Unattractive field lighting

Building on street with only one entryway

The late urban planning legend Jane Jacobs was skeptical of Los Angeles because it violated one of her central tenets: that a city be made of vibrant neighborhoods linked by public transportation. Our lovely sprawl is stocked with colorful neighborhoods, such as the glamorous Strip and bustling Koreatown, but public transportation is another story. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Subway to the Sea.

That is, until more innovative solutions are found for making it happen. Which is the point of the L.A. 2.0 conference this weekend. Urban planners Amber Hawkes and Georgia Sheridan kept noticing the theme of transportation woes while combing through more than 150 applications to their inaugural conference. A collaboration between the global citizen’s initiative known simply as GOOD, the Public Studio and Sheridan/Hawkes, the afternoon think tank on Saturday will call for urban practitioners to outline strategies to improve the physical environment of L.A.

It’s one way to shake up the sometimes-stilted dialogue between the parties with a stake in L.A.’s future. “There’s an idea that planners are stuffy bureaucrats,” Sheridan said, “and that designers have all these ideas but don’t know how to implement them.”

“The idea,” Hawkes added, “is to bring everyone together from a variety of disciplines for an open brainstorm that ends with some concrete plans . . . the future is not silo thinking but collaborative in nature. “

More

Margaret Wappler
Los Angeles Times

“There is the economic downturn. There is the problem with housing. And there is global warming and peak oil. The only thing they have in common is the lifestyle of the American middle class.” -Andres Duany, from Good Magazine, Fall Issue, pg. 49.

The fall issue of Good Magazine showcased their top 100 stories that are making our world a better place. The story behind the development of South Main is one of my favorite of the GOOD100.

Usually, there’s something to be mentioned about the forethought and vigor of two people that set out to make a difference in the world we live….I’m not saying this article doesn’t stimulate conversation: quite the contrary. However, I don’t think any words I write here as an introduction could really supplement what Mr. Adam Spangler has already contributed. Please read this one. It’s worth the 10 or 15 minutes. We’ll chat later. (-Perhaps with a green tea in-hand, no matter how tongue-and-cheek-cliched that might seem.)

“….the search for meaning in architecture often progressed without serious contemporary analysis of the economic, social and physical conditions of the American city. The years since 1973 have not only been the years of post-modernism, but also the years of the oil crisis, Big Mac, Cleveland’s default, Three-Mile Island, Diablo Canyon (where the nuclear power plant was built with the blueprints reversed), years of increasing unemployment, impoverishment of ghetto populations and declining urban physical infrastructure. The brilliance of many American designers’ formal inventiveness, set against so many reasons for urban unease, generated a certain disorientation, a timelessness, or a lack of projects well-situated in historical time as well as in American places.” -Dolores Hayden, Essay from Design Quarterly, No. 122, Site: The Meaning of Place in Art and Architecture (1983), pp. 18-20.

Throughout my very small time in a professional career (and my 5 years of higher education), I am pleased to see that there is a certain level of clear understanding in the roles of urban design and the architect. In contrast to the remarks from Ms. Hayden above, (which means there has been some progress) site planning and building architecture seem to be finally merging. For a good while, they were segregated. Traditionalists out there, and those who have passed this life (Vitruvius and Palladio to name a few), have been suffering from dismay at the unique separation of site planning and building architecture; and rightfully so. That was the intent; it fits into what was the modernity credo.

We are in a new age, now. This is a sort of renaissance never experienced before. It’s not a complete going-back-to-the-way-it-was. However, it’s definitely begging some questions about why our built environment and its relationship to the natural environment went in this direction; as opposed to that direction.

When one sorts through the this, that, and the other, one begins to realize that the times of segregating housing design from the community the home resides within, are long gone. This isn’t just good. This isn’t just putting the right foot forward. This is progress in a big way. Sustainability is assisting with this movement – one could even say it is the catalyst.

For more information on how this is coming into fruition, please see the following article from this month’s Eco-Structure magazine: Listening to the Land.

Broken Sidewalk readers have voted Presentation Academy’s arts and athletics building at Fourth and Breckinridge the year’s best new landmark. The building topped Chamberlain Pointe, ZirMed Towers, St. Mary Academy and the new Lincoln Memorial in a readers’ poll.

Readers overwhelmingly praised the architectural detail and continuity of Presentation Academy’s new addition with its original 19th century building and with the surrounding neighborhood.  Many commented that new growth in the historic neighborhood is welcome and refreshing providing life to the corner.

