The abuse, misuse and absence of motor vehicle regulation and the problem of politics

It's been a bit over a week since Anita Kurmann was killed in a crash with a turning truck that then drove off without stopping. Few details are available but there are two things that we can be certain about: first that it is a terrible tragedy, and second that little to nothing will be done to prevent such tragedies in the future. There are possible alleviating measures that exist and could be required by proper regulation, including truck side-guards, or restrictions on the size, weight, number of axles, and length of trucks that are allowed on certain city streets. Our public street rights-of-way were laid out long before the concept of a 5-axle, 40 ton, 53-foot long truck was ever conceived. And it is difficult to imagine how a human-friendly environment could ever be compatible with such behemoths.

Although technically receiving more oversight than the personal car, the trucking industry is remarkably regulation-free compared to other transportation sectors. No other form of transportation allows size, weight and maneuverability concerns to be so radically dismissed in the same way. Air traffic control would never allow an oversized jumbo jet to land at a tiny airport. Railroad companies would never tolerate oversized freight cars that slammed into bridge abutments. Yet, for some reason, when it comes to the road, we simply shrug when oversized trucks cause death and destruction on a daily basis. It is curiously ironic that city planners have spent the past century meticulously separating people's homes away from industry, but still continue to design extremely dangerous, high-speed roads carrying heavy industrial truck traffic right next to those very same homes.

When it comes to regulation of motor vehicles, all the furor seems to focus around taxicabs vs Uber, where the regulations have no safety purpose, but are just one piece of a tug-of-war between the few dirty 1970s-style dirtbags who run the taxicab business and the slick B-school douchebags who run Uber. And when it's not about profits, it's about traffic speeds, because the only thing, besides money, that seems matter to people in power is convenience for suburban drivers. Such regulation has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with privileging the powerful. Meanwhile, some drivers manage to keep their license long enough to score four OUI offenses and kill someone. Or even when the police determine that a driver is an "immediate threat" the antiquated system cannot process the paperwork in time to prevent him from killing. Those are some real examples of problems that could be fixed with proper rules, procedures and regulations. I wonder if it will ever happen.

The trouble is, of course, that regulations are not created solely based upon merit in achieving objective goals such as safety. Regulations are a product of politics, a swirling morass of money, culture, personal vendettas, and tribalism. 149 people were killed by motor vehicle crashes in the first 6 months of this year. But no politician is going to be held accountable for that carnage. Few voters even spend much time thinking about it. So the perverse story doesn't change from year to year. I won't pretend to have an answer, but I will note that if the problem is politics, then the solution has to be too.

The subversion of fair housing law by pernicious zoning ordinances, part 2

[continued from part 1]

Massachusetts has, in the past, attempted to address the problem of snobbish, exclusionary zoning. The section of law known as Chapter 40B was passed in 1969:

This law was seen as one of the earliest recognitions of the racial and economic segregation often imposed by exclusionary zoning practices such as minimum lot sizes and bans on multi-family housing. The purpose of the law is to “address the shortage of low and moderate income housing in Massachusetts and to reduce regulatory barriers that impede the development of such housing.” 

Often referred to as the “Anti-Snob Zoning Law,” the “Comprehensive Permit Law” and the “Massachusetts Affordable Housing Law,” Chapter 40B is seen as a “one-stop” permitting process for developers proposing low and moderate-income housing projects. Rather than applying to many local boards, the developer applies for a “comprehensive permit” to one local authority—the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA). 

Chapter 40B is significant in that it was one of the first instances in which a state exerted authority over local control in land use zoning.4 Therein also lays its controversy. Under 40B, a developer has the right to appeal to the state Housing Appeals Committee (HAC) if it is denied a comprehensive permit for a qualified project, or if it is granted one with conditions making the project uneconomic. Under 40B, ZBAs are able to approve projects with higher density than current zoning allows, making it more economically feasible to develop affordable housing.

Chapter 40B only applies to municipalities that have less than 10% of their housing stock designated as 'affordable', and it does not apply to Boston at all (due to the Boston Redevelopment Authority). It's success has been limited: 48,000 units were created from 1969 through 2008, of which 26,000 were designated as affordable. That's an average of 1,230 units per year, or 666 affordable per year -- far lower than the demand. And only 55 municipalities (of 350) had met the 10% requirement after nearly 40 years of the law.

The law happened to go into effect not long prior to Boston's school busing crisis, an era that exacerbated the divide between city and suburb, as 'white flight' brought many new residents to the suburban towns, eager to shut the door behind them as they arrived. From Common Ground:

Indeed, barely a month after Garrity’s ruling on the constitutional violation, the Supreme Court effectively cut off one possible avenue of remedy. In Milliken v. Bradley, it over-ruled a district court which had required cross-busing between Detroit and its surrounding suburbs. Since the lower court had found de jure segregation only within the city and not in the suburbs, the Supreme Court held that a metropolitan-wide order “would impose on the outlying districts, not shown to have committed any constitutional violation, a wholly impermissible remedy.” Milliken marked an important turning point in the Court’s approach to school segregation. Albeit by the narrowest margin (5–4) in any major school case yet, the Court halted the advance of school desegregation at the city line. Although many students of the matter believed a clear pattern of “state action” could be detected in the suburbs—notably in government housing loans and highway construction policies which operated to keep them predominantly white—the increasingly conservative Court majority declined to push its broadened doctrine of de jure segregation that far.

The anti-busing protesters could no longer maintain segregated schools in the city; instead, they moved to the surrounding towns where they could promote segregation through the use of regulatory tools such as zoning codes. The borders of municipalities acted as effectively as segregated neighborhood boundaries had before. Since then, a common complaint of town NIMBYs opposed to residential development is that it might bring 'too many' students to the public school system, thereby 'overwhelming' it. Such 'pseudo-engineering' of the school system by laypeople -- as if they were engineers designing a waterworks -- is more likely to be a cover story for their true motivation: the exclusion of people unlike themselves. And this effect may partially explain why the Chapter 40B requirements have not been met by the majority of towns in the Commonwealth, even after nearly half a century has passed.

Affordable housing money wasted on pointless parking spaces

Just a quick blog post on something I noticed yesterday. A quote from a letter filed with the BRA regarding a new project on Telford Street:

At the recently constructed Charlesview project across Western Avenue from the Telford Street project site, the fully occupied 240 unit residential development has about 180 spaces of its 248 space parking garage used. Since there is no additional fee for parking above monthly leases at Charlesview, these numbers represent a true parking demand of about 0.74 spaces per unit.

Think about how much affordable housing money has been wasted on these luxurious accommodations for automobiles -- which aren't even being utilized.

Sickening.

The subversion of fair housing law by pernicious zoning ordinances, part 1

I'm not a religious person but I think there is genuine evil in this world. And one of those evils is the persistence of segregation fifty years after the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

2010 Census Block Data showing distribution of population by race in Boston (source)

One of the more important Supreme Court decisions of the year was handed down last month. Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. ruled that 'disparate-impact' claims are valid under the Fair Housing Act of 1968. This ruling ensures that an important tool in the fair housing toolbox continues to be usable: the notion of 'disparate-impact', or that government policies can have an unstated yet implicit racially-biased effect.

The Inclusive Communities Project brought suit over how the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs distributes tax credits for low-income housing. The Department’s policy, the group claimed, causes almost all affordable units to be built in racially segregated low-income areas, providing minorities with few opportunities to move to integrated or wealthier areas. Though the creators of the tax credit policy had no racial intent, according to the Inclusive Communities Project the results of the policy confined minorities to segregated areas.

