Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

The cost to transit from free parking (Minneapolis survey)

Metro Transit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MinnesotaMetro Transit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, used by permission of Metro Transit.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported on the results of a local transit survey in the article "Transit survey gives picture of ridership." The results seem to indicate to me that free parking "induces" driving...

From the article:

Metro Transit reported the results of a rider survey taken in June. About 4,800 bus riders and about 800 train riders completed surveys on a range of topics. Here are some of the findings:

• Saving money on parking is the reason train riders give most often for why they ride the rail line. Nearly half of Hiawatha riders drive to a park- and-ride lot to catch the train.

• If the train were not available, 59 percent of rail riders said they would have made the trip in their cars alone.

• Among bus riders, not owning a car is the reason most often given for riding the bus.

• In a year when bus fares rose and service was cut, 15 percent of bus riders were new customers. Nearly 60 percent have ridden the bus for at least five years.

• 57 percent of train riders and 56 percent of bus riders take transit five days a week -- a reflection of the fact that most transit rides are to work.

• 38 percent of train riders have a household income of $70,000 or more; 22 percent of bus riders are equally affluent.

• Women take transit more often than men: 63 percent of bus riders and 57 percent of train riders are women. Men prefer the train: 43 percent of train riders are male compared with 37 percent on the bus.

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I'm always game for a bad pun


I'm always game for a bad pun
Originally uploaded by rllayman.
Even though I hate graffiti.

Market development in the Mt. Vernon Triangle Neighborhood


Dog walking on Massachusetts Avenue NW

I still don't see people bringing their dogs into stores, unlike Manhattan...

Creating cultures of excellence in schooling

Learning and parental skillsJill Whelan, a teacher who makes house calls for a state program (left), modeled parenting skills to Walquiria Nicasio. Whelan played with Nicasio’s son, Sebastian Rodriguez, 3, at their home in Lynn. (Lisa Poole for the Boston Globe)

Doing some filing and I came across a couple articles I had meant to blog about in December. This article from the Boston Globe, "This preschool is for parents, too: State program sends teachers to families' homes to help them prepare toddlers for kindergarten," is relevant to the point I keep making about engaging families in the learning process from the very beginning.

From the article:

At its peak in 2002, the program reached 1,200 families. Whelan and other home visitors, dispatched in various communities, show parents how to teach their toddlers to speak, read, and develop motor skills with games and puzzles. The Department of Early Education Care, a new agency created in July, sees the program as key in a statewide effort to better prepare children for prekindergarten and kindergarten.

The Christian Science Monitor ran the article "Schools build 'cultures of excellence': Experts say bold, systematic leadership is key to success.', based on the work of the Education Trust and their discovery of best practices in high schools committed to excellence regardless of the socioeconomic status of the student population. " From the article:

Confronting achievement gaps and opportunity gaps is not optional at Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights, Calif. Last year, Principal William Roberts posted some stark numbers over the copy machine, showing that Latinos made up 63 percent of the 2,000-plus student body but only 19 percent of Advanced Placement classes. He posed the question to the entire staff: What are we going to do about this? For one, they started talking to Hispanic parents and students, and found they had absorbed a lot of limiting messages. "When you hear kids say, 'Well, those classes are for the Asian kids,' that's painful," Mr. Roberts says, "but those realities have to surface ... to really address the issue."

By adding extra AP classes and providing support for any student who wanted to attend them, Los Altos boosted the Latino AP participation rate to 33 percent in one year.... It's one part of Roberts's insistence on a "culture of high expectations" at a public school that serves both poor and wealthy families...

Honors English at University Park Campus HighMOVING ON: Peter Weyler's (holding papers) 9th-grade English class is honors level - as are all classes for high-schoolers at the public University Park Campus School in Worcester, Mass. The school is exemplary for putting its students, many from low-income families, on the path to college. Photo: EMILY HARRIS, Christian Science Monitor.

Most high school leaders yearn to create such a culture, but it's hard to know how best to help students who enter ninth grade with significant skill deficits. To highlight concrete steps that some schools - including Los Altos - have taken, the nonprofit group Education Trust released an in-depth study last week titled "Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground: How Some High Schools Accelerate Learning for Struggling Students."

The study identified four "high impact" schools that serve a significant portion of low-income and minority students but do better than their counterparts in helping students catch up. It drew on surveys and focus groups with teachers and students, as well as direct observation of classrooms and school culture, interviews with administrators, and analyses of everything from class sizes to student transcripts.

These schools aren't at the top of the charts in terms of test scores, and they haven't eliminated achievement gaps, but they share "an absolutely unwavering commitment" to getting there, Ms. Haycock says.

Some of the practices that set the high-impact schools apart:
• They communicate consistently the goal of preparing students for college and careers, not simply graduation.
• They embrace external standards and assessment data to improve teaching.
• Students who need extra support are assigned to smaller classes led by more-experienced teachers; remedial work is done concurrently, rather than replacing grade-level courses.
• Students are encouraged to take challenging courses.

These steps often require reversing long-held traditions, as Principal Roberts discovered when he decided to start assigning the best teachers to the neediest students. "It runs contrary to the elitist feelings that all of us have helped cultivate in public schools, [the idea that] 'If I'm a great teacher, I get the honors kids,' " he says.
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Setting high expectations makes a big difference.

