Commodification of graffiti

is nothing new. Pabst Brewing takes it to a new level in Philadelphia. (Almost 20 years ago I worked on a video called "Marketing Booze to Blacks," produced by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.) See "Residents object to malt liquor wall murals," from Denver's NBC-TV station.

NBC image.

More and more I appreciate the academic viewpoint of cultural studies, despite its being derided in many corners. The political economic/cultural/Marxist framework for understanding capitalism in all its aspects makes a lot of sense.

Multiple use recreational and biking trails

I don't ride on bicycle-walking trails very much as I am a city bicyclist and I ride on the roads. But there is discussion in other places, including the always excellent Washcycle blog, about bicyclist-pedestrian issues on these trails, including the Capital Crescent Trail, which is imposing speed limits.

I think the issue is really weekend use, with weekend bicyclists and weekend walkers, vs. use during the week. But daily bicycle commuters get tagged by the proposed solution to deal with weekend problems.

I did watch bicycle-pedestrian conflicts on the trail in Battery Park in NYC. There the problem is the size of the trail-walkway and the number of users. The issue isn't much different in the DC region. The problem is that bicyclists and walkers are on the same trail when they should be separated during peak use periods... probably.

Cyclists ride along the bicycle path in Bogota June 23, 2008. The 270 km (168 miles) bicycle path by the sides of the main roads of the Colombian capital have turned cycling into a transportation alternative in Bogota. Advocates say the safety and convenience of the bicycle paths are encouraging the environmentally clean form of transportation. Photos by REUTERS/John Vizcaino (COLOMBIA)

Note that the trail here has a section for bicyclists and a section for walkers. Also note the bicycle taxis.

In this photo you can see passengers in the bike taxi.

Traffic medians as public art

are discussed in this piece, "New traffic median decorates downtown Los Angeles," from the Los Angeles Times.

The installation, at the intersection of Main, Spring and 9th streets, is made of low-maintenance plants and recycled materials. Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times.

My contact info

Those of you who know me are welcome to contact me for my new address and phone number info...

Transit still dominated by automobility and automobile-centricity

1. If you drive to transit, you defeat a lot of the advantages of transit. Transit systems can't afford to build unlimited parking at stations. What needs to happen is the creation of bus shuttles/routing to take people to high-capacity stations without their driving, without the transit system having to build and support parking lots and parking structures.

See "A lot of lots, but not enough: Mass transit riders, car-poolers cruise streets for parking," from the Baltimore Sun. The article includes a list of parking capacity at various MARC commuter railroad stations, Baltimore area light rail stations, and MTA commuter bus park and ride lots.

The commuter parking lot at the Halethorpe MARC station fills up fast in the morning. Commuters park on nearby streets, leading to clashes with residents. (Sun photo by Amy Davis / June 19, 2008).

Originally, Montgomery County, Maryland built its RideOn bus system around providing service from neighborhoods to red line subway stations. (I don't know if they also do this with MARC stations, although there are many co-located MARC and subway stations such as Silver Spring or Rockville.

2. I have written about transit in the Detroit region. You can imagine in a region dominated by automobile manufacturing, that over the years, an efficient transit system has been dismantled in favor of automobility. And Detroit is more exurban and deconcentrated than most other U.S. metropolitan regions.

And I say that of course this should have happened, because that's exactly what the automobile industry wanted to have happen to the city.

The Wall Street Journal published a piece last week, "Eyes on the Road," about how the increased demand for transit given higher gasoline prices can't be met in regions with weak transit systems. From the article:

Detroit put America on wheels during the past century, and that process crippled mass transit in many big cities, starting with Detroit itself. In the 1920s, Detroit had a network of buses and electric streetcars that formed the core of one of the biggest publicly owned transit systems in the U.S., according to a history at detroittransit.org.

In 1945, Detroit's rail and bus network provided 492 million rides -- more than a million a day. Eleven years later, the Detroit streetcar system was dead, and the automobile officially took control.

During the next 50 years, freeways replaced rail lines; the dense neighborhoods of Detroit and its old suburbs were abandoned in favor of subdivisions; and the Detroit mass-transit system bumped down the road to irrelevance.

Political leaders wrangled over whether to have one regional bus system serving Detroit and its suburbs (as of now, there are two.) Some 50 suburban communities -- including the one where I live -- opted out of contributing tax money to the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, commonly known as SMART, selling voters on the idea that their tax money was being wasted on buses that rode around largely empty. As a result, the nearest SMART bus stop between my house and my office is about 10 miles away.

Many years ago, and I can't remember the writer (I think it was either Howard Wilensky or Charles Perrow), I remember reading a sociology treatise on the value of redundancy. We're seeing that now with transit...

3. Speaking of the lack of redundancy, the New York Times reports on Amtrak ridership increases in "Travelers Shift to Rail as Cost of Fuel Rises." Amtrak has the same problem of lack of capacity. A cash starved system can't all of a sudden expand service. It doesn't have slack resources-- the rolling stock, locomotive engineers, conductors, etc.

4. Like how Congress and the Federal Transit Administration are working to make it more difficult for public transit to provide seemless service, use public resources wisely, extend branding objectives, and promote sampling by new consumer market segments by restricting the ability of public transit systems to provide service to K-12 public school students and shuttle services, Congressman John Mica wants Amtrak to give up some of its exclusive right-of-way in the Northeast Corridor to the private sector to create a high-speed rail service. See the press release, "Information on Rep. Mica's High Speed Rail Initiative," from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Republicans. (Note that Congressman Mica has had pieces on the proposal published in the railroad trade magazines.)

But Amtrak has already studied Maglev service. And such service could be used to reposition rail service more generally. (See The Baltimore-Washington Maglev Project.)

5. Why let the private sector cherrypick the segments of the market that are profitable, and offload all the segments of the market "requiring subsidy" to the public sector, and then turn around and complain that public transit requires permanent subsidy (at the same time failing to acknowledge that automobility and the road and freeway infrastructure also requires permanent subsidy as the cost of building and maintaining the street network requires subsidies to the tune of 50% of the cost.

Making transit a "superior" good is about more than the transit offering

Downtown Circulator
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Andy Kunz points out Sam Staley's latest piece, "Why Transit is an 'Inferior Good'" from Planetizen. My response:

Actually, reading Sam's piece, I agree with him. The issue is to make transit service superior, not a second class service.

The big problem with using macro data for metropolitan regions, is that because automobility is so dominant, transit rich environments get cancelled out because typically transit usage represents a very small sample. As you travel farther out into the region, where population is less concentrated than in the core, it's much harder to get around time and cost effectively by transit. The solution then is to locate yourself in areas where transit is a superior, not merely a "normal" good.

