Urban v. Rural and the Alabama Senate Election Result

Urban v. Rural

and the

Alabama Senate Election Result

Kevin H. Posey

Set aside for just a moment the partisan aspects and implications of last night’s Alabama Senate election victory for the Democrat, Doug Jones, over the Republican nominee, Roy Moore, and consider how it reflects on the longstanding tensions between rural and urban interests in the United States. These tensions date back to the founding of the republic, with Thomas Jefferson advocating for an agrarian democracy, while it could fairly be argued that Alexander Hamilton represented urban interests with his focus on a central bank that would fuel industry.

With this in mind, take a look at Alabama’s county results. Check out how the largest counties (with the highest precinct count) voted. There’s nothing unusual about the fact that they diverge from smaller, more rural counties. What is unusual is that, this time, they prevailed.

 

Results courtesy of AL.com

Essentially, even in one of the lesser-urbanized regions in the US, the political power of the city is starting to be felt. One cannot help but wonder if this is a trend that might play out in 2018 in more urban regions. If the cities are on the political ascent, this will have tremendous implications for transportation priorities in the US. 

How? Well, highways are often used as a means to encourage economic growth in rural areas. The extension of Interstate 69 in Indiana (and eventually to Texas) is one such example. Or, they are often built to facilitate development in former agricultural areas outside of the city—also known as suburban sprawl.

Highways today are seldom built or expanded to benefit city residents. In fact, they are often fought for their destructive impacts on neighborhoods and the health of nearby residents. Opposition to the plan to drastically widen I-70 through the heart of Denver is reflective of this. So, if cities are growing in power, how likely is the funding spigot for road construction to stay open?

Birmingham, the largest city in Alabama, has had considerable trouble funding its transit system. At one point, city employees had to forego a raise just so it could stay in operation. Federal funding for such systems is often crucial, but Alabama’s Senators were elected primarily via support outside of the cities. But if you look at last night’s results, Jefferson County, wherein Birmingham lies, turned out for Senator-elect Doug Jones. One would imagine that he would be motivated to advocate for federal transit dollars to reward the constituents who gave him his narrow victory.

Now consider what happens if the scenario in Alabama plays out across the country in 2018. Keep an eye on Senate race competitiveness rankings via the independent Cook Political Report.

As we went into last night, it showed the Alabama seat as a toss-up. Seven other seats carry that ranking (shown as state-current occupant):

Democrats                                                     Republicans

Indiana- Donnelly                                        Arizona- Flake

Missouri- McCaskill                                     Nevada- Heller

West Virginia- Manchin                              Tennessee- Corker

Minnesota- Franken

Indiana, Missouri, Minnesota, Arizona, and Nevada all have large, urban centers comprising their electorate. If the Alabama scenario were to repeat, that could yield a pickup of three Senate seats for Democrats. All of the victors would likely owe their jobs to city voters. Greater funding for transit and complete streets projects, coupled with an overall de-emphasis of single occupant vehicles, is not out of the question.

The 2018 election is still a year off, and much can (and will) occur between now and then. But those with an interest in transportation and urban policy would do well to take heed of how the political winds are starting to blow.

A Note to VDOT that One Alleged Transportation Advocacy Group Won't Like

Thanks to David Alpert at Greater Greater Washington, I was recently made aware of an effort by the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance (NVTA), an organization hopelessly mired in old-school transportation thinking,  to mount an email (or letter-writing, as they're VERY old-school) campaign to push the state of Virginia to cut spending on transit and nonmotorized modes, such as bikes and pedestrians. NVTA wants this money re-tasked to highway widenings.

So, I set out to write Virginia's Department of Transportation a note of my own. But as I did so, I realized that what I was writing was applicable throughout much of the U.S. Too much, really.

Most regions have organizations stuffed with wealthy, generally older, business owners and CEOs frustrated by congestion created largely via previous plans that they, themselves, advocated. Rather than read up on the field of transportation, or even notice what's going on around them, they advocate the same failed solutions they tried before.

So please read the note below and, if you like, cut and paste to suit your own needs. The only way "Dumbgrowth" organizations like NVTA will be thwarted is if those who favor "Smartgrowth" speak up. If you'd like to submit a comment to VDOT, click here.

Here's my note:

"I understand that the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance is asking its allies to push VDOT for more emphasis on reducing road congestion via widenings. As a realtor and a northern Virginia resident, I strongly DISAGREE with this approach.

