Underpasses don't always have to be grim, forgotten interstitial spaces

Freeway underpasses, spaces, and abutments tend to be grim and dingy interstitial spaces.

Some places have parking.  Others homeless encampments.

A homeless encampment on West Crowther Avenue and the 57 freeway in Placentia, CA will be cleaned out tomorrow. Workers cleaned out an area near there on Wednesday, April 1, 2020. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register)

Toronto has the Bentway under the Gardiner Expressway ("How Toronto transformed a highway underpass into a vibrant public space," Fast Company). (Still air quality issues.)  

I think the Bentway was first conceptualized as a winter feature.  But maybe the intent all along was year round use.  Photo: Bernard Weil, Toronto Star.

Miami's Underline predates The Bentway.  It was first a service road and then bike and walking path underneath the Miami Metrorail.  Metrorail is elevated because of the water table, and the line follows old railroad right of way.  It will be 10 miles long when finished.

There are a bunch of murals in places, on abutments, etc.

This is in Salt Lake.

This roadway underpass in the Central Ninth neighborhood abutting Mead Avenue has painted abutments, a ground treatment and a futsal court.

Public art adorns a freeway overpass and abutments on I-15 in Las Vegas Nevada.  Las Vegas Review Journal photo.

Freeway underpass abutments in Utah constructed of red rock and red tinted concrete, referencing geological history and regionally significant building materials.

Sometimes rocks, to discourage homeless camping.  Also Salt Lake: the underpass over the railroad tracks on 400 South.

Public art incorporated into an overpass, Loop 202 Freeway, Phoenix.  

Photo: Sky Schaudt, KJZZ:  "Q&AZ: Who Designs The Artwork Along Arizona Freeways?)"

Rendering, "Perked-up underpasses to link Detroit neighborhoods," Detroit News.

And Tampa, "Overpass art may be coming to St. Petersburg," Tampa Bay Times.

Sacramento, before and after.  The CalTrans Transportation Art webpage is a great resource.

Painted abutments complemented by plantings. 

 'Second Summer Reflections' is a public artwork created by local artist Andrew Frazer on the underside of the Mega-Bridge in Picton as part of the Wilman Wadandi Highway. The design was painted on the columns supporting the 382-metre-long bridge over a two-month period in late 2024.  

Mural painted freeway abutments, Great Rivers Greenway, St. Louis.  Report: Economic and social impacts of developing the Brickline Greenway

This is what I was looking for originally, painted abutments.  But Flickr's photo search function has stopped working, at least for me, on photos uploaded a long time ago.  I know I have painted abutment examples from Detroit, Toronto, and Salt Lake, but they aren't coming up in searches.  Very very frustrating because I pay for the account.

Eyes on the street + neighborhood stability ratings | When they aren't great public investment in placemaking may be too early

People out on a Sunday afternoon in 2012.

In 2002, DC did one of its first streetscape improvement projects, on 8th Street SE, the Barracks Row commercial district, which is embedded in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. 

At the time it was an early best practice example of this kind of transportation investment in cities as housing purchase preferences opened up to the possibility of living in the city--before people avoided the cities for the suburbs.

It propelled improvement on the corridor pretty fast.  A couple years later I was at a cafe with Rachel MacCleery, then the Ward 6 Transportation Planner, and we were trying to figure out "why".

I realized that rating systems for neighborhoods developed by HUD in the 1970s, a 5-9 point scale, basically A to D/E, some further subdivided into high/low or +/- should be conducted at three scales.  They had been focused on a single rating for the neighborhood overall.

But I realized that this could also be done at the block by block scale, and separately for the residential and commercial sections of a neighborhood ("Systematic neighborhood engagement," 2007, "Streetscape benefits," 2008, "To accelerate commercial district improvement you have to do more than build the one shiny new thing," 2018).

The reason that the investment had high ROI so quickly wasn't strictly because "it was a streetscape project" so that the city wanted to do them all over.  It worked because the residential section of the neighborhood had been healthy for a decade or more.  

At the same time, the commercial district lagged, partly due to the demographics of the bus riders frequenting the area.

8th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE is a main transfer point between two primary bus lines, Anacostia/East of the River to Capitol Hill to H Street to Florida Avenue to U Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue from deep SE to Wisconsin Avenue and Friendship Heights in the northwest.

And because there was a lot of public housing to the south.  

Interestingly, once black dominated commercial districts in the city post-1960s still attracted a lot of return visits from former residents so that the commercial districts tended to have visitor demographics that were becoming incongruent compared to the residential mix.