From the opinion:

Recognition of disparate-impact claims is consistent with the FHA’s central purpose. See Smith, supra, at 235 (plurality opinion); Griggs, 401 U. S., at 432. The FHA, like Title VII and the ADEA, was enacted to eradicate discriminatory practices within a sector of our Nation’s economy. See 42 U. S.  C. §3601 (“It is the policy of the United States to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States”); H.  R.  Rep., at 15 (explaining the FHA “provides a clear national policy against discrimination in housing”).  These unlawful practices include zoning laws and other housing restrictions that function unfairly to exclude minorities from certain neighborhoods without any sufficient justification. Suits targeting such practices reside at the heartland of disparate-impact liability. See, e.g., Huntington, 488 U. S., at 16–18 (invalidating zoning law preventing construction of multifamily rental units); Black Jack, 508 F. 2d, at 1182–1188 (invalidating ordinance prohibiting construction of new multifamily dwellings); Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center v. St.  Bernard Parish, 641 F.  Supp. 2d 563, 569, 577–578 (ED La. 2009) (invalidating post-Hurricane Katrina ordinance restricting the rental of housing units to only “‘blood relative[s]’” in an area of the city that was 88.3% white and 7.6% black); see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 52–53 (discussing these cases). The availability of disparate-impact liability, furthermore, has allowed private developers to vindicate the FHA’s objectives and to protect their property rights by stopping municipalities from enforcing arbitrary and, in practice, discriminatory ordinances barring the construction of certain types of housing units. See, e.g., Huntington, supra, at 18. Recognition of disparate impact liability under the FHA also plays a role in uncovering discriminatory intent: It permits plaintiffs to counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised animus that escape easy classification as disparate treatment. In this way disparate-impact liability may prevent segregated housing patterns that might otherwise result from covert and illicit stereotyping.

This is an important ruling if and only if the Federal government backs it up by strengthening and enforcing the regulations based on the Fair Housing Act. Unfortunately, over the past four decades, successive administrations including the current one have largely done nothing or acted to undercut the law. That might change now, with the Supreme Court's fresh ruling.

This is significant if it is used to reverse some of the most pernicious and widespread zoning code techniques that effectively cause economic and racial segregation through disparate-impact. Zoning has long been about exclusion, even continuing after explicitly racial zoning was struck down by the courts. From Dead End, a book about the history and effect of sprawl, by Benjamin Ross:

[Euclid v Ambler, 1926] moved quickly beyond the specifics of Ambler’s property; from the beginning, the principle of zoning was at stake. And the main principle was the exclusion of people, the people who lived in apartment houses. “In the last analysis,” Judge Westenhaver wrote perceptively in his opinion, “the result to be accomplished is to classify the population and to segregate them according to their income or situation in life.” The Supreme Court saw the issue similarly. The village’s power to keep out factories was not really in doubt, it observed: “The serious question in the case arises over the provisions of the ordinance excluding from residential districts apartment houses, business houses, retail stores and shops, and other like establishments.”

And The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities:

"What began as a means of improving the blighted physical environment in which people lived and worked," writes Yale Rabin, became "a mechanism for protecting property values and excluding the undesirables." The two interest groups that were regarded as the undesirables were immigrants and African Americans.

While instances of explicit racial exclusion through zoning and restrictive covenants are generally overturned by the courts, that has not been the primary mechanism through which segregation is created and maintained. Instead, the racially biased effect is engineered through neutral-seeming zoning codes that provide an aura of plausible deniability. For example, a zoning code might mandate a minimum lot size, such as a quarter-acre, for construction of housing, while forbidding anything larger than a single-family home to be built. None of the language used has any explicit mention of race or class, but the net effect is to restrict residency on that property for only a single family capable of affording a quarter-acre of land. In any reasonably attractive neighborhood, the price of that 10,860 square feet of land is beyond the reach of low- or middle-income families, thus effectively excluding all but the wealthy.

That is not the only type of regulation that is used to make land and housing unaffordable. For example, onerous requirements for front yard, back yard, and side yard ensure that only those people wealthy enough to afford 'conspicuous waste' can live there. Minimum parking quotas force residents to pay for parking spaces whether they use them or not. And, most infamously, the prohibition against apartments or multi-family housing in many zones makes it impossible to divide the cost among several families. Generally, the net effect of these regulations is either implicitly or explicitly intended to lower density. One glance at the population distribution map above should confirm that there is more than a passing correlation between 'low density' and 'overwhelmingly white'. That is disparate-impact at work: it is subtle in the wording of zoning codes, but the net effect over time is clear. The question now is: will the government begin to tackle the inequities created by local zoning codes? And how?

[continued in part 2]

Two charts showing development in Boston over the decades

I've been playing around with the Assessing data from the city of Boston, here are a couple of charts to start. First, a summary by decade of the total amount of gross floor area, living area, and parcel land developed:


Second, the corresponding Floor Area Ratio (gross floor area divided by land area) of all properties built within each decade:


It's important to remember that the Assessing data only contains properties that continue to exist to this day, so anything demolished would not be recognized in this data set. I also noticed that in older properties, year of construction was sometimes rounded off to the nearest decade. And it's possible there are other errors. I had to correct a few more egregious and obvious ones (like fields being swapped), but more subtle errors could sneak by. Condos are handled by summing up the gross floor space for each unit and linking it to the land area used up by the overall building.

Without spending too much time on analysis (that's for later), I'll note that we live in a turn-of-the-twentieth century city: most of the floor space created and still existing seems to have occurred between 1890 and 1930. The 1930s and 1940s had some fairly obvious reasons for a lull, but construction never really picked back up afterwards at the same rate. My hypothesis: Zoning in its modern form was enacted in the mid-1950s, which has put a heavy damper on construction ever since.

The FAR chart shows that development generally hovered around 1.0 floor area to land area, but started to drop precipitously after 1930, until finally tanking at a miserable 0.21 during the 1960s. Although the amount of floor space developed increased from the 1950s into the 1960s, the amount of land area consumed zoomed up even higher.  Zoning could explain some of it, but it's not clear to me why the 1960s are such an outlier in terms of land area consumed. (Turns out it was MassPort's harbor holdings, at 101 million s.f., which I have cut out from the data). By the 1970s, overall floor area ratios returned to a more historically normal average of 1.0 or so. More recently, overall construction averages have exceeded 1.5 FAR, albeit using incomplete data for this decade.

For the curious reader, here is the result of summing over all the parcels in the database:

• Boston parcels gross area: 651,202,719 s.f.
• Boston parcels land area: 1,268,597,774 s.f.
• Boston parcels FAR: 0.51

The scourge of single-story retail

A curious pattern exists in Boston (I've also noticed it in other American cities). Neighborhoods that were primarily developed between 1890 and 1960 tend to have a lot of single-story retail. Oftentimes those retail shops are adjacent to multistory residential or office buildings, but the retail buildings themselves are single-story. Many of them are cheap boxes that look awful, while some of them do have decent architectural features that seem strangely out-of-place.

I'm sifting through some of my pre-snowpocalypse photographs for this post, so we can remember Boston as it once was.

The Fenway is a densely populated vibrant neighborhood with a strange dichotomy between retail buildings and residential buildings, like many other streetcar suburbs built around the same time.

Another example from the Fenway.

Double-whammy of bad 20th century planning: surface parking and single-story retail immediately adjacent to major Green Line station in Brighton.

Same place, across the street. Typical of Comm Ave, there's a strip of single-story retail adjacent to 5-story or more apartment buildings. Some parts of Comm Ave do have ground-floor retail below residential, but it's the exception, not the rule.

Union Square, Allston, with lots of great little shops and restaurants. But almost all of them are in single-story retail buildings. The tall building behind is from the 1980s, and does have a little bit of ground floor retail included, but is separate from most of the shops you see.

Single story retail from the early 20th century. But as you can see, it used to be a whole lot better. Nowadays the building is used for storage of automotive supplies, and the intersection is a motor vehicle-dominated nightmare. In 1889, the first electric trolley line in Boston departed from the Allston depot along those tracks. Now, the Allston depot is a pizzeria with a giant surface parking lot.

In the mid-1960s this theater was torn down to be replaced by a nearly featureless single-story retail building with surface parking out front. As the zoning regulations of the time would dictate.

Single-story retail in the center of Hyde Park's business district.

Single-story retail in triple-decker Dorchester, along Blue Hill Ave, where trolleys once roamed, and where frequent buses ply today.

Single-story retail and massive surface parking near Forest Hills, a major MBTA subway, bus and commuter rail station.