One need only look at the congestion on newly-widened roads in northern Virginia to realize that our state's reliance on road widenings has utterly failed. I see the result firsthand in the staggering residential price premiums near transit stations. Nobody pays a premium to live within easy reach of a highway these days.

While that's good for me, as a realtor focused on areas close to DC- and therefore close to transit- it's bad for Virginia. Those areas without good, rail-based transit and high levels of walking and biking infrastructure are doomed. Their prices have already stagnated as Millennials stay away; soon they will drop as their neighborhoods age.

The ONLY way to stop this is via a full embrace of transit and Complete Streets by VDOT. Anything else will merely add to Virginia's legacy of transportation failure."

Wider roads worked great in Atlanta! Here's downtown at 4 PM on a Monday.
They might as well get out and start walking.

Will Bikes Eliminate the Need for Big-Ticket Highway & Transit Projects?

I like innovation. Creative thinking to me reflects intellectual vigor. When we become afraid of change, we age all too quickly.

Miami, a beacon of youthful vigor in a state with the opposite reputation, is the site of an idea that takes poorly-used space and makes room for one of the most sustainable transportation modes available: bikes. The proposal, which unsurprisingly comes from consultants from the Dutch Cycling Embassy, is to build a linear park and bike path under Metrorail elevated transit in the southwest corner of town. This Metrorail line already has a pockmarked, bumpy, sorry excuse for a path underneath it called the M-Path. However, like so many similar asphalt afterthoughts built by DOTs in the latter part of the 20^th century, it’s hardly used. The new path, entitled the Underline, would seek to recreate the same allure and excitement that the High Line created in Manhattan in these early years of the 21^st century, except the addition of a proper bike route makes it far more useful.

A usable, attractive corridor is bound to attract economic growth. Witness the sustained boom taking place in the intown areas of Atlanta, particularly near the still-unfinished Beltline. The Beltline may seem to be a bit grandiose, with its promise of light rail transit, redeveloped neighborhoods, and multiuser paths. Expensive light rail projects are getting harder to fund as infrastructure spending throughout the US withers under conservative pressure.  For example, Arlington, Virginia, surrendered to such antipathy when it chose to kill a streetcar project in a low-income corridor after strenuous objections from right-leaning county board members, Libby Garvey and John Vihstadt.  Luckily for Atlanta, the economic benefits of the Beltline are already coming in with only multiuser paths in place in some areas.

That raises a rather unsettling question for transportation and city planners: is the key to neighborhood vigor and economic growth a combination of low-impact, low-cost transportation infrastructure and parks? If the High Line, Underline, and Beltline are all successful in injecting vitality into close-in neighborhoods, with the latter two offering new connectivity, should we re-task funding away from elaborate road and transit projects designed to expensively move people between outlying areas and the central cores of metropolitan areas? If a rail transit system is too much for Arlington to stomach, for instance, should the county look to a long corridor of bike paths and parks paralleling the route of the defunct streetcar as a replacement?

Some signs of a new trend in this direction are starting to appear. In the early 1990s, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) finally realized its collective dream of building an expressway through the heart of north Atlanta after years of opposition during Atlanta’s Freeway Revolt. Georgia 400 was initially built as a toll road with an expensive MARTA heavy rail line in the center. The road recently lost its tolls (cue massive backups).

In a glaring oversight, GDOT chose not to include a bike path alongside the new road, as Virginia’s DOT had done years earlier along I-66 inside the Beltway (the Custis Trail).  GDOT is now going a little way towards rectifying that error by donating right-of-way along part of GA 400 to Atlanta’s PATH organization. PATH is part of a consortium constructing a multiuser path through north Atlanta’s Buckhead community that will connect to the Atlanta Beltline. The beginnings of a citywide bike network are starting to form.

That this is occurring in Georgia is positively earthshaking. This is the same state that gives no money at all to Atlanta’s MARTA transit system. That’s not to say that the Republican governor, Nathan Deal, has turned his back on that most traditional of congestion relief measures, the widening of urban expressways. Years of repeated failures of such projects to alleviate congestion have yet to have an impact on the governor’s transportation policy. However, big changes often have small beginnings.

In this era of diminishing budgets, more regions should look to these innovative ideas from Miami and Atlanta. It’s better to build something cheap that will keep its full functionality many years after completion than waste time on projects that will never get off the ground (Arlington Streetcar) or will ultimately fail to relieve congestion (any given urban highway expansion). If the Underline and Beltline can be completed and grow in popularity, as well as economic impact, the consultants at the Dutch Cycling Embassy will get a lot busier.