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It’s Happening: Construction of Maryland’s Purple Line Set to Start This Year
Grid Chicago - Thu, 2016-03-03 11:41
Yesterday, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced that a contractor has been selected to
build the 14-mile Purple Line light rail in DC’s Maryland suburbs. It’s a milestone and a major
relief following Hogan’s long history of brinkmanship with the project.
Map: PurpleLineMD
Kelli Raboy at Greater Greater Washington posted the happy news:
After Marylanders elected Governor Larry Hogan in November 2014, it wasn’t clear whether the
long-planned light-rail line would even happen. But following a prolonged public show of
support, Hogan announced that the Purple Line would get built if Montgomery and Prince
George’s Counties committed more funds and trains ran less frequently.
Four teams submitted bids in December, and Maryland selected Purple Line Transit Partners.
Some have questioned the bidder’s plan to purchase railcars from a company that made some of
Metro’s least reliable cars and has been plagued with delays in other cities.
After a series of state and federal approvals, construction should start late this year for a planned
opening date in spring 2022.
Progress on the Purple Line, however, is also a bittersweet reminder of Hogan’s other big transit
policy decision — killing Baltimore’s Red Line so he could shift hundreds of millions of dollars
to road expansion projects.
Elsewhere on the Network today: PubliCola posts an update on Seattle’s precarious bike-share
situation. And the Dallas Morning News transportation blog reports that a North Texas toll road
builder has filed for bankruptcy.
Categories: New Urbanism
To save money, Silver Spring's Purple Line station will be farther from the
Metro
Dan Reed - Thu, 2016-03-03 11:33
by Dan Reed
The winning bidders for the Purple Line project, Purple Line Transit Partners, proposed a few
changes that would save the state of Maryland money. One of those changes is to relocate the
Silver Spring Purple Line platforms farther away from the Metro.
Concept sketch for the original station location. Image from MTA.
In the original plan, the Purple Line platform was going to be in a a new elevated structure
between the existing Silver Spring Metro station and the new Silver Spring Transit Center. The
new plan moves the Purple Line platform to the other side of the transit center, closer to the
intersection of Colesville Road and Wayne Avenue.
Plan of the new Purple Line station design. Image from PLTP.
This design means that people going between the Purple Line and the Red Line will have a
longer walk. However, the new platform will now be level with the top floor of the transit center,
giving people a shorter walk to buses, taxis, and the kiss-and-ride. It's also slightly closer to the
heart of downtown Silver Spring.
Moving the Purple Line station also consumes a lot of land next to the transit center that was
originally set aside for development, though those plans have since fallen through. But the
change makes it unnecessary to demolish one building, 1110 Bonifant Street, which the original
plan required.
This design includes a large bridge over Colesville Road. As planned all along, the Purple Line
will rise over the existing Red Line tracks, the Silver Spring Transit Center, and the large hill
behind the transit center, before coming down to ground level near the intersection of Bonifant
Street and Ramsey Avenue. At some places, the tracks will be over 60 feet high.
Proposed Purple Line vehicle interior. Image from PLTP.
This plan is part of a large report PLTP submitted to Governor Hogan, which includes drawings,
maps, and even renderings of potential Purple Line vehicles. In the coming months, the state will
work with PLTP to create a final design for the Purple Line. Construction is scheduled to start
later this year and the line could open in 2022.
50 comments
Did you enjoy this article? Greater Greater Washington is running a reader drive to raise funds
so we can keep editing and publishing great articles every day. Please help us be sustainable by
making a monthly, yearly, or one-time contribution today! Click here to support Greater Greater
Washington.
Categories: CNU blogs, New Urbanism
To save money, Silver Spring's Purple Line station will be farther from the
Metro
Greater Greater Washington - Thu, 2016-03-03 11:33
by Dan Reed
The winning bidders for the Purple Line project, Purple Line Transit Partners, proposed a few
changes that would save the state of Maryland money. One of those changes is to relocate the
Silver Spring Purple Line platforms farther away from the Metro.
Concept sketch for the original station location. Image from MTA.
In the original plan, the Purple Line platform was going to be in a a new elevated structure
between the existing Silver Spring Metro station and the new Silver Spring Transit Center. The
new plan moves the Purple Line platform to the other side of the transit center, closer to the
intersection of Colesville Road and Wayne Avenue.
Plan of the new Purple Line station design. Image from PLTP.
This design means that people going between the Purple Line and the Red Line will have a
longer walk. However, the new platform will now be level with the top floor of the transit center,
giving people a shorter walk to buses, taxis, and the kiss-and-ride. It's also slightly closer to the
heart of downtown Silver Spring.
Moving the Purple Line station also consumes a lot of land next to the transit center that was
originally set aside for development, though those plans have since fallen through. But the
change makes it unnecessary to demolish one building, 1110 Bonifant Street, which the original
plan required.
This design includes a large bridge over Colesville Road. As planned all along, the Purple Line
will rise over the existing Red Line tracks, the Silver Spring Transit Center, and the large hill
behind the transit center, before coming down to ground level near the intersection of Bonifant
Street and Ramsey Avenue. At some places, the tracks will be over 60 feet high.
Proposed Purple Line vehicle interior. Image from PLTP.
This plan is part of a large report PLTP submitted to Governor Hogan, which includes drawings,
maps, and even renderings of potential Purple Line vehicles. In the coming months, the state will
work with PLTP to create a final design for the Purple Line. Construction is scheduled to start
later this year and the line could open in 2022.
50 comments
Did you enjoy this article? Greater Greater Washington is running a reader drive to raise funds
so we can keep editing and publishing great articles every day. Please help us be sustainable by
making a monthly, yearly, or one-time contribution today! Click here to support Greater Greater
Washington.
Categories: CNU blogs
It’s Happening: Construction of Maryland’s Purple Line Set to Start This Year
Streetsblog Capitol Hill - Thu, 2016-03-03 11:23
Yesterday, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced that a contractor has been selected to
build the 14-mile Purple Line light rail in DC’s Maryland suburbs. It’s a milestone and a major
relief following Hogan’s long history of brinkmanship with the project.
Map: PurpleLineMD
Kelli Raboy at Greater Greater Washington posted the happy news:
After Marylanders elected Governor Larry Hogan in November 2014, it wasn’t clear whether the
long-planned light-rail line would even happen. But following a prolonged public show of
support, Hogan announced that the Purple Line would get built if Montgomery and Prince
George’s Counties committed more funds and trains ran less frequently.
Four teams submitted bids in December, and Maryland selected Purple Line Transit Partners.
Some have questioned the bidder’s plan to purchase railcars from a company that made some of
Metro’s least reliable cars and has been plagued with delays in other cities.
After a series of state and federal approvals, construction should start late this year for a planned
opening date in spring 2022.