So

(1) In transit rich environments

(2) where there is a great deal of high speed and point to point service (this is not necessarily type dependent, it can be heavy rail, light rail, streetcars, bus)

(3) pedestrian centric urban design and a grid street network (even better if augmented with radial avenues)

(4) a reasonable amount of population density

(5) amenities (activity destinations) located within neighborhoods and/or close by

then transit rich environments will find that mobility demands can favor nondrivers especially if you take into account the need for automobile parking, and if nondrivers have access to inexpensive package delivery services and/or augment their transit and walking use with nonautomobile vehicles such as bicycles.

Of course, I am describing much of the NE, SE, and NW quadrants of DC. It's why I argue that:

1. DC's competitive advantages rest in part on a pedestrian-centric urban design
2. As well as the grid street pattern (augmented by radial avenues)
3. which is overlaid by heavy rail and street-based (bus) transit service.

However:

4. The heavy rail system needs to be augmented with capacity increases in the core (the separated blue line)
5. The street-based transit system needs to be upgraded with the addition of streetcar service.

I have just moved to a more suburban part of DC when compared to neighborhoods in the core such as Capitol Hill or Dupont Circle.

Even so, we live .9 mi from the Takoma Metro, 2.5 blocks from the bus line between Takoma and Georgia Ave. metros, and a few blocks from GA Ave. (the #2 bus line in the city in terms of bus ridership). Adding a bicycle to our mix means that in a 2 mile radius we have easy access to supermarkets, post office, pharmacies, sit down restaurants, and a reasonable amount of convenience retail.

The disadvantage of bus service from the core of the city (downtown) to upper NW via major bus routes such as the 50s (14th St.) or 70s (Georgia Ave.) or the S (16th St.) is the frequent stops, almost every block or two, which makes the trip long.

The disadvantage of bike riding from the core, although I will do it today (and I do it often), is that it is uphill.

Even so, there is little traffic, relatively, in many parts of the city throughout the day, even in rush hour. Partly I define this in terms of being able to run red lights, without the threat of oncoming traffic, on major thoroughfares, during rush hour periods.

Yes, certain routes into the city remain congested during many parts of the day such as New York Avenue, I Street, North Capitol south of Florida Avenue, and Upper Wisconsin Avenue, but for the most part, I believe (and I have an empirical mind and high-quality observation skills) that for nondrivers, it's become easier to get around.

I attribute this to the rich array of transit assets and point-to-point routes offered to DC residents by the subway as well as key bus routes.

Painted bike (and bus) boxes

bike-box-green-plan
Originally uploaded by Jym Dyer

Image from Jym Dyer, who writes:

Here's the planned configuration for new "bike boxes" in Portland, Oregon. The bike lane leading up to it will be a high-visibility green, as will the bike box itself. A segment of bike lane will jut out into the intersection, as well.

Portland's existing bike boxes don't have any green paint, and are similar to the ones currently in San Francisco (as can be seen in the previous image).

(I grabbed this from a screenshot of a TV news segment. I can't find this diagram on the City of Portland's website or at any Portland-based advocacy group websites.)
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I think the bike box idea also needs to be expanded to include ASLs to accomodate the wide turning radii needed by buses. As pointed out in an email on the worldcitybikes list, ASLs--advanced stop lines--tend to be ignored.

HOWEVER, ASLs would likely not be ignored if: (1) ASLs were converted into ASBs--advanced stop boxes; (2) ASBs were painted a la Portland; (3) signs were posted explaining the rule and enforcement; (4) enforcement occurs including tickets/fines for violators.

If ASLs were eliminated in favor of painted ASBoxes, then likely proper utlization would increase greatly.

Crime Time 2008

I was looking up something yesterday, and came across a set of entries from the summer of 2006, when there was another significant increase in crime in the city. See:

-- Crime Time (7/18/2006)
-- Crime Time #2
-- Crime Time #3
-- Crime Time #4 (7/31/2006)
-- Crime Time #5
-- Crime Time #6 (Baltimore)
-- Crime Time #7 (8/13/2006)

Yesterday's Baltimore Sun has a cover story about the significant drop in the murder rate there, in "Killing pace slows in city." Baltimore has experienced a significant drop in murders over the past year, some neighborhoods have gone from 10 murders in the first half of the year to one. From the story:

There is something really special going on in Baltimore," said David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York who is familiar with crime patterns in Baltimore. "You are seeing reductions in the worst violent crime and not so much in the other crime. There is something particular going on with the kind of violent crime that has plagued Baltimore for such a long time."

Kennedy and other experts rejected the notion that the falling homicide and shooting numbers could be flukes."You don't get rid of 50 homicides without something fundamental going on," Kennedy said.

Theories vary about the drop in Baltimore. But dozens of on- and off-the-record conversations with police officers, commanders and prosecutors touched on a central theme: a police focus on gathering intelligence about a small circle of violent people and more effectively acting on the information to build strong cases against them. ...

Police draw up the most-wanted lists with the help of informants, homicide investigators and patrol officers. The targets: residents who've been convicted of violent crimes and are out on probation, residents who have "beaten" charges, and even residents who have been homicide suspects but were never charged. ...

The police strategy is the latest step in data-driven policies. A department analysis determined that last year 50 percent of the city's homicide suspects had gun charges in their records, so now police are focused on gun offenses. ...

Meanwhile, other agencies are helping to drive down crime.The state's attorney's office and the parole and probation agents are building cases against people they view as violent, if they commit crimes or break the terms of their supervision, even on the smallest infraction. ...

And schools are using more in-school suspensions to deal with children who have behavior problems." There is a tremendous sense that all the agencies need to be supporting the mission to reduce violence," said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the city's health commissioner. "Our job is to keep pushing forward."

One pattern to watch closely in the city's crime data is the robbery rate, said Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. It is up 5 percent over last year, according to police statistics from last week. "If they continue up, that will put upward pressure on the homicides," he said.

It appears as if DC's program of street roadblocks isn't nearly as focused.

The right to bear arms and gun-related crimes in center cities

is put into perspective in the June cover story of Governing Magazine, "Gundemic." From the article:

... In the first half of 2007 (the most recent period for which data are available), nationwide violent crime rates were essentially flat. But many big cities have been hit hard. The worst numbers, says University of Pennsylvania criminologist Lawrence Sherman, are in cities with highly concentrated, racially segregated poverty, lax gun laws, and relatively few of the immigrant newcomers who seem to make dangerous areas safer.

Peopling Places in Chicago (and elsewhere)

Washington Avenue, Hoboken, New Jersey. Photo by Steve Pinkus.

is a new blog (which I found because from time to time I check out the blogs that link to mine) focusing on the Logan Square area of Chicago.

It's a particularly interesting read for me because the author has read some of the same books as I (I bought City: Rediscovering the Center from Common Concerns in the early 1990s, although I wasn't involved in local revitalization activities then, I was just interested in urban issues) and it seems as if Logan Square has many of the same issues and conditions as does H Street NE, where I got particularly involved starting in 2000.

I lived within one block of the main drag, H Street, just as the blogmaster of Peopling Places lives within one block of Milwaukee Avenue. For me, many of his entries appear to parallel the kind of learning and experiences I went through on H Street. It's almost eerie.

