The house as a haven and refuge, nimbyism, and urban-ness

Adams Morgan Day--a fun festival serving the city, or an abomination, an unreasonable sacrifice provided to the city on the part of Adams-Morgan residents?

I am not quite finished reading Cameron Logan's dissertation on planning in DC, covering the period from 1950-1990, and mostly dealing with the role of historic preservation in the city's planning processes, and how it organized neighborhood stabilization in response to expansion of downtown northward (Dupont Circle) and the U.S. Capitol Complex (Capitol Hill), and how developers and real estate interests learned to respond and reshape the debate in the 1980s, under a particularly hospitable political regime (Marion Barry).

(I will be writing more about it, once I finish it in a couple days.)

One of the interesting things that I am pondering is how for many people involved in the neighborhood preservation movement, there wasn't an interest in creating the kind of urban vitality of mixed use and activities at different times of the day that is discussed in say, Death and Life of the Great American City, the Jane Jacobs classic.

This could have been because of the development of more nucleated families, and a more self-involved household focus, rather than a more externally connected, community-neighborhood involved perspective. Clare Cooper Marcus, in "The House as a Symbol of Self" says that for the most part, people desire a house form that is "separate, unique, private and protected" while Delores Hayden writes in Redesigning the American Dream about the haven strategy, where the house--home--serves as a haven, a refuge, from the exploitation and competition of the mass market and the industrial world.

In the neighborhood preservation movement in DC (as opposed to the preservation movement focused on downtown buildings), for the most part people were focused on saving residential building stock, and perhaps because often preservation was a protective response to encroachment by commercial real estate developments, they were less inclined to be interested in or supportive of retail and other commercial activities.

Neighborhood commercial district cartoon, Peter Wallace.

Logan describes some discussions of neighborhood vitality including local retail in a positive light. Interestingly, these perspectives came from people with commercial interests, a real estate business proprietor key to resuscitation of the Capitol Hill neighborhood (Barbara Held), and from the mid-1970s editor of the community newspaper The Intowner, which still serves DC's "mid-city" neighborhoods.

I wonder if there really is a widespread commitment to urban-ness, mixed use, variety of activities, and vitality in the center city? Maybe there isn't?

I ask this question because on the ANC6A listserv, there is a negative thread about the recent National Marathon, which involved, besides running, the closing of a number of streets in Capitol Hill for a goodly part of one day. (Judging by some of the postings when the Marathon happened, one of the problems is inadequate training for the people, including police, working the Marathon, because for the most part when queried, they were unable to provide alternate route information.) One of the respondees wrote (edited):

There is an ever increasing number of races and other such events that burden the Capitol Hill community, often drawing large crowds and buses, and forcing traffic and parking restrictions. David has a point that it's time that other sections of the City share the wealth and/or the burdens.

Granted, I don't live in that area now. But I tend to think of street closures as temporary events that can be dealt with, minor annoyances that can be responded to with "work-arounds," but also part of the "ballet" of civic life and urban vitality.

As a resident in my neighborhood, I give up some things on occasion (I can hear loudspeakers for sporting events at Coolidge High School even though I live three blocks away; the pool is closed on occasion for swim meets; the occasional train whistle on the Metropolitan Branch railroad line; etc.), in favor of serving others, and I expect that "what goes around, comes around" -- that I get things back too, when I go to activities in other neighborhoods, such as Adams-Morgan Day, which can cause hardships for people in that neighborhood on that day, even as people like me reap the benefits.

Given that I have been pondering civic engagement and planning issues for the past few days in the context of Cameron's dissertation, I have been wondering if the idea of what it means to live urbanistically is a construct also, a construct that few residents really have an interest in or support generally, whether or not they face specific development threats from time to time, and utilize preservation policy or other neighborhood or community organizing strategies as a way to respond?

Maybe nimbyism is merely a smaller piece of a much larger problem?

Interestingly, while discussions of diversity talk about the value of different perspectives, research by people like Robert Putnam finds more civic involvement in more homogeneous communities.

I talked with Anwar Saleem of H Street Main Street about doing a session at next year's Main Street conference about the "difficulties" of doing commercial district and community revitalization activities in "hetereogeneous" communities. It's very difficult. That's what people have spent the last ten years learning on H Street. Sadly, the Main Street commercial district revitalization model doesn't adequately prepare volunteers for this reality.

Impromptu bus bench, Wilson Lane, Bethesda

Impromptu bus bench, Wilson Lane, Bethesda
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Jim Graham and dog, Washington Parks and People project, Columbia Heights

Jim Graham and dog, Washington Parks and People project, Columbia Heights
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Another illustration of why the Urban Design Element should be the guiding (primary) element of DC's Comprehensive Land Use Plan

These rowhouses in Brightwood, probably constructed in the late 1920s or the early 1930s, have rear entry basement garages.

Is the discussion around the entry, "Ticketing of cars in public space reaches Capitol Hill" on Greater Greater Washington. Without a framework for understanding how the city is put together, or the spatial relationship between houses, blocks, and districts, and what these relationships were when particular neighborhoods were constructed, you can't come to a common understanding of how to deal with automobility vs. livability in the context of the city.

See the Urban Design Element from the 2006 Comprehensive Land Use Plan for the District of Columbia.

Also see these past entries from the last couple months:

-- Parking in historic districts
-- Urban design, sprawl and the automobile

which promotes linking urban design principles from the period of significance for particular historic districts to transportation policies, specifically parking policies and regulations in the first entry, and more generally, in the second entry.

Pavement engineering vs. pimples on the streets

Woonerf. Photo source unknown.

I "love" ANC6A. I think they are one of the best ANCs in DC. However, for the most part the neighborhood still thinks about traffic "calming" rather than a more fundamental approach (as advocated in the previous entry): that neighborhood streets should be built using neighborhood-appropriate materials, rather than to standard technologies capable of allowing cars to drive in excess of 50 mph.

