Daily Misery Has a Number Commute 2nd-Longest in U.S.

Daily Misery Has a Number Commute 2nd-Longest in U.S.
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

Washington Post graphic

Graphic in the Washington Post about commuting behavior in the region

Graphic in the Washington Post about commuting behavior in the region
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

Speaking of Linking new development projects to transit enhancement

1. Force development in the North Capitol Corridor (Armed Forces Retirement Home, McMillan Reservoir, although I personally am opposed to development, probably, at the McMillan site)

Portland Streetcar, City of Portland photo.

to include streetcars. That's what happened in Portland in terms of effecting development in the Pearl and Waterfront Districts. The difference there is that the developers took the initiative to lay out, plan, and pay for the development of streetcars (in part).

-- Portland Streetcar
-- Portland Streetcar article


Seattle Times Image. (I think.)

2. Same thing with New York Avenue. Abdo Development is going to redevelop 17 acres centered around Bladensburg and New York Avenues. Federated is selling the Hechts Warehouse site, which is also 17 acres.

BUILD A STREETCAR LINE THERE TOO. (Or light rail.)

3. With an extension down Bladensburg, which could link to the H Street-Benning Line (the old 10/12 Streetcar line) that is under development.

You can still inter-operate historic streetcars or replica vehicles as well.

Not being able to build your way out of congestion

A couple good articles about this, articles that Fred Hiatt of the Post needs to read... Why Traffic Congestion Is Here to Stay...and Will Get Worse by Anthony Downs and Rethinking Traffic Congestion by Brian Taylor. 

From Access Magazine published by the University of California Transportation Institute. 

And an excerpt from my class paper outline (which is labored at the moment...)  

The Washington, DC metropolitan region is typical of regions across the United States. The land use and development paradigm is characterized by deconcentration, polycentrism, and segregated uses, and is dependent on personally owned automobiles for transportation in and around the region. The region continues to expand spatially, and demand for roads and highways continues apace. 

While there is capacity for new roadways throughout the suburban parts of the region, especially at a greater distance from the core of the region, for the most part, the center city is "built out" in terms of road capacity in terms of lineal distance. The region does possess a well-used subway system which enjoys ever increasing ridership, and capacity constraints are real and anticipated. 

Land use (the size, mix, location, and use of different types of buildings and places) shapes mobility. In the United States, with rare exceptions, mobility planning is dominated by planning for the automobile.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

Capacity of one mile of road-lane for one hour 

Limited access freeway: approximately 2,000 vehicles 

Typical urban arterial: 800-1,000 vehicles 

Typical suburban arterial: 1,300 vehicles 

Typical bus service: 6,750 people 

Bus rapid transit: 10,000 people 

Light rail: 15,000 people 

Heavy rail: 20,000 to 65,000 people

(Sources, Tumlin, Jeff. Presentation; Steve Belmont, Cities in Full 

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

However, given the rich transit infrastructure, and a plethora of neighborhoods built during the era of "The Walking City" (Muller, "Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis"), typified by local retail centers, historic architecture, and walkability, the center city of Washington, DC is experiencing a resurgence, both downtown and in neighborhoods. 

The neighborhoods experiencing the most in-migration and new investment tend to be well-located and/or connected by high quality transit assets, in particular within a 5 to 20 minute walkshed to subway stations. 

Surging interest in the city is double-edged. The city's revenue structure is constrained by various restrictions imposed by Congress as well as the fact that 50% of the city's land area is tax exempt. These institutions also enjoy tax exempt status for various other transactions, further depriving the city of tax revenue. Therefore, the City of Washington relies on residents for both income and property taxes (as well as commercial property in the downtown core). Therefore, new taxpaying residents are desired. 

On the other hand, because the dominant planning and development paradigm of the last 50 years is one of "sprawl," most city residents, having moved to the city from a suburb, tend to apply the suburban land use and transportation planning paradigm to neighborhood and city-wide planning matters in the City of Washington. 

As a place with historical antecedents in "the walking city," urban-appropriate solutions to land use and transportation matters are required. Given the region's continued deconcentration through spatial expansion, the inability to build enough road capacity given various and real constraints on the use of road capacity, and the fact that the typical suburban household conducts 9-15 trips per day, most by automobile, this paper argues that center cities again possess competitive advantage vis-a-vis other in-region communities in terms of travel efficiency. 

To ensure that this competitive advantage is not eroded, it is proposed that an alternative land use and transportation planning paradigm be adopted, one that mandates and encourages that land use and transportation decisions are optimized to encourage and favor the most efficient use of transportation assets. .... 

However, for various reasons, including these facts: 

(1) DC zoning regulations tend to have been based upon codes originally written for suburban land development requirements; 

(2) Land use planning focuses on building and zoning requirements, which for the most part, do not address the impact of parking and other requirements on the transportation system (other than limited requirements to mitigate traffic and/or conduct traffic studies); 

(3) Transportation agencies have multiple and conflicting objectives that tend to favor road building and maintenance, and focus on the automobile and automobility in defining the transportation planning framework; 

it is argued that the City of Washington has not adopted a planning paradigm that links land use and transportation planning.  

Both San Francisco and Utrecht in the Netherlands provide alternative approaches which can be adopted and adapted by the District of Columbia to better link land use and transportation policy and practice. 

San Francisco. First outlined in 1973, San Francisco adopted a "Transit First" land use paradigm, first within the city's comprehensive plan, and later in the Municipal Charter. 

The intent of a "Transit First" policy is to promote transit (and walking and bicycling), not automobility, as the primary mobility mode within the city, and to create a set of coordinated governmental policies, regulations, and actions to operationalize this paradigm.  

According to the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Consortium (TLUC), this requires that the city coordinate:

• Policy initiatives in the form of laws and ordinances
• A regulatory regime that implements the ordinances and regulations
• Financial incentives; 
• Design guidelines; and 
• Capital improvements. 

However, a cursory review of materials available online determines that not all transportation advocates believe that San Francisco has operationalized this policy in ways that satisfy all proponents. 

According to TLUC, critics say that the city officials kow-tow to developers and still allow projects that encourage automobiles, provide subsidized public parking structures and regularly approve parking garage construction in the downtown core. 

Echoing these criticisms, Rescue MUNI, a San Francisco transit advocacy organization, has suggested several changes that would strengthen the City's Transit-First Policy, including making specific reference that the objective of the transportation system should "be the efficient movement of people and goods; rather than the movement of automobiles," calling for the installation of transit priority physical improvements (e.g. bus priority traffic lights, bus only lanes, etc.), and the adoption of parking policies that discourage automobile use while encouraging public transit. 

