Transportation Not Life Support for Urban Growth

Robert W. Poole, Jr. of the Reason Foundation emailed a quote to me that I would like to pass along.  Considering the number of SCAG and transportation-realted visitors to this blog, I thought it was very appropriate to post here. 

“[M]uch available evidence points to the fact that while investment in transit systems may well support, and even strengthen, pre-existing trends toward urban growth and CBD consolidation, it never creates such trends where they do not already exist, and certainly cannot reverse trends toward spatial dispersion. The difference between the two views may appear at first to be merely a matter of emphasis. But on more careful observation, it can be seen that the implications for public transport decisions are very dissimilar. The first position leads to investment motivated by the desire to arrest unwanted trends toward lower-density urban forms, or actively create denser forms of development. The latter view notes that the right time, and perhaps the only time, to invest heavily in urban public transit systems is when underlying trends show that the urban form is already consolidating for reasons unrelated to transport.” —Andrew Marsay, “Capturing Growth Trends Through Investment in Public Transport Interchanges,” paper for University of Johannesburg’s annual “Discourse” series.

And yet the Fullerton City Council continues to approve and subsidize massive transportation and urban redevelopment projects, knowing full-well that there is no demand in the private sector.