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What if the public transport solution involved policies like taxing the existing suburbs in a way that ensures a break-even on infrastructure upkeep and operati

by Teever 2mo ago

What if the public transport solution involved policies like taxing the existing suburbs in a way that ensures a break-even on infrastructure upkeep and operating costs so that the people who live in them aren't unfairly pushing costs onto other people in society? We could go a step further and tax automobiles in such a way that they covers the negative externalizes that their use results in so that again, the users of them don't unfairly burden others with the cost of their choices? The money generated from these endeavours could be used to fund the development of mass public transportation infrastructure in more, dense, sustainable areas as well as things like high speed rail to connect those regions allowing the people who chose to live in those areas an easier and cheaper day to day life as well as the access to distant cities and all the economic opportunity that this encourages both in the destinations and in the economic corridors that arise along them? Places like the US and Canada may be able to stave it off a bit longer because of relatively open immigration policies but the demographic collapse is coming. That means that cities are going to start fighting to attract a dwindling pool of people and cities with less debt, be it financial or infrastructure will fare better than those that have suffered under decades of perpetual growth mindset based policy making. Many suburbs are a rot on a city's finances and will inevitably need to be amputated. The sooner the better I say.

missedthecue 2mo ago
From a municipal finance perspective, most Dallas-Fort Worth suburban municipalities are far and away outperforming urban Dallas (the City of Dallas proper). That's not opinion, you can see the finances as they are all public. Ask the LLM of your choice to make research easy. I'm not really sure where people get this idea that suburbs are drowning in liabilities where dense american urban centers are overflowing with revenues. The opposite is the case almost everywhere you look. Or that suburbs are only surviving by pushing costs unfairly onto cities. Most suburbs (in the case of Dallas being plano, irving, frisco, southlake/westlake) are self governing municipalities with their own school districts, police, city management, and credit ratings. Sometimes people say it's just that suburbs are new and have yet to pay the piper, but even in america's (and Dallas') oldest suburbs, many of which have replaced/renovated infra several times over at this point, they are indeed stronger financially than the urban centers they surround.
- Teever 2mo ago
  I think you're sort of missing my point. After decades of ignored negative externalities from unchecked suburban growth and car-culture are coming to an end. As populations decline and temperatures increase places like Dallas and the wealthy suburbs around it that you mention will have less and less relevance. There isn't going to be a future where the citizens of suburban Dallas are enjoying Starbucks coffee in single-serving cups delivered to them in Waymo vehicles. It isn't viable to just paper over unsustainable nature of these places with self driving cars and ignore urban environments and mass public transit as the comment that started this thread suggested. The only places that are going to survive what is coming are ones that are dense, well managed, and sustainable.
  - galangalalgol 2mo ago
    The climate part is certainly an issue for dfw, but the superiority of dense urban areas from a financial or ecological standpoint isn't backed by data. Buses were better for fuel efficiency, but now the bus and robotaxi are both ev, the robotaxi has a smaller impact ecologically due to microplastics scaling with axle weight ^4 and financially because road wear scales with axle weight ^3. If buses and trash trucks didn't drive on streets they would last virtually forever the way they are built now. While the glorious excesses of the last 75yrs are definitely going away, the suburbs may very well not. Urban cores might instead rot in infrastructure until only the highways between them with low density adjacent settlements remain.
  - wj 2mo ago
    What is the timeline you expect for this?
  - DeathArrow 2mo ago
    What about the problems negative externalities from unchecked crowding and bus culture? Like overcrowding, sky high prices for housing, very high prices for everything, broken infrastructure that is to expensive to fix and over capacity?
- airza 2mo ago
  The finances of these metros rarely incorporate road costs; their accounting does not require them to incorporate the future liability for infrastructure maintenance and so everything looks good until they need to redo the roads.
DeathArrow 2mo ago
>so that the people who live in them aren't unfairly pushing costs onto other people in society >The money generated from these endeavours could be used to fund the development of mass public transportation infrastructure in more, dense, sustainable areas So you still want to tax some people to subsidize other people. Why?

by Teever 2mo ago

missedthecue 2mo ago

From a municipal finance perspective, most Dallas-Fort Worth suburban municipalities are far and away outperforming urban Dallas (the City of Dallas proper). That's not opinion, you can see the finances as they are all public. Ask the LLM of your choice to make research easy. I'm not really sure where people get this idea that suburbs are drowning in liabilities where dense american urban centers are overflowing with revenues. The opposite is the case almost everywhere you look. Or that suburbs are only surviving by pushing costs unfairly onto cities. Most suburbs (in the case of Dallas being plano, irving, frisco, southlake/westlake) are self governing municipalities with their own school districts, police, city management, and credit ratings. Sometimes people say it's just that suburbs are new and have yet to pay the piper, but even in america's (and Dallas') oldest suburbs, many of which have replaced/renovated infra several times over at this point, they are indeed stronger financially than the urban centers they surround.

Teever 2mo ago
I think you're sort of missing my point. After decades of ignored negative externalities from unchecked suburban growth and car-culture are coming to an end. As populations decline and temperatures increase places like Dallas and the wealthy suburbs around it that you mention will have less and less relevance. There isn't going to be a future where the citizens of suburban Dallas are enjoying Starbucks coffee in single-serving cups delivered to them in Waymo vehicles. It isn't viable to just paper over unsustainable nature of these places with self driving cars and ignore urban environments and mass public transit as the comment that started this thread suggested. The only places that are going to survive what is coming are ones that are dense, well managed, and sustainable.
- galangalalgol 2mo ago
  The climate part is certainly an issue for dfw, but the superiority of dense urban areas from a financial or ecological standpoint isn't backed by data. Buses were better for fuel efficiency, but now the bus and robotaxi are both ev, the robotaxi has a smaller impact ecologically due to microplastics scaling with axle weight ^4 and financially because road wear scales with axle weight ^3. If buses and trash trucks didn't drive on streets they would last virtually forever the way they are built now. While the glorious excesses of the last 75yrs are definitely going away, the suburbs may very well not. Urban cores might instead rot in infrastructure until only the highways between them with low density adjacent settlements remain.
- wj 2mo ago
  What is the timeline you expect for this?
- DeathArrow 2mo ago
  What about the problems negative externalities from unchecked crowding and bus culture? Like overcrowding, sky high prices for housing, very high prices for everything, broken infrastructure that is to expensive to fix and over capacity?
airza 2mo ago
The finances of these metros rarely incorporate road costs; their accounting does not require them to incorporate the future liability for infrastructure maintenance and so everything looks good until they need to redo the roads.

DeathArrow 2mo ago

>so that the people who live in them aren't unfairly pushing costs onto other people in society >The money generated from these endeavours could be used to fund the development of mass public transportation infrastructure in more, dense, sustainable areas So you still want to tax some people to subsidize other people. Why?