To shift away some trips from the car, we need super robust transportation demand management processes
Before moving to Salt Lake, I believed all the puffery in the planning press about how advanced the region is due to forward planning processes like the environmentally focused "Envision Utah" initiative. Then I moved here and learned that the region is the epitome of the sprawl land use paradigm.
Although I will say that it has a decent if nascent light rail system, complemented by a single line commuter rail, and decent bus service. If you live within that transit footprint, it works decently. But there isn't a rush to expand it, or to create conditions where sustainable modes are first choice for getting around.
The State Department of Transportation, which probably should be called the Utah Department of Cars and Trucks, has a proposal to widen I-15 through Salt Lake City to Farmington in Davis County to 6 lanes in each direction--it's four lanes now.
Note that in Southern California, where I was a couple weeks ago, most freeways are 6 lanes on each side--but the population of Los Angeles County is 5x greater than Metropolitan Salt Lake.
A recent article on the proposal ("UDOT admits I-15 widening will cut into parks and school ball fields, while demolishing scores of homes and businesses," Building Salt Lake) lists a bunch of the comments of alternatives and UDOT's rejection of the suggestions.
It happens that Salt Lake proper mostly has enough right of way within the current configuration for widening, but some properties--residences and commercial buildings, would be taken as part of the construction project. There's no question there would be a diminishment of quality of life for the neighborhoods abutting the freeway.
I was talking with Suzanne about this and
1. Corridor management. For the most park, transportation agencies don't do corridor management, where they coordinate all modes within a mobilty corridor, like I-15, which is paralleled by the Frontrunner commuter rail line, and has light rail transit too. I wrote about this wrt DC and Maryland and I-270/DC arterials ("Washington Post letter to the editor on repair-related closure of Rockville and Shady Grove Stations and corridor management," 2021").
Although UDOT says they took the Frontrunner and current expansion plans into account.
He wrote about this in the book Reclaiming Our Cities And Towns: Better Living Through Less Traffic, and Victoria State in Australia is the world leader in TDM.
3. Transportation Management Districts as an implementation mechanism for trip shift. Places like Montgomery County Maryland have created Transportation Management Districts for certain high congestion densified areas of the county and employers of a certain size have to survey employees about how they get to work and employers are supposed to work with them to shift trips to transit and sustainable modes.
However, it's a pretty half-a**** program without a lot of meat. In those areas, a lot of people use transit because parking is expensive and they have (or at least had) decent public transit options between Metrorail, MARC commuter rail, and bus service--plus Montgomery County is adding east-west light rail through the Purple Line.
Note that Victoria State, Arlington County, Virginia, and Whatcom County, Washington have much more robust trip shifting programs.
4. Matching land use to transporation capacity. The Netherlands is not hal-a**** about this in terms of land use planning. They have a planning model where uses are rated for their transportation demand, and places are rated for their ability to respond to demand, with an emphasis on trips being conducted by sustainable modes (transit, walking, biking). High transportation demand uses can't be located in areas with weak transit--such a requirement is pretty much devoid across the US.
-- "The ABC location policy in the Netherlands: ‘The right business at the right place’,"
5. Accommodating Trucks. As charlie points out, the Interstate highway system is designed to facilitate truck movement. I-15 is a corridor with a lot of truck traffic.
One of the comments suggested undergrounding the expansion. FWIW, I believe undergrounding can be good when it comes to train service, but what about long distance trucking. Although I've also suggested shifting longer distance truck trips to night time, but that it is a different kind of problem.
Basically, for all the talk of Envision Utah, the Salt Lake region doesn't do corridor management (yes, it has commuter support programs comparable to those in every other metropolitan area), transportation management districts, or coordinate transportation demand with land use decision making. And no one is really thinking about the truck issue in innovative ways.
Transportation demand management also comes up in DC. There is a letter to the editor ("The real world of parking without minimum requirements") in the Washington Post about how reducing parking requirements for multiunit buildings merely shifts cars to street parking. The writer discussed one particular example, and likely is wrong anyway, since mostly, multiunit building residents aren't eligible for street parking permits.
But the basic questions were unasked.
The reality is that at least when proximate to Metrorail, trips by car and car ownership is significant reduced in multiunit buildings. But that has been by the choice of the tenants, and was facilitated by a transit system that once operated much more reliably than it does at present. In short it's trickle down.
DC needs to be much more active when it comes to TDM (it does have some requirements), including the creation of Transportation Demand Management Districts (I suggested this for DC starting in 2005!!!!!!!!) and protocols for shifting trips and reducing car ownership--for example, car sharing systems are a great way to support not owning a car.
In short, determine why best practice buildings work the way they do--e.g., near Takoma Metrorail Station, at least before covid, the multiunit buildings only generated 25% of rush trips by car, and many fewer households owned cars--and work to duplicate these characteristics across the city.
Labels: corridor management, fixed rail transit service, freeways, multiunit residential, sustainable mobility platform, transportation demand management, transportation planning
posted by Richard Layman @ 2:11 PM&Permanent Link
5 Comments:
Just a riff on my interstate highway/trucks comment:
The ABC Dutch model looks good, but huge chunks of the US economy are what would be considered "C" in the Netherlands -- the logistics empire.
Amazon, Walmart, Fedex, auto parts, well, everthing.
Likewise if "restoring" and industrial uses come back very much the same. Look at the biding boom around Columbus as the intel plant goes in.
Entire cities now are mostly be run as logistics hubs. LA. Denver. Dallas. Atlanta.
I linked the Ed Glaeser piece about Manhattan. Lots of good stuff there, but you can see that a lot of the demanded investment is about making playgrounds for the white collar class, and that is very exclusionary.
Looking at the ABC is no different than looking at the old redlining maps.
Riff over.
I realize you didn't really select the pictures for this reason, but the density on the SLC sub developments is staggering. The problem would be lack of retail/entertainment in that little area and also that the curving streets make it hard to walk around.
Just forcing grids on developments would help. I understand that traffic planners like curving streets to slow traffic down, but in reality making things hard for drivers make it harder to walk quicker.
C is C. It's located where it is and that's fine. I should be clearer about focusing on residential plus commercial that is people serving. Haven't read the Glaeser article yet but the headline reminded me of Kotkin's derisive writings about the city on this element plus the "city as an entertainment machine" writings.
Wrt Salt Lake County subdivisions yes. It's like my housing value piece arguing that some of the angst about racism and suburban housing values was misplaced because the housing was disconnected on many dimensions.
Here it doesn't matter so much because everyone drives, and outside of a few cities in the core--Salt Lake and parts of abutting cities--there aren't place value communities. (Note that in the far burbs there are some New Urbanism subdivisions but they are 20 miles from the core.)
Fwiw, even walkable areas here don't have many walkers. Our neighborhood has amenities 1/2 mile in each direction but we didn't know at first. Ironically the supermarket in the other direction doesn't carry the one thing we buy weekly, so we go to its affiliates, which are bikeable distance but not walkable really (and I am biking less because of my fatigue).
But no question, a grid would make a difference. Even in Salt Lake which is mostly grid, it is punctuated as randomly some blocks don't go through here and there. Obviously like the curvilinear it's a traffic calming measure. It works well enough and isn't a major limitation. Some areas in the city are curvilinear but that's because of topography.
Eg that little one block district I wrote about, 15th and 15th, we can't walk to directly because a steambed corridor "is in the way." BTW, so far its one of the only areas in the city (other than "my" park which is also designed as a flood control structure) that has had some snowmelt related flooding.
Yep - good way to put it -- how to focus on the "people serving" aspect.
And please for the love of god get an electric bike! More important to move than to worry about your heart rate. They are coming down in price and I keep looking for a decent used one -- I know, it's not easy. But I think worth around 1200-1500 for a decent one. I hesitate because of the range of bike theft here.
RE: parking minimums in DC. I am 95% certain that most residents in multiunit buildings in DC get street parking if they apply for it. Huge problem. There is a new issue where they can't vet visitor passes if the building is zoned in a commercial space but that is a minority. Restricting street parking to SFH only would be a huge win - that is what Arlington does and it works well in concentrating development.
But post-covid rules need to be applied. As I said I lived in a "car-free" building -- less than half of residents had cars. Post covid 90% do. Even in DC, cars are a more efficient way to move around. The problem is its a zero sum game, and if everyone did it you don't go anywhere.
1) My understanding, which may be wrong, is that a lot of western subdivision development is slightly more dense and less sprawly because of water infra.
2) That last photo is my #1 beef about DMV traffic slowdowns on major arterials. That pic shows 5 lanes down to 2 within a very short distance. Always a recipe for a traffic nightmare. The volume here is bad, but somewhat predictable. It's the poor planning related to construction staging and "incident management" that mucks things up so badly.
Good point. I don't know.
Wrt "the roads", the infrastructure is "old" enough so that some element is always gonna have to be repaired/under construction.
Wrt incident management in the last decade or so now they close off roads in their entirety.
If ITS could really happen, you'd be able to get microinformation sent to a box in your car. Although at least for freeways Google GPS is pretty good. The real problem is lack of alternatives.
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