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.

continue…

Millennium Park's Crown Fountain engages children in Chicago

What is the best public place in Chicago?  Sylvia O. thinks it is a community garden on Chicago’s far South-East Side, Brian S. nominated the Chicago Riverwalk for its “ingenuity and imagination,” and Afshan H. chose Harmony Park, the “go-to place in the Village of Arlington Heights.” The community, of course, is the expert.

The Metropolitan Planning Council, who partnered with PPS to launch a Placemaking Campaign for the city of Chicago last year, has encouraged city residents and visitors alike to participate in their What Makes Your Place Great contest.  From June 3 to July 27, dozens of people submitted entries.  Now, the organization is asking for votes - more than 2,000 votes have already been cast!

From now until Sep. 14, visit PlacemakingChicago.com to view the entries and vote for your favorite photo and video. The site also features a Google map showing the location of each great place.

Four winners, two photo and two video, will be announced on Sept. 25, 2009. One winner in each category will receive a Grand Prize award, selected by a committee of Placemaking experts; and one winner in each
category will receive a People’s Choice award, selected by public vote. In addition to bragging rights and a great prize package, winners will have the opportunity to showcase their favorite places at an MPC event
on Oct. 28, 2009.

Voters are encouraged to review all of the fantastic entries, which highlight not only some of the regions best public places, but also some truly beautiful and inspiring photography and videography.

What: Situated in the heart of Madison, a market whose fame extends well beyond the city.

Why it Works: On Saturdays this market surrounds the Capitol Square. The vendors are friendly Wisconsin growers. On Wednesdays the market is on a street that runs from the Square to the Monona Terrace. The Capitol Square is on the isthmus in Madison. There are parking garages near the market, but many people either walk or bike to the market. Capitol Square is connected to the University of Wisconsin by State street. State Street provides additional shopping - clothing, music, restaurants, etc. - and traffic is restricted to buses and commercial delivery vehicles. Everybody shops here. It is clean and beautiful - summer in Madison, Wisconsin is amazing and green. The setting of the market around the Capitol building is idyllic. During the market the area is really dominated by pedestrians and cyclists. Vendors sell cheese (goat cheese, cheese curds, and more), produce (every apple you can imagine in the fall), flowers, poultry, fish, bread, nuts, jams, honey, and more. The crowd is as diverse as Madison - you will see many families, college students, and even politicians.

Read the entire profile here.

Click here to nominate your favorite public space!

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:

continue…

Can you see this sign? (Photo Credit: Marc Stiles, Daily Journal of Commerce)

The battle over the right to use public spaces on private property has been played out throughout the US over the last half century. Many developers, in exchange for a more favorable floor-to-area ratio (FAR) allowance, were required to build ground level public plazas.   Unfortunately, most of these plazas were public only in name; all too often, property owners and building managers discouraged people from using them, in direct violation of the law.  The problem, which continues to this day, is exacerbated by the fact that the spaces often feel private and univiting, and as a result are heavily underused.

PPS got its start in the late seventies working on many privately owned public spaces, convincing owners to make them more inviting and then adapting them to actually work for people. Rockefeller Center remains one of our strongest examples of accomplishing this transformation.  When PPS was established,  it was thought that the organization would not need to exist after a few years when everyone saw the value of making public spaces truly public and understood the simple principles for designing and managing them to be inviting to people.

Of course, the struggle continues today.  A group of city officials in Seattle recently organized a tour of these Privately Owned Public Spaces–or POPOS–to spread awareness of the issue to both the public and property owners.  During the tour, the issues at stake arose almost immediately; as reported by an article in the Daily Journal of Commerce, the group was asked by a security guard to leave the premises.  The officials politely informed the guard that they were on public property.

A press conference of the event (Photo Credit: Catherine Anstett)

Cities that have offered similar incentive programs, including New York City and San Francisco, have also continued to wrestle with this issue. Early successes there, as well as in Seattle, include new signage that clearly identifies these spaces as public areas. This is, of course, a long way from realizing the full potential of creating gathering spaces on privately owned property, for both social benefit and private economic gain.  And at PPS, we will keep working untill the last of these spaces is actually a public asset.

What: Scotland’s principal shopping street, and the heart of Glasgow.

Why it Works: Buchanan Street has been Glasgow’s premier street for the past two centuries and is an integral part of the fabric of Glasgow’s historic city centre. With its richly ornamented Victorian and Edwardian commercial buildings as a backdrop, Buchanan Street is Glasgow’s grandest promenade. Along its length it contains numerous shops, two arcades, two major shopping centers, a museum and library, and a design centre. The entrance to the city’s main concert hall both terminates the street’s axis and helps turn the corner into Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow’s other main shopping artery. The street is pedestrianized and attracts numerous visitors. There are several intersecting routes and public spaces, which offer a variety of activities. There are regular displays of street theatre and a monthly farmers market. In 2003 it was voted Scotland’s favorite street in a BBC / CABE poll. In summer 2004 it was awarded a Congress for New Urbanism award for excellence.

Read the entire profile here.

Click here to nominate your favorite public space!

What: A multi-use transfer point for all main lines of mass transit in Tokyo, this station is filled with people from 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. every day of the week.

Why it Works: The Japanese know how to use their valuable space efficiently. This is urban development at its best; you can go to one spot in the city and have a gazillion choices of activities to do. There are no dead spaces in this station. Every square foot of real estate has its function, including the locker areas, restrooms, police station, telephone booths, etc. The train station is open to all streets. Imagine a spider web with Shinjuku Station in the middle and Tokyo streets connected radially from it. You can access the station from many parts of the downtown. Wayfinding is easy, because there are signs every 10 feet, and the signs are in Japanese and English. You can do your shopping at the department stores right in the train station, or have a quick dinner at one of the take out soba places, or grab some toiletries at the small drugstores in the station. Shinjuku Station is one of the most common meeting places for people because it is the point where all trains in Tokyo converge, so it is convenient to use as a meeting place.

Read the entire profile here.

Click here to nominate your favorite public space!

The second in a three-year series, the Imagine Miami Changemaker Conference II on July 18, 2009 focuses on the power of place. Local residents will learn how to create and sustain the public spaces that build community, from community gardens to family-friendly parks and city blocks. Presented by the Human Services Coalition (HSC), the event will be held in downtown Miami at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus, in the Chapman Conference Center, from 9:30 am – 5:30 pm. To pre-register (deadline July 10), residents can go to www.imaginemiami.org or call (305) 576-5001.

Click here to read more.