Solutions to Unsustainable Automobile Centric Urban Growth

Resolving the sustainability issues of an automobile centric society

Understanding of urban growth is one of the most important social concepts but, one of the least desirable and most complicated of typical conversations.

There is an obligatory moral responsibility to real estate developers wherein profit has to be secondary.  The first obligation must be towards creating urban growth that can endure future generations.  There is no governmental mandate capable of mandating such a requirement.  Sustainable transportation with responsible development allows urban growth to have social equality and environmental justice.   Without a source of sustainable transportation, all urban growth is utterly irresponsible.  The trend of contemporary ‘green’ talk produces more vacuous rhetoric than sustainable solutions; meaning that there can be no sustainability regarding urban growth without a fully sustainable mode of transportation and that the automobile centric urban design is incapable of sustainability.

On board with the popularity of green talk is the political arrogance of ignorant intrusion from government regulation stifling innovation from finding solutions towards creating sustainable urban growth.  The current move of government mandate is forcing controversial global warming policies into consolidation of private land use development.  The logic of increasing traffic loads through small lot sized land restriction for living space is a mystery in its effect towards lowering earth’s heat in the atmosphere.  

With less money spent on property purchases due to governmental mandates of increased housing density, the developer is the lone beneficiary.  With minimized and zero lot lines, where is quality of life improvement for residents?  The automobile is unsustainable; an automobile based society can never reach sustainability no matter what size real estate lots are. 

Reaching a future able to endure population growth requires an efficient foundational transportation source.  Urban growth expansion has to be based on sustainable mobility.

Since the automobile is the current single source of populace mobility, a rapid transition is unrealistic.  Therefore, to reach the objective of restructuring entire societies based on the automobile, the necessity of removing the automobile as the primary source of transportation must be incremental.  A person’s familiarity to the automobile produces resistance when faced with removing the automobile from societal use.  That familiarity can be avoided when a more advantageous mode of transportation becomes available.  Innovations in new technology transit are opportunities for communities to have convenient, efficient and more affordable mobility options.  Government is unable to be the innovator of new technology transit implementation.  Government procedure is to continue its status-quo of urban growth.

On an immediate course towards long range goals and attain sustainable urban growth, the direction of status-quo in urban development has to be curtailed.  Intent driven governmental mandates fail at reaching to remove the core of unsustainability: the automobile.  The only way to attain sustainable urban growth is with the implementation of new technology transit.  The pattern of original Western Society growth built upon light-rail transit corridors can be re-implemented as an alternative transportation method.  Developing high density pockets surrounding station sites allows for concentrated urban growth without sacrificing larger acreage ranch lots in the outlying areas.  The original design of Western civilization urban growth in the US was transit oriented. The first course of action to secure a lasting future is to re-implement transit oriented urban designs.  Some government agencies have begun the simple re-implementation of these once existing light-rail corridors that were destroyed by the automobile centric urban design.  These pre-existing corridors were fundamental to early growth but, it was a different era; the transit systems were privately owned and operated.  They made a profit. 

Much of the approach to transit over the past 80 years has been as an outreach at a single section of the population.  This discriminatory government procedure has proven itself as a failure economically and is a social catastrophe.  Many bus systems are not designed and built as transportation systems but, are exclusionary to the welfare recipient and represent the core of bus ridership.  The routes travel from welfare and other social program centers during business hours.  To design such systems is inefficient in regards to any attempt of alternative form of transportation as a public transit system.  The misleading claim from government entities to call these bus systems any sort of public transit system is a misrepresentation of fact.  This type of heavy pollution distribution center is harmful to the environment, socially discriminatory and economically burdensome to the tax payer.

The status-quo in urban planning growth trends is compressed housing lots and horrid nightmare scenarios repeating socially engineered failures of government subsidized “project” housing.  These socially and economically segregated neighborhoods generate poverty ridden ghettos for government dependency to advance family decimation and crime. 

It is the nature of creativity to build solutions.

