Better Looking Streets (Cheaper Too)

Engineers have an obsession with making neighborhood streets wider, flatter and straighter. It is not that they love such streets - they are human too (you'll have to trust me on that) and will often have the same reaction (yuck) that the rest of us have to these misapplied streets. Actually, it is funny how many engineers I have seen protest engineering projects that widen, flatten and straighten the street in front of their own home.

When engineers recommend wider, flatter and straighter streets, what they are doing is misapplying ROAD standards to STREETS. Roads are designed to move autos at high speeds from location to location. There are few intersections (aka: crash inducement sites) and so wider lanes, excess shoulder recovery area and turn lanes all make sense. 

Streets are more complex. With many intersections, we need traffic to drive slower. Slower traffic means narrower lanes and no need for wide, sweeping highway geometries.

We started this week talking about financial imbalances with a local street project. One of the recommendations we made had to do with the way in which we design streets. From our Monday posting:

Evaluate the City’s road standards to see if they can be transformed into sections that are more affordable to construct and maintain. Most small towns have road standards that are derivations of state-aid highway standards. Not only are these standards a poor fit for the context of the neighborhood, they place extra financial burden than what is warranted by the traffic volumes. 

The following are two different road sections that run through single-family residential neighborhoods. The first is in the City of Walker, MN, but could be in just about any town that has given their neighborhood design over to their engineer (aka: nearly every town in the country). The second photo we took on our recent trip to Celebration, Florida.

A neighborhood road in Walker, MN

A neighborhood street in Celebration, Florida.

I love this street in Celebration, which is actually typical of most of the streets there. Most other engineers would go crazy with this street. Not only do you have on-street parking, but the parking creates a situation where two cars actually could not meet traveling in opposite directions. The remaining street width is not wide enough.

Ostensibly, if the engineer is to be believed, cars will drive down the street and, due to this unsafe design, crash head first into each other. Of course, when we see this street we know this will not happen. When two cars meet (a rare occurrence), they simply slow down, pull over a little and let each other pass. There might even be (brace yourself) eye contact between the two drivers.

Let me add to the obvious here. The Celebration street is beautiful. Give any of us the choice between living on one of these two streets, we all choose the narrow street. We'll sacrifice the three seconds we save driving to the store to live someplace that is beautiful.

One final obvious point: the Celebration street costs less.

Demand that your engineer build a safe street that will not only look beautiful and enhance the neighborhood but actually cost you less money. Demand a Strong Town.

If you want a good book that includes a discussion on the value of eye-contact between drivers, read Traffic: Why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us).

You can continue this Strong Towns conversation by posting a comment or by joining us on Facebook. You can also follow Strong Towns on Twitter. We appreciate all of the feedback and support.

The Cost of Development, Local Roads Edition

Most communities are struggling with their near-term budgets, yet few ponder the long-term financial implications of their land use patterns. The central principle of a Strong Towns approach is that there needs to be an understanding of the Return on Investment for public expenditures, particularly those made on transportation and infrastructure. Communities need to understand the real financial implications of their land use decisions.

It is our contention that, if people understood the ROI and the long-term financial implications - or better yet, were expected to fund the full cost of their living choices - they would voluntarily make different decisions. By masking these costs - using the Four Mechanisms of Growth amongst other means - we generate near-term growth at the expense of our long-term prosperity.

We were recently able to have a conversation with the City of Afton in regards to a specific road project they had undertaken. Afton is an exurban community on the eastern edge of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area. Afton has a population of around 2,800 and a population density of 113 people per square mile - very low. If you are interested in knowing more statistics on Afton, you can click here.

The following is a rather technical (but readable) analysis of the project and its financing. At the end we give some potential solutions that all communities should be considering.

_______________________________________________________

There were 40 properties that were directly impacted by the Afton Hills project. Together those properties paid $44,473 in property tax in 2008 (we don’t have 2009 numbers).

