Category: transportation

HOV lanes solution

Dan Allison1 Comment

So, given that new HOV lanes do not reduce congestion, and in fact induce demand and increase vehicle miles traveled (VMT), what is the solution? I suggest the following policy:

HOV lanes will not be added to any freeway by the construction of new lanes. If, in the judgement of Caltrans or other agencies, a HOV lane is desirable, an existing general travel lane(s) may be converted to some sort of HOV or tolled status. This only applies to freeways with three or more lanes existing. Existing general purpose lanes may also be converted to transit-only lanes or dedicated to rail use. It is well known that additional lanes of any sort will induce additional traffic, which is directly contrary to state goals to reduce carbon emissions and vehicle miles traveled (VMT).

This could be implemented as a 10-year moritorium rather than a permanent policy, as I think that within 10 years the folly of adding lanes to freeways will be clear to everyone, even Caltrans. 

#NoNewLanes

Note: when I wrote the preceding post and this one, I was aware that ECOS (Environmental Council of Sacramento) was working on a lawsuit against Caltrans over the project to add carpool lanes, as additional newly constructed lanes, to Highway 50. That suit has now been been filed.

HOV lanes

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes have been in the news over the last few years, and will be so more and more often. They are the preferred option by Caltrans and other transportation agencies (which often have to fund these largely on their own dime) for increasing highway capacity. Notice that I said increasing capacity rather than reducing congestion. Caltrans claims that they reduce congestion (see Caltrans HOV page), but there is no evidence to support that, and much to controvert it. Though Caltrans officially acknowledges the concept of induced demand, it is not used in their highway planning. The mid-level engineers in Caltrans, who largely determine the actual projects selected and the design of those projects, don’t believe in induced demand. They say so regularly. But induced demand is a proven effect, and any project planned without that in mind is going to be mis-designed. 

Communities have grown increasingly resistant to the expansion of freeways, which largely or entirely benefit long distance commuters and provide almost no benefit, and often strong negatives, to the neighborhood, and little benefit to productive freight traffic. The era of the freeway is over, and many exiting freeways will be torn down eventually, but Caltrans is still on a building jag. Knowing the resistance, however, Caltrans rarely proposes new general purpose lanes (lanes which any one can drive in, without restriction), instead proposing HOV lanes. Somehow, these seem to get a pass from communities and environmentalists, figuring that a HOV lane expansion is better than a general purpose lane expansion. Well, yes, but the question is, should there be any expansion at all?

If some high capacity vehicles are diverted out of general purpose lanes, that provides a more open lane, and that more open lane will be filled with additional traffic. The HOV lane itself, being more open than adjacent lanes, will create additional traffic. Drivers respond to their perception of crowding and delay. If they see more space, they will drive more. Induced demand, simple as that. So a HOV lane increases overall traffic. Cost is an issue, as most of our transportation dollars at the state and regional level go to these projects, instead of projects that would actually reduce private vehicle use and vehicle miles traveled. Environmental and social impacts increase. And the lanes fill up, creating a demand for yet more lanes in a never-ending cycle. 

A $133M project called 80 Across the Top has been completed, which added HOV lanes to Interstate 80 from the river to Watt Ave. Note that cost does not include loss of productivity during construction, which if the news media is to be believed, was considerable, nor the elevated crash rate during the project. Now Caltrans is well underway with a $187M project to add HOV lanes to Hwy 50, and is out selling the idea of adding HOV lanes to Business 80 (Capital City Freeway). Meanwhile, a number of people have proposed tearing down the Capital City Freeway, including this blog. The river bridge would not be torn down, but the transportation facility north and south of the bridge would be a surface roadway rather than elevated freeway, and capacity on the bridge could be made available for other modes. Or maybe the bridge should be torn down and replaced with an appropriately scaled neighborhood bridge (similar to what is being talked about for the Broadway extension bridge over the Sacramento River). 

Next up: the solution for HOV

principles for transportation investment

Dan Allison2 Comments

As part of my work with transportation advocates, and my personal passions toward a transformed transportation system, here is my Principles for Transportation Investment. It applies to all government levels, but in particularly was developed as an alternative paradigm for Measure B and “Son of Measure B.” Text below, and also a pdf (Principles for Transportation Investment). This is long, but I hope you will take the time to read and reflect. And comment.

