Why choosing to locate so that you can get to your job matters

According to the Washington Post, Washington Hospital Center fired a bunch of nurses who were unable to get to work during the recent snowstorms. See "D.C. hospital fires 11 nurses, 5 staffers for snowstorm absences."

Yes, it was probably just an excuse to show that management is management, and it sucks, especially for the people who were fired, appears arbitrary and capricious, etc.

But, if the terms of your employment provide very little wiggle room if you can't make it to work, you ought to live close to work, not far away from it, or in an area where you don't think you can make it out if it snows heavily.

This is a personal form of "transportation planning" "for contingencies." In transportation planning, this is called the jobs-housing balance, although it doesn't usually refer to getting to work during weather events.

Before the widespread use of the personally owned automobile, most people lived close to where they worked, and either walked or took public transit.

Walking to work, 1916. Photographer: Bain News Service. Location unknown.

Commercial district revitalization and return on public investment

One of the things that bugs me about local economic development is that elected and appointed officials don't seem to understand it much. Certain types of government funding add value and spur subsequent independent private investment and other types of funding do not. Ideally, each dollar you spend generates significantly more in private investment.

As Rolf Goetze makes the point in Building Neighborhood Confidence (1976), although referring to neighborhood stabilization, that government programs shouldn't be fostering dependence but rather spurring people to continue to invest in their neighborhood--"building confidence in remaining in and investing in their neighborhood."

This is why I don't have much truck with complaints about "gentrification." The problem most urban neighborhoods have, if they have problems, is the lack of investment.

The solution to lack of investment isn't whining or glorifying being poor, it's investment.

The solution to dealing with displacement is to develop programs to reintegrate the disadvantaged into the economy in substantive ways (such as along the lines discussed in the textbook Community Economic Development Handbook) as well as extracting some housing outside of market forces through the development of alternative ownership structures, either portfolio investment within nonprofit housing organizations, land trusts, cooperatives, etc.

Also see this very old blog entry, "More about contested spaces--gentrification which derives from something I first wrote in 2004.

The other thing to remember is that it took many decades for neighborhoods and commercial districts to decline, so we have to recognize that it will take a long time for these places to be improved. It takes even longer when we don't know what we are doing, and we fail to learn from previous practice, not to mention best practice, and we put in minimal amounts of money so that it makes improvement very hard to come about, and we don't direct money in ways where it can have great impact so that money gets wasted.

So, it's very interesting to read stories around the country about how in these economic times, many communities are looking into dissolving their commercial district revitalization programs ("Downtown development authorities help make city centers cool, but can West Michigan communities afford to keep them?" from the Grand Rapids Press in Michigan ) even while other articles acknowledge that it takes a long time, more than one decade to truly see results ("Strengthening Manitowoc's 'heart' a challenge: Revitalizing downtown Manitowoc won't happen overnight; takes work, planning and money" from the Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter in Wisconsin and "Development plan still reshapes downtown 10 years later" from the Oshkosh Wisconsin Northwesterner).

Meanwhile the State of Maryland is working to change the state historic preservation tax credit to a sustainable communities tax credit program. (Press release from Preservation Maryland)

It's a good move, because Baltimore City garnered most of the credits--because they have the most buildings of any jurisdiction in the state that are eligible because it is the oldest center city and once was one of the nation's major manufacturing centers--and this upset legislators from other jurisdictions (sadly, as they clearly don't understand what Jane Jacobs wrote in Economy of Cities and Cities and the Wealth of Nations about the necessity of center cities to thrive as they are the centers for metropolitan economies).

The state historic tax credit in Maryland generated more than $9 in direct private investment for every $1 in credit. The Maryland heritage areas program generates more than $40 for every $1 of state investment.

Yet these kinds of programs, and tourism support programs generally, are always under attack, even in decent economic times.

It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Also see "MAIN STREET NICHES IN A MASS SALES WORLD" (1/11/04) column by Neal Peirce. From the article:

Successful Main Street programs, Rand notes, take years to mature -- four or five years to change attitudes and build initial confidence, five to ten or more years for owners to start reinvesting seriously, 15 or 20 for the full recovery and new growth to take solid root.

DC's Transportation "Plan"

While it's not a full-fledged master transportation plan along the lines of what I believe that the city needs to produce, DC's Department of Transportation has just released a two-year Action Agenda and Annual Report for 2009 and it looks to be quite good, covering much of the ground that I think ought to be in a robust and forward-thinking (full-fledged) plan, even if they don't address everything, or in the manner in which I might want them to cover certain elements.

The Agenda refocuses the transportation agenda on what we might call complete places and sustainable and optimal transportation and linking land use and transportation planning and objectives. It appears to extend the thinking of the Transportation element from the DC Comprehensive Plan in a more integrated fashion.

It's definitely a huge step forward, complemented by how Director Klein (see yesterday's Washington Post article, "Transportation chief says bikes, buses are way to go in D.C.") is reorganizing the agency's operations, structure, and management around the achievement of quality of place goals, rather than organizing operations in a mode-based fashion, mostly focused on the maintenance and construction of streets, highways, and bridges.

DDOT has also launched a new website, although I haven't had a chance to dig through it, and I don't know if any fanfare for it is justified. For me, thus far the changes make it harder to use the site, not easier, because I have learned how to find stuff according to how they had previously organized the site.

West Elm is closing their downtown DC store

Dressing windows at West Elm, Downtown DC.

When it opened, Mayor Fenty heralded it as a sign that DC is the best retail center in the U.S. Of course, that is the kind of knowledge-less driven cheerleading that is expected from municipal executives. Still, it was nice to have a store (even if the design sensibility doesn't appeal to me all that much) like it downtown.

The Washington Business Journal reports in "West Elm closing D.C. store," that the store is closing. Here's my reaction:

This isn't a total surprise. It proves that retail recruitment needs to be an incredibly nuanced and judicious process. It isn't just a matter of getting a business to locate in DC, anywhere in DC, where they locate their store really matters.

Had West Elm been located to near where Room & Board has located on 14th Street NW in "Mid City", the two stores (along with the other related stores existing such as Muleh or Urban Habitat) would have helped to center the 14th and U area as the beginnings of a more hip furniture/home furnishings district as compared to the more upscale furniture district that is being developed on upper M Street in Georgetown. (See "Developer Infuses Historic Properties With Commerce" from the New York Times about Anthony Lanier's projects in Georgetown.)

Add a CB2, try to figure out how to insert a couple other furniture stores (such as Pompanusuc Mills, etc.) to further extend the cluster.

Downtown, West Elm (other than Macys) is a lonely retail nonclothing outpost. Without critical retail mass, not to mention the decline in the number of new households locating in the center city as the real estate market slowed--you need lots of turnover in the housing market, lots of new households coming in, to support furniture and home furnishings stores--it's not a surprise to me that the store failed.

You need to plan for a store's sustainability, not just its opening, when you do retail recruitment and development. Cheerleading is no substitute for really understanding the dynamics of your retail district.

See "Home Furnisher Opening in Woodies Building: West Elm's Arrival Heralded as Key Step in Revitalization of Downtown Retailing," from 8/20/2007 in the Washington Post, and the city press release, "West Elm Opens Flagship Store in Downtown DC."