Nobel laureate William Vickrey authored a study for the Victoria Transport Policy Institute which shows real estate developer benefits with transit: “For the land developer, property owner access to a local transit system can raise property values in two ways. First, it gives this location an advantage over another, attracting residential and commercial development near a light rail station that otherwise would occur away from any sort of commerce center. Secondly, transit can increase overall productivity by reducing the area’s total transportation costs. These costs include the expense of transportation to consumers, businesses and governments for normally occurring costs of automobile usage.      

“Overall, reducing total transportation costs provide a catalyst for more clustered developmental patterns, providing economies of agglomeration, which will reduce the costs of providing public services, and increase productivity due to improved  accessibility  and  network  effects.   An increase of a few percentage points in property values and business productivity in the community, combined with a reduction of a few percentage points in automobile costs, can total hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy.”  http://www.vtpi.org

Most transit-oriented studies generally reach the same conclusion: there is profitability in TODs (Transit Oriented Developments).  In a paper titled Rail Transit’s Value-Added: Effects of Proximity to Light and Commuter Rail Transit on Commercial land Values in Santa Clara County, California:

“Substantial capitalization benefits were found, on the order of 23 percent for a typical commercial parcel near a LRT stop and more than 120 percent for commercial land in business district and within a quarter mile of a commuter rail station.  Such evidence is of use not only too commercial developers and lenders but also to rail transit agencies embroiled in legal battles over purported negative externalities associated with being near rail. It can also help in designing creative financing, such as value capture programs.  Understanding the market value of properties near rail transit stops can also inform and elevate the practice of joint public-private development.”

In this modern day and age there is lack of justification for incorporating environmental, social and economically damaging antique transportation technology into future urban growth designs.  Solutions to embrace sustainable urban growth require common sense which must recognize that the automobile is unsustainable.  Sustainable transportation does exist with new technology transit.  New technology transit is disruptive innovation to traditional automobile and metropolitan busing.  It provides methods necessary for sustainable urban growth. 

The Politics Continue

From the latest in the oooh this is getting ridiculous category, the Fresno Bee, August 12, 2014 reports that the federal Surface Transportation Board gave California their authorization for construction of a 114 mile section of the HSR (high speed rail) from Fresno to Bakersfield.  Ridiculous is the fact that CA has spent nearly $1billion on the plan over the past 22 years and they don’t even have federal approval.  What’s more is that they can’t even get the three people on the federal approval board to agree that it is a worthwhile project.  Talk of delusional and out of touch, the STB in their report claims that the train will provide connectivity to airports and mass transit systems in the San Joaquin Valley.  This is an indication that the two STB votes were completely political.  Had the STB actually seen the proposed map it surly would have noticed the proposed line has nothing to do with connecting airports in the Valley.  Also, there is no money available now or anytime in the foreseeable future for any public mass transit systems anywhere in the Valley, outside of Sacramento.   

Slippery

The political greaseball known as CA's HSR (California's High Speed Rail) was hit with another down-turn of events yesterday when Fresno County Superviors voted to relinquish their support of the insider's gravy train.  The Business Journal, July 29, 2014, reported that the County Supervisors, in a 3-2 vote favored to terminate their support due to the misaligned agenda of the HSRA (high speed rail authority) that has strayed from what was promised to voters in 2008.

News Flash on the HSR

Oh, this is so easy to predict but, is nauseating.  There is a 12cent to 76cent tax coming to the gas pumps in California on January 1, 2015.  The politicans connected to building CA's HSR (high speed rail) will suddenly discover the missing $40billion in their distorted underfunded budget and gain approval to justify the political insiders to increase personal pocketbooks for their gravy train.

Social Impacts

Social Impacts of Automobile Centric Urban Growth

There are several areas of societal impacts relating to the automobile as the foundation of a society. The fundamental core in every urban population is transportation: how a person gets from one place to another.

The automobile was sold to the general public as a method of attaining independence.  By partaking in the feeling of independence, suburbia was created and progressed into uncontrollable sprawl.  One of the unforeseen aspects to this claim of freedom and independence was costs to its future.

Social isolationism 

In its proposition of independence, the automobile centric society evolved into a culture of social isolationism.  Standard procedure for people today is to get up from bed, walk outside to their car and drive to work with no social interactions.  Many people park in a parking lot, walk to an office and work an entire day without benefit of the interaction of close personal relationships and then drive home, lacking any relevant social interaction.   