Principles for Transportation Investment

The overarching goals for investments in transportation are:

  • creation and support of livable, walkable communities that are economically vibrant for all citizens
  • reduction of distance between housing, jobs and amenities
  • reduction of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
  • reduction and eventual elimination of crash fatalities and severe injuries
  • maintenance of our transportation system in a state of good repair

Our transportation system is out of balance, emphasizing private motor vehicles over transit, walking and bicycling. A ten-year moratorium on new roadways and roadway widening, through 2028, will jump-start the process of bringing modes back into balance.

In the past and present, communities of low-income and color have been under-invested, and often dis-invested through lack of maintenance. Future investments must therefore work to return these communities to parity. Specifically,

  • communities of low-income and color must be present at the table for all major transportation decisions, and funding will be allocated to support that inclusion in all planning processes
  • 50% of transportation investments will be in or directly benefiting communities that meet the established ATP/GGRF grant criteria for disadvantaged communities, for at least 15 years or until significant parity is achieved

Transportation investments must meet the goal of reduction and eventual elimination of fatalities and severe injuries. Specifically,

  • the top intersections and corridors with fatalities and severe injuries will be identified and will be used as the primary though not sole criteria for project selection
  • projects which may increase crash rates for minor injuries and property damage while reducing or eliminating fatalities and severe injury, such as roundabouts and mid-block crossings, will be considered for funding without prejudice
  • sidewalks will be considered an integral part of the transportation system, therefore sidewalk installation and maintenance will be completed as a normal part of transportation investment
  • bicyclist and pedestrian fatality and severe injury rates are high and increasing; therefore 25% of transportation investments will be devoted to bringing fatality and injury rates back to parity with mode share

Transportation investment must depend upon a variety of income sources including user fees, property taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes. User fees should be the primary source, while sales taxes should be used in moderation because they are inherently regressive. Specifically,

  • at a state, regional, county and city level, sales tax measures must be complemented by actions to implement user fees, property taxes and income taxes to support transportation

Housing and transportation cannot be addressed in isolation and must be integrated through planning and investment. The economic impact on housing affordability and individual mobility is not just housing costs or transportation costs, but housing + transportation costs. Specifically,

  • no investment in rail transit should be made in areas where there are not existing plans or reasonable expectation of affordable housing development, and no new bus routes created where there are not existing plans or reasonable expectation of affordable housing development
  • governments must invest in affordable and “missing-middle” housing at a rate comparable to or exceeding investments in transportation

A successful transportation system must be integrated with wise land use. Specifically,

  • no transportation investments should be made which promote rapid densification and displacement
  • and conversely, no transportation investments should be made in communities or areas which are unwilling to allow a natural increment of density
  • greenfield development must pay the entire cost of transportation, including long-term maintenance, related increases in transportation capacity for roads, transit, walking and bicycling throughout the region which are engendered by the development, and transportation demand management

Transportation investments at all government levels will support the SACOG Sustainable Communities Strategy. Specifically,

  • since achievement of greenhouse gas reduction targets can only be achieved through a strong investment in transit, walking and bicycling, transportation investments will reflect those goals
  • no project will be funded which would induce increased VMT

Congestion relief in the absence of other measures has and will induce more traffic and therefore additional congestion. Therefore, all projects which are intended to relieve roadway congestion will implement controls to prevent induced demand, including congestion pricing, or will mitigate induced demand through corresponding investments in transit, walking and bicycling.

All transportation projects must address maintenance of the infrastructure in a state of good repair for all time, including eventual replacement cost. Specifically,

  • user fees must support a significant portion of ongoing roadway maintenance
  • fix-it-first must be a continuing commitment at all levels of government until the entire transportation system is in a state of good repair (SOGR), and then state of good repair must be continued
  • all agencies will have and implement a complete streets policy before receiving funding; all roadway repaving projects must consider re-allocation of roadway width to sidewalks, bike lanes, and transit lanes
  • governments will no longer take on responsibility for the cost of maintaining transportation infrastructure which serves greenfield development; therefore the development must allocate a long-term reserve to the maintenance of internal transportation facilities and any highway interchange which primarily serves greenfield development

Fiscal solvency at all government levels must be a guaranteed outcome of major transportation investments. Therefore, all major projects will include a transparent and accountable analysis of the ways in which the project will increase user fees, property taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes which meet or exceed the cost of construction and maintenance.

