Schools

Our children experience the same traffic congestion and long rides on their way to school that adults experience going to work. Schools are also struggling with the burden that sprawl has placed on their shoulders. Money that should be spent to provide our children with the best education possible goes instead to cover the effects of sprawl.

Enrollment in Delaware’s public school system increased by almost 8,000 students in the four-year period from 1994 to 1998. Schools in some areas have filled beyond capacity, forcing students to learn in the atmosphere of cramped trailer classrooms. For example, at the end of the 2000 spring term, Redding Middle School, in the Appoquinimink School District, added six classroom trailers to those already in use. Middletown Middle School is also adding trailer classrooms to handle the increasing number of students being bussed there.

While the middle schools are currently bearing the brunt of this problem, these children soon will be going to the local high schools. This creates an awkward situation of deciding which age group will receive money from the districts’ budgets to handle the influx of students. At the same time, older schools in existing communities will suffer or close down as money is spent to build new schools on the outskirts of these communities. Just as with transportation, sprawl has created an endless cycle of spending for new schools.

In Maryland, the exodus of residents from urban centers has caused one county to close over 60 existing schools, only to build the same number in outlying areas, at a cost of $500 million over a 20-year period. It is difficult to pay teachers what they deserve and provide students with up-to-date materials when a district must focus on constantly building facilities and paying the added costs associated with bussing children further distances.

Planned development can make a difference in providing our children a quality education. Using a small state as an example, a study produced for Grow Smart Rhode Island” mapped out two different scenarios: the first, sprawling development, the second, revitalization of existing cities and towns.

The study showed that if communities opted for smart growth development, they would save $31 million for school facility expansion during the next 20 years.

The money saved can then be spent on improving the current educational system instead of playing catch-up with the increasing population.

Corporate subsidies

Ending sprawl is not about stopping development and growth, but rather about what direction economic development should take. Explosive growth at the exurban fringe coupled with slow growth in older urban centers leads to traffic problems and evaporation of sense of community. Growing numbers of metropolitan areas throughout the country are beginning to address these challenges by thinking and acting more like cooperative metropolitan regions.

They are also developing more integrated approaches and practical solutions than in the past. To achieve balance, transit and mixing land uses are tools used to encourage an environment where activities and centers of interest are closely located, easily accessed, and provide the workforce and residents broader housing options.

States and metropolitan areas create a cycle of corporate subsidies by feverishly competing to lure corporations and development projects that create jobs. At the expense of taxpayers, companies are offered a host of enticements, from undeveloped land to tax discounts, utility deals, massive road projects, and, in some cases, straight cash.

Companies shop around for the best deal, and states grant the subsidy package, build local tax bases, and provide new jobs. Because it is easier to build on undeveloped land, open space is offered as a bonus. Unfortunately, the cost of providing the infrastructure and subsidies to the new business turns out to be greater than the economic benefits provided. Despite the push to attract new business, there is no guarantee a company will stay. When traffic congestion takes over and little open space is left, the overall quality of life is seriously compromised. That is when corporations think about moving.

Abandoned by business, the community is left shouldering the high costs of services and salvaging the job market. The cycle of sprawl starts over as impacted local communities must find ways to compensate for tax revenue shortfalls in order to pay for additional infrastructure and services to serve the growth.

Subsidies only play a marginal role in where companies choose to locate. A survey was conducted of chief executives and top managers at 118  foreign owned companies with operations in North Carolina.  The survey showed that when corporations decide to move, they tend to look more at factors like the quality and availability of labor and transportation, the overall quality of life, and general business climate as the critical factors in their decisions.

Instead of debating whether growth will occur, communities should be discussing the patterns of development: where we put it, how we arrange it, and what it looks like.  Because of the pressures of projected population growth many states confront enormous challenges that require new approaches for preventing continued haphazard development and destruction of our natural resources.

Any solution to growth management must face the overriding issue – the discrepancy between county and municipal decision-making and state control of major elements of the planning matrix, namely transportation, natural resources, and agriculture.

“Insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

The Governor must provide clear and decisive leadership to reshape thinking on land use.

It is clear that leadership at the highest state level must be present to encourage changes in state, county, and municipal responsibility for planning. Since each governor can practically select only one or two areas for emphasis during his or her administration, we strongly encourage the future governor to adopt land use planning as their key issue.

Effective land use planning will include economic growth and natural resource conservation.  Studies have repeatedly shown that an attractive physical environment and adequate infrastructure are key inducements for companies to locate in a particular area. Thus, effective land use planning will reap important benefits in the state’s efforts to attract new business.

Establish concurrence in planning between different levels of government.

States must solve their core problem of growth management: the split between municipal and county land use planning and state resource planning.

The jealousy with which the counties guard their decision-making Prerogative is palpable; yet the counties will never have the resources to deal effectively with transportation, open space, and farmland preservation. A solution must be found if we are to achieve truly comprehensive planning.

Establishing concurrence has many elements. The following are all important.

- The Office of State Planning Coordination needs to be a cabinet-level function, adequately staffed and funded.

