The most overlooked facet of the public transit debate.

[sparr]

About half of downtown Atlanta is paved. The same goes for most other major cities in the USA. It applies to small towns as well, although this post is less about those. Don't believe me? Look at a satellite map. On your mental map of the world, roads are just lines, with no width, and parking lots only take up as much space as the distance you have to walk from your car to the exit. In the real world, all that space adds up[1].

Think about your favorite mall, or your college or high school, or your grocery store, or the airport. Look it up on a satellite map online. Lenox Mall's footprint is half the size of its parking lot. Cumberland Mall is about the same. Hartsfield-Jackson Intl Airport has more space set aside for parking than for terminals, and that's ignoring all the third party lots in the surrounding areas.

Now, think about what all of that land is worth.

Really, think seriously about the value of that much land. What is an acre (about 40k square feet) worth in the middle of downtown Atlanta? What are the thousand acres surrounding the ATL airport worth? What is it worth if you could reclaim it for parks? What is it worth in sale value and property taxes if it was developed commercially? We are talking about billions upon billions of dollars worth of real estate, and billions of dollars in increased property tax revenue.

Now, let's consider that as applies to The Public Transit Debate.

The more people who ride public transit from Roswell to Atlanta, the fewer lanes 400 needs. Ditto Marietta and 75, Buford and 85, Conyers and 20, etc. The more people who ride the bus or train to the mall or to school, the fewer lanes city roads need, and the less parking area they need. Bicycle and scooter usage also lead to the same result inside the city, but that's another debate for another day. All of the car traffic on a 4 lane highway could be condensed down to a single lane of buses, or a single rail line. Most of the car traffic in a small suburb could be replaced by PRT vehicles on narrower and much cheaper to maintain roads.

It's a chicken and egg problem, as are most things involving public services to replace private services. Different from "I'll ride the bus when it runs more often"/"The bus will run more often when more people ride it", but the same type of problem. Just as a thought experiment, let's pretend we have a time machine, or at least a source of ridiculously large interest-free loans. If we could, today, somehow have already reaped the profits of reclaiming all of that land, we could then use that money to implement a public transit system so awesome that we wouldn't need all of those roads and parking lots any more. And once we have a public transit system that awesome, we can reclaim that land and put it to better or more profitable use, either loading the profits into our time machine or repaying those loans.

So, the question then becomes, how long will it take us to bootstrap that change, as land gets more expensive, gas gets more expensive, cities get bigger, and all of those other changes continue inexorably into the future? It's a hurdle that we must jump, eventually, and the longer we wait the worse of a shock it is going to be to our economy and society. We can't put it off forever. Unless something amazing happens to energy storage and transportation technology in the next few decades we will have to do something about the automobile problem, and most of the "something"s that don't involve government intervention are not pretty.

Your thoughts on the matter are appreciated.

[1] A typical 400'x400' block (from the downtown/midtown grid) is surrounded by roads 50' wide. Splitting the roads down the middle, and ignoring sidewalks, that's 42.5k square feet of road for 160k square feet of otherwise usable land.

A quick survey of the area tells me that approximately one out of every 12 blocks is solid parking lot or garage, and one out of every 4 blocks is partially (let's call it 25% on average) parking or garages. So for every 12 blocks, there are 510k square feet of road, one whole block of parking garage (160k square feet), three 1/4 blocks of parking garage (120k square feet), and 10 blocks of building (1.6M square feet).

That puts the split around 1:2, and we haven't even taken the interstates or highways into account yet.

Comments

[lorigami.livejournal.com]

don't forget that part of the reason why some of the buildings that sit unused around town sit unused is that to turn them into a restaurant, etc. requires a number of parking spaces (designated by the city) that they often can't come up with. This is required even if it's a destination many people would walk to.
I really wish we'd stop planning around cars, and that's the biggest reason I'm all for 5$ a gallon gas.

OH boy we are going to disagree again...

[jolefay.livejournal.com]

