(This is a stream of thought piece, unedited. It will be edited when I edit it. Some of the questions are meant to get one thinking. The answers seem obvious in some cases, but it is good to consider that they may not be as obvious as we assume.)
(History has not been kind for some of Spring Valley Rd in Richardson, Texas. )
(It is east Texas week on the blog.)
(How packed, densely used, and tall, do we want Richardson to be? There is already a number in mind based on existing development rights and existing population and extrapolated growth, but often times developers ask for higher allowances on density and it is granted more often than not over the original density allotment, with some offsets from those not building to total allowed density. One question is, do we have to keep growing and growing in density in order to sustain? What is the economies of scale? Of density?)
In the old days, towns popped up where river crossing points or confluences were, and where railroads ran through, where a station could be or was, for need and for speculation. It was a way to get things and people in and out of the area besides the horse and buggy. If the railroad bypassed you, you were considered sentenced to the dustbin of modernity. This was before other transportation options were in the picture that took over from raft and buggy. But the history lives on. Just like a history of a people or gender subjugated to a certain treatment, there are always lingering effects. Ghost towns. Boom or bust towns. Depressed, surviving or thriving. Planning to the extent one can and the rest may not be within exact or remote control.
Now all one has to do is hop in the car. Yes, that sometimes involves sitting in traffic if you do this at certain times. Yes, it has national security implications. Not to mention many others.
These days, in Dallas and Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) cities, the DART light rail line could be considered the train (for passengers, not freight). Plans are to put up medium to high density environments at DART stops, and road intersections. But it doesn't mean that people will use DART (the train). Why, because of the reasons described here. (There are already a handful of medium type density developments at DART stations).
In thirty years when there is higher desity sitting at PGBT in Richardson, Garland and Plano it is the highways that will service the area the most, gridlock and all, not the limited DART light rail line unless it can be connected and made more usable. There are plans for that, but they are still very limited, at least in the public arena. The biggest initial significant links in the plan would be connecting UTD and the airport, tying into other systems. And even have DART go points east (east Texas). (Using private-public partnerships.) The rail line would still be a fairly inflexible commuter line, however, a straight shot deal, moving groups of people at once, but then there would need to be a connecting flight so to speak, a bus or walk or bike, if the line did not stop where you wanted to go.
The thought is to try to get highways, buses, rail, added tunnels, tollways ... to act as a network that works. (There is a saying in transit that once you find a system that works, no one uses it). The problem is that it is still too clunky, unconnected, expensive, and it is not sustainable, if nothing significant changes in behavior of our masses or in technological policy. (Nothing may happen anyway very soon because of politics and funding, the development and density will come before the transportation to fit it, adding to the jam). The current plan is not going to work as believed to satisfy the challenges which have outpaced the current situation and this limited "comprehensive" plan. It may work almost as well as what we are currently doing. There will be pockets of improvement at the expense of ignored areas. But we complain about the underbuilt, underfunded for-what-it-is, system as it is. The prevailing "vision" just won't be better enough and affordable enough for what will eventually have to be given up. Things will have to be sacrificed with the vision. Opportunity costs experienced.
And, so what if it does work out. What has been the consequences. There are consequences. The "vision" does not come for free.
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It is fun to pile a bunch, a whole bunch, of new stuff in an empty field in Richardson, Texas, albeit hopefully using much better design principals (as is always thought at the time).
It is more difficult to deal with issues of existing places like Spring Valley and even downtown in Richardson. It is a cycle. The neglected areas go into decline, like when people switched from using the train to using individual automobiles, the whistle stop and station towns dried up.
What we are being told, and what is being planned for, is a multi modal surface transportation system of using automobiles, light rail, buses, walking/biking to get around, in Texas. The shift is to have us "evolve" to living in higher and higher density and using the tool of light rail and stay out of our own vehicles. In thirty or fifty years, nearly every neighborhood in Richardson would be ready to be bulldozed, as one neighborhood leader wants to do now and as soon as possible (but not his street). These would be proposed to be replaced with what? Higher density living, because people have been drawn here and housing will be needed, that's what. Or possibly proposed to be open spaces. (Have to work with, or overlook, property rights for this). There is not a very good plan yet that looks that far (further) down the line, pun intended, to provide for what will happened. There are population estimates, but those have changed and will change somewhat depending on technology and other ebb and flow movements. It is a science of extrapolation based on what has already happened. There is a "comprehensive" plan, but it is fairly limited.
