If You Build It

You often hear that there are huge swathes of the country in which it's just not feasible to make changes that will lead to people driving less -- there's no other way to get around! This is often quite true in a literal sense. But oftentimes it would be possible to make non-drastic changes that would still make a difference at the margins. Here's a satellite photo of a swathe of Virginia near Tyson's Corner. You'll note that the housing north of the highway is actually very close to all this non-housing stuff south of the highway. But if you live north of the highway you can't walk to the south of the highway stuff just because the streets aren't designed to make that possible.

The necessary changes would, however, be relatively simple to make and would even provide money and jobs for people in the road-building sector -- it's just a case of making sure that roads actually link up with one another (rather than being cul-de-sacs strung together to reach a handful of arterials) and feature sidewalks or bike paths. People are still going to drive for some -- maybe even many -- trips, but at least some of suburban American's trips could be replaced by walking or biking without radically overhauling neighborhoods or constructing massive new transit systems. Among other things, that would take pressure off the roads and fuel supply, leaving those resources available for trips where there genuinely is no reasonable alternative.

Comments

I've actually given this subject some thought. Most of the developments here in Northern Virginia are designed on purpose not to allow cut-throughs to discourage non-residents from going through the neighborhoods. The drawback is that there is no outlet for traffic when there is an accident or delay on the major thoroughfares. The great thing about New York (or even LA in some cases) is that you can always find an alternate parallel route around any traffic. Here it's next to impossible, although with a GPS unit, it's a bit easier.

Posted by Pan | May 1, 2008 11:44 AM

What is funny to me is that many of these cul-de-sacs were built in the 70s, during the energy crisis. So while the Saudis were quadrupling the price of oil on the world market, we were building intensely car dependent neighborhoods. At least most of the old 50s tract homes were built in a grid so that you could, in theory, walk from point A to point B.

Posted by freddiemac | May 1, 2008 11:58 AM

This is so touching: repeat after me
a) it was considered a feature, not a bug.
b) property rights and easements are among the most difficult things to jerry rig after the fact of anything in our capitalist, litigious, society.

It takes years, years and years plus reams of legal paperwork and tons of money to get abandoned railroad tracks turned into bike trails because the few people affected who are asked to give up a foot or two of their backyards, or even just the illusion of privacy that the abandoned railway gives them over th eillusion of contact that the bike trail gives them, fight it tooth and nail.

Plus, of course, the elimination of through streets has been a goal of much city planning--look at the projects in Chicago's south side. They are often plunked down off the grid pattern so that non project livers have to/can detour around them and they can be isolated and ghettoized. The same "near but far" drawing of suburban and urban boundaries are used to keep children who are near neighbors in reality segregated in terms of the schools and the tax base.

There isn't going to be a quick fix because what is a problem for one group isn't a problem for another, or, even if it is, the property owners have more (as they see it) to lose than they have to gain.

aimai

Posted by aimai | May 1, 2008 12:09 PM

Out here in the west, we have cities built around the car culture and lots of cheap, flat land. As a result, neighborhoods are spread out, homes and their accompanying land are larger and so walking to the store is not a practical option for most people. You're talking up to a mile walk each way, and while it would do wonders for the epidemic of American obesity if people walked more and drove less, it just isn't going to happen because few people have the time to walk a 1/2 mile or more each way to the store and back, plus schlepping their goods by hand when you can drive there and back and be done in a 1/2 hour or less.

That said, I can and do get on my bike and ride to any destination in a good part of central/eastern Phoenix with very little need to ride on major streets (Phx drivers are incredibly discourteous to bikers and I avoid the big streets as much as possible).

Unfortunately, even with the new, lower RE prices most people cannot afford to live in the closer-in parts of our city which are more bike/pedestrian-friendly. I think that as gasoline prices continue their inexorable rise, all those 'affordable' homes built out in the sticks during the RE bubble are going to be even less desirable than they already are, and there's really little way to ameliorate their car-friend/ped-bike-unfriendly nature.

But, um, back to Matt's point, I think that our metro area has done quite a few things to make neighborhoods divided by urban features like freeways, more accessible by providing pedestrian overpasses. Unfortunately, Phoenicians are a lot like Los Angelenos in that we think it's weird to actually walk or bike to where you want to go. Nobody walks in LA... nor Phx.

Posted by r€nato | May 1, 2008 12:13 PM

I work on Jones Branch Drive. About that stretch of road: parking lots and building spacing really adds to the walking distances, and there's a vertical component that your map doesn't show. There's residential south of the Toll Road, but what isn't residential is widely spaced light industrial, big box retail, and office parks. Tysons 2 is just out of the frame to the bottom right, but it's up a large hill.

Having said that, it's only about 13-14 miles from, say, 13th & Florida NW to here. I can get here in 1hr 20m using Metro and a pretty good Fairfax County Connector bus (your frame includes a really nice FFC transit station). I would rather ride it on a bike in less time -- but even though the Washington & Old Dominion trail passes with a mile of here, the area is virutally unreachable on a bike.

