Urban Land Institute Technical Advisory Panel report for the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis

ULI is an organization of developers and other stakeholders involved in real estate development.  They have regional chapters and an annual meeting.  The Institute publishes a magazine and has an extensive publishing program, complemented by reports and works produced by the individual chapters.

Their books and reports are top notch, and read well over the years.  I've been fortunate to be able to get "media credentials" to attend local meetings, even the national, but I haven't been able to go.

Technical Advisory Panels bring together a group of members selected as knowledge experts to come up with ideas for knotty problems in communities, usually with a focus on commercial development.  (The American Planning Association, American Society of Landscape Architects, and American Public Transportation Association have similar programs.)

While years ago I found the report on what to do for DC's Central Library wanting--it illustrated a problem with planning engagements more generally, if you're given a limited scope, your ability to be visionary and expansive is significantly constrained--generally the reports are top notch, and always worth reading to boost your knowledge and get new ideas.  

WRT the library, I had better ideas ("The DC Central Library, the Civic identity and the public realm," 2011, "Civic assets and mixed use: Central Library edition," 2013).  But generally, ULI hits a lot more home runs on TAPs than strikeouts.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports ("Five great ideas to improve Uptown, the Twin Cities’ most enduring commercial hub") on the release of a report (UPTOWN REBOUND: A STORY OF ABUNDANCE) for the Uptown District.  

I haven't read it yet, the ST columnist highlights five points:

• Form a business improvement district

Gosh, this is so basic it's amazing cities have to be told.  The overarching city government generally lacks the capacity and funding to provide extranormal management and development of a city's subdistricts.  BIDs are one tool.  Main Street programs another.  And Pennsylvania has come up with a Main Street like program for neighborhoods.

-- "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)
-- "Planning programming by daypart, month, season: and Boston Winter Garden, DC's Holiday Market, etc.," (2016)
-- "Richard's Rules for Restaurant (Food) Based Revitalization, Salt Lake City and DC's Chinatown," (2024)
-- "Commercial district activation issues in smaller communities: Phoenixville, Pennsylvania," (2023)

Turns out Minneapolis has a real estate firm that works on activating spaces in a curated fashion ("Max Musicant's company brings commercial spaces to life," MST).

• Buy the Seven Points parking ramp

Photo: Eric Roper, MST.

They call parking structures ramps in Minnesota.  But owning one provides a revenue stream and a way to support parking management strategies, in a manner that can bootstrap what I call a transportation management district.  

The TAP suggests it provide free parking, but as the foundation of a shared parking system throughout the district.

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

-- "Parking districts vs. transportation/urban management districts: Part one, Bethesda," 2015
-- "Parking districts vs. transportation/urban management districts: Part two, Takoma DC/Takoma Park Maryland," 2015
-- "Parking districts vs. transportation/urban management districts: Part three, jitneys/shuttles/delivery and the tertiary transit network," 2015
-- "Transportation demand management requirements for large developments and the MGM National Harbor Casino as an example of why this is absolutely necessary," 2015

• Create a "Lake Loop" connecting Uptown to the Chain of Lakes

Lake Loop concept.  Graphic: Blake Siette, ULI.

Minneapolis is defined by its network of parks, trails, and lakes.  Apparently Uptown isn't well connected to the existing network.  

• Rebrand Girard Avenue as "Uptown Alley"

Apparently the street is broken up here and there by more pedestrianized spaces.  The Panel recommends that this characteristic be strengthened, by converting the Avenue into a continuous people space (no cars).

Photo: Eric Roper, MST.

I think such proposals are great.  But then you really do need a BID because to be successful, such spaces need to be highly programmed and managed.

As it is, Minneapolis already has problems adequately managing Nicolett Mall ("The trouble with Nicollet Mall: It’s boring now," MST, "How to Fix Nicollet Mall," MPLS St. Paul Magazine, "Nicollet Mall needs bikes and other wheeled wanderers," MinnPost).

-- "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)
-- "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," (2021)
-- "Now I know why Boulder's Pearl Street Mall is the exception that proves the rule about the failures of pedestrian malls," (2005)

• Extend the Como-Harriet Streetcar.

