Concerns... Traffic Impacts
The Concern:
High-density development and urbanization of our villages and neighborhoods leads to more, not less, automobile traffic.
What You Can Do:
Sign up to receive email updates from the Newton Villages Alliance. Pay attention to how your city councilors are voting on development issues that have traffic impacts. Write letters to the Boston Globe and Fig City News. Write, email and call the Mayor, City Clerk and the City Council to express your views. Ask questions. Do not accept vague assurances about unspecified traffic mitigation. Ask the elected officials advocating for Smart Growth and Transit Oriented Development about what the benefits are and who is going to receive them. Voice your concerns about the costs and diminished quality of life for the many who live in the neighborhood now and how this compares to the benefits.
More About This:
People drive cars. Not necessarily everyone, every day, but when broad surveys are taken, the average is over five car trips per household per day. Living near convenient transit lowers the average, but not much. The simple fact is that most trips – to schools, shopping, recreation and entertainment, social events, medical appointments, religious services, almost everything we do outside the house - involves trip-making and most of it is by car.
High-density development and urbanization of our villages and neighborhoods leads to more, not less, automobile traffic.
What You Can Do:
Sign up to receive email updates from the Newton Villages Alliance. Pay attention to how your city councilors are voting on development issues that have traffic impacts. Write letters to the Boston Globe and Fig City News. Write, email and call the Mayor, City Clerk and the City Council to express your views. Ask questions. Do not accept vague assurances about unspecified traffic mitigation. Ask the elected officials advocating for Smart Growth and Transit Oriented Development about what the benefits are and who is going to receive them. Voice your concerns about the costs and diminished quality of life for the many who live in the neighborhood now and how this compares to the benefits.
More About This:
People drive cars. Not necessarily everyone, every day, but when broad surveys are taken, the average is over five car trips per household per day. Living near convenient transit lowers the average, but not much. The simple fact is that most trips – to schools, shopping, recreation and entertainment, social events, medical appointments, religious services, almost everything we do outside the house - involves trip-making and most of it is by car.
More people means more car trips. You can pay consultants to do traffic and parking studies, but they can only add some specific numbers to what everyone already knows. More people means more car trips. If there is also more business in an area, it becomes a trip “attraction.” More business means more car trips and a need for more parking. Putting businesses near residential areas and transit lowers the number of car trips, but not much. Businesses “attract” cars. More commerce means more traffic and a need for more parking.
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More car trips and a need for more parking might be okay if there were adequate infrastructure to meet the extra demand, but in Newton the street network cannot be meaningfully expanded. Where streets are already congested and available parking is already heavily used, any added traffic makes things worse for everyone. Travel times increase. Some drivers use residential streets to avoid congestion points, but this creates safety problems for cyclists and others. Others use residential streets near shopping areas for parking and this reduces the quality of life for the local residents. All these extra car miles also add to air and noise pollution in the immediate area.
Economists use the term “externalities” for these spillover or third party effects. Some people refer to them as unintended consequences, as if to say they are unavoidable. But they really are foreseeable costs that everyone else suffers because of so called “Smart Growth” and "Transit Oriented Development” (TOD). It may be smart for the few who make money off the new construction, but it’s not smart for all the people who suffer a decline in their quality of life. In a built up and economically vibrant community such as Newton, the large externalities swamp any benefits.
When these concerns are raised, the growth advocates assure us that everything will be okay. Traffic problems will be mitigated. What do they mean by mitigation? Do they mean things like the traffic signal installed on Needham Street for the benefit of the residents at the Avalon development? How did that mitigate traffic problems that did not exist before Avalon?
For many seniors, people facing mobility challenges, and women, youth and marginalized people who face difficulty, abuse or violence when traveling, walking, biking and public transit are not realistic or safe options all or some of the time. For many people a car is their safest or only option. Prioritizing electric car charging stations and more affordable electric cars is a more equitable policy position for such people. The number of cars and car trips can be reduced, but they clearly cannot be eliminated, so adding density to Newton will lead to more car trips, more traffic and more parking demand.
Economists use the term “externalities” for these spillover or third party effects. Some people refer to them as unintended consequences, as if to say they are unavoidable. But they really are foreseeable costs that everyone else suffers because of so called “Smart Growth” and "Transit Oriented Development” (TOD). It may be smart for the few who make money off the new construction, but it’s not smart for all the people who suffer a decline in their quality of life. In a built up and economically vibrant community such as Newton, the large externalities swamp any benefits.
When these concerns are raised, the growth advocates assure us that everything will be okay. Traffic problems will be mitigated. What do they mean by mitigation? Do they mean things like the traffic signal installed on Needham Street for the benefit of the residents at the Avalon development? How did that mitigate traffic problems that did not exist before Avalon?
For many seniors, people facing mobility challenges, and women, youth and marginalized people who face difficulty, abuse or violence when traveling, walking, biking and public transit are not realistic or safe options all or some of the time. For many people a car is their safest or only option. Prioritizing electric car charging stations and more affordable electric cars is a more equitable policy position for such people. The number of cars and car trips can be reduced, but they clearly cannot be eliminated, so adding density to Newton will lead to more car trips, more traffic and more parking demand.