Single-story retail on Comm Ave next to a Green Line station.

Tall residential, short retail, MBTA station: Brookline is no exception.

In a city with an acute housing shortage, where space is at a premium, why do we allow so much waste to take place? It seems like there are hundreds of thousands of people who would like to be able to live in these neighborhoods with decent local shops, and in some cases, places that are only steps away from frequent MBTA service. Multistory buildings with ground floor shops and upstairs residences are not new in Boston -- they were quite commonly built in the 18th and most of the 19th centuries. The oldest neighborhoods in Boston: Beacon Hill, the North End, even the Back Bay, all have streets lined with buildings that have ground floor retail and homes above. Yet, starting around 1890 or so, it seems, some kind of insanity gripped America: suddenly, neighborhoods started being developed with apartment buildings on one block and single-story retail on another. Sometimes even on the same block.

I don't have a definitive answer, but there are several pieces in play:

• The criminally incompetent, so-called "City Planning" movement started around the turn of the 20th century, and these new planners were notoriously blind to the actual sources of city vitality and diversity. In some cases, they were opposed to city life, and actively sought to destroy it. Records from the City Planning Board of Boston show that many early discussions focused around choosing which buildings to destroy in order to widen roads. No doubt, they probably saw mixed uses as being "messy" and falsely perceived them as a source of traffic congestion.
• Property tax laws in this country can be counterproductive: they effectively penalize landowners who invest in their properties. In some cases, building owners may have chosen to cut down floors off their own buildings to save on tax expenses. In a sane world, such crazy outcomes would result in legislative self-examination and reform of the tax laws: for example, by repealing property taxes and replacing them with something less harmful like a land-value tax. In this world, well... no.
• In New England (and NY) it was common to quickly erect buildings that became known as "taxpayers" in order to generate some value quickly for the land without much effort. These taxpayer buildings were just enough to house some retail and then got locked into place when zoning came into effect around the mid-1950s. Many of the featureless boxes plaguing our landscape seem to fall into this category, but there are also plenty of examples of single-story retail with the kind of fine architectural detailing that seems out-of-place on a taxpayer.
• The economics of redevelopment seem to require a significant density boost in order to replace a revenue-generating property with a new one. If floors cannot simply be added to the top of the single-story building, and if the construction requires a shutdown of the business operating within, then the end result of construction has to be much taller than what previously existed. In the case of single-story successful retail, that probably means going up to 4-6 levels.
• And this discussion wouldn't be complete without mentioning the nefarious effect of mid-20th century zoning regulations. It is quite possible that many single-story retail buildings were intended to be temporary. But once zoning kicked in, redevelopment -- already difficult -- became near impossible. The density boost required to make redevelopment financially palatable was now illegal or required expensive variance hearings. In many cases, even the existing property was made illegal by unreasonable zoning requirements that demanded excessive amounts of parking that simply could not be provided in a space-constrained city neighborhood.

So, as a result, we have a bunch of neighborhoods where, if you somehow transported some people from 1915 one hundred years into the future to 2015, they might ask: "Why do you still have all these same crummy, single-story buildings that existed in my time?" ... After, of course, catching up on the past hundred years of history.

If we are serious about tackling the problem of rising housing costs and creating a better, more vibrant city that is accessible to all, then we will need to find a way to deal with these squat, inefficient, single-story structures. I often hear people complain that Boston is space-constrained, that we don't have room for development. That's not really true, as there are too many vacant parcels. But there are also many underutilized parcels in locations that can easily support much more. The replacement of single-story buildings that are located adjacent to frequent transit ought to be a high priority for all of the cities and towns in the region.

Induced demand is a real problem and it makes congestion relief nearly impossible

For some reason, contrarian articles on "induced demand" seem to be the topic du jour. While they are right to point out that induced demand is a more subtle and nuanced concept than the way it is sometimes popularly handled, both articles seem to err too far in the other direction. Induced demand is a real problem, even if some people sometimes misuse it when making arguments.

Reliability, frequency, and speed

I want to take a quick detour to talk about goals in transportation investment. People tend to make decisions about transportation based on many factors, which I will boil down into three: reliability, frequency, and speed. Reliability encompasses factors such as predictability of trip time, probability of vehicle breakdown, and in general, the ability to make a confident statement about your location at a future time. Frequency is a metric of opportunity: the number of chances that will you have to undertake your trip in the window of time that you have available. And speed is the cost of the trip in time. To be sure, there is some crossover: frequency affects average speed and predictability, for instance. But let's roll with this for now.

There are two major categories: scheduled transportation and unscheduled transportation. Scheduled transportation is largely mass transit, whether public or private. Unscheduled transportation includes modes such as walking, biking and most driving. Frequency is obviously a huge deal for transit; there is also a frequency limitation on unscheduled transportation caused by things like traffic signals, but it is usually small enough to go without notice.

For many people, reliability is the most important characteristic. Walking and biking tend to have the most reliability because they are the least complex modes. Transit with a dedicated right-of-way is also supposed to be highly reliable: a properly run railroad should operate like clockwork (the MBTA on the other hand...). Modes such as driving are very susceptible to being caught in unpredictable and chaotic traffic congestion because they are highly inefficient in terms of space. Cars are also complex pieces of machinery that can easily break down. And mixed-traffic transit gets the worst of it because it has to contend with traffic congestion as well as passenger loading.

Speed should be broken down into average and top speed. Walking is obviously the slowest in average and top speed. Biking does not have high top speed (for most people) but can often maintain decent average speed comparable to a local city bus or a slow train. Transit can vary depending upon quality of right-of-way and maintenance. Driving is usually the mode with highest top speed but in typical traffic conditions can have significantly slower average speeds; possibly even slower than transit or biking.

The speed and reliability of walking is almost always independent of the number of people walking, except in the extreme cases (important as they are). Biking is also mostly able to enjoy that same feature. Transit in a dedicated right-of-way has the capability of operating reliably independent of the number of people attempting to ride it -- up to a point. Once the number of people reaches a certain "crush" capacity then dwell times can be impacted if the operator takes no further action. Finally, driving and mixed-traffic transit are most clearly the modes that are bothered the most by other vehicles on the road. As a driver, or as a mixed-traffic transit rider, the reliability and speed of your trip is highly dependent upon the decisions made by thousands of other people.

Perception and reality don't always match. For example, many people perceive to be in "more control" when driving. But in fact, they're highly dependent on the behavior of other people. Another: many transit riders don't perceive slowness because they are absorbed in some other activity such as reading or working; whereas drivers traveling at the same average speed might be seething and pounding the steering wheel in frustration. And of course: "There is a very strong element of psychology behind traffic patterns."

So, when considering a transportation investment, there are multiple ways to increase capacity. But they do not all have the same effect, even when viewed in such an abstract fashion.

Induced demand

Halloween just passed, so let's talk about candy. Prior to Halloween, there is a high, and one might say inelastic, demand for candy. Many people want to buy candy for Halloween, almost no matter what. This usually shows up in stores as an increase in both supply and prices. Luckily for kids (and the young at heart), supply of candy is relatively easy to increase.

Post-Halloween, the demand drops off. People remember why they don't binge on candy, or let their kids do so, all year. Excess supply is sold off as prices drop in response to the lower, much more elastic, demand. Then the market returns to normal, at least, until the next spike in demand.

Normally, I don't eat much candy. I try to avoid too much sugar for health and personal reasons. And I don't want to spend money on something like that. I could easily go for weeks and months without having a piece of candy. But if you put a bowl of chocolates in front of me, I'll probably take one sooner or later. The low price and ready supply has literally induced my demand. But not every type of candy will have this effect. I'm mostly not a fan of hard candy and will probably just ignore it. And perhaps I've generated economic activity by consuming a piece of chocolate, but I may also be ruining my diet and harming my health.

