Many many many trees are not being adequately trimmed by DC's Urban Forestry Division

Many many many trees are not being adequately trimmed by DC's Urban Forestry Division
Originally uploaded by rllayman

and "self-help" is illegal in this case. In other words, I was informed a couple years ago that it is illegal for non-city employees to prune trees in the treeboxes in front of houses.

Note that this kind of growth saps energy from the tree. And that there should be an 8 foot height as clearance along the sidewalk.

... speaking of caring more about putting in sidewalks without a broader concern about the environment required to support walking.

Teardown of two rowhouses, replaced by one larger single family house, 4400 block 9th Street NW

Teardown of two rowhouses, replaced by one larger single family house, 4400 block 9th Street NW
Originally uploaded by rllayman

It's not a very good design either...

Bus advertisements for H Street NE, DC

Old-School & Cutting Edge bus advertisement for H Street NE, DC
Originally uploaded by rllayman

There's some puffery here, but...

Peter Pan bus, "connecting people to places"

Peter Pan bus, "connecting people to places"
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Bustitution : DC Transit GM Fishbowl bus, 509

DC Transit GM Fishbowl bus, 509
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Ralph forwards to us some writing from a transit e-list, featuring comments by Ed Tennyson.

Mr. Tennyson ran SEPTA, the transit system in Philadelphia, and then served as the Deputy Transportation Commissioner for the State of Pennsylvania. He was in the position during the creation of the bus rapid transit system in Pittsburgh. In the Purple Line hearings, he testified that BRT ridership numbers in Pittsburgh have never achieved projections.

1. Here's what Ed Tennyson, one of the nation's top transit experts, has to say about the advantage of rail over buses in DC (he was replying to a post that streetcars have "emotional" appeal):

NOTHING EMOTIONAL ABOUT THE RECORD
When Washington started to replace street cars with buses (1949) street cars attracted more passengers than buses did. By the time Congress outlawed the street cars bus riding did not increase as street cars were phased out so the National Capital lost 70 % of its transit riders, weakening the economy of tne city very seriously.

With MetroRail supplemented by some commuter rail all those lost passengers have come back and passenger-miles have expanded even more. There is nothing emotional about it. It is acceptable service that people appreciate as opposed to lousy service they don't like.

New buses do not make any difference in most cases. There is always some "exception to prove the rule", as they say.

2. Noteworthy is the fact that the last streetcar lines in Washington were replaced by air-conditioned "new look" buses. Washington was the first place where the new "fishbowl" buses were operated. The new vehicles were a departure from the traditional bus design and were touted as a major advance over the older models. Yet in spite of all the hype, ridership still plummeted after they replaced the streetcars.

The image of a DC Transit GM Fishbowl bus, 509, shows the kind of bus Mr. Tennyson was describing.

---------------
Last week there was a round of private emails of active people in the Capitol Hill area, some of which soundly excoriated streetcars and/or light rail in favor of buses. Surprisingly, some of the "old folks" are in favor of streetcars, although they were a bit timid in that particular thread...

More about parking as an entitlement in Montgomery County

I read the Takoma-Silver Spring Gazette every week, since this is my greater neighborhood (I do a limited amount of volunteer work for the Main Street Takoma program, which covers the commercial district in both MD and DC) and I can't help but shake my head over the ongoing discussion, letters, etc., over "free parking" for the library at the Rockville Town Center.

What never seems to percolate through into these discussions is a recognition that subsidized parking only benefits drivers, that people who use transit are expected to pay their own way.

I understand the desire to reduce impediments to library use, but favoring one class of library users--in this case automobile drivers--over another is patently unfair. Either start paying for people to ride transit to and from the library, or drop the subsidy. (This is an issue because Montgomery County ends up having to pay for it out of its increasingly strapped budget.)

See:

-- Free libraries have an expanding role by Art Brodsky, a member of the Montgomery County Library Board;
-- County Council votes to reimburse Rockville for library parking
--Reconsider free parking at the county seat's library by George L. Leventhal, an at-large member of the Montgomery County Council and chairs the council's Health and Human Services Committee, which oversees libraries.

Note that DC does provide free parking at certain libraries for library users. I do think it is an unfair subsidy although I am not going to challenge it. (I am still mulling over suggesting that the 30 minute parking for customers that is placed on the west side of Eastern Market ought to be metered, and I am not sure I am prepared for the fallout.)

Why people don't buy local

This image is of a placard posted in a store window in Bainbridge Island, Washington, although many other places use the campaign as well, including Baltimore and commercial districts in the DC region.

Is a thread in the Retail Wire website (registration probably required), "Consumers Find Reasons Not to Shop Local Stores." The thread was sparked by this article, "Why some people don't shop local," from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which listed three reasons for not shopping from independent stores:

• Store hours - Most locally owned businesses don't have the staff to open as early or close as late as big chains.
• Returns - Chains are better at taking items back than smaller stores. While chains often take returns and refund purchases for 30 days or more, independents may only accept returns during a much shorter window and then only offer a store credit in return.
• Guilt - Some shoppers actually like not being known by store workers. That way they don't feel guilty walking out of a shop without buying anything.

The RW entry states that "obvious concerns among shoppers not explored in the Plain Dealer column are product selection, price (especially these days), cross-channel shopping options and parking."

The American Independent Business Alliance is the leading proponent of "buy local" campaigns and the organization and the campaign grew out of the Boulder Independent Business Alliance. See this story, "To Beat Recession, Indies Launch Buy-Local Push," from Business Week. It includes a gallery of logos/placards from 21 communities around the country.

The RW discussion is interesting because it gets at many of the issues that bother me about many buy local campaigns--a kind of guilt trip, without recognizing that often independent businesses may not be competitive or offer a quality experience.

On the other hand, the RW thread does not acknowledge how many advantages chains have in terms of financing, financial engineering, and market power--for example, you may not know that department stores demand money back from apparel manufacturers when they have to sell mark down prices. See "Stores and Vendors Take Their Haggling Over Payment to Court" from the New York Times.

But there are many other advantages enjoyed by chains. One that is particularly unfair is that chains will put their logos and other identity marks into a separate corporation and require each branch to pay a royalty for the use of the name. This results in stated lower profits, reducing local taxes assessed on the store. See "More States Challenge Trademark Holding Companies."

For gifts, we are making an effort to buy goods in independent stores. But I would be lying if I said that we buy most of our convenience goods in independent stores, although we do spend a fair amount at an Ace Hardware affiliate (Strosniders in Silver Spring).


Baltimore Buy Local sticker on a utility pole in Hampden.

Another example of "chance" favoring those who are already prepared

Comes from Progressive Railroading Magazine, and their story on the high speed rail initiative in the Midwest, where 9 states have been working relatively closely for more than 10 years on coordinated rail improvements. See "Midwestern states hope to take their long-planned high-speed and intercity passenger rail network to the next level" (registration required).

Too bad that a similar effort hasn't been happening with Maryland, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. (Although the states do talk with each other.) We'd be closer to having a better railroad passenger service in the region if they had, because these states would be in position to take advantage of new federal monies for higher speed railroad service.