- Establish mechanisms of achieving concurrence between the State’s Conservation, Development and Redevelopment Plan (DCDRP) and the county comprehensive plans.  Key elements in this will be to ensure that adequately funded open space acquisition and farmland preservation be coordinated across state and county jurisdictions, that plans for transportation infrastructure be harmonized with county development plans, and that growth areas within counties be coordinated with school districts.

- Require municipalities to have comprehensive growth plans. Provide planning expertise to the cities and towns as dictated by the financial burden of the planning function.

- Establish mechanisms for achieving intergovernmental coordination between counties and municipalities, such that plans for annexation do not conflict with county growth plans and that comprehensive plans in the border regions are coordinated.

-  Through the Office of State Planning Coordination, establish mechanisms of coordination between the Departments of Agriculture and of Natural Resources for preservation of farmland and open space. This is particularly important with regard to the preservation of critical natural areas not yet under state or county control.

-  Bring the Economic Development Office under the umbrella of the Office of State Planning Coordination. While economic development is important to the state, this program must be coordinated with state and county land use planning.

Provide long-term funding for open space acquisition and farmland preservation.

We must be creative in thinking of ways to fund open space acquisition and farmland preservation. One solution is to create a large bond bill specifically for these purposes.

But other means exist. Pennsylvania is obtaining $40 to $50 million a year from a 2¢ cigarette tax. 

Is Your Community Addicted to Sprawl? Click here to find out.

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A Heavy Load: The Burden of Housing and Transportation on Working Families

The Washington, D.C. based Center for Housing Policy recently released a comprehensive study on the issue of housing and transportation costs that examined 18 areas across the country, including the Denver metro region.

The national results document a costly, inverse relationship between housing and transportation costs, depending on where a family lives and where they work. For every dollar saved by moving to a house that’s more affordable but further away from a job, a family pays 77 cents more to cover transportation costs (cost of the car, maintenance, gas, insurance, parking). A family making $20-50 thousand dollars a year ends up spending 57% of their income on housing and transportation with 28% spent on housing and an astounding 29% spent on transportation costs. Transportation costs eat up a much larger share of the budget for families with lower incomes. Those earning less than $30 thousand dollars a year devote up to 24%, compared to 12% for those making $31-50 thousand and 7% for those making above $50 thousand dollars.

In Denver, the results showed the dynamics of “driving ‘til you qualify”. The average family spent 29% on their housing costs and 29% on transportation. That means a family earning $40,000 a year spends $23,200 on housing and transportation combined a year, or up to $1,933 a month! Travel patterns revealed that 87% of commuters drove a private vehicle to work, 6% took public transit, 4% walked to work, and 4% worked from home. (In comparison, in the five boroughs of New York City, 58% drove to work, 31% took public transit, 8% walked, and 3% worked from home.)

For those burdened with high transportation and housing costs, renters had to shell out an even higher percentage of their total income (37%) than homeowners (26%). The report also found that the farther a resident travels to work, the worse their financial burden. Those who make $20 to 35 thousand dollars a year and live in the city where they they work spend 32% of their income on housing and 22% on transportation costs (54% total cost) , while those living up to 15 miles away spend 33% on housing and 37% on transportation costs ( 70% combined). The perceived savings of living farther out in the suburbs is consumed by 16% higher costs, largely due to transportation expenses!

So where are trends headed in the future?

For new housing, the growth rates in the suburbs are 14% a year versus 3% for cities. While incomes are up 10%, transportation costs are up 13% and housing costs are up 15%. With a gallon of gas now costing $2.86 (compared to $1.42 in 2002), those unable to find affordable housing located close to where they work are forced to pay the equivalent of a very steep transportation tax—not to mention the added public infrastructure costs.

To read the report online, go to the Center for Housing Policy’s website.

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Courtesy of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute:

 

Transportation Policy and Program Land Use Impacts

 

Sprawl and automobile dependency are complementary.

 

There is growing agreement among various planning professions that sprawl imposes a variety of economic, social and environmental costs on society compared with more smart growth. 

 

During the last century, many transportation and land use planning practices reinforced the cycle of increased automobile dependency and sprawl. This was generally unintended, reflecting a lack of consideration of the full impacts of these planning decisions.

 

For example, when deciding how much parking to require for a particular type of land use, traffic engineers were probably not thinking about the additional sprawl that would result from a more generous standard, they simply wanted to insure motorist convenience. Similarly, planning decisions that affect roadway supply, transit service quality or roadway user fees often overlooked various land use impacts.

 

Encourages Sprawl                                              

Maximum roadway capacity and speed.

Generous parking supply.

Low road user charges and fuel taxes.

Poor walking and cycling conditions.

Inferior public transit service.

High public transit fares.

 

Encourages Smart Growth

Transit service improvements.

More affordable public transit fares.

Pedestrian and cycling improvements.

Reduced parking supply with parking management.

Road and parking pricing.

Traffic calming and traffic speed reductions.