You probably guessed where I'm going with this. One major difference between candy and transportation is that the supply of the latter is much, much harder to increase. With transportation, very large, very expensive fixed investments are usually expected to accommodate all fluctuations in demand over time. Furthermore, in the United States, people generally do not expect the nominal monetary cost of everyday transportation to vary based on supply and demand, even though prices regularly change for commodities such as candy, food and other items. Instead, the cost fluctuation of everyday transportation is usually expressed as traffic congestion or overcrowding.

When a transportation investment is made, it can both increase the supply and possibly lower the overall cost of travel (either perceived or real) in that corridor. And the way that travel patterns change is hard to predict, despite many efforts.

Former Bostonian, and now Los Angeles transportation blogger VamonosLA writes:

In a large city, there’s almost always going to be trips that people want to make but don’t because of large travel times. This is especially true in large US cities, where we underprice road capacity to the point that new lanes are almost always quickly filled. We misinterpret the construction of the new lane as having caused the demand, but it was there all along.

This is true but is only part of the story. To be sure, some trips generated do represent increased economic activity. Other trips might represent less efficient usage of the now-cheaper resource. For example, you might make multiple trips where one would have sufficed in the past. Or, it might be due to drivers who were enticed into giving up existing car-pools, or who ditched transit. They might even have switched from walking or biking in cases where the distances were feasible (perhaps not in LA).

For a rather stark example, suppose you live in a neighborhood with sidewalks and you are able to walk for many trips. Suddenly, the DOT decides to "improve transportation" by taking away your sidewalks and replacing them with additional car travel lanes. Most people would then choose to stop walking and start driving everywhere. Nowadays it seems unimaginable that such a thing would happen, but it has in the past, and continues to a lesser extreme: oftentimes it is not that sidewalks are removed entirely, but rather, walking is made more unpleasant for the benefit of motor vehicle traffic.

An unknown contributor to the Transportationist named JW writes:

I hate the term “Induced Demand”. I hate the idea that induced demand is something bad; something to be avoided. 

[...] From the individual’s point of view, access provides opportunities to more jobs, more entertainment and social options, and more alternatives for consumption of goods and services. From a business’ point of view, access provides a larger pool of labor and more raw materials. From a retailer’s point of view, access provides a larger pool of consumers. From a municipal government’s point of view, access allows more efficient provision of police protection, fire protection and ambulance service by reducing the number of facilities necessary for a given response time. 

[...] Transportation improvements that provide greater access per unit of time lower transaction costs. Lower transaction cost lead to great efficiency in the economy and a higher standard of living.

Although JW is careful to couch it in terms of access, which is a good thing, this otherwise sounds like an argument that could be lifted straight out of a 1950s highway builder's manual: new highways lead to greater efficiency and higher standard of living! According to this logic, the congestion on the new highway facilities justifies the construction of even more highways. Clearly something is broken in this reasoning.

The mistake that JW is making is that not all transportation improvements are equal, and that there are more considerations than just raw "access per unit of time", which itself is a difficult thing to measure in practice. For one thing, the increase in access by one mode (say, private car) can lead to the degradation in access by another mode (such as walking, or emergency vehicles). For another, some modes lead to far more pollution and other bad side effects like poor urban planning decisions (e.g. minimum parking requirements, urban renewal, pro-sprawl zoning laws, etc).

Congestion relief

But I think that by far the biggest confusion stemming from the debate around induced demand comes because people are often talking about different things. When highway builders are trying to sell expansion, and when the general public is getting excited about it, they often refer to "congestion relief" as the major feature of the proposal. But what is "congestion relief?" Is congestion relief equivalent to the fact that more people can travel more miles by car? Is congestion relief the possibly increased economic activity and higher standard of living that JW talks about? Is congestion relief the fulfillment of "latent demand" as described by VamonosLA?

I would argue that congestion relief is none of those things in the popular understanding of the term. Instead, congestion relief is generally understood to be an increase in reliability of travel and a subjective decrease in the frustration that each individual has when using the transportation facility. Highway builders sell highway expansion to a public that is hungry for predictable travel times and less stress behind the wheel. However, that sort of congestion relief is largely a false hope, precisely because of the phenomenon that has come to be known as induced demand. It doesn't matter whether that comes from latent demand, or even that it might represent increased economic activity: if the typical driver still experiences large variance in travel times, and high levels of stress, then the congestion relief was a mirage as far as he or she is concerned.

Even the level of spending associated with projects like the Big Dig did not make it immune from this effect. From the Globe:

A Globe analysis of state highway data documents what many motorists have come to realize since the new Central Artery tunnels were completed: While the Big Dig achieved its goal of freeing up highway traffic downtown, the bottlenecks were only pushed outward, as more drivers jockey for the limited space on the major commuting routes.

Ultimately, many motorists going to and from the suburbs at peak rush hours are spending more time stuck in traffic, not less. The phenomenon is a result of a surge in drivers crowding onto highways - an ironic byproduct of the Big Dig's success in clearing away downtown traffic jams.

[...] The findings also call into question the promises made when ground was broken in 1992. At the time, state officials said in a promotional mass mailing to the public that, when it was all done, "people will find the commute to their jobs faster and easier than ever."

The new tunnels may have been able to handle the flow coming into them, but those outer links themselves were not able to live up to the induced demand.

Conclusion

So what can be done about congestion, then? It has rightly been pointed out that transit improvement and biking facilities do not "reduce congestion" in this sense. Actually that point should be clarified further: those improvements do not "reduce congestion" when the travel demand is virtually inexhaustible. However, it is possible that in some cases demand is actually exhaustible: for example travel along Comm Ave in Allston, in which case those kinds of improvements can be very effective at real congestion relief. But for destinations such as downtown Boston, there will almost always be another driver willing to replace a trip that is mode-switched away from private vehicle.

All that does not make transit, walking and biking improvements worthless. Jarrett has discussed several reasons why transit is still very worthwhile even without "congestion reduction" and I won't reiterate, but I will add that dedicated-lane transit, walking and biking facilities all increase the supply of "reliable transportation" that boosts accessibility without the harmful side effects imposed by increased car travel. Walking and biking also have great implications for the health of urban neighborhoods and are worthwhile goals on their own.

The idea behind congestion relief is to try and make personal motor vehicles as reliable as walking, biking, or riding a well-run railroad. There are only two known ways to make that actually happen: (a) rigorous scheduling, or (b) decongestion pricing. Railroads avoid congestion and conflict by imposing very strict discipline and heavily analyzed schedules on the movement of trains. To try and apply that same discipline to private cars on roads is politically and practically unfeasible. Therefore that leaves decongestion pricing as the only known way to make private motor vehicle travel reliable, and it works by allowing the price of travel to vary based upon the supply and demand for travel. This is, of course, standard procedure for allocating just about every other resource in our society, but for some reason is completely ignored when it comes to roads. In any case, this article is about induced demand and I have already gone on too long, so I will leave discussion of pricing to others.

Walking city, transit city

Boston is a walking city. I don't mean that the land itself gets up and moves around (which is apparently a thing), but rather that the people who live here get out and walk as a major mode of transportation. Latest data show that 15.5% of Boston commuters walk to work, putting us in the top 5 of American cities. Adding public transportation, and it accounts for just over 50% of all commutes. Of course, work is only one of the many reasons that we travel, and we shouldn't focus entirely on it. If you live in Boston, there's a strong chance that you walk to many daily activities. Only 63% of Boston's residents have access to a private vehicle. If you examine neighborhoods individually, you can find many census tracts for which fewer than half the people living there have access to a car. Some even dip below 30%, particularly in the most densely populated parts of the city. In those areas of Boston, daily life conducted on foot is the norm.

Further out, where the streetcar lines helped settle early suburbs, there are corridors of activity which also correspond to low car ownership rates and population density. Public transportation acts as a "walk accelerator" making it possible to travel on foot over longer distances and faster than a person could sustain alone. The streetcars are mostly gone, replaced by buses and light rail vehicles, but many of the land use patterns remain -- despite decades of automobile-oriented public policy.