The un-sustainability of the automobile reaches deep into an automobile based society.  The cultural implications of social isolationism and the myriad of health problems created by traffic congestion are yet to be fully investigated.

Prior to the automobile centric urban land-use design, Western Society had been building its urban growth upon the railroad and streetcars: a transit oriented land-use design.  That type of urban growth has characteristics of sustainability. 

The style of an automobile is created by designers.  Primary influences relevant to these designs are current trends in fashion.  Car sales are promoted by advertising agencies’ campaigns exclusively measured by fashion trends to encourage customer purchases.  While this is reasonable in business, its effects reach further than mere car sales in the automobile centric society. 

Every car manufactured can be visually ascertained to its decade of origination.  Further reaching implications of fashion can be seen in the patterns and styles of the tract housing built to accommodate automobile centric urban growth.  The houses built in the 1920s are different than those of the 1930s, 40s, 50s, etc., throughout newly built dwellings today; every decade can be visually distinguished in its style.

On the negative repercussions from fashion-only production in the automobile centric society is the consequence of worn out parts.  Trends in design no longer fashionable fade into a negative social enigma.  Outdated tract homes and strip malls no longer in vogue stimulate economic activity to newer growth centers of sprawl development.  The significance can be seen in every urban area that is several decades old. 

As clothing fashion styles change from season to season, the automobile and tract house styles make major shifts every decade.  Inasmuch as fashions quickly go out of date, each tract style becomes out of fad after a decade and a new tract house area becomes popular.  The nature of automobile centric society follows new trending patterns based on that era’s marketing popularity in cultural and sprawl development.

Building

Tract houses are designed by sprawl developers as fashion statements to maintain the status-quo of cyclic trends.  As the new areas are built-out over a decade, older areas are unable to compete with the newly created trend.  These older areas hold a lower real estate value and fall victim to loss of pride in ownership; often becoming lower maintained rental properties.  As they are beset by several decades, the mass produced quality of these deteriorated housing units are exposed to lower income and subsidized first time home buyers.  Economically these properties are higher loan risks with higher foreclosure rates. 

In the building industry, high quality home building in the sprawl sector of tract housing is treated as profanity.  Quick sales with high performance of speed in building quantity and low cost are the only goals of tract housing developers.  The prominent phrase dictated to the labor sector: “never look back” while preforming one’s particular industry trade routine.  This phrase means that a worker can not take the necessary time required to do high quality craftsmanship with the check and balances of one’s own work.  It is demanded of the worker to not look for mistakes and when flaws are found, the low contract bids don’t allow a sub-contractor time to look back but, only leave errors for someone else to take care of.  The rational in this methodology is that there isn’t enough money in the lowball bid process of high production to accommodate high quality.  The focus on tract housing is to generate profit through high quantity.  The designer warmth of security found in Styrofoam beams and faux stone are a psychological façade.  The absence of high quality craftsmanship and long lasting buildings in sprawl development is replaced by contracted fashion designers for the purpose of quick sales to create short term profit.   

As this short term profit making of poor quality building becomes problematic to future generations as the buildings deteriorate; is this a result of the automobile centric land-use design?  This is perhaps material for a philosophical discussion but, even if one might lean towards the answer of it having to do with the nature of greed in mankind taking advantage of one another and having little to do with a land-use issue, it is still a consequence of non-sustainability.

As a source of transportation, the automobile is only 100 years old.  There are no established measurements to quantify the effects of a society based upon this unsustainable foundation.  

Urban blight

In the Car Culture, urban blight is a corollary to automobile centric growth.  Urban blight is a process of cyclic design changes within the car culture.  Once these forgotten areas gather low value rental status, many properties are foreclosed and abandoned.  When abandoned properties are boarded up and chain linked fences become the norm, blight dominates the area.

One of the most accurate terms in identifying urban blight is visual hostility (the term from studies produced by Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Ph.D., Chair, UCLA Dept, of Urban Planning).  Properties with graffiti filled walls, busted windows, rolled razor wire wrapped chain link fences, and warzone landscaping deliver the presents of abused neighborhoods.  These abandoned and economically decayed, visually hostile neighborhoods are socially negative environments.  Psychological ramifications of people (children) forced to live in this economic decay are psychologically effected but, undocumented as to the source and consequent outcome of such psychological ingestion. 