- Midwest Regional Rail Initiative

Thinking really really really big for transit in the I-270 corridor

Vision 270, Montgomery County, Maryland. Map by Greater Greater Washington based on a concept by Action Coalition for Transit.

Comes not from me but from the erstwhile Action Committee for Transit and from this entry, "What else $3.8 billion could buy, more specifically," in Greater Greater Washington (which is part of a series of entries on smarter land use and transportation planning in upper Montgomery County).

I like it. It suggests a slight extension of the west leg of the red line, and not just what is called the Corridor Cities transit line but another light rail line to serve areas further west from the west leg of the red line, plus extensions and expansions of the railroad passenger service.

From All-transit alternative for I-270 corridor released by Action Committee for Transit:

The Action Committee for Transit is releasing its all-transit alternative for the I-270 Corridor. This alternative would provide more and better transportation, do more for economic development, and be better for the environment, compared to the $3.8 billion highway expansion recommended by the Montgomery County Planning Board. Yet it would cost less money.

The plan has the following components:

• Red Line to Germantown. A Metrorail extension along the I-370 and I-270 right of way from Shady Grove to an underground station within the Germantown town center, the first major expansion of the County’s transit backbone, would be affordable based on the budget in the DEIS.

• MARC expansion. The Maryland Transit Administration developed the plan to expand MARC to an all day, both directions service several years ago, and we along with many residents and commuters are eager to see it implemented. The current MTA plan includes expanded all-day two-way service to Frederick with trains no more than 15 minutes apart in rush hour, at a cost of $531 million. Our plan also includes a new MARC line to Hagerstown, using the partially abandoned right of way of the Washington County Branch of the B&O Railroad. Rail service will contribute to the revitalization of Hagerstown as an urban center.

• Route 355 as a multimodal urban boulevard. Master plans from downtown Bethesda to Gaithersburg foresee Route 355 as the main axis of the County’s primary urban development corridor. Surface transit with dedicated roadway right-of-way light rail along this axis is clearly needed to supplement Metro as far as Gaithersburg. Our plan includes not only light rail, but also rebuilding the roadway as an attractive European-style boulevard, along the lines recommended by the White Flint Partnership, Rockville's plans for its downtown, and Gaithersburg's plan for Frederick Avenue. Such transit is also recommended in the Germantown master plan to serve the much-traveled route between eastern Germantown and the lower Corridor Cities.

• The Corridor Cities Transitway is included as light rail. It is also extended to Clarksburg Town Center, fulfilling the promise of a transit-oriented town made to the residents of that community. Making the CCT part of a comprehensive plan, with connections at Germantown and Metropolitan Grove, will greatly enhance its usability and ridership, and increase the chances of having it funded as light rail.

A transit scenario much like this, and including the Purple Line, was tested in the County’s Transportation Policy Report of 2001. Traffic modeling showed transit ridership was huge, with the Metro extension alone showing more ridership than the current eastern Red Line outside Silver Spring. The expanded MARC service also showed very high ridership. Transit improvements stimulate a different, more compact growth pattern than do new road lanes, even high-occupancy lanes. The TPR shows the combined benefits of balanced transit-oriented growth and a transit system tailored to serve it.

The TPR transit scenario was not adopted, although the common response was that it was very effective, but too expensive. This was before anyone imagined that widening I-270 would cost so much. Our rough estimate is that the transit scenario, including the incremental costs of building the CCT as light rail, would cost around $3 billion. This is less expensive than the road widening alternative recommended by the Planning Board.

Unlike the monolithic I-270, the transit system would lend itself well to phasing. Each of the components would be useful by itself. The plan could move forward in parallel with other parts of the state, such as the Baltimore Rail Plan and MARC's plans for the Penn and Camden Lines. Projects with extant plans, like MARC improvements, could be built first.

The Obama Administration is seeking to transform national transportation policy, resulting in a level playing field for transit project reviews, and substantially more money for commuter rail and transit. Studying and planning for a comprehensive transit system alternative would position Maryland to win funding for this expanded transit system.

A transit system such as this would further the County Council’s stated goals of promoting economic development in an environmentally sustainable manner, and could be phased to fit with eastern county transit needs and those of the rest of the state. It offers advantages that none of the current DEIS alternatives provide for many crucial economic development locations, such as Germantown town center, Lakeforest, Old Town Gaithersburg, and the Rockville Pike Corridor.

We seek to have this alternative studied as part of the current Environmental Impact Statement process. In all alternatives now under study, at least 80% of the investment goes to road-building. Including an all-transit alternative in the study is necessary to provide decision-makers with a full-range of choices.

Thinking really really really big for Poplar Point's park

Isn't in the three scenarios put forward by DC planners, as discussed in this entry from Greater Greater Washington, "Poplar Point planners present possibilities." (Also see this previous GGW entry, "Poplar Point and the Case of the Too-Large Park.") GGW writes:

Should Poplar Point become two separate districts, one extending the Anacostia neighborhood and one connecting across the river? Or should it be one neighborhood, centered around the Metro station leaving parkland along the waterfront, or activating the waterfront with a large park to one side? Should DC redevelop the Anacostia Metro garage, or leave it? These are some of the questions DC economic development officials asked members of the community at last weekend's Poplar Point presentation.

I'd say for a connected place, rather than two separate districts on either side of a large green space, EXCEPT that I offer a different alternative. Two "separate" districts connected by an active public-civic-recreational-educational-amusement place. In this fashion, there is nothing separate about the land use plan, it's all connective and supportive of both east of the river interests and objectives while at the same connecting to west of the Anacostia River and anchoring the east with the kinds of civic assets that the community justifiably believes have been denied to it.

Alternative 1, Poplar Point redevelopment.

Yesterday I listed a bunch of articles about recent activities of the Project for Public Spaces. PPS is a planning firm kind of, but one with a advocacy bent. It's a nonprofit, built on the legacy of William H. Whyte and Jane Jacobs, but much of their operating budget comes from fee-for-services from doing planning consulting.

One of the articles, "The Place Doctor" from Convene Magazine is a kind of summary of the PPS philosophy. There is a section of the article that is particularly relevant to Washington, DC, where we have a great deal of open space/parks (especially those run by the National Park Service) but the parks are passive spaces, rather than active. From the article:

Activity is fundamental to great places. Kent dislikes the trend toward converting urban parks into open spaces that provide few things for people to do. The park of the future, Kent said, will be more like Europe’s 19th century pleasure gardens, such as Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. One good contemporary example is downtown Houston’s newly opened Discovery Green, where visitors can play bocce or horseshoes, picnic, take Pilates classes, play in a fountain, attend free concerts, shop at a farmer’s market, kayak, canoe, sail, and more.

Places like Millennium Park in Chicago, Campus Martius Park in Detroit, and Discovery Green in Houston are active fun places. Hell, have a ferris wheel like the London Eye.

London Eye photo from Flickr by Adriano Aurelio Araujo.

Imagine that kind of park at Poplar Point, connecting the mixed use areas, connected by transit, maybe having a soccer stadium (I am of two minds on this, but see "D.C. United back in talks with District officials" from the Washington Business Journal), other civic assets--what about a real "City Museum" or a Science Center like the new Connecticut Science Center in Hartford (see "Future shock made child's play" from the Boston Globe) or a great maritime-related discovery center and activities and a Children's Theater and Library like Charlotte's ImaginOn--instead of another passive recreation space that is under-utilized in a city with an overabundance of passive park spaces.