Progress on the Purple Line, however, is also a bittersweet reminder of Hogan’s other big transit
policy decision — killing Baltimore’s Red Line so he could shift hundreds of millions of dollars
to road expansion projects.
Elsewhere on the Network today: PubliCola posts an update on Seattle’s precarious bike-share
situation. And the Dallas Morning News transportation blog reports that a North Texas toll road
builder has filed for bankruptcy.
Categories: New Urbanism
Will 2016 Be a Social Impact Bond Growth Year?
Next City - Thu, 2016-03-03 11:00
Homeless men wait for the opening of a day shelter in downtown Denver. (AP Photo/Brennan
Linsley, File)
In the first 50 days of 2016, we’ve seen three new pay-for-success programs announced — in
Connecticut, South Carolina and Denver. Nearly $50 million is being pumped into the three
initiatives, with South Carolina’s the largest at $30 million.
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Will Denver Embrace Sensor-Filled “Smart City” Community?
Social Impact Bonds: Beneficial or Bureaucracy-Bloating?
Why Aren’t We Using Social Impact Bonds to Solve the Country’s Blight Crisis?
Pay-for-success (PFS) programs rely on social impact bonds, which allow government entities to
take on loans from private investors. The money is repaid (or not) based on the “success,” or
results, of the program. Here’s a chart that breaks down how the deals are structured.
Social impact bonds (SIBs) first made a splash in the U.K. and many early ones have focused on
recidivism. While there have been 11 such programs in the United States so far, many critics are
skeptical of totally embracing private investment for social services. But even though 2015 was a
slow year for the SIBs community, this year there seems to be a renewed interest in this financial
tool.
“Pay-for-success deals are complex transactions involving multiple partners, a challenge to
scaling any model, so going from exploring the concept to actually inking a deal can take quite a
while,” explains Meg Massey of the Urban Institute.
The latest lineup of PFS programs includes supporting new moms in South Carolina, families
dealing with substance abuse in Connecticut, and finding shelter and care for the homeless in
Denver.
South Carolina’s project involves a $30 million investment to support low-income moms
struggling with neonatal care. Given that more than a quarter of the children in the state live in
poverty, the program is designed to ensure that kids are nourished and in good health in their
early years. The funds will be channeled to the Nurse-Family Partnership, a nationwide nonprofit
that teams up new moms with nurses. Currently, the program reaches 1,200 families in South
Carolina. The PFS will scale up the project to an additional 3,200 first-time moms. The rollout
will happen over the next four years. Medicaid will contribute $13 million, and the remaining
$17 million will come from an assortment of investors, such as the BlueCross BlueShield of
South Carolina Foundation, the Duke Endowment, and Boeing. Although in many PFS projects,
the investors see a financial return if evaluators find success based on a predetermined set of
goals, in this case, the funders have committed to putting any returns back into the program.
As South Carolina looks to help pregnant women and babies, Denver’s latest PFS is centered on
homelessness. In the last year, the city has seen quite a bit of back-and-forth on laws that impact
the homeless, such as panhandling bans. The city says it’s launching the program to reduce the
approximately $7 million per year it spends on chronically homeless individuals through
emergency services such as jails, courts and emergency rooms.
The $8.7 million SIB will put private investment toward getting up to 250 individuals off the
streets with 210 new housing units and 40 existing ones. The project will take five years to
complete, and includes medical services provided through Medicaid.
“Through this innovative social impact bond program, Denver is serving our most vulnerable
population smarter and more effectively by getting these individuals out of a cycle of jail and
hospital visits and into permanent supportive housing with wraparound services,” Mayor
Michael B. Hancock said in a statement.
According to the city, “The estimated repayment to investors will be $9.4 million if the program
achieves a 35 percent reduction in the number of days that the population spends in jail and if at
least 83 percent of all participants remain stably housed for one year or longer. The repayment
will be less if these outcomes are not achieved.”
In the next few years, these new PFS programs will face the same scrutiny as the handful
launched so far in the U.S.
The Rikers Island jail program was the first pay-for-success program in the country, and was
designed to fight recidivism though moral reconation therapy. Last year, the results came out:
The program didn’t work. That means investors such as Bloomberg Philanthropies and Goldman
Sachs had to eat the loss.
Massey says that’s the point: “The city of New York tried a different way to improve lives —
and when it didn’t work, the taxpayers did not have to foot the bill. The evaluation of the New
York City deal also taught us more about what works and what doesn’t.”
The point of PFS models, she continues, is not only to produce returns for investors (though that
would be an added bonus), but also to rethink and redesign how social problems are addressed.
“The most valuable thing that pay for success can do is seed the conversation about reorienting
government agencies towards outcomes for people, rather than outputs,” she says, “in other
words, getting people to think about what happens to the people their programs serve, not just
how many people are served.”
Categories: CNU blogs, New Urbanism
CBO on highway finance: The price is wrong
City Observatory - Thu, 2016-03-03 10:58
A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report confirms what we’ve known for a long time:
our nation’s system of assessing the costs of roads—and paying for their construction and
maintenance—is badly broken.
Entitled “Approaches to Making Federal Highway Spending More Productive,” the new CBO
report is a treasure trove of details about the recent history of transportation finance in the United
States. Though couched in the careful technocratic language of the budget analyst—you’ll read
about how alternative financial arrangements would enable better “performance” and create
greater “efficiency”—the translation is straightforward: the big cause of our transportation
problems is that we’re charging road users the wrong price.
Collectively, road users are paying too little for what they use, which is why taxpayers have had
to chip in more than $140 billion over the past seven years to make up shortfalls in the Highway
Trust Fund. The Trust Fund is the repository of gas taxes and other road user fees and is
supposed to cover the cost of building and maintaining the nation’s roads. But the underlying
problem isn’t just that there’s too little money: it’s that the way we allocate costs to users, and
the way we distribute funding among alternative investments produces lousy results.
As the report puts it: “Spending on highways does not correspond very well with how the roads
are used and valued.”
Translation: The price of roads is wrong. Drivers who use lots of expensive capacity (urban
roads at peak travel times) don’t pay their costs, and money gets allocated to spending that
produces limited value for the nation.
Under the current system of fuel taxes, all users pay basically the same amount whether they
travel on highly congested roads or nearly empty ones. That means users have no incentive to
adjust their travel times, routes, or modes to reduce the costs that their travel imposes on
everyone else. The fact that many road users face prices that are far lower than the costs they
impose on the system means that highways are over-used, and that there isn’t enough money to
maintain or improve them. Getting prices right would lead to less peak demand (shifting travel to
un-congested periods, when it can be accommodated with the existing infrastructure) and thus
improving service for users who value travel time improvements.
