Electric Cars?

Tim Beatley has this great article in the most recent Planning magazine. He asks the tough question: are greener cars any better than what we have now? Does this change the fundamental patterns of travel? Below is the article.

Ever Green
By Timothy Beatley

Mixed Message

As I write, Congress is working out the details of the promised bailout of Detroit car makers. So it is a good time to consider the prospects of a world with ever more cars, and whether it makes sense to subsidize them further.

For many observers, the answer is yes — so long as the cars are "green." There has never been so much retooling and redesigning, with so much fanfare. Although the prospects of a fully functional hydrogen car have dimmed, there is great interest in hybrids like the Chevy Volt, which uses an electric engine to turn its wheels and a gasoline engine to recharge its batteries.

Some of the more interesting all-electric models are coming from small companies like the California firm Zap; Canada's Zenn Motors; and Porteon Electric Vehicles in Portland, Oregon. Zap manufactures a three-wheel, four-door sedan that sells for a bit over $10,000 and has a top speed of 40 mph. It would be great if these smaller, very efficient electric vehicles drastically changed our driving habits so that we would view the private auto as supplemental to a mostly pedestrian and transit lifestyle.

I'm not at all convinced that this is what will happen, however. The small electric vehicles actually encourage neighborhood car trips. And the message of the larger hybrids like the Volt or Toyota's Highlander Hybrid seems to be "don't worry, keep driving."

To be sure, many of the new green cars are promising. The sporty Mitsubishi i MIEV can travel about 100 miles on a full charge, and the Eclectic, the electric car made by the French company Venturi, produces much of the power needed to charge its batteries from rooftop photovoltaic panels and wind turbines.

Other new concepts might help to reduce the overall ecological footprint of cars. How about interiors made of biodegradable materials? (Think compostable car seats.) Architect William McDonough worked many years ago with Ford on a prototype of a recyclable car, called the Model U. Another promising concept is to bundle an electric car with home ownership. We can imagine every new house equipped with solar panels sufficient both to power the home and to recharge the car.

Still, the limitations of green cars are considerable. Long charging times and short mileage range make them unappealing to American buyers. In addition, if the energy source for the batteries is a coal-burning power plant, electric cars don't help us much — although they could certainly reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

No guarantees

Making driving more efficient is no guarantee of green progress. We know from the past that energy improvements often result in more consumption rather than less, and focusing on making cars more efficient can lead us to ignore the other problems inherent in a car-based culture: the loss of community, encouragement of a sedentary lifestyle, and the general disconnect from the places where we live.

Meanwhile, we set a bad example for the rest of the world, which continues to emulate our car-based culture. Recently, for example, the Indian car maker Tata Motors unveiled the Nano, a tiny car that sells for a mere 100,000 rupees, or about $2,500, and has already acquired the nickname "the people's car." The Nano would not meet basic safety requirements in most developed countries and it's likely to add significantly to air pollution. But in India it is viewed as a great leap forward.

The prospect of major increases in the auto-traveling population in the heavily populated developing world coming just as our planet faces the double challenges of peak oil and climate change seems insane. Yet, to say this as an American smacks of an "I have mine, you shouldn't have yours" point of view.

What we should be saying to the world is that the private automobile, electric or combustion, is a technology of the past. Responsible, resilient cities must adopt profoundly different models of urban development that are far better suited to the global challenges we face.

European cities have terrific examples of emerging models of car-free or car-limited developments or neighborhoods. Vauban, a former army barracks in Freiburg, Germany, has emerged as a poster child for car-limited living environments in cities. Its design limits car access and provides green courtyards where children and adults gather in safety. The city has extended its tram network to serve the community, and residents have access to nearby car-share vehicles. Resident parking is in peripheral lots (with a hefty charge for spaces).

Why I worry

While the new technologies of green cars clearly are positive in the short term, my fear is that they will solidify the idea of the car as the dominant form of mobility throughout the world. At a time when the basic concept of a private automobile is becoming untenable, we are finding new ways to assuage our guilt about driving them. It would be far better, I think, to view electric vehicles as an interim step on the way to even more creative and greener forms of public transit, and a recommitment to planning walkable, bikeable communities.

Timothy Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia. His most recent book is The Ecology of Place. Ever Green will appear every other month in Planning.

Beatley makes the case for disinvestment in the auto industry and instead takes a look at how the private automobile can supplement other modes of travel. A radical idea, maybe to some, but an idea that is worth further investigation and investment.

Shovel, I mean transit ready projects

Ben Adler has written an excellent piece for the nation that really lays out the point why Transit should be the focus of the stimulus package and new administration. While I have my concerns between the rhetoric and reality our new president promised, Mr. Adler gives us some concrete ideas. Here are a few excerpts from the article:

It is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you build highways, inefficient suburban sprawl will develop and, ultimately, so will traffic and the demand for yet more highways. Build mass transit and you see high-density, efficient housing construction and people living without cars. As the high demand for housing in walkable urban environments like Manhattan and San Francisco demonstrates (and as public opinion polls confirm), plenty of Americans want to live in dense urban communities, and their numbers will only grow as the country's demographics shift toward more childless households--less likely than families with children to want detached suburban houses.

