Special event bicycle parking and the Chicago Cubs

Twitter photo by Jim_barista.

I mention from time to time that the Chicago Cubs baseball team appears to be one of the only sports teams required to do transportation demand management planning as part of their zoning and occupancy permit requirements with the city.

-- "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities" (section on transportation)

And I have written about secure bike parking organized at the metropolitan scale ("Another mention of the idea of creating a network of metropolitan scale secure bicycle parking facilities"), special event bike parking and bike share.  

Often, bike share operations will set up special valet parking and corrals to hold the bikes (Cabi DC).

That being said, even though the Cubs don't control Divvy, the bike share program in Chicago, they may want to work with them to offer valet parking/corrals to better handle game day needs ("Behold this Divvy bike mountain near Wrigley Field after a full-capacity Cubs game," Chicago Sun-Times).

(Also as an element of creating "bicycle friendly business districts.")

=======

And crime, in Chicago "Divvy bike gangs" have car jacked people and stolen bicycles.  I haven't looked into this more deeply.  I wonder if the GPS can help identify the miscreants (provided they aren't using the bikes illegally, so would be unidentifiable).

BTMFBA: Baltimore and the Area 405 Studio

Big buildings that are cheap are great for arts uses.  Baltimore, because of its past as an industrial city and its relatively weak real estate market, has a great number of old large buildings that have been converted to arts uses.  

Sometimes it's done by traditional real estate operators desperate for a use, other times by arts-focused foundations ("Motor House arts center to anchor Station North neighborhood," Sun) or people interested in the arts.  

The Motor House facility was developed by the Deutsch Foundation through the conversion of the "ground up" and funky "Loads of Fun" arts building, which had been privately owned and was up for sale.

Saving Baltimore Clayworks.  Baltimore has, at least once, rallied to maintain an arts facility that had closed, Baltimore Clayworks (""Baltimore Clayworks to reopen with new board, old debt," Sun).  The thing is that was a one-off, and a more structural approach was not developed.  And 

The Jubilee Baltimore CDC is focused on housing production more generally, but has developed at least two live/work buildings for artists.

Haniel Wides, director of education and shop services, moves equipment in the woodworking section of the Station North tool library. Tue., June 22, 2021. (Karl Merton Ferron/The Baltimore Sun)

Area 405 building likely to become housing.  The Baltimore Sun reports ("Amid potential sale of Area 405, artist community in Baltimore’s Station North fears being priced out") on an arts facility, Area 405, that faces closure because the building is for sale. 

Area 405 is a large building, mostly home to fabrication activities, and the Station North Tool Library, a community tool library with an inventory of more than 3,000 items.

Now that the area has stabilized and plans for expanding Penn Station and building around it are finally moving forward after many starts and stops ("Developers aim to begin construction this spring on Penn Station improvements," Baltimore Fishbowl) there is competition for buildings that can be redeveloped into housing.  This is one.  The real estate firm listing the property suggests it become "Oliver Street Lofts."

BTMFBA.  At the end of the day, if the building's use as an arts and culture-related facility isn't assured, ideally through ownership, there is no protection and representation of artists interests.

As I wrote in "Arts, culture districts, and revitalization," (2009, updated in 2019):

real estate development interests have their own interests apart from artists, and ... artists and arts organizations need to be conscious of what those interests are, harvest what they can from them, but never stop representing their own interests first and foremost.

In short, if you want to keep buildings operating for culture uses, "buy the m*f* building already."  BTMFBA is my response to the many articles over the years about artist displacement.  

-- "Revisiting stories: cultural planning and the need for arts-based community development corporations as real estate operators," 2018
-- "BTMFBA: the best way to ward off artist or retail displacement is to buy the building," 2016
-- "When BTMFBA isn't enough: keeping civic assets public through cy pres review," 2016
-- "BMFBTA revisited: nonprofits and facilities planning and acquisition," 2016
-- "BTMFBA: artists and Los Angeles," 2017
-- "BTMFBA Chronicles: Seattle coffee shop raises money to buy its building," 2018
-- "Dateline Los Angeles: BTMFBA & Transformational Projects Action Planning & arts-related community development corporation as an implementation mechanism to own property," 2018

Key to a program for buying buildings to maintain arts uses:

1.  Create an arts-focused community development agency that can buy, hold, and operate cultural facilities and/or housing/live-work spaces (this may be complemented by a government arts agency more focused on owning and operating larger scale more traditional arts facilities like theater buildings)

2.  Create an arts and culture plan with an element on facilities and scenario planning for dealing with financial exigency and facilities needs of institutions large and small, whether or not they are affiliated with the city or county.

3.  Create a fund and/or funding relationships that can be tapped quickly, as needed.

Baltimore is a cultural arts programming leader, but still doesn't focus on arts use preservation.  .

While Baltimore is a first mover in many elements of arts and culture planning, having: 

• an arts school (MICA) and conservatory (Peabody, now part of Johns Hopkins)
• saving various cultural buildings and assets
• free entry to the Walters and Baltimore Fine Arts Museums 
• a variety of other museums
• waterfront and cultural uses in the Inner Harbor
• the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts as the city's cultural agency
• three arts and entertainment districts, including Station North
• a strong historic preservation movement
• with the core of the city is designated as a National Heritage Area 

they haven't taken the next step and created an initiative focused on preserving less formal arts and culture uses like the Area 405 building, which is located in Station North.

Is a little bit of help better than none?  According to the article, the Central Baltimore Partnership is interested in getting involved, with the aim of preserving some of the space for arts uses, and converting the rest of the building to housing.

I guess that's a better than nothing response.  

My recommendation: Better yet would be to preserve the entire building for arts uses, figuring that over time, arts uses will continue to be crowded out by the market.  

Baltimore has many large foundations, including Abell, Casey, and Weinberg, capable of stepping in ("Impact investors are launching a $25M program to provide capital in Baltimore’s underinvested neighborhoods," Technical.ly).  

Abell Foundation does a fair amount of "portfolio" and proactive investing in buildings and programs (Program Related Investments), and this would be easy for them to do, comparable to how Detroit foundations stepped in to save the Detroit Institute of Arts when the city declared bankruptcy and trustees wanted to sell off art ("ONE YEAR LATER: REFLECTING ON DETROIT’S PHILANTHROPY-DRIVEN “GRAND BARGAIN”," National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy).

WRT seeking foundation support for culture uses building acquisition, using arguments about the economic impact of the arts and culture, its relationship to community quality of life, and arts, stem education, etc., seems like it would be a no brainer.

