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| 7/9 |
| 2005/4/22-23 [Transportation/Car] UID:37317 Activity:moderate |
4/22 We've Been Led To Expect Free Parking:
http://csua.org/u/btc (sfexainer)
A great column exploring the roots of some of the fundamental
problems we face in America (expensive housing, traffic congestion,
obesity) and what we can do about it.
\_ I often wonder what America would look like if road construction
and maintainence had been left to the free market, instead of
subject to massive government subsidy and oversight. The
interstate system is a really good example of centralized planning
and it's unintended consequences.
\_ where is this magic free market no subsidy transportation
system in the world?
\_ Nowhere; transportation systems are an example of
something the free market is ineffective at providing.
But that doesn't mean it should all be subsidized;
ideally your subsidies should be aimed at promoting
larger goals. -tom
\_ My point was that massive road building was a concious
choice made by the government. It's only now that
our country is so car dependent that road building
is an "essential service."
\_ For a long time, the massive road building was not
done to the exclusion of supporting rail travel.
\_ actually, the rail network in the US was
mostly built with private money; the government
granted land but that was about all. But
the railroads became oppressive monopolies,
which along with the oil companies brought
Teddy Roosevelt into power as a "trust-buster".
Extremely harsh restrictions on rail
monopolies, never revisted over time, squeezed
the life out of the industry over the next 30
years, and rail in the US has never recovered.
-tom
\_ You dismiss the granting of millions of
acres of land like it is nothing.
\_ It's not nothing, but most of the land
wasn't very valuable. -tom
\- do you know what SPRINT stands for?
interesting question what is the value
of fibre optic routes. some litigation
on this.
\_ SPCC started offering phone service
in 1978. That was, what, 100 years
after the railroad land grant?
\_ Lands for freeways were also granted. But
in addition to that, freeway constructions
were funded with govt money.
\_ I'll bet freeways and roads take up
way way way way way way way more
land than the railroads. Railroads
are much easier to build and
maintain as well.
\_ Yes, but railroad companies also
got 10 sq. miles of land for every
mile of railyway.
http://www.coxrail.com/land-grants.htm
\_ I think it would have been more expensive and worse.
\_ Without the HUGE road subsidies in this country trains would
be used a lot more. That's what pisses me off when Bush
says shit about how Amtrak needs to support itself. Amtrak
can't compete against a road network that gets insane amount
of tax money for expansion/support. It's not a fair system.
\_ Hypocrisy seems to be a requirement in todays Republican
party.
\_ Privatizing apple and orange vendors, GREAT idea. You get lots of
competition and even if they're too expensive, you can choose to
not buy them. Privatizing basic, essential infrastructures like
water, energy, and transportation... you get the Enron effect.
\_ Halliburton!