It’s also important to keep in mind that this report only addresses the direct financial costs to
government for constructing and operating the highway system. There are also huge social and
environmental costs—from air pollution, climate change, and injuries and deaths associated with
crashes—that aren’t reflected in the prices that that roads users pay. In an earlier report, CBO
estimated that trucks were subsidized to the tune of $57 to 128 billion a year because of these
costs and road damage.
The CBO has three recommendations: price roads, especially to reflect congestion, allocate funds
based on a cost-benefit basis, and link spending to performance. TheCBO points out that road
pricing would not only provide badly needed funds, but would provide valuable information
about which highway system improvements would generate the largest economic benefits. They
report that according to FHWA, pricing might reduce the expenditure needed to achieve a given
performance level by 30 percent.
And—almost in passing—the CBO report casts doubt on the accepted wisdom that highway
building triggers economic growth. They say: “Research suggests that increase in economic
activity from spending for new highways in the United States have generally declined over
time.” Translation: highway investment experiences diminishing returns. The nation gets a big
gain from building the Interstate Highway system when there was none, but each successive
increment to the system produces a smaller and smaller return.
Highway construction in Seattle, 1962. Credit: Seattle Municipal Archives, Flickr
We’ll grant that critics might point out that other modes, like transit or biking or walking, don’t
cover their own costs with user fees, either—there’s no sidewalk maintenance toll, and nor
should there be. But there’s a critical difference between car travel and these other modes. Users
of those modes don’t create the same costs, either, and not just because sidewalks cost a tiny
fraction of a tiny fraction of what roads cost. Each additional driver, for example, creates
congestion for every other driver on the road at the same time, up to the point that travel times
can be doubled or tripled at peak use. Additional riders on a subway, on the other hand, create
only very modest increases in travel times because of the time it takes for them to board—and
perhaps none at all, if more ridership causes the transit agency to run more trains, and their
boarding time is canceled out by less waiting time. We’re not confronting the cost of multibillion dollar sidewalk investment projects due to peak hour congestion caused by under-priced
foot traffic. Just as importantly, transit riders, bikers, and riders don’t create any, or very, very
small amounts, of the major social costs of driving, from deaths and injuries in crashes to
pollution.”
Simply pumping more money into the existing highway finance system will produce limited
economic benefits. Many projects are only needed because drivers don’t confront anything close
to the actual costs of the roads they drive on—and if they did, demand would be far smaller.
Congestion pricing would improve the flow of traffic and enable us to meet the nation’s
transportation needs at much lower costs. And investments in the highway system face real
diminishing returns, so that additional money invested in highways produces less and less
economic benefit.
Categories: CNU blogs, New Urbanism
Headlines for Thursday, March 3
Grid Chicago - Thu, 2016-03-03 09:59
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Loop Alliance Counts: 1.61M People Walked State St. in the Loop During Last Week of
February (Crain’s)
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Suspect Is in Custody After Hit-and-Run Crash That Injured Pedestrian in Oak Park
(Tribune)
Helmet Cam Footage May Help Convict Driver Who Attacked Cyclist in Madison St.
Bike Lane (CBS)
Englewood Resident Doesn’t Want to Sell His Home to Make Way for Freight Yard
(Tribune)
Developer Wants to Turn Parking Lot Near Merchandise Mart Stop Into Offices (Curbed)
Letter: Let’s Turn the Old South Works Site Into a Park With Bike Trails (Sun-Times)
Metra Will Close Ticket Offices at 99th & 95th Street in Beverly March 14 (DNA)
2 Lanes of LSD Will Be Closed Through Friday for 35th St. Pedestrian Bridge Work
(DNA)
Workers Will Blow Up the Torrence Ave. Bridge to Make Way for a New One (DNA)
Arts Advocates Hope to Use Crowdfunding to Bring Public Art to Jeff Park (DNA)
Ex-CDOT Chief Gabe Klein Will Give the Keynote at Loop Alliance‘s 3/10 Meeting
Get national headlines at Streetsblog USA
Categories: New Urbanism
Connecting California’s Climate Change Fight to Affordable Housing
Next City - Thu, 2016-03-03 09:40
Sacramento’s streetcar (Photo by El Cobrador, via Flickr)
Californians now have a better tool to track where the billions of dollars being collected through
the state’s cap-and-trade program are being invested in their communities. An updated online
map from TransForm, a transportation and walkability advocacy group, tallies projects receiving
funding through the program, and their estimated greenhouse gas reductions.
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California Cities Can Require Affordable Housing in New Developments
As San Francisco’s Housing Costs Escalate, the City Can’t Afford Anti-Growth
Legislation
California sets a legally enforceable limit on the amount of CO2 industry can emit, requiring
businesses releasing more than 25,000 tons a year to get permits from the state. The state’s
revenues from the permits are then invested in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF),
which supports projects to further reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the effects of climate
change.
The new TransForm map tracks these projects: 412 so far, representing over $1.5 billion in
investment, and just over 3 million megatons of greenhouse gas reduction. Money has gone to
the state’s high-speed rail project, wetland restoration, more efficient farmland irrigation, the
expansion of urban canopy and more.
A less obvious use of the funds with immediate benefits for individuals and communities is the
construction of affordable housing close to public transportation. These projects both reduce
households’ reliance on private vehicles and help more individuals weather California’s
affordability crisis.
To date, over $150 million from the GGRF has been utilized to build affordable, transit-oriented
development. A 2014 report estimated that developing 15,000 such units could prevent
105,000,000 miles of vehicle travel every year.
According to the report, lower-income households living within a half mile of transit drove 25 to
30 percent fewer miles than those living in non-transit-oriented development; those living a
quarter mile or less from transit drove almost 50 percent less.
By contrast, higher-income households drove more than twice as many miles and owned more
than twice as many vehicles as extremely low-income households living within a quarter mile of
transit. The report suggests that while demand is booming for luxury condos close to public
transportation, carbon reduction goals will be best met by preserving some of that housing as
affordable.
In addition to the mapping tool, TransForm released a video this week, co-produced with the
Greenlining Institute, that tells the story of one resident in a new GGRF development. Esther
Robert and her children live close to transit in West Sacramento. Without it, she says in the
video, “I would probably be living with all of us in a studio apartment in some place I don’t want
to be, just because that’s the only place I could afford to keep something over my head.”
Greenlining Institute Environmental Equity Director Alvaro Sanchez said in a statement,
“California’s climate investments are improving people’s lives … . We’re not just tackling
climate change, we’re bringing real help to communities that have historically been left out of
economic prosperity or saddled with the worst pollution: affordable homes like Esther’s, better
transportation choices, cost-cutting home weatherization, and much more.”
Categories: CNU blogs, New Urbanism
This 1912 plan would have made Baltimore much bigger
Greater Greater Washington - Thu, 2016-03-03 09:27
by Dan Malouff
In 1912 Baltimore's city leaders hoped to annex this large chunk of Baltimore County. Had that
happened, the city limits would have extended from near downtown Towson to just shy of
Ellicott City.