But this is also an illustration of my point that you need to build these kinds of relationships in advance of desperate need.  In Detroit, the Kresge Foundation had been making big investments in community assets for decades.  They were already primed to step in if the city's leading cultural institution faced being dissolved.  

Similarly, in Philadelphia, when the Jefferson Medical College aimed to sell the famous painting, "The Gross Clinic" by Thomas Eakins, area arts institutions stepped in to buy it, although the cost, $68 million, was considerable, and they ended up selling some art works in order to raise the funds.

A more local Philadelphia story is the attempt to save the Woodmere Mansion in the Germantown  neighborhood ("Woodmere mobilizes to acquire, save historic Germantown Ave. home," Chestnut Local)

Even billionaires sometimes fail to pull off such feats, despite their resources, such as with DC area investor and philanthropist Stewart Bainum, of the family that created Choice Hotels ("Tribune Publishing cuts off negotiations with white knight investor Stewart Bainum Jr., clearing the way for an Alden takeover," Poynter Institute).

That's why building such funding relationships in advance is so important.

=============

Station North arts district has been a great success.  Station North is anchored by the University of Baltimore, Maryland Institute College of Arts (MICA), Penn Station, light rail service, and the Lyric Performing Arts Center, and has a great CDC, Jubilee Housing of Baltimore, which has done some live/work housing redevelopments for artists, it hasn't created a planning initiative focused on maintaining arts and cultural uses.

It's a good example of balancing arts as production and arts as consumption (Montgomery, J. “Cultural Quarters as Mechanisms for Urban Regeneration. Part 1: Conceptualising Cultural Quarters.” Planning, Practice & Research, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 293–306, November 2003).  Buildings like Area 405 and Motor House are about supports arts as production.

From an "anchor events" standpoint ("The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building and Silver Spring, Maryland as an example" and "Events as drivers of activity for traditional commercial districts | Holiday edition"), Baltimore's massive summer art fair, Artscape, is held in Station North.

Unfortunately, given the complexity of the event, Artscape will not be held this year, even though now with more widespread vaccination, public and outdoor events are beginning to return ("Baltimore needs the uplifting return of special events, concerts and festivals," Sun).

Ferris Wheel at Artscape, Penn Station and Charles Street in the background.

Year by year, the improvements brought about by the initiative have been impressive.  

One key difference are the colleges, especially MICA.  This makes a big difference, leading to a greater velocity of success compared to the cities other districts, even though they have great anchors as well, but not to the scale of MICA.

A few years ago, MICA joined with Johns Hopkins to renovate the Parkway Theatre, which includes the Maryland Film Society, programming, and academic programs related to film.

I also have a piece suggesting that it was a missed opportunity for Morgan State University when constructing a new building for their architecture and planning school to Station North to not have relocated that school to Station North ("Morgan State University should move their architecture and planning school to Downtown/Station North Arts District").

=========

Another good article by John Montgomery:

"Making a City: Urbanity, Vitality and Urban Design," Journal of Urban Design, 3:1 (1998)

Great Marketing of Passenger Railroad Service: Grand Central Station, Chicago

 Grand Central Station in Chicago was constructed by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and then acquired by Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad when they bought B&O.  It was built in the late 1800s and demolished in 1971.  I had never heard of it, but happened to come across some images today when I was doing a search for something else.

Not only did the station have a great campanile/clock tower, it had great and large neon signage for the railroad, and a huge marketing billboard that was frequently updated.

Flickr photo by Lloyd Rinehart.

Flickr photo by David Wilson

I argue that today's transit systems should do similar kinds of marketing.  Other favorites include

Denver, both signage and architectural lighting.

Flickr photo by Loco Steve.

King Street Station, Seattle

Portland's "Go By Train" sign has been the inspiration for other mobility marketing signage in the city

Flickr photo by James House.

Salt Lake's Union Pacific and Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad stations had great signage, which is still extant, even though the buildings no longer function as railroad stations.

Flickr photo by Mark Wurst.

Small update: Transit agenda for Greater Baltimore

As discussed in the previous post, "Transit "wokeness" in DC and Baltimore," but reminded by the media coverage of an agreement to improve the B&P Tunnel ("Amtrak, Maryland DOT Debut B&P Tunnel Replacement Plan," Railway Age), which slipped my mind, I forgot to include additional suggestions for transit improvements in Greater Baltimore, from comments on a 2020 GGW post, ""Maryland looks at connecting MARC toward Philadelphia and within Baltimore."

This is the plan for the B&P Tunnel, which will improve the routing and increase the height.

Here is the expanded list.

1.  Extend the transit lines within the city and county and connect them better.  Plus extend light rail to Columbia in Howard County.  ("From the files: transit planning in Baltimore County," 2012) And extend the line northward to the major office district in Cockeysville.

-- Additional Point #1

Construct new Metro Heavy Rail Lines: (1) a new Metro line from Ellicott City to the existing Metro line, with stations along the route (using the old mainline to the B&O museum and having a station under UMMC, along with stations in Catonsville, UMBC etc), and new Metro lines from (2) JHU northeast along the Belair Road and (3) southeast to Canton and Dundalk. (rouge_foreigner)  Covered but not to this level of detail in #1 in the original list.

2.  Create a true regional rail system for Greater Baltimore (and DC), modeled after the German S-Bahn approach.  Integrate MARC into the transit systems in Baltimore City and Greater DC.  Expand the number of intra-city stations in Baltimore especially ("Baltimore City Mayoral candidates views on transportation (and other matters)") (but also DC).  ("One big idea: Getting MARC and Metrorail to integrate fares, stations, and marketing systems, using London Overground as an example," 2015 and others).  

Besides the S-Bahn, The RER (Paris), and London Overground are examples of a regional rail system.  RER is known for undergrounded lines.  (Greater New York has a lot of regional rail, but the system is balkanized across multiple systems and doesn't incorporate through routing.)

In the MARC Growth and Investment Plan from the early 2000s, they proposed three infill railroad stations in Baltimore (Bayview--Hopkins and Madison Square in East Baltimore and Upton in West Baltimore) as well as an upgrade of the West Baltimore station.   The suggestions below add many more infill stations not just in the city but in the counties too.

-- AP 2. Provide a minimum of hourly service in each direction on the Penn Line from 4 am to 2 am.  (marc),  Currently the service runs from 4:45 am to 9:45 pm south from Baltimore to Washington, and from 6:15 am to 10:45 pm from Washington to Baltimore.

-- AP 3.  Electrify the Camden and Brunswick Lines and straighten the routing where appropriate to shorten trip times.  (rouge_foreigner)

-- AP 4.  Extend the Camden Line underground to Penn Station (kk).