Apparently it's a historic streetcar operated by volunteers during the summer, on weekends.  It runs between the Lake Harriet Bandshell and a stop in front of Lakewood Cemetery. 

I didn't know they had one.  Similar streetcars operate or have operated in Dallas, Memphis, and Savannah.   

The report suggests it extended to the Bde Maka Ska pavilion at the Bde Maka Ska Lake (Cunningham Architects Project Page).

But the reporter says it could go further into Uptown and connect to the Midtown Greenway, a major cycle trail in a "ditch" that had been a railroad.  

He quotes the director of the Trolley Museum, saying they don't have the capacity or the money (an estimated $10 million) to do it.  How about not making the parking ramp free, and using some of the revenues to pay for the streetcar extension and perhaps expansion to Friday service.

Conclusion.  I definitely have to read the report.  But I can make a quick "judgement" based on the recommendations pulled out by Eric Roper (also see his article, "Momentum is building for a rebirth of Uptown").  

The report suggests multiple ways to increase access to and connectedness within the Uptown district, in part by leveraging existing resources.

Seems like a lot of exciting ideas.  I am looking forward to reading it.

From Bloomberg: A Commuting Resolution for 2025: Ride Your Local Subway or Bus Regularly

 -- article

Only 3.1% of US adults use public transportation to get to work, according to 2022 data from the Census Bureau, down from 5% in 2019. That year, almost 76% of Americans said they drove alone to work, a number that fell to 68.7% in 2022 as more people reported working from home. Among those who take transit, 70% were located in one of seven metropolitan areas — Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, DC.

A bicyclist in a sea of motor vehicle traffic.  Photo: Kevin Clark, Seattle Times.

This heavy reliance on private vehicles comes with a steep cost — both personally and to the environment (not to mention the fiscal health of your local transit agency). The average US household spends $13,174 per year on transportation, more than 85% of which go to car payments, gas and other automotive expenses. Driving costs help make transportation the second-largest expenditure for Americans after housing, representing roughly 17% of household income. In the European Union, it’s only 11%.

1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville

Transportation also accounts for 28% of US greenhouse gas emissions, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, with nearly 60% coming from cars, SUVs and pickup trucks. And while electric vehicles can help reduce that figure, research from the California Air Resources Board and others have found that switching to battery-power alone is not enough. To stave off the worst effects of climate change, fewer people need to be driving.  

1929 Chevrolet ad promoting driving kids to school.

And yet getting more people in the US out of their cars has been difficult. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, transit ridership was falling in most US cities, with success stories such as Seattle’s expanding bus ridership standing out as a rare exception. Even nudges such as offering free fares have not substantially moved people from behind the steering wheel and onto trains, buses and light rail. A big part of that problem is structural — lots of US communities simply don’t have good enough transit service. 

But even in cities with bus and train networks that are adequate for commuting, many people still opt to drive. For some of them, driving to work is just a habit, and habits are hard to break. Research has found that people will only change their commuting habits “when they’re starting a new job or when they’re moving,” says Ariella Kristal, a behavioral scientist and postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University. “But they’re not just going to, in the middle of daily life, change an entrenched habit.”

=====

Transportation Demand Management.  Like with biking, people need assistance/help to make the transition from one mode to another.  The US has spent the last 100 years prioritizing automobile dependence.  

While it shouldn't take that long to increase the use of transit and bicycling as legitimate modes of transportation, the reality is that most places aren't built to make either mode efficient.

TDM works to shift people to other modes in directed ways, focusing more on people throughput than motor vehicle throughput.

In the US, Arlington County, Virginia and Whatcom County, Washington are some of the most active adherents to TDM.  Although plenty of places have created transportation associations to promote mode shift and have created Transportation Management Districts.  

This entry, ""What should the program for a Transportation Management District look like?," (2024)," outlines what I think an ideal TDM program should be.  FWIW, TDM was created in Victoria State, Australia, when an advocate realized that by shifting people to other modes, they could stop freeway expansion.

I've suggested DC create TMDs since about 2006.  They have these odd districts called "performance parking management districts" that are designed to do some of that but there isn't an overall standard of operations, they are more idiosyncratic, creatures of whoever did the plan.