\- does anybody know if you have to pay the city a per-day
chanrge in SF if you want to say reserve three parking
spaces in front of your building for a week "for construc-
tion" ... i see some of these places reserved for
ridiculous amounts of time which lie fallow most of the
time. i think the article misses some non-economic factors
as well. i think the sf parking people should also go
after the giant number of illegit handicapped placards.-psb |
| 7/9 |
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| csua.org/u/btc -> www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/04/22/columnists/challenges_and_opportunities/20050422_co02_challenges.txt Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning, recently published "The High Cost of Free Parking," his manifesto on parking in America. In the surprisingly entertaining textbook, Shoup examines how the need for park ing has shaped our urban landscapes and at what cost. His suggestions fo r parking fees based on market demand promise to appeal to the sensibili ty of environmentalists and business owners alike. Marisa Lagos from his office in Los Angeles a bout the book and about why parking prices should be adjusted to reflect what the market will bear a suggestion he says will lead to a larger av ailability of parking spaces. EXAMINER: In your book you talk about how the total cost of parking subsi dies in the United States is staggering. DONALD SHOUP: It's about the size of what we spend on Medicare and nation al defense. Q: Why is there such a lack of understanding about how much parking costs , and to put it in perspective for San Francisco, how much would a parki ng space in downtown San Francisco cost in subsidies? I think there would be far more parking subsidies in downtown LA or downtown Kansas City than in San Francisco. In most cities, there's a lack of understanding about the cost of parking because it's hidden in everything else. The little bit of what you pay for every transaction for food, or housing, or movies or anything like t hat goes to pay for your parking even if you didn't drive. We have this very strange phenomenon of extremely expensive housing for p eople and free parking for cars. You can't really build a nything without the required parking, so this utopia is really brought i nto existence by law, because we really won't permit anything else. Of course, when you come to the center of San Francisco, you say, Oh, it doesn't have to be that way,' which is why people like to go to San Fran cisco. It's actually the absence of parking in San Francisco that ma kes it such a great place to walk around. Q: You said during your lecture here, "You have some of the most valuable land in the world in San Francisco and you're giving it away for free." What do you see as the problems in San Francisco, and what are your sug gestions, especially in relation to metered parking? A: Let me suggest the solution and then we can talk about the problem. And so they run the meters until midnight and on Sunday. And off street it costs a lot more for the first hour, it's li ke $4 or something. Given that situation, people have an incentive to dr ive around and around. So a lot of the traffic in downtown San Francisco is, I'm sure, hunting for cheap curb parking spaces, because they don't want to pay for off-street parking. My recommendation and the recom mendation of traffic experts is that about 15 percent of the spaces shou ld be vacant on every block, so that anybody driving along any block can see an empty parking space that they can pull into if they wanted it. Kids learn when they're very young that porridge shouldn't be very hot or very cold, and that beds shouldn't be too firm or too soft, and I think the Goldilocks principle of parking prices is that they shouldn't be to o high or too low. It's too low if there are no spaces, and it's too hig h if there are a lot of empty spaces. A: Whatever it takes to yield a 15 percent vacancy rate. I don't know wha t the right rate is, but I'll know it when I see it. the merchants can look out and say, "There's no place for my customers to park." Q: So explain that process to me I think there is a fear on the part of m erchants and business owners that if you push fees too high, you'll driv e away the economic benefits The City depends on. A: I think it will explain itself to the merchants if they know they get to keep the revenue. There are not a lot of people who live in San Francisco who are parking at the cu rb in the middle of downtown. Q: So you would suggest maybe rewriting San Francisco's laws so half of t hat money would still go to public transit like it's supposed to? A: Half of the additional revenue could go to transit, and half could sta y in the neighborhood. So Muni would get a lot more out of it and so wou ld the neighborhood. You can't say it's chasing people away, because if it is, it's too high. it's friendly to tourists if they can count on a place to park at the curb. When Pasadena started doing this policy putting in meters and charging un til midnight the sales tax revenues took off. The sales increased becaus e you're getting a different group of people and the same curb space. So lo drivers will find it expensive, but if there are four people in the c ar they won't find it expensive at all. A: I don't think you need time limits if you charge this Goldilocks price . as soon as they make a purchase or eat their meal they'll leave, because they'll be paying for every minute there. If you're going to stay a long time, yo u'll park off