Stephen Rees’s blog

Photo by Beedle Um Bum on flickr

By Robert Bryce, Public Affairs Books. Posted May 10, 2008.

While energy efficiency is laudable, history shows that it leads to people consuming more energy.

This is a longish piece but worth sticking with. It is more on the arguments that were advanced by Mark Jaccard when he advocated carbon taxes. We have seen advances in energy efficiency in a range of applications, but the energy savings do not tend to go to fatten our bank accounts. In fact we tend to consume more energy than before.

And of course this is not new. I heard about the Jeavons Paradox as a spotty six former.

In 1865, a noted British economist, William Stanley Jevons, published a book that would become his most famous work, The Coal Question. Jevons’ book was the beginning of what is now known as the field of energy economics. After studying coal consumption patterns in Britain and assuming (wrongly) that his country’s coal deposits would soon be exhausted, Jevons concluded that “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuels is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” This observation has since come to be known as the Jevons Paradox.

In fact it often strikes me that the people who prescribe economic nostrums based on the illustrations used in Econ 101 “Perfect Competition” seem not to notice that the real world is nothing like as simple as that abstraction. Though they behave as though it ought to be, which is even sillier.

I have often quoted the remark (though I cannot recall its source) “It they were all Zero Emission Vehicles tomorrow, we would still have the problems”. Yes, hybrids are better cars, just as there may well be better fuels, but it is the car itself that is the real problem. Cities were around for five millennia before the car and though everyone complained about the crowds, and the smell, they still lived in them and benefitted economically, socially and culturally from their existence. At the end of the nineteenth century, as public transport was introduced and later electrified, city life got better and cities expanded. Death rates from communicable diseases plumetted thanks to better science and better drains. People no longer had to live next to the job, which was a big improvement if it was in a rendering plant.

The Garden City movement thought that better urban environments would produce better people - an idea Frank Capra repeated in “Its A Wonderful Life” (a paean of praise for the Savings and Loan business). But neither had imagined what would happen if nearly everyone owned at least one car, and tried to drive it everywhere. Which is where we are stuck now - and where our current leadership seems content that we stay.

In fact it also occurs to me now that the argument about energy efficiency also applies to road building as way to manage traffic congestion. Because roads are not priced, buidling more of them induces more demand . For a brief moment there is some space. But just as when you leave a comfortable safety cushion between you and the car in front, someone pops in to the gap and fills it up. And we end up with more congestion than when we started. They could all be Smart cars or hybrid SUVs - but the results in terms of travel time and sprawl would be exactly the same.

Better cars and better fuels will be made, but we will not produce better places if that is what we rely on. In fact they will get much worse.

This gets top billing in today’s Province news section, although it concentrates on the power lines issue. There is also no coverage of anything that was actually said at the rally itself. However a turnout of 2,000 people is not to be disregarded lightly.

The big feature in that paper today is on housing affordability.

The thing that caught my eye in the Delta Optimist was the design charrette for the Southlands run by Andres Duany and an opinion piece on the development that is not against Smart Growth so much as the removal of the land from the ALR twenty years ago.

Of course people who live next to open land are against its development. That is always true in the suburbs. Not so much “after me, no more” but “don’t spoil the view I now have”. If you are lucky enough to own a home that had all the advantages of an urban area but you can kid yourself you live in the country, naturally you do not want that illusion spoiled. And much of the opposition to growth or density in the suburbs is fear of the growth of traffic, although traffic has been growing rapidly in areas which have seen very little development. More trips are being made, and those trips are getting longer - so the VKT increases would happen anyway even if the population wasn’t growing. And of course those terribly expensive large single family homes often have stay at home kids, or grannies in the basement, if not mortgage helpers in “secondary suites” (see Province article cited above). And those big houses have multiple car garages, and plenty of parking spaces too.

But what get people really out of sorts is that not only is transit in this area poor but it is going to get worse, not better, as a result of Translink’s expansion program.

It seems to me that all this is the inevitable result of allowing the region to be developed not in accordance with a well organised, up to date regional strategy that is designed to create a sustainable region (in other words what should have grown out of the LRSP long ago but still hasn’t) but rather in reaction to all kinds of business interests - ports, developers, private sector power providers, private sector transportation companies - who are more concerned about making money than anything else. The people of Delta are upset because no-one is listening to their concerns, and all that is happening in their community seems to be for the benefit of someone else. The consultation and environmental assessment processes are now a very obvious sham - merely a PR exercise to make it look as though someone is consulting and listening, when actually it’s always a Done Deal.

This image was taken in the early evening around 6:30. The rush is long past.

