Revisiting 1319 Delafield Place NW: the pop up Italianate

I mentioned this house in a post from a couple days ago.


I happened to be in that area yesterday, so I decided to take another look.

Interestingly, they have attempted a wee bit to address the problems in the original architectural detailing.  In short, the windows were too small, didn't have hoods, and the lintels were minuscule.  Plus the cornice is too small.

Although they did it wrong.  These houses typically don't have shutters.  They are trying.  And it does look a little better.

Broken windows/collective efficacy: Baltimore; Newark; Grand Junction, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Albany

EE called our attention to the cover story on Baltimore, published two Sundays ago in the New York Times Magazine, "The Tragedy of Baltimore."

Baltimore.  The article was very disturbing.  The description of the post-Freddie Gray riots and the rapid rise in crime and murders in Baltimore reminded me of what it was like living in Washington, DC and specifically the H Street NE neighborhood back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the city was faced with the scourge of crack and a rapid increase in murders--over 400 per year for many years.

Where I lived was a few blocks from Union Station and a bit more than one mile to the US Capitol and to Downtown, but by happenstance, it was also just a few blocks away from one of the city's primary open air drug markets, and in an 18-month period, there were 30 murders.

It was a terrible period for me personally.  My then wife was assaulted, we had a car stolen, our house was burglarized multiple times, and after the breakup of our marriage, I got mugged a number of times (hurt a bit but I always managed to get away and never lost anything, not my wallet not my bike).

It was living under siege.

Interesting, the article ascribes the riots, and even the death of Freddie Gray, to a number of poor decisions and choices by the police department, the State's Attorney's Office (who in advance of the arrest of Freddie Gray, asked the department to increase patrols in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood), under trained police officers and the failure of the State of Maryland to provide the police department with back up officers in the period of unrest after Gray's death and before the onset of riots a few days later.

Broken windows versus collective efficacy theory.  My primary response to the article concerned how in the past I had scorned collective efficacy theory (ironically, one of the leaders in this school is Robert Sampson, who is speaking next week at American University) in favor of "broken windows theory" and how I had been wrong and missed the point.

I believe in the concept of broken windows theory, which is that by addressing disorder -- vacant houses, crime spots, litter, abandoned cars, etc. -- communities end up being better able to manage and reduce crime.

-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," 2016
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do"
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," 2013

The thing about the original theory is that it was also about investing in the community, but for the most part, police departments abandoned that element of the approach, and focused on what came to be called "zero tolerance policing," and the arrest of people at the merest provocation -- not having a fastened seatbelt, a broken tail light -- including rampant "stop and frisk."

The basic idea behind collective efficacy is that communities that are more organized and active, despite income and other demographics, are supposed to be better at warding off crime and disorder, without necessarily more policing, and even in low income areas.

To me, the data on this is mixed.

Which is why I was, I hate to say, derisive ("Urban Health, Nasty Cities, Broken Windows, and Community Efficacy," 2008).

But I missed the point.

Not either/or but and/and.  One of the factors acknowledged by Professor Patrick Sharkey's book discussing the decline of crime in major cities is collective efficacy ("NYU professor's book traces the decline of crime in U.S. cities since the '70s," New York Daily News).

What I failed to acknowledge is that focusing on the defense of Broken Windows wasn't the point -- and I had first hand experience from my H Street neighborhood.

Instead, I should have been considering the fact that how bad things could be, that the neighborhoods and community organizations were functioning at all was a miracle.

This is especially true for low income neighborhoods, which for a variety of reasons, have fewer resources, fewer functioning community organizations, and less of a sense of collective trust.  Also a lot more direct experience with all kinds of trauma.

The real point is that neighborhoods under siege need even more investments in community organizations, neighborhood improvement, and the like.

Likely collective efficacy surveys would find more positive results commensurate with increased investment in social infrastructure.

Newark.  Yesterday's NYT has an article ("'Newark's Original Sin' and the Criminal Justice Education of Cory Booker") on Presidential hopeful Cory Booker, now a Senator from New Jersey and formerly the Mayor of Newark.  Much of the article discusses his record on addressing crime.

While the city was successful at reducing crime and the murder rate, it was more focused on a zero tolerance policing strategy, although it was called "broken windows," and eventually the city submitted to a consent decree with the US Department of Justice over overzealous execution of policing to the point where people's civil rights were frequently violated.

Broken Windows and Collective Efficacy Theories need to marry.  Again, I believe that Broken Windows theory has been transmogrified from its origins.  Had it been paired more overtly with collective efficacy theory as a way to implement the community investment side of the equation, it would have worked better and generated less opprobrium.

Granted, police departments aren't always the best agency out there to implement community investment programs.  But there are exceptions:

-- "Los Angeles police department "Community Safety Partnership"," 2014

Grand Junction, Colorado.  The Grand Junction Sentinel has a great article ("We got our neighborhood back: Targeted areas see a drop in crime") about a targeted crime reduction effort in Mesa County.

The program focuses on places of frequent incidence of crime, and in addition to arrests provides and coordinates the provision of other resources in a Broken Windows fashion to make the changes permanent.

Pittsburgh and Albany.  Other articles on the East Liberty neighborhood in Pittsburgh ("How community-led renovation is helping a rundown Pittsburgh neighbourhood fight crime," Guardian), and the difficulty of making new investments in weak market neighborhoods ("In Albany, struggling neighborhoods face uphill battle to improve: Local couple faced many hurdles trying to build in low property value area," Albany Times-Union) provide other insights into the advantages of such approaches, but also demonstrate the difficulty of making new private sector investments in such communities, because the cost of new construction exceeds the value of existing properties.

Another example of the need for social housing organizations to construct social housing at scale

Yesterday's Washington Post has a disturbing story ("Homeless, living in a tent and employed") about the plight of a homeless couple who are living in a tent on 1st Street NE near Union Station.

They are employed, although in low wage jobs.

When you make little income, you take any housing you can get at a rent you can afford.

They'd been paying rent on an apartment in a substandard building in Prince George's County, but the building was condemned with residents forced to find other housing.

The problem is, a $900 per month apartment is hard to find, especially when 100+ households are thrown back onto the market for housing in a situation like this.