Rethinking motorized and nonmotorized transportation because of electric bicycles

Roger Phillips, 78, uses an electric bicycle in Manhattan, although they are not officially permitted on New York streets.

The general thought about electric bicycles is that they are considered motorized transportation, not nonmotorized transportation, and therefore shouldn't be mixed into traditional bicycle facilities. Beijing is overrun with electric bikes according to "On the Streets of China, Electric Bikes Are Swarming" from Time Magazine.

But a point in this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "GreenSpace: Biking is good for us, good for the Earth, and plain fun," gives me pause:

Out in Mount Airy, a guy who sells only electric bicycles says business is great. Afshin Kaighobady, owner of Philly Electric Wheels, got the idea for the store when his wife, Meenal Raval, had to travel to stores in two states to investigate different models. He has 22 on the floor.

These decisively bring the bike into the realm of commuter transportation. Kaighobady says a typical customer is someone going the 10 or so miles to Center City. The electric assist - you still have to pedal, but you can choose how much of a boost you want, sort of like switching gears - reduces the sweat factor and sure helps on the uphill trip home.

They are absolutely right. (For the same point also see "An Electric Boost for Bicyclists" from the New York Times.)

A lot of people are unwilling to ride more than 3-5 miles on a bicycle trip, reliant solely upon their own energy. But with an electric bicycle, maybe this would extend the range that people are willing to ride on key trips from say 3-5 miles to as much as 15 miles.

That could have tremendous positive impact on mode switching from motorized vehicles.

Most strip shopping centers don't have bicycle racks

Most strip shopping centers don't have bicycle racks
Originally uploaded by rllayman

This requires changes in zoning. And zoning requirements should differentiate between and provide targeted requirements for short term vs. long term parking. In a shopping center like this one, long term parking would support employees and has different requirements from short term parking provided for customers. The Toronto Bicycle Parking Guide has pretty good suggestions.

Untrimmed bushes create pedestrian hazards on Bradley Lane in Chevy Chase, Maryland

Untrimmed bushes create pedestrian hazards on Bradley Lane in Chevy Chase, Maryland
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Note the woman ducking under the bush to be able to continue walking. The recommendations generally are to trim vegetation to a clearance height of 8 feet.

A roundabout has been constructed on Brentwood Road

A roundabout has been constructed on Brentwood Road
Originally uploaded by rllayman

I didn't know that this was going to happen. Increasingly, roundabouts are used as "traffic calming" facilities. For a bit of a description, see the page on roundabouts from the Tempe Streetscape and Transportation Enhancement Program Manual

Context sensitive solutions vs. complete streets vs. smart transportation

Context sensitive solutions was the first design attempt to better reconcile traffic throughput with the quality of place. The idea of "Complete Streets" rebrands this idea. I don't think it extends the CSS concepts which are more an engineering approach, but it does bring up more centrally the idea of "placemaking."

The Smart Transportation Guidebook (which I have mentioned on this blog before), co-produced by the State of Pennsylvania and the State of New Jersey Departments of Transportation through the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (a "metropolitan planning organization" that covers parts of both NJ and PA) takes the idea of complete streets to a whole new level by providing real frameworks for considering and applying the idea as a design and engineering methodology.

There are three basic concepts even though there are many more than three concepts laid out in the guide:

1. The key is designing the roadway to the desired operating speed for traffic, not designing to specifications that allow all roads to be driven very very very fast by most traffic.

You do this by

2. Defining the land use context (the guidebook provides 7 different land use zones, from rural to urban core) and

3. Redefining the traditional classification of roadways (arterial, collector, and local streets) according to land use context, which can be divvied up into two broad categories, land use and roads that mostly provide local service between places (Main Street type commercial districts are one example) vs. land use and roads that mostly provide regional connections and are used mostly for through traffic.

The guidebook provides more detailed guidance according to what they define as roadway design issues, roadside design issues, and desired operating speed. Design specifications and specifics of infrastructure then vary according to the land use and roadway context.

It's a superlative approach and one I am trying to put forward in the context of the pedestrian and bicycle plan that I am working on in the Baltimore area.

I highly recommend your printing off the guidebook and reading it thoroughly more than once...

Once again, when you ask the wrong question, parking is always the answer

(Not being skilled at dubbing, I'd really like to dub the "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" line from the Brady Bunch as "parking, parking, parking.)

There are usually two answers provided by politicians to concerns raised by merchants in commercial districts about their real or perceived lack of business:

- provide a shuttle/circulator type bus service and/or
- build a parking structure.

Now, these aren't necessarily bad strategies, depending on the context BUT it's dependent on knowing what the deal really is with the commercial district. Without doing an in-depth commercial district revitalization study including a "market" study and interviews (quantitative and qualitative), you don't really know what is going on.

For example, the most fundamental question is, exactly, what is the retail trade area (the geographic area) from which Cleveland Park "retail" draws its customers? Does the RTA vary for retail vs. restaurant and food? How do people get to the RTA to shop? Is the retail mix offered by the commercial district adequate enough to meet the various retail needs and interests of consumers? etc.

And, which no merchant likes to ask, is the quality of the offer equal to the task of meeting the needs and demands of consumers? A lot of time, the answer is no...

(If you like reading studies from elsewhere for insight into your own situation, I highly recommend my analysis of how to plan the retail and entertainment mix in a commercial district by daypart, which is embedded in this study I did for Cambridge, Maryland, A Commercial District Revitalization Framework Plan for Downtown Cambridge, Maryland. It's a subtle and intricate approach that no one is doing and deserves to be written up as a journal article.)

Instead, I can't think of a merchant in DC (well, there is one person*) that I haven't heard say that the most important problem that they need to address is lack of parking. Of course, in our region, the automobile-dependent places such as Bethesda and Silver Spring are so good at providing municipal parking structures often with free parking at night, that as a result most every merchant everywhere else (ranging from Warren Love of CakeLove who believes that a public parking structure where the Reeves Building is located would enable more people to buy his overpriced cakes, or the Capitol Hill restauranteur--now defunct--who believed that parking should have been allowed on the Eastern Market Metro site, etc.) believes that they need more parking.

What people don't understand is that except for work trips, unless you live close in, in a place like Montgomery County, you have to drive to get anywhere, so providing parking is a necessity, if traditional commercial districts are to be competitive with shopping malls.

But the suburban experience isn't necessarily relevant to the urban/center city experience, where more people live more densely, and often walk or take transit (or even bicycle) to local commercial districts.

In response to this continual drumbeat, there are proposals to put in massive amounts of parking at Eastern Market (there is a need there for some parking, but mostly the need is for systematic transportation management and for parking wayfinding systems) and other places--despite the massive failure of the parking structure at Columbia Heights ("At Columbia Heights Mall, So Much Parking, So Little Need " from the Post).

The latest proposal is for Cleveland Park, according to this blog entry, "Parking garage not the answer for Cleveland Park," in GGW. Apparently, Councilmember Cheh, who normally favors "smart growth" recommends a parking structure there.