I am not convinced that we need to fit our city planning and more importantly transportation tax dollars around this concept to the extent it is until some more thought is put into it first and fast. The traffic is stacking up. We do need to do something. That is why everyone is running around with a vision to just unclog the roadways. Fix it, trash the debris wherever, build more and more roads. Build them, build them. Drill, baby, drill. There is something to that. Right here, right now.
Is an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure?
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We built ourselves around the automobile. We citified. Spring Valley (ironic name) was high density living (comparatively back then, notwithstanding places like Kuala Lumpor). Now so many people want to tear it down, with good reason.
The proposal now is to make PGBT DART station the new downtown, because, well, the old one isn't that good.
Something just seems wrong with all this.
Quality can definitely have a big impact. If the new high density areas are built of better quality than W Spring Valley, it would have an impact. That was the thinking for Brick Row (E Spring Valley). Did it include such high quality that in thirty or forty years it would not be another E. Spring Valley, or itself again? Or is it another twenty year product, as one frequent City Hall visitor swears?
Can you see swarms of people biking in the Texas heat up to PGBT to shop in the little shops except for the people who live there? And can you see after a few months the people who live there not wanting to go somewhere else for a change to hang out, eat, shop, etc. Yes, some swarms definitely could act as predicted, on average. Many will come in their cars like at Legacy in Plano and elsewhere (TOD like developments without transit). And, people will move in and move out. Lots of walkers walking to the apartments and shopping in that now vacant field who don't live there. The rail will be used some. Yes. A tunnel at Plano Rd and Renner. Yep. A tunnel at Greenville and Plano Rd. Maybe. Yes. The trees at the corner may or may not be there. Yep. I can see in forty years or less that the mall will grow out of favor and another new shiney mall will be the place to be. It is cyclical. The mix would have to change while there to compete with all the other mixed use and retail developments, they will turnover anyway because that is what retail and restaurants and new businesses do. And, people are fickle as a group, especially shoppers. The neighborhoods will just be rebuilt as multi-family housing? The exisiting single family homes that are at the end of their lifes would be built with higher density in mind, to house the people attracted to the area. Right?
Young people and older people with no children about may not want yards to tend to, quite understandbly. Some will still want space though. Some may not want yards, but they may also not want to live in a high density apartment type area. Oh, there will be places. That is the theory. Will they be afordable. There is already complaints about that on both sides. Will they be here? The funding and attention will go to the high density areas and public transit. That is the prevailing vision more than the comprehensive paper short thirty year vision.
Is the trend to make us live in high density? Give up our personal autos. To plan for this? But how is that going to happen without much pain when the projects now are not working out how they are supposed to? I know the reason is that the infrastructure isn't in place yet to service the vision. What has to be in place to get this plan to work? Should it work? Is that what the majority of us want? This vision (disjointed and nonprescient as it is).
I would rather have more yard, more buffer zone. I want my own covered space to park. I don't want to live three feet from you. That doesn't mean I don't like you. I know three feet is the "personal space" that we stand at in the U.S. It is much closer elsewhere. Will our space keep shrinking?
Will we claim to grow space; Vegas is in the desert. They grew space to live there. L.A. too. But they would not survive without taking water from miles and miles away, dessimating another area so that they may have water in the desert. They grew space there. Who gives up what to subsidize whose vision?
Our water district and dallas (Region C) has been saying that a part of east Texas should be flooded to create the Marvin Nichols reservoir. Water is needed for industry, growth, people. Some see it as asking that the people there give up their land, heritage that runs generations thick, to fill our need to grow the city, the population, become denser and denser at the edge of a water desert. Conservation is not enough says Region C. Others see it as providing water and avoiding a critical point where a drought will hit again and there will be no water. It's happened in the past. It can happen again.