Operating and maintaining low income housing isn't easy. The problem with managing and operating low cost housing is that it isn't cheap either, and after awhile, the properties deteriorate and eventually close after the cost for upgrade or maintenance exceeds the financial capacity of the owner.

I wrote about this a few years ago, suggesting that cities and counties create anticipatory programs to help ward off housing closure:

-- "Tower renewal: The Watergate and Southwest DC, and Toronto," 2011
-- "Deeper thinking/programming on weak residential housing markets is required: DC example, Anacostia," 2012
-- "Receivership is an underutilized tool: Lynhill Condominiums in Prince George's County, Maryland," 2014
-- "The long term potentially negative aspects of condominium buildings as a dominant housing form in cities," 2016

The Toronto Globe and Mail has a related article about how to make "tower communities" more livable, by adding social infrastructure, retail, and other amenities, "Tower Ambitions: how advocates and planners are rethinking high rise tower neighborhoods."

And Vancouver, BC still has a lot of SRO housing, although much of it is substandard and run by property owners who are more interested in milking profits from it ("For low-income residents in Vancouver, a different kind of real estate," Toronto Globe & Mail).

In line with my recommendations for government intervention, the City of Vancouver has produced an SRO Revitalization Action Plan.

Lack of enough housing is a problem. But having enough housing and different types of housing, in particular small apartments, is another issue. The private sector housing production industry is focused on producing the most profitable types of housing. That excludes low income housing, which is why it is subsidized.

But rather than rely on the private sector, it would be better for the social housing sector to be the prime mover in this segment.

And rather than having people live on the street, why not produce more of this type of housing, at scale, in well located places?

At a conference in Portland Oregon in 2005, I was surprised to see existing lower rent SRO housing that was well located, pretty near to Downtown.

I've written a couple pieces about the need for larger scale production of "single room occupancy" apartments, although the Post article demonstrates the need for housing that can accommodate more than one person.

-- "One of the "solutions" to the crisis of homelessness is a lot more SRO housing," 2017

There are related articles from places like Hong Kong ("Hong Kong rents leave some in coffin homes," AP) and London ("London housing crisis: £480 a month for a bed, in a shed" and "The great London property squeeze," Guardian) about lack of housing options leading people to rent spaces in "coffin hotels" etc.

Again, I think this coverage of affordable housing shortages in high cost markets illustrates the need for significantly more and a greater variety of SRO type housing.

Not just microhousing for higher income segments such as WeLiving ("What Life Is Like Inside WeWork's Communal Housing Project," Bloomberg), shared apartments for $2,000+/room ("Inside Common's Newest Co-Living Space In Chinatown, On A Fast Track To Opening," Bisnow), microapartments ("Historic DC mansion gets luxury apartment makeover," WTOP; "Life in a 375-square-foot apartment," Washington Post; "NYC micro-apartments: Success of Kips Bay's tiny studios could to more, developer says," AM New York), etc.

Note that the Kips Bay project referenced in the AM New York article includes affordable units.  From the article:

Billed as an experiment, the city relaxed its rules on minimum apartment-size at Carmel Place to see if micro-apartments could help house the growing singles population and drive down rents. Above nearly 5,000 square feet of donated city land, Monadnock Development constructed 55 micro-units, including eight set aside for homeless veterans and 14 affordable units renting for between $949 and $1,490 a month.

Still expensive for people living on the edge, but it adds more options.  (Although I argue for more SRO housing that is even cheaper to rent, because it's "cheaper" to have people housed than to deal with the social and economic costs of homelessness for the people stuck in that situation and for the cities and counties that have to deal with it.

Why aren't we integrating social housing into new large scale, grayfield developments?  Imagine if the future development over the Union Station railyard included a couple SRO buildings.-

Yes, there are requirements for a percentage of units to be allocated as affordable housing within the new construction of multiunit housing.  This is called "inclusionary zoning."  But usually this produces something like 15% of total units for lower income tranches, when far more than 15% of the population can't afford top priced housing.

But it would have even more effect if entire buildings were planned around a social housing agenda within these kinds of developments, rather than a few units, begrudgingly provided ("'Poor doors' are still creating wealth divide in new housing," Guardian).

Including social housing producers and operators as part of master planning for such large scale redevelopments would be a major change to the paradigm.

Fifth Annual Dick Wolf Lecture Memorial Lecture: Friday, March 29 Dismantling the Streetcar System - What have we learned?

From email:

Capitol Hill Restoration Society

Fifth Annual Dick Wolf Lecture Memorial Lecture: Friday, March 29
Dismantling the Streetcar System - What have we learned?

F Street NW, before 1962. 

On Friday, March 29, 2019 at 7 pm, John Hillegass, winner of the 2019 Dick Wolf Prize, will present a lecture on the decision to dismantle the Washington DC streetcar system in favor of buses. The event will be held at Hill Center, 921 Pennsylvania Ave SE, to be followed by a reception.

Hillegass’s paper is on the planning and historic context behind dismantling the District’s extensive streetcar system and converting all lines to buses, between 1956 and 1962. The goal was to ease traffic and congestion, speed up transit, improve transit reliability, reduce transit costs and thereby keep transit affordable. Hillegass concludes that, by those measures, the replacement transit system today is equal to or worse than the transit system of 1946 and that today’s planners should proceed with caution. Following his lecture, a panel of special guests from the fields of Transportation and Planning will discuss the major points of his lecture:

• Andrew Trueblood, the new Director of DC’s Office of Planning and a resident of Ward 6. Andrew holds a Masters in City Planning from MIT and a B.A. from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
• John DeFerrari, author of the blog Streets Of Washington.John has recently published a book: Capital Streetcars: Early Mass Transit in Washington, DC. John is also a trustee of the DC Preservation League.
• Shyam Kannan, METRO’s Managing Director, Planning and Transit Asset Management. On a daily basis, Shyam deals with issues of contemporary transit planning. He holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy and Urban Planning from Harvard University.

John Hillegass is pursuing his Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning at Georgetown University.

Shaw Metrorail Station entrance on the 700 block of R Street NW is an illustration of the opportunity to develop housing above certain stations

It's not Hong Kong and their MTR system which is known for integrating large scale real estate development into their business model, but in the city and certain other locations, there are opportunities for development above Metrorail station entrances that would add a bit of money to the revenue stream for the Metrorail system as well as more housing to the city.