Image from the State of Maryland.
Baltimore annexed big chunks of land in three successive waves: One in 1817 that took the city
as far as North Avenue, a second in 1888 up to about 40th Street, and a third in the early years of
the 20th Century.
Like other US cities, Baltimore was expanding rapidly in the early 20th Century amidst a wave
of streetcar-induced sprawl. Suburban areas lacked city services like sewers, parks, and police,
so central cities often annexed surrounding land.
By about 1910, Baltimore was ready for another round of annexation. Exactly how much land
the city should annex became a major hot-button issue of the day, with proposals ranging from
no expansion to the aggressive, far-ranging one pictured above.
In 1918 a compromise plan eventually won out, settling Baltimore's boundaries at their current
extents.
By the time America's post-World War II suburbanization boom happened, the national mood
had shifted against central cities. A 1948 amendment to Maryland's state constitution outlawed
any further expansion of Baltimore City, and thus the borders haven't changed since.
Cross-posted at BeyondDC.
22 comments
Did you enjoy this article? Greater Greater Washington is running a reader drive to raise funds
so we can keep editing and publishing great articles every day. Please help us be sustainable by
making a monthly, yearly, or one-time contribution today! Click here to support Greater Greater
Washington.
Categories: CNU blogs
Despite Progress, Cincinnati Not Viewed for Policy Leadership Across America
UrbanCincy - Thu, 2016-03-03 08:58
After surveying 89 mayors from around the United States, Boston University’s Initiative on
Cities found that the chief concern amongst those surveyed was an increasing worry about
maintaining and funding new infrastructure.
The analysis surveyed mayors from cities of varying sizes, including Cincinnati, and attempted
to find the most pressing issues facing American cities.
With roads, mass transportation, and stormwater and wastewater management were the biggest
concerns, the mayors specifically alluded to their historic reliance on the federal government as a
partner in tackling these big-ticket issues. But more and more mayors around America have lost
faith in both federal and state leaders in being reliable partners on large infrastructure projects.
In fact, a recent report authored by Aaron Renn at the Manhattan Institute looks at the issue
many cities are facing when it comes to fixing combined sewer overflow problems. In the past,
these infrastructure fixes were largely funded by the federal government, but have since become
unfunded federal mandates that have led to enormous rate increases across the country,
particularly in older cities.
Not all of the infrastructure issues were big ticket items. One such example was the support for
bicycle infrastructure. Increasingly popular among America’s mayors, some 70% of those
surveyed expressed their support for bike-friendly initiatives.
“Everyone understands that if you want to attract Millennials, you have to have biking
infrastructure,” noted one of the surveyed mayors, who are allowed to remain anonymous, in the
report. “And if you have bike infrastructure, you are going to upset people.”
Aside from infrastructure, major national news stories from 2015 seemed to factor into other
concerns expressed throughout the country.
Those surveyed shared overwhelming support for reforms in policing, regardless of political
party. Workforce development programs, initiatives to control rising housing costs, and policies
focused on addressing poverty and inequality were all major issues of concern.
While housing prices were an area of major concern for those surveyed, there are large
differences in opinion on how to tackle the issue. Some mayors expressed a willingness to
emphasize affordable housing mandates even if it stymies development, while mayors of less
prosperous cities were less likely to focus on affordable housing.
An area of potential concern for Cincinnati is that while it has gained national attention in recent
years for its positive gains, many other mayors from around the country are not looking to the
Queen City for policy guidance. Of those surveyed, Cincinnati was mentioned by less than 5% of
them as a place they have looked at for inspiration.
Categories: New Urbanism
Today’s Headlines
Streetsblog Capitol Hill - Thu, 2016-03-03 08:55
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The Purple Line Is Really Happening for Maryland’s DC Suburbs (WaPo, Baltimore
Sun)
Human Transit’s Jarrett Walker on Why Cars and Cities Don’t Match (WaPo)
How Federal Rules Hold Back Mixed-Use Development (Crossroads)
Small Towns Aren’t Immune to Big City Conflicts (Next City)
New Bill Threatens Bike/Ped Funding in Tennessee (WTVC)
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DC, Maryland, Virginia Agree on Metro Safety Deal (WaPo)
Milwaukee Accelerates BRT Planning to Snag Funding (Milwaukee Biz Journal)
Boise Reveals Plans for Downtown Streetcar Circulator (Boise Weekly)
Vegas Takes Admiring Look at Denver’s Transit System (Denver Biz Journal)
Categories: New Urbanism
D.C. Metro Tests Grocery Pickup at Stations
Next City - Thu, 2016-03-03 08:36
(Credit: Peapod)
It’s thought to be the first arrangement of its kind: Customers who use the online Peapod grocery
ordering service can now pick up their haul at three Metro stations in the Washington, D.C., area.
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Museum
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Should Cities Reject Bad Transit Until Something Better Comes Along? A Lesson from
Zurich
N.J. Republicans Seek a Third Way Between Transit Cheerleading and Bashing
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and Peapod are partnering for the sixmonth pilot, in which Peapod employees will staff a grocery “pod” at the Fort Totten, Glenmont
and Vienna stations from 4 to 7 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Commuters will be
able to pick up groceries ordered from Giant Food — a sister company to Peapod — on their
way home.
It’s an attempt by both Metro and Peapod to add convenience to users’ — and riders’ lives. If the
project is deemed successful, Metro spokesman Richard Jordan says that the agency would allow
Peapod and other grocery delivery services to bid to create permanent pickup points at various
stations throughout the system.
Peapod believes this is the first grocery pickup point at a metro station in the country. It’s
certainly a first for Peapod, which approached Metro about the idea a year or so ago. Elizabeth
Psaros, Peapod senior manager of regional marketing, says the company approached D.C.
because of the high number of commuters and because Giant has such deep roots in the D.C.
area.
The pilot stations “were chosen because we wanted to offer the pilot in all three jurisdictions that
we serve,” D.C., Maryland and Virginia, Jordan says. Also, each station has relatively high
ridership and “a significant amount of commuter parking.”
The project is clearly targeting park-and-ride commuters; all the pilot stations have large parking
lots. Two are at the end of popular subway lines. And Peapod’s ordering system has a $60
minimum anyway; it’d be tough to carry all those groceries on foot.
But the park-and-ride demographic may be exactly what Metro needs. Overall, the system’s 36
parking lots and garages, most in the outer edges of the system, are about 77 percent utilized,
though some stations get much heavier usage than others. And Metro expects that as long as
people continue to live in the suburbs and work in the city center that ridership will increase in
those outer stations. Perhaps — just perhaps — the convenience of getting an errand out of the
way will draw some potential drivers to the Metro.
It would also be an alternative source of revenue for Metro, which is losing money and riders.
