and signs and so forth.”

But, as Ben Wear pointed out, “(W)hat is not arguable is that the larger infusion of money actually has been from supporters (who) through Oct. 23 had raised more than twice as much money as opponents.” And he’s not even including the approximately $600,000 the City spent on its website!

In no way should this race have been so close, and I cannot believe that people are surprised by the outcome. What actually surprises me about yesterday’s vote is that the opposition wasn’t ultimately successful. To be polite, this situation denotes Pollyanna-ish complacency, as well as a lack of among other things political leadership and wherewithal. Scarcely being able to generate passage of a relatively innocuous bond at a cost of, for all intents and purposes, a piddling $90 million does not bode well for the projected 2012 $1.5 billion Urban Rail Bond proposal – Unless the so-called powers that be learn from their mistakes.

Why do I feel this way?

Because the City of Austin was caught with its pants down and got lucky. In football parlance, their offense consisted of one-yard-and-a-cloud-of dust, running the same play, even though poll after poll indicated the issue was not gaining traction. The Prop 1 opposition, on the other hand, viewed this bond election as a great way to sharpen their knives for the Urban Rail issue, and they reacted accordingly. If this campaign had been a contest of managerial skills, they would have blown the City’s doors off.

Why?

Because political campaigns try to reduce opponents to caricatures, that’s why. And to this end, despite only having spent about $50,000 on advertisement, the anti-Prop 1 lobby succeeded. They ran a tight organization, which they always do when fighting any proposal that contains anything but roads and roads and more roads. Anybody surprised by this has essentially been sleeping throughout the past 30 some odd years of Austin’s history.

Why?

Because the first political rule of thumb is “know thy enemy;” their hackneyed arguments were transparent, predictable, and they should have been both anticipated and nipped in the bud. If the City’s campaign was in any way adequate and had done so, Prop 1 would most likely have been passed by a more definitive majority that could have been used as a firm groundswell foundation for other multi-modal endeavors. Their failure lies in the fact that it allowed the opposition to frame the issue, forcing reaction instead of action. I could go on and on and on with examples, believe you me.

But to give just one: the main argument against the bond was that it favored projects downtown at the expense of those elsewhere. What the City should have done was first prove the economic development benefits of the bond package before showing how those benefits will begin permeating throughout the rest of the region. How could the City not anticipate this happening?

While some rinky-dink organization like the Placemaking Institute did? Because, in fact, several months ago we floated a grant proposal to several Prop 1 proponents that received no interest whatsoever. It shall suffice as next week’s installment of The Placemaking Institute’s “Austin’s Landscape of Missed Opportunity.”

Eight Common Sense Reasons to Vote YES on Proposition 1

1)     Focusing on building more roads to the exclusion of all else is what has caused Austin’s transportation problems.

2)     If vehicle-miles of travel were to increase by 5%/year, roadway lane-miles would need to increase by 5% each year just to maintain the initial congestion level.*

3)      It would require at least twice the level of current-day road expansion funding to attempt a “road construction only” strategy.*

4)      In growing areas adding capacity of all types is essential to handle the growing demand and avoid rapidly rising congestion.*

5)      Smart Growth characteristics should be incorporated into new developments so that new economic development does not generate the same amount of traffic volume as existing developments.*

6)      TxDOT can only afford 30% of the funds needed to make required improvements, more than 40% of its budget goes to maintenance, and it will go broke by 2012.

7)      Because of ‘optimism bias’ toll road bonds are routinely graded as ‘BBB’ while all three major U.S. financial rating agencies have reaffirmed Austin’s ‘AAA’ long-term rating.

8)      ”TxDOT has supplemented state and federal revenue allocations with private partners and borrowed funds generated by various bond issues (since 2002),” says Susan Combs (Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts). ”TxDOT must service this existing debt before spending any funds on new projects.”

(* Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) and thus TxDOT)

In sum, Proposition 1 seeks to make transportation improvements by increasing the efficiency of the existing system right at the heart, which will then begin emanating throughout the whole Central Texas Region. According to TTI, “these treatments are particularly effective in three ways:

1)     “They are relatively low cost and high benefit which is efficient from a funding perspective;

2)     “They can usually be implemented quickly;

3)     “And they can be tailored to individual situations, making them more useful because they are flexible.”

With Proposition 1, the City of Austin is attempting to begin rectifying over 40 years of pro-road tunnel-vision…Vote “Yes.”

The Nitwits Who Would Have You Do Otherwise

Sensible Transportation Solutions for Austin PAC (Filed 10/5/2010)

Campaign Treasurer: Dominic Chavez; Person Appointing the Treasurer: Dominic Chavez; Media Contact: Ed Wendler

Financial muscle (to the tune of $30k) provided by former Texas Monthly publisher (and wannabe political player): Mike Levy

Engineers Affirming Sustainable Transportation (EAST) PAC (Filed 10/5/2010)

Campaign Treasurer (and former treasurer of Coalition on Sensible Transportation): Don Zimmerman; Person Appointing Treasurer: Jim Skaggs

Austinites for Action (501c4)

Their Mission (I’m not making this up): “Break the lock on our city politics”

Executive Director: Carole Keeton Strayhorn; Advisory Board: Dominic Chavez, Jim Skaggs, Don Zimmerman (among others)

West Downtown Alliance

Members: None; But for more information you can contact?: Carole Keeton Strayhorn

Old Texas Proverb: “You can put your boots into the oven, but they’ll never turn into buns.”