The MBTA has a "key bus route" program which has selected 15 bus routes for certain service guarantees about span and frequency. That's great, although a bit mysterious (why those 15?). The agency has slowly pushed for improvements in those particular routes, with the construction of the improvement program coming this year (finally). While a key route program might make sense from a transit agency's point of view, it doesn't necessarily correspond to the needs of urban neighborhoods, which are broader in scope. The city needs to consider land use and transportation together when make future plans. Historically those two subjects have been the purview of separate agencies, in Boston, and as a result, both have suffered.

Today, it's becoming fairly widely understood that the presence of a subway station ought to make a big difference in how development is conducted in the vicinity. However, that's too limited a view. I believe that concept should be extended further. Non-car surface transportation, whether it be walking, biking, trolley or bus, is far too important to be neglected in the overall land use and transportation planning picture. In addition, there are plenty of neighborhoods with current residents that deserve better streets and access to the city around them.

With that in mind, I drew up a rough sketch of a "key corridor" map which is loosely based on the idea of "key bus routes" but intends to have a larger scope that encompasses land use planning, pedestrian safety improvements, and bike routes as well. The light blue lines, dots and polygons are the places where walking, biking and transit ought to be emphasized. The black lines are connections that are outside the city's developmental scope, and there's also some regions highlighted in turquoise where future changes are anticipated. The map is far from complete, so I welcome comments. The core of Boston is largely omitted, since it should all be considered a "key" region.

Key corridor map

You'll notice that many of the key corridors follow existing bus routes (key or not). That's because there is already a strong convergence between walkable areas and bus service. But the starting point is different. Rather than saying: "here's a good, frequent bus route" I am saying "this is a corridor near densely populated areas where people walk, and it ought to have high quality, frequent transit service of some sort." For example, the corridor between Roslindale Square and Forest Hills does not have a "key bus route" but it is, nonetheless, a very heavy ridership area and those parts of Roslindale are a fairly walkable area. Western Ave in Allston is another case, where the 70 and 86 buses are well-used but neither of them is a key route. That street is going to see some major development, as is the rest of Allston, and the bus stops along it ought to be designated for improved service. In addition to Allston, other neighborhoods on the map have historically been treated poorly by transportation planners, and have an existing population that can benefit from a commitment to expand the walking city.

Mayor-elect Walsh has claimed that he wants to conduct walk audits out in the neighborhoods, explore dedicated bus lanes, and better bicycling infrastructure. These key corridors could be the starting point for those kinds of improvements, as well as a land use planning process which is oriented around supporting walkable neighborhoods with convenient, frequent transit connections. A subway station is a fairly large commitment from the transit agency to providing "good service" in a particular area. A bus stop is not much by itself. But a planning process could make real guarantees about service, and give the same kind of commitment, and the same kind of environment in which to grow neighborhoods. We're not likely going to see too many new subway stations in the next few decades, especially with Boston's geology. So it's especially important that we are able to nurture walkable neighborhoods that are based around improved surface transit, and that new development gets directed into places where it can fit good transit geometry, rather than contributing to the traffic congestion and sprawl problem.

Bad parking policy, in one picture

On one side of the street, BTD has installed parking meters at the "usual rate" of $1.25/hour. On the other side of the street, the curb is left largely unregulated except for street cleaning. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out which side is which.

What you are seeing here is a case of poorly designed parking policy. The metered spaces have a price that is too high, and are therefore going wasted. The unmetered spaces have a price that is too low, and are therefore overcrowded. The correct price is somewhere in between, where "correct" means: achieves a reasonable level of utilization that still leaves a few spaces open for new arrivals. Prof. Donald Shoup's rule of thumb is that prices should be set to achieve approximately 85% utilization, which ensures that there will be at least 1-2 parking spaces available on every block, at almost all times.

BTD's bad parking policy and refusal to consider reform means that people continue to suffer unnecessary headaches, and they make claims of parking "shortages" even while most of our neighborhood is covered in asphalt. Although I don't own a car, I still find it important to fix. For one thing, it's the right thing to do. For another, bad policy in one area tends to infect other areas. Much of our land use policy, for instance, is dictated by the supposed "shortage" of parking. Even though about half the residents of this neighborhood don't have access to a car, they are forced by zoning rules to subsidize other people's parking. Those regulations came about because the on-street commons is managed improperly, creating an overcrowding problem. And then, instead of solving that problem the correct way, politics dictated bad ideas like "minimum parking quotas" which dump the burden onto the people who are least able to afford it, and also least able to oppose it.

This goes beyond just rent, and home prices. Economic development in this neighborhood is artificially depressed because of regressive policies like minimum parking quotas. The suburban-style space requirements of that many automobiles are too much for a compact city neighborhood. The net effect of this heavy-handed government regulation, to force more cars on us, is to squelch normal, healthy, incremental growth. Instead, we get almost nothing, and hardly any changes, for decades. That's a lot of lost jobs, lost opportunity, a heavy price to pay, all because of an irrational fear of parking "shortages" caused by broken policies that do not make sense in urban areas.

Car-free housing in Boston is natural

(Also check out Paul McMorrow's rebuttal: Boston could be car-free, it's how people actually live.)

There are so many flaws in Tom Keane's most recent column for the Globe, that it is almost too easy to pick it apart. Take the first sentence:

CAR-FREE condos and apartments, the latest fad in residential living, are really little more than a gimmick: good for greens and developers, perhaps, but bad for residents.

The "latest fad?" I suppose that Tom believes that 19th century apartments were built with parking spaces? A little bit of history tells us that minimum parking requirements began with the 1950s zoning codes, a fad of its time, and the result was decades of disaster and urban decay. Then there's a little shot at people who live without a car: according to Tom, they must be either those wacky, crunchy "greens" or some market cooked up by sneaky, greedy developers. According to Tom's reasoning, these dastardly developers are just itching to dump millions of dollars creating a product that nobody will buy.

Thus, real estate developer Related Beal LLC is now proposing to create 175 units near TD Garden without adding in any new spots. 

There’s a certain sleight of hand to the idea, since residents wouldn’t have to abandon their cars. As Related Beal acknowledges, it’s hoping to piggyback off of existing nearby parking. So this isn’t actually a car-free building as much as it is one that dumps the problem on someone else.

I feel strange explaining the concept of a market to someone as old as Tom Keane. The idea that residents could rent or purchase a parking space in a nearby garage should not be that difficult to grasp, and it's not much different from the many other transactions which take place between residents and local businesses. For example, most apartment buildings are not constructed with grocery store requirements. However, most people seem to understand that when a resident wants a bottle of milk, they can walk down to a nearby store and buy one. We do not need to build "minimum grocery store requirements" into the zoning code because those products are handled perfectly well by normally operating markets. And parking spaces are no different. They are just one type of land use, among many, that can be purchased or leased on the real estate market.

But suppose new buildings truly were car-free, with residents somehow compelled to give up their cars? A few might be persuaded to do so, but in the long run such a proposition would run headlong into one big problem: Even in Boston, people need cars. Manhattan, a uniquely dense and compact island, can get away with car-free living. Boston, spread out and part of a much larger metropolitan area, cannot.

Well, I just pointed out that there is nothing stopping a person from renting space for their automobile, much like they rent space for their bed and belongings. But the second part of this paragraph is hilarious. It makes me wonder if Tom has ever actually visited New York City. Actually, I'm starting to wonder if this former Boston city councilor has ever visited Boston, a city that prides itself on being a "walking city" with a compact urban area. Manhattan, just one piece of NYC, is much larger than Boston proper. Yes, that borough is densely populated, unique, and "can get away with car-free living." Boston is also densely populated, unique, smaller, and has many residents who "get away" with car-free living despite Tom's protestations.

As much as some may denounce the automobile, almost all of us own one — about 91 percent of American households, according to the US Census Bureau. In Boston, as in other cities, the numbers are lower, with only 63 percent of households having a car.

Tom gets weird here: it's true that 91% of American households own a car. Well, so what? 99% of American households don't live in downtown Boston! What's the relevance of choices made by people living in Marion, Ohio to a development project in Boston? Approximately nil. But let's move on. It's true that according to the American Community Survey, approximately 63% of Boston city residents have access to a car. That number is more relevant, and significantly lower. What's even lower: the number of residents with access to a car when you focus on the neighborhoods around downtown Boston.

