Sustainable Transportation

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New Video: ASLA Advocates for Change

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Policy and Regulation, Sustainable Transportation on 04/30/2013 | 1 Comment »

Last week, ASLA leadership landed on Capitol Hill for their annual advocacy day. More than 150 ASLA leaders met with Senators and Congressional representatives to talk about the issues that matter most to landscape architects (see video above about ASLA’s advocacy work).

During the day, ASLA advocates heard from Representative Thomas Petri, who is a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. This subcommittee oversees highways, recreation trails, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and Safe Routes to Schools projects.

Representative Petri said Congress is in the beginning stages of reauthorizing a 5-6 year transportation bill. He said these longer-term bills are important because they set the stage for “long-term planning and investment by the private sector.” Representative Petri said he gets many calls from companies asking him “what to plan for.” Right now, federal transportation investments are only being planned one to two years out, through extensions, which means private sector may be holding back on spending on infrastructure.

Unfortunately, there will be winners and losers with the new bill. Representative Petri said “only 68 percent of the current programs can be financed. We have to come up with new revenue or scale back.” The federal government uses a gas tax to finance transportation infrastructure work. Now the federal gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon, “not a lot.” Getting a gas tax hike through Congress may be difficult to achieve. States are confronting the same challenge. Some states like Virginia have even eliminated gas taxes, while others like Wyoming are raising theirs dramatically.

Representative Petri said a broad coalition is needed on the Hill to ensure the transportation bill “aims for the highest common denominator instead of the lowest.” The U.S. should aspire to have a excellent transportation system again, instead of crumbling highways that earn a D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Representative Petri mentioned Lady Bird Johnson’s “roadside enhancement” program, which happens year after year, as a great example. “We now have some beautiful parkways, even in urban areas.”

Investment in mass transit can also support the right kind of urban growth. Representative Petri said that once a urban area reaches a certain size, it must “grow up instead of out.” To finance the process of growing up, Representative Petri said the federal government must fund urban mass transit projects that lead to greater density, or at least kick-start their development. “Federal commitments can help cities and states secure Wall St. financing.” Petri also called for keeping “street improvements,” those “transportation enhancements” that were the subject of so much debate last year.

And while there will be tradeoffs in the new bill — not everyone will win — “we must work together to achieve a balance.” Let’s just hope that balance means a lean towards more investment in the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure so many communities need. As Representative Petri argued at the end, “there are great prospects for improving the system, while also making it more livable, beautiful, and human-scale.”

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Transit for Everyone

Posted in Sustainable Transportation on 04/14/2013 | 1 Comment »

For the daily subway, rail, or bus rider, accessibility is a huge issue. A public transit system is detested if it’s difficult to use, then people simply stop using it (unless they have no other options). This is equally true for those walking or biking to mass transit. Given some $50-60 billion is spent each year in the U.S. on transportation infrastructure, getting access right makes smart economic sense, too. In a session at the American Planning Association (APA) conference in Chicago, transportation planners Daniel Goodman and Roswell Eldridge, Toole Design Group, Adrienne Smith-Reiman, City of Boston, and Matthew Zych, Washington D.C. Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA), explained how to create better systems for people accessing on foot or bike and overcome the obstacles that can undermine a transit system.

With gas costing more, Americans are driving less. According to research cited by Goodman, in 2009, there were 24 percent more bike trips than in 2001. Similarly, people walked to their destination 16 percent more frequently. Public transit ridership is up a whopping 40 percent over the same period.

While all these trends are positive, there are also some growing challenges. Using North Carolina as example, Goodman said baby boomers are aging and soon masses of “older people will need alternative forms of transportation,” taxing already strained systems. Obesity rates are skyrocketing, especially among children who don’t walk to school in the same numbers as before, perhaps a sign that too many car-centric communities lack adequate sidewalks. There are also social justice issues: Many communities focus on improving access to rail and subways, but fail to do the same for buses. Different demographics use different types of transit. Finally, while many communities see public transit as a way to “catalyze economic development” and create places, there are new fiscal realities. Budgets are tight almost everywhere.

In a few different cities, the presenters outlined how smart planning and design can truly make a difference though, maximizing existing investments in transit systems by improving how pedestrians and bicyclists access these networks.

In Boston, explained Smith-Reiman, Connect Historic Boston, a program in its early planning stages, aims to make all the historic National Park Service sites in downtown Boston and Charlestown more easily accessible to tourists and locals. Downtown Boston can be intimidating, with its mess of tiny streets and lack of signage. “Tourists are terrified they’ll get lost.” To encourage navigation and “discovery” of the area, the National Park Service, City of Boston, and an array of local organizations are trying to understand the current problems and deal with them. Tourists can get around via the T, ferries, water taxis, trolleys, or Hubway, the local bikeshare system, so there are lots of options. However, a tourist can get out of the T line one block from Faneuil Hall and not know they are anywhere near it and totally miss it. One project will “reactivate” the spaces around the station, making transit to historic sites easier.

The goal for the team is a set of “tear sheets,” or guidelines that can guide preliminary design improvements. Also in the works is a “comprehensive physical and digital wayfinding plan,” that can result in a “kit of parts” that can be distributed to all the different city agencies involved. Beyond these projects, Connect Historic Boston will use street art, a transportation quest (a kind of game), along with transportation-related curricula for kids (a kind of urban design 101), and web sites to show people how to access the area.

In Durham, North Carolina, a pilot study for the department of transportation yielded new guidelines and design for bus stops. Eldridge at Toole Design explained that many bus stops don’t have adequate sidewalk connections, offer shelter or any amenities, or “address passengers’ needs.” He said far too many bus stops have no sidewalks, forcing riders into the street, or seating, which is why you see garbage cans turned upside down (they’ve been turned into benches). In this pilot, the goal was to improve three bus corridors — targeting the conditions at bus stops, access to stops, and the crossings near stops.

