On unit costs.

The more I think on that 'unit cost' study, the more I think the whole premise is stupid, and you've got the right angle with the 'marginal cost' approach. How much the last 10 units cost is irrelevant, compared to what the next 10 units are going to cost. Adding the first 10 lines to I-15 was cheap, because it was (mostly) rural land. Adding the next ten lanes is going to be very expensive, because it's either going to require: a) condemning hundreds of acres of urbanized land, or; b) decking the freeway. So how cheap driving was/has been is irrelevant.

The kind of business thinking this entails isn't relevant for infrastructure investment. Infrastructure is much more about making major capital investments, ie: investing in a new factory. When you do it, you do so not just for today's needs, but for room to grow. It might be more economical to go with the cheaper alternative now, but in the long-term, the cheaper alternative is inferior.  

Take this example:

 

Marginal cost looks great for cars, but the cost per passenger mile is exponential for VMT, while it's linear for trains. So trains don't look great today, but...we aren't making infrastructure improvements for today. We are making them for the future. And we use 2050 as our planning horizon, and we use that as a cost midway point between 'now' and 'forever' to make economic evaluations.

 

Clothing

As one historian noted, 'Clothing used to be way more expensive, more expensive than you can imagine. Think of spending a years salary on a set of clothes'. Which seems unreal, until you realize until the industrial revolution, every bit of clothing was handmade. Sewn by hand, dyed by hand, woven by hand. 

I feel like that has happened again, even in my lifetime. T-shirts became SWAG, something so cheap to provide that it could be given away.  Working at Einstein's Bagels, my brother used to get a new shirt every month or so. My Dad kept all of them, and wore them. Its easy to make fun of the last generation for wearing T-shirts with all sorts of logos, but times were different--incomes were lower and it was a free shirt (regardless of whatever logo/brand it had scrawled on it).

The cheapness of clothing made it possible for people to have a whole lot of clothing, and hence a wide variety of clothing. And that made style matter. Which in turn drove the explosion in clothing retail across America over the past couple of decades. Accustomed to scarcity, people gorged. But I wonder if part of what is driving the collapse in retail is satiation--the people accustomed to scarcity have swollen closets. And the generation following them has never known that scarcity. The explosion of thrift stores, clothing recyclers, and second-hand boutiques (stuffed with discards from the gluttons) probably contributes, but fundamentally I don't think buying clothes provides the same dopamine surge. 

The increasing affluence of the 'scarcity-induced-glutton-mentality' generation has offset this--moving from Shopko to Loft. But that too will pass. This has major implications for retail, which has major implications for city budgets. Less need for retail space means more vacant retail space, which means falling property values, and smoke-shops and karate studios replace chain stores. Retail structures age fast, much faster than offices or even warehouses. 

Prior to COVID, most of that retail seemed to be on-track to be developed as low-rise elevator apartments (< 7 stories). There was always a conflict there, as the locations ideal for retail (adjacent to wide, high-traffic roads) is less than ideal for human habitation (noise, pollution).

COVID & Retail, Amazon, dressing to impress.

COVID has certainly reshaped retail. My own default has become 'get it on Amazon' for anything except those things that are too bulky to mail (mostly storage containers like trash cans) or perishable (plants, ice-cream). Clothing shopping remains an in-persons activity, due to the need to try things on. But the empty store front and deep sales suggest that is not going so well. People aren't going out so much, and working from home, a T-shirt and shorts does the job. There is, frankly, less need to look good, and the stains/wear that would otherwise be the death-knell for an item of clothing are suddenly less relevant. On the flip side, when people do go out, I see them dressing really well--in event has to be special to bring people out, and the people dress accordingly--making an occasion of it. (Of course, I can only speak for my own milieu-white collar and professional).

 

COVID, Transportation, Urban Economics

The 'natural experiment' of COVID has shown that most white-collar workers can work from home, So millions now work from home, which means millions: a) need a home office, and b) care much less about commuting distance. Urban economics suggests that rent and transport costs being interchangeable, people are going to disperse. Short-term, a surge in suburban prices results, and urban rents fall. Longer term, construction should catch up. My first thought is that will generate a surge in exurban development--after all, when you only commute one day a week, you can afford to live WAAAAY out there. 

But that's an antiquate way of thinking, based on the 'male-breadwinner' suburban pattern, when the reality is that most families are two income (or at least 1.5 income) with a major portion of one partners labor devoted to childcare. And in modern times, 'childcare' means taxiing children to various educational/enrichment appointments. Which suggests that homes are going to remain much more closely tied to urban services than people anticipate. 