Public opinion has been shifting toward mass transit, especially with such volatile gas prices. Transit ridership climbed throughout 2008, even though gas prices dropped in the second half of the year. "The public support for greater funds for transit is very clear in the last few elections," declares Parris Glendening, former governor of Maryland, now president of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute. Initiatives to pay for mass-transit investments have been winning victories across the country, from Seattle to Charlotte. California passed a $10 billion high-speed-rail ballot initiative last year.

Investing in mass transit would benefit not just the environment but also poor people, many of whom can't afford cars, don't drive and so have been shut out of the new economy, with its service sector employment increasingly available only in suburban office parks. A study by the University of Wisconsin found that 74 percent of African-Americans and 66 percent of Hispanics ages 18 to 24 in Milwaukee County did not have a valid driver's license. As urban theorists like Joel Rogers have noted in their "Emerald Cities" proposal, building mass transit could also strengthen labor, providing a larger base of unionized construction and maintenance jobs.

The greenest way to lift the country out of a deepening recession would be to put people to work building mass-transit infrastructure, which could, in turn, ease the flow of goods and services, help generate economic growth and open economic opportunities to the disadvantaged. With a new president from Chicago and a House Speaker from San Francisco, the time seems ripe for Democrats to take advantage of the dual opportunities this year presents to alter America's transportation infrastructure radically: the upcoming stimulus spending bill and the Surface Transportation Reauthorization, due for renewal by September.

Simple ideas but they will be effective.

What a great idea!

The Metropolitan Council has a great idea: let's take the federal stimulus dollars and use it to keep the buses running in the Twin Cities Region.

Metropolitan Council Chairman Peter Bell said Monday the problem is so bad he'll need to raid other funds and use federal stimulus dollars not to build but merely to pay operating and maintenance costs to avoid cutting service.

The council — Metro Transit's parent agency — faces a projected $45 million shortfall over the next two years, and Bell said that deficit will likely grow as the economy continues to contract. A major reason is transit relies on proceeds from a tax on motor vehicle sales, which have plummeted.

While every transit agency in the country wants to do this I am glad some are starting to speak out loud and let the elected officials know what is going to happen if the dollars don't go towards maintenance and general operating costs. Is this the best use of money, I am not completely sure, but would we rather see the local bus system deteriorate over the next three years? I think not.

Downtown Minneapolis

Photo: Carbon Silver

Recent article from the Downtown Journal:

Downtown gained 785 residents and lost 3,335 jobs in 2008, the Downtown Council announced at its annual meeting yesterday.

Although Downtown’s workforce declined 6.9 percent, Downtown Council President Sam Grabarski sprinkled his year-end remarks with lots of positive news. The audience applauded when Grabarski noted that TCF Bank recently renewed its lease for 263,000 square feet in the TCF tower.

Grabarski recapped several other corporate comings-and-goings, such as SoftBrands’ move from Richfield to the LaSalle Plaza, Xcel Energy’s expansion to occupy 28 percent of Marquette Plaza, and OLSON’s expansion into four buildings in Loring Corners. Valspar is relocating 400 employees out of its headquarters for the past hundred years into an Ameriprise building at 901 3rd Ave. S.

Downtown’s top employer continues to be Target Corporation, with 10,000 employees. Wells Fargo is next in line with 7,180 employees, followed by Hennepin County with 5,200 employees.

Members of the Downtown Council patted themselves on the backs for creating a new Downtown Improvement District, an initiative they have studied for several years. The budget for the first year is now $3 million, just half of what was originally proposed, and the property assessments will pay for more cleaning services Downtown. The Downtown-based consultant Sarah Harris will oversee the new district as chief operating officer.

As for future initiatives, the Downtown Council staff said they will support “earnest discussions” related to the future of the Vikings stadium. They also noted that it was “critical to stay focused and stay positive” with regard to Downtown retail. Staff said they reached out to hundreds of retail prospects in the past year.

Cities of the Future

Here is a great slide show put together over at Treehugger.

Escape from New York

Here is a good article covering the recent report from the Center for an Urban Future that argues that NYC's middle class is leaving in droves:

The rising cost of living in the five boroughs, combined with a city economy that has been unable to create enough well-paying jobs, has led tens of thousands of middle class New Yorkers to leave the city in recent years and kept others stuck among the ranks of the working poor, a new report shows.

The city, which for much of its history thrived as a place where people from poorer backgrounds could climb into the middle class, is in danger of losing that piece of its identity, the report says.

