A few days back I wrote a post about the connections between the “City Centre Master Plan” that Auckland Council is working on, and key transport projects to reduce vehicle numbers in the CBD – most particularly the CBD Rail Tunnel project. The key message in that post was to question whether the rail tunnel business case had properly considered changes to the CBD’s roading network in the future – arising from the Master Plan – that seem likely to reduce general capacity for private vehicles in order to improve the area’s pedestrian friendliness.
This connection between projects like the CBD Rail Tunnel and the quality of the city centre reminded me about a very good book I’ve been reading over the last couple of weeks: The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro. Having visited Washington DC last year, and ridden the Metro, it was really interesting to learn more about the history of the system – in particular the reasons behind Washington DC choosing not to proceed with a huge freeway building programme in the 1960s and 1970s, but rather choosing to embark on construction of what is now the USA’s second most well-used transit system (after the New York subway of course).
To cut a very long story short, Washington DC chose the metro over the freeway plans in order to save the city. It wasn’t really a practical transport decision, relating to which option could shift more people more quickly and at the cheapest cost (though rail might have won that argument too), but rather that Washington DC residents didn’t want their city to be covered in freeways and carparks – and eventually (through some extremely competent officials) they got their way.
These days the Washington Metro plays an extremely important role in shaping the US Capital. This was explained in excellent detail in the blog “The Transport Politic” a couple of months ago. But the Metro does not serve all of the DC area, and contrasting two employment hubs – one with Metro access and one without it – shows the importance that a rail connection can provide.
Looking first at Ballston, Arlington County, Virginia – this is a centre located right on the “Orange Line” of the Washington Metro system. It is a fairly high density residential and commercial node – a classic ‘transit-oriented development’:
There are a few useful things to note in the aerial photograph above. The first is how relatively little of the area is dedicated to surface carparking and the second is now relatively narrow the roads are (you’ll see in a minute what I mean in comparison to). The Transport Politic also noted how the whole development corridor within which Ballston sits has grown significantly over the past 10 years:
…new information from Census 2010 provides empirical confirmation of the significance of land use planning around Metro stations in influencing the growth of Arlington and other places in Northern Virginia. Over the last ten years, Arlington County’s growth has been overwhelmingly concentrated along the Metro corridors, as has growth in Alexandria and some parts of Fairfax County. The densification of these areas is effectively extending the inner-city core of the Washington, D.C. region and substituting sprawling development in the exurbs with dense construction. This represents a change in trends compared to the period between 1990 and 2000.
…the areas of Northern Virginia that saw the greatest percentage growth between 2000 and 2010 were all clustered around Metro stations — in Arlington along the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor (Orange Line) and in Crystal City (Yellow and Blue Lines); in Alexandria near Van Dorn Street Station (Blue Line) and Eisenhower Avenue (Yellow Line); and in Fairfax County near Vienna/Fairfax Station (Orange Line). As other areas of close-in Virginia have been fully developed, these station area zones have densified through the coordinated planning decisions of city officials, the availability of rail rapid transit, funds from developers, and a clear interest of a large portion of the population to inhabit the new buildings.
In the case of the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, the Census Blocks within closest proximity of the five Metro stations along the Orange Line absorbed more than 70% of Arlington County’s growth, increasing by 12,816 people compared to Arlington’s expansion by 18,174 people towards a total population of 207,627. These 1.47 square miles arrayed linearly — a small percentage of Arlington’s 26 square miles — now represent more than 17% of the county’s population, compared to about 12% in 2000.
The area to compare Ballston to is known as “Tyson’s Corner“. Take a look at the aerial photograph below and you’ll see pretty quickly how obvious it is that this area has never been served by the Washington Metro system:
Unlike Ballston, if you look at the aerial of Tysons Corner above you can barely see anything other than surface level carparks (oh, and the roofs of shopping malls). The level of infrastructure investment in the vast roading network that feeds this area seems immense (and is ongoing as seen on the right-hand side of the picture).