• Beacon Hill census tracts: 33%, 40%, 47% have access to a car
• West End census tracts: 50% have access to a car
• North End census tracts: 26%, 31%, 33% have access to a car
• Waterfront census tract: 40% have access to a car
• Leather District census tract: 43% have access to a car
• Chinatown census tract: 27% have access to a car

All of these numbers are significantly lower than 63%, the citywide rate, because the citywide numbers include some extremely suburban areas such as West Roxbury and Hyde Park, where the car access rate can exceed 95% in some tracts! But we're not talking about development in West Roxbury. We're talking about development on the Shawmut peninsula, which has been an urbanized settlement for centuries, long before the invention of the automobile. And it continues to be place where people live with low rates of car access.

Sometimes that’s an income issue; buying and maintaining a vehicle is expensive. Still, there are many city dwellers — mostly younger people — who choose not to have a car as a lifestyle decision. They can get to work without one, and find it easy to walk or bike their way around town.

Good for them. But merely because someone chooses not to have a car right now doesn't mean things won’t change. Green intentions notwithstanding, as life goes on it becomes increasingly likely a car will come into the picture. 

Living without a car is the norm for the majority, in some cases, the super-majority, of people living today in central neighborhoods of Boston. But according to Tom, it must all be either poor people, young hipsters, or environment-saving die-hards. I have trouble believing that 70% of the North End, 60% of Beacon Hill, and 73% of Chinatown is populated in this narrow fashion. But this is essential to Tom's argument, because in his view, they can all be dismissed, because they are not "real Bostonians." That's the undertone of his argument, in any case. Let's look at the text:

The average American, for example, changes jobs frequently (well more than 11 times during a working lifetime, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data). A new resident of a car-free building might be working just down the street. But two years later, another position might beckon, located, say, at one of the many office parks that have sprouted up along Routes 128 and 495. [...] More likely, the once car-free resident will end up buying a car and moving to a place that’s more auto-friendly.

Put aside the falsity of using "average American" here. And let's also put aside the likely possibility that a new job can easily open up in downtown Boston just as much as it might on the highway belts. Suppose this hypothetical resident changes to a job located on the Route 128 belt and it's not transit accessible, so they are forced to buy a car. And then they have a choice to make: either rent a parking space, or move to another home where they will also rent a parking space (but possibly cheaper).

So... what's the big deal, Tom? People make this kind of decision about their life all the time. There's no Commandment that states: "Thou shalt not have to make any difficult decisions about the cost of parking." The cost of housing and the cost of transportation -- which, for cars, includes parking -- is a factor in just about everyone's living decisions.

We live in a free country, free as in liberty, not free as in "free parking." That means we're supposed to have the ability to make choices. That also means we accept the consequences of those choices. If I choose to live in a building with no parking spaces, then that means I must later choose to rent a parking space if I choose to buy a car. Not much different from choosing to live in a 1-bedroom apartment. If I later decide that I want a second bedroom, then I need to either rent one, or move to another apartment which has one.

Then too, as people couple up or have kids, the need for a car rises. In Boston, most of those without cars are singles — fully 50 percent. But as household size grows, the rate of car ownership climbs to 75 percent. Anyone with children can understand why; parents spend their days shuttling their kids from playdates to school to sports to after-school activities. Cars are a necessity. By making it a hassle to own one, we push families out to the suburbs.

Aha, now we get down to it. According to Tom, it's impossible to have a family without a car. Well, not so impossible that 25% of car-free households do it. But impossible, nonetheless! Obviously, there were no families prior to the invention of the automobile. Humans sprang fully formed, with 2.5 children and a home with a white picket fence, from the bowels of Henry Ford's Model T plant.

I kid, but let's take his paragraph apart and see the real driving force here: "Anyone with children can understand why; parents spend their days shuttling their kids from playdates to school to sports to after-school activities."

That's the nub. Tom Keane is fully committed to the idea that parents must spend their days shuttling their kids between social and educational activities. It probably has never occurred to him that the reason why parents are forced to shuttle their kids around is because they are growing up in a suburban environment where it is unsafe to travel in any other way but a car!

We, as a country, have spent much of the latter half of the 20th century building a living environment which is downright hostile and dangerous to children: suburban sprawl. Wide roads, desolate stretches, miles of nothingness between life. There is, indeed, only one way to traverse these deserts, and that is a car. So, if Tom Keane were writing about some development project out in the boonies, and not in the heart of the city of Boston, he might have a point.

But we're talking about development in a densely populated urban area. A place which is known for its walkability. A place where the majority of residents already live without cars. Let's think about context: the prescriptions that apply to sprawling subdivisions don't make any sense at all in middle of Boston. The lifestyle of parents in faraway exurbs is not comparable to that of parents in a compact city. One final claim:

Cars are a necessity. By making it a hassle to own one, we push families out to the suburbs.

Cars are not a necessity. We are not "making" it a hassle to own one. That "hassle" is just part of the nature of living in an urban neighborhood. It will never be like living out in the suburbs, and no amount of parking garage construction will ever change that. Face it: if a family wants the suburban experience, then they will end up moving to the suburbs no matter how much you try to bend over backwards to squeeze cars into the city. Meantime, you will damage the quality of life for families that are trying to live in the city. We can't compete while playing by the suburban rulebook. It's impossible.

What the city can offer is an alternative to suburban or exurban life, and yes, that extends to families as well. In the city, you have a chance to build an environment that values human life more than automobile convenience. In the city, you don't need a big backyard because the shared public space, the parks, the streets, the freedom of the city, gives you a much more interesting and diverse place to be. And that applies to children as well, who don't need to be "shuttled" by private vehicle to every place in their lives, but could actually attend their activities by walking around the local neighborhood, and learning to be self-sufficient. This is how urban neighborhoods have functioned, successfully, throughout history. This is the advantage that urban neighborhoods have over suburban neighborhoods, and it serves nobody any good to throw it away.

Minimum parking requirements are a failed, urban renewal-era experiment which are leftover from the bad old days. It is long past time to end them, and start focusing on building great urban places which won't make people feel like they need a car to escape.

Cargo cult suburbanism

It seems that every time there's a proposal for a multiple unit apartment or condo building, some voices will pop up and whine, "why can't they just build some affordable single (or two-) family detached houses?!?!" Some will even go on to make the wild claim that multi-unit buildings "cause" single family detached house prices to rise.

This thought process is completely backwards: like blaming your runny nose for causing your cold. Instead, it is the rising prices on existing homes which attracts developers to build more homes, and eventually multi-unit buildings.

The reason the prices on single family homes are going up is because that kind of structure is an inefficient use of an increasingly valuable and limited resource: land.

It has nothing to do with the presence of multi-unit housing. In general, if land prices go up, then home prices will go up. If you want to reduce home prices on the open market, either: (a) find a way to reduce land prices, or (b) subdivide the land more efficiently.

Seeing this misunderstanding perpetuated, I get the feeling that some people in Boston believe in a fairy tale, what I've started to call: "cargo cult suburbanism."

In essence: the followers of this cargo cult remember a time in the past when giant single family homes were affordable, and even seemed to be the only option for families.

Therefore, they try to force everyone to build 1950s-style single family homes in the hopes of attracting families at reasonable prices. Followers of this cult have infiltrated city hall to the point where in most neighborhoods, the only development allowed by-right is this kind of suburbanism, even in areas of the city which have many apartment buildings.

The cultists believe that the ritual of forcing the development of such single family detached houses will magically, somehow, make them affordable to average families. There's no actual economic reason for that to work. It's an imitation of a form that sometimes works elsewhere under much different conditions, but is unsuitable for much of the city. That's why I'm calling it "cargo cult" thinking.

What's worse, not only does "cargo cult suburbanism" create unaffordable and unrealistic housing, the stock that remains ends up in slumlord hands, as they are the only ones with enough money to buy such large units. Then, the demand to live here is so strong, and the supply of homes is so weak, that some people feel that they have no choice but to fall into the hands of unscrupulous slumlords. The giant, detached single family homes, favored by the "cargo cultists," are easily subdivided into many illegal units. Some have been found to have twenty people living in them, such as the house which burned down this summer and claimed the life of a student.