“New York has long been a city that has groomed a middle class, but that’s a more arduous job today,” said Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future, a Manhattan-based think tank dedicated to independent research on cities, and one of the report’s authors. “There’s a tremendous amount of positives about the city, yet so many middle class families seem to be stretched to their limits.”

More residents moved out of the five boroughs in each of the years between 2002 and 2006 than in 1993, when the city was far less inviting, the report says. In 2006, 151,441 residents left the city, a 7% increase over 2002. The overall population increased as a result of natural births and immigration.

“The extraordinarily high levels of those relocating through much of the decade — even as crime rates remained at record lows and the city economy was booming — suggests that growing numbers of New Yorkers simply couldn’t prosper here,” the report argues.

The number of New Yorkers with bachelor’s degrees who left the city rose to 29,370 in 2006, up 127% from a year earlier. But they weren’t the only ones leaving. Families with children concerned about the quality of schools and small business owners seeking lower costs and new markets have also left. The number of New Yorkers moving to such places as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, for instance, doubled and even tripled during the period studied.

Joe Salvo, director of the New York City Department of Planning’s population division, questioned the report’s findings. He said the study looked at too narrow a time period and examined people leaving the city without looking at those coming in.
“What they’re doing in the report is looking at domestic outflow by itself,” he said. “You can’t do that.”

He said people have moved away from the city throughout history, but that immigrants have always come to replace them.

“We have a dynamic operating here,” he said. “People who come and people who leave, they come from everywhere and they go everywhere.”

He said if outmigration were a problem, it would be visible in the boroughs outside Manhattan.

“If you go to the Bronx, if you go to Brooklyn, neighborhoods of modest means, you will see that these neighborhoods are growing,” he said. “If we had substantial rates of outmigration, you would see it in neighborhoods from Marine Park in Brooklyn to Morris Park in the Bronx.”

The sky-high cost of living in the city is the lead driving force behind the squeeze on the middle class, the report argues. City residents pay among the highest prices in the nation for electricity, telephone service, auto insurance, home heating oil, parking and milk—and those prices continue to rise. Combined state and local taxes are tops among major cities, and housing is the most expensive. In the third quarter of 2008, only 10.6% of all housing in New York City was deemed affordable to people earning the median area income. And average rents in the fourth quarter were $2,801, or 53% higher than in San Francisco, the city with the second-highest figure, the report shows.
Manhattan is by far the most expensive urban area in the United States, according to the report, but the escalating cost of living isn’t the only factor hurting the middle class in New York, the report says. The city’s job mix has shifted away from positions that provide middle-income wages and benefits. The city has lost a far greater share of blue collar jobs than Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and other major cities. More than 150,000 goods-producing jobs have been lost since 1990, including 66,500 in the past decade.

While manufacturing accounts for about 3% of private sector jobs in the city, it employs a much larger share in other cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte. The city also fares poorly in other blue collar sectors like wholesale trade, while much of its job growth has come in traditionally low-paying areas like health care and social assistance. Those two industries together accounted for 17.4% of all private sector jobs in 2007, up 12.7% from 1990.

The result, the report argues, is that large numbers of people are working, but they’re not earning enough to live comfortably. Citywide, 31.1% of workers over the age of 18 are employed in low-wage jobs, the report says. Between 1975 and 2007, average weekly wages, when adjusted for inflation, barely increased in the boroughs outside Manhattan. Wages in Manhattan increased exponentially because of the boom in Wall Street salaries, but job growth in high-end sectors has not been strong enough to make up for the losses of middle-income jobs.

And things are not looking any brighter. The jobs expected to grow the most during the decade ahead typically pay low wages, including retail, home health aides, child care workers and janitors, the report says.

“The city, probably going back to Mayor [John] Lindsay really hasn’t focused on the middle class,” said Joel Kotkin, an urban historian and the report’s coauthor. “It’s becoming increasingly addicted to a ‘Masters of the Universe’ economy, which has now completely fallen apart.”

The report defines a middle class New Yorker loosely as someone who has enough money to pay the bills, have health insurance, own a computer with Internet connection, live in a safe neighborhood and take a vacation once a year.
Action is needed to make that lifestyle a possibility for future generations of New Yorkers, the report says. The authors urge the city to focus more attention on diversifying its economy. That was also a major theme of Crain’s Future of New York City conference, held earlier this week.

The report said such diversification could be achieved through a focus on the city’s 

ports, educational services, niche manufacturing and so-called “green-collar” industries and by nurturing entrepreneurs and freelancers.

More support for community colleges and stronger workforce development programs could help better prepare young people for fields that pay middle-income salaries, the report argues. Improving schools, parks and transportation in the outer boroughs could also make the areas more attractive to middle-class families.

“A New York inhospitable to middle class aspirations,” the report concludes, “will lose population, character and ultimately even its economic pre-eminence.”

You can get the full report here.

Tetra Constantino talks LRT in St. Paul