advocating urbanism in the opportunity city
News Worth Reading
Two items from Houston Tomorrow that recently got my attention:
Virginia: Build Grids, Not Cul-de-Sacs
Studies identify keys to safer roads
The overwhelming conclusion of both of these pieces is the same: older street patterns, grids where most streets are small and nearly all connect through the surrounding area, are safer, cheaper, and less congested.
These are facts, not opinions. It’s important that we start reshaping our local and state transportation policy around them.
Posted: Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 7:51 am
Categories: think
Tags: safety, street grid, traffic, transportation
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Categories: think
Tags: safety, street grid, traffic, transportation
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3 Comments
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Wow…that’s a big deal. I was just thinking about grid systems and their costs the other day. I wonder how much more the developers would have to dish out to accomodate this new law. Guess they’ll just pass it on to the homebuyers.
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Jesse,
Because they also dramatically reduced the paving requirements (from about 40′ to about 27′), the cost to developers should actually go down.
But, even if it goes up and exurban housing becomes more expensive, in this case that’s a more market appropriate response. Those housing developments are exclusively creating the need for more transportation capacity, they should be exclusively paying for it. Otherwise the market is distorted in favor of a subsidized product, and taxpayers are unfairly burdened.
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I’m not real high on regulation but I will say I favor a grid system and like it a ton more. It would be interesting to be living in those areas and to see their changes.