The Case for Widening (Futility III)

I-380 (six lanes' worth) crosses 15th Street SW in Cedar Rapids

Drums continue to beat for the widening of Interstate 380 in eastern Iowa--specifically to add one lane each way in the 12 mile stretch of four-lane highway between US 30 and North Liberty, to match the six lanes that exist in Cedar Rapids and close to Interstate 80. The Iowa Department of Transportation has held public forums, and at least one local government (Iowa City) has taken a position (against).

The Cedar Rapids Gazette has published a number of opinion pieces (cited below), including one opposed to widening by Corridor Urbanism co-founder Ben Kaplan, and a strong statement of support by former Cedar Rapids mayor Ron Corbett. Corbett's administration oversaw not only recovery from the devastating 2008 flood, but adoption of complete streets policies including bike lanes, sidewalk construction, and one-way-to-two-way conversions throughout Cedar Rapids. His record of public service as well as time in private industry makes his position particularly worthy of note.

Ron Corbett (Source: Radio Iowa)

In his guest editorial, Corbett offers three main sets of premises:

1. We need to accommodate future growth. Linn and Johnson counties form the core of the economic region. (Corbett counts seven counties; the U.S. Census Bureau defines a five-county "combined statistical area." However defined, a huge proportion of the population lives in these two counties.) Their estimated combined population in 2016 was 442,000, which will surely prove larger once 2020 census figures are published. As the counties continue to grow--unlike most of Iowa--intercity commuting will increase, until it can't anymore. "Without an efficient transportation system," Corbett writes, "We risk losing our competitive edge." In other words, if car travel times increase beyond, say, 37 minutes, people won't switch to public transit, they will move to a more car-accommodating region, and our economy will strangle.
2. Our region is designed such that private cars are the only way to get around. The combined population of the two counties is roughly equal to that of the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, but spread over 1,332 square miles instead of 57 (not to mention that Minneapolis is part of a larger metropolitan area of almost 4 million people). Other than where downtown Iowa City abuts the main campus of the University of Iowa, employment even in the cities is spread over a wide area. Downtown Cedar Rapids has come back gloriously since the flood, but as a center is still a shadow of its pre-sprawl self. People live and work all over the place. This is the "last mile problem" with a vengeance: Even if auto addicts were somehow induced to take an intercity bus or light rail, they would face additional challenges getting to their final destinations once they got to downtown Cedar Rapids or Iowa City. [For example: Someone commuting from near Cherokee Park in northwest Cedar Rapids to North Liberty's Commercial Park faces a two hour commute by buses, with two connections, opposed to 30-45 minutes by highway.] There is no incremental way to promote other forms of transportation. We live by our cars, and our cars must be served by wider highways.
3. Induced demand won't have bad effects. It will have good effects! Both Nicholas Johnson and Ben K. reference the Katy Freeway debacle in Houston, but given our relatively low population that nightmare will not be replicated here. (That's a nice way of admitting that the "congestion" on I-380 is pretty much a matter of perception, in a sparsely populated area where people often seem shocked to find someone else in front of them.) Corbett points out that if traffic increases enough, we will become eligible for more federal government spending: Right now, the ICR region is viewed as two different areas by the federal government due to the commuter activity between our two major cities – Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. Expanding our current commuting options by widening I-380 will allow for additional commuters. Being recognized as one metropolitan statistical area (MSA) would bring millions of additional federal economic and community development dollars to our region. Remember, local governments and taxpayers are not footing the bill for construction of the Highway 100 extension and all the work on 80 and 380; these are funded by state and national governments. Besides, Des Moines got money for their interstates, and look what it's done for them.

Four lanes of I-380 north of Swisher in July 2018 (Google Earth screen capture)

On one level it's hard to disagree with Mayor Corbett: As our community journeys through time, the next step is most likely going to resemble the steps we've taken so far. It's the easiest decision to make, the easiest plan to implement, and requires only temporary adjustments by our residents. Switching public investment to different transportation modes might--might--catch on in time, but in the short run is unlikely to mitigate the congestion such as it is. We've been building highways for decades, for better or worse, and we know how to build more, expand the ones we've got, where to find the money, and how to drive on them once we've got them. Adding bike lanes to city streets was freaky.