Posted by mark | May 1, 2008 12:15 PM

aimai hit all the right points. they'll never extend an existing cul-de-sac in a residential neighborhood to provide access to a commercial area. the roads are designed to handle specific volumes of traffic and nobody will allow a through-street through a subdivision.... too much traffic, too much noise, too many kids.

The entire Suburban Sprawl design of most major cities, out west anyway, is counterproductive to cutting down on driving. I live in Phoenix and it's a nightmare of freeways and six lane surface streets and the traffic just gets worse. But a car is the ONLY way to get around efficiently - our public transpo options suck - and who wants to sit in the 110 degree glaring sun for 40 minutes waiting for a bus?

They're building a Light Rail system that is due to start running in December 2008 that most people believe will be a colossal failure, yet something must be done. It's a start, is what we hope.

Anyway, kudos for thinking outside the box a little, but your idea is unrealistic for a variety of reasons.

Posted by Adam | May 1, 2008 12:17 PM

Last fall when I was back in the motherland, my mom pointed out a walking path that made it possible for students to walk from one suburban neighborhood to the junior high about a half a mile away.

And what did my mom--an elderly Hoosier lady--think of it? "Perfect place for a pervert to hide."

With that much fear and mistrust, I don't need to add that she is a die-hard Republican.

I think a majority of the people who live in the suburbs do so out of fear--fear of possible contact with someone not exactly like they are. And while the choices they make might seem inefficient at best and counterproductive at worst, it all makes sense in the context of fear.

Posted by jlw | May 1, 2008 12:19 PM

That Tyson's corner location (shown in the map) is the location of a planned $5 billion(!) Metrorail extension project. So not only will residents not be able to cross the highway to reach "non-housing stuff", they can't reach the subway station either.

Of course, this begs the question as to why a multibillion dollar subway is being built in a ped-hostile environment...

Posted by bikerider | May 1, 2008 12:21 PM

That Tyson's corner location (shown in the map) is the location of a planned $5 billion(!) Metrorail extension project. So not only will residents not be able to cross the highway to reach "non-housing stuff", they can't reach the subway station either.

Of course, this begs the question as to why a multibillion dollar subway is being built in a ped-hostile environment...

Posted by bikerider | May 1, 2008 12:23 PM

As noted above, the lack of connectivity in suburban roads isn't just happenstantial-- it's a basic feature of the suburban environment. Another feature, which can be seen on that photo, is that large areas are devoted to single uses on scales that aren't suitable for pedestrians-- it's all residential here, all retail there, all commercial in a third place, and all connected by major roadways.

So, I disagree with your basic point-- there's really no incremental fix for this, IMO.

Posted by MattF | May 1, 2008 12:27 PM

But if you live north of the highway you can't walk to the south of the highway stuff just because the streets aren't designed to make that possible.

That's PART of it - Texas is a good example of said swathes, because they looovvve fences around here.

BUT, I wouldn't say it's the most important reason people public transit's weak here. The biggest reason most people don't take transit here is because it takes FAR longer door-to-door. In DC and NYC, the roads are so weird and/or clogged, and Metro's fast enough, that you lose little time by taking Metro. Advantage, transit.

In Texas, except for a few corners here and there, the roads aren't clogged, and we aren't dense enough to afford a train that runs alot in many places. Here in Austin, it takes 20-40 min to get places, while transit takes 70-120 minutes. Which would you take?

I voted against an expensive Light Rail system here, because, for its high cost, it would've only cut the total transit commute time ten-minutesish. Half an hour vs. 60-110 min - which way are you going to take, and how much company will you have?

Posted by Jon Kay | May 1, 2008 12:31 PM

"the elimination of through streets has been a goal of much city planning"

It was for much of the 20th century, but now, at least, more progressive planners are recognizing the value of redundant linkages. And Jane Jacobs, of course, was touting short blocks as far back as the early 1960s.

It's kind of amazing the linkages that don't exist where they easily could sometimes. Shopping centers will be surrounded by 6-foot block walls on all sides save for those facing arterial streets... you could live 50 feet away from a store and have to travel half a mile to get there.

Posted by Adam Villani | May 1, 2008 12:32 PM

I went to a high school for a teacher hiring fair recently very near to that picture and came to the conclusion that I would rather cut my testicles off with a rusty spoon than live and work in a place that is as depressing as the overdeveloped area around Leesburg.

How anybody lives there without just giving up and hanging themselves is beyond me.

Posted by calipygian | May 1, 2008 12:34 PM

Funny enough, I started my mass transit experiment yesterday.

I recently moved into Clarendon and have been driving to my office in Herndon. Yesterday I took the metro to West Falls Church, then hopped on a Fairfax Connector bus which is a straight shot up 267 to the Herndon-Monroe Transfer station and a quick 5 min ride on a second Fairfax Connector bus to a stop which is a 1 min walk to my office door.

A couple of things to note.
I'm going against the normal commute, so the train and buses are lightly loaded.
Everything is VERY clean.
My commute is about 20 mins longer, but I think I can get that down with a little better planning on my part.
I read a book and did work while traveling, which I'm hoping will convert underutilized drive-time into productive time.