Nobody wants to live in such conditions. We desperately need more legal, clean units to be created here. But the elected officials have failed their constituents. The zoning laws, barely changed from the 1950s, are completely out of touch with reality. The slumlords are the direct beneficiary of this screwed up situation. And who knows what kind of money changes hands behind closed doors to keep it this way.

The "cargo cultists" will claim that they just want to provide housing for families. I agree with the goal of finding ways to provide reasonably priced housing for families, but I don't buy into cargo cults. There's no reason why a diversity of housing options cannot serve families, or anyone else, just as well as (or better than) the stereotypical 1950s-style single-family detached house.

When land starts to become more expensive, it has to be used more efficiently, or else people of modest means will not be able to afford to live here anymore. Subsidized housing is a poor substitute. Some of that may be unavoidable, but for the majority of people, they ought to be able to find housing on the normal market. We need to put an end to the ridiculously bad zoning laws and arbitrary process which has defined Boston development for over two generations. The city got away with its dysfunction in the past during a time of decline and when the population was forced to sprawl. And people seemed to accept that fate. But that's no longer the case anymore. The population of the city is growing. This will be the challenge for the next mayor: to increase and provide a diversity of housing options for people of all different means and backgrounds. And to find a way to break the self-perpetuating cycle of corruption and NIMBYism which drags us down.

The upcoming municipal election: housing

Based on the sources from the previous post, I've collected some notes about each of the candidates based on their public statements. Apologies for the rawness. I've tried to put quotation marks around text which is directly quoted and the rest is paraphrased. Candidates appear in alphabetical order, by last name, and I've included everyone who has raised at least $100,000 according to the OCPF.

Felix Arroyo

• “One, we must increase the supply of housing. We should make sure that people who want to build housing have the opportunity to do that. It’s simple economics: supply and demand. But I don’t believe that that is the final answer.” 
• “There are some things that government has to invest in: public schools, public streets, public safety, and affordable housing.” 
• His parents lived in subsidized housing in the South End when he was born. 
• “We must invest in affordable housing.” 
• “We need to look at our zoning code to make sure that we are not by zoning code restricting the creation of different types of housing that could lead to affordability.” 
• Transparent and predictable processes for development. 
• “We need all types of housing & to encourage mixed use development of market, moderate rate & affordable housing “ 
• Split the BRA into separate planning and development agencies.

John Barros

• Worked in Boston for 13 years as executive director of Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative.
• Sponsored 800 units of both market-rate and affordable housing during my time.
• “We can create different incentives for developers to build next to transit nodes.”
• “It’s still not easy enough to develop in Boston, the process is obscure, it’s unclear, we need to streamline it when developers are trying to do the right thing.”
• “Transit nodes: we can drop the parking ratio, we can increase density, we shouldn’t be afraid of going high. These are kinds of things we can do to increase affordability in Boston.”
• More realistic planning and zoning to incentivize development
• Tax abatements, TIPS and density bonuses for parts of Boston that are not developed. “We’ve got land, too much of it, let’s take it off the city rolls and put it in production.”
• Need to invest in transit that allows for developers to build and increase density.

Dan Conley

• “Housing development is critical to the economic success of our city.”
• Many entrepreneurs starting businesses here in Boston can’t afford to live here even though they want to. Need to expand workforce housing.
• Embrace Menino’s “2020 vision” of 30,000 new units by 2020, and do even more.
• “We need to rethink density. Density does not need to be a bad word when talking about housing policy. Look at Paris: it’s about the size of Boston geographically and has three times as many residents and is thought to be one of the great cities of the world.”
• “Micro-units need also to be looked at, it’s not for everyone, but it’s a good opportunity for young professionals to get a foothold in the housing market.”
• Increase the number of three-bedroom "Family Friendly" homes by making city-owned lots available for that purpose.
• Consider density and transit oriented development.
• Housing is also a regional problem and needs to be coordinated regionally.
• Some kind of financial incentive for renovation of housing.
• "Scrutiny" of off-site affordable housing.
• Provide a "proper mix of services, entertainment and recreation options to support and sustain a community."
• “I don't want to solve overcrowding by pricing all but the wealthiest Bostonians out of our city.”

John Connolly

• More transparency at the BRA.
• Term limits for BRA board members.
• “We do too much zoning-by-variance.”
• “Building more 3 bedroom units for young families”
• “Increasing the supply of microlofts to create affordable options for recent graduates, young artists, and young professionals”
• “Expanding programs that increase home ownership among our city workers.”
• “Getting already-foreclosed properties into the hands of Community Development Corporations who can remarket units to eligible families.”

Rob Consalvo

• We need to make funding a priority for programs like “Leading the Way”
• We need to invest in workforce housing relating to TOD, we see that now with the Fairmount line.
• Think about linking workforce housing in places other than Innovation District, out on a different ring, in places such as Allston/Brighton, Roslindale, Readville and Hyde Park that has quick and easy access via new transportation systems to downtown.
• Meet and exceed Menino’s “2020 Vision”.
• Not just jamming it all downtown, or in hot spots, but moving it out to the neighborhoods of the city, where there’s real opportunity to grow more housing.
• The zoning code should be regularly updated.
• “We can solve overcrowding by providing more market rate and affordable housing and expanding public transportation into Boston.”
• “With better public transportation we can connect ALL our neighborhoods to downtown and the universities – opening up new housing options citywide.”
• “As mayor, I'll work with schools to develop more on-campus housing”
• Increase transparency at the BRA.

Charlotte Golar Richie

• Led DND for 8 years and served with Menino as Chief of Housing.
• “You can’t just go to a landlord and say I want your units to be affordable, please do it out of the goodness of your heart.”
• “As mayor I absolutely will advocate and lead the charge to get the funds that we need to buy the affordability so we have affordable units for our workforce.”
• Build more on-campus housing for students.
• “Will work to increase the supply of rental housing for neighborhood residents.”
• “The BRA has important powers like eminent domain which I do not want the city to lose.”
• Must increase transparency and predictability at the BRA.
• “I will define more clearly the agency's planning functions and ensure that planning precedes development in a clear, predictable, and transparent manner.”

Mike Ross

• “To create more affordable housing, we need to build more housing.”
• “We’re not building fast enough for the graduating college kids, for the empty nesters, for the life-long residents, and for the citizens of the world who want to move here.”
• “We need to build more, not just in the downtown core, but in all of our neighborhoods.”
• “When I first started the Fenway was a gas station, parking lot, fast food strip along Boylston Street.”
• Got together, planned, and over the past ten years we built the Fenway community.
• We can do that while we build affordable housing on-site.
• “If inclusionary zoning and affordable housing is a principle of our city then it should not be the first thing we negotiate away.”
• “If micro-units work in some places then they should be allowed to be built in those places.”
• “We need great education opportunities in our neighborhoods, but we also need amenities that and places to gather and go that draw people throughout the year and throughout the day.”
• For example, worked to bring a supermarket, banks, restaurants to Mission Hill through planning.
• Transit-oriented development, similar to what we did with restaurants and other development around the Ashmont T stop in Dorchester
• Resilient, sustainable design principles to ensure that our buildings, infrastructure and people are prepared for climate change
• Fast-track permitting for neighborhood-friendly housing
• Resources for elders to remain in their homes
• “We also need to work with our colleges and universities to build more dorms, so students can stay on campus and aren't putting more pressure on the strained housing market.”

