American Conservative gets on board with Transit

[Lunican]

Here are a few excerpts.

How private development can fund public infrastructure
by Christopher B. Leinberger

...

Most observers recognize that drivable suburban infrastructure has been massively subsidized. Some studies show that a drivable suburban home would have to pay 22 times what it currently pays for publicly and government-regulated private infrastructure. Suppose a city government, in its infinite wisdom, mandated that all restaurants must charge the same price for whatever customers ate or drank. That would mean patrons on a diet who do not drink alcohol would be massively subsidizing people who are stuffing themselves and getting drunk. This is not a free market at work.

This subsidized system has resulted in an oversupply of the wrong kind of house in the wrong location for what the market now wants. Federal, state, and local governments subsidize this type of product by building roads to nowhere while existing roads are left to deteriorate. The American Association of Civil Engineers recently gave American roads a near failing D- grade. Meanwhile, the Federal Highway Trust Fund is bankrupt, getting continuous federal cash infusions to subsidize the system.

The market wants the walkable urban alternative, which explains the 40-200 percent per-square-foot price premiums this type of housing commands and the hue and cry (or shouts of joy) about gentrification in urban neighborhoods. What is missing is an adjustment to this new market reality by investing in infrastructure, particularly transportation infrastructure, which will spark the type of housing and development the market wants.

...

Investment in rail transit is essential if we want to get the 35 percent of the economy in real estate growing more substantially. No economic recovery will be sustainable without the growth of the largest asset class in the economy. And looking to the past to understand how to pay for that rail transit is not only good policy, it is one of the only options we have left.

Full Article:
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/keep-america-moving/engine-of-prosperity/

[thelakelander]

Where's our local tea party and concerned taxpayers on this issue? As a long time fiscal conservative, this is something that sticks out like sore thumb to me.  However, you never hear those who paint themselves as true conservatives mention anything about it.  Instead, you hear complaints about spending a couple of hundred thousand dollars on improving parks or horror stories about the skyway.  How about the $100 million plan to build an interchange at I-295/Collins Road or the hundreds of millions invested in road construction in Argyle over the last decade?

[buckethead]

Perhaps your sphere of influence is growing.

You have me thinking about it. (Getting me thinking is no small feat)

Keep building alliances.

[CS Foltz]

lake it would seem to me .....there needs to be a massive realignment and rethinking accross the board from all DOT's, Urban planners and the like, here in our world and around the US of A! I consider myself a fiscal conservative and thoughts of this, just irritate the heck out of me! This will require a refocus from everyone!

[civil42806]

whos making the money here thats the key.

[CS Foltz]

whos making the money here thats the key.

That is allways the key.........is it not? Maintain the status quo......don't rock the boat and business as usual! I have a good idea as to who and know beyond doubt.........it ain't me!

[fsujax]

I like it. Value capture is something I have been talking about for a while.

[BridgeTroll]

Where's our local tea party and concerned taxpayers on this issue? As a long time fiscal conservative, this is something that sticks out like sore thumb to me.

I am certainly not a tea party member but am a republican and concerned taxpayer.  I have always been a proponent of rail projects both in the urban areas and as commuter infrastructure.  The sentence below caught my eye...

This subsidized system has resulted in an oversupply of the wrong kind of house in the wrong location for what the market now wants.

The market is a fickle thing.  There may indeed be an oversupply of suburban type housing...now.  It was... in the past... what people wanted.  It is probably time to focus limited resources inward towards city cores and promote density... but there will always be a large segment of the population who do not want to live in the cores.  Additionally... we must be careful what we wish for.  As demand and density in urban cores increase... so will prices for housing options.  Certain segments of society may well be pushed out of their existing neighborhoods in favor of the suburbanites who "see the light" and begin resettling in urban areas.

[thelakelander]

We have to remember that even though there are millions of people who don't want to live in cores, this does not mean that poorly designed sprawl has to be acceptable.  With proper planning, even the suburbs can be designed to be sustainable, transit and pedestrian friendly.

[BridgeTroll]

I agree Lake.   

[Captain Zissou]

An Obama quote from msnbc this morning

"We are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads -- that's enough to circle the world six times. ... We're going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways -- enough to stretch coast-to-coast," Obama told a labor rally in Milwaukee where several thousand supporters cheered his every line.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39023909/ns/politics-white_house/

Assuming roads and rails cost the same (which they don't), that's $48.666 billion on roads and $1.3333 on rails.  As long as the ratio of funding is 37.5/1 in favor of roads, we're not going to see a big change any time soon.

[JeffreyS]

He did say rebuild roads not new roads so that is a little better.

[tufsu1]

also he might be referring to lane miles...i.e., a 4 lane road going 1 mile equals 4 lane miles....of course, the same could be said for rail lines with multiple tracks