From: jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Re: Taxes, Development, and Transit
Date: 12 Sep 92 01:32:41 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In article <18qe6aINNdkj@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, fuzzface@cats.ucsc.edu (Aaron Priven) writes:
> 
> In article <pd9d8as@sgi.sgi.com> jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon) writes:
> >In article <17s63kINNctq@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, fuzzface@cats.ucsc.edu (Aaron Priven) writes:
> >> 
> >> The difference, I think, is that I feel strongly that we
> >> *must* start planning high-density development around transit, and
> >> thus I am willing to see a little inefficiency in the transit if
> >> eventually we're going to get decent usage around it.  
>  
> >We need this sort of stuff (high density development) in planning
> >before a lot of money spent on transit makes sense.  
>  
> In other words, you are saying that we need to have high density 
> *before* we have transit.   Whereas I am saying that transit is 
> necessary to create the high density development in the first place.

You misread.  It has to be *in planning*, before transit is built.
I.e. zoned for such.  Unfortunately, building a rail line down the
middle of a freeway is going to limit what can be built around it.
I disagree that high density development will automatically happen
when a high capacity transit system is put in place.  In fact,
Fremont was mostly built up after BART, and BART had very little
impact on it.  BART is a success largely because of downtown San
Francisco, and to a far lesser extent, Oakland and Berkeley.


> People need to get to development, either by transit or by car.  If 
> you build development *without* transit, you're going to have to 
> provide a parking space for everyone who gets there.  Parking lots are 
> so much cheaper than parking garages that garages simply are more 
> expensive than buying twice as much land for the lots.  Boom! -- low 
> density.  Only by providing the transit first can this be avoided.

Sure.  I have no problem with a developer saying, "build the rail line,
and then I'll build the shopping center around it."  Also, some of the
things necessary to make the South Bay more transit friendly don't
require transit.  One would be to require store fronts next to roads,
instead of parking lots.  This makes it a lot more pedestrian friendly.

> You are afraid of "white elephants" -- large, unused transit systems.
> Given that you seem to be most interested in the Santa Clara light rail
> system, this is understandable.  But large unused transit systems can
> be "retrofitted" with high-density development around them.  This is
> what is happening to BART now, with high-density developments around
> suburban stations like El Cerrito Del Norte, Fruitvale, and some
> others.  Moreover, they can be retrofitted by the *private* sector,
> because the transit system makes it desirable *economically* to build
> high- density development around it.  This is inhibited a lot of times
> by NIMBY suburban zoning regulations since suburban cities are
> controlled by small homeowners who want to "preserve their
> neighborhoods".
>
> But it is impossible to induce developers to build high-density
> development without any means of transportation to that development.
> It simply isn't economical for them; they will lose money, and either
> build low-density development if zoning regulations allow, apply for a
> zoning variance, or simply sit and wait until they can buy a new city
> council.

Right.  Don't build the transit system while there is NIMBY zoning.

> Santa Clara's 13% farebox recovery is definitely too low, and this is
> unfortunate.  But it is not necessary for SCCTD to make a profit.
> SCCTD's purpose is to provide transportation services to the community,
> not to make money off of transportation.  Providing the infrastructure
> that allows high-density development to exist is precisely what SCCTD
> should be doing.  It is also, however, incumbent on them and on the
> cities through which SCCTD lines will run to zone correctly to allow
> and encourage that kind of development.

I believe there is a requirement for fiscal responsibility.  Of course
it doesn't have to make a profit (where did I say that?)!  But one of
the problems is that there are no standards of fiscal responsibility
with these public entities.  The LA Blue line is considered a great
success because it gets 36000 riders per day.  However, it costs $45
million to run and get $7 million in fares.  Is that sufficient?  You
might say so, based on the argument that it's a public service, like
a library, and it's only two years old.  I have no problem with your
paragraph above, taken by itself.  I don't think that SCCTD and the
communities have done enough to encourage successful transit to make
me vote to keep the current 1 cent sales tax for transportation.

> >The worst thing 
> >we could do would be to raise the sales tax and build a big transit 
> >system that then only gets 13% of operating costs from fares, because 
> >little or no development was built around it.  We have to try to ensure 
> >that we don't build white elephants.  The current plan doesn't.
> 
> I agree that we have to ensure that "we don't build white elephants,"
> but strange as it may seem the time for doing this is *not* necessarily
> before the transit is built.  Transit *allows* high density development
> to be built.  Certainly the planning of routes should encourage transit
> in locations that already will provide some amount of ridership (such
> as downtown San Jose), but the way you ensure ridership is to build
> development around the transit afterwards that is dependent on it.

I guess we are repeating ourselves.  I have no problem with this.  But
I'm not convinced enough that this will occur for me to vote to extend
the 1984 sales tax increase.

> 
> >I would add that the real need is to build housing, shops, and industry 
> >with regard to serving it via transit.
> 
> Yes.  If this were a central planning economy, you'd build the housing,
> shops, industry, and transit all at the same time.  (Central planning
> economies, of course, never seem to work out correctly.) It's not, so
> something has to come first.  It's not likely that a private
> entrepreneur is going to build a building in the expectation that SCCTD
> will someday bring a light rail line there.

Well we have a centrally planned transit system which is working about as
well as centrally planned economies.

> 
> >Vancouver, BC (bc.transportation again, Aaron)
> 
> You know, Vancouver is *not* the transportation paradise that's been
> pictured here.  Buses are slow and mixed with very heavy automobile
> traffic on arterial roads.  Bus frequency is good in Vancouver city
> proper but is not so hot in the suburbs, particularly the suburbs most
> comparable to our suburbs in the Bay Area: Surrey, Delta, Coquitlam.

Well I disagree.  Having spent time on both transit systems and examining
schedules, transit is far more competitive with the auto in greater
Vancouver than in the greater Bay Area.  It may not be a paradise, but
it's not Hell, either.

> 
> > has a lot of relatively low density neighborhoods, yet
> >the transit service through them is frequent and good. 
>  
> Vancouver proper has no low-density neighborhoods comparable to those
> in Santa Clara County, and even that bus service isn't all that
> frequent and certainly isn't fast.  Out in Vancouver's own outer
> suburbs transit is barely there.  (And there are freeways and all the
> rest of it.  SkyTrain's end station, Scott Road in Surrey, is a lot
> like Daly City BART station; people drive there and take the train the
> rest of the way.  It's in the median of a freeway.) I'd say BC Transit
> in Surrey and Delta and the like is about comparable to SamTrans.

But Vancouver does have a lot of single family houses, especially in
the western section between downtown and Richmond.  Buses run on a
grid, and almost all the routes are at 15 minute or smaller frequencies
all day long, and most are at 20 minute or less, well into the evening.
Santa Clara county does not compare.  It is more pedestrian friendly,
too.

> 
>  =Aaron=

jeremy