While designing a new approach is central to these fixes, getting all the different government agencies that deal with aspects of the system is also important. One agency is in charge of plotting where stops are, while another deals with the streets, and yet another is in charge of sidewalks. With all these different groups involved, there were “conflicting standards and policies” that had to be addressed. With a shared vision, the different agencies were able to reconcile all the conflicting approaches.

With revised policies and aligned organizations in place, the team then conducted a user survey, getting the best data out of “on-board intercepts.” Eldridge said rich input from riders is key if you are going to create a “customer-oriented system.” (We wish all public transit systems would take his sage advice). Through the survey, they found that 74 percent were using the bus to go to work or home, 16 percent were going shopping, and 10 percent were going to school. Some 84 percent of riders didn’t own a car. Their issues were safety, access, and comfort. To improve safety, riders wanted more lighting at bus stops and shelters. To improve access, they wanted sidewalks they could use and stops free of utility poles and other impediments. To make waiting more comfortable, riders wanted shelters with seating.

Once the issues had been identified, the next step was surveying the system to identify where fixes could be made. Problem stops and crossings were identified and prioritized for revamps. Given budgets are tight, only $5 million could be spent on access improvements. But still, now there’s a model in place that all vendors building bus stops must replicate for new stops.

To improve pedestrian and bicycle access for D.C.’s Metro system, which is the second largest subway system in the U.S. with more than 80 stations, it’s important to understand capacity, said Zych. “Is there enough capacity? Are stations too crowded? Is there enough bicycle parking? Are there sidewalks?” As important as capacity is convenience. “Are there buildings, rivers, or freeways in the way?” Stations have to be in people’s sight lines as well.

D.C.’s Metro has some 750,000 trips a day. The city’s 1,500 buses get 450,000 trips daily. Paratransit gets another 8,000 trips. During the AM peak where some 250,000 trips happen, 37 percent walk to the Metro, 26 percent park and ride, 24 percent take the bus to a station, and only 1 percent bike to a station. Given D.C. wants to get the share of bicycle commuters up to 2 percent by 2020 — meaning some 7,000 trips — the system needs to improve its bicycle access while also making it still easier for pedestrians.

Zych said there are system-wide goals but stations have different issues. A bicycle census in the district found that bike riders live in certain neighborhoods, so some stations will need ample bicycle parking while others won’t at all. Then, there’s the issue of where to put bicycle parking racks? Metro had to go out and “personally survey” stations to find spots.

Some $25 million in pedestrian and bicycle access improvements were identified, but only $7 million in financing was available, so again, tough decisions had to be made about priorities. Asking a set of stakeholders what their priorities were, the Metro team found that “60 percent want improved safety and security.” So safer crossings were created for some stations, separating vehicles from pedestrians. In other projects, new raised sidewalks were created to further improve safety. For bicycle security, one station created a new “bike & ride,” an enclosed, limited access space for “members only.” Bicyclists would have to sign up and become members to gain access to the secure space at the Metro station, which includes cameras and lighting. Also worth noting: the Metro team found that the upside-down U-shaped bicycle racks were the “most secure.”

Another innovation: some stairs were retrofitted so there was a bike channel along the side. This means no more lugging bicycles up stairs. Bicyclists can simply roll it up the incline while walking up the stairs.

Eldridge encouraged planners and designers in other communities to “piggyback” on existing transportation projects and get in early to add in pedestrian and bicycle access improvements. Given the Federal government only requires that 1 percent of transportation project funds go to bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, those interested in access clearly have to get creative — in creating access and finding money to do it.

Image credit: (1) D.C. Metro bicycle parking / Urban Indy, (2) Durham bus stop / Toole Design Group, (3) D.C. Metro bicycle parking / Urban Indy

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Cities That Get Mobility Right

Posted in Public Spaces, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design on 02/25/2013 | 4 Comments »

Sustainable urban transportation — sidewalks, bike lanes, and public transit like subways, buses, and street cars — are all central to successful urban development, but no one size fits all. Smart cities large and small are using different approaches, but all are focused on improving the quality of urban mobility. At the Innovative Metropolis conference organized by the Brookings Institution and Washington University in St. Louis, Oliver Schulze, Schulze + Grassov; Jonathan Solomon, Associate Dean, Syracuse University School of Architecture; and Chandra Brown, President, United Streetcar, Portland, Oregon, explained how three very different cities — Copenhagen, Hong Kong, and Portland — have created world-class sustainable transportation systems.

Copenhagen is a “micro-metropolis, filled with tall, good-looking people,” said Schulze. Copenhageners “get up every day at 6.30am and eat oatmeal.” There is a real sense of continuity in the Danish culture. Almost everyone gets on their bike to commute to work. “There’s no lycra, we just use our bikes.”

Copenhagen has mastered the “art of soft ways of getting around” — walking, biking, and public transit. He said these “slow means of transportation actually allow you to engage the city.” Biking also builds autonomy and individual development, particularly among kids. “Half of kids bicycle to school every day.” This mobility is a form of emancipation.

But beyond the broader benefits, people there bike so much “because it’s fast, efficient, and cheap. We do it because it’s an efficient way to get around.”

Copenhagen has only increased the share of people walking and biking, which, interestingly, is counter to national trends in Denmark (they, too, fight the rise of the car). The city has an ambitious plan to become “number one in walking and biking worldwide.” To accomplish this, Schulze said the city is already “making biking more competitive with other forms of transportation — by making it more comfortable and safer.” Cycling is seen as a key tool for helping Denmark achieve its goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2025 (never mind all the oil it exports).

In Portland, “the European capital of the United States,” carbon emissions are down 6 percent below 1990 levels and down a further 26 percent on a per-capita basis, even though the population has grown 26 percent, said Brown. A big share of this success story is due to the sustainable transportation options the city provides. Portland was the first American city to do “modern street cars.”

These street cars are “modern circulation systems, not commuter systems.” They are designed so people can jump on and off at will. While the environmental and health benefits of street cars are clear, they’ve been an economic boon as well. In the blocks surrounding the street car line, there’s been more than $3.5 billion in private sector investment. Brown said these successes were due to “changes made through policy and planning. There’s a 20 year street car plan.”