Here was my response to that entry:

Sadly, the real issue is about the retail. But you're all talking** about the parking garage proposal. As I pointed out on this blog about 17th Street a year or two ago when parking-retail was discussed, the real issue is the nature of the retail district and the retail trade area and then how people get to the RTA. (** Actually some of the people did discuss the retail issues more thoroughly.)

But I wrote about the Cleveland Park retail issue too:

#1 -- Cleveland Park Retail: My off-hand evaluation, the rents are too high

#2 -- Commercial retail rents #2

Obviously, 17th Street/Dupont Circle is different from Cleveland Park. As a "regional" retail district in mid-nw, probably a bunch of people drive to Cleveland Park (it may function comparable to how Bethesda functions for Montgomery County as a major specialty retail and primary restaurant destination), but you need to do a market study/commercial district revitalization framework plan to figure stuff out. It can be reasonable from a commercial district revitalization standpoint to add parking (EVEN THOUGH I HATE TO SAY IT). However, again, I recommend the creation of transportation management districts and the management of all modes rather than a focus on parking.

And this thread also proves that I am making no headway at all in explaining the difference between what people call "Circulators" the DC Circulator service and what I call tertiary transit network service potential within DC:

DC Tertiary Transit Network: intra-neighborhood bus services; private shuttle services (i.e., Washington Hospital Center to/from Brookland Metro, university shuttle services, etc.). This proposed tier of service would be comprised of an intra-neighborhood transit service that could be free (depending on monies provided separately by DC), and oriented to getting people to and from within a neighborhood, to main transit lines and stations without having to drive, and including delivery of goods and services from local commercial districts. The Tempe Orbit bus system in Tempe, Arizona is one model for this type of mobility option.

A circulator in mid-nw could support the Woodley Park and Cleveland Park commercial districts (maybe the stuff by the Cathedral too), but it should stay up in mid-nw and never ever ever go south of Calvert Street.

It should be a "neighborhood" circulator. It would probably be best to run it only certain times of the day, and it could be used "RideOn" style to get people to the subway stations in the morning and back home from the subway stations in the evening.

But as long as you focus on the pretty red buses without thinking through the service profile, you're missing the point.

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* Actually, the guy who owns Marvelous Market at 7th and C Streets SE immediately across from the Eastern Market favors keeping 7th Street closed on weekends to build the festival atmosphere, at the cost of some parking. He's about the only merchant I can think of who understands context and place and mobility.

Those damn art projects and urban revitalization

On an elist, Ann writes about this piece, "Space: It’s Still a Frontier" from the New York Times Opinionator Blog. The story is about "leftover space" in cities that can be made over into green space. While the current project is an urban design project, it's inspiration is earlier projects by artists. Ann writes:

My first thought when I read this was, "is this the highest and best use of urban land they can come up with?" And why does Arieff miss the bigger point altogether, about the need to DESIGN land patterns within cities, and within regions? Critical analysis using GIS or google earth is not new to New Urbanists - but apparently it is to others?

My response:

Critical analysis is difficult when you don't know what are the right questions to ask.

This is an artist driven thing (just like that Julia Christensen Big Box Reuse project which I have little interest in for similar reasons, there was nothing new in it really as repurposing property has been going on as long as the U.S. has been developed).

I had exactly the same reaction as yours to a similar kind of project in Baltimore a year or two ago. It wasn't GIS driven, but it was the same idea "how to use these empty city-owned parcels?" failing to consider the reason why the parcels are empty is because the neighborhood is disconnected from the metropolitan residential landscape, and that the solution to the empty parcel isn't green space necessarily or an art project, it's a healthy thriving neighborhood where that parcel is in demand for housing...

Courtesy Nicholas de Monchaux Visualization of Step 2 shows a Web interface that could be used to transform the site(s) identified by Local Code. Designers, community member and other users would be able to select from a palette of options (from benches, say, to plants). The online/social media component moves toward building digital democracy in community design and activism. Click to enlarge.

(Similar are a lot of writings about Detroit and its problems. Articles fail to make the connection adequately between sprawl, outmigration and continued exurban migration when the core counties have not grown in population over a 50 year period. As a result, suburban expansion means that the core is "deaccessioned" too.)

The crazy thing is that recently I got copies of a couple of Rolf Goetze's books from the 1970s (Building Neighborhood Confidence, Understanding Neighborhood Change) because since they are so little read, university libraries are deaccessioning copies so that now BNC is available relatively cheaply (a couple years ago, it cost more than $120).

I always talk up Belmont's Cities in Full as the best urbanism book since Jane Jacobs.

Well, I don't think there is any writing anywhere that is as clear about residential revitalization in center cities (especially because when he was writing, most every center city was a weak market) as the work of Rolf Goetze. People who have never really dealt with the issues on the ground about urban revitalization especially in weak markets have no clue really, and this project and story are but one example.

Planning frameworks and the DC Indices guidebook

This blog entry is initiated by the press release at the end of the entry, about the release of the 14th edition of INDICES 2009: A Statistical Index of District of Columbia Services.

Thanks to H-DC for communicating this out to those of us subscribers to the list (which addresses DC-related history and urban issues).
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There is some pretty interesting reading in the guidebook.

I likely will never get around to writing a detailed paper about it, but from a theoretical and robustness standpoint, the planning framework in DC, while constantly improving, has room for some significant revision, expansion, and improvement.

For most municipalities, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (or Master Plan) is the closest the local government has to a mission statement and "business plan" and therefore the document ought to be truly comprehensive and thorough.

The Indices guide says that DC produces neighborhood plans but we don't really, the "small area" plans that are produced are not neighborhood plans as much as they are framework plans to guide development, revitalization, and zoning. A neighborhood plan would systematically consider civic facilities (i.e., schools, parks, libraries, recreation centers, transportation -- ideally from the standpoint of sustainability, even the provision of emergency services), and other quality of life factors.

Small area plans and corridor plans ("Great Streets") as mentioned in Indices mostly consider development opportunities and do not consider how a neighborhood is served (or not) by civic assets. So to my way of thinking, they fail the most basic definition of "deliverables" that qualify being termed under the definition of a "neighborhood" plan. (See this web resource guide for more details about what makes great neighborhood planning.)

The Indices guide is very good in explaining what we might call the planning regime and its legal authority.

In the period last year during which amendments could be submitted to the DC Comprehensive Plan, I submitted a bunch, not with the belief that they would be able to be considered, but with an eye towards reorienting how the Planning Office thinks about the plan.

The city's portion of the plan (the National Capital Planning Commission also produces what are called the "Federal" Elements) is organized into two sections, the Citywide or District Elements, and a grab bag of things pushed by Councilmembers and neighborhood groups called Area Elements. District elements pertain to citywide concerns, such as land use and zoning, or transportation, while Area elements, organized into ten geographical sections of the city, are supposed to provide more detailed guidance on neighborhood/subdistrict areas.

I argue that the purpose of planning and zoning is to preserve, maintain, and extend quality of life for residents, while at the same time ensuring the ability of the city to function as a preeminent location to locate and conduct commerce within the metropolitan landscape, and as a place to visit and be entertained.

Another problem with plans is that residents think "it's all about us" and that kind of parochialism is encouraged by city planners and elected officials, but the reality is that for the city to function economically, there are a variety of stakeholders and institutions that comprise "us", and the ability to service "us" needs to be considered as well.