Livable City(TLC) has also criticized the lack of implementation of the City's Transit-First Policy and has also offered a program, "Great Transit for a Livable City," to improve the situation. Utrecht. In the Netherlands, the City of Utrecht has adopted an "ABC location policy" which classifies "development areas according to the conditions of transport." Places are rated based on their public transit infrastructure and automobile accessibility. 

• A places have excellent public transit capacity and limited automobile capacity
• B places have both good public transit and automobile access
• C places have poor public transit and excellent automobile capacity.

Sites are rated and building uses are directed to the locations that can best accommodate both the land use and transportation system requirements in ways that maximize national transportation planning priorities of prioritizing road use for business use, public transit, car-sharing, and bicycling. 

Parking requirements are scaled according to the availablity of transit, and transportation demand management planning systems are in place to shape optimal mode shift targets. (Source: "Utrecht: ABC Planning as a planning instrument in urban planning policy," extract from the Surban Planning database sponsored by the European Commission.) 

Framework While not a full outline, this paper intends to explore the policies, regulations, and frameworks necessary to implement a form of a "Transit First" land use and transportation planning and regulatory regime for the District of Columbia. This will include exploration of: 

1. A Master Transportation Plan for the District of Columbia focusing on "the efficient movement of people and goods; rather than the movement of automobiles" 
2. Transit capacity increases 
3. A form of ABC accessibility planning appropriate for DC, especially in association with transit-oriented development and other compact development strategies
4. Weighting parking requirements according to distance to transit stations
5. Linking new development projects to transit enhancement
6. Transportation Demand Management including:

• TDM planning requirements for institutions along the lines of ABC accessibility planning
• Time shifting freight deliveries to times when the road network is underutilized
• The creation of "Transportation Management Districts" for mixed use commercial and residential districts.  

----------------------------- 

And there is even more crazy stuff that I should work on ranging from Portland's transit withholding tax on businesses, which allows Portland to provide free transit in the downtown core to considerations of congestion taxes (which I don't really think is an issue so much for DC, as much as it is for other parts of the region and choke points within).

   

[At the time of publication] Portland's Fareless Square (shaded in orange) provides free use of all modes--bus, streetcar, and light rail. [Due to budget crisis post-2008 recession, the Fareless Square ended.]

Also see "Comments on Proposed EYA Development at Takoma Metro Station, Washington DC ," from October 2006.

Why the future of urban retail isn't chains (reprinted from July 2005)

From Business Week, "The New Science of Siting Stores: Thanks to complex mapping and demographic tools, retailers can now find the perfect location in a fraction of the time it used to take"

"It used to be that when IHOP wanted to open a new restaurant, the chain would hire a real estate agent to drive around and collect information on potential neighborhoods. The agent would see if a lot of single-family houses were nearby, how many other restaurants were located there, the presence of a large mall or retailer, and would also gauge traffic patterns. The entire process would take several weeks.

Nowadays, the resulting reams of data that just 15 years ago would have taken a week to analyze even on a supercomputer take only a few seconds to crunch on modern equipment. The growth of the Internet has had a big effect as well: Retail execs can sit in their offices and run data on potential store locations with Web-based software. With today's technology, "retailers identify their sites much quicker, so they can grow quicker and make fewer mistakes," says Adam Epstein, president of Site Analytics, a New York tech outfit that has provided analysis for restaurants and stores such as Chili's, Cosi, and Ben & Jerry's. (...)

Is Brentwood ready for an IHOP?

A CHOICE SPOT. At IHOP, it isn't just about saving time. The chain uses the technology to measure population density and how many homes around a potential location are occupied by families, the restaurant chain's primary customer base on weekends. It also analyzes the demographic makeup and the presence of malls and Home Depots, since IHOPs usually benefit from hungry customers who might emerge after shopping several hours.

It also sorts out the types of workplaces located around the area. For instance, industrial and manufacturing sites don't generate as many customers as does an office or a hospital. "The most ideal location would be a free-standing restaurant sitting on the corner of a well-lighted intersection which has four or more lanes, great curb access, and sitting right in front of a shopping center that doesn't have a restaurant," says IHOP's Rick Celio, vice-president for franchise and development at the 1,100 restaurant chain.

With today's software, Celio doesn't have to drive around the country to pick the perfect spot anymore.
__________
Maybe I am wrong, and the aggressive suburbanizing of the urban fabric is the way to go to attract chain restaurants and other retail... Read the entire article, and then you'll have a much better idea about the process of attracting retail businesses to traditional commercial districts--downtown or in the neighborhoods. It's difficult, which is why I keep suggesting that we focus on the development of independent businesses.

It's also difficult to get suburban-oriented chains to think about urban-appropriate designs rather than the suburban formats that they are comfortable with. Giant Supermarket at Brentwood (at 9th and O Streets), and in Tivoli Square is a case in point.

Is this Giant at Tivoli Square, or somewhere on Rockville Pike?

Store siting decisions (reprinted from July 2005)

In commercial district revitalization there are a couple different strategies for attracting businesses. One is to contact any and everybody. The other is to have a data-based market approach. Main Street recommends the latter, but few programs in DC have done the kinds of market studies and the creation of what is called a "positioning statement" along the lines suggested in the Main Street publications Step-by-Step Market Analysis or Marketing an Image for Main Street.

From the University of Wisconsin website:

Market Position Statement

For a recruitment program to be successful, the team must be ready to articulate a clear market position statement for the district.

A market position statement should characterize the type of retail mix, the shopping environment, and the target customer market. The statement distinguishes your district from surrounding shopping districts. Often, a community’s market position statement will serve as background for identifying the types of businesses that could be recruited.

Using the Market Analysis: Use the market position statement developed for your district using the Marketing Plan recommendations section of this guidebook

(Another good resource is the New York Main Street Resource Guide, which I will be adding to the links on the right.)

Many of the current DC Office of Planning studies have market studies as part of the project, but such studies traditionally only go about 2/3 of the way necessary to provide the kind of on-the-ground guidance that a Main Street program needs in order to be able to successfully launch a business recruitment program.

This came up in the context of the H Street Strategic Development Plan, which has a great market study produced by ERA, but in a post-plan meeting in the summer of 2002 representatives from two very prominent retail organizations said "You need a story." "What's the position of the H Street corridor?" "How do you sell it?"

I was a bit nonplussed, and I said something to the nature of "you're just looking for more money", because one of the people saying this had been on the project team. I said "why didn't you produce this as part of the SDP?"

At the Main Street conference this year, people from the University of Wisconsin Center for Community Economic Development did an excellent presentation on this, showing the additional work needed to get market studies into a "usable" form for business recruitment.

This executive summary of a market analysis for Normal, Illinois is a good example of identifying market segments and providing an easy-to-understand narrative of what they are trying to accomplish.