ANC6A communicated to the DC Dept. of Transportation, asking for action on 14 outstanding matters. On the list, 11 have to do with traffic calming (and angle parking is a good tactic). But putting a speed hump on a street doesn't get to the real issue:

1. Transportation audit to implement traffic calming measures for 1300 block of G Street, NE submitted November 2008.
2. Transportation audit to implement traffic calming measures between the 800 and 1000 blocks of G Street, NE submitted November 2008.
3. Transportation audit to implement traffic calming measures between the 600 block of 9th Street, NE submitted November 2008.
4. Transportation audit for 500, 600, 700, 800, and 900 blocks of 13th Street, NE submitted March 2008.
5. Transportation audit for 800 and 900 blocks of 12th Street, NE submitted March 2008.
6. Speed hump request for the 1300 block of Emerald Street, NE submitted June 2008.
7. Speed hump request for the 1200, 1300, and 1400 blocks of E Street, NE submitted August 2008.
8. Request for analysis of angle parking on the 500 block of Tennessee Avenue, NE submitted August 2008.
9. Request for transportation audit of 1600 Rosedale Street, NE submitted October 2007 and resubmitted May 2008.
10. Request for review of paving in public space at 901-903 D Street, NE submitted January 2009.
11. ANC request for pedestrian safety improvements at uncontrolled pedestrian crosswalks across Maryland Avenue at 10th Street, NE submitted March 2008.

Belgian block for neighborhood streets!

This many year old report from the UK, "Living Spaces: Cleaner, Safer, Greener" is very good, and opens your eyes to rethinking streets and places.

Also see "The Woonerf Deficit" from the New York Observer. From "Taking Back the Streets" in the New York Times:

The Woonerf

“Twenty or thirty years ago we had two different types of streets to choose from,” said Jan Gehl, an urban planner from Copenhagen who is advising the Transportation Department on ways to revamp New York’s public spaces. “One was the traffic street and the other was the pedestrian mall. Now we have about eight streets to choose from.”

One such street is the woonerf. Pioneered in the Netherlands — the word roughly translates as “living street” — the woonerf erases the boundary between sidewalk and street to give pedestrians the same clout as cars. Elements like traffic lights, stop signs, lane markings and crossing signals are removed, while the level of the street is raised to the same height as the sidewalk.

A woonerf, which is surfaced with paving blocks to signal a pedestrian-priority zone, is, in effect, an outdoor living room, with furniture to encourage the social use of the street. Surprisingly, it results in drastically slower traffic, since the woonerf is a people-first zone and cars enter it more warily. “The idea is that people shall look each other in the eye and maneuver in respect of each other,” Mr. Gehl said.

Speed bump (in Mount Rainier, Maryland).

Another example of better engineering of road materials making real change

Workers installed zigzag paint to slow drivers before this trail crossing. (Mike Salmon, VDOT).

The Post's Dr. Gridlock wrote, in "Get There: VDOT Tries Paint to Promote Road Safety" about Virginia's test of pavement marking at an entrance of the Washington and Old Dominion Trail, in order to better regulate "driver-trail user interaction." His column starts:

Traffic engineers are always trying to get drivers to pay attention to the road. Virginia is experimenting with one of those methods on two roads in Loudoun County where the Washington & Old Dominion Trail crosses.

This week, Virginia Department of Transportation workers painted zigzag white lines along Belmont Ridge Road where it approaches the trail crossing. They will do the same on Sterling Boulevard next week, then study the results to see if the paint should be applied elsewhere as well.

I think we can rest assured that for the most part, drivers won't pay much attention to lines on the road, even if painted differently. This was discussed in Sunday's Dr. Gridlock column, where Jack Delaney of Vienna, Virginia writes:

I first saw that on Saturday [April 18] when I was riding the trail from Sterling to Purcellville and can report that the zigzag lines appear to have no effect on drivers.

Cars and trucks continue to travel this road like it's a NASCAR track. This is a tough situation to solve, as both the northbound and southbound lanes of Belmont Ridge Road slope down to the intersection with the W&OD. The road design encourages cars to speed up as they approach the intersection, and painted lines will not change that.

As Malcolm Gladwell wrote in 2001 in the New Yorker, in "Wrong Turn: How the fight to make America's highways safer went off course," for the most part highway systems are designed so that people don't have to pay that much attention to what they are doing, cars are better designed and include safety devices to reduce the impact and damage from inevitable accidents, but as a result, people develop a kind of "inattentional blindness." From the article:

There is a part of driving that is automatic and routine. There is a second part of driving that is completely unpredictable, and that is the part that requires attention." This is what Simons found with his gorilla, and it is the scariest part of inattentional blindness. People allow themselves to be distracted while driving because they think that they will still be able to pay attention to anomalies. But it is precisely those anomalous things, those deviations from the expected script, which they won't see.

Marc Green, a psychologist with an accident-consulting firm in Toronto, once worked on a case where a woman hit a bicyclist with her car. "She was pulling into a gas station," Green says. "It was five o'clock in the morning. She'd done that almost every day for a year. She looks to the left, and then she hears a thud. There's a bicyclist on the ground. She'd looked down that sidewalk nearly every day for a year and never seen anybody. She adaptively learned to ignore what was on that sidewalk because it was useless information. She may actually have turned her eyes toward him and failed to see him." Green says that, once you understand why the woman failed to see the bicyclist, the crash comes to seem almost inevitable.

In my opinion (hey, I am not a traffic researcher), painted lines aren't enough to change people's behavior, you have to change the pavement type. Belgian Block for example, provides physical (the road is a bit bumpy compared to traditional concrete or asphalt), visual (the road looks different), and aural (the sound of driving on Belgian Block is different from driving on smooth concrete or asphalt).

On the stone paver street between the East and West buildings of the National Gallery of Art you never see cars drive fast. Everything about the environment communicates that you should drive slowly.

I suppose this is the philosophy in part behind "the naked street" concept advocated by Hans Monderman (now deceased). I have problems with this concept not because I don't think it's a good idea, but because of the problems discussed in the Gladwell article. I think we can get to the point (maybe) that Monderman suggested, but that we have to move there in steps. The first step is to begin "changing up" pavement types according to the place conditions of the area bounded by the road.

