Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun
David Hartgen’s plan to repave the state of North Carolina might be accepted in some towns, but not in Durham.
Hartgen, a professor at UNC-Charlotte, recently released a study of transportation planning that looks at urban areas around the state. His conclusions simply amount to statistically backed reasons why urban areas should reduce transit spending, divert saved funds to highway construction and road widening, and embrace the private automobile as the keystone species in the ecology of economic progress.
The 200+ page study is available for download from the John Locke Foundation‘s website, and I encourage you to read it for yourself. At the very least, read the 15 page section on Durham because it is rife with interesting tidbits that don’t sit well with his conclusions.
By his own admission, single-occupancy driving declined in Durham between 1990 and 2000, the time period at which his academic gaze is focused. The data show, and so he also admits, that carpooling and use of public transit increased. He notes further that “Durham is the only urbanized area in the state to report declining solo driving times and increased carpooling and transit shares between 1990 and 2000.” You might think, then, that the conclusions he reaches for Charlotte or Raleigh ought to differ from the conclusions he reaches for Durham’s future.
Across the state, however, it’s all the same. Eliminate transit. Widen roads. Pave early and often.
His consistency reveals his incorrigible proposition. Any good social scientist knows that an “incorrigible proposition” is a belief that answers to no one. It is a telling sign that you’ve fallen prey to an incorrigible proposition when your prejudices guide your research in such a way that you always conclude what you previously believed to be true.
“I think that Hartgen essentially approaches the issue with blinders,” says Durham resident Barry Ragin. “He assumes that ‘congestion’ is the problem which needs to be solved.” In the case of Durham, congestion is the problem that just hasn’t happened yet.
Hartgen guesses (but can’t cite any studies to back him up) that a slow economy explains why people ride the bus and carpool in Durham. So if his prognosis is that the personal automobile is the cure for what ails Durham’s economy, then, you might wonder what Hartgen recommends for combatting ozone pollution and bringing the city into compliance with federal standards. That’ll take care of itself, he says, “as vehicles get less emittting.”
But emissions aren’t the only concerns swirling around the monolithic transportation infrastructure Hartgen dreams of. “Hartgen calls for government to spend heavily on more roads without imposing any land-use restrictions — a combination doomed to fail,” says Kevin Davis, senior IT manager at Duke. “If we don’t introduce transit and bike/pedestrian services in combination with smarter growth, we’ll end up as gridlocked as poorly-planned, car-centric cities like Houston and Orlando.”
Instead of car-culture’s monolith, a thriving city is one with a truly multi-modal transit authority. That is, the more options people have for getting around town, the healthier the people of the town and the healthier the economy. Hartgen implies that congestion limits individuals’ freedom by restricting their use of the personal automobile. But a city without buses, without bike lanes, without trains is a city without options. Meaningful options are what people want, and those options don’t always look like more asphalt.
“This report suggests that the state should spend money here on traffic-signal optimization instead of public transit. That’s ridiculous,” says David Mills a Durham resident and Executive Director of the Common Sense Foundation. “Durham needs visionary leadership to make public transit viable, not backward studies such as this one.”
Durham’s residents have spoken loud and clear on this issue. In response to the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s current plan to widen Alston Avenue, which would turn it from a neighborhood street into a mini-freeway, citizens and government representatives expressed a united voice to say that Durham values its pedestrians being able to cross streets safely.
Whether DOT will side with the John Locke Foundation or Durham residents remains to be seen, but the question remains for each of us to consider.
Do roads exist to serve people or cars?