There are several points of view. What is your vision? Are you resigned to it? Do you even know about it? Are you helping it come to fruition by supporting the density and flooding a part of east Texas to live in the city? Are you wanting another option? Are your options possible?
I do not have anything against mixed use or form based zoning or surface travel by other means besides the contemporary vehicles to keeps drivers off the roadway so those who can't take DART can get in jams there without so many of us participating in the traffic jams. Form based is flexible. Nor do I argue with the need for water.
But you have to think about what we are doing here though. Is that what we want? Is that where we spend so much of our money, time, effort, convincing? Do we have to do it that way? How many people do you want living here? How much is inevitable?
The bus stations do not have shelters on them. How visionary and convenient is that? It is just a question, not an indictment. Brick Row at E Spring Valley will be underserved by public transportation/transit. It is on the rail line. It is new construction.
DART has financial problems because of its funding mechanism of sales tax and member cities and other serious issues. A lot of the road fund pays for education. We can't afford education or roads?
At any rate, one thing is for sure, the noise ordinance will have to be improved and investment in acoustic tiles will grow and get used to the idea of living directly next to businesses again. There will still be a call for an industrial district, people will say it probably needs to go over there, in Garland.
We have to honor private development rights. Rights to high density building have been given. But what of rights of all those single family dwellers? Eminent domain was already threatened in getting a tiny little development going in Richardson. Eminent domain is used all the time but it will be used even more as living becomes denser. Get ready for it.
Things happen at a much slower rate in the public sphere than usually anticipated. We won't all be kicked out of our houses. Most of us will die first. It will be our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren who inherit the "vision" that is being pushed now.
When you go to sleep, think of what you would want for them. I just want them to be happy. Should I be thinking of more than that for them? Would I want them to be logged, tracked, stuffed into a tight space? Would I want them to have private property? Would they want to steer, to drive? Have clean air? Clean water to drink? Move around productively or be caught in a traffic jam (mobile communication device). Respect their neighbors? And their country neighbors?
We go to great extremes sometimes to preserve, make, write (rewrite, fake) history. Sometimes we just give it away because we don't know it is our history. Sometimes we abuse it and get called on the carpet. Sometimes we think it is a history of just certain people, and no one else should be said to have a part in it. Sometimes it is washed away beyond our control. Sometimes history has to be let go, to make way for here and now, and the future.
We are fitting us to tools that we have in the handbag. That's is what we have to do, to an extent. We should think about the fact that new tools are already available. We should think that technology will make some of this "vision" obsolete, so we should not wreck the ability of future needs to be met by doing things now that are onerous or single sighted or that is tunnel vision. Sure, plan for the future, but don't wreck it.
We should realize that if the current system is not sustainable, what makes this vision sustainable?
Yes, there are hell bent hearts wanting to bulldoze over anything that doesn't fit their vision or attack anyone who says that this is not exactly the vision for them. They are quite arrogant and high handed. Oh, you Leadite, they accuse. No, that is not it.
Is planning a moral issue? Is flooding a part of east Texas to support a density vision moral? Is wanting to have your own xeriscape lawn and not live in an apartment a moral issue? Build and they will come?
Spring Valley needs help. Some simple actions could have been taken years ago. Truncate Mayhem. Lower drive through or pass by effect. Start there.
The leaders have been meeting for years and years about Spring Valley at Coit area. Someone can say, "oh, it wasn't ready back then." Yes, it was. Some things were done.
Now there are people shoving, dragging and pushing harder than ever before to do something. Something, about the traffic, about the air, about the crime, about blight. That is good.
Around W Spring Valley they want to protect their single family homes and neighborhoods. The problem is, in other areas of the city, that does not seem to be that important to these same people because they want to bulldoze over other people's houses as soon as possible. They want to slap a moratorium on small businesses from improving their buidlings short of a total tear down. And it is certainly not a concern if in order to support our growing density dream we flood a part of east Texas.
What about east Texas?
What about east Texas?
It is fun repeating things.