This means that streets by parks, commercial districts (suggested by Andrew Aurbach), schools, streets say around college unions and college libraries (i.e., around the Marvin Center and Gelman Library at George Washington University), public markets (Eastern Market) should be paved with stone pavers and blocks, just like how the street is paved between the east and west wings of the National Gallery of Art.

Cars never seem to drive that fast on the 900 and 1000 blocks of South Carolina Avenue SE, just a couple blocks east of Eastern Market in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

We understand the attractiveness of brick and/or conglomerate sidewalks in historic districts and commercial districts. We need to make an intellectual jump and begin changing the pavement types of the streets. Right now, for cost reasons, most local transportation departments (including DC's) don't favor this. But these are investments that last 100 years--for the most part--while every 10-15 years, asphalt roads have to be resurfaced.

So from a lifecycle standpoint, not to mention from having "complete places" as a foundational policy goal and priority in a local transportation plan, these kinds of investments are justified and worth spending money on.

Historic preservation and economic development... it's the right thing to do

Today, the National Trust for Historic Preservation will release its list of threatened resources. See "Preservation Group Lists 11 Sites in Need" from the Post, and the press release from the Trust, "America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places." From the article:

The organization is supporting legislation recently introduced in Congress that would provide financial incentives to owners of older and historic homes and commercial properties to make the structures more energy-efficient. ...

The trust has typically used arguments such as historic significance or the prospect of economic revitalization to save endangered locations. This year, the group is highlighting the environmental benefits of restoring existing infrastructure and buildings, citing studies showing that 35 to 50 years may be needed before an energy-efficient new building saves the amount of energy lost in demolishing an existing structure.

In my opinion, the best writer-thinker in the preservation field is appraiser and economist Don Rypkema. His website has two different blogs, one focuses on domestic issues, and Heritage Strategies is about international issues.

I have links to a number of his papers on this blog:

-- Affordable Housing and Historic Preservation: The Missed Connection
-- Culture, Historic Preservation and Economic Development in the 21st Century
-- Economic Power of Historic Preservation (Paper)
-- Profiting Through Preservation (report/New York State)
-- and on DC specifically, he wrote a "vision policy paper" for consideration during the Comprehensive Plan re-write process in 2005/2006, "Historic Preservation's Role in DC's Future."

The funny thing is that the National Trust's primary promotional thrust these days is around sustainability and greening. Don't get me wrong, that is incredibly important.

But at the same time, during a national economic crisis and the continued decline of most center cities, historic preservation is both:

(1) a jobs development tactic; and (2) the only real sustainable strategy for center city revitalization. (I am not going to address the second point in this particular entry as regular readers know that it is, fundamentally, all I write about.)

The Economic Power paper discusses the economic impact of preservation in detail. But the basic point is this:

in new construction, half the cost of a project is for materials (usually sourced from non-local sources) and half for labor; while in rehabilitation of "old" buildings, 80% of the cost of the project is labor and 20% on materials.

So if you want to put people to work on construction projects, preservation projects make a lot of sense.

In this entry in the Heritage Strategies blog, "Not only are the French smarter, so are the Norwegians" Don discusses the difference between the Norwegian stimulus package and the U.S. equivalent. According to the entry, the Norwegian stimulus package is based on four principles:

• The measures must have a speedy effect on the labor market
• The measures must have specific target objectives
• The measures must be limited in time
• The measures shall strengthen the Government in its policies for the environment and income distribution.

I happen to think this is an excellent set of principles. But others could have a different list. The trouble in the US is that there is no set of principles upon which we are encumbering 3 generations to repay.

And how did Norway commit their stimulus money to be consistent with these principles?

• Measures for increased energy efficiency $183,529,000
• Repair and development of railway system $198,976,000
• CO2 cleaning $147,129,000
• Footpaths/sidewalks and bicycle roads $ 76,471,000
• Nature management and Cultural Heritage $ 52,000,000
• Environment research on sea wind turbines $ 11,471,000
• Charging stations for electric cars $ 7,647,000
• Bio Energy $ 7,647,000

The Cultural Heritage portion of that was around $34,000,000 and was divided as follows:

• Rehabilitation and maintenance of privately owned, protected property $11.6 Million
• Technical and industrial heritage, vessels and centers $6.9 Million
• Rock art, archeology, and universal access $3.8 Million
• Fire safety for historic wood buildings, medieval and important churches $11.8 Million

Why did they do this? Because they learned in the last recession that: a) it worked putting people back to work and training workers for the future; and b) it met the principles they established.

Virtually all the line items in the Norwegian stimulus package are long term investments. Almost none in the US stimulus package are.

Chris Argyris spent his academic career studying and working to make more effective, learning and action in organizations. This webpage discusses the basic points:

-- that people have an espoused theory of how they respond and act;
-- which usually differs from how they act in specific situations;
-- that single loop learning doesn't question the basic principles of an approach;
-- and double loop learning does.

From chris argyris: theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning:

Single-loop learning seems to be present when goals, values, frameworks and, to a significant extent, strategies are taken for granted. The emphasis is on ‘techniques and making techniques more efficient’ (Usher and Bryant: 1989: 87) Any reflection is directed toward making the strategy more effective. Double-loop learning, in contrast, ‘involves questioning the role of the framing and learning systems which underlie actual goals and strategies (op. cit.).

This graphic from the website shows the difference between the two forms of learning. In short, in double loop learning there is a feedback and consideration loop (feedback loop is the term used in systems theory), and there is no feedback loop in single loop learning.

I think we are a single loop society, one where for the most part, our organizational systems, especially political and governance institutions, are resistant to learning and improving.

A columnist in the Philadelphia Inquirer was lamenting a kind of backwardness on the part of Philadelphians in "Obsession with the past obscures Phila.'s future," but I think she wasn't looking broadly enough. Note that the headline doesn't accurately reflect the two sentences in her column that I found most relevant. She wrote:

One of Philadelphia's great problems, I've noted before, is Philadelphians. People don't leave enough or get away to somewhere exotic, like, say, Maryland. People don't know how to do things differently - or better - due to a lack of knowledge and contrast.