Anyway, in my experience there are four key decision points faced by a business proprietor involved in investing in and opening a store in the center city:

1. Whether to invest-open a store at all
2. Where to invest--city or suburbs (most retailers are focused on the suburbs)
3. If investing in the city, where to invest within the city--the northwest quadrant which has the most population and the best demographics, or within the other three quadrants of the city
4. Investing in your particular commercial district.

Even in the District of Columbia, many business proprietors only have eyes for the northwest part of the city, which has the city's best overall demographics and density. Getting people to invest in other parts of the city is still a struggle, and the people most likely to do so are those with the least experience, and therefore have a greater likelihood of failure, without the provision of some help--even they are even open to help (for more information on this broader issue, see the great article by Kennedy Smith "Main Street at 15").

The point I am making is that you need to know where in the decision chain the business proprietor is, and the process can take much longer or much shorter if you have to make a "sale" for each one of these stages.

A business proprietor who has already decided to open a store, and to invest in the District of Columbia is half sold already...

One more "statistic"

A car is on average about 15 feet long. Given spacing between cars when stopped at traffic signals, figure you can fit 15-17 cars in 300 feet.

"Scooping" the Post and the Washington Business Journal

Yesterday's Post, in "XM's Mark on Northeast D.C.," subtitled "Fate of Headquarters Uncertain if Sirius Merger Goes Through," and the Washington Business Journal, in "Merger would put D.C. base in question," have long articles about the possible impact on the city's economic development agenda if XM Satellite Radio merges with Sirius Satellite Radio, and if most of the jobs decamp to New York City.

I speculated about this very issue about one week ago, on Tuesday, February 20, 2007, in the blog entry, "XM, Sirius Satellite Radio to merge (?)."

While the articles discuss XM as a leading revitalizer in that area, my memory is that Qwest Communications owned the building first, and then sold it to XM. I could be wrong though.

Traffic Planning 101

Is a blog entry by Baltimore's Gerald Neilly. Except for a minor quibble where he suggests that the prevailing city driving speed should be 30 mph (it's higher than that in Baltimore), it's excellent.

It's more reading for Fred Hiatt.

Speaking of best practices in rail transit

Note this piece in Sunday's New York Times travel section, "Travel by Rail in Europe Is Set to Get Even Faster." From the article:

European rail companies are cutting the time it takes to get from one city to the next. Thanks to a series of new international fast rail projects, taking a train from Edinburgh to, say, Moscow may no longer be unthinkable, and perhaps even preferable to flying.

First up is the TGV Est, set to begin service in June, which will not only cut the travel time from Paris to Strasbourg nearly in half (to 2 hours and 20 minutes), but will also open up fast routes between Paris and cities in eastern France and Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland.

Then, in November, Eurostar plans to open St. Pancras International station in central London. The completion of Britain’s first high-speed rail line, which will serve the station, will cut the London-Paris journey to 2 hours and 15 minutes and will make travel from northern England and Scotland to the Continent faster.

During the next two years passengers will also benefit from the completion of a high-speed rail line that will run from Brussels to the German border and an Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam line, as well as high-speed lines in Spain, Italy and Germany.

Anticipating a boom in train travel, Eurostar, part of the Railteam alliance that includes international rail companies in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and France, is working hard to integrate its networks so that travelers booking cross-border journeys will have little waiting time between connections. “The goal is to make it easier for the traveler to get to Western Europe and beyond,” said Lesley Retallack, head of press for Eurostar.--------

The Washington Post Editorial Page fails to understand transit and/or mobility

Based on the op-ed piece by Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor, on page A15 of yesterday's paper, "Clogged Arteries," subtitled "We could solve the traffic mess. Here's why we haven't." Hiatt comments favorably on the recent book by Balaker and Staley, synopsized in an op-ed piece in the Post Outlook section on 1/26/2007.

That was a lousy article which I responded to in this blog entry, "Ideology and reality in planning and living in real places," as well as in this entry, "The Real Congestion Coalition," written in response to the same claptrap that appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (a paper with an editorial agenda comparable to the Washington Times).

Hiatt writes that the major myth is that congestion can't be fixed.

Really the major myth is that anyone who wants to can drive a car whenever they want and that the roads to accommodate them can be easily provided.


Ed Risse, of the Bacons Rebellion website about Virginia Politics, calls this the "Private-Vehicle Mobility Myth." He's written about it in “The Myths That Blind Us,” October 20, 2003, “Clueless,” January 19, 2004, and in “Self Delusion and Fraud,” June 7, 2004.

He describes the Myth as:

"Regardless of where they live, work, seek services and participate in leisure activities, citizens believe that it is physically possible for the government to build a roadway system that allows them to drive wherever they want to, whenever they want to go there and arrive in a timely and safe manner.

The Private-Vehicle Mobility Myth helps parents convince themselves that the house with the “big yard” may be a long way from where the jobs, services, recreation and amenities are now, but that will change. Politicians reinforce the myth by continuing to promise that “soon” they will improve the roads and the big yard owners will be able to get to wherever quickly."----

Reality:

In one hour, one road-mile of road-lane can accommodate about 2,000 cars on a limited access freeway, and from 800 to 1,300 cars in various non-freeway situations.

The same lane mile can accommodate 6,750 people riding buses, 10,000 people riding bus rapid transit, a minimum of 15,000 people riding light rail, and up to 65,000 people in heavy rail (subway).

The average suburban household makes 15 trips per day, most by automobile, with limited numbers of additional passengers during each trip.

There are 5.2 million + residents in the Washington region. Let's say there are 3 million households. That means that there are 45 million daily trips in the region.

It's probably impossible to calculate the number of road miles required to allow for uncongested driving in such a scenario.

Hiatt, like Balaker and Staley, and like Wendell Cox, who has a letter to the editor in yesterday's paper as well, focuses on national averages, when national averages are irrelevant to Washington, DC.

In regions with excellent transit systems, significant numbers of people ride transit. (This includes DC, Chicago, San Francisco, NYC, Philadelphia.)

In a city like San Francisco, as many as 60% of daily trips to the Central Business District occur on transit. In Washington, upwards of 700,000 riders take the subway, and about 500,000 additional riders use buses.

In the City of Washington, approximately 40% of resident households do not own cars. (I don't know what the numbers are for Arlington County, but they are probably similarly positive.)

Residents of the City of Washington and Arlington County, Virginia have commuting times at or about the national average, while residents in the other counties in the Washington region have commuting times significantly higher than the national average.

It's reasonable to assume that this occurs in part because in the region, Washington and Arlington enjoy the richest set of non-automobile based transportation and mobility assets--plus in many areas, walkable communities. (Note that Montgomery County actually has a decent transit infrastructure, but not as good as DC and Arlington.)

Something Fred Hiatt needs to learn about is induced travel demand. For every 10% increase in road miles, there is a 9% increase in Vehicle Miles Traveled. See "Induced Traffic and Induced Development."