Routes 10/12 of Capital Transit ran on H Street NE and Benning Road, to Rosslyn.  The lines were "abandoned" in 1949 in favor of bus service.

An ad we made for the H Street Main Street program, showing the 8th and H Streets NE intersection.

Traditional center cities offer the best opportunity, in particular those built primarily in the Walking City (1800-1890) and Streetcar/Transit City eras (1890-1920) ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis," Geography of Urban Transportation). 

First, they have the street grid, which is an efficient way to move people around in multiple directions.  Second, the invention of the radial avenue (was it L'Enfant?) made connections between neighborhoods faster than traveling exclusively in right angles.  This was key for bicycling and transit especially.  Third, the urban form is compact, so work, home, shopping, school etc. are close together. 

From Ch. 2: Urban Form as Predictors

"Association of Travel and Urban form" by Shen Qu

According to the Seattle Times, DC has the second highest rate of non-car ownership ("Car-ownership rate hits record low in Seattle, census data shows").  As the Bloomberg article makes clear, relying on a car is extremely expensive.  

For some reason the Center for Neighborhood Technology's rating of places in terms of Housing and Transportation Affordability, which was aimed at coordinating mortgage pricing with transportation costs, has never really caught on as a way to justify lower interest rates on home purchases in those areas.

I consider it a privilege to have lived in DC, where albeit with compromises, you can get around reasonably efficiently without having to be dependent on a car.  And not owning a car supported at least $100,000 of our mortgage.

Note that yes, some car-less households don't own a car because they can't afford one, significant numbers of households have made the choice to not own a car.  Plus, car sharing services also reduce demand for car ownership, as many as 10-15 households can be supported by one car, leading to reduced car ownership ("A bit about car sharing").

Plus, when DC transit usage was high--pre-covid the number of transit riders for WMATA was double than that of today--the way I measured success of mode shift was my ability to run red lights on my bicycle during rush periods, because there was no significant traffic or significant breaks in traffic.

Transit agencies and TDM programs should use the concept of a New Year's Resolution every year to work to shift people to other modes.

Brief follow up to intra-district transit proposal for Tysons: Toyama City Compact City initiative (Japan)

A couple weeks ago, I wrote the post "Tysons (Corner) 10 Years after the plan to make it more walkable: the necessity of implementation mechanisms," in response to a Post op-ed assessing the success and failure of Tysons move towards sustainable mobility ten years after their groundbreaking master plan to shift from automobility.

I mention frequently in posts that I am a big fan of the NHK World television program, "Japan Railway Journal," which has opened my eyes to rethinking how the US does passenger rail planning (although I still haven't gotten around to finishing-publishing my series of articles on the topic).  (This channel is distributed by PBS stations throughout the country, but the show is also available online.)

Yesterday's program, "Securing the Future of Japan's Local Railways," focused on success strategies for the small railroads across the country, which complement the national and regional services by JR and certain other larger companies, mentioned a program I wasn't familiar with, the Toyama City Compact City revitalization program.

It's a perfect illustration of the point of using intra-district transit as a way to refocus development towards the core of the city (Development Knowledge of Toyama City, World Bank).

They undertook a number of transit-related measures: (1) they created a new locally-serving light rail line on a northern rail line abandoned by Japan Railways; (2) they connected the previously unconnected northern and southern transit lines; (3) allowing the more modern northern light rail vehicles to be used throughout the city, although the older vehicles remain in operation; (4) they created a loop line within the existing transit system to foster new  development within the core of the city.

The loop line is an intra-district transit approach, which I have discussed in many posts including "Making the case for intra-city vs. inter-city transit planning" (2011).

It operates within the larger transit network.

Portland and Seattle.  While the original post on intra-district transit programs references streetcars in Portland (Downtown and the Pearl District, since expanded) and Seattle (SoDo originally, since expanded), I can't believe I didn't mention Portland or Seattle as relevant examples in the Tysons post.  

By contrast, I mentioned "people movers" in Detroit, Jacksonville, and Miami, the monorail in Las Vegas, and bus-based circulators.

Portland and Seattle are the ultimate US examples of using streetcars to foster development and intensity within the core of a center city.

