Understanding Roads

Americans are spending immense sums of money making cosmetic improvements to a transportation system that is simply not working. Traffic engineers, lacking the correct tools to actually solve traffic problems, have convinced themselves that they are fighting the good fight. They are supported by local government officials, anxious for that next hit of growth that will give the local economy a temporary high. It is a destructive alliance, one that we can no longer afford.

Yesterday we announced our Virtual Curbside Chat, to be held a week from today at 1:00 PM CST. If you have not already registered, please sign up to reserve a spot (we have capacity for only 250) and to receive instructions for connecting to the Chat. Our Curbside Chat program has been immensely popular and this "virtual" chat is a fantastic opportunity to take part if we've not been to your community. 

I don't want to pick on Springfield, MO. I have to admit that I've never been there, but I do like Missouri in general and have enjoyed my time there (except that summer at Fort Leonardwood -- yuck, I hate clay and chiggers). I'm sure Springfield is a great place filled with great people. They just have the poor fortune of having had a local booster make a ridiculous video touting the "pedestrian-friendly features" of their diverging diamond interchange and, well.... It's not personal, Springfield. We'd love to come there for a Curbside Chat.

Last week we looked again at the criticisms of my critique of the Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) in Springfield. In the piece (A 45 mph world - November 21, 2011) I made three observations:

1. We don't have anywhere near the money necessary to maintain our current surface transportation system.
2. The system we've built is financially inefficient and unproductive.
3. Americans do not understand the difference between a road and a street.

Today we are going to look at the so-called roads feeding into the interchange. That would be Missouri 13, supposedly a highway of some sort. Missouri state statutes define a highway rather broadly in Section 300.010, actually indicating that a "street" is the same as a "highway":

"Street" or "highway", the entire width between the lines of every way publicly maintained when any part thereof is open to the uses of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. "State highway", a highway maintained by the state of Missouri as a part of the state highway system;

Maybe they mean that it could be a street OR a highway if it is publicly maintained and used for vehicular travel. It makes little difference, as we will see, because they've actually built neither a street nor a highway.

The photo below (credit: Google Earth) shows the diverging diamond and the surrounding land use. Notice that Missouri 13 (which runs north/south) intersects Missouri Route 744 about half a mile south of the diverging diamond. This is the short stretch of STROAD (street/road hybrid) we're going to focus on.

The Missouri DOT, using $3 million of state and federal funds, built the DDI. It was reported at the time that a regular interchange would have cost $10 million, making the DDI not only safer but much cheaper. This is the core of the argument in favor of the DDI, which I really don't disagree with. If you diagnose the problem here as one of traffic, then by all means, use the cheaper and safer alternative. And that is how they diagnosed the problem: "tremendous traffic problems".

Don Saiko, PE, who is a project manager in the Springfield, Missouri District of MODOT, got word of the DDI concept and wanted to investigate the design in the Springfield area.  He got permission to test the design at I-44 and Kansas Expressway (SR 13) which had been experiencing tremendous traffic problems and safety issues due mainly to the small left turn storage areas to the ramps.  A $10 million budget was given for the construction of this project.  The simulations for the design looked very promising to fix the traffic and safety problems.  It was also a very cost effective solution. The DDI was only going to cost about $3 million, saving the state $7 million of the budgeted cost, which would have been the cost for a conventional diamond solution.

If you only have a hammer, every problem becomes a nail, even if your hammer is a European import.

Unfortunately, like all DOT's that I have ever studied or interacted with, the problem in this situation was misdiagnosed. It was not traffic -- or more specifically the stacking and congestion of traffic -- at the interchange. The problem is how the public's investment in Missouri 13 has been debased for short-term economic gain and how, in the process, that has made the corridor unworkable as an actual highway.

Here's what I'm talking about. In order to support the adjacent land use that you see in the picture above, that single half mile of Missouri 13 -- a state HIGHWAY -- contains 29 intersections (each marked with an 'X' in the photo below). That is an intersection roughly every 100 feet. You can't have a highway with smooth, free-flowing, efficient traffic patterns when you also try and accommodate that type of land use pattern.

And look at some of these intersections up close. It is just plain bizarre, especially for a supposedly high-capacity roadway, one I'm certain we've invested millions of dollars to build and maintain.

Now ask yourself as you look at these photos: who are these engineers kidding? What type of improved traffic flow do they really think they are creating by spending $3 million up the street on an interchange? What type of safety improvements do they think they are making at an interchange when they have vastly more dangerous STROAD built like this?

This reminds me of the New Testament parable about looking at the sliver in your neighbor's eye while ignoring the beam in your own. Are we honestly looking at this corridor and diagnosing the traffic problem here as the interchange? Or is it just that the transportation funding -- not to mention the local land use incentives -- favor dealing with slivers and not beams?

And this is just one half mile. This pattern extends a long ways along ol' Missouri 13.