But I think this is a "condition" endemic to the country, and is one that is present in many other places across the United States.

The "rational planning" model is supposed to have a feedback loop. So in theory with each planning iteration, we should get more capable and better, ever evolving and improving results should be obtained.

But that's not happening.

How we deal with historic preservation is but one example of the problem.

Graffiti incorporating DC flag graphic elements

Graffiti incorporating DC flag graphic elements
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Transit grousing in Baltimore

Baltimore Light Rail across from the Convention Center.

Because the light rail in Baltimore is so clunky--it's first generation high floor cars, requiring special platforms and junkying up the streetscape, most Baltimoreans seem to prefer undergrounding transit, not believing that there could be better light rail above ground than what they have currently.

(Low floor) Eastbound MAX Light Rail at 10th Avenue, Ticket Machine, Passengers, Miles Hochstein, Portland Ground.

Yesterday's Baltimore Sun has a long piece about the latest discussions around the "Red Line," in Baltimore, which is supposed to be an east-west light rail line, part underground and part above ground. People at both ends, upscaling Canton, and the African-American neighborhood of Edmonston, are clamoring for undergrounding. See "Canton residents oppose transit plan."


I can't remember on what Bethesda street I saw this Purple Line protest sign, which is protesting alignments, preferring an alignment north of Bethesda, connecting to the Medical Center station.

Complete places vs. complete streets as a planning principle

Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery comic strip, 3/31/2009.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a column about the impact of critical mass in bicycling and how it changes planning. See "Bicyclists are changing our streets and cities." From the article:

A backstage hero of Jeff Mapes' book "Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities" is an intense young bureaucrat named Mia Birk, who put Portland on a "road diet" and created bike lanes across the Rose City.

"The motto was, 'Better to ask forgiveness than permission," joked Mapes. It sums up why a sweeping change in transportation policy has caught hold from New York City to Louisville, Ky., to such "Left Coast" cities as Seattle, Portland and Davis, Calif.

In Portland, where he is a political writer with The Oregonian, Mapes' bike commutes were made safer when the city shut down one entrance ramp to the Hawthorne Bridge that was causing bike-car conflicts.

"A movement has grown slowly, under the radar screen, which people are hardly aware is going on," Mapes told a Tuesday night forum sponsored by the Cascade Bicycle Club. ...

"I've seen in Portland how just an approximate 5 percent share for biking -- more than five times the national average -- has changed the city," writes Mapes. "And I see how learning to ride my bike in the city has changed my life. I still have a car and I still appreciate its utility. But I don't worry about high gas prices, road congestion or lack of parking downtown." ...

Mapes takes us to even more pedal-friendly cities. In Amsterdam, 40 percent of non-walking trips are by bike. He quotes, approvingly, Jack Wolters, the city's top traffic-safety officer: "The target of the police is not to control cyclists and pedestrians. It is to control the most dangerous part, motorcar drivers."

Such attitudes can make motorists skin crawl on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. "Some people don't like bikes on the road," Mapes said Tuesday. "Transition is hard."

In my forthcoming set of pieces on a transportation vision plan for DC, one of the organizing principles is what I call "complete places." Typically, in transportation there is the concept of "complete streets," which are defined as:

The streets of our cities and towns ought to be for everyone, whether young or old, motorist or bicyclist, walker or wheelchair user, bus rider or shopkeeper. But too many of our streets are designed only for speeding cars, or worse, creeping traffic jams. They’re unsafe for people on foot or bike — and unpleasant for everybody. (From the Complete Streets website.)

Really, what we need are "complete" livable "places"--not just the infrastructure of the streets and sidewalks and transit, but the entire physical, social, and economic environment, from a quality commercial district in walking distance full of functioning, interesting businesses to well-functioning neighborhood schools, etc.

I don't know what this should be called, PPS calls it "placemaking." I think you could call it "place-oriented development" (rather than "transit-oriented development") but that seems so cold--POD? Right now, I just call it "complete places."

When you focus on "complete" "streets" I think you still end up focusing more on mobility and automobility than you do on livability. Streets aren't just for mobility, they are places where people live, where they socialize, where they shop and conduct business, etc.

See "Pride of Place," about the Project for Public Spaces and placemaking, from Governing Magazine, and Dan Burden's 12 points of "What makes a community walkable?"

Design, ideas and art happens here

Design, ideas and art happens here
Originally uploaded by rllayman

MySpace graffiti

MySpace graffiti
Originally uploaded by rllayman

? (on 14th Street)

Neighborhood clocks at Home Rule

Neighborhood clocks at Home Rule
Originally uploaded by rllayman

The Home Rule store is on 14th Street.

Boring (very institutional) public art

art as art or art and meaning for art in transit stations? GGW discusses the proposed public art for stations on the Silver Line and at Farragut North station on the red line in "Metro reveals planned art for Silver Line stations."

This is an extract (slightly edited) of a blog entry from 2005, on public art on the Tri-Met Yellow Line in Portland, Oregon, speaking of challenging convention...

Tri-Met has guts, so does Portland (it's amazing to compare what Portland did in terms of public art on the Yellow Line vs. what most cities do and certainly the unwillingness to accept challenging art on the World Trade Center site in Manhattan). They committed to public art for the entire Yellow Line-Interstate Highway project. Each station has different public art themes.

I think the art at the Expo Center is perhaps the most powerful public art installation, one funded by a local government, that I have ever seen. The Expo Center was the site of a major Japanese-American relocation camp during World War II, when Japanese-Americans were interned on reservations out of beliefs that there were a threat to national security. The Expo Center served as a classification and embarkation station.

Valerie Otani addresses the theme of Japanese relocation during World War II at the site of the 1942 Portland Assembly Center. Traditional Japanese timber gates strung with metal "internee ID tags" mark station entrances.


Vintage news articles are etched in steel and wrapped around the gate legs. (The artist spoke to us on our tour.) And the headlines of the newspapers included in the work were viciously, virulently racist. These were not renegade newspapers, these were the daily newspapers of Portland, Oregon, reflecting the sentiment of the time.

What blows me away about this installation is that the Tri-Met transportation authority isn't gutless, that they spent public money on challenging public art. I just don't see that kind of willingness to challenge convention being present on the part of typical government agencies or elected officials in the DC region.

The second site is Vanport, which was an African-American community surrounding a steel plant. The land was below sea level, and protected by levees. When the levees broke in 1948, the community was wiped out, in a fashion similar to what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. While only 15 people died, 20,000 people were left homeless. At this site, renditions of objects once owned by the people that lived there--these objects "bubble up" still--after rains and floods of this now wetland area--are built into the walls and benches.


Art for Metro Stations (boring...)

Image and caption from Greater Greater Washington. Proposed artwork for Metro stations. Left side, starting from top: Tysons East (Martin Donlin), Tysons Central 123 (Ray King), Farragut North (Jefre Manuel). Right side from top: Tysons West (Barbara Grygutis), Tysons Central 7 (David Dahlquist).

Check out this old publication from the Federal Transit Administration, Arts in Transit ... Making it Happen

and this: TriMet: About TriMet - Public Art Program. Tri-Met has also published guidebooks to the public art on the Interstate and Westside light rail lines.

USDOT and NCPC, not GSA, should appoint members to the WMATA Board

Today, the Post editorializes about the federal bill to provided payment of $150 million/year for ten years to WMATA, in return for DC, MD, and Virginia (1) agreeing to match this appropriation with dedicated funding streams for the WMATA transit system; and (2) adding to the WMATA Board of Directors representatives from the federal government. See "Metro: Back on Track: Jim Graham rightly decides that the moral high ground isn't worth millions of dollars in federal funding."

The bill calls for four federal members, two voting members and two alternates. (Each jurisdiction has four members, two voting members and two alternates.)

But the General Services Administration mostly manages federal property and buys goods and services (like computers). GSA does work with agencies on transportation management planning when they open new facilities. But this part of their capability isn't disclosed on their website, and in any case, it's not likely that the GSA considers transportation policy for the region in the context of what I call the Washington Metropolitan Transit Network. From the GSA website:

Transportation Programs Synopsis

GSA has the knowledge, the expertise, and the most up-to-date information to meet an agency's transportation needs. The Transportation, Delivery and Relocation Solutions Schedule provides Domestic Delivery Services, Employee Relocation Services, Local Courier Services as well as Office Relocation Services. The Rental Supplemental Vehicle Program is a relatively new offering under the Schedule. GSA also provides freight and household goods services to federal civilian agencies.

See how GSA's transportation solutions can provide valuable services by viewing this Transportation Program Synopsis.

Also see the Transportation section of the GSA website.

Instead, it makes more sense for the National Capital Planning Commission, the planning agency for the Executive branch of the Federal Government, and the US Department of Transportation, should be involved in appointing members to the WMATA Board of Directors.

As part of its responsibilities, the NCPC produces the Federal Elements of the DC Comprehensive Land Use Plan. One of the elements is on Transportation. And NCPC also assists federal agencies (excluding Congress) with transportation demand management planning.

The NCPC Transportation Management Handbook. From the handbook:

GSA

The General Service Administration’s (GSA’s) role in this process is to assist federal agencies in the development, implementation, and administration of TMPs. GSA will directly assist in developing a TMP if an agency’s construction project is being managed, designed and/or funded through GSA. In addition to providing TMP support, GSA also performs the following functions:

• Coordinates ridesharing efforts with MWCOG on behalf of federal agencies. The coordination includes publishing a newsletter for federal ETCs [employee transportation coordinator]; printing ridesharing promotional information for federal employees; providing standing displays for marketing materials; establishing links to MWCOG’s Commuter Connections ride-matching system when required; and coordinating transportation fairs with MWCOG and local TMP personnel.

• GSA, in cooperation with MWCOG and NCPC, sponsors training sessions for federal ETCs. In addition to learning new marketing techniques and keeping abreast of changes, the sessions offer the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with ETCs from other federal agencies.

• GSA has the authority to regulate and police parking facilities or may delegate the authority. GSA’s current policy is to delegate the responsibility to the individual agencies.

GSA’s parking space assignment policy is provided in the Federal Management Regulation (FMR). Agencies are directed to assign spaces in the following order of priority:

1. Official Needs
2. Handicapped
3. Executive personnel and persons who work unusual hours
4. Vanpools and carpools
5. Persons who use their private vehicle regularly for Government business
6. Other employees

In addition to the assignment of parking spaces, federal regulations address the issue of pricing. Title 40 U.S.C., Section 490(k) requires that parking revenues in excess of the actual operating and maintenance costs be returned to the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts. Unfortunately, this effectively prohibits the use of parking revenues to offset other TMP programs such as transit subsidies.

GSA is also charged with running and maintaining a Telework Center program, providing satellite work centers for federal employees.

I think it's just easier, and it's definitely cheaper, to pay for a taxi ride...

Taxis at Union Station, Express photo.

The Commuter Connections program of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has a program where for registered "member-commuters," if the people ride transit and for whatever reason they have to get home (between the hours of 6 am and 10 pm) and they can't at that moment, get there by transit, Commuter Connections will get them home (likely by taxi). From the Commuter Connections website:

If you carpool, vanpool, use public transportation, or bicycle or walk to work two or more days a week, Commuter Connections will get you home in the event of an emergency as part of the Guaranteed Ride Home (GRH) program. GRH allows you peace of mind, and is regarded as an "insurance policy" in the event you experience an unexpected personal or family emergency or unscheduled overtime. Some restrictions apply, so be sure to read through the GRH program participation guidelines.

I think that's what DC needs to do wrt late night baseball games that end after the WMATA subway service normally closes for the night.

