Tag Archives: infrastructure

The Economist calls for more gov’t power to construct needed mass transit in London

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London needs more mass transit capacity – and The Economist argues governmental bodies need more power to expand the system.

Whereas the number of people driving in London is falling, Tube and bus use is surging. Each day 3.7m people use the Underground while 6.4m take a bus. Once-quiet routes are crammed. The London Overground, a rebranded and improved railway line, carries 120m passengers a year, up from just 33m in 2008. The Docklands Light Railway carried 66m passengers in 2008. It now carries 100m…

The changing character of the capital makes things trickier. Much of the city’s population growth over the past decade has been in east London, which is poorly served by the Tube. Parts of inner London such as Kensington and Chelsea have lost people. In future, thinks Sir Peter Hendy, TfL’s boss, most population growth will be in the suburbs. Yet jobs are becoming increasingly clustered in the middle—in the City, Canary Wharf and the West End. “If you’re an insurance company, you don’t look at a map and settle on Enfield,” says Sir Peter. London will not just have more people: it will have more people travelling farther to their jobs…

Grand projects help, at huge cost. But there is a simpler, cheaper way of adding capacity, insists Sir Peter: make much better use of London’s huge existing commuter railway network. Which means giving him more control…

London’s transport could be improved even more if the mayor were given control over local taxes. Crossrail is being financed through a combination of government cash, fares and an increase in land values. A business-rate supplement on non-domestic properties with a rateable value of £55,000 ($80,000) or more has supplied £4 billion for the project. This arrangement could be extended for Crossrail 2, and more widely.

This is an interesting look at how London is going about tackling an issue many cities are facing: how to provide more mass transit amidst growing populations. Additionally, as the article notes, numerous interests may have opposition if lines are not placed to their liking or financial pressure falls on them. Large infrastructure projects aren’t necessarily easy to carry out anyway and all of these projects in London will require quite a bit of power to pull off.

The fate of major world cities could depend on these projects: as they continue to grow, they simply can’t provide more roads and many places do not exactly desire more suburban communities for the wealthy (though more of this may happen, including in London). Yet, the more cities grow, the projects become more and more difficult to put together because of hearing from different groups, moving people, and paying for land and higher construction costs.

Scaffolding makes buildings possible

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Constructing large buildings and repairing them requires a somewhat simple yet crucial element: scaffolds.

Scaffolds, fundamentally and philosophically, allow for newness—but they are, in every other way, very, very old. The caves of Lascaux, home to paleolithic paintings thought to be the first evidence of humanity’s expansion into artistry, feature sockets in their walls—borings that suggest Earth’s earliest expressionists relied on scaffolding to do their work. There’s evidence of scaffolding—wood, secured with knotted ropes—in ancient Greece. And in ancient Egypt.

In more contemporary times, scaffolds have become ubiquitous. In cities, scaffolds are part of the everyday sightscape, so saturated that they become almost invisible. We duck under them on sidewalks. We hang signs on them, taking advantage of their impermanent platform. We sense their message: that building is happening, that things are changing, that progress is marching on. And we sense that, in their way, they are generous. They are with us, in large part, to help something else come into being.

They may be considered ugly by some but they are indispensable. With them, you can reach great heights without machines. Imagine cherry pickers tall enough to reach the top of the Washington Monument or using helicopters for such work.

While they are necessary parts of our infrastructure, I don’t know that I would go so far as to celebrate their presence on the Washington Monument or other great landmarks. Two quick examples where I have seen scaffolding in action:

1. When I was in grad school at the University of Notre Dame, the school undertook a regilding of the golden dome on the Main Building. This isn’t just a gold color; the school uses gold leaf on the exterior. However, this led to an outcry from seniors that they wouldn’t be able to take graduation pictures in front of the dome because of the scaffolding. If I remember correctly, the school removed the scaffolding for graduation weekend and then started up work again.

2. On a couple of Hollywood studio tours, we saw the interiors of the some of the backlot sets. It might look like a New York City street but once you walked inside, you saw that it was a facade with a bunch of scaffolding inside on the backside of the exterior walls.

In both cases, the scaffolding was a necessary part of the process but it is not the main point. The job of scaffolding is to get out of the way to leave a more impressive structure behind. Perhaps scaffolding at the Washington Monument provides a change of pace but it is meant to be temporary. Like a lot of good infrastructure, you shouldn’t have to consider its necessity if it doing its job.

“4 Hard Truths About [mass] Transit”

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A new report from a Toronto-area panel argues there are key points that need to be understood about mass transit:

1. “Subways are not the only good form of transit.” There’s a tendency to see subways as the optimal form of urban transportation. For sure, an efficient subway system, with the power of moving thousands of people quickly through crowded corridors, can make a great city even greater. At the same time, heavy rail is extremely expensive and only appropriate when levels of existing density demand it…

2. “Transit does not automatically drive development.” Hard truth number two picks up where hard truth number one left off. It’s become increasingly fashionable to suggest that transit alone can boost the local economy by attracting businesses and retail development. Again, to be sure, public transportation that increases access to a dense area can produce so-called “agglomeration economies” — in other words, they can be worth way more than their cost to a city…

3. The cost of transit is more than construction. Canadian governments, like those in the United States, separate capital costs of constructing public transportation from the operational costs of running it. The Ontario panel argues that this practice can obscure the total investment needed to pay for a new line or system throughout its functional life. As this chart shows, capital costs are in many cases just a fraction (though a sizeable one) of 50-year costs for a mode..

4. Transit users aren’t the only ones who benefit from transit. This point is perhaps the panel’s most important. The discussion about public transportation often dissolves into an emotional debate about whether or not all city residents should pay for a system used by only some. It’s an odd contention, really, since few people also argue that paying for police, hospitals, schools are worthwhile — although not everyone uses these public services, either.

It is good to take a sober look at large-scale infrastructure projects. But, I wonder if a mass transit proponent wouldn’t look at this list and think that the first three are fairly negative: a good mass transit system offers multiple options, transit doesn’t guarantee development, and the costs are long-term.

If these are good principles, perhaps the next question to ask is then how to build a good system in a city. If there is not much there to start, which might be the case in denser or larger suburbs or newer big cities, how does one overcome the high initial start-up costs? Additionally, how do you move more Americans out of cars as it seems that when they have the choice to drive or not, they will choose driving?

Connecting McMansions to water runoff problems

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Echoing a post from a few days ago, a editor to the letter suggests the construction of McMansions has led to more flooding problems in Needham, Massachusetts:

The recent Times article on flooding after our “hundred year storm” didn’t mention one likely contributor to the storm water runoff problem — McMansions. Teardowns surely contributed to the recent flooding, because each new McMansion’s large footprint eliminated a big chunk of drainage land from Needham’s overall water absorption capacity. And building large homes on previously open lots is an even more direct “drain” on our Town’s total runoff capacity.

I’m sure someone could go through the records and calculate exactly how many acres have been lost to big houses (and driveways) over the past 10 years of heightened development. Though we haven’t exactly “paved Paradise and put up a parking lot,” I’m guessing this is enough of a factor that it should be taken into account as Needham considers its longer range development future.

At face value, this seems to make sense. However, I would still have a few questions:

1. What if the new teardown McMansions actually include more efficient drainage systems? This might occur because of updated building codes. I’m not quite sure how this might balance out against having a larger footprint.

2. Is the problem really McMansions, large houses on smaller lots, or is this more of a problem of sprawl in general? Perhaps bigger suburban houses are worse than smaller suburban houses when it comes to water issues but it seems like the underlying problem might be suburban development in the first place.

3. Are there better ways for homebuilders to limit water runoff with new homes? If so, why not require these options for new homes? Local municipalities could make such decisions if they are unwilling to limit more sprawl. Why not require permeable driveways and roadways in new developments?

Considering a new utility tax in DuPage County to help address flooding

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These are the sorts of issues sprawl brings: the DuPage County Chairman discussed a new power available to the county to collect tax monies to address flooding.

Cronin told the audience at a Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon that flooding has long been a serious problem in DuPage.

In order to address it, he said, infrastructure improvements are needed. Right now, money for those projects comes from property taxes.

The proposed utility fee would charge property owners based on use. Those who have more stormwater leaving their land would pay a higher fee. Anyone with land producing less stormwater runoff would pay a lower fee.

Enacting a utility fee would make it possible to have charges for stormwater projects removed from the property tax bill, he said…

However, some residents already are opposing the idea. Last month, protesters demonstrated before a county board meeting and called the proposal a “rain tax.” Objections also are expected to come from schools, churches and other tax-exempt entities that would be required to pay the fee.

At this point, DuPage County is largely built-out (or the land is tied up in Forest Preserves) so dealing with flooding is largely taking place after the development has already happened. Thus, remediation can be quite expensive. I imagine residents and organizations would not like the idea of a new tax but flooding is a serious recurring issue.

On a related note about the cost and length of projects intended to combat flooding: here is a story about progress being made at constructing the world’s “largest reservoir of its kind in the world” in the south suburbs as part of the impressive Deep Tunnel.

A small crowd gathered Monday at the lip of the mammoth Thornton Quarry, all eyes fixed on an outcropping of dolomite nearly 300 feet below the shoulder of the westbound lanes of Interstate 80.

A ripple shot through the two-story rock formation, and it collapsed amid a small, dusty landslide. And so construction of the largest portion to date of the decades-in-the-making Deep Tunnel floodwater control system began with a bang…

When it goes online in 2015, the Thornton Composite Reservoir will hold 7.9 billion gallons of stormwater and sanitary sewer water from more than a dozen south suburban towns…

The 30-story-deep reservoir will fill like a regional bathtub during massive storms that threaten to overwhelm local sewer systems, a problem that has grown worse with more frequent and intense downpours in recent years and as development has replaced open, absorbent land with rooftops and pavement.

Dealing with flooding is not easy

Eleven years to complete Bay Bridge, 4 minutes to watch time-lapse video of its construction

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The Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland is a key traffic artery. The bridge opened recently and you can watch a time-lapse video of its long and expensive construction here. Quick thoughts:

1. This is an impressive undertaking. San Francisco Bay is a large body of water with lots of shipping. But, I’m usually impressed by big infrastructure projects.

2. This illustrates the problems that arise when so much traffic is dependent on one bridge. While there are other bridge options to get over the bay, they are out of the way to the north or the south for reaching much of San Francisco.

3. The new span is much better aesthetically. The old bridge was a truss structure that didn’t look very impressive. The new bridge has cable towers and the more minimalistic look is good. I look forward to seeing it from the waterside on my next trip to San Francisco.

3. The music on this official time-lapse video could be better. As an official video, it is likely that the music is licensed from some provider. However, it is rather bland rather than inspirational.

Greener driving doesn’t just involve greener cars; could also make a smarter, greener road

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In addition to greener cars, improvements to the infrastructure of roads would help make the whole system greener:

In Toronto, a university team has rolled out a software system that enables traffic lights to learn how cars and trucks flow under them—and then adjust their patterns of reds and greens to move that traffic more smoothly. The software, which uses artificial intelligence techniques, is installed at 59 intersections in downtown Toronto. The team’s computer modeling says this system of “smart self-learning traffic lights” reduces travel times by 25 percent and lowers carbon-dioxide emissions by 30 percent, according to a report issued this spring by the University of Toronto’s Baher Abdulhai, who is one of the system’s designers.

A slick piece of traffic-light software doesn’t get the juices flowing as much as, say, a battery-powered car that can rocket from zero to 60 in fewer than four seconds and never needs to fill up at a gas station. (That car would be the Tesla Roadster.) But such ho-hum advances may matter more. The United States has approximately 100,000 plug-in electric vehicles on the road, according to Plug In America, an electric-vehicle advocacy group. Though that’s a big jump from a few years ago, it still constitutes just 0.04 percent of the roughly 250 million cars of all types on American roads. And given that not quite 16 million new cars are sold in the United States annually, turning over today’s auto fleet will take many years. That means techniques that make the existing mass of cars move around more efficiently could have a much bigger near-term effect than radically environmentally friendlier ways to spin a car’s wheels…

The automotive analog of the smart grid is what some have dubbed the smart road. Companies from Google to major auto makers are testing cars that either are fully driverless or use technology to minimize a driver’s role in controlling the vehicle. One ostensible benefit of Big Brother sitting at the wheel is that he’d probably operate the car in a way that gets better gas mileage than you would. In Europe, a consortium of institutes and companies that includes Volvo is developing what it calls “road trains.” The concept, funded by the European Commission, is part NASCAR and part George Jetson…

Other, less technologically radical smart-road trappings have begun rolling out on a bit larger scale. More and more cities around the world have car-sharing programs, which use wireless technology to enable someone who has signed up to find an available car using a computer or smartphone and unlock it using a program’s membership card. Typically a user pays per-minute or per-hour for the car. When she’s done with it, she parks it near her destination, either in one of the car-sharing program’s designated spots or in a regular on-street parking space. The details vary according to the program. Because at least some members do away with owning a car, each shared car reduces the number of total cars on the road.

Fewer drivers tooling around city streets in their cars in search of parking spaces could have a sizable effect on the roads. An analysis of several studies conducted over many decades suggests that a whopping 30 percent of traffic in large cities is caused by drivers looking for parking spots, according to a 2006 report  by Donald Shoup, a UCLA urban-planning professor, who with his students conducted his own deep dive into traffic in Los Angeles’ Westwood Village. More traffic, of course, means more fuel consumed and more greenhouse gas emitted.

Perhaps all of these approaches would be best. It would be interesting to compare the costs and the beneficial impact of all of these options: having greener cars likely passes a lot of the costs to new car buyers but the other options dealing with the infrastructure could spread the costs across taxpayers and new apps or information (like Waze) could be put in the hands of drivers.

Additionally, these options bypass appear to bypass one sticking point for many Americans: feeling like they have to give up their car or that the government is trying to make driving more difficult. By making driving easier and letting them feel more in control (with some cost of course), they then don’t feel like their “right to drive” is being impinged upon. At the same time, this article doesn’t weigh all of these options versus increased mass transit.

Discussing the dangers of retention ponds in Naperville

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Retention ponds are plentiful in suburban developments as a means to handle excess water. But, officials in Naperville may soon look at regulations for retention ponds after a 6 year old recently drowned:

The pond, near the Glenmuir Luxury Rental Homes complex where Amer lived, reaches about 10 feet at its deepest point and is one of more than 200 bodies of water in Naperville — many of them man-made ponds created in recent decades to ease flooding when subdivisions were built, Naperville Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis said.

“Most of the ponds don’t have fencing or barriers,” Puknaitis said. “It’s highly impractical to do that with every pond. Even if you did, there’s nothing stopping somebody from scaling it.”

Several city council members agree that requiring fencing isn’t the best way to prevent future tragedies.

While fencing may seem an obvious way to prevent children from getting too close to retention ponds or falling in, Novack said there is a stormwater management reason not to install them: they block the flow of water during floods and slow the drainage process.

When single-family homes are constructed in the sprawling American manner, retention ponds are a necessity. Developing land and building homes often involves flattening land and disrupting the natural drainage. This is particularly an issue in swampier or low-lying areas where water already collected. They are so common that they are a ubiquitous “natural” presence that are often used as play areas or places to walk dogs. But while these ponds may seem natural, they are a carefully constructed part of the suburban infrastructure.

However, there are means by which to make retention ponds safer:

She said the recent trend toward letting natural vegetation grow along the shores of ponds helps to keep people — and Canada geese — away from the water and could contribute to increased safety.

So could using streams landscaped with native plants instead of large ponds to store water, Brodhead and Novack said.

In other words, it might take a little extra planning or effort but there are ways to “naturalize” the drainage. Communities could require developers to utilize these methods around retention ponds. And even if accidents in ponds are rare, it is hard to argue against safety in suburban settings.

Audits of Chicago budget reveal behind the scenes information about the city

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In addition to illustrating Chicago’s difficult financial situation, the 2012 budget audits also contain other interesting information about the city. Here are a few examples with some quick commentary:

The number of “physical arrests” by Chicago Police officers declined again — from 152,740 in 2011 to 145,390 in 2012. That continues a six-year trend that coincides with the hiring slowdown that caused a dramatic decline in the number of police officers. Police made 227,576 arrests in 2006. The number of arrests has been dropping like a rock ever since.

The Chicago Police Department has long argued that it doesn’t measure the success of crime-fighting strategies simply by the number of arrests.

Despite the negative media attention about crime in Chicago, arrests are down. So what has happened: less crimes are being committed? Chicago police have adopted different strategies?

Daily refuse collections declined from 3,983 tons in 2011 year ago to 3,763 in 2012. Last year’s 52-ton increase had reversed a five-year trend. The amount of garbage generated by the 600,000 Chicago households was 4,451 tons a day in 2006 to 4,240 in 2008.

Thanks to last year’s record heat and drought conditions, average daily water consumption rose by 23 million gallons — to 793 million gallons — reversing a steady decline. In 2006, Chicago’s 1.04 million households were guzzling 884.9 million gallons-a-day. Operating revenues in the city’s water fund were up by $122.1 million or 29.6 percent, thanks to Emanuel’s 25 percent increase in water rates.

Interesting contrast: less garbage but more water usage. This highlights the behind the scenes stuff that is essential to city life but doesn’t receive much attention (unlike crime). Over 3,700 tons of garbage a day! Where does it all go?

Chicago’s 165 tax-increment-financing districts had a collective balance of $1.5 billion. Most of that money is uncommitted, fueling an aldermanic demand Emanuel has rejected: to declare a TIF surplus and use the money to reduce some of the 3,000 layoffs at Chicago Public Schools.

TIFs are intended to collect money to help encourage new development. If there is such a surplus in the TIF funds, why aren’t they being used for development?

Chicago’s principal private employers were: J.P. Morgan Chase (8,168 workers); United Airlines (7,521); Accenture LLP (5,590); Northern Trust (5,448); Jewel Foods (4,572) and Ford Motor Co. (4,187). The 2012 city payroll was 33,708 — down from 40,297 in 2006.

An interesting list of companies – I was surprised by Chase leading the way and Ford so high on the list.

There are other interesting pieces of these audits including revenues and passengers at the two airports as well as the value of the city’s historical and art collection (if this figure is correct, nothing near what the city of Detroit controls). Such information not only hints at how the city really works but also provides helpful financial indicators for assessing the current state and future direction of the city.

The value of using maps to see the rise and fall of Detroit

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Here is a series of maps that show both the growth and decline of Detroit over its history. When looking at these maps, I’m reminded that it is quite difficult to talk about either the rise or decline of a major city just by discussing raw numbers, such as population increases or losses or economic figures, or photographs. For example, we could talk about the rise of Houston in recent decades and contrast this to the sharp population decrease in Detroit. Moving past statistics, we could include photographs of a city. Detroit has been photographed many times in recent years with often bleak scenes illustrating economic and social decline.

In some middle ground between numbers and photos and in-depth analysis (of which there does not seem to be much about Detroit recently – the mainstream media has primarily focused on short snippets of information) are maps. A good map has sufficient information to provide a top-down approach to the city and give some indication of the city’s infrastructure. Additionally, it is much easier today to provide multiple layers of mapped information based on Census data and other sources. Growth is relatively easy to see as new streets and points of interest starting showing up. On the other hand, decline might be harder to show as the streets may be empty and the points of interest might be decaying. Still, a current map shows the scope of the problem facing Detroit: it is population and economic decline plus a large chunk of land and structures that is difficult to maintain.

All together, I’m advocating for more widespread use of maps in reporting on and discussions about cities, whether they are struggling or thriving. Maps can help us move beyond seeing vacant houses or economic developments and take in the big picture all at once.