Gary Toth following up on his reflections on the USDOT webinar, Forum on Livability.
As a career transportation geek, I found it particularly encouraging to hear talk about a new transportation planning process attached to performance measures which go beyond the overused and myopic focus solely on auto oriented benchmarks such as pavement quality, bridge inspections and level of service (congestion). To be clear, I am not saying it is bad to keep our bridges standing and safe and the roads that I use to travel to Vermont, Pennsylvania and Delaware from getting overclogged with traffic. Keep it up DOTs! However, we the public allow government to tax us because we want our lives improved and our agencies responsive. Having worked in the state DOT world for 34 years, I can tell you that most DOT insiders have lost track of that concept - and the public has noticed. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a major part of the reason why states and federal politicians will no longer vote for increased gas taxes.   Do we transportation professionals need to be hit in the head with a rock to figure this out?

USDOT gets this, as evidenced by last months webinar on Livability. So what would a more robust, 21st Century planning process look like?

For starters, it would be one which addresses environmental, energy, housing, economic, land use and development, and equity policies. There are ample models out there within some of the more progressive Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), which are the regional planning organizations mandated by federal transportation legislation. For instance, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Council (DVRPC) has generated a number of Scenario Performance Measures including amount of land development, average annual household transportation expenses, vehicle miles traveled and relationship within planning areas of jobs to housing. California’s State Bill 375 mandates Blueprint planning, which - like the DVRPC model — measures success of transportation planning against benchmarks that matter to the average citizen in every day life: how much does transportation cost eat into their budgets; is the regional planning helping folks to find affordable housing; does the transportation network help economize personal time or it is forcing them to drive around everywhere to bring kids to school, get a quart of milk, to take mom to the doctor?

These kinds of people based performance measures must count for as much (if not more) than how smooth the pavement is. Examples like DVRPC and California’s SB 375 must become the standard, not the remarkable case study.

This robust and accountable planning process must then be used to drive transportation investments. Sounds like a no brainer, right? Yet, the American public would be disillusioned to find out how much mismatch there is between long range plans and how state DOTs actually invest the transportation dollars that we provide to them. Federal law requires only that the investment plans (Transportation Improvement Plans or TIP for short) be “consistent” with metro or long range transportation plans. “Consistent” has become a term of art and is subject to strong-arming by the DOTs, which come equipped with bridge, pavement and congestion performance measures: DOTs can threaten to move money from one MPO to another if they don’t toe the DOT line. Politics also plays a big role in distorting the planning process. A majority of MPO voting members are elected officials who feel compelled to press for investment in the sub region that they represent. Fix it first projects often give way to huge investments in freeways or roadway widening. These have much more political visibility, satisfy economic interests in opening up new land for sprawling development or to satisfy the complaints of voters sitting in traffic. The end product barely resembles the plan.

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The United States Department of Transportation is planning to start leveraging transportation spending to build livable and sustainable communities.

Communities and advocates have been pressing the US transportation industry to be more proactive about achieving livability goals for decades. Yet, the transportation industry continued to pursue the notion that the safety and mobility of the motoring public was paramount.  Prior to the Obama Administration, these calls fell on deaf ears; now, it seems, we have an opportunity to begin to turn the battleship around.

“The pedestrian is the indicator species for a healthy, vibrant community.”
- Beth Osbourne, Deputy Assistant Director for Transportation Policy USDOT
For more quotes from the forum see our live Tweeting

On Thursday, September 24, ContextSensitiveSolutions.org, an FHWA website managed by Project for Public Spaces, hosted an online Forum on Livability for the US Department of Transportation (USDOT). In this forum, USDOT detailed several new programs related to a new Partnership for Sustainable Communities among USDOT, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that promise to reshape development patterns around creating stronger community centers, more compact, mixed-use and walkable environments, and enhanced transportation options. At the same time, these programs would focus development in existing developed areas and protect farmland and open space.

Transportation policy has drastically shaped the face of America.

We hope that we will look back on this initiative as a watershed moment in the history of transportation in America—a return to the idea that transportation investment should be about livability and community outcomes, not simply moving vehicles.

The idea that the transportation system should support community and societal outcomes is nothing new. Prior to the passage of the first federal aid highway act in 1916, road building was the responsibility of communities. They built roads to serve people and the needs of the community. Even when Americans authorized their government to begin taxing them to add highway infrastructure and create dedicated transportation agencies, we did so because we wanted the government to help improve our quality of life. For reasons which I outlined in a 2007 article entitled “Back to Basics in Transportation Planning” the American transportation establishment has lost its way. It is exciting to believe that the Obama Administration will be trying to help us find our way back to our roots.

Transportation policy is increasingly including efforts to improve accessibility, rather than just mobility.