There is some analysis from social science observing this environment and has established the “broken windows theory”.  (In March 1982 an article by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling titled "Broken Windows" appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. This theory considers a building with a few broken windows leading to an increase in more broken windows and crime.)   The primary discussion, however, of “broken windows” relates to crime and efforts for crime prevention.  This paper merely raises the point that the foundation of such environments is the nature of unsustainability with automobile centric urban growth.    

Another product of the unsustainable automobile centric land use is the social dysfunction of its human hostile design.  Detailing the importance sidewalks play in an urban environment, authors Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Renia Ehrenfeucht in their book: Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space, approach the topic of social interactions in land-use design. 

The topic of social actions resulting from environmental conditions was introduced into the urban planning community in the 1960s by author Jane Jacobs.  There is currently some conversation within the urban planning community which discusses the importance of social interaction. (More about government intrusion and their failed attempts at social engineering; in other posts.)  

Author, Malcolm Gladwell, in his book: The Tipping Point makes the point: “Even the smallest and subtlest and most unexpected of factors can affect the way we act.”  Of social interaction with isolationism in the automobile centric society, this statement makes one ponder how the car culture can find sustainability. 

Economic Impacts

Economic Impacts of Automobile Centric Urban Growth

One of the major forces validating the visual aspects to the unsustainability of the automobile is economic.  There are extenuating repercussions seen over the past decades as the US has outsourced its manufacturing: an increase in a lack of jobs.  People without incomes reduce the overall GNP (gross national product).  Large numbers of unemployed people lowers the size of the middle class in the US.  While this paper isn’t written to editorialize or make political comments, there is a point to be made about how local economies are made successful and prosperous.

Micro economics research shows that one dollar will turn over within a local economy 60 times.  To explain: a farmer purchases his equipment from a local hardware store.  The hardware store purchases the products he sells from a local manufacture.  The farmer sells his products to the grocer.  The local manufacturer and his employees purchase goods that the farmer produces from the grocer.  On and on it goes but, the dollar remains locally traded.  The dollar represents work traded.

In an automobile centric society, the automobile immediately removes that dollar from its ability to be circulated within a local community.

As an illustration to the economic loss in an average automobile centric community; in the middle of California, Fresno County is a farming region with a total population of less than one million.  It consumes roughly 500,000 gallons of gasoline per day, Fresno County, like most Western Culture suffers from its automobile centric land-use urban growth design.  Economically, Fresno was once a financially prosperous region but, now is filled with economic poverty.  Every day with the pump price of gasoline at $4 per gallon, Fresno County loses $2,000,000 out of its local economy that would otherwise be kept locally traded.

Where does that money go?  The US consumes 8.77million barrels (42 gallons per barrel) of gasoline per day.  At 368.51 million gallons per day, the US is roughly 1/3 of world consumption.

A rise of $10 per barrel, from $90 to $100 per barrel, world consumption added $1billion per day income increase to the producers.

The automobile centric society is addicted to oil.  It is economically unsustainable as well as environmentally unstable.

In 2007 there was an economic downturn.  The economy had been flourishing, bank credit was easy to attain and the housing market had seen a tremendous burst in real estate equity increase.  One seriously forgotten economic component is that crude oil was sold at $90 per barrel.  During the same time that the housing bubble was increasing, crude oil skyrocketed to $140 per barrel.  The pump price for gasoline increased 40% within weeks.  People who had just remortgaged or purchased new homes didn’t budget a gigantic fuel increase as well as the immediate inflationary costs attributed to reflect added shipping costs pushed onto the market.

It is all part of the consequences from the nature of an automobile centric society.

The history of America’s Old West is full of colorful pictures taming the wild.  The more accurate analysis shows that the US was built on the rail roads as its primary source of transportation.  The history of each metropolitan area shows that the United States was established with a transit oriented urban growth land-use design.  This type of urban development design is far more sustainable than what the West has separated itself into with the automobile centric land-use design.

There are culprit entities that killed small communities by severing the rail component from the transit design.  This effectively terminated economic survival but, it did allow access and the land-use development of outlying areas.