Something Fred Hiatt also needs to learn about is the "accessibility planning paradigm" used in the Netherlands. See "Utrecht:'ABC' Planning as a planning instrument in urban transport policy."

Also see "Transit-First Planning and Funding Policies" from the Transportation and Land Use Coalition of the Bay Area.
--------
Anyway, the reason I am "underblogging," is that I have a cold, I'm working, and I'm writing my class paper on building a "Transit First/Pro-Mobility" land use, transportation planning, and zoning regime based in part on SF's "transit first" policy which is built into their Municipal Charter; the accessibility planning paradigm in the Netherlands; and weighted parking requirements for buildings as implemented by a number of German cities based on the transit infrastructure in proximity to the building.

In short, the argument is that in sprawl and in an automobile dependent planning and development paradigm, center cities again possess competitive advantage in travel efficiency compared to the suburbs, provided at each and every opportunity, mode shift planning and transportation demand management are foremost on the land use agenda.

And while road capacity cannot (for the most part) be increased in a traditional center city, there are many opportunities to increase the capacity and efficiency of the transit and transportation "system".

7/18/99 issue of the Tampa Tribune. Feature is called "Packing Pavement." BTW, there are 40 people shown in each image.

Image courtesy of Dan Malouff.

2 things to learn from Baltimore's Harborplace

From "Brewery's lease could shake up Harborplace roster again," in the Baltimore Business Journal.

1. As always, about the loss of authenticity. Hey, I like Capitol City Brewing Company, but Baltimore has its own brewing history, which could be utilized to develop brew pub "concepts." But having a tapas place, Irish bar, etc., hardly makes the Inner Harbor any different from anywhere else.

2. Interestingly, the rents in Harborplace and near Harborplace run $35-$40/square foot according to the article.

Rents are key. Why is it that rents in marginal commercial districts in DC are about $30/square foot?

See:
-- Retail and Authenticity: Continued
-- (Why aren't people) Learning from Jane Jacobs
-- Is there a link between historic designation and chaining up of retail in neighborhood commercial districts?
-- Dupont Circle's changing retail environment covered in today's Post
-- Nurturing independent retailiers through creatively reducing capital requirements
-- (Why aren't people) Learning from Jane Jacobs revisited
-- Clarendon (Arlington Virginia)
-- Forcing Displacement by the disconnection of tax assessment models from public policy goals;
-- Testimony -- Historic Neighborhood Retail Business Property Tax Relief Act
-- (and this shorter sum up) Globalization of the DC real estate market catches neighborhood commercial districts up in the wake.

Rethinking the commercial district

Images from pages of Ten Principles for Rethinking the Mall, Urban Land Institute.

The Urban Land Institute publishes a number of great reports.

For many years, I've used:

Ten Principles for Rebuilding Neighborhood Retail. How do you turn a decaying urban retail strip into a vital commercial area? Based on the recommendations of 15 experts in development, design, feasibility, and planning, this booklet will help you identify the key issues that neighborhood streets face, determine the most effective ways to rebuild them and ensure their long-term competitive position, and set strategic principles to guide the community, public planners, retailers, and developers.

This one was based in part by studying commercial districts in DC. ULI has a new report, which you might think is not relevant, but it is.

Ten Principles for Rethinking the Mall. All around the country, both public agencies and private developers are rethinking the role of the shopping mall. The traditional indoor mall is being reinvented to include open-air designs and uses other than retail. They are no longer big fortresses with seas of parking but are being integrated into the surrounding neighborhoods. These ten principles will help you determine how to “rethink” existing mall developments as well as provide guidance when new shopping malls are being developed.

Shopping mall in Texas. Photo source unknown.

If you think of this report as on revitalizing commercial "districts" rather than focusing on shopping malls specifically, then it's another good primer for thinking more broadly about the revitalization of traditional commercial districts.

The Hummer driven by Jaime de la Vega, L.A.'s deputy mayor for transportation.

LA Times photo.

See "You take SUV road, I'll take the toll road," and entries in the LA Times' BOTTLENECK BLOG: If you lived here, you'd be home by now."

(It also bugs me that on CSI Miami, the David Caruso character drives a Hummer.)

The unused backyard

The ideal. (Levittown House, 1948. Original source unknown.)

According to the LA Times, "The yard: so close, yet so far: Many families see their backyard as essential, but they rarely use it, a UCLA study finds. There's too much to do elsewhere."

From the article:

Cox and Deyden participated in a new study by UCLA, the first scholarly examination of how Los Angeles area families use the outdoor space around their homes. The findings show that neither parents nor their kids are enjoying much time of any sort, much less leisure, in their yards.

Anthropology professor Jeanne E. Arnold, lead author of the study that will be published in the March Journal of Family and Economic Issues, says that Angelenos put a lot of money into making their yards attractive and entertaining. "They are a buffer of green" from the outside world, she says, but "backyards might as well be blocks away considering how often the families go in them."

Of the families with working parents and school-age children monitored for the study, more than half of the children didn't spend any playtime in their backyards and most parents only wandered briefly there to perform chores: take out the trash, feed dogs or wash off chairs. "Occasionally a kid would kick a soccer ball but it wasn't for too long," says Arnold. "We admire backyards from inside the house or in our mind's eye, while we're busy doing other things."

The real. (© Baby Blues comic strip, 10/8/2006.)

Cultural Mapping and Cultural Planning Toolkits Now Available

2010 Legacies Now and the Creative City Network of Canada have developed two new resources to assist local governments, as well as arts, cultural and heritage organizations, plan for the future.

The Cultural Mapping Toolkit has been designed to take you through the entire mapping process, from creating an inventory of cultural resources to drawing and presenting your map. Examples, checklists and worksheets are included to help you along the way.

The Cultural Planning Toolkit is a guide to assist with strategic thinking, decision-making and community consultation as you go through the cultural planning process. It includes an adaptable model and practical checklists to help you create and implement a viable plan.
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Click here for access. The 2010 Legacies Now also has a nice publication on event planning, called Celebrations. I've added links to these publications in the Arts-Creative Class section of links in the right sidebar.

The publications are straightforward and thorough.

Local enclaves put the world's cultures just an L ride away

In "Globe trotting, Chicago-style," the Chicago Sun-Times describes various ethnic neighborhoods in the city. It's a lesson in outmigration, inmigration, and neighborhood stability. It's interesting to eavesdrop on people--once a Capitol Hill resident was discussing going to Little Italy in Baltimore and lamenting how DC doesn't have ethnic neighborhoods.

It did. But with outmigration and the relatively high cost of property and rents in the city, most new immigrants moved straight to the suburbs, which is why there is a huge Asian community in Fairfax County, and more Latinos in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs than in DC.