Metro has floated concession proposals for years, some of which, like an idea to put Redboxstyle DVD rental kiosks in stations, never materialized. Other retail is also tricky, since Metro
bans eating and drinking within the system yet most concessionaires want to be able to sell
snacks. Metro also recently changed its advertising policy, overturning a 20-year ban on alcohol
advertising, in a move officials say could bring in $5 million over the next several years.
Categories: CNU blogs, New Urbanism
Breakfast links: Momentum in Maryland transit
Greater Greater Washington - Thu, 2016-03-03 07:30
by Joe Stenhouse
Photo by Dan Reed on Flickr.In case you missed it: Governor Larry Hogan finally picked a
company to build and operate the Purple Line. Construction could start later this year for an
opening date in 2022. (WAMU)
BRT in Montgomery: Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett wants to spend $11.5
million to plan and design three bus rapid transit routes on Rockville Pike, Colesville Road, and
Veirs Mill Road. (Post)
DC on bikes, 10 years out: In 2005, DDOT created a list of bicycling goals to be completed by
2015. How'd they do? DDOT exceeded their goals around building bike lanes and bicycle
parking, but other goals, like completing the Metropolitan Branch Trail and the Anacostia
Riverwalk Trail, are still in the works. (TheWashCycle)
Safety in numbers: Mayor Bowser, Governor Hogan, and Governor McAuliffe formally
pledged to work together to create a safety oversight agency for Metro after the Federal Transit
Administration threatened to withhold funding. (CityPaper)
It's elementary: In DC, public school enrollment drops off sharply after 4th grade, when many
parents opt to send their kids to charters for middle school. Why do parents make the jump and
what does it mean for the community? Here's the story in one Capitol Hill school. (WAMU)
Late on the rent control: DC Councilmember Anita Bonds will propose a bill to limit how
much landlords can charge tenants in late fees for rental payments. The bill would limit late fees
to 5% of rent, and place restrictions on how and when fees could be applied. (UrbanTurf)
Off target: For the first time in 5 years, DC police department efforts to reduce homicides in
targeted trouble areas did not result in lower homicide rates. The targeted areas did see a
reduction in overall violent crime, however. (City Paper)
At least there are still stairs: Here are all Metro stations ranked from worst to best for escalator
outages. Only one station, Forest Glen, made it through the year without an escalator issue.
(Washingtonian)
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Categories: CNU blogs
Who Plans?: Jane Jacobs’ Hayekian Critique of Urban Planning
New Geography - Thu, 2016-03-03 00:38
"Cities are fantastically dynamic places, and this is strikingly true of their successful parts,
which offer a fertile ground for the plans of thousands of people."
– Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
For most of the field’s history, prominent urban planning theorists have taken for granted that
cities require extensive central planning. With the question framed as “To plan or not to plan?”
students and practitioners answer with an emphatic “Yes,” subsequently setting out to impose
their particular ideal order on what they perceived to be, as Lewis Mumford put it, “solidified
chaos.” Whether through the controlled centralization of Le Corbusier or the controlled
decentralization of Ebenezer Howard and Frank Lloyd Wright, cities were to be just that:
controlled. When in 1961 Jane Jacobs set out to attack the orthodox tradition of urban planning,
it was this dogma that landed squarely in her crosshairs. With her characteristically deceptive
simplicity, she invites us to ask, “Who plans?”
While many take Jacobs’ essential contribution to be her insights into urban design, her
subversion begins at the theoretical level in the introduction to The Death and Life of Great
American Cities. Despite their diverse aesthetic preferences, Corbusier and Howard share much
in common. Both assume that planning entails the enshrining of a single plan and the suppression
of all other individual plans. Both insist on imposing a “pretended order” on the “real order,”
treating the city as a simple machine rather than a manifestation of organized complexity. Like
Adam Smith’s “man of system,” each thinker was “so enamoured with the supposed beauty of
his own ideal plan of government, that he [could not] suffer the smallest deviation from any part
of it.”
Jane Jacobs’ critique of this orthodox tradition unfolds in three steps, closely following F.A.
Hayek’s argument in The Use of Knowledge in Society. First, Jacobs emphasizes the importance
of local knowledge. Where orthodox urban planners assume that the essential information in
planning decisions can be gained through abstract principles and statistical aggregates, Jacobs
makes the case for respecting local, man-on-the-spot knowledge. Consider the case of the East
Harlem project, a centrally planned housing project sporting Corbusierian towers and giant
lawns: housing officials viewed the project from an aesthetic and statistical viewpoint and loved
it. Meanwhile, residents hated it; it segregated them from their communities, separated them
from commercial uses, and left them with a big, useless lawn. Throughout the book Jacobs
describes similar situations in which the needs and preferences of local residents clashed with
central planners, with the conflict’s resolution all too often falling in favor of the “experts.”
Second, Jacobs knew that decentralized planning was the best way to make the most of local
knowledge. Local residents often have the knowledge needed to make wise decisions about
urban form. As Jacobs details throughout The Death and Life, the urban planner’s best course of
action is typically to allow individuals to plan for themselves. As Hayek framed the problem of
economic planning, the question should not be whether or not to plan, but rather who should
plan? Put differently, we might distinguish between centralized and decentralized planning.
Under a centralized planning regime, an individual or small group makes decisions for everyone
regardless of what unique, local knowledge they may have. We see this often in cities today:
Everyone must respect certain setbacks. All restaurantsmust offer unpriced parking. On the other
hand, decentralized planning allows individuals to create their own plans and draw on their
unique preferences and local knowledge. Where would I like to live? How would I like to
interact with neighboring residents and businesses?
Finally, Jacobs clarified how decentralized planning helps create and maintain the spontaneous
orders that make urban life work. Many of The Death and Life’s most beautiful passages concern
the natural order that emerges from decentralized planning: sidewalk ballets that help keep
streets safe and socialize children, diverse residential and commercial uses, and self-governing
communities. These spontaneous orders are, in the words of Scottish philosopher Adam
Ferguson, “the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.” By allowing
individuals to freely organize themselves in relation to one another, natural urban orders emerge
without any central planning. Certainly it is not the case that all decentralized planning results in
such orders. But as Jacobs points out, centralized urban planning, as it exists today, often hurts
rather than helps.
For all the love Jane Jacobs has received from urban planners and policymakers since her first
book was published, her greatest theoretical innovation seems to be largely disregarded. Cities
across the country continue to centrally plan the minutiae of urban life, from obsessively detailed
land-use regulations to impossibly ambitious comprehensive plans. Even many of those who
have embraced Jacobs’ urban design insights scrapped her theoretical underpinnings, using rigid,
top-down plans to create unsettling and unchanging recreations of natural neighborhoods and
cities.