Brown said due to Portland’s successes — both in policy and practice — many more cities in the U.S. and elsewhere are looking at putting in street cars to boost economic development. Washington, D.C. will use Brown’s street cars for its new H street line, putting back in modern street cars where the original creaky ones were a long time ago.

Hong Kong, the one megalopolis discussed, provides yet another approach, with thick “masses of pedestrian networks” at the base of skyscrapers. Combined with “great public transportation system” comprised of buses, subways, and ferries, there is a truly inter-modal transportation system, said Solomon, who spent six years studying the system and eventually wrote a book on it. It’s easy to “take a taxi to a ferry to a bus and have every type of transportation waiting for you on your journey.” Among the buses alone, there are multiple, competing private companies, which means there are always buses available (and some that unfortunately may be idling, giving off emissions and air pollution).

While Hong Kong’s system is planned, there’s also a sense of “happenstance.” Hong Kong’s intense “3-D multi-modality” is the result of an “aformal urbanism” that takes advantage of both “formal” top-down rules and “informal” bottom-up, “extra-legal or illegal systems.” As an example, public right of ways seem to meander right through privately-owned malls and hotel lobbies. Shopping centers can provide vital public space. “Public activities bleed through these networks.”

The HK equivalent of the Occupy Wall Street movement actually hosted protests on foot bridges and set up camp under a major bank. Solomon said these public-private hybrid public spaces “prove that public spaces don’t need to look like a typical park or plaza.”

Beyond the fact that the combined public-private transit and pedestrian system works, Hong Kong’s public transit system actually makes money, one of the two such systems in the world to do so (the other is Tokyo’s). This is because many subway stations also function as malls. The retail opportunities pay for the infrastructure and maintenance. Private developers take part in the system designed to boost foot traffic. Now, the new planning model is “podium structures,” which maximize foot traffic, with stations, shopping malls, and residential towers built as a single piece.

Hong Kong also uses sticks to push people to use their walking and transit systems: there’s a 100 percent tax on new cars.

Image credits: (1) Copenhagen bicyclists / Streets blog DC, (2) Copenhagen children bike carriage / A bit of that, (3) Kids bicycling / Storbrittannien, (4) Portland Street Car / CPM Associates, (5) Portland Street Car Condos and Development / Metro Jackson, (6) Hong Kong Foot bridge / Bus Station, Torontoist, (7) Shopping Mall signage / Travel blog, (8) Landmark Mall in Central, HK / The HK Shopper

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ASLA Year of Public Service: What Are You Doing?

Posted in Education, Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Waste, Water Management on 02/19/2013 | Leave a Comment »

2013 is the Year of Public Service at ASLA. The goal is to highlight the wide-reaching public service activities performed by landscape architects and advocate for a deeper commitment by all to community service. ASLA invites current members to submit 2013 projects. Selected projects will be highlighted in the campaign’s Web site and outreach materials. Descriptions, quotes, and multimedia content may be used – with proper credit – on the YPS2013 web site, blog and The Understory Facebook page. Here are three recent public service projects just submitted by ASLA members:

Melissa Evans, ASLA: Members in Arkansas coordinated a one-day charrette as part of the year of public service to determine the best location, size, and form of a green wall to be installed this year at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks. The garden received a donation for a green wall and reached out to ASLA for help. The landscape architects involved in this charrette were able to use their expertise to design two potential green wall installations for potential installation later this year.

The first solution is elegant and simple, allowing the garden staff to implement the design as soon as their schedule permits. The charrette team provided a section, elevation and a perspective view of the proposed wall design. This particular design would be integrated into the entrance to the event room at the garden with two small green walls situated at the edge of the covered entry.

The second wall design is larger in scale and would be constructed north of the butterfly house and west of the garden shed. It consists of two sweeping walls with the path between. Designers provided a perspective view of this wall and will continue to work on more detailed drawings in the next few weeks.

Kim Douglas, ASLA, Philadelphia University: In West Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia University landscape architecture and architecture students presented design concepts for a neighborhood to a group of interested government officials. Among the attendees were Councilman Curtis Jones; Richard Redding, Director of Comprehensive Planning Division at Philadelphia City Planning Commission; SEPTA officials; ward leaders of the West Allegheny neighborhood; and community members.

The students outlined design initiatives for sites in the neighborhood that ranged from a new community center to redesigning Allegheny Avenue. All the initiatives were part of a bigger planning effort in the studio to treat the neighborhood as an EcoDistrict. The concept illustrates the opportunities for shared resources, performance goals and measures that “scale up” the sustainability initiatives. The designs all considered the need for a comprehensive framework plan that provided opportunities for shared stormwater, waste and energy management, healthy food options, economic endeavors, open space and park systems as well as social gathering spaces, all at the grass-root level.

The students’ work gathered quite a bit of attention from the city agencies as well as private developers and community organizations. Among the initiatives being explored based on the student work are a retrofit of a bus turnaround that includes rain gardens, permeable paving, new street furniture and lighting; a new gateway park that provides farmers markets, gathering areas, stormwater mitigation and signage; and a streetscape design for Allegheny Avenue including bike lanes, stormwater bump-outs, street trees, seating, bus shelters and pocket parks. All of these initiatives have prompted City agencies to work together to pool resources and expertise.

This project illustrates the University’s commitment to its neighbor, the West Allegheny community, as well as the City of Philadelphia, to use its knowledge and expertise to help with the many issues of urban areas. We are also providing our students with hands on learning for “real work with real people with real impact.”

Lastly, a project started in 2009 is finally being completed during the year of public service. Brian Templeton, ASLA: In the Spring of 2009 design students in the landscape architecture department at Mississippi State University developed concepts for the re-development of the Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum’s site. The result of the effort was a refined 5-phase plan which could be designed and implemented over several years by students.

The plan had three overall goals: improve the museum’s landscape to create a community-wide amenity; implement sustainable site and stormwater management techniques to create a regional model for good site design practices; and provide hands-on design-build opportunities for landscape architecture students.