A London Overground Station.

-- AP 5.  Combine the St. Denis Station on the Camden Line  by moving it to the Halethorpe Station on the Penn Line to interconnect the lines.  (kk and rouge_foreigner)  (This is also relevant to this post, "Two train/regional transit ideas: Part 2 | Running tourist trains from Union Station.")

-- AP 6.  Add infill stations at Morell Park/Irvington and Lakeland (kk).   

-- AP 7.  Construct a new airport MARC line that allows for a station directly under BWI, probably involving a spur from the Penn Line connecting to the Camden Line on the north side. Airport spurs are about the only kind that are useful in regional rail. (rouge_foreigner)  

-- AP 8.  WRT the B&P Tunnel, rouge_foreigner recommends routing a new tunnel through downtown Baltimore under US 40,  and adding 5 stations: a new central station downtown, roughly at where Metro West is now, and new stations adjacent to the Jones Falls Valley, Johns Hopkins, Elwood Park and Bayview, and four tracking the tunnel (like the Penn Line). Four-tracking enables Amtrak and MARC express service and aims for 30 minute travel time to Baltimore on express.

-- AP 9. Shift the Camden Line alignment before the stadium complex and put it up Russell Street with a new Camden Station near the intersection of Russell Street and MLK Avenue and a northward alignment to Baltimore County and Pennsylvania with multiple new stations including under UM Medical Center, intersecting with the Penn Line in that central station under Metro West (and also the Metro and Light Rail via a tunnel to Lexington Market), then north to stops at a new Penn Station, JHU-Homewood, Loyola/Notre Dame, Towson University, Towson, [ed: + Cockeysville/Hunt Valley], and then on to York and Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. (rouge_foreigner)  (In a way, this re-creates the old Maryland Central Railroad, which  in the 1880s went as far as Lake Ontario in New York State.  Part of its routing is used for the Baltimore Light Rail line.)

-- AP  10. Construct a new electrified mainline from Baltimore to Frederick largely along I-70, primarily to avoid having to shunt freight through DC, and run MARC service on it as well (thus also connecting intermediate stops, including the Social Security office complex, Security Square, and others—in Baltimore County, this scheme would largely supplant the since cancelled Red Line light rail proposal). (rouge_foreigner)

-- AP 11. Construct a MARC line from the new mainline by I-70 and 32 or 97 to Annapolis, connecting Columbia, the Penn and Camden lines, Ft Meade, and Annapolis, and potentially even on to the Eastern Shore and Ocean City to alleviate traffic on the Bay Bridge and Route 50.  (rouge_foreigner) 

3.  Merge the Maryland and Virginia Passenger Rail services, starting with the MARC Penn Line and the VRE Fredericksburg Line. ("A new backbone for the regional transit system: merging the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines")

4.  Create a true statewide passenger rail program, connecting western, eastern, and southern Maryland to DC and Baltimore.  ("A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland.," 2019)

Note that 

-- AP 9 -- creating a new line northward to Baltimore County and Pennsylvania

-- AP 10 -- creating a new line from Baltimore to Frederick

-- AP 11 -- creating a new line from Baltimore to Annapolis with the potential for extension to the Eastern Shore 

are also relevant to the development of a statewide railroad passenger program as distinct from a regional railroad system for Baltimore modeled on the S-Bahn/London Overground concept.

5.  Upgrade the light rail vehicles in Baltimore, rebrand them, and make other surface transit improvements as necessary. ("Baltimore City Mayoral candidates views on transportation (and other matters" and "Part 7 | Using the Purple Line to rebrand Montgomery and Prince George's Counties as Design Forward")

Policing and city risk and reputational management: Ocean City, Maryland | Create beach ambassadors to deescalate visitor management

The Washington Post writes, "Ocean City boardwalk: Violent arrests of unarmed young men raise questions about policing," about a bunch of violent policing episodes in the beach section of Ocean City, Maryland.  

The city has rules about "vaping on the boardwalk" and the crowds get more unruly as the night goes on and people become more inebriated. 

The need to redefine what public safety means and how to deliver it.  It's a particularly good example of the need for rearticulating how to deal with public safety in a broader and more nuanced fashion ("The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented"). 

Police often escalate even the mundane.  It occurred to me while reading the article that there is an element of "police escalating a situation" that hasn't been adequately identified in all the recent analysis of overpolicing, warrior policing, "defund" etc.

I had a few experiences with cops in my teens and 20s that left me negatively disposed. 

My sense was that because police officers mostly deal with criminals on hard things: 

(1) they tend to believe that everyone they deal with is a criminal.  (At least that's the way I perceived my interactions.  That's how I felt I was treated.)

(2) they escalated the situation(s) almost immediately, not violently with tasers or guns, but "socio-emotionally" by immediately assuming the worst of the situation and the people they encountered, and communicating this in everything they said and did.

I'm a pretty nondescript white guy as were the people I was with.

This form of escalation hasn't been identified as an issue, but it likely contributes to escalation of the many incidents that quickly become violent.. 

Policing and risk management.  And a good example that elected officials don't look at policing as a risk management issue, and such incidents should be seen as indicators that there is a problem that should be addressed ("Where is the risk management approach to police misconduct and regularized killings of citizens?").

Tourism as an invasion, and the attack response?  Ocean City is a town of 7,000 people year around--90% white, but grows by at least 250,000 week by week throughout the summer, and 40% or more of visitors are people of color.  

The police department isn't huge, and augments its force every summer with "temporary officers."  Most are white.  And the article describes a number of troubling incidents, not limited to the temporary officers.

A town that grows 300x every week throughout the summer must feel like an invasion to many of the residents and the city more generally.  

Other cities face the same issues.  Either with Spring Break or other special events ("Police chief: End truck meet -- 300 police officers trying to control 50,000 visitors," Dayton Beach News-Journal) or more generally like Amsterdam ("'Don't come to Amsterdam.' Dutch capital tells rowdy tourists to stay away," CNN), Barcelona ("Can Barcelona Fix Its Love-Hate Relationship With Tourists After the Pandemic?," TIME Magazine), and Venice, and are trying to take special measures to reduce the impact.  

Thinking of this as an invasion may well carry over into the attitude of the police officers and how they interact with visitors.  And frankly, some of the incidents might cause them to feel that way (" Maryland Men Charged With Setting Car On Fire, Shooting Into House Of Women They Met At Seacrets, Ocean City," CBS Baltimore).

The boardwalk sits between the sand of the beach and the long strip of businesses -- hotels, retail, taverns, rental shops, etc. -- facing the ocean.  Photo: Julia Hatmaker, Harrisburg Patriot-News.