Anwar Saleem, now the director of H Street Main Street, but originally the board chair and like me, one of the founders of that group, and I talk all the time about "what we know now" vs. the "what we knew then" back in 2001 when a group of us started to bring resident energies into the revitalization equation, first working with the merchants association, and later creating a Main Street organization, after the city under Mayor Williams, launched a city-wide Main Street program.

Sadly, for many reasons the Main Street program isn't working out so well in DC. It's impolitic for me to discuss why in great detail.

It's partly the organizations and the level of community capacity. It's partly how the city government deals with the programs and how long it takes to release funding as well as funding recissions. It's also because I don't think people really understand how difficult it is to reseed retail generally--as an industry traditional retail is amongst the most concentrated of U.S. industries--especially when you want it to be independently owned and operated so that it is distinct and contributes to the unique identity of neighborhoods, commercial districts, and center cities.

-- (Yesterday's) Testimony on the DC Main Streets program (2007)
-- I hope New Orleans('s urban Main Street program) can learn from DC (2006)
-- Yesterday's testimony on the DC Main Streets program (2005)
--Main Street and getting schooled in politics, constituency building, and building support for your program (2006)

In fairness to all the stakeholders, it's also hard. These neighborhoods have experienced as much as 60 years of disinvestment, some of the commercial districts are scarred by riots, and it was unreasonable to expect--after many years if not decades of failed government initiated attempts to induce improvement--that volunteers with a wee bit of money and government support could turn things around in a couple years. (Of course, that was the expectation of many.)

And at the same time, local commercial districts and retailers compete within a vibrant and hyper-competitive regional retail landscape.

-- (Why aren't people) Learning from Jane Jacobs revisited (2006, 2005)
-- Signs, signs, and the necessity of design review (2005)
-- Forcing Retail Displacement by the disconnection of tax assessment models from public policy goals (2005)
-- Why the future of urban retail isn't chains (2005)

E.g., in the DC region, DC has just gotten clomped by the opening of National Harbor in nearby Prince George's County, which creates major competition for conferences and small and mid-sized meetings, especially because the conference center operator, Gaylord, has other facilities (such as the Grand Old Opry in Nashville) so they are able to leverage their relationships developed elsewhere to steer new and more business to their facilities instead of it going to DC.

See "National Harbor's 'Mini-City' Takes Shape," from the Washington Post. Both Gaylord, and the master developer, Peterson Companies, are hardcore competitors. National Harbor is being programmed every weekend with special events, farmers markets, etc. (Peterson Companies is the master developer for Silver Spring, and they also own some shopping centers in the region.)

As I say to retailers and restauranteurs, "to stay the same is to fall behind, because your best competitors are always working to improve. And your customers are also their customers. Your customers are constantly learning about what is quality retail and what isn't and they will shop where their needs are best met."

And DC just isn't quite big enough for local retail to stay local. Even Hecht's, one of the more successful department store chains in the U.S. (it was owned by May), which grew from a store in Washington and in Baltimore (where it started) to a 70+ store chain from Pennsylvania to North Carolina (mostly through acquisition), has been rolled up into Macy's. So the local support network and infrastructure to support local retailers isn't very strong.

But I didn't know any of this in 2000, when I started getting involved in the revitalization of H Street NE. Now I tend to focus on issues with more "city-wide" import, and I do some consulting, some local, as well as in locales outside of the region.
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Other good resources include reports from the Urban Land Institute:

• Ten Steps for Developing Successful Town Centers
• Ten Steps for Rebuilding Neighborhood Retail
• Ten Steps for Rethinking the Mall (and their reports on suburban business district improvement are worth reading too as revitalization is more about what to do rather than the specific place albeit categorized, Reinventing Suburban Business Districts and Reinventing America's Suburban Strips);
  

David Milder's report on urban retail business recruitment, Business Recruitment Handbook; Karl Seidman's report on urban revitalization programs, Revitalizing Urban Main Streets; and the Downtown and Business District Market Analysis Toolbox from the University of Wisconsin Extension Service's Center for Community Economic Development.

National Harbor, Prince George's County. Photo: John Mcdonnell -- The Washington Post.

Beckham in Union Square, San Francisco

Beckham in Union Square, San Francisco
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Photo by Laura Hall.

Another example of the changing fates of "neighborhood-serving" retail

Neighborhood-based funeral parlors. Sometimes this is ethnically-based, and as neighborhoods change, either the funeral parlor reaches out to new groups, or it closes, or moves. See "The Demography of Death" from the New York Times.

It's another example of how the scale of retail is changing and it's hard to provide independently owned "convenience" retail as well as other types of retail as "retail trade areas" now far outspan the boundaries of neighborhoods or cities.

Excluded from Library Deal: NE Community to Hold “Let Benning Decide” Rally

As Beyond DC said in a post about the Federal Transit Administration, "with friends like these, who needs enemies," the same goes for urban design and mixed use vis-a-vis the DC Public Library system. A rare instance of significant community buy-in to a mixed use project gets quashed by the Growth Machine, which you would think would be clued into the need for better facilities accomplishing multiple objectives simultaneously.

From Robin Diener, DC Library Renaissance Project, 202/387-8030:

District Library Dynamos, a grassroots citywide library advocacy organization, will sponsor a rally to protest a decision by Trustees of the DC Public Library (DCPL) -- led by John Hill, Chairman of the Federal City Council -- to reject a proposal for a new library in Benning that would meet the needs of a community that suffers from the city’s lowest literacy rates, highest drop out rates, and steep digital divide.

At a special six-hour long Saturday hearing on April 19th convened by DC Council Library Committee Chairman Harry Thomas, the Benning community learned trustees had turned down a deal that included a land swap, a cash payment, and a library larger than DCPL has currently planned. Members of the local Benning Library Dynamo group seek a full public exploration of the possibilities and to be included in the final decision.

Trustees were informed, last July, of the sale to City Interests of land adjacent to the Benning Library -- just as DCPL was embarking on the long delayed process of library redesign (2004 designs were tossed out by the trustees in 2005). Throughout the redesign process, residents heard only vague answers to their repeated questions about the status of the shopping center development which they feared could overwhelm a new library.

-- See video of Benning community questions about location

Dissatisfaction with the public input process has been simmering in Ward 7, since ANC commissioners there brought suit to require DCPL to follow the law regarding ANC notice and great weight provisions.

-- See video of Trustees meeting where Benning residents speak out

WHEN: Saturday June 28, 2008 at 12 noon
WHERE: 3935 Benning Road, NE
site of the demolished Benning Neighborhood Library

Web design in government

Is it just me or is this website (NYC Department of Transportation) better than this website (DC Department of Transportation)? To make it clear I define "better" as "more attractive," "easier to use," and "easier to read."

I did talk to DC's CTO a couple weeks ago at a meeting, and mentioned to him my concern that the DC Government website's focus on commonality of design and presentation across all of the agencies makes it difficult to deliver different experiences to different audiences, reducing the overall effectiveness of the government at the expense of a common design on the website.

