Midweek Takes #20

Ultrafast highway to hell. Revisiting Josh Barro’s Excellent Reporting and a half-left turn to Lauren Oyler.

See the full archive over at my Substack — “Exasperated Infrastructures.”

Welcome to Hell. Except You Can’t Get In.

I despise the ultrafast delivery services that have been multiplying like mad in recent months. If you live in New York you’ve seen them. You may have even used them to get an avocado delivered to your apartment in fifteen minutes (or less!). This idea of near-instantaneous delivery is the return on billions of dollars in supply chain optimization Silicon Valley has been betting on, of course; the world basically flipped when Amazon introduced Prime in 2007, standardizing free, two-day delivery across the board and we’re now inching toward as fast as possible. There’s an upper limit here, but we’re going to be fighting the next few years at the top, horizontal asymptote. Eventually, delivery time will depend on how fast autonomous bikes can teleport from the inside of a micro warehouse directly into your apartment.

Speed and efficient delivery is making our cities unlivable, unwelcoming, and unnerving. The irony and the outcomes are both killing us.

In fairness, I want to pause here and talk about the good things these start-up unicorns have done and can do.

First, there’s clearly a demand for these services, considering the competition has become crowded — and is becoming more crowded — in the last two years. I’m not sure, prima facie, it’s right for a municipality to step in and attempt to regulate demand for a service in a slipshod way. I’m also not sure it’s not right to try and preempt this velocity and acceleration of growth by trying to project some scenarios into the future.1

Second, these services do support employment, both full- and part-time and gig employment, especially for workers who earn a living for their families via delivery services.

Third, just-in-time food delivery will likely decrease food waste and increase sustainable practices. Lots of people don’t plan particularly well for a week of eating, especially in big, busy, distracted cities. Allowing for frictionless, day-of food could help people eat fresher, healthier, and cheaper.2

Fourth, deliveries are all made via e-bike and e-scooter. These two modes are environmentally friendly, while not totally neutral. They’re certainly better than single-occupancy vehicle trips for the same purpose. I’d say there’s also a positive externality here that’s not often talked about, too: demonstrating — maybe more accurately parading — the use of e- or pedal-assisted mobility to a broader population.3

Fifth, I’d bet there’s more transparency and opportunity for local and small brands to find a pipeline for their products. Not having to compete with gigantic corporations for limited shelf space in a traditional grocery store is a game-changer for new, small, and local brands.

I think that’s a good job at steelmanning4 the idea of ultrafast delivery services. I understand how useful these services can be and I’m not opposed to using them in a pinch, but I don’t think they should be the norm. Long term, the costs outweigh the benefits and we have to be very, very careful going forward that we don’t tear open the neighborhood fabric for the sake of one-through-five above and a little more convenience.

Here’s what I mean. Did you also think about these when you thought of how helpful these services would be?

Many of these “micro-warehouses” or “dark stores” are likely out of compliance with local zoning laws. I care less about this personally, but it’s likely the fastest way to either shut these places down or injunct the operations while the zoning code is altered.

With the influx of so many new bikers on roads with no clear hierarchy, whether designed for slow speeds or outfitted with world-class bike lanes, the risk to pedestrians — especially children and seniors and people with mobility challenges — is real, and it’s growing. What do we see instead? Bikes zooming down sidewalks, oftentimes at top speeds and salmoning the wrong way against pedestrian traffic!

Bike safety! The same safety worry is true, albeit phenotyped differently, for the delivery drivers who have to fight for their lives against cars, trucks, other bikes, and unsafe streets.

Anti-good-urban-form: the micro-warehouses aren’t accessible to passersby (by definition and by practice), so you can’t just go in and get an avocado if you’re nearby — you’ve got to order it. There’s something here, too, about taking and taking and not giving back to communities. These feel like faceless rent extraction services, whereas bodegas and corner stores (while they have their own set of problems) feel like key anchors in a community, the north stars for neighborhood clarity.

