The right to safe transit

In an earlier comment thread, Cavan reminds me that some people can justifiably feel uncomfortable on transit because of raucous people, inappropriate behavior, etc.

While I don't think that justifies creating separate shuttle bus systems, I do think we need to address the problems better than we do.

For example, I was on a subway car not quite two years ago on the red line between Union Station and Brookland and there was no question things were out of control.

With regard to harassment on transit, the New York City group New Yorkers for Safe Transit is one that focuses on this issue, and the group was mentioned in this NYT article, "New York City Officials Look at Subway Sex Offenses."

Prof. Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris of UCLA has studied this issue as well. Her work in this arena is covered in this U of California online article "Women and Transit: Making Bus Stops Closer to What Women Want."

While the article covers research on bus stop safety, it discusses an important finding of the study, that the reason that perceptions of crime aren't reflected in actual crimes according to the statistics, the reality is that many of the problems and even crimes, such as inappropriate touching and utterances, aren't reported.

I'm sure this is true of being on the bus as well.

Also see "What Women Want: Transportation Research Expands in Scope and Relevance by Pursuing Questions Related to the "Other" Sex."

Getting to smart growth relies on common sense, while staying with stupid growth thinking allows us to remain foolish

While I mentioned this letter to the editor, "Smart Growth needs common sense,"from the Gazette in a blog entry yesterday, I was thinking about it more this morning.

For the most part, "growth" or new development, is going to happen--so long as it is supported by existing zoning--whether or not people want it.

The challenge is to manage the process, and to work to mitigate the possibilities of problems.

Counties like Montgomery in Maryland have adequate public facilities ordinances which require that impacts on public infrastructure and facilities be measured and linked to approvals or disapprovals of development proposals.

Note that DC doesn't have adequate public facilities ordinances and for new projects, for the most part only the traffic impact is measured, no other impacts are considered, even though looking solely at traffic is a limited measure of the total impact of certain kinds of projects. (This is the heart of some of the arguments over intensification of land use along Wisconsin Avenue NW in Ward 3. Some smart growthers term opposition to this as nimbyism, but the reality is that there are legitimate infrastructure and capacity issues that must be addressed in various locations with regard to school capacity, water and sewerage lines, etc.)

So if development is going to happen anyway, which we can call "growth" or "stupid growth," shouldn't we try to shift as many of the trips that will happen anyway to transit, walking, and bicycling away from the automobile and the limited capacities of roads.

Focusing development in ways that optimizes the use of existing infrastructure and facilities of all types is what smart growth policies are about.

(To my boss, I mentioned an ungodly number, $500 million or more, for the cost to retrofit bicycling and walking infrastructure, including an off-trails network, in the County in which I am working in at present, and her retort was "think of how much it cost to build the street network" implying that providing basic walking and bicycling infrastructure should be considered just as basic as providing roads.)

The challenge of smart growth is that the people who challenge the policies as "lacking common sense" fail to see the lack of common sense in the policies that they espouse in their place. Doing what we are doing now is truly the foolish policy.

The reality is that they are advocating for stupid growth, or really for no growth at all, even though the U.S. continues to add population as does the region, and at some level a goodly amount of this new population must be accommodated and as many people point out in the comment thread, not everyone can be accommodated within the center city only (the position that people seem to think I espouse).

It is the stupid growth policy that is nonsensical and unsustainable.

"Parking, parking, parking" and "Driving, driving, driving"

Urban scenes at eye level, Part Two, Jan Gehl, Close Encounters with Buildings

For those of us who grew up watching the Brady Bunch on television, we remember the competition on the show between the middle and older sisters, Jan and Marcia, and Jan's lament that everything was about Marcia -- "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia."

I have a similar kind of response when listening to what I would consider whining by automobilists about the demands for what I consider to be overaccommodation.

"Parking, parking, parking" (a/k/a "privilege, privilege, privilege")

The proposed new Silver Spring library is across the street from a huge parking structure. Now there is a debate between the pro-urban design (against) and the pro-automobilist (for) over whether or not there should be a "skywalk" connecting the garage directly to the library.

Since active urban spaces have active ground floors, we urban design types think that just as how people go to the ground floor of the garage to exit to the stores, restaurants, cinemas, and other destinations in the area around the parking garage, that library patrons should do the same.

But Robert Oshel disagrees in his letter to the editor, "Silver Spring library design lacks parking," in the Gazette, demanding dedicated parking specifically for the library, or baring that, a skywalk.

Ironically, one of the examples Jane Jacobs uses in Death and Life of the Great American City to illustrate the concept of "mixed primary use" is having arts and culture uses located in central business districts and how the parking demands for these uses can be accommodated by the garages that during the day support the office buildings, that building dedicated parking facilities is a waste of money and space compared to using the same facilities for more hours of the day for a multiplicity of uses. (She was writing about Pittsburgh's downtown versus the development of a cultural center in the Oakland neighborhood.)

Skywalks are not great for cities. A graduate student did her thesis on skyways, finding them to be antithetical to great urbanism. See "University of Utah student compiles report on skybridges" from the Salt Lake City Deseret-News. From the article:

Hill, a graduate student at the University of Utah, is completing a master's degree in urban planning and is preparing to begin a Ph.D program. For nearly a year she researched skybridges in urban settings and compiled her findings in a 43-page report titled "Preserving Life of the Street."

"I felt like someone needed to speak up and say, 'This isn't the right concept for our Main Street,"' she said. "Someone needed to gather a body of information to say, 'This is a bad move. Let's come up with another option."'

Hill cites several sources supporting her conclusion that skybridges hinder street-level pedestrian activity and promote segregation and separation. "Planning and design professionals are all standing up and saying that skybridges don't work in this setting," she said.

Anyway, to be fair and equal, Mr. Oshel and others who make the same arguments need to advocate for all library users, including transit users, and should demand that transit users trips to the library be absorbed by the library too.

Avoiding the right decision at all costs: tolls vs. other taxes

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Rep. Joe Sestak, a candidate for Senate, suggests taxing natural gas drillers instead of imposing tolls on I-80. From the article:

U.S. Rep. (and would-be Sen.) Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) fielded a call the other day from U.S. Rep. Tim Holden (D., Pa.), deep in anti-toll country. Holden's aide asked, Sestak said, "Where do I sit on tolling I-80?"

That's a federal government decision, where a congressman's opinion could matter. Sestak thought about it, and suggested: Instead of charging more to drive Pennsylvania, why not soak the state's emergent natural gas industry?

He dusted off data Gov. Rendell used in arguing unsuccessfully for a gas tax earlier this year, and calculated that a tax comparable to what West Virginia and other gas states charge would, by 2014, raise more than what the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission told the Federal Highway Administration it would collect if allowed to toll I-80. Sestak says upstate Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D., Pa.) also is interested.

I love this. Rather than do the hard and right choice, the suggestion is to tax producers in another field entirely, natural gas production--where the tax would be paid for ultimately by end users of natural gas products in many states, to subsidize driving within Pennsylvania.

This is nonsensical. And a classic definition of "rent seeking" behavior.

Like most everybody, when I drive I'd rather not pay more to do so. But I do recognize a subsidy when I see one, and I refuse to lie to myself about it.