Two of the efforts were multi-disciplinary efforts where landscape architecture students worked with graphic design and architecture students to work in a real world working environment. In total, the efforts have involved six separate landscape architecture classes, two graphic design classes, and an architecture studio.

The five phases of the site’s development called for a rain garden, a sand filter and outdoor amphitheater, a new entryway and porch, a cistern and educational kiosks, and a green roof pavilion.

Over the past four years the projects have received 3 major design awards, raised over $50,000 in private donations, and been described in dozens of publications. Though this project has run for many years, the final construction phase will be completed during the year of public service.

Learn more about the year of public service and submit your project today.

Image credits: (1-2) Melissa Evans, ASLA (3-4) Kim Douglas, ASLA (5-6) Cory Gallo, ASLA.

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Is There a Secret Recipe for Successful Urban Development?

Posted in Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 01/28/2013 | 4 Comments »

Doesn’t sound like it. Both developed and developing world cities are still struggling to get urban development right, said some of the world’s leading urban experts at the Transforming Transportation conference organized by the World Bank Group and the EMBARQ program of the World Resources Institute (WRI). Successes, failures, and the places in between were examined in a set of presentations and debates.

Mexico City may be in between — not quite a total failure or success. It’s struggling with intense population growth, rapidly diminishing natural resources, and falling water tables. While Mexican civilization has 3,000 years of experience with urbanization, unfortunately, for the most part, its capital, Mexico city, hasn’t applied that accumulated knowledge well in the 21st century, said Salvador Herrera, EMBARQ Mexico. The city has grown into a massive agglomeration, with multiple sprawled-out satellite cities forming at its edges. Some five million or more people in slums. Similar patterns are seen in other Mexican cities, as now 80 million of Mexico’s 110 million people have moved into its cities.

But the city is taking steps to deal with its problems, developing more transit-oriented development (TOD) patterns, with a Mexican twist. Right now, only “the rich enjoy TOD,” said Herrera. One new project aims to remedy that by creating TOD for low-income residents. A local developer and Danish urban design firm Gehl Architects created Casas Geo, which offers low-income housing units at a cost of around $28,000, a manageable sum for its residents, which make between $300 and $600 per month. There’s running water and electricity. Instead of parking lots in front of the homes, there’s a shared road-like public space with a set of central plazas that encourage more walking, hanging out, and less car driving (see image above). “There’s less interaction between car and people,” said Herrera. If people stay in the Casas communities, they drive less. Unfortunately, most have to commute for work and these homes are nowhere near existing transit. Still, this model seems to be a hit, given it accounts for some 20 percent of the 500,000 new home created in 2012.

The local government is also now working on expanding access to people-friendly, easily accessible, affordable places by creating a set of indicators to guide future development. These include “complete streets, mixed-use buildings, density, green homes, connections to public transportation, and more open space.” (Sadly, Herrera said the city has left parks out of its indicators because it can’t afford to create more parks with lots of greenery — “there isn’t enough water.”)

Henriette Vamberg, a principal at Gehl Architects, then gave a tour of one failure and one success. She explained how her boss, Jan Gehl, one of the world’s most admired urban designers, used to be just another architect, but married a psychologist who asked him, “why do architects hate people so much?” His thinking was transformed and he became one of leading proponents of human-centric urban design. His firm now works with cities around the world to figure out “how spaces either push people together or repel them.”

It sounds like Moscow is an example of a place designed to repel pedestrians. A mega-city of 15 million, it’s now in “complete flux after communism.” With increasing wealth, everyone has the “urge to own a car.” Vamberg said “it’s quite a beautiful city, with monuments and the river,” but it has been totally marred by “uncontrolled traffic.”

Cars now take over promenades. Trees have been cut down to make way for more streets. “The green bits are all gone.” All the flood zones are gone to create more lanes.

Now, the average street is a pedestrian nightmare. More than 90 percent of each street is for cars, with just 10 percent or less for people. Vamberg showed how each intersection has an underground crossing, which means the city isn’t accessible to anyone with disabilities. Also, where there are street-level crossings, green lights for pedestrians are few and far between. As a result, lots of people jaywalk. She even showed a photo of two kindergarten teachers jaywalking with their gaggle of kids, fed up at waiting 10 minutes for the light to change.

Working in Moscow was “hard, tough work.” In contrast, Melbourne is deemed a success. In the mid-90s, when Gehl Architects first examined the city, its downtown was characterized as an “empty, useless city center.” That has changed dramatically. Streets now make up 80 percent of the city’s public space. They have “gotten away from parks and city squares as the only forms of public space.” (The new Federation Square though is still viewed as the “heart of the new city.”)

Melbourne spent lots of time and money upgrading the “quality of the built environment.” Conventional pavement were taken out in favor of new local bluestone pavers. In addition to the bluestone, the city is adding 50,000 trees annually. With all the street level improvements, the local economy is booming. Since the mid-90s, street-level cafes are up a whopping 275 percent. There’s 830 percent more residents living in apartments that jumped in number by more than 3,000 percent. Nighttime pedestrian traffic is up nearly 100 percent. “The public ambiance feels more lively. The city now has a a pulse, it feels very different from before.”

So what can more cities do to become a Melbourne, not a Moscow (or Mexico City)? For William Cobbett, Cities Alliance, more planners need to think ahead and actually anticipate future growth. Cobbett said the 1811 grid map of Manhattan may have been the last example of good, long-term planning — the city laid out future zones that were then filled in. “Now, it’s a matter of planning after the fact, which is good for design professionals (who have to come in fix things), but not for cities.” He said there’s far too much “planning in the breach,” particularly among second-tier developing world cities, which are growing the fastest.