"Us" isn't just people who live in the city, it's also people who visit the city, work in the city, locate businesses in the city, go to school or college in the city, etc. (But if you define "us" only as residents and that is reinforced in the scope of work for various planning initiatives, then end results can be very much flawed. This is the root of my criticism of streetcar planning in the city.)

The city has to be able to function economically and many of the policies promoted by various interest groups across the city aren't economically feasible, when it comes to the reality of having to generate the revenue necessary to run the city and to create, offer, and manage all the programs that people say they want.

For example, many people in neighborhoods dominated by single family housing (either detached or attached), such as Brookland or Georgia Avenue/Brightwood, argue against the insertion of multiunit housing buildings into the neighborhood fabric (ideally such housing is located proximate to high-capacity transit, but also may be located on commercial corridors), arguing instead for either nothing ("we need more parks and open space" is the steady drumbeat*) or for low density housing suitable for families.

But it costs $15,000 per child per year to pay for schooling a child, and most DC households do not generate that much "revenue" per household in terms of property, income, and sales taxes. A household with multiple children costs far more to "service" (also consider the provision of police, fire, library, parks, recreation services, plus sanitation and the maintenance of the street network, paying the city's portion of WMATA transit services, as well as other services provided disproportionately to people in need) than they will ever pay in taxes.

The reality is that the city needs a mix of housing types and a mix of household types in order to better balance the need for services and the ability to pay for services.

I proposed a reorganizing of the plan into four sections. The first would be what I call the Guiding or Leading Elements. Technically, a plan always has a goal or framework element, which the DC Comprehensive Plan does have. But the problem with Comp Plans is that land use ends up being the leading element, and land use, at the end of the day, isn't the most important aspect of the plan.

As the first line** in the introduction to this blog states:

A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic.

So having land use be the primary driver of a comprehensive plan is a mistake. What matters most is how projects fit into communities and into the city overall.

In the leading elements section of the plan, my amendments called for urban design, transportation, and economic development (maintaining a city's ability to pay for everything and to be a viable place to live, work, locate business, be educated, shop, and play) to be the leading elements.

The rest of the current elements would be put into the section of "district" elements.

The third section, a new section, would be focused on government agencies, with goals and objectives plans for each agency, ensuring that their policies and practices are congruent with the Comprehensive Plan. For example, the DC Parks and Recreation agency does not at this time have a master plan. One was produced in 2006 but never released to the public. Each agency would have to have their master planning efforts coordinated with the planning office and the comprehensive plan process.

And the fourth section is the same as the current area elements, but ideally it should be produced through a structured framework of defined elements and a defined process without the land use bar and the City Council being able to insert their grubby hands all over the recommendations after the plan has been produced, gone through many public hearings, and then transmitted to Council, after which citizens have very little input or oversight into the process. Sure there are Council public hearings, but they are dog and pony shows.

For example, after the Comprehensive Plan went through a 2 year public process including two sets of hearings at the end, the land use practice at one of the city's leading legal firms submitted 200 pages of proposed changes--note that they didn't do this during the public hearing process, they did this after the public hearing process, submitting the proposed changes directly to the City Council, when average "underconnected" citizens have little substantive access.

I also suggested the creation of a couple new elements to the plan, such as on Civic Engagement, and Tourism Development and Management. The former is important because the entire Home Rule Act and the Planning regime is focused on the EXECUTIVE. The "Mayor" the "Mayor" the "Mayor" rather than acknowledging that government is derived from citizens. Many DC government agencies treat citizens as customers to be served, but not as citizens to be respected. A bunch of words in a Comp Plan element won't change that overnight(!) but it is a start.

The latter element is suggested because tourism is such an important part of the city's economy, that it needs to be addressed more comprehensively than the Economic Development section of the Plan can really do as a broad policy document, and also, the tourism aspect of the city needs more citizen input than is provided currently. Right now the agenda is set by the major corporations (such as Marriott) and their sponsors (such as the business lobbying organization, the Federal City Council).

I didn't submit this as an element, but someday maybe I will write a journal article about how "building a local economy" is different from the traditional elements on "economic development" that are included in master/comprehensive plans.

How projects contribute locally, in terms of jobs produced and the multiplier effect, is a more complex process than business boosters let on. Many projects don't produce a lot in the way of local economic and long term benefit, not to mention what we might call "increasing returns"*** rather than diminishing returns.

Basically, I think of government spending as either economically destructive or economically positive. If a dollar of government spending (other than basic multiplier effects) doesn't generate significant additional investment than it is economically destructive or a "waste" of money. If it induces additional investment than it is economically positive and important to do. (This is a gross simplification of the argument. The idea is that government spending ought not to induce dependence, but should prime the pump and build an even greater economy.)

Sadly, most elected officials don't get this. Their fellow colleagues in the Growth Machine don't usually let them in on how the process really works...

* The point that people advocate for parks and open space not because they want parks and open space but because they don't want anything else was pointed out to me by Dan Malouff in a blog comment. cf. the definition of BANANA -- build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything

** This line is not my own, it comes from this EPA publication, Getting To Smart Growth 2

*** I probably use the term "increasing returns" a little differently than the academicians that coined it. That will be the subject of another blog entry later today, concerning tax incentive and credit programs, mostly using examples from the State of Maryland.
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From email:

OP Announces the Release of INDICES 2009

(Washington, DC) The Office of Planning released the 14th edition of INDICES this week. The DC government publishes INDICES - A Statistical Index of District of Columbia Government Services, every two years. The primary purpose of INDICES is to provide a snapshot of District of Columbia government operations. The snapshot contains data quantifying human and physical services delivered, legislative activities and a general profile of the District.

INDICES is developed to satisfy seven basic information needs, which are: to provide statistical summaries of services delivered by agencies; to provide a comprehensive overview of government activities; to provide information that is accessible to the reader in format and content; to provide information to facilitate the identification of trends; to provide a holistic picture of a service where there may be a number of different providers; to continue delivery of a branded product; and to create synergy between electronic and non-electronic products.

Departments and agencies of the District government provided information for INDICES. The staff of the Office of Planning/State Data Center collaborated with all entities to identify and present information that helps government agencies, residents, students, researchers, businesses and non-profit organizations gain insight into the range of services offered by the District. Most of the data contained in this edition were collected in calendar years 2005 through 2008.

This reference book is organized into 10 chapters, covering such topics as government finance, economic development, human services, District-wide and neighborhood planning, community services, education, public safety, real estate services and housing trends. The Office of Planning continues to keep you informed and updated on data and services. Please add this reference to your library.

Advocates calling for a state energy plan in Maryland

From a chain of emails:

Get Smart about your Energy Costs - Community Forum

Where: Prince George's Community College, Rennie Forum
301 Largo Road, Largo Maryland, 20774
When: Tuesday, February 23rd, 6:30 to 8:00PM

Come to the Smart Energy Now community forum at Prince George's Community College on Tuesday, February 23rd to get smarter about energy.

This forum will raise awareness about the need for a comprehensive energy plan for the State of Maryland, and feature expert speakers who will discuss cost-saving, smart energy measures that Marylanders can make at home, and smart choices the government can make to achieve a clean, affordable and reliable energy future for Maryland.