Washington Nationals infielder Ryan Zimmerman, smiles with principal owner Mark Lerner, after a news conference at Nationals Park in Washington Monday, April 20, 2009. Zimmerman has signed a five-year, $45 million contract extension.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

According to "D.C. Will Pay Full Metro Tab After Late Ballgames," from today's Post, the last time this happened, 16 riders entered the Navy Yard subway station after midnight. This cost $40,000 in total, and $2,531 for each passenger. Even at $50 each, taxicab rides would have cost $800 in total.

This is another example of how transportation demand management planning should be required for all institutions in the city, including baseball stadiums... Were there a comprehensive transportation plan for Nationals Stadium, this aspect could be dealt with in the most cost-effective and efficient manner.

In this case, not having transportation demand management planning requirements mandated through the Comprehensive Land Use Plan costs DC about $120,000/year, just in terms of dealing with late baseball games.

Taxi and Metrobus in Washington DC. Wikipedia photo by Ben Schumin.

Philadelphia recycling trucks...

again I mention this because it is an example of public art used as social marketing to promote a positive behavior and a creative use of public assets ("garbage" trucks). It shows verve. And too often, government actions are the antithesis of verve. See "Philadelphia's Recycling Trucks Get a New, More Colorful Look" from the KYW Radio website.


A typical DC garbage truck offers a "canvas" that remains unused, even with the new DC Green Agenda...

Interesting stuff from newspapers...

I have read newspapers since I was 8 or 9 years old, so the fact that newspapers are dying these days is something I regret deeply. Going to Chicago for a conference recently, and reading an anemic Chicago Tribune tabloid version (the broadsheet version isn't sold on newsstands any longer) was really disappointing. In high school, I used to travel to a drug store in Birmingham Michigan and buy the Sunday Chicago Tribune...

1. That Broadway theater productions are increasingly corporatized "properties" that are repurposed content in many forms, a la the Disney Productions. See "Disney Ponders How to Sell ‘Lion King,' ‘Little Mermaid' and ‘Mary Poppins'" from the New York Times.

2. Who gets memorialized in street renaming, police officers killed in the line of duty, or people killed wrongly by police officers? See "Renaming a New York Street for Sean Bell Reopens a Controversy" from the New York Times.

3. Local government can be a conundrum. There are many small governments, and high costs. On the other hand, having a responsive local government entity matters too. But Tom Brokaw, in "Small-Town Big Spending" an op-ed in the New York Times, focuses on the costs.

4. I find it intriguing that the New York Times, in the editorial "Unreasonable Search," believes that the 13-year-old girl who was strip-searched at school was searched unconstitutionally, while the Washington Post believes otherwise, see "Strip Searches in School: The Supreme Court must weigh the rights of students against the duty of school officials to protect safety."

5. The Wall Street Journal has an article, "Artists vs. Blight" about the opportunity artists have to buy properties and do art in declining cities like Detroit and Cleveland. I have called arts-driven revitalization strategies in cities like Pittsburgh or Baltimore being driven by "a desperate willingness to experiment" because there were few other alternatives.

In and of themselves, artists can't rebuild an economy. But they can help stabilize particular neighborhoods and areas within a declining region, and that's important. In weak areas of strong real estate markets, eventually artists will be displaced, as the improved area becomes in demand and subject to market forces.

Vacant disinvested buildings on Alfred Street, Brush Park neighborhood, Detroit. Submitted to the New York Times by Pete Bacevich.

6. I really enjoy reading the "House and Home" section of the Weekend Edition of the Financial Times. This past Saturday's edition has articles worth saving on almost every page.

a. "Delighted, Tunbridge Wells" is about the regeneration (that's the term the Brits use, we say "revitalization") of a community about one hour's railroad commute to London.

b. "Creative community" is about design districts and revitalization, specifically the Zona Tortona in Milan, Italy. A sidebar discusses design districts in London, Helsinki, Miami, and Toyko.

c. Edwin Heathcote, the architecture writer, has been publishing a once/month column on the "symbolic home." This month's installement is on halls, "First impressions."

d. There is a great article about how the highest end condominium buildings in New York City are being designed in "prewar-style limestone, granite and brick," not glass... "The old new."

e. Plus this article about the strength of the townhouse market in New York City is also interesting, "Street-level chic." I was especially caught by this point:

The cost and scale of these residences represent the culmination of a shift in luxury Manhattan lifestyles over the past few decades. In the crime-ridden 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, apartment living took precedence; the city was dirty and people wanted to live above it, meaning that townhouses tended to sit on the market. ...

Today, wealthy buyers who are relatively insulated from the recession not only want to live in townhouses, they also want their interiors to feel open and extravagant...

Earth Day and Intra-neighborhood transit

Orbit bus, Tempe, Arizona. Photo: Venus Lee/The Arizona Republic. Hundreds of people have signed petitions, sent e-mails and made phone calls voicing opinions about if and where free shuttle service should be expanded throughout the northern half of Tempe.

In a paper I wrote a couple years ago, among other things I proposed intra-neighborhood transit designed to move people in and around a neighborhood, and to major transit stations and lines, without their having to drive. (E.g., it is a big problem in neighborhoods with transit stations when people with Ward parking stickers drive to the station area and park, taking up all-day spaces.)

In the context of what I call the Metropolitan Transit Network, I call this type of service part of what could be termed the DC Tertiary Transit Network.

It turns out that Tempe Arizona has refigured part of its bus service to do exactly that. See the Tempe In Motion (the city's Department of Transportation) website for information on the Orbit bus system as well as these articles (no longer available for free) from the Arizona Gazette, "Neighborhood circulator buses bring sense of community" and "Venus, Mercury bus routes are in Tempe's Orbit circulation."

From the Orbit webpage:

Orbit (a FREE service) uses mini-buses to serve residential areas and connect them to local destinations such as shopping areas, other neighborhoods, major bus routes, schools and multi-generational centers. All Orbit routes run from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every 15 minutes, 7 days a week. "No stop zones" occur in between the crosswalks of all schools served by an Orbit route. The Orbit routes use “flag” stops, which means that the driver will pick up and drop off passengers in residential neighborhoods provided it is safe to do so.

