Essential Ingredients for a Walkable, Compact Town Center

 

By Dom Nozzi

December 20, 2013

I attended a joint citizen board meeting regarding “Sustainable Streets and Centers” in Boulder, Colorado. Here are my thoughts about necessary strategies.

Assumptions

• Boulder has adopted a clear vision for one or more newly emerging walkable, compact centers in locations such as East Arapahoe Road, Colorado Street, and East Boulder, and intends to use effective tactics to induce the creation and sustainability of such centers.
• People that desire to live in walkable, compact living arrangements seek a setting that is conducive to such a lifestyle. That setting features low-speed, narrow and human-scaled streets and intersections, very short walking distances to most destinations, buildings pulled up to the sidewalk to create enclosure, and a vibrant experience (in contrast to deadening expanses of parking and large building setbacks). The market for higher density housing will be very weak and unsustainable if such a walkable setting is not provided.
• 15-minute neighborhoods are an important Boulder objective, which will require the creation of a relatively large number of centers.
• The objective for centers is a drive to rather than drive through experience, a park-once setting, and a design that makes the pedestrian the design imperative.

General comments

First, strive to use words that resonate and are understandable to non-professional Boulder citizens. Terms such as “multi-way” or “activity center” or “alternate modes” or “corridor” are confusing, uninspiring, and negative. Second, when visioning or seeking comments from citizens, it is important that citizen comments be guided and informed by skilled design professionals (such as Dover-Kohl) who are skilled in presenting information in an understandable, inspiring way (particularly through use of quality graphics). Third, existing housing, employment, or land use patterns should not necessarily dictate visions if such patterns conflict with Boulder objectives. Fourth, the needs or convenience of regional commuters should not trump the low-speed, vibrancy, pedestrian scaled needs of Boulder’s centers.

Toolbox of Strategies that are Essential in Creating a Walkable, Compact Center

(somewhat different toolboxes are needed for other lifestyle zones – “transect zones” – in Boulder)

Land Development Regulations:

• Motor vehicle parking is behind buildings.
• Shorter blocks via cross-access pedestrian ways between buildings.
• Mixed-use zoning to reduce walking/biking distance, and increase 24-hour vibrancy and safety.
• Relatively high residential densities and commercial intensities.
• Remove any regulatory barriers to infilling existing parking with buildings.
• Do not allow gas stations at intersections.
• Convert parking minimums to parking maximums. Require that the price of parking be unbundled. Increase allowable shared use and leased parking opportunities.
• Relatively modest building setbacks. At intersections, a sense of place is achieved by requiring buildings to abut the back of sidewalks.
• Exemption from landscaping requirements.
• Relatively small minimum lot sizes.
• Relatively small signs required by the sign ordinance (to help signal a low-speed, pedestrian scaled setting).
• Proactively overlay a street grid with small block sizes before development is proposed.
• Do not allow fences to cut off non-street access to adjacent parcels. Fences used should not exceed three or four feet in height along a sidewalk.
• Emphasize multi-family housing rather than single-family housing in centers and along major streets.
• Consider requiring at buildings at least two-stories in height for more of a sense of place, a sense of enclosure, mixed use opportunities, and better adaptability to change over time.

Infrastructure

• Shorter street blocks (200 to 500 feet max).
• When streets passing through the proposed center are 4 lanes or more in size, they need to be necked down (road dieted) to no more than 3 lanes.
• Intersections must be kept relatively small in size so that they are pedestrian-scaled. No more than one turn lane in a given direction, relatively narrow travel lanes, and small turning radii.
• Continuous left turn lanes are to be discouraged. Raised medians with turn pockets are to be encouraged.
• Raised crosswalks when feasible and appropriate.
• Street (including lane width) and turning radii dimensions are small and slow-speed.
• Street lights should be pedestrian-scaled so that light bulbs are no more than 14 feet in height. Taller lights create a highway ambiance and induce higher car speeds.
• Bus bays are inappropriate in a compact, walkable center due to loss of pedestrian scale and increased pedestrian crossing distance.
• Sidewalks have straight, rectilinear trajectories rather than curvilinear, suburban trajectories. Curvilinear trajectories, by adding unