DC Strategic Bike Plan and survey

 -- Strategic Bike Plan webpage

(Since we still have our house in Ward 4, I felt justified in answering.) The survey is interesting because it's qualitative--asking questions which require written answers--rather than the usually rote-ness of multiple choice quantitative questions.

I forgot to mention e bikes as a game changer--I've come around this, getting more people to bike who wouldn't before, and/or to commute longer distances.

What about bike share?  The other thing there wasn't a place for is to ask questions of your own.  I think there needs to be serious research about "the overnight success of bike share"--not really, I'm joking.  It has taken 15 years, but now each month seems to have more bike trips than the year before.  

Why did this happen?  Expansion of the system?  I don't think so, it's hard a large number of stations to begin with.  Expansion to other communities?  I don't know, are there a lot of city-to-city bike share trips.  Just seeing it in action and testing it out?  I do think adding electric bicycles is one reason why use has increased, even if the pricing is by the minute, not by the trip.

The two big things I mentioned.

1.  Needing to be more focused on assisting people in making the transition to cycling for transportation.

-- "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs," 2024

2.  The need for a secure network of bicycle parking, especially with the rise in use of expensive cargo bikes and electric bikes.

-- "Another mention of the idea of creating a network of metropolitan scale secure bicycle parking facilities," 2019

The question that wasn't asked: About equity and the provision of biking infrastructure in the low income areas of the city.  I actually get worked up about this.  I've argued with black community organizers about the value of biking to work, and they think bikes are toys not to be taken seriously.  

Plus, bike infrastructure has been positioned as a tool of whitey/gentrification.  Which has made take up harder.

Years ago I criticized a study that said since blacks didn't want the biking infrastructure it shouldn't be built.

-- "Urg: bad studies don't push the discourse or policy forward | biking in low income communities (in DC) edition," 2014

To me that's dumb, because the point of planning isn't really choice so much as it is optimality.  For reasons of health, economics, access to jobs, and joy, biking can be a lot more optimal and cheaper than transit, and of course, driving (not to mention the difficulty and cost of parking).

Anyway, there is writing out there implying that less infrastructure in black neighborhoods is a plot ("Bike lane distribution in DC is unequal. DDOT’s new bicycling plan could help," Greater Greater Washington).  It isn't.

FWIW, I plan to write about this, based on reading a couple books looking at equity issues in transportation (Reclaiming the Road: Mobility Justice beyond Complete Streets)and cycling (Cyclescapes of the Unequal City: Bicycle Infrastructure and Uneven Development).

As the now deceased professor Donald Shoup used to stay, it's best to help people who are already helping themselves.  It's a losing proposition to try to "force" infrastructure on people who claim they don't want it.  Sadly, that means they screw themselves.  That's been true in DC with both streetcar service and cycling infrastructure.

Planning for place while planning for transportation: Long and slow, quick and fast | you need both

Over the years, I've come to the position that transportation planning can be too narrow, focused on the mode, less on land use context.

This has been scintillated in a few entries.

The first was the concept of Signature Streets, providing for streetside and other improvements simultaneously with a road project.  I came up with the concept while working for Baltimore County, and I've extended it since.

-- "Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces"" 

A few years later, after doing some review of some neighborhoods in DC, I realized that there "should be" urban design improvement programs for neighborhoods.  Sometimes this is called placemaking.

-- "Planning urban design improvements at the neighborhood scale: Dupont Circle, DC"
-- "More about making 17th Street between P and R a pedestrian space on weekends,"

Later I realized that these types of improvements are typically part of a "pedestrian transportation plan," but that the scope of the plan should be about neighborhood improvements beyond simply pedestrian matters, that it should be a "walkability plan," not just a pedestrian plan.

-- "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning"

Lots of people waiting for a ferry to get to an island park in Toronto at the Jack Layton Terminal.  Photo: Laura Proctor, TGM.

But reading the Toronto Globe & Mail article, "Toronto’s public spaces need results – not more plans," I realized that the urban design plan for an area should be in two parts.*  (1) The hard stuff.  (2) Easier stuff, like what would be covered in what is called Tactical Urbanism.

What Toronto’s public spaces need are quick wins and visible improvements. The problems are glaring, and some are easily fixable. The Layton terminal is too small, with little seating, no shade, few ticket booths and virtually nothing to eat or drink. On Centre Island, the ferry landing resembles a livestock corral.

Here, there is some good news. The city is working with Waterfront Toronto on “interim improvements to the ferry terminal over the next couple of years,” said Carol Webb, the organization’s senior manager of communications and public engagement. This year will bring a temporary shade structure, some murals and some “improvements to queuing and wayfinding.”

But even this is overdue and too slow. The city should move faster. Put up commercial shade sails. Hire staff with handheld devices to sell ferry tickets on the spot. On the island side, add a cooling station, folding chairs and tables, another set of shade sails – and invite a coffee truck to park near the dock.

This logic should extend across the city. Start with awnings, chairs and food vendors, then scale up to capital projects. Focus on busy and symbolic sites: Nathan Phillips Square, Old City Hall, the Union Station area, the zone around St. Lawrence Market, Mel Lastman Square and Scarborough Civic Centre. And add St. James Town, the densely populated neighbourhood where Ms. Chow grew up, whose streets and tiny park have been neglected far too long.

Many of these sites have budgeted projects or finished plans. ... The problem is a lack of focus and leadership.

Meanwhile, action is needed. Reports don’t make good places – people do. And they need basic amenities: bathrooms, seating, shade. They also need hope. This summer, Toronto doesn’t need more vision documents, but visible proof that government can act and that public space can function here.

Working on easy stuff will bring about improvements fast, while hard stuff often takes years to come to fruition.  The tactical interventions make the place nicer now, and build support for longer term projects.

• Tactical Urbanism Manual, vol. 1
• Tactical Urbanism Manual, vol. 2
• Tactical Urbanists Guide to Materials and Design

Love Park at York Street and Queens Quay initially had 45 chairs scattered throughout that people could move wherever they liked. After three summers, all 45 chairs are still there.Photo:   Richard Lautens/Toronto Star.

A Toronto Star article, "Love Park broke the mould with its movable chairs. Toronto’s other public spaces should take note," makes a similar point in discussing the impact of movable tables and chairs in the city's LOVE Park, that places to be successful in the face of the slowness of traditional government to respond, need place managers. In central business districts, these are usually business improvement districts.  

Smaller neighborhoods might have Main Street commercial district revitalization programs.  

-- "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 1 | The first six," (2020)
-- "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 2 |  A neighborhood identity and marketing toolkit (kit of parts)," (2020)
-- "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 3 | The overarching approach: destination development/branding and identity, layering and daypart planning," (2020)
-- "Basic planning building blocks for "community" revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 4 | Place evaluation tools," (2020)

I also recommend a similar program for neighborhoods.  From Pennsylvania's Elm Street program to San Francisco's Green Benefits District.

-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts: Part I (Overall)." (2020)
-- "To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2." (2020)
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisance programs: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)." (2020)
-- "A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)." (2020)
-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," (2021)

How to start.  A great way to start this is using the Place Game from the Project for Public Spaces workshop (and book), "How to Turn A Place Around."  People go into spaces and teams, people represent a variety of backgrounds, and evaluate them for opportunities for improvement.

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*  Note that the concept of scaling is also put forward in updates to the Transformational Projects Action Planning approach that I have espoused.

TPAP at multiple scales.  Over time, as I wrote more about it, I realized it should be applied at multiple scales ("A wrinkle in thinking about the Transformational Projects Action Planning approach: Great public buildings aren't just about design, but what they do," 2022).

(1) neighborhood/district/city/county wide as part of a master plan;
(2) within functional elements of a master plan such as transportation, housing, or economic development; and
(3) within a specific project (e.g., how do we make this particular library or transit station or park or neighborhood "great"?); in terms of both
(4) architecture and design; and
(5) program/plan for what the functions within the building accomplish.

Why Europe is going car free?

 Early in my days of pro center city advocacy, I was somewhat troubled about how advocates jumped on the ideas of Hans Monderman and the woonerf or shared street, streets designed to mix motor vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists, as a way to slow traffic and better balance mobility between the car and non motorized forms.

It wasn't because I don't believe in making pedestrian and bike trips better, but because the US physical environment is so dominated by the car and much of the nation's urban form, outside of the cities built up to the streetcar era ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis") is shaped for the car.  In short, a woonerf, at least in the US, will still be dominated by the car, and worse, by mixing different types of traffic, it will create new conflicts.  

One place you see this in DC is at the Wharf, both on the boardwalk where there can be vehicles, and in the outer perimeter where there is a separate bicycle path, but it is crossed frequently by pedestrians getting to the sidewalk.  

For the boardwalk, they probably should have made all the service access underground.  WRT the cycletrack, it probably should have been further out into the street right of way.

There is an article in the Washington Post, "Why Europe is going ‘car free’," about congestion zones and low emissions zones for cars, (but not so much discussion of pedestrian districts in most major cities, which is a distinguishing condition between US cities and European ones).  That Europe is going car free while the US is not.

In one way, it's another example in the US of what I call "next generation asphalt nation," that instead of aiming to shift more traffic to sustainable modes, we are focusing on electric cars and maybe hydrogen powered heavy trucks, to be more environmentally conscious, when not driving is the best choice for the environment--note this is happening some as people switch from cars to electric bikes.

The amazing thing about so much of Europe is that it retains the "streetcar era" and "walking city era" urban form.  So you can go "car free" because your life is not harnessed to the car the way it is in the US--92% of all trips involve a car.

In short the author is making the same mistake as woonerf opponents.  Promote better policies where they can work.  Don't try to adopt other treatments without consideration and adaptation.

For example, people in DC talk about a congestion zone pricing scheme.  But DC, especially with the Trump Administration's destruction of government, has so many commercial district competitors in  the metropolitan area: Montgomery, Fairfax, Arlington, and Loudoun Counties, and Alexandria City, that businesses could easily pick up and leave.  That's much harder to do in NYC or London.

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This came up today in the Park in SLC for which I am on the board.  A graduate student doing a design study of the park suggested grade separation of the walking and bicycle paths--the park is a one way loop road with smaller lanes for walking and biking, a motor vehicle lane, and a parking lane.  It works pretty well.

Parc La Fontaine, Montreal

I am embarrassed to say this didn't occur to me. It will probably take at least 5 years to try to pull off.  But it's worth trying.

"... road redesigns are always going to be controversial and challenging in an urban landscape designed for, but now overwhelmed by, cars"

From the Los Angeles Times article, "Culver City, don’t roll back your ambitious safe street redesign" which describes how a more conservative city government is considering rolling back an especially successful road diet-sustainable mobility balancing effort that has supported denser housing development, more users of transit, bicycling and walking, with minimal discomfort for motor vehicle operators of a two minute longer trip in the evening.

The project, called Move Culver City, was a 1.3 mile pilot project, quickly built for relatively low cost with paint, removable planters and plastic bollards. The goal was to test the theory that if people are given quality transportation choices, they will use them.

A review of the project after a year found an 18% increase in people walking and 32% more people biking through the area. At the intersection of Culver Boulevard and Main Street, the number of bikes counted. nearly doubled. Bus travel became faster and ridership increased more on the corridor compared to citywide. People said they were biking, walking and taking transit more often in the area, according to the review. They felt safer, more comfortable and noticed fewer speeding cars.

The MOVE Culver City initiative reconfigures traffic lanes downtown. (Citizens of the Planet / UCG / Universal Images Group) 

As for traffic? It moved faster in the morning hours, and in the evening it took drivers about two minutes longer to pass through the area. Two minutes. That’s a minor inconvenience. It certainly seems like a fair trade off to make the corridor safer and more convenient for alternative modes of transportation — which was the purpose of the project.

The city couldn’t widen any more streets (and that doesn’t solve traffic anyway) or build more single-family subdivisions. City officials decided to create a denser, transit-friendly, walkable, bikeable center that would allow more people to live in the city and give commuters more options to get to their jobs. The vast majority of Culver City is still car-centric, but this small section shows how urban Los Angeles can build more affordable, equitable and environmentally responsible communities.

Yet even the modest encroachment of Move Culver City may be too much for opponents of the project, who seem particularly offended by the bus lane. There is a proposal to add back a car lane and make buses and bicyclists share a lane, which would dissuade all but the most confident cyclists and slow the buses, thus making alternative modes of transportation a lot less appealing. And for what? So some drivers can get to their destination two minutes faster.

Also see "Cars don’t have to rule Culver City, or the future of L.A. transit," LAT. Interestingly, the local high school newspaper gets it even if elected officials and automobile dependent folks do not, "MOVE Culver City: Rethinking Urban Mobility in the Heart of Screenland," Culver City High Centaurian.

US Department of Transportation backs down on sustainable mobility/Complete Streets programming.  Meanwhile, the US DOT has removed its webpage on Complete Streets principles ("‘Complete Streets’ Webpage Falls Prey To Trump Purge," Streetsblog).  Note my Signature Streets concept is more expansive ("Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces"," 2020).

-- Complete Streets webpage, US DOT, via archive.org

It's not the end of the world.  It's still accessible, and there are plenty of other resources around the web, including guidebooks from NACTO:

-- Urban Design Guide, web version, book purchase
-- Urban Bikeway Design Guide
-- Transit Street Design Guide

And it should be no surprise because Trump and his Republican agenda is backwards looking, favoring the automobile.  But it does indicate the agency, at least under Trump, will be moving back towards privileging the automobile.

And in Utah, in yet another example of state government preemption of local control ("Red-state Republicans are dogpiling on blue cities," Washington Post), State Senator Wayne Harper, who doesn't represent Salt Lake City, is moving a bill to put a one year moratorium on Salt Lake City's livable streets-sustainable mobility initiatives "so they can be studied" ("Salt Lake City’s plans to build safer streets may hit a dead end — at least for a while," Salt Lake Tribune).

Salt Lake is a leading innovator in traffic calming, bike lanes, trails, and sustainable mobility initiatives, although I think they could do even more.  And, umm, such interventions are already studied before being implemented.  From the article:

A late addition to transportation-focused SB195 calls for a roughly yearlong moratorium on new road projects that aim to reduce or slow down traffic on streets in Utah’s capital. The bill, introduced by Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, passed the GOP-dominated Senate on Thursday along party lines, 19-6, with six Democrats opposing the measure.

The moratorium would run from May 2025 to March 2026 as state transportation officials study all the traffic-calming projects the city had implemented or planned to build from July 2015 to July 2035.

Republicans have a supermajority in the Legislature and zero compunction against preemption of local governance, so it's a slam dunk the law will pass.

Planning and building for the city you want to be versus planning for the past.  I guess we'll see how oriented UDOT is to sustainable mobility. My experience is that they are pretty good, with Trax and bus transit, and the MoveUtah initiative among others.  But still it wastes a year.  And maybe UDOT will buckle.

When I was reading the SLT article, I was thinking, "Salt Lake City is planning and implementing urban design measures for the city it wants to be," while legislators like Pearson must be totally in thrall to the reality of the Salt Lake Valley's sprawl paradigm.

The same thing goes for Culver City, do you plan for the future, or for the past?

Freeway widening versus congestion pricing.  Also see "Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix Traffic. Here’s What Can," Scientific American.

Interstate 45 is getting a $13-billion makeover in Houston. The project aims to reduce congestion by adding new lanes—a common story for the many highway expansions that are constantly happening across the U.S. In nearby Austin, Tex., I-35 is being widened as part of a $4.5-billion project, for example, and near Sacramento, Calif., an expansion of I-80 for close to $500 million is underway. A planned project that involves a major expansion of the New Jersey Turnpike will cost $10.7 billion.

Despite the massive price tags, these projects likely won’t reduce congestion for long. That’s because of a phenomenon that transportation researchers call induced demand: in areas with a lot of pent-up demand for driving, any new capacity from added lanes gets filled up quickly.

Photo: Art Wager, Getty Images.

 After a widening project, “congestion gets better for a little bit..., and then we’re back to where we were. And then somebody says, ‘Oh, we’ve got to widen again,’” says Susan Handy, a transportation engineer at the University of California, Davis. “So how far is it going to go?”