Note that the Tempe In Motion website is another example of a best practice government agency transportation website, focused on mobility, not just transit.

Scottsdale, Arizona has introduced a similar service.

And you could argue that the GEORGE service within Falls Church, Virginia does the same thing. But the Washington Post believes it is a luxury service and ought to be dropped for financial reasons. See the editorial, "A Bus to Nowhere: In Falls Church, a transit boondoggle."

Now the problem, likely with the GEORGE Service has more to do with population density and limited number of activity centers within the city. Rather than dump it, figure out how to make it work first. Maybe it can't work based on the conditions of transit demand within the city. But figure that out first. The Associated Press ran a story on the bus service, "INSIDE WASHINGTON: Pricey bus test a bust," which wasn't favorable, but it focused on the fact that the system was funded by earmarks.

The sign for the GEORGE bus line is seen at the East Falls Church metro stop in Arlington, Va. on Wednesday, April 8, 2009. It seemed like a good idea to its proponents, perhaps one that could be emulated nationwide: a fleet of electric buses that would ease congestion in one of metropolitan Washington's traffic-choked suburbs and do it in an environmentally friendly way. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

I don't know if Falls Church has done the kind of transportation demand management planning done in adjoining Arlington County, but it would be "fascinating" to do a study there, a full "TravelSmart" survey of each household, and figure out how to best make transit work.

But the survey would have to be much deeper, concerning travel behavior for the entire household for the entire day, not just for trips to/from work. The model would be the TravelSmart Australia program (first piloted in Victoria, see TravelSmart), which looks at all trips, not just work trips, albeit focused on major trip generators. From the website:

Many organisations are "trip-generators", which mean that the needs or desires of people to get to there, whether as a worker, a shopper or a student, cause frequent trips and visits by large numbers of people.

The types of organisations that generate frequent travel by many people include: places of employment, hospitals, schools, universities, sports & entertainment venues, commercial centers and supermarkets. Your organisation or community can become TravelSmart by using ideas from the national toolkits as they are available.

My sense is that during specific periods of the day, the George service may make a lot of sense, but not all day, when demand is likely to be extremely limited during time periods outside of rush hours in the morning and evening. But again there are other problems, if the transit service there competes with free parking, that makes it difficult. Plus, in the future, when the Silver Line subway system is in operation, it could be a completely different situation in terms of how such a service fits into the transitshed in Falls Church, and Fairfax and Loudoun Counties.

George bus. Photo: Adam Moreira via Wikipedia

But I am the first to agree that legislating bus service, be it the George bus service in Falls Church, or the DC Circulator service between Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights and Downtown (Ward 1) or between Union Station and the Navy Yard (Ward 6), or special shuttles that duplicate extant bus service (H Street NE), is the wrong way to go. It ends up disserving people who have limited transit options, who find these services limited, in periods of budget difficulty, such as people in the Oxon Hill area of Prince George's County, who face the loss of direct bus service to DC. See "5-Cent Hikes Better Than Bus Cut Idea, Many Riders Say" from the Post.

Bus, H Street Shuttle.

In a transportation plan for the city and region, there need to be hard numbers that proposed services have to meet, in order for the service to be able to be approved. And these requirements need to be hard, and impervious to legislative legerdemain and waste.

In any case, it is almost always a mistake to develop transit service without considering how it fits into a Metropolitan Transit Network. When service is created by legislation, you can almost always be assured that the service isn't viable otherwise.

DC Bicycling and Earth Day...

Washcycle reports about the expansion of SmartBike within the context of the DC Green Agenda here "Fenty announces Smartbike Super-Expansion" and here "Union Station Bike Station to Open in July 2009." And I agree that adding different kinds of bicycle "vehicles" to bicycle fleets expands the usability of such systems, as Arlington has done, see "Arlington's Tricycles."

In what we might call the Bicycle Master Plan 2.0, the expanded paper I wrote last year, here's what I wrote about SmartBike, the DC Bicycle sharing program:

• Consider need to cross borders (Takoma Park, MD; Rosslyn, etc.) and see if this can be accommodated.
• Deal with the issue of regional compatibility, including access to WMATA property
• Add more locations (TEA grant?)
• Work to better accommodate tourist needs
• Can institutional memberships be incorporated into the system, in order to give the organizations “bike fleet” capabilities, without having to create and maintain such systems independently?
• Colleges and universities should participate as well, on an institutional membership basis.
• Can different types of non-Velib style bicycles be added to the system, in order to accommodate different trip needs? The addition of these types of bicycles could be funded by the TEA grant.

-----------
As I wrote last week-- Car culture vs. urban culture and bicycling -- collectively, DC is doing a lot right, incrementally, with the development of a bicycling-supportive infrastructure.

We still have to do much more, however, in order to make the situation better, to better balance other modes "against" the dominant paradigm of automobility.

And, why isn't there decent promotional information about the SmartBike system posted on the SmartBike locations?

Earth Day

1. Energy consumption: Suburban Sprawl vs. Green Urban


2. Green Manhattan (article), subtitled "Why New York is the greenest city in the U.S." from the New Yorker, October 2004.

3. Green infrastructure: Seattle Great City Initiative

4. DC's Green DC Agenda. The Agenda consists of seven themes and two spotlights:

- Homes
- Schools
- Neighborhoods and Community
- Parks and Natural Areas
- Transit and Mobility
- Business, Jobs and Economic Development
- City and Givernment Operations
- Spotlight: Anacostia River
- Spotlight: Climate Change

I will say that the Transit portion of this agenda is relatively pathetic. Mostly, the agenda is packaging things the city is already doing. That's okay, there is nothing wrong with repositioning what you're already doing. But how about doing more? (I still have to review all the documents.)

For example, how about making a commitment to a transit/walking/bicycling first city urban mobility policy for the City of Washington?

Or a goal of 50% mode split for DC commuting trips (walking, bicycling, transit) from the current 45% (which is still 50% higher than the next best jurisdiction in the region--Arlington)?

Hiring pedestrian and bicycling planners for each of the Wards? Etc.

