[PEN-L:8164] Re: Re: California Green Party Assembly Representiverequests help

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Urban and Transportation planning is my field.  I was Chairman of the Graduate
Urban Design Program at UCLA from 1964-69, although I have since moved on to
international finance and economic policy analysis.

The artificial dichotomy between mass transit and highways is misleading.
Meaningful solutions cannot come from a poorly posed question.

All transportation that moves large numbers of people are mass transit. In
popular debate, what is meant is the pros and cons of railed transit and
auto/highway transit.

>From a technical point of view, railed transit is efficient in peak hour
situations, its passenger load being limited only by the number of cars allowed
by the length of loading platform and number of exits at stations.  Another
advantage is that it is relatively air pollution free. It main disadvantage is
its linear geometry which does not serve most American cities effectively.
Another disafavantage is that rial transit is generally considered only after
concetrated devlopment has occurred, thus increasing the cost of its
introduction through the need of land acquisition and complicated construction
conditions.  Pre-planned rail transit for new development are rare because of
foresight requires intensive front-end investment.
A fine book : Street Car Suburbs by Sam Warner, details the history of the
development of Boston prior to the auto age.

The highways/auto system is also a form of mass transit.  The difference is
that the individual basic unit is the car rather than the passenger.  Its
greatest disadvantage is its inability to handle concentration and peak hour
loads.  Each lane of highway can safely accommodate abut 400 vehicles flow per
hour at a speed of 50 mph.  Flow theory dictates that highest volume (800
vehicles/lane) will reduce speed to 18 mph and bottlenecks will result.  Its
secondary disadvantage is the need for parking. A parking sapce eats up 350 sf
including circulation a compared to a working atation per employee of 150 sf.
Already over 65% of of the urban land in Los Angeles is devoted to roads and
parking, partly because city blocks in Los Angeles are too small for the needs
of automobile configuration.  Cars of course are air polluting.
Yet, the advantages of the highway/auto system are not insubstantial.  It
serves effectively the spread-out existing urban patterns, albeit because the
pattern grew from it.
The car provides the driver with considerable freedom of movement and timing.
There is no need to wait for the next train which in off peak hours never
comes.  The car is relatively more protective from urban crimes in empty
stations.  It is imminently more comfortable than the best subway train.  In
California, it is a common sight to see urban planners and economists who drive
their fancy cars to meetings to promote urban rail mass transit.
What is needed is a coordinate balance between peak hour concentration
transportation needs and non-peak freedom for each city according to its
historical conditions and special characteristics.
The cost efficiency issue is a red herring, at least on a national basis.  Both
alternatives end up costing the same when subsidies and benefits are factored
in.  It is similar to the bogus issue of trying to increase the cost
effectiveness of bath rooms in houses.  The quickest way is to contract
diarrhea if quality of life is not an issue.  Rail transit has a hard time
breaking into the existing financial system because the system has a great deal
of invisible subsidies for highways, through gasoline taxes, etc.

The battle is highly political because aside from the technical issue of
efficiency, the real contention involves each alternative's impact on land
value, which is determined by access capacity.  In London, during the Labor
50's, there was a legislation to tax the surplus private land value created by
public improvements in transportation.  Mass rail transit subsidizes the down
town office buildings, particularly when private parking becomes a profit
center while public parking is shrinking.  The cost of reducing worker
commuting time to hard to get to locations is put on the general public rather
than the employer.  Employers should pay employees from the moment they leave
their front door to the moment they return, not just from the moment the arrive
at and leave the office.  Lawyers get paid that way by their clients, why
shouldn't office workers?
There are of course many other issues and unintended consequences, but this
will suffice for now.
The issue is not rail vs cars, because each of us will use both at different
times if both are available.  The issue if to get those who advocate user fee
to really pay up, such as urban land owners, car maunufacturers and owners.
Put high taxes on downtown parking and use the revenue on underdeveloped
economic ghettos.  Make rail mass transit free and pay the cost from real
estate taxes.

Henry C.K. Liu




Henry C.K. Liu



Brad De Long wrote:

> >Audie Bock, the new Green Assembly representative from Cal. has a
> >question for us.  She asked, about transit issues. She quotes: "I have
> >the impression that mass transit and highway planning are treated as two
> >separate and distinct issues.  I believe that when planning our highways
> >in California we could incorporate mass transit. What is the economic
> >feasibility of providing genuine mass transit throughout California?
> >Should we, as legislators view these items as interrelated from an
> >economic standpoint?"
> >
> >--
> >
> >Michael Perelman
> >Economics Department
> >California State University
> >michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >Chico, CA 95929
> >530-898-5321
> >fax 530-898-5901
>
> How willing is she to promote the tear-down of blocks of bungalows in
> Berkeley and their replacement with five-story apartment buildings, or to
> promote the tear-down of large houses in Palo Alto and their replacement
> with townhouses?
>
> Mass transit seems to require much higher densities than we have at present
> in California--even largely-urban California, outside of a very few
> regions. And the currently chi-chi forms of mass transit--light rail a la
> BART--appear, as best I can judge, to suck down huge amounts of money that
> could be better spent on more busses and bus lanes.
>
> But it's not my field. And land-use and transit planning is genuinely very
> hard...
>
> Brad DeLong
>
> -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
> "Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing the quantity theory of
> money] is probably true.... But this long run is a misleading guide to
> current affairs. **In the long run** we are all dead.  Economists set
> themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can
> only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again."
>
> --J.M. Keynes
> -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
> J. Bradford De Long; Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley;
> Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives.
> Dept. of Economics, U.C. Berkeley, #3880
> Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
> (510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 phones
> (510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 faxes
> http://econ161.berkeley.edu/
> <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>