More housing, eventually, results in lower housing prices, and in the meantime residents spend money in their neighborhood, contribute to the social and civic life of the city, and generate income and sales taxes, while rental property generates property and income taxes on the part of businesses.

While I just revisited the Hong Kong story, this post from 2014 is better.

-- "The success of Hong Kong Transit as "the exception" that proves the rule," 2014

From the piece:

Transit's success in Hong Kong is the result of having (1) a densely populated place; (2) constrained by geography, making automobility and sprawl difficult; (3) "mixed land uses" rather than separation; (4) tight links between transportation planning and land use planning; and (5) a commitment to building and extending a multi-modal transit system to simplify mobility.

... Transit failure isn't hard to figure out. Deconcentration of land use, population, and employment centers with a focus on separating uses are all of the conditions that militate against successful transit. That's why Hong Kong is a good example for us.

Of course, New York City is an exception to the post-WWII general trend of US transit failure, which proves the rule about concentration, mixed use, and transit.

WRT NYC, the book Green Metropolis provides a good overview of the environmental advantages that are derived from these characteristics. New York City is the "greenest" city in the US in terms of lowest per capita energy use, lowest car ownership, lowest use of gasoline, lowest GHG per capita, lowest waste production per capita, etc.

DC's transit success is based on job concentration at the core. That transit does reasonably well in DC in a land use paradigm that still preferences automobility comes down to three things (1) concentration of jobs at the core, required by law (federal agencies); (2) the federal transit benefit which pays for a goodly portion of getting to work for many people; and (3) the proximity of DC residential districts comprised of attractive historic building stock to the employment centers in the core, which has allowed much of DC to revitalize [and intensify, relatively speaking] despite sprawl.

Yes, there are historical examples of taller rowhouses that can be referenced by people doing additions

This is a three story frame rowhouse on Capitol Hill.


This is a building that had been two stories, and has had a third story added.  The windows are undersized and lack stronger features surrounding the windows--framing, lintels on the bottom and window hoods on top, and the cornice needs to be more prominent.

I can't remember exactly where it is, it's around 13th and Delafield Streets NW.

While this diagram is of a commercial building, many of the architectural features of historic commercial buildings are shared by historic residential buildings, at least when it comes to windows and cornices.

Rowhouses reflected in a front yard water feature, 900 block of North Carolina Avenue SE, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC

More examples of the need for mandatory design review in Washington, DC

This site had been vacant for decades.  I can't say when I first noticed, but it must have been around 20 years ago at the least.

Back then, when the neighborhood had experienced little "inward investment" and many buildings were vacant, when you would see footings and foundations for new construction you'd be hopeful that it meant the neighborhood was worth investing in.

That the languishing neighborhood was about to turn around.

But because the end product mostly was not very good--by that I mean new construction value engineered with little respect for the historic architecture around it--I became appreciative of architecture, historic urban design, the concept of  historic preservation and a belief that new construction in neighborhoods dominated by historic architecture should be complementary and context sensitive rather than oppositional.

This building is a few lots down, where M Street NE merges with Florida Avenue NE.


It wouldn't have taken very much effort or money to make the design of the facade fit in better, to use materials that matched better (like the style of window), but because the city doesn't have design review requirements for new construction, except in areas that are designated as historic, it's anything goes.

It reminds me of Ann Arbor, where I went to college.  In the 1960s and early 1970s, many "old buildings" were demolished and replaced with cheap apartment buildings making for a very incongruous urban fabric.

That's what's happening to blocks and streets all over the city today, but because the Historic Preservation Office is not so much focused on the city as a whole as opposed to places that are designed, because the Office of Planning has been virtually invisible ever since the current mayor was first elected, and because the rest of the city's elected officials don't have much connection to the value of aesthetics -- in this case, historic architecture, historic urban design, and historicity (identity and people) as key elements of the city's identity and competitive advantages vis a vis other places -- there's little concern about how these changes diminish the city's fabric and will last for generations.

-- "Strong real estate markets need more public protections, not fewer: entry of CVS into DC's Mount Pleasant neighborhood," 2018
-- "... a opportunity to consider DC historic preservation issues," 2017
-- "Historic Preservation Tuesday: Saving buildings vs. "the right to petition to redress grievances," 2015)
-- "40th anniversary of the local historic preservation law in DC as an opportunity for assessment," 2019

One of the most out of proportion pop ups I've seen, 163 Rhode Island Avenue NE


Another really bad pop up on the 300 block of V Street NE, a couple blocks from the other one.


Historic districts aren't immune to ugly new construction.  

Addition for housing on top of Frager's Hardware, 1100 block of Pennsylvania Avenue SE

This project was featured in the Saturday Real Estate section of the Washington Post. ("Frager's Hardware returns to the neighborhood and brings condos with it").

I was struck by how the addition is so ugly and discordant.  I am not against building more housing, infill development, and even depending on the situation of building new, even in historic districts, depending on the situation.

This project illustrates a schism in historic preservation theory and practice of "architecture of its time versus architecture of its place."

-- "An argument for the aesthetic quality of the ensemble: special design guidelines are required for DC's avenues," 2015

From general guidelines the inference is that new buildings in old places should be constructed of their time, that is of new designs.  But that tends to diminish the quality of place, context and architectural coherence that is otherwise present in historic districts.

I'd rather have seen a new building constructed here but incorporating and extending the design of the first two floors.

This building across the street, on the 1000 block of Pennsylvania SE, is much better, even if the proportions are somewhat off.  It's built on the site of a gas station, and is 100% new construction.


These buildings, on the 200 block of Rhode Island Avenue NE, show how buildings looked when they were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s.


This rendering of a new building to be constructed in Philadelphia's Italian Market demonstrate the concept of "architecture of its place" while the Frager's building is "of its time."

It's not high art but it will fit in with and complement other buildings in the district, rather than stick out from them.

Proposed apartment building on 9th Street in South Philadelphia, to be constructed by Midwood Investment & Development of New York.  It will be a six-story building with 157 apartments.  That’s down from the eight-story, 182-unit building proposed in October.