There was an interesting bit in The Express about how someone visiting the city wrote in his blog that he saw no Chinese people in Chinatown DC. Well, that's true too, for the same reasons.

Only by reading fiction such as by George Pelecanos do you get a sense of the old neighborhood and ethnic boundaries in the city. E.g., on H Street, you had Greeks--running the restaurants--and Jews (a synagogue was at 8th and I Streets NE and a kosher restaurant not too far away down H Street). But that's not acknowledged too much in terms of the current "history" of the neighborhood.

Photo of DC Chinatown Starbucks by Racing Squirrel.

400 offer ideas for W. Windsor transit village

A new transit oriented development is being planned in Greater Princeton Township, in NJ. It sounds like this workshop was pretty interesting, according to the article in the Trenton Times. I'd like to read the specific suggestions, but the website for the project, North Brunswick Transit Village, isn't updated with the latest community meetings.

From the article:

Norman Rockwell could have painted it, a sea of faces that stretched across the ethnic makeup of this township's 26,000 residents, as nearly 400 people packed a ballroom at the Hyatt Regency to plan their future...

After about 30 minutes of talk from people such as J. Robert Hillier, the architect whose firm is designing the proposed transit village, the 32 tables of people dove into their work, some standing over large maps of the township's 350-acre redevelopment area, others straining to hear what someone across a table was saying. The attendees were given an hour to arrive at a consensus. ...

Hillier pointed out the biggest waste of space in the township was used for parking at the train station and said there were "no pedestrian routes at all." "That's your town," Hillier said. "I look at each piece of land like a piece of steak. I don't want to eat the bone. I shouldn't eat the fat, and I certainly want to avoid the gristle. I want to get to the tenderloin." ...

After an hour of filling out forms listing their priorities and wishes, people at each table sent a spokesperson up to the microphone to tell, in a minute and a half, what it was his or her table decided. The experience was so intense that the groups of strangers, who were seated randomly according to numbers distributed at the door, suddenly emerged as teams who cheered one another on.

LA Transit looks at wifi

(I know DC is looking at this too. Wifi is still moving along, being tested, on Viva Rapid Transit buses in the York Region in Greater Toronto. I'll update their progress as I learn more.)

See "MTA moves toward riding a Wi-Fi wave: Feasibility study ordered," from the LA Daily News.

How to Turn a Waterfront Around

PPS's newest e-newsletter edition is about Waterfronts. This particular article lists 13 key steps for turning waterfronts around. Because it's really about "rebuilding" or "strengthening" places, for the most part, the points are universal.

1. Make public goals the primary objective
2. Create a shared community vision for the waterfront
3. Create multiple destinations: The Power of Ten
4. Connect the destinations
5. Optimize public access
6. Ensure that new development fits within the community's vision
7. Encourage 24-hour activity by limiting residential development
8. Use parks to connect destinations, not as destinations unto themselves
9. Design and program buildings to engage the public space
10. Support multiple modes of transportation and limit vehicular access
11. Integrate seasonal activities into each destination
12. Make stand-alone, iconic buildings serve multiple functions
13. Manage, manage, manage

Another article in the issue, "Mistakes by the Lake, River, or Sea," complements the other. Too often people focus on the good, without calling attention to the mistakes.

Where Waterfronts Go Wrong

Mistake #1: Single-Use Developments, Not Multi-Purpose Destinations
Mistake #2: Domination by Autos
Mistake #3: Too Much Passive Space or Too Much Recreation
Mistake #4: Private Control, not Public AccessMistake #5: Lack of Destinations
Mistake #6: A Process Driven by Development, Not by Community
Mistake #7: Design Statements

Making buying SmarTrip/Transit passes more convenient

DC1974 sends us a link to this story from the Chicago Tribune, "Tollway board says grocer can collect $2.90 for transponder," and writes:

This is about tollways, but it reminded me -- why can't you buy SmartTrip cards in more places? There should be SmartTrip vending machines in Grocery and convenience stores. In SF, you could buy monthly passes all over town -- not quite the same thing. But it was convenient.----

Looking Sharp! A Visual Language for Cyclists

Check out this website.

A cyclist who identified himself as "Mr. Oil" wears a T-shirt to let people know that by law, cyclists are allowed to use the full lane. HARLEY SOLTES / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Seattle Times Sunday Magazine has many great stories about city, not suburban issues

1. Bicycling: "Wheeler Dealers: Seeing a shift in opportunity, cyclists are riding a spurt of political power" (10/22/2006)

2. Neighborhood schools as neighborhood assets: "The Heart Of The Matter: Both grounding space and launching pad, a school centers a neighborhood." (10/29/2006)

3. Automobility and car culture: "Getting Nowhere: Diehard singles, we commute, clog, stall, rage and refuse to change." (3/12/2006)

4. Historic Preservation: "Conservative Character: Buildings we should save, and why it matters." (1/14/2007)

5. Urban History: "On the Waterfront: Where the city grew up." (1/21/2007) (Plus, the Pacific Northwest Magazine section of the Seattle Times has a weekly feature on Seattle history.)

6. Urban living: "The High Life: Young or old, well off or just smart, they're making it hip to live downtown." (2/11/2007)

Who's had a wreck with a car? Hundreds of cyclists raise their hands at a recent public meeting about Seattle's Bicycle Master Plan. HARLEY SOLTES / THE SEATTLE TIMES

A strategy for libraries to reposition...

See "The word gets around locally: Spelling bees are adult fun," from the Seattle Times. The article mentions once/month spelling bees at bars and the National Senior Spelling Bee, sponsored by the American Association of Retired Persons. From the article:

At The Seattle Spelling Bee, which Malamy co-founded and co-hosts once a month at Seattle's Re-bar, people pack the place to drink and watch others spell words like tribadism. (Look it up.) The event can be raucous, drawing diverse crowds of up to 165 people, with some participants bringing their own entourage, and the words running from obscure to deceptively simple. On Wednesday, three-person teams of spellers will face off at the second annual Kirkland Adult Spelling Bee, which benefits the Kirkland Library's literacy programs.
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Graffiti production

CVS Drug Store, 12th Street NE, Brookland (before)

From "Lynnwood Police arrest nine youths in connection with graffiti," in the Seattle Times:

Lynnwood Police have been cracking down on an epidemic of graffiti "tagging" throughout the city and announced Friday that they have arrested nine youths since mid-December... The youths, who range in age from 10 to 16, are members of two tagging crews responsible for a portion of the city's graffiti, said Brooks. The boys live in various South Snohomish County communities, he said, and their tagging activities were not limited to Lynnwood...

Tagging crews are not gangs, Brooks said, and their criminal activities generally are limited to graffiti. They typically mark property with their nickname, plus the initials of their crew. "Most of the taggers do it for the purpose of fame and recognition," he said.
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Crews "executed" the recent flight of graffiti on 12th Street NE.