Also see the Inquirer op-ed "Pa. must toll I-80 or face a transportation crisis." From the article:

Why toll I-80? Because driving in Pennsylvania is too cheap. Taxes and fees don't cover the real costs of roads and fuel, which are heavily subsidized. Take away the subsidies and many people would have to cut back on driving or give it up. Take away the subsidies, and the costs of goods and services delivered by trucks would increase dramatically.

Can we do nothing? No, that's expensive, too. Our roads and bridges are deteriorating. Transit facilities need upgrading. Energy demand is trending upward worldwide, outstripping supplies. Gasoline prices are rising. Traffic congestion is getting worse.

Cheap driving is just too expensive. The solution comes in two parts:

Start charging realistically for the use of highways.

Promote cheaper alternatives such as rail freight, public transportation, car sharing, transit-oriented development, walking, and biking.

New toll revenues won't end our transportation funding problems, but without those funds Pennsylvania cannot avoid a statewide transportation crisis. With no tolling of I-80, by July 2010 the state will see a drop of $466 million in funding for highways and transit. We will see further deterioration in what we have - plus more expensive repair and operating bills. Like the old Fram oil filter ads used to say, you can pay now, or you can pay later.

On the other hand, Joseph Kelly pens a letter in response stating that tolling should be considered more widely, writing:

Peter Javsicas stated that the road must be tolled, "Because driving in Pennsylvania is too cheap." That may or may not be true, but his argument does not explain why I-80 should be singled out. Wouldn't it make better sense to toll all limited-access highways in Pennsylvania?

The number of vehicles that use I-95 in Pennsylvania would generate tremendous revenue that could be used to solve the transportation woes he writes about. The same is true of I-81, especially south of Harrisburg, and I-78.

Perhaps the reason that those highways are not included in the tolling proposals is that a much larger portion of the commonwealth's population would be incited to protest those fees. I-80 passes through sparsely populated areas, so tolling there carries less political risk.

In fact, the fairest way to raise the revenue that is supposedly needed would be to uniformly raise gasoline and fuel taxes throughout the state. That way, the burden would be shared equally. Of course, all legislators would equally share their constituents' displeasure on Election Day, so that solution will never see the light of day.

Metrobus ad #2

Use photos like these to illustrate Georgetown, transit and excitement. (For people interested in thinking about these kinds of issues, see the discussion on "Community Branding, Image Development and Advertising" starting on page 35 in the commercial district revitalization framework report I helped produce for Cambridge Maryland.)

Glimpsed: Meli Patisserie & Bistro. (Baltimore Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron / May 15, 2009)


Glimpsed: Green Spring Station, Lorrie Ball. (Baltimore Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam / May 29, 2009)


Glimpsed: City Cafe, Aaron Smith. (Photo by Colby Ware, Special to The Baltimore Sun / November 1, 2009)


Buses and glamour, Philadelphia.

What's wrong with this Metrobus ad? (Express, 11/17/2009, p. 7)

Metrobus ad, Express, 11/17/2009
Originally uploaded by rllayman

At first, I looked at this and thought, "wow, it's graphically attractive." But that reaction passed very quickly.

When I first came to Washington, I worked for a consumer group that publishes one of the largest circulation newsletters in North America, a newsletter with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. (In fact, one of my ideas makes them about $3 million/year, even though it took them 6 years to implement it...)

It was a great opportunity to learn about direct marketing, which is focused on results, response, tracking, and testing.

The big thing in direct marketing is to make your ads/mailings etc. be actionable--meaning there is a response device or the information necessary to make you act the way the marketer desires and intends.

1. This isn't the image that depicts why people go to Georgetown. Think images of shopping, positive street activity, night life, instead of this sedate postcard view.

These aren't great images, but you get the idea that the point of Georgetown is vibrancy not somnambulance.




2. Mention that parking is expensive and traffic sucks, especially on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. (Show a photo of a sign saying how much it costs to park in one of the parking garages...)

3. List the bus routes that serve Georgetown!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How do you expect people to use the bus to get to Georgetown if they don't know what buses to use?

4. This is tricky because the Circulator and Georgetown Connector buses (the latter providing service between the Rosslyn and Dupont Circle Metro stations via Georgetown) aren't run by WMATA, but are paid for out of DC funds. (WMATA does have a management relationship somehow with the Circulator, but the service is basically run by a division of the Downtown DC Business Improvement District.)

So marketing the idea of less traffic, use transit, etc., is complicated here because WMATA isn't the only stakeholder.

5. Although my point that if DC would create transportation management districts, TMDs such as within Georgetown could market better transportation decisionmaking -- like using public transit.

6. AND DON"T FORGET to mention that you can get to Georgetown via Metro by getting off at the Rosslyn station and walking across the Key Bridge.

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I would have done this ad differently, with a collage of photos showing shopping, dining, entertainment, and transportation, the street etc.

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Note that many other cities do a better job of marketing transit. Many places will run ads and include information on how to get there by various modes, including transit. You'd think this would happen more here, given the prevalence of the subway system. But it doesn't show up as much as you'd expect.

Georgetown Connector bus.

Bicycles and fashion

The editor of Self Magazine, Lucy Danziger, rides a bicycle rather than use a car service provided by the publisher, Conde Nast. See "An Editor Is Trading Car Service for a Bike" from the New York Times.

And they have nice bicycle rack facilities in the Conde Nast building, providing an example that other commercial property owners and managers can learn from.

Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times. The bicycle racks in the basement of the Condé Nast building.

Changing the land use development paradigm towards intensification: in the suburbs and in the center city

One of the reasons for the most part I am writing a lot less is that I am more interested in writing "integrative" posts synthesizing a bunch of grand points and ideas, because the day to day stuff tends to illustrate meta-ideas and frameworks that people often fail to perceive--and I have a lot less time because I do a brutal bike-railroad-walk-bus commute to and from work each day that takes hours. (And such posts take a couple hours to write.)

Anyway, I am working in a county in Maryland that definitely has a deconcentrated land use paradigm, despite many progressive land use policies, a place that is traditionally called "sprawl." Its road pattern is based on connections from Baltimore, and these days, when the center city is no longer as central a location for jobs and other activities, there isn't a satisfactory road network that moves people east-west and around the County, other than the Interstates.

In such an environment, promoting walking and bicycling is difficult for at least three reasons. First, the road network is focused on Baltimore and isn't the kind of grid road network that provides a plethora of alternate routes (it's an angled star of routes emanating for the most part from Baltimore), some of which could better accommodate bicycling than others. Second, the roads for the most part are narrow and/or traffic engorged, and it is difficult to find the space to add bicycle lanes. Third, because of the spread of distance between residential areas and amenities and activity centers, even though we can improve the environment for bicycling and walking in many places, the problem is that there aren't amenities present within a couple miles of people's homes.

See, the national research shows that 40% of household trips are 3 miles or less, and the idea in transportationally oriented walking and bicycling is to shift as many of these trips as possible away from the automobile. But if there aren't services and destinations present (other than civic assets such as schools, parks, libraries, and recreational centers) there is less reason to take up utilitarian-oriented walking and biking.

But in neighborhoods with the right spatial patterns and accessible amenities, even in what otherwise is termed suburban sprawl, people will walk and bicycle, and kids will even walk to school.

So the whole argument about intensification of land use practices (i.e. "Leggett taking more hands-on approach to growth policy" from the Gazette) in Montgomery County, Maryland is fascinating to me, both in terms of my learnings and understandings based on living in DC for a couple decades, witnessing both the decline and rise of the center city, and my having to deal with this as a planner in the Baltimore region (at least through the course of my project, which ends next July), in a county that is similar to Montgomery, but with an even greater dependence on the automobile, and less in the way of robust transit resources (Montgomery has a number of stations on the high capacity red line subway, which connects to four other lines, and one of the best suburban bus operations in the U.S., plus Metrobus services, even if their County Dept. of Transportation isn't as progressive as we think, "riding" on their two decade old decision to create RideOn ever since).

The Gazette this week is full of letters about how rebuilding the Safeway supermarket in Montgomery County's Wheaton community (last week's article which touched this off, "Planners hope Safeway would revive Wheaton"), a site which is a bit farther from the subway station than the Safeway on Georgia Avenue is from the Petworth station in DC (which I figure is destined for a similar kind of intensification), into a mixed use development with a supermarket on the ground floor (just like at CityVista at 5th and L Streets NW) and apartments-condominiums above, is a disaster of major proportions.

Safeway at 5th and L Streets NW. In October, I was riding by here early one Saturday morning on the way to catch a Chinatown bus to Philadelphia, and there was a guy walking on one of the streets, maybe 4th or 5th, on the other (north) side of New York Avenue, and even though the Avenue is a traffic engorged street, in the area around the Safeway it starts to get calmer. And I was thinking, how great would it be to live on one of these tree lined streets in a nice rowhouse, and be able to walk two blocks to the grocery (especially great now that Safeway has significantly decreased their prices on thousands of items--they used to be much higher priced than Giant), a hardware store, restaurants and other retail shops, and downtown. That adding amenities like this, albeit they come with additional residents, strengthens the city and strengthens neighborhoods, and makes it easier to get around without an automobile.

These are the letters:

- "Wheaton planners' approach myopic"
- "Smart Growth needs common sense"
- "Development running amok "

While I agree with one of the letter writers that having 400 parking places for a 500 unit building is too much, he sees this as leading to more congestion, I see it as way too much space for cars given the proximity to the subway station, and that the real myopia is to continue to plan primarily for automobility.

It makes me think about the various arguments I have to deal with in my own job, but also the difficulties we have in DC, trying to make the same kinds of decisions, not downtown, where intensification is accepted and is having incredible positive benefits, but at subway stations in other parts of the city that have been traditionally much less densely developed.

People on the street at 555 Massachusetts Ave. NW. These days people walk up and down Massachusetts Avenue, with dogs and/or children, when less than 10 years ago, it was desolate (true in part because it was being land banked for intensification), with few pedestrians other than those seeking nearby social services, homeless, and people seeking the services of transvestite prostitutes working on K Street NW. Now the area is becoming a desirable place to live.

As Denise Richards would say, "it's complicated."

1. Yes, these outer DC neighborhoods haven't been densely developed historically;
2. But density is a relative concept;
3. DC needs to leverage the location of high capacity transit in order to get return on investment for the billions of dollars spent on the subway system, to get more residents paying income, property, and sales taxes;
4. and to have more residents in neighborhoods supporting local commercial districts, providing eyes on the street, etc.;
5. because in this century, trends and attitudes favor urban living, rather than living in the suburbs and it is an opportunity that the center city can capitalize upon;
6. which is a decidedly different time from when the city was shrinking in population and businesses and the municipal government functioned even worse than it does now;
7. And it is reasonable to reconsider/consider surgical increases in density at subway stations specifically especially in other parts of the city despite overall neighborhood density and historical patterns to reflect this century and the city's needs of this century, rather than how things were being done from 1887 to 1920, as long as it can be done sensitively, in ways that strengthen neighborhoods rather than diminish neighborhoods.

This development is on top of the west side of Georgia Avenue exit for the Petworth Metro station, and had previously served as bus bays.

The developments at the Georgia Avenue subway station (Petworth), which are located in a more densely developed area (mostly rowhouses and apartment buildings) of the city, are demonstrating how multiunit buildings can be sensitively and attractively inserted in mid-density areas. And how this contributes to other improvements in the greater neighborhood.

New neighborhood plaza in Columbia Heights, created as part of a public realm improvements plan associated with new development on 14th Street NW.

But neighborhoods like Brookland and the Fort Totten (Riggs Park, Michigan Park, and other neighborhoods) aren't as populated as neighborhoods in the core of the city, and 5 or 6 story buildings seem out of place in neighborhoods that are mostly two story attached and detached houses, even though such buildings, in areas of the city that have a more variegated building typology (mix of commercial, apartments, medium sized buildings, rowhouses, etc.) are not unusual.

So redevelopment projects targeting Brookland, specifically on deaccessioned land from Catholic University along Monroe Street (see "Brookland and Abdo Getting Closer to New Development" from DC MUD) and eventually at the Brookland subway station, and with the redevelopment of low density garden apartments adjacent to the Fort Totten Metro station are more controversial ("Mixed-use projects in District advance: Retail, housing centers on deck for Fort Totten, Brookland in NE" "An uptown vision for a '50s neighborhood: Foundation plans new housing, retail and arts space near Fort Totten, but tenants are anxious," and the editorial saying don't be scared, "A future for Fort Totten: Shops and housing for a D.C. neighborhood" from the Post).

The reality is that while yes, more traffic is generated when you add population, but it's going to happen anyway but with a robust transit network as is present in DC, as much as 50% of the trips made by people who live within a short distance of the subway system are made via transit, reducing car usage significantly. And with more transit users, adding more transit service becomes possible, further reducing automobile trips.

I see the results of these changes as a regular bicycle rider on the city's streets.

While I don't record my observations on a day to day basis, there is no question that on many of the city's major streets, traffic is less than it was, even though the city's population is increasing. Sure, these days, the recession is impacting traffic. But I have been noticing this for years. Even in dense areas of the city, during rush hour periods, I can ride my bicycle through red lights because of the lack of oncoming traffic. (I am a fervent proponent of the Idaho stop...)

But most people don't seem to see this real and fundamental change, so on a different scale, DC has the same kinds of issues that they have in Montgomery County in terms of changing the land utilization paradigm, and we haven't been very good about educating people, even though the DC Office of Planning has at least one excellent publication that explains many of the issues, Trans-Formation: Recreating Transit-Oriented Neighborhood Centers in Washington, DC.

DC did do station area plans (in the 1970s) in advance of the subway. And in some parts of the city, citizens fought off plans for intensification. The funny thing is that I am glad they did it--then and only then--because the prevailing design sensibility and perceived value of the city was focused around the urban renewal ideal, so new buildings at subway stations would have looked like this (see below) and that wouldn't have strengthened the city or the neighborhoods. Instead it would have created a new kind of blight that would need to be redeveloped now, just as the Waterside Mall and other areas of southwest DC are being redeveloped today--and that area was one of the national pilots for urban renewal planning in general.