None of this should be taken to mean that there’s no place for central planning. Jane Jacobs, like
F.A. Hayek, seems to be open to centralized urban planning in certain situations. However, the
focus should remain on preserving a large sphere in which urban residents retain the right to
engage in their own planning. A shift toward a more Jacobsian/Hayekian urban planning might
occur in at least two ways. First, urban planners should focus on the kind of market failure
uniquely important to urban life: externalities. Whether this involves creating a framework
whereby neighbors may engage in a kind of Coasian bargaining or instituting broad prohibitions
on certain harmful activities may depend on local conditions. It is clear that current centralized
urban planning goes far beyond this.
Second, where some level of central planning is necessary, plans should empower rather than
undermine choice. Consider the beauty of New York City’s grid: planned with remarkable
foresight in 1811, the grid served as a blank slate for development, with accessible streets and
adaptable blocks. Where grand plans of this kind are necessary, planners should emphasize
flexibility in order to support the dynamism of decentralized planning. Where grand plans are not
necessary, planners should stick to the trial-and-error of decentralized planning. Jacobs makes
this case when she argues for embedding individual subsidized housing units into already
functioning neighborhoods rather than tearing down and replacing whole neighborhoods. While
an individual building may fail, its failure won’t be nearly be catastrophic as the failure of a
grand housing project plan. Meanwhile, a small success can be studied, replicated, and scaled up
when appropriate.
As Hayek did in the case of economics, Jacobs stood up to an urban planning orthodoxy that
enjoyed the support of policymakers, academics, and all the “Very Serious People.” She
celebrated the wisdom of everyday people when the relevant experts found answers only in
statistical aggregates and economic calculus. Hayek and Jacobs defended the importance of local
knowledge, illustrated the power of decentralized planning, and celebrated the sublime
spontaneous orders that organize our lives. Yet their theoretical innovations went largely
unnoticed long after their respective publications. Here, the two thinkers diverge: while
Hayekian ideas have largely driven centralized economic planning into the dustbin of history, I
suspect the Jacobsian urban revolution has only just begun.
This piece first appeared at Market Urbanism.
Photo: Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton
Categories: New Urbanism
Finalists Announced: Who Will Take Home an Advocacy Award?
Alliance for Walking&Biking - Thu, 2016-03-03 00:00
[blogimage]http://bikewalkalliance.org/storage/images/Blog_photos/finaliststhumb.jpg[/blogimage] Forget Hollywood. The Oscars may be over, but the best awards show is
yet to come. Next week, on the first night of the National Bike Summit, the Alliance will open
the envelopes for the 2016 Advocacy Awards, honoring excellence in the walking and biking
movement. Who will take home the hardware? Here are the finalists.
Categories: CNU blogs, New Urbanism
Who Really Controls Which House You Buy?
John Sanphillippo - Wed, 2016-03-02 22:05
Last year I was looking at property in the Cincinnati area. I realized that many of the old forlorn
city neighborhoods were rapidly coming back to life and this was a good time to buy and
improve property. I found a small historic building with a shop on the ground floor and three
apartments upstairs. There was a modest back garden and a detached garage that could have been
converted to a workshop or guest cottage. It was for sale at a ridiculously low price – about as
much as a nice car. The place needed work, but I was prepared to tinker with it incrementally and
on a tight budget.
In theory there was a willing seller and a willing buyer. But then came the banks and regulators.
No bank would grant any kind of loan for the building. Full stop. In spite of newly revised
guidelines from federal regulators that theoretically accommodate mixed use buildings under
certain circumstances, banks weren’t interested in participating. If this had been a four unit
residential building with no commercial space the banks might have granted a conventional loan.
But…
There are parameters for an “investment property” loan which is how banks view multi-family
buildings. The minimum loan amount for a non-single family home is $50,000. On a multi-unit
investment property you are required to put 25% down. To meet the $50K minimum loan
amount you would need to purchase a building for $67K or more. If the sales price is below
$67K banks shrug. Keep in mind, I know a young couple who bought a single family home
within walking distance of this building at the same time and price point with almost no down
payment with a low fixed interest thirty year federally backed mortgage.
The same exact bank will loan a marginally qualified borrower $50,000 to buy a fancy car that
will lose most of its value in the five years it takes to pay off the debt. But it won’t lend a similar
amount for a building that’s held up for a century. I could have paid cash for the building, but
once I realized that all future sales would be stymied by the banks I switched tactics and bought a
single family home instead.
Back in the 1990’s I bought an inexpensive piece of land in rural Hawaii and built a little
mortgage free cottage. It was never meant to be anything fancy. But it has served as a great
vacation cottage near the beach that I could eventually convert to a retirement home.
Over time the area increased in value and new homes of higher quality were built all around the
cottage. The cottage wasn’t for sale, but a Baby Boomer couple from California admired the
place and offered a good price. They were pre approved for a mortgage so we proceeded.
Unfortunately the mortgage fell through when Quality Control “randomly” selected the loan for
review and found it does not meet Fannie Mae’s requirements for salability.
The first red flag was the size of the house. It’s only 480 square feet. The second red flag was
that it’s a studio with no separate bedrooms. The third red flag was a lack of comparable sales in
the area in the last three months. There were three comparable cash sales within the last year
demonstrating what the market would support, but Fannie Mae wasn’t interested.
Again… there were willing buyers and sellers in the “free market” yet the banks and regulators
rejected the sale. What gets built, bought, and inhabited has a lot to do with what larger
institutions demand. The market is seriously stacked in one direction. Three bedroom ranch
houses, strip malls, garden apartments, and suburban office parks are approved without
hesitation all day long. Everything else is intentionally excluded.
Categories: CNU blogs, New Urbanism
Little Big Burger To Open In Beaverton
Urban Portland - Wed, 2016-03-02 19:27
An already established Portland favorite, Little Big Burger will be opening their 10th location.
The Little Big Burger at Progress Ridge will be the first in that community, and a convenient and
welcome addition for Westside dwellers who are already loyal to the brand as well as to a new
audience of diners in Beaverton and Tigard.
Urban Works represented both the restaurant and the landlord in the lease. There are several
other units available for rent at Progress Ridge. Click here to find out more.
Categories: New Urbanism
Bike-Share Equity Study Uses Old Chicago Data, But Divvy Still Needs Work
Grid Chicago - Wed, 2016-03-02 17:58
A Divvy station outside Comer College Prep high school in Grand Crossing, a mostly AfricanAmerican neighborhood. Photo: John Greenfield
A new study concludes that most U.S. bike-share cities, including Chicago, have provided much
better access to stations for whites than African Americans. The report is based on fall 2014
Divvy station location data, but the coverage area has greatly expanded since then to include
many more communities of color, so it’s likely that geographic access has significantly
improved. However, it’s clear that more work needs to be done in Chicago before the system can
be considered truly accessible to African-American and Latino residents.