Tysons isn't a center city, but as an edge city if it wants to develop a sustainable mobility paradigm, these are great examples, especially as it is a rare suburban conurbation that has the level of intensity necessary to support this kind of transit.




Since then, cities like Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Oklahoma City, Tucson, and to some extent Washington, DC ("Modern streetcars are transportation projects,not merely economic development augurs: but intra-district not inter-city services," 2017) have adopted similar programs, with varying levels of success.




David Eulitt, Kansas City Star.

A big problem is expansion, anti-transit forces fight funding proposals vociferously.

The OKC streetcar is one of the newest, and is equally relevant to Tysons.  Oklahoma City is a center city, but sprawls over 500 square miles.  It's a "suburban" city along the lines of the "Metropolitan City era" discussed by Peter Muller in "Transportation and Urban Form."   For OKC, the streetcar is about strengthening and intensifying its core ("Oklahoma City's streetcar story is all about development," Daily Oklahoman;
"Oklahoma City Hopes for Lift From Downtown Streetcar," Wall Street Journal).

Tysons has exactly the same issue.

A thought about an intra-district transit network for Tysons

(This idea came to me this morning, in that brief ideation moment when you wake up.)

Tysons (Corner) is about 5 square miles and now has about 20,000 residents. According to the Tysons Partnership, by 2050, it's projected to have 100,000 residents and a few hundred thousand jobs. As the book Edge City pointed out, it's the equivalent of a Downtown except that it's much more spread out, and with an urban design oriented to cars not people.

In the previous post I didn't address why it is significantly more difficult for the Metrorail line to repattern land use in Tysons the way it did in Arlington County, along the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, or in Downtown DC.

The first has to do with the unwillingness by the State of Virginia to pay extra to underground or tunnel the line.

This was a big issue during the planning phases of the line (the other was the station being closer at Dulles Airport). There was an advocacy effort, Tysons Tunnel, with the aim of shifting the decision to a tunnel, but it failed.

It's a lot harder to change land use when a heavy rail line is at or above grade.  Often there are right and wrong sides of the tracks.  The tracks are a divider and the trains are usually noisy.

It costs a lot more, but you see with places like the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in Arlington County or Downtown DC that there is tremendous economic benefit that more than pays for the additional cost.

The second has to do with the number of and distance between stations. In Arlington County, while it is 1.1 miles between Rosslyn and Courthouse Stations, from Courthouse Station to Clarendon to Virginia Square to Ballston is four stations over two miles.

Significantly, the original design for this stretch of Metrorail was for it to be located within the I-66 freeway median.

Instead, the County then in decline and experiencing population loss like most inner ring suburbs at the time, realized that by shifting the Metrorail line to Wilson Boulevard they could change their economic trajectory.

By contrast, the Metrorail in Tysons follows the equivalent of a freeway--a very wide arterial, with stations located within the median, making the stations incredibly difficult to access and difficult in terms of repatterning land use.  There are four stations, about 3 miles from McLean Station to Spring Hill Station, with Tysons and Greensboro Stations in between.

Silver Line station map.  Washington Post graphic by Gene Thorp.

This idealized Metrorail graphic by Eric Fidler also shows the forthcoming Purple Line light rail.

By contrast, in Downtown DC/the Central Business District there is a comparatively large number of stations serving an area a bit larger than Tysons (from Farragut North to NoMA on the Red Line, from GWU to Capitol South on the Blue/Silver/Orange Lines, Mount Vernon to L'Enfant Plaza on the Yellow line and to Navy Yard on the Green Line totals 18 stations--although the Smithsonian Station doesn't serve the business district).  This is because rather than there being one single linear line serving the area, there are multiple, crossing lines that intersect. 


This graphic, a subsection of the Metrorail "map," is the foundation of what I call the City of Washington's primary transit network, and the stations serving the Central Business District are a further subset of this.  (Later I redefined this subset to include the Waterfront and Navy Yard stations on the Green Line, to reflect new and intensive (re)development of those areas within the Southwest Quadrant.)

This set of stations acts monocentrically, intensifying development within the area, which is complemented by a center city grid of reasonably sized blocks which support and preference sustainable modes--transit, walking, biking and other forms of micromobility--rather than the automobile.