This is far from an efficient transportation system. If you give me $10 million to spend here, I spend it closing accesses. You can do more to improve traffic flow and efficiency by closing these accesses than anything else. All you have here is a bunch of people making inefficient local trips on a highway sized for high-speed, through traffic. That's not a traffic problem. It's a land use problem.

Of course, we can't close accesses. People who own land adjacent to highways have a God-given right to highway access, regardless of the impact. And when an access is taken away, they must be compensated (although it should be noted, when the highway was built, is improved and/or their access is enhanced, that is just the public's responsibility and by no means should be a cost assessed to them). It is the local land use version of "heads I win, tails you lose" because -- in our current system -- the public is either forced to invest endlessly in a transportation approach that can never truly work or are going to pay huge sums of money in compensation.

If those are the only two choices we have, I refuse to play the game. I would not spend a dime on this waste of a corridor. As I wrote last week, the DDI is just putting lipstick on a pig. (Note: Later this week I am going to discuss some other choices we might consider, things that are not on the table today).

Let me finish by making two related observations. The major impetus for building the DDI here was supposedly safety, as it supposedly is in all similar transportation "enhancements" (see earlier conversation on slivers and beams). In fact I had to laugh at this AAA spokesman who has bought into this racket as well:

Mike Right, spokesman for AAA Missouri, said the new design is a positive change, as it reduces construction costs while moving traffic faster and more safely. As motorists have adjusted to roundabouts, American drivers will learn and adapt to the diverging diamond, he said.

I'm assuming that he drove the Missouri 13 STROAD -- about the least safe traffic environment you could be in, with high-speed designs mashed up with turning traffic, stop and go traffic, sudden lane changes and obnoxious signage -- thinking that this was normal. And it is, really, because despite being ridiculously unsafe, it is a design that is ubiquitous across America.

Which leads me to my other observation: Is this all worth it? Yeah, you got the WalMart investment there (which yields less in tax capacity on a square foot basis than Springfield's traditional neighborhoods, I am certain), but really, does anyone in Springfield believe this is more than a near-term benefit? If you do think this is a great long-term investment, I have a challenge for you. Drive south along Missouri 13 until you find the area that was built 30 years ago. How's that area looking? How's it holding up? 

I'm going to venture an educated guess that it's not. Like the land use around the DDI intersection, it was designed for one life cycle. It will not retain its value, it will not be adequately maintained. Today's next new thing is tomorrow's place in decline and a future slum or brownfield site. For some reason we accept that in America. We need to step back and realize that, in the course of human history, it is not normal. Or healthy. Or financially viable.

The time to start building Strong Towns is now.

I have a lot of ideas for how to start addressing these problems. Over the next couple of days I'm going to give you two to think about specifically regarding our highways as STROADs problem. They are approaches that would certainly be rejected by everyone involved in the current system, but all good ideas start out that way. I'm interested to hear your opposition and see if it will turn to support upon reflection. Stay tuned...

Comments

[Jeff]

it's hard to disagree, but I wonder if there aren't two diverging issues:

1) that the land use pattern is nonsense and we have to avoid it.

2) that despite that problem, in some areas we're still stuck with it! I'm not entirely sure where the need to fix what we have and the need to avoid creating more of what we're stuck with collide.

that said, for the life of me I don't understand why modern roundabouts haven't caught on like wildfire.

I read this:

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/trafficeng/topics/PowerPoint/RoundAbouts_August_2010.pptx and this: http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/roundabouts/presentations/safety_aspects/long.cfm

and this:

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/roundabouts/presentations/safety_aspects/long.cfm

and see great ideas. most people see something weird and foreign and scary and intimidating.

[Charles Marohn]

Jeff,

Yeah, I think there are some practical considerations, but I think we have to find a way to get through them. On your two points, obviously we need to avoid a continuation of this pattern. For some reason, we seem unable to do so. (Actually, the reason is clear -- there is a near-term cash advantage for the new growth that it creates and this provides an illusion of wealth along with a massive, long-term liability). The next two days I'm going to throw out a couple of "radical" ideas (radical in the sense that they are far outside of the status quo approach, not radical in that they are crazy or impractical) that I think starts to get at a solution.

On the second point, we ARE stuck with it -- YES -- but it is not financially viable over the long run. We're going to be forced to make some tough choices on our transportation system in the very near future. As communities grapple with those tough choices, I would like to see them invest in areas with a higher public ROI, disinvest in places like this corridor and do that intentionally instead of as part of an overall, long decline.

I agree on the roundabout. Our failure to adopt it has more to do with hubris than anything. We are being ridiculous and wasteful. We'll look back at ourselves and shake our heads at our foolishness someday. The greatest inventors, innovators, companies and governments study other approaches, learn from them and then adapt and improve upon the best for themselves. The belief that we have nothing to learn from the transportation systems of Europe is a great American, myopic failing.

