Going Green (Line)

Rob Goodspeed posts several charts regarding Metro ridership here in the Washington DC area. This one illustrates the growth in ridership at the relatively new Green Line stations around where I live. The steady growth is impressive and tends to illustrate the point that if you build it, they will come; especially if you build it properly, which is what's happened here. The way Columbia Heights' ridership started out slightly lower than Petworth's but is now rocketing ahead also shows the virtues of allowing intensive development, something I'd like too see even more of in that area where right now it's basically restricted (by law, not by lack of demand) to 14th Street.

Comments

Interesting. Note that, for the first few years, Dupont Circle was the last station on the Red line-- the dip and then leveling off of ridership at Dupont Circle occurred when the 'new' Red line stations extending into NW and beyond first went into service.

Posted by MattF | December 7, 2007 10:45 AM

THis is another pro-density post, isn't it? Public transportation is good:"if you build it they will come." THat's not always the case in other cities. My point is, and always has been, that you seem to be extrapolating from your personal experience in NY and DC (both are accronyms: that correlation proves something, I'm sure) to the rest of the US and then saying, "we should be doing this..." That's not a good way solve problems. I personally think more public transportation is a good thing, but I also know from experience that it doesn't always work to get cars off the road. In fact it only really works in places that are highly dense already. So if you build it in Portland, for instance, people will ride it, but not in enough numbers to make any appreciable difference.

I have the similar point about density. A huge chunk of americans don't want to live in condos or apartments. You have to take that into consideration when proscribing solutions.

Finally, is there some way we can combine the issues of density with race and IQ? I think the synergy created by the collsion of those two ideas in the minds of your readers would result in something really special.

Posted by cw | December 7, 2007 12:56 PM

I think the point is that if growth is going to occur anyway, having a public transportion system in place and clustering high density development around it is a far better alternative to accomodating that growth solely through creating additional sprawl. Yes - the people who move into that higher density development and use the convenient public transportion results in less cars on the road than if the growth had been achieved by sprawl and yes the fact that such high density developments have low vacancy rates and creates additional demand fo such development does mean that there are people that want to live there.

Maybe a huge chunk of Americans don't want to live in condos and apartments given the current economic setup - the rest of us are subsidizing their lifestyles via mortgage tax benefits and paying for roads and putting up with the externalities caused by their dependence on excessive use of the personal car necessatated by their lifestyle choice. Why should we continue to support and economically enable such destructive lifestyle choices in the future?

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | December 7, 2007 1:30 PM

While you certainly have a point, I don't think you can fairly cite the data without acknowledging that the Green Line wasn't a through line until mid 1999. That ridership went up and went up a lot once people could get to and from the park-and-ride at Greenbelt is too unsurprising to be proof of anything.

You do focus on the subsequent steady growth (i.e., the sustained **rate** of growth) which is reasonable, but you would be more fair and slightly less compelling if you included a description of the initial conditions.

Posted by Ben V-L | December 7, 2007 2:14 PM

"why should we continue to support and economically enable such destructive lifestyle choices in the future?"

You have to do this because they are a really big voting block. And the people-who-don't-wnat-to-live-in-condos-block are not going to change their mind because of your complaining that it's not fair. And so waving your magic wand and saying let there be density is not going to do anything. Come up with some ideas that might possibly work.

I personally think that big cities linked to well planned small cities via rapid trains with green space and farming in between is a better national idea, but even that is would be very very difficult.

Basically, sprawl is not going to go away. You think madating density in cities is going to get people to abandon the suburbs? I think it will acutally grow the suburbs. Currently, a certian amount of people want to live in cities. Lots of those people want ot live in single family houses in cities. If you tear those houses down and put up condos, a big chunk of those house people are going to move away to some palce where they can have a house: suburbs, smaller less dense cities. There will definitely be people who will move into those new condos, but it is not a limitless amount. There will always be house people and condo people. If you really think everyone should live in a condo in the city, then you have to figure out how to convert hosue people into condo people. A huge percentage of house people have kids. Their biggest issues are space and schools. Fixing up city schools and making condos with garages and (shared?)yards might work.

Anyway, my point is again, quit whinning that there are selfish, stupid people preventing you from owning a really awsome pony.

Posted by cw | December 7, 2007 3:05 PM

I think the rail option is a great one for cities that can support them. In Minneapolis, the ridership for our one piddling light rail line has exceeded expectations by a huge margin. Which, of course, doesn't stop certain idiots who live in the suburbs from writing angry letters to the paper about what a waste of money the rail system is.

Posted by Gus | December 7, 2007 6:11 PM

Re: Why should we continue to support and economically enable such destructive lifestyle choices in the future?

Ignored in your post is the fact that most Americans have lived in private houses, not apartments, since the earliest European settlement of this country. In fact, take a look at the housing in most cities. With a few rare exceptions like Manhattan, it's mainly single houses, not apartment buildings. I agree that exurban sprawl has involved some subsidization, but the basic preference for single family homes is not the result of subsidies since it's been that way all along (and for that matter, single family homes are not exactly a rarity in other parts of the world either). Any plan for the future that fails to take that preferrence into account is doomed to failure. Fortunately it is certainly possible to have neighborhoods with single family homes and close-by amenities that one can walk or bike too, minimizing the need to drive (though such a need will always exist because of weather issues, disability, a need for haste, or the need to transport passengers or heavy cargo). I grew up in such a neighborhood, designed and built in the 1950s when cars and mortgage subsidies were certainly in full bloom.

Posted by JonF | December 7, 2007 7:22 PM

All the commenters who discuss what Americans want or where history shows Americans will or won't live ignore that such cultural features (a) change and (b) are an effect and not just a cause of availability. Gas prices, brutal commutes, inescapable density even in once-peaceful suburbs, the inevitable eventual realization that one actually should do something about global warming, etc., can all change what large numbers of people want and what the culture at large, including in Minneapolis or Pittsburgh, will hold up as standard or desirable.

Part of urban planning has to be looking past what people want right now to what they will probably want or need in 10 or 50 years, not to mention trying to influence what they might want at that time in ways that make the community livable for everyone. Building high-density and transit-centered now for early adopters is both a cause of and an answer to a future want or need of a much larger part of the population.

Posted by Joe | December 8, 2007 9:21 AM