Today’s webinar built upon the anticipation and excitement created by the June announcement of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Key officials from the USDOT’s Office of the Secretary (Beth Osborne), the Federal Highway Administration (Gloria Shepherd), and the Federal Transit Administration (Robert J. Tuccillo) covered the guiding principles of the new Partnership:

1. Promote more transportation choices
2. Promote equitable affordable housing
3. Enhance economic competitiveness
4. Support existing communities
5. Coordinate policies and leverage investment
6. Value communities and neighborhoods

These goals signal that our transportation leaders will finally tackle broader societal issues, which for decades they have insisted were not their purview. Issues covered by the presenters included land use, housing, climate, energy security and public health.

Later, the webinar addressed the inevitable question: “What Does the Future Hold?” Answers were encouraging. We can look forward to performance-based planning, especially using benchmarks that go beyond the narrow transportation focus that has conventionally dominated DOT and MPO planning and investments. Finally, an era may be approaching in which community vitality, equitable access to transportation, and a match between housing, jobs and transportation choices are equally as important as pavement quality and congestion levels.

Major changes to long-range planning practices, which advocates such as PPS have demanded for quite some time, are also on the horizon. I have personally advocated for multi-modal corridor planning that integrates transportation and land use, with Placemaking as a key foundation. PPS will again explore some of these ideas in a blog post next week.

Most critically, the speakers indicated that there will be changes in the transportation funding structure. Currently, there is a huge disconnect between strategic and policy-level transportation planning and how public funds are actually spent. It is encouraging to hear that these expenditures will be based on performance measures that go beyond pure transportation objectives. It sounds like we may actually be getting back to the basics!

The road ahead for transportation in America will only get more interesting -- and hopefully more livable.

PPS has been contributing to the idea of livable transportation for almost two decades. We were involved in publications like the The Role of Transit in Creating Livable Metropolitan Communities, as well as a 2008 publication written for AARP entitled Great Corridors, Great Communities: The Quiet Revolution in Transportation Planning. Additionally, our recent Citizen’s Guide to Better Streets: How to Engage your Transportation Agency was published to help advocates work constructively with public agencies in order to create more livable and sustainable streets and neighborhoods. In these efforts, we are proud to have been able to build on and supplement the work of other great organizations such as the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Reconnecting America, the Surface Transportation Policy project, among others.

We believe that non-profit organizations and advocates across the country—at the local, state and national levels—have both leadership and implementation roles to play in helping Washington achieve these goals. PPS will continue to be actively engaged to keep the public informed to make change happen in communities across the country.

For one glorious day each year, an international celebration of street life commonly known as “Park[ing]  Day” reclaims parking spaces as people spaces in cities ranging from Santiago to Copenhagen. As described by its local New York City organizers—Transportation Alternatives, this monumental day is intended to

“support the conversion of parking spots throughout New York City into human-friendly places for one day each year. This year there are 55 spots throughout the five boroughs. These temporary public spaces provide relief from the hustle and bustle of New York City and aim to spark a dialogue about the way residents, visitors and city officials choose to use valuable public space.”

Well said. Park[ing]  Day is yet another example of grassroots community efforts to  make our streets more comfortable and welcoming for the pedestrian. These efforts complement the host of steps such as the NYC Plaza Program, through which the DOT has reclaimed prominent public spaces including Times Square and various plazas throughout the Meatpacking District from vehicles to enhance the pedestrian experience of the city. Yet for us here at PPS, Park[ing]  Day is so much more.

For Project for Public Spaces, parking day is like game seven, Bulls vs. Knicks, Jordan vs. Ewing, people vs. car, auto-dominated highways vs. friendly streets as places where the random sidewalk contacts are able to foster a wealth of public life. We train all year for parking day…discussing potential themes, practicing badminton in the office until the wee hours of the night, even lying down in traffic… just to practice. This year the enthusiasm was so high, we even got a countdown calendar with daily quotations by transportation visionaries such as Alan Jacobs, Hans Monderman, and Rolf Monheim.

Following a strong track record with a Mini-Bryant Park themed space at last year’s Park[ing]  Day and a “disPlaced Park” the year before , expectations were high for ‘09. After great debate, with the uncanny sense of vision and passion of a seasoned veteran, new Project for Public Spaces employee Tom Peyton had a stroke of genius…Turf’s Up!…which is obviously an Astroturf beach.

Based upon this theme, PPS incorporated its “Power of 10” methodology to provide a layering of activities and uses including: Hula Hooping, Dancing, Dominoes, Music, Twister, Manicures, Pedicures, Eating, Drinking,  People Watching, Football, Frisbee, Outdoor Meetings, Cigarette Breaks, and of course a small library consisting of books on Pidgin English and gossip magazines.

All in all, Park[ing]  Day was a success…but there were a number of other bar raising celebrants around the world who have encouraged us to begin planning the best Park[ing] Day space ever for 2010.