Vaping on the boardwalk the equivalent of traffic stops as opportunities for escalation?  A number of incidents have been around vaping, as smoking and vaping is forbidden on the beach and boardwalk.  

It reminds me of the really great discussion lately about traffic stops and how they are used by police as a way to initiate "stop and search" ("WHAT TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT WITHOUT POLICE COULD LOOK LIKE," The Appeal; "Traffic without the police," Stanford Law Review, 73: 2021).  

As part of the "defund"/rearticulation of public safety discussion, traffic stops are being brought up, that they should only be made for true traffic violations, not as an excuse to create the opportunity for an arrest.

Smoking or vaping on the beach, like traffic stops, is an opportunity for escalation and for things to go awry in unexpected ways with terrible consequences.

Lifeguard station in Ocean City.  Image from the city website.

Lifeguards for the water, beach ambassadors for the sand.  I hate smoking, so have no problem with the ban.

But like how lifeguards are hired to manage people in the water ("Ocean City Beach Patrol Works Hard, Rescues 557 Swimmers This Summer," OCNJDaily, "n Ocean City, another lifeguard season begins — two minutes early," Baltimore Sun), from the perspective of rearticulating how public safety is defined and delivered, I'd create positions--beach ambassadors--to manage the sand side of the beach in a similar way, shifting from the more coercive approach of police officers.  

Beach ambassadors in Virginia Beach wear bright yellow shirts.  Photo: WAVY-TV.

It turns out Virginia Beach already does this ("Beach ambassadors: They don’t police, but they play a role in keeping Virginia Beach safe," Norfolk Virginian-Pilot) as do other communities.  From the article:

“We’re not here to police,” she said. “We’re here to basically bring calm and reassurance.” 

Beach ambassadors are stationed on every block in the resort area and are roaming at other city beaches. The city has a $1.2 million contract with IMGoing for the service, which likely will continue through Labor Day weekend, Deputy City Manager Ron Williams said. The money is coming from the Tourism Investment Program fund. 

According to their job description, beach ambassadors are to serve as a “welcoming committee” for visitors. They are to remind people of the beach guidelines, which are also posted on signs along the beach and the Boardwalk.

Ocean City calls the lifeguards the Beach Patrol.  They can include beach ambassadors within the same program.   From the Sun article:

“They’re the ambassadors down here,” he said of the lifeguards, new and old. “They've been trained on how to talk to people.”

Some communities, with smaller crowds, and fewer order issues, have volunteer beach ambassador programs.  But cities dealing with large crowds, like Ocean City or Virginia Beach, need more formal programs.

The "beach ambassadors" would manage the beach and boardwalk the way that lifeguards manage the water.  And they should not just be drawn from Ocean City and the surrounding county, which are predominately white, but also from communities like Baltimore or Harrisburg where many of the young visitors originate.

Recommendations to Ocean City.  (1) Ocean City ought to be addressing public safety from a risk management and tourism reputation standpoint and manage it accordingly. 

Although probably a lot of visitors reading articles like the one in the Post blame the people "served" by the cops, and won't change their plans to visit.

(2) Hire a crew of police officers more reflective of the demographics of summer visitors rather than the demographics of the permanent residents who are 90% white. 

(3) The police need to be trained super well in terms of the likely issues, crowd control, and especially de-escalation. 

(4) Create a crew of Beach Ambassadors to provide softer management of the beach and boardwalk, tot de-emphasize coercion and police presence, but with police as back up as needed.  

Conclusion: create a community safety partnership for the beach.  In some ways, the tourist "invasion" should be seen as a nuisance, and managed proactively and professionally ("Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisances: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)").  Business improvement districts and the way they provide extra-normal services including public safety management are one example of how to do it.

Coastal railroad system, wind turbines, and the Green New Deal...

Today's article in the Washington Post about the potential of the Chesapeake Bay region to become a primary player in wind turbine manufacturing and energy generation ("Dominion Energy is embracing offshore wind. It’ll be a break for the Chesapeake Bay region") by Dominion Energy's pivot to wind generation and away from fossil fuels, reminds me that I've forgotten to make the point that rail transit can be powered by such sources, making it even more sustainable.

From "Ørsted achieves offshore wind turbine milestone: Ørsted has installed its 1,500th offshore wind turbine," Offshore Magasine

In writing about how Massachusetts should develop a true state rail plan ("Massachusetts state rail plan," 2019) I thought I mentioned that they can make it incredibly sustainable by powering it through wind energy generated off the coast, in the Atlantic Ocean ("New report: New England has vast potential for offshore wind energy," Environment Massachusetts).

The report, Offshore Wind for America, examines U.S. offshore wind potential by both coastal region and by state, while documenting the status of existing projects and technological advances. New England could generate more than five times its projected 2050 electricity demand with offshore wind alone.

But I didn't.  

-- "Is high-speed rail the fast track to transport decarbonisation?," Railway Technology
-- "Electrification of U.S. Railways: Pie in the Sky, or Realistic Goal?," Environment and Energy Sustainability Institute

In the US, only Caltrain is really moving forward on systemic electrification.

The same goes for all of the states along the Atlantic, including Maryland, and I failed to mention the potential of offshore wind-generated electricity as the primary source of power for a statewide rail system in Maryland ("A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland," 2019), and in the Maglev posts ("Transit "wokeness" in DC and Baltimore" and "DC, Transformational Projects Action Planning, and the Baltimore-Washington Maglev project") among others. 

Plus states along the Gulf of Mexico.  And the Pacific states of California, Oregon, and Washington.

That's at least 20 states.

Social infrastructure in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami

There is an article in the Miami Herald about "climate gentrification" ("Another study finds climate gentrification in Miami, this time in the rental market") but it's behind a paywall so that you have to access it through a library articles database.  

Doing the search on that site, there were links to other articles on the topic within the paper, including "Liberty City is rapidly transforming. Residents are split on who will benefit." 

Artist Kyle Holbrook of Moving Lives of Kids created the nine-story ‘Liberty City Mural’ for the Liberty City Pinnacle Art in Public Places program. Photo: EILEEN ESCARDA.  "Mural depicts leaders, positive changes in Liberty City," Miami Herald.

Liberty City is a historically black neighborhood of about 28,000 residents.  Its black population is dropping, its Hispanic population is increasing, and in part because of its location, but also its relatively high elevation in the face of climate change and the expected rise in sea levels that will devastate most South Florida neighborhoods, it's experiencing new development and an influx of higher income residents.

