Transportation

From Cyburbian graciela: This is a bit trivial but have any of you ever reflected on the the effect that the style of on-street parking can have on the percieved quality of an urban sidewalk/streetscape? In an urban setting, my opinion has always been on-street parking=good. I never really cared if it was parallel or angled. I always let the site/context/traffic patterns, etc. dictate the form of the onstreet parking.

Is one more institutional than the other? Maybe angled is more informal? What are your thoughts?

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From Cyburbian jsk1983: Marktown was (is) a planned industrial community located in the city of East Chicago, Indiana approximately 22 miles from Chicago's loop. Clayton Mark, of the Mark Manufacturing Company was a member of the Chicago Commercial Club which commissioned a study to discover why there was such a high turnover of industrial employees. What the study found was that there was a lack of quality, affordable housing for workers and their families. With this in mind Mark commissioned Howard Van Doren Shaw, a prominent Chicago architect to design a town that would meet the needs of his workers. The result was Marktown which was built in 1917.

From Cyburbian MacheteJames: My municipality is looking to apply for some state transportation enhancement funds. I have about a month to six weeks to put a proposal together. The minimum grant award is $200k, with a max award of $2.5 mil. One of the potential projects on the table is to make infrastructure improvements to enhance the ability of cyclists and pedestrians to get around. The pedestrian portion of this is somewhat obvious - add some sidewalks where there should be sidewalks, crosswalks, bump outs, islands, and so forth.

From Cyburbian Michele Zone: I recently embraced car-free living. Making the transition to not owning a car has been an interesting experience. Neither of my sons has ever expressed any interest in learning to drive. They are actually more independent and get out more now that we are car-free. It's on them to do most of the grocery shopping. They are 18 and 20 years old and our favorite grocery store is only about 10 minutes away on foot. It's one of the reasons we chose this apartment. At the time that I moved here, I wanted some place super close to my job, my favorite grocery store, and a few other essentials because I still had seriously limited energy and just going to work was a real challenge at times. Being practically across the street from the grocery store made it possible for me to cope with getting groceries at times when it would have been a real hardship for me to spend more than 15 or 20 minutes on such a task.

From Cyburbian Joe Iliff: Bohmte, Germany is the latest of several European cities to remove traffic signs, signals, and even road striping in an effort to calm vehicluar traffic in town:

A Green Light for Common Sense: To Slow Drivers, German Town Drops Traffic Signals and Lane Markers

"The assumption is that drivers are accustomed to owning the road and rarely pay attention to speed limits or caution signs anyway. Removing traffic lights and erasing lane markers, the thinking goes, will cause drivers to get nervous and slow down. "Generally speaking, what we want is for people to be confused," said Willi Ladner, a deputy mayor in Bohmte. "When they're confused, they'll be more alert and drive more carefully."

From Cyburbian brandonmason: So just a few days before this announcement, Mayor Bloomberg called the idea of congestion charging a "nonstarter" due to huge political opposition. On Earth Day, he proposed a three year pilot to charge cars $8 and trucks $21 for entering the busiest parts of Manhattan. By "busiest parts," he seems to mean everything below 86th street. Apparently any tolls on bridges and tunnels would be credited toward the daily charge.

I agree that it's probably a "nonstarter" due to political opposition not only in Albany but also in NYC. I for one think it is a great idea, and hope something comes of it.

From Cyburbian monkeyflower: A neighborhood in my town has asked the city to consider closing off a couple of streets (creating cul-de-sacs) in order to address two concerns:

First is cut-through traffic - cars detouring through the neighborhood, speeding and ignoring stop signs, in order to avoid the lights on parallel major roads.

Second is crime concerns - if the streets are cut-off, the theory goes, drug and prostitution activity will be reduced because the dealers and johns won't have getaway routes, so they'll go elsewhere.

I've been asked to comment on this idea. My immediate reaction was that it's a bad idea - the best case scenario, after all, is just pushing the crime and traffic to the next block over. (Which some of the neighborhood residents think is just fine, "because that's a major street", but I'm not so convinced it's an improvement at the community level.

From Cyburbian Supernova: First of all, I will say that I do not have training in urban planning, and I'm just beginning to do some research because it's fascinating to me.