For further coverage of parking day please see the following links:

http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/parking-day-2009-nyc/

http://www.apapase.org/

http://twitter.com/parkingdayphila

http://parkingdayla.com/

http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2009/09/parking-day-dc-tomorrow-september-18th.html

Abu Dhabi, a rapidly-growing city

The third in a series of reflections from the travels of a 34-year veteran Traffic Engineer from the New Jersey Department of Transportation.  Gary Toth, who had previously never been abroad, spent a week in the United Arab Emirates capital city of Abu Dhabi. He found the city to be rapidly positioning itself to become one of the most progressive and sustainable transportation networks.

Abu Dhabi is a city of almost 900,000 people. It has grown remarkably since 1960, when it was a village of 25,000 based on camel herding, pearl diving fishing and farming.  Then it was learned that Abu Dhabi – currently one of the seven emirates comprising the nation of the United Arab Emirates – was sitting on one tenth of the world’s oil reserves.

Abu Dhabi grew slowly at first.   With most of its growth after 1975, Abu Dhabi is a modern city that grew during the height and glory of the automobile era.  With endless and cheap oil, it was logical that the city planners saw no need for transit, walkability or other non automobile modes.  Interestingly, availability of cheap and abundant energy fueled Abu Dhabi’s growth much in the same way that it did for America in the 1950s and 1960s, when America was the world’s leading oil producer. Transit was deemed irrelevant, inconvenient and restricting, and the city was built on a backbone of wide, modern boulevards laid out on a super block type grid.   The downtown core consists of a multitude of 20 story or more buildings fronting on these boulevards.

Although their super blocks are very porous and contain low density buildings laid out on a grid, the grid is not connected well across the broad boulevards and much of the carrying capacity of the internal streets has been clogged by illegal but municipally tolerated parking.  The net result is the same as it has been for every other automobile oriented city in the world: cars and more cars, queued up 18 hours a day.

Inside a downtown superblock. Note “illegal” row of parking in middle of the street.

With the downtown core at capacity, smaller satellite centers started springing up wherever there was space.  To its credit, Abu Dhabi recognized the unsustainability of continuing to base its growth solely on the car and cheap energy without planning to minimize congestion, conservation of natural resources and energy. The city is now planning for a sustainable new future.  In September 2007, it released Plan Abu Dhabi 2030, which calls for new national performance measures that respect natural resources, the fragile environment, air quality and livability.  A nation that has abundant oil has called to “…cautiously use existing wealth, to actively explore renewable energy production, to reduce the consumption of non renewable resources…”

This release was rapidly followed by the development of a new Urban Street Design Manual (SDM), due for publication in August of this year.  I was fortunate to have played a small part in it this past June, with the lion’s share of the work having been done by their Department of Transport, their Urban Planning Council and a consultant team led by Otak International and Nelson Nygaard.   The SDM pays homage to the AASHTO Green Book – America’s universally accepted design reference and highway design guidelines.  While thanking them for serving as the foundation for design of the current transportation network in Abu Dhabi, they found it lacking to serve as a guide for “…urban streets where modes of transportation other than the automobile are present.”

The new SDM will be founded on the following community based principles:

1. Good street design starts with pedestrians. The world’s great cities are delightful and safe for walking, resulting not only in reduced rates of driving but also improved public health.
2. Street design supports reducing Abu Dhabi’s CO2 emissions, urban heat island effect and water consumption.
3. Street connectivity enhances capacity and allows smooth traffic flow.
4. Street design follows from place. Streets are not just for movement, but for supporting the land uses along them, including the enjoyment of residents and economic success of businesses.

Wow!

A city with abundant oil and the ensuing wealth to accomplish whatever it pleases has decided to turn the corner.  A city that continues to grow in leaps and bounds in spite of escalating congestion and inadequate infrastructure has decided to reinvent itself based on placemaking and sustainability. Why can’t we do the same in the US?

Of course, I am not naïve, and there are some obvious answers that others will offer:

1. Abu Dhabi does not have to face the political gauntlet to get things done.  Although my experience working with Abu Dhabi government in June reveals that they are open to ideas and input, the truth of the matter is that they don’t have navigate the grueling politics of America to get things accomplished.
2. Abu Dhabi is in a much sounder financial position based on the nationalization of their oil reserves.  This will make a difference when it comes to rightsizing, retrofitting and traffic calming existing roads, as well as creating the transit backbone of the future Abu Dhabi.
3. Abu Dhabi is so new as a major city that its bureaucracies have not had the time to develop an entrenched culture.

While the Untied States will certainly have to face these obstacles, there is no doubt in my mind that many can turn the corner here in America as well.  To do so, it will be necessary for those of us who recognize the need to change start working together to frame the issues in a way that encourages our political system to line up behind the national interest.   The myriad of non profits, philanthropic funders and private sector folks who are all pushing the proverbial cart in the same direction will have to roll up our sleeves and find a way to finally and totally align our missions.  We will have to work together to take advantage of the Federal Highway Administration’s Livable Communities Initiative.