Respondents favoring the Chamberlain Pointe project weren’t so talkative but were refreshed that new suburban development isn’t just a cookie-cutter strip mall.  Readers were happy to see the building’s facade broken into individual components resembling human scale buildings.

Votes for the ZirMed Towers remarked on the striking juxtaposition of old and new architecture surrounding the structure as well as the building’s materiality of industrial concrete and smooth blue glass.  Many compared the reflections in the glass to the facets of a diamond and enjoyed how the building emulates the spirit of the ZirMed Corporation itself.  And, of course, several readers found it refreshing that new development is happening on the western edges of Downtown.

Entries praised St. Mary Academy for bringing back the traditional image of the schoolhouse while blending with the architecture of nearby Norton Commons and the rural nature of surrounding farmland.  Several reported a calming affect brought about by its design.

The majority of readers who voted for the Lincoln Memorial felt that the project would stand the test of time as a true landmark.  Several guided their decision by a more fundamental idea of the word landmark and what it should represent in a community.  Connections to Kentucky history were also cited.

Notable comments for other projects included praise for the Cliff View Terrace’s attention to urban form, sustainability, and innovative structural system, admiration for theClinical & Translational Research Building’s unique, cutting edge design that reflects the advanced research going on inside, and pointed out the McAlpine Locks & Shippingport Bridge’s vast economic boon to the city as well as its long history and the design of the bridge.

There's got to be a better way...

Problem:

Anyone who has ever been just a little late for work knows the scenario that traps thousands of commuters every day – gridlock. Call it a traffic jam, sai che, or tráfico, the result is the same: you’ve just wasted 30 minutes of your life. New GPS modules enable you to avoid serious traffic, but are limited to the effectiveness and quality of the data your provider has access to. Additionally, your provider only has access to traffic data – this means that your computer may adjust the route according current conditions, but this does not include any information about the routes other motorists are using. In the end, you’ve got a pool of limited mobility, a pool that more often than not occurs for no apparent reason.

Diagnosis:

Traffic and transportation experts suggest that many of these “phantom” traffic jams are caused by the combined, spontaneous ripple effects of many small poor choices which add up to systemic blockage of traffic. Mathematical models suggest that these kinds of wave strongly resemble explosions: an initial event (or events), propagation, exhaustion of fuel, dispersal (more on the science of phantom jams here).

Treatment:

Some advocate installation of monitors in every vehicle to track vehicle positions and speeds, essentially government control of traffic. While these experts are well-intentioned, they underestimate the resistence and resentment the would occur in the public eye – no one wants to be controlled. Rather than create more bureaucracy and red tape, my proposition is to open the system up for the public to interact with. Create an open source transit system.

How would it work?

Routes, maps, and transit info posted online. Users contact each other and communicate desired info, creating a ridesharing network. This collection of online metadata allows understanding of not only traffic conditions (current methods) but also the actual routes that flow into and out of that pool of traffic. This enables a systems-level approach to traffic management, complete with stocks (traffic), inflows (route entry), outflows (destinations), and regulatory feedback loops. Apps (open source or proprietary) could then be developed more efficiently integrating waypoints and destinations, permitting cities to adapt traffic lanes to accomodate most common routes.

Not only does this encourage public and private organization to positively affect traffic, but it allows the public to independently choose more intelligent routes to their destination. Naturally, this system would only get better with the profusion of GPS and self-reported data. In addition, integration with current traffic data (stop light schedules/sensors, etc) enables an enhanced smart grid for traffic, permits more intelligent, dynamic urban design, and encourages public to be involved in alleviating gridlock, etc.

Now it’s your turn!

So let me know what you think – perhaps we can turn Los Angeles into a commuter’s paradise. If nothing else, you’ll be getting from point A to point B in a more informed fashion.

That you read “Dead Cities” by Mike Davis.  Having recently visited Las Vegas and reading about such projects as the City Center, things are looking up in that regard.  But the fact still remains that the city still requires large amounts of resources which have to travel out into the middle of no where.