Invited Guest Speakers include Maryland General Assembly Delegates Dereck Davis, Aisha Braveboy, Melony Griffith, Michael Vaughn, and State Senator Ulysses Currie.

In this economy we all need to get smart about energy. Unfortunately not all of us are experts on how to save on our business and home energy costs, and despite forward thinking clean energy policies, even the Maryland Government lacks a comprehensive plan for getting the state on track towards a clean reliable and affordable energy future.

Town Hall sponsors include the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), Prince George's Green Power Coalition, the Maryland Sierra Club, Environment Maryland, the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, the South County Economic Development Association, the League of Women Voters of Maryland, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance, local churches and businesses and the League of Women Voters of Prince George's County.

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Is transit rage "worse" than road rage?

I understand that people get concerned when they read about incidents on transit, such as "AC Transit bus brawler has video past" from the Oakland Tribune or this commentary from Mass Transit, "Moms and Transit," which states:

Transit has many issues it has to deal with on any given day. Funding. Timeliness. Sustainability. Safety. Security. And along with those comes a host of stereotypes that transit has to overcome to just do what it does best — provide the public a reliable means of transportation. That’s why it doesn’t need to deal with the image of being unsafe.

I saw this article yesterday. It is the latest in a series of high-profile events relating to transit security in the Bay Area. And it’s starting to (if it hasn’t already) give transit there a black eye — no pun intended. ...

For transit to be successful in many cases it has to get the moms on board. That means moms going to work, taking their kids to and from school/daycare, moms shopping and everything else involved in that. And if Mom doesn’t think transit isn’t safe, she isn’t going to let her kids on board.

And don’t forget the power of word of mouth. Moms have a network — I’ve seen it in action with my wife, it’s amazing — and through that network they will determine what is safe and not safe in their communities.

While I do agree with this, for urban revitalization ("Great architecture, clean streets, culture -- it must be Minneapolis" by John King from the San Francisco Chronicle and this article, "Splendor in the Grass," from the New York Times about Bryant Park) and past writings of my own on "The "soft side" of commercial district competition," plus this article from Scientific American about bicycling, "How to Get More Bicyclists on the Road: To boost urban bicycling, figure out what women want," I do have something to say about this...

People are completely ignoring the reality that road rage involving automobiles is 100 times worse and more frequent than incidents on transit.

But we don't hear calls for banning automobiles and closing down streets, because a bank robber used a car, or because there was a car jacking at a suburban shopping mall...

Instead, we hear about "loot rail" and complaints about how city people use transit to come out to the suburbs to steal and rob. This is about race and class, and perceptions, and fear.

I am not trying to belittle crime on transit, or assaults. Obviously, the 67 year old guy in the Oakland incident is a white wack job. But there are plenty of wack jobs of all races, ages, and ethnicities on the roads, in their cars, feeling powerful, independent, and immune, threatening far more people because of their rage and anger, than those of us on transit...

Why I am likely to continue working in the Baltimore region for awhile

My joke is that in DC I am considered a crank, and in the Baltimore region a sage, even though I say absolutely the same things in each place. And I have been saying the same things, over and over, for awhile.

For example, yesterday's papers are full of articles about the ethics report on Marion Barry's improper use of City Council funds and earmarks ("Former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is accused of corruption‎" from the Post). From the article:

In July, the council retained Bennett, of Hogan & Hartson, to conduct an investigation into how Barry and other council members use earmarks for programs and projects in the District. ...

Bennett's review of council spending concluded that the members have diverted about $143 million to health, charitable, arts and nonprofit social organizations since 2005 through earmarks that bypass the traditional budgeting process.

Barry directed about $8.5 million to 41 organizations in fiscal 2009, Bennett said. Part of that money, about $450,000, was diverted to six Ward 8 nonprofit organizations that "were conceived by Barry and implemented at his direction by Brenda Richardson, a longtime supporter who managed his Constituent Services Office," the report says.

The report discusses how the earmark program is loose and that this type of funding needs to be significantly restructured and converted into a competitive grant process. From page 11 of the report:

Council Earmark Grants

Special Counsel finds that—notwithstanding the Council’s recent efforts to impose controls on earmark grants, and notwithstanding that many of these grants benefit well run, legitimate organizations—Council earmark grants create substantial opportunities for waste and abuse. Further, as a practical matter, the present procedures for awarding and monitoring Council earmarks substantially undermine grantee accountability.

I have been making the same point for at least 6 years, in writings on various e-lists, in occasional testimonies before City Council, and in the blog since I started blogging.

Now that I am working in the Baltimore area (at least on one particular project), it happens that there are a bunch of things happening in Maryland (safe routes to school programs, planning for the Red Line light rail, state trail planning, transit planning generally) or the county (updating the master plan, universities doing campus planning) that I end up dealing with because of my work leading the development of a pedestrian and bicycle master plan for a portion of the county.

And unlike in DC, they actually listen.

E.g., the State Highway Administration is Maryland is looking to pilot test a cycle track somewhere in the state, because my paper on "Making Cycling Irresistible in DC" has been distributed throughout the agency. (Note that it's time to update the paper. OTOH, you could argue I am updating it, in the context of a pedestrian and bicycle plan for a goodly section of a large county.)

Or, because four of the proposed Baltimore red line light rail stations will be located in my plan's study area, and because the project is still in the pre-engineering phase, we have an opportunity to develop national best practice for integrating bicycling as a mode of transportation into planning for the stations and the line. (Although I hear that MTA is doing good things in this regard for the Purple Line, that Toole Design is working on that part of their planning there.)

Again, they are considering the various recommendations that "we" are making, ranging from incorporating a parallel bicycle trail into the line, at least in the Baltimore County section--which is planned to "emanate" from one of the major entry points to the Gwynn Falls Trail, bicycle sharing, and at least one bike station at the station serving the highest density employment center.

Could Barcelona provide the integrated transportation vision for the red line light rail in Baltimore County? Photo by John Norquist.

Or the points I am making about how to best change school district transportation planning and operations to a more balanced and sustainable paradigm will likely (although getting new legislation takes time) change the state policy (hopefully sooner rather than later), thereby changing practices in every one of the state's 24 school districts.

Or I am shaping two particular policies for the Transportation Element of the county master plan, requiring "complete streets" policies and setting up an overall paradigm of "sustainable transportation" which supports transit, walking, bicycling, and transportation demand management.

(Plus all the things that can touch pedestrian and bicycle planning, from green infrastructure to bicycle sharing to laying down a master network of trails and bicycle routes, etc., well, I get to cram them into the plan... at least before the inter-agency review period.)

It's the absolute craziest thing.

Contrast that to DC where I feel like I am talking into gale force winds.

But I can't say I enjoy the commute. And it means a lot less blogging--I just don't have the time.

(And I understand better why some people don't pitch in and work on issues in their neighborhood. By the time I get home at night, it's 8pm, and the last thing I want to do is run off to a meeting in the city.)

Long term planning necessary for dealing with transit crush loads

Transit "crush loads," the number of people crammed into a bus or subway cars, are much lower in the U.S. than they are in places like Japan or Latin America.