If we sit back and watch Abu Dhabi, the Netherlands, Denmark and other countries of the world adapt to the new world order and position themselves to be world leaders, by default, America will be relegated to the “second world.”

Shared Space in the Netherlands

The second in a series of groundbreaking reflections from the travels of a 34-year veteran Traffic Engineer from the New Jersey Department of Transportation.  Gary Toth, who had previously never been to Europe, spent a week touring the Netherlands with fellow PPSers Fred Kent and Kathy Madden.  Their mission was to learn more about the Dutch approach to Sustainable Safety, bikeped accommodations and community-based transportation to support our Building Community through Transportation campaign.

Below is what they learned about the emerging concept of Shared Space, from seeing it first-hand and spending time with Willem Foorthuis and Wiebe Wieling of the Shared Space Institute.

What is a Shared Space?
Shared Space is more a way of thinking than it is a design concept.   It is most readily recognized as a street space where all traffic control devices such as signals and stop signs, all markings such as crosswalks, and all signing have been removed.  Curbing is removed to blur the lines between sidewalks and motorized travel way.  The philosophy is that absence of all of those features forces all users of the space — from pedestrians to drivers — to negotiate passage through the space via eye contact and person to person negotiation.

This is all premised on the idea that traditional streets allocate distinct spaces to the different modes, and in doing so create a false sense of security to each user leading them to behave as if they have no responsibility to look out for other users in “their” space.  This obviously works best for operators of motor vehicles, who are sitting within the protection of a ton and a half of steel.

How did it originate?
Shared Space was pioneered by the late Dutch traffic engineer and PPS friend Hans Monderman.   Monderman spent the early part of his career as a “traditional” traffic engineer.   As his experience grew, he became concerned that many of the engineering “improvements” that government was making in the interest of safety actually made some road segments more dangerous.  He observed that this was particularly true in urbanized areas, from villages to cities.   These were the areas that brought high volumes of pedestrians and bicyclists into conflict with cars and trucks.  In urban areas, the allocation of space is heavily regulated by signing, traffic lights, crosswalks, sidewalks, etc, all of which create the sense for each user that the space is their own and they can behave as they choose therein.   Responsibility for one’s own behavior was eroded; users simply had to stay within the limits prescribed by speed limits, white stripes and red or green lights. Monderman is quoted as saying: “We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior …The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.”

Monderman developed a simple, if counterintuitive solution.  If he removed the traditional cacophony of signing, striping, and traffic lights, people would stop looking at signs and start looking at each other.   Particularly with respect to drivers, this returned them to the mindset of a fellow citizen, inducing them to regain the manners that they possess when crossing paths with a fellow pedestrian while passing through a corridor at home or at work.   One nods to the other, “go ahead;” they smile at each other and move on their respective ways.   On our roads, motorists have been groomed to feel as if they have absolute priority and there is no need to respect the passage of pedestrians or bikers, at least until the traffic light turns red.

This concept is often misunderstood in American traffic engineering circles.   Monderman has occasionally been vilified in the US as “the Dutch nut who wants to remove all signs, curbs and traffic signals on roads.”   Early on, he was thought to be a dangerous fool by his fellow engineers in the Netherlands.   Thanks to his remarkable persistence and professionalism, he was able to overcome ingrained views on road safety engineering on arterials and streets in urban areas.

A Balanced transportation system
Monderman believed firmly that in order for Shared Spaces to work, they needed to be part of a system that consists of well-organized, well-regulated highway systems.   He was known to say, “The slow network needs the fast network to work.”   We heard the same from Willem Foorthuis of the Shared Space Institute while touring the Haren Shared Space (photos below).   When I asked Willem whether government has been receiving pushback from motorists, he answered, “No. Folks traveling longer distances from village to village have ample options to exit the road before reaching the Shared Space, and use the parallel high speed through road.  It is what they would have likely done anyway, Shared Space or not.”

Monderman also made no claim that his Shared Space principles would apply universally.   Like any good traffic engineer, he advocated an “engineering” study of a particular site to determine what would work best.

The role of land use in creating a successful Shared Space
All of the Shared Spaces that Monderman – or the Shared Space Institute (the organization that he helped to create) – have helped organize have been in “urbanized” areas.    Like many American traffic engineers, Monderman and the Shared Space Institute believe that the adjacent land use – the relationship of the buildings to the street, the presence of shops and other activities, etc — significantly influences motorists behavior.   “If you want people to behave like they are in a village, then build a village,” he was often heard saying.

The two photos at right from Ejby in Denmark demonstrate the effect of land use on the effectiveness of shared space.