Rendering of the Connecticut Science Center, Hartford, located on the Connecticut River. (It just opened and I haven't been able to find good photos yet of the exterior.)


Imaginon -- Children's Library/Theater, Charlotte, NC.

Including a kick-a** recreation center. One of the problems with recreation planning in DC is that it is plain vanilla--every rec center is pretty much the same. The "big" centers have a pool. The smaller ones don't. How about a mini-aquatic park, urban sized (like the H Street Country Club putt putt course rather than Disney World, the Post reports in "Time to Join the H Street Country Club" about an indoor mini golf course), an indoor track, and other facilities that will help make this recreation be a destination, one that serves the entire city. (And maybe a velodrome, etc.)

But why should the cool amenities only be available in the suburbs? See "Aquatic Center Opens in Leesburg" from the Washington Post Loudoun Extra section about the recent opening of a new aquatic park there.

Etc.

An overview of the new Aquatic Center at Leesburg's Ida Lee Park. Washington Post photo by Tracy Woodward.

Elsewhere in the article on PPS, PPS president Fred Kent is quoted saying "Every City needs a square."

Well, the area of the city called Anacostia-Ward 8-East of the River needs that square too. And maybe Poplar Point is the place to do it.

Who needs National Harbor anyway (see "National Harbor's 'Mini-City' Takes Shape" from the Post). Or the Children's Museum when we could do a Connecticut Science Center or a Imagion (Charlotte, NC) see "National Children's Museum's Launch Zone" from the Post.

Bike sharing is cool but it isn't the foundation of comprehensive bicycle planning and bicycling promotion

Bicycle sharing isn't necessarily the foundation of bicycle planning in DC. And it shouldn't be seen as the solution for promoting bicycling as a co-equal transportation mode. It's a great choice for people who have an occasional need or desire to bicycle. For people who want to make bicycling their primary transportation mode, a shared bicycle isn't necessarily the optimal choice.

Washcycle, in "Smartbike Expansion Pauses," and the Bike-Sharing Blog in "Washington Bike-sharing Survey Results Are In" reported on the recent DC survey of bicycle sharing users.

Most people (62%) use SmartBike less than once a week. 41% ride it to work. Only a few trips would have been done by car (plus more by taxi) - and it largely replaces walking and Metro trips. Only 23% of users always wear a helmet. The top places where users would like to see a new kiosk - in order: Georgetown; Adams Morgan; Union Station; Columbia Heights; Takoma.

When asked how to improve SmartBike, most people asked for more stations (and bike locks were heavily desired too).

DC has the "first" municipally provided bicycle sharing system in North America. But Montreal's system is more pervasive--with stations throughout the city--while at this time, DC's system is limited to a handful of locations downtown, although there are plans to rollout expansions to the system in a phased manner.

(For stories on the Bixi system in Montreal, see "Montreal steps up Bixi expansion" and "Bixi a big hit with Montrealers and tourists" but not "Would helmets make Bixi safer? Hospital reports "significant" injuries" all from the Montreal Gazette. With regard to the last article, bicycling isn't risk free, and yes, six people have died in Paris while using the bicycle sharing system there, see "Blind spot warning after Velib’ death" from the Connexion.)

The Boston Globe now reports that Boston will be introducing "the nation’s first citywide bike-sharing system"--which they can say because DC's bicycle sharing system isn't city-wide and because Montreal is in Canada. See "Hub’s bike routes beckon, white knuckles and all: City details plans for cycle sharing" and "How the bike-sharing program might work." (Plus the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine ran an article on the topic a couple months ago, "Is Boston Ready For a Revolution?.")

The video in the first Globe article mentions that the typical bike share trip is less than 1.8 miles and takes less than 20 minutes.

I offer a dumb idea

There are lots of proposals to extend the WMATA subway system. These proposals are driven by land development objectives and a failure to consider the development of a truly integrated transit system employing multiple modes best chosen to meet demands in a manner that is respectful of available resources.

Mostly, the land development interests want to make their projects more attractive to the Washington market, as the Baltimore Sun said yesterday about Frederick--making it a bedroom community of DC.

From that standpoint, extending the WMATA subway seems to be a no brainer. People know what it is and what it does. So it's easy to understand.

But it doesn't make sense to extend the system significantly beyond its current boundaries--note I say beyond the current boundaries--not whether or not to intensify subway service within the metropolitan service area.

That's because after a certain distance, heavy rail makes less sense and railroads (really really heavy rail) make more sense. This is a point that BeyondDC has been making for years, and his basic idea has been amplified in some of my past blog entries such as "Regional transportation planning and fixed rail service."

The distance between DC and Baltimore is 45 miles. The distance between the end of the DC fixed rail transit system (Greenbelt) and the end of the Baltimore light rail system (BWI Airport) is about 29 miles.

MARC commuter railroad map showing service between the Baltimore region and DC.

These distances should be covered by railroads, not subway systems.

In writing about transit networks, I distinguish between 3 types when it comes to metropolitan and regional transit:

- Regional -- multi-state connections -- for the most part these don't exist for transit, but do for freight railroad, airplane travel, and the Interstate highway system. The Northeast Corridor railroad passenger service offered by Amtrak is an example of such a transit network.

- Metropolitan -- transit systems like the WMATA subway and bus system, the combined railroad, subway, bus, and waterborne transit services in the NYC or Boston regions.

- Sub-metropolitan transit systems (in the DC region, locally provided services such as RideOn in Montgomery County Maryland or the Downtown Circulator in DC are examples of services within the subnetwork category of the Metropolitan Transit Network).

For a delineation of the metropolitan transit network and the constituent subnetworks, see "Thinking about the transit network."

Even though the Census counts the DC and Baltimore regions as one, they aren't one region when it comes to trip behavior. The Baltimore region needs to do its own thing, as does the DC region. And DC should not let its transportation priorities be directed by exurban interests.

But here's my stupid idea. (It's a burden to only write 100% correct, intelligent blog entries.)

If it is so important to improve the connections between suburban Baltimore, in particular Fort Meade and BWI Airport, and DC, and you don't want to use the extant transit resources most intelligently and most expeditiously by expanding and extending the MARC railroad service, rather than wasting resources extending the WMATA subway system, instead extend the clunky Baltimore light rail system to Greenbelt.

Don't divert the attention of the DC metropolitan transit network (the subway system), which needs to focus on serious issues of its own, to solve the real estate and other interests of Greater Baltimore.

Baltimore Light rail through the windows of California Tortilla, near the Baltimore Convention Center.

It's good to have a divergent view*

* In 1983 I think, I attended a conference at the U of Michigan on the War Powers Act. It was convened by ex-President Ford and included people like Cyrus Vance and Walt Rostow as participants. Everyone of the panelists supported removing restrictions on the president to be able to foster war. Except one. He was a journalist-professor, who during the Vietnam war wrote editorials for the New York Times. His extemporaneous speech ripped into the basic paradigm of the conference, that the damn media cost the U.S. victory in Vietnam, as did Congress.