All transportation investments must support improvement and maintenance of public health. Specifically,

  • investment must reduce air pollution, however, the traditional assumption that congestion relief reduces air pollution must be justified by actual data
  • investment must encourage daily physical activity in all parts of society
  • transportation modes which generate air pollution (roadways and diesel rail) will not be located or expanded near schools and parks
  • transportation planning must consider the removal or reduction of existing roadway capacity such as freeways and/or conversion of diesel rail to electric rail

Education of youth in transit, walking and bicycling will reduce future demand for private motor vehicle travel, and increase demand for livable, walkable communities. Specifically,

  • elementary students will receive pedestrian and bicyclist education
  • middle and high school students will receive transit education
  • 1% of all transportation funds will be devoted to youth education
  • transportation agencies will work with California Department of Education, school districts, private schools and law enforcement to develop and fund model education programs

time to get off the infrastructure treadmill

Dan Allison2 Comments
Hwy 50 slide, @kellyinmedia
Hwy 50 slide, @kellyinmedia

With the recent storm damage to roadways, as well as some transit and rail lines, the governor has proposed about $600M in quick fixes. This adds on to $59B deferred maintenance on state highways, and $78B on local roads (the actual local roads number is likely much, much higher). Pretty soon, we’re talking real money.

I am not opposed to fixing storm damage, or to keeping roads in a state of good repair, abbreviated SOGR and often called “fix-it-first.” However, if it isn’t obvious by now, let me clearly state that we already have more infrastructure than we can ever afford to maintain. Even without climate change, we probably could not keep up, and with climate change, we don’t have a chance.

We have a transportation system built on the idea that someday there will be enough money, our kids will be richer, the economy will be better, the federal government will offer an infrastructure windfall, a fairy godmother will wave her wand. It’s not going to happen. The bills are already coming due, and there will be far greater bills coming due in the near future. Politicians, and the voters who support them, have been running a growth ponzi scheme (see https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2009/2/3/the-small-town-ponzi-scheme.html and other Strong Towns references), gathering the political and economic benefits today while putting the costs off to the future.

So, what to do? Well, first, stop digging the hole. We don’t need any new roads or highways, or additional lane miles. We do need to make the ones we have more efficient (defined as the number of people moved per hour per dollar, NOT the number of vehicles moved per hour per dollar), and on the whole, we do need to keep them repaired.

But we also need to realize that we have already overbuilt, and we are going to need to let go of some of it. Return rural roads and residential-only streets to gravel (bicyclists, get your mountain bikes). Stop paving parking lanes to the same high standards we use for the travel lanes, and in many cases, let them return to gravel as well. Or just remove some of them – we don’t need as many cars, either. Where sidewalks are needed and don’t exist, don’t take them out of people’s property, but out of the existing roadway. Where roads have been built wider than will ever be needed, take the extra width out and sell it off, with adjacent property owners getting first right of refusal. If there is no market, then give it away to the adjacent property owner. In suburban Sacramento county, there are streets that go from narrow two lane to four lane to extra-wide four lane and then back down again. These are safety hazards and maintenance nightmares. Let’s put this wasted road space back to productive use.

Katy Freeway (I-10) Texas; By Socrate76 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7444029
Katy Freeway (I-10) Texas; By Socrate76 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7444029

Freeways are the next big thing to reduce. The major Interstates are economically critical for freight movement and to a lesser degree people movement (though quality rail can take much of the pressure off). But they’ve gone from two lanes per direction to four to six to eight to ten, with Texas holding the record, I believe, at thirteen lanes per direction (in the U.S. at least). What are all the extra lanes for? Mostly commuters, and for about two hours a day. People who have been allowed and encouraged to live a long way from where they work, just to save on housing costs. But the bill has been paid by all of us, private car commuters or not, and we have only just begun to pay this bill. It may be larger than our entire economy. So, let’s shrink the Interstates back down, in most cases to two lanes per direction. The other freeways? Most of them are not needed at all and can be removed in favor of surface streets with a restored street grid. People will adjust over time, make different decisions, and it will take long enough to accomplish that it won’t be a sudden shock.

There is no better time than a crisis to re-think our transportation system. If we don’t think now, we will go back to sleep and assume that it is all going to work out, somehow, someday, some fairy godmother.

Each of these ideas deserves exploration, and I will do that as I can.

we don’t need transportation “balance”

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

A recent post on Streetsblog, Brent Toderian: Don’t “Balance” Modes — Prioritize Walking, Biking, and Transit, is from a visit and keynote in Denver, but applies perfectly to Sacramento, and I encourage you to read and reflect.