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ABA Midwinter Institute as a model program to assist the rebuilding of independent retail support networks

Jax BicyclesJax Bicycles. Everywhere you look, there are bikes, bikes...and more bikes. They're on multiple multi-level shelves. Some are hanging from the ceiling! From a customer report at Long Beach Report.

Shelf Awareness reports on the ABA Midwinter Institute, which is devoted to strengthening independent bookstores. Some of the sessions involved best practices advice from independent retailers in other industries. (Note: we can do these kinds of conferences locally). Here are some of the ideas shared at the conference last week:

Standard 5 & 10.jpgStandard 5 & 10 Ace variety store in San Francisco, California.

1. Jeff Leopold, whose Standard 5 & 10 Ace variety store in San Francisco, Calif., sells hardware, cards, gifts, stationery, health and beauty, told the lunch crowd that "although the number of independent hardware stores are dropping, sales for independent hardware stores are growing. In our business, we're able to grow the store. We're working harder at it."Service, Leopold continued, has been "the No. 1 way to fight the competition" so he has hired people who can "smile and carry on conversations with customers. We want people who can engage customers and sweep them off their feet." He requires employees to undergo 16 hours of extra training a year beyond their initial training. Products and displays also set the store apart and "chains are slow in responding to new products and displays," so he looks for "new products every day. I want to make sure our merchandising is fresh and innovative. I want different products in endcaps every two weeks at least."

The Wine Country Store, Signal Hills, CaliforniaThe Wine Country Store, Signal Hills, California

2. Randy Kemner, owner of The Wine Country, a wine retailer in Signal Hill, Calif., noted that even though wine consumption has undergone a revolution in the U.S. in the past 30 years and the wine business here is at "an all-time high," competition has grown, too. "You can buy wine at the local Sav-On, at 7 Eleven, the pharmacy, online," he said. "Costco is now the leading seller of Bordeaux and Champagne." He prefers to call his offerings "specialty" products and theirs "chain products. We have to offer products you can't get in chains."Kemner also emphasized the importance of the look of a store and tries to make his "gorgeous, presentable and attractive." He called himself an "avid enemy of fluorescent lighting."He, too, stressed customer service. "We always greet people with a smile," he said, adding that one study found it is 30 times more costly to develop a new customer than keep a current one. "Don't piss them off!" he advised.

3. Dave Hanson, owner of Jax Bicycles, five bicycle shops in Long Beach and Orange County, also emphasized service. His goal is for employees "to say hello [to customers] in five feet or five seconds," no matter what they're doing. In the tradition of Southwest Airlines, he said, "We try to make [customers] laugh or smile."Hanson trains staff members not to accept "just looking" as an answer when they ask if they can help. "We treat each customer as a guest. Imagine if someone 'just looked' [while visiting] your home." Obviously, he continued, customers "are looking for something."He also tries to teach his staff leadership and wants to mold the staff-customer relationship into one of "the customers being clients under the trusted care of an advisor." As of March 1, he is ending discounting and is training staff to "graciously decline discount requests." The store's price tags don't read "best offer," he said.

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Big Shell ad in the Washington Post yesterday about New Orleans

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Shell has a big ad in yesterday's Post about their commitment to rebuilding New Orleans. It makes points relevant to all communities. From the ad:

1. A community needs people -- our employees will be among them
2. A community needs a strong local economy -- our jobs, our supply chain, our social investment will help prime the pump
3. A community needs to invest in itself -- we will help support schools and public institutions while fostering workforce development
4. A community needs to coexist with its environment -- we will continue to support preservation of our wetlands
5. A community needs culture to enrich the lives of its people -- we will support events that make New Orleans unique.

Most of all, a community needs commitment. New Orleans has ours.

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College students can ride NJ Transit free until Sunday

Transit information in the lobby of the Portland State University LibraryTransit information in the lobby of the Portland State University Library. Click here for PSU transit pass info.

For awhile, I've been meaning to write about transit-promotion programs where students can get discounted transit passes as part of their student fee. Sometimes the student id card functions as the transit pass. New Jersey has a promotion program this week that encourages "sampling" of the transit system. From the article:

To beef up ridership and attract younger customers, NJ Transit will allow New Jersey college and postsecondary students to ride for free today through Sunday. "By giving them an opportunity to ride our buses, trains, and light-rail lines for free, we are cultivating new customers during their college years and beyond," said Lynn Bowersox, NJ Transit's assistant executive director.

Students first must go to the agency's Web site and fill out a survey. They will receive an e-mail coupon, which must be presented onboard with student ID. The agency also is trumpeting its Student Pass program, which offers full-time students at New Jersey's institutions of higher learning a 25 percent ticket discount.

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If money fixed everything wouldn't we have a great society? (Schools brief)

Kids playing at Logan School playgroundKids playing at Logan School playground

There is a campaign in the city to get the city to commit $1 billion to schools infrastructure. Great cities have great school systems. And great neighborhoods generally have great neighborhood schools. Quality elementary schools in particular tend to be the foundations of stable neighborhoods.