Delta Towers on Florida Avenue NE in the H Street neighborhood is a senior housing apartment building constructed as a result of the post-riot H Street Urban Renewal Plan. Imagine this in Columbia Heights or Petworth or Takoma.

But now, it's possible--if you demand it, and the jury is out--to get quality design. It's not a regular occurrence, but it does happen. Fort Totten is pretty bad thus far. But the new developments by the Columbia Heights and Petworth stations are pretty good. The developments by the Takoma Metro are about 1/3 each very good, good-acceptable, and abominable.

It is very much dependent on the quality concerns of the developers. Quality design does pay, reaping higher returns, especially in DC, but even in DC the payback period is longer, and developers more focused on the quick return and flipping aren't concerned about the higher paybacks because their business model means that they won't own the property when it starts gushing profit.

This is why developers like Abdo Development, Chris Donatelli, PN Hoffman etc. are to be preferred over most of the others. For the most part, they care about design quality. Too many other developers do not.

I hope that with quality projects, more people will see the value of quality development, and more people will come to understand the link between intensification of land use and the availability of walkable-bikeable-transit accessible amenities within neighborhoods across the city, and accessible by residents from many neighborhoods. (In any case, most DC neighborhoods lack the population density to support complete commercial districts within their neighborhoods as a minimum of 20,000 people is required to support a local commercial district, and 30,000 people are required to support a high quality supermarket and related stores.)

And hopefully they will see how "better" development leveraging access to high quality transit reduces road congestion overall.

And that elected officials, rather than caving in to most demands from developers, will demand excellence instead of mediocrity, and take care to steward the future of the city for generations, not just worry about today's seeming crisis and request from a developer focused on an even shorter time frame than elected officials (4 year terms for elected officials...).

Rendering, loft style "Arts Walk" building, proposed Brookland-Catholic University development by the Abdo Development Company.

You are always in my heart mural "graffiti" on a vacant rowhouse adjacent to E. Lafayette Street, Baltimore

Mural "graffiti" on a vacant rowhouse adjacent to E. Lafayette Street, Baltimore
Originally uploaded by rllayman

I find it amazing that within a few blocks of Penn Station, Baltimore's train station providing Amtrak and MARC commuter passenger rail service, that there are hundreds of vacant rowhouse buildings, and of course, many empty lots where rowhouses once stood.

I think the mural refers to someone who might have once lived in the house.

A couple blocks away from here on E. Lanvale Street is another mural painted with the names of people in the neighborhood who have either died of natural causes or had been murdered. I'm not sure which. There are more than 20 names/nicknames on the mural.

Street construction project sign in Silver Spring with an information box so people can pick up information about the project

Street construction project sign in Silver Spring with an information box so people can pick up information about the project
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Flower "mural" on a vacant commercial building, 7th Street NW, near the Convention Center, Washington, DC

Flower "mural" on a vacant commercial building, 7th Street NW, near the Convention Center, Washington, DC
Originally uploaded by rllayman

MCI Center and Abe Pollin: let's accurately report all the history

Yes, Abe Pollin was great for moving the professional sports teams, the Washington Wizards basketball team, and the Washington Capitols hockey team, from Prince George's County to 7th Street NW in Downtown DC, which did reanchor 7th Street and the East End of the central business district.

See for example, the pieces by Washington Post sports columnists Michael Wilbon, "A man who reached out to others: Pollin built a franchise, an arena and friendships" and Mike Wise, "Long-standing loyalty" and two op-eds, "The endless gifts of Abe Pollin" by Colbert King, and "What a dreamer built in D.C." by John Feinstein.

Photo and caption from the Washington Post: Abe Pollin put $220 million of his own money into building Verizon Center. (Toni L. Sandys/the Washington Post).

And he did this while Marion Barry was still mayor, when most developers and key businesses did not want to invest in DC, because despite the presence of the federal government, things felt iffy. The final agreement was hammered out in 1995, and it wasn't until 2003 that reinvestment in DC, especially in Downtown was happening in earnest.

Remember that in 1988 the region went into a real estate recession which hit DC harder and longer than most of the rest of the region (which is different from what is happening today, in part because of the investments of people like Abe Pollin into strengthening the "amenities" and quality of life infrastructure in the center city). The real estate recession started ending around 2000, after Anthony Williams became DC's Mayor after the 1998 election.

So Abe Pollin's investment in DC in the mid-1990s, at the time was particularly significant. And this should be acknowledged and praised.

From the King piece:

Pollin is the man who almost single-handedly brought Washington, D.C., back to life.

And he did it with his own money and at great risk. His decision to move the Wizards from Largo to Gallery Place in 1997 was a big gamble, made even more dicey because he also decided to build a state-of-the art arena where the pro basketball team would play its games. That decision to invest so much in a ghost town began the renaissance of downtown Washington.

HOWEVER, what none of these stories is mentioning is that if Robert Johnson, the then owner of District Cablevision and Black Entertainment Television, hadn't publicly challenged Abe Pollin, and offered to both buy the team and fully pay the cost of building a new arena in downtown DC with his own financing, probably Abe Pollin would have received a fair amount of public money to build the arena, not just the infrastructure. So it would have been built not just with his own money, but with $90 million in public monies, just as the city was careening towards bankruptcy.

Plus, in the last couple years the Wizards have received TIF funding for further upgrades, and that money could have been used for other priorities. See "Wizards Owner's $50 Million Request Gets Initial Approval" from the Post.

See:

-- "The D.C. Arena Deal; Pollin Says He'll Pay for Sports Complex; Team Owner's Offer Would Relieve City Of $90 Million Share, 12/29/1994 from the Post.

-- "Cable TV Head Offers D.C. New Game Plan for Arena; Johnson Would Back Bonds for Chance at Bullets" from the Post, 11/4/1994.

Competition is a good thing.

It's very very very hard, but sometimes you get quality urban infill

14th and U Streets NW, circa 1950s, Scurlock Studios photo, National Museum of American History.


Older intact commercial buildings at 14th and P Streets NW

When I first started being involved in revitalization issues I had plenty to learn. At the outset--remember that it was not until 2003 that "revitalization" within DC really hit its stride--when I would see footings and foundations for new development, I would be positively excited, expecting good things from the investment.

Mostly, I would end up disappointed, because the finished work was usually crap.

Even so most people would argue along the lines of "something is better than nothing" even if that something was very very mediocre.

I would respond that after waiting this long, it makes sense to make things much better, rather than just accept mediocrity. This line:

"Better than concrete block shouldn't be the standard that we are satisfied with" comes from that era.

Given the amount of bad infill in the vicinity of 14th and U Street NW, from the Reeves building to one story commercial junk (in the place of better buildings that were destroyed during the 1968 riots), finally seeing some decent buildings being constructed in the place of empty lots-used car dealerships at the "100% intersection" in the neighborhood is good to see.

The two buildings to the left of the corner building have been constructed over the past 18 months.

It's too bad that I don't have photos of the the west side of the block between T and U on 14th Street, and between 13th and 14th Streets on the south side of U Street, to show the lousy one story buildings next to the Rite Aid.