Bill Walczak

• “I think the first problem is that affordable housing is just not affordable -- it costs way too much to develop.”
• “We need to construct more affordable housing throughout every neighborhood in Boston.”
• “I favor transit oriented development -- I favor building large, dense projects closer to our subway stations, bus stations, commuter rail stations, because that’s what we need to do. The density will allow for lower cost.”
• Convene business community, developers, construction companies, architects, to figure out why it costs so much to develop our housing in Boston.
• Figure out ways to develop good, sound quality housing at lower cost.
• Need to expedite processes through master planning.
• Audit the BRA and then redesign the agency.
• The new BRA needs transparency as its goal
• “Planning needs to be equal in function to development”

Marty Walsh

• Reform the BRA:
• Need quantitative metrics for evaluating the BRA
• Bifurcated system of permitting to separate small projects from larger projects for better efficiency.
• A permits tracking system.
• A system of receiving feedback and providing information to residents.
• As a State Rep: Helped pass transit-oriented mixed-use “smart growth district” legislation
• Has been a strong supporter of infrastructure and zoning improvements

Should we disband the Boston Redevelopment Authority?

Rachel Slade has a new article in Boston Magazine entitled "The Authority" in which she calls for the Boston Redevelopment Authority to be disbanded, and its functions of planning, zoning and development to be separated. The agency is an anachronism, a relic of the era of "urban renewal", and has too much power and too little accountability.

The West End wiped out (source)

I can't say I totally disagree with this assessment. All it takes is a trip downtown to remind oneself of the hubris and arrogance of the BRA. A stroll through Government Center does the trick. How could they be so stupid? What were they thinking? What we lost was irreplaceable. Scollay Square, the West End, Barry's Corner, large sections of Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, all wiped out for not conforming to the sterile vision of a few self-selected planners; or for being in the way of the new highway lifestyle that was to conquer all. To the planners of those days, the city was a merely a tool for the wealthy suburban residents. Anything that got in the way of that had to go.

However, that was a long time ago. We can't fix the past. The BRA of then is gone, and the BRA of recent years is different. The BRA of today holds community meetings. They do promote, or at least claim to promote, actual urban development instead of faux-suburbia. For example, the BRA nowadays requires commercial development to form a street wall, with little or no setback, and to put parking behind, out of sight. This is in contrast to several mid-century examples which were built as mini-strip malls in the middle of urban areas. The BRA of today is willing to approve projects with low or no parking requirements.

Transit-oriented vacant land, not so smart

Does that make the agency good or worth preserving? Not really. They have more than their fair share of failures; Slade lists many, and I would also add to that: the disgrace of having long term vacancy of so many transit-adjacent parcels in the city. Besides, the concentration of power in one Authority is too tempting and probably too dangerous. There might be some good people there now, but they may not always be there. It's telling that redevelopment authorities have been disbanded around the country. But, on the other hand, to do so is not always a success.

Slade's article cites San Francisco as a positive example of planning. But, it seems to me, that comparison casts the BRA in a very good light. San Francisco is a beautiful city but by urban development measures it's a sad failure. In 2011, SF added only 269 net units of housing (this past year has been better). This, despite being one of the most desirable locations in the entire country. Rents have sky-rocketed there, much more so than here. San Francisco is infamous for possessing some of the most vocally anti-growth residents on the planet. And Boston is full of its fair share of such folks too, who oppose change no matter what, or who have ulterior motives.

On the one hand, you can hardly blame them: people still remember the bad old days of the 60s and 70s. The popular movements which arose and stopped the highway devastation from progressing further were heroic. And there continues to be community members who make thoughtful comments, provide positive feedback, and help bring about broadly beneficial outcomes. That's how planning ought to work. But the same mechanisms are also used by selfish individuals to do things like effectively grant themselves free parking privileges on publicly-owned land. Others fight against badly needed housing development because of some unsubstantiated fear of buildings. Bus lanes are blocked because someone yells "Gridlock!" I even heard one woman complain of not having enough open space for a development that happens to be next to one of the largest parks in Boston.

It's absurd. And who's going to stand up to that? Who will separate the sensible concerns from the ridiculous demands? That's what I want to know. Let's disband the BRA and replace it with a separate city planning department, a zoning department, and a development office. But let's also put in place a mechanism to prevent the various neighborhood NIMBY groups from dividing and conquering the new offices. We can't have a system where politically savvy groups get to squelch growth. All neighborhoods have to participate. Nobody is special. We could start with the idea of a Zoning Budget: "All deviations downward from planned growth in housing supply expressed in the [zoning] budget should have to be offset by corresponding increases elsewhere in buildable as-of-right land." Or a city department which promotes economic growth as a counterbalance to the stasis status quo. Or zoning which sets broad goals but does not micromanage how to get them.

Another thing: a city planning office sounds nice in theory. But I have reservations about it. For one thing, "planning" in this city (and this country) has a long record of failure. "Urban renewal" in the 50s and 60s was part of that. Zoning is another part. When you examine that zoning plans that were derived from community input, you will find that the limitations are laughably low. Much of Boston that we know could not be built under today's zoning code. That's a travesty, a complete failure of planning. How can you claim to "plan for the future" when your plans don't even accommodate for today?

The problem is that when most people think about zoning they think "oh, it keeps the polluting factory separate from the school." And that's where they stop. And since protection from pollution is a good thing, people have a generally good feeling about zoning, they don't question it. Unfortunately, zoning was taken much much further over the past 60 or so years that it has been in effect. It's been a way for bureaucrats and snobs to dictate details of buildings down to the inch. Your front yard is only 19 feet? Too bad! People who can't afford a single family detached home are treated like they were toxic waste and are told to live in a "multifamily district." You want to open a dentist office where a barber worked before? Incompatible! As-of-right development is curtailed all the way down to almost nothing, and some NIMBYs still think that's too much. We've come a long way from a country where buying your own land meant you had the freedom to build what you desired on it -- even if your choices are entirely safe.

Destroying buildings to widen Cambridge Street c.1920 (source)

The failure of planning dates back even further, before the Great Depression. A planning craze, that bubbled up from the late nineteenth century, swept the nation about a hundred years ago (see also this for a laugh) and a planning board was set up in Boston, like other cities. Reading through their old journals is interesting and yet hair-pullingly frustrating. It seems that every other proposal they came up with was to do street widening. The mass-produced automobile was not even a decade old, most people didn't have one, but these planners couldn't wait to start bulldozing blocks and widening streets. A lot of it may have been rooted in racial politics of the early 20th century; the elites wanting to sweep out the undesirables. Some of it may have come from genuine concern for the conditions (after all, we've come a long way in sanitation) with little understanding of the dangers posed by motor vehicles, nor any comprehension of the value of the small streets to city life.

The point is that the central planners of those days didn't understand what they were dealing with and didn't know what the future would bring either. Olmsted was, at least, honest about this:

Speaking at the second national conference on city planning at Rochester, NY, in May, 1910, Olmsted, for one was almost overwhelmed by "the complex unity, the appalling breadth and ramification, of real city planning." He realized, not for the first time, that he and his fellow practitioners were "dealing ... with the play of enormously complex forces which no one clearly understands and few pretend to." He humbly acknowledged that "our efforts to control [these forces] so often lead to unexpected or deplorable results that sober-minded people are often tempted to give up trying to exercise a larger control [...]"

Why do we think we're any different? Maybe we absolutely cannot get by without city planning, but that doesn't mean a city planning department is going to get it right. How can they? A city is a complex system, not necessarily amenable to central planning. You can point to the Back Bay as an example of a planned area that worked out pretty well. But that was completed before the heyday of "city planning." And we haven't been able to replicate that kind of success in modern times, ever since planning became an established profession. We can't even figure out how to build anything decent anymore. Whether it's due to architects more intent on stroking their own egos than building nice places, or NIMBYs clamoring for more free parking, or just a quality that we cannot seem to grasp, we just don't seem to know how to make successful urban districts. Instead, we take existing ones, pump money into them, and pray.

So, disband the Boston Redevelopment Authority. But don't expect separated planning, zoning and development departments to lead to nirvana. Planning is just a tool; it can easily be used to create boring, sterile districts, and often has. Most of suburban sprawl was planned to be that way, and then laced into a zoning straitjacket to prevent any spark of life from ever arising. Without making some fundamental changes to the way planning is done -- such as the Zoning Budget -- you're just shuffling offices around and creating more bureaucracy, but not making any positive changes.