The mountains are, it goes without saying, magnificent. The urban fabric much less impressive. There is a lot more of this. And you need to bear in mind that it is supposed to look like this. It is not the result of unhindered private sector decision making. There is planning, a building code and zoning, traffic and transportation standards - and public sector parsimony. The wirescape is actually quite restrained - I have seen far worse, I am sad to say.

Note the number and size of parked vehicles. Most of the businesses in this part of town seem to be tire stores. I did not see any pedestrians - or cyclists, come to think of it - from the window of the White Spot where I had supper last night. The only walking is from car to front door. Though the intersection behind me did have a pedestrian push button.

This is not really suburb. It is a free standing town beyond the Vancouver region - though the main flow of commuting from here is to Langley and Surrey. Abbotsford did not want to be a commuter suburb for Vancouver so it opted out of West Coast Express - though it is quite a short run on existing CP track from Mission. Much attention now focusses on the old BCE Interurban line used by SRY for four short wayfreights a day.

Abbotsford has five freeway intersections - and spreads along Highway 1. You do not have to go very far north or south to find yourself back into countryside. And oddly familiar, too, since the roads are forced to acknowledge the topography. Unlike the wide, straight grid of arterials further west.

What will happen to this place as gas prices rise? The widening of the freeway stops at Langley, and there are no commitments to transit expansion either from the province - well not any time soon anyway.

There is a lot of talk about Abbotsford Airport too - as though somehow it is immune from the impact of rising aviation fuel costs.

Scientific American

There was a story last night on Global TV News about Richmond’s proposal that from next year all new large commercial and industrial buildings will have to have green roofs. (By the way that link will probably not work after this evening’s news replaces what is there as I write)

What really got to me was the sight of Ken Cameron, formerly head of Planning at the GVRD now with the insurance industry group that provides homeowner’s insurance throwing doubt on the idea.

If StumbleUpon had not thrown up this page I doubt I would have thought about it again, but there is a wealth of information in SciAm article and no doubt you could find more with a Google search. I wonder if Ken did?

He was also the co-author of the City Making in Paradise book. But he seems to me to have lost some of his credibility with his new job. First of all, there is no proposal to make people’s houses have green roofs. The proposed Richmond by law does not apply to homes - so his locus in this bit is tenuous to say the least. But what on earth did he think he would achieve? Or maybe they have got all gun shy after the leaky condo affair. The insurers did not cover themselves in glory over that one - but it was fairly well established I thought that CMHC should bear the greatest responsibility for imposing standards designed to work in Winnipeg on the wet coast.

I am not going to pretend to be an expert, but I certainly applaud Harold Steves and his concern with rainwater absorption which is a real issue on our Island. I also wonder why the attention was focussed on the under construction Convention Centre and not one of the many successful green roofs that have been in place for some time - like the one on the Vancouver Public Library?

Sun

I did get an invite to the Board of Trade for this speech - but they charge a lot for attendance. I do not think I need to pay to listen to a commercial.

Worth quoting

“Mobility is a critical issue for any region striving to be a true player on the global stage,” Betler said. However, when it comes to moving people, transportation systems in regions such as Metro Vancouver are out of whack and weighted too heavily toward roads. Traffic congestion is one of the results, the cost of which has been calculated at $700 million to $1.2 billion per year in the Metro Vancouver region.

“We simply can’t build enough roads to accommodate the volume of people that need to have access to our urban centres,” Betler said. “Not today and certainly not when you consider what’s coming in the future.”
Transit trains, he added, can help balance out the transportation formula. A modern transit system, he said, can carry 40,000 people per hour heading in either direction, versus 6,000 people driving on a two-lane highway during the same time frame.

Betler did not disparage the province’s other transportation plan, the Asia Pacific Gateway Strategy, which calls for new perimetre [misspelled in the original] roads, twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and expansion of the freeway. “[Transportation is] personal preference,” he added. “But at some point in time, economics and environmental conditions are going to force a solution.”

Transportation is a lot more than personal choice. Transportation shapes development. Transit makes denser, walkable centres possible. Building freeways means there has to be more parking and more vehicle circulation space - and roads which are designed to deter through traffic on distributors. The dendritic street pattern that gives rise to low density sprawl. We need rail based transit systems; not so that  Bombardier can make more money, but to secure a future that is sustainable and does not threaten the ALR and the Green Zone. Trains and trams can run on electricity which can be generated from a wide variety of sources. At the moment that is not a very practical or economic option for road vehicles - and that includes my beloved trolleybuses.

“Making a pitch” is a waste of effort if we have an objective, fact based bid appraisal process. It is not that the lowest price should win: there must be a value for money evaluation. Some things are worth paying extra for.

