Thursday, January 12, 2006

Highway 385 Suggests We Have Lost The War On Sprawl


County elected officials talk about the evils of sprawl, the OPD staff keeps working on planning reports and the taxpayers keep grumbling, but reading headlines ballyhooing the coming completion of Tennessee Highway 385, it’s easy to feel that the war against sprawl is over.

We lost.

The opening of the 54-mile suburban loop (if your version of suburbs includes the southwestern fringe of Fayette County) will be $450 million of fuel that will power sprawl ever eastward, increasing county government’s suffocating debt along the way. Just as its gravitational pull will extend development, it will also erode the core city and increase the pricetag that the public pays for government services.

The existence of 385 speaks to the curious nature of government and its love affair with asphalt. There’s always a seeming urgency to satisfy the needs of the development industry and to enable the flight of citizens away from areas where public investments are already paid for.

There’s almost a blind obedience to the car. Somewhere along the way, because of the power campaign contributors and road builders wield, an overriding purpose of government morphed into making people mobile at the expense of neighborhood, the urban core and the public pocketbook.

Why was Highway 385 needed? It’s hard to say with precision, because its genesis lay in the Tennessee Department of Transportation where the building industry has long driven the agenda. (Fortunately, Governor Philip Bredesen has made major progress in changing the culture of TDOT with a non-road builder as commissioner.)

For 385, there was the obligatory traffic study which inevitably shows that the growth of development demands this new road looping way out east and then up to Arlington and around to Millington. Of course, the problem is that there is no counter-balancing study on the impact on the core city or the neighborhoods that are being hollowed out. There is no fiscal note that tells the cost of abandoning existing infrastructure or the social costs of declining neighborhoods and the problems incubated there.

It’s always curious to read the blistering letters to the editor from people living in Collierville or Arlington who are complaining about the public money spent on downtown Memphis. And yet, that public investment downtown is dwarfed by the public money spent on highways to get people to move in the other direction.

In particular, Shelby County Government’s engineering department treats every project like it’s building I-40. That’s why you end up with gaudy arteries that make no sense -- seven lanes for Shelby Drive or Holmes Road. Like 385, the lanes and lanes of highways are gifts to development, and since the poor are not campaign contributors, their voices are lost and their interests too easily forgotten.

Then, too, after these gargantuan roads are built to handle the shifting traffic loads, there’s never any plan to go back to the roads that no longer handle the loads for which they were built and size them down for their current uses and to make them less unsightly.

As for 385, already, the daily traffic count is 238,710 vehicles. In the future, with much of Highway 385 serving as I-269 - the circumferential interstate for I-69 – that number will only skyrocket. For years, city and county governments advocated strongly for an I-69 route that followed the interstate through the heart of Memphis, but like water dripping on a stone, slowly but surely, development interests had the eastern I-269 route added, primarily as justification for it extending through DeSoto County and certain real estate interests.

This future combination of Highway 385/I-269 can be lethal unless Memphis and Shelby County turn their attention now to preventing more unbridled sprawl. There’s not much time. By 2008, the highway should be finished and open for traffic from I-240 near Mt. Moriah all the way to U.S. Highway 51 in Millington.

In a recent article in The Commercial Appeal, an Arlington landowner hailed the coming highway: “As every piece comes together, pretty soon, you will have something with 385 like the loop around Atlanta…Now you go up there (the Atlanta beltway), and there are hotels everywhere and apartments and office complexes by the thousands. It’s just another layer of city out there.”

Of course, that’s the problem. Unlike Memphis, the layer of city in Shelby County is not the result of population growth, but mere population movement, and as we’ve seen, the cost of that to the public sector is financially unsustainable. And even with the population growth in Atlanta, the negative consequences of the beltways there have been documented, particularly its role in shifting the majority of jobs to outside of the beltway and leaving the city center to cope with a variety of serious social ills.

Which brings us to a cogent comment by Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner Gerald Nicely, who recently proposed that the state should build toll roads. He suggested that the “Orange Route” beltway around Knoxville would be a good candidate.

So would Highway 385. Right now, with a $1 toll, it would generate $87 million a year, and if the commissioner really wants a formula for fairness, he would split it with Shelby County Government – which foots most of the bill for sprawl – and Memphis City Government – which is left to contend with the problems of neighborhood decline.

13 comments:

@MarionTiger said...

Isn't at least some of the problem answering the question: WHY are people moving away from existing infrastructure in Memphis. I think you know the answer to that question.

Anonymous said...

As long as we have the present kind of leadership that has no limit to the amount of tax payers money it can waste I for one do not care what happens to Memphis. We have a biased black majority that keeps electing an irresponsible mayor and is proud of it.

Anonymous said...

385/I-269 will provide an option to reduce traffic once I-69 is complete. The addition of an entirely new interstate (I-69) to the already overcrowded I-240 would leave us Memphians wishing we were in Atlanta traffic.

Smart City Consulting said...

Traffic studies for I-69 show that the interstate through the city would be the most efficient route for truckers, save fuel and with some modifications to the existing roads, handle the loads efficiently. The question of public investment and sprawl is chicken and egg, and why is it fiscally responsible for the majority who are not moving to have to foot the bill for those who need to move ever eastward. Not only is it budgetarily unsustainable, as proven by the county debt, it should be the spark for a taxpayer revolt. If people want to move, let them, but why should they expect every one else to subsidize their decision?

Michael Roy Hollihan said...

"... why should they expect every one else to subsidize their decision?" Good question! One I ask every time I see the FedEx Forum and the Cannon Performing Arts Center.

There is a plethora of unrelated reasons for folks not moving back into the "center city." First, the ADA requirements for retrofitting many of the old office buildings downtown is prohibitive, and yet they can't be torn down either.

Lots of lots being held for various reasons but not being maintained or resold. Zoning issues can be addressed there, as well as ways to "incentivise" (Damn but I hate that word.) them to sell to folks who will rebuild. After all, not all of us are Henry Turley or John Belz, who can get the City to give us publicly property at a bargain price.

And, as an anecdotal example, I point to my block of Monroe Avenue, in the heart of Midtown, where we've recently had two spec homes built and quickly sold. We now have a empty corner lot about to be rezoned from commercial to residential for another spec home. There's a new Loeb strip mall (quite nicely done, I must say) finishing up around the corner. And the all-but-abandoned antique store building next door just recently got a million dollar offer to sell.

Anecdotal, yes, but evidence of vitality unrelated to "sprawl."

Smart City Consulting said...

We have no presumption that every one should move downtown. That wasn't the point of the commentary. The point is that the vast majority of us are never going to be enjoying some sports event in Eads or the symphony in Fisherville. What we need is greater densities, not vaster and vaster generic suburban growth. And for the record, the writer of this particular post lives in Germantown and was reared in Collierville.

Smart City Consulting said...

Then, what are the benefits of sprawl?

Michael Roy Hollihan said...

"Then, what are the benefits of sprawl?"

Hmmm... let's see:

1. A new home of your own; not an apartment or condo.
2. A yard attached to the house for children to play in, where kids can keep their toys; not a public park down the street, out of view, with little or nothing.
3. A low-traffic street; not a city street.
4. Low "opportunity" and "street" crime; fewer transients passing by.
5. Good schools; not a floundering, poor system.
6. Quiet; not city noise. Nor loud parties upstairs / in the next apartment.
7. One tax on property; not two.
8. Escape from a corrupt, cronyist, seemingly irreparable City government.

Anonymous said...

Well said Mike!

As to Smartcity's point about enjoying sports events ... well, I've enjoyed fewer sports events since the Redbirds moved downtown (as did basketball). Except to support downtown, there was no reason to build Autozone Park and the FedEx Forum downtown.

Memphis (downtown included) would be a great place to live if not for the corrupt city leadership that has a mayor who spends money like a desperate housewife and a cuckold city council.

I do think it is stupid to build bigger streets and highways to the suburbs and then complain about people moving ... it'll be just as stupid to build a light rail out there and still complain.

And if you "redensifiy" the city, then you'll have all those "evil" cars stuck in congestion on the streets ... or do you honestly believe that people who stay or move back into the city will use the bus?

But then, they can't use the bus because the MATA morons can't design a system with a flip.

Smart City Consulting said...

Mike: What an idyllic view of suburbia. Most city residents live in their own homes with attached yards, not in apartments; if you want to see the most heavily traveled, most disruptive traffic arteries in Shelby County, try driving down roads not built by the City of Memphis, but Shelby County - roads like Germantown Road, Houston Levee Road, Shelby Drive and Holmes Road; if you compare Shelby County schools to its peer school systems, it is not good, it is average, and actually Memphis is making more progress on its No Child Left Behind benchmarks; the vast majority of Shelby County residents pay two property taxes, not one (and those feeling to Mississippi even pay income tax), and we're not experts on whether the municipal governments are free from cronyism. While Memphis is not perfect, neither is life outside Memphis, and somehow, there is a perceptive that all criminals in Memphis have a map of the city's boundaries and they never, never commit a crime until an area is annexed. All in all, I'll take Memphis any day.

Anonymous said...

Smart City often points out to solve the crack addiction rather than incarcerate people. Apply the same logic to people migrating out of Memphis. Liberals love to use the word 'hypocrisy'. Semms like a good case for it right here.

You say that 385 will be too crowded and 'lethal'. Yet, then you say 240 could have easily handled it! 240 is pretty crowded now. Again, talk about having it both ways!

I agree an interstate through the city would be best - I 40 should have continued straight through Midtown. That would have been the most direct and fuel efficient. Who stopped this and caused I40 to make a meandering path around the city?

BD Friend think it awful that a hwy encourages people to "work, to live, to shop" in a particular city when that city is Collierville. He makes no complaint about the author wanting 385 to be routed in a way to encourage people to work, live and shop in Memphis. Where does this expectation that the world revolves around Memphis come from?

Smart City - "the vast majority of Shelby County residents pay two property taxes" again being very decpetive as the "vast majority" of Shelby County residents are also Memphis residents but Smart City is trying to decieve knowing that most people say 'Shelby County resident" or "live in the county" to specifically mean an unincorporated area. Smart City was replying to Mike who was using my meaning.

turnerarch said "then again, what ever happened to small neighborhood parks?" Memphis street gangs took them over.

Anonymous said...

Two things:

1) someone pointed out that most Memphians have single family homes with yards. I was driving down Poplar yesterday and noticed neighborhoods full of single family homes and thought - you can have a yard in the city limits. Then I realized that someone is already living in those houses!. When you demand that the suburbanites come back into Memphis to reduce sprawl, where exactly do you expect them to live??? Is there empty land somewhere to build all of these new homes? OR do you expect more high rise apartments to take the influx? Your argument is that all those suburbanites should live inside the city limits and have everything they have in the suburbs. This simply isnt possible. There are too many people in the metro area to all fit in single family homes inside Memphis.

2) You say Shelby County schools should be compared to other suburban school districts. Well as a parent I do not have the choice of sending my kids to either SCS or to hamilton County (Chattanooga) schools. My choice is Memphis OR Shelby County. This is the comparison parents must make when deciding where to live if their job is in the Memphis area.

Anonymous said...

It is not just people moving out of Memphis , Memphis government is sprawling too. Have you not noticed the annexations?

These people must be controlled.. Round up citizens and move them back inside the parkways. Must have a pass to get out and must tell where going and when to return.

Then all the comrades will be happy or else.