Posted by David Helms | May 1, 2008 12:38 PM

One of the attractions of walking (or biking) is being able to admire the flowers, breathe fresh air, hear the birds sing, etc. A walkway which goes under a freeway isn't going to offer that.

Posted by wahoofive | May 1, 2008 12:41 PM

And what did my mom--an elderly Hoosier lady--think of it? "Perfect place for a pervert to hide."

With that much fear and mistrust, I don't need to add that she is a die-hard Republican.

Sounds like she could be a so called "progressive liberal" feminist. Some of these showed up in the battle of Lenore Skenazy's kid's bus adventure. Teh Menz are out to get your precious snowflakes. Just ask aimai.

Posted by nope | May 1, 2008 12:54 PM

Other thing about that map: in the development north of the Toll Road, they named all the streets after people and places in Shakespeare. Then they named the whole development "McLean Hamlet." So the whole area should probably be razed just on principal.

Posted by mark | May 1, 2008 12:57 PM

You're forgetting how resourceful people are in the face of necessity. The price of gas will continue to rise, the value of those homes will fall and people will have to get around to survive. Count on it.

At some price point a working street bike will be more valuable than a car you can't afford to run. Trails WILL be cut through those cul-de-sacs, even if only by the amount of foot-traffic. People adapt even if they have to do it late at night and ignore the complaints of their neighbors, at which point the cops and courts will have other things to do than play "border control" after what amounts to a de-facto zoning/planning change.

Posted by Poco Ritard | May 1, 2008 1:01 PM

You're forgetting how resourceful people are in the face of necessity. The price of gas will continue to rise, the value of those homes will fall and people will have to get around to survive. Count on it.

At some price point a working street bike will be more valuable than a car you can't afford to run. Trails WILL be cut through those cul-de-sacs, even if only by the amount of foot-traffic. People adapt even if they have to do it late at night and ignore the complaints of their neighbors, at which point the cops and courts will have other things to do than play "border control" after what amounts to a de-facto zoning/planning change.

Posted by Poco Ritard | May 1, 2008 1:02 PM

You're forgetting how resourceful people are in the face of necessity. The price of gas will continue to rise, the value of those homes will fall and people will have to get around to survive. Count on it.

At some price point a working street bike will be more valuable than a car you can't afford to run. Trails WILL be cut through those cul-de-sacs, even if only by the amount of foot-traffic. People adapt even if they have to do it late at night and ignore the complaints of their neighbors, at which point the cops and courts will have other things to do than play "border control" after what amounts to a de-facto zoning/planning change.

Posted by Poco Ritard | May 1, 2008 1:03 PM

One reason residents _want_ those walls / fences around the shopping malls & such is so that the traffic is shunted away from their home.

So they have parking in front of their house, can let their kids walk across the street without worrying about traffic. If the cost is that they sometimes have to drive, it's no problem for them.

This is of course exacerbated by the extreme separation retail / residential. The boundary between the two becomes a problem.

Posted by MobiusKlein | May 1, 2008 1:03 PM

Lack of through streets enable the suburbs to become homogeneous communities. More time is needed to get around, but far fewer strangers come by.

The highway is purposefully used as a barrier. This is how Blacks are kept out of White neigborhoods. When and where mass transit is added in afterwards, users are able to get to work places, but not to the residential areas, thereby maintaining the purity of the suburbs.

Posted by BigGuy | May 1, 2008 1:04 PM

I think a lot of these cases the cul de sacs are there to prevent cars from using them as through streets and thus reduce the traffic on those streets. All the better to connect them through with bike lane width connections so that pedestrians and bikes can use the less busy streets while the cars are redirected to the throughways.

Posted by Stephen | May 1, 2008 1:12 PM

BigGuy,

I used to live near there. I wasn't aware there were any "black" neighborhoods on one side of the highway or the other. And if you were black and lived there, you probably had a car, right?

Perhaps you are thinking of lack of Metro access, purposefully designed to keep all those Anacostia types out, right?

Posted by nom deplume | May 1, 2008 1:16 PM

Hey! That's around the corner from where I grew up! Tyson's is almost unrecognizable now from when I lived there. As I've watched the planned communities develop, I've always thought it was so odd that the gated neighborhoods were desirable. Part of the great part of the neighborhood I grew up in (in "old" Northern Virginia, kind of) was that the whole neighborhood was accessible, as well as the school and the then-brand new rec center.

Of course, that was in the old days, when we were allowed to play and walk around by ourselves and without direct parental supervision.

Posted by Pansy P | May 1, 2008 1:34 PM

Matt, I live in the area you are referencing, sandwiched between 193, 495 and Dulles Toll Road. It's awful. I bought a bike recently and I've been trying to find ways that I can (safely) bike to town and city centers. My only option is to drive across the river, park and use the C&O trail into Georgetown. I can't tell you how frustrating this is.

Posted by Raabia | May 1, 2008 1:35 PM

Raabia, if I remember correctly, the W&OD goes through Falls Church, and you can take it all the way out west and into Arlington or Alexandria. It's been a while, but I remember that being a pretty nice bike path. FWIW.

