Steve Offutt, Environmental Consulting. Transform to Sustainability

Showing posts with label development. Show all posts

Monday What's on the Web: Street Films

Every Monday I highlight other bloggers or web contributors who are making important or interesting contributions to climate, sustainability, transportation or market transformation. Check back each week for another installment.

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Street Films is an awesome site filled with hundreds of videos related to the urban form--particularly transportation. Based in New York, many of the films feature New York City, but one can find interesting perspectives from around the world.

They categorize their content under these topics:

One of my favorites, which injects a good deal of humor and satire, is this one:

Monday What's on the Web: The Urbanophile

The Urbanophile is an award-winning blog that focuses on cities--understanding how they work and providing ideas and thought leadership on ways to improve them for the 21st century. It is written by Aaron M. Renn, who's short bio reads: "Aaron M. Renn is an opinion-leading urban analyst, consultant, speaker, and writer on a mission to help America’s cities thrive and find sustainable success in the 21st century." (Full bio here.)

He lives in the Chicago area and likes to focus on what he calls America's "everyday" cities--often in the Midwest. His ideas would be considered progressive urbanist, and they jive well with the focus of this blog--transformation to a more sustainable world.

Some recent posts include (warning: some of his posts can be very long and detailed):

Commuting Market Share is the Wrong Way to Judge Transit
From a guest blogger, Randy Simes: Cincinnati's Dramatic, Multi-Billion Dollar Riverfront Revitalization Nearly Complete
Buffalo, You are Not Alone

You may follow the Urbanophile on Twitter also.

Monday What's on the Web: The Transport Politic

The Transport Politic is written by the prolific Yonah Freemark, an independent researcher currently living in France. Where he lives seems to be irrelevant, however, since he covers transportation issues all over the world, including significant coverage in the United States.

The blog focuses pretty strongly on public transit, rail systems, policy and politics of transportation. Yonah does extensive research, and the posts are very thorough and often include impressive technical detail. He clearly promotes the viewpoint that our transportation systems need to move away from road-based policies to something more sustainable.

Examples of recent posts include:

Merging Transportation and Land Use Planning at the Federal Level

Sydney Looks at Closing Downtown Streets to Traffic, Considers Light Rail Expansion

U.S. FTA Head Rogoff Paints Grim Picture of Nation's Transit Priorities

China Expands Its Investment in Rapid Transit, Paving Way for Future Urban Growth

How Viable is Commuter Rail for North Carolina's Triangle?

Market-based permeable surface

Last

year I presented an idea I had for increasing tree canopy in urban areas on this blog and for the 2009 Policy Greenhouse held at George Washington University. You can read my complete blog post here.

Another factor in the environmental performance of urban areas is the amount of impermeable surface that exists. More impermeable surface creates more and faster runoff, increases pollution in waterways, can cause localized flooding and can also contribute to the urban heat-island effect. Reducing the amount of impermeable surface can be achieved using a similar cap-and-trade approach as I recommended in the tree canopy post.

The idea is straightforward:
- Require all landowners to reduce their impermeable surface to below a certain percentage--say 30%
- Landowners who reduce their impermeable space below the limit earn credits for each square foot of area that is additionally permeable
- Landowners who do not reduce the required amount may purchase credits from those who have them in order to meet the requirement.

Example:
1) A homeowner on a 6000 square foot lot needs to have less than 1800 square feet of impermeable surface to meet the requirements.

She takes out her driveway and reduces her impermeable surface to 1000 square feet, giving her 800 square feet of credits. (There are lots of ways to reduce impermeable surface.)
2) A parking lot property of 10,000 square feet has 9000 square feet of impermeable surface--6,000 square feet above the requirement. This parking lot owner buys the credits from the homeowner and other homeowners who have credits to sell until he meets the requirement.

The beauty of a system like this is that the government sets the goal, but the market delivers the results. Simple supply and demand will control the price, and people will respond by increasing their impermeable space when the price is high enough to make it worth their while to do so.

Blocked Links Prevent Easy Travel for Pedestrians

As urban form is created, through development, redevelopment, zoning decisions, new buildings, and other changes made to the landscape, opportunities to allow for easier pedestrian travel are often missed. Sometimes they are deliberately blocked for seemingly irrational or no reasons. Often developments are built with fences on several sides without any thought of whether it might be good to encourage people to connect through the sides or backs of property.

This map

View Pedestrian Links near Baileys Crossroads in a larger map
shows a location near Bailey's Crossroads almost right on the border between Arlington and Fairfax Counties. The end of Forest Drive almost touches the parking lot of the apartment building on Jefferson Street (although it's at a somewhat higher elevation).

The building, instead of installing a staircase that would allow neighborhood people to easily walk from the neighborhood to the shops on Jefferson St., including the Giant Food and Starbucks, blocked it with a fence (see two photos). In the same way, the fence prevents residents of the apartment building from being able to walk around the neighborhood, say to walk their dog or just for enjoyment.

I wonder: who is afraid of whom? Is that apartment building afraid of the neighborhood people? Well, the complex is wide open to Jefferson St.; anyone can just walk in from that side. Are people on one side dangerous and the others not? Or are the neighborhood people afraid that having a link here would allow undesirables into their neighborhood? I can partially see that point of view, although without this pedestrian option, getting to Starbucks requires driving out onto Route 7, which is a royal pain in the neck. Maybe it never occurs to them that they could conceivably walk there if it weren't for this fence.

Just a couple of blocks away, there is a perfect example of just the opposite. It's noted on the above map. Here's a photo of a pedestrian pass-through built into the fence, allowing the apartment complex residents easy access to the nearby shops. This is a really good idea, which I think is probably strongly supported by both the shops and the residents.