But I have a hard time mustering up the will to support this campaign, because I fear the money will be wasted. Maybe it's because I pay too much attention to the hundreds of millions of dollars expended over the years on "community development" through community development corporations, the DC Department of Housing and Community Development, or even the unintended consequences of new recreation centers that charge daily fees for use, and seem to attract out-of-city patrons and there seems to be some link to disorder increases in the general area around the new facilities (at least in areas that would be defined as transitioning or emerging). There's very little to show (in my opinion anyway) for all this money.

$1 billion is a lot of money to waste.

Newspapers for the last couple days have a bunch of interesting pieces that relate to local schools issues. Harry Jaffe has a good column in today's Examiner, "A golden opportunity for D.C. schools," that suggests that the DC School Board President be a full-time paid position comparable to that of a DC City Councilmember. I think that's an excellent idea. But there's a lot more that needs to be done in order to fix schools.

The area that I have been thinking a lot about since the summer is the "inputs" side of the equation. Until we have families and peer groups that support learning, we're not going to be able to improve outcomes. School systems can only do so much.

Marc Fisher has a column about this today. Entitled "Power to Immigrant Parents," he writes:

Teachers send out invitations, call parents, tuck reminders into kids' backpacks, then, on the evening of parent meetings, barely a handful of moms and dads show up. Inevitably, teachers get frustrated and decide the parents just don't give a hoot. I've heard that exasperated conclusion hundreds of times, in cities and suburbs alike. Those teachers need to meet Rosa Sanchez. ...

Sanchez, 32, has four children in the Montgomery schools, and for a long time, she packed her kids onto the bus in the morning and considered her parenting job complete for the school day. Like her own mother, who worked two jobs, spoke no English, had no car and never visited Rosa's school, Rosa assumed that if she did stop by her kids' schools, she'd be greeted with sneers. "I felt like they didn't want me there, only white people go in to help. It wasn't for me," she says.

But when her children struggled at school, Sanchez was invited to join a parent-training program created by Impact Silver Spring, a nonprofit that teaches immigrants to take a more active role where they live and work. Sanchez learned how to read a report card, press for the right class placements and make sure her kids get the attention they need.

More important, Sanchez learned not only that she was welcome but also that schools desperately crave involvement from immigrant parents. Educators know that active parents are essential to boosting minority achievement in a school system where test scores can be predicted all too easily by the ethnicity of the child.

A year after her training, Sanchez is a regular at her children's schools, climbing onto the bus each morning, volunteering in the office, cleaning up, reading to children in Spanish or English. She found work as Montgomery Blair High School's outreach coordinator for Hispanic parents. And now she leads one of the training groups.
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This isn't much different from what I wrote a couple weeks ago, in the blog entry "Chile, me, and civic engagement," about a text commonly used to teach English as a second language. The book, Communicating Effectively in English, does this through teaching people on the techniques they need to use to be able to be involved active citizens. I have also discussed a number of times the "Positive Deviance" model and the example of "Family Learning Contracts" in Brazil as a way to create families fully committed to their children's educational success.

(Also see previous blog entries "Involving the community in school improvement" and "School daze.")

Generally, lower income families have the same sense of efficacy that Rosa Sanchez had before she took the parent-training program at Impact Silver Spring. It happens that I am poking through a new book The Deliberative Democracy Handbook, which is about deliberative citizen engagement programs like the one in Silver Spring.

We need the same kinds of civic engagement training programs to be linked to school improvement planning in DC, if we are truly committed to "creating a community of learning" or a community of people that have a sense of efficacy.

My experience with children's issues over the past almost 20 years is that people talk about how they care about children's issues, but when it comes time to follow through, it's rarely forthcoming, other than buying educational toys maybe, but even there, retail chains focusing on educational toys tend to go out of business...

And I have always been intrigued by the fact that the average person doesn't take a deliberative, learning-based approach to civic issues. I attribute this to bad experiences in schools and a belief that research and learning practices are associated with school-based settings only, not "real life."

If we had a real community-wide planning and involvement initiative dedicated to creating a "Community of Learning," then I would feel differently about the campaign for $1 billion to fix DC schools.

We need great schools to have a great city and great neighborhoods.

But it's not a question of money as much as it is will and focus and getting the entire community, especially the families of the children in the schools, to commit to building the community's capacity, willingness, desire, and commitment to be engaged in the process from the beginning to the end.
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Welcome to the Tucson Citizen.jpgPhoto by XAVIER GALLEGOS/ Tucson Citizen. Peter Howell Elementary School art teacher Shirley Wagner smiles as Samuel Durbin shows his finished sunflower painting.

Yesterday's Washington Times has a nice story on arts-based education programs ("Arts used as teaching tool at select schools in the area.) This dovetails on the idea that I have put out there that the schools in the H Street area should become an "arts cluster" school system within the system dedicated to performance, visual, media, English language and foreign language arts and culture. This would complement the creation of an "arts and entertainment" district at the eastern edge of the H Street NE neighborhood.

Yesterday's Times also had a story, "A big reason to graduate in Kalamazoo," about how "a local benefactor has promised to fund the college education of any student who graduates from one of Kalamazoo's three public high schools."