Bus service including a city-provided Circulator system independent of the Metrobus network complements the underground subway network, but it isn't prioritized (dedicated bus lanes are being deployed) so it's slower.

For Arlington, circulator service isn't an issue, because the R-B corridor is linear, focused on Wilson Boulevard, and the intensely developed section doesn't extend more than a few blocks on either side.  Tysons is not a linear district, it sprawls over a 5 square mile area.  (Arlington's transit access and connectivity issue is inadequate connections between North and South Arlington.)

Detroit People Mover. Photo: P&A Imaging, Kewsi Mann.

Intra-district transit and People Movers. If I were to pick out my 10 or 20 most significant posts, one would be on thinking about transit in terms of a network comprised of primary, secondary, and tertiary networks.

This grew out of my reading of the Arlington Master Transportation Plan, which c. 2005, was pathbreaking.  It defined Arlington's primary and secondary transit networks, as complementary to Metrorail and Metrobus.

I extended these ideas cross-jurisdictionally, at much wider scales: regional; metropolitan; suburban; and center city, with subnetworks.


While I didn't integrate the concepts, in terms of the "tertiary" network, which includes what I call "intra-district" mobility, another top 20 piece, "Making the case for intra-city versus inter-city transit planning," distinguishes between inter-city (getting to and from) and intra-city (getting around within) mobility, and discusses various approaches to intra-district transit, one being people movers.  (Also see "Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited because of new San Diego service, 2016.")

(Intra-district transit isn't necessarily "tertiary" but can be elements of the primary or secondary transit networks, depending on district size, primacy, and the nature of the overall transit network.)

Most people come across people movers as an element of airport transportation, shuttles that operate between terminals.

There are three aerial people movers in the US in Downtowns, in Detroit, Jacksonville, and Miami.

While in those places the systems aren't super successful in terms of massive ridership, they do provide intra-district transportation on a wider scale within a central business district. By being above-ground, they are never stuck in surface traffic. And they are a lot less expensive than a tunnel-based system.

Miami Metromover map, by Houchou, from Wikipedia.

The Miami system connects to two Metrorail stations, has 21 stations, and more than 30,000 daily riders.

Thinking about this now, I'd argue that the casino-focused monorail in Las Vegas is more of a people mover than anything else, because it doesn't connect to other activity centers in "Las Vegas" like the Downtown or the Airport--it was designed to facilitate transit between casinos but not to let people "escape" casinos.

In reality, the monorail doesn't even serve the City of Las Vegas, but the Las Vegas Strip, which is not within the city boundaries.

Separately in Las Vegas proper, the newest mobility initiative is to have Elon Musk build some tunnels, which shows the failure to lay the foundation for a more robust transit system with the monorail.  It's also not designed to move all that many people ("These Vegas casinos want Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build them tunnels, with Teslas to transport guests," CNBC).

It's really more of a boutique, toy-like service, albeit intra-district.

The High Line tracks in NYC when it was used as a freight railroad.

Other types of intra-district mobility networks that use either above-ground or under-ground paths are pedway (Chicago, Toronto, Montreal) and skyway (Minneapolis, St. Paul) networks, as well as the old underground freight transit system in Chicago, the High Line freight railroad in Manhattan, now repurposed as a park, and pneumatic tube systems for mail and other transactions. 

Tysons ought to have considered an above-ground people mover for intra-district transportation, complementing underground Metrorail stations.  (Although it can still be done even though the Metrorail stations are above-ground.)

If you define a city or a downtown as more than a collection of buildings, but an integrated and connected place, Edge Cities are conglomerations and conurbations, but they aren't cities or downtowns as much as they are "Concentrated Suburban Business Districts."

-- Ten Principles for Reinventing Suburban Business Districts, ULI
-- Ten Principles for Reinventing America's Suburban Strips, ULI
-- Ten Principles for Rethinking the Mall, ULI

Tysons is a concentrated area, but not a city in a true sense.  And that's what the Tysons Master Plan and the Tysons Partnership is aiming to change.

To get the intensified effect on land use, and to maximize the ability to shift the land use and transportation paradigm away from automobile-centricity, the breakthrough idea would be for Tysons to create a people mover system for intra-district transit.