Partly this is about maximizing the value of the land, and recognizing that building appearance contributes to property value and supports higher rents. The urban renewal era didn't care much about design, according value only to the location.

Blind Pedestrains street sign, near 4th and Oglethorpe NW

Blind Pedestrains street sign, near 4th and Oglethorpe NW
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Wrecking the architectural details of a(n eligible for designation as) historic rowhouse, Baltimore (Lafayette Street?)

Wrecking the architectural details of a(n eligible for designation as) historic rowhouse, Baltimore (Lafayette Street?)
Originally uploaded by rllayman

It's all relative: conditions shaping road speeds and safe, comfortable places

There is a paper out from the University of Connecticut on "Designing Roads that Guide Drivers to Choose Safer Speeds;" by John N. Ivan, Norman W. Garrick, and Gilbert Hanson, University of Connecticut, Connecticut Transportation Institute; for Connecticut Department of Transportation; JHR 09-321 Project 04-6. November 2009

From the summary:

"This report describes an investigation into whether or not physical characteristics of the roadway and the roadside environment are associated with actual vehicle running speeds, and how actual vehicle running speeds are associated with the occurrence and severity of motor vehicle crashes in conjunction with other roadway and roadside characteristics.

"Actual vehicle running speeds were observed at about 300 locations in urban, suburban and rural areas across Connecticut, at locations without horizontal curves or traffic control devices. Only vehicles traveling through the section unimpeded either by leading or turning vehicles were observed in order to get true free flow traffic speeds. Roadway and roadside characteristics were observed, and statistical prediction models were estimated to learn more about how free flow vehicle speed, roadway and roadside characteristics and crash incidence and severity are related. The factors associated with higher average running speeds are wide shoulders, large building setbacks and a residential location.

"The factors associated with lower average running speeds are on-street parking, sidewalks and a downtown or commercial location. These findings suggest that drivers slow down where the road feels 'hemmed-in' or there is noticeable street activity, and they speed up where the road feels 'wide open' or street activity is less noticeable. This finding is not surprising, but these relationships are quite strong in the observed data, and it is a useful result to isolate this short list of factors that are significantly correlated with actual vehicle running speeds.

"These findings demonstrate that through careful, intentional selection of roadway and roadside design elements, it is possible to influence the running speed of traffic on a road. It appears that drivers indeed take cues from elements of the roadway and roadside environment to decide how fast to drive and these cues are independent of the posted speed limit and other considerations that might be important to the community for reducing speeds.

"So the good news is that it is possible to influence drivers' choice of speed through design of roadway and roadside elements; but the bad news is that many existing roads cue drivers to travel much faster than the posted speed limit and the community would like."

The point about relativity is this. The study compared suburban styled streets to center city and town styled (urban) streets. And people don't drive as fast in the city compared to the roads they studied, true.

But people still drive plenty fast in the city, at speeds that are inappropriate in the context (residential streets, commercial districts, etc.), and there needs to be a more significant research focus on this particular problem.

The issues are pretty much the same. Roads are engineered to allow high speeds regardless of the context or posted limit. In other words, all roads in cities are mostly paved to the same standards, whether or not the posted speed is supposed to be 15 mph or 50 mph. And this allows for high speeds.

This is one of the reasons why I am a big proponent of the use of Belgian block (or how 7th Street SE has been reconstructed adjacent to Eastern Market) the predominant pavement on city streets, especially around parks and circles, schools, libraries and other civic buildings, and in neighborhood commercial districts.

7th Street SE in front of Eastern Market.

The block in front of Eastern Market is closed to automobile traffic on the weekends (which is still controversial to the merchants). This makes me realize that in the restoration of the 700 block of C Street SE as a through street, which will happen with the redevelopment of the Hine School site ("Stanton-EastBanc Will Develop Former Hine School Site" from the Washington City Paper), that we should have that street constructed with pavement similar to that on 7th Street SE.


Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia.

Belgian block provides better visual, aural, and physical cues to drive slower and could and should be more widely deployed to bring about context-sensitive and attractive traffic calming within neighborhoods, commercial districts, and other places in the city.

Also see:

-- We can Rebuild our roads, but we need to broaden our focus, and (re)build a better transportation system -- which discusses in part Missouri's road building philosophy of "good enough" but in the urban context

-- (Sub)Urban Driving Manifesto -- which discusses in part how the environment is managed within Graz, Austria, where there are only two posted speed limits 30 kph and 50 kph, that's 18.6 and 31 mph respectively.

Relatedly, the Town of Edmonston just had an inauguration of their "green street" project. See "Remaking Main Street" from the Baltimore Sun and "Prince George's hamlet gets high-profile help with 'green' project" from the Washington Post.

It's a form of traffic calming too, but rather than a speed pimple (bump or hump) the overall environment is constructed in a way that achieves multiple objectives concerning improvement of place, including slowing down the prevailing speed of automobiles and other vehicles.

Graphic from the Baltimore Sun.

From the Baltimore Sun article:

This little town in the paved-over heart of suburban Washington, where cows grazed long ago, is "greening" its main street — showing what Baltimore and other cities in the region may need to do to help save the Chesapeake Bay.

In a bid to make the working-class community of 1,500 more walkable and environmentally friendly, Edmonston has begun a $1.1 million makeover of busy Decatur Street, narrowing the two-lane residential thoroughfare to make room for pollution-absorbing trees and grasses, a bike lane and energy-efficient, classic-looking street lamps to be run on wind power purchased from out of state.

"Our priority is to redefine the American main street and get it from top to bottom as sustainable and community-oriented as possible," explained Adam Ortiz, the town's part-time mayor. He and other town officials celebrated Tuesday the recent launch of construction work by showing it off to state and federal officials, including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.

This neighborhood street roundabout on Fern Street in Silver Spring is another urban design/placemaking strategy. (Seattle does the same kind of thing, but with much smaller median circles.)

Update on deer management opportunities in urban regions

The New York Times reports on urban locavores (people who focus on consuming foods from within their region) and urban hunting of deer, in "The Urban Deerslayer." (Ironically, last weekend I was watching a bit of an episode of "Gordon Ramsey's F Word" tv show, and he walked into the restaurant with a recently killed deer, and took it in the kitchen to be butchered.)

Michael Temchine for The New York Times. NO TROPHY, NO DINNER Nick Chaset helped found a hunting society for urban neophytes. He shot the deer above in Virginia.

From the article:

It was a taste for wild boar that spurred Nick Zigelbaum, 26, and Nick Chaset, 27, to form a hunting and dining club in San Francisco that they call the Bull Moose Hunting Society. The society, founded in 2007, was designed to appeal to young urban residents looking to expand their horizons.

The club now has roughly 55 dues-paying members, many of them in their 20s and 30s, who hunt for boar, pheasant and waterfowl together. They share local hunting knowledge and the spoils of a good day in the field at semi-regular events they call boar-b-ques and wild food dinners.

Mr. Chaset, who is now attending graduate business school in Washington, D.C., recently established a chapter of the club there. The founders hope that someday they’ll have a chapter in every major American urban area.