Posted by Pansy P | May 1, 2008 1:42 PM

There's a hilarious post in atrios's comments regarding Atrios's complaints that everyone accuses him of wanting everyplace to be like Manhattan when he says that neighborhoods should be better designed.

"If you can walk to a place you want to walk to, then you're urban."

If we've defined "living in a suburb" as "living in a place where you can't walk where you want to go," then we have some serious problems.

Posted by Tyro | May 1, 2008 1:52 PM

The thing is you really don't even need to increase density much to make a huge difference.

My city of Portland, OR is a great example. We really only have 2 true high density neighorhoods in the city proper, NW where I live and the Pearl. The rest of the city is basically the 1st generation (mostly 1920s - 50s) inner suburbs. Which consist of mostly single family homes on 5 and 10K lots. But they are laid out in streets that are straight and mostly go through, there are mixtures of businesses and stores and restaurants and so on. Probably most areas have 5 or 6 streets of houses between the "main streets" of varied commercial. And the actual residential streets don't get that much traffic, the through traffic goes on the main streets.

The overall density and ratio of business to residential is probably not much different from a modern suburb like Beaverton. The difference is the houses and businesses aren't isolated from each other.

Posted by Eric k | May 1, 2008 2:00 PM

I've lived in grid system neighborhoods, and there really isn't a lot more traffic in them. What it does allow is for residents of said neighborhood to drive from point A to point B, without taking a 1/2 mile detour on some main artery street.

This did allow me to walk/ride a bike when I needed something from the store. It also allowed me to combine daily errands along with exercise, so I really didn't lose all that much time. When I did need to drive, I spent less gas and less time getting there, because I could avoid the main road.

Posted by JordanT | May 1, 2008 2:16 PM

Matt, you need to be careful with your ideas. Making common sense and trying to advance workable solutions has its risks. Your type is typically shunned, driven mad and eventually set upon by a rabid crowd of thugs and hooligans. Shhhh.........
P.S. At least you're assured of never being elected to a public office. Civil service sucks.

Posted by steve duncan | May 1, 2008 2:18 PM

this self defeating and short sighted style of planning that people with sense have been railing about for decades is going to be all the awesomer when the morons that did this, aka the baby boomers, finally admit to themselves they can no longer safely operate a car. never mind the coming 7 dollars for a gallon of gas.

Posted by ron | May 1, 2008 2:46 PM

Having worked as a civil engineer and residential land planner for 18 years in PA, I can say that the situation is more complicated than the If You Build It post suggests - however, it doesn't mean that we should not look at alternatives.

If a subdivision is already planned, approved, and recorded in the courthouse, then Aimai is right in saying that obtaining easements from property owners is nearly impossible - having tried to do that on many occasions, I agree.

A lot of the resistance can actually come from the current zoning ordinances that encourage layouts that discourage through traffic in residential designs. By their very nature, a lot of the residential subdivisions that I have seen approved are sort of f**ked to begin with, due to their location being incredibly far away from any type of town center.

We are working on some residential designs that are taking a neo-urban approach - lots of density in a small area, preferably on reclaimed industrial ground that is within walking distance of a train line to a major city (of course, we have brown field issues to deal with - that is a whole other can of worms there). The trend seems to be slowly going in this direction, although, in our instance, the zoning ordinance is being rewritten to address our needs – we cannot do something like this without changing the zoning. Hopefully, zoning will be written to make our needs the norm, and not the exception.

I live about 10 miles from my office and I try to ride my bicycle to work four out of ten trips, but those school bus drivers are out to kill me. They're worse than the cement trucks.....really

Posted by westchesterdead | May 1, 2008 2:58 PM

I live in N. Bethesda (MD), basically a suburb of DC.

It's impossible to walk on Wisconsin from Bethesda to Rockville. Every phase of the light at Pooks Hill Road has a car possibly zooming onto the ramp onto the Beltway. So there's no way for a pedestrian to safely cross that ramp.

In general it's almost impossible to walk between Bethesda and Rockville. There's a crossing (a ped bridge over the Beltway) between Wis and Old Georgetown Road, but it's pretty hard to get over there.

What the hell were they thinking? Trying to keep the Rockville riffraff out of Bethesda? LOL

Posted by sjf | May 1, 2008 3:14 PM

For a long time, the absence of even footpath rights-of-way connecting adjacent neighborhoods has bugged the hell out of me.

A number of years ago, when I lived in southwest Virginia, the daughter of a friend of ours was going to look after our pets while we were on vacation. Their house was at most 1/4 mile away, as the crow flies.

But you couldn't get there from here without going a few miles out of the way, thanks to convoluted neighborhood road design. So in order for her to pet-sit for us, her parents had to drive her over to our house twice a day.

And the same is true where I live, right now. Schoolkids who attend the same classes and live just a few hundred yards away from one another have to be driven to one another's houses if they want to play together, do homework together, whatever.

It's totally nutso.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | May 1, 2008 3:24 PM

Hopefully, zoning will be written to make our needs the norm, and not the exception.