1. A Shared Space was created on both sides of a regional rail line that has bisected the town in an attempt to counteract the bisecting effect.  This photo is from the least successful of the two spaces, which doesn’t have the land use to support the Shared Space concept.  As a result, when we were at the site, cars continued to speed through this space with little regard for pedestrians:

2. The next picture is from the western side of the tracks in Ejby.  Here it can be seen that a village setting has been created and the site worked more effectively:

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Bogota's Transmilenio is leading a transformation in urban mobility, but can it do more to transform urban places?

By Tom Peyton and Ethan Kent

Bogota’s Transmilenio Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT) has been receiving a lot of attention recently. PPS was actually touring Transmilenio headquarters (while there to speak at a conference) the morning the New York Times featured the system on its front page. Bogotá has a history of implementing innovative public projects throughout the city including its Ciclovia program, hundreds of great new parks and widened sidewalks and pedestrian-only streets. These improvements, many initiated during the same three years as Transmilenio by then Mayor Enrique Penalosa and his brother Guillermo (Gil), have created a more civil and vibrant city.

While the positive aspects of Transmilenio as a model are significant and easily transferable, our many trips to Bogotá (and several other cities in Latin America where BRT has been implemented) have also shown that there is still great opportunity for BRT to shape development, create public destinations, spur economic vitality and support social activity. The areas along the Transmilenio lines, and particularly around the stations, are not yet meeting their full potential to help create and connect places where people want to be.

"Transmilenio" was chosen because it sounds sexier than "Bus".

Transmilenio’s manifold benefits need to be stated, as it has fundamentally changed how the residents of Bogotá are capable of moving around the city. By dedicating multiple lanes exclusively to buses along major thoroughfares throughout the city, the integrated system has created an attractive public transportation option that has drawn in new riders and drastically decreased travel time for existing users. In some cases, commutes that used to take 2 to 3 hours now take 40 minutes. The impact of Transmilenio on Bogotanos’ quality of life is fundamental. Since its opening in 2001, the system has made a transformative contribution to energy efficiency and the environment. As mentioned in the New York Times piece, Transmilenio has helped reduce the amount of bus fuel used in the city by 59% over the period it has been operating.

Generalized benefits of Bus Rapid Transit include:
•   lower construction cost, as much as only 1/5th of light rail and 1/20th the cost of subways;
•   ease of incremental implementation;
•   faster loading and travel times that allow more frequent service and higher speeds than regular bus service;
•   the option to leave the guideway thereby offering scheduling and routing flexibility;
•   capacity advantages over regular buses and street cars;
•   compatibility with intraregional service, acting as a potential bridge between local service and regional service.

Transmilenio facilities are modern, clean and efficient, but could be nicer places to be.

Along with BRT’s ability to achieve these efficiencies in mobility, BRT can do more for riders and the communities that BRT systems serve and intersect. The spaces that the public uses to get on and off Transmilenio buses could become vibrant places with small additions of amenities and programming. Waiting platforms, overpass walkways and areas where passengers get picked up by cars are focused on system efficiency rather than human comfort, social interaction or flourishing commerce. There is great potential for these numerous points throughout Transmilenio to become community and retail hubs that further reduce the need for car trips and make the city significantly more compatible with walking and other modes of transit.

An average of 1.5 million Bogota residents take part in the city's weekly Ciclovia event.

A testament to Bogota’s resourceful use of public space and the latent demand for their use, Ciclovia succeeds every Sunday in creating active and engaging public spaces. Ciclovias have been a part of life in Bogota since the 70s but the event took its current form in the mid-90s. Every Sunday and all holidays, 70 miles of roads usually dominated by automobile traffic are closed to cars from 7am to 2pm. The streets are flooded with cyclists and pedestrians moving freely about the city. Along the route of Ciclovia there are various activity destinations including free exercise classes and vendors selling food and drinks.

Similar to how city decision-makers have added visionary programming to already existing large-scale urban infrastructure with Ciclovia, there is the potential to improve the vast public spaces of Transmilenio.   Transmilenio stops and their surrounding areas are more than simply areas for moving. They are social focal points where residents from all over the city come in contact with one another and share a common experience.

Where Transmilenio connects to the street can be some of the city's best public spaces.

PPS has utilized Placemaking strategies to work on train stations and bus stops around the world but has not yet had the opportunity to work on BRT systems.  In applying Placemaking to BRT systems, questions might include:
•   Can platforms become more comfortable for waiting?
•   Can retail opportunities on the platforms, along walkways and at entry plazas make the system safer and more engaging while bringing in new revenue sources and serving the needs of riders?
•   Can station and roadway design help create boulevards that reduce the impact of traffic and improve pedestrain accessibility (as accomplished with non pre-boarding versions of BRT in Paris, France and Eugene, OR)?

The plazas and streets of Transmilenio are ready to become great places.

