How do you sell an electric tram?

Here is a little story about the ways in which we conceive of the future.

It involves an anecdote about this town I'm spending this month in, but the story actually has to do with all of us... scroll to the bottom to find out why.


Recently, a plan by General Growth officials was released that involves building a road bridge across a beautiful lake in downtown Columbia, Maryland.

[See this article in the Columbia Flier for details].

In an early design of downtown Columbia, there was a street linking Town Center to the east Columbia neighborhood of Oakland Mills by way of a bridge across Lake Kittamaqundi.

Columbia's original developer never built the connection, but now, 40 years later, the town's current developer hopes to make the bridge a reality.

The proposed bridge is one aspect of a traffic plan intended to complement developer General Growth Properties Inc.'s larger 30-year master plan to redevelop downtown Columbia by adding 5,500 residences, 4.79 million square feet of office space, 1.05 million square feet of retail and a 550-room hotel.


***

So, this bridge and road network is being planned to ease congestion in the downtown.

However, traffic studies have shown that building more roads doesn't actually decrease traffic -- it simply encourages people to drive more. See this
excerpt from the book Suburban Nation for an excellent explanation of why this is the case.


The brief letter I wrote to the Flier in response, "Look Forward to the Future", is below:


The solution to our future traffic woes is not to increase the amount of pavement, but to decrease the amount of cars.

Contrary to popular perception, traffic studies have shown that building new roads does not decrease traffic congestion. Rather, it encourages people to drive more-- this phenomenon is what people in the transportation industry call "induced traffic".

Why, in an era where burning gasoline is increasing expensive (and climate-changing), would we consider inducing more traffic? Looking "back to the future" is a grave mistake. We need to be thinking of long-term, progressive solutions for the future that we see now-- not the future that we saw forty years ago. Smart planners should be doing everything they can to make the urban landscape more walkable and mass-transit friendly. We should be developing the infrastructure for this now.

Consider trams. Seriously. Most small cities in Europe have tram systems: quiet, electric streetcars integrated into the traffic flow of existing streets. Modern trams don't necessarily require overhead lines. They are safe, comfortable, and elegant. And they're not just for Europe-- the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin (population 90,000), opened their tram line in 2000 for a cost of just 5 million.

Jim Rouse possessed great imagination when he envisioned this patchwork of farmland as a thriving city. Can we possess the same kind of risk-taking imagination, and envision a future Columbia which can be a model city again?

***


This letter is insufficient, though. What I wanted to say would be something like:

Baby-boomers and thirtysomethings, how are you going to explain this to your children and grandchildren?

They will be stuck in this place with a bunch of roads, but nobody can afford to fill their gas tanks. Their economy will already suck because of the debt you ran up, they will have paid twice as much taxes as you do now to support you in your old age, and their climate will be screwed. They will look across the ocean and think: how come the Europeans have trains and paths and trams and buses to get to where they have to go, but we don't? They will think: we are left with these huge spaced-out homes that are in the middle of nowhere, with miles of roads to travel to get to the store to to work... while people in Europe or in real cities can use the infrastructure provided to get around cheaply, quickly, and cleanly. They will probably live in a second-world country because they had all this car-dependent infrastructure that they couldn't afford to support any more.

Are you going to tell them-- well, we didn't know that automobiles polluted and that oil supplies were going to run low? They'll say: how could you not know, the evidence was right there. Are you going to tell them: we couldn't afford to build new infrastructure? They'll say: you were the richest country on the planet; that's like saying you can't afford to give your citizens health coverage like any other developed nation. Are you going to tell them: we just couldn't think of a better idea than to build more roads... back when we had the money and time and resources to build lasting, future-sighted infrastructure? That's what you'll have to tell them, unless you act now to build a world they can actually live in. But it doesn't look like you'll do that. You'll act out of some misguided idea about what the future will look like in 10 years, instead of thinking for the next 100 or 200, and continue wasting resources and time while spending credit that future generations could live on.

***

I mean, I'm really shocked by the planning that goes on in this country. I would even argue that people should start seeing planning as a moral issue. It's immoral to use precious resources to build infrastructure that future generations won't be able to use, when you could be actually making the world more liveable for them.

I would be really surprised if Columbia, Maryland decided to build a tram system. But here's the shocking thing [for those of you unfamiliar with the area]: this city, with a population of 100,000 and two major metropolises on either side, has no rail link with either Baltimore or Washington DC. The tens of thousands of people who work in either city have to drive, or they have to drive to a parking lot where they can catch a commuter bus: they have no other option. It's mindblowing that a major megalopolis does not have rail infrastructure.

Do you know why? I think it's out of fear. My understanding is that Columbia didn't want a rail link because it would make it too accessible. They want to maintain exclusivity and keep the urban riffraff out.

Thankfully, I don't actually live in this town: I couldn't deal with the mentalities of the people on a long-term basis. Unfortunately, I am not yet graceful enough to try and educate people who make decisions out of fear for their own property values. But if I did live in this town, I would be instituting a Tram Education program and printing out lots of pamphlets about mass transit. I would also be going to planning meetings and discussing it. Really I would be selling it: trams are sexy, they are sleek and elegant and comfortable, they are the future, so is rail; I would be passing out loads of pictures of sleek German trains.

But I would be discussing it on the friendly, positive level of the first letter... not in terms of the moral indictment of the second piece. It would be too much for people, and my message would be lost. Yet I do think we need to transition to thinking of these things as moral issues, for they are.