So during the break I was talking to this professor, and President Ford came up and told him "It's good to have a divergent view."

I said under my breath, "yeah, one!"

--------

Judge Glock and his Metropolis on a Hill blog often bugs the s*** out of me because he is conservative and takes a 180 degree position different from my own. That doesn't mean I don't feel I can't out-argue his positions. But it isn't always easy. Like the publications of the Manhattan Institute (a conservative organization), there's a good deal presented that while challenging convention, is hard to not agree with.

City Block is a blog by Alex Block, who is a prodigious commenter (or was, until he started blogging) on Greater Greater Washington. Alex is a transportation planner, but he and I have a very different take on organizational operations, vision, and approaching how to "fix" the world. All the more reason to read it...

Corrupt Cities: A Practical Guide to Cure and Prevention

In a previous comment thread, EE mentioned this book as a useful resource for dealing with the culture of corruption in DC. Through Google Books, the entire text is online here: Corrupt Cities: A Practical Guide to Cure and Prevention.

Chapter 3, "Corruption as a System" starts on page 31. As it says on page 32:

Corruption equals monopoly plus discretion of public officials minus accountability.

Chapter 3 describes the system; Chapter 4 is on diagnosis of specific corrupt systems and situations; Chapters 4 and 5 are on overcoming bureaucratic resistance to honesty; and Chapter 5 is on creating a sequenced plan of action to heal corrupted systems, rupture a culture of cynicism, build political momentum and transform city government.

I have always found the public programs where everyone reads the same book to be a bit wanting.

-- "ONE BOOK" READING PROMOTION PROJECTS (Center for the Book, Library of Congress)

For example, I have thought that cities ought to start off with a book like Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown, in order to explain how urban revitalization works best (although DC doesn't really follow that model).

Clearly, Corrupt Cities: A Practical Guide to Cure and Prevention is another book that needs to be in the rotation...

Articles on placemaking

From the Project for Public Spaces:

"The Upside of a Down Economy"
Urban Land, May 2009

The current economic downturn presents not just challenges, but also opportunities to change the way we think about development. Explore how more and more people around the world are expressing an interest in learning how to make their local assets into destinations within their cities that work as catalysts of economic growth.

"Creating Places: The Journey of a Community"
Municipal World, July 2009

Throughout the world, governments, organizations, and private citizens have begun to look for ways to reinvent their communities around the simple idea of "place." Simple Placemaking principles are already transforming communities most important places into vital destinations in diverse locations including Australia, Chicago and across Canada.

"Civic Buildings and their Public Spaces Can Improve the Quality of Life in Cities"
Recreation and Parks Magazine--British Columbia, Spring 2009

Civic institutions, such as parks, libraries, city halls and cultural facilities, are the foundations of a civil society and the cornerstones of democracy. By working together and pooling their unique strengths and areas of expertise, these institutions and the communities around them can identify their true potential to better serve the public by tackling common challenges.

"The Place Maker"
UrbanoMay, 2009 (EPRAPerth)

In these difficult economic times, can we afford to invest time and money in creating special places in our cities? According to PPS President Fred Kent, we cant afford not to. In fact, Kent says that Placemaking is a cost-effective way to revive prosperity through alternative economic and urban growth.

"Positive Changes in Savannah"
Savannah Morning News, June 12, 2009

Last February, Fred Kent and over 300 Savannah citizens met to discuss how to transform the citys car-oriented streets into pedestrian-friendly destinations. Since then, Savannah's citizens have taken bold action to begin making these plans reality. As Theodora Gongaware writes in Savannah Now, Savannahs citizens are working energetically to "make each neighborhood a destination by taking advantage of resources that were already in place."

"The Place Doctor"
Convene Magazine, Professional Convention Management Association
A profile of Fred Kent explores the opportunities for towns and cities to connect Placemaking to tourism. "Whole cities can be changed," said Kent, "by thinking about community places."

"Public Space Projects Worthy Concept"
Arizona Republic, May 22, 2009

Tempe hired PPS in 2006 to create a comprehensive open-space plan for their downtown. The innovative ideas in the plan have been put on hold by the economic downturn; but if the plans building blocks are in place when the economy recovers, Tempe runs much less risk of being blindsided by developments downtown and along light rail.

Dealing with I-270 doesn't necessary focus on dealing with the needs of biotechnology firms in Montgomery County

I have my hands full caring about "fixing" DC to spend too much time addressing issues outside of the city.

The proposal to widen I-270, which connects Frederick County to Montgomery County and then to Washington DC via the I-495 Beltway and arterials like Wisconsin, Connecticut, Georgia, and New Hampshire Avenues, has energized the Smart Growth coalition. See "Environmentalists Protest Plans to Widen I-270" from the Washington Post.

The Baltimore Sun published a big piece on this on Sunday, "Battle lines form over $4.6 billion I-270 expansion proposal I-270," and has an editorial today, "Lose the lanes - Our view: State should relieve I-270 congestion with more mass transit options."

Part of the reason that the Baltimore "Growth Machine," of which the place-based metropolitan newspaper is the leading voice and cheerleader is concerned about this is because money spent in the Washington region on highways or transit is money that isn't spent in the Baltimore region on highways and transit.

That being said, the Baltimore region has pressing needs, and it is unfortunate in times of limited resources, that the competition for resources often favors the Washington region.

The editorial has an interesting paragraph that might shed light on the backstory of how the Montgomery County "Growth Machine" might be thinking about why widening I-270 is so important:

Montgomery business boosters say that a congested I-270 threatens to wreck Maryland's economic engine if companies stop locating there. But the reason companies come to the I-270 corridor now surely isn't the easy transportation. It's because of the critical mass of other high-tech companies, skilled workers and government offices, and that's not likely to change soon.

For a variety of reasons, the biotechnology cluster of businesses along I-270 is going through a period of decline. The Washington Business Journal had a big story about this a couple weeks ago, "Lost promise: Can region's shrinking biotech sector bounce back after big hits?" (subscription required for access).

I just skimmed the article but in short it makes the point that the biotech cluster here was focused on information processing (figuring out the genome) more than it was on making pharmaceuticals, and that some of the companies were acquired by pharmaceutical companies, or that the critical mass of biotechnology businesses was still superseded by other clusters, and it made sense for the businesses to relocate.

Also see the marked excerpt on the biotechnology industry from this book (via Google Books) Clusters and globalisation: the development of urban and regional economies.

More important to maintaining the economic competitiveness of the biotech corridor is to focus on what hinders the continued development of the biotechnology sector and focus attention on that rather than on widening roads.

The roads aren't the primary issue, except to push sprawl outwards and foster continued real estate development. As the Baltimore Sun says:

But I-270 serves little purpose other than turning Frederick into a bedroom community of Washington, a trend that eats up farmland and puts more pollution into the air and water.

And this makes it harder for the center city and the inner ring suburbs to maintain their economic competitiveness also, and why it is something that should concern those of us with our heads down and otherwise focused on the center city.

Photo: AA Roads, I-270 Maryland, southbound.