This would truly set the stage for transform Tysons to a city that is the Downtown for Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, rather than a large set of buildings on the edge of the core of the metropolitan area.

Again, while the Las Vegas Monorail is linear rather than circular, it's a model for what could be achieved, with a better vision and plan to enhance mobility throughout the Tysons district, rather than the more narrow focus on casinos in the Las Vegas Strip that marks the Vegas monorail.

Las Vegas Metrorail Map



The trick of course it to figure out how to do this cost effectively. 

And I realize that in most circumstances, this would be a crazy idea.  The suburbs don't have that level of density and intensity, as well as massive numbers of intra-district trips, to justify even thinking this way.


Long range development intensity plan for Tysons, Fairfax County, Virginia.

But there are a handful of exceptions in suburbs, yes in "Edge Cities" where this might be viable and worth implementing, including Tysons in Northern Virginia, Buckhead and Cumberland (where the Braves Stadium is) in Greater Atlanta, certain places in Dallas, the Houston Medical Center, maybe outside of Boston along Route 128, and place or two in the Silicon Valley.

Unshared parking

One of the problems of financialization of real estate as well as outsourcing is the disconnect that can occur between different functions of a property. 

This happens a lot with the parking function, which tends to be outsourced to an independent firm specializing in parking. 

Such firms only operate according to the dictates of the contract and are more concerned about maximizing profits, not about managing parking as a resource that supports the economic activity of the firms located in and around the building.

This is the case with a matter I am dealing with on Capitol Hill, related to Eastern Market, the city's public market.  In a meeting, one of the people was going on about how "they should care because the customers of the building's tenants also use the parking" and I countered that in all likelihood, the parking function is "jobbed out" to a different firm--she scoffed but of course it turned out I was right.

Some customers were confused by the signs in the Stansted retail park near Stansted. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian.

The Guardian has a story ("Is this Britain’s most ridiculous parking fine?") about this in London, where properties adjacent to Stansted Airport seemingly have a shared parking lot, but don't, and the parking contractor has put in an array of CCTV cameras so that they can "fine" transgressors to the tune of £60, because they park in the lot of one firm but go instead to an adjacent tenant.

This angers the customers of the businesses, but the businesses in turn are renters also, and don't have any input into the master agreement between the property owner and the parking manager. The parking manager is not incentivized to manage the parking in a way that benefits customers.  (Another example is the City of Chicago's long term lease of parking structures and street meters to private investors, who again, are interested in maximizing economic return, not contributing to the public good.)

There are many similar examples. Every few years this comes up in Bethesda in Montgomery County, where people park in a place like a bank or a business that is closed, and then get towed/ticketed by managers of the lot ("Predatory Towing Continues In Downtown Bethesda," Bethesda Magazine).

And the Wharf district in DC should have created an underground parking structure unified across all the properties, but because some buildings have different ownership that isn't possible. But had it been done that way, all the motor vehicle traffic could have been captured on the perimeter of the property, and the interior could have been exclusively pedestrian.  See "Multiblock Underground Shared Parking" from Urban Land Magazine.

When I first learned about the concept of "shared parking" about 12 years ago, it was revelatory   ("Onsite Parking: The Scourge of America's Commercial Districts," Planetizen).

-- "What is shared parking?," International Transportation and Development Institute

Now it just upsets me that virtually zero progress has been made.

-- "Parking districts vs. transportation/urban management districts: Part one, Bethesda" (2015)
-- "Parking districts vs. transportation/urban management districts: Part two, Takoma DC/Takoma Park Maryland" (2015)
-- "Reston Town Center parking issue as a "planning failure" by the private sector" (2017)
-- "Testimony on parking policy in DC" (2012)
-- "Municipal taxes and fees #2: parking" (2010)
-- "The High Cost of Free Parking" (2005)

Perhaps Rockville Pike's mobility solution is a "transit mall," not BRT | Introducing the PikeRide concept

Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike in Montgomery County Maryland is a classic example of a traffic engorged suburban arterial.

I frequently use this Washington Post photo to illustrate the problem.  The street is lined by all types of uses including office buildings and residences, but is best known for its many shopping centers and retail stores, most with parking in front.

Most of the lots are not interconnected, so people hop and skip by car along the Pike to accomplish their trips, making many separate little trips along the way.

