Rayn Riel | 1
TUFTS UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF URBAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND PLANNING
Rayn Riel, Capstone Exam Written Questions Spring 2016 1. Please discuss what public policies, laws and/or regulations can be adopted or applied to provide sufficient incentives for public transportation authorities to apply "value capture" techniques. Thereafter, please discuss examples of where public polices, laws and/or regulations have been adopted or applied to accomplish the above incentives.
America’s public transportation authorities need a new narrative for the 21st century.
Contemporary challenges require interdisciplinary, interconnected solutions, in order to bridge the gap socially, economically, politically, and of course, physically. We need to be planning beyond divisions, departments, agencies, and municipalities in order to renew, enhance, and expand our infrastructure, and tackle multiple problems at the same time, creatively, and affordably. For instance, the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s
Fulton Center is only a few stories tall, in the heart of Lower Manhattan. While they may eventually sell their air rights, and while there will be retail, they should have practiced TOD, and built a transit-oriented, transit-owned skyscraper atop their hub, similar to the World Trade Center, or the Hudson Terminal before it, or countless other examples in NYC, the US, and the world. We should have soaring buildings, not soaring costs. And only a block from the Fulton Center, the new Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) station cost $4 billion, making it the most expensive station in the world, and funds were almost entirely spend on architectural features, rather than capacity improvements. While the Fulton Center has received an LEED Silver rating, it was $1.4 billion itself, costing $130 million in local funds, $847 million from a special Congressional appropriation granted after September 11, 2001, and $423 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which was the largest single award for ARRA projects.
1
As a state authority, the MTA doesn't even need to listen to municipal zoning codes when building the four-story Fulton Center, but they did not build tall because they do not consider themselves real estate developers, and because they did not know if Lower Manhattan would rebound after 9/11; perhaps, they also did not want to compete with the WTC for tenants, which historically struggled with vacancy problems. But while the MTA does not have the expertise or the resources for real estate development, they surely could have worked with a developer in order to build their HQ there, rather than spend billions on renovating 2 Broadway a few blocks away. And they could've leased out the rest of the space to other offices, or for housing. Developers do not rely on federal grants; they rely mainly on other investments, and if the MTA treated this as a real estate development project
and
as a transportation project, they would have been far more creative, with more floor-area-ratio (FAR), too.
1
"First Subway Hub in New York to Receive LEED Rating." MTA. 16 Mar. 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
Rayn Riel | 2
The problem is that the MTA does not have sufficient incentives to apply value capture techniques, and that they do not have sufficient expertise, with only three employees in their TOD Group at the MTA Real Estate Department. New York should be encouraging value capture and joint development in order to build more housing atop transit assets and along subway corridors, and in order to get developers to pay for transit improvements, or new schools, libraries, and parks. Unfortunately, our public authorities do not control zoning, and our municipalities do not entirely control our public authorities, creating disconnects that encourage policies that are not (under)grounded by facts and figures, but politics, and election cycles. Construction projects can take more than one cycle to complete, and these leaders want to be around for the ceremonies, not just for the disruptions and delays during construction. Indeed, our politicians often bow to NIMBYist concerns, and even in New York, many people fear change, fear density, and do not seek creative, balanced solutions to problems. Thus, granted, while most of the MTA's assets are in far-flung locations -- such as yards or depots -- and the costs associated with decking and ventilating over active, huge sites would not be feasible (requiring a lot of OT), the Fulton Center, however marginal the increased revenue would've been, should've nevertheless been built taller. And there are plenty of opportunities for joint development, which will tackle many problems at once, ranging from alleviating environmental concerns from sprawl and vehicular congestion
2
, to increasing transportation revenue from more riders and more real estate revenue. If only our agencies were less risk-averse, and more entrepreneurial. It all comes down to changing the MTA's motives, incentives, and mindset. Communication is key. Words need to be chosen carefully. It's a delicate process. Unfortunately, our agencies are set up to fail in a century defined by sharing and collaborating. We cannot be kept on track (literally), and we cannot remain competitive in the 21st century, if we do not have more constructive communication, and if we do not streamline our organizational disconnects.