To see the future of what development should look at, look no further than the streetcar suburbs of the turn of the 20th Century, say, the Del Ray section of Alexandria, VA. Back a hundred years ago, a developer bought the land, built the houses and gave everyone a voucher to ride the street car (yes, there was a trolly once upon a time) to DC for a year if I'm not mistaken. Del Ray was away from industrial Alexandria, and wasn't in the swamp of DC, so it was an ideal place for the era's upper middle class, who also had to work in DC.

Even Long Island, where I grew up, is just an over grown street car suburb of New York - when the Long Island Rail Road was extended out to Northport (I.E. Western Suffolk County) in 1867, all of a sudden it was feasible to live in the country and work in the city and the Island grew accordingly.

If you really want the suburbs to work, every home needs to be no more than a 10 minute walk to a bus stop which needs to be no more than a 15 minute bus trip to a train station which needs to connect to the Metro and developers should be made to pay the cost of the transit development and give homeowners a pass for the use of the transit for a set period of time for free as part of the purchase price of a house.

With gas headed for 10 dollars a gallon, its the only way Western Loudon County doesn't turn into a Kuntsler-esqe, zombie infested, horror movie set in the next 10 years.

I think its already too late.

Posted by calipygian | May 1, 2008 3:25 PM

This is why I moved to a major city years ago. I absolutely HATED the lack of transportation options in most American cities.

The concern of transportation planners for decades has been MOBILITY. In other words, how can we move cars through a specific area fastest? This is fine if the primary concern is cars, but the problem is that single-occupant vehicles are the most inefficient way to move large numbers of people and we end up using 1/3 to 1/2 of our land use solely to accommodate all the requisite vehicles.

The concern of transportation planners should be ACCESSIBILITY. In other words, how can we move the most PEOPLE to specific areas fastest? In this model, a place that is readily accessible by car, bus, bike, and on foot is much more desirable than a place that is accessible solely by car. This does mean we examine land density, modes of travel, and proximity to goods and services. And the last thing we would is make it harder to get to goods and services. It's already hard enough sometimes!

And I think, now that gas prices are approaching $4/gallon, we're finally starting to wake up and realize that we're utterly dependent on a means of transportation that not only separates us as people (a moral issue) but also inconveniences us (a practical issue).

Just my $.02

Posted by Luke | May 1, 2008 3:40 PM

developers should be made to pay the cost of the transit development and give homeowners a pass for the use of the transit for a set period of time for free as part of the purchase price of a house

Much of LA was built this way, actually. Land developers put in transit to raise the value of their land - a lot a 5 minute ride from downtown obviously being worth more than a lot a 3 mile walk from downtown. (This being when LA was still centered on its downtown.) The problem was that these lines only made economic sense in this kind of loss-leading role: the developer/transiteers made money off of lots, and once the lots were sold, they lost money on ridership, so eventually the lines turned into money sinks and collaped. It also didn't help that the line that was laid down to take you to the first development out wasn't always in a good position to extend to the second development, which wasn't always in a good position to extend to the third.

Posted by Senescent | May 1, 2008 3:41 PM

I lived in the area with my parents in the early 1980's, and worked at the McDonald's closest to the TC mall. Driving the short distance from Vienna to work took me 30 minutes. It was a hell hole then, and as I can see from the photo, it's an even BIGGER hellhole now.

I am so glad I moved away from the east coast. Why do you people live there?

Posted by Ella in NM | May 1, 2008 3:47 PM

sjf--

In fact, there -is- a good way to get past the Beltway between Bethesda and Rockville-- via Cedar Lane and Beach Drive. Cedar Lane goes under the Beltway, and (strange but true) just north of the underpass, there's a footpath that runs through a piece of Rock Creek Park, so you don't even have to dodge vehicles. A very pleasant walk, actually.

Posted by MattF | May 1, 2008 3:50 PM

Jeez Ella, been to the biggest city in your own state lately? Albuquerque isn't exactly the best planned city out there.

And don't get me going on all those mis-placed Southwest Megalopolis' like Las Vegas and Phoenix. You mark my words - in 20 years, Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh will all be much larger and more desirable than Las Vegas, Tuscon or Phoenix because if they don't run out of water, it will just cost too much to cool and run cars around in.

Posted by calipygian | May 1, 2008 3:53 PM

I know exactly where this stretch of ground is: I grew up less than four miles away from it.

This particular area is a bad example. The neighborhoods on the top half of the photo are all low-density single family homes. The shops on the south side of the Dulles Toll Road are mostly low-density stores, apartments, and commercial hotels.

If you were to follow 684 and Route 7 'south' on this photo, you would get into the area of Tysons Corners that is dominated by luxury hotels and federal contractor office buildings for a bit. Beyond that you get a few malls and big-box stores.

The point is, you can't just add roads under/across highways for these neighborhoods. That might solve some of the more minor traffic problems, but its a bandaid on a broken leg.

I think a bigger problem, especially in the above area, is that you have your retail shopping areas mixed in with the commercial areas. Surrounding two major shopping malls with enough officespace for tens (hundreds now?) of thousands of people, then moving in more big-box places, is going to create traffic.