... Widening roads has been the go-to strategy for reducing congestion for at least a century, Handy says. It sounds logical and intuitive: if you have a limited supply of something in high demand, such as the ability to drive on a particular stretch of road, increasing the supply by adding new lanes should make that experience available to more people.

But increasing the supply of something also drops its cost—which can encourage more people to take advantage of it. More supply sometimes induces demand, or at least it allows more of any pent-up demand to be expressed. “Adding capacity makes driving cheaper from the standpoint of travel time and inconvenience and annoyance,” Handy says. More people might opt to drive on the road involved, which can eventually cause congestion to rebound. 

Fortunately for people stuck in traffic today, congestion pricing programs are short-term solutions that work like “escape valves” on congestion, and they’re being implemented across the country. Unlike widening, which decreases the cost of driving and thus causes demand to rebound, congestion pricing regulates the cost of driving in a particular area or lane to tamp down on traffic, Burris explains. Some, such as the program recently rolled out in New York City, include tolls for entering a certain high-volume area. London, Stockholm and Oslo also have similar programs.

Trump says no to congestion pricing.  While they are likely to lose, the Trump Administration aims to cancel New York City's recently introduced congestion zone toll ("Trump Wants Congestion Pricing Dead by March 21. New York Won’t Budge," New York Times).  Which only after a month, is successful in reducing traffic and raising money to be used for transportation improvements.

=======

Disclosure: Sugar House Park was in the process of working with City DOT to convert the right most lane of 2100 South abutting the park with an extended sidewalk and bike lane.  We'll get to do it.  But now it won't likely be realized until after 2030, and I term off the board in 2030.

Current condition (I want to plant the median too.)

Median strip sunflower plantings, Guardsman Drive, Salt Lake City

900 East abutting Fairmont Park

Extension of the 9-Line Trail, 900 South, abutting Liberty Park

I also want to do a special intersection treatment at one of the street crossings

Broad Museum, Los Angeles, Public art crosswalk by Carlos Cruz-Diez

And plant-related improvements to bus shelters (currently there aren't shelters, just stops)

20th anniversary of the blog| Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part three -- transportation

This entry became very long, so I broke it up.

-- "20th anniversary of the blog|  Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part one -- my influences"
-- "20th anniversary of the blog| Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part two -- not transportation," (2025)
-- "20th anniversary of the blog| Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part three -- transportation," (2025)

======

Bicycle Planning

I started bicycling for transportation in 1990, so biking as an element of transportation planning was always something I thought about but not always systematically.  This is a great explication of the  network concept applied to biking.  

From the c. 2000 National Bicycle Plan for Germany

But in a socio-economy designed to privilege the car ("Should law subsidize driving?," NYU Law Review, accessible from scholar.google.com), people need to be provided assistance in making the transition from car to bike.

-- "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs," (2024)

In 2008, the DC Bicycle Advisory Committee asked me to write a paper in response to a Rails to Trails Conservancy funding project directed toward Congress.  I made the point that city biking has different issues from a suburban or rural trail.  That paper was distributed within Maryland State Highway Administration a few years later and helped shape the development of a parallel bike trail for the Purple Line light rail in Suburban Maryland.

-- "Making cycling irresistable in DC," (2008)

Then I got a short term job as a bicycle planner for Baltimore County and I realized that suburban bicycling issues could be different from the city, but were pretty much similar.  What differs the most are the spatial conditions.

-- "Best practice bicycle planning for suburban settings using the "action planning" method," (2010). 

My work in Baltimore County also led to the development of my "Signature Streets" concept, as a way of unifying thinking about streets, mobility, and aesthetics, not just in counties but in cities too.  I mention it because it lists the spatial typology I laid out for integrating bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in communities, which isn't mentioned in the 2010 piece.

-- "Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces," (2020, originally 2015)

These pieces build on the concepts laid out in the entries above.

-- "Bike to Work Day as an opportunity to assess the state of bicycle planning: Part 1," (2017)

-- "Bike to Work Day as an opportunity to assess the state of bicycle planning: Part 2, building a network of bike facilities at the regional scale," (2017)

-- "Why not a bicycle hub at National Airport?, focused on capturing worker trips but open to all," (2017)

-- "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs," (2024, original 2015, updated 2020)
-- "Repeating b.s. about everything being about race and class: bike infrastructure in Washington, DC," (2024, earlier entries cited within)

This is on what I think are more complete treatments for trails.

-- "Denver and Rio Grande Rail Trail in Davis County, Utah: a great foundation, full of (missed) opportunity," (2022)

Evaluation of transit centers

-- "Takoma Langley Crossroads Transit Center: A Critical Evaluation," (2016)

-- "Updating my review of the Silver Spring Transit Center: a few things I missed in 2015," (2018)

-- "Multiple missed opportunities in the creation of the Silver Spring Transit Center," (2015)

Mobility and Transportation/Transit

Listing key articles is hard.  I have more than 1,000 entries on this topic.  By focusing on key concepts that "I've developed" here's a list.  Railroad passenger services and the Purple Line are separated out.

1. Mobility shed/transit shed:  This builds off Robert Cervero's concept of the commutershed, which I call the transit shed, or the area served by rail transit in those communities with fixed rail transit.  Other people refer to their explication of this concept as a "mobility hub."  I think I was ahead of many of those scholars.

-- "Updating the mobilityshed / mobility shed concept," (2008, originally 2006)

2.  Transit/transportation as a set of networks operating at different scales: this extends the argument laid out in the 2006 Arlington County Master Transportation Plan, where they defined their primary and secondary transit networks.  (I see they're updating their plan.)