Lots of congregating, a methadone clinic or two, and a junior high right at this intersection.

I realized that by doing a more nuanced evaluation, the results could be used to infuse policy choices, such as when and where to invest.  In short, before, 8th Street SE wasn't so great, partly because of its customer and user base, but also because of some dinginess in the building stock and tired streets and sidewalks.

Investment in the street and sidewalks, complemented I think by facade grants to property owners, as well as independent investment attracted by the changes led to fast improvement.

When the city did similar projects in other areas where both the commercial and residential districts lagged, it looked better, but there weren't significant improvements in business and residential improvement.  

The Barracks Row investment, complemented by new housing development (partly the demolition and rebuilding of public housing which did lead to displacement), brought great changes.

Photo by Georg Stutzenberger.  

Salt Lake.  This comes up in Salt Lake.  A person on Nextdoor put up two photos of a dog sculpture that had been in Warm Springs Park on the city's northwest side.  

It was vandalized, the vandals couldn't figure out how to fully detach the sculpture from its base.  And the city put the sculpture in storage where it remains to this day.

Warm Springs Park is known for the Warm Springs hot springs building, which at its most popular point was known for pools and baths with water piped in from area springs (note to the geologically challenged, springs that are hot are hot because they are on earthquake fault lines).  But the building went dark--spring water corroded pipes and was hard to control (although plenty of other public and private establishments around the county still manage to do so.

There is a friends group trying to revive the building, Warm Springs Alliance ("Bringing Back Wasatch Warm Springs as Salt Lake’s Community Gathering Place," Utah Stories).  And the city has committed some monies to stabilization, but not to restoration.  

To my way of thinking the WSA approach to revival is super flawed.  They say don't bring the pool back because of the hard water issue.  I say, water is the unique selling proposition for the facility.  Without water why bother?

Plus there are programmatic issues.  Salt Lake City proper doesn't run community centers.  It may own the building but the County operates it.  And there is already a community center about two miles away.  

So the Warm Springs site is too close I think for the city and county to be willing to fund and operate a community center.  Would you rather have a four lane bowling alley or a hot spring fed pool?

A U of Utah architecture class did its projects on the building, and they were given the scope of "no water" in the building.  (I don't know why the clinical professor running the class acquiesced?)

Some of the students projects called for restoration of the water pools outside, others ignored the scope and proposed making the building once again a hot springs pool.  I preferred the proposals that featured water and made it if not front and center, a significant element.

The vandalism of the sculpture problem is an issue that comes back to the idea of rating places at the at the block scale.  

The residential neighborhood is fine--except for that road highway that splits the neighborhood, 8 lane arterial that connects to I-15.  So the neighborhood is split by the arterial and by the freeway.  At the same time it also abuts the State Capitol and Capitol Hill, so it's well located otherwise.  

But the land use context of the existing park isn't fine.  Iit's at the edge of the neighborhood so there aren't a lot of "eyes on the street" to help keep "natural order." 

While dog owners continue to frequent the park, there are just a few houses nearby and not a lot of people around.  It's one of many places where homeless people try to camp with all the problems that emanate from it.

The modified rating system is a good way to think about what to do with the site and how to build better connections to reduce nuisance factors.

Rating at the block scale, for a block rated C or lower, I argued you should be wary of putting in street furniture and other appurtenances because of the potential for vandalism and vagrancy. 

Warm Springs Park is not necessarily distressed at least in terms of the neighborhood.  But it is "poorly located" on the edge of the residential section next to that pesky arterial. 

So fewer eyes on the street, more opportunity for bad stuff, especially because the main buildng is derelict.

A point about pedestrianizing streets: Boulder; Alexandria, Virginia, Cleveland Park, DC

This post is spurred by Alexandria, Virginia expanding the pedestrianization of King Street from the 100 block to the 200 block.

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When I first got involved in urban revitalization, I learned more about pedestrianized streets.  I already knew some, because I had visited Kalamazoo, Michigan, home to the first pedestrianized downtown street, created in 1959 ("Kalamazoo Mall, nation's first pedestrian mall, opened 60 years ago today," Kalamazoo Gazette).  It still exists, but now provides for car access, not just on the cross streets.

Such pedestrian malls were created as a way to compete with suburban malls, which had taken a lot of the retail out of the city.  Although in the 1950s and 1960s downtown department stores still reigned, although many firms started suburbanizing along with their customers, adding branches in the suburbs.