Pickup truck with football team helmet display, Maryland Avenue NE, Washington, DC

Today is World Water Day: Water's not just for drinking

-- World Water Day, United Nations

Water system privatization.  An article in the Guardian, "England's running out of water – and privatisation is to blame," criticizes rampant privatization of water systems in the UK, how more money is spent on dividends than repairing leaks.  Meanwhile, desperate for money, the City of Providence is considering leasing their water system out, to get upfront monies to put towards pension funding ("Providence floats plan to shore up pensions by leasing waterworks, response is chilly," Providence Journal).

Flooding.  Flooding in the Midwest is devastating communities ("Midwest flooding could be costly: In Nebraska, tab is $1.3 billion and rising with waters," USA Today) and is expected to spread further into the Midwest and the South ("River flooding to persist well into spring 2019 over central US," AccuWeather).

--Midwest Floods of 2019—The Latest Disaster to Learn From, Natural Resources Defense Council

Climate change ("Great Lakes region warming faster than rest of U.S.," Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Sea level rise...  Flooding in the Midwest, is only partially a problem of climate change.  Sea level rise is a day-in, day-out issue for communities like Miami Beach, which experience flooding almost daily as a result of sea level rise ("Miami Battles Rising Seas," New York Times).

affects property values ("Coastal Flooding Is Erasing Billions in Property Value as Sea Levels Rise," Inside Climate News)

and can't be legislated away ("NC banned a study on sea-level rise. Could it mean more hurricane destruction?," Raleigh News & Observer).

There is that pesky issue of replacing degraded waterworks infrastructure, which is leading to significant increases in the cost of water.

-- Aging water infrastructure in the United States,| Deloitte Insights

The waste of bottled water ("12 facts that show why bottled water is one of the biggest scams of the century," BusinessInsider). A bottle of water for $1 costs 800x the cost of 16 ounces of water from the tap.

Do lakes and rivers have rights?  Residents in Toledo vote in favor of giving Lake Erie "rights" ("Can a lake have rights? Toledo votes yes," Christian Science Monitor).

Plastic pollution in water sources ("Plastics pollution threatens Great Lakes, not just the oceans," Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Transportation demand management, transit: Los Angeles Airport (LAX) and Logan Airport, Boston

Curbed LA has a piece, "It’s called the Crenshaw/LAX Line, but Metro’s newest train won’t actually go to the airport," about how with the opening of the Crenshaw/LAX line next year, riders can get about one mile away from the airport, but the Airport's forthcoming People Mover system won't be operational until 2023 ("Fly through the Metro station connecting LAX to light rail" and "Construction kicks off on tram that will ferry you around LAX").

While yes, it's somewhat nonsensical that LAX didn't get the People Mover project and the rail transit project on the same timeframe.

-- LAX People Mover webpage

The Airport does provide shuttle service from the existing transit station on the Green Line, Aviation/LAX, something the Curbed article doesn't really highlight, and it will shift this service to the forthcoming station, Aviation/Century, on the Crenshaw/LAX line next year.

But judging by the renderings, there's no question that the Aviation/Century Station will be a first class connection for services to the Airport.

It will have multi-modal services including an LA Metro Bike Hub.  (DK if it will also have spots for various car sharing options, it should.)

Interestingly, while the trip on the shuttle is free, you have to use a TAP card--the fare media card for LA Metro/LA County--because the trip is supposed to be linked to transit use.  This prevents people from driving to and parking on residential streets in the abutting neighborhood.


LAX Airport Metro Connector - 96th Street Transit Station from Grimshaw on Vimeo.
Visualization, LAX Airport Metro Connector - 96th Street Transit Station

Meanwhile, in Boston, Massport, the operators of Logan Airport, are going to double the pick up and drop off fee for ride hailing trips to $5--although it will be half that for Pooled trips with multiple passengers, and they are changing the pick up and drop off point in order to reduce the congestion that ride hailing trips to and from the airport have caused ("Your Uber and Lyft ride at Logan Airport may soon change," Boston Globe). From the article:

The Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Logan Airport, on Thursday unveiled details of its plan to rein in the thousands of Uber and Lyft rides clogging its terminals and narrow roads, and a fee increase that would make its ride-hailing charge among the highest of any airport in the country.

“We have to do something,” said Edward Freni, the agency’s director of aviation, expressing exasperation about the daily traffic jams at the terminals and in East Boston. ...

Perhaps the biggest change would be to how riders get to the terminals. Today, travelers heading to Logan are dropped off right outside their terminals, while those leaving Logan are directed to dedicated pickup spots in adjacent parking lots to meet their drivers. Massport’s plan, which it has been considering for months, is to instead direct both pickups and drop-offs to the airport’s central parking garage, with an exception for riders with disabilities, who would still get curbside service.

The locations would require a walk of several minutes or so between the terminals and the garage through elevated passageways.

According to the article, ride hail trips make up 40% of trips during peak hours, and putting arrival and departure trips in the same place would make it easier for drivers to pick up new riders.

Note that a couple years ago, there was talk about putting in a moving sidewalk/better connections between the closest transit station and Logan Airport ("Automatic for the people: Logan to study if a train (or monorail) should replace shuttles at the airport," Boston Globe).

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Past articles on better TDM practice for airports include:

-- "A brief comment on ground transportation at National Airport vis a vis VRE rail service," 2016
-- "Why not a bicycle hub at National Airport?: focused on capturing worker trips but open to all," 2017
-- "Revisiting stories: ground transportation at airports (DCA/Logan)," 2017
-- "Airports and public transit access: O'Hare Airport and the proposed fast connection from Downtown Chicago," 2018

Maximizing the benefit of tv shows (or movies) for tourism: Top Chef, Kentucky

It's been a few years since I've watched Top Chef or Project Runway, reality shows about restauranting/cooking and fashion design respectively.

Typically such shows get some sort of financial support from local economic development and/or tourism sources.

-- "Movies and tourism and touristification ," 2009
-- "Cities and states need to extract more from tax incentive deals with television and movie productions: get ad credits ," 2014
-- "Historic Preservation Tuesday: Critical mass of rehabilitation and a big dose of tv exposure sparks community revitalization in Waco, Texas," 2016

But for me, often the shows don't adequately promote the local areas concomitant with the financial support they've received.

