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Monday, August 21, 2006
High-density growth makes knots tighter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The development community, astute folks who know how to survive and prosper in a world of crazed no-growth activists and cost-shifting regulators, often do it by cloaking their projects in the language of their critics: smart growth, live-work-play communities and sustainable development, among others.
It all adds up to density, though — high density, like much of that now cropping up along I-285 on the Northside. It’s transportation disaster in the making. The highway capacity doesn’t exist to carry current traffic, much less that to be generated by the new spate of high-rise development: 1,200-unit condos, 12- and 18-story condo projects. Buses and trains aren’t a solution.
The fact of life in metro Atlanta is that there is no single downtown, no employment center where people are drawn in the morning and out in the evening, making public transportation a realistic option. In metro Atlanta, we move hither and yon to destinations that public transit can’t reasonably or effectively serve. The best hope for relief is to fix traffic bottlenecks, to continue building a limited-purpose rush-hour public bus system and to reconsider high-density development that exceeds highway carrying capacity.
The American Public Transport Association, an industry group, reports that gas now at $3 per gallon is increasing ridership — up 4.25 percent in the first quarter. Salt Lake City is asking public approval this fall to borrow $900 million to add 30 miles of track, one phase of a project expected to cost $1.2 billion. But for $1.2 billion, Salt Lake City connects point A to point B, serving the few who travel between those points when trains run, while doing nothing for those who travel A-to-C or C-to-G, or any other combination.
Metro Atlanta does need toll roads. It needs gas-tax money to fix the bottlenecks on a cost-benefit basis, and it needs the private sector to expand capacity — even double-decking the Downtown Connector, a perennial traffic stop. And it needs, too, what the SUV-haters call “alternatives” — buses, trains and the like — but to the extent they can be justified by honest cost-benefit comparisons.
The issue all along has not been whether the private sector should be invited to help provide congestion relief. The question has been when and where and the relationship between the public and private sectors. Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Ariel Hart took a look Sunday at what that relationship has been in other states. All provide some guidance. Two in particular offer lessons in what not to do.
One is the Chicago Skyway, a 99-year lease with Spanish and Australian companies to provide $1.8 billion in cash, at least $100 million of which went to provide social services. That is a perfect example of the kind of public-private relationship that should prompt voters to throw politicians out of office by the bus loads. “Selling” or providing 99-year leases on public assets is nothing more than a sleazy way of hiding public debt while enriching the bond lawyers.
In one sense government is not like a business. It can’t write off debt. Debt should be acquired to build the schools, fire stations and jails that will enhance the quality of life for present and future generations. But it should not tax future generations for present consumption, which is what it does when it “sells” projects taxpayers have already financed. The underlying asset — the Chicago Skyway — could have been a toothpick. It’s merely a financial transaction that allows a loan agreement to be created. Bad. Always bad. It’s why taxpayers have to be careful in policing public-private business relationships.
The other project of particular interest is California Route 91, the first example of congestion-priced lanes in the country when it opened in 1995. The private sector added express lanes with tolls parallel to existing lanes. Part of the contract, however, prevents the state from adding more lanes or streets nearby that could ease congestion. No contract the state signs here should prevent future legislators and governors from taking whatever steps necessary to keep gridlock from becoming an obstacle to growth and prosperity.
The private sector is a friend, a key element in eliminating gridlock. But once the deal is done, government essentially moves off-line. The proper time to police both the politicians attempting to build legacies on the cheap and businessmen determined to cut the best deal possible for themselves is up front.
As for high-density development, it should be held in check until we know that the carrying capacity of roads and highways is adequate to serve the added traffic. Buzzwords and feel-good marketing phrases don’t cure what ails us in metro Atlanta — and that’s traffic gridlock.
• Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
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The Dixie Chick of Politics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Once upon a distant time, oh, say, 15 years ago, no figure more noteworthy than a Dixie Chick would dared have stood on foreign soil — or chosen a foreign publication — to criticize a sitting President of the United States. Wouldn’t do it. We disagree amongst ourselves but for an American of standing, it is disloyal and disrespectful to stand on foreign soil and undermine the foreign policy of the United States of America.
That was before Jimmy Carter and the embittered anti-war evolution of his party, the “vast majority” of whom he professes to represent. Having previously spoken in opposition to President Bush abroad, the former president unloaded last week in the German magazine DER SPIEGEL. “There is no doubt that this administration has made a radical and unpressured departure from the basic policies of all previous administrations including those of both Republican and Democratic presidents,” Carter told the magazine. “Under all of its predecessors there was a commitment to peace instead of preemptive war.”
Carter, 81 years old, goes on. And on. On Israel: “I don’t think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon.” On Christian conservatives: “The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God’s ideas and God’s premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong.” And from there it goes downhill. Bad Christians. Bad administration. Evil. They bad, Carter good.
Listening to Carter is about like listening to Andrew Young, 74 years old, as he talks about the Jews, Koreans and Arabs who ran mom-and-pop stores in the ghetto. At some point you just want a respectful press corps to say: “shut off the microphone; they’re sounding really old and bitter.”
In the political rancor of the past 15 years or so, we’ve lost a great deal. In so many instances, it’s not men and women who are from Mars and Venus. It’s liberals and conservatives. At some point, the loyal opposition must reemerge as force that can oppose without becoming completely unhinged, and ex-Presidents, recognizing that they had their shot, will hold their tongue. As a reminder that conservatives and liberals exist in different worlds, in mine ex-Presidents would rather cut off their tongue than use it to criticize the sitting President abroad, especially in time of war. Today’s question about the old guys is this: Is it time to shut up and go away? And I wonder, too, whether we can ever get back to the principle that Americans of standing — entertainers and celebrities excluded — don’t criticize their country or its policies on foreign soil.