We do not need the Gateway. We do need a livable, sustainable and affordable region.

Those of you following the fortunes of the US and who read Chris Leinberger’s article will find the following somewhat familiar

A new analysis shows that high gas prices are not only implicated in the bursting of the housing bubble, but that the higher cost of commuting has already re-shaped the landscape of real estate value between cities and suburbs. Housing values are falling fastest in distant suburban and exurban neighborhoods where affordability depended directly on cheap gas.

Author Joe Cortright wrote to me “Our contribution is to use some current and very detailed data about real estate markets to flesh out that [Leinberger] story.”

Read the press release here.

Download the full study here.

Download File (PDF 107 KB)

Of course I do not expect that this will have any impact at all on Kevin Falcon - who will just stick his fingers in his ears and start singing the zoom zoom song

Oil $120m a barrel, gas $1.30 a litre - and we are going to widen a freeway and build the SFPR across Burns Bog

This picture is of a low floor diesel light rail train running on existing freight rail track in Ottawa, which would be the easiest way to get started on passenger rail for the Fraser Valley.

An interesting afternoon yesterday at the Township of Langley’s new municipal hall (memo to self get new map book and/or update Mapopolis).

As I was on the panel I did not get my notebook out, but I did learn quite a lot. For example, SRY actually owns the track but not the right of way. The successors to BC Hydro do not want anyone stringing trolley wire over the tracks, even though that is what the double line of poles once supported. So the introduction of a pilot program or demonstration project may not be a straightforward as I once thought. On the other hand it comes down to money in the end, and all it takes is for the province for reset its priorities and do transit first rather than highway expansions.

Yeah, right, like that’s gonna happen!

Turnout was somewhat low - but then it was a very nice day for a change so I expect a lot of people who might have gone decided that a day outside would make a nice change, and I cannot say I blame them. Those that did come were not only interested but interesting - and the discussion was generally well informed and very civilised. It was nice to meet Malcolm Johnson - who is much nicer in person than the on line persona he adopts. We must have known each other “virtually” for a long time. Also notable was that all the panel members drove there - and much of the discussion was really about why transit service south of the Fraser is so dreadful. And why the Province and the FVRD both seem committed to keeping it that way.

The Fraser Valley Heritage Railway seem to be very confident that they will get going soon.

And as predicted I was able to recycle most of Cris Leinberger’s material. When you speak last after four other people that is not a lot that can be said that is new or original - but people seemed to like it.

UPDATE  April 30 There are very positive reviews in the Langley Advance, Langley Times and also on VALTAC’s blog

Shifting Gears

Christopher Leinberger at SFU downtown

Thanks to Frank Pacella I am about to make my first attempt at live blogging.

Chris Leinberger was introduced by Larry Frank as a member of Brookings Institution and also a developer who has written for the Atlantic and the Tyee today

Watch “Back to the Future” - two ways to build a town 1955 and 1985 Hill Valley and its downtown. Two ways to set up the built environment. Now we are going back to the future.

Built environment is 35% of the asset base of all advanced economies - the largest segment. But only 2% changes every year which is why it takes longer to turn around than a supertanker. Walkable cities were the model for 5,500 years up until 1945: transportation drives development - it dictates the form of the built environment. Pompeii and Pepys London were basically the same urban fabric. Even with the introduction of rail - both where you boarded and got off you had to walk - with country in between. Then cars overwhelmed the right of way. Between 1930-45 building virtually stopped and there was no car production. We got collective amnesia and went down a new path - the new image came from the the 1939 New Yorks World’s Fair - Futurama. Fundamentally different way of building our urban places - all we built was driveable suburban - Levittown. We wanted this! ( “I walked 2200 miles as ten year old”) We made it a very good place to park a car.

In the twentieth century 30% of the economy was directly connected to cars “What was good for GM was good for the country”. And not just the US - China and Chekoslovakia too.

Wall Street commoditised real estate - they have to be all the same to be tradable. The same product is traded like pork bellies. Canada follows a more European model of land use controls. In US it is predictable where growth will go - the edge cities where for every 1% population growth we had 8 to 12% growth in land use.

In Canada, US and Australia there was a lot of land available - because our germs were stronger than their germs. In US we made drivable suburban the only thing you could build. Massively subsidised - cf sewers at 1 to the acre vs 40 to the acre. “One price, all you can eat” - low density means 10 to 22 times the subsidy

Only over the last ten years have we begun to study the unintended consequences. It was based on cheap oil, we have now passed peak oil. Its Achilles heel “more is less”: every addition reduces the quality of life on what is there. NIMBY opposition to growth is rational. And, of course, climate change. 73% of ghg comes from the built environment.

