97> PRT and Suburban Sprawl

Will faster, longer range PRT simply promote more suburban sprawl?
In the U.S., the dream of affordable home ownership, a culture that celebrates the freedom of cars and unfettered free enterprise, (wherever it leads) and a well-oiled system for expanding highways has led to the phenomena known as suburban sprawl. Part of the problem has been that as traffic increased on freeways we have been quick to add lanes. This in turn makes the commute out of town faster and therefore more attractive again, so development resumes with renewed vigor farther out of town. This, in turn, creates still more traffic, which creates more lanes, which creates more out of town development, and so forth. It is a vicious cycle. Will PRT, if extended out to the suburbs, exacerbate, or even amplify this trend? I have been a proponent developing PRT systems that have utility outside of the city centers, systems capable of higher speeds and longer distances. I want PRT to serve the suburbs. Am I proposing a “solution” that will, in the end, be counterproductive? That’s a question worth asking.

Once upon a time, in the old days before superhighways, cities had to mix residential, commercial, industrial and entertainment centers much more closely out of necessity. There simply wasn’t the option of dumping a whole bucket of gasoline into your gas tank to make a 15-mile journey home in under a half hour. Now many of us are addicted to it. Ironically, the farther you drive, the more appealing gas-guzzlers get, because they usually offer greater comfort. A bucket in the morning, and maybe another at night, made to seem benign by silent, odorless, high-speed gasoline pumps and cavernous gas tanks. One remedy would be to simply tax gasoline to the point where people would be forced to live closer in. Or simply ignore the traffic and never expand the roads. In the U.S. we have all seen the “urban decay” that was the result of the flight to the suburbs. Is it time now to institute policies that will result in “suburban” decay and flight to urban areas? I think not. Those suburban homes are the American families’ nest eggs, and real estate has taken enough of a beating already. But nudging ourselves back toward urban life is a must, because energy and environmental costs are just to high to do otherwise.

Above is a picture I snapped the other day through my windshield. Six miles from downtown, this road was widened less than 5 years ago. It makes my head spin to think about all of the gas and productivity that is wasted when traffic slows like this from just a sprinkling rain. But consider this: None of these people care that they are going somewhere where nothing is within walking distance. They have their cars. All of these people are on their way to congest some other area. What if some of them were to arrive without cars? Those people would then want to have their needs met much closer their to destination. That, my friends, is the seed of a community. I can think of very little else that could revitalize cities as much as piping in the suburbanites as pedestrians instead of as drivers.

And what about the on the suburban end? Won’t this just make it that much easier to live far from town? Well it will make it more affordable, efficient, and earth-friendly, that’s for sure. But contribute to further expansion of the sprawl? Maybe a bit. Keep in mind that on the suburban end there are subdivisions full of homes that are not within walking distance of anything, and no one can seriously suggest PRT for every residential street. Unless we’re talking about bulldozing, these people are going to use their cars. But to where? Typically every big residential area has a nearby supermarket, drugstore, bank, etc. In other words, the seeds of a town. These need not, currently, be in close proximity to each other. Would PRT become the glue that would turn a suburban “strip” into a walkable “Main Street?” It wouldn’t hurt. After all PRT, by definition, delivers pedestrians, not cars. Would new, more rural developments be encouraged by PRT’s proximity? Although presumably a developer could request PRT service from the inception of a project, PRT deployment will generally lag WAY behind road development, so this fear seems misplaced. After all, there are other remedies for sprawl that we just haven’t used. Like the tax codes. After all, if there were a smaller spread between the value of undeveloped and developed land, developers would look elsewhere for profits. If we undervalue the earth as nature made it, we can only expect more of the same regardless of transportation method. There is already precedent for this, in tax law as it now stands, but nearly every time I see a piece of raw land for sale it has been recently bulldozed, so it can be viewed more easily, I suppose. Clearly the tax penalty for this behavior is not a sufficient deterrent.

This is a road construction site I pass often, and I just had to get out and snap a picture. I must say it is truly massive. I fret about differences in track size in the inches, but a section of that PRT track laid down on this expanse would be absolutely lost. I added the map to show how this relates to sprawl, and I’m not sure I have drawn any conclusions. The first thing to note is that it is not a road leading out of town, but rather the final segment of a loop. But look at the undeveloped green space around the area. That won’t last. Also notable is the proximity to the airport, (between Humble and Aldine, to the left of the arrow) the 8th busiest in the country. Behind the arrow is name Atascocita, which, it turns out, is the 44th fastest growing community in the country, at 8% per year. The North/South road leading into town is new and wide, making the area just minutes from downtown, with relatively little traffic, yet. One point worth mentioning is that sprawl is greatest in the fastest growing cities. Cities like Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta all grew over 23% during the 90s. ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas
It’s hard to absorb that many people in the city center in that length of time. High-rises for over a million in a decade? I don’t think so. If there is an opinion I’ve formed, mulling all of this over, it is that satellite communities are probably unavoidable, but all communities, large and small, need to shrink in landmass to become more efficient, functional, and livable. People’s jobs change often, and moving rather than commuting is often not practical. I tentatively maintain my stance that higher speed PRT has a positive role to play in the mix. What do you think?