In response to the segment titled “Las Vegas vs. Nature”, in Mike Davis’ novel:

By far the most enjoyable reading for me so far.  The city has shown poor city planning, lack of resource distribution, and has misdirected sources of money.  Not to forget either the poor relationship that Las Vegas has with southern California.  I think this is because of the fact that we take many products in which Las Vegas needs quite vitally.  But why would cities of importance be located in such an isolated part of the country?  I generally thought that cities would sprout up due to natural resources and where they are located.  Vegas was built without the consideration of resources being pumped to the city, and a serious lack of water and the cost behind it.  “Las Vegas long ago outstripped its own natural-resource infrastructure, and ecological ‘footprint’ now covers all of southern Nevada and adjacent parts of California and Arizona” (pg 87).

The EPA has stamped Las Vegas, which was once a clean air city, is now “supplanted New York City as the fifth highest number of days with ‘unhealthy air.’”  Because of Las Vegas’s resource needs, it has depleted many of the western landscapes which we want to remain pristine and intact.  Unfortunately the city continuously steals water from the Colorado River, causing it to slowly run dry.  Development of cities in the United States have greatly impacted the landscape.  Las Vegas may not be a well planned out city, but it is becoming increasingly more sustainable, and trying to limit its urban sprawl.  The city works because big land developers know that they are able to create an environment, devoid of other large cities near by, and bring the world to a point in the southwest that fulfills people’s hopes of experiencing the world all at one place.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the winners of the 8th annual national award for smart growth achievement at the National Building Museum this week. EPA Adminstrator Lisa Jackson introduced the award winners by saying diverse projects facing a range of issues in different environments were selected. The winning projects all “bring together sustainability and environmental benefits on the ground.” Jackson added that all project prove that environmental sustainability can be tied to development. “It’s a false choice between a healthy environment or a healthy economy.” More sustainable communities stay viable in economic downturns. 

Originally from New Orleans, Jackson said she has a personal interest in applying smart growth to underserved communities, and using new sustainable planning techniques to revitalize struggling communities. “These techniques are saving New Orleans. Green, sustainable ideas are giving hope.” She cited blighted areas that are turning into in-demand waterfront properties.

Smart growth has a key role to play in creating more sustainable homes and communities. However, Jackson said “it’s important to connect these ideas to everyday people and their everyday lives.”

Four projects were given awards:

Policies and Regulations: The City of Charlotte, Charlotte Department of Transportation, Charlotte, North Carolina: The City of Charlotte’s Urban Street Design Guidelines were held up as a model for how to use streets to design sustainable communities and provide access for all users. According to the EPA, “the guidelines promote sustainable development patterns and streets that are more pleasant, safe, and walkable.” Streets built in Charlotte using the new guidelines now include bike lanes, central lanes (which function as pedestrian refuges), more crosswalks, and better connectivity with light-rail and buses. One representative from the city said they viewed the seven-year guideline development process as critical to answering the question: ”How do you create a sense of place?” Another representative from the city added that “our streets are worth it.”

Built Projects: Parkside of Old Town, Chicago Housing Authority, FitzGerald Associates Architects and Holsten Real Estate Development Corporation, Chicago, Illinois: The Chicago housing authority received $50 million in Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Hope VI grants to create a new development out of the infamous Cabrini Green housing project in inner-city Chicago. It was viewed as the “most dangerous housing authority in the country.” Using the grants, the housing authority worked with FitzGerald Associates, an architecture firm, to create a 800-unit mixed-use, mid-rise housing project with affordable, public, and condominium housing options. Viewed from the outside, visitors can’t distinguish public housing from condos; they are intermingled throughout the complex.

Parkside added lots of green space, and decided on small pocket parks instead of one central green space in order to maintain equitable access to green space. The rental units are now 90 plus percent occupied, while the condos are 50 percent occupied. New grocery stores and a Starbucks have come to an area “people used to be too scared to bike through.”

The success of the eight-year project was due in part to the ambitious public outreach efforts. “You need buy-in from all the community,” said a representative from the Chicago Housing Authority. “You can’t isolate any part of the community. You have to bring the community together, and partner with social organizations.” However, the Chicago Housing authority added that continued public education on environmental sustainability is needed. “People need to be educated about the environmental benefits so they will take advantage of them.”

Smart Growth and Green Building: Tempe Transportation Center, City of Tempe and Architekton + Otak Tempe, Arizona: According to the EPA, the city of Tempe designed the Tempe Transportation Center as a “multi-use green facility that is not only a transportation hub, but also a gathering spot for the community. A multi-modal, mixed-use facility, the center integrates the downtown light-rail stop, the main city bus station, and the state’s first ‘bike station,’ which offers secure on-site storage and repairs.”