Thanks so much for your thoughts.

-Chuck

[Nicholas Barnard]

I'm curious if access collector roads are what you'd recommend here. I've seen these used as a sort of parallel street to have people make one turn to get off the main road, then navigate to their actual destination. It works, but doesn't it just add an extra set of pavement to maintain?

[Steve]

Yes, they would work, but they would just be another enablement of our current wholly-unsustainable land-use policy. Sort of like methadone clinics: former heroin addicts don't get clean, they just switch dependencies.

[Charles Marohn]

Could not have said it better myself, Steve.

We need streets in places and roads to connect them. If you are seeking the transition between the two, think roundabout or simply a lane widening and change of cross section for a street.

We use collector roads today. In fact, I am pretty sure that someone would classify MO 13 as a collector in this system, even though at one point it was the major arterial. That is what we do....instead of improving the quality/value of a road over time, we degrade them slowly, sucking the value out of them until we are forced to replace them with another mega-project.

-Chuck

[daveadams]

Just got linked to this post out of context, so I admit I feel a little confused by your arguments, because I can't really tell what you're arguing for. I lived in Springfield for over a decade and I'm very familiar with this area. Having driven through again a few times since this interchange was installed, I have to say from a motorists' perspective, the new interchange seems to be a big improvement in terms of traffic flow during peak periods, and instead of requiring major reconstruction, it just required some new concrete medians and stoplights and some new striping. In terms of the immediate purpose of improving the throughput of that interchange, it appears to have been a good investment compared to other options.

While I agree with your assessments of the poor design of this stretch of Highway 13 (if you want irony, the road is actually named "Kansas Expressway"), you seem to be making several incorrect assumptions. The infrastructure here is decades old, as are most of the buildings. From your text, it sounds like you may believe the Walmart to be new development, but it's been there for at least 17 years, and the rest of the commercial buildings in this stretch is actually the 30-plus-year-old neighborhood you mention in your final two paragraphs. In the past decade, most of the shopping centers have received exterior upgrades, some infill development has been built, a few buildings have been torn down and replaced. One store building has been converted into a large branch library just eight years ago.

But to step back a little here, again it's unclear what you are arguing for. Disinvestment in built-up areas that were poorly designed? As to your complaint "instead of improving the quality/value of a road over time, we degrade them slowly, sucking the value out of them until we are forced to replace them with another mega-project", this seems hardly to fit that bill. $3 million amounts to minor maintenance of an overpass/interchange. What alternative do you think would "improve the quality/value" more readily? I don't believe any of your complaints about the pre-existing nature of the area could be addressed with so little funding.

To put it more simply: I agree 100% that this area is poorly designed, pedestrian-hostile, and dangerous; that Walmart is a cancer on the economy and on society; and that were we to start from scratch this outcome ought to be considered a monstrous failure. But here in the real world, we have a busy and dangerous street, a bottleneck overpass to an area where a lot of commuters live, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of existing infrastructure in place. Do you leave the area to rot? If not, how do you improve it?

[Charles Marohn]

@daveadams Thanks for your comment and your local perspective. Yeah, you are picking this up halfway through (although had you waited until tomorrow you would be really confused). Might help you to read this article:

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2011/11/21/a-45-mph-world.html

The first point in that article is that we don't have the resources to maintain all of the transportation infrastructure we have built. We seem to build places like this, which have a very low return on investment ($3 million for a small maintenance project -- compare that cost to the revenue gained from this and other similar investments). We are being forced to choose how to spend limited transportation dollars. Strong Towns would advocate for spending them somewhere else, somewhere more financially productive.

A 17 year old WalMart is still in its first life cycle. As such, there is no doubt in my mind that the city of Springfield is making money off of this transaction and you, as a driver, are enjoying the "prosperity" that this all brings, both in terms of your travel time and shopping options. Unfortunately, that prosperity is a near-term illusion brought about by the underlying financial mechanisms of this pattern of growth. Once you reach the second life cycle, the cash outflow greatly exceeds the cash inflow and then the problems start.

We've described this in a series of essays you can find here:

http://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/

You are saying that I would dis-invest in this corridor, and I guess I would not argue with that characterization. I would divert the limited public resources to more productive parts of the transportation system and, with this corridor specifically, start making plans to devolve it back to something that would be financially viable, or at least something that would limit the public's long-term commitment to it. Tomorrow I'll discuss a taxing option that would provide a better balance between land use and transportation decisions than our current approach does.

Like I said in the beginning, this is not a Springfield-specific issue -- this pattern is everywhere in this country -- but I was sent this video and have since been in a prolonged discussion on the value of this particular interchange. Thanks again, and I really appreciate the local input.

-Chuck

[Natasha Tygart]

I don't think the government cares about what we say, which is very unfortunate.