I've noted this missed opportunity out in Tysons Corner. Here a large office building abuts a set of shops, but not near the front, but along the side of the building and the back of the shops. This map shows where office workers have worn a path between their building and the shops, which is actually down a steep hill. It also shows how making the same trip via sidewalk (or car) is more than 1/2 mile.

View 2070 Chain Bridge Road Path to Shops in a larger map

It's easy to see that both the office owners and the shop owners would benefit from having this link put in. The office workers would have easy access to more lunch options and services and the shops and restaurants would have a larger market. It's a no brainer, but I suspect no brains have given it any thought.

There are certainly thousands of these small linkages that could be unblocked or created. Each one might open up pedestrian opportunities to a few people or a few score of people. But all multiplied together one could imagine literally thousands of short car trips being eliminated and quality of life for those people improved.

More Silver Line Dreaming

live not far from the East Falls Church Metro in Arlington VA, and so I have seen some of the actual construction of the Silver Line (Metro's 17-mile extension to Dulles Airport)--which certainly makes it more real after many years of talking and debating.

Recently there were a couple of posts discussing the Silver Line and a discussion of a high-speed link from Dulles (here and here). Ideas included triple tracking the Silver Line or creating a new line along the W&OD trail.

I think there is another opportunity that planners are missing (and it's probably too late without an additional big investment), that would be really visionary. Make sure the rail infrastructure being built at the junction with the Orange Line can accommodate connections to a future line that continues southeast along Route 7 through Falls Church and Fairfax County to King Street and all the way into Old Town Alexandria. Call it the "Gold" Line. Done right, it would be underground most or all of the way and would be accompanied by land-use policies that would re-create the entire corridor.

Imagine if planners in Fairfax took the long view like Arlington did thirty years ago and created the incentives and plans that would transform this road like the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor in Arlington has been transformed. Stops would be relatively closely spaced to encourage transit-oriented and pedestrian-oriented development.

I realize this is a pipe dream, but I like to dream. One can imagine stops along the way at:
-West Falls Church Metro
-Falls Plaza
-Broad and Oak (or thereabouts)
-Broad and Washington (center of Falls Church)
-Seven Corners West
-Seven Corners East
-Near Nevius St. (close to Jeb Stuart High and several large apartment complexes and the Culmore shopping center)
-Baileys Crossroads West
-Baileys Crossroads East
-Jefferson Street/George Mason (allowing connections to the Columbia Pike streetcar line)
-Walter Reed/Beauregard
-(one or two intermediate stops along this next stretch as it crosses I-95)
-Quaker Lane/Braddock Road
-(this next 1.8 miles is all single-family residential--not sure where good stops would be)
-King Street Metro/VRE
-One or two stops into Old Town

Here's a notional map.

I'm not an engineer, so I have no idea how possible the actual construction might be. I do believe that a vision like this, though, could have a huge positive transformative effect on a big section of an already densely populated--but poorly planned and designed--area of Fairfax County. It would also connect the West Falls Church station with the King Street station, moving toward more of a web and less of a hub-and-spoke design for Metrorail, which is reflective of how our region has evolved.

Given how enormously expensive and controversial a project of this scope would be, and the obstacles that tend to stand in the way of expanding the heavy rail MetroRail system (how many years for the Silver Line? being a case in point), one could also imagine other options for this corridor with different solutions and possibly different futures.

Given that Arlington County and Fairfax County are working together on the Columbia Pike streetcar, which will cross Route 7 at Jefferson St. and terminate near Route 7 and Carlin Springs, adding extensions to that project (which is hinted at in this map), would allow for a more incremental approach. Extending the streetcar or creating a new streetcar line from the Columbia Pike streetcar line terminus near Bailey's Crossroads west to Falls Church or east to Alexandria would create impetus to improve land use and urban design along those sections (assuming smart and committed county leadership).

Effectively designed light rail would also be easier to add other linkages to, such as connections to Shirlington--either along Walter Reed Drive and Arlington Mill Road or via Quaker Lane. The line could also split from King Street with another line along Braddock Road to the Braddock Road Metro, then connecting north to Potomac Yards. Arlington County has also been looking at the possibility of a Pentagon City to Potomac yard streetcar, so these two could then tie together. These kinds of additions and extensions would be much more difficult with a Metrorail type project.

This road, Route 7/Leesburg Pike, is not just a traffic disaster in Tyson's Corner, but pretty much for its entire length east from there to Alexandria (try navigating Seven Corners most anytime!). It cannot be fixed with more or differently configured asphalt. It requires a new and imaginative vision--a vision that takes advantage of and builds on the density that is already there.

Shaping the City

I regularly read Roger Lewis's column, Shaping the City, that appears about every other week in the Washington Post. I always find it interesting.

This last week the article was titled: Lessons of Arlington's Urban Development Needn't Be Just History. Here are a couple of excerpts to whet your appetite for the whole article:

"The phenomenal metamorphosis of Arlington County's Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, among the region's most dramatic real estate transformations, teaches a timely lesson: Successful urban
revitalization requires long-range planning and long-range public investment that sparks private investment."

"The Rosslyn-Ballston corridor is a work in progress, although millions of square feet of buildings already have been developed, mostly since the 1980s. Its urban design is not flawless, and much of its architecture is less than exemplary. But the corridor functions well. It offers pedestrian-friendly sidewalks, on- and off-street bicycle lanes, plazas and mini-parks. It takes less than 10 minutes to walk between any two adjacent Metro nodes on the corridor -- Rosslyn, Court House, Clarendon, Virginia Square and Ballston. People there can get along without cars."

"Why does visionary planning seem to be a thing of the past? Can America no longer afford to undertake farsighted initiatives. . ."

Enjoy!

Transform to Sustainability