His main point is that those calling for balancing spending on all the modes really mean “lets just keep doing what we were doing.” We have spent, in this region, trillions of dollars in support of one mode, the privately owned motor vehicle. We have spent a little on transit, and almost nothing on walking and bicycling. If we simply increase the share for transit, walking and bicycling a bit, we have not really done anything. There is a deficit in transit, walking, and bicycling that can only be overcome but shifting our spending to these modes. Every dollar spent on expanding or widening roadways and freeways for privately owned vehicles directly harms transit, walking and bicycling because it encourages and subsidizes privately owned vehicles. It encourages people to live further away from jobs and services. It induces traffic, which congests our roadways so that transit can’t work as well. It encourages inappropriate speeds that endanger walkers and bicyclists.

nonewroadsBefore we can start doing right, creating system that truly serves people’s desires for access in livable communities, we have to stop doing what we were doing. It think we can keep doing the wrong stuff and just add in the right stuff, we are wrong. We need to stop expanding and widening roads. Now, and for ever. #NoNewRoads

#NoMoreUber

Dan Allison1 Comment

I have always been leery of Uber. They have seemed from the beginning like a bunch of spoiled tech brats, whose only values are innovation and profits. Their business model is to exploit the grey areas of law, and to exploit the black and white areas of law by making huge profits in the time gap between recognition and enforcement. They are really not providing a service so much as running a scam. They are scamming their drivers. They are scamming their riders. They are scamming their investors. They are scamming society as a whole by proposing that shady dealings are the future of transportation. They have been found in a number of states to be violating employment/contractor and wage laws, but they continue as though they can. And if we let them, they can indeed. The instances of discrimination against people of color and the disabled are legion. The instances of intimidation and violence against patrons by drivers who have not been sufficiently background checked are legion.

What has brought me to this point of anger, however, is their arrogant attitude about operating semi-autonomous vehicles in San Francisco. Their vehicles have been observed violating the law and endangering pedestrians and bicyclists, and the company’s response has been that things will get solved eventually, with a little engineering. They have thumbed their nose at both the state of California and the city of San Francisco, refusing to cease vehicle testing, though they have not acquired permits to do so. All the other companies have.

I’m a frequent visitor to San Francisco, and what I’ve observed when walking, bicycling and using transit is: Uber drivers making high speed right turns, failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks (marked or unmarked), cutting in and out of lanes and disrupting traffic flow, greatly exceeding the speed limit, pushing bicyclists out of traffic by using their vehicles as weapons of intimidation, blocking bike lanes to pick up and drop off (legal for taxis when the client’s disability requires that, not so for Uber), blocking transit only lanes (the bus + taxis designation does not apply to Uber), circling the block waiting for rides which increases congestion and air pollution. I could go on. I’ll say that I’ve also experienced some very polite and safe Uber drivers, but they are the exception.

It is well documented that Uber is losing money. So what is their plan? Their plan is to drive the competition out of business. One of their competitors is taxi cabs (which are licensed and regulated), and in some locations their have nearly succeeded. I’m not defending taxis, whose service was poor for years, but driving your competition out of business by violating the law is not the way things are supposed to work in a country of laws. Competition by offering a better service? Sure, but not by violating the law.

Another effect of even more concern to me is that they are harming public transit. Many transit systems are just hanging on, with declining ridership and declining fare recovery. Some might go under due to the actions of Uber. Of course it is likely that Uber will go under as well, and so the marketplace should work, but what of the damage they cause on their way down? Uber has encouraged the idea that ride hailing is the future and transit is the past. And if we let it be so, it will be.

None of this is to suggest that ride-hailing/car-“sharing”/transportation network companies (TNC’s, the official name of such services) can’t be part of our overall transportation services, complementing other modes. But I will state right here that Uber is not part of that solution, they are the problem.

So, what to do. I ask you, dear readers, to stop using Uber. If they lose riders, they will fail all the sooner, and do less damage on their way down. There are other ways to get around, please use them.

Until a few months ago, I’d have said that companies that bully everyone cannot succeed, but then a bully was elected as a president (or not, depending on your view of the electoral college and popular vote). Perhaps all bets are off. Maybe Uber is the future, the model of business so well refined by Donald Trump.

You bet I’m angry.

#NoMoreUber

Slow Transportation (part 3)

Dan Allison1 Comment

3. What Slow Transportation Isn’t

It isn’t flying in airplanes.

It isn’t driving over 25 mph except on roadways designed for higher speeds that connect places rather than go through places. For example, the highway to the mountains. But not the stroad arterial in your neighborhood, and never a residential street. In fact, 20 mph is a better number (see Twenty is Plenty).

It isn’t driving your kids to school.

