It's definitely useful as an experiment. And regardless, I think we need to create more pedestrianized areas of a block or more throughout our cities where it can be successful.
But we have plenty of information at our beck and call to shift significantly more trips to sustainable modes without blocking off streets, etc., which is harder to do in the US, because most cities lack the population density of a city like London, and for these to work, you need a lot of people to be able to keep the spaces active and safe.
Note too that some communities saw the creation of Low Traffic Neighborhoods as an imposition and inequitable ("The new road rage: bitter rows break out over UK’s low-traffic
neighbourhoods," Guardian).
But in any case, LTNs seem like a great program:
-- "All About Low Traffic Neighbourhoods," Forest Gate North – Rachel Tripp's councillor blog
-- Liveable Neighbourhoods Programme Guidance, Transport for London
1. Developing places, including infill within existing places, at an intensity that can support transit and proximate amenities able to serve trips without "having to drive." It means creating a set of origins and destinations that operate over comparatively short distances--a grocery store within two miles, rather than 5 miles away, etc. Or having delivery options so you don't have to drive to a store to be able to bring back what you purchase, etc.
People tend to fight this tooth and nail, especially in terms of denser infill development, claiming it will have catastrophic impacts on neighborhood character and quality of life. My experience in DC, where infill is pretty surgical, in commercial districts and on transit station sites, is that it has extranormally positive benefits in terms of adding density in a manner that supports transit and other sustainable modes and the provision of neighborhood retail and other amenities.
2. Creating an integrated set of sustainable modes which work collectively to support not owning a car, not relying primarily on the automobile to get around. I call this the sustainable mobility platform, but used to call it the mobility shed.
Even in DC's outer city, where transit is less frequent and there is less station density for the subway, by combining the various services/modes, it's easy to get around without owning a car.
On our block, we were the only household to do so, but it was not an imposition. A bus line was 2.5 blocks away and a subway station and a substantively sized neighborhood commercial district was 0.75 miles away. Larger commercial districts, accessible by bus, bike, walking, subway, and car share, were 2, 2.5, and 3 miles away.
But for this to work optimally, you need access to multiple modes. Losing one, such as one way car share when Car2Go exited the North American market, makes the system much less viable.
3. Transportation demand management programming and marketing. But another element is programs to assist people in making the transition In the US, there are very few examples of this. This is called Transportation Demand Management and assistance programs are pretty weak and mostly nonexistent.
I have written about that here, mostly wrt biking ("Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs"). Take up of biking as transportation still lags significantly the opportunity it presents. (Although a big problem with biking is trips with two or more people.)
The best way to think about this is that car ownership is heavily marketed and supported. If you want sustainable mobility to be able to compete it has to be equally well marketed and supported ("LimeBike and "scooter lifestyle stores" as an example of forward marketing for sustainable mobility").
The difficulty of finding parking encourages people to shift to other modes. Otherwise, when people living in places where the cost--tangible and intangible--of owning a car is high, like the core of Washington, DC, New York City or Hoboken and Jersey City, New Jersey, where off street parking is rare or expensive and the supply of on-street parking is limited, they manage to "learn" how to do this on their own.
High transit fares can be a disincentive. The cost of transit can be an issue. DC in particular has high cost transit compared to cities like NYC or SF, which have comparatively cheap monthly transit passes.
4. Delivery of goods, ride hailing. WRT the question of pick up and drop off of people and goods, I wasn't sure if that was meant positively or negatively. In fact, pick up and drop off of people and goods can be either. And in appropriate amounts, both are part of the sustainable mobility platform. Taxis of course go back hundreds of years as a mode.
Or if you have e-commerce and a focus on delivery of each item purchased separately, without consolidating deliveries to particular addresses, it's another form of congestion ("How online shopping snarls traffic on city streets," Curbed").
The same goes with people. Uber and other ride hailing services usually induce trips and capture trips that would have otherwise been accomplished by more sustainable means ("Uber and Lyft Admit They're Making Traffic Worse," Bloomberg).
Or you can have what I call intra-neighborhood or tertiary transit services which move people between transit stations, commercial districts, and home, and further encourage people not to drive an automobile.
For people who see driving as the natural and preferred way to get around, and have less demands on their time, they tend to be specifically focused on accomplishing trips/.goals separately, rather than in an integrated fashion.
This is another element of TDM that needs to be constantly marketed and reinforced.
"The street was never the same again," 1953-Ford-magazine-ad-, 50th anniversary, art by Norman Rockwell
It is absolutely wild as s**t. We have never paid more for less transit service in DC than right now! And they still got they hand out. Everyone with an ounce of sense knew giving WMATA another 500/m a yr w/ no accountability was a terrible idea but yet here we are once again!
ReplyDeleteI'm proud of some of the pieces I've written in the past on the fare issue, although I hadn't been "so quick" to criticize WMATA more generally.
ReplyDeleteBasically, because of the federal transit benefit, WMATA could have high fare prices, because for a plurality of riders they weren't paying the bulk of the cost.
WMATA's per trip costs for the train are significantly higher than most peers, except for BART.