For Eric Dumbaugh, Florida Atlantic University, getting to successful urban development patterns means ending the love affair with cars. He said in the U.S., it actually took many years for this fantasy “love affair” to take root. At first, cars weren’t a hit so car manufacturers financed a “radical, wholesale redesign of cities.” The ideas of efficiency — in terms of moving people through space in urban environments — was turned on its head to make way for car-based “transportation system performance.” Beginning in the 1930s, “pedestrians no longer owned streets anymore.” Car manufacturers pushed lawmakers to fine people who crossed the street in the wrong places and the term “jaywalking” was invented. Today, we are still following this outmoded approach: “In 1939, the Futurama exhibit at the World’s Fair basically basically mapped out the traffic regulations that still guide us.” Dumbaugh said Copenhagen (and now, New York City, which was viewed as copying Copenhagen) are moving away from the car with new pedestrian-only zones. The question is how can developing world cities move past the original mistakes of the U.S. and leap to Copenhagen?

Michael Kodransky, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), thinks “parking is the lynchpin of sustainable urban development,” and something far too many cities fail to get right. There has to be enough parking to enable density and street life. ITDP is now working on a way to “codify” good urban development with a new set of indicators that can help “evaluate urban developments.” These will push for true TOD development. He said too many awards go to TOD projects where “there’s no one using transit.” In reality, many projects labeled TOD are “TOD adjacent.”

UN-Habitat, the UN organization entirely focused on cities, is also now “reviewing the grammar of cities” to learn what went wrong and create a “new paradigm for the 21st century.” Andre Dzikus, UN-Habitat, said it was important to set this new pattern fast because “the majority of the world’s cities haven’t been built yet.” A simple, pragmatic urban planning approach for the future would “see the street as public space.” For any city, it should be around 30-40 percent. As an example, in Nairobi, only 11 percent of the street is public space. “Density should also be increased.” There should be around 15,000 people per square mile. All land use should be mixed-use, with 40 percent dedicated to economic activity and a mix of upper-income and low-income housing.

While looking to the future, though, Vamberg said cities can also learn from the past. Basically no developed world city, except perhaps Copenhagen, escaped mistakenly adopting the U.S. car-centric model. Shifting gears may actually mean a return to the old ways. Dumbaugh said someone once asked Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, what she thought of “New Urbanism,” a planning approach that calls for tight grids and denser development patterns. She apparently replied, “well, how about good old urbanism?” The 20th century may just be a blip (albeit a particularly destructive one) in the 8,000 year record of humans creating cities for people.

Image credit:(1) Casas Geo / Zuonda, (2) Casas Geos / People Everywhere, (3) Moscow traffic / English Russia, (4) Moscow sidewalk and parking / Horroru, (5-6) Melbourne street life / Clare’s Cafe Chronicles

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Fighting Off the Car in Latin America

Posted in Policy and Regulation, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 01/23/2013 | 2 Comments »

Curitiba, Brazil, and Bogota, Colombia are rightly famous for their world-changing bus rapid transit (BRT) systems and other urban transportation innovations, but other cities in Latin America are starting to give them a run for their money. Quito, Ecuador and Cali, Colombia, are now also becoming leaders in taking on the car in Latin America. At the Transforming Transportation conference organized by the World Bank and EMBARQ, Quito Mayor Augusto Barrera said nearly two-thirds of residents use public transit, while just 20 percent own cars. Buses and bike share systems are also well-used. Still, the explosive growth in car ownership presents a huge threat, so the city is continually updating and modernizing its public transit system to keep up.

Barrera said the 1999 global financial crisis depleted the savings accounts of many Ecuadorians so “cars are increasingly viewed as a safer, more tangible asset than bank accounts.” To combat growing car ownership, Barrera is changing regulations to create an integrated transit system, with metro, bus rapid transit (BRT) corridors, conventional buses, biking and pedestrian infrastructure all working together seamlessly. Agencies that used to be in control of different pieces are getting merged, so that the institutional barriers don’t hold up progress.

In Cali, Pilar Rodriguez, who works for MetroCali and also represents the Latin American Association of Public Transport (SIBRT), which includes members in 8 countries and 19 cities, public transit ridership is also going down and car ridership is going up, so it’s harder to convince policymakers to invest in public transit systems. “Unfortunately,” this means “the people using cars and taxis get more of the transportation budget.” Still, the city has some numbers many progressive U.S. cities would kill for: there, 40 percent of people ride public transit, 35 percent walk or use a bike, 7 percent take taxis, and 10 percent have cars.

To ensure the car share doesn’t grow further, “public transit needs constant improvement.” She said MIT, EMBARQ, and other international groups have been in Cali to help the city “modernize public transportation quality.” As a result, new bus system plans are in place to help reach 80 percent of the expected demand for public transport; right now, only 53 percent of the demand is being met. Additional aerial cable cars are going in to reach hard-to-reach populations on the slopes. New bikeways through the center of city will help move people out of cars.

Jorge Kogan, CAF, argued that in these cities and elsewhere, leadership from the top is critical to integrating public transit systems and improving their quality. “Cities need to integrate authorities to achieve integration on the ground.” However, in too many cities, said Arturo Ardila Gomez, World Bank, clueless leaders let integrated transportation authorities fight bloody “modal wars,” with metro, BRT, and bike system contending for funds. “We can’t have competition between sustainable modes — it has to be between cars and all other forms of transportation.” So only leaders well versed in the issues of sustainable transportation can get everyone working together in an integrated system.

Rafael Acevado-Duanas, Inter-american Development Bank (IDB), said another major challenge was maintaining service quality while reaching poorer people without access, the “people who truly need these services to survive.” The poor in most cities in the world actually live the farthest from the “productive centers,” meaning their transportation costs are high and the time they spend commuting each day is long. Any integrated service that has connection times of more than 10 minutes isn’t working. More non-profits then need to be involved to make sure transportation systems work for everyone.

What no one mentioned was the value of building green infrastructure into these integrated public transit systems as well. Networks of trees, green streets, bioswales, and pocket parks could help forge connections to the transportation systems and make these cities more livable, too. Greenery can make that daily commute with all of those connections less painful. Let’s hope these Latin American innovators tackle those challenges next.