One relevant project we worked on was in Santiago, Chile, where a series of empty and unfriendly plazas around a busy transit station were transformed into one of the best new public squares in Latin America. Marcello Corbo (who was also in Bogota on PPS’ recent visit) and Rodrigo Jullian, co-founders of Urban Development, worked with the city and local stakeholders to invest significantly in these public spaces while also achieving significant returns from the implementation of adjacent retail.  As Corbo observed in Bogota, many of the Transmilenio stops could benefit from a similar transformation.

What other strategies can help turn BRT stops into places for community engagement? How can BRT be leveraged to shape growth, create places and tame streets while still creating the efficiency and mobility gains it is known for?

For more background, watch the Streetfilms pieces that PPS helped to coordinate on Transmilenio and Ciclovia as well as a video on further lessons from Bogota.

On America's "Forgiving Highways" it may be too easy to forget oneself.

The first in a series of groundbreaking reflections from the travels of a 34-year veteran of New Jersey Department of Transportation.  Gary Toth, who had previously never been to Europe, spent a week touring the Netherlands with fellow PPSers Fred Kent and Kathy Madden.  Their mission was to learn more about the Dutch approach to Sustainable Safety, bikeped accommodations and community-based transportation.

30 years ago, the Netherlands, a country about twice in size and in population as New Jersey, was despondent over the high fatality rate on its roads. In the 1970s, 3,200 Dutch died each year in crashes, about ¼ of them pedestrians. This rate was about 15% higher than it was in the US at the same time. Around the same time, like most countries around the world,  the US also decided to do something about highway safety.

Both the US and the Netherlands endorsed improved technology in cars, driver education and the 1960s “Forgiving Highway.” The major difference rests in how engineers approached safety in built up areas — cities, villages and suburbs.  More on this in a moment.

Forgiving Highways is a concept that designs roads to “forgive” mistakes made on the road. It seeks to smoothly redirect the vehicles that leave roads, and allow wide enough clear zones to bring vehicles to controlled stops if and when they leave the roads. Breakaway supports, burying the end of guardrail, clearing the roadside of unneeded obstacles, and flattening and rounding slopes and ditch sections became standard design as part of the concept.

The idea that Forgiving Highways (wider and straighter) would reduce crashes on non-freeways took root during the 1966 National Highway Safety hearings. Leading the way was a nationally revered expert on safety: Kenneth Stonex, who during his career at General Motors, oversaw much of the research that created the basis for the Interstate Highway safety standards. Justifiably marveling in the remarkable safety record of the Interstates, Stonex and others sought to apply the Interstate principles to the rest of our roads. “What we must do is to operate the 90% or more of our surface streets just as we do our freeways… [converting] the surface highway and street network to freeway road and roadside conditions,” Stonex testified. It sounded logical at the time… and a great political solution, because the responsibility for fixing the problem once again fell on government, not the individual.   We dove deep into the Forgiving Highway philosophy and still have not come up for air.

The Dutch also believed in technology and Forgiving Highways.  However, they began to notice that while this worked on the high speed freeways and the low speed residential areas, they still had a problem in their “built up” areas. Recognizing that it is in these areas that they have the biggest conflicts between the purpose of roads for moving people and the value of roads in providing for exchange and access, they began to commit themselves to a different approach. They began designing roads in built up areas that induced motorists to operate their vehicles in ways and at speeds that were appropriate for passage through urbanized areas. The Dutch came to understand that the post-World War II world wide approach to making roads wider, straighter and faster simply doesn’t work on local and commercial roads in urbanized areas.

In the US, application of the Forgiving Highways approach in urban areas did accomplish its mission when vehicles did leave the road.  However, as an unintended consequence, vehicular speeds go up. Drivers responded to their environment. Put them on a stretch of road that is wider, flatter, and straighter and they drove faster. While okay on controlled access freeways where there are no adjacent land uses or pedestrians, and where sight distances are near infinite, curves are flat and opposing roadways are separated by wide medians or center barriers, higher speeds caused problems in built up areas. Yet we were so caught up in the paradigm that we never stopped to check to see if we were getting the desired result.

Even today, groups with credible sounding names such as the Transportation Construction Coalition continue to advocate for bigger roads.  This philosophy makes sense for the coalition, since its membership is made up almost entirely of contractors’ associations. But does it make sense for the rest of America?

Apparently not, according to research conducted by Eric Dumbaugh of the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M.  Wider shoulders and larger fixed object offsets – i.e. forgiving roadway design – has a statistically insignificant effect on roadside crashes. Yet widening shoulders actually increases midblock crashes. Why? The premise is higher speeds negate the effect of moving fixed objects further out, and cause more car to car crashes. Dumbaugh’s research further shows that a Livable Street concept — bringing life back to the street via trees, streetscaping, building setbacks, etc – leads to 40% fewer midblock crashes and 67% fewer roadside crashes than roadway averages (click here for more information). More importantly, injuries and fatalities from crashes almost disappear. Some American engineers are starting to accept this, but widespread adoption of this philosophy is still distant.