He mentioned that the DC Government website is undergoing a major redesign and should relaunch in the fall.

Who is in office does matter

But it's not just an executive branch thing. The Federal Transit Administration claims (I haven't delved too deeply into it) that Congress ordered it to ensure that publicly funded transit systems don't "inordinately" compete with the private sector.

Now the reason we have public transit is that for the most part, it wasn't profitable for the private sector to do. (Most public transit systems are the result of local governments purchasing bankrupt private transit services. Now we can argue that regulation to keep fares down made profitability impossible, but still.)

There are many issues involved in delivering transit and municipal services.

For a number of years I've argued that having non-walkable school systems where students are transported by bus creates financial albatrosses for school districts. Having to buy, run, and fuel buses every year is expensive. First, you have to replace buses every so often. Second, it's harder and harder to find drivers. And now, third, it's a lot more expensive to provide the service because of major increases in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel.

So instead of having a dedicated school bus transportation infrastructure, when possible, it makes sense to use the public transit system instead. (If you want more education about this, I suggest reading up on microeconomics, opportunity costs, and marginal costs.)

But instead, the Federal Transit Administration is forcing the creation of separate bus infrastructures where they did not previously exist. BeyondDC writes about this today, in "With Friends Like This, Who Needs Enemies," using DC as an example, stating:

Does it make sense for the FTA to outlaw a practice that costs the District $5 million a year, forcing the city to accomplish the same exact objective for $20-25 million per year?

Common sense says no, it does not make sense to do those things [according to this article, "FTA proposal would bar Metrobus rides to school," from the Examiner].

Now, it is true that during the school year, there are dedicated Metrobus routes serving schoolchildren. But the public can still ride those buses. And rather than having dedicated buses sitting around, the buses can be used on other routes at different times.

(Are there laws about unfunded mandates?)

This comes out of the same initiative that I wrote about a few weeks ago, where public transit systems are now banned from offering shuttle services that aren't regularly scheduled services, such as shuttles to Redskins football games or Wolf Trap concerts, etc.

But isn't it important for transit systems to build their brands, and introduce people who might not otherwise public transit to use their services, and where possible, as well as to provide seemless and efficient transportation services?

No wonder public transit systems have it hard.

I think it's important to fire the public officials, starting with the elected officials, that produce these kinds of policies.

I find it so funny that people complain about transit subsidies without acknowledging (1) road subsidies and (2) all the various machinations by the private sector which make public transit a very difficult service to provide.

More thinking about TDM

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Updated at the end with stuff about Ikea from Streetsblog.
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When I have been involved in promoting transportation demand management in multiunit housing buildings in DC, I hate to admit that I have focused on transit promotion and carsharing requirements, and not bicycling.

I am not sure that any buildings in DC include carsharing memberships for their tenants, although I know this has been proposed for various developments in places like Philadelphia.

In testimony I wrote on the Takoma Metro station development ("Comments on Proposed EYA Development at Takoma Metro") I suggested including zero carparking spaces for residents, instead providing carsharing spaces, as well as spaces dedicated for public parking to support the subway station and the Takoma DC-Takoma Park, MD commercial district.

Looks like we need to consider creating bicycle sharing options within multiunit buildings. (Some hotels are just starting to do this. See "Concierge? I’d Like a Bike, Please," from Streetsblog.) In "Cycle-sharing schemes reduce parking violations, raise profits," the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reports that:

At a condominium in Konohana Ward, Osaka, which was completed in October, each of the 220 families living there was allotted a space for two bicycles. However, five bicycles are also available for sharing at the condominium for families needing to use more than two bicycles or for residents who do not have bicycles, but occasionally want to ride one.

Residents can use the bicycles at a cost of 100 yen for 12 hours. "I only ride a bicycle once a month, so sharing is enough for me," said Ryosuke Goto, 27, a resident at the condominium.

Osaka-based River Industry Co., which sold the condominium, has introduced bicycle-sharing schemes at seven condominiums it has completed since 2006. The firm also plans to introduce such schemes at condominiums it is planning to build in the future.

By including bicycle trailers and even a workbike maybe, a variety of travel needs could be met with a set of different types of shared bikes that would be owned and maintained by a condominium association. (100 yen is about $1.)

(Story from Japan from "Bicycle Sharing Easing Parking Problems" in the Reinventing Transport blog via the worldcitybike e-list)
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2. In "Ikea Tests Bike-Share in Denmark. Why Not NYC?," Streetsblog discusses bike rental delivery options implemented by Ikea in Denmark. I have mentioned this kind of idea in the past, such as with Eastern Market, DC's public market in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. But there is no reason that supermarkets and big box type stores such as Target couldn't do the same thing.

If we had transportation demand management planning required as a matter of course within DC, these kinds of programs could be implemented and car trips would be foregone. (Images from the Velorbis bicycle manufacturer website.)

Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, Sprawl and Energy and the Environment

Housing and Transportation Affordability in the Washington Region. Beige = housing + transportation costs less than 45% of household income. Blue = H + T costs equal to or greater than 45% of household income. CNT map.

1. Check out the maps from the Center for Neighborhood Technology. The eastern side of the city and region come out very well in these equations--although public transportation could be a lot better in Prince George's County.

2. And this piece on location efficiency from the Congress for the New Urbanism.

3. Christopher sends us this piece, "Discouraging driving crucial in warming battle," from the San Francisco Chronicle, which states:

A sweeping plan to carry out California's landmark law to fight global warming, made public Thursday by the state's air board, addresses a problem that planning groups say has been overlooked in most federal legislation: suburban sprawl.

The draft plan, which seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the state by 30 percent by 2020, encourages local governments to create land-use and transportation plans that help them meet reduction targets. The idea is to discourage driving by concentrating development in urban areas near transit, jobs and retail or by laying out suburbs more efficiently.

Efficient use of energy and reduction of our impact on the earth is all about linking housing and activity centers in efficient ways. Land use decisions made independent of transportation considerations are likely to be flawed if they are dependent on automobility and cheap gasoline.

I'm too busy but...

maybe it'd be fun to start a militia. See "Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Ban on Handguns" from the Post.

Civil War reenactments at the Manassas National Battlefield Park. Washington Post photo.

A real-life example of Richard's Rules for Restaurant-Based Neighborhood Revitalization

Contrast the recent experience on Georgia Avenue, according to the article "Restaurant closure leaves bad taste on Georgia Avenue" from the Washington Business Journal, versus "H Is for Happening," subtitled "Entrepreneurs Push a NE Neighborhood Toward New Life as a Food Destination," from the Washington Post about the H Street NE corridor.