Rockville Pike, looking north, which Montgomery planners want to transform into a network of urban villages.  Washington Post photo by Bill O'Leary.



About ten years ago, developers and planners worked out a land use repatterning in the "North Bethesda/White Flint" area, aiming to move from superblocks and parking-fronted shopping centers to smaller blocks, a more robust street grid, buildings at the streetfront with structured parking, and mixed use developments including a fair amount of housing, along with a rebuilt street and streetscape that serves multiple modes and doesn't focus strictly on automobility.

-- Friends of White Flint

From a "smart growth"/new urbanism perspective, this is one of the more interesting attempts at "urbanizing" suburbia anywhere in the US ("Makeover Seeks to Tame Rockville Pike in Maryland," New York Times, 2010). Currently, the Pike & Rose redevelopment on the site of a previously existing parking-fronted shopping center is the foremost example of this new paradigm.


Transforming Rockville Pike, Montgomery's commercial spine, into a tree-lined boulevard, with more open space and greenery, is a priority of Montgomery County planners. Although political leaders and residents support the change, obstacles such as cost remain. The redesign will allow residents to work, dine and shop within blocks of their high-rise apartments in an ultra-urban setting, to stitch residential and retail areas together. Image: Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

The corridor is served by four Metrorail transit stations--Grosvenor (which serves the Strathmore Music Center), White Flint, Twinbrook, and Rockville, over a 4.6 mile distance--and there are proposals to add a MARC commuter rail station to the White Flint/now called "Pike District" area, to complement the existing MARC station at Rockville.

The White Flint initiative to repattern the sub/urban design, streetscape, mobility, and placemaking qualities of the district has a twin in the Rockville Town Center program (article from Terrain), in the core of the city near the Metrorail station.  One of the anchors of the development is a county library and adjacent arts center, and a well used and programmed public square.


Bus rapid transit on Rockville Pike.  Separately, Montgomery County's Department of Transportation is moving a bus rapid transit program forward.  Rockville Pike is one of the proposed corridors and will be a key element of the network.

Last year, the department's RideOn bus system introduced a limited stop bus service along the Pike, called RideOn Extra, to provide a faster ride over longer distance trips.

But I have written pieces in the past criticizing how BRT has been promoted for Rockville Pike,  making the point that videos promoting the concept laid out the service as being able to serve families making multiple stops over relatively short distances ("schlepping multiple kids, stroller and packages on and off the bus"), between destinations along the Pike--mostly various shopping centers, but also housing, supermarkets, etc.

Taking an "intra-district" approach to transit mobility.  BRT service as conceptualized is about fast transit making a relatively few number of stops over long distances.  It's a form of express bus service.  But on Rockville Pike, there are probably 3-8 significant destinations per mile counting both sides of the street, so it isn't well suited to limited stop service.

Separately I have tried to come to grips with differentiating "circulator" and streetcar programs from the standpoint of "intra-district" versus inter-district transit service.

-- "Modern streetcars are transportation projects, not merely economic development augurs: but intra-district not inter-city services," 2017

In other words getting around within a concentrated area of a destination versus getting to and from that concentrated area from multiple points in a metropolitan area.  (Unfortunately, a lot of commentary mixes up the two purposes.)

Examples of intra-district service include bus circulators, streetcars, and "people movers."

Miami People Mover.

Travel to Downtown Washington and Downtown Baltimore are good examples of this.  In both places, the respective city has created core-focused "circulator" bus programs to move people around within the core, which the inter-jurisdictional bus routes and subway lines bringing people to the district aren't set up to do.

Transit malls.  In other cities, a variant of this kind of service is provided by creating a bus or transit mall to concentrate the routes and services.  Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis and the 16th Street Mall in Denver are the foremost examples.

In Minneapolis, the Nicollet Mall is served by multiple bus lines but also has a free intra-district transit bus.  In Denver, 16th Street Mall is a pedestrian and transit mall, with the primary transit service being the free MallRide buses.

Denver MallRide.  Transportation for America photo.