I extended this to the multi-state, regional, metropolitan, and sub-city scales.

-- "Reprint (with editing): The Meta-Regional Transit Network," (2009)
-- "Without the right transportation planning framework, metropolitan areas are screwed, and that includes the DC area," (2011)
-- "Transportation network service interruptions part 3: corridor/commute shed management for Northwest DC and Montgomery County, Maryland," (2016) 
-- "The answer is: Create a single multi-state/regional multi-modal transit planning, management, and operations authority association"," (2017) (how to manage a multi-network transportation system, a key element is splitting planning from operating)
-- "Manhattan Institute misses the point about the value of light rail transit connections to airports | Utility and the network effect: the transit network as a platform," (2020)
-- "More remonstration about the molasses of change: Transit planning, Baltimore County, Maryland and Towson," (2022, key earlier citations within)

3.  Including the concept of the tertiary network as intra-district transportation (it's also updated in the piece on transportation management districts), influenced by the Tempe Orbit bus service at first, but by various other shuttle type services after.  The problem is it hasn't been effectuated very much at the neighborhood scale:

-- "Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited because of new San Diego service," (2016)

4.  Transit stations as marketing touchpoints and as a design product: this line of inquiry started when DC let a new bus shelter contract in 2005. At a planning meeting in 2006, I made the point that bus shelters are key marketing touchpoints for the transit system, that their design and upkeep defines the system.  It's further influenced by how transit is conceptualized and operated in London, wayfinding, and in response to a blog entry that said branding is the most important element of transit:

-- "Transit, stations, and placemaking: stations as entrypoints into neighborhoods," (2013)
-- "Branding's (NOT) all you need for transit," (2018)
-- "World Usability Day," (2017)
-- "Desperate times sometimes lead to a more marketing-oriented guise: WMATA/Metrorail | Bonus: WMATA's financial crisis," (2023)
-- "Design forward trains and streetcars: Haga-Utsunomiya Light Rail and Brightline (plus bonus)," (2023)

5.  Transit station typology and TOD: this entry is in response to the belief that any rail transit station is a miraculous opportunity for transit oriented development.  That's not the case.  It depends on their location within the landscape of the "Metropolitan City."

-- "Transit oriented development station typology revisited," (2024, originally 2021)

6.  Transportation management districts: in 2006 I suggested that DC create "transportation management districts" to coordinate modes within subdistricts of the city.  Arlington and Montgomery Counties have them.  There is a sub-variant called parking management districts.  DC has a form of a TMD around parking, but they are very idiosyncratic, not much overall structure and coordination.  This recent piece tries to include everything including the kitchen sink.  But since it's focused on subdistricts, it doesn't focus on a transit system overall.  This is probably the most comprehensive proposal for a TMD ever.

-- "What should the program for a Transportation Management District look like?," (2024)

7.  Sustainable mobility platform: this builds off transit to include urban design and multiple modes.  It's due for a re-codification, as the comments are replete with additions.

-- "Further updates to the Sustainable Mobility Platform Framework," (2018)

8.  Intra-district versus inter-district mobility: the impetus for this concept is how lots of transit advocates whine about streetcars not having dedicated right of way.  I make the point that it is the difference between intra-district mobility and inter-district.  A streetcar serves a sub-district of a city, usually.  While dedicated ROW would be nice, it's not required.  And such modes are often as much about economic development as they are about transit.  The intra-district element undergirds my thinking about how to define the sustainable mobility platform.

-- "Making the case for intra-city (vs. inter-city) transit planning," (2011)
-- "The argument that streetcars are "good enough" but "imperfect transit" is flawed," (2014)
-- "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," (2015)
-- "Modern streetcars are transportation projects,not merely economic development augurs: but intra-district not inter-city services," (2017)
-- "Brief follow up to intra-district transit proposal for Tysons: Toyama City Compact City initiative (Japan)," (2020)
-- "Revisiting: a proposal for heritage streetcar service on the National Mall | adding service to the DC waterfront," (2022, original 2013)

9.  Bus service: bus service is the stepchild in transit systems with a foundation in rail transit.  But they serve millions of people, and people deserve high quality service.

-- "Making bus service sexy and more equitable," (2012)
-- "Will buses ever be cool? Boston versus the Raleigh-Durham's GoTransit Model," (2017)
-- "Exemplary bus livery design: Multiplicity, Luxembourg," (2020)
-- "Bus shelters as social spaces, as potential vectors for virus: Seoul's new anti-covid bus shelter," (2020)
-- "Pathetic not revelatory: Quality of bus stop study in San Francisco," (2021)
-- "Route 7 BRT proposal communicates the reality that the DC area doesn't adequately conduct transportation planning at the metropolitan-scale," 2016
-- "Reviving DC area bus service: and a counterpoint to the recent Washington City Paper article," 2019
-- "Bus stops as neighborhood focal points and opportunities for placemaking," (2023)

Metro (WMATA) Owner's Manual: Your Metro...How to Use It, cover. Advertising supplement to the Washington Star, 1975.  

10.  WMATA: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.  I have tons of articles about WMATA's continuing financial crises. This piece has a good set of links to past writings.