Talk about building a community's commitment to public education...

Finally, our friend Gov. Jeb Bush (I try not to write about national politics in this blog, other than the vagaries of federal interest and commitment to urban issues, but a friend and I were wildly speculating about the best possible Republican ticket in 2008 -- I said Condi Rice as pres. + Jeb as veep, or maybe just keep Cheney...) had a piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal entitled "Five Rules for School Reform":

1. The first rule is that when you run for office, you need to say what you're going to do and then do what you said you would.

2. ... if you don't measure, you don't care. You have to be willing to measure the outcome of reform and to let the world know what the real results are...

3. ... big reforms require long-term commitment (at last night's urban design presentation sponsored by Washington Regional Network for Livable Communities, Paul Morris asked what happened in our communities, that we used to build infrastructure for our lifetimes, now we look at it in terms of a two-year commitment)

4. ... communicate what you're doing, especially to parents. Education reform can only be sustained if parents know it's working. Florida gives parents a comprehensive report card tracking their child's performance year-over-year, along with the school's performance against state and national standards and explanations of each.

5. ... success is never final and reform is never finished. You are either in ascendance or decline, so if you aren't moving forward you are losing ground as well as opportunities for students.

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Monday, January 30, 2006

More more more shenanigans in DC health care planning

hosp.jpg

I write quite a bit about the process behind "the Growth Machine" which tends to ugly and manipulative. Some organizations and land use attorneys are better than others (I refer to one land use lawyer as "The Velvet Fist" but that being said, I think she's pretty straightforward and recommends that her clients do the right thing, albeit while trying to minimize what the client has to pay out...).

Generally, the worse the project, the more consulting groups, etc., that pile on, I mean get the opportunity to help the various organizations communicate better with the public. The latest developments in the National Capital Medical Center project, particularly with race-based appeals, reminds me of the sorry affair 18 years ago, when race-based appeals were used to defeat a DC recycling referendum that would have instituted deposits on beverage containers (a huge source of litter).

(And as Colbert King wrote in two columns recently, the more odious the project, the more odious the lobbyists that represent the project. As he wrote, "The intersection of lobbyists and city lawmakers could have a direct bearing on this year's contests for D.C. mayor, the city council and the presidency of the D.C. Board of Education."-- How the Game Gets Played in D.C. (Part 2) and his first piece, How the Game Gets Played in D.C. (January 21, 2006, Page A19).)

Eric Rosenthal, an emergency medical physician, has been writing about the NCMC issue in themail. I have taken the liberty of reprinting his latest missive:

On January 12, Councilmember Vince Gray and representatives from the Williams administration, Howard University, and the Walker Marchant Group — a self-described “communications boutique specializing in crisis communications, issue management, community relations, public affairs and reputation management” — met with supporters of the National Capital Medical Center. Out of that meeting came a new organization, Citizens for the National Capital Medical Center (CNCMC). Sadly, according to at least one attendee, some of the rhetoric emerging from the meeting included appeals to racial divisiveness and threats to defeat elected officials who support the Certificate of Need Process or oppose the National Capital Medical Center, presumably including both leading mayoral candidates.

The DC Primary Care Association, the DC Hospital Association, the DC Medical Society, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, the Hill East Waterfront Action Network, ANC 6B, the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, the Washington Times, the Washington Post, the DC Examiner, the Washington Business Journal, several councilmembers from both sides of the Park, Jonetta Rose Barras, Dorothy Brizill, Alice Rivlin, at least one of the city’s own consultants, and many other health experts and citizens have raised serious and fundamental questions about the National Capital Medical Center, questions that remain unanswered. Rather than resorting to intellectually lazy and divisive appeals to race and political threats, I hope the CNCMC will make a serious attempt to demonstrate that the National Capital Medical Center is needed and that it would make Washingtonians healthier. That is where the debate should be, but the advocates have yet to try to make that case.

The next meeting of Citizens for the National Capital Medical Center is tomorrow, Monday, January 30, at 6:30 p.m., at the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization, 3939 Benning Road, NE. The meeting is billed as only for supporters of the National Capital Medical Center. On a related note, the city and Howard should disclose the list of consultants they have used in this process, the cost for each, how much Howard is being reimbursed, and whether any of the contracts was put out to competitive bid.

And, as I have written, health care and hospital issues in the area are regional issues that transcend political boundaries, given the financial problems with the Dimensions Health Care system in Prince George's County, Maryland. The Washington Business Journal, in "Gasping for air," editorializes about this in their latest issue:

The Cheverly-based nonprofit organization that runs the county-owned hospitals in Prince George’s County needs to find money – and must find it before the end of March. Dimensions has lost more than $50 million since 1999. The management company, which oversees Prince George’s Hospital Center, Laurel Regional Hospital, and Bowie Health Campus, has gone so far as to develop contingency plans to close the hospitals by April if additional assistance can’t be found. While the state and county have to step up and offer any necessary assistance to keep the much needed hospitals from turning away patients, the potential partnership between the University of Maryland Medical System and Dimensions appears to be an ideal long-term solution. The UMMS would likely pump new life into a health care system that Prince George’s County and the state have allowed to fall into serious disrepair. Besides being what many see as an ideal partnership for the county and the university, the deal quite possibly is the last hope for the residents of Prince George’s County.