The Dutch have accommodated bicycling so well that a woman feels comfortable toting her three children to school.

Back to the Dutch. There are three significant differences between their approach to safety and ours.

1. They rejected that wider, straighter and faster is better for non-freeways in urban areas.

2. They adopted a multi-modal approach to safety. Travel by bicycle or on foot is valued equally and bikeped accommodations are universal.

3. They are managing access to their “arterials” to a degree that many American access engineers would envy. The helps eliminate conflicts between mobility and local access, which destroys the capacity of our through roads and leads to substantial deterioration of safety.

Cumulatively these three differences represent a disciplined approach to standardizing street design that the Dutch call “self explaining streets.”

Any American traffic engineer would instantly agree that one of the biggest sources of crashes in the US is lack of driver expectancy and confusion from road to road, sometimes within a segment of road. In fact, there have been some efforts in the US to foster self explaining streets, such as the Proactive Roadway Design philosophy described in the Pennsylvania DOT/ New Jersey DOT Smart Transportation Guide. Cities and metropolitan areas such as Charlotte, San Franciso, Denver, Savannah and Portland have all moved to create transportation policies that move away from wider, straighter and faster. But none have consistently or comprehensively taken root across the American transportation industry.

The American emphasis on safety has led to a reduction in annual fatalities from 44,000 a year in 1975 to 37,000 a year in 2008. This is an accomplishment to be proud of under any circumstance but particularly impressive in light of our population growth over that period. This is a tribute to the engineering and planning profession in our country.

During the same period, the Dutch have reduced their fatalities from 3200 to 800. If we calculate out the rate per 1000 people, the Dutch fatality rate is 40% of the American rate. This is remarkable, particularly when one considers that in 1975, their fatality rate was 20% higher than the US rate!

If we in American had achieved a similar reduction in fatality rates, our annual fatalities would drop to just under 15,000 a year – 22,000 less deaths than we currently experience.

An New Agenda to Save Lives in the United States

This dramatic savings of lives should be a focus of the next federal transportation bill. Congress, transportation advocacy and our communities all agree that the American transportation system has lost its way, and has no overarching message that excites our citizenry in the way that Interstate system did in the 1950s

To foster the infusion of the applicable Dutch transportation ideas into the US, PPS is forging a partnership with the Dutch National Information and Technology Platform for infrastructure, traffic, transport and public space – C.R.O.W.

Stay tuned for more information on this exciting partnership in an upcoming PPS newsletter. Not a subscriber?  Click here to sign up for free.

As noted in a previous PPS blog post, an organization called Transportation Construction Coalition (TCC) commissioned preparation of a report called On A Crash Course: The Dangers & Health Costs of Deficient Roadways. I would like to add a few observations to the great article written by Renee Espiau entitled “The Myth of the Great Wide Way” and posted by Craig Raphael on July 7.

The TCC report, while not being taken too seriously amongst transportation professionals, has received a lot of media attention, probably due to a concerted effort by the TCCs media relations department. In the interest of full disclosure, readers who may potentially be influenced by this research should understand that the TCC is not an independent organization with an unbiased interest in whether more and bigger roads get built. The TCC consists of 28 national construction organizations and labor unions, with two roadway design organizations thrown in for good measure. It is co-chaired by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association and the Associated General Contractors of America.

This is not a bad thing.  I spent 34 years helping a state DOT build roads myself.  But let’s not accept this as independent research.

Readers should also be aware of the major assumptions made in the report.

First, by their own admission, for vehicles other than large trucks, the TCC had no real data on whether road conditions actually contributed to the crash or not. The report is completely silent on whether this is really appropriate considering the huge difference in handling characteristics of cars versus large trucks. This is particularly true regarding events where vehicles left the roadway and collided with a fixed object such as a tree or bridge abutment.

Second, the TCC report admits that it does not contain adequate information on travel speeds: “In the 2006 CDS, 61% of cases have missing values for reported travel speed.” The most current information available was from 1986, and even then, the data was from only a fraction of the universe representing crash data collection.

These two major gaps in the research are particularly troubling when applied to urban arterials. We are being told by the TCC — frightened actually — into believing that we need to ramp up our “Forgiving Highway” approach.  Straighten and widen our roads or our lives will be at peril! The Forgiving Highway approach was cultivated on the Proving Grounds of General Motors almost 5 decades ago and has worked marvelously for the Interstate Highways and other freeways.

The problem is that modern transportation engineering, giddy over the success of application of Forgiving Highways to our Freeways, began to apply the same principles to local streets and the in-between class of roads: arterials. It was logical to think this way, and still is OK on rural arterials, where killer trees and ditches should be addressed.  However, the method is counterproductive in urbanized areas. An increasing body of research is revealing what Eric Dumbaugh (a brilliant young researcher at Texas A&M) talks about in several papers. “Livable Streets,” those designed in harmony to support (not ignore) the urban context, induce drivers to travel at speeds appropriate for urban environments. His research shows the Forgiving Highway concept applied to urban arterials actually increases midblock crashes and also sideswipes and encounters with poles, trees and other fixed objects.