Richard's Rules are based on the premise that in commercial districts that are under-patronized successful restaurants rely on frequent visits by a (relatively) great number of people, mostly from around your neighborhood, at least at the beginning. Examples from Capitol Hill include La Lomita and Banana Cafe. These restaurants helped seed their areas, and provided first phase commercial district revitalization energy to their respective areas. Now, a newer phase of more upscale restaurant options has come to Capitol Hill, which face it, had a bunch of restaurants, but most weren't "great." Now it has Montmarte, Cucina Meditalia, Jordan's 8 (site of a fundraiser for Councilmember Kwame Brown tonight), Starfish, Tapatini's, Sonoma, and others in the pipeline.

A good example of a similar failure to the restaurant on Georgia Avenue was H Street's Phish Tea. Its high prices, the relatively paltry number of entrees, and specialized cuisine (I love Caribbean food myself but typical DC restaurant-goers don't consume this type of cuisine all that frequently) meant that there were relatively few customers. And certainly their terrible service (time to receive entrees, quality of service) meant that few customers would ever come back.

Photo by Frozen Tropics.

Phish Tea went into a death spiral, costing upwards of $1 million in losses, when you consider the more than one year of unpaid rent. This didn't help H Street's revitalization at the time. If it weren't for Joe Englert's initiative of seeding H Street with tavern-entertainment destinations offering pretty good food, as attested to by the Post piece cited above, I believe that H Street's revitalization would still be sputtering.

Richard's Rules for Restaurant-Driven Revitalization

1. Relatively appealing cuisine that isn't too specialized (or at the very least is popular such as Asian food); food that is attractive to a large number of people--Italian, Mexican, and "American," seem to work best. You want at least 100 customers/nite. These days Thai food is moving into this category. Chinese seems to have lost its appeal. Restaurants like Indian, Caribbean, etc. are just a bit too specialized, and therefore don't get the weekly or at least a couple times/month patronage that such restaurants need especially when they are located in emerging commercial districts.

Think Banana Cafe, La Loma, La Lomita vs. Capitol Hill Tandoor or Phish Tea--the latter two have a cuisine specialized enough that local patrons come maybe once every couple months, so they need to draw on a much larger trade area than restaurants that have a more "approachable" cuisine.

2. Good food; it doesn't have to be stunning but it better be good. (Perhaps Mexican restaurants illustrate this point the best.)

3. Good, good plus, or better service; waiting isn't fun, and neither is dealing with a server that doesn't help you get what you want with a modicum (ideally none) of problems.

4. Competitively priced; you can't have drinks at $8 or most of your entrees costing $13-$20 -- unless you offer a fully realized concept where those prices make sense. If your prices aren't competitive and maybe a little less expensive than the market, you won't get that frequent patronage that is necessary for your success. Pitchers of margaritas or sangria are good, maybe not pitchers of beer, which seem to attract a rowdier more alcohol-centered clientele.

5. Nice interior; it doesn't have to be stunning or a $1 million interior renovation, but it can't be threadbare, and it has to be appealing.

Building a critical mass of restaurants on H Street NE. Washington Post graphic.

Joe Englert's focus on building a critical mass of eating-drinking-entertainment establishments has accelerated improvement on the H Street corridor by at least 5-7 years. And these efforts, by bringing people to the corridor, make it more possible to develop retail in later phases. (Although high rents do make this difficult.)

Unfortunately, the article was a little too focused on "the Atlas District," as there are other establishments, not owned or affiliated with Joe Englert, on the 1000 and 1100 block including the H Street Martini Lounge, a club called 12 (who knows how long it will last), and Napa 1015. A Tropicana sit-down restaurant is also opening on the 1000 block (I know, Caribbean food), and there is an Ethiopian coffee shop (see "Making It: Ethiopian Immigrants Create Community With Coffee" from the Post) and a neighborhood bar, Pap & Petey's, on the 400 block.

(Sub)Urban Driving Manifesto

In "Distracting Miss Daisy," John Staddon writes in The Atlantic that there are too many stop signs and other devices that not only slow drivers down, but make them too complacent about safety. He suggests serious changes, making most stops yield signs.

I think that the article takes for granted an automobile-centric land use and mobility paradigm, one that is more common and perhaps appropriate to the suburbs, but one that would likely be inappropriate if not terrifying in the city.

A policy that encourages cars to keep moving privileges cars at the expense of pedestrians and bicyclists. Since drivers, for the most part, already believe that they have priority on the road, in places where there are many more walkers and bicyclists, drivers able to drive more quickly because of fewer impediments would likely feel more empowered to move more quickly and to drive faster, likely endangering non-drivers.

As long as roads are engineered to allow very high speeds, and cars are engineered to drive very fast (in the 1940s, the speed limit on residential streets in DC was 15 mph), reducing impediments on drivers is likely to be deleterious to pedestrians and bicyclists.

Note that another way to go is how they've done it in Graz, Austria... Read the memo To Avoid Suffocating of Our Cities in Traffic and a description of their Spaces for People project/ philosophy:

• Healthier living conditions for inhabitants and people working in the city through a reduction of motorised traffic and hence noise and pollution.
  
  
• More safety for all traffic modes by means of lower speed limits and clear traffic regulation.
  
  
• Growth in appeal of the city as a centre of culture, education and business through well-designed public spaces for meeting up with people, shopping or just strolling.

Graz has speed limits for vehicles that are much lower than that typical in the U.S.:

In 1992 Graz was the first city in Europe who introduced a speed limits for the whole city: 30 kph (18.75mph) in all residential areas / side roads and 50 kph (31.25mph) for all major roads - for increasing of road safety, reducing pollution, and noise.

Also see this description of Graz from the Civitas Initiative website.

And my favorite vehicle speed reduction technique: Belgian Block.

Another take on automobile-centric planning paradigms

Child struck by car 1959 Pulitzer Prize winner.

From the Urban Runner blog:

I met Antonio today, shortly after he left

I met Antonio today. I had never met him before but he seemed like a hard working family man. He looked older than I, although he was younger; some people end up leading harder lives than others I guess. Later I met his neighbor and roommate who had nothing but good things to say about him; hard working, never smoke or drank. Antonio came here from El Salvador and was supporting his wife and two daughters back in his home country. He worked full time at a metal plant in the next town over and was due to go back home soon. He had been working here for several years.

Antonio was on his way to his second job before I met him. He had worked all day and was now on his way to his night job at a local restaurant. Antonio was taking the back way to the restaurant. At the intersection of a state highway he was on the cross street and was proceeding on a green light. A car was stopped at the red light inbound on the highway and across the street another driver was stopped. At the same time a 17 year old boy was inbound on the highway in his SUV and talking on his cell phone to his mother. The boy did not notice the red light until it was too late. The SUV smashed into Antonio’s car, directly into the driver’s side. Antonio never stood a chance and probably never knew what hit him. There were no skid marks before the impact point.

Antonio was at peace now, although the blood and mangled car disturbed this image. Antonio now joined the sad number of over 42,000 others who die similar transportation deaths each year in America. This was the very same intersection that one of my co-workers had pulled a man from a burning pickup truck on New Years Day after a similar accident. That man lived, Antonio did not, sometimes it happens that way. 42,000 of sometimes is too much I think. My co-workers and I get to meet a lot of Antonio’s each year. They are young and they are old, and they all have different life stories, until they leave and then all have a similar story.

