Dense Feedback

Readers respond to Randal O'Toole dissection of the New Urbanism.

From the April 1999 issue

(Page 4 of 4)

Douglas Morris seems to think that "community" follows from "density." That may have been true 100 years ago, but today community follows from mobility. Thanks to the automobile, the telephone, and the Internet, I belong to many communities, almost none of which is strictly geographical. I ask New Urbanists to stop trying to force their limited vision of "community" on me and my neighbors.

Like Prof. Stephen J. Ware, I once believed the myth that autos and highways are subsidized. It turns out that the subsidies are negligible. While gas taxes and other highway user fees are not the best way to run a market, they have paid the vast majority of highway costs in this country.

In the past decade, the average subsidy to auto users works out to less than a tenth of a cent per passenger mile, while the average subsidy to transit is around 40 cents per passenger mile. Air pollution is a problem, but less so every day, as today's ultra-clean cars pollute less in operation than a pre-1970 car polluted when standing still with the ignition turned off.

Peter Samuel's excellent Toll Roads Newsletter was the source of some of the most interesting information in my article. But he treads on dangerous ground when he endorses New Urbanist arguments about zoning, emergency services, and walkable communities. New Urbanists don't want to eliminate zoning; they want to make it more restrictive than ever--even at the cost of increased crime and lower emergency response times. As someone who has always walked, bicycled, or taken transit to work, I welcome pedestrian-friendly design, but the true New Urbanist goal is to mandate automobile-hostile design.

Comments

nfl jerseys|11.15.10 @ 3:40AM|#

hghgfd

log in or register to reply