Difference between walkable and suburban is about 2 to 3 times the ghg.

Somewhere about the mid90s the pendulum started to swing back. Walkable urban places are different - as it grows it gets better, and it is also being driven by the market - the Gen Xers and the millennials. The boomers grew up watching “Ossie and Harriet” or Dick van Dyke - it all happened in the suburbs. In the 90s we watched Seinfeld, Friends and “Sex and the City” - all urban. Hollywood does more market research than the rest of the planet and they noticed that people wanted urban places - childless households were 50% 1950, 67% today but 88% over next 20 years.

Tremendous pent up demand for more choices - 50% want or put up with walkable urban - 50% drivable suburban - but there are many cities where there is less than 5% walkable. This will depress the value of suburban houses. In coming years all the demand will be for multifamily dense housing.

Downtown is regionally significant. Washington DC will be the model for the 21st century - mainly because of the subway. In last ten years urban DC has been restored - and office rents have climbed as downtown DC started gaining market share for offices. Not just DC also Baltimore MD, Chatanooga, Portland, Chicago, San Francisco, even downtown Detroit! Light Rail 3.5 mile from downtown to the train station - in the motor city.

Downtown adjacent - lower density but incredible character - Dupont Circle, the West End - in DC and here - Granville Island. It will also be suburban town centres - Bethesda MD, Lakewood CO - Via Italia Mall - now BelMar - 60% premium over rest of Lakewood. Reston VA - lifestyle centres “instant urbanity”

Two thirds of walkable urban places had rail transit.

Unintended consequences - lack of affordable housing, what do we do with the surplus big houses and the old strip malls.

Recommendations for Metro

• fund new transit plan
• more tod and overlay zoning
• create additional private sector led WU non-profits B.I.Ds
• 13-15 region serving walkable urban places - 6 per million

www.cleinberger.com

www.brookings.edu/walkableurbanism

www.theatlantic.com

Panel

Photo by Jason Vanderhill

Jim Cox

it felt like you were blaming us - we did what we thought was the right thing. We do things differently now - smarter now. VanCity Enterprises - after a career of buggering things up - does socially conscious development

Vancouver has a good downtown but a crappy region - sea of suburbs past Kits. We are going to have to stop driving - its too expensive. In Vancouver EcoDensity is going to have a tough time. Bowen Island is dead set against adding second storeys! Huge task to create regionally significant places. “We have just the crappiest transit system of any city I have ever been to.”

Blake Hudema

Less optimistic about pent up demand. You are speaking to the converted but how do we mainstream that? Schizophrenic - filled with fear. Market looks for simplicity and comfort. Current environment is going to be more diverse “the StarWars bar scene” - more types of building, more types of tenure. In shopping we have taken a huge step back when we left regional town centres for big box.

In for a real challenging time

Questions

1 What is the incentive for the non profit to do these transit nodes?

CL - I am just reporting from the front. They are funded by property owners - beginning to really brand a place - more aggressive The market wants something different - very complex - more like flying a jet than driving a car. We lost the ability to do walkable urban

2. Influence of parking policy

Jim - parking is bloody expensive you should do a lot less of it - use car co-ops - get the community to let us do it

Blake - look at the efficiencies - look at what those spaces are doing - integrated development.

CL Having a parking problem is a sign of success. Over time the amount of parking needed drops

3 - Offices in these devts?

CL - it integrates quite well: old model we separated land uses. There is no reason why you cannot integrate housing and offices. Post industrial offices and town houses work well together. Perfect shared use due to time differences: the house is occupied at evenings and weekends when the office is empty, so they are perfect neighbours.

4 - What do you want from a transit system?

Jim : Two or three times as much - all suburban communities - transit will one day be cool - driving will be like smoking. Go beyond central Surrey - want more express buses - want to see everybody have that opportunity. We did a really crappy job of concentrating jobs.
Blake - we need a real variety of systems - there are all kinds of barriers to get cheap solutions into place - need for more frequent service - no matter what it is. Trying to retrofit into car based system. We tend to concentrate on rail - we need more demand responsive, cheap transit.

