Cool bicycle planning stuff

1. Requirements in New York City for bicycle accommodation in office buildings in with freight elevators has just gone into effect. See "Clearing a Path for Bikes in City Office Buildings" from the New York Times. The most enlightened of property owners and managers are already developing bicycle access plans.

Last night at the NACTO unveiling of their "Cities for Cycling" initiative, Janette Sadik-Khan, the Transportation Commissioner of NYC and the chair of NACTO, mentioned that the #1 barrier to bicycling to work as indicated through surveys is secure parking--people are worried, justifiably, that leaving a bike outside for 8 or more hours daily increases the likelihood that the bike will be stolen or vandalized. Hence the new law.

2. Speaking of the NACTO meeting, while it was great that David Bryne of the Talking Heads spoke (he is on a book tour promoting his new book Bicycle Diaries) and Rep. Earl Blumanaur of Oregon (Portland), the most consistent advocate for sustainable transportation that "we" have in Congress, the real star to my way of thinking was Commissioner Sadik-Khan. From "Names & Faces" in today's Washington Post:

... Byrne told us that he has "four or five" bikes and that he likes to lend them to friends who come visit in New York. So how can more people be persuaded to bike? Safer roads (with more bike lanes) and simpler bikes (with fewer parts), Byrne says. "That takes part of the fear away."

(And it was very clear to me that the moderator, the urban policy guru from Brookings Institution, Bruce Katz, doesn't bicycle. It's great that bicycling is the new wonder bread of sustainable urban transportation policy, but I don't have much time to listen to people who don't have the knowledge to be able to teach me stuff.)

The new initiative is focused on bringing together/codifying the best practices for bicycle "facilities" -- the infrastructure improvements -- from the leading cities, and creating a master manual on the subject.

3. From some of the questions in the audience and the various panelists responses, I got the sense that Rep. Blumenaur is pretty distant from his experience as Commissioner of Transportation in Portland.

My focus when I work on a planning project is to look at what are the intended outcomes, determine whether the outcomes are being realized, and then look "backwards" at the processes and organizational and systems relationships to determine why or why not.

My focus is on systems and on the most "elegant" way to institute and inculcate change. (For example my recent blog entries on "walk to school" programs in Maryland and how the simplest way to implement "massive change" is to require the school districts to provide balanced transportation planning and support, rather than merely focus on school bus operations. Right now, except in the most enlightened school districts, individual schools are on their own. And the problem with the Federal Walk to School program and the money it can provide for improvements is that the reporting and documentation requirements are so onerous, that many planning and transportation/public works agencies don't want to do the projects, because the many hours that are required, in agencies that are for the most part short staffed.)

3. For example, when one federal employee made the very good point that federal agencies in the city do support transit (most provide transit benefits), their support of bicycling is pretty minimal.

The problem is that the Transportation Element in the "Federal Elements" of the DC Comprehensive Plan, produced by the National Capital Planning Commission, is pretty weak.

And while GSA has a transportation demand management program too, it needs to be more robust.

Try to find it on their website. I can't. And they don't return calls and email queries...

It's not getting 535 people in Congress to pass a bill, and President Obama to sign it (the first inclination of a legislator, even Rep. Blumenaur, is to pass a new law), it's to deal with NCPC and GSA to make transportation demand management planning, and resultant improved support for bicycling, key to their planning and building management practices.

4. At the local level, it's a question of getting "Departments of Public Works" to split off their transportation function or at least retitle it from "public works" to transportation, as the enlightened cities that are members of are doing.

On the other hand, the real issue is getting more than a title change, but to have the department look at transportation as their primary responsibility, with optimal mobility as the goal, rather than their primary responsibility as moving motor vehicles as quick and as safely as possible.

Montgomery County Maryland demonstrates that just because you create a department called Transportation, doesn't mean that it is necessarily progressive, and focused on optimal mobility. Even though the agency runs a national best practice model of suburban bus transportation, the agency cares more about automobiles than it does about optimal mobility overall, and better support and expansion of transit, bicycling, and placemaking and pedestrian programs.