I've discussed "social infrastructure" in the context of equity planning ("An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs," 2017) and even within managing  and programming public spaces as a network ("The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building and Silver Spring, Maryland as an example," 2012) although I didn't refer to the concept of anchor programming as a kind of "social infrastructure."  I should have.

Community, social, and civic organizations are part of the civic asset network in communities, which is discussed in Eric Klinenberg's book about social infrastructure, Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life.  His study of death and the Chicago heat wave, found thatwhen comparing equally impoverished neighborhoods, those neighborhoods with a greater array of community organizations and civic and retail amenities had fewer deaths.

The organizations listed in the Herald article that I found particularly interesting are:

• Roots Collective Black House, which has a print shop, event space, offers creative services and an internship program for youths, including access to seminars on topics such as gentrification ("Roots Collective Black House Aims to Enrich Black and Brown Communities," Miami New Times)
• Collective 62, an artists cooperative, gallery and work space
• MEYGA, the Multi-Ethnic Youth Group Association, started as an after school program for children, expanded to offer some family programming, and has since opened a private school serving K-8 grades
• African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, is part of the county culture agency, has programs in visual and performing arts for children and youth, presents various arts events including black theater, and has residency and apprenticeship programs for artists ("African Heritage Cultural Arts Center Shapes the Next Generation of Miami's Black Creatives," Miami New Times).

The original theater has been expanded into a cultural complex with the addition of a new building immediately adjacent.  

In Overtown, another historically black Miami neighborhood, one remarkable civic asset is the Black Archives, History & Research Foundation of South Florida.  

In addition to its ever expanding archives on the Black experience in South Florida, the organization also operates the Historic Lyric Theater, the city's first theater building dedicated specifically to the Black community when it opened in 1915.

Transit "wokeness" in DC and Baltimore

Minnesota Avenue NE, Washington Post photo.

DC.  I came across a local op-ed in the Washington Post ("Transit equity should be a priority in D.C.'s budget") about how transit equity means that DC should extend the streetcar east to Benning Road station.  

I find this pretty ironic.  

Not because they are wrong but because it was the "white" transit and economic development advocates like myself who made this point at the outset of streetcar planning c. 2003, and it was the neighborhoods East of the River that were oppositional.

-- "Transportation and economic development: H Street edition," 2011
-- "Sustainable transportation as social justice," 2010
-- "If you build it (streetcars) does economic development magically happen?, 2008

It shouldn't take 17 years to recognize the mistake.

Early on, elected officials then, especially then Councilmember David Catania, argued the streetcar should be implemented in poorer neighborhoods first, because they benefited from better access to employment, schools, and amenities brought on by better transit, because typically they lived in areas that are underserved by transit.

But for the most part, people in those communities were opposed, even if their elected officials were not.  (It's an illustration of my point, based on innovation diffusion theory, that economic laggards shouldn't be expected to be at the front of the adoption of new technologies or ways of doing things. A perfect example of this today is vaccination hesitancy--"Education is a bigger factor than race in desire for COVID-19 vaccine," USC.)

It's one of the examples of why, even with the best of intentions, I argue that rather than implement something in a place where people are opposed, it's often best to do it where it can be wildly successful and is supported, and it can grow from there.  (Although you can't do that with vaccines, and it means that you have to take extra-normal and nuanced steps to improve take up. See "Heidi Larson, Vaccine Anthropologist" New Yorker.)

Streetcar on the 300 block of H Street NE, Washington, DC.

And in fact, that's what happened with the streetcar in DC.  The chair of ANC6A realized that if tracks were installed in H Street NE, which was going to be dug up anyway for streetscape reconstruction, it would increase the likelihood of the streetcar being implemented.  In this case, his "build it and they will come" approach was right.

-- "DC streetcar is opening on Saturday and the opportunity to reflect on the 14 year long process to get there," 2016

This gets back to something else I say about DC, that part of the reason neighborhoods lag is because of legacy leadership that looks backwards, not forward. It's not just disinvestment.  But it's not just the leadership of stakeholders within neighborhoods, it's elected officials more generally.

More recently, DC elected officials haven't been particularly committed to the streetcar ("Bowser Administration Considering Killing D.C. Streetcar Expansion Plans," WAMU/NPR, "DC streetcar to Georgetown is dead," WTOP-radio), despite the fact that it has helped to stoke close to $1 billion in new construction ("DC and streetcars #4: from the standpoint of stoking real estate development, the line is incredibly successful and it isn't even in service yet, and now that development is extending eastward past 15th Street").  

And they have failed to recognize streetcar service can be used to stoke improvements elsewhere in the city (e.g., Riggs Road/Kennedy Street; Minnesota Avenue-Benning Road, Georgia Avenue, etc.).

2.  Baltimore.  Like DC ("DC, Transformational Projects Action Planning, and the Baltimore-Washington Maglev project"), Baltimore has told the Federal Railroad Administration that they aren't into Maglev being constructed between DC and Baltimore ("Baltimore City recommends against building proposed $10 billion high-speed Maglev train to Washington," Baltimore Sun).  From the article:

“The City of Baltimore has several concerns … related to equity, environmental justice, and community impacts,” they wrote. “Additionally, the draft lacks a sufficient level of detail regarding current and future plans for the project which make a comprehensive analysis difficult. The proposed project is also not aligned with significant efforts underway to upgrade existing rail infrastructure in the corridor.” ...

But Baltimore’s four-page response detailed officials’ concerns about the effects of the train and the proposed Camden Yards or Cherry Hill stations on local communities and the environment. 

Tickets projected to cost $60 each way, they wrote, “would negate an affordable and alternate form of transportation to the average citizen, and/or rider(s).” 

“While numerous local jurisdictions and riders along the corridor would not be served by the SCMAGLEV, they would be subjected to the construction impacts,” the city officials said. 

Also see "Baltimore cites ‘equity, environmental justice’ in saying no to high-speed maglev train project," Washington Post.

My comments about DC's position were focused on how DC ought to realize that they need to stoke the value of the central business district as a place to operate.  DC has lagged compared to other major cities in terms of inward migration of corporate headquarters.  But that Maglev is also a way to re-articulate and improve the local transit network and in DC's case, also a way to push forward tunnelizing the connection of I-95 via New York Avenue to I-695 ("Maglev as an opportunity for DC to underground through traffic on New York Avenue").

Recognizing of course that for Maglev to truly be useful, it needs to extend southward to Richmond and northward to Philadelphia, New York City and Boston.