It's amazing to me that these two planning processes are occuring simultaneously, with likely no connection between the projects.

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I was away for a couple days

So I am behind on email and everything else. The weather (and light) wasn't that great so the photos vary in quality. It'll be a bit before I restart blogging in earnest.

Trash Bags, Union Square Partnership, NYC In the Union Square area of Manhattan.

Grocery store, Rego Park, 63rd DriveGrocery store, Rego Park, 63rd Drive. NYC, because it has such great population density supports so much retail, as Jane Jacobs pointed out in Death and Life of Great American Cities forty years ago. People want more retail in their neighborhoods, but forget or fail to acknowledge that access to retail isn't a right, but a business proposition. That doesn't mean don't clamor for retail, but it does mean focus on what you can do to make your market more successful (or at least how to reduce the risk of opening new businesses in less attractive markets).

Music on the subway, Union Square This isn't allowed in the DC subway system. I was rushing to the train so I didn't get info on her. Her voice reminded me a bit of the old DC band Dead Girls and Other Stories (does anybody know what happened to them), or Tuscadero (good sound, but their lyrics had little meaning) or That Dog.

North Folk Bank is on the 2nd floor The retail market is so strong in lower Manhattan on many streets that banks end up on viable second floors, rather than dominating ground floor spaces necessarily (and acting as vacuums on the street in the evenings, when banks are closed).

McSorley'sMcSorley's. Many establishments oriented to serving the late-night crowd have signs here and there on their premises, often due to complaints by residents, asking customers to be quiet while out on the streets. I don't think they are that effective though. "Signs" like this--inserted into the sidewalks--are harder to ignore, and have more opportunities to communicate this important message.

OptometristIn Chinatown.

No parking Sunday

100_3153New Year in Chinatown. Mott Street, Manhattan.

Confetti really on Mott StreetI'm glad I didn't have to clean up afterwards. (Mott Street)

100_3128A way to keep your treeboxes clean. (Although I did see a black plastic bag in one of these treebox protected planters.) Little Italy.

A dog is in the store at PylonesA dog in the store at Pylones. People in NYC take their dogs into stores. I'm not sure that I am that customer-centric....

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Saturday, January 28, 2006

One Lesson of a Strike: Those Riders Will Walk

baltimoresun.com - The Day in Pictures.jpgMayor Michael Bloomberg and his aides walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with other commuters during the morning rush hour in New York on Dec. 20. New York transit workers walked off the job for the first time in 25 years, stranding millions of people who rely on the bus and subway system each day.(AP/Dima Gavrysh)

An article by the same title from the New York Times reports:

It takes longer to get to work without the subways, no one disputes that. But just more than a month after a 60-hour transit strike crippled New York City, other lessons are becoming clear, according to data collected by city officials while the subways and buses were shut down.

Among the findings: The number of pedestrians entering Manhattan skyrocketed during the walkout; bicycles and ferries were not used as much as officials had expected; and vehicle restrictions - including a cordon that blocked cars with fewer than four occupants from entering Manhattan south of 96th Street for six hours each morning - may have been harsher than necessary... The new data suggest that New Yorkers are more inclined to walk than they were 25 years ago.

"It's not uncommon for New Yorkers to walk a mile a day," said Iris Weinshall, the commissioner of the city's Department of Transportation, who intends to release the research here on Tuesday, during the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, which is part of the National Research Council.

On average, more than 34,000 pedestrians walked over one of the four East River bridges into Manhattan, compared with only 2,000 or so per day normally. Total pedestrian volume on the bridges from 6 to 10 a.m. was about 14,000 - about 14 percent higher than the 12,500 recorded during the 1980 strike.

On average, 11,717 bicycles crossed the East River bridges each day of the strike. From 6 to 10 a.m., the number of bicyclists on the bridges was 4,892, a 44 percent drop from 8,762 riders in 1980. The city has far more bicycle lanes and paths than it did in 1980, but Ms. Weinshall said bicycling was a less-attractive option because of the cold weather. The 1980 strike began on April 1 and lasted 11 days.

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The 10 Best Art Museums for Kids

1948_81big.jpgThe table rug is from the Middle East; the pearls on the woman’s necklace come from Asia or the Pacific Islands.The man and young woman were playing guitar and cello. Now they are taking a break from the music.These statues of chubby little boys are called putti, and when they appear it usually means that love is in the air.The artist who painted this picture used diagonal lines to make it look like the window frame is close to you and the landscape is far away. (From the Faces, Places, and Inner Spaces exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago.)

Not having children I don't think about these issues, but still, this article from Child magazine, "The 10 Best Art Museums for Kids," is worth reading to give you some ideas about destination development and management. From the article:

From gallery tours for toddlers to camps for school-age children, even the most high-end art museums have devised wonderful ways to welcome families. In the first investigation of its kind, CHILD champions the cultural centers that have made the visual arts accessible and fun for kids.

