Reply to MOCO - County Wide Upzoning, Everywhere

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The county government is talking out of two side of their mouth with contradictory policies. Raising the cost of housing by passing building performance standards for the “environment”. The MOCO turns around and promotes environmentally damaging sprawl with a proposal to increase the allowable density throughout the county by 4x+ [b]in areas with minimal or no access to public transportation[/b]. So do they really care about affordability or the environment?? They are  just making up reasons to justify trendy policy goals that are in vogue with YIMBYs and Urbanists, without concern for the impact on court residents. This comprehensive zoning reform is just a box to check on their resume before the take a highly paid job with a developer or political advocacy organization. [/quote]

Are you one of the "buses don't count"/"people don't take buses" posters? Buses are public transportation.[/quote]

Of course it’s public transportation, it’s just not mass transit as being sold here locally or allow for zoning changes.  It’s mass transit in the way that I could paint my car yellow and call it a school bus.[/quote]

I think you'll find that Team Buses Aren't Mass Transit is not a winning team.[/quote]

It’s doesn’t matter if they are mass transit or not if most residents don’t actually use it. This is a fallacious argument. The ridership rate for buses is well under 10% of passenger miles traveled. You are using a hypothetical that is not consistent with actual behavior to justify upzoning the entire county. Yes, there are a few people that use the buses, but vast majority of these new residents will not be riding the bus to work and biking to get their groceries. This argument that bus ridership will be high enough to offset traffic from quadplex/triplex units is a magical belief that has no basis in reality. [/quote]

What's the fallacious argument, exactly?

Fact: Buses are mass transit.
Fact: Buses are public transportation.

My advice: next time, specify that you're talking about Metrorail.[/quote]

[b]The false argument you are making is that people will ride the bus at a level that mitigates traffic issues for upzoning to 4x+ population density.[/b] I didn’t say it’s not mass transit, but if most people don’t actually use the bus 90% plus aren’t using it, then it’s doesn’t matter if it “mass transit” or not. It’s completely illogical to claim that buses will prevent traffic when the vast majority of residents never use the this transportation option. [/quote]

Whoever said that, it's not me. Traffic issues - meaning car traffic issues - are not my primary concern, because people make transportation choices as well as housing choices. People choose to use the transportation options that work best for them, depending on the circumstances. People might also choose alternative car trips.  For example, you might choose to drive at a different time, and/or to a different destination. Or if you're driving to get an item, you might choose to have the item delivered instead. Plus traffic modeling is not much more accurate than tarot-card-reading, anyway.[/quote]

This is not about traffic modeling it is about actual data on bus ridership for the county. It makes up such an insignificant portion of total transportation trips that it makes no sense link zoning to bus transit access. This is what the county is doing and they are specifically stating that buses will mitigate traffic issues, which is a blatant lie. There is no data to support this. You are just avoiding the topic altogether. Busses are not relevant to this zoning discussion because people don’t use them enough to actually matter for traffic levels. So upzoning everywhere because “buses” is stupid. [/quote]

First, MoCo is simultaneously investing in significant bus infrastructure projects along the major corridors (BRT) that will make it more accessible and more pleasant.  It will feel more like the T in Boston or another streetcar.  That will increase ridership....as it has in multiple other jurisdictions.

Second, sometimes public policy is not built on existing behavior, but to encourage different behavior.  By your logic, there would be no reason to build a charging network for electric cars, or invest in composting programs where people do not already compost.[/quote]

Public policy is not supposed to be built on magical beliefs that ignore real world data, but this is exactly what MOCO is doing right now. Their policy decisions are based on nothing but the intuition of density bros that lack critical thinking skills. . [/quote]

Real world data shows that improving transit increases transit usage.[/quote]

Nothing is more telling about what the future holds for transit in MoCo than how many parking spaces developers put in their site plans. It was almost always more than the minimum and now that there are no minimums they keep building parking. Developers know that people prefer driving and their site plans reflect that. [/quote]

People prefer driving to what? Also, people who? A third of people can't or don't drive.

I support abolishing required parking minimums.[/quote]

The county already abolished parking minimums. [b]Based on the number of spaces in site plans, it’s safe to say the target customers for new housing prefer driving to everything else.[/b] But you have to let the market decide, right?[/quote]

That's silly. It's safe to say the builders believe the buyers are willing to pay for the parking spaces.

However, you're making two big assumptions.

1. Most people just purely love driving. 
2. Our transportation policy should enable people's love of driving.

I think the first assumption is factually incorrect, and the second assumption is wrong.

I drive a lot. It's the only way I can conveniently manage the transportation my family needs. Out of four adults in my family, two are non-drivers. If we had non-car options that worked as well as my driving, I would never drive again.[/quote]

I think you're making a lot of leaps here about what I am assuming. My statement is true[b] if people prefer driving as the least bad alternative.[/b] That's far from assuming people love driving. There's strong demand for parking, to the point that units would not be marketable to the higher income households that are targeted by new development without dedicated parking. [/quote]

So if they are presented with a better alternative, they may start taking it, right?[/quote]

Yes, of course. That’s obviously implicit in what I said.

But a better alternative is not just a transportation problem. It’s also a jobs problem. (Funny how the county’s vision for 15-minute living never includes jobs.) As long as the job growth is concentrated in Tysons and the Dulles corridor, there’s going to be very strong demand for parking and driving in MoCo. We are decades away from having a good mass transit solution for getting people from MoCo to Tysons/Dulles but we could attract jobs and rebuild the county’s economy much faster than that. Until then, people will prefer driving.

There are other draws for driving — such as recreation facilities not being served by quality mass transit — but jobs are really the primary driving factor. [/quote]

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