CL - we don’t need any more roads - build transit to sell real estate - have the station underground. On the surface you always have to wrong side of the tracks. You can handle all the growth - you don’t need another sq inch of space if you do it right

GP - what do you do with a dead Mcmansion or a surplus u/g parking lot

CL - Mcmansions will become apartments but they are not going to hold up. There will be a lot torn down

BH - retrofitting will work for different market segments - very optimistic. In the retail sector we only built temporary space anyway. Most buildings of last 30 years will have to be bulldozed

CL - underground parking lots have all kinds of potential uses - paintball, artists …

5 Gateway - goods movement - what kind of policies made these things happen

BH - Gateway is evil - national agenda should have been more advanced - should have got railways

CL - freight railway lines are booming - we will see a shift back to rail. Truckers would vote for transit to clear the freeways of SoVs

Policies were v important - overlay zoning district to encourage the right thing - make it easy and legal at stations put in density

Q - Paul Pinsker - we are putting in local centres and reviewing parking requirements - look at sustainable activities - Bill 27

Affordable housing - how can we get more?

CL - short term - inclusionary zoning 20% must be affordable - put it over a large enough area, land prices will drop and the go back up again. Subsidy will not be felt. Montgomery County MD did it 20 years ago

Low income tax credits, workforce tax credits, auxiliary units “granny flats” should be legalised

Long term expand supply - the NIMBYs that don’t allow density around stations are the problem. More income needs to go into housing less into transportation. Drop one car and put it into your house

Make the right thing easy - downtown

Albuquerque 21 principles

The final question related to cycling and small towns in the BC interior, but I had to leave to go to work.

Reaction

I am going to be able to use a lot of this tomorrow at the Rail for the Valley meeting. It is refreshing to hear someone else say that we have a crappy transit system. I am fed up with the way our boosters like to think we are doing well, simply because downtown Vancouver is successful. We need much more transit - and very much more affordable housing. And obviously not a single inch more tarmac! Retrofitting the suburbs should have been the main feature as that is going to be our biggest challenge. I was surprised no-one pointed out that the LRSP identifies Regional Town Centres, and only Metrotown and Surrey Centre got any mention. One of the great losses, in my opinion, is going to be the way that the Golden Ears Bridge spells the end of the unique character of Maple Ridge’s centre. It is now one of the few real places with a park and a band shell, community theatre and lots of independent businesses. How long will that last under the impact of the traffic streaming into town? There are suburban places of regional significance - Steveston and Fort Langley for instance. The problem I see is that the heritage stuff is so thin - especially in Steveston - that it is being lost as the place becomes more popular.

Straight

We have heard from more than one  group that population increase in this region is going to be our greatest challenge. Matt Burrows talks to Richard Balfour

“20 to 30 million people” could be living in the Georgia Basin in the next 15 to 20 years.

Now of course that is a much bigger figure than we are used to hearing - but that is because the “Georgia Basin” is not an administrative unit - any more than “Cascadia” is.

Earlier this month, Balfour gave a presentation to the Metro Vancouver land-use and transportation committee about applying strategic sustainable planning to the region. This would involve creating new towns in the mountains and partitioning farmland into self-governing areas so that municipalities cannot expand into them. He also urged regional politicians to develop more rail capacity, including high-speed rail, “because the highways will not be running”. He also advocated using “run-of-the-river–powered villages for B.C. rather than for export to California”.

But the railways are private entities - and they are making money - and are a very good stock pick right now. And they are not in the slightest concerned about the sort of things that Richard Balfour is or Metro Vancouver should be. And of course our provincial government thinks that highways are a great idea - and will be running on biofuel or hydrogen for ever. And Metro cannot organise its own waste disposal - liquid or solid - so expecting them to take on railways as well is a bit pointless, in my view.

I have been around the strategic planning business for most of my career. And what I have noticed is that very little of what actually happens is at all strategic. We argue about what is happening and what our response should be, but meanwhile the development process seems to be relentless, and very little of that responds to any strategic concerns. Not that the long term trends are hard to determine, or that we are fairly sure of what is needed. But somehow the short term, silly things get done - and not much happens to the big deal items. For example, the City of Richmond is dealing with the Olympics and the Canada Line. Most of its current spending is at the Oval and on Number Three Road. And on the dykes - critical to our survival - vulnerable to the inevitable seismic event and rising sea levels - nada!

We know that oil at $118 per barrel is not a short term flash in the pan but a long term problem, for an oil based economy. But all the transportation planning is concentrated on road building. And policies for low speed electric cars - well we will leave that up to the municipalities! For railways we will just flog them - and then try to keep the process out of the courts as long as possible or at least past the next election.

Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic seems far sighted by comparison.

Guardian video

A very short video, which should be pause for thought. The clip concentrates on the smog - and we already know that drifts across the pacific and gets to us - but my concern is the ghg.

But it also is a very well made point that even if they are small cars, the traffic problem, is horrendous and will only get worse. And the authorities in Beijing have conceded that they cannot build enough roads to ever keep up with demand.

(I would have like to embed it but Vodpod only gets the ad!)