Auckland’s CBD probably doesn’t quite have futures as distinctively different as Ballston and Tysons Corner, but these two examples give us a good indication of the difference that rail has on the form and function of an area. Unless we want to fill our city centre with wider roads, more carparks and so forth we are going to need to find new ways of getting people into and out of the CBD. Buses can do much of that task, but there’s clearly a limit to what they can achieve before they start becoming part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. It is difficult to see how Auckland’s city centre can achieve the goals we want it to have without the CBD Rail Tunnel project.
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That is a truly astounding difference. You would think that (large) developers would almost be falling over themselves to incorporate public transport into their schemes. :O
This helps put paid to the myth that rail is only useful for serving the development of central areas.
Rail can serve dispersed employment well, just as long as it concentrated like Ballston, but not when it is scattered like North Harbour.
Those pictures are also a helpful comparison to show what Manukau and Albany could have looked like if they were rail served. Hopefully Manukau, and in 20 years Albany can start to look more like the top picture rather than the bottom.
That bottom picture makes me want to cry, looking at all that wasted space. It’s not even pretty, green space, it’s just a concrete expanse dedicated to the gods of Ford, Chrysler and GM.
A car-park tax on every square metre of parking space for every new commercial development, ring-fenced for funding public transport, would be a very effective way to discourage such practices. I say square metre rather than parking space, because developers would find ways to minimise official parking space numbers while maximising available space if it was on the number of spaces provided.
Toss in a change from minimum to maximum occupancy:parking ratios and we might see a change in development practices.
Not holding my breath, but I can dream.
“The level of infrastructure investment in the vast roading network that feeds this area seems immense (and is ongoing as seen on the right-hand side of the picture).”
It may well seem immense but Tyson’s corner is located in a triangle formed by 3 major through routes and many are the times I have driven these roads(albeit never wanting to stop at Tysons Corner). The most significant of these is I495 seen on the right of the picture. When Interstate 95 (the main north-south interstate along the US east coast and an exceptionally busy route) gets to Washington DC it bifurcates forming I495 East and I495 West (the outer and inner beltways respectively). Also in the vicinity of Tysons Corner the route to Washington Dulles airport intersects with 495 and the Leesburg Pike(another highly-traffic route) forms the other part of the triangle. Absent Tysons Corner it’s reasonable to expect that there would still be significant roading infrastructure. The “astounding difference” cannot solely be attributed to the presence, or otherwise, of rail.
It is also perhaps significant that there are plans to extend the Metro out to Dulles airport taking in Tysons Corner. Along with this there are proposals to lift the maximum height of buildings in the area to achieve densification.
That is true, however as Tysons Corner is now the 12th largest employment centre in the USA one would imagine that either those roads are way wider than they would need to be without Tysons Corner being so auto-dependent OR it causes huge congestion on important through roads.
“Today, nearly half of Tysons’s 1,700 acres are streets and parking. In all, the area has more than 35 million square feet of commercial space, more than the downtowns of Miami, St. Louis or San Diego.”
Can’t see that being economically beneficial. Luckily there seems to be a plan to make Tysons much more like Ballston in conjunction with the new rail line to Dulles.
I wonder how successful retrofitting rail onto Tysons Corner can be. The landscape is so well established as being auto-dependent we would need to see a wholesale reworking of the area for rail to work I think.
Not to say it’s impossible, but I suggest very difficult.
@Luke on Manukau: I would have put Manukau station 500m further east, on the car park site directly beside the mall.
@john Me too, but it would have cost an extra $10 million if I recall correctly so Len cut it. Hopefully with the new Transport Agency short sighted decisions like this won’t be made.
I spent a fair bit of time in Tyson’s Corner in 2011, and it is presently a nightmare to drive around. They are building the new metro extension out to Dulles International, to be called the Silver Line, and are currently working through the whole Tyson’s corner area. One of the more complex traffic interchanges I have ever had the misfortune to have to drive through. The photos you show above are fascinating, and informative, but ultimately, Virginia is a very car-focused environment. The areas of DC that the metro does serve are also choked. America needs both metro and cars to work. Auckland missed the boat with not planning the metro when it had a chance – and the motorway system has grown in its place. Soooo hard to undo that now.