Also from the NY Times, "Slaughterhouse Live - You Be the Butcher."

Ryan Farr gives a whole-pig lecture. Image: David Barzelay/eatfoo.com.

Go solar in DC...

From email:

The Capitol Hill Energy Co-op is helping homeowners find out how to get started with solar energy.

Did you know that DC and Federal incentives can pay for up to 70% of the project cost? Did you know that many systems will pay for themselves in less than 5 years?

Come to our meeting on December 8th at 7pm at the Capitol Hill United Methodist Church located at 421 Seward Square SE, Washington, DC 20003 to have all your questions answered and sign up for solar site assessments. This meeting is specifically for those that are just starting to explore solar energy. Come learn how to lower your energy bills and your carbon footprint.

The first set of co-op members are moving forward with solar panel installations on their roofs this Spring. The co-op has worked with the DC Department of Environment to streamline the application process for getting renewable energy rebates, and has also formed a partnership with several solar companies to provide competitive bids and preferred prices for co- op members.

To sign up for email updates on the project, join our google group by going to our website and joining from the "Solar Roof Project" pages.
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Also see:

- RETHINKING THE ROWHOME (from Baltimore's Urbanite Magazine)

- Greening Buildings - Rowhouse to Empire State Building from the Enchanting Challenge Blog on Social Entrepreneurship

- "Where the jobs are greener" from the Allentown Morning Call (originally from the LA Times)

In this May 8, 2009 photo, Len Bicknell walks from his house to his garage where his solar energy panels are mounted on the roof in Marshfield, Mass. Bicknell's home is fitted with both thermal panels for hot water production and electric solar panels for energy production. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

Inter-city bus services

While I do think every day bus service, even if sexy "bus rapid transit" is not likely to compete very well for choice riders, the Chinese buses have spawned branded competitors (Megabus, Bolt Bus, others) that are competing against Amtrak in the Northeast.

Plus, Megabus started off with a similar kind of service in the Midwest, based out of Chicago, before moving into the Northeast-Mid-Atlantic market. See "Bus service offers options, fare deals" from the Wisconsin State-Journal.

I always figured it was a service that appealed to people mostly concerned about price. But with the addition of wifi service, electricity outlets, etc., the Bolt and Megabus offerings (among others) become a kind of premium service.

The problem with regular "mass" transit on the train is that for two or more people, it's typically cheaper to drive. With Megabus/Bolt it isn't, especially if you manage to score one of the limited number of extremely cheap seats. And you can multitask--read or use the computer--rather than sit in the car (I can't read in cars or on regular buses, but I can on motorcoaches, subway cars, or railroad cars).

Megabus-Bolt and similar services bring regularity and "legibility" to the bus trip in a way that the chaotic "Chinese" bus services do not. See "In Chinatown, a $10 Trip Means War; Weary Owners Struggle to Stay Afloat" from the New York Times.

And I was surprised to look at the line up at the Bolt Bus stop adjacent to Penn Station in Baltimore last Wednesday and see many "older people" (in their late 50s and older), not just hipsters and youth.

See "Cheaper prices, free access to the Internet, driving local, US ridership higher" and "Megabus builds up buses on busy route," the latter which discusses the use of double deck buses, from the Boston Globe.

PG County "Envisioning" process

1. Remember that people in Prince George's County don't like it when you refer to the County as PG...

2. They have a visioning process going on now. See "Residents lend a hand in planning the future of Prince George's" from the Gazette. (It's similar to the Growth Policy process in Montgomery County.)

3. Interestingly (and worth going to just to observe), one of the sessions is just for youth. Forums still to be held are scheduled for Dec. 1 in Oxon Hill and Dec. 3 in Landover. A youth forum will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 5 in College Park.

4. Residents interested in participating should visit the website, Envision Prince George's or call 301-952-3594.

5. From the website, which includes a blog and a comment section for residents and stakeholders:

Envision Prince George’s is a call to action to develop and implement a vision for our county with a vibrant economy and high quality of life for all. Envision Prince George’s will mobilize and empower county stakeholders to be directly involved in creating their future as the County continues to grow and prosper over the next two decades and beyond. Through a series of community forums and other activities, Prince Georgians will develop a shared vision for the county and take action to make that commitment real. To review our in-depth guide to the Opportunities and Challenges facing the County, please download the Envision Participant Guide.

Balancing land use conflicts, especially over industry, can be very difficult

Image from the Broken Sidewalk blog.

It happens that I have walked past the Swift hog butchering plant in Louisville's Butchertown and I can attest to the fact that it smells "earthy." At the same time, the plant has been there for 43 years and employs 1,300 people directly, probably another 700 people are employed indirectly (employment multiplier), the plant generates property taxes, etc.

But according to "Trendy District Roasts Hog Plant" in the Wall Street Journal:

The Butchertown Neighborhood Association wants JBS to move the plant -- and its $47 million annual payroll and nearly $100,000 in yearly real-estate and property taxes -- somewhere else, preferably in the Louisville area. "It's been an ongoing nuisance for people in the area," says Jonathan Salomon, a 34-year-old Butchertown resident and attorney representing the group. "We don't want to see anybody, especially during these times, put out on the street. But...we have to look at what kind of economic growth is good for the neighborhood."

People don't seem to fathom that moving the plant is neither a simple nor an inexpensive process. To force the plant to move, in all likelihood the City would have to pick up the costs associated with it. That likely would be tens of millions of dollars.

So decisions have to be made about costs and benefits. It's not like the Louisville Metropolitan region is growing like gangbusters. To make that up via increased investment within Butchertown will take decades. And can $30 million to $50 million be spent differently and generate a greater return on investment?

If I lived there, I would probably not want the plant there either. But it has been there for 40+ years. Therefore, I wouldn't have chosen to live there maybe. But maybe not. Many people have invested there figuring the plant would eventually move.

For the pro-neighborhood perspective, see "Land Use And The Future Of Butchertown" and "Swift Battle Affects More Than Butchertown" from Louisville's Broken Sidewalk blog.

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Note that while for most of the time I have lived in DC and the environs (for about 2 years total of 22 years here I lived at different times in different parts of PG or MontCo) I have lived near railroad tracks--mostly by Union Station--and could hear train whistles.

But I have to say that I wouldn't want to live too close to an outdoor subway station because the noise due to braking and acceleration of the trains is pretty loud. And I don't live on major bus routes (any more) because I don't like the noise and the vibrations (old rowhouses with limited foundations and no basements are subject to serious vibration from the weight of the buses, which I know from personal experience). I make those choices.

An example of why even generally good Councilmembers ought not to be legislating transportation routes

(buses, streetcars, etc.)

Will sends us a link to this story in Voice of the Hill, "City Officials map out streetcar plan." Councilmember Tommy Wells of Ward 6 is generally pretty damn good on transportation issues. But all councilmembers tend to waffle when it comes to making cost-benefit decisions on bus routes* and other transportation issues, especially parking, when it comes to facing the potential wrath of voters, funders, and other constituencies, especially the well organized long-time groups.