Posted by Aeg | May 1, 2008 4:45 PM

calip,

To see the future of what development should look at, look no further than the streetcar suburbs of the turn of the 20th Century, say, the Del Ray section of Alexandria, VA.

Streetcars died because they simply don't make sense for urban or suburban transit. The few surviving streetcar routes are maintained largely for tourists. Buses are simply much cheaper, can provide much more frequent service, can serve a much greater area, and are much more flexible.

You mark my words - in 20 years, Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh will all be much larger and more desirable than Las Vegas, Tuscon or Phoenix because if they don't run out of water, it will just cost too much to cool and run cars around in.

Right. Also, every young girl will have her very own pony.

Posted by Mixner | May 1, 2008 4:47 PM

I grew up in in one of these low-density single-family homes. They've been trying to redevelop this intersection for years. Here's one reason nothing's happened on the project:
http://www.tysonstunnel.org/

Posted by Maureen | May 1, 2008 4:57 PM

Mixner - because I use the term "streetcar suburb" does not mean I want a return to the trolley. Its just a term of city planning.

And its obvious you haven't been to any German city with more than 50,000 residents, almost all of which have richly developed streetcar (i.e. lightrail) networks.

Posted by calipygian | May 1, 2008 5:02 PM

The concern of transportation planners for decades has been MOBILITY. In other words, how can we move cars through a specific area fastest? This is fine if the primary concern is cars, but the problem is that single-occupant vehicles are the most inefficient way to move large numbers of people and we end up using 1/3 to 1/2 of our land use solely to accommodate all the requisite vehicles.

Your numbers seem to have been pulled from thin air, but why should minimizing land use be the central principle of our transportation policy, anyway? So what if roads and cars use a lot of land? They also provide benefits in convenience, comfort and flexibility. People value these benefits very highly. As societies get richer, more and more people buy cars. This is happening now on a massive scale in places like China and India.

The concern of transportation planners should be ACCESSIBILITY. In other words, how can we move the most PEOPLE to specific areas fastest? In this model, a place that is readily accessible by car, bus, bike, and on foot is much more desirable than a place that is accessible solely by car.

The list of fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States is overwhelmingly dominated by sprawling, low-density cities in the south and west. Your idea of what's "desirable" doesn't seem to be shared by most of the population.

Posted by Mixner | May 1, 2008 5:04 PM

And its obvious you haven't been to any German city with more than 50,000 residents, almost all of which have richly developed streetcar (i.e. lightrail) networks.

Well, let's see: I've been to Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt. And a bunch of fair-sized German towns. I've ridden various trams, S-Bahn and U-Bahn systems in each of these places. I even rode the Wuppertal monorail, which I believe is no longer in operation. I have a fair idea of what it's like to use German urban and suburban rail transit. I still don't think it makes sense in the United States, outside a small number of niche markets (e.g., the New York subway).

Posted by Mixner | May 1, 2008 5:15 PM

And its obvious you haven't been to any German city with more than 50,000 residents, almost all of which have richly developed streetcar (i.e. lightrail) networks.

Well, let's see: I've been to Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt. And a bunch of fair-sized German towns. I've ridden various trams, S-Bahn and U-Bahn systems in each of these places. I even rode the Wuppertal monorail, which I believe is no longer in operation. I have a fair idea of what it's like to use German urban and suburban rail transit. I still don't think it makes sense in the United States, outside a small number of niche markets (e.g., the New York subway).

Posted by Mixner | May 1, 2008 5:15 PM

Yes, it's clear these areas are designed for cars and not designed for mass transit or, say, bike transit.

However, even in areas with mass transit there are issues if you don't plan for likely commutes before you lay out the city.

Consider your typical city with a good transit network. Chicago comes to mind. As long as you live in the suburbs and work/shop downtown, or vice versa (as has become common in the past 2 decades) the spoke wheel network is great. But if you want to go from say, the Near West to the Near NorthWest, you have to detour through downtown. And the farther you are from the hub, the worse the issue. As residences, workplaces, and shopping areas have become more and more scattered it has become harder and harder to build mass transit that makes any sense.

I actually saw this first in Europe where I lived in the 1990s. My work was only 5 km from home, and 12 minutes by car or 20 by bike, but 50 minutes by mass transit, even though I lived and worked next to two major transit stations, because I had to go to the city center and take a different line to my work.

The common solution to this problem is the transfer -- take one train to point A, a bus to point B, etc. until you get to point X. The problem, of course, is that this can make the trip so long as to be infeasible. A few years ago, a company merger forced me to start commuting 50 miles away to downtown San Fran. It was 50 minutes by car if I avoided commute hours, but over 2 hours by mass transit because the journey required 3 transfers. I could have dealt with 2 hours on one form of transit, since we can now do work with laptops, but the transfers made that too disruptive.

In the end, the successful solution will have to support many, many small stations (with no location more than a short distance from a station) and highly personalized transport from any station to any station without stops or transfers.

Posted by Anonny | May 1, 2008 5:25 PM

calipygian:

You're exactly right about those big southwest cities. They have become hell holes too. Which is why I don't live in one of them. :)

You couldn't pay me to live in Albuquerque--my poor brother went on disability a couple of years ago for a neck injury I SWEAR was due to hunching up his back and holding onto his steering wheel with an iron grip on his daily commute.