This led WMATA to develop a kind of high cost structure. And the jurisdictions were fine with it because high farebox revenues from the subway reduced the annual appropriations they'd have to make otherwise, compared to peer jurisdictions.
But it eventually ran into a ceiling.
And it's complicated by the fact that DC has different goals from the suburbs, other than Arlington. DC and Arlington want to encourage transit (and/or susustainable mobility) first behavior, where the other jurisdictions only see the value of Metrorail in getting people to and from work, and buses as a social service, mobility devices for people who can't afford cars.
They don't see how transit can reshape land use and how reshaped land use can reduce the "need" to drive.
It's also an issue of "short" versus long trips. Long commutes in and out of the city, versus trips within the city.
And bus fares, separately, aren't too bad compared to most peer systems (but not LA).
2. But all that has nothing to do with how WMATA is managed in terms of operations.
I've been inclined to give WMATA a pass on the system fail, because planners in the early 1990s (I remember reading the articles) predicted this would happen without funding for and a focus on maintenance as the system aged.
They didn't get the funding and the commitment, and as a result, the system crashed.
Of course, the system was at a kind of equilibrium, but it was wrecked by two things. First the mixing of signalling equipment over time, which led to many near misses, and then the crash and deaths at Fort Totten.
Second, the Silver Line, without investment in upgrading the Blue and Orange Lines, power systems, etc., led to serious degradation.
I'm proud of my point that interlining doesn't contain problems, it spreads them like a virus to the other lines.
3. But obviously management is bad. Look at all the problems with the Rail Operations Center, lying wrt maintenance reports, poor decision making in crisis situations (the burning car and the lady who died as a result at L'Enfant Station, when the Metro Police gave the wrong orders to the train operator, which led to smoke inhalation problems, etc.).
4. For years charlie has been saying separate bus from rail. I was always resistant.
But now, going to my DMV Transport Association -- DMVTA -- writings, I think he could be right. If they aren't committed to making bus great on its own, then they shouldn't be running it, etc.
Before my DMVTA writings I'd been making the point that transit planning should be separate from operations, that the infrastructure should be owned by the jurisdictions, and that the operators should bid on running it. It could be nonprofit operators or for profit.
Although I don't think for profit operators are naturally great. Some are good, some aren't. Some are good for some things, but not all, etc.
5. All that being said, WMATA's current budget crisis is exogenous, a result of the pandemic. Although it does accentuate and extend preexisting problems.
I don't think they can be fully criticized about needing more money in the face of the pandemic.
I'd say the bulk of "street closures" in DC are more NIMBY as traffic oriented.
ReplyDeleteOff topic:
https://pullrequest.substack.com/p/the-prophet-of-the-revolt
your "off topic" cite is pretty deep. It's gonna take me awhile to fully process it.
ReplyDelete... separately, speaking of your interest in the grain trade, I found a history of the grain elevator as a technology. Haven't started reading it yet.
What charlie said.
ReplyDeleteDC's street grid is marvelous, and completely logical in its pure form. But NIMBY closures, forced one-ways, political meddling, and "traffic engineers" corrupted it and just created the same problems of suburban cul-de-sacs. It's a suburban mindset in an urban built environment.
I agree. Generally I value the grid, just like L'Enfant and Jane Jacobs. That means I don't even favor speed bumps in many instances, but other approaches.
ReplyDeleteMany of the streets already function like "bike boulevards" without any special treatments.
I do think at least three things are in order though:
(1) 20 mph on residential streets (arterials can still be 25mph).
(2) legal change so that it is absolutely true that "pedestrians have the right of way."
Years ago, waiting to cross my street from one side to another as speeding cars approached, I realized that this was all wrong, that on residential streets, cars should be deferring to residents, not the other way around.
(3) pavements. Ideally, residential streets would not be constructed to allow for high speed traffic. Belgian (asphalt) block would be good.
---
Where I live now is in Salt Lake, but definitely suburban. While there is a serious grid, there are deliberate interruptions (streets don't go through here and there, and then are picked up a block or two later) and in the outer city there can be more curvilinear treatments.
But because there is little traffic on a bunch of the streets, kids do play in the street. OTOH, some drivers still tool through pretty fast.
There are speed bumps here. But the thing they do more is engineer severe "water channels" across the street as the continuation of curb side gutters. The dip is serious, and you have to slow down significantly.
+ at least two initiatives to begin a serious rebalancing toward sustainable mobility and away from the privileging of the motor vehicle.
ReplyDelete1. Legalize the Idaho Stop for bicyclists. But with that comes enforcement of cyclists not following that rule. But I'd make it liberal. Both traffic lights and stop signs.
2. Begin to create pedestrian districts. At least of a block, where they can be successful.
e.g., 7th St. at Eastern Market + 700 block of C Street SE + Eastern Market Metro Plaza
17th St. NW between P and Q Streets on the weekends
block of 19th Street NW between Dupont Circle and Q Street NW, on the backside of the Hotel Dupont and the backside of the block with Kramerbooks
fill in the service drive in Cleveland Park
widen the sidewalks on M Street in Georgetown.
Etc.