There are few public policy issues more driven my myth than land use and the currently fashionable strategies of “smart growth” or “urban consolidation.” Virtually all of the arguments made in support of smart growth’s densification and land restriction policies melt away when subjected to the light of scrutiny. Now data shows that European work trip travel times for suburban residents are less than those of city residents, which is the opposite of claims by smart growth advocates.

Further evidence of this is provided by an analysis of Western European work trip travel times. The anti-suburban smart growth theorists often suggest that cities should artificially constrained in their expansion because suburban areas put people farther away from their jobs and thus force people to spend more time traveling to work.

Estimates based upon data from the European Union Urban Audit indicates that commutes by suburban residents are faster than commutes by city (core) residents. that the average work trip travel time for suburban residents is 23 minutes, one-way. This is five minutes less each way that the central city estimate of 28 minutes. Of course, the reasons that suburbanites can get to their jobs more quickly are that lower densities mean less traffic congestion (contrary to smart growth claims) and that jobs have followed people to the suburbs. Doubtless, urban planners who are more inclined to believe their conceptions than the data will be surprised that this improved jobs-housing balance has occurred with little or no direction from the planning profession.

Land use policy needs to be based upon fact, rather than the myopic perceptions of a small urban elite. The data could not be more clear. Smart growth --- the compact city --- means more traffic congestion, more intense air pollution and longer travel times. This, of course, is just the beginning. Smart growth also means significantly reduced housing affordability, a redistribution of wealth from lower and middle income households to the more affluent and, as a result, the likelihood of future greater poverty and less economic growth.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 09:49 AM | Permalink

In 1998, the voters of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County approved a sales tax to finance a rail transit system. They were told that the tax would provide funding to build five rail and busway lines and that there would be less traffic congestion as a result. The overall cost to voters was to be less than $800 million. They are not yet riding the system, but they have surely been taken for a ride.

Any number of experts (including this author) attempted to warn local officials and the local media that the system could not be built for the advertised price, but to no avail. In 2000, it was apparent that costs were rising rapidly and I predicted in Breach of Faith that the cost of the system would rise to nearly $1.5 billion. More recent estimates are as high as $6 billion.

A media crisis of some proportions is now underway in Charlotte, as city and transit officials feign surprise at the fact that the first light rail line, which is under construction, has just experienced yet another cost increase. I say “feigned surprise,” because they were warned before. Any objective reading of transit history in the United States shows that rail transit systems routinely cost 50 percent, 100 percent or even more than that relative to the costs that were advertised when the decision was made to proceed (in this case, at the time of the referendum, in 1998). European university researchers have documented the fact that systems such as these routinely cost more than advertised and they conclude that this is because planners lie (or to use the polite term, they use “strategic misrepresentation”). This occurs because the planners know that public officials and taxpayers would not generally approve such projects if they knew, up front, what the costs would be.

Yet, there is a solution. Many states have “lemon laws” that permit a customer to return a defective car to a dealer for a refund. It is time that lemon laws be applied to transit. When transit taxes fail to deliver on their promises, the taxpayers should take them back. In Charlotte, this could be accomplished by a referendum repealing the transit tax. It is time that such a shot be fired across the bow of the dishonest and incompetent planning that takes money from taxpayers under false pretenses.

Posted by Wendell Cox at 09:50 PM | Permalink