CVS Drug Store, 12th Street NE, Brookland (before)

Cleaning graffiti at the Newton Food Market, Brookland.

Vanpool vehicle, North Capitol Street NW

Vanpool vehicle, North Capitol Street NW
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

This is also about oil

Just like the "Draft SUVs first" bumper sticker. I understand the sentiment. But like a yellow ribbon on a car, people aren't getting the connection between their lifestyle choices and the deaths of soldiers and others in countries like Iraq.

Greg Commons, an Annandale High School teacher, created a license plate to honor fallen service members. (By Dayna Smith For The Washington Post)

See "Out of Dad's Grief, a Tribute," subtitled "License Plate Is Daily Memorial to Military Casualties," from the Prince William Extra section of the Washington Post.

Ad, Ballpark Apartments

Ad, Ballpark Apartments
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

From today's Express.

Speaking of blight and clearance

In support of my general belief that the dominant governmental development paradigm is still one of big projects, clearance, and urban renewal like schemes, check out this article from yesterday's New York Times, "History vs. Homogeneity in New Orleans Housing Fight."

From the article:

In this hard-pressed city a proposal by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to demolish four public housing complexes has touched a raw nerve. The demolition, which would affect more than 4,500 housing units, represents for some the plight of a poor, black underclass displaced by Hurricane Katrina and struggling to return. It also represents the problems that faced the city even before the hurricane: poverty, crime and racial divisions.

The bluntness of HUD’s solution reflects a degree of historical amnesia that this wounded city cannot afford. In its rush to demolish the apartment complexes — and replace them with the kind of generic mixed-income suburban community so favored by Washington bureaucrats — the agency demonstrates great insensitivity to both the displaced tenants and the urban fabric of this city.
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Blight and Clearance

I write from time to time about what I call "the language of revitalization." The real issue is disinvestment. What people call "blight" is a result of disinvestment. Rather than blame the place (I call this "blaming the building"), focus on disinvestment and explain the process.

Too often people are lulled into believing that demolition, especially of historic buildings, is a solution to "blight" when merely it creates a different form of blight, one that is harder and more expensive to correct (building a new building).

Mike F. went up to see the various Robert Moses' exhibits in NYC, and he shares with us a couple photos of the exhibit.

IKEA will begin charging customers for plastic bags

Marta Galante loads her car outside an Ikea store in Conshohocken, Pa., Photo: George Widman, AP.

From an article in Display and Design Ideas Magazine:

Swedish home furnishings retailer IKEA will begin charging customers for plastic bags on March 15, as part of its goal to completely eliminate plastic bag use from all of its stores, according to Hfnmag.com. ... IKEA will charge its customers 5 cents per bag with all proceeds for this program year going to American Forests, the nation’s oldest non-profit citizens conservation organization. IKEA also will reduce the price of its reusable blue bag, down from 99 cents to 59 cents. IKEA projects that the number of plastic bags used by its U.S. customers will be reduced by 50 percent in the first year, from 70 million to 35 million. Americans use more than 380 billion plastic bags every year.

IKEA is believed to be the first major retailer in the United States to undertake such a program, according to National Retail Federation spokesman Scott Krugman. Last June, IKEA began charging its U.K. customers for plastic bags, and has reduced its bag consumption by 95 percent, said spokeswoman Mona Astra Liss. According to Reuters, the average American family of four throws away about 1,500 single-use polyethylene bags, which do not degrade for 1,000 years, and less than 1 percent are recycled. "We believe Americans are starting to be more conscious of the environment," Liss said. "Our objective is to get people to really think about the impact of the bags which are strangling the planet."
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Ireland taxes plastic bags, which has reduced by 90% the number of plastic bags consumed within the country. See "Ireland to Raise "Green" Tax on Plastic Bags."

ANCs and civic engagement

Civic engagement is as good as those engaged. In my opinion, we have a weak civic engagement culture in the city of Washington. Even if you disagree with me, you can't disagree with my belief that the extant training structures to support and strengthen deliberative civic engagement are practically nonexistent. And the various government agencies don't do much to build citizen involvement in their activities and planning processes--we're consulted, some, but we're not really involved.

That goes for ANCs too. Advisory Neighborhood Commissions are a great concept: local grassroots leadership at the neighborhood level, weighing in on matters that come before the various city governmetn agencies. But there is little infrastructure, training, and support for ANCs. So neighborhoods have to hope that there are good people willing to get and stay involved. It's a crap shoot unfortunately.

ANC6A is one of the exceptions that proves the rule. Here is one of their latest actions (from e-mail):

Re: Initiatives for Councilmember Tommy Wells

Councilmember Wells,

At our regularly scheduled, public meeting on February 8, 2007 our Commission unanimously approved three initiatives for your office to focus on as you requested at our January 11, 2007 meeting.

The initiatives are as follows:

1. Improve recreation center management and facilities: building grounds, programs, identification checks, partnerships and volunteer groups.
2. Approve funding for the light rail cars for H Street NE in the Fiscal Year 2008 budget.
3. Implement a Ward 6 singles moratorium.

The other initiatives that were discussed at our meeting:

4. Improve nuisance property policies.
5. Eliminate publicly owned, abandoned housing.
6. Facilitate traffic calming requests and guide systematic implementation.
7. Implement public space improvements - locate and provide for: dog parks, recreation areas, play equipment and passive pedestrian green space.
8. Improve enforcement of illegal construction.
9. Improve transparency of Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and District Columbia Department of Transportation public records and decision making process.
10. Consider expanding Capitol Hill Historic District.
11. Improve transportation demand management strategies for new development.
12. Ensure even distribution of social services across the city.

In close, we appreciate the opportunity to work with your office on these issues. On behalf of the Commission,

Joseph Fengler
Chair,
Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6A

This kind of activity keeps me hopeful that quality is possible and that mediocrity can be vanquished!

The January issue of the mid-city community newspaper Intowner has an op-ed by an ANC Commissioner about how ANCs are worthless and should be abolished. I haven't gotten around to writing a response--that the issue is the lack of support and training and working with ANCs to get other community members involved.

Most ANCs do not have non-elected community members involved in committees. ANC6A (and ANC6C) does.

Most ANCs do not allow non-elected community members to be chairs of ANC committees. ANC6A does allow this. And in fact, currently, most of the committees are chaired by community members, not elected Commissioners.

This increases capacity, and allows ANC Commissioners to address constituent service issues and other day-to-day stuff, without allowing broader issues to fall by the wayside.

Quality signage issues

Gilbert W. Arias /Seattle Post-Intelligencer. High Maintenance Bitch's prominent sign has drawn some complaints. "Wallingford is not like that," one person says.