When I ask people why they have a car, they most often answer one or more of three things:

  • to get to work
  • to buy groceries
  • to get to the mountains or the beach

There are solutions for each of these. If one choses to live far from work, or work far from home, driving is almost inevitable. But people do change jobs and housing, much more often than they admit, and could make the choice to be closer. Work and car are a classic Catch 22: I work to pay for my car, I have a car to get to work. It need not be this way. One can choose a job/housing situation allows walking, bicycling, or transit.

People’s grocery shopping patterns lean towards two extremes: 1) driving a mile to pick up a quart of milk; or 2) buying so many groceries at a time that they could not possible be carried by walking, bicycling or transit. But there is a middle ground, making more trips to the store and buying quantities that are walkable, bikeable, transit-able. That is what most of the people in the world do, and it is what we can do. Sure, maybe you do need a car every once in a while for a particular item, but most of the time, no. No. No.

I understand getting to the mountains and beach. I travel to the mountains a number of times during the summer for backpacking. I travel to the bay area about once a month for the ocean and the culture. But for neither trip do I use a car (I don’t have one, don’t want one). I use public transportation, and some bicycling, and some walking. If you are going camping, perhaps you do need a vehicle. Rent one, or find a friend with one! You don’t need that large vehicle sitting in your driveway, or driving around town. And, to be honest, you don’t need to be running to the mountains every weekend during ski season or summer, or the beach every weekend during the summer. Slow down, enjoy the place you live a little more. Yes, Sacramento during the summer can be a little hard to take, but the river is close by, or a cool bar with cold beer.

“You can have a city that is friendly to cars, or friendly to people, but you cannot have both.” —Enrique Penalosa

part 1 | part 2

Slow Transportation (part 2)

Dan Allison2 Comments

2. Slow Transportation As a Solution

I have said for years that the two most important things we do in our lives are what we eat and how we get around (hence the name of this blog, Getting Around Sacramento). The what we eat ground (soil?) is well covered by Slow Food and all the responsible agriculture movements, and ultimately it is likely more important than how we get around, but this after all is a transportation blog, so Slow Transportation is what I’m writing about.

So, what is Slow Transportation?

It considers, for every trip:

  • is this trip necessary at all?
  • can I combine multiple purposes into one trip?
  • what is the shortest distance I can travel for whatever purpose I have?
  • am I using the most sustainable mode available?
  • what trade-offs are acceptable to me between mode and time?
  • how can I address the issue of transportation and food together? (more about this below)

A Slow Transportation approach would:

  • reduce the number of trips
  • reduce the length of trips
  • shift trips from private motor vehicles to walking, bicycling, transit and trains
  • almost eliminate the use of airplanes, the most impactful and irresponsible mode
  • ensure that all externalities of a particular mode are recognized and either paid for by the user or acknowledged and paid for by society
  • make transparent and equalize the subsidies we provide to different modes

Though I’m not sure that these two items are part of Slow Transportation, I’ll add them:

  • No New Roads: It means what it says, we have all the roads we need, and more, and don’t need to build a single new one. Anywhere. If we stop greenfield development, we are unlikely to need any, in any case.
  • No Net Pavement Increase: We have all the pavement we will ever need, and more. If someone wants to put in more pavement in one place, they can remove pavement in another place, returning that place to some natural state of value.

This graphic, from the Chicago Department of Transportation, which I’ve used a number of times before, captures the Slow Transportation even better than words do, though I’ve often wondered if bicycling and transit should be swapped.

ChicagoCompleteStreets

“It is a mistake to think that moving fast is the same as actually going somewhere.” —Steve Goodier

part 1

Slow Transportation (part 1)

Dan Allison4 Comments

Recently I was emailing a friend about a Slow Food gathering, and facetiously used the term “slow transportation” for getting there by train rather than flying. But the more I thought about it, the more the term resonated with what I believe in and what I work on. I have not heard, so far as I’m aware, the term used anywhere else, but I think readers of this blog will immediately resonate with it as well. What follows is a first attempt to pin down a working definition of Slow Transportation.

I am going to break this topic up into several posts, but at the end I’ll make it available as a single document in case that is of use to you.

1. What is wrong with our present transportation system?

I am going to keep the list short and succinct because I think most readers of this blog will either already be aware of the issues, and/or will agree that these are the problems. Entire books have been written about each of these issues!

Note: Don’t be depressed by the list of problems below. I promise I won’t leave you there for long.