Amtrak also opposed to Maglev.  The problem is that Amtrak's expansion plans, which are visionary ("AMTRAK’S ‘CONNECT US’ EXPANSION PLANS: THINGS TO KNOW," Amtrak Guide) considering how much the US is a laggard when it comes to railroad passenger service, have no place for Maglev in the Northeast Corridor, especially as a competitive service run by the private sector ("D.C.-to-Baltimore maglev would only benefit rich, Amtrak chief says," Baltimore Sun).

But why miss the opportunity to improve Baltimore City's transit system at the same time?  But Baltimore is exactly like DC in having an incredibly circumscribed view of what Maglev's purpose is.  It's not to provide intra-city transit, it's to provide long distance travel that makes the city more attractive economically, as well as to provide the goad to re-articulate and improve the local transit system.  

A complementary transit network improvement program for Baltimore.  WRT improving Greater Baltimore's transit system, I've laid out such an agenda:

1.  Extend the transit lines within the city and county and connect them better.  Plus extend light rail to Columbia in Howard County.  ("From the files: transit planning in Baltimore County," 2012) And extend the line northward to the major office district in Cockeysville.

2.  Integrate MARC into the transit systems in Baltimore City and Greater DC.  Expand the number of intra-city stations in Baltimore especially ("Baltimore City Mayoral candidates views on transportation (and other matters)") but also DC.  ("One big idea: Getting MARC and Metrorail to integrate fares, stations, and marketing systems, using London Overground as an example," 2015 and others). 

3.  Merge the Maryland and Virginia Passenger Rail services, starting with the MARC Penn Line and the VRE Fredericksburg Line. ("A new backbone for the regional transit system: merging the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines")

4.  Create a true statewide passenger rail program, connecting western, eastern, and southern Maryland to DC and Baltimore.  ("A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland."," 2019)

5.  Upgrade the light rail vehicles in Baltimore, rebrand them, and make other surface transit improvements as necessary. ("Baltimore City Mayoral candidates views on transportation (and other matters" and "Part 7 | Using the Purple Line to rebrand Montgomery and Prince George's Counties as Design Forward")

WRT this kind of agenda, it is of no interest to Governor Hogan, who is fully committed to motor vehicle throughput and cares very little about either transit or Baltimore ("Maryland says it needs to cut transit, highway projects to offset lost private investment in toll lanes plan," Washington Post).

Using Maglev as a way to force improvements across the Greater Baltimore transit system may be the only way to bring about change.  And that would go a long way towards providing transit equity to Baltimore's citizens.

========

Also see my writings on 

1.  Transformational Projects Action Planning ("Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning" and "Downtown Edmonton cultural facilities development as an example of "Transformational Projects Action Planning"") and 

2. Using new transit infrastructure as a way to drive complementary improvements across a transit network ("Revisiting the Purple Line (series) and a more complete program of complementary improvements to the transit network" and "Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for NoVA?") or line ("A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for the Metrorail Blue Line").

It also reminds me of some of my writings about how residents don't always know the best way to advocate for their interests, although this is at the city scale.

For example, residents often argue every development should be for families, even though nationally only about 25% of households have children and 40%+ of households are a single person, making housing more expensive, or that all developments should have tons of parking, even in places by city transit stations, where typically only 25% of rush hour trips are by car.  But by encouraging parking and cars, they're advocating for making roads more congested.  Instead they ought to be advocating for sustainable mobility, so they have less competition for space on the roads for their car, because people like me are using transit or biking.

DC and Baltimore ought to be arguing in favor of initiatives that make their central business districts more central and competitive, and for ways to leverage improvements across their transit networks.  Not arguing against this.

City and national politics, the rise in disorder and the Republican/Democratic narrative | Elections in Seattle and New York City

Last year I wrote about how the "defund the police" trope could be damaging to the Democratic Party's election prospects, in the same way that Nixon trumped Humphrey in 1968 ("Is it too late to change the messaging on "Defund the Police"? How about "Reconstruct Policing"?" -- although now I call for broadening the definition and delivery of "public safety" see "The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented").

People gathered along the area known as Methadone Mile in Boston.  Photo: Erin Clark.    From "How should Boston fix the ‘Mass. and Cass’ area?," Boston Globe.

And it's fair to say that while Trump was not successful in fully painting the Democrats as the party of disorder, there's no question that Democrat losses in the House and the failure to take the Senate were in part because of suburban voters being fed up with Trump, but not in all cases, Republicans ("How ‘Defund the Police’ Roiled Competitive Races in New York" and "Has New York Hit a Progressive Plateau? The Mayor’s Race Is a Key Test," New York Times, "Is defunding the police 'Obamacare 2.0'? Democrats face challenge with voters heading into 2022," USA Today).

Photo: Mark Piscotty, Getty Images.

The cities where we are seeing steps backward especially are Portland ("Portland leaders condemn ongoing violence by ‘anarchists’," AP), New York, San Francisco ("The 'little things' are turning San Francisco bad in a big way," The Hill, "How California Homelessness Became a Crisis," NPR), and Seattle ("Why does prosperous King County have a homelessness crisis?," McKinsey), 

Another place we are seeing that play out is in local elections this year in Seattle and New York City.  NYC's primary is today, but with ranked choice voting and many candidates it's hard to say who will win.  Seattle's primary is not until the first week of August.

In both elections, the rise in violent crime, especially murder (not unique to those cities, see "Murders Are Rising the Most in a Few Isolated Precincts of Major Cities," Wall Street Journal), and disorder associated with a significant rise in homelessness and people living on the streets is making it much harder for "progressive candidates" like Dianne Morales, who is especially hardcore compared to Maya Wiley, in New York and in Seattle ("Why 2021 might be the year of backlash in Seattle city elections," Crosscut).

And Republicans are working very hard to make rising crime the main argument against Democrats in the midterm elections next year ("Rising violent crime poses new challenge for White House," The Hill, "Biden launches an effort to head off violent crime — and political peril for his party," Washington Post).

In NYC, Eric Adams, Brooklyn Borough President and a former police officer, seems to be the leader, in part because of his police background, although it's possible as secondary votes are redistributed through the RCV process, he might not win.

Of course, Fox and similar media like the New York Post ("NYC progressives are going to lose the Dem primary to soaring crime") see this as all about crime and disorder. 

OTOH, they might be right, and what happens in these elections, and maybe the Boston mayoral race, where crime and disorder don't seem to be prime issues ("Boston's Historic Race For Mayor Matters To The Entire Region. Why Aren't More People Paying Attention?," WBUR/NPR), will give some clues to how the Democrats will have to position in the 2022 House and Senate elections.

======

Cities and disorder.  Granted, dealing with crime and homelessness is complicated.  But I vividly remember what DC was like in the late 1980s and throughout much of the 1990s and what it cost me personally and I would never want to return to those times.  