Missing the real issue about WMATA

The Washington Post editorialized, in "A Broken Metro‎," once again about how all of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's problems have to do with the lack of a dedicated funding stream.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as the newspaper's own reporting ought to be communicating to us.

Here are the issues with WMATA:

- general vision and leadership
- the governance structure (members appointed to the board by the various jurisdictions that are members of the WMATA Compact--but too many of them have overly constrained worldviews about what they are doing and who they truly represent)
- the lack of a real system of regulatory oversight*
- funding of current operational deficits**
- funding of capital improvements***
- management of the organization
- operation of the organization
- how the organization treats and serves riders.

* The article in the Post about how BART has a redundant train control system to ensure that all trains are accounted for on the system at all times off-handedly mentioned that BART is under the oversight of the California Public Utilities Commission. See "Sister Transit System Took Steps to Counter Hazard: BART Saw Circuit Problem At Center of Metro Probe."

From the article:

Shortly after BART started operating in 1972, it installed a backup system. Initial tests of the main train protection system failed to detect the presence of a train in a few instances, according to Mike Healey, a longtime BART spokesman who retired in 2005. A subsequent 1972 BART accident involving a train that mistakenly received a command to double its speed instead of slowing down, sending the train off track and into a parking lot, was the catalyst "to have some redundancy to back up the primary train protection system," Healey said...

Willard Wattenburg, an electrical engineer and inventor retired from the University of California at Berkeley, said intermittent failures were frequent on BART in the early 1970s. Wattenburg analyzed BART's initial design for the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates transit systems, and crafted some corrections. BART officials at the time said the failures were flukes, but regulators insisted on the design changes. .

This used to be the case for the old streetcar system, which was overseen by the DC Public Service Commission.

There needs to be a joint commission, with appointees from DC, MD, and VA, to oversee the system and ensure that it meets the highest operational standards.

** Dedicated funding is important but is more focused on managing annual operating budgets. The cost of providing transit is greater than farebox and other revenues. Therefore, funds are provided by the member jurisdictions of the WMATA "Compact" to make up the difference.

*** While the annual appropriations include some money for capital improvements, it's never enough, especially when it comes to system expansion, or replacing large amounts of rolling stock.

Dedicated funding gets at just a little bit of the issues that are in play with WMATA generally.

We can argue that the accident is an indicator of a far bigger systems failure than the circuit system.

That's what we should be coming to realize as we are learning about the systematic failures of this system and the neglect of dealing with it--something that predates General Manager John Catoe.

See "Investigators: Metro equipment at crash problematic for 18 months," "Investigators examining glitches around system" AND ESPECIALLY THIS STORY "Metro operator: Recent crash failure echoes 2005 near-miss" from the Examiner.

DC's culture of corruption

Today's Examiner reports that the U.S. District Attorney's Office is investigating Marion Barry in the context of contracting within his office. See "Federal prosecutors, FBI start probe into Barry’s contracting." Last week, the New York Times reported about a massive sting in New Jersey that netted a number of corrupt local officials. See "Why New Jersey's Culture of Corruption Endures." From the article:

That answer, it turns out, has as many nuances as corruption itself. Interviews with law enforcement officials, prosecutors and, perhaps the best authority on the subject — those arrested in previous sweeps, like Mr. Botti — reveal a culture of corruption so ingrained that it has become impossible to resist when the envelope appears.

A decade-long building boom has flooded towns with millions of development dollars, as well as wealthy businessmen eager to secure sewer permits and zoning waivers. The Democratic Party firmly dominates local politics, turning most elections into sleepy coronations. The state’s news organizations, once vigorous watchdogs, have been decimated by a deep industry downturn.

Add to all that the fact that New Jersey is divided into hundreds of tiny fiefdoms, where part-time elected officials without much education and with small salaries wield considerable power, and the heady mix of arrogance, control and promised payoffs dissolves the will of even the most determined reformer.

For some time I have been marveling over how people like Maryland State Senator Ulysses Currie or Mayor Sheila Dixon of Baltimore get investigated for the kinds of "dirty" dealings that are taken for granted in DC.

DC's culture of corruption has at least ten levers of influence:

- influence and steering of government contracts
- jobs patronage
- earmarks for nonprofit organizations*
- property tax abatement legislation for specific properties
- negotiations concerning zoning matters (approvals, variances, zoning classification changes, and special exceptions)
- special legislation** benefiting particular parties at the expense of other parties
- property disposition***
- exercise of eminent domain authority
- the link between campaign donations and executive branch and legislative branch policy and legislation****
- paying for services rendered by City Councilmembers acting in the capacity of their "second job"*****

I wouldn't argue that it's a matter of money changing hands directly. But it's a matter of promoting mutual interests.

My take on the failure to define open, fair and transparent processes, except within the Executive Branch's contracting function, although this system is regularly gamed to benefit the posse of whomever is in power, is deliberate.

As long as the system is loosey-goosey, you can be dirty but not necessarily legally corrupt. As President Clinton said famously:

"It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is."

The "is" here is corruption, and DC is dirty.

* Earmarks are bad, but funding nonprofit organizations isn't necessarily bad. If there was an open process for grants, a common tendering of availability of funds, and a system for fairly evaluating proposals and awarding grants, then it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that earmarks support patronage and the city would be better served by an open, transparent, and fair process. This goes for both the Executive and Legislative Branches.

** Somehow, City Council, if it passes legislation, is exempt from the normal process of contracting. It can award no-bid contracts for massive amounts of $. This happened with the designation of the Sanh Oh Choi interests as master developer of the Florida Market area, even though no request for proposals was ever issued. Of course, without an RFP, you can't have an open process of reviewing awards. In my experience, this is the dirtiest deal I've witnessed, and I can't see how it's any different from what got all those New Jersey pols arrested...

*** You can complain about the system now that the Executive Branch is following on property disposition--and I do, because it is happening without neighborhood plans for the most part, and with a failure to consider property redevelopment in the context of broader neighborhood and community goals--but at least the tendering process is open and there is a review process.

Still, Councilmembers still initiate bills to award properties to favored developers or nonprofits, although this habit is diminishing somewhat as the property inventory dwindles.

**** This is not just an aspect of capitalism. Unions in particular are big spenders in Council and Mayoral elections, which helps them to curry favor in a variety of ways which may be counter to good government policies and regulations.

***** City Councilmembers other than the Chairman are allowed to have a second job, and many Councilmembers, especially the lawyers, do make money working for local law firms. How can this not be a conflict of interest? Who would want to hire these people otherwise?

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Also see ""City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place," by Harvey Molotch. The abstract states:

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.

WMATA and transit marketing vs. crisis communications

In response to today's Dr. Gridlock column in the Post, which reports on increased rider dissatisfaction due to the post-crash service slowdowns as a result of persistent circuit failures and/or continued investigation of the crash by the National Transportation Board, I am reprinting portions of two entries, one from 2005, and one from 2006.

The basic point is that you have to market to the riders, rather than just take them for granted. Ultimately, transit riders are voters, and shape the broader environment that WMATA operates within.