The vice mayor of Tempe, Shana Ellis, said that the transportation hub illustrates Tempe transportation’s new theme and tagline: “Tempe in Motion: Bus, Bike, Walk, Rail.” A project manager from the city added that “just getting people out of their cars is a real success.” NRDC’s Switchboard blog has more details on the facility’s success as a sustainable transportation hub.

The LEED-certified transportation center, designed by Architekton, includes a desert green roof and shade trees. During the summer, Tempe, which has lots of asphalt, suffers from an urban heat island effect. Creating cooler shaded areas, and reusing scarce water in the landscape around the transportation hub, were key parts of the overall site design. Learn more about the building’s green features.

Overall Excellence: Envision Lancaster County Comprehensive Plan and Implementation, Lancaster County Planning Commission, Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The EPA writes that “like many rural areas, Lancaster county is facing pressure to develop its extensive farmland and open space. In response, the Lancaster County Planning Commission and its member municipalities created Envision Lancaster County, a comprehensive, multi-staged countywide plan to manage growth and maintain the county’s distinctive sense of place over the next 25 years.”

To cut down on sprawl, the plan promotes investment in existing communities and encouraging more compact, inter-connected neighborhoods. “By doing so, the plan preserves open space, protects water resources, and provides greater housing and transportation choices.”  The planning commission said it’s focusing development in specified urban growth areas, and creating “quality-designed, high-density communities.”

One representative from the planning commission said the plan is “a comprehensive comprehensive plan” focused on conservation of land, and preserving Lancaster’s sense of place, which is tied to its rural, farming identity. “There are pristine farmlands. This is Amish country. This is what draws visitors and makes us unique.” Furthermore, preserving farmlands has an economic component: “We have some of the most productive soils on the planet.” To keep local farming businesses on board with the plan, those productive soils needed to be protected from unplanned sprawl.

All winners lauded the new federal partnership on livable communities formed by HUD, EPA and the Department of Transportation (DOT) (see earlier post). “The federal government’s new partnership is exciting,” said a representative from Lancaster County. However, the Chicago Housing Authority mentioned the need for the federal government to offer more “infill financing,” and Tempe’s transportation representative added that “the federal government needs to further incentive and encourage infill development,” which is key to smart growth in urban areas.

The EPA’s smart growth program manager, John Frece, said: “Sustainability goes hand in hand with smart growth.” 

The EPA received more than 100 application from 34 states this year. Learn more about the program at EPA.gov/smartgrowth

Image credit: City of Tempe, Tempe Transportation Center

The first public meeting for the Orem Bicycle & Pedestrian Study will be January 19th.  I don’t have a time yet, but it will be at the Orem Senior Friendship Center, located at 400 East & Center Street in Orem.  If you want to make a difference for cycling in Orem, put it on your calender and plan to be there.  It should be a good experience, and it will make a big difference.

The chain link fence in front of Ruby Tuesday’s is probably required because it’s next to the interchange, but it is tacky.

South Boulevard has a random collection of miscellaneous businesses with different signs. If one or few developers have control over an area, they can design an integrated, consistent shopping area. Small, individual developments make for a lot of mismatched clutter.

The old Arrowood Restaurant site looks like it might be redeveloped soon, but it would be preferable for it to be redeveloped together with the York Crossing center that’s behind it, for a better planned corner.

If you attended the International Conference on Urban Regeneration and would like to have more information about the role of public transport in urban regeneration, please see the following links:

• Proposed corridors for “rapid transit”in the Klang Valley http://transitmy.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/2009-02-04-transit-corridors-map-for-klang-valley.pdf
• Greater Ipoh “rapid transit” system proposal – http://transitmy.files.`wordpress.com/2009/06/greater-ipohs-potential-mass-transit-map.pdf
• Greater Klang “rapid transit” system proposal – http://transitmy.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/klang-rapid-transit-routes-summary.pdf
• Memo to Selangor state government #1 -http://transitmy.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/public-transport-at-the-state-level-97-031.ppt
• Memo to Selangor state government #2 -http://transitmy.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/public-transportation-at-the-state-level-2.ppt
• Memo to Selangor state government #3 – http://transitmy.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/selangor_public_transport_trust_-_memo-v2.doc
• Presentation to Selangor Menteri Besar – http://transitmy.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/selangor_public_transport_30_april-new.ppt
• Talking Points on Public Transport (for community members and local council members) – http://transitmy.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/talking-points-on-public-transport.doc

Additional information can be found at http://transitmy.org/proposals

I have done some updating of the Europe tab with links of photos. I will continue this over the next couple of weeks. Eventually leading to an interactive map locating all the projects.