Posted by Ella in NM | May 1, 2008 5:47 PM

The cul-de-sac design even makes things worse for cars as well as pedestrians: drivers often have to go well out of their way to enter or exit a neighborhood, and the herding of traffic onto a few main arteries increases traffic congestion.I doubt we could undo very many existing cul de sacs (in many cases you'd have to extend the street right through someone else's house on the next street) but we should seriously consider strict zoning laws against unnecessary cul de sacs. If cut-through traffic is a headache, speed bumps or humps can solve the safety trouble. Cul de sacs should only exist as either very, very short offtakes of another street (say, with five or six houses) or else where geography itself does not allow a street to continue, as along the banks of a river.

Posted by JonF | May 1, 2008 7:36 PM

Mixner writes:

"The list of fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States is overwhelmingly dominated by sprawling, low-density cities in the south and west."

To which I reply:

The list of the metropolitan areas with the greatest number of foreclosures and/or homes in danger of foreclosure is dominated by sprawling, low-denisty cities in the south and west...

Posted by Eric k | May 1, 2008 7:37 PM

The list of the metropolitan areas with the greatest number of foreclosures and/or homes in danger of foreclosure is dominated by sprawling, low-denisty cities in the south and west...

So what? What does that have to do with transportation policy and preferences?

Posted by Mixner | May 1, 2008 7:41 PM

In the end, the successful solution will have to support many, many small stations (with no location more than a short distance from a station) and highly personalized transport from any station to any station without stops or transfers.

In other words, cars.

Hopefully clean, efficient, preferably electricity-powered cars. But cars nonetheless. Mass transit will never be able to compete with the automobile when it comes to providing people with time-efficient, convenient transportation. As society grows wealthier over the long term, time becomes ever more precious. It is this increasing value of time that is the real culprit making public transport so non-competitive with personal transport. Or, as you put it, "highly personalized transport."

Posted by MickeyD's | May 1, 2008 8:13 PM

As society grows wealthier over the long term, time becomes ever more precious.

Which sort of makes MattY's point: the sort of community layouts you see at the top of this blog post are notorious for being extremely inefficient designs that end up wasting everyone's time.

Posted by Tyro | May 1, 2008 9:45 PM

Which sort of makes MattY's point: the sort of community layouts you see at the top of this blog post are notorious for being extremely inefficient designs that end up wasting everyone's time.

Er, Matt didn't say anything at all about time-efficiency. His trivial point was that "at least some of suburban American's trips could be replaced by walking or biking without radically overhauling neighborhoods or constructing massive new transit systems" and that this would "take pressure off the roads and fuel supply." He didn't say walking or biking would be faster. For all but a tiny fraction of trips, walking or biking would take longer than driving.

The broader point that MickeyD was making is that cars are usually faster than transit. Much, much faster. And in a society where time is ever more valuable, this is an increasing liability for transit.

Posted by Mixner | May 1, 2008 10:30 PM

Mixner, nevertheless, my point, echoed by others in this thread, is eminently correct. The poor design of such communities is a time-waster.

Reasoning with you, however, is an exercise in futility.

Posted by Tyro | May 1, 2008 10:38 PM

Mixner, nevertheless, my point, echoed by others in this thread, is eminently correct. The poor design of such communities is a time-waster.

Sorry, not only have you not produced any argument or evidence in support of this "point," but you falsely attributed it to Matthew, who said nothing at all about time-efficiency.

And as stated, your point is typically vague and poorly-defined. A "time-waster" compared to what alternative? A "time-waster" for who, exactly? A community design that is more time-efficient for, say, biking or walking, may be less time-efficient for cars and buses, and if the majority of trips are made by bus or car a design that favored walking and biking would likely waste time for the community as a whole, not save it, even if it did save time for some members of that community, and even if it did conserve fuel.

Posted by Mixner | May 1, 2008 11:11 PM

Rather than charging people to enter NYC or DC (there's a proposal being discussed to put tolls on all the bridges), I think we should charge people to enter carbon sinks like Tyson's Corner. The area is a complete horror during the week and on some weekends. The money could be used to try solving the problem. But at least Tyson's has some density, albeit ineptly planned. Go to places like the outer suburbs of Atlanta and the situation is just hopeless.

Posted by Rich | May 1, 2008 11:57 PM

Mixner writes:

"A community design that is more time-efficient for, say, biking or walking, may be less time-efficient for cars and buses.."

Well of course anything is possible. But could you please explain what you mean? An example? I can't quite visualize what you are thinking about.

I live in a grid neighborhood in a basically grid city and it's reasonably convenient for drivers, walkers and bicyclists (though it could be improved for all.)

Posted by David Sucher | May 2, 2008 2:23 AM

Re: A community design that is more time-efficient for, say, biking or walking, may be less time-efficient for cars and buse

Actually no. The most efficient street design for any sort of travel, be it walking, biking, car or bus, is a grid layout. This is due to simple geometry: the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line.