Signs matter. So does quality. What's your verdict on this one? I think it's in poor taste. But then, I don't like graffiti either.

See "High-end dog shop's sign raises neighbors' hackles," from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Close encounters with buildings

Is an article co-authored by Jan Gehl, the Danish placemaking expert. I should have included this paper in yesterday's roundup on reading recommendations. I have mentioned this piece, which is available as an article in Urban Design International, but it turns out that the Centre for Public Space Research has published the paper separately.

An aha! moment about wi-fi

Wi-fi is "bad" for restaurants and coffee shops because it encourages people to stay, taking up precious real estate, likely without buying more products. (Sparkys Espresso on 14th Street NW gives one hour free service with a purchase, and to get more time, you need to buy more stuff. OTOH, Cosi now offers free wi-fi to compete with Starbucks, which charges. I wonder if the Cosi signal at 3rd and Pennsylvania Ave. SE is strong enough to be picked up across the street in Starbucks?)

But it makes sense perhaps to offer wi-fi in places where having people stay doesn't necessarily cost you money.

From Shelf Awareness, the e-newsletter about the bookselling trade:

Bookselling This Week tunes into wi-fi, which some booksellers have installed in their stores to attract more customers. For Nomad Book House, Jackson, Mich., offering wi-fi was "one of our smartest decisions," owner Bridget Rothenberger told BTW. "It shows we're progressive, not some stodgy old bookstore. It's that extra add-on: 'And free wireless!' It really draws people in. I recommend it to every bookstore."Philip Rafshoon of Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Atlanta, Ga., said that "a fuller bookstore is a better bookstore and one that attracts other people. . . . It's competitive positioning. Not everyone reads books--it attracts people who wouldn't normally frequent a bookstore." One nice twist to Outwrite's wi-fi arrangement: the store pays nothing for the service. The provider's compensation is that users see an ad when they sign on.

Technology isn't always right

Roadsigns: The computer isn't always right The Sunday Mail, UK.

The Mail reports, in "First 'ignore your sat nav' roadsigns go up," about a town in the UK that put up a sign warning people that GPS directions on routes through their community weren't accurate. From the article:

Owing to a fault in the electronic information system, many drivers are sent through the Hampshire hamlet only to find the lane narrows to 6ft and they get stuck. Villagers hope that the signs will spare them, and HGV drivers, any further grief, and stop the destruction of hedgerows and verges in Beacon Hill Lane.

Brian Thorpe-Tracey, whose property borders the lane, said he had regularly had to rebuild cobbled kerbs as well as help stuck vans to reverse. The 49-year-old company director said: 'The problem mushroomed overnight with the advent of satnav.

I know that on a recent trip to Baltimore in a car similarly equipped that we were sent in an unnecessary circle, on our way to the Baltimore Art Museum.

Speaking of public funding of sports stadiums and arenas

(It's harder for me to blog because I don't have 30 hours in a day, but I've been meaning to write about this.)

Last Sunday's Seattle Times has a biting column about funding a new arena for the Seattle Sonics basketball team. Citizens of the City of Seattle passed a referendum banning funding for this. So the basketball team proposes decamping to suburban King County. So since Seattle residents live in King County, they will still get tagged for this.

In "A library lesson for the Sonics," Danny Westneat writes:

Guess which is more dependent on a government handout: An arena for a for-profit, pro basketball team? Or the public libraries? Now the libraries are so bad at business they let you enter for free and lend you their merchandise for nothing. So surely an arena for a commercial enterprise, where tickets can run more than $100, would attract more private money than a library? Amazingly, it isn't so.

The $500 million Renton basketball palace unveiled last week by the Sonics would get only about 20 percent of its financing from investors. The rest would come from us. Even that split is generous, says owner Clay Bennett. His team loses so much money it makes no sense for him to invest any more, he said.

"The model that works is that these arenas are public buildings," Bennett told the state Senate.
Yet when Seattle built or renovated 28 libraries recently, about 30 percent of the $275 million came from private donors. They were gifts, not investments. But 22,000 people gave $82 million to build and stock the libraries. Taxpayers paid the rest.

Bennett says he is perplexed that few seem to like his world's priciest arena. Here's a thought: If you won't invest much in it, and you can't find anyone else to invest in it, why should we?

It's not just libraries that make this arena look like a boondoggle. The $127 million ballet and opera hall? That was 57 percent private money. The $118 million symphony hall: 67 percent private. The $85 million Olympic Sculpture Park: 75 percent private.

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To see the opponents' take, look at Citizens for More Important Things. And this Seattle Times article, "The facts, figures behind the flap over Sonics arena ," for the details on the end around the City of Seattle.

And this, for DC, "District May Fund Arena Upgrades," subtitled "$50 Million Urged For Verizon Center," in yesterday's Washington Post.

And Dorothy Brizill writes about this deal in yesterday's issue of themail as well, including this juicy paragraph:

According to sources in the Wilson Building, important elements of the deal with Pollin are not contained or referenced in the legislation, although they may be in a private side agreement that has not been made public. When the legislation is approved by the council and the mayor, Pollin will provide government officials with a rent-free 24-seat luxury suite at the Center for their private use. To secure Vincent Gray's support, Pollin will host the citywide basketball championship game at the Center on March 5. And ownership of the Verizon Center will transfer to the District government in 2047, when the building will be fifty years old, well beyond the lifespan of most sports arenas.

Shades of Jack Abramoff.

Word!

In the most current issue of themail, Victoria McKernan writes:

A Gold Star for Abe Pollin

Abe Pollin thinks he deserves a fifty million dollar rebate from DC taxpayers to improve his Verizon Center because he helped revitalize the Gallery Place/Chinatown area. What a nice idea!

But why limit the distribution of government largesse only to one billionaire developer whose private investment has benefited our city (while providing him a handsome profit)? Why not rebates to everyone who has invested in neglected neighborhoods over the past twenty years and helped drag them out of decline?

Dupont Circle after all, was rescued, developed, preserved and made into a dynamic and profitable neighborhood largely through the effort and investment of gay men. How much do we now rebate the gays?

The transformation of Adams Morgan started with a couple of Ethiopian restaurants and some die-hard dive bars. What about a share for them? (At least quit hassling Madam's Organ over their license!)

Ben's Chili Bowl kept U Street alive through the post-riot dark ages, and the hundreds of crafters who have kept Eastern Market thriving over the years certainly deserve something.

I invested in Columbia Heights through twenty years of drugs and slums and did my small part in revitalizing there -- will DC taxpayers now buy me a new roof?

Is this the most ridiculous proposition ever put before the city council? If Mr. Pollin neglected to foresee the money he would need ten years down the road to keep up with repairs and improvements to his arena, then he has no business being in business! This vast sum will allegedly be paid for by increasing sales tax on tickets and merchandise sold at the center; so why doesn't Mr. Pollin simply raise his ticket prices and charge more for T-shirts himself? Isn't that how business works?