Why not treat Rockville Pike as a "transit mall" and create a PikeRide bus service to support  intra-district trips.  Granted the distance between Grosvenor and Rockville Metrorail stations is 4.6 miles, and Denver's 16th Street Mall is 1.25 miles, but the way to reduce intra-district traffic may be to adopt the circulator/Denver MallRide concept separate from BRT, which has a different purpose.

You could call it PikeRide, although that's what they call bus service on Columbia Pike in Arlington County, Virginia.  The (Rockville)PikeRide would be a free circulator, just like the Denver MallRide.

Elsewhere in Montgomery County the county supports similar kinds of services.  The County supports a free circulator bus in Silver Spring, and the Bethesda Urban Partnership business improvement district supports a free circulator bus there.

Free Bethesda Circulator Bus.

Arlington County's Columbia Pike bus network as a model.  The transit network concept for Columbia Pike is similar to what I am proposing for Rockville Pike.  There they have three levels of service--limited stop (like the new RideOn Extra); regular service with more stops, but fewer stops than the local service, which stops at many more locations along the corridor.  Except that (Rockville)PikeRide would be free, and the Columbia PikeRide service is not.

This WMATA map of the PikeRide transit network shows how the different bus lines combine to provide high frequency service in the core of the Columbia Pike corridor.

That's the basic idea for the Rockville Pike concept, but focusing on the development of an intra-district bus service through a dedicated circulator, which would also complement the Metrorail stations, which aren't so great at supporting trips within the district, as opposed to trips getting to and from the district.

Complementing transit service with package delivery? I still can't get over that video promoting BRT on Rockville Pike.

Even with a free hop on/hop off bus service--and figure that the highest use would be between the White Flint mall and Metrorail area and somewhere between Twinbrook and Rockville Metrorail stations--carrying lots of packages on and off buses is likely to be inconvenient.

Separately, a delivery service could be created, where people who spend a certain amount can get the packages delivered to home--figuring this would be offered within a couple miles distance on either side of the Pike.  (As an example, the area's Megamart Latino supermarket chain offers a free trip home to customers so long as they purchase at least $50.)

But this presupposes that people get to the district by transit, and likely many of the people will come by car.  A concierge type package pick up service could be another option to serve people using cars to get to and from Rockville Pike's shopping and entertainment district.

Pay for it by creating a transportation management district.  Baltimore has a parking tax which it uses to fund the Circulator.  Montgomery has created "parking districts" in various locations, although I argue they should be repositioned as "transportation management districts."

-- "Parking districts vs. transportation/urban management districts: Part one, Bethesda," 2015

A TMD could be created for Rockville Pike, which would support the free PikeRide transit service and potentially a package delivery program.


Developers will need to get on board with the concept of "shared parking."  One wrinkle is "walk off" parkers--people who park in one shopping center but then go off to another without moving their car.

Ideally, all of the property owners can be made to understand that they need to conceptualize the parking as "shared resources" for the entire commercial district, supported by the PikeRide free transit service, and accept that people will move between destinations without moving their cars.

Marketing, marketing, marketing.  To make this work, lots and lots and lots and lots of social marketing interventions will be required. Huge amounts of time and energy will have to be directed to the users/various modes in this corridor, to assist people in making the change.

From a transit industry standpoint, successfully launching and operating this kind of bus service in the suburban context could be as transformational as the White Flint land use changes are to suburban land use paradigms.

Interestingly, with the move to cashless fares on the Georgia Avenue Rte. 79, WMATA plastered the corridor with information about it, and actually placed outreach workers at various bus stop locations along the corridor, especially key transfer points such as Georgia and New Hampshire Avenues.

That will have to be done here too.

Typically, transit marketing programs in the DC region haven't always been that great.  For a service like this to work and become transformational, a great deal of attention to marketing planning and execution will have to be made.

-- "Marketing and Branding for Bus Rapid Transit ," Urban Transportation Showcase Program, Government of Canada
-- "Creating and executing the York Region Transit 2002 Marketing Plan," Interkom (I need to track down the actual document)
-- From Here to There: A Creative Guide to Making Public Transport the Way to Go, World Resources Institute
-- "Orange County Ride the Bus campaign," Celtis Ventures Inc.
-- PikeRide: Creating a successful product image, WMATA
-- "Branding Albuquerque Rapid Transit," Studio Hill Design Ltd.