The engineer’s estimate for the project that we received last July was $354,000. That included the reclaim and base course ($250k), the finished wear course ($80k) and the addition of Afton Hills Court ($24k) to the project. I know the final numbers differed from this amount, but for the sake of this analysis you will see that the precise numbers will not dramatically change the conclusion.

In 2009 the City of Afton did not budget for capital improvements. This means that the $45k paid by the property owners that benefitted from the project went entirely to other government functions – general government, public safety, routine maintenance, etc… In other words, after paying for their share of the functioning of the local government, residents of Afton Hills contributed nothing to the project.

If the City of Afton were to dedicate 10% of the property tax revenue to capital improvement projects - which would require a 10% cut in spending or a 10% increase in revenue – then we would have an annual contribution from Afton Hills towards capital improvements of $4,473.

Total Property Tax Paid to the City:             $44,473

10% Dedicated to Capital Improvements    x     10%

TOTAL                                                     $  4,473

Some simple math demonstrates how 10% of the budget dedicated to capital improvements is not going to bring the Afton Hills project into balance with the adjacent tax base.

Project Cost:                                                  $354,000

Annual Contribution from Affected Property Owners at 10% of Tax Revenue: $4,473/year

Time to Payoff[1]  =  $354,000 / $4,473  =  79 years

Since the roadway – properly constructed and maintained - would only be expected to last between 20 and 30 years without another significant improvement, dedicating only 10% of revenue to capital improvements means the city will need revenue from some other source to maintain Afton Hills drive over the long run.

If we were to look at this from a different angle we can get an estimate of what it would take to balance the long-term commitment the City has to maintain the roadways in the Afton Hills area with the long-term revenues it receives from that area.

If we were to take the entire project cost and bond for it over a 25-year period of time at a favorable municipal rate of 3%, it would result in an annual payment of $20,320.

            Project Cost:               $354,000

            Interest Rate:                        3%

            Bonding Term:            25 years

            Annual Payment:       $  20,320

If the City were to increase property taxes to recover this amount from the residents of Afton Hills, it would require an increase of 46%.

Current Annual Revenue from Afton Hills: $44,473

Additional Annual Revenue Needed from Afton Hills:     $20,320

Increase in Taxes Collected = ($44,473 + $20,320) / $44,473 – 1 = 46%

This is an analysis of one neighborhood in Afton. While it is fair to point out that we don’t budget neighborhood-by-neighborhood but over the entire City, there are some important things to point out.

• Afton Hills is one of the higher density areas of the City of Afton. In theory, it should be a net-exporter of tax dollars (generate more tax revenue than it consumes in services) since most of the rest of the City has a higher service-demand / revenue ratio.

• The ability of the City to assess for these improvements is questionable. While some cities assess maintenance costs, State Statutes require that property values be improved by the amount of any assessment. While the City Attorney can provide specific guidance on this item, it is not clear that a property would have any real increase in value going from a paved road to a nicer paved road.

• Costs of road maintenance have historically risen faster than inflation. While that has not been true in recent years, asphalt (a petroleum product) is a major component of flexible pavements and hauling costs are also closely related to oil and gas prices. There are reasons to believe these costs will continue to increase at an accelerated rate.

• It is not clear that home values are going to continue to increase at the same accelerated rate. In fact, there are significant reasons to believe that housing prices will stagnate or decline in coming years. (I’ve attached a recent article from the Strong Towns Blog that discusses this in some detail.) If housing prices fail to keep up, this will create an even greater imbalance between the City’s revenue stream and the cost of road maintenance.

The obvious question at this point is: what do we do? Some possibilities:

• Evaluate the current land use pattern and its implications. Every time we add a development like Afton Hills that has more long-term maintenance liability than revenue-generation capacity, it creates an imbalance that needs to be made up somehow. To stop digging the hole deeper, a change in the pattern of development needs to happen.

• Seek ways within the pattern of development to make more-efficient use of existing infrastructure investments. While Afton residents have indicated that they do not want additional density, it may be possible to locate new development along existing infrastructure in a way that is compatible with the character of the community. Where this is done, the City would be adding additional revenue without incurring additional maintenance liability.