Regardless of how one feels about the "revitalized" (or homogenized, suburbanized, de-Chinafied) Chinatown area, it is definitely now a booming commercial center that brings in welcome tax dollars, and the Verizon Center certainly has something to do with it. For that we should give Abe Pollin our gratitude, maybe even a gold star to stick on his profit ledger. But a fifty-million-dollar rebate is wrong and absurd. And I can't even begin to address the suggestion that the city will benefit by ultimately being "awarded" a fifty-year-old sports arena in 2047! Are Evans, Gray, and Barry insane?

Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News. Before the Super Bowl, this billboard warned: "The World is Coming: Get in the Game Detroit."

Reading

On another list, someone writes:

A friend of mine wants to read about: “ideas about how public space/livability relate to innovation/economic health of a city . . . I'm looking into a couple related books..."Small-mart Revolution" and "The Flight of the Creative Class".” Could anyone suggest other good books to read on this subject?

Changing Places by Richard Moe and Carter Willkie. City: Rediscovering the Center by William Whyte is about place in the city. It's long out of print, but used copies are available. (A piece of this book was published in advance as the Social Life of Small Public Spaces and it is still in print.) The Living City and Cities: Back from the Edge by Roberta Gratz. The latter is the one book I recommend to people to read about when it comes to urban revitalization. It's like a primer based on Jane Jacobs.

Steve Belmont's Cities in Full: Recognizing and Realizing the Great Potential of Urban America is probably the best book out there right now about why focusing on center cities and recentralization is key. But it's not so much about place.

And then gray literature or reports.

1. Profiting Through Preservation (report/NY)
2. Living Spaces: Cleaner, Safer, Greener (UK)
3. Contributions of Historic Preservation to Quality of Life in Florida (University of Florida)
• Research Report Executive Summary
• Research Report - Technical

And this article about Project for Public Spaces, Pride of Place, and everything on their website, especially What Makes a Successful Place?," "Why Public Spaces Fail," and "Benefits of Places."

There's also the great overview by Dan Burden, "How Can I Find and Help Build a Walkable Community?" and Principles of "True Urbanism" from International Making Cities Livable.

I have a couple books by Charles Landry, The Creative City and Art of City Making but I haven't worked through them yet. And I haven't worked through these two books by Simon Anholt yet either, Brand America and Competitive Identity: The New Brand Management for Nations, Cities and Regions (Hardcover).

Of course, the best is Jane Jacobs Death and Life of Great American Cities, but it's easier to start with Gratz. I think that this book is subtle and nuanced and you need experience to understand it, on the other hand I've met many people who read the book in high school...

And then there is The Economy of Cities, also by Jacobs. These two books are also about the role of the city in innovation.

And now I'm thinking I need to pick up a textbook in urban economics...

And I have to admit, these reports from Urban Land Institute are quite good too:

• Ten Principles for Reinventing America's Suburban Strips
• Ten Principles for Rebuilding Neighborhood Retail
• Ten Principles for Reinventing Suburban Business Districts
• Ten Principles for Successful Development Around Transit.

They've got some new ones that I have to check out before I add them to the list (one on malls, one on "creating value from local government property," etc.). The suburban ones are still good on the principles of connectedness.

And this sounds crazy, but the Tourism Destination Assessment Workbook from Nova Scotia helps you drill down and understand the components of a complete destination, and frankly, the Tourism Development Handbook: A Practical Approach to Planning and Marketing by Kerry Godfrey and Jackie Clarke lives up to its title. It's a great practical approach to destination development and management.

Finally, I always recommend the Urban Design Compendium, which is now available as a pdf on the English Partnerships website, you used to have to order it. But they'll still send you a copy, for free...

Everything's better in Charles County now

1. It went Democratic in last fall's election.

2. More importantly, they are getting chain restaurants. Ironically, this is referred to as upscaling. See "Restaurant Boom Serves Up Options," subtitled "Charles Dining Becomes More Upscale," from the Southern Maryland Extra section of the Post.

The photo illustrating the article is a Chipotle. Hey, I like Chipotle. But then Baja Fresh has good nachos--vegetarian nachos only cost $5.45 and you can put on lots of hot sauce. But I wouldn't call it upscale

Men's restroom, Reading Terminal Market

Men's restroom, Reading Terminal Market
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

Neither Eastern Market nor the Florida Market have quality public restrooms. You need to be able to refresh yourself as part of "consuming" a complete destination.

Holier than thou: Draft SUV drivers first

Holier than thou: Draft SUV drivers first
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

A car is still a car.

Building extension, 804 (?) H Street Ne

Building extension, 804 (?) H Street Ne
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

The Street Smart Summit idea: B.S. vs. action

Dennis Jaffe points out that I neglected to comment on his idea for a regional summit on pedestrian-vehicle issues. I commented thusly:

The summit is a good idea. But you need my kind of thinking. You know, my core competency is "brutal honesty."

Not the typical pap like "year of customer service" by this year's chair of the WMATA board, Charlie Deegan. See "Metro chair seeks friendly face," from the Examiner.

Did you read the thm comment in the blog about the bus-ped crashes? Biting.

THM wrote:

...I can't shake the feeling that this is a tragic but predictable outcome of a bus driver culture that isn't really committed to excellent service.

Driving a bus has got to be one of the hardest jobs at Metro. But there are things that are under a drivers' control that seem to go wrong too often.

Early buses for one: at times, this has been epidemic on the A4/A5 buses that I take most often. Each driver seemed to use his own schedule: some days the bus would show up 4--7 minutes early, other days it would be on time, and sometimes it would be late. Particularly infuriating is when you've planned to get to the bus stop 4 minutes before the schedule says the bus leaves, it leaves 5 minutes early, without you, and then the next bus (which is supposed to come in 20 minutes) is running late. And the pattern of early buses persists even with repeated complaints to Metro by several different individuals.

The item you posted recently about a bus driver using "the other f-word" and not apologizing, and with details about the inability of Metro management to really do anything about it for fear of union grievances, fits with a picture of a culture of recalcitrance, as if us riders are supposed to be grateful that we have a ride at all.

That there is so much to complain about bus service is the result of the fact that, despite at least two "year[s] of the bus" being declared in the past six years or so, nobody really cares about the bus side of things at Metro. A long, hard, top-to-bottom look at bus practices, in light of the recent series of pedestrian deaths, would certainly be the right outcome, if for the wrong reasons. Of course since it's Metro, they'll probably find a way to make things worse.

This is one of the Street Smart ads that I don't think is all that effective. But then, I've been sideswiped by a pickup truck with a bumper sticker reading: "I'd rather be biking."