-- "WMATA and MWCOG announce new joint transit initiative | Could a regional "transport association" be on the horizon, or just a transit bailout?," (2024)

-- "WMATA Chief says it’s time to talk about a regional tax to help fund Metro (DC area)," (2023)
-- "DC area transit commission board member thinks he has a brilliant idea on how to fund Metrorail: sales taxes," (2022)

-- "Redundancy, engineered resilience, and subway systems: Metrorail failures will increase without adding capacity in the core," (2016)

11.  Maintenance of Way: maintaining sidewalks, transit shelters, trails, etc., in all seasons.    Minneapolis' bike plan was one of the first to include maintenance as an element.  And the issue of trail maintenance in winter is ongoing.

-- "Winter snow clearance in the Walking City," (2025)

Purple Line light rail, Suburban Maryland

-- Purple Line concept.  By Sierra Club Metro DC chapter, c. 2000

While the writings on leveraging the Purple Line light rail program are about mobility, they are distinct enough to be treated as a separate entry.  The basis of inquiry was how can you use new transit infrastructure to build the transit network, to spread necessary improvements across the system, and to transform communities?  I first read about the PL concept in a Washington City Paper 1987 cover story.  It will open about 40 years later.

The broader concept in this series was spurred by Silver Spring resident Ed Drodz, in response to an entry that proposed certain streets served by the light rail to be treated as "mobility corridors."  He asked if I could flesh it out.  I spent about three months off and on doing so.

-- "Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writings," (2022) (This includes follow up recommendations not included in the original series.)

-- Setting the stage for the Purple Line light rail line to be an overwhelming success: Part 1 | simultaneously introduce improvements to other elements of the transit network (2017)
-- Part 2 |   the program (macro changes) (2017)
-- Part 3 |   influences (2017)
-- Part 4 |   Making over New Carrollton as a transit-centric urban center and Prince George's County's "New Downtown" (2017, originally 2014)
-- PL #5: Creating a Silver Spring "Sustainable Mobility District"
-- Part 6 |  Creating a transportation development authority in Montgomery and Prince George's County to effectuate placemaking, retail development, and housing programs in association with the Purple Line (2017)
-- Part 7 | Using the Purple Line to rebrand Montgomery and Prince George's Counties as Design Forward (2017)
-- Revisiting the Purple Line article series after one year: Part 1 | a couple of baby steps (2018)
-- Revisiting the Purple Line (series) and a more complete program of complementary improvements to the transit network (2019)

These are the articles specifically on Silver Spring.

-- PL #5: Creating a Silver Spring "Sustainable Mobility District"
- Part 1: Setting the stage (2017)
- Part 2: Program items 1- 9 (2017)
- Part 3: Program items 10-18  (2017)
- Part 4: Conclusion (2017)
- Map for the Silver Spring Sustainable Mobility District (2017)
- (Big Hairy) Projects Action Plan(s) as an element of Comprehensive/Master Plans
- Creating the Silver Spring/Montgomery County Arena and Recreation Center (2017)

And additional follow ups

-- "Purple Line Corridor Coalition study: Same Old, Same Old | Gentrification will result from investment in transit infrastructure," (2022)
-- "Revisiting the Purple Line light rail project in Suburban Maryland | the tunnel in Bethesda for the Capital Crescent Trail," (2022)
-- "Making "Downtown Silver Spring" a true open air shopping district by adding department stores, 2018"

Railroad passenger services (mostly in the DC region)

Around 2006, I was exposed to thinking of DC's Virginia Railway Express and Maryland Rail Commuter lines as a network by the writings of Dan Malouff in his blog, BeyondDC.  

He proposed integration and expansion, including to Pennsylvania and Delaware.  

-- "One big idea: Getting MARC and Metrorail to integrate fares, stations, and marketing systems, using London Overground as an example," (2015)
-- "DC State Rail Planning initiative, "(2015) (a primary focus on Union Station
-- "A new backbone for the regional transit system: merging the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines," (2017)

Other writings extend the Transformational Projects Action Planning approach to railroad services in other communities and states.

-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland," 2019

-- "Massachusetts rail planning," (2019)

-- "DC, Transformational Projects Action Planning, and the Baltimore-Washington Maglev project ," 2021

-- "Building a statewide rail passenger program for Ilinois," (2023)

The Brightline service in South Florida is interesting as transit advocates use it as an example for why there is a great future for HSR connecting pairs of cities,  They fail to recognize that both Brightline proposals rely on tourists who don't need a car at their destination.

-- "Florida's Brightline passenger rail as an opportunity to rearticulate and extend transit service in cities like Orlando," (2023)

-- "Brightline West should also be used to transform public transit service in Las Vegas," (2023)

And of course, Amtrak.  While the title refers to Greyhound, it's a two-part entry.  The first part suggests the US organize rail services into seven districts, modeled after the privatization and reorganization of Japan Railways and rail services in Japan.  The second part suggests integrating inter-city transit services, that is, Amtrak passenger service and inter-city bus service.  The other set of articles outlines a better marketing approach.

-- "Two train/regional transit ideas: Part 1 | Amtrak should acquire Greyhound," (2021)

-- "Two train/regional transit ideas: Part 2 | Running tourist trains from Union Station," (2021)

-- "May should be National Train Month: Rethinking promoting more comprehensively travel by train in the US," (2022)

-- "May should be National Train Month as a way to market and promote passenger rail," (2021)

-- "Megabus bankruptcy: merge inter-city bus services with Amtrak," (2024)

-- "Regional and multi-state inter city bus transportation. Thanksgiving is a time of big travel," (2023)

*  A third "train/regional transit idea" to come is on night train and night/luxury bus proposals

Street pavements and local land use context.  Also, for a long time I've argued that street pavements should be variable, made congruent with land use context.  Instead all roads are engineered to enable fast driving.  And most cars are engineered to go fast.  Reckless driving in cities, abetted by road engineering, is the reason for many road deaths.  