• Consider a strategy of aggressive road maintenance. Some communities have been able to significantly extend the life of their roads through aggressive maintenance practices. Deep annual inspections combined with intensive and site-specific maintenance plans have been shown to double the life of some roadways.

• Evaluate the City’s road standards to see if they can be transformed into sections that are more affordable to construct and maintain. Most small towns have road standards that are derivations of state-aid highway standards. Not only are these standards a poor fit for the context of the neighborhood, they place extra financial burden than what is warranted by the traffic volumes. 

• Raise taxes and/or cut services in order to dedicate more revenue to the long-term cost of maintaining infrastructure. The land use pattern used in Afton is expensive to maintain. That is a reality that will need to be addressed at some point.

I look forward to discussing these ideas with you.

---

[1] Not including adjustments for inflation or assuming future tax increases or property value increases. It is assumed, for this analysis, that the increases will be offset by inflation with no change in local government policy. Inflation rates that exceed tax increases or property value increases would extend the time to payoff.

You can continue this Strong Towns conversation by posting a comment or by joining us on Facebook. You can also follow Strong Towns on Twitter. We appreciate all of the feedback and support.

Friday News Digest

Happy New Year to all of our readers. We have not published a News Digest since the middle of December and so the challenge this week was sifting through this huge stack of stuff. I think you will find the mix here worth your time.

I realize the nation is in a cold spell and so I am not likely to get much in the way of sympathy by talking about how cold it is here. Take some solace, as I am, in the fact that it is roughly six weeks until pitchers and AL MVP's report to Spring Training.

Enjoy this week's news:

• My political views tend to be to the right (and that is balanced here at Strong Towns by others that lean to the left). I offer that comment as a prelude to my amusement (in lieu of frustration) with the Republicans and their philosophical contradictions on infrastructure spending. Limited government. More roads means more freedom. Reduced budgets. More spending on infrastructure means more jobs. This article is a thoughtful discussion of some of the inherent contradictions in my party's approach to infrastructure.

• Engineers are brilliant at what they do, but the lack of a competent brake (the planning profession) on their throttle has left us with a country overrun with infrastructure. We build our world primarily with their values: bigger, wider, deeper, straighter, more. These are fine values for engineers to have, but they need to be balanced with other values of society. One of the strongest hammers engineers have in their arsenal of hammers is "safety". This article presents a thoughtful discussion on one of the problems with the engineer line of reasoning on safety.

Keeping in mind Garrison Keillor’s quip about Lake Wobegon being a place where “all the children are above average”, by definition 50% of all roads will have crash rates above the average. This will be true no matter how many road improvements we make. We could reduce crash rates across the board by 90% and half of road segments will still be more dangerous than average.

What this does is build in a bias for road improvements to address safety issues. This particular EIS did not even attempt to compare crash rates against a target level for this type of facility or any other type of metric of what should be expected apart from comparison to the average. For any road with a crash rate above the average (which is by definition half of them), “improving safety” is an all purpose rationale for highway investment. It’s a bogeyman that can be used to scare us into projects.

• While my "favorite" local project has been delayed for environmental paperwork, it is refreshing to see that my fellow citizens commenting on the article agree with the common-sense notion that spending $7+ million on a mile of local street is fiscally crazy. They also seem to grasp that while "we get ours" with this project, we are also funding this insanity in other places across the country. And that is not a fair tradeoff. 

• We have advocated, for ROI reasons, consideration of game-changing "mega-projects" instead of the myriad of expensive, community-destroying local projects. My home state of Minnesota released its statewide rail plan this week and it included a mini version of a mega-project: rail connection between Minneapolis and Chicago. It is certain, however, that in the four years it took China to build a truly mega-project, we'll still be spending money trying to decide what to do.

