How Rail Could Benefit the Lehigh Valley

Rail supporters are going to need to rethink their strategy for bringing rail transit to the Lehigh Valley.

Because New Jersey Governor Chris Christie short-sightedly cancelled the ARC Tunnel indefinitely, any rail connection from the Lehigh Valley to New York City will require a transfer. This will make rail a less competitive alternative to driving and taking the bus on both price and trip length.

Until Cory Booker becomes governor of New Jersey and resumes construction of the ARC Tunnel, I think it would make sense for L.V. rail supporters to shift their attention to two goals: SEPTA and job clusters.

Philadelphia's economy is not as large as NYC's, but with the state's highest GDP, it is the next largest job center nearby. The nearest stop is in central Bucks County. While the proximity doesn't make it any less heavy a political lift, it is not obviously a bigger political and logistical headache than service to NYC.

Many Valley residents commute to Philadelphia by car for work every day. It would be better for them if they could spend those 3-4 hours working, reading, checking their email, sleeping, or whatever.

Literally anything would be a better use of this time than watching car bumpers. On balance, people would probably spend more time working. But even if they chose to spend all of it sleeping, we could expect large gains in human well-being.

The economic argument for investment in rail transit is that it will be faster and easier to move people and goods between job centers in New York and Philadelphia. This will increase trade between these economies, increasing productivity and making everyone richer.

But it's not just people traveling to those places. Connecting to the supply chains of New York and Philadelphia presents the Lehigh Valley with the opportunity to become a large job center itself.

The key is building for density near transit connections. Here is how Dan Hartzell of the Morning Call summarized the Lehigh Valley passenger rail study's less-hyped, but land use recommendations:

Systra also examined less-costly means of reducing highway congestion, including adding more express bus service to New York, building more Park and Ride lots and related improvements, as well as better governmental land-use controls that promote denser "cluster development," suppressing suburban sprawl and creating conditions more favorable to mass-transit service.

To fully capture the economic benefits, you have to build densely near the rail stops. With rail you have a "last mile" problem where planners need to account for how people will arrange to get to their destinations from the train station.

Building dense mixed-use development near train stops allows you to maximize the number of jobs within walking distance. This makes the cities more attractive to firms, creating demand for housing, goods and services. To put more office and residential space in the central business districts, the Valley's core cities will need to zone for growth. For this reason, it would also be smart for rail supporters to shift their focus to zoning, to achieve the following goals:

1) Overlay districts to expedite dense infill construction in the Valley's central business districts.

2) Performance parking: removal of minimum parking requirements for developers and for businesses. Install demand-responsive smart meters and give the money back to the neighbors to invest in the block.

Development follows transportation, but private sector rail investment dollars follow pro-growth zoning. Proximity to job clusters makes rail infrastructure more valuable over the long term. But the political courage to preside over the kind of growth that would make rail investment profitable is often in short supply.

Ideas like transit-oriented development and traditional neighborhood development typically , but in practice, they can be unpopular at the neighborhood level. 

It is easy to find politicians who want to pose next to a big shiny train. It is much harder to find politicians who want to weather NIMBY opposition to adding tens of thousands of square feet of new office space to the central business district. But that is the kind of pro-growth champion rail supporters need to have in office if there's going to be any more progress. 

There will soon be an opportunity for political action on this front. Some economists expect rents to increase over the next 18 months, as we continue undershooting housing construction. Rising rents and low vacancies will create demand for new multi-family housing, and developers and cities will be thinking about what to build and where to build it.  

There's a real opportunity here in the medium term for rail advocates to organize for more infill development, offices and housing choices in the core cities.