The cobbling of blog entries below doesn't take up the idea of crisis management and communications and what successful organizations need to do in such situations, although there has been plenty written about it, including case studies of Johnson & Johnson and Tylenol tampering. Think about J&J's success, even though their response wasn't perfect, versus the failure of other businesses such as Enron, EF Hutton, or that company based in Virginia that made contaminated peanut butter.

If you look at this case study on Tylenol (from a Department of Defense seminar on crisis communications) they discuss various strategies for dealing with the various publics of the organization and maintaining trust in the organization on the part of outsiders.

WMATA is not doing this adequately. At the bike presentation last week, I had a conversation with someone on the Riders Advisory Council, and it was clear that she had a vastly different understanding about what the real problems were that led to the crash than I (maybe I have information processing difficulties but I don't think so), and a focus on what I would consider to be somewhat superfluous issues (whether or not the driver was tired and this slowed her response in engaging the emergency brake--at 59 miles per hour, a few hundred feet is not enough to stop a 6 car train).

WMATA has always had a problem of a militaristic organizational structure and system of command-control that derived from how the organization was first led by a former General of the Army Corps of Engineers.

So there isn't a lot of empathy expressed by the organization. People give stock answers. And often the answers leave much of the original question unanswered. Granted lots of government agencies work the same way. But WMATA has 1.2 million rider/customer/stakeholders/voters every working day. They have to be marketed to and managed in ways that bring them in as equal partners.

That hasn't been done.
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A long time ago, I read the book Strategic Marketing for Not-For-Profit Organizations by the U of Michigan Social Work professor Armand Lauffer. One of the concepts that has stuck with me over the years is that organizations have three publics:

1. The input public that provides the organization with resources;
2. The throughput public that does the work of the organization; and
3. The output public to whom the organization's activities are directed.

Transit marketing, promotion, and publicity has at least two different segments of "output publics" -- (1) the people who are interested and involved in the planning issues around transportation and (2) the people that "consume" transit services. [From "Making Transit Sexy."]

Today's Sprawl and Crawl column in the Examiner [note: this was in January 2006 and the article is no longer in the Examiner archives], written before Richard White's resignation, about the difficulty of the job, that by and large White has done a decent job, and the over-involvement of the Board of Directors in day-to-day operations.

It does make me further think about my "dream" of re-writing (or producing a new version) of the textbook Marketing Public Transit, perhaps with these images on the cover:

Mosaic created with FD's Flickr Toys.

One of the ways I would structure the text is along the lines of the input, throughput, and output publics framework laid out by Armand Lauffer in his textbook Marketing for Not-For-Profit Organizations.

Transit marketing must be reconceptualized along the lines of this framework.

One problem with WMATA, and these problems start at the top, is a tin ear in terms of listening and relating to the public. They need to rethink their public communications efforts, and develop different kinds of campaigns according to the type of public they are attempting to reach.

Anyone who took expository writing in school remembers those lessons about "defining your audience." The one problem with those classes is we didn't learn about how to categorize audiences more specifically. For nonprofit and government organizations, Lauffer's work is particularly useful in this regard.

Like Mayor Bloomberg, Dan Tangherlini rides public transportation.

Richard White didn't have much of a public persona, although he dealt mostly with high-level businesspeople and other government public officials. Since elected officials comprise a majority of the WMATA Board, and they are responsible, nominally, to the public, even appointed officials in high-profile government agencies perhaps need to consider how "public communications" activities are an increasingly important part of their job... if they want to keep their job (on the other hand, look what happened to David Gunn of Amtrak...).

At the same time, marketing isn't really about "selling" only what you want to sell. It is about responding to the market(s) and segments, leading market(s), and often balancing conflicting objectives (such as elected officials that want to keep taxes low, citizens who want more transit, and operations personnel who are looking for more financial support to maintain deteriorating infrastructure).

Public transportation systems have to sell use as well as funding, since farebox revenue only covers a portion of current operations, and nothing towards expansion (and WMATA is the number one transit system in the U.S. in the percentage of farebox revenue collected). Funding has to be sold to non-users as well as users, and of course, to public officials.

It's a tough job in any community, particularly this one, as Steve Eldridge, the Sprawl and Crawl columnist for the Examiner, so rightly pointed out in today's column.

Potatoes for sale at the Baltimore Farmers Market

Potatoes for sale at the Baltimore Farmers Market
Originally uploaded by rllayman

I don't get why for the most part, food prices are so high at farmers markets in the DC-MD area (I don't have a lot of experience attending markets in Northern Virginia, so this comment doesn't extend to those markets, yet).

The Baltimore Farmers Market on Sundays and the Waverly Farmers Market (32nd Street Market) on Saturdays in Baltimore are my favorite markets in the region.

Last weekend was Artscape, so we went to Baltimore and attended the Sunday Farmers Market as part of our trip.

This farmer-vendor was selling two boxes of potatoes, admittedly not organic, for $3. The day before we were in Silver Spring and for the first time we walked through the Saturday Farmers Market there. One box of red potatoes was $6.

The Farmers Market Coalition has a new campaign, "Markets are Up" to promote farmers markets, in recognition of National Farmers Market Week, August 2nd to August 8th.

Missing the point about sidewalks: it's not about sidewalks, it's about walking

Post photo by Mark Gail.

In response to the Post Extra article, "District's Move for Sidewalks Divides NW Neighborhood of Hawthorne," I say that having sidewalks everywhere isn't the issue when plenty of people aren't walking where there are already exists a virtually complete network of sidewalks.

After all, DC has some of the highest childhood obesity rates in the region. See this story, "D.C. Children Top Obesity" from WJLA-TV from 2007, and this recent Washington Post story, "D.C. Area Schools Need to Do More to Address Childhood Obesity." DC must already have the most extensive sidewalk network in the region, so why doesn't it have the best fitness rates? I know, part of the issue is nutrition, etc., but the basic point obtains: it's not just a matter of physical infrastructure.

Getting worked up about having sidewalks in North Portal Estates is a distraction. Sure there are places in parts of the city distant from the core where there are gaps in the sidewalk network, even in places with a more traditional grid pattern of blocks and streets without curb cuts for garages. And it makes sense to complete the sidewalk network.

However, we should be more concerned about the plenty of places in the city where there are sidewalks and people for the most part aren't walking. It's a matter of priorities and of figuring out the whats and whys (related to the point I made yesterday about focusing on the right things and asking the right questions, rather than avoiding the obvious).

In the paper/blog entry "Ideas for making bicycling irresistible in Washington DC," one of the sections is on promoting bicycling specifically at the ward/neighborhood level. Think of these points and add the word "walking" and you have a framework for bicycling and walking planning and programming at the neighborhood level:

Ward/Neighborhood bicycling enhancement

• Rate all neighborhoods in terms of their capacity to support bicycling including topography, distance to amenities and other destinations, location of schools and parks, etc. (Could use DCOP’s 37 planning areas for the organizing framework for this activity.)

• Create (relatively simple) subplans of the Bicycle Master Plan for neighborhoods-ANCs-Wards and develop programs to enhance bicycling within neighborhoods based on this assessment. Create programs that are fine-tuned to local conditions, rather than one-size-fits-all programs that will fail if implemented in places with unfavorable conditions.