First Street SE, Washington, DC

So I say use asphalt (Belgian) block and other pavement types to provide visual, aural, and physical cues to drive more slowly.  At the very least, streets around schools, parks, libraries, traditional commercial districts, and transit stations should have such paving.

-- "National Engineering Week and sustainable mobility and urban design/placemaking" (2016)
-- "Pedestrian fatalities and street redesign" (2019)

Monument Avenue in Richmond is a great example, but DC still has a number of asphalt block streets, although they are not major arterials.

Traffic safety/Vision Zero

This omnibus entry includes discussion of Safe Routes to School, Vision Zero, street design, and reckless driving with many links to past entries.

-- "The Road Not Taken | a response to a letter to the editor in the Washington Post about DC, traffic deaths and traffic safety," (2024)

Transformational Projects Action Planning applied to Transit

-- "More on Redundancy, engineered resilience, and subway systems: Metrorail failures will increase without adding capacity in the core," (2016)
-- "Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writingsransit-network.html," (2022)
-- "Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for NoVA?," (2017)
-- "Crystal City Arlington as Amazon one-half of HQ2 | Part 4: Pie in the Sky transit improvements," (2018)
-- "Prince George's County's newly announced transit oriented development program for the Blue Line," (2022)
-- "Seattle Kraken expansion hockey team sets new standard for transit benefits in transportation demand management: free transit with ticket," (2021)
-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for the Metrorail Blue Line," (2020)

Urban design/walkable community plans at the neighborhood scale. 

A key piece starts with what I called the "Signature Streets" approach that I came up with in Baltimore County:

-- "Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces," (2020, originally 2015, concept devised, 2010)

Regardless, urban design is a key element of transportation planning.

Out of the Silver Spring Purple Line writings, I then realized that most neighborhoods need their own urban design plans, sparked by more detailed exploration of Dupont Circle, community organizing in the Bloomingdale neighborhood about decking over North Capitol Street, and the opening of the Wharf development in SW DC.

-- "Planning urban design improvements at the neighborhood scale: Dupont Circle, DC," (2019)
-- "More about making 17th Street between P and R a pedestrian space on weekends," (2019)

Later I realized it's not so much about the mode--creating a pedestrian plan--but creating broader walkable community plans.

-- "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," (2021)

And way before these posts, about the value of programming public spaces:

-- "Now I know why Boulder's Pearl Street Mall is the exception that proves the rule about the failures of pedestrian malls," (2005)

An early point was advocating for transportation agencies to have "Chief Thoroughfare Architects" in charge of urban design units, just as agencies have "Chief Engineers" focused on maximizing traffic throughput.

-- "DC's bad urban design as it relates to new transportation infrastructure" (2013)
-- "Lies, damn lies, and obfuscations: placemaking, place qualities, historic preservation and transportation infrastructure" (2014)

Semi-relatedly, but also more broadly, for a time, Los Angeles had a "Chief Design Officer."

-- "Christopher Hawthorne, LA Times architecture critic to become Chief Design Officer for the City of Los Angeles" (2018)

A bit about car sharing

Zipcar bought Flexcar and then was bought by a major US car rental company.

For profit car sharing has been in the US for about 20 years.  The original services were two-way--Flexcar and Zipcar--in that you checked out a car from a specific spot and returned it to that spot, paying for full use of the car from start to end, even if there were dead times within your possession.  Other companies entered the market, but have mostly ceased operations.

There were older nonprofit operations in Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.  All were sold to for profit operators as it turns out they didn't account well enough for the cost of replacing the initial fleet of vehicles.  And other fleet maintenance costs ("As fleet grows, Communauto navigates challenges of changing thousands of winter tires," CTV News).

Later, Car2Go, a Daimler Benz company with super small cars, came on the scene with one way car share.  Once you picked up the car, you could drop it and leave anywhere else in the "car zone." 

A Car2Go on Pennsylvania Avenue SE in Washington, DC.

charlie has pointed out that it was more about helping the corporation meet EPA fleet mileage standards than being an operative service.  But it was well received and for a time was in many cities including San Diego and Seattle--and I used cars in both.  Also places like Brooklyn, Chicago and parts of LA.

The great thing about Car2Go was their small size made them super easy to park in cities with parking space constraints.

I'd written quite a bit about how cities treat car share.  Many look at it as a revenue source and charge for each car, and access to parking, making it more pricey to use--e.g., sales tax on a car share in DC was more than for an Uber/Lyft trip-- in ways that both privileged car owners over car users, and failed to take into account that car share is a form of transportation demand management--each car supports 6-8 households, and reduces demand for parking.  By contrast Canadian municipalities are more focused on the benefits ("Ditch the second car, Communauto is here," QCNA)

Mostly, one way car share is now out of business in the US.  I guess Free2Move still exists (by Peugeot) in DC.  AAA of California tried doing it in SF, Seattle, and a couple other places, but I think it's shutting down by the end of the year.  Car2Go met its demise some time ago.

In 2018, I wrote how DC was a naturally occurring leader in Mobility as a Service (MaaS), in "DC is a market leader in Mobility as a Service (MaaS)."  Most of the for profit actors are out of business now, and without one way or free floating car share, MaaS is a lot less useful for people who don't want to own cars.