The Top 10:

1. Art Institute of Chicago
2. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
3. Dayton Art Institute
4. De Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
5. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
6. Los Angeles County Museum of Art
7. Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha
8. Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, Wilmington, Delaware
9. Dallas Museum of Art
10. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts

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The Reeves Center Myth Revisited

I was going through some of the archives and I came across something I wrote in response to suggestions that WMATA move to Anacostia (hmm, why Dan Tangherlini is now the director of WMATA might have other dimensions).

It's worth reprinting because City Council Chairman and Mayoral candidate Linda Cropp was at a community meeting recently where she talked about the Reeves Center as a perfect example of city-initiated and city-sparked development. This has been bugging me since I read it, but I didn't get around to writing about it. See this article "In Ward 8, Anger Over Stadium Deal," and this quote (of course Councilmember Barry was in the audience, so she must have felt obligated):

"Our visionary mayor, Marion Barry, put the Reeves [Municipal] Center up on 14th and U streets because it acted as an incentive to bring about economic development that changed the area," Cropp said.

From August but expanded slightly:

Re-reading the Post article ("Williams Proposes Moving Metro Offices to Anacostia") it quotes Mayor Williams as saying he was inspired to suggest this development at the Anacostia Metro Station by the actions of Mayor Barry's building of the Reeves Center.

Reeves CenterThe Reeves Center is pretty typical of the urban brutalist DC urban renewal projects from the mid-1970s onwards.

IT IS A MYTH that the Reeves Center sparked the revitalization of U Street. It is an urban brutalist monster that sucks the life off of the street. Many of the retail businesses in the Reeves Center have failed--most leaving lease debts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars--debts that the District government had to eat.

The other three corners of the intersection have fast food places or a vacancy. AND, it took more than 10 years after the Reeves Center before "revitalization" started happening--much of it being sparked by the opening of the Green line subway stations. (Granted, the construction of the Metro on U Street contributed to the problems.)

And still, the area around Reeves Center is a vacuum. What life around it has it engendered?

Why is learning from Jane Jacobs and other practitioners of urban vitality so difficult?

Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, ORPioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, Oregon. Photo by PPS.

Carytown uncropped (Richmond)People on the street in Carytown, Richmond. Photo by Steve Pinkus.

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New proposals for health and wellness services in the UK

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The Daily Telegraph reports, in "Hewitt's new cure: a health MoT plus trainer," that the UK's National Health Service plans to shift more of its resources towards developing wellness programs, and will work to make health care services available outside of standard business hours. This kind of innovative thinking isn't happening in DC right now, in the context of planning for a new hospital in a joint venture of the DC Government and Howard University.

From the article:

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Health Secretary says that patients will be told in percentage terms the likelihood of their developing cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses. Those most at risk will be allocated a personal health trainer who will set goals for improving their diet and increasing the exercise they take. They will also be helped to give up smoking and reduce drinking and stress.

"People don't want nannying or to be told what they must do but they do want more information, advice and support," Miss Hewitt says. The NHS life check is one of the main proposals in a White Paper to be published next week.

The proposal will lead to accusations that the Government is extending the "nanny state". But Miss Hewitt says that research by her department has found that most people think the NHS should be as much about preventing illness as curing it. More than three quarters of 1,000 people who took part in a "citizens' summit" in Birmingham last year said they would like a regular health check. "People were saying we want to stay healthy and independent as long as possible but we need the NHS to show us how," Miss Hewitt says. ...

Health trainers are already being recruited by primary care trusts in some areas and the Government hopes to see 1,200 working around the country by the end of the year. Community groups will also be set up so that patients can encourage each other to stick to their new diet and exercise regimes.

The plan represents a dramatic shift in the focus of the health service away from emergency hospital treatment and towards prevention. At present, the only national health screening programme takes place at birth. The White Paper will also propose reforms to the way in which family doctors operate. The Government wants to encourage GPs' surgeries to open in the evenings and at weekends to cater for working patients. Miss Hewitt says there will also be an expansion of walk-in centres, offering health care in public places such as stations.
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Now if I could just find a definition for "MoT."

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Luxury Townhomes


Luxury Townhomes
Originally uploaded by Zachary Korb.
From Flickr, by Zachary Korb. This photo is in the group "Making Room for Condos."

Here is his caption: "I was surprised that anyone wanted to build on this site - especially considering the rail line that would run right along (or above?) your home. Taken on Chicago's near/mid-Southside."

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Friday, January 27, 2006

My vote for the best writing on historic preservation in the last three years

is the Squandered Heritage series by Blair Kamin and Patrick Reardon, which ran in the Chicago Tribune in 2003. The language is magnificent. So are the photos. And on the jump for two days, they featured a full-page of photos of great buildings that had been torn down by "the demolition machine."

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You'll have to register for access.

And speaking of great writing on housing issues, although from 2004, I recommend Mary Schmich (also of the Tribune) and her series "A new day at Cabrini-Green."

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I don't understand Civic Strategies' Urban Journalism Awards

Reading on the MetroDouglas Stewart of Fairfax, Va., reads a paper Thursday under a sign that warns of heightened security at the Metro Center subway station in Washington, D.C. (Baltimore Sun photo by David Hobby) Jul 7, 2005.