Usually, a pedestrian mall wasn't/isn't enough to attract people downtown on its own because most people are satisfied by the retail options they have closer to home, so the spaces seemed pretty empty.  And because they were empty, it provided an opportunity for the development of disorder. 

When I moved to DC, there was a pedestrian mall on G Street in front of the Martin Luther King Library.  I don't remember when it was removed.

Some still exist.  One variant is transit malls, pedestrian, but with transit, such as in Portland, Minneapolis, and Denver.  But my experience is that filled with hulking, usually noisy buses, those spaces aren't particularly congenial.  Portland's was very urban renewal architecture, and recently has been renewed with more current urban design and street furniture.  

Many have been redesigned ("Revised Nicollet Mall redesign is unveiled," 2014, "Plentiful ideas to fix Nicollet Mall show it has a bright future," Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

The most successful pedestrian malls are in Boulder, Burlington, Vermont ("History of Church Street Marketplace," Burlington Free Press), Madison, Wisconsin ("Madison Wisconsin should be rethinking its pedestrian "district""), and Charlottesville, Virginia.  

All are college towns so they have a lot of students without cars, making it a natural draw for pedestrian activity.

Plenty of other places have them, more than I know, including Cumberland, Maryland ("I didn't know Cumberland Maryland "had" a pedestrian mall"), Winchester, Virginia (it has a college, but isn't that big and isn't that close to downtown), and the Pacific Oceanside tourist destination of Santa Monica, California.

And some places are adding them, like Newark Avenue in Jersey City, New Jersey, which is a small, but very dense, highly urban community across the river from Manhattan ("Pedestrianization of Newark Avenue in Jersey City").

Pedestrians walk past vacant retail storefronts for lease along the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica on March 20, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)

Even the successful ones tend to peter out at the ends, with more vacancies there.  

Santa Monica's mall has been devastated by the closure of anchoring department stores, first Sears, then Nordstrom ("Third Street 3.0 in Santa Monica," Los Angeles Business Journal, "Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade is a retail relic. Can it be saved?," Los Angeles Times).

Programming is essential.  The thing I learned from Boulder is how important it is to heavily program and manage the space, which I wrote about in 2005 ("Now I know why Boulder's Pearl Street Mall is the exception that proves the rule about the failures of pedestrian malls").  Plants aren't enough.

Modern proposals for pedestrian malls.  With the revival of cities, many people have suggested pedestrian malls for their communities, not understanding whether or not they have good preconditions for success.  

I had been skeptical in the past about proposals for 18th Street in Adams Morgan (because of the topography there it's the only major arterial into the district going east-west, and is a major bus route) and 17th Street NW.

Pedestrian districts.  Europe has dozens if not hundreds of pedestrian districts ("No Cars Allowed: The 10 Best Pedestrian Streets Around the World," Axios).  But there are plenty elsewhere including Australia, China, Japan and even in Montreal, which has a mix of pedestrian districts like Old City and around McGill University and Summer only streets like Saint Catherine ("Walk Montréal's car-free streets all summer long!," "Rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest: A renewed pedestrian experience," City of Montreal, "Montreal walks back pedestrian-only plans for sections of Ste-Catherine Street West," CBC-TV, "Beset by troubles, Ste-Catherine St. in Montreal’s Village will become a year-round pedestrian zone," Montreal Gazette).

A one-kilometre stretch of Ste-Catherine Street East will be redeveloped to become a pedestrian street year-round, with added greenery, amenities and an illuminated canopy. (Ben Shingler/CBC)

Photograph: Eva Blue.

Ironically, the street considered to be the first in Europe,Strøget in Copenhagen, came after Kalamazoo.

Since Copenhagen’s Strøget area eliminated cars in 1962, its popularity has influenced other global cities to implement the same type of pedestrianized areas. Photo by Kirk Fisher/Shutterstock

Such districts aren't a linear mall, but multiblock districts, often emanating from train stations, with retail and entertainment, and sometimes housing.

Capturing roadways to add pedestrianized space.  In the US, New York City, under transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, was a pioneer in pedestrianizing former roadways, starting with Broadway around Times Square in Manhattan ("Times Square's transformation into a pedestrian-friendly space captured in photos," CurbedNY, 

Start with a block.  I think it was getting exposed to pedestrian districts that I came to realize that while it is overwhelming to think of pedestrianizing many blocks in places that can't support it, why not start with one block, to pedestrianize places where it can be successful.