Cheftestants get a tour of the Maker's Mark distillery on episode 2 of "Top Chef" season 16. (Photo: Courtesy of Michael Hickey/Bravo)

According to an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal, "'Top Chef' may be over but food interest in Kentucky is just beginning," the State of Kentucky seems to have done a much better job of getting particular places shown in the Top Chef series. From the article:

For 12 weeks, between December and February, the Bravo show highlighted the state's tourism opportunities, taking viewers on a whirlwind journey through its central and southern regions as 15 chefs competed for the national title.

Episodes pointed viewers to iconic attractions like Churchill Downs in Louisville and Keeneland in Lexington. But they also introduced people to hidden gems like the Rathskeller room at the Seelbach Hotel and the houseboats of Lake Cumberland.

Tourism officials previously said they expected "Top Chef" to boost visits to and interest in the state once the season ended. But leading up to last week's finale, in which Alabama native Kelsey Barnard Clark was crowned the "Top Chef," local places featured throughout the season reported they'd already seen an uptick in business, with customers both new and old asking about their time on the show.

In Paducah, farm-to-table restaurant Freight House, owned by runner-up contestant Sara Bradley, has been taking reservations for out-of-town visitors from as close as Nashville and as far as Chicago.

In Lexington, chef Ouita Michel's family of restaurants have stayed busy through their dead season, with customers braving the cold to ask about her turn as a guest judge.

And in Loretto, Maker's Mark distillery has seen an increase in customers at its restaurant, Star Hill Provisions. A new common question for the distillery's tour guides: "Were you there when they filmed?"...

To accommodate "Top Chef," a Kentucky tourism board last year approved up to $3.5 million in production incentives for the show, promising to refund the production company a portion of any eligible costs it spent in the state.

At the time, the incentive marked a drastic jump from sponsorship or rebates the show had reportedly received in other filming locations.

Seems like it will be worth watching the programs to see how local attractions and places have been covered, and to use that as a model for communities negotiating with tv and movie producers in the future.

Another thing the State of Kentucky Tourism agency has done was to create a webpage focusing on the program and the places they visited. 

-- Better in the Bluegrass

That's one of the best ways to leverage the exposure, along with working with various attractions, restaurants, etc. for specific promotions.  Such as these (via the LCJ):

• Mint Julep Tours — The Louisville-based tour company will run a special "Top Chef"-inspired tour on three dates in 2019: June 13, Sept. 12 and Oct. 17. The tour takes guests on a progressive dinner to three restaurants connected to the show. It costs $119 per person, plus taxes and fees. 
• Stone Fences Tours — The Lexington-based company has a Culinary Trail of the Commonwealth tour that takes guests to seven stops connected to the show, including Keeneland in Lexington, Maker's Mark in Loretto and Decca in Louisville. The tour lasts approximately 12 hours and costs $225 per person.

(UK) Traffic in Villages Toolkit

Ben Hamilton-Baillie’s most celebrated work was in the town of Poynton, Cheshire. Traffic lights were removed and a ‘double roundel’ introduced, which meant cars had to negotiate with pedestrians and cyclists.

The Guardian obituary on Ben Hamilton-Baillie, a leading UK advocate for shared spaces approaches to streets especially in smaller rural communities, mentions that he produced the Traffic in Villages Toolkit, applying the various principles.

I haven't yet read it, but a quick glance at the companion Traffic in Villages Checklist, to be used in evaluating characteristics of places alongside mobility questions, indicates that it's applicable far beyond the rural setting for which it was developed.

Two not dissimilar publications from Oregon, Main Street: When a Highway Runs Through It, and Washington State, School Walk and Bike Routes: A Guide for Planning and Improving Walk and Bike to School Options for Students, are equally useful in a variety of settings.

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Note that while I was once enamored of the "shared spaces" (woonerf) concept I am less so today.  Not conceptually, and not in terms of the urban design elements that are espoused, but because in places where automobiles are still accorded the top of the pyramid in terms of privileged access, mixing in more vulnerable users can be dangerous.

One big lesson from the failure of the Gwinnett County MARTA Referendum

Justin Hart, an opponent of Gwinnett's MARTA contract, holds a 'Vote No' sign as cars drive past the polling precinct at the Collins Hill library branch Tuesday. (Gwinnett Daily Post Staff Photo: Curt Yeomans)

It seems as if the no votes have it, about 55% no and 45% yes.  Not terrible for the pro-transit forces but a defeat just the same.

When you have funding referenda in "off-elections," that is, outside of the more typical primary and general election cycle associated with elections for state and federal offices, the electorate tends to be more conservative and is more likely to vote against tax increases.

-- "Gwinnett MARTA referendum has failed," Atlanta Journal-Constitution

So (1) getting the election cycle right and (2) having enough time to build support are the two key factors, especially in regions where the automobility paradigm is so dominant.

Cars drive past a 'Vote Yes' sign put up by pro-MARTA group Go Gwinnett on West Pike Street in Lawrenceville on Tuesday. (Staff Photo: Curt Yeomans). "Gwinnett back at square one after MARTA rejected in key vote," Gwinnett Daily Post.

For whatever reason the decision was made to not have the election last fall in the general election cycle.

Rather than have a special election, they should have waited two years for the next general election cycle.

Learning the right and wrong lessons from best practice: Hong Kong is Transit Oriented Development on steroids

Transit oriented development is a term from the last couple decades for linking denser development with high frequency transit, most usually rail (although sometimes it includes bus rapid transit). 

Ironically, it's the resuscitation of an approach that originated more than a century ago, about linking transit to development, and having higher density development immediately around stations and terminals. Mega-cities like New York or Paris or London or Tokyo couldn't operate if they were dependent on automobile transportation.  High capacity transit moves thousands of people efficiently and quickly.

The concepts are captured in a long out of print publication by DC's Office of Planning, which updates these principles for today:

-- Trans-Formation: Recreating Transit-Oriented Neighborhood Centers in DC: Design Handbook
-- Center for Transit Oriented Development
-- Ten Principles for Successful Development Around Transit, Urban Land Institute

NotionsCapital points us to the Guardian article, "How public transport actually turns a profit in Hong Kong," about how the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) in Hong Kong is super profitable because they capture land value from transit adjacency in development and generate ongoing revenue from this development."