I am a career transportation engineer, so I obviously believe in safety. But Dumbaugh’s research confirms what I began to understand during the last 15 years of my career.  Indiscriminately widening and straightening roads is not automatically safer.  Site specific engineering analysis of crashes needs to be applied before deciding on how to make a road safer.  Sometimes slowing it down is better.  Interestingly, some folks at PennDOT came to the same conclusion. Their back-of-the-envelope research revealed that crash rates increased on half of about two dozen of their “safety” projects. The only conclusion that makes sense is that motorists, feeling safer at higher speeds, drove faster.  Sometimes, upgrading one section of roadway might actually induce motorists to speed into a hazard on the adjacent section.

Am I anti construction and jobs? Absolutely not. Collectively it would cost just as much if not more to deploy a national safety program that rebuilds roadsides instead of clearing them out. The construction industry, which has helped America build the greatest system of high speed roads in the history of the world, can now help save lives by gearing up to help us build the rest of the transportation network: both slow and fast! I am sure that the Transportation Construction Coalition is well intended and wants to make our roads safer as well as create jobs. I urge them to “look before they leap” before using their substantial resources to promote and lobby for application of the Forgiving Highways paradigm to all of our roads.

Photo Credit: Matthew Roth for Streetsblog San Francisco.

The San Francisco Great Streets Project kicked off last night with a riveting speech from Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia and champion of livable streets reforms. Peñalosa spoke to the benefits of reclaiming valuable street space for pedestrians and emphasized that the amount of space allocated to cars is not fixed, but rather a political decision that can drastically reshape the city. “There is no such thing as a ‘natural’ level of car use in a city,” he said. “The narrower the street, the slower the speeds, the wider the sidewalks, the better you can feel.” For a full recap of the speech visit Streetsblog San Francisco.

Modeled after the New York City Streets Renaissance, which performed several successful demonstration projects throughout New York City around similar issues, San Francisco’s Great Streets Project is poised to work with grassroots, political and business leaders to “test, analyze and institutionalize Placemaking.” PPS initiated this process in April with a breakfast discussion for city leaders and leaders of community benefit districts to explore the potential of implementing new public plazas and creating streets that function as places. The event also examined the myriad benefits of improving the city’s public spaces and explored techniques for gathering diverse stakeholders to accomplish this vital goal. (Video of event presentations is available.) In the same month, PPS also led a “Streets as Places” training course for SFMTA and other agency staff.

PPS has helped to intitiate and lead similar Placemaking campaigns in Chicago and Seattle. We look forward to supporting the SF Great Streets Project and building on the momentum that Enrique Peñalosa generated with his speech.

On a related note, PPS is working in Bogotá this week to explore further ways that the city can lead the world in public space innovations.

More information:

Making Great Streets–San Francisco Bay Guardian

One of the most vital transportation links in the New York metropolitan region, the Tappan Zee Bridge is due for a major upgrade to satisfy growing travel demands. New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), New York State Thruway Authority and MTA Metro-North Railroad are working together to plan a new bridge that includes exciting possibilities for transit that will better meet the needs of Rockland and Westchester County communities along the I-287/I-87 corridor.  Five design alternatives currently being evaluated by NYSDOT range from adding a bus-rapid transit (BRT) link across the bridge (both with and without a designated travel lane) to building a heavy rail link from Suffern to New York City.

A longtime proponent of “Building Communities through Transportation” and “Thinking Beyond the Station,” PPS was hired by NYSDOT, along with the Regional Plan Association and Reconnecting America, to conduct workshops with communities along the corridor to leverage the state’s transit investment and explore opportunities for transit oriented development. The Tappan Zee Bridge project is a terrific opportunity for communities to plan responsibly for future growth around transit and maximize the economic benefits of increased housing and transportation choices, as well as create jobs and improve overall quality of life. Proactive land use planning will also help preserve the state’s investment in new highway capacity.

PPS and its partners will hold two county-wide workshops around these issues this fall, with an open invitation to all interested communities. Specific topics may include creating great places around transit, smart parking, mixed-income housing, regulations and financing for transit-oriented community design, changing roadway design to support livable communities and optimizing transit service. Two-day workshops will then be held in the subsequent year in eight communities (four per county) consisting of in-depth discussion of local issues and local solutions, development of conceptual plans, and presentation of implementation tools. Communities interested in receiving this technical planning assistance must submit an application by July 17^th. This pilot project is also intended for eventual deployment to communities across the state.

For more information, please contact Craig Raphael at craphael@pps.org.