• Create focused programs to engage demographic segments under-represented in the ranks of bicyclists: children; families; disabled (London has specific programs); seniors, people who speak English as a Second Language (ESL), low-income, etc.

• Ensure that bicycling promotion programs provide information, focused outreach, and assistance to various ESL demographics.

• DDOT and DCOP have ward planners. (And DPR has Ward coordinators for Recreation Centers and programs.) Add a new position of Bicycle and Pedestrian Ward Planner to DDOT for each ward. (This could be funded all or in part by the TEA grant. Or part of the funding for these positions could be local – for the non-bicycling portion—and be considered local match, if required.

• Develop stronger civic engagement/volunteer programs. Non-government employee bicyclists can serve as “ambassadors,” mentors, and “buddies” to move people along the path from occasional rider to daily bicyclist.

• Community-neighborhood cycling enhancement grants (London). This is a small grants program (up to $10,000) supporting various projects. Could be run in coordination with ANCs. Some ANCs have Transportation and Public Space Committees (ANC6A, ANC6C), which would be logical partners.

• Annual neighborhood and/or ward rides, comparable to BikeArlington and Alexandria but on a smaller scale. This can be complemented with the development of a BikeDC annual ride, comparable to that offered by BikeArlington.

• Create neighborhood bicycle tours with online and printed maps. Partner with DestinationDC and CulturalTourismDC to do this.

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Each neighborhood needs a walking and bicycling plan, and there needs to be a "neighborhood trail" for walkers and bicyclists that links civic assets such as parks, schools, recreational centers and libraries, with neighborhood commercial districts and other institutions, and transit stations, in a manner that extends the idea of "Safe Routes to School" to walking-bicycling routes within neighborhoods.

The neighborhood walking-site-asset maps program in Seattle implements this kind of idea. From the Feet First website:

Why Maps?
At Feet First, we see maps as ways to both celebrate and transform your neighborhood. We work with people from all walks of a community to publish our Neighborhoods on Foot series. In each community, we find that people identify with where they live and have passionate ideas of how to shape the future.

Neighborhoods on Foot Series
Our "Neighborhoods on Foot" maps are periodicals -- in them you can read about important current events, up and coming groups, or how to put your finger on the pulse of the community. We reissue them with local support and participation. The cover side is rich with content that will increase your community quotient.

Maps can be picked up in the neighborhood for free from a primary location and many shops, cafes, libraries, and community centers. You can always find them at our office.

The WalkArlington program in Arlington County is another program, one that uses branding and social marketing techniques to tie together planning activities that promote pedestrianism along with practical programs (some in association with Fit Arlington) that promote exploring neighborhoods via walking. (And Arlington does this with biking too, see BikeArlington.) From their website:

Urban planners, sociologists and others have long looked at the factors influencing walkability. The biggest factor affecting a decision to walk is distance. Most people are willing to walk a quarter to a half mile. A few people are willing to walk greater distances. Arlington's planning for pedestrian travel has built on this principal. Providing higher densities and pedestrian facilities within this walk zone around Metro stations has made Arlington a national leader in transit oriented development.

In Arlington, the goal IS a walkable community, and WALKArlington is the name of the primary initiative to make it so! An inter-disciplinary, cross-cultural citizen and staff-driven effort, WALKArlington is part of an even bigger plan to realize Arlington's intrinsic "urban village" nature, where goods and services and other needs are located close to one another and to residences and workers, and where walking is simply the safest, healthiest and most enjoyable way to get around.

People are willing to walk farther, every day, when the place environment is congenial. We see this in areas of the city with a continuous and active street environment, and so people walk farther distances than the norm to get to work (i.e., walking from Adams-Morgan to downton) and other places.

But the basic point is this: sidewalks aren't enough--it's about the broader environment and programming to help people take that first step, when they are much more accustomed to driving. See this Post special series for more, "Young Lives at Risk: Our Overweight Children."

Also see this piece by Dan Burden, "How Can I Find and Help Build a Walkable Community?.

Now I could have taken an urban design approach to this entry, but for the most part, the right urban design is in place in DC for walking, at least in a large portion of the city. For a couple of papers along those lines see:

-- (published by the Florida Department of Transportation) Walkable Communities: 12 Steps for an effective program
-- Close Encounters with Buildings by Jan Gehl et al.

And Planetizen has a nice piece on what I prefer to call guidelines to complete places, but are technically "street design" manuals. See "Rethinking the Street Space: Why Street Design Matters." It lists a number of links to quality street design manuals.

Let's go to the Mall...

After festivals and celebrations in early July, the National Mall is worn from wear, as seen from the top of the Washington Monument facing the Capitol in Washington, on Tuesday, July 14, 2009. Crumbling sidewalks near the Jefferson Memorial are sinking into the Tidal Basin. Reflecting pools are filled with green, smelly water. And millions of visitors have trampled the soil into virtual concrete where grass can't grow. The National Mall is in danger of becoming a national disgrace.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The City Desk blog/Loose Lips at the City Paper calls our attention to an AP story on the state of the National Mall, "Neglected National Mall languishes." From the article:

An Associated Press analysis of congressional spending since 2005 found the mall has been at a disadvantage in competing for extra funds doled out by lawmakers, compared with sites that are represented by powerful members of Congress. The mall is in Washington, D.C., which has no vote in the House or Senate.

Last year, when dozens of ducks and ducklings died of avian botulism because the water in a mall pool near the Capitol was so fetid, and as urgent repairs were needed to stop the Jefferson Memorial's sea wall from sinking into the mud, the Senate killed a $3.5 million earmark for the mall.

Instead, funding went to projects back home. All told, Congress sent home more than $181 million in earmarks through the park service budget last year — an election year — according to data compiled by the group Taxpayers for Common Sense and analyzed by the AP. Nearly half that money was driven by lawmakers who were on the House and Senate appropriations committees.. ...

Government watchdogs say earmarks corrupt the budget process. "We're making spending decisions on the basis of political muscle, rather than project merit," said Stephen Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "Because the mall is owned by nobody, even though it is this gem for many Americans, it gets short shrift," he said.

The mall didn't just lose out on earmarks. In January, Congress deleted $200 million in stimulus funding for the mall. And last year, a bill that would have appropriated $100 million for mall repairs failed.

Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas said mall funding wasn't an emergency. "It's entirely appropriate for Congress to fund repairs for the National Mall in the traditional process, but the American people are smart enough to know that it will do very little or absolutely nothing to provide economic stimulus," he said.

House Republican whip Eric Cantor of Virginia similarly derided efforts to "help upkeep the grass on the lawns of Washington."

This is the problem with the federal institutions and civic assets located within DC. As long as we are reliant on Congresspeople to fund the maintenance and improvement of these assets, which for better or worse, are constituent civic assets both for the nation and for our city, we are screwed.

Most of them spend all their time running against and railing against "Washington." So why should they consider investing in Washington, or Washington's role as the center of government, and its place at the center of interpreting the narrative of the nation, National Myth and Culture, etc.

On the other hand, as "Washingtonians" our hands are plenty full trying to get the municipal government to function and we don't have enough time to serve as adequate stewards of the "local" civic assets that carry both national and local meaning.