 

During the last century we witnessed a self-reinforcing cycle of increased vehicle ownership and use, reduced travel options, and more automobile-oriented land use development.

 

Courtesy of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute:

Defining and Measuring Automobile Dependency

Automobile Dependency is the cumulative effect of transportation and land use patterns that result in high levels of automobile use and limited transportation alternatives. An alternative term is automobile oriented transportation and land use patterns. In this case, “automobile” includes cars, vans, light trucks, SUVs and motorcycles. 

The opposite of Automobile Dependency is not a total lack of private vehicles, rather, it is a balanced or multi-modal transport system, meaning that consumers have a variety of Transport Options, and incentives to use each for what it does best. Efforts to create more balanced transport systems can involve a variety of specific actions to improve travel options, create more multi-modal land use patterns, correct planning and pricing practices that favor automobile travel, and increase the prestige of alternative modes.

Many factors contribute to automobile dependency and promote a self-reinforcing cycle of increased automobile travel, reduced travel options, and more automobile-oriented transportation and land use policies which result in a high level of automobile dependency in most communities. Figure 1 illustrates this cycle. 

This figure illustrates the self-reinforcing cycle of increased automobile dependency and sprawl

 

Individual market distortions reinforce the cycle of automobile dependency, leading to economically excessive ownership and use.

 

Implications and Conclusions

Automobile dependency consists of high levels of automobile use, automobile-oriented land use patterns, and limited travel alternatives. Automobile-dependency can impose significant economic, social and environmental costs. Automobile dependency can cost an average household thousands of dollars per year, and increases problems such as congestion, road and parking facility costs, crash damages and environmental degradation. Automobile-dependent transportation and land use patterns reduce access, which increases the amount of vehicle travel required to maintain a given level of productivity, and reduces travel alternatives, making non-drivers worse off in absolute and relative terms. These costs are disperse through the economy and can reduce productivity.

 

It would be difficult to underestimate the economic and social benefits of basic access, that is, the ability of people and industry to reach the goods, services and activities they need. To the degree that automobile use provides basic access it supports economic and social development. But additional automobile use provides little economic development, and is economically inefficient to the degree that it results from market distortions.

 

There is both theoretical and empirical evidence that excessive automobile dependency reduces economic development.

 

The theoretical evidence includes the principle of diminishing marginal benefits, which means that increased driving provides ever smaller incremental benefits; the observation that a significant portion of automobile dependency can be explained by market distortions which favor automobile use; the fact that many perceived benefits of increased automobile use are economic transfers rather than true productivity gains; and the tendency of automobile dependency to create less efficient transportation and land use patterns.

 

Empirical evidence also indicates that excessive automobile dependency reduces economic development. Although automobile use often increases with wealth, there is little evidence that automobile dependency causes economic development. Economic growth rates tend to be highest before a region becomes automobile dependent, after which growth rates usually decline. Automobile dependency can be considered a luxury consumer good which does not itself increase productivity or economic development.

 

International comparisons indicate that beyond an optimum level (which appears to average about 7,500 annual kilometers of vehicle travel per capita, but may vary depending on conditions), increased driving reduces economic development. Excessive automobile dependency may reduce productivity due to increased facility costs, congestion, accidents, more dispersed land use, and less efficient travel alternatives.

 

Automobile expenditures provides less economic benefit than most other consumer purchases, and far less than public transit expenditures. This is to be expected since automobile and petroleum production are capital intensive with little labor input, and because vehicles and fuel are largely imported goods in most regions.

 

Although historically vehicle manufacturing was an important contributor to economic development in some regions, the automobile industry is now mature, not very profitable and highly competitive. Except where automobile production is already established, other industries are likely to provide greater economic returns. Economic development associated with automobile dependency results primarily from exporting vehicles and fuel.

 

There is no indication that inceased domestic consumption of automobiles and fuel increases economic development.

 

Regions that already have adequate paved highways are unlikely to see major economic development benefits from increased road capacity. Alternative investments and management strategies that lead to more efficient use of the existing transportation system are likely to provide greater economic benefits. Many benefits associated with roadway capacity expansion are economic transfers rather than true productivity gains.

 

Roadway improvements can have negative as well as positive impacts on a local economy, for example by encouraging consumers to shop elsewhere.

 

Automobile dependency is particularly burdensome to developing countries that do not produce vehicles or petroleum. In such countries, vehicles and petroleum often account for a major portion of import value. This weakens the value of their currency and constrains investments that could increase productivity.

 

Market-based transportation reforms are likely to significantly reduce automobile dependency, increase economic development, and make consumers better off overall.

 

These include changes in transportation planning and investment practices, pricing reforms and changes in land use development policies. There is currently political and institutional resistance to such reforms, in part due to

various interests that benefit directly from automobile dependency, and in part because many consumers have little experience with a balanced transportation system and are skeptical that they could benefit from less automobile use. These reforms may become more acceptable as they are better known, and as consumers realize the diminishing benefits of increased driving.

 

A number of European and Asian cities are making progress developing more balanced transportation systems and appear to be benefiting economically as a result.