I have no problem with addressing crime, funding homeless services, and at the same time, broadening our definition of what public safety should be, how to fund it, and how to deliver it, while reversing the adoption by police departments of warrior policing, overpolicing and the crminalization of poverty and other social problems, which is thoroughly discussed in End of Policing.

While I agree with arguments about overpolicing and mass incarceration, at the same time, violent crime shouldn't be ignored, nor should disorder of various types including camping out in public spaces.

Seattle's CHOP/CHAZ certainly proved that expecting people to just all get along, not commit crimes, and self organize for security is "unrealistic" ("They envisioned a world without police. Inside Seattle's CHOP zone, protesters struggled to make it real," CNN, "What Really Happened in CHOP?," Seattle Met Magazine, "SEATTLE’S CHOP WENT OUT WITH BOTH A BANG AND A WHIMPER," The Intercept).

Somehow we need to strike a balance, but a kind of nullification of the recognition that disorder is not positive for cities, along the lines of Moynihan's "Defining Deviancy Down" is a move backward to urban decline, along the lines of what Fred Siegel wrote about in The Future Once Happened Here.  

People seem to have forgotten that it was significant improvements in public safety--for example DC's number of murders went from  482 in 1991 to 88 in 2012, but have since risen, to 198 last year--that helped to spur in-migration back into the cities, for example DC has added more than 100,000 new residents in the past 10 years. 

Siegel is considered conservative, but his book is very important.

In 2009, there was a column featuring an interview with Siegel in the Arizona Republic, called "3 Ways Cities Go Bad," and number one is disorder.  From the article:

Siegel believes there are three fundamental ways in which big cities go bad. The first is to lose control of order and civility in their public space - the streets, sidewalks and parks. This was an essential part of New York's deterioration and subsequent crime epidemic and the primary element of its recovery.

I told Siegel of a long walk my wife and I had taken from our hotel to Central Park and through Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, returning partially after nightfall. We felt not a moment of unease, were never panhandled and saw only three vagrants along the way. Siegel said such an excursion would have been unthinkable 15 years ago.

Even more remarkably, Siegel thinks this part of New York's recovery will endure. Previously, politicians dodged responsibility by saying that there was nothing that could practically be done to control the small acts of disorder and incivility - such as aggressive panhandling, public urination and a large presence of vagrants - that lead to a loss of control over public space and larger disorder that involves more serious crime.

This has been proved wrong and, according to Siegel, New Yorkers will not accept slippage among the politicians on this front.

In the book, he discusses "dependent individualism" and the "riot ideology."  The former I term "I can do whatever I want and you have to pay for it" and the latter as "if you don't give us x and y, we'll riot." 

The other two elements of failure according to Siegel are dominance of local politics by municipal unions and a decline in the private sector as a fundamental element of the local economy.  He calls this  the "entitlement economy," where opportunity is derived from politics and political decisions.

Why not get a bike?: 'He walked 17 miles a day to work until a stranger gave him a ride and changed his life forever'

There is an article, "He walked 17 miles a day to work until a stranger gave him a ride and changed his life forever," another one of those "person walks many miles daily to and from work, a person sees him, sets up a funding account and the person gets a car, etc. in reward for his perseverance" stories that comes up every so often (cf. "Heart and sole: Detroiter walks 21 miles in work commute" and "'Walking man' settles into new life, friends, waist size," Detroit Free Press).  From the first article:

Michael Lynn was running some errands on June 15 on a hot Oklahoma day when he noticed a shirtless young man walking down the side of a service road. Sensing that the man needed some assistance he pulled up beside him and asked if he needed a ride. 

The young man, Donte Franklin, 20, replied, "Yes, sir!" Donte was doing his daily, eight-mile walk to the Buffalo Wild Wings on the other side of town where he works as a chef. After his shift, he does the same long, eight-mile walk back home. 

To make it to work on time, Donte has to leave the house three hours before his shift starts. He walks an average of five and a half hours a day to and from work. And yet, "I haven't missed a shift at all," Donte told Fox News, adding that he's never been late.

While I think this is great, when I read these stories my first reaction is "why didn't this person get a bicycle?"  

I'm not the only one who has figured this out ("Spring Hill church, helping-hand organization delivering free bikes to homeless, low-income," Suncoast News, "Volunteering Enables Low-Income Ohioans to Get Their Own Two Wheels," Nation Swell, Bikes for All program, Seattle Bike Works, "Henrico church provides bikes to hundreds of low-income families," NBC12, Richmond).

Graphics from the Streetsblog post, "Low-Income Americans Walk and Bike to Work the Most"

His 2.5 hour walk would be a 40 minute bike trip.

I first wrote about this kind of stuff maybe in 2005 or 2006, after reading one or more articles about people reliant on bus transit getting to work hours before their shift, to be sure they'd be on time, given the vagaries of the bus system.

I started biking for transportation in 1990 for exactly this reason, to get to work faster and more reliably than if I were taking transit or walking (I did often walk to work when I first moved to DC, it was 2.3 miles each way).  Biking gave me more and better control of my time.

(And when I worked in Baltimore County, I didn't buy a car because it wasn't a permanent job.  I cycled to Union Station -- 5 miles -- took the train to Baltimore, 35 miles -- first took a bus, and then got another bike to ride from Penn Station to Towson, 8 miles -- and the return each day, although when I was tired, sometimes at night I'd take the Metro home from Union Station to Takoma.)

In "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs" I list model programs to assist people in making the transition to biking as transportation.  

#8 is Bikes as tools for improving access to jobs.  The Community Cycling Center of Portland has a program that outfits low income residents with bikes and all the requisite support equipment and training, so that they can cycle safely to work.  They've done this for 20 years! ("Ten years of Create a Commuter, Part 1" and "Ten years of Create a Commuter, Part 2," "This Bike is My New Best Friend").

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch ("Notable Gifts: Capital One donates 20 bikes, gear"), Capital One has supported a similar program there. From the article: 

Twenty bicycles donated by Capital One will provide greater access to jobs for participants in the Workforce Pipeline Program at Richmond’s Center for Workforce Innovation. Capital One volunteers assembled the bicycles with assistance from RideRichmond. Capital One donations also provided safety gear such as helmets for the riders and lights and locks for the bikes. 

... A regional study found that nearly 1,000 additional businesses and 18,000 additional jobs are located within 1.5 miles of the end of the bus line, Manion said. “We have had several participants that have lost jobs or been unable to get jobs because of this short distance."

