Ryan Avent
Recent Posts
Has the Government Been Bailing Out Sprawl?
| | No Comments
One of the themes of the financial and economic crisis we’ve faced over the past two years is that government, pressed into responding to serious economic pain, has often found itself supporting the activities that got us into this mess in the first place. Sign of the times? Sde-by-side foreclosures in Massachusetts. (Photo: Yovani via […]
Advice for Policymakers: Time to Check Your Blind Spots
| | No Comments
Last week, I left my Washington home, walked to the nearby Metro station, rode a train downtown, walked to the National Press Club, and settled in to hear Steven Rattner, former head of the Obama administration’s auto task force, declare that "no one has yet invented a substitute for the automobile." Steven Rattner (Photo: WSJ) […]
Congestion Pricing: Still Good For Basically Everyone
| | No Comments
Urbanists often find themselves falling into a pattern of thinking that boils down to the dictum that what’s good for drivers must be bad for walkability, and sustainability, and all the things that they prize about well-designed cities. Drivers seem to believe this too, which is interesting because it often isn’t true. What’s good for […]
Bridging the Local-National Message Divide: The Climate Bill is the Answer
| | No Comments
Urban areas have a lot to contribute to the congressional climate change debate. (Photo: SDOT Blog) This week, I was fortunate to attend the Open Cities conference in Washington (along with fellow Streetsbloggers Elana Schor and Aaron Naparstek), on the ways in which new media is shaping urban policy. The takeaway, for me at least, […]
Transit and Congestion, an Indirect Connection
| | 3 Comments
Yesterday, Freakonomics linked to a new piece of research [PDF] on congestion that I’d been musing over for a few days. Let me quote the abstract here (paragraph break and emphasis mine): We investigate the relationship between interstate highways and highway vehicle kilometers traveled (vkt) in us cities. We find that vkt increases proportionately to […]
Growth of Compact Development Likely, Important for Reducing VMT
| | No Comments
About two years ago, the Urban Land Institute published Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, which argued that it will be crucial to build cities in a more compact fashion if the country hopes to avoid substantial growth in vehicle miles traveled and carbon emissions over the next few decades. At […]
What Should We Learn From Moses and Jacobs?
| | 3 Comments
There is probably no more beloved figure in urbanism than Jane Jacobs, who fought to preserve some of New York City’s most treasured neighborhoods and who gave urbanists some of the field’s fundamental texts. As Ed Glaeser notes in the New Republic this week, Jacobs died in 2006 “a cherished, almost saintly figure,” while her […]
More People, Less Driving: The Imperative of Curbing Sprawl
| | 1 Comment
Experience with case studies has made it clear to many urban planners and environmentalists that to maximize the benefits of transit investments, and to slow growth in traffic congestion, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and carbon emissions, you have to focus on land use. Photo: Penn State. This knowledge has begun working its way into the […]
A Last Word on ‘Cash for Clunkers’
| | 2 Comments
One thing the government’s CARS program — a.k.a. "cash for clunkers" — has clearly stimulated is commentary. For a policy involving a shade under $3 billion in federal spending, it has enjoyed no shortage of media coverage. (Photo: Newsday) In part this is because the program looks like a big success, and certainly congressional leaders […]
Toward a Positive Argument for High-Speed Rail
| | 1 Comment
In recent weeks, I’ve been busily making what you might call a negative argument for high-speed rail — pointing out the many ways in which arguments against HSR are deficient. That’s all well and good, but positive cases for HSR need to be made, as well. Now, others have already begun to do this. California […]
The Power of Transit-Oriented Development
| | 1 Comment
Back in the late 1970s, when Washington’s Metrorail system first began operating in Arlington County, Virginia, the future of Arlington and other old, inner suburbs was far from certain. Across the Potomac, the District of Columbia was suffering from depopulation, rapidly rising crime rates, and serious fiscal difficulties. Ballston Metro station, Arlington Co. Photo: Point […]
Obama Administration Refuses to Consider New Transpo Funding
| | No Comments
Having entertained legislators’ own ideas about how best to fund future transportation spending, the House Ways and Means committee turned to representatives from the administration and key interest groups today to hear their thoughts on the matter. The administration’s view could not have been much clearer — this business is all very important, but we’re […]