People on Streets, continued

("People on streets" refers to a phrase from the lyrics of the song "Under Pressure.")

I've written a bunch lately about "new" initiatives in prioritizing people over cars:

• King Street in Toronto has been prioritized for streetcar movement
• 14th Street in Manhattan has been prioritized for bus movement
• Alexandria, Virginia is going to test making the 100 block of King Street pedestrianized, as it abuts their Waterfront district

And the failure to pedestrianize Oxford Street in London, because of opposition by the local borough to proposals from the citywide Mayor of London ("Sadiq Khan explains why Oxford Street isn't being pedstrianized." Time Out London).

And suggestions that opportunities for pedestrian activity enhancement are there for the taking in:

• Dupont Circle including a proposal for a two block pedestrian section of 17th Street if only on weekends
• Silver Spring.

Last week, San Francisco implemented previous plans to prioritize streetcar movement on Market Street, which includes "banning cars."

-- "Car-free Market: What happens to the side streets? And where will they ban cars next?," San Francisco Chronicle
-- "Market Street is now car-free: What street should be next?," San Francisco Chronicle
-- Better Market Street Project
-- "San Francisco's hallmark, Market Street is now car-free," CNN

The CNN article is good in terms of a more thorough discussion about the benefits in terms of accessibility, sustainable mobility, and safety.

I've come across vintage postcards that indicate at one time Market Street had four streetcar tracks, two in each direction.

And I came across an article about improvements for pedestrian movement around Grand Central Station, New York/Manhattan, which are being developed as a result of proffer requirements for a new very tall building proximate to the station.

-- "Midtown tower One Vanderbilt will make Grand Central area a pedestrian haven," New York Post

This Gothamist article details the improvements.)

In return for a special agreement allowing a building size doubling what was allowed under zoning, SL Green the developer has committed to $220 million !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in transit-pedestrian related improvements, including a transit hall on the ground floor of a part of the new building, which will provide connections to the coming Long Island Railroad trains that will be brought to the station as a result of the East Side Access Project.

Interestingly, the kinds of improvements outlined around Grand Central, focused on facilitating movement in and out of the station for both subway and railroad connections, implement an approach to "horizontal and vertical movement of pedestrians" outlined in the Regional Plan Association publication Urban Design Manhattan, which dates to the late 1960s.

DC and the War on Cars...  The Post this week has an article on Union Station ("Is D.C. waging a war on cars?") and proposals to reduce the amount of parking provided there.  While plans for redevelopment and expansion call for a reduction in parking, according to the article area planners call for even further reductions.

Ironically, I don't agree.

For 15 years I've been recommending that DC create "transportation management districts" to better manage mobility with a focus on enhancing sustainable mobility within sub-districts of the city.  To some extent, DC's Business Improvement Districts to a bit of this.  But not to the extent to which it could be done.

While I write a pretty hardcore anti-car position, that's just because most everyone else argues vociferously in favor of the car.  I've come to accept that we need to plan for automobile movement and parking, of course with the aim of reducing it as much as possible.

Key to this is the ability to "share parking" across a district.  To do this, you have to have some parking, which can be pretty rare in some areas of the city.

What I propose is a system of integrated public and private parking, parking wayfinding systems in digital and analogue forms, cross-district valet parking stations, and electric shuttles to provide support to intra-district mobility.  (See item #5 in this piece on Silver Spring, which outlines the overall approach.)

DC really screwed up as this relates to Capitol Hill and the Eastern Market.  Property it controls, the development now called 700 Penn, has a parking structure, which was intended to support Eastern Market and the area, but DDOT pushed for a parking reduction.  And didn't insist that the parking structure portion of the project be city controlled.  The developer "jobbed out"--outsourced the management of the parking for the building--and it is almost impossible to achieve any social/planning goals as a result.

It would be a shame if this same kind of opportunity is lost with Union Station.


More on Union Station.  Sadly, my recommendations never went anywhere in the Union Station environmental impact assessment process.

I suggested that the mess that is on the front of the station--a mix of tourist buses, taxis and ride hailing vehicles, and private automobiles should be shifted underground, using the way bus services are shifted underground at Denver's Union Station, the bus station in Brisbane, Australia, etc.  But extended to include passenger pick up and drop off by "for hire vehicles" and private automobiles.

More on transit prioritized streets.  When I used to look at this more closely in terms of DC, specifically H Street NE and Georgia Avenue NW, which are major bus service routes, I found that about 40% of the total people movement (15,000 people on H Street, 20,000 to 25,000 people on Georgia Avenue) was on buses.

That's about 300 bus movements for a 23 hour day versus about 25,000 individuals. Granted that includes trucks and other service vehicles too.  But most of the car movements are single occupant vehicles.

The King Street streetcar has daily ridership between 80,000 and 90,000 people.