Image credit: Quito BRT trolleybus / Wikipedia

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Sustainable Urban Transportation Is at the Heart of a Greener Future

Posted in Sustainable Transportation, Urban Revitalization on 01/23/2013 | 2 Comments »

By 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. To avoid an explosion of cars, which creates air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, congestion, and traffic deaths, new, more sustainable patterns of urban development are needed, with higher-density urban cores and “sustainable transportation systems at the heart of these places,” said Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economist, before introducing World Bank Group President Dr. Jim Yong Kim and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at this year’s Transforming Transportation conference, which was co-organized by the World Bank Group and the EMBARQ program of the World Resources Institute (WRI).

For the past 10 years, WRI has been hosting this conference, but this was the first time a World Bank president had ever attended, perhaps indicating that sustainable urban transportation is finally moving up in the list of priorities worldwide. Kim said that in his recent conversations with the incoming Chinese president he found that the new Chinese leadership is increasingly focused on “green growth,” and sees urbanization and sustainable transportation as central to their efforts. Beyond China, more of the world’s poorer countries are also focused on urban transportation, given “clean, effective public transit gives people an opportunity to have a job, a livelihood.” Kim thought that new public transit systems — from subways to bus rapid transit (BRT) to bicycle share systems — “provide jobs while bringing order to cities and helping to tackle climate change.”

Mayor Bloomberg, who also runs his Bloomberg Philanthropies and the C40 Cities: Climate Leadership Group, also offered a global perspective, arguing that traffic is now the 5th largest killer of people worldwide. In many cities, he added that car pollution (including carbon emissions) account for up to 80 percent of the total. In contrast with these global trends, Bloomberg said NYC now has the lowest level of traffic fatalities on record and cars now only contribute 20 percent of emissions (this is because buildings are the real source of emissions in the city). The mayor is increasingly focused on redesigning roads so they work for “people, not just cars.” All the modes — “bicycling, walking, trolleys, buses” — are now in the mix. Times Square was recently closed to traffic and has become a permanent pedestrian mall (see image above). The initiative, which cab drivers hated, has been a huge success. Foot traffic is way up. “Rents on the ground floor of buildings in Times Square are now up because more people visit.” Bloomberg told representatives of developing countries in the audience that investing in public transit and creating spaces for pedestrians is the way to go because “traffic hurts your economy.” But to create demand for these public systems and spaces, “cities need to make people feel like they will benefit.” To show the benefits in NYC, Bloomberg collects immense amounts of health data. He shows communities how being near highways, interstates “explains who gets asthma” and who will ultimately benefit from more sustainable forms of transportation.

Kim agreed with Bloomberg, his golf pal, arguing that cities are now the world’s biggest polluters and where “the battle will be fought” in the coming decades. The key challenge will be “improving the living conditions of the billions in the world’s mega-cities.” While cities themselves must make the hard decisions, the World Bank, he said, is here to provide policy advice and financing. Smart policies can have an impact. In Hong Kong, the number of cars doubled over the past few decades, creating significant air pollution problems. The city undertook policy changes and the number of cars were reduced by half. “It doesn’t have to be an expensive intervention. We can intervene to save lives.” Kim also agreed with Bloomberg’s approach: get data, see where problems are happening, and tackle the problem there.

On China, where car ownership has exploded, making it the country with the most number of cars, Bloomberg was less than positive. There, “the leadership is pursuing economic development at any cost. The environment is not part of the equation.” In front of a recent Congressional hearing, Bloomberg said one Republican congressman asked him why the U.S. should reduce its pollution and greenhouse gas emissions when China continues to pollute at a high rate. Bloomberg said that’s like asking, “why should we stop killing our own people when other countries are killing theirs?” Bloomberg said this was the “single stupidest thing I’ve heard.” The mayor thinks things will change in China because the middle class (and really every class), wants “water that isn’t yellow, traffic that moves, and air you can’t see.” For their part, the Chinese government needs to “be able to answer the demands of their people.” Increasingly, they are showing that they can do this. The next five year plan of the Communist Party calls for increasing renewable energy to 15 percent of the total, which will equal more energy than the UK uses in total. The World Bank president was more sanguine on China. His experts are now working with the Chinese leadership to collect best practices, like Hangzhou’s bike share system, canal-based transportation systems, and BRT, to show the rest of the country how to do it.

Still, Bloomberg’s primary concern seemed to be the millions of people who die from bad air in cities and traffic fatalities worldwide every year. Once again advising mayors in developing countries, Bloomberg said the first step should be a “campaign aimed at the public, explaining how many people are getting killed by air pollution and congestion.” The key is to “build constituencies, build capacity, and then create laws.” Education was also seen as key. Educating kids in schools so they go home and tell their parents to ride helmets with their motor-scooters has proven effective. In Vietnam, traffic deaths are down 300 percent because people are riding with helmets now.

Being a true NYer, Bloomberg is a mayor with some strong opinions. He believes that “mayors can’t get help from national governments anywhere in the world.” At the local city levels, mayors want to get “national bureaucrats the hell away from their programs.” On climate change, national governments may be particularly useless. “They meet every 20 years and have done almost nothing.” Cities have made the most strides. “The federal governments of the world can give tax credits, loans, finance research, but cities are where you are actually going to get things done.” The role of the federal and state-level governments is to “move money around. They don’t understand the local level.” Mayors are “executives and decide who wins and who loses. That’s what we’re elected to do. Legislatures create programs that are not practical, designed to be implemented.”

The mayor added that what works in one city may not work in another, so sharing best practices has limited utility. “There are different political structures and institutions.” Ultimately, though, mayors can share personal experiences on trying to make change happen. “Mayors around the world have the same job. People want services but they don’t want to pay for them.” Kim thought that the World Bank can bring best practices to those poor developing countries that don’t have high levels of local expertise. Both Bloomberg and Kim agreed that the private sector, which accounts for 90 percent of all jobs, will be critical to taking on the big challenges facing cities. Kim said that urban transportation must help these businesses create jobs.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for cities will be addressing climate change. Cities will have to prepare for more extreme climate events like Hurricane Sandy, said Bloomberg. “These hurricanes are going to happen more often.” Sandy, which claimed 43 lives, destroyed more than 500 homes, and created billions in damages, was a sign that climate change is happening. “Storms get their energy from the oceans. More heat means more energy.” Beyond storms, floods and droughts are expected to affect food production, leading to more “food and water wars.” The environment is “clearly changing and global warming can’t be reversed.” Those urban transportation systems of the near future then also need to accommodate a shifting climate.