Half the revenue in the system is from property development, ownership, and management.

Historically, transit lines were created by land developers to make new residential development popular and successful.

In Washington, DC, for example, not only was a streetcar line built on Connecticut Avenue to Chevy Chase, Maryland, the streetcar franchise operators were required to build the street too. 

The streetcar line on H Street NE where I used to live was built because developers weren't able to sell lots without it.

Railroads had massive residential recruitment promotional programs.

The Van Swerigen Brothers who built Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights outside of Cleveland actually bought a railroad to get the right of way they needed to provide high speed transit service to their new developments ("Train Dreams," Belt Magazine).

The London Underground had great promotions in association with new lines, especially the "Metroland"of Suburban London.

In the US, transit became publicly owned because it was no longer profitable.

In large part this was because relatively deconcentrated and small scale development was tough for transit to serve efficiently and economically.

Especially when combined in a massive increase in auto ownership + regulatory oversight which was focused on keeping fares low.

In Asian cities, many transit systems are privately owned today because they are profitable. 

Or they are run by public agencies, like MTR, but are managed to be revenue positive.

What's different about Hong Kong, many communities in Japan especially Tokyo ("Why Tokyo's Privately Owned Rail Systems Work So Well," CityLab), Seoul, and Singapore among others, is that these communities are massively dense in both building mass and housing. And most housing is multiunit.

Hong Kong.

So not only does MTR make a lot of money from development, lots of people live or work in Hong Kong and near transit stations, and so the ridership levels are huge as well--at levels far beyond what happens in most North American cities except for Mexico City and New York City.

Surprisingly, mass transit ridership in HK is about what it is in NYC, but they also have higher usage of buses, a still extant double deck tram system, and a great deal of walking, facilitated by a public system of walkway connections ("City of stairs: the interconnecting walkways of Hong Kong," Guardian) and public escalators.

Counter examples.  The development at DC's Fort Totten Metrorail station in mostly a maximum of four stories, and maybe has 1,500 residents.  Although there are taller buildings at other sites, such as Petworth which has one building about 8 stories high, and multiple taller buildings around the Columbia Heights and NoMA Metrorail stations.  But DC's height limit puts a severe limit on the ability to build around transit.

Fort Totten.  (Although development a block or two away is more dense, about double in size.)

When I was writing the piece yesterday on Atlanta, I was shocked at the low ridership--only two stations of 38 in the MARTA system has more than 9,000 daily riders.

By contrast the Union Square development discussed in the Guardian article is 33 acres with 12 million s.f. of development and buildings as tall as 118 stories.

The built area includes 5,866 residential units, 2,230 hotel rooms, and 2,490 serviced apartments, alongside a shopping mall, Elements, of almost 1 million s.f.

Civic Square in West Kowloon. The shopping mall, apartments and two five-star hotels were all developed or are now owned and managed by the MTR. Photograph: Photogenic/Alamy.

Today there is a transit referendum in Gwinnett County (Greater Atlanta)

When the compact was developed for the MARTA heavy rail transit system in Greater Atlanta, most suburban counties, including Gwinnett, opted out.  So the rail and bus system mostly serves Fulton and DeKalb Counties, except that in 2014 Clayton County voted to join.

While Clayton County didn't have much of a transit system or service before joining MARTA, Gwinnett Couny has developed its own transit system in the interim, although there is no rail service and limited connections to other counties.

At the time of the vote in 1971, it was pretty typical for suburbs to be against regional transit out of fear of the other, especially center cities and what were perceived as predominately African-American populations.

Frankly, this is still a problem, such as in Suburban Detroit, where elected officials in Macomb and Oakland Counties haven't favored taxes for regional transit ("Hackel on regional transit efforts: Macomb voters "don't want this thing'," Michigan Public Radio)..

Chris Hahn, who confronted an intruder in his home near the Cromwell rail stop. Photograph: JM Giordano for the Guardian.

And even in Anne Arundel County outside of Baltimore, some residents are still agitating for closure of light rail stations which they see associated with crime derived from Baltimore ("Addicts, crooks, thieves’: the campaign to kill Baltimore's light rail," Guardian).

To their credit, local and state officials haven't been supportive. From the article:

The Hahns had moved to the working/middle-class suburb seeking a quiet, safe environment away from the crime and strife of Baltimore, 10 miles away. But, like many in the neighbourhood, they say the city’s woes have seeped into the area via public transport. Specifically, they believe criminals are coming into the suburbs by light rail.

Data does not bear that out, but that hasn’t stopped some residents from campaigning for the service, which started 25 years ago, to be reduced. The Hahns have just returned from a protest demanding the closure of a light rail stop around the corner from their home – a stop activists have linked to an increase in crime in the area.

(When I worked in Baltimore County, that's when I first heard the term "Loot Rail," where it was said that people from Baltimore would take the light rail to Lutherville to steal from the big box stores near by.)

Transit funding in Georgia has been problematic.  The state has a disproportionate role, and state-initiated votes in the past were put forward on too accelerated of a time frame to be able to succeed ("Failure of the transit-roads sales tax measure in Metro Atlanta") as was the case in 2012

Now, counties have the ability to set votes on a longer time frame.  And over the last two directors of the MARTA system, elected officials have become more comfortable with transit, recognized that transit is important in attracting business ("Atlanta hopes transit expansion could be edge in Amazon HQ2 hunt," Atlanta Journal-Constitution)) and have had their fears assuaged that the "monies will be wasted."

GoGwinnett is a pro-transit advocacy initiative.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been running a series of articles on the Gwinnett vote for the past few months.  The depth of coverage reiterates the value of local media.

-- Gwinnett MARTA referendum coverage, AJC
-- Pro and con coverage, Gwinnett Forum

By late tonight, we'll know what happens.

===========

From "Here’s a voice against Gwinnett ever joining up with MARTA," Gwinnett Forum:

The first vote I ever cast was against MARTA. And the last rapid transit vote I cast in 1990 was against MARTA. And the next vote I cast will go against MARTA.