I've had some ideas, I'd like to get some "expert" opinions: I envision town centers being "rounder", with roads spiraling out or in concentric circles. I realize this is not as "efficient", meaning you may not get from Point A to Point B in the fastest amount of time, but it would definitely add a more human and more social aspect to walking around town. The grid system of laying out roads and properties is, well, very square. I'm sure we can improve on it. It may be efficient, but it's not very livable.

From Cyburbian southern_yank: Creating a TOD plan is easy, but making the plan happen is a whole different story. My city is working on several transit-oriented plans, but it's still early in the process. Have any of you been successful in creating meaningful criterea by which to measure TOD success? A few variables which I think would work:

- Auto ownership rates
- Transit patronage
- Walk/bike trips
- Appropriate zoning regs adopted
- Business/resident surveys to determine if nearby transit influenced their decision to invest in neighborhood
- Traditional neighorhood indicators like housing prices, retail activity, etc within the TOD area and measured against pre-TOD data.

From Cyburbian Vlaide: Has anyone ever used one, or been involved with a project with one? I'm thinking there could be some great application in parks and other specific places; not sure about the longevity of them and other issues. Curious to know. Maybe they haven't been around long enough to know. Seems like a great idea though.

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From Cyburbian grant458: Just curious if any other municipalities had success stories for back-in parking in downtown areas. Also, what dimensions were used.

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From Cyburbian CJC: San Francisco is looking as copying some of the market-rate metered parking used in other places. All I can say is...finally! What does everyone else think of this idea? There doesn't seem to be much of an outcry from any interest groups - everyone seems to agree that charging below-market prices for street parking is stupid and using the market to keep a certain amount of spaces open and available makes sense.

In a somewhat related story - SF also just got approval from the governor to install cameras on the front of buses - to snap shots of license plates of double-parkers and vehicles using bus/taxi-only lanes and send tickets in the mail. Again...finally!

From Cyburbian ChevyChaseDC: The media makes a big deal each year about the TTI's Urban Mobility report - especially the hours and gallons of fuel wasted in traffic. They do propose some sensible low cost measures designed to improve traffic flow - e.g., better signal timing, entrance ramp metering.

But they pay their usual lip service to mass transit, using passenger miles, which many transit experts know is not really a valid measure of transit's effectiveness or reach.

In general they're focused solely on mobility without consideration of accessibility. In the authors' assumptions, a trip of 2 miles on mass transit is of far less value than a trip of 20 miles by car. They see the ability to drive farther distances at a higher rate of speed as a good thing. They fail to make the connection between land use patterns, the ability to select non-automotive transportation, and per capita VMT. The Surface Transportation Policy Project's Congestion Burden Index improves on the Urban Mobility Report by factoring in the ability of the residents of an urban area to avoid congestion by using transit, walking, and biking. Thus, the Washington, DC area fares far better in the measure of the burden of that region's congestion on all its residents, and not just solo drivers.

From Cyburbian ocmillhouse: I'm working pedestrian connectivity for a guidebook. What quantifiable methods have you used to calculate walkability?

Due to timing & budget this will focus on just the walkability standpoint for streets/paths layout and not a qualitative analysis of the enjoyment of the walk (detached sidewalks, landscaping, architecture, etc.).

We had been using a intersection:street length ratio and a link:node ratio but found it really wasn't providing realistic results. Any other calculations/ratios that help identify walkable and unwalkable areas? Thanks.

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From Cyburbian LeaAPM: The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the nation's aging infrastructure a report card score of "D," and estimates the price tag for improving our roads, airports, dams, bridges and water systems at $1.6 trillion.

Issues surrounding the state of public infrastructure struck very close to home for me and my colleagues at Minnesota Public Radio due to the collapse of I-35W. But the issue has been talked about – but also ignored - for years.

What are your experiences with aging local, state, or national infrastructure?

I hope to see this issue discussed among those who deal with infrastructure daily – planners, architects, inspectors, or concerned citizens – here at Cyburbia.

Big Dig tunnel failures, bridge collapses, flooded subways - are these sensationalized news stories or indicative of a profound problem in public infrastructure?