I've never understood the methodology of the Urban Journalism Awards from Civic Strategies. I've e-discussed this with Otis White in the past, and just wasn't satisfied, but I didn't pursue it any further. Some of the best writing on urban issues doesn't seem to register in his methodology. (That being said I find Mr. White's writings and e-newsletter to always be of interest.)

For example, how could the Baltimore Sun be picked as one of the worst newspapers for urban issues writing in 2005, with only 57 articles about "urban" issues, when I figure that the paper runs as many as 20 articles/week that I would term work on "urban issues."

The "Maryland" section of the paper has as many as 5 articles/day on such issues (plus the A, Business, and Today sections...). I do think that it has hurt the paper that Tom Horton, the environmental writer, took a buyout, because his excellent writing helped me begin to think more broadly about regional issues. Were he still there, I would have linked him in my urban design writers section. Ed Gunts' architecture column alone probably generates about 45 pieces. Gregory Kane's column runs twice/week. There is the "Urban Chronicle" column, which I clipped yesterday for example. Editorials throughout the week. Many front page articles. Etc.

Even the Denver Post, which comes in last, generates more articles than the 39 attributed to it, if you count transit, real estate, arts, creative class type issues, etc. (All right, I will disclose my secret. At least once/week, I scan the Lexis-Nexis planning newsfeed on the APA website. That's why I seem like I know everything. I don't really.)

Clearly, there is something wrong with the methodology that I can't figure out.

I guess because I am too close to events in DC, the two-part series in the Washington Post on the changes and gentrification at 14th and T Streets NW, said very little to me, and I would likely have not even commented on it had I not been queried about it by a colleague from California, yet it was picked by Civic Strategies as the best urban journalist effort for 2005. (I discussed the articles in this blog entry, "Community Preservation and Gentrification.")

14th and T Streets NW,14th and T Streets NW. Washington Post photo by Michael Williamson. (A panorama view is available online.)

From the Civic Strategies e-letter:

The best article or series was Crossroads: The Price of Change at 14th and T, a pair of articles by Anne Hull that ran in the Washington Post in November.

In my opinion, Lori Montgomery of the Post has been kicking absolute butt on urban issues (although technically her beat is "Mayor Williams"). She might be my pick right now as the best Post writer on urban issues these days (Petula Dvorak you're up there too, and Steven Ginsburg and Lyndsay Layton on transit issues, Colbert King's once/week Saturday column underserves us only because I wish we could get more, etc. ...) and yes, I recognize who I'm not mentioning... The District Extra section is good, and the other Extra sections are worth scanning every week to track events in the neighboring jurisdictions. Of course, one gripe with the Post is that while their syndicate distributes Neal Peirce's column, they don't run it in the paper.

While I can't think of, off-hand, what writing I would have picked myself, even the series about changes in Louisville and the Louisville housing market that ran in August in the Louisville Courier-Journal was better. (The series is accessible through this link: "City hopes to replicate downtown housing success across Jefferson.") Inga Saffron, Blair Kamin, and Christopher Hawthorne all wrote great pieces on New Orleans and the value of shotgun housing (vernacular housing) that were better than the Hull pieces. The Cleveland Free Times cover story on urban church impacts on the city ("More about churches") was better. Etc.

That being said, I do really like the Washington Post, but I am a throwback--I am a big fan of newspapers and I fear the chilling effect of the decline of newspapers on civic engagement.

My apologies to Anne Hull...

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Adams-Morgan to get more weekend police presence

32587-21 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!.jpgAdams-Morgan photo by furcafe.

Yesterday's Washington Times and today's Examiner discuss plans to increase police presence in Adams-Morgan on the weekends--when the population "rises" when people go out to the restaurants and places on the strip. The Examiner focuses on talk about putting in CCTV surveillance, and the privacy concerns.

I38857-2004Oct16L.jpgPhillip Klips, center, of Southeast Washington greets William Hamm of Waldorf. Photo Credit: Stephanie K. Kuykendal For The Washington Post. (See "You Haven't Lived Here if You Haven't . . . Grabbed a Late-Night "Jumbo Slice".) Trash generated by such establishments is a sore point for neighborhood residents.

I wonder about this. Is it really a sign of adept policing strategies to increase night service in an entertainment area, where there are known to be problems? Isn't it obvious that this should be done? And hasn't it been obvious for awhile?

I wrote in March about the Adams-Morgan Transportation Study (in this blog entry and others, "Dr. Transit offers some thoughts on the Adams-Morgan Transportation Study") and I linked to similar studies in London, in dealing with the late night economy (Managing the Evening and Late Night Economy), and how Members of Parliament with oversight for public safety actually walked the streets of Westminster after 11 pm on a Friday night to look into the situation. I suggested the same for Adams-Morgan.

CompStat and CitiStat programs are important and I support such data management programs vociferously. But some of this stuff seems obvious.

PH2005081401220.jpgIn Adams Morgan, Amsterdam Falafelshop offers an alternative to jumbo-slice pizza joints. Photo Credit: Andrea Bruce -- The Washington Post. See "Adams Morgan Acquires Late-Night Jones for Falafel."

6893-29Crop on Flickr - Photo Sharing!.jpgPotential hooligans outside of Asylum, photo by furcafe.