Mike Klassen, the acerbic blogger at citycaucus.com, was invited out to Surrey last week to speak at a public meeting on the future of a community known as St. Helen’s Park .  ( He blogged on the subject here, also providing a link to the grassroots community group looking to resist larger ‘megahomes’ – www.sthelenspark.com.) 

Before he went, Mike did a little tour on Google using Streetview to get a sense of the community.  He also created a rather brilliant little slideshow using images from the streets.

Mike lives in a classic streetcar neighbourhood off Fraser Street on the East Side of Vancouver, and is an articulate fan of the kind of intermediate urbanism that so characterized the development of this city before Motordom took over.

St. Helen’s Park, on the other hand, is a classic 50’s subdivision of the kind that pioneered post-war sprawl south of the Fraser.  

As I traveled around SHP the first thing I noted was there are no sidewalks. Most of Surrey’s older residential communities don’t have them. Cars were always present and gas was cheap, after all. Who needed to walk? Fortunately, city planners today are making walking more of a priority.

There were many other things that struck me.

• Everything was low, low density. One storey homes + basement. Probably few, or no suites;
• Local shopping was practically non-existent;
• Homes were set so far back from the street that visibility was a problem, which invites crime;
• Streets were tidy, but dull. Little effort was made to improve the curb appeal of streets;
• There are no curbs at all;
• Apartment buildings on the outer edge of the community were old and tiny in comparison to the lot sizes;
• Streets were narrow and dangerous for walking – I bet most kids around here either drive or bus to school;
• There are no parks or public space inside of SHP’s boundaries.

Not a bad summary of the challenges facing these aging suburbs.  But what Mike found out, of course, was that the people who live there, aging in place, rather like it that way.  Sidewalks?  No thanks.

Mike (and the leaders of St. Helen’s Park) might want to pick up the Summer-Fall issue of spacing magazine out of Toronto that consistently wins awards for its coverage of the urban landscape.  This issue is devoted to “The Return of Suburbia” – and while regrettably the stories are not on line, it’s worth finding a copy to read Dylan Reid’s piece on “Suburban Evolution.” 

In it, he discusses the character of the inner suburbs of Toronto which, having lost of the bloom of youth, are confronting distinctly urban issues.  But thanks to the strong planning of past Metro governments, he argues, they are twice as dense as the newer outer suburbs and can build on the fabric of towers and transit to evolve into something more urban.  Unfortunately, this is not going to be sufficient for the later suburbs, often described as the ‘905 Belt.’

“Much of the inner suburbs, and most of the outer suburbs, are made up of  low-density housing subdivisions with indirect, dead-end road patterns deliberately designed to not connect well with neighbouring arterial roads.  They can’t become traditionally urban …”

Fortunately, Dylan has a suggestion:

… a first step is to make subdivisions more walkable.  But the obvious solutuion, to put in sidewalks where they are missing, gets a lot of resistance.  When I’ve talked to people who live on these kinds of streets, they’ve told me they don’t want sidewalks because the street feels shared at the moment, a sheltered space where people can walk, kids can bike, and drivers are aware of them.

Rather than putting in sidewalks, such streets could build on this sentiment by being formalized as “shared streets” … 

The basic steps for creating residential shared streets are simple: narrow the entry points and sign them so that cars know they are in a special zone, and implement a super-slow speed limit (20 kilometres an hour)…  A Canadian twist could be to specifically allow street hockey to be played at all times of the day, with appropriate warning signs for drivers (or even painted street markings).

There’s more, like supporting itinerant vendors (people who drive a van to a community at a set time every week to sell fresh fruit and vegetables), or allowing people to run businesses out of their homes.  (Think of all those street-facing two- and three-car garages, already wired and plumbed, perfectly suitable for a hairdresser, an accountant, even car repair.  Many of them aren’t even used for parking cars, given the amount of alternative asphalt available.)  

Of course none of this matters to those who simply don’t want change.  But as the residents of St. Helen’s Park are discovering, change comes to them – whether in the form of megahouses or more traffic.  The challenge of suburban change, which spacing explores in detail, is the primary challenge of our region as well as theirs.