Julia Ursaki and Lisa Aultman-Hall from the University of Vermont’s Transportation Research
Center conducted the study and presented it in January at the Transportation Research Board’s
annual meeting. Ursaki and Aultman-Hall compared bike-share access to population
demographics in Chicago, Seattle, Boston, New York City Washington, D.C., and Arlington,
VA.
Aultman-Hall told me via email that, for the purposes of this study, the terms “equity” and
“equality” had the same meaning. “‘Equity’ is a bike share station in all neighborhoods, in the
context of this paper,” she said. “That is also ‘equal.’ We had no measure of need, alternatives or
destinations. In a more complex [study], one would also have to consider if the activities or
destinations needed were accessible by bicycle from the neighborhood.”
Ursaki and Aultman-Hall also reviewed previous bike-share studies and noted there are at least
three main factors cities have taken into consideration when designing bike-share systems:
market viability, health indicators, and economics. One such study found that the “primary
market” for Philadelphia’s Indego bike-share system existed chiefly in the central business
district.
This CityLab graphic using Ursaki and Aultman-Hall’s data shows the percentage of whites and
African Americans who lived within 500 meters of a bike-share station as of fall 2014.
However, a second study found that if the Indego operators were interested in improving public
health, they should install bike-share stations in mostly African-American West Philly. A third
study asked various bike-share operators how they were trying to address equity. The operators
responded that, among other initiatives, they were installing stations and other bike infrastructure
in low-income areas.
CDOT spokesperson Mike Claffey told me the department looks at “a variety of equity-related
criteria” when choosing station locations, including “median household income, non-white
population levels, and educational attainment,” but they don’t consider health indicators such as
obesity, diabetes, and heart disease rates.
Ursaki and Aultman-Hall found that, in terms of several socioeconomic factors, Washington,
D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare stations have the most equitable distribution of the seven cities they
studied. That system, which debuted in 2010, is also the oldest. Neighboring Arlington is part of
the same system, but its station distribution was reviewed separately.
Divvy launched in summer 2013 with 300 stations. While the initial service area extended about
the same distance north and south of the Loop, areas with a higher density of people and
destinations received a higher density of stations. Stations were generally placed every quarter
mile in these areas, versus every half mile in other areas.
The Vermont study used station locations from the old Divvy service area, shown in blue. The
2015 expansion, shown in pink, provided access to more African-American and Latino residents.
At the time, CDOT said this strategy was necessary to ensure that the system would be
economically sustainable. However, this meant that stations tended to be concentrated in
relatively affluent, largely white neighborhoods.
Using fall 2014 station location data, which only included the first 300 stations, Ursaki and
Aultman-Hall found that a mere 5.2 percent of African Americans in Chicago lived within 500
meters (0.31 miles) of a station.
Using the same station location data, a Chicago Tribune analysis found that while only 15.7
percent of the city’s African American residents lived within 0.25 miles (402 meters) of a
station, and only 18.8 percent of Latino Chicagoans did, a full 47.9 percent of the city’s white
residents had quarter-mile access .
However, in summer 2015 CDOT added 176 stations, with many of them going to AfricanAmerican and Latino communities. Claffey said that CDOT has done its own analysis of
demographics in the current Divvy service area. He said they found that, of residents who now
live within 0.5 miles (805 meters) of a station, 46 percent are “non-white.”
Last January, CDOT announced that Divvy will be adding 96 new stations this year, mostly in
African-American neighborhoods within the city. Claffey said they haven’t yet analyzed what
the demographics of the Divvy service area will be after the expansion. But it’s obvious that the
2016 expansion will increase the percentage of Chicago African Americans who live near a
station.
However, even though the 2015 expansion improved geographic access for people of color, more
needs to be done to remove other barriers to using the system. A 2015 CDOT survey of hundreds
of bike-share members found that 79 percent of respondents were non-Hispanic whites – a group
that makes up only about 32 percent of the city’s population. In addition, the majority of those
who filled out the survey had middle-to-upper incomes, and 93 percent had a college degree or
more.
In July 2015, the city took a positive step to address Divvy’s economic divide by launching the
Divvy for Everyone program. This initiative offers one-time $5 memberships to low-income
residents, waives the usual credit card requirement, and allows people to sign up in person
instead of requiring internet access. Nearly 1,100 people have signed up for the discounted
memberships as of last month.
I asked Aultman-Hall if she and Ursaki might update the study using current Chicago station
location data. “At this time we do not have funding for further study but we are encouraged by
how many organizations are doing similar work,” she said, adding that a researcher at University
of California, Davis is conducting a similar study. “[Our] analysis is far from perfect. It is limited
by data. We were just happy to be able to put some numbers to a problem planners were aware of
but had not quantified.”
Categories: New Urbanism
Tennessee charting a course to make streets more dangerous & hamstring local
authority
T4America - Wed, 2016-03-02 17:03
A bill moving through the Tennessee legislature would severely curtail local control and
authority over transportation spending, result in more dangerous streets, and prevent cities
and towns of all sizes from investing in the wide range of transportation options that are
key to their economic prosperity.
Sidewalks would be useful here on Nolensville Rd, a state highway that’s also a local street
through Nolensville, TN southeast of Nashville. A new Tennessee law could prevent state gas
tax dollars from being used to add them.
Less than a year after passing a statewide complete streets policy, at least two Tennessee state
legislators are spearheading a fairly shocking legislative effort to curtail the flexibility that the
state, cities and counties have to invest in the diverse types of transportation options that are
demanded by their citizens and supported by scores of state and local elected leaders from across
the state.
HB 1650 (with a companion in the Senate), as originally introduced and intended, would
entirely ban the use of state gas tax revenue for building any sidewalks (even as part of a
larger road project), bike lanes and trails, or other similarly cost-effective and popular projects
to help make traveling on foot or by bike safer and more convenient.
But this bill goes further than a restriction on the projects that the Tennessee Department of
Transportation plans and builds itself, however.
The bill would also narrowly restrict how a city or county could invest their share of gas tax
dollars they receive back from the state. This bill would curtail the freedom and control
communities of all sizes currently enjoy to invest these dollars however they choose.
Tracking state policy & funding
This bill is just one of many pieces of state legislation that we are tracking closely as part of our
new resource on state transportation policy & funding.
Visit our refreshed state policy bill tracker to see current information about the states
attempting to raise new funding in 2016, states attempting to reform how those dollars are spent,
and states (like Tennessee) taking unfortunate steps in the wrong direction on policy.
The bill has been opposed thus far by TDOT, in part because it would have a dramatic impact on
safety and could prevent them from meeting decades-old, basic ADA requirements that require
crosswalks and curb ramps and other basic safety and accessibility features — which could also
jeopardize future federal funds for the state. While there’s potential for the bill to be amended
to address the ADA issue and possibly allow sidewalk construction to some degree, the
legislators appear to be intent on preserving the outright restriction of state funds for any onstreet or off-street bike lanes or trails.