Atlanta once had an ACTUAL trolley car---One that ran on the whole telephone wire thing.. Those are all around town. Yes, some would have to be dug up. And no we could not use the stupid fake street car. Second the reason there is no train to Roswell. The DOT was DEAD SET on it running along SIDE of the highway behind what is ESSENTIALLY Million dollar houses. Thats why it stops where it stops. The transportation people would NOT build it in the middle of 400 like the other parts of the rail. NO ONE KNOWS WHY. We just know it was stupid. Third ask Gwinette why it thinks it needs its own transportation system,why Cobb needs it's own,and WHY they REFUSE to merge with MARTA who is BTW a private corporation.
NOW all this aside let's say...that tomorrow a utopian thing occurs. All the counties decide to make an effort for a GA Rapid Rail. They begin to build it everyone is thrilled.. It will still take about 30 years to complete. SO here is my speech about in the meantime.
Gas prices are run by speculators. Doing things like running your mouth about the Middle East when you have a shite foreign policy= giving speculators a license to speculate unrest and there fore prices going up. Not letting refineries still closed from Katrina not reopen because of a drilling moratorium passed because an administration let BP have a platform to explore deep water when the PREVIOUS administration knew enough about drilling and oil to know that was a crap idea. Maybe Obama should not have taken campaign funds from certain members of the "Mineral People". THIRD- when all this other stuff is going on saying that oil companies are getting a "tax break" when in FACT it is a NEW law this administration is trying to pass that will tax oil companies----IS THE WORST ABSOLUTE WORST WE COULD DO. NOW all that said---realize this. There is NO mass transit farming-IT DOES NOT NOR WILL IT EVER EXISTS. America is an AGRICULTURE NATION. This is why we have cheaper gas than the rest of the world. We need it to fuel our farm equipment. What is going on in politics now. A quest to keep tax companies from being CRUCIFIED which will trickle down to us paying $$$ at the pump. Fighting the man=fighting ourselves. If we loose that expect 10 dollar bread and we all know how well that worked out in Russia. Believe it or not-not really a Republican just decided to open my eyes one day and realized shit was pretty scary. NOW I am off to watch Anime where things are funny mostly and not scary.

and

[jolefay.livejournal.com]

$10.00 bread.. What are you going to do when the price of gas drives up the costs of food so you can't afford it?

Re: and

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

The cost of gas driving up the cost of products is severely exaggerated. Labor costs (driving trucks, loading trucks, etc) far outweighs the cost of gas.

Re: and

[lorigami.livejournal.com]

that's why I grow my own.

[stylishgeek.livejournal.com]

The only way that people change their behavior (historically) is when it becomes prohibitively expensive to keep doing things the same way. In CA the power company artificially raised prices - painfully so. Everyone started switching their light bulbs, chaining out their appliances to more efficient ones, etc. It became something worth paying attention to, because you couldn't afford not to. when the power company was fined and made to stop their illegal practices, the 'good' was already done - everyone was already switched into a mode where per house their are the most efficient state in the union.

I believe the same holds for cars - if the price is raised - not to $5, but to $7 or $8, current European levels, people will find alternatives. They will get smaller, more efficient cars. They will take the bus and other mass transit when possible. They will think a lot more aout any trip they want to take. They won't be able to make enough electric cars to meet the demand.

Sparr, I know you're advocating no cars, but I think less cars and more efficient cars are good goalsl given where we are currently (USA).

Re: and

[jolefay.livejournal.com]

You grow your own BREAD?

Re: and

[lorigami.livejournal.com]

haha, no. I grow my own fruits and veggies, bake my own bread and trade for eggs and meat. At least as much as I can because yes, rising food prices are a problem.
That doesn't mean we need to get rid of our fossil-fuel centered lifestyle tho, and 5$ a gallon gas is probably what it's going to take to get enough people paying attention. Not saying it won't/doesn't suck, but it's what needs to happen.

Re: and

[jolefay.livejournal.com]

Inflation Watch
THE SALVATION ARMY talking about the affect on fixed income people
CNN
I buy locally so I read this
and this

Arguing that the rise in food cost is "exaggerated" is asinine. Sorry I like you but it is. I buy locally as much as I can. But the price of food has gone up. Here have some farmers explain to you WHY:

Farmer in VA
Texas Farm Bureau
LOOK it's the AJC

Interestingly enough gas prices are falling right now because the HOUSE voted to lift the drilling moratorium. Hey we all want alternative fuel. But the guy building the wind farm is going to drive a TRUCK to get there. Stuff is not instantaneous.

Re: and

[jolefay.livejournal.com]

But is you use Hodgson Mill---It comes from Illinois and has also gone up about $1.12. And LOCALLY MILLED flour comes from somewhere else before they mill it. So even with the bread we are screwed.
There is already a movement to prevent $5.00 gas. I am part of it. I think that the whole "Hands Across America" to save the farmers back in the 80's STUCK with me. So when I start getting articles on my feed about Farmers struggling because of high gas prices. I don't think it needs to happen if people would get enlightened and educate themselves. People who can easily shrug off the whole cars are evil and I can take a bus.aren't going to get it till they get to the grocery store. Then instead of it being gas prices-it's just gonna be the man trying to gouge them and they need to eat. The man is everywhere. I know you knew the Little 5 Points Hippy Taylor. The GSU Math Professor. "Ya sell yourself no matter what ya do" unfortunately to many people are tuned into what the man is doing to victimize them--instead of looking how it really works and what they can do to change it.

Re: and

[lorigami.livejournal.com]

Our food has been artificially cheap for decades because of subsidies and other craziness. Fuel is only one part of that equation. People need to understand why things have been so cheap for so long and what the true cost of actually living is.