I don't see how Rep. Blumenaur can get a law passed at automatically converts our local departments of public works into balanced and sustainable transportation converts and advocates.

That's a problem we have to grapple with on our own. (And Bruce Katz and David Byrne can't help us with that either.)

It's a classic problem of organizational change, culture, and long time frames.

It's a campaign, and of course, having progressive elected and appointed officials helps considerably.

5. One of the other questions/points was a real tough one. She mentioned that bicycling is made out to be an urban issue/technology/solution, but what about suburbs and exurbs (and presumably small towns)?

Bicycle lane (wide shoulder? but it is 5 feet) on Queens Chapel Road (a state highway) in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Obviously, that's an issue that I am dealing with right now. Now here I am, the center city advocate, serving as a bicycling and walking planner in a suburban county (at least through next June) that is very large geographically, with a goodly number of residents (not one million, but a lot of people nonetheless), major work destinations, and a street network that doesn't have a lot of extra room for bicycle lanes, and at one time where building codes didn't require sidewalks (and in some instances with waivers, developers can still get out of constructing sidewalks).

The reality is that you have to plan for each type of land and use form somewhat differently. The opportunities for "transportational" bicycling, and that is truly what the focus is in the profession right now--the reality is that while David Byrne and people like him make bicycling fashionable--what we are concerned with is getting more people to bicycle to places instead of driving--are in denser areas.

In short, we aren't focused on making bicycling beautiful and getting everyone bicycling as much as we are focused on getting people to shift trips from automobiles to bicycling, walking, and transit. E.g., on the street, you can fit six moving bicycles into the space occupied by one car. So it's really about efficiency, not fashion, irrespective of fashion.

"Real bicyclists" rarely look or dress like this. A bicycle isn't an accessory, but a tool. Caption: Carol Christian Poell tanned 'parkachute' vest with built-in raincoat $5,575, and Julius cotton and cashmere ribbed T-shirt, $350, both at Atelier; Trussardi pleated trousers, $695 Barneys; hooded sleeveless sweater, $509, and long distressed leather boots, $1,528, both at Rick Owens. Photo: Joe Mama Nitzberg for The New York Times

And when you have to spend millions of dollars to build facilities, acquire land, and maintain the facilities, in a scenario of limited funds, you want to spend this money where it will have the most impact. It seems unequitable, but it is really about impact and efficiency. (The DC Pedestrian Master Plan has a nice appendix on measuring pedestrian potential as a way to prioritize and phase improvements and investments.)

Even so, in the context of the plan I am working on, I am trying to mention some of these issues, even when they are out of the scope of the study. So that means promoting bicycling in rural areas, comparable to how Carroll County, Maryland does it, or Worcester and other counties in Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware do with the Great Delmarva Bicycle Trail. See "They packed up the kids and pedaled 235 miles in six days" from the Boston Globe. It means laying out a master off-road trail network. And thinking about accommodating mountain biking in certain parks.

Will, Elizabeth, Anna, and Jennifer Skerrett leave Trap Pond State Park in Laurel, Del., last month. (Wessel Kok for The Boston Globe)

And it means coming up with differential policies, practices, and facilities based on the land use type and density.

To repeat:

My focus when I work on a planning project is to look at what are the intended outcomes, determine whether the outcomes are being realized, and then look "backwards" at the processes and organizational and systems relationships to determine why or why not. My focus is on systems and on the most "elegant" way to institute and inculcate change.

So working in this particular environment is a particularly rich opportunity for learning and figuring out things and for coming up with more great insights on how to make this work.

Now the challenge is to convert those insights into books and other things (e.g., I am speaking to a University transportation planning department in March on extending and testing two of the concepts I've laid out, the national and metropolitan transit network and the transit shed/mobility shed) in order to make the process of change more understandable and efficient.

MD 193, University Boulevard, College Park, Maryland.