Image credit: Times Square Pedestrian Mall / Dtolman. Flickr

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Bike Sharing Needs to Be a Part of Public Transit

Posted in Policy and Regulation, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design on 01/23/2013 | 4 Comments »

Bike sharing became a surprising common theme throughout last week’s Transforming Transportation conference, which was co-hosted by EMBARQ and The World Bank and featured debates, panels, and lectures on the rise of sustainable urban transportation. Amit Bhatt, EMBARQ India, stood in front of a packed conference room to speak about the challenges he faced creating bike sharing programs in India. “If the cost outweighs the revenue,” he says as he scans the room, “how do you fund it?”

To say the least, bike sharing programs are expensive. A community can expect to spend $3,000 to $5,000 on a single bike in these programs, not including operations and management. These bikes are stronger than any mainstream bike one can find, but they are difficult to pitch to developing countries.

“India’s challenge is urbanization,” explains Bhatt. “With urbanization comes higher motorization.” There are so many two-wheelers are on the streets now that there are as many reported accidents in India as there are vehicles.

In October 2011, Kerberon Automations launched ATCAG-Bikeshare in Bangalore, India. This has been one of the more successful attempts to bring bike sharing programs into India. This program has a similar functionality to Washington, D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare, using individual Smart Cards to unlock the bicycles.

Developing countries in Asia react well to successes in other Asian countries. Although there are successful programs in Europe and the Americas, it takes proven success in countries such as China and India to influence developing Asian countries to pursue these programs.

The volume of shared bicycles in China surpasses most, if not all other countries. According to Bhatt, the city of Hangzhou alone has 60,000 bicycles in their public bike system. For comparison, Paris’ Vélib’ has over 20,000 bicycles (see below) and Capital Bikeshare’s program has just 1,670.

“The Chinese program is innovative,” said Li Shanshan, Bike Sharing Program Manager of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). Though it was originally copied from Paris, there are thousands of bikes at one station, with little more than a security guard and a turnstile in place to keep the program organized.

But the undeniable news is that cities around the world are starting to realize that it’s worth the expense. The panel agreed on many things throughout the day, but none more than that these bike sharing programs need to be considered a part of a public transit system.

According to Jeff Olson, Alta Planning + Design, the benefits of a bike sharing program outweigh the costs. “[One program] can bring around 200 more jobs,” he said. Among the other benefits are economic development, higher mobility, public health and safety.

Olson had the crowd imagine a fully-integrated transit system. One would be able to use the same fare card for buses, bikes, or the subway. When you look at bike sharing as part of the entire system, it’s easier to see the cost of bike sharing in a different light. Though it may be more than $3,000 per bike, what is the cost per passenger mile? What’s the cost when health benefits and traffic reduction is taken into account?

We don’t have all the data we need yet. That is because this is still a young industry.

“If I was asked to be on a panel for bike sharing three years ago,” Olson said, “I would have said no or had to spend [far too much] time explaining what bike sharing is.”

In the end, it’s nearly impossible to make a profit from these programs, according to the panelists. The benefit to these programs lies in reduced traffic and pollution from cars and two-wheelers; a happier, healthier community that can get from “Point A” to “Point B” as quickly as possible; and an improved economy with new jobs in the sustainable transportation field. Bike sharing may be in its infancy in many countries, but as long as it stays tied to public transit systems, it will be able to flourish.

This guest post is by Phil Stamper, ASLA Public Relations and Communications Coordinator.

Image credits: (1) Hangzhou Bike Share system / Wikipedia, (2) Velib Bike Share system / Wikipedia

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A Vision for a Greener Chinatown

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Policy and Regulation, Public Spaces, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management on 12/11/2012 | 2 Comments »

To kick-off ASLA’s year of public service early, ASLA President Tom Tavella, FASLA, Fuss & O’neill, led a process of re-envisioning the many blocks around ASLA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown as a green, livable neighborhood. Using a framework established by D.C.’s government organizations — including the planning office and departments of environment and transportation, along with non-profits like the Downtown Business Improvement District and Anacostia Watershed Society — Tavella and his team of designers created a vision for an inter-connected series of green “complete streets,” with new, safer bicycle lanes and a pedestrian-friendly “festival street,” while also creating a central hub for all the new street-level sustainability education programs right in front of ASLA’s door (and below its green roof) right on Eye Street.

Sarah Lewis, an urban planner at Fuss & O’Neill, put the project in its broader context, asking, “what should the neighborhood look like?” Big picture changes to the neighborhood, which is rich with history, will necessarily change the “urban fabric,” but by integrating green, complete streets with true green infrastructure systems, the fabric can only be improved.

In a city “active in urban planning,” the designers sought to leverage all the existing programs and new ones coming next year as well. The city’s complete street and green infrastructure guidelines, which are in place, will soon mix with more stringent stormwater policies that impose higher fees on private property owners that create runoff. All of these local requirements shaped their concepts.

To green this neighborhood, any plan has to start with the streets — all of them. For Chris Ferrero, who runs urban planning and landscape architecture at Fuss & O’Neill, the beginning of a new green neighborhood mean tackling all the alleyways running off Eye Street that contribute to stormwater runoff. Just as Chicago has done with its innovative green alleys program, the neighborhood could put in permeable pavements along with underground cisterns in key areas that would enable cars to still have access but water to be absorbed into the ground.

Along Eye Street, the intersections at 9th, 8th, and 7th streets could become green, permeable ones. What is now a source of huge amounts of runoff in the center of the streets could become a central place for absorbing rainwater into the underlying soils. Additional layers of stone or sand underground could also help boost absorption rates.