Bus crush loads in Latin America are double those in the U.S., meaning that they can fit 150 people on a 60 ft. articulated bus, whereas we get about 80 people into the same space.

Look at how many people have gotten off these buses in Bogota. New York Times photo.

And of course, there are the stories from Japan where platform attendants push people onto the train cars to cram more people in.

Chikatetsu train in Japan. Photo from The Atlantic.

We needed those kind of platform attendants on WMATA's red line a couple mornings ago.

I don't usually ride the subway in the morning, normally I bicycle directly to Union Station, but I was running a bit behind and had been working hard for the past few days writing a section of plan so I was tired, and instead I went to Takoma sparing myself the bicycle ride. But I ended up missing my MARC passenger train because of the added time required at each station to get people on and off the subway riding between Takoma and Union Station.

The platforms were packed because of a reduction in train size and the number of trains provided per hour of "rush hour" service.

The trains were packed "for DC," but you could see that in terms of Latin American or Japan style crush loads, you could fit in way more people. At least 30 more people per car. I did my part by pushing through and filling gaps successively, enabling more people to get into the train at subsequent stops. It didn't make me a popular rider.

I thought it was an interesting exercise though as it made me think of the day in a decade or so, when ridership peaks at about 1.2 million people per day.

How will the system deal? If it is organized the same way it is today, it won't be able to--and remember, the maximum length of a train is 8 cars.

There are at least four areas where WMATA could focus, to significantly improve throughput and capacity on trains and stations. Platforms are fixed and can't be expanded, so throughput (getting people in and out efficiently) really matters.

1. ways into stations. Stairs can be added in certain stations (like Union Station). Or fancy curved escalators, to cram in another escalator and fix the flawed travelways to get people in and out of stations more quickly. Union Station is a particular problem when commuter trains discharge huge passenger loads and there is a continuous line from the train platform to the subway entrance. (This was attempted a few years ago and the Board wimped out on the proposals.)

(I don't know how to fix the platform problem at Gallery Place. It's a design flaw as the red line platforms are more a 90 degree angle shifted (an "L") from the yellow/green line platforms below, rather than being more balanced, in a cross formation like this: ☩, so that more of the red line platform would be located more closely to the entrance ways into the station and from the platforms below.)

Curved escalator at the Wynn
Originally uploaded by jonknee

2. Faregates. Some stations need more faregates based on the number of riders.

3. The internal configuration of cars has to change. There need to be fewer seats, even though we all love to sit, so that more people can fit onto the cars. This has always been a problem for WMATA because the subway system is a hybrid, providing the equivalent of long distance commuter trips for people from western Northern Virginia and upper Montgomery County, and relatively short distance trips for people in inner Montgomery County, DC, and Arlington County.

I think the only way to deal with this is to have a mix of cars on trains. Have some cars be more NYC like, with bench seating, and have some cars like the current cars, to better accommodate long distance riders.

On the #6 Subway in NYC.


You can see from this photo that the interior configuration of typical NYC subway cars allows for maximum passenger loads. NYT photo.

4. More doors on trains. I advocate for 4 door trains instead of 3 door trains, in order to speed entry and exiting.

NYC R160 subway car, with four doors, photo from the NYC Subway website.

Waiting around to 2018 to start dealing with this will be a mistake.

Crush on a weekend 4 car WMATA subway train.

A committed resident clearing the crosswalk median on his block

A committed resident clearing the crosswalk median on his block
Originally uploaded by rllayman

I talked to this person, who said he lives on the block and doesn't own a car, while he was shoveling out a path through the median of snow at 3rd Street and Maryland Ave. NE yesterday...


Unshoveled city park walkway between Constitution Ave. and Massachusetts Ave. NE


The walkway in the city park across from Eastern Market (between North Carolina Ave. and Independence Ave.) is not cleared


Crosswalk on Massachusetts Ave. at 6th Street NE


National Park Service land at 3rd St. and Pennsylvania Ave. SE, abutting the Library of Congress


4th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. SE, northwest corner


My bike on a bicycle rack on 7th St. SE across from Eastern Market

A best practice local example of "building public will" by Councilmember Tommy Wells

Those of us who lived in the city in the late 1980s remember how the beverage industry "schooled" environmentalists by successfully vanquishing a referendum that the environmentalists got on the ballot in DC in 1988, calling for deposits on bottles and cans. By making the deposit idea a race issue--that whitey was out to make life hard for the Black Man and Woman--the referendum had no chance. Of course it didn't help that the beverage industry made lots of donations to black churches, which then sermonized against the law...

Last week, Colbert King of the Post wrote a column, "Our racially divided city" about the separation of the races in the city, according to recent polling data written about in the Post. One of the things he pointed out was that African-American support of the recently enacted 5 cent tax on shopping bags ("D.C. shoppers opt for roughing it over paying 5-cent bag tax" from the Post) is much less than that of whites.

Plastic bags. Tuft University photo.

In this week's column, "Tales of snow -- and race," most of the column was given over to Councilmember Tommy Wells, and his explanation of how he reached out to African-American constituencies in crafting the bill and getting support for its passage. From the article:

"I conducted formal presentations at four senior wellness centers about trash in the Anacostia and then fully described my bill, placing a 5 cent fee on disposable bags. The presentations were held at centers in Wards 4, 5, 7 and 8. I engaged the council members for the wards, including Marion Barry, who is a strong supporter of the bill. The vast majority of the participants were black. A group of seniors from one of the centers even came down and testified in support of the bill."

"Finally, environmental degradation is often accepted as the norm in lower income neighborhoods, but I never assumed that black citizens living along the Anacostia found the state of our river acceptable. In fact, many of the older black residents I talked with remember swimming in the river and fishing with their parents, and they still boat on it."

"I take my responsibility to represent all the citizens of a diverse Ward 6 very seriously, and I am disappointed in any racial divide in our city. But as it relates to the bag bill, I believe it was only by seriously engaging black leadership and concerned residents on both sides of the river I was able to pass it unanimously at the Council."

It's a tour de force example of what we might call "Building Public Will" (which is what the Metropolitan Group consulting firm calls it)--building support for and creating change by crafting your message/initiative in a manner which connects to and people's expressed and felt values.

From the Building Public Will framework:

1. Framing and defining the issue or problem;
2. Building awareness about problems or needs;
3. Becoming knowledgeable/transmitting information about where and how the problem can be impacted and changed;
4. Creating a personal conviction that change needs to occur;
5. Evaluating while reinforcing.

Clearing bus stops in Silver Spring

Hans Riemer, who will be announcing his candidacy for Montgomery County Council later this month, helped to organize a bus stop dig out in Silver Spring on Saturday.
Bus stop before. Tina Slater and Kathy Jentz, clearing out the stop on Fenton near Thayer, downtown Silver Spring. (Tina is with Action Committee for Transit, and Kathy is the publisher of Washington Gardener Magazine.)


Bus stop after. Hans Riemer clearing out a bus stop on Fenton near Thayer, downtown Silver Spring. Subsequent bus riders stood in the clearing, with bags placed on the bench.

