Afterpiece

Afterpiece

David Levinson & Kevin Krizek

Papers Were Excellent!

• Best in 4 years of PA8202

Final Exam

• Cancelled ?

Determinants

• Choices - What I want• Chances - What opportunities I have• Constraints - What limits I have• Competitors - What others want

Chances

Constraints

Competitors

Choices

Processes

• Accessibility • Arranging• Associating• Aversion• Arms Races

• Architecture• Administering • Allocating• Assembly• Advancing

Outcomes

• Efficiency• Equity• Environment• Experience

1. World is Getting Better

• Yes there are problems,• But show today’s world from

someone in 1903 and ask which they would prefer.

• More living space, more choices, shorter work hours, longer healthier lives, less environmental pollution (no coal, no horses)

2. Present Policies Are Largely Futile

• The serious attempts of the past 3 decades (post-interstate era) are at best marginal improvements to a mature system.

• Traditional TDM, TSM, ITS, remove a bottleneck here or there, are not necessarily bad things, but they won’t address major issues: increasing accessibility, increasing the speed of transportation

3. We Must Pursue Non-Marginal Policies

• Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.

A. First Do No Harm

• Policy Process recommendation• Much harm is done by policy: • Urban renewal policies• Parking policies• Zoning policies• As doctors of urbanism, we must first

do no harm, and remove the harms we create.

B. Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom, But Cull the

Lagards• Policy Process recommendation• (1) Policy experiments are great, but the tend to

always be declared successes and be institutionalized• (2) Hard choices (abandoning someone's pet project)

must be made if progress is to occur• (3) Rigorous benefit cost analysis, that includes both

the real benefits and the full costs must be applied (e.g., if a project is aimed at improving efficiency, it must pass this test. If it is simply to improve equity, the cost of equity should be known and compared with alternatives aimed at the same level of equity).

C. Smart Prices/ Dumb Growth

• Improve efficiency, equity, environment• (1) price major roads (electronic tolls) • (2) price new, untollable infrastructure

(impact fees)• (3) if the right incentives are in place,

consumers, travelers, and developers will voluntarily do what is in their interest and society’s interest

D. Smart Cars/Dumb Roads

• Improve Efficiency, Equity, Experience, Environment• (1) Cars are more fuel efficient than they used to be (and could

even be more so)• (2) Cars are cleaner than they used to be (and could even be

more so)• (3) Cars are safer than they used to be (and could even be more

so).• (3) Fuel cells and related technologies significantly help problems

with air pollution• (4) Deployment strategy of new technology must be doable,

placing intelligence in vehicle is sounder than placing intelligence in infrastructure or requiring compatibility of both

• (5) Deployment of new technologies requires a realistic path from the present.

• (6) Smart Cars can provide freedom of mobility to the transprotation disadvantaged

E. Rethink the Hierarchy of Roads

• Improve Efficiency, Experience• The undifferentiated grid has problem, which

led to the standard suburban guidelines of the post World War II period.

• The guidelines of the post WWII era have problems, in that the networks are less robust, by achieving economies of scale on average (channeling traffic) but providing fewer alternative paths.

• Something new is required, something not simply “new urbanism” which places form above function.

F. Support the Next Long Wave in Transportation

• Improve Efficiency.• We are operating in a mature system era (interstates,

transit), and seek new solutions in the past (streetcars) rather than the future.

• It is not clear what form the new wave will be• It will not be classic public transit (which is appropriate

only in a small set of places). • It will in some fashion incorporate information and

communications technologies. • It will emerge from the bottom-up, not the top-down.• People want to go when and where at will. The want to

remove constraints on action. • This choice will be accomodated.

The End

Summary