Trains, Planes, Ferries and Bridges.

Prior post on high speed rail got me thinking about how to explain where HSR makes sense to build. First off, stop thinking of high speed rail like urban transit, like a trolleybus/streetcar, heavy rail metro, or even commuter rail. It goes much much faster--faster in a way most American's simply don't comprehend--no one has any experience traveling at HSR speeds--we travel at highways speeds (65-90 mph) and aircraft speeds (460-565 mph).  The relevant point is this: The faster you are going, the longer it takes to stop. (Landing aircraft seem to take mere seconds, which seems quick, until you realize the runway is a mile long...). So.

The faster the train goes, the longer it takes to stop, and the less frequently it stops. Take a rough ratio, say a HSR goes at 2/5 the speed of a jet aircraft. Shortest (scheduled) jet aircraft flight is about 60 minute*s. 2/5 of that is 24 minutes. So that's the absolute minimum distance between stops for HSR. And which assumes the endpoints are major metropolitan areas.

 The analogy:  As ferries connect places by water, planes connect places by air. Only in a few cases, where demand is both substantial and reliable, is it actually worth building a surface transportation connection, rather than simply using ever-larger 'ferries' to connect the two points. Before the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC, or the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, there were enormous fleets of boats ferrying people back and forth over the water. Today, we have enormous fleets of planes, ferrying people over the air. Demand must be truly enormous to justifying building a 'bridge' to connect two points. 

Prior to the pandemic, there were about 100 flights a day (35,365 annually) between LAX (Los Angeles) and SFO (San Francisco). It's the busiest air route in America. Which is why CAHSR made sense. (Stopovers at interim points much less so). 

Take a minute to find/scan the document "Where High-Speed Rail Works Best" by the regional plan association--it identifies all the city pairs where High Speed Rail makes sense. 

Here is a map you don't see often:

Most talk about HSR prattles on about population, but HSR journeys in India are scarce, despite it's billion plus population: This map gets to the heart of it: high speed travel (airplane and HSR) is proportional to wealth. Airplanes fly from 'pillar to pillar'. The higher the pillar, the more airplanes.

Look at the tall powers, and you can tick off American HSR initiatives:

1. CAHSR
2. Texas Central
3. Northeast Corridor
4. Brightline (Miami)
   

Map also explains why Chicago and Atlanta are second tier HSR cities: nothing both big and near. Chicago-Detroit and Atlanta-Charlotte are the best they can offer. Long bridges to not very tall pillars.

"But what about Miami?"

Miami seems weird--short pillar, not a lot of stops. You have to get into the nitty-gritty of the history to explain it. First off, the whole area was 'settled' by rail, specifically Henry Flagler's East Coast Railway, so there is already a long vertical rail corridor running through the urbanized area. Second, the area is very dense linear strip. Look at the density of the counties, and the average density isn't that great. But when you look at census blocks, you can see that the coastal side of each county is packed, and the inland side is empty (thanks to the Everglades). 

Misc. Observations:

1. Utah has already connected it's three 'towers' via a regional rail system (FrontRunner)--Colorado should probably do the same. 
2. Portland-Seattle-Vancouver probably works, if they can ever get speeds up. Coordination with Canada makes it complex--Amtrak barely crosses the  border, presently, doesn't really reach Vancouver per se. 
3. North Carolina's 'urban crescent' looks weirdly good for non-high speed train service-- Lot of smaller metros, none too far apart. They already have the Piedmont Amtrak train filling the niche, with 4 daily trains. Travel time still much slower than car, though.  

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Ignoring special cases: connecting flights to islands, and/or 'milk runs' from major hubs to affluent communities (Vale to Aspen, CO.)

'Where High-Speed Rail Works Best' by the Regional Plan Association

 Because everyone needs to read this:

www.rpa.org/uploads/pdfs/Where-HSR-Works-Best

Here is the essential list:

Top 50 City Pairs

Rank |  City |  Pair |  Score
1 New York-Washington 100.00
2 Philadelphia-Washington 98.24
3 Boston-New York 97.22
4 Baltimore-New York 96.83
5 Los Angeles-San Francisco 96.43
6 Boston-Philadelphia 96.05
7 Los Angeles-San Diego 94.92
8 Los Angeles-San Jose 94.19
9 Boston-Washington 92.79
10 Dallas-Houston 91.37
11 Chicago-Detroit 91.09
12 Baltimore-Boston 90.39
13 Chicago-Columbus 89.42
14 Chicago-Saint Louis 89.25
15 Los Angeles-Phoenix 89.03
16 Chicago-Cleveland 88.71
17 Charlotte-Washington 88.39
18 San Diego-San Francisco 88.32
19 Columbus-Washington 88.21
20 Cleveland-Washington 88.13
21 New York-Pittsburgh 88.03
22 Phoenix-San Diego 87.97
23 Las Vegas-Los Angeles 87.79
24 Detroit-New York 87.47
25 Chicago-Minneapolis 87.33
26 Detroit-Washington 87.27
27 Cleveland-New York 87.25
28 Philadelphia-Pittsburgh 87.23
29 Portland-Seattle 87.19
30 Pittsburgh-Washington 86.69
31 Los Angeles-Sacramento 86.58
32 New York-Providence 86.58
33 Raleigh-Washington 86.36
34 Detroit-Philadelphia 86.30
35 Chicago-Louisville 86.25
36 Hartford-Philadelphia 86.20
37 San Diego-San Jose 86.14
38 Hartford-Washington 86.13
39 Chicago-Cincinnati 86.02
40 Cleveland-Philadelphia 85.99
41 Charlotte-Philadelphia 85.60
42 Philadelphia-Raleigh 85.58
43 Buffalo-New York 85.58
44 New York-Virginia Beach 85.52
45 Austin-Dallas 85.47
46 Manchester-New York 85.41
47 Philadelphia-Providence 85.36
48 Bridgeport-Philadelphia 85.31
49 Columbus-Philadelphia 85.24
50 New York-Rochester 85.11

High Speed Rail, EU and the US

Today, another iteration of the argument. It goes like this:

"Amtrak sucks, why can't the US have high speed rail like Europe!" 

"Because the US is way larger!"

 Let's settle this once and for all - it is. 

https://mapfight.appspot.com/us-vs-eu/united-states-european-union-2017-size-comparison

 As the borders don't line up exactly, let's talk area. 

 KM^2

9,834,000 - US 

4,476,000 - EU

So the US is about 2.2x the size of the EU.
Let's forget about Alaska for a moment (1,717,856 KM^2)

Let's also omit the rounding error of Hawaii, so we can talk continental US, and compare continental polities.

10,430 - Hawaii

9,834,000-1,717,856-10,430=8,116,144

8,116,144/4,476,000=1.8.

So the US is about twice as large. 

This is also completely irrelevant. When people talk about the US being 'too large', they aren't really talking about size--what they mean to talk about is density, that the space per person in the US is much larger than in the EU. This is completely true. 

Year | Population | Area | Density

2019 | US - 328.2 | 8,116,144 | 40.43

2019 | EU - 446  | 4,476,000 | 99.64

So, on average, the EU is about twice as dense as the US.

Now that we've dispensed with the need to check Quora, let's talk about why this argument is irrelevant: average density.

Most of the EU (like most of the US) is empty. (Chloropleth maps of density are often deceptive). 

Europe dot density map 

US Census Blocks, <1 person/square mile:

Hence, making density comparisons over such nearly continental scales is meaningless.

 

Is it ok for SLC to be selfish?

 Is it ok for SLC to be selfish? To prefer projects which benefits it's citizens, in preference to in-commuters?

Certainly, there are out-commuters--Census on the Map suggests about 50k of them (vs 200k in-commuters). But they probably don't care--they are making a reverse-commuter, out-commuting on roadway facilities sized for going-home traffic, so experienced roadway congestion is likely minor.

Read an article today, nothing that the people in central city Chicago didn't benefit from freeways, that the freeways actually made walking commuters longer, and drastically reduced the number of long-distance trips residents took. The argument was made that the total welfare gain from freeways is probably overstated--it ascribes all sorts of benefits to freeways, but failed to account for their costs (disproportionately suffered by central city dwellers).

Secondly, conversed with a co-worker, in which I described freeways as 'walls', and as 'pollution and noise spewing black holes'. So for a SLC resident, for voters and the representatives they elect...should they care about suburban in-commuters, who are merely using the city streets as neighborhoods as highways? Clearly not, so it falls to the business community to make the case for access, for being accessible to places, for access to customers and employees as important to the economy of the city, and to lobby for it.

 The logical conclusion of the business community prioritizing in-commuters is something like Houston--a central city purely for in-commuters, and vacant after dark. The urban nadir. That model has been followed, its limits found. You can read the retrospective when city plans start talking about building 'night-time cities'. Creating entertainment venues downtown, working on street festivals, holding gallery strolls. Next phase being building a '24-hour city', with residents--people living and working within the city. Perhaps the next tier up is what is now being called the '30 minute city', where all the things you need are within a 30 minute trip (by bike and walk).