The Capital Creative Collective will be hosting the first ever Sacramento Idea Fair in partnership with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. The Idea Fair is a new annual event that is designed to showcase the best breakout ideas for the greater Sacramento region. The Idea Fair will be displayed at the Annual State of Downtown Breakfast, for all the major stakeholders in the downtown region including elected officials, private developers, property owners and other prominent community members. The Idea Fair will be held on two separate dates, the first being a social Tweetup on December 15th, at the MIX Downtown from 4-6pm. The second and main event will be held on January the 19th, 2010 at the Memorial Auditorium from 8-10am.

If you would like to participate in this event and submit one of your concepts for entry or for more information, please contact Jake Favour at Jake@rompcreative.com. The final display format is limited to one (1) presentation board set on a easel. Presentations should be mounted on a board  24″ x 36″. You will be required to be present for setup and tear down before and after each event as well as be present during the event for discussion.  The Idea Fair is seeking unique new concepts for architecture, landscaping, art, design, installations and other conceptual proposals geared towards improving lifestyle and culture in the greater Sacramento region.

Presentation materials can be found at:

Utrecht Art Supplies

1612 Howe Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95825
(916) 641-6400

University Art Supplies

2601 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95816
(916) 443-5721

Printing can done at:

Brownies Reprographics

1322 V Street

Sacramento, CA 95818

Phone: (916) 443-1322

Fax: (916) 443-4370

central@browniesrepro.com

RE: ANNUAL STATE OF DOWNTOWN SACRAMENTO

Via www.downtownsac.org

Please join us for the 12th Annual State of Downtown Breakfast as we identify opportunities and nationwide trends to accelerate downtown revitalization featuring keynote address from Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver, CO.

ABOUT THE STATE OF DOWNTOWN BREAKFAST

Produced by the DSP, the event attracts an audience of 500 business professionals and community leaders. The State of Downtown previews downtown revitalization initiatives and projects, and serves as a catalyst for exchanging ideas and prioritizing goals for the central business district. In 2006, the State of Downtown earned distinction from the 1400 member IDA Association (IDA) and was presented a Merit Award for Organizational Communications at the annual IDA conference. The International Downtown Association has honored exemplary projects in the field of downtown revitalization for 23 years.

By Dom Nozzi

 It is about the number of people bicycling, not the facility selected, that is ultimately going to lead to a big jump in bicyclist safety. Safety in numbers is so very important, and I enjoyed seeing studies recently that more scientifically demonstrated that. See, for example, this site

http://www.livablestreets.com/streetswiki/safety-in-numbers

 An important reason why safety in numbers is so powerful is that motorists are obligated to drive more slowly and more attentively. That is essential for safety. They also tend to expect bicyclists on a regular basis, and therefore learn how to drive more safely near them. Unexpected surprises are always unsafe. As is overconfidence that the motorist will never encounter a bicyclist while driving on a road (which leads to an increase in inattentive driving).

 I’m open to the idea that off-street paths next to a street can attract a lot of new bicyclists. As I understand it, one of the most important — if not most important — reasons people don’t bike is perceived safety problems. I don’t wear a helmet when I am engaged in low-speed downtown bike commuting in part because I want to send the message that biking is not deadly — helmets send the very bad message that your life is at risk on a bike.

 The European experience is instructive. There, bicycle commuting is relatively high and bicyclist injuries and deaths are comparably low. An important reason for the high levels of bicycling in European cities is that auto parking is comparatively scarce and expensive. Densities and mixed-use tend to be high. Destinations tend to be comparatively proximate. And gas is expensive. All of those factors tend to induce high levels of biking, walking and transit use in many European cities.

 By contrast, in nearly all American cities, there is too much free parking, densities are too low, gas is too cheap, and destinations are too dispersed.

 Given these rather intractable problems in the US, we are probably along way off seeing large numbers of bicyclists or transit users. Probably the obstacle that makes our low levels of bicycling most difficult to transform into high levels of bicycling in the near term is our dispersed land use pattern. Even if gas is, say, $10/gallon, a lot of us will be forced to drive cars (even if we have a full network of off-street bike paths).

 I continue to mostly adhere to the objective of taking back our streets from high-speed motoring, and urging the densification and mixing of residential with non-residential we need to make transit, walking and biking feasible. I think movement in that direction is inevitable because higher gas prices are inevitable, as is the cost of continuing to try to add road capacity for suburbia.

 I can envision, in the near future, various DOTs pursuing more aggressive non-auto projects as the cost of driving continues to mount. I’m sure that will mean that some state DOTs will decide to construct more off-street bicycle path projects, at least as a demo on one or two road corridors.