See "Running Against Washington" from a 1976 issue of Time Magazine and this blog entry from 2006, "Running against Washington means you're predisposed not to help it." We need another Mr. Smith...

Transportation and mobility and usage and equity

There are different goals for the provision of mass transportation. They include:

- (optimal) movement of goods and people
- congestion reduction/optimizing mobility
- access to jobs, housing, education, and other opportunities (equity)
- greater economic competitiveness for cities and neighborhoods.

When we aren't direct about our goals and objectives, we end up talking about different things, and sometimes the projects we pursue may not fully attain the objectives we are trying to achieve, especially when we consider transportation on different scales (neighborhood, intra-city, metropolitan), especially when rather than working to achieve each of the four goals, the transit service is overly focused on achieving one goal, and in a possibly constrained manner at that.

For example, yesterday in a discussion about Baltimore transportation issues on a Baltimore e-list, someone complained about the difficulty of getting around Baltimore by transit but then mentioned that he and many others from Baltimore work in Silver Spring and they all drive, and that therefore, the most important transit issue for Baltimore to address is get people to the outskirts of DC by rail.

No, Baltimore has to represent its interests first and foremost, along the lines outlined above (Although I do think this raises an interesting point, that relying only on the railroad to service demand from Baltimore to DC _regional_ commuting might be a mistake. There probably needs to a commuter bus that goes from Baltimore to Silver Spring and Bethesda, without stopping in DC proper.)

Without thinking through the broader objectives, transit projects are implemented which may not really achieve their stated goals.

A man rushes to catch the train at the Lynx light-rail 485/South Blvd. station Wednesday morning. Today is "Don't Drive Day," for the Charlotte region. Mecklenburg County NC Air Awareness and Clear Air Works! are offering prizes for people who take a train, bus or bike to the office. Eligible commutes include taking the bus or Lynx blue line, using a car pool or van pool, walking, telecommuting or biking. TODD SUMLIN - Charlotte Observer.

Ralph sends us notice of this article, "Most on Lynx new to transit," from the Charlotte Observer, about ridership demographics of the new light rail system in Charlotte, NC. It's important from the standpoint of promoting optimal urban-focused transportation policies, because a well designed and extensive transit _system_ simultaneously serves all of those goals listed above.

From the article:

The average light-rail passenger is better educated than the typical express bus rider, and Lynx passengers belong to households earning more money, according to a Charlotte Area Transit System survey of Lynx Blue Line riders. CATS touted the survey results – especially a finding that 72 percent of light-rail riders didn't use public transportation before. That shows that light-rail has attracted new riders, said Olaf Kinard, a marketing manager for CATS. “It shows people that if you build it, they'll ride it,” he said.

CATS used an outside marketing firm to survey nearly 1,000 rail riders in December and January. It was the system's first attempt to determine who is riding and why. The average Lynx rider's household income is $65,000, compared with $55,200 for an express bus rider and $31,800 for a regular bus rider. Express buses run from the suburbs to uptown and target commuters. The median county household income is $62,241, according to CATS. Nearly 70 percent of Lynx riders have finished college, compared with 52 percent for express buses and 25 percent for regular buses.

Rail lines across the country usually attract more affluent passengers than bus lines. Critics complain that tax dollars are being spent on people who don't need a transportation subsidy. Transit supporters argue that many people have a bias favoring rail transit, and that spending money on light-rail is important to get choice riders out of their cars.

I agree with the last paragraph. Choice riders prefer fixed rail transit. Therefore we must recognize this within planning. Failing to do so creates transit services that are not used. That is called "failure." Given the limited amount of money we have to spend on transit, failure is not an option. Therefore, increased focus on bus and bus rapid transit, and not on extending the fixed rail transit network (streetcar, light rail, subway-heavy rail, and railroad passenger service) dis-serves the achievement of optimal mobility.

The advantage of fixed rail transit is that if the system is designed properly it does service all rider demographic groups, not only those with the highest household incomes.

Why at this juncture DC is screwed

From "Progress, Problems After D.C. Schools Takeover" in the Washington Post:

The District's struggling public school system has made significant progress during two years of mayoral control, but lack of planning and transparency has hindered some reforms, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported Thursday. ...

The report also describes a lack of clear strategic planning with specific targets that can be communicated to the community stakeholders.

Victor Reinoso, deputy mayor for education, said the Fenty administration was more interested in results than detailed blueprints. "Our emphasis has been on accountability and results, and less on plans which the city was quite successful in doing previously," he said.

GAO report: District of Columbia Public Schools: Implementation and Sustainability of Reform Efforts Could Benefit From Enhanced Planning

The basic "plan" for the "reform" of the DC public school system is to fire old teachers and hire new teachers.

Sure there are "bad" teachers. But as importantly, the system hasn't been focused on building quality management and support and training and development systems to support students, teaching, teachers, principals, schools, and families.

Over the years--my joke is that the reason that the schools are probably the worst performing local municipal institution is because home rule started first in the public school system--local leadership had become more concerned with the school system being an opportunity for patronage that concerns about achieving outcomes in the classrooms, for students, ceased being a priority.

I am the first to say that planning as a field has flaws. If you are asking the wrong questions and/or avoiding the most fundamental, substantive, and important issues, and planning around the answers to wrong questions, then your plan isn't going to be any good.

I know it's a cliche, but a "Failure to Plan is a Plan for Failure." From the article:

There are two adages I think of regarding planning and launching a business intelligence project. They are: "Failure to plan is a plan for failure" and "Each hour spent planning is worth two hours saved during implementation." ... Here’s a checklist for doing the job right:

• Define the project.
• Identify the users.
• Develop a formal project plan.
• Assemble the project team.
• Assess all information and technical needs.
• Select the software.
• Configure the business intelligence application.
• Deploy a support strategy.
• Train all users.

The article is focused on software development, so this checklist needs modification for accurate application to other stettings. (And there are plenty of examples of failed software implementations). For example, the school's users include children, teachers, principals, support personnel, parents, community members, elected officials, etc. But in any case, a failure to plan will yield failure. So will a failure to connect to all the stakeholder groups that must be involved in order to achieve success.

It's true that planning can be so over detailed as to be problematic. But not planning at all--more importantly, not asking the right questions about purpose and outcomes and how to achieve the preferred outcomes and how to build the systems, processes, and structures to yield the outcomes without over-reliance on exemplary individuals--you can be certain that your efforts will fail.

The problem is that a focus on immediate results--call it accountability if you want, but it isn't really--without asking significant questions about what you are supposed to achieve, and what you are trying to achieve, and identifying gaps between what you are doing and what you are supposed to be doing means you're working hard but you sure as hell aren't working smart.

I jokingly call my work style "minimalist." I try to work smart, not hard, and work to apply theory and best practices to my projects to increase the likelihood of success from the outset, rather than in a panic in response to evident problems (that could have been predicted).

As Bismarck said:

"Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others."

When you don't have that experience, and the people running DC's school "reform" efforts do not, plans are a necessary first step.

The same attitude about the irrelevance of planning to improving the schools permeates the executive branch of the DC Government, hence the headline of this entry.