But we can't be restricted to short-run responses to problems. Someone has to be thinking about long-term outcomes. What will this region look like a generation or two from now? Will there be a small number of densely-populated employment centers, or will population be spread thinly around? There are attractions to both, but only the former accommodates the environment, is resilient to changes in energy supply, affords alternatives to a car-dependent lifestyle, is resilient to changes in federal spending habits, supports local businesses, and is financially sustainable. Building and widening highways without taking into account the future we're building is committing future generations to the choices of the past--as well as all the consequences.

Video promoting St. Paul's A line

Maybe slapping a light rail line between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City tomorrow, in hopes someone will use it, is not the solution right now. But we certainly should be taking steps towards conditions that will enable us to adapt to whatever the future brings. That means committing resources to something other than doubling down on what we've got. Ben in his guest column suggests bus rapid transit (BRT), which would be a huge step forward in Cedar Rapids's transit system, and which could spur transit-oriented development. We could expand the area covered by form-based codes, which done right help spur compact, affordable development. City development resources should focus on ways to improve our resilience. Is a development likely to position the city for a walkable design that works with intracity and intercity public transit? Good. Does it provide a short-term infusion of cash while making us more vulnerable in the future? Resist! Does it insulate from financial risk some big developer with even bigger promises? Definitely resist!

A couple more considerations:

The need to "accommodate future growth" through vast expansions of infrastructure assumes that growth is inevitable and will be substantial, or at least will not occur at all unless there is a great deal of improved space readied for it. This is a relatively recent assumption. As Charles Marohn has pointed out, pre-World War II growth was done incrementally, so that when failures occurred they were of small not spectacular scale:

We sometimes mistakenly view this approach as primitive, lacking the sophistication that today’s auto-based cities have. In that, we are disastrously wrong. Modern development represents not just a step backward in sophistication but an abandonment of complexity in favor of systems that are efficient, orderly, and dumb.

Traditional development patterns, based around people who walked, emerged through trial and error over thousands of years. Societies learned to build this way by innovating incrementally—expanding on what worked while abandoning what didn’t. The result is a resilient building form finely adapted to people, a pattern that repeats with eerie similarity across continents and cultures.

We need to approach development of our cities and regions in an entirely new, which is actually the old, way:

The central task of the Millennial generation is not going to be expanding the boundaries of our cities but managing their contraction. We must find a way to unwind all of these widely dispersed and unproductive investments while providing opportunities for a good life—a modernized American Dream—in strong cities, towns, and neighborhoods. And we have to do all of this with the drag of large debts and a failed national system for growth, development, and economic management that largely associates auto-based development with progress. (Marohn 2015)

Secondly, we need to stop treating the federal government like Dad-with-the-bottomless-wallet. When federal money is the answer to everything, the federal government winds up making a lot of our decisions for us (Gladney 2019). Admittedly I'd like it more if the federal government put more money into mass transit and less into highway construction, or if the Iowa government put more money into school maintenance and less into constructing new buildings. But the principle remains: When we choose what to do based on what we can get federal money for, that's a problem. If Cedar Rapids needs money for highways, because Des Moines (and Correctionville) got money for theirs, where does it end? Sioux City and Waterloo have had rougher decades than Cedar Rapids. And the Iowa Rural Development Council wants you to know that our state has 900-plus small towns which they believe have not received their share of funding (Menner 2018). Doesn't every town in Iowa, every hamlet in the United States, deserve a new highway or airport or attraction? Remember, we're paying taxes to the state and federal governments, too. When federal money for I-380 seems too good to pass up, remember that it's only possible because we're paying taxes towards every other project in America at the same time.

City Lab recently quoted mobility consultant Rasheq Zarif:

It’s a matter of distributing the demand. It should not be expected that we should build more roads and it’s free. It’s a utility, a resource for us, and we need to respect that the same way as we respect energy, water, housing and so forth.... When you’re wearing big pants, loosening your belt will not help remind you about weight loss.

Loosening your belt after too much turkey solves your immediate problem, but not your long-term issue. Same goes for widening highways.

SEE ALSO
Ron Corbett, "Local Economy Depends on Infrastructure, Including Wider I-380," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 25 November 2019
Calvin Gladney, "The Feds Are Driving a National Policy of Sprawl," The Fifty, 22 March 2019
Nicholas Johnson, "Asking the Right Questions About Interstate 380 Expansion," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 26 November 2019
Ben Kaplan, "More Capacity on I-380 Won't Lead to Less Congestion," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 25 November 2019
Charles L. Marohn Jr., "Cities for People--Or Cars?" The American Conservative May-June 2015: 6-8
"P.S. on I-380," 24 February 2018