The fact is only some places, and certain areas within certain places, have the urban design and density conditions to support one way car share.  In the US, I'd argue that the "transport association model" ("The answer is: Create a single multi-state/regional multi-modal transit planning, management, and operations authority associatio," 2017) would be conducive to offering one way car share and e-scooters, as it is likely that like most transportation services, some subsidy is necessary for the services to succeed.

Plus, it could operate in multiple jurisdictions as one integrated service, rather than on a city by city basis, with different rules for DC versus Arlington County versus Bethesda, etc.

News that the Montreal-based carsharing company Communauto was setting up operations in Calgary was seen by many as a step in the right direction. Taylor Lambert says that all depends on where we're trying to go. (Scott Dippel/CBC)

Communauto as North America's nonprofit car share survivor.  Interestingly, Canada has a pretty successful nonprofit car share operation called Communauto, and it offers both one way, called Flex, and two way services.  

 It's in 15 cities, and Paris, including Montreal where it started, and Toronto.  When bike share was first introduced in Montreal, you could access bike share, car share and transit all with one card  ("Communauto expanding in Montreal to meet growing demand," City News). 

From the article:

According to the news release, Communauto had already expanded its vehicle fleet in Montreal in 2023 by adding 900 vehicles. Bringing the total number of vehicles in the city to 3,700 — with the expansion this year, the new total should be 4,800. 

The new cars, will also include 85 electric cars and 70 minivans. Towards the end of the year, 400 vehicles are set to be replaced with newer models. 

They say that these additions allowed 14 per cent of Montreal households to use Communauto services, an increase of 22 per cent compared to the previous year.

In Chelsea and La Peche, boroughs in Quebec, the municipality actually paid subsidies to Communauto to bring the service to their community.

“It costs residents $12,000 per year to own a car,” said Delage, referring to maintenance costs, insurance, gas and other repairs. With Communauto, residents can sign up for a number of various membership packages from as low $0 per month and $12.75 per hour, or up to $30 per month, which will allow residents to use the cars for just $2.75 per hour. And users won’t have to pay for gas. The packages are built to cover the cost of gas through membership fees. Each car will have a Communauto credit card for users to fill up when they need to. But all the cars are hybrid – 12 Prius’ and two RAV4 SUVs.  

Equity as a burden.  One of the problems with calls for equity--making the services accessible everywhere in a community--is that in many places, it's not profitable to offer, and the places where it does work don't generate the level of extranormal profits necessary to subsidize the loss making parts of an operation.  Even in Montreal, Communauto is criticized for not offering its services in every part of the city ("Is car sharing stuck in neutral in Montreal?," Montreal Gazette, "The case against carsharing," CBC).

From the CBC article:

The need to get around the city, for different reasons and at different times of day, is universal. 

So is the right to feel and be safe as we do so. But ours is a heterogeneous community, with a wide range of physical abilities, degrees of financial security, access to technology, and other important factors that influence how each of us experiences the city. 

Therefore, if we were to try to define a transportation ideal to aim for, it ought to include access to safe, reliable, frequent transportation for all people. 

This is where the shortcomings of carsharing become sharply clear. I previously made use of car2go, and I could choose to make use of Communauto. I am able-bodied, an experienced driver with a valid licence, I live within the service zone, I have good credit and a smartphone, and though my modest income means I wouldn't make a habit of using the service, I can afford the occasional trip. That's a pretty long list of personal details, but every one is mandatory — if even one of those boxes was unchecked, I would be excluded from using carsharing. 

Another way to put it is that carsharing only serves those who can check all of those boxes. Excluded are those with financial insecurity or insufficient credit ratings; people who don't have a smartphone, including many seniors; people who live or work far outside of the service zone, which only covers about three per cent of the city; and people who are unable to drive, whether due to a disability or lack of licence. That's an awful lot of Calgarians left outside the circle.

These criticisms are comparable to those of creating bike infrastructure.  I'd argue that yes there isn't equal access, but that transportation demand management requires a number of strategies and tactics.  And it is possible to add some elements of equity to a program, like how bike share has either a low or no cost rate in some jurisdictions, for low income residents.

FWIW, this negative article assumes that car share users don't use public transit, which is the ideal service to use.  By contrast, in the MaaS entry I argue that car share is a key element of a broader sustainable mobility platform (Further updates to the Sustainable Mobility Framework," 2018) where the foundation is transit, and depending, on biking.

The way that Free2Move deals with that in DC is by having three zones, two, in less profitable areas, involve additional drop off fees of either $4.99 or $8.99.  Ouch.

Electric cars can be a burden.  Like with equity, car sharing firms are often called upon to offer only or a preponderance of electric vehicles.  But this makes the service a lot more complicated and costly.  Although I will say the electric Car2Gos in San Diego drove like a dream.  Most of the e-vehicle car sharing operations in the US have shut down.

However, Communauto is adding electric vehicles in a number of cities.

Should DC invite Communauto?  I always say when asked, that it was a privilege to live in DC, where you can live quite comfortably without a car, at least in the core of the city.  Yes it meant some constraints, depending on the reach of the transit system--before the Silver Line it was easier for me to take transit to Baltimore than to Tysons in Fairfax County.

DC should prepare for the possibility that Free2Move could go out of business.  In North America now it only operates in DC,  Scenario planning means covering the possibility.  Likely, it would require subsidy and without the transportation association approach, would be less successful..  For example, RATP, the transit provider in Paris, bought a quarter of Communauto Paris, supposedly as an investment, but it was probably more of a capital infusion.