From the article:

Some neighborhoods might entirely reject the prospect of a streetcar. Wells himself has already voiced opposition to the two lines proposed for 8th Street SE (Barracks Row), instead suggesting that they should be moved farther east to 19th, 15th or 14th streets to promote development in Hill East, where an enormous mixed-used complex is planned for the site of the old D.C. General Hospital.

DC streetcar being prepared for shipment to the U.S. DDOT photo. Also see "D.C.'s Streetcars Finally Being Shipped from Czech Republic" from DCist.

Why else would Councilmember Wells suggest that a streetcar route not be placed on 8th Street SE--where there is a business district that needs more patrons--else why would Capitol Hill Bikes being going out of business, at least temporarily, and the retail as opposed to the entertainment-tavern-restaurant establishments continues to shrink--and there is a major activity center (Navy Yard) a subway stop (Eastern Market) and the ability to continue the route to the Baseball Stadium--and instead be placed on roads that do not serve "activity centers," although the addition of development to "Reservation 13" could justify the addition of streetcar service there some day, when the development is close to happening.

Note that given the number of foreclosures of major developments such as Senate Square, located two blocks from Union Station, it will be many many years before development in Reservation 13/the RFK Stadium/Armory area is substantively realized. Make them pay for streetcar hookups (called "proffers") and meanwhile be concerned about assisting the improvement and success of the commercial districts that already exist.

There is a major problem in "urban revitalization" in that developers and elected and appointed officials often focus on developing "new" places--I call this intra-city sprawl.

Intra-city sprawl usually comes at the expense of "old" places like H Street and 8th Street SE and Pennsylvania Avenue SE--places that already exist--but need help to be able to compete with an ever increasing number of destinations.

* 1. The H Street shuttle duplicates service provided by the X buses and is service for hipsters afraid of regular bus service.

(But I never minded living a few doors down from the H Street commercial district, nor the noise of the delivery trucks serving the stores. And while yes, often I was one of the few whiteys on the bus, the reality is that the X bus line provides a great deal of service for about 22 hours/day. But yes, often there are issues with service, such as bus bunching. We'll see if the improvement process will result in actual improvements. See the Metrobus Benning Road/H Street Line Study website.)

2. The old Navy Yard shuttle bus (N22) had fewer than 3,000 riders/day. Instead of junking this bus (which mostly duplicates service but did provide a connection to Pennsylvania Ave. from Union Station but is indirect because of security restrictions limiting street access in the U.S. Capitol area), instead DC replaced it with a 100% paid for DC bus service, the Circulator, and instead of reducing service due to limited use, service was doubled.

I call these kinds of services political bus services, designed to respond to merchant requests for more service, but generally "more service" especially in areas with a lot of bus service already, complemented by subway service in part isn't the real need.

What is the real need?

Having a better destination, providing people with more reasons to come to your commercial district instead of going somewhere else.

See:

- It's the Reilly Law of Retail Gravitation (stupid)
- The "soft side" of commercial district competition

Transit-mobility stuff

1. Placemaking Institute calls our attention to this September article from the Toronto Star about a condo building constructed with no automobile parking for individual units, but including 315 spaces for bicycles and 9 carsharing spots. See "'Car-free' condo: 42 storeys, no parking: University Ave. project with 315 bicycle spots touted as green model."

I suggested something similar for construction on the land that WMATA wants to sell at the Takoma Station--constructing a multiunit apartment or condo building with no parking for individually owned automobiles, only for shared cars like Zipcar, plus structured parking to support the subway station (ugh) and the commercial distict in both DC and Takoma Park, Maryland. Instead the proposal is to build rowhouses with one to two spaces each for automobiles. (See the 2006 testimony in this blog entry, "Comments on Proposed EYA Development at Takoma Metro.")

Maybe we'll start to see developments marketing their access to bicycle trails and routes? Also see the AP story,Realtors peddle homes to bike-happy clients."

2. The Toronto Star map project has updated its maps on commuting behavior. See "Map of the Week: How we commute, redux," with maps of driving, transit, walking, and bicycling trip data, based on the Canadian Census. Of course, walking and transit use is highest in the core of the city, and driving is more typical the further people live from the core of the Toronto region.

3. If such maps were produced for Seattle, they would likely demonstrate why the idea to pull Seattle transit services out of the King County Metro system might make sense, without changes on the part of King County Metro. According to this entry from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Do we need to pull Seattle Transit out of Metro?":

If the King County Council, dominated by eastside and southside conservative members, insists that Seattle take the lion's share of service cuts, even though in-City buses are already stuffed to the gills, the City of Seattle needs to look seriously at pulling its assets out of Metro and re-establishing Seattle Transit to run in-City (non-suburban) transit service.

As the Toronto maps show, the highest incidence of walking, bicycling, and taking transit to work is in the core of the city. In Seattle's case, there is no question that the bulk of riders on the bus system are Seattle residents. So it doesn't make sense to cut bus service in the places where it is most used, in favor of areas with comparatively less use. The King County Council should make the right decision, based on use, not a political decision that misuses limited public resources.

4. Hip city transportation officials and politicians in Seattle led a "Pedestrian safety dance" (from the P-I) to the song "Men Without Hats" to promote pedestrian safety. See the entry for video from the event.

5. Montgomery County Maryland has three very nice bicycling-sustainable transportation maps for White Oak, Silver Spring, and the Medical Center (National Institutes of Health and the Bethesda National Naval Hospital). These maps are models for promoting bicycling and optimal mobility in key destinations.

6. Although the NoMA Business Improvement District in DC is also doing a nice job of promoting bicycling.

7. I did my first presentation on biking and walking and the County's bicycle and pedestrian planning process for my job. I am positioning the study process along the lines of civic identity and quality of life, rather than bicycling and walking per se. Some points from my presentation outline:

--------
How to Do it/Citizen involvement/A more robust planning process

a. Defining your civic identity and sense of place. Question: What kind of community do you want to live in? Making choices. Fred Kent from PPS: “if you design communities for roads and traffic, you get lots of cars and traffic. If you design communities for people and places, you get people and places.”

b. Focus on Placemaking (Access; Comfort & Image; Uses & Activities; Sociability). [Based on Project for Public Spaces ideas, e.g., "Qualities of Great Streets."}


For this PPS diagram and more information, see Four key qualities of a successful place from the Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago initiative with PPS, Placemaking Chicago.

c. Triangulation: considering needs from at least three vantage points. Multiple perspectives ensures a more accurate assessment of community needs and helps to make choices and set community priorities. (This is a concept applied by David Barth of Glatting Jackson in best practices park planning. See "Parks System Master Plans: Tools for Sustainable Communities.")

d. Active Citizenship. Civic engagement, building support organizations, and the county commitment to walking and bicycling (and transit and transportation demand management and sustainable transportation) by involving concerned and interested citizens more directly.

e. It is important for citizens to not only improve their own household's mobility behaviors while advocating for neighborhood improvements while at the same time simultaneously supporting and advocating for improvements in the walking and bicycling environment throughout the County, and expansion of a connected regional network of recreational trails/greenways.

f. Necessary for residents, elected and appointed officials, government agencies to be on the same page in terms of focusing on placemaking and the importance of bicycling and walking in terms of extending the quality of life and livability in the community, making the County more attractive to investors, businesses, students, and visitors.
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This is designed to get away from the idea of bicyclists and walkers as "the other" in a County where probably 95% of households have cars, and fewer than 7% of trips to work are made by walking, bicycling, or transit. (In DC, it is over 50%, in Montgomery County, it is.)