5. Baltimore Sustainability Plan

6. Majora Carter's tale of urban renewal Video (Sustainable South Bronx)

7. Gasoline taxes





8. Sally Forth Comic strip regarding Earth Day (from 4/20/2009)



9. Today in Philadelphia, as part of the city's Earth Day festivities, at 2 pm they will be corraling the 10 different city "garbage" trucks that have been painted to promote recycling as part of a youth/public art project called "Big Picture" led by Desiree Bender in collaboration with the Mural Arts Program, the Design Center at Philadelphia University, and the City of Philadelphia Streets Department Recycling Office, and pull all the trucks together for one time only outside of City Hall. The mayor, Michael Nutter is scheduling a big event for Earth Day to promote Philadelphia's new single stream recycling program.

Artist Desiree Bender in front of a recycling truck that she painted. (April Saul / Staff Photographer) Philadelphia Inquirer.

10. Oh, and the EPA did a big green reconstruction plan for Greensburg, Kansas, post-tornado. It's great sure. But the town has fewer than 2,000 residents. I think we could better return on investment in other communities. See "Greenest City in America," from today's Washington Times, but the article should be entitled "greenest hamlet" or "greenest village," not greenest city. As a fourth grader in Michigan, I remember looking up the State of Michigan yearbook and legally, cities had to have a certain level of population--1,574 residents wouldn't qualify.

See the EPA webpage: Rebuilding Greensburg, Kansas

Svajerløb 2009: Style Over Speed

Svajerløb 2009: Style Over Speed
Originally uploaded by [Zakkaliciousness]

By clicking on this photo, you can get to a set of 40 photos on the 2009 Danish Cargo Bike Championships (Svajerløb).

Tear it down/Don't tear it down

Nigel sends us notice of an interesting article from the Schenectady Gazette, "Amsterdam: Development or demolition?," about plans for redeveloping an old manufacturing building (mill) into housing, in Amsterdam, in upstate New York. From the article:

The debate is not just about whether to tear down the building, it has become a divide between two factions of Amsterdam residents: those who believe change will come by adapting the city to attract new residents and private investment from the outside and those who want a good quality of life for the residents already living here.

Well, for one, I don't see how having an empty lot, and yet another loss of the region's architecture and history helps the quality of life of extant residents.

But this is in fact the number one conundrum of revitalization. The reason a community "needs" "revitalization" generally is because the local economy is defective/broken/declining. (In terms of cities and region, you can break this down according to submarkets/neighborhoods.)

The job of revitalizers is to work at fixing broken economies. The problem is that it is not a "one-strategy" kind of job. You have to apply many strategies and tactics simultaneously. And, if part of it has to do with working to reverse serious, often, multi-generational poverty, you are looking at extremely long time frames over which to measure success.

In regions that have been declining for decades--many Midwestern metropolitan areas have not grown much over the past 40 years and most cities in upstate New York continue to decline as well--you are more focused on stabilization, maybe you'd call it "running in place," or reducing the impact of shrinkage, rather than on real growth. In other words, relative improvement within a landscape of decline.

Right now I am reading the book Preserving New York: Winning a Right to Protect a City’s Landmarks, which is about the history of preservation there, leading up to the passage of NYC's local landmarks preservation law in 1965, and it is interesting in that the debates of the two different threads of preservation (patriotism, preserving the places where great historical events occurred vs. what the author calls "aesthetics" but what I also call the nexus of place, architecture, and people, a more "people's history") were present then, just as they are today, a long with the focus on "the new" and that by definition, "new" is always better. Maybe these debates will never be resolved.


The peak period of U.S. economic and manufacturing growth occurred during the creation of a mass market in the United States, and the period when U.S. manufacturers dominated the global scene. As the global economy further connects, manufacturing corporations in other countries have become economically competitive and ascendent if not dominant given the economic conditions of today.

The real problem, as far as revitalization is concerned, is that there aren't enough "good jobs" in the United States, especially for those with limited educational attainment, in the context of a global economy.

And that is something that no politician and no brilliant commercial district revitalization specialist can truly overcome.

In the end, maybe we all become lobbyists for automobility

I was talking with someone today about Maryland politics, which made me remember that Barbara Mikulski became a politician as a result of her leading neighborhood opposition to freeways in Baltimore, specifically in Fells Point:

Baby Blues, 4/20/2009, frame 1.

From "Charmed Century: 100 Years Of Baltimore News--And You Are There" from the Baltimore City Paper:

1968-78: Roads to Nowhere

Neighborhood-based organizations wage a grass-roots campaign to stop crosstown freeways, including the Leakin Park Expressway and spurs connecting interstates 83 and 95, that would have required demolishing several east- and west-side neighborhoods. Their partial victory preserves Fells Point, Federal Hill, Leakin Park, and Rosemont -- and ignites the political career of a Highlandtown social worker, Barbara Mikulski.

We didn't think it was right to destroy healthy neighborhoods so that suburban commuters could get in and out of the city faster. . . . We talked to the planners, the architects, and the politicians. We organized the neighborhoods and we challenged the cost-benefit analysis. We ran bake sales so we could rent buses to take us to Annapolis, to City Hall, and to Washington to protest the very public policies that were going to happen to us. While we were doing the bake sales, that design concept team [for the highways] had $5,000 in audiovisual equipment alone -- to educate us. So with the mimeograph machine that we borrowed from the Holy Rosary Holy Name Society, we began a neighborhood movement. (Barbara Mikulski, in a 1979 speech to the American Planning Association, excerpted in The Baltimore Book)

Baby Blues, 4/20/2009, frames 2 and 3

These days, Senator Mikulski's bright idea for revitalizing the U.S. auto industry is making fully tax deductible interest payments on car purchases. Although this provision has been removed from the Stimulus bill, a special tax break for car purchases has been inserted. See "Maryland Politics: Obama Expected to Sign Mikulksi Car Tax Break" from the Baltimore Sun.

The disconnect between the U.S. economy and its dependence on oil and how this makes for an unbalanced and unsustainable economy continues.