I commented to the judge who arrived on scene to pronounce Antonio’s death that I suspected that this intersection met all of a transportation engineer’s requirements. After all, our new high school is located just down the street from this intersection. Later, while on the way to deliver the news of Antonio’s death to his roommate, co-worker, and friend from El Salvador, I mentioned to our Victim’s Services volunteer that it’s a shame that we have to drive everywhere in our lives as Antonio did. It doesn’t have to be this way. We could build our communities differently. Maybe then I could have met Antonio before he left.

Professionals vs. amateurs in the building "arts"

My gf and I sometimes disagree on assessments of new buildings. Buildings I think are okay, she thinks aren't all that great. In part it's because I have been beaten down by so many bad buildings, that a marginally better building ends up shining like a beacon by comparison.

Iit all comes down to a couple old lines: "better than cinder block shouldn't be the standard that we aspire to" and "anything isn't better than a parking lot" vs. "if you ask for nothing, that's what you get; if you ask for the world, you don't get it but you get a lot more than nothing."

Too often, the standard in revitalizing places is "well, it's better than the empty (or parking) lot."

Most of the time it isn't. It's better to wait and work for something better.

One of the "problems" in the built environment is that even "short run" decisions about temporary buildings yield buildings that last from 15 to 50 years. Those are decisions that don't change any time soon.

Sitting in at a recent Zoning Commission hearing proves the criticisms I made about the DC Comprehensive Plan back in 2006, during the approval process. One of the points I made is that the elements should be ordered, that land use, transportation, and urban design be considered the foundational elements. When all the elements are equal, everything but land use is secondary.

In short, I think that urban design is perhaps the most important element of a city's comprehensive plan, that urban design needs to dictate what is built, where and how on the lot, and that it must connect to the place beyond the lot lines of the specific project.

There are many resources on urban design that I recommend including:

-- Urban Design Compendium (online)
-- Close Encounters with Buildings (Jan Gehl) (online);
-- the DC Urban Design Element of the DC Comprehensive Plan reads very well, is illustrated and lays out the principles (even if no one reads or applies this element to land use decisionmaking and policy in the city...); and
-- Creating a Vibrant City Center, by Cy Paumier. The book is published by the Urban Land Institute, which by the way, has a blog, The Ground Floor. (ULI has an impressive publishing program producing great books and reports, and has a consulting operation, called Advisory Service Panels, both for profit and nonprofit, that provides assessment and improvement reports for tough projects. (If you read these kinds of reports you learn a lot and can find much to think about in terms of your own situation.)

And there are (at least) two very good resources that citizens can use to help evaluate projects, with the end objective of making them better:

-- Urban Design Evaluation guidelines from Philadelphia's Design Advocacy Group;
-- Commercial Design Assessment evaluation form from the Community Design Assessment: A Citizens' Planning Guide published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation

Of course, if your community's regulations don't "have your back," only enlightened developers will be responsive, and you won't get much improvement.

This really matters in the mixed use environment, because buildings with housing are likely to "never" be replaced within our lifetimes, especially if the buildings include condominium housing.

Typically, office buildings can be "refaced" with an updated facade to help the building stay marketable. But no condominium owner is going to agree to a supplemental assessment to pay for an updated facade because the building looks like a dog, because they likely wouldn't see that come back in higher property values. So "what you see is what you get." Forever.

In "City Approves New Strip Mall," the Fairfax Times reports how the City of Fairfax is allowing a typical strip shopping center, albeit with some brick and stone, to be built on a key parcel, currently open space.

Given that most communities have fewer opportunities for breakthrough development, opportunities can't be squandered, and the best urban design, achieving multiple objectives, such as creating a walkable environment rather than strengthening the automobile-centric environment, should be emphasized, especially given the massive increases in the price of gasoline, prices which aren't likely to go down very much, prices that are inducing significant behavior change for many in terms of decisions about tasks, where to live, where to work, and how to get there.

Sadly a Fairfax City Councilmember, just like I do sometimes, is overly enamored of brick and stone, and not paying enough attention to urban design, according to this paragraph from the article:

Councilman Scott Silverthorne expressed his regard of the developer, John Donegan. Donegan's developments are not "just strip malls. They're works of art," Silverthorne said.

Here is some of the art produced by the developer.




But a strip shopping center, even gussied up in brick and stone and using public market buildings as models for a supermarket, is still a parking fronted one or two story strip shopping center that people drive to, a center that is empty and forlorn during all the hours in which it is closed, and an underutilized piece of property that could, if properly developed, have multiple stories with office and residential uses as well.

I'd rather have something like this.


Washington Avenue, Hoboken, New Jersey. Photo by Steve Pinkus.

But if you don't make urban design pre-eminent in your Comprehensive Plan, it doesn't matter how well written the element is. DC's Urban Design Element is great. But I doubt if anyone on the Zoning Commission has ever read it.

Development in DC is never threatened

Harry Jaffe, the co-author of the book Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C., is a columnist for the Examiner. His writings generally, but more lately, in today's "Mayor’s strife with council threatens D.C. development," and the previous column "Redevelopment trumps school reform as top issue," seem to express surprise that development is the number one issue in DC, and that somehow development is "threatened" because of strife between the DC Council and the Executive Branch.

It's as if he never read his own book.

Chapter 4 specifically is about the development regime and agenda under Mayor Barry. (In a blog comment, Reid suggests that perhaps it is likely, and I agree, that co-author Tom Sherwood wrote the sections on how the government worked under the Barry Administration. So maybe Jaffe doesn't really know how the city works.)

-- Book review of Dream City in the Washington Monthly

But the reality is that this way of dealing is nothing unique to the mayoral administration of that period.

After reading the journal article, "The City as a Growth Machine," and later the book that grew out of the paper, Urban Fortunes: Toward a Political Economy of Place, it seemed to me that Dream City could be thought of as one of the many case studies (books, papers, monographs) that have been written exploring the "growth machine" thesis--even though the authors are journalists, not academics.

Abstract from the Growth Machine paper:

A city and, more generally, any locality, is conceived as the areal expression of the interests of some land-based elite. Such an elite is seen to profit through the increasing intensification of the land use of the area in which its members hold a common interest. An elite competes with other land-based elites in an effort to have growth-inducing resources invested within its own area as opposed to that of another. Governmental authority, at the local and nonlocal levels, is utilized to assist in achieving this growth at the expense of competing localities. Conditions of community life are largely a consequence of the social, economic, and political forces embodied in this growth machine.

Development will happen. The executive branch will deal everything away that the developers want. And for the most part, Council will accede to this.

Why should it be any different under Mayor Fenty compared to under Mayor Barry or Mayor Williams.