Friends ask, “Why would we want to be like DeKalb and Fulton?” I say we already are, but what they’re really saying is, “We don’t want to be like Atlanta.” How do I know? Well, the second letter in MARTA stands for “Atlanta.” And the last time I looked at a map of Gwinnett, nowhere did I find a city called by that name.

Gwinnett has long resisted any merger, association, or jurisdiction with the big city to our south. Why are we starting now? Our commissioners know MARTA won’t solve our traffic problems. Has it solved DeKalb’s? Or Fulton’s? The answer is no.

Consider this: Gwinnett County has a population of nearly a million strong. Why aren’t we dictating to Atlanta what we want instead of it dictating to us what it thinks we need?

Given the virulence of the automobility lobby, oil and car manufacturing interests and the Sprawl Lobby, it's probably more amazing than we realize when transit referenda do pass.

Revisiting "Should surface transit be free?" given DC's announcement the Circulator bus service will be free

At the Mayor's State of the City address, she announced ("Bowser proposes commercial tax increase to pay for affordable housing," Washington Post) that the DC Circulator bus service will now be free.  From the article:

She announced that the city would permanently eliminate the $1 fare on the popular D.C. Circulator bus system, after experimenting with free rides in February and March. “For working people, it adds up,” Bowser said, noting that she has been stopped in the store checkout line and at dinners by people who gushed about the free bus rides. The free rides cost the city about $250,000 a month, officials said.

Last December, Luxembourg announced it will make transit free ("Luxembourg to become first country to make all public transport free").  That blog entry discusses various free transit initiatives, such as:

Talinn, Estonia has had free transit for a number of years.  A handful of cities--Calgary, Pittsburgh, and Salt Lake City--still have free transit zones in their Downtowns as a congestion reduction measure. A number of resort communities also provide no cost transit service as a congestion management tool.

Baltimore has a free Circulator service as well, which is designed to provide intra-city transit especially in the core and highly visited zones, to complement the inter-city regionally oriented service profile of the bus system serving the city and abutting counties ("Charm City Circulator's new operator has not trained all drivers, faces persistent bus shortage," Baltimore Sun).

It's paid for by a tax on parking, but that hasn't generated enough revenue and so they've had to make up funding with other sources.

Recently, workers in Downtown Columbus have been given access to free bus passes as a congestion measure.

Here and there are various particular free bus services, including Circulators of various sorts. Salt Lake City has a free bus line to the State Capitol (Route 500 - State Capitol Free Fare Zone, which extends outside of the city's free fare zone.

Photo: Jesse Acosta, WBUR-FM/NPR, "MBTA Begins Early-Morning Bus Service Pilot Program."

Boston City Councillors suggest one route be converted to free fare. Just last week, two Boston councilmembers proposed that a specific bus route be turned into a free service ("Two Boston city councilors want to make the Route 28 Bus free," Boston Globe). From the article:

Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu, one of the outspoken advocates in the charge against the price hike, says it’s time for the “next step:” a public discussion on how to ultimately make one of the busiest bus routes in the city, free of charge.

The Route 28 Bus, making stops between Mattapan and Ruggles Station, carries around 12,000 riders on weekdays. The majority of passengers are low-income residents without cars and almost half don’t have a driver’s license, Wu told her fellow councilors this week. ...

“This would be a measure that would also ensure people have no barriers to access that economic opportunity corridor,” Wu said during a meeting Wednesday, where she and Councilor Kim Janey filed their request for a hearing on the proposal. “This is the route I think we need to have the conversation about.”

While what Mayor Bowswer has done or what Boston councillors are proposing are nice things to do, I don't necessarily think it's the right thing to do.

As rich as it is, DC still has more things it would like to do than it has money a/k/a limited financial resources and constraints. Therefore, it makes sense to direct those resources in ways that have the greatest return and impact.

Most of the Circulator bus routes in the city are what I call political bus service. From a usage standpoint, they don't experience particularly high ridership. But most neighborhoods want the service because the cost of the fare (until the speech) is half that of regular Metrobus service.

The bus lines that have the highest ridership are in the core, and like the Baltimore routes are designed to provide intra-city coverage that the trunkline Metrobus lines don't really do. But most of those riders can afford to pay for the service.

One of the downsides of congestion-management focused free transit service is that the beneficiaries tend to be the well off, because they are the ones working white collar jobs in the core (although there are also service jobs too).

I wrote about some of these issues a little over two years ago, "Is making surface transit free the best transit investment DC can make?." The rest of this post is drawn from that, but revised.

How the city provides bus service. Basically, DC has four types of bus service.

(1) high frequency service on major arterials, like the bus service on 16th Street NW (S bus) or H Street-Benning Road (X bus), serving major activity centers and transit stations, and usually not extending beyond DC's borders, with the exception of the 70s bus line, which terminates in Silver Spring;

(2) neighborhood-to-neighborhood bus service between various activity centers and transit stations (like the 62 bus between Takoma and Petworth Stations or the H8 bus which goes from Mount Pleasant to the Columbia Heights Metrorail Station then to the Brookland Metrorail Station and then to the Rhode Island Metrorail Station);

(3) the Circulator service downtown and in some neighborhoods; and

(4) private shuttle services between subway stations and campuses, mostly for the universities like Georgetown and Howard, the Washington Hospital Center, although many federal government agencies run shuttle services too.

Map, Tempe Orbit intra-neighborhood bus service.  

To better serve the differing needs of communities, based on transit station proximity, density, and need, I have argued that the city needs to redefine how it provides transit, including the provision of intra-neighborhood service in certain neighborhoods.

I've written about this too in the context of my various "transportation wish lists," ("Transportation Wish List: 2015 edition, part one, the original list" and "Part two, new ideas").

The fact is that outside of the service in Downtown and that serving the National Mall during tourist season, for the most part Circulator bus routes duplicate service provided by existing Metrobus routes.

Rendering, intra-neighborhood Freebee Shuttle, Coral Gables, Florida.

While I no longer think that DC's transit planning priority should be making surface transit free, the decision by Mayor Bowser should spur us to think about what outcomes do we want from the city transit network and its surface component. and how and what kinds of investments should DC be making concerning improvements in surface transit service.