Crisscrossing an east-west system of green streets along Eye street would be a new north-south green “festival street” running down 8th street, transforming an underused, garage-heavy street into an active, pedestrian-friendly zone (see image above). Designed to be like a Dutch woonerf or pedestrian mall, this “B or C street,” which means it doesn’t get that much car traffic, could be designed so pedestrians could move more freely between the National Portrait Gallery and the commercial complex at K street.

Throughout this new green boulevard, which could be a pedestrian “arboretum,” different materials would be used to designate different realms — those for people or for cars. There would be no curbs, creating a flat plane for pedestrians. For 8th and other streets, redesigning the street so it can evolve may be the way to go. Kent Schwendy, senior vice president at Fuss & O’Neill, said many engineers want to simply lock streets into one use, but he argued that “streets change and their uses evolve. We have to let that change happen.”

Where 8th street meets Eye, new open grates would feature prominently so that “people could actually see that water moves through this area, even when it doesn’t rain. This will help educate people about stormwater,” said Tavella. But the street-level stormwater management systems proposed for Eye Street wouldn’t be “lipstick on a pig,” said Ferrero. They could instead represent an “integrated series of events, a system.” Some six additional feet would be added onto the sidewalks, giving 2-3 feet for “green gutters along the curbs” and another 2-3 feet for a step area to get to bridges that would take people across the new gutters. Intermixed among the new green gutters would be rain gardens, which all inter-connect with the existing tree pits and proposed permeable pavement systems.

On 9th street, creating a new “two-way cycle track,” a dual-direction bicycle lane, actually creates an opportunity to create yet more green infrastructure. The bicycle lanes would be protected by a 4-foot “physical separation filled with plants, not just paint and bollards,” said Tavella. That physical separator would not only protect bicyclists from car traffic but also help create a sense of place and add greenery. The street may certainly need it: Wade Walker, Jr, head of transportation planning at Fuss & O’Neill, said the bicyclists he saw on that street were “up on the sidewalks, showing that they didn’t feel safe.”

Lastly, right in front of ASLA, there could be a new parklet, taking up two parking spaces, which would be designed to give people a place to sit and view the green roof education video and read signs about the new green features of the neighborhood. Throughout the district, “signage would show what a green street is about, what porous pavements do,” said Tavella.

According to Nancy Somerville, Hon. ASLA, Executive Vice President and CEO, ASLA, the next steps will include pitching Fuss & O’Neill’s concepts to stakeholders in the neighborhood, starting the fundraising process, and further refining the plans to meet the approval and specifications of the many D.C. government departments involved. Hiring landscape architects to turn the concepts into real designs also sounds like a next step, given the positive early feedback from the D.C. planning office.

At the end of the intensive, two-day design charrette, Chris Shaheen, who manages the public space programs with the D.C. planning office, said, “We’ve tested many of these ideas here and there, but this brings it all together. This is what the city wants to do.” The city knows, just like ASLA does, that really ambitious proposals like this are needed if the city will reach its goals of making 1.5 million square feet of public right of way permeable by 2016.

Image credits: Fuss & O’Neill

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Create a New Vision for Toronto’s Green Line

Posted in Opportunities, Public Spaces, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 12/10/2012 | 1 Comment »

The many organizers of the new Green Line international design competition seek visionary proposals from landscape architects, architects, designers, planners, artists that will revamp the public green space and bicycle and pedestrian access of Toronto’s 3-mile-long transmission line corridor (a.k.a. hydro corridor). The goal is to “imagine the electricity infrastructure as a Green Line — a pedestrian and cycling link across the middle of the city and a public space and recreational amenity to the many neighborhoods across Toronto that it links.” Design teams will look at both the overall vision of the park and identify opportunities for reusing an underpass. The organizers are looking for pragmatic proposals that address safety concerns while also providing new public space concepts and sustainable transportation solutions.

The Green Line passes through a number of neighborhoods in midtown Toronto, from Davenport Village to the Annex. “The Green Line is already well used by local residents. It has splash pads, sports fields, allotment gardens, parking lots and children’s playgrounds, but the spaces are mostly in poor condition and the corridor does not currently provide a continuous physical connection due to grade changes and fencing.”

The vision part of the competition will ask designers to create a “comprehensive” approach that will also tie into Toronto’s cycling network. “The Green Line should be considered as both a series of community spaces and a physical and psychological link across the city.” Green public spaces will need to be designed so they can be used 24/7, 365. Designs will need to be able to be implemented in phases.

For the underpass portion of the ideas competition, designers should provide a detailed approach to “improve pedestrian, cyclist and car-users’ safety and mobility, and make an improved physical, visual and/or psychological connection for the Green Line.” The goal is to create a model that can be used for the eight other underpasses along the line.

This ideas competition also has some unique constraints, which could prove to be an interesting mental challenge for designers. Given the primary purpose of the corridor is to transmit electricity, there are some stringent guidelines for how the public can interact with this infrastructure. There are also some major safety issues: Electro-magnetic fields come off the equipment. The International Agency for Research on Cancer says these fields are a possible carcinogen so “taking practical low or no-cost actions to reduce exposures to young children is prudent.” Toronto now has a policy of “prudent avoidance” and calls for taking steps to keep young children away from the infrastructure. However, the city also recognizes “that recreational, trail and park uses of hydro corridors have health benefits for children and adults who use them which outweigh any potential risk from EMF exposure.”

The competition organizers intend to show the community the best designs. The organizers say that the ideas “will not be built, but are meant to get the communities who live, study and work near the site to start thinking about its future.”

The jury will award $6,000 CDN in cash prizes to the winners. The bulk of the prize money ($4,500) goes to the vision component of the competition, while the underpass portion of the competition will give out $1,500 CDN in prizes. Winners will also have their work published in a Canadian magazine, Spacing, and will be featured in an exhibition.

Submit proposals before February 4, 2013. Registration is free, but registrants must be members of the Toronto Society of Architects. Students can join for $25 CDN. Full membership is $50 CDN.

Image credit: Green Line ideas competition

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