Posted by JonF | May 2, 2008 6:48 AM

The most efficient street design for any sort of travel, be it walking, biking, car or bus, is a grid layout. This is due to simple geometry: the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line.

One reason these neighborhoods are designed the way they are is not because they are best for driving but because they're tolerable for driving. They're intolerable for walking or biking, and it could be faster to drive if they were designed differently, but most people will consider a 10-20 car trip acceptable. The trip could take 5 minutes by car or 10-20 minutes by bike or by foot if the neighborhood were designed in a different way, but the developers were betting that if people drove all the time, residents would consider 10-20 minutes by car a reasonable trip length.

Posted by Tyro | May 2, 2008 9:34 AM

I am very familiar with the area in this picture (the current streaming facilities for AmericaFree.TV are in the long building in the center of the picture.)

The traffic at certain times of day is horrendous - at 4:30 PM it will generally take over 30 minutes to go the 2 miles or so South on Route 7 to the beltway. Having said that, I doubt that too many people living in the expensive houses North of the Toll Road would walk South - there are not too many high paying jobs there, and if you don't work there, there really isn't that much to do on Tyco Road.

But this is a pretty mixed use area for the Virginia suburbs none-the-less - South of Jones Branch is apartments and condo's on both sides of International, and I see people walking to the Mall all of the time. Once they finally get the Metro to Dulles there will be a stop at Spring Hill Road, one long block South of Tyco on Route 7. I expect that to really start to densify this area. Maybe by the time I die of old age we will see a people mover from the Metro to the 3 Tysons Malls (just making it possible to go to between the two big malls without moving your car would actually cut down on a lot of driving).

So, there is some hope, but in the DC area these things seem to move with glacial slowness. (The metro to Dulles has only been in the works for, what, 20 years now, and as far as I know they have yet to move a single shovel of dirt.)

Posted by Marshall | May 2, 2008 10:16 AM

But could you please explain what you mean?

Gosh, is it really so hard to understand? The more space I use for roads, the less I have for bike paths and sidewalks. The more I use for bike paths and sidewalks, the less I have for roads. One of the main reasons cities resist adding bike paths to main roads is that it reduces the road space for motor vehicle traffic, which increases congestion and travel times.

In western cities designed around motor vehicles, it is not unusual to see deserted sidewalks running alongside roads carrying heavy traffic loads. Eliminating or shrinking the sidewalk would provide more space for road traffic.

Posted by Mixner | May 2, 2008 2:59 PM

Mixner. Please don't shift the frame of reference.
Earlier you referred to "community design."
Now you are talking only about arterial road design.
There is far more to community design than roads.

Posted by David Sucher | May 2, 2008 3:28 PM

Mixner. Please don't shift the frame of reference.Earlier you referred to "community design." Now you are talking only about arterial road design. There is far more to community design than roads.

This is a complete nonsequitur. However you design your community, the space available for travelling between points within that community is finite. The way you divide up that space between roadways, sidewalks and bike paths affects the efficiency of each of those modes of travel. In communities where few people travel by bike or on foot it makes little sense to devote a lot of space to bike paths and sidewalks.

Posted by Mixner | May 2, 2008 4:02 PM

Mixner, the decision to travel by road or by sidewalk is not made in a vacuum. Walkability is a function of lot size (large lots make walking more time consuming), variety of usage (which increases your chances of multitasking), and the quality of street crossings. If you lay down a sidewalk next to a huge roadway and in the space of a mile it passes three car dealers, two gas stations and a Sam's Club, nobody's going to walk on it. So the efficiency of walking is reduced by more than just the allocation of space between sidewalk and road. That's the community design portion of it.

Posted by mark | May 2, 2008 4:37 PM

You're also missing the point. I haven't disputed that there are other aspects of community design that affect the efficiency of various modes of transportation, so you don't need to keep saying this as if I had claimed otherwise. The point I am making is that one of the design decisions that affects transportation efficiency is the way thoroughfares are divided between roadways, bike paths and sidewalks. Hence my statement, "A community design that is more time-efficient for, say, biking or walking, may be less time-efficient for cars and buses" that David Sucher strangely found so hard to understand.

As to your point, if nobody is going to walk on the sidewalk because the community has been designed such that distances between destinations along its route are too long to really be walkable, that's a good reason to get rid of the sidewalk, or at least to reduce its size, if doing so would relieve motor vehicle congestion.

Posted by Mixner | May 2, 2008 5:19 PM

Mixner,
Sounds like you are suggesting that we should prohibit pedestrians on urban arterials. Or maybe require "walking licenses?" On a need-only basis?

If walkers get in the way of drivers they should be banned, eh?

Posted by David Sucher | May 2, 2008 6:04 PM

Re: if nobody is going to walk on the sidewalk because the community has been designed such that distances between destinations along its route are too long to really be walkable, that's a good reason to get rid of the sidewalk, or at least to reduce its size, if doing so would relieve motor vehicle congestion.

Sidewalks are, what?, maybe a meter in width? Even if you get rid of sidewalks on both sides of a road, that's not enough to add another vehicle lane.

Posted by JonF | May 3, 2008 9:59 AM