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Condos and housing in the region

100_6075.jpgCondominums at 5th and Massachusetts NW. Photo from BeyondDC.

Today's Express has a big, primarily advertising, section on condominiums. I don't normally read poke through this recurring supplement, but today I decided to thumb through it to get a sense of the lay of the land. Ads from Virginia and Maryland overwhelmed those from DC, and I was surprised to see advertisments for developments in Frederick and Baltimore (I actually went into the sales office for the 1209 N. Charles Street development by Johns Hopkins when I was in Baltimore for the Main Street conference in May).

The Dumont condominiums look fine in the rendering, at least the way that I look at their ad on E39. But some of the buildings along Massachusetts Avenue aren't that exciting. (While others are, I will say.)

100_6064.jpgBuy Now! Photo from BeyondDC.

The feature in the back pages of the Express that quotes from blogs has some stuff from real estate blogs today on whether or not there is a bubble, and how the inventory of new condominiums impacts the value of older buildings that are less amenities rich.

(Interestingly enough, a couple blogs that cover local real estate issues link to various of my entries.)

20050817-mr_housing_bubble.jpgImage from GrubbyKid.

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Adding cultural heritage dimensions and expanded service capabilities within commercial districts to DC Streetcar planning

Portland historic replica streetcarIn the Portland streetcar system, historic replica streetcar runs on weekends, adding a cultural heritage dimension to the service.

When streetcars for the city were first proposed (and I wasn't producing a blog) I wrote in a couple venues that the "cultural heritage" dimension needed to be developed in concert with the system for a couple reasons: (1) it would add value to the local history experience in Washington; and (2) it would encourage people to ride-sample the system and take back the experience to their hometowns (if they aren't from Europe) creating new advocates for transit across the county.

The Market Street Railway in San Francisco does this. The line features streetcars from around the world, dressed in the paint scheme and "branding" of the cars hometowns.

Riding the F-Market & Wharves line.jpgA promotional poster for the Market Street Railway.

At the same time, commercial districts like H Street in Northeast Washington DC, could add historic streetcars (or replicas) to complement the service provided by the longer line, which in the case of H Street NE will start at the Minnesota Avenue Metro station, to provide for additional service and more stops within the commercial district (intra-commercial district service as opposed to the more inter-DC service of the longer line).

For example, the budding entertainment district at the east end of the H Street corridor might want to have additional service on weekends, and Thursday through Saturday nights. This will increase the likelihood of customers, add to the fun aspects of a night on the town, and would reduce significantly the stress on an already limited inventory of parking spaces.

An advantage of a replica is that it's less expensive to maintain. OTOH, it costs a lot more. See this paper for more info: Bring Back The Streetcars.

H Street PlayhouseIMG_1373 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!.jpgCertainly places like the H Street Playhouse, the Atlas Theater, and the various restaurants and bars would like more streetcar service to help business and to reduce the strain on the limited parking in the area. Photos of the H Street Playhouse and the H Street Martini Lounge by Inked78.

This could be accommodated by developing and planning now for a system that could have a spur, and storage capabilities for additional streetcars that aren't Skoda vehicles.

For such a service in the H Street area, it could run between Union Station and 15th Street NE via H Street. Like with the Portland Streetcar service, perhaps you could sponsors like Louis Dreyfus Company, the Hechinger Mall, and Gallaudet University, to help defray some of the costs. (E.g., maybe the cars could be stored at Gallaudet University or in the parking garage at Station Place.)

unionsta_trolley2Capital Transit streetcar at Union Station.

Note: some of the credit for this idea goes to Jane Lang, a proprietor of the Atlas Performing Arts Center, who talked about the need for more transit within the commercial district a couple years, and my relating this conversation to Lee Rogers, a local historian and national expert on trolleys generally as well as the streetcar systems that existed within the region. Lee mentioned the possibility of intra-operable cars. And then I saw it for myself in Portland.

Note: streetcars stopped running on H Street in February 1949. There are printed photographs but I don't have digital copies. I had two such photos at one time--sort of, Kevin Palmer actually has them somewhere--provided by Lee Rogers, one of the 8th and H Street NE intersection, a photo that the DC Office of Planning has used, and one, in color, of a streetcar in front of the 800 and 900 southside blocks. I am trying to dig up copies of these photos.

San Francisco's historic streetcars.jpgSan Francisco operates three basic types of streetcars: the vintage, often one-of-a-kind trolleys, the Peter Witt trams of Milan, and the art deco PCC streetcars, like No. 1052 seen here in the heart of Fisherman's Wharf. Photo by Bill Storage. From the Market Street Railway website.

Proposed Street Car lines, Washington, DCProposed Street Car lines, Washington, DC, from the DC Transit Future website.

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Cable Car cable repair


Cable Car cable repair
Originally uploaded by Itinerant.
Itinerant is a flickr photographer in San Francisco. His work is awesome.

His photo here sheds some light about issues relevant to putting streetcar infrastructure underground. (Which I still prefer.) Here's his caption: "Sometimes the cables that pull the cars break and get snagged under the streets. According to the MUNI guys, they're a bitch to fix."


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