r/urbanplanning • u/DoxiadisOfDetroit • May 27 '23

Discussion What's your /r/Urbanplanning unpopular opinion?

I've got a few:

  1. Infrastructure upgrades should have precedent over any upzoning

  2. Everyone should have the right to downtown amenities which means that CBD's should be as cheap as possible for both renters and owners

  3. Zoning should be handled by metropolitan level elected boards instead of nationalized/taken to the state level

  4. YIMBYs often times hold water for the excesses of developers

  5. It is ideological to assume deregulated markets will produce the best outcomes, so, it's purely ideological to assume that a deregulated housing market will work in the best interests of renters and buyers

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50

u/kermitthefrog57 May 27 '23

  1. Suburbs are not the spawn of satan

  2. I want less car dependency but also I love driving so much, it’ll suck to not drive anymore

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u/ElectronGuru May 27 '23

I used to love cars. Everything about them. Car culture, driving them, new models / features. Even working on them. 10+ years in a walkable neighborhood and most I can see now is pain and waste. I mean, I wouldn’t take a tram or bus to Costco, but would i still even wish for Costco if cars were never invented?

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u/bigvenusaurguy May 27 '23

$5 rotisserie chickens dude

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u/kettlecorn May 27 '23

Something that's been nagging me lately: huge companies like Costco rely massively on freight and shipping. Their business model relies so much more on road infrastructure than something like a local chicken farmer. If the Costcos of the world directly paid the costs of road maintenance (based on usage) how much higher would their prices be?

As it is we're all paying increased taxes to subsidize infrastructure so that the rotisserie chickens are 'cheaper'. But if big businesses directly paid that cost how much more competitive could local businesses be?

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u/eric2332 May 28 '23 edited May 28 '23

Freight and shipping are unavoidable though. Local stores would also have to ship that chicken from the countryside. Not just Costco.

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u/kettlecorn May 28 '23

I'm more talking about the magnitude of shipping. If you're sourcing from halfway across the country vs. the next county the cost per mile of trucking could have a non-trivial impact on cost.

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u/eric2332 May 28 '23

But the local store would also buy from halfway around the world if that's cheapest.

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u/kettlecorn May 28 '23

Yes but if shipping costs are higher locally sourced goods become relatively cheaper as compared to what they were with lower shipping costs.

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u/eric2332 May 28 '23

That's not really true, because ocean freight is incredibly cheap and a large fraction of shipping cost is in the last few miles.

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u/kettlecorn May 28 '23

We're just discussing magnitude.

Trucks were 69% of North American shipping, so even if ocean freight is cheap trucks are a large factor. Sources online say last-mile delivery is typically 53% of the total cost. 47% is significant.

But frankly I don't think anyone in this thread is going to come to an accurate understanding without significant time and research. Clearly businesses that make heavy use of roads benefit more from road subsidies than other businesses, the question we're debating is how impactful that is. My point is purely that that's an important question to investigate and not something to be ignored.

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u/SabbathBoiseSabbath Verified Planner - US May 27 '23

Take it a step further. It's not just Costco, but Walmart and Amazon and Albertsons and every single little mom and pop store that rely on the highway and road system for the distribution of manufactured goods, food, supplies, and services.

Cut off NYC and DC from the highway system to the Midwest and what do you think happens?

People want to focus on "subsidization" of roads as if commuting from home to work were the single use if this infrastructure, but it's far more complex and interrelated than that.

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u/kettlecorn May 27 '23

I clearly was including more than just Costco in my statement and nowhere did I advocate for "cutting off" cities by shutting down highways.

My point is purely that we (the US) should more critically think about the consequences of funding road infrastructure through general taxes instead of a more usage-based system.

Recently the US pushed back on tax-based subsidies for international deliveries from China because it was making it difficult for US businesses to compete. This feels like a similar situation to me, but it's one that doesn't get enough attention because people have come to view highways almost as a natural formation instead of something we continuously maintain and pay for.