street. I think it should be much more expensive at the cu rb, which is much more convenient, much better for a short-term parker. Q: You talk in the book about how parking increases already outrageous ho using prices here, and you mention that The City's policy of requiring e ach new unit to have at least one space of off-street parking actually i ntensifies the housing problem. A: If somebody is willing to rent or buy an apartment without a parking s pace, why not let them? Including parking with every housing unit has got to raise the price of t he housing unit. I mean, suppose The City require that all fast-food res taurants include french fries in the price of a hamburger. Well, the pri ce of hamburgers would soon go up to include the cost of the french frie s So all you're doing is increasing the cost for everybody who wouldn't order the french fries. Off-street parking requirements mean that people who are too poor to own cars pay for parking spaces they don't use, while people who do own cars complain that charging for parking will harm the poor. People who have cars simply don't want to pay for parking, and I suggest a genuine care for the poor has little to do with not charging for parking. Q: This market-rate approach, I think, is what attracts people on both si des of the argument. Do you think it would get more people out of their cars? A: I think it would give people more options and opportunities you'd be m ore likely to pay for parking wherever you drive, but there would be lot s more places for you to walk to. Just because you have to pay for parki ng doesn't mean you're not going to drive I mean, you pay for gasoline a nd you drive. Q: You encourage transit advocates and environmentalists to set aside the environmental and political reasons for this. You need to appeal t o the self-interest of those who can make the decision, and in downtown San Francisco it's the merchants and the landowners. If they came out an d said, "We want to charge $4 an hour for curb parking, and we'll give h alf the money to Muni," who's to object? "2005: Challenges & Opportunities" appears Fridays in The Examiner. All Challenges And Opportunities stories: * We've been led to expect free parking'Dr. Donald Shoup, a professor o f urban planning, recently published "The High Cost of Free Parking," his manifesto on parking in America. In the surprisingly entertaining textbook, Shoup examines how the need for parking has shaped our urban landscapes and at what cost. His suggestions for parking fees based on market demand promise to appeal to the sensibility of environmentalists and business owners alike. Marisa Lagos from his office in Los Angeles about the book and about why parking prices should be adjusted to reflect what the market will bear a suggestion he says will lead to a larger availability of parking spaces. |
| www.coxrail.com/land-grants.htm For almost 140 years, political opponents and commentators have vilified land grants made to railroads. No one is going to change anyone's mind a fter all these years. But, as collectors, maybe you might like to know w hat all the shouting was about. The first large land grants came about with the Pacific Railroad Act of 1 862 As best I can tell, the first major railroad land grants came about with the 1862 legislation that enabled the transcontinental railroad. At that time, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads were granted 400- foot right-of-ways plus ten square miles of land for every mile of track built. And small land grants were offered in Ohio and Wisconsin in the late 1850s. The earliest land grant bonds in the database date from 1859 . But we first need to consider how that lan d was parceled. The Township and Range system of land survey After Jefferson's administration bought the Northwest Territories from Fr ance, the US instituted a system of land surveying still used in most of the US today. The sections were then grouped into square townships of 36 square mi les. Within each township, sections are numbered in a precise and predic table manner from 1 to 36. Next, imagine t ownships lined up edge-to-edge, from the Ohio River Valley to the Pacifi c Ocean, and from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. You now hav e a rough idea of how the United States is surveyed. How do you get "ten square miles of land" for every mile of track? The final step in understanding a land grant is to imagine a rail line sn aking across the checkerboard in some twisting manner. If you draw two s imilar lines, parallel to the railroad, but ten miles to the left and te n miles to the right, you have the outline of a land grant created by th e 1862 law. The railroads were given the odd-numbered sections on each side of the ra ilroad right-of-way. Therefore, the companies would get five square mile s of land on each side of the track. And, of course, the federal governm ent would retain most of the rest. But, obviously, n o one wanted to buy any of that land until after the rail lines were con structed. And even mo re problematically, tremendously huge areas of land were located in barr en and "worthless" parts of Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada where it was virtu ally impossible to grow or ranch anything. To further help with construction, the companies were loaned 30-year gove rnment bonds that the companies were required to repay with interest. Th e government set up a scheme where the companies would be loaned $16,000 per mile for construction across flat land, $32,000 per mile for hilly