-- "Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces"," 2020
-- "From more space to socially distance to a systematic program for pedestrian districts (Park City (Utah) Main Street Car Free on Sundays)," 2020
-- "Why doesn't every big city in North America have its own Las Ramblas?," 2020
-- "Diversity Plaza, Queens, a pedestrian exclusive block," 2020
-- "Planning urban design improvements at the neighborhood scale: Dupont Circle, DC," 2019

and build out as it becomes more successful.  Alexandria, Virginia's waterfront is a perfect example.  King Street emanates from it, but the street was always open to cars.  

With a process that started in 2020 ("Alexandria Virginia looks to pedestrianize the foot of King Street abutting the waterfront (public meeting tomorrow)," Lower King Street Pedestrianization Project), they tested making pedestrian the foot block of the street.  

Now they are extending it by one more block, after piloting it since last fall ("Another section of Old Town Alexandria is now car free," WTOP-AM, "New expansion to the King Street Pedestrian Zone opens today in Old Town," ALXNow).  From the article:

According to a city survey of people who live in the area, 87% of locals approve of the car-free zone, and 12 of 16 businesses most directly affected are also in favor. A city council report on traffic impacts also concluded that “dedicating more space for people walking, relative to vehicles along these three blocks of King Street, is an equitable allocation of public right-of-way.”

That could work for 17th Street NW in DC, maybe just on weekends as a start, even as it wouldn't work in most areas of the city.

-- "More about making 17th Street between P and R a pedestrian space on weekends," 2019
-- "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," 2021

A variant is Cleveland Park in Washington, DC.  It's a less ambitious example, but just as important to the neighborhood's residents and a more graspable and comparable example for most cities as they lack NYC's density and pedestrian traffic.

Its main retail block on Connecticut Avenue was split with sidewalk, roadway, parking, and more sidewalk, with parking on the curb lane.

After years of advocacy, in the face of some opposition by retailers, the city agreed to fill in the parking lane with an extended sidewalk.

Silver Spring, Maryland has a pedestrian block, which has great potential for expansion ("Making "Downtown Silver Spring" a true open air shopping district by adding department stores").  Perhaps many places are equally fecund.  And you don't have to go to Europe to see the potential.

Diversity Plaza in Queens ("Diversity Plaza, Queens, a pedestrian exclusive block") is another example of pedestrianizing a block.

Sugar House, Salt Lake City.  Like Cleveland Park, a large section of street and parking offset from the main street of 2100 South was converted into Monument Plaza in 2015 ("Monument Plaza enlivens Sugar House after years in the making," Salt Lake Tribune).  

The Monument is art deco, dedicated to the area's history of growing sugar beets.  A water feature calls attention to the area's history of having canals to bring in water and support commerce.

It looks like it's been there for years, but all in all is pretty recent.  It's used for restaurant patios, public space, and events.

Mare Street/Narrow Way in Hackney, London.  London has multiple pedestrian districts and pedestrian streets.  Mare Street was pedestrianized in 2016 but it looks like it's been there for a few decades ("Going Dutch in Hackney Central," Hackney Cyclist).  It emanates from Hackney Central Overground rail transit station and is part of the borough's "downtown."

Still, there can be conflicts between pedestrians and micromobility modes like bicycles ("Pedestrians urge cyclists to be more cautious down Hackney’s Narrow Way," Hackney Gazette).

Residential examples: Milwaukie Avenue in Minneapolis.  Created in the 1970's, it's an example of a residential street converted to a pedestrian block, as part of a neighborhood historic district ("Milwaukee Avenue a model for change," "1970s Mpls. activists saved Milwaukee Avenue's modest homes from teardown," Minneapolis Star-Tribune).  This year is the 50th anniversary of the creation of the historic district ("Minneapolis residents celebrate the 50th anniversary of Milwaukee Avenue Historic District," Minnesota Public Radio).

The city wanted to tear down the block for urban renewal, residents fought that off and as part of the reinvestment in the community, a two-block historic district was created, as well as the conversion of the street into a greenway.

Both articles have a photo gallery, and at the time yes, the houses were decrepit and you can see why the city wanted to demolish them.  OTOH, the condition of the houses today is a perfect example of why historic preservation works.  The houses needed new investment, not demolition, and the creation of the historic district provided the framework for that to happen.

Many houses along Milwaukee Av. were built as temporary homes for railroad workers. The State historical society wants to preserve the area as an example of a "common man's neighborhood in the 1880s. Built as temporary homes for railroad workers in the 1880s, many of Milwaukee Avenue's buildings have lost some of their original character through patchwork repairs.