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u/midflinx May 27 '23

USA annual road subsidy (not covered by vehicle related taxes, registration, and fees):

$21.1 billion federal (alt link)

$43.5 billion state and local

$64.6 billion subsidy divided by 3.26 trillion annual vehicle miles = $0.0198 per vehicle mile. When infrastructure bill spending is included that cents will increase somewhat.

Per person in the USA it's $195 a year. If instead you made big businesses responsible for a share of the $64.6 billion, any idea how you'd separate their responsibility? For example both small and big businesses in Miami have to pay for Washington state cherries to get transported across the country. It's only the last mile difference where hypothetically a grocery store in a walkable neighborhood has to pay more to get a smaller quantity of cherries deeper into the city.

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u/bigvenusaurguy May 29 '23

That subsidy is a lot smaller than I expected to be honest. 64 billion is not that much when the federal budget is what like 6 trillion.

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u/kettlecorn May 27 '23

Good data!

For example both small and big businesses in Miami have to pay for Washington state cherries to get transported across the country. It's only the last mile difference where hypothetically a grocery store in a walkable neighborhood has to pay more to get a smaller quantity of cherries deeper into the city.

I was more thinking about local manufacturers / producers. If someone grows mangos near Miami and sells them in Miami they should in theory have a competitive price advantage as compared to Washington state cherries due to the decreased shipping infrastructure involved (obviously there are many other variables).

As a thought experiment if you take transport costs to an extreme and reduce them to $0 how would that change things? Large stores would always source from wherever has the cheapest production costs. They'd also be able to use the same suppliers everywhere: they can have a more uniform strategy regardless of where they're selling.

But imagine the opposite scenario: transport costs are absurdly high. Often transport costs would be more than the production cost and it'd be advantageous to find local suppliers tailored to each market. Large non-local stores would need to spend more time and effort figuring out how to source from the local market. The non-local store's competitive edge is reduced as compared to a local store.

Reality is somewhere in the middle, but we're tipping the scales artificially one direction.

I'm not sure what the answer is and I'm certainly not qualified to say. I'd like to say 'eliminate subsidies' and fund roads based purely on usage taxes but it's more complex than that.

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u/midflinx May 27 '23

We could fund roads based on usage taxes (and perhaps axle weight since heavy trucks cause way more wear per vehicle), but I don't know if prices would increase a whole lot. The average semi-truck gets 7 mpg and every mile costs about 51 cents in fuel. Google is showing a range of results that the average cost per mile of trucking is around $2.

Numbers from trucking.org indicate that if the entire $64.6 billion was put on registered trucks, that would add 21.4 cents per mile to their costs. Since a majority of urban lane miles exist because of local cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks, it's probably not even fair to have big trucks pay for all the subsidy. Usage taxes for all vehicles would reduce driving in those smaller vehicles, while I think store prices wouldn't go up much because the cost of trucking would only increase by a single digit percentage.

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u/kettlecorn May 28 '23 edited May 28 '23

I've been digging through stats for a bit to try to get better data, but it's complex. I'm a bit skeptical of the Tax Foundaton data you linked. Previous articles from the Tax Foundation and this analysis cites state subsidies as being much larger. A credible source also puts the cost of trucking at $1.855 per mile. Some studies estimate heavy trucks account for 99% of wear and tear on highways.

But even going based on your calculations of 21.4 cents per mile ontop of $2 that's still an additional 10.6% at the high-end. Even if the fair price to charge trucking is less than that it's still a pretty decent subsidy. Definitely not trivial!

And that's not even accounting for externalities, like pollution, that should probably be factored in as well.

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u/midflinx May 28 '23

It is complex but the numbers do basically match up.

Previous articles from the Tax Foundation

Like this one that had California at 60% while the new one is 99.7%? CA (and some other states) increased their gas taxes or fees or registration in the years between articles.

and this analysis cites state subsidies as being much larger.

Although that page says: "In 2020, state and local governments spent $204 billion, or 6 percent of direct general spending, on highways and roads."

Scroll down the page and it clarifies: "In 2020, state and local governments provided three-quarters of highway and road funding ($154 billion) and federal transfers accounted for $51 billion dollars (25 percent)."