(See the past blog entry, "Deja vu all over again: the "other" as trail user" which describes a general problem of perception that I have to deal with in the planning process I am managing in order to achieve the goals that I have set out for myself.)

And it is an opportunity for me to shape the planning and public participation process in ways that I wish similar processes had been conducted in planning studies that I have participated in as a citizen or as a stakeholder in DC, but where I wasn't able to shape substantively the scope of work or organization of the study or process.

8. Interesting article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Freewheelers," about the "Old Spokes" bicycling club made up of residents of the Normandy Farms Estate retirement community in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. I intend to use this when dealing with the "cyclists as criminals" arguments that people raise.

9. And I like what Rails to Trails Conservancy did (they have a contract from DC DOT) to do promotion in association with the Metropolitan Branch Trail in DC. See "Children journey into a new world: With 40 free bikes, Rail-to-Trail Conservancy encourages youths to explore eight-mile path" from the Post about how RTC has distributed bicycles to children in neighborhoods abutting the trail.

Reprint of Crime Time (July 2006 blog entry)

AP photo by Evan Vucci.

[The July 18th, 2006 issue of] the Washington Post has three pieces on the front page of the (DC edition) Metro section about DC's crime emergency. One, "Mayor Unveils Emergency Legislation," is about proposals to hire more police officers, fund more officers to work overtime, and legalizing surveillance cameras (given the city's history in violation of civil rights for demonstrators, I have some concern about this).

Another is by the columnist Marc Fisher, "D.C.'s Reaction to Killings Misses the Point," and he writes:

Never mind that crime has been dropping for years, and homicides are actually slightly down from this time last year. No, the city must take action. So Police Chief Charles Ramsey declares a crime emergency.

And in parts of the city where people swallow hard every time they step out of their houses, where every day feels like an emergency, resentment bubbles anew. Across Washington, we fall into another round of competitive suffering, an ugly sport that pits rich against poor and white against black.

Finally, the article "Police Had Suspects' Address," discusses something just as serious, that apparently a previous robbery victim had reported information to the police about the location of the suspects eventually arrested for the subsequent murder:

The information came from a 24-year-old Georgetown woman who was held up June 11 -- three blocks from the place where Senitt later would be slain. She said she provided the address on Robinson Place SE after learning that her credit card was used to make a purchase that was shipped there. ...

Police responded by telling her they could not get an arrest warrant without first doing surveillance at the apartment building and then conducting a lineup to determine whether she could identify suspects. She said she was sure she could identify her attackers and was waiting for a call from the police.

Instead, she said, on July 9 she saw the faces of the men who robbed her flash across a television screen because they had been arrested in Senitt's slaying.

Perhaps one of the biggest problems in dealing with crime in the city comes from a lack of sense of urgency on the part of investigators.

But the article also includes a quote from one of the leaders of the police officers' union, which shows that the average police officer appears to know little about the etiology of crime, especially murder. From the article:

The police work on the Senitt case also is drawing criticism of another sort from the union representing the department's officers. A document obtained by The Post shows that officers from each of the department's seven districts were called to respond to Georgetown the night of the slaying to set up a 20-block perimeter in hopes of catching the suspects.

That is highly unusual and rarely, if ever, happens when homicides occur in other, less affluent districts, said Officer Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police labor committee for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1.

Most murders in the city are crimes of anger and rage and occur between people who know each other. This number is as high as 70-80%. Police can have very limited impact on these types of murders--other than catching people for other crimes, convicting them, and putting them in jail, therefore reducing their ability to commit subsequent crimes, including murder.

The kind of murder that happened in Georgetown is of the type that can be immediately impacted by policing. If Officer Baumann doesn't understand this, he needs either more training or retraining.

You know how it used to be in vogue that cities had campaigns where everyone was supposed to read the same book and have a community conversation about it? Well, if I were mayor, one of the first books I would have people read would be Cities: Back from the Edge, which is one of the best books about bottom-up urban revitalization.

Maybe the second book, and clearly the Metropolitan Police Department needs to have a similar campaign, where every member of the department reads this book and discusses it, is Fixing Broken Windows.

There is a lot of controversy and misinformation about the policing strategy outlined and called for in this book. There are two basic points:

1. How the environment looks communicates to people about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Disorder increases in unkempt areas.

2. The kind of criminals that commit big crimes also commit "small" crimes. So if you don't ignore small crimes, you can have significant impact on the crime rate, because catching people for "small" crimes ends up yielding people who also commit big crimes.

But it's not just the physical order, but the social and cultural order of the community that must be addressed.

A brief in The Atlantic Monthly, where the strategy was first developed in a few articles over a 15 year period, they write in the January 1997 issue:

"We used the image of broken windows to explain how neighobrhoods might decay into disorder and even crime if no one attends faithfully to their maintenance." 'Broken Windows' was a congent argument for emphasizing 'order maintenance' to prevent crime; the ideas it contained became the template first for the NYC Transit Authority's efforts to restore order to the subway and then for the NYC Police Department's new community policing strategy.

The Transit Authority achieved success only after a frustrating ordeal of persuasion and step-by-step implementation [which is described in the book]. The transit police were skeptical. "Where in the hell did you ever get the crazy idea that disorder was police business?" one patrol officer shouted at Kelling, "Our job is fighting crime."

Fighting crime is a lot of things, and the political culture in DC hasn't been supportive of looking at the real issues, some of which Marc Fisher touches upon in his column. Instead, most elected officials are quick to criticize Chief Ramsey, who does have some failings (especially on civil liberties) but who is working diligently to change the race-charged atmosphere of the police department, and get it focused on addressing the fundamental need for change within the department and within the city in which it works.

Or Ward Six City Council Candidate Leo Pinson, who calls for "regime change" in the department, according to this recounting of a recent candidates forum in the Common Denominator, "Council candidate says 'regime change' needed to fix MPD". Pinson, who was a PSA Citizen Coordinator, and is an MPD Volunteer Reserve Officer, reflects the sentiment of the officers, and it appears to lack the grounding in criminology that I would like to see in a City Councilmember.

Most officers grouse that the department makes it very difficult to be effective on the street, that they lean overboard towards perpetrators--e.g., it is easy for someone to file a complaint against an officer for the over use of force, and this leads to many officers becoming quite cautious. But the top echelon of the department merely responds to the political climate in the city. I guarantee you that Chief Ramsey wants criminals in jail...

Pinson is right that a regime change needs to occur, but in two respects the change that is required goes far beyond the department, to: (1) many of the elected officials and (2) within segments of the community that see police as the enemy rather than people working to make our city livable and safe.


---------------------- [added -- at the time of the original entry, the Broken Windows wasn't freely accessible online]

Also see the article "Broken Windows" from the Atlantic Monthly.

This article is from 1982!!!!!!!!!! After 27 years, you'd think it would be possible to have adopted such a focus within many police departments and communities, rather than it still being considered a novel technique!