 I’m concerned that “Plan B” for transportation and land use might need to be in place very quickly, so we probably need Manhattan project urgency RIGHT NOW to start getting us there. We need a train system. We need to build denser, more localized communities. We need slower-speed and more human-scaled streets.

 What this might all come down to is how much of an emergency we believe we are in. Do we have 10 years before gas is $30/gallon? Or 100 years? If the former, this nation must not delay in transforming its transportation infrastructure.

 An Off-Street Epiphany

 I have a confession to make.

 I just finished reading the relatively inspirational Pedaling Revolution by Jeff Mapes.

 As a result, while I am still convinced that in-street bicycling is where our primary focus should be to provide for most regular, existing bike commuters, I am now more open to the idea of providing off-street or barrier-protected bike routes. I don’t know that I’d be okay with such routes if it took away from efforts to provide better in-street facilities, but I am now more sympathetic to the pressing need to recruit and train new bicyclists in cities.

 I continue to believe and hope that such new off-street recruits would eventually find that in-street bicycling makes more sense for bike commuting, and will “graduate” from off-street to in-street riding.

 And I continue to have concerns that we not squander public dollars on off-street or barrier-protected bike routes that will need to be removed “after the revolution” (i.e., when we have slower car travel in cities, and we more frequently and comprehensively put roads on a diet).

 Finally, concerns remain that off-street or barrier-protected bike routes will be a sign that we’ve given up on ever reforming/humanizing/taming streets (that they will always be hostile, inhuman car-only roads). In other words, I am concerned, again, that off-street bicycle facilities will put off the day when we are compelled to reform streets. Such a delay would put off the much-needed migration of buildings moving to more compact, walkable locations abutting sidewalks. Buildings that are today excessively set back due to such things as street hostility.

 Given all those provisos, I’m sympathetic to off-street and barriers. 

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

Visit: www.walkablestreets.com Or email me at: dom@walkablestreets.com

I’ve had libraries on the brain recently–both the invisible kind and the visually enhanced kind, like this one Maira Kalman designed for PS 47 in the Bronx for Robin Hood’s L!brary Initiative.  The L!brary Initiative transforms elementary school libraries in high poverty areas into bright, beautiful temples of learning that inspire creativity and academic achievement.  Artists like Kalman are brought in to reimagine the space, while publishers Scholastic and HarperCollins have donated over a million books in an unprecedented effort to improve the state of education in NYC’s neediest neighborhoods.  What a marvelous program!  Art & literature make wonderful bedfellows.  Also check out the awesome PS 96 library that illustrator Yuko Shimizu and designer Stefan Sagmeister collaborated on here.

PS 96 Library Mural by Yuko Shimizu

“From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline
Where, where have they gone?
Now, it’s nothing but flowers

There was a factory
Now there are mountains and rivers
you got it, you got it

We caught a rattlesnake
Now we got something for dinner
we got it, we got it

There was a shopping mall
Now it’s all covered with flowers
you’ve got it, you’ve got it

If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
you’ve got it, you’ve got it” – Talking Heads, “Nothing But Flowers”

So, this song and another, by Joni Mitchell, with regards to paving our beautiful, natural landscape (aforementioned in the above title), were brought to the forefront of my mind today as I passed by what was quite possibly the most surreal image I had ever (yes, EVER) seen. Imagine the collision of both of these songs: that’s pretty much what I experienced while passing by at 55 mph….

Moving along at a good clip, the scene to my left was jaw-dropping – but not to be confused with spectacular. A vacant parking lot surrounded by vacant storefronts (part of a mass strip mall) – that’s what we used to be able to see passing by. Now, a strong capitalist, headstrong business, put up a playground of sorts within a small quadrant of the vacant parking lot. The playground was a carnival-type atmosphere, complete with several jump machines (I call them jump machines but they might be marketed as something else), inflatable bright colors everywhere. A true fun-stop. How much fun could be had in an abandoned parking lot?

At first, I didn’t know what to think. Then, the notion of making lemonade out of lemons seemed apropos. Considering there are other storefronts in the area that are shutdown, and traffic is no longer steady through this corridor, what else does one do with all of the extra-planned parking (planned for a bustling strip mall during one day of the year – the day after Thanksgiving)?

Perhaps this screamed of an opportunity of a different kind. Just a thought: a park?