[sustran] Re: [sustain] Re: [carfree_cities] Slow transport? (edited slightly -sorry)

[Lee Schipper]

And I cycled to work for six years in DC and 6 years in Paris just to
see what the city looked like on the surface. But I also paid through
the nose to live in homes close to cycling opportunities/Metro (in a
pinch) etc. Those that choose larger homes over proximity to the most
densely built up areas must need more room from their 100 cm (40 inch)
plasma LED Dvs and their large motorized lawn mowers!

The question for megacities I think one has to be concerned about is
where do millions of people live, under what kinds of real estate
prices, with how much area to live in, as they get wealthier. There are
huge apartment buildings going up in Shanghai in Puxi, the densest
oldest part. Sadly, these are displacing the older traditional walkup
houses, making room for more commercial space, probably leaving the day
+ night time population density higher. The result is much more built
space/capita. The nice thing about these skyscrapers is that an elevator
takes inhabitants part of the way to the metro or bus line. The bummer
is that they are totally overwhelming. Even after 18 trips to Shanghai
in nearly 10 years I feel dwarfed, and more so than in NY City.  (And if
you like Shanghai, just watch Dubai!)

If the Chinese continue with a mostly walking/two wheeler (motorized and
non motorized) urban structure, how many jobs and other opportunities
are available within the 30 minute radius of each person's home. The
answer is plenty if a large share of people and jobs live in these
towers, thanks to Mr. Otis and his elevators. If they beyond metro and
to some extent bus based, how long can they hold the line (and their
pocketbooks) before jumping to cars at the fringes in order to (perhaps
falsely) "enjoy" more space.

What is a key element in all of this is land -- values, prices,
regulation, housing prices and above all housing space available in a
city of 1 to 10 million or more. My guess is that per capita space in
Shanghai is 10-15 sq m/capita of home, up from 5 sq m in say 1985.
That's quite an achievement, but it only came by pushing out hundreds of
thousands of traditional dwellings in low rise buildings in order to
make room for the skyscrapers.  

But in the US that number is closer to sixty square meters, reinforced
by housing tax policies. What will keep Chinese bundled up in small
homes, for how long? In New York the number for per capita area is
smaller, to be sure, but in Manhattan expensive. That seems to be the
reality - proximity in dense cities is cramped and expensive.

There is also the issue of proximity to good transit and land prices.
Land and housing near Transmilenio in Bogota is more expensive than
elsewhere. (I commend you to Benoit Lefevre's new Phd (in French) that
dealt with this issue extensively). In places like Bogota (soon),
NYCity,  Shanghai (soon), Hong Kong, Stockholm certainly Barcelona (80%
of population within 500 m of a metro or fast bus line) it's hard to
argue that there is a big bias towards places near fast transport, since
most of the city is relatively close. In places like San Francisco
region, Los Angeles, certainly Atlanta, relatively few live by rapid
transit, transit that came at an enormous price, too. But housing space
is higher.

So there is a key element here-- living space and its cost has to be fit
into speed/travel time, urban structure, etc.  Discussion about what
kinds of urban forms, densities, etc that focus solely on transport and
speed and ignore how much space (of what quality) there is inside
buildings for living, shopping, having fun, etc may be missing the
forest through the trees, or rather the buildings for the streets.

Wish I had the answers!
Happy New Year to everyone.
 

Lee Schipper
Director of Research,
EMBARQ the WRI Center for  Sustainable Transport
www.embarq.wri.org
and
Visiting Scholar,
Univ of Calif Transport Center
Berkeley CA
www.uctc.net
skype: mrmeter
510 642 6889
202 262 7476


-----Original Message-----
From: sustran-discuss-bounces+schipper=wri.org at list.jca.apc.org
[mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+schipper=wri.org at list.jca.apc.org] On
Behalf Of Simon Baddeley
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 10:52 AM
To: Carfree Cities
Cc: NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com; sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org
Subject: [sustran] Re: [carfree_cities] Slow transport? (edited slightly
-sorry)

Try looking at Newman and Kenworthy (if you haven't already).

http://davidpritchard.org/sustrans/NewKen99/

These authors use a model of the pedestrian, the rapid transit and the
autodependent city - in which time is fixed. People seem willing to
spend a
given amount of time commuting so you can imagine 30 minutes mainly on
foot
producing what are now the small compact often 'heritage' old towns of
most
autodependent cities. The rapid-transit city where people will do a 30
minute train, tram or bus journey into the centre. This produces a
spider
pattern of lineal routes in and out with small settlements around rail
stations and other rapid transit stops. With cars the door-to-door
capability of the car means that in the same 30 minutes people will live
anywhere that is 30 minutes from their work and removes the need for
'centres' and 'places' containing premises for trading, for worship,
attending school, participating in government. 30  minutes remains the
same
but the settlement patterns differ according to dominant means of
transport.

What Adams also says is that drivers use up their extra safety on speed,
and
use their 'enhanced' speed on distance - so that the 30 minute periphery
of
the auto-city gets larger, especially if more roads are built. So time
and
people's willingness to spend a given amount of it on travel is a very
significant parameter.

As an urban cyclist for the last 15 years I have valued cycling less for
its
speed but for the amount of predictability that cycling introduces into
the
planning of travel. It is often faster to get from A to B in a city by
cycle, but for me the greatest value is the way I can plan my day when
cycling between different meetings - sometimes combining this with tram,
bus
or train travel, a combination made far better as more information about
rapid transit schedules becomes available.

Best wishes

S


Simon Baddeley
Inlogov, School of Public Policy
University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT
0121 554 9794
VoIP 0121 343 3614
mobile 07775 655842
Campus: Sue Platt 0121 414 5002
s.p.platt at bham.ac.uk
http://www.inlogov.bham.ac.uk/staff/Baddeley.shtml



> From: Carlosfelipe Pardo <carlosfpardo at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: <carfree_cities at yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:14:31 -0500
> To: Global 'South' Sustainable Transport
<sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org>,
> Newmobility Cafe <NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com>,
> <carfree_cities at yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [carfree_cities] Slow transport?
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Does anyone know of any research or theory of urban planning or
> transport planning that takes *speed* as a factor to be taken into
> account? I have been searching for this and haven't found anything.
> I thought about this because I've seen that transport planning
normally
> takes land use, modes, infrastructure and other factors into account,
> but it doesn't seem to take speed as a component in its own right.
> 
> The only explicit reference I could find was Le Corbusier, who
> emphasizes the role of high speeds in a city, and plans around those
> high speeds (elevated highways, etc). Should we think about slowness
as
> a *positive* characteristic of transport? Should we propose slow
> transport as one solution to the problem?
> 
> I think slowness should be promoted not just for reasons of road
safety
> but for issues of sustainability in shorter distances traveled (slower
> speeds means longer travel times, so people would try to reduce their
> travel distances) and thus lower energy expenditures and emissions. Of
> course, this would need us to think about strategies to reduce speeds,
> which would include what we're normally promoting (bicycles,
pedestrian
> areas, 30km/h speed limits, etc).
> 
> Comments on this are most welcome.
> 
> Ah, and happy new year!
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> -- 
> Carlosfelipe Pardo
> 


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