The World and Us

Monday, November 10, 2008



The World and Us

Altshuler's old friend Ann Hershfang, who encouraged him to give the presentation to the transportation group MoveMass, introduced him at a recent meeting at Brown Rudnick law offices at One Financial Center. (Move Massachusetts meetings are monthly.)

Hershfang is a founder of WalkBoston and onetime Turnpike authority board member -- boy, is she glad she's not there now. She noted that the Boston Transportation Planning Report of 1971 was Altshuler's creation under Gov. Frank Sargent and set the stage for the next 20 years of transportation development in the commonwealth.

"We need another one now," she said.

Altshuler, who is professor of urban policy and planning at Harvard, said the subtitle of his talk, supplemented by an amazing amalgam of data on comparative development and transportation patterns around the world, was: "Why can't we get off the trajectory of the automobile age?"

The answers are fivefold, Altshuler said: lack of density in US cities, established automobile dominance, a capitalist mode of urban development, fragmentation of governmental bodies, and weak guidance from higher levels of government.

The consequences, he said, are: The United States uses six times as much energy and produces that much more greenhouse emissions per capita, it relies on imports for two- thirds of its oil (up from one-third in 1973), it has a balance of payments deficit, there are resulting international tensions and military costs, there are higher degrees of inequality and segregation than in other rich countries, and there are hardships for those without cars, like the elderly.

Looking at urban areas of over 500,000 people worldwide, Altshuler said, most high- income countries are four times as dense as the United States, low-income ones eight times as dense.

Beijing had few cars 20 years ago and was filled with bike traffic; now bikes have been banned, and the streets are filled with cars.

Altshuler showed pictures of other cities, including Seoul, which he called "neat and planned" by "some guiding intelligence," though he noted it "may not be beautiful."

He showed Singapore, which seemed to be his favorite, though it is so orderly it looked a little scary (and they do cane you there if you get out of line).

Altshuler said all the extensive rapid transit in Singapore -- one reason it's so neat -- has been built since the 1980s. Heavy congestion pricing, import fees, and taxes amounting to about 100 percent per year on car values keep the streets wide open.

He said 86 percent of the population lives in public-built housing, which is sold as condos. Once a city of shacks with no sewers, he declared it "may be the best-planned city in the world."

Other cities do it differently. London is low-rise and high-density. Prague is low-rise, as is Berlin, Vienna, and Paris (at least centrally).

Los Angeles is the densest city in the United States. New York has the densest downtown but is pastoral in the suburbs. Chicago and Atlanta have relatively low density.

In the United States 89 percent of the urban populations uses a private vehicle; in Western Europe it's 50 percent, and in China 16.

But the leading industry in China's industrial rise is motor-vehicle production.

Carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the United States are 4,400 kilograms per year (1995 figure); in Western Europe it's 1,280, in China 210.

One major reason for these big differences, Altshuler said, is variations in population density: 31 people per square mile in the US, 247 in the United Kingdom, 338 in Japan -- and 6,400 in Hong Kong and Singapore.

In other words, the places are very nearly incomparable.

Other reasons for the differences, Altshuler said, are the commitment to private property rights and capitalism, and the fact that the US led the world in auto-industry development.

In 1950 the US produced 85 percent of the vehicles in the world. That has declined to 55 percent in 1965, and 25 percent in 1980. It was still 25 percent in 2001. "We sent a lot of our polluting production to places like China," said Altshuler. Dependence on the automobile was the result of getting "on a pathway that was very difficult to change," he said.

The US was self-sufficient in oil till the 1960s, cities developed during the automobile heyday, there was widespread postwar affluence, and of course national policies helped.

Easy mortgage financing and tax benefits for home ownership and extensive highway construction sent the message: Spread out.

China and India are today where the United States was in 1910-15 in terms of auto ownership, or about a thirtieth of the US level today.

Altshuler said there are 89,500 local governmental organizations in the country (861 in Massachusetts), of which about 30,000 exercise authority in land use.

Local competition mitigates against regional planning, crime and poverty keep people out of some parts of cities, there's little top-down authority that promotes density in development -- and regulations on building are tougher in older urban areas than elsewhere.

All that accentuates sprawl.

If a country supports higher auto and fuel taxes, and high import taxes, and stricter land-use controls -- well, things look different.

So will the US fix these things, assuming you agree they're broken?

"These are for now politically impossible," said Altshuler.

He said the good news is a social movement is growing against global warming; immense progress has been made since 1970 in cleaning up air pollution (95-99 percent less in a much bigger economy than it was).

"But major change will require both a great local movement and an electoral upheaval."






Mike Tyrrell spoke to well over 100 at the South Bay Harbor Trail event last Friday, with Mayor Menino, the city's Jim Hunt, Secretary Cohen, Save the Harbor's Patty Foley, and Gillette's Brian Hodgett looking on.




A new decorative buoy at Binford Street Park, between the Fort Point Channel and A Street.




A view from the park, and a reason to visit it.

South Bay Harbor Trail

The Globe did a nice story on last Friday's event celebrating the not-yet-done South Bay Harbor Trail, well attended at Binford Street Park on the Gillette Campus in South Boston.

So we won't add a lot, other than to recall it was six years or so ago when we sat down at the Barking Crab with Patty Foley and Bruce Berman of Save the Harbor/Save the Bay and Mike Tyrrell, founder of the South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition, and listened to them talk about how committed they were to get the 3.5 mile path built.

It will connect Ruggles Station in Lower Roxbury -- eventually -- to the emerging mixed -use neighborhood at Fan Pier, via the South End, Chinatown, the Fort Point Channel, and South Boston.

That commitment was referenced over and over Friday, as Mayor Tom Menino, Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen, Gillette's Brian Hodgett, the city's environmental guy Jim Hunt, and others celebrated the progress -- it's now in the final design phase.

A nice red and white buoy now marks the park as a spot on the trail, which links up with the Boston Harborwalk. Boston Harbor Association executive director Vivien Li was there applauding that.

"We can see the finish line," said Menino, who back in 2002 tasked Save the Harbor with making it happen. "I can't wait to ride my bike on the Harbor Trail."

It was one of those public-private partnerships that worked, with the city, state, and Gillette playing their parts.

"Government can't always do these kinds of projects alone," said Cohen, who noted the trail will link Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace of parks with Boston Harbor. Something "he never planned but of which he would be proud."

Cohen said the Deval Patrick administration wants to boost water transportation, and if they follow through the Fort Point Channel, along with the harbor, could be busy with boats in years to come.

The tireless and patient Tyrrell quoted Walter Gropius on the value of persistence. "We've had quite an adventure," he said.

Hunt credited Foley, and the mayor for putting her in charge. "You can see why he tapped her," Hunt said. "Her dogged persistence and determination is unmatched."

Foley recalled thinking after talking to the mayor, "How hard could it be to build a bike trail? Little did I know."

She in turn credited city transportation folks, the BRA, The Boston Foundation, the Urban Art Institute, Fan Pier developer Joe Fallon ("where there will be lockers and showers and bike racks"), former BRA director Bob Walsh, Pressley Associates, Inc. landscape designers, design consultant David Giangrande, and more. (See southbaytrail.com or savetheharbor.org .)

Completion is expected in 2010.

"We'll see you on the trail," said Tyrrell.






Consultant Glen Berkowitz (standing) attended the Harbor Trail event and then counseled a friend on how to ride his electric scooter.