High speed rail and green technology as examples of the Gerschenkron thesis

My first upper level political science course in college was on "political development and dependence." One of the articles we had to read was "Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective" by Alexander Gerschenkron. According to the blog entry about the book's first chapter:

Many of the characteristics of countries that move suffering from “economic backwardness” to development (should probably be “economic forwardness”) can be mapped following a similar path. However, while these developments are similar, they are not altogether the same. Thus, with the advent of new technologies and advancements in economic ideology, the developments of these less well-off countries can change.

Basically the point of the argument is simple. Developing countries have an advantage compared to developed companies as they can adopt the latest technologies, rather than worry about all the sunk cost and investment in plant and production for technology in use, technology that might otherwise be junked in favor of advances.

So an advantage that countries like Spain ("Spain's Bullet Train Changes Nation -- and Fast" from the Wall Street Journal) or China ("China Sees Growth Engine in a Web of Fast Trains" from the New York Times) have with regard to the development of transportation infrastructure have compared to the U.S. is that because they hadn't developed to the same level of automobile-centricity and airplane-centricity as has the U.S., instead they can focus on deploying the most efficient technologies, in this case, high speed rail.

It's the same for green technology. Newspaper columnists like Bob Herbert ("Watching China Run" from the New York Times) lament that the U.S. is being overtaken by China in terms of the development of green infrastructure and technology. From the article:

China also has become the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels and is pushing hard on other clean energy advances. As Mr. Bradsher wrote: “These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.” ...

The conference that I attended in Palo Alto spotlighted the need to move to a low-carbon economy in the U.S. and exemplified some of the resources available to make it happen. It was sponsored by the Brookings Institution and Lazard, the investment banking advisory firm. The participants included the leaders of — and major investors in — companies that are making great strides in the alternative energy industry. But much of their business is done overseas because right now in America’s wacky, dysfunctional public sector there is no clear vision of a viable clean-energy economy, and, thus, no clue about how to get there.

The network of world-class universities and advanced research institutions in the U.S. is by far the most impressive in the world: think Harvard and Stanford and Berkeley and M.I.T. and on and on. If you add to that the venture capital community in the U.S. with its vast experience and the willingness of investors to take risks, and the sheer entrepreneurial talent of the American business community, you end up with an array of resources fully capable of moving the U.S. into a low-carbon, high-growth and extraordinarily productive economy that would be the envy of the world.

But for that to happen — as Bruce Katz, a Brookings executive who was one of the organizers of the conference, pointed out — America’s corporate, civic and political leaders will have to “articulate what’s really at stake here.”

And what’s at stake is the future of the American economy. The low-carbon era is coming. We can be dragged into that newer, greener world by leading countries like China; or we can take up the challenge and become the world’s leader ourselves.

It's another example of the Gerschenkron thesis. So much has been invested in current technologies that it is difficult to get the present players to change and deploy new and expensive technologies. And the barriers of entry into many of the industries (such as utility power generation, transmission and distribution) not to mention the high cost of developing new technologies means that initially the cost of a new production plant based on new technology can be significantly higher than a comparable plant using old technology (it has to do with "the learning curve" as a microeconomic concept) makes it more difficult to deploy advances in extant economies.

Blueprint America: Moving Detroit Forward (PBS documentary)

I am not sure what I think about the documentary that ran on PBS Friday night (and repeated early this morning), "Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City," using the decline of Detroit to discuss transit and its ability to repattern the land use and transportation planning paradigm in the U.S. The show discusses proposals for local light rail service in Detroit, the potential to develop a high speed rail system in the U.S., while looking at the Ave system in Spain , and manufacturing green technology and train and transit vehicles in the U.S. (and agriculture as a way to absorb vacant land in the City of Detroit).

First, Detroit is so lost--more than 40% of its land vacant, its major industry dying in the context of a global economy where the industry of the United States, especially for products manufacturing firms based in the U.S., is no longer dominant and is often a declining player, the region is the most dispersed of any metropolitan area in the country, so much of the population is extremely impoverished--that while they have to do something, transit isn't necessary the magic cure that people believe it to be. (Although maybe doing something with transit is better than doing nothing. And gives people the ability to hope.)

E.g., in the DC region, it has taken upwards of 30 years for transit to start to have the kind of positive economic effect in certain neighborhoods that everyone believes it has immediately.

Cities like Buffalo, St. Louis, and Baltimore demonstrate that in and of itself, adding transit line or two isn't enough, that you need to have a functioning local economy.

And Cleveland, which has had streetcars/light rail for decades--although much of the system was eliminated, with the exception of certain service lines, including providing service to the Airport as of 1968 (or Philadelphia), proves that it isn't transit in and of itself that keeps a region in play economically.

This is why I write about the necessity of preconditions/decisionmaking that allow transit investment and infrastructure to be fully leveraged. Some of the preconditions are:

• the creation of a transit system rather than a single line;
• having a strong central business district and/or other employment centers that remain relevant in an otherwise globalizing economy;
• having extant high quality housing stock such as Victorian rowhouses and recoverable neighborhoods;
• an urban design that promotes walkability and transit use (cities created during the period of the Walking and Transit City eras)
• population density and a growing metropolitan area;
• infill development opportunities;
• some functioning local commercial districts.

Not to mention the necessity of good planning and resident willingness to change land use and development patterns to leverage the public investment in transit infrastructure. Or you can do it the Arlington County, Virginia way, and repattern your land use development in high-density ways to take advantage of rail access. That's harder to do where there are extant long standing and historic neighborhoods.

These factors allow transit investments to grow into something more than transit, yielding benefits beyond mobility improvements.

Some stuff that the show didn't address adequately:

- the reason the Spaniards created the high speed rail system and invested in infrastructure was to allow the nation to rebuild and rebrand itself and its national identity after the many decades of authoritarian rule under Generalissimo Franco.

- that beliefs that somehow U.S. automobile manufacturers can retool, especially in Detroit, to build green infrastructure and rail vehicles are somewhat fantastical. The industry is much different and much less able to innovate and do different things compared to the period (up through WWII) when the original inventors and entrepreneurs who built the industry will still somewhat in charge.

A good example is the computer industry. Companies that built mainframe computers--Honeywell, Sperry, Burroughs, Control Data--and minicomputers--DEC, Data General, etc.--are not the leaders of the personal computing business today. With few exceptions, such as IBM, which has repositioned primarily as a services and software enterprise computing consulting organization, those companies are history.

While it is possible for traditional organizations to innovate, it is not easy, and it's that much harder when your business is failing, rather than succeeding.

It is possible, I will say, to use the abandoned manufacturing facilities for new businesses. But you need the inventors and the entrepreneurs and the venture capital to make it happen. And even in the best case, you need far fewer employees to construct the equipment compared to the early days of mass production, when the labor requirements were huge, and capital equipment was less of a factor than it is today (especially compared to automation).

Probably the most interesting of the people featured on the show was Robin Boyle, professor and chair of the Urban Studies Department at Wayne State University. He is from Glasgow, and discussed how Glasgow declined and then has revitalized since (he didn't use the UK term "regeneration" that is used in Europe to describe what we call "revitalization").

Professor Boyle made the point that took me a long time to figure out, that you have to focus on the neighborhoods and commercial districts that are functioning even in the midst of an otherwise declining area (it's a different application of the Positive Deviance thesis), leverage the assets and build from them, and connect the areas that are functioning.