Free transit is expensive. As an intellectual exercise, I think it's worth considering free transit. But as an op-ed in Planetizen shows ("Why Is Fare-Free Transit The Exception Rather Than The Rule?") it works in places where overall there isn't that much demand for transit, and in small, constrained places, such as in resort towns. In larger cities, where transit is heavily used, the cost is considerable and difficult for local government budgets to absorb.

Whereas most communities do not have free transit service for primary and secondary routes, some cities like Tempe and Scottsdale in Arizona or the Town of Friendship Heights in Maryland have free intra-neighborhood services that move people from neighborhoods to activity centers and transit stations, but these services complement the broader transit network.

San Francisco considered it (but they have refused to release the final report), but found the increase in the amount of equipment required was beyond the budget. See "Free ride? Fat chance: Muni fares will stay," San Francisco Chronicle.

Note that the free weekly in the Vancouver, BC region, had a nice series on free transit. See "No Fares! Series," Tyee.

Are there better investments we could make in bus transit over making Circulator buses free?

In the metropolitan area, DC generally has the highest ridership buses (although one of those lines originates in Silver Spring, Maryland) with multiple lines having daily ridership between 13,000 and 22,000 riders.  But just because we have many high ridership lines it doesn't mean the system is perfect.

The original piece lists seven points.  But from the standpoint of providing free transit specifically, there are only two points that really matter.  Making these changes rather than making the DC Circulator bus routes free would have a lot more and more focused impact.

1.  Discounting transit for low income residents.  Rather than providing free transit to a lot of people who have the means to pay for it we should be prioritizing subsidizing transit service for people of limited means.

I am embarrassed to say that in my various "Transportation Wish Lists" I never listed this as a priority. 

(Although, it should be funded as a social service measure rather than a cost to the transit system, and separately and as an addition to monies for the transit system currently appropriated by the jurisdictions.)

While WMATA provides discounted fares for seniors, but not on a means-tested basis, and both DC and Montgomery County provide free or reduced price transit passes for schoolchildren, the DC area does not have a systematic program reducing the cost of transit for the impoverished.

The subsidized fare program offered by SF MUNI is called the Lifeline Pass, and it's half the cost of a regular monthly pass (their regular fare monthly pass is still very very cheap compared to peer systems), and people must be income qualified to be able to get the pass.

King County Metro in Seattle has a similar program. Hubway, Boston's bike share program has a similar framework for their low income access program.

More and more cities are creating such programs including Calgary, Denver ("Denver Approves Low-Income Discount for Transit Riders," NextCity), Halifax, Nova Scotia, Minneapolis ("Metro Transit will offer $1 fare for low-income riders," St. Paul Pioneer Press), Portland, Oregon ("Low Income Fares Begin," Portland Observer)), Lincoln, Nebraska and Los Angeles County, etc.

New York City Council pushed Mayor De Blasio to create a similar system, although it won't include single rides, only week and monthly passes.

Edmonton pay as you go and capping for low income riders.  However, Edmonton has proposed that could create the equivalent of a "pay as you go" capping feature for low income riders, which is the method I'd recommend implementing.

For low income riders who can't afford to buy a monthly pass in advance, the "rate capper" will work over the course of an entire month, and once a rider pays in fares the equivalent of the cost of a monthly pass, the discounted price of the pass -- and "free" travel for the rest of the month kicks in ("New smart cards for Edmonton Transit boast a 'social justice' edge," Edmonton Journal).
From the article:

People with steady jobs and good paycheques are the most likely to buy a monthly pass. They have cash on hand at the beginning of the month.

Those who might need their last nickel just to keep the lights on are the most likely to pay cash for every trip. It means they pay $3.25 per ride, more money for the same service.

That’s one reason Ken Koropeski is excited about Smart Fare.

With a card and an online account, the system can track how many times a person uses transit during a 30-day period, said Koropeski, director of special projects for Edmonton Transit. No one would have to commit to a monthly pass on Day 1. Instead, the system could automatically track use and once the rider hits that monthly maximum, all other rides are free.

“When you have capping, it has inherent benefits for people with low income,” said Koropeski.

Rather than spending $3 million making the Circulator free better that we spend $3 million on low income transit passes.

2.  Create intra-neighborhood transit (bus) services so that people can get to and from local services, commercial districts, schools, libraries, and to and from transit stations without having to drive. This includes delivery services of "freight" such as groceries.

In various writings, I call this "tertiary" service/tertiary transit network (based on the Arlington County framework in their transportation plan, which defines a primary and secondary transit network).  And it's not like we don't have a form of this now, at least within the city. Most neighborhoods have access to some bus service, although many people may not use it because it is circuitous or because they feel that the bus service is beneath them.

There are many models for what I consider intra-district transit service: including various tourist oriented transit services in places like Savannah or Laguna Beach; the Tempe In Motion bus services in Tempe, Arizona, which serves residents; the Baltimore Circulator which complements metropolitan bus service to Downtown by MTA with intra-district bus service; the FRED service of electric mini-shuttles in Downtown San Diego, Santa Monica, Anaheim, and various communities on Long Island and in and around Miami.

While I no longer recommend making all surface transit free, I do see the value in making tertiary network transit services free. That would take people to and from major transit stations, commercial districts, supermarkets, etc., and home, but wouldn't be free for outside of the neighborhood travel. See "Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited because of new San Diego service," for a more complete discussion.

======
Other items from "Is making surface transit free the best transit investment DC can make?

• Double deck buses as a repositioning device
• Creating a system of priority bus lanes
• Add Night Owl bus service on subway routes during the periods when the system is closed
• Line extensions/creations.  One example would be the extension of the 30s line from its terminus at Friendship Heights on the DC/Maryland border northward to at least Friendship Heights.  Another would be service on Connecticut Avenue and Rhode Island Avenue that is more comparable to the trunkline services on major arterials such as 14th or 16th Streets, H Street, or Georgia Avenue.  Both of these services should extend some distance into Maryland
• Other improvements.  An extensive list of other improvements, such as to bus stop waiting environments, is discussed in the entry "Making bus service sexy and more equitable."

Plus

• create formal transportation management districts and "shared parking systems" in highly visited activity centers (see the discussion in -- "Parking districts vs. transportation/urban management districts: Part one, Bethesda" and "Parking districts vs. transportation/urban management districts: Part two, Takoma DC/Takoma Park Maryland)