terrain, and $48,000 per mile for mountain construction. the railroads could not build any curves sharper than 10 degrees, n or steeper than 116 feet per mile. Additionally, the line had to be buil t with American steel which was a serious hardship for the Central Pacif ic. Finally, the whole line between Omaha and Sacramento had to be compl eted within fourteen years or the land, and all the track, tunneling, an d labor would be forfeited! The government was only giving the companies th e rights to use the surface of the land. Rail historians know that both the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific were controlled by only a handful of stockholders. While that eventually worked out great for those few people, it was not for their lack of try ing to sell company stock. The truth is, it was virtually impossible for the companies to sell any s tock except to themselves. As critical as the transcontinental railroad was to the country, typical investors considered the project far too ris ky. They considered problems of construction as insurmountable, or nearl y so. The considered that hostile Indians would never allow settlement. They never thought the intermountain West would ever produce anything ot her than gold and silver. Had there been property taxes at the time, they probably would have considered the land grants as liabilities. Another problem was that the government required the companies to use the ir railroad and lands as collateral for the government bond loans. In ef fect, the government held the first mortgage on all the transcontinental railroad. And that, in turn, made it impossible for the railroads to se ll any of their own bonds like railroads elsewhere in the US The Pacific Railroad Act of 1864 It quickly became apparent that parts of the 1862 law needed reworking. A nd because the railroad was so absolutely critical to the United States, Congress revised the law in the middle of the Civil War. The Act of 1864 revised several problematic issues, the land grants among them. The 1864 act enlarged land grants from ten to twenty miles of alt ernating sections on either side of the tracks. Next, it granted full ri ghts to all the minerals underneath all that land. Example of land grant ownership in a "checkerboard" pattern. This shows a portion of the original Union Pacific land grant, just north of Laramie , Wyoming. The rail line appears slightly o ff-center, because the modern track alignment was improved over the orig inal. By the time this map was made in the late 1970s, almost all the su rface had been sold to ranchers. The red color showed that the company o nly owned mineral rights. Since that time, most of the mineral rights ha ve also been sold. While the land grants ultimately became quite important by the dawn of th e 20th century, we must still remember the perception of that land in th e 1860s was not very good. With the exception of land near Omaha, Sacram ento, and Ogden, the land grants held very little value. More important was the fact that the 1864 act was changed to allow the co mpanies to sell bonds in amounts equal to the government loans. In effec t, this moved the government from its first mortgage position. Given the risky nature of the railroads, the most important provision of the new act was one that allowed the companies to collect government loa ns much more quickly. Previously, the companies could only collect gover nment bonds after each 40-mile section of road was fully completed and i nspected. And, in mou ntainous terrain, the companies could collect two-thirds of their loans after the grading had been finished. Over time, p arts of most of the land grants became immensely valuable. As western Ne braska was settled, and as the Sierras were developed, both the UP and t he CP benefited enormously from selling their land grants. And the Union Pacific benefited dramatically from the huge coal reserves it acquired in Wyoming. Until dieselization in the mid-1950s, it mined large tonnage s of coal for use in its own steam engines. That is not to say that the Northern Pacific, the Southern Pacific, and t he Santa Fe did not also benefit from their own subsequent land grants. While some of those companies may disagree, I suggest that many of their greatest rewards did not actually appear until the energy boom of the 1 980s. But still, if you adjust those windfall profits back in time a hun dred years or so, the real value of the land grants was not all that gre at except in very special locations. So how to get money for the land grants before they were worth anything? Obviously, the US government planned for the railroads to raise money by selling their land grants. And don't forget that as the railroads sold t heir land grants, the intermixed federal land became equally valuable. In good farming, ranching, and timbering country, it was easy to sell sec tions from land grants. But out in the middle of deserts, or out in the middle of the upper Great Plains, selling land was hard. So hard that su bstantial amounts of land from those original land grants remain unsold today. To get money from their lands, railroads turned instead to borrowing. Thus originated the "land grant" bonds that collectors see today. The ide a was to borrow money and to secure the loans with the land grants as co llateral. Currently, there are 46 distinct varieties of land grant bonds known, spr ead among 26 companies. If you are interested in collecting such bonds, check out these companies. While most of these companies operated west o f ... |