I wish that instead Mr. Jaffe would write more about why so many of the projects yield so little, are inner focused, and fail to contribute to urban design nor extend the livability of the city.

How the Growth Machine works

Where growth machine theory is a little weak is in describing how the coalition works. That's where urban regime theory, from the field of political science, is more helpful. Political scientist Clarence Stone, a professor at University of Maryland is the dean of the urban regime "school."

I don't think these theories are competing so much as they are reciprocal--different sides of the same coin. "Growth Machine" theory explains the motivation of "the land-based elite," and "urban regime" theory explains in detail how the land-based elite operates and functions.

A couple years ago, Professor Stone was kind enough to send me a recent paper, "Now What? The continuing evolution of Urban Regime analysis." He writes:

An urban regime can be preliminarily defined as the informal arrangements through which a locality is governed (Stone 1989). Because governance is about sustained efforts, it is important to think in agenda terms rather than about stand-alone issues. By agenda I mean the set of challenges which policy makers accord priority. A concern with agendas takes us away from focusing on short-term controversies and instead directs attention to continuing efforts and the level of weight they carry in the political life of a community. Rather than treating issues as if they are disconnected, a governance perspective calls for considering how any given issue fits into a flow of decisions and actions. This approach enlarges the scope of what is being analyzed, looking at the forest not a particular tree here or there. (emphasis added, in this paragraph and below)

In discussing Atlanta, Stone writes: "Land use, transportation, and housing formed an interrelated agenda that the city's major economic interests were keen to advance;" and

By looking closely at the policy role of business leaders and how their position in the civic structure of a community enabled that role, he identified connections between Atlanta's governing coalition and the resources it brought to bear, and on to the scheme of cooperation that made this informal system work. In his own way, Hunter had identified the key elements in an urban regime – governing coalition, agenda, resources, and mode of cooperation. These elements could be brought into the next debate about analyzing local politics, a debate about structural determinism.

In DC, the governing coalition is the Federal City Council and the related interests (such as the property owner members of the Downtown BID). They set the development and political agenda of the city.

The schools reform effort is a classic example. Chancellor Rhee reports to the Federal City Council before she talks to Mayor Fenty...

--Following the Money: All Roads Lead to the Federal City Council a blog entry from State of Columbia about the schools issue
-- THE DISTRICT'S POWER BEHIND THE SCENES/Washington Post-connected business group wields influence over city's legislative agenda, the award-winning article about the Federal City Council from the no-longer-published Common Denominator.

I'm embarrassed...

Population density necessary to support successful transit (Belmont).

that I missed this piece by Roger Lewis in the Washington Post, "Lessons of Arlington's Urban Development Needn't Be Just History," which is discussed in The Overhead Wire. (Reading Roger Lewis' columns for 20 years has been part of my urban design education.)

However, Roger doesn't explain it as I would have exactly, focusing on urban design, population intensity, the ability to add new buildings (Arlington has been able to build more intensively than DC, which is mostly built out + we have the height limit), and the need for station density.

Professionals criticize the DC WMATA system* because it is "polycentric," focused on moving commuters living far out of the city into the downtown.

Polycentric WMATA subway system (from Belmont).

However, there are two exceptions to the problems of polycentricism normally posed by the WMATA subway system in the Washington region:

1. At the core of DC, there are 29 stations in about a 15 square mile area, providing a kind of "monocentric" transit network within the polycentric network. (This functions in a fashion similarly to that of the San Francisco within-the-city MUNI system vis-a-vis the BART system which moves the commuters into the city.)

2. And in Arlington County, rather than focus on commuters by building the Arlington portion of the orange line on I-66, they decided to focus transit within the County, by building it under Wilson Boulevard.

It ends up being a much different focus on transit within a place, not just to and from a place, in terms of the long term effects on land use and mode shift.

But it takes a long time to see the results. In both DC and Arlington County, it has taken 20+ years. Even so, you can see the vital experience of urban design and scale in terms of leveraging transit. Crystal City and Rosslyn are gross. And Wilson Blvd. could be better. I'd take Connecticut Avenue NW any day over those places (well, excluding Van Ness).

Note that as Roger points out that Bethesda needed to have more subway stations in order to better leverage transit, Arlington has four stations in just under 2 miles, the distance from Courthouse Metro to Ballston Metro.

MUNI station density in San Francisco (Belmont).


Anyway, the book that I think is the best book in planning since Death and Life of Great American Cities is Steve Belmont's Cities in Full, published by the American Planning Association, and he discusses the necessity of recentralizing commerce, housing, and transit.

Note that if the separated blue line is to be built to add capacity and redundancy at the core of the city, that would add 7 stations to that 15 square mile area, providing a subway station density of 2.4/square mile.

2001 graphic from the Washington Post on proposed changes for the WMATA system.

* Note that the other place where DC (and the region) lucked out is that the Washington region built a subway _system_ whereas most other next generation transit systems from the 1960s/1970s/1980s built one or two lines.

Just like you need station density within a place, you need a dense transit network, in order to have positive scalar effects from transit.

The question of new leadership for civic groups when material conditions change

Suburban issues are different from urban issues. Colfax Avenue, Lakewood, CO, Robert Adams.

The kinds of issues discussed in yesterday's Post article, "Pr. George's Group Seeks New NAACP Chapter," about creating a new NAACP chapter in Prince George's County are relevant to civic engagement more generally. (Although interestingly enough, I did wonder whether or not the "new" people are as focused as they should be, is Jena truly a top issue for PG residents, and was the NAACP chapter out of touch for not chartering a bus to go there?)

Change is difficult.

Some of the things that influence the environment in DC that "legacy" organizations are having a hard time acknowledging are:

1. The city isn't shrinking, it's growing, so this changes how people should be thinking about their neighborhoods;
2. People tend to focus on their neighborhoods to the exclusion of broader, more "city-wide," considerations;
3. Demographic differences (age, household type, etc.) and changes;
4. A focus on urban sensibilities -- design -- based on walking and transit rather than suburban sensibilities with an automobile-centric focus and connectivity and mobility paradigm;
5. Parking -- on-street car storage -- vs. transportation and mobility more broadly;
6. Class of course...;
7. Changing power relationships (also see the "iron law of oligarchy" via Michels;
8. And the perennial questions of what to focus on, what is the most important.

In regard to the last, last week Harry Jaffe had a column in the Examiner stating that development, not education, is the key issue in the city, in "Redevelopment trumps school reform as top issue ." Well of course. The local industry is construction and real estate, which supports the federal government and resultant commercial utilization of space. (I still think it's ironic that Jaffe is one of the authors of Dream City. It's as if he never read or truly understands his own book!)

And to understand that, read Dream City and "The City as a Growth Machine."

3rd and Pennsylvania Ave. SE.

Tolling a street in Dallas

According to "Highland Park considers plan to make Dallas drivers pay to use stretch of Mockingbird," from the Dallas Morning News, that town is fed up with "through drivers" from Dallas.

