Planning our way out of congestion

Many of those who decry ‘building our way out of congestion suggest that that somehow it may be possible to plan our way out, as if ‘better’ landuse will reduce trips sufficiently to end congestion. But landuse controls have been in place in most US metro areas for several decades. They got us where we are. Why should we expect them to work wonders in the future?

Mike Burton, the director of Metro, Portland’s regional planning agency said in a speech recently that “uncoordinated land use threatens orderly development, the environment and the welfare of the people.”

Randal O’Toole of the Thoreau Inst in Oregon notes: “Planners have an omniscient ability to know how all land should be used, while what they call uncoordinated land use responds only to petty things like what people want and are willing to pay for.”

Planners “know,” for example, the Portland has too much single-family housing and not enough multi-family housing, so they see nothing wrong with mandatory minimum-density zoning. The fact that Portland has one of the nation’s least affordable markets for single-family housing while apartment vacancies are at near-record levels only shows that people haven’t yet learned how wonderful the city will be when planners are through imposing their rules.

Burton also suggested that all residents and businesses in the Portland area should be required to pay a “transportation utility fee.” Such a fee, Burton says, “recognizes that transportation is truly a public utility like water, sewer, telephone and electricity.”

The difference, O’Toole notes, is that people pay for the water, sewer, telephone, and electricity they actually use, while the Portland planners want the transportation fees for light-rail lines that few use and that have been repeatedly rejected by voters. (O’Toole is author of The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths, the 545-page book about how smart growth will harm American cities. $14.95 plus $4 shipping in the US www.ti.org rot@ti.org)