The problem with Transit Oriented Development
April 23rd, 2008 by Republican By DefaultTransit Oriented Development (TOD) is an idea that liberals support to justify exorbitant expenditures on mass transit projects. It starts when they spend a bunch of money on a mass transit (usually rail) claiming that it will bring more development to the area around train stations and bus transit centers. Then, when it fails to do so, they have to pump a bunch more money into development so they can justify their original waste of money on the transit projects.
Portland, OR is a prime example of this liberal folly. The most recent problem is that they’re facing a lawsuit from a developer who bought a piece of land near a transit center for just $1.
TriMet officials originally said they were in favor of the Allegro partly because it would have stood right next to a light-rail station, which would have encouraged more MAX ridership.
So, at this point, I’m a little confused. Wasn’t MAX supposed to encourage the development? But they need to pump money into development (in the form of the $1 sale of land) to encourage MAX ridership? What if they had just relied on buses until the development came about. Then they would only have had to pay for half of this chicken-egg equation.
When the developer couldn’t make good on it’s development, the city tried to terminate the deal because the developer couldn’t meet financing requirements by the Feb. 10, 2008 deadline. Now the developer is suing for supposed damages. Actually the damages are only $3.5 million, but the developer wants another $50 million for the money it assumed it would have made if it could finish the development, which apparently, it can’t.
As a side note, it seems that the failure is on the part of the developer, not the city, the banks, investors or anyone else. They made a promise they couldn’t keep. It’s nobody’s fault but their own. But I digress.
The point is that Portland figured it had to sell the valuable land for only $1 in order to get development to happen there. But wasn’t the MAX rail station supposed to do that? If MAX really was doing what it was supposed to do, the value of the land would have come up enough to justify the purchase of the land by a developer (maybe not that one, they don’t have the money for it).
Take a look at downtown Tacoma and its Link-to-nothing Light Rail. Government built a parking structure at one end, a university and museums are at the next stop (government funded), they built a convention center at the next stop, and the last two stops are speckled with vacancies and boarded up windows.
Does anyone in Tacoma city government understand the concept of ’sending good money after bad’? The point is, don’t do it. Cut your loses and find something else that will work.
A report by the CATO Institute pointed out that most development that takes place near rail stations is actually just development that is moved from other parts of the city. There’s no development generated by the transit project, it’s just moved closer. Also,
- They are heavily subsidized, many receiving tens of millions of dollars of support in the form of tax breaks, infrastructure subsidies, below-market land sales, and direct grants.
- Despite the subsidies, vacancy rates are often high, particularly in areas designated for shops.
- While these developments may attract some people who prefer not to drive, there is little evidence that they have significantly changed people’s travel habits.
Now Tacoma is looking at what it’s calling ‘Streetcars’ (as opposed to what it calls ‘Link Light Rail’) as a means to attract and keep business (actually only one business at the moment) in downtown.
Don’t these people realize that doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results was once considered insanity? Now it seems to be considered business as usual.
For a somewhat humorous look at TOD, here’s a post on the Washington Policy Institutes blog (with video).
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I don’t like you or your hostile attitude.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Great write up. I’ve been saying this for awhile now. If Austin can have a nonrailed thriving free steetcar system spur development along its routes. Then what makes people in Tacoma think that we are so much more advanced that we need to put our future grandkids in the situation that you describe just for nostalgia sake. I feel any system that would be built extending into the neighborhoods after the link should be a pilot project/routes and have wheels.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
The 1962 Worlds Fair in Seattle, themed Century 21, offered the Monorail, a people carrier built on concrete pillars and track, so to travel above and non-interfere with regular street traffic.
I always liked the monorail concept. The technology has progressed greatly in terms of how the carrier cars speed down the track cleanly and quietly—Electromagnetics and rubber wheels and other innovations, mostly developed by European or Asian engineers.
Concrete Technology Corporation, located in Tacoma on Port of Tacoma Road, is the source for monorail concrete track systems.
It is now Century 21 and I can think of only one local monorail—an antique one in Seattle.
Could someone kindly point Seattle and Tacoma back to the future?