In 1935, a political move lobbied for federal legislation which was passed as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal.  It rendered it illegal for a power company to also own and operate a transit system (local trolley street car service).  At that point in time nearly every metropolitan area had a public street car system that was privately owned and operated (generally owned by the regional power company).  GM (which manufactured buses), Standard Oil of California (fuel for the buses), Firestone Tire, and Philips Petroleum (fuel) structured a joint venture organization and provided equity to National Cities Lines which purchased over 100 transit systems throughout the US and shut down most of the street cars, selling steel rails as scrap.  The manufacturing of buses brought profit to GM, the operations and maintenance of the busing systems brought profit to Standard Oil, Firestone and Philips Petroleum as bussing became products of government subsidies.  National Cities Lines, was eventually convicted of conspiracy.  Again the automobile centric land-use design in regards to public transportation is economically unsustainable with the failed government operated bus industry that continues.

Previously (pre 1935­) every transit company was privately owned, had to purchase its rights-of-ways property, build the system, purchase rails and rail cars, build and maintain the line of its operations and maintenance, carry its own liabilities and make a profit.  Conversely, the automobile industry manufactures a vehicle; does not have to provide rights-of-ways, was not required to provide any guarantees, carried no user liabilities, provides no fuel and has no added maintenance expense.  Its right-of-ways become the burden of its consumer.

Cost of where to operate a vehicle became the burden at the cost of the general public.  The automobile centric design benefits the car manufacturer at the cost and burden of all others.  Other examples of this type of benefiting at the cost and burden of everyone else are extremely rare in business.  The foundation of this industry could conceptually be considered morally irresponsible and, again the automobile centric society is economically unsustainable.

Other aspects from the automobile centric society’s economic decimation are seen in an area’s gross economic output.  In 2009, traffic congestion cost American’s 79million hours and 3.9billion gallons of fuel for a combined $113billion loss. (http://drivesteady.com/how-much-money-and-time-is-wasted-in-traffic)

A community's economic strength is found in areas of concentrated commerce. Automobile centric design communities separate communities and isolate people.

Wholly owned local businesses keep profits within a community. Localized sales of imported gasoline and large box stores owned by out of the area entities cause an economic extraction of otherwise locally distributed dollars. The combination has shown negative effects to be economically unsustainable.

When the origin of Western society was built, the urban design was transit oriented. Commerce cores were town centers which encouraged higher density and vertical urban growth. Today, the automobile centric urban growth has caused those original transit oriented designs to loose functionality.

Since the 1930’s, urban growth in the US has altered its original transit oriented developmental planning design from train and street car orientation to what it is today: a conglomeration of unsustainable urban sprawl based on automobile oriented development.

Revitalization efforts for downtown areas that include a mobility component (streetcars) designed to carry large numbers of people easily around the entire downtown area quickly have served to reinstitute the function of their original transit oriented designs. These revitalization efforts allow these downtowns to once again maintain positions as regional financial hubs of commerce. These reinstituted designs revitalize the original transit oriented growth patterns.

Electric streetcars are no longer a new technology but, are much more sustainable as a mode of transportation than the automobile for city environments. There are, however, extremely efficient new technologies available for mass transit which are completely sustainable. A cognizant and morally responsible government would seek out ways to implement this sustainable technology.

Environmental Impacts

The Environmental Impacts of Automobile Centric Urban Growth

The importance of living in a sustainable environment is clear to those concerned for the health of future generations.  Unfortunately, attaining sustainability in an automobile centric urban design is impossible; the automobile is wholly unsustainable.

 

Most people even agree in understanding that the automobile is environmentally unsustainable by looking at the air we breathe.  But, beyond poor air quality there are a myriad of other harvests of damage due to the automobile.  The automobile touches every aspect of our lives but, it is not possible to merely stop relying on the car in this society.

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From the book: The Geography of Transport Systems, author Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue points out that transport has a number of relationships between the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere and the ecosphere.  He further shows that transportation’s main factors considered in the physical environment are geographical location, topography, geological structure, climate, hydrology, soil, natural vegetation and animal life.