It’s a misguided attempt to save a state money, but considering that only about one percent of the
entire state transportation budget goes to projects that make walking or biking safer or more
convenient, it’s akin to trying to save money on your power bill by unplugging a single light bulb
while running the AC at 60 degrees all summer.
The kicker is that Tennessee is already a national leader on evaluating proposed projects to
find savings (or waste) and maximize the benefits of each dollar. We profiled them as a model to
emulate in our recent report on smart state policies other states should consider:
In 2012, the Tennessee DOT (TDOT), in partnership with Smart Growth America, found that
many transportation projects in its program could be redesigned to achieve 80-90 percent of
benefits for as little as one-tenth of the initial proposed cost. After reviewing just the first five
projects, TDOT found a cost savings of over $171 million through right-sizing the scope of
work. In one project in Jackson County, TDOT was able to reduce the overall cost from an
estimated $65 million to just $340,000 while still achieving the same safety and efficiency
outcomes. As a result, TDOT has saved billions of dollars and stretched its limited resources
even further (the state’s 21.4 cent per gallon gas tax was last raised in 1993, and the state
operates its transportation program on a pay-as-you-go basis).
Check that math again: By re-scoping just one project, TDOT saved over $64 million dollars
— equivalent to almost four full years of current state funding for safer streets and sidewalks.
There are indeed savings to be found, but curtailing local control and flexibility and making
streets less safe for Tennesseans isn’t the solution.
TDOT’s leaders are already on board with awarding a small fraction of their budget — about
half a percent of the state’s budget — to build a well-rounded transportation system, and they see
how it supports the economic prosperity of the state and the safety of all citizens.
The state created a new Multimodal Access fund in 2013, which has competitively awarded
about $10 million annually (out of a $1.8 billion annual budget) to “fund infrastructure projects
that support the transportation needs of transit users, pedestrians, and bicyclists by addressing
gaps along the state highway network,” according to TDOT.
“Our responsibilities as a transportation agency go far beyond building roads and bridges,”
TDOT Commissioner John Schroer said in their release for the 2015 grant awards. “Providing
safe access for different modes of transportation ultimately creates a more complete and diverse
network for our users. These projects are also extremely cost effective, which allows TDOT to
make improvements in more areas across the state.”
The sponsors of the bill appear to be unaware of the potential impacts on public safety, the
growing public support for these projects, or the sizable economic benefits these projects can
bring. HB 1650 would not only end this small multimodal state grant program that’s supported
smart, cost-effective projects (chosen on the merits) from across the state, but would also put an
incredible burden on local governments by essentially requiring them to self-fund even the most
basic sidewalk components of road-related projects.
Amy Benner, a Knoxville-based bike attorney and board member at Bike Walk Tennessee,
talked to Streetsblog last week about the bill.
“Our concern is that it prevents localized communities from doing what they want to with their
roadways. The way it’s currently written is going to potentially prevent projects that have
already been researched and approved and the communities support and mayors have signed off
on from happening.”
It’s shocking to contrast this with other forward-looking places that are scrambling to invest in a
wide range of transportation options to grow their economies, attract talent, improve mobility
and double down on the unique qualities that makes their cities successful.
Scores of cities are enjoying the economic returns of investing in a broader range of
transportation options, whether the bus rapid transit systems in medium-sized cities, the
massively successful bikesharing systems in cities large and small, the Cultural Trail in
Indianapolis or the inspiring Atlanta Beltline in-town trail network that’s been a boost to the
local economy.
It’s incredibly discouraging to see Tennessee legislators trying to turn back the clock by making
it harder for the state, cities and counties to build safer streets, kneecapping their ability to stay
economically competitive in the process.
It’s a “cure” that will only kill the patient.
—
This story is part of the work of T4America’s START Network — State Transportation Advocacy,
Research & Training — for state elected leaders and advocates working on similar state issues.
Find out more and join.
Categories: New Urbanism
Bike Counts Rising Fast at Automated Counters Around the World
Grid Chicago - Wed, 2016-03-02 17:01
Medellín, Columbia. The country has two Eco-Counters.
Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S.
cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.
The battle to make biking a viable transportation or recreation choice for more people is fought
mostly at the local level: a protected bike lane here, a BMX course there, a new mom-and-pop
bike shop down the street.
But it’s sometimes nice to remember that this fight is happening, on some level, every day in
every country around the world.
And at least in the industrialized world, Team Bike is generally winning.
That’s the takeaway from the first three years of data from Eco-Counter, a France-based firm that
has installed 12,000 automated people-counters around the world to measure bike and foot
traffic. One is in front of the Strathmore Building on the campus of UCLA; another is on the
Avenida Figueroa Alcorta protected bike lanes in Buenos Aires; a third is on the car-free Sillsteg
Bridge in Innsbruck, Austria.
Starting in 2013, the company began analyzing data from 1,500 of these counters to create
something unique: an index that tracks changes in bike counts across all these locations year
after year.
As you can see from the map, there’s a very important shortcoming to this data: It includes
almost no counters from the world’s most populous regions (southern and eastern Asia) or its
fastest-growing one (western Africa). Because all of these areas have also been getting rapidly
richer, bike use has been falling in those areas as upwardly mobile car users have taken control
of more and more space on roads. (Some cities, like Hangzhou, China, have successfully resisted
this trend to some extent; others, like Dehli, India, are working to roll it back.)
That said, Eco-Counter is the only company we’re aware of that’s even attempting a global
count. And its finding in these first two years have been encouraging. Bike counts at its 1,500
index sites have gone up at an annualized growth rate of 5.4 percent since 2013.
That compares to a global population growth rate of 1.2 percent. Just for the sake of comparison,
here’s what those two trends look like if you map them over time:
Eco-Counter also looks at the national trend in 17 countries where it’s tracking at least 10
counters. It estimates that the fastest two-year rise in bike counts has been in Switzerland, with
8.6 percent annualized growth. (For more on the company’s methodology and findings, check
out this slideshow presenting the 2015 figures.)
There’s another caveat in all of this: the economy. As the world’s economy ebbs and flows, bike
counts are likely to do the same. Generally speaking, more business means more moving around,
whether by bike, foot, bus or car.
So at least until Eco-Counter gets more years in its database, these numbers should be treated as
a sign of progress in the places it measures, nothing more. Still, they’re probably welcome news
for people on the front lines.
“We can definitely see the push in the infrastructure and the policy and the interest,” said JeanFrancois Rheault, Eco-Counter’s director. “But it’s nice to see the push in the numbers.”
You can follow The Green Lane Project on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook or sign up for its
weekly news digest about protected bike lanes.
Categories: New Urbanism
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