  • transportation accounts for a significant part of greenhouse gas emissions (37% in california, 26% in the US, and 14% worldwide) as is therefore a major driver of climate change
  • we have emphasized mobility over access, the ability to get somewhere – anywhere, rather than the ability to get to places we want to go; there is an incredible amount of aimless driving, just for something to do, running a small errand to take up time and fill an empty life; only about 15% of car trips these day have anything to do with commuting to work
  • the convenience and low cost of driving has encouraged the separation of functions, where we live, work, recreate and socialize, diminishing the value of each place; though this has started to reverse, we are so far down this road (literally) that it will be hard to bring these back together
  • privately owned motor vehicles isolate people rather than bring them together
  • traffic violence is inherent in a system based on private motor vehicles; even when people are not killed and injured by the drivers of motor vehicles, they are still intimidated out of the public space, knowing they are at risk there and are being actively discriminated against
  • our cities, counties and states are either already insolvent or on their way to insolvency, in part due to the fact that we do not have and cannot ever have enough money to maintain the transportation infrastructure we have already built; though roadways are the worst of this, it is also true to some degree of transit systems, and most certainly our air transport system
  • our current wars are in significant part about oil, oil wars; if you don’t think this is so, ponder the fact that the former head of Halliburton, an oil exploration and facilities company, got us into the Iraq war and Halliburton was the prime contractor for that war; it is not just the US with guilt and blood, most of the wars today are at least in part about oil
  • we transport our food long distances, disconnecting us from the source, the soil, and the people who grow it; industrial agriculture is both dependent on and a driver (literally) of our unsustainable transportation system; again, this is starting to reverse, but we have lost much of the smaller farmer and small processor capacity of our country, and it will take time to rebuild
  • the housing affordability crisis is in part due to a focus on housing costs without considering the transportation costs; the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s H+T calculations indicates that much of the current housing stock is unaffordable because it is located so far from jobs and amenities; it is not really the urban areas (so much in the news) where housing is unaffordable, since transportation costs there are so much lower, but the suburbs and exurbs
  • our transportation system takes up too much of our wealth, particularly in the preference for mega-projects like new bridges and freeways, and inattention to small projects that would have greater benefits; there are plenty of things we could be spending transportation money on instead; I dont’ want to minimize the value of transportation investments, but to ask that they have the a similar social return to other things we could spend on
  • our transportation system takes up too much of our space, not just with roadways and interchanges, but with parking garages and parking lots and on-street parking; as a result of all this space devoted to one mode of travel, the private vehicle, everything must be further apart, thereby requiring even more driving, in an ever-downward spiral
  • our transportation system both encourages and depends upon greenfield development, which leads directly to loss of wildlife habitat and agricultural lands; we already have enough housing stock, but a preference for heavily subsidized greenfield development leads to abandonment and neglect of the sufficient housing stock we already have; greenfield development must stop, now and forever
  • there are so many externalities to private car use, costs that are borne by other individuals and society as a whole, that it really amazes me that we even allow private car use
  • we have reached peak car; peak does not necessarily mean the greatest number of cars or the greatest vehicle miles traveled, but it means the point of diminishing returns; the costs are now overwhelming the benefits and nothing we do can change that, except to walk away (literally) from dependence on motor vehicles

“The automobile has not merely taken over the street, it has dissolved the living tissue of the city. Its appetite for space is absolutely insatiable; moving and parked, it devours urban land, leaving the buildings as mere islands of habitable space in a sea of dangerous and ugly traffic.” —James Marston Fitch, New York Times, 1 May 1960

roads in California and Sacramento County

Dan Allison1 Comment

In preparation for some exploration of funding sources for roads, it helps to see what the situation is with the jurisdictions and types of roads, for mileage and VMT.

Jurisdiction means the level of government responsible for the road. This is not always clear from simply looking at a road. If there is a federal or state highway sign, it is pretty clear, but there are roads that are part of the state highway system that are not signed as such.

The types of roads, here, means functional classification, which is a federal designation of Interstate, Principal Arterial – Other Freeways and Expressways, Principal Arterial – Other, Minor Arterial, Major Collector, Minor Collector, and Local. Again, it is not always easy to distinguish classification, but as a generality, freeways fall into the first two, major roads such as Folsom Blvd and Watt Ave fall into the third, busy wide streets are the next three, and residential streets are the last. Another useful classification is that the first six categories are roads, meant to move motor vehicle traffic, and the last is a street, meant to provide access to residences and small businesses. Unfortunately, we build far too many of the road variety and then put business on them so they no longer function well to move cars. See Strong Towns for a more detailed explanation of roads, streets, and stroads.

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