Courtyard housing.  Some communities have similar blocks, but usually offset from the street, so that there is a greensward and sidewalk in the front, and alleys in back, connecting to the grid.  Salt Lake's Boulevard Gardens is one such example ("Salt Lake City’s ‘street without a street’ is a 90-year-old hidden gem —one that homeowners and historians hope to preserve," Salt Lake Tribune), but there are many others throughout the city.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Boulevard Gardens, a unique Salt Lake City subdivision near 1800 South between Main Street and West Temple, on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. The homes were built between 1929 and 1931 and face into a large landscaped courtyard, which runs the entire length of the development.

Marshall Court farewell potluck.  Photo: Ryan Stanton, Ann Arbor News.

Not realizing I was a trendsetter, I lived in two different sets of courtyard housing when going to college in Ann Arbor.  On Marshall Court ("Saying goodbye to Ann Arbor's Marshall Court," Ann Arbor News), which is now part of a large assemblage of property being converted into a new dorm.

And on Mary Court, off Mary Street, near the intersection of State Street and Packard Avenue.  The other side of the 8 house block is being consolidated into a 32 unit apartment building project, which has not yet commenced construction.  (Ann Arbor is going through a massive intensification of real estate development now, "50-plus Ann Arbor developments to watch in 2025," Ann Arbor News).

Urgh.

Bye, charm of Mary Court.

A book called Pocket Neighborhoods covers more modern examples of courtyard housing.

Open Streets events as a way to pilot pedestrianized blocks.  Streets closed to traffic for special events are often considered what is called an Open Street, which is a tactical urbanism intervention.  They can be a way to change people's thinking about what is possible ("Could Philadelphia’s embrace of the Open Streets program spur more civic innovations to come?," Philadelphia Inquirer) when it comes to shifting space from motor vehicles to people ("Open Streets DC as an event versus an agenda").  From the PI:

The initiative — a plan to promote more pedestrian traffic by temporarily closing some of Center City’s most vibrant commercial corridors to motor vehicles — is an example of Philadelphia leaders thinking big — and sticking the landing.

The concept of Open Streets is simple. Taking advantage of lower weekend traffic numbers, the Center City District takes space usually used by cars and trucks and gives it over to pedestrians, creating a plaza-like atmosphere. The idea is that with less noise and pollution from vehicles and more space to stroll, shoppers and diners will have a nicer experience, replicating pedestrian zones in cities like Paris, Tokyo, and Bogotá, Colombia.

A leisurely Sunday chat in the middle of the street: Michael d’Amico and Leah Parentela (rear) who live in the neighborhood, are joined by Karen Tracy of Center City and her granddaughters Thia (left), 9, and Kahlan, 7, visiting from the suburbs. The 1700 block of Walnut Street was among blocks that were car-free on four September Sundays. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer, Philadelphia Inquirer.

31st Avenue, Astoria, Queens, New York City.

In Minneapolis, bicycle advocates used the Milwaukee Avenue street as an example of how to create a greenway on the northside of the city ("Proposed North Side greenway encountering some bumps," Minneapolis Star-Tribune).  It's taken 10 years, but the city is planning to create it now ("Minneapolis is ready to design the Northside Greenway. Do residents want it?," MST).

Pilot of a Northside Greenway at an Open Streets event in 2014.

Houston Light Rail fountains: Railroad Beautiful for the 21st Century

20ish years ago, I came across the term "railroad beautiful" which referred to the architecture (H. H. Richardson) and landscape of stations (Olmsted) for the Boston & Albany Railroad ("A Railroad Beautiful," Journal of Education, 1904).

It was a precursor to the City Beautiful movement, and is what I call "transportation infrastructure as civic architecture."  Which I argue should be a key planning element for transportation projects.  Out here in Utah there is a lot of this for freeways--bridges and walls--not so much for transit.

I have an old post:

-- "Transit, stations, and placemaking: stations as entrypoints into neighborhoods" (2013)

that discusses this more in terms of neighborhoods if you look at the title, but in fact treats the entire system as a design product 

-- "Branding's (NOT) all you need for transit" (2018).  

Some systems do this in a systematic way, most don't, focusing on transit as a conveyance.  But if you want people to ride transit, perhaps for many it needs to be more design forward.

-- "Design forward trains and streetcars: Haga-Utsunomiya Light Rail and Brightline" (2023)

I haven't been to Houston in decades, so I didn't know that the Houston Light Rail terminal station on Main Street called Main Street Square, has a water feature--a fountain--and plantings, marking a recapturing of the concept of railroad beautiful for the 21st Century.

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.