 Asking how far things in NYC, my brother replied "About half an hour away" (by subway). Places that weren't barely existed. We know that trip frequency decays exponentially with increase in distance (ie, if 20 minute trips are common, 10 minute trips are 4x as common, and 30 minute trips half as common).    

Omaha, Nebraska...now confronting the 'Urban Transportation Problem' of exponentially rising traffic congestion (as increasing urban size generates increasing average travel distances), and could feel it's comfortable existence as a 15-minute city collapsing--everything was no longer within an easy 15 minute drive. 

The 15-minute city is a good way to live. Urbanism is the realization that the good life can no longer be achieved by increasing automobility, and that other modes are required. Transit only works when it's Fast, Frequent, and Reliable (as Seattle's frequent network) has shown. 

Previously, I've speculated that SLC needs it's own transit authority. It has a lot of transit, but it's a whole lot of routes that are 'half-in' SLC--seeming to serve SLC, but recall that there are 4-more in-commuters than out-commuters, so the half-in/half-out routes actually serves SLC citizens less than the shear split of route/service mileage might suggest--they are making more 'internal' trips within SLC, and might prefer the service to be so distributed. 

SLC has got the the 'nightime' city down, but not quite the 24-hour city. To be a 24-hour city, SLC would need to better balance it's population and employment. Research by Dr. Reid Ewing suggests the empirically appropriate ratio to be 2 jobs for every 5 persons.  SLC's current population ~200k, and employment about 661k. Five-halves that would be 1.2m...so SLC would need to add a million people, which is rather unlikely, but however provides an interesting intuition into the rest of the Wasatch Front - there are 2 million people on it, and half of them work in Salt Lake City. And on the taxes on their place of employment SLC depends.

 

 

 

 

Panic-buying suburban real estate

Atlantic: Suburbia was never as bad as anyone said it was. Now it’s looking even better

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/pandemic-suburbs-are-best/613300/?utm_source=atl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share

I enjoy the Atlantic, but I feel it’s necessary to recognize it’s essential NYC-centricity, and it’s propensity to be one-sided. Sometimes it’s articles read like (well-written) click-bait.

I regard the present ode to suburbia as something analogous to the panic-buying of toilet-paper. Seems like  good idea now, but regrettable later. People are going to panic-buy all sorts of things they aren’t going to use—chest freezers, etc.  For some people, that will include real estate.

Urban life is bleak right now, with the lock-down, and everything closed. That’s not going to last forever. Nor can everyone can work from home.  2/3 of people already have to be at their place of work to do their job. For the rest—some will keep working at home—they love spending time with family and the lack of commute. I expect those with the worst commutes and/or children will be most enthusiastic. I expect working mothers will be eager adoptees of working from home. I do expect to see enormous demand for home offices on that basis. But I also expect to see co-working spaces come back (albeit in a less open-plan format). However, not everyone can hack working from home, and not everyone is going to like it. I expect we’ll also see a growing backlash that companies are using employees homes rent-free. If working from home becomes more normal, the value of that ‘perk’ is going to decline, especially if their isn’t an option of an office available. I recall an anecdote about a bank in New York which permitted working from home full-time—they still anticipated having 800 desks for 2000 employees.

Mass Transit Account Origins

 A ways back, I said I'd look into whether the Mass Transit Account was the thing putting the Highway Trust Fund into the red. Turns out the reality is more complicated. From TransitCenter:

James Dunn describing how President Reagan’s secretary of transportation lobbied behind the scenes to win votes for a 1982 gas tax hike:

He began by solidifying the transit lobby’s support. He promised to create a mass transit account in the highway trust fund that would receive 20 percent of the revenue from a five cent per gallon tax hike (the “transit penny”). This convinced many big city Democrats and liberals to support the measure despite their concern over the effects of the tax on the poor.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is where the Mass Transit Account comes from. A political bargain where transit got a penny and cars got four, in exchange for political support. Which, depending on your interpretation, may mean that transit got a penny of gas tax it had no right to...or that cars only got 4 pennies a gallon because of transit. 

Looking at the history of gas tax increases after which (5 more cents in 1990, 5 more again in 1993), creating the Mass Transit Account for gas tax money looks kind of silly.

 But if we look at the effects of inflation on gas tax over time, it becomes clear why the secretary of transportation might have been a little desperate in '82: the effective tax was lower than it had ever been, effectively about half today's level.

The reality is probably worse: The inputs to making roads (asphalt) were likely subject to higher than average inflation--asphalt and gasoline both come from oil, and refiners got cleverer about refining more of the dregs that would otherwise become asphalt into gasoline.