The Sibley Bike Depot in Minneapolis-St. Paul is shifting from a youth-focused program to broadening its programming to include low income household access to biking for transportation ("Sibley Bike Depot introduces low-income adults to bicycling’s joys," St. Paul Pioneer-Press).

And in Canada where the Squeaky Wheels Bicycle Cooperative has a similar program ("How London, Ont., low-income essential workers are getting free bikes for their commutes," CBC-TV).

#2 is Cycle Borrowing Programs, where communities in London have programs that will lend people bicycles, locks, and helmets for a month or more, so that they can experiment with bicycling for transportation without having to first commit to buying.

#5 is Integrating Community Cycling Programs into community recreation centers.  There are bike co-ops and youth programs nonprofits.  Why not give such programs space in community recreation centers instead of them having to pay rent, and include training, community rides, and other programs as part of it.

-- "Low-income NYC high school students should get free bicycles, Citi Bike memberships: Comptroller Stringer," New York Daily News

#10 is Discounted memberships in bike sharing programs on a means tested basis.  In places with bike sharing programs, it would seem that low income people would be avid users of the system ("Study says look at price and incentives to get low-income residents on bike share," "New Study Finds Low-Income Workers Rely More on Bike Share," Better Bike Share Partnership).

Boston, Minnesota, and Chicago bicycle sharing programs offer discounted memberships for $5/year, a significant discount.  

Montgomery County, Maryland offers free membership to those who qualify, which was rolled into a broader "Capital Bikeshare for All" program similar to Boston and Chicago at $5, but still free for Montgomery County residents who qualify.  It includes free access to e-bikes for up to a 60 minute ride.  (Still, it shouldn't have taken 10 years to create such a program...)  Cincinnati has a free membership program too.

The bike sharing program in Salt Lake City is offering $1 memberships this year to "essential employees" as a post-pandemic inducement ("GREENbike offers $1 annual pass to essential workers in 2021," Utah Business).

#14 is Credit Union loans to Buy Bikes.  Community cycling programs could work with local credit unions to create programs to assist people in purchasing bikes, establishing credit, getting back accounts, etc.  

Virginia Credit Union, Unitus of Oregon, Providence Federal Credit Union in Oregon, the Clean Energy Credit Union for e-bikes, Affinity Plus in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Community Powered Federal Credit Union in Delaware, the UMass Five College Credit Union in Massachusetts, and the Seattle Credit Union are some of the credit unions offering this option.

#16 is Creating Bike Bundling Programs in Public Housing.  This is an idea I've had for 10 years or so, building a bike, lock and helmet into apartment leases, with the inclusion of high quality, secure bike parking on site.  But I've never managed to convince a public housing authority to try it.

#17 is Donating abandoned and unclaimed bikes to programs serving low income populations.  A number of places, including Boston, do this.  LA MTA started doing this too, with abandoned bicycles on its properties.

Although Montgomery County, Maryland does a variant, actively seeking donated bikes for this purpose.

NEW #19.  Adding bike access to transit trips to get to your final destination.  The Medellin transit system links to the city bike share system, so that a transit user can use a bike to finish their trip.  

The Comet bus system in Columbia, South Carolina is the only system I know that does this in the US ("Transit as a mobility integrator," Mass Transit Magazine).

Conclusion.  These kinds of initiatives should be much more widespread and combined into a "program."

And it would give bicycling, often seen as a "white thing" ("What riding my bike has taught me about white privilege," Quartz) a way to deliver equity and access in concrete and effective ways.

Although I have always been troubled by the white-black thing and biking  I started biking in part because of my own limited income--biking's cheaper than transit, at least in the DC area--and like my original point in this piece, wondering why people wouldn't get a bike to save themselves hours of time each day, saw biking as practical and utilitarian, not in racial terms.  People's self interest, regardless of race, ought to be propelling them to biking as a solution to transportation needs.

But maybe a lot of outreach is needed to make this connection ("SF’s low-income residents remain unsure about regional bike-sharing program," Mission Local, "Nice Ride loans out 140 bikes in low-income neighborhoods," St. Paul Pioneer-Press).  Although as argued here ad infinitum, such promotion and outreach is necessary for sustainable mobility in general, at least in the US.

Buying a car changes life positively versus the Sustainable Mobility Platform and mode layering.  There is an article in Gizmodo ("Buying a Car Improved My Life. It Shouldn't Have") about a guy in Baltimore writing about how a car made his life easier in Baltimore, despite Baltimore's acceptable Walk Score (65%) where he lived.  

Baltimore is pretty spread out, the blocks can be big, and transit infrequent.  While he bought a car, depending on the nature of his travel, he could have just as easily and for a lot less money, bought a bike, and had an equivalent improvement in his quality of life.

DC (and SF, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Inner Queens, parts of Boston and Chicago, etc.) shows the value of what I call the "Sustainable Mobility Platform" (also see "DC is a market leader in Mobility as a Service (MaaS)"). 

But to be fair, Baltimore is not one of those cities.

DC starts off with an urban design of the grid of blocks and streets, designed during the era of the Walking City, when mostly people walked.  

This urban design is equally supportive of transit and biking ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis," Peter Muller).

This urban design is the framework for the Sustainable Mobility Platform (which extends from what I originally laid out years ago as the transit shed/transitshed and mobility shed/mobilityshed, built on the term  "commutershed" by Robert Cervero).

(For more detailed discussion about how urban form can or may not support compact development and sustainable mobility see "GROWING SMART BY LINKING TRANSPORTATION AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT," Robert Cervero, Virginia Environmental Law Journal, 19:3 (2000).)

By layering walking, biking, transit--different modes and services (bus, streetcar, light rail, subway, railroad)--for trips of varying lengths ("Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited"), one way and two way car share, delivery, taxi and ride hailing, and the occasional car rental, you can construct a life where car ownership is not required, and you can use the money you save by avoiding owning a car for other things, like paying a mortgage.

But, most cities don't have this kind of framework in place. And few people have experience in living this way.  And the predominate land use and mobility paradigm doesn't support it. 

Have you noticed that most performance car ads are set in cities, with no traffic?

So when you mention biking or transit as a viable mode, they are totally flummoxed and resistant, because it is not part of their experience.  And they sure are unfamiliar with car sharing.

And a sustainable mobility framework is actively opposed by the interests focused on the maintenance of oil consumption and sprawl.

And surprisingly by residents, who believe that non-automobile centric mobility somehow calls into question their life and lifestyle choices, so they oppose sustainable mobility vociferously ("DC as a suburban agenda dominated city" "Car culture and automobilty: 5 stories of inside the box thinking,").