3
Yet alas, it's hard for each public
authority’s
divisions to communicate with each other, so
it’s
even more difficult for inter-agency collaboration, or for different municipalities, corporations, and non-profits to all be involved in a public-private partnership.
4
It is a feat to keep these agencies running every single day, but I firmly believe that outstanding planners are literally out, standing in the field, learning on the ground (or underground). And unfortunately, I think most people simply don't care to understand the importance of infrastructure, and the complexities of our challenges, so our politicians do not feel a need to change. Many leaders do not even understand day-to-day and long-term realities because they do not have experience in the field, or even a basic background on the topic, as often MTA Board members are political appointees. Private companies had no problem connecting our region across political boundaries, but they had a profit motive, whereas politicians are concerned primarily with re-election, and these election cycles are far more short-term than the time-consuming, demanding energy needed to tackle long-term problems.
2
Walker, Jarrett. Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking About Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives. Washington, DC: Island, 2011. Print.
3
"Keeping New York on Track." Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, Urban Land Institute, Hornick Consulting, New York University, HR&A Advisors, 11 Feb. 2015. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.
4
Davis, Perry.
Public-Private Partnerships: Improving Urban Life
. Vol. 36, No. 2. New York: Academy of Political Science, in conjunction with the New York City Partnership, 1986. Print.
Rayn Riel | 3
Thus, how can we change the 'silo culture' in our agencies, in today's political economy? How can we create a new narrative for practical and visionary creativity, and create meaningful, mixed-use communities? How can we reform our agencies when their 'train' of thought is more of a 'chain' of thought, locked from change by balkanized politics and a uniquely American affair with states' rights? Our polarization stems from the top echelons of government, and we need a movement to reach across the aisle, socially, economically, politically, and physically. I believe that our regions need champions, someone who can stand up for the authorities, and help them to reach new heights (literally). New York City must streamline bonuses for developers building atop subway entrances, if they contribute to mass transit, and New York City must also streamline zoning and air rights laws for the MTA and other public agencies. If affordable housing and parking requirements make decking projects unaffordable, the MTA should be exempt. If overbuilds are not feasible due to low FAR requirements, MTA property should be up-zoned. If a transfer of development rights is not feasible due to zoning lot districts, the MTA should receive an exception. All of this requires coordination between the City and State, which have been quarreling, and neither Mayor Bill de Blasio nor Governor Cuomo seem to prioritize stabilizing public transportation finance.
2. Please provide a comparative analysis of and between no fewer than two European or Asian cities and no fewer than two cities within the United States discussing how public transportation systems are financed (e.g. what sources of revenue are used to pay for the systems), the extent of debt financing for each and the degree to which the relevant government subsidizes the transportation system.
Washington’s
WMATA was closed for 24 hours on Wednesday, March 16, in our natio
n’s
capital, representing everything wrong with our embarrassing approach to infrastructure as a nation, from financing to management, operations, and maintenance. In London, if TfL has any problems, Parliament is immediately calling them and trying to fix it. But despite D.C. also being a capital city, our country was founded to not be like the U.K. (in the 1700s), thus making it difficult for today's regional authorities (such as WMATA), by balancing powers and bestowing as much power as possible as far down the chain as necessary. This can be a good thing, because it could encourage a balance of top-down and bottom-up planning, with local expertise, empowerment, and capacity-building; moreover, it is supposed to force us to communicate and compromise. But
in today’s political climate, can we find compromise? The system is designed
for disconnects, not necessarily gridlock.
5
And now our balkanized municipalities (and states, in WMATA's case) do not want to share. But sharing is omnipresent in a 21st century economy.
6
The Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) have been able to create a regional tax, which they've been using to share funds for schools, transit, and so on and so forth. Rather than grow as
a bunch of “cities and towns fighting to move jobs a few miles here or there”, as in balkanized
Boston, with a New England small town history, a 40-year-old law called the Fiscal Disparities Act in Minnesota puts 40 percent of the growth in the commercial-industrial tax base in each
5
Cohn, Nate. "Polarization Is Dividing American Society, Not Just Politics." The New York Times, 11 June 2014. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.
6
McLaren, Duncan, and Julian Agyeman.
Sharing Cities: A Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities
. MIT Press, 2015.