• The NY Times delved into the classic utilitarian argument inherent in events like flooding in the Red River Valley. Do we create a diversion that floods thousands of "low-value" acreage in order to lower the threat to the high-value properties? Is that fair? Is that American? Is that common sense? Would it matter if we simply use this newfound capacity to build more threatened properties and adopt more practices that enhance the runoff problem? No easy answers, but the article is well done and thoughts are worthy of the brain capacity.

• There are 36 states - including mine here in Minnesota - that have budget shortfalls for their current budget even though we are only half a year into it. Some of these are catastrophically huge. While a Strong Towns approach is not going to solve such gaping financial holes in the near-term, we need to rethink our approach to growth and development if we want to restore some structural stability to our system, let alone ponder prosperity again.

• I listened to a podcast from NPR this week that talked about the most demanded jobs in the coming decades. The lament of the discussion was that they were all low-wage, service jobs primarily in the health care sector. You know, the kind of things we expect robots to do someday (make beds, prepare meals, etc...). Then I read this article from US News and World Report naming Urban Planning as one of the best careers in 2010. Check out this description of the related "stresses" planners must endure (I've may have added that last sentence myself).

Urban planners often have tight deadlines and work schedules. They may also face acute pressure from citizens groups or politicians who strongly favor or oppose specific building projects. Be prepared to explain and defend your ideas and negotiate compromises. Most planners also ultimately have to come to grips in their career with the disheartening realization that all of the hours lost to meetings, all of the presentations to mindless bureaucrats and short-sighted politicians and all of the flesh lost to citizens and advocacy groups have only created, in the best situation, a mediocre improvement on the lives of humanity that, itself, is but a Ponzi scheme waiting to collapse.

• If you only read one article in this News Digest, make it this one on the high cost of ignoring the aesthetics of building and neighborhood design. The author makes some excellent observations on the way in which we, as a culture, look at building the human environment and how that contrasts to the way other cultures around the world have different values. As our relatively new country begins to age, it is evident to many that we are not doing so gracefully. I am part of a growing movement of planners that believe this will ultimately cost us financially, as well as socially.

The first assumption, that beauty is subjective, owes much of its appeal to the fact that it is functional in a democratic culture. By making this assumption you avoid giving offense to the one whose taste differs from yours. He likes garden gnomes, illuminated Christmas displays, Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas,” and a thousand other things that send shudders down the educated spine. But that’s his taste, and he is entitled to it. Leave him to enjoy it and he will leave you to get on with listening to Beethoven quartets, collecting antiques, and designing your house in the style of Palladio. But sometimes the assumption becomes dysfunctional. Each year his illuminated Christmas display increases in size, gets more bright and obtrusive, and lasts longer. Eventually his house has an all-year round Christmas tree, with Santa protruding from the chimney and brightly shining reindeer on the lawn. To be honest, the sight is insufferable, and entirely spoils the view from your window. You retaliate by playing Wagner late at night, only to receive blasts of Bing Crosby in the early hours. Here is the democratic culture at work—on its way to mutual destruction.

• Euclidean zoning is stupid. Need more proof? How about the smell of roasting coffee beans as a noxious offense or the equally offensive parking of a truck in a driveway. No wonder we don't have time to thoughtfully plan our communities - we are too busy saving humanity from the scourge of Juan Valdez and his delivery truck.

• Minnesota has its own version of the Kelo versus New London case pending that we will want to keep an eye on. The City of Eagen condemned property for economic development purposes and it sounds as if one Supreme Court justice thinks they went too far.

• I want to send a thank you to Randal O'Toole, who we wrote about here this past Monday. Not only was he good enough to post a nice comment on this site but he followed up with an equally kind email. O'Toole has a blog called The Antiplanner, dedicated to the sunset of government planning. We may not agree on the premise, but I anticipate we will have some valuable discussions here on those thoughts in the coming months.

• Last year we published a series of videos from an Andres Duany lecture in San Antonio. I've run across a new series of Duany giving the Smart Growth Summit keynote. Here is the first in the series - definitely worth your time.