As the population of America's cities continues to increase along with congestion and oil prices, an ever greater number of commuters and cities are choosing to make investments in transit. Cities like Washington face a dilemma about where to make transit investments and what kind of investments they should be. Should the primary purpose of rail planning continue to be an emphasis on suburb to central city commuting, primarily in the form of large park and ride facilities on radial rail lines? Or should precious federal dollars be spent on transit projects in an effort to rejuvenate older urban areas?
Recently, much emphasis has been placed on congestion relief as the primary goal of transit. Unfortunately, this goal is one which cannot be achieved. No matter how much additional transportation infrastructure is constructed--or even what mode--congestion will never be eliminated. This failure, however, is nothing to fret about. Congestion is merely an economic phenomenon that occurs when demand exceeds supply. It is neither practical nor feasible to construct enough highway lanes to handle rush-hour demand. In the face of this realization, planners are doing what they have been doing for many years; using freeway medians as a means of penetrating the urban core, attracting riders from their cars, and providing an alternative to sitting in traffic.
This strategy has certainly been successful in some regards. In
Freeways are not typically characterized by dense multi-use nodes.
Of course, the tradeoff is that transit takes cars off the road—and leaves room for others. For every commuter that parks at
Citizens in growing Tysons Corner are trying to harness for themselves transit’s power to reshape the urban—or in this case, suburban-fabric. The Washington Post reported today that activists there have filed a lawsuit against the federal government for foiling the Silver Line’s chances to be constructed underground. Whether subways are more likely to inspire transit oriented development than elevated ones is not clear, however, Tysons chances are greatly improved with transit than without. Of course, some areas are more likely than others to develop the dense nodes that the people of Tysons envision. If anything damages Tysons’ chances to become the Bethesda of Fairfax County, it will likely have more to do with the presence of two major freeways than elevated stations.
Another problem with freeway-running transit lines is that they enable further sprawl to accrue on the periphery of our metropolitan areas. Instead of incentivizing the redevelopment of the central city, auto-oriented transit just allows some commuters to bypass congestion and still lvie in the sprawling hinterlands. While suburban development is not necessarily bad, one must wonder if choosing an auto-oriented locale is the best place for a transit investment. A better strategy for transit would be to invest in communities where household car ownership is low and places which are ripe for redevelopment. Of course, parking and riding will continue to serve as a major source of transit users, but transit lines should still be routed away from freeways for maximum success.
In the Washington area, an example of good transit routing is the Red Line. The suburban terminus of the line is at Shady Grove. The Shady Grove station is close enough to Interstate 270 to allow convenient access for commuters from the suburbs. The line, however, is far enough from the freeway that dense, multi-use nodes can germinate along the line as it runs under Rockville Pike, Wisconsin Avenue, and Connecticut Avenue. These nodes create demand for transit by being centered around it and by providing a mix of uses. The Bethesda Station, for instance, has many jobs drawing Metro riders from the suburbs and from the city proper. It also has housing, which contributes commuters to the subway not only during rush hour, but also during off-peak times, due to the convenience of transit in this node.
If the car is harmful to the urban fabric, then the freeway is toxic. Transit investments can be and have been used to improve cities, but freeways make that extremely difficult. At least in Tysons, the proposed Silver Line has been routed away from the
1 comment:
"The line, however, is far enough from the freeway that dense, multi-use nodes can germinate along the line as it runs under Rockville Pike, Wisconsin Avenue, and Connecticut Avenue."
Good article, and excellent use of the word 'germinate'. Keep up the good work!
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