The amount of land consumption required to maintain a car culture urban design is untenable for large automobile centric populations.  Loss of fertile farm land through land consumption to maintain sprawl is common knowledge, its lingering effects are unknown. 

New findings of environmental concerns are often unpredicted.  As technology progresses, there is an increase of discoveries regarding the direct and indirect impacts to the ecosystem.  The discoveries have led to new policies which reduce the environmental harm from automobiles.  The consistency of studies linking health problems in air pollution to the automobile caused the State of California to legislate regulations in an attempt to lower automobile usage.

California legislation, AB32 (“The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006”, now CA State law in the Health and Safety Code, Section 38500) mandates 1990 levels of air quality by the year 2020.  This represents a 25% reduction under business as usual estimates.  Additionally, in October 2008, SB 375 was signed into law.  SB 375 gives the California Air Resource Board (CARB) authority to implement strict mandates to reach AB 32 air quality targets.  CARB is demanding the real estate and transportation industries to find viable environmental solutions for the harmful pollution resulting from combustion engine exhaust. 

As an extreme example of unsustainable land use and the indirect impacts; the Lake Tahoe area, in California, has an ongoing campaign which says: “Keep Tahoe Blue”.  Since the 1970s the water in Lake Tahoe has begun losing its pristine and crystal blue brilliance.  The water has taken a greenish tint with uncommon algae growth which has infiltrated into the formerly pristine waters.  The cause is merely disruption of the primitive earth water run off flow patterns due to road building and driveways for parking. 

An automobile is used 5% of its life; the other 95% it sets parked.  To accommodate this lack of use, the automobile centric land-use design has to allow for locations of the car’s idle time.  Parking lots are inefficient when empty and are inadequately inefficient when full.

There is concern in the dialog of environment about water contamination.  One of the biggest sources of contaminates into the water table is water runoff from the roads.  The heavy air particle pollutants of exhausted fumes fall to the ground and are gathered along the road ways.  This material is filtered in the soil but, some unfiltered water flows directly into water sources. 

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) recognizes that roads, highways, and bridges are a source of significant contributions of pollutants to the nation's waters. Contaminants from vehicles and activities associated with road and highway maintenance and construction are washed from roads and roadsides when it rains or snow melts. Large amounts of this runoff pollution are carried directly to water bodies.

The EPA identifies runoff pollution as that associated with rainwater or melting snow that washes off roads, bridges, parking lots, rooftops, and other impermeable surfaces. As it flows over these surfaces, the water picks up dirt, dust, rubber and metal deposits from tire wear, antifreeze and engine oil that has dripped onto the pavement, pesticides and fertilizers, and discarded cups, plastic bags, cigarette butts, pet waste, and other litter. These contaminants are carried into lakes, rivers, streams, and oceans.

When the oils and grease leaked onto road surfaces from car and truck engines, spilled at fueling stations are discarded directly onto pavement or into storm sewers, the rain and snowmelt transport these pollutants directly to surface waters.

Heavy metals come from some "natural" sources such as minerals in rocks, vegetation, sand, and salt but, also come from car and truck exhaust, worn tires and engine parts, brake linings, weathered paint, and rust. Heavy metals are toxic to aquatic life which can potentially contaminate ground water.

Legislatively in 1987, Congress established the Nonpoint Source Management Program under section 319 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), to help States address nonpoint source, or runoff pollution by identifying waters affected by such pollution and adopting and implementing management programs to control it. These programs recommend where and how to use best management practices (BMPs) to prevent runoff from becoming polluted, and where it is polluted, to reduce the amount that reaches surface waters.

The cumulative effects of sprawl are a growing concern to uncontrolled urban expansion.  The necessity of land-use consumption with sprawl development is not ecologically possible to maintain.

Mankind’s technological progression has been able to take advantage of advanced inventions but, there is a limit to Earth’s acceptable damage.  The amount of harm is by no means insurmountable; however, the accumulative increase has reached the point in which a tolerable level has to be discovered.  Vegetation modification, hydric cycles, level of underground water resources, soil erosion, air purification, ecosphere capacity, food sources of agriculture, entertainment and tourism are points that Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue address as critical impacts effected by the car culture. 

Environmentally, for society to reach a point of sustainability its foundation has to be built upon an environmentally friendly transportation source.