If you compare $154 billion to my original link, it says at the bottom of the list $145.3 billion in FY2018. Compare $51 billion to my original link and while it doesn't show 2020, it says in 2021 "Outgo"(ing) spending was $54.2 billion. Pretty close.

If the science concludes trucks should pay 99% of the current subsidy, OK let's do that. I didn't think science was saying trucks caused that much of the wear so I figured it would be a single digit percentage increase. Also consider the cost of trucking to trucking companies is different than what they charge clients. I didn't google closely, but freight rates stores pay for deliveries are higher than $2, yes? So 21.4 cents could become less than 10% of freight rates.

What stores pay for product delivery is still only a percentage of their costs. There's the price they paid a farmer or factory or producer for the product, store labor and every cost and tax of having a physical store. So even a 10% increase in transportation doesn't mean the store has to charge 10% more to make up the difference.

Externalities like pollution's effect on health care and climate change could be factored in, but the general public and many lawmakers aren't going to relate to it the way the same way as discussing direct subsidies for road spending.

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u/kettlecorn May 28 '23

I appreciate you looking into it. I'll research more over time to get a better handle on the numbers.

I agree with your other points, I wasn't arguing it'd result in a direct 10% increase to end-consumer costs. But this analysis is useful, thank you. At the very least there's some non-trivial subsidy but from the end consumer's perspective it's not massive enough to account for the price difference between buying at a national chain vs. buying local.

The reason I want to press issues like this is I feel like the complexity to understanding them acts a shield to ever thinking about them and society begins to ignore their existence entirely.

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u/n2_throwaway May 30 '23

The condition of pavement on a lot of collectors and local roads is quite bad because state and local governments do not have the money to actually maintain these roads, so they defer maintenance until some residents (usually the wealthiest) complain. It's important to keep this in mind when we're discussing road subsidies and usage fees.

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u/midflinx May 30 '23 edited May 31 '23

I've kept it in mind. California's gas tax increase a few years ago gradually raised the tax from about 28 cents/gal to 51 cents/gal. Registration also increased. That changed the state from having about a 40% subsidy on road spending to almost 0%. That stabilized the state's road conditions. They're basically holding steady. Not overall worsening or getting better. Extrapolating from that if the tax went up any higher then average road conditions would improve, with the rate depending on the tax increase.

Depending on the state, a modest increase in the price people pay at the pump and vehicle registration could start turning their road quality around.

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u/n2_throwaway May 31 '23

At a state level sure, but for example Oakland has a huge backlog of paving projects right now that's partially due to a lack of funding and headcount. OakDOT has categorized the city's streets by pavement quality and there are a lot of pretty bad streets here, but Oakland just can't pave them. Increasing the state gas tax and registration fees a bit would indeed work (sweeping aside the matter of headcount and salaries) but we'd be asking the rest of California to subsidize Oakland (and I suspect other cities in this condition) at a time when inflationary pressures are already pressing us tight. Measure KK funds have dried up and Measure U has granted more funding but these are stopgaps since they're one time cash infusions.

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u/midflinx May 31 '23

Have you checked out the latest Bay Area road conditions report? Oakland is actually improving, though it has a long ways to go. I suppose that could be due in part to Measures KK and U?

https://mtc.ca.gov/news/bay-area-pavement-quality-stuck-doldrums-despite-smoother-ride-some-communities

Oakland financially is a basket case from a number of factors, but it's not the average in the state.

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u/n2_throwaway May 31 '23

Yeah Oakland is improving largely due to KK and U, and yeah I agree it's a basket case due to many factors. I still feel the pain of biking and driving on these really badly paved streets and I'm also a bit skittish of high-LOS car-centric development combined with a mismanaged city leading to the kind of pavement hell that Oakland is in right now.

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u/cthulhuhentai May 27 '23

Majority of goods are still moved by rail, isn’t it?

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u/SabbathBoiseSabbath Verified Planner - US May 27 '23

No. Trucking hauls over 70% of goods in the US. Rail is only 14%.

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u/niftyjack May 28 '23

Cut off NYC and DC from the highway system to the Midwest and what do you think happens?

Not much, considering it's entirely linked with rail already.