Another way to deal with this, because you have to balance regional mobility with more local concerns, is to do HOV-2 on key non-freeway through/commuter corridors during rush periods.

Electing transportation "overseers"

In the DC region, the WMATA board is comprised of officials appointed by DC, Virginia, and Maryland. Some are elected officials, others are not. I wonder at times if they should be elected. On the other hand, since there isn't a dedicated funding system, you need commitment from the local jurisdictions, and officials from the local jurisdictions have that necessary connection.

OTOH/2, you get some people on the board who "could do better."

Maybe the "solution" is to increase the size of the board with some people who run for the privilege of being on the board, people who are popularly elected, to add more accountability and connection to the rider-funder base (residents and citizens of the region).

(CorridorWatch of Texas recently suggested that the board-leadership of the Texas Department of Transportation be reconstituted, that geographic based districts be created, each with one representative popularly elected, and a chair appointed by the Governor. See "CorridorWatch Comments on Sunset Report.")

Sunset provisions for government agencies

Texas law gives government agencies a twelve year life. Toward the end of that cycle the agency is reviewed, and changes are recommended, and the agency is either renewed or closed.

I imagine most agencies are renewed, but the regular evaluation would be helpful. My gf worked for a museum in California that worked on a zero based budgeting system, so each year, you started fresh and had to prove the necessity of your program and expenditures.

Is DC really the #2 tech center in the U.S.?

The Cox Newspapers blog Plugged In reports on a press release from the American Electronics Association about technology-based employment in the U.S., in "Biggest tech cities? Surprise." The list:

Top “Cybercities” - based on total tech employment

1. New York
2. Washington, D.C.
3. San Jose/Silicon Valley
4. Boston
5. Dallas-Fort Worth
6. Los Angeles
7. Chicago
8. Philadelphia
9. Seattle
10. Atlanta

My response:

This is all about what you are measuring. What is more interesting and important, i.e., tech workers involved in for profit business vs. government? tech workers creating products for sale vs. delivering services, # of businesses, size of business, growth of sector, # of new software and hardware businesses created, etc.

In terms of "building a local economy" the questions are broader and the need for more comprehensive data are deeper.

E.g., Richard Florida counts lawyers as creative. But lawyers specializing in assisting tech companies or startups are much different from lawyers who spend their time lobbying govt. for special privileges for established firms and industries, etc.

I will say that while doing errands involving a car, I have been listening to the radio, either WAMU (NPR), WPFW (Pacifica), or WCSP (or whatever the call letters are, from CSPAN).

The CSPAN radio station had a rebroadcast of a forum on Web technologies and the political campaigns. It was fascinating (made me feel old and out of touch too), talking about the three levels of use: for organizing; fundraising; and communicating. It's a lot more than merely top-down communications, but user generated content and network building.

A couple weeks ago, the DC Economic Partnership sponsored a session on DC as the "Knowledge Capital of the World," and there were some great presenters. I made a point about lawyers not producing much, and the one guy representing the software-services industry felt completely opposite from me.

He said his lawyer, who helps technology businesses and startups, is essential to his business. While I was thinking of the lawyers who lobby for government advantages for certain businesses and/or industries at the expense of others.

He made other good points about DC having some advantages as a location for technology firms, since many of the customers are based in the city, and that it's easier to service them from here, rather than traveling back and forth from places like Herndon.

At the session, Sally Kram, a lobbyist for the city's universities, suggested that we consider having a research park in the city. I thought that was interesting. Catholic University has a lot of land that is suitable for such a use. So does the Armed Forces Retirement Home. These locations are particularly close to Howard, CUA, and Trinity (Howard and CUA have Engineering Schools), and not too far from UDC, GWU, Georgetown and American University.

(Alternatively, there is the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus in SE or the Walter Reed Campus in Upper NW.)
------
Anyway, I would say in terms of producing software and hardware, DC is not the #2 technology center in the United States. Maybe in terms of consuming technology and servicing the use of technology... but that is a different question, albeit great for the companies that sell services to large institutions like government agencies.

Lifestyle changes due to high gas prices

Pasadena light rail del mar station
Originally uploaded by faceless b

(Gold line train exiting Del Mar Station, Pasadena. Photo: EPA Smart Growth, via Flickr and faceless b.)

1. The Wall Street Journal had a couple articles last week about the increased demand for transit-located housing, "Suburbs a Mile Too Far for Some," and how the high-cost of gasoline may have reached the tipping point required for behavior change, in "Have U.S. Drivers Reached Filling Point of No Return?."

From the latter article:

"I think we've reached a tipping point," said University of California, San Diego, economist James Hamilton. "There are a lot of hard numbers that show that we've actually reached a point where people are responding."

The volume of cars on U.S. roads began slipping in November below year-ago levels. The Federal Highway Administration's latest figures, for March, show U.S. drivers logged 11 billion fewer miles than a year earlier. That is a 4.3% drop and the biggest-ever year-over-year reduction in miles driven.

A fall in gasoline prices might reverse the trend. But the last time the U.S. saw such a lasting decline in traffic volume was when gas prices surged in 1979. In the years that followed, the U.S. saw a reduction in energy consumption that wasn't reversed until the early 1990s.

The term "tipping point," made fashionable after Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 book of the same name, became part of the academic vernacular after a 1971 paper in which Nobel laureate economist Thomas Schelling showed how white families leaving a neighborhood as black families moved in induced other whites to leave as well.

While the term has come to refer to any point when a gradual change quickens and becomes irreversible, Columbia Business School economist Geoffrey Heal said there has been a behavioral shift in energy consumption that is analogous to what Mr. Schelling described. "If enough people like you ride the bus, you'll be more willing to ride the bus," he said.

For the past four years, Ann Arbor, Mich., has encouraged people to "curb" their cars in May and take other forms of transportation. For the first three years of the program, an average of 800 people participated. This year, 1,482 did.

"You get enough people taking the bus or getting on their bicycle, more people get the sense that it's not such a crazy idea," said Nancy Shore, director of getDowntown, a group devoted to easing congestion in Ann Arbor.

2. The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports that "More people are bringing bicycles along on their mass transit commutes." The story has links to four videos on bicycling.

Bicycles are the way to deal with "the last mile" issue of commuting by transit, because in most instances, your final destination doesn't coincide with the transit station/stop where your public transit ride ends. It also adds a great deal of span to your ability to accomplish tasks and get things done within your greater neighborhood, provided that there are amenities present. (Bikes are faster than walking.)

3. Related to this is thinking about transit stations in a new dimension. Sure, some stations have mailboxes and ATM machines, but over time, more amenities could be added to station footprints, just as in the old days of the small service-oriented commercial districts that popped up around railroad stations.

This would dovetail with my idea that in the hours that the subway system is closed, there could be a "Nite Owl" bus service paralleling the routes, stopping at the stations, and making stops en route if requested by riders.

If you had a diner say at the Fort Totten Station, it could become a hotbed of hopefully positive late night activity as part of the station area.