When it comes to transit mega project delays and overruns, there are typically two reactions: to trash the project mercilessly or unconditionally back it to the end. But there is a third option.
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When (if ever) should taxpayers subsidize a new pro sports stadium?
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The Kansas City Royals are considering building a new stadium downtown. But who should pay for it: the princes (team owners) or the paupers (taxpayers)?
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California’s high-speed rail project appears indefinitely on hold. What is the opportunity cost of all the things the state hasn’t done during the decade-plus its leaders have spent fixated on this?
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If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. But if a mega-project doesn’t have the characteristics—massive public debt, heavy infrastructure burdens, dubious if any benefit for the surrounding area—that usually make such projects so odious, is it still a bad deal?
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Yet another reason not to build a new stadium in your city.
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Here are 3 reasons why our cities are desperately drawn to short-term megaprojects instead of small-scale improvements that will make our downtowns more successful in the long run.
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If we approached transit from an incremental perspective instead of an all-at-once megaproject perspective, we wouldn’t base our standard of success on ridership numbers.
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We never calculate—let alone track—the public's actual return-on-investment (dollars in versus dollars out over multiple life cycles) when we do a project. We never even ask the question.
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The history of city planning is largely a story of meddling and overreaction creating ever more fragile cities by reducing any apparent volatility while increasing debt, building out a system that is not financially productive, and ruining the neighborhoods of our most disadvantaged residents.
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We still tend to evaluate large-scale projects based on a mountain of assumptions about associated impacts. Change the assumptions and the ‘value’ of a project can change dramatically.
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This week Strong Towns will be focusing -- here in our media stream as well as on the ground -- on Minnesota's Iron Range communities.
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How we choose to spend our money is a reflection of who we are. not just as individuals but as states. When Washington spends billions to build new roads and a pittance to create safe, accessible streets, that says something about the state's priorities.
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Washington state, known for having one of the “greenest” administrations, just passed the largest transportation spending bill in the state’s history. Here are 5 ways that WSDOT and other DOTs are keeping us stuck squarely in the 1960s.
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A sophisticated set of questions a city should be asking when they are looking at doing a major project.
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Sadly, I sense PACs have been stuffed into the growing suite of orderly but dumb solutions. Imagine if we had to throw away the trendy instruction manual on how to become a "world-class city" and instead demanded of each other to just think. Imagine if we looked at our constraints (people, cash, geography, climate, culture) and then decided to work within them, creatively. That's what has always made places interesting and remarkable!
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The megaproject is the least-dumb idea that consensus provides.
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