Since I am such a strong proponent of the theses of Steven Belmont as laid out in Cities in Full, that metropolitan regions need to recentralize housing, commerce, and transit in order to revitalize, I have to wonder if Detroit has declined so much that it is beyond the ability to be saved. Even in the best case scenario, GM and Chrysler will never be what they were. (See "GM's Doomed Future" and "GM, Chrysler, Toyota: How They Doin'?" from Forbes Magazine.)

Maybe Ford Motor can remain strong as a player in the U.S. market while GM focuses on Asia and Europe, and Chrysler becomes a means for Fiat to distribute designs and vehicles on a global platform.

As a former Michigan resident and beneficiary of previous automobile industry success as invested in the University of Michigan, from which I graduated, this pains me greatly.

From Belmont's presentation:

Density alone not enough
The central theme of Belmont’s presentation was that it is inefficient and ineffective for cities to plan for density or transit in a vacuum. He said cities need to plan for density and transit together and they need more than just random density; they need strong central, dense cores to make transit most effective and to support the range of shops and services that make driving non-essential.

Belmont began making his point by demystifing certain beliefs about transit and commuting and how they worked in less dense, edge cities. Belmont declared that “transit is irrelevant in most of America’s metropolitan areas” largely because of the low density and poor layout of those cities. He said where transit is most effective is not in the less dense, polycentric cities, but in the denser, central cities such as Manhattan and Boston where there rests a “critical mass” of customers.

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Note that one of the transit advocates in the program denigrated "jitney" service, which is a form of what I call intra-neighborhood transit service that can be conceptualized and offered as part of a city and metropolitan area's tertiary transit network. But you can't have "mass" transit at the level of a neighborhood in all but the most dense of cities. Definitely you can't have "mass transit" service at the level of a neighborhood when most of the blocks are vacant of housing and/or of residents.

(I have gone back to look at some of the places where I have lived in the city, and at least one of the places is all gone. Nothing is left on the block at all.)

The right idea but the prescription is only half right

The solution to problems with democracy is more and better (deliberative, empowered) democracy, not less democracy.

The Post has taken only a year to come to my position that the real problem with WMATA, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, is how it is led and the overall vision. See today's editorial, "What really derails Metro," for proof.

From the article (which starts out by talking about the safety-induced derailment of a train on Friday--note that the derailment was proof of a system that is working better than we think, not evidence of a failure of the "system" but definitely evidence of a failure of the operator):

The alarming incident is but the latest evidence of the deterioration of a system that is vital to Washington and its citizens. Events have so eroded confidence in Metro's safety and reliability that it's time the region's political, business and civic leaders address the crisis. ...

Those who have long observed the WMATA board say it is hard for members -- particularly elected officials -- to take off the parochial hats of their jurisdictions in favor of regional interests. ...

Six years ago, leaders from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the Federal City Council and the Greater Washington Board of Trade, alarmed about Metro's finances, put together a task force whose work led to a dedicated source of money for Metro. The crisis facing Metro today is every bit as serious. It is time to review, and ultimately to change, how Metro is governed.

The problem is that the Post looks to the traditional business powers such as the Greater Washington Board of Trade and their lockstep in thinking elected and appointed officials to solve the problem, even though in some respects it is by relying on the traditional business elites and their worldview that has gotten us to the point that we are at today--remember that it was not the business elite that pushed the subway as much as it was "the people."

I wrote this entry, "St. Louis regional transit planning process as a model for what needs to be done in the DC Metropolitan region" in November.

My prescription for dealing with loss of trust and the need for a new way forward for regional transportation planning and metropolitan transit services is to combine the process currently underway in St. Louis ("Moving Transit Forward") with the previous effort in the Chicago region ("Moving Beyond Congestion") -- a public process focused on laying out a broad concept, vision, and plan for the metropolitan area, renewing commitment to and in transit in the region, and recognizing its vital importance in maintaining the region's economic competitiveness and relevance within the multi-state region, the Mid-Atlantic region of the East Coast, and the global economy.

If people like James Dinegar from the Greater Washington Board of Trade lead the effor called for by the Post, there is no guarantee that the "new and improved" transit system will be any better managed and led than the current system.

Same old same old got us to where we are today.

From the November blog entry:

The DC region needs to embark on a wide ranging metropolitan transit (re)planning public process to restore trust in and a common understanding of the WMATA transit system

After the accident in June, which killed 9 people and injured many others, and the continuing problems with safety, financial problems, lack of a regularized funding system, lack of appropriate regulatory oversight, not to mention problems with how the organization is led from the top (both the Board of Directors and top management), it seems reasonable to have a similar kind of regional transit planning exercise here.

Not only would this restore trust in the WMATA system in the DC region, by building a sense that WMATA is accountable to riders, it would also rebuild a regional understanding of what the system is capable of and how it should expand.

It has been 40+ years since the WMATA Metrorail system was first conceived and 33 years since parts of the system began opening. It's time for an assessment/reassessment.

This ought to be preferred over the grab bag of extension proposals in Virginia and Maryland (with little consideration of the impact on the current system) that the system faces currently.

WMATA only sees the world in terms of subway and bus. So the planning process needs to be broader and deeper, focused on transit generally, not just on WMATA operations as they are set up now.

At the same time, such a process should consider truly regional transit planning (which means including railroad service as an option), and the scope of the study should be broad, rather than overly-circumscribed and limited.

WMATA, in conjunction with the Transportation Planning Board of the MWCOG and the local jurisdictions, as well as MARC and VRE and other appropriate state authorities in Maryland and Virginia as well as DC, should launch a planning process similar to that of St. Louis, to come up with a metropolitan transportation plan that allows for transit services to be delivered where they need to be, but one that uses the most appropriate means (heavy rail, light rail, street car, passenger railroad, different types of bus service) to do so.

It should look at funding issues as well as heavy rail expansion where appropriate. That means not just extending transit service outward, but intensifying transit service at the core as well.

Such a planning process should also consider questions of leadership, management, and oversight. As well as funding.

It's the only way to build a truly regional understanding and commitment to transit for the Washington metropolitan region. Without such a planning process, I think we're destined for a lot more of the same incremental and discoordinated transportation planning that we have today.

At the same time, the District of Columbia needs to understand the centrality of transit to the city's economic and competitive advantages, and plan accordingly.
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The entry then goes on to list 6 key points for a metropolitan transportation vision and plan:

1. Provide more capacity for Metrorail at the core.
2. Extend Metrorail?
3. Change regional land use development policies now, especially those of the federal government.
4. Isn't it time that counties develop complementary surface rail transit programs of their own?
5. Expand and extend passenger railroad services.
6. Continued improvements in bus transportation and customer service.

And since then I have been thinking more about the difference between transportation planning for the metropolitan region, setting metrics for service and quality and the breadth and depth of the network overall, versus who operates what transit service.

In many respects, people treat WMATA as the ultimate actor in this, but really they are the transit operator, and the metropolitan region needs to define the "terms of service," and come up with a way to pay for it, build it, extend it, maintain it, and operate it, regardless of who provides specific services within the metropolitan transit network.