Anti-bodega and anti-small-store: if these ultrafast delivery companies’ defined competitors are the big chain stores (they are), the casualty if these stores become the norm, is an entire way of life for bodega owners in cities that have them and cities that run on them. If we like our BEC on a roll with hot sauce and a hash brown, we have to protect these stores’ abilities to earn their margins on the local produce and in the last-minute-grab market.

Food deserts are a huge problem and shifting responsibility to these non-local delivery services (potentially temporary) to fill in the gaps in economically starved neighborhoods is not a solid foundation for community development. None of these warehouses is locally owned or operated and they could disappear in an instant, and they will once they’re bought out and consolidated or stripped for parts.

We’re living in some late-stage capitalism post-hell hell. Just for perspective, this is ONE issue of dozens that our attention demands. You better believe Amazon and the other behemoths of human decline are waiting for the opportune time to snatch up this infrastructure and bring any one of these companies in-house. Private equity requires an exit strategy and there’s almost no chance any one of the half-dozen firms in this space can grow fast enough or demonstrate enough profitability to IPO themselves. So the other common option: sell to a bigger fish. It’s not over once Whole Foods dominates ultrafast delivery for food the same way Amazon dominates ultrafast delivery for everything else. It’s been over, so what are you doing about it?

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Six articles and an odds’n’ends for the week

Why New York Can’t Have Nice Things by Josh Barro for New York Magazine (from 2019)

Barro’s article from almost three years ago is a constant reminder that, while New York has special geographic and topographic and historiographic features, the reason why the city and state can’t build world-class infrastructure to a world-class standard is some murky combination of the vetocracy, institutional incompetence, organizational siloing and hubris, and a dearth of project prioritization and problem identification.

My take: Very little about the landscape has changed since this article’s publication in 2019, despite turning over a president, governor, mayor, two MTA chiefs, and a good chunk of the city council and state assembly and senate. Leadership is incapable of solving our cost and competence problems. I think we should pull back on the big megaprojects and focus on safety, operations, and maintenance for the time being. Even the projects that are near the finish line are…fine at best. East Side Access will get a ribbon-cutting and a tremendous brouhaha, but the endemic problems built into our regional transportation system won’t be “solved” by this Faustian nightmare.

Grading Secretary Pete’s New Road-Safety Plan by Alissa Walker for Curbed

Walker has saved me the need to write my own post on this subject. Spoiler alert, the plan is pretty good, depending on whether you think a “B” is a good mark. Walker walks5 us through major plot points: safer people, safer roads, safer vehicles (D+), safer speeds, and post-crash care. Excellent overview and I have nothing to add, nor do I disagree with any of the points.

My take: Relying on private companies to self-regulate is the biggest hole in the plan, but I’ll take a B rather than the current D standard we’re struggling through:

In 2020, despite stay-at-home orders and reduced car use, traffic deaths soared to 38,680, the highest numbers in 13 years; in 2021, deaths climbed even higher. The year’s final data has yet to be released, “but I can tell you, it’s not good,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as he introduced a plan yesterday to reverse the grim trend.

No matter how you slice this, road death is endemic but doesn’t have to be. We have to fight for safer streets.

Invest in complete and accessible sidewalks in every community by Anna Zivarts for The Seattle Times

An excellent, local/regional case for sidewalks from Anna Zivarts (interview incoming!). This editorial says a few important things, starting with this call to action:

Prioritizing the mobility needs of disabled nondrivers will get us closer to the healthy, inclusive and sustainable communities we need.

This starts with building a network of sidewalks and funding projects aimed at safety for our most vulnerable users of utmost importance. We’ve done enough studies and we know where the pressure points are. We just need our leaders to step up and do the work.

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My take: Zivarts is absolutely right, and I’ll even go a step further to emphasize her point: building community infrastructure around members who need it most helps everyone. When our most vulnerable are safest we’re all safest. When our historically excluded populations are brought into the fold, access to opportunity for everyone increases. I’m saying this: expanding who the work affects might be an effective strategy, but I think our advocacy still needs to spotlight our system’s users who need it the most.

Make Penn Station work for people with disabilities by Tiffany-Ann Taylor and Jessica Murray for The Daily News

Taylor and Murray make the case that a reimagined Penn Station must include architecture and service design for users with different mobility abilities. The authors highlight (lowlight?) that it’s nearly impossible for folks who use wheelchairs to navigate the world to directly access some of the services at Penn Station. There are few elevators, narrow platform & and hallway design, and there are general obstacles to ease of travel for all but the most mobile of users. Governor Hochul’s proposal would hopefully address these issues head-on.

My take: Related to the above take: designing our train stations and platforms for people who use wheelchairs or who are low-to-no vision also helps travelers with big bags, parents/guardians/family/friends who travel with young children in strollers, and promote safe distancing as we come out of COVID’s darkest days. I, too, support a future Penn Station designed around the needs of people who deserve more dignity in their travel.

Amtrak Inspector General’s report identifies issues in relationship with state operators from trains.com

Trains.com writers share a few key findings from an Amtrak Inspector General’s report regarding coordination and cooperation between Amtrak and state operators. Concerns match larger-scale issues:

• Conflicting views of decision-making and support.
• Unaddressed issues with cost-sharing methodology.
• Concerns over the accuracy of Amtrak’s bills to the state operators.

My take: Basically, the same issues we see at the national level, at the state level, and at the local level: poor communication, poor delineation of roles and resources, and unaddressed funding issues. The solutions offered seem to be bandaging gushing wounds, however:

To address these challenges, the report coordination among Amtrak, the state agencies, and the Federal Railroad Administration to clarify which decisions Amtrak must control and the level of support it can provide; that Amtrak clarify and document decisions relating costs to services, and on how to handle capital costs; and better steps to assure state partners their bills are accurate.

But what about addressing the underlying cultural and procedural issues that caused these problems in the first place? An official report and “findings” won’t “fix” the problems that haven’t really been identified. What causes the “conflicting views?” Who decides how the algorithm for cost-sharing is amalgamated? Why is the billing system so complicated in the first place?

“Better steps to assure state partners their bills are accurate” is cowardice.

Desperately Seeking Sebald by Lauren Oyler for Harper’s

Just read this. It’s not planning related, but one day I wish to casually turn a phrase like this6:

I spent the days before my departure in a state of frantic dread, unable to imagine embarking on what promised to be an unrelentingly pleasant excursion to a region of striking beauty.

and mean it. (Also imagine that’s how Americans came to romanticize their infrastructure? Is that close enough to germane?)

I just also want to emphasize that in my “Top 4 books I would use to teach an Intro to Urbanism course,” Story by Robert McKee is on there because we must learn to craft narrative that inspires as part of our writing for public or semi-public consumption.

I also, also want to emphasize that there’s a difference between technical planning writing, abstract planning writing, planning journalism, journalism about planning, digestions of journalism about planning, and Reddit posts.

I recommend reading this (and all her other work) and the biography? while listening to this:

Reddit Corner: What are your urban planning unpopular opinions?

Surprisingly I did not respond to this and I wouldn’t tell you if I did, to be honest. Here are some hot takes, though, from our friends from around the Internet (remember to sort by controversial if you’re feeling spicy):

See the full archive over at my Substack — “Exasperated Infrastructures.”

1 If you’ve ever wondered why you need some base level of calculus and you care about cities, it’s likely in this particular narrow scope — the velocity and acceleration of growth is measured in differentials. Understanding that conditions are changing and how fast they’re changing is essential to understanding spatial growth over time.

2 Though, if you’re a single person in a big city, there’s very little price difference, ceteris paribus between takeout and cooking at home. Perhaps this is the consumer surplus that’s been arbitraged out?

3 Acceptance as an alternative mode of transportation for short or quick trips is perhaps the largest chasm micro-mobility hasn’t quite leaped over.

4 Steelmanning is the act of taking a view, or opinion, or argument and constructing the strongest possible version of it. It is the opposite of strawmanning. From: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/steelmanning.

5 sorry.

6 I’m not saying that it took Oyler a flick of her pen to come up with this phrase, but I’m more talking about the context and confidence to mean it, which only comes after years of trying to mean it.