Month: July 2012

A typical trope often heard between the explosions of fireworks on July 4^th is about the Declaration of Independence and its  hallowing of the rights of the individual over and against excessive government.

In a 2008 article about the death of Edith Macefield, the woman who resisted developer’s attempts to buy her home leaving it surrounded by a Trader Joes and a gym, Knute Berger pays homage to Macefield as a martyr for individualism saying:

People like Edith Macefield who want to live quiet lives and be left alone are now the equivalent of squatters — they occupy space that has a destiny, a “highest and best use” that doesn’t include people who want to live their lives in peace.

Berger elevates Macefield to mythical status, along with the idea that the individual, not the community, is the unit of measurement we should use to judge progress.  Berger suggests that the choice is being more sustainable by building dense and livable city on the one hand, or our individual rights—our freedom—on the other. Berger says,

Steamrollering over [Macefield] is justified by the notion that we’re fulfilling our civic mission to create a denser, more urban city so that we won’t pave all of nature. The Edith Macefield’s are seen as standing in the way of progress.

The lone individual hunkers down in their castle while the communitarian menace surrounds them with condominiums, transit and Trader Joe’s.  Most Seattlites probably wouldn’t identify with libertarians or people who live on acres of land and drive Hummers or own lots of guns.

But for some, individuality still means the right to a single family home, a car and place to park it. It is easy to mythologize these versions of our rights in the gauzy veil of the “good old days,” and dream of a time when there weren’t so many damn people around here. Individual rights can become code in land use debates for favoring convenience over the larger good, the maintenance of the status quo over change.

Seattle still finds itself in the middle of an age old American struggle between our “civic duty” and our desire, as Berger so aptly puts it, to be left the hell alone.

Today we celebrate one of the greatest documents of individualism of all time, the Declaration of Independence. Some would interpret the Declaration as the ultimate “leave me alone” document of the last 300 years, written by colonists wanting to be free of their Big Brother, the British Empire.

As Americans, and Seattlites it can be tempting to see Macefield’s stand as somehow heroic or a kind of martyrdom to individuality in the face of change. But the first words of our written Constitution,  imperfect as it may be, are plural: “We the people.”

Digging bunkers in Ballard won’t help us address the pressing environmental and economic problems we face.  We have to tap into that other strain of American idealism represented by figures like John Adams, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster who are often marginalized by our worship of Thomas Jefferson. Clay developed the American System, a comprehensive, government driven expansion of infrastructure that built a transportation system for the United States in its early years.

Individual expression is important, but so is our civic duty to others and we should articulate this aspect of American tradition more clearly in our language when we talk to people about growth and sustainability.  American tradition includes the common cause, and supporting each other in times of change and challenge. Building better cities in our region, funding transit, and planning for sustainable growth will mean thinking big and beyond the principled stand of lone individuals protecting their rights.

This post is adapted from a post than originally ran a few years ago on Great City’s blog.

Independence Day is quickly approaching, which means that area transit agencies will be running Sunday schedules throughout the region.  As usual, this is bad news for our Snohomish County readers, as Sunday service translates into no service.  The same goes for Kitsap Transit.  For everyone else (see links below), we haven’t heard of any planned special event service, which will make tomorrow no different than an ordinary Sunday, service-wise. Unfortunately, this means that peak Independence Day activities will be picking up just as service levels begin tapering off.

Family 4th at Lake Union even echoes this lamentation (emphasis mine):

Buses will be running on a reduced holiday schedule, limiting the number of buses operating, scheduled stops, and amount of guests they can accommodate after the fireworks. All guests arriving to the park by bus are encouraged to prepare an alternate method of return transportation.

As I’ve already editorialized, I’m of the opinion that July 4th is one of those holidays where not only extra service is warranted, but free service** as well, as we’ll have thousands upon thousands of revelers crushloading the limited service we do have running.

If you’re weighing your options, Link will be making its last southbound run from Westlake at 11:37pm, which should be enough time for Lake Union revelers to get to the station (viewing from the south end of the lake is encouraged!). For everyone else, prepare for long waits and lengthy walks.

*Links: King County Metro, Sound Transit, Pierce Transit, Intercity Transit, Everett Transit

**Everett Transit will be the only agency to go fare-free tomorrow.

Of course, this excess isn’t necessarily something we chose.  In Seattle, as with most towns and cities, it’s required by law.  In Seattle, your house built in a Single Family House (SFH) zone is requied to have a minimum of a 20′ deep front yard.  This is likely a very old law or standard, as my 110 year old house was built with a 20′ front yard.

What if Seattle did things differently?  What if 110+ years ago we looked around at these displays of wealth and instead of deciding a front yard is something everyone should be required to have, we decided to write our codes such as to minimize front yards?  What would the city be like today? Continue reading “The Power of Land Use Rules”

The Seattle Times has an article up about some concerns surrounding potential redevelopment of 8.4 acres of cheap apartments near Northgate. These “concern” pieces seem to usually go one of two ways: a sad story about the loss of low-income garden homes or a story about how new development is going to destroy the community (often the reason cited is traffic). This article is a bit better, but I am still absolutely certain it’s not asking the right questions. Here’s the gist:

But a proposal to rezone the land is being opposed by advocates who fear the loss of the existing 207 apartments that are home to many low-income and immigrant families.

…

But the Mullally family, which owns the Northgate Apartments, has applied for neighborhood commercial zoning that doesn’t require any replacement of the existing apartments.

I suggest you read the article, my comments below the fold.
Continue reading “Affordable Apartments”

The Transport Politic has a great summary of the new surface transportation bill, touching both on details of the bill but also some of the policy questions that it did not address. Excerpt with relation to transit below:

In terms of funding for mass transit, the bill offers $8.478 billion in FY 2013, rising to $8.595 billion in FY 2014, both on par with existing funding levels, adjusted for inflation. Programs designed to distribute funds by formula remain the largest percentage of the bill and grow similarly, accounting for about $6.5 billion in spending in both years, mostly to pay for the purchase of new buses and the reconstruction of facilities (such as through State of Good Repair grants). The capital investment program, however, has been cut by about $50 million and is stuck at $1.91 billion in both years. This funding provides for the Small Start and New Start programs, which provide the grant funding for new rail and bus corridors.

Despite the lack of increase in funding for those capital expansion programs, a close examination of the bill shows that it offers a number of interesting changes in the way this money is to be allocated to transit agencies:

• The New Starts program, in the past reserved to new rail or bus lines operating in dedicated rights-of-way in new corridors, will be expanded to include “Core Capacity Improvement Projects” that significantly improving existing infrastructure while increasing capacity on the existing line by 10% or more.
• Bus rapid transit projects will be classified and funded in the following two ways:
  • Corridor-Based BRT will lack a separate right of way. As the bill describes, however, these BRT programs will involve ”a substantial investment in a defined corridor as demonstrated by features that emulate the services provided by rail… including defined stations; traffic signal priority for public transportation vehicles; short headway bidirectional services for a substantial part of weekdays and weekend days.”
  • Fixed Guideway BRT, on the other hand, means a bus-based project that includes all of the features of the Corridor-Based BRT, plus “the majority of the project operates in a separated right-of-way dedicated for public transportation use during peak periods.” The law includes the provision that the federal government will provide 80% funding for up to three such projects each fiscal year. This is an excellent opportunity for cities that want to invest in a big and serious BRT program to set their ideas into action, with limited local support needed. I hope they’re paying attention.
• The federal government will provide expedited review for fixed guideway projects under two circumstances: New Start projects whose budget is less than $100 million in total; and projects designed by transit agencies that have recently completed similar projects that have achieved or surpassed expected budget, cost, and ridership measures.
• The Secretary of Transportation will be able to increase the federal share for a capital expansion project if “the net capital project cost… is not more than 10 percent higher” and ridership estimates are “not less than 90 percent” of the estimates at the time the project was approved into the engineering phase of the review process.

The bill expands the TIFIA reduced cost loan program to $1 billion a year (from just over $100 million) and increases the maximum federal share from 33% to 49%, both important advances for cities that promise to dedicate future tax or toll revenues to pay for transportation improvement programs. Essentially, the federal government is increasing the ability of local governments to take advantage of lower federal borrowing costs. In Los Angeles, which has promoted the program heavily under the name “America Fast Forward,” TIFIA loans will allow for the completion of such projects as L.A.’s Westside Subway.

MAP-21 does allow small transit agencies — those with 100 buses used in the peak — to receive operating assistance (currently only capital expenditures are covered by federal transit funding). Though this provision isn’t the kind of large increase in operations support that might be beneficial to cash-starved agencies that are expanding their systems while firing bus drivers, it raises the question of whether large transit agencies could split themselves into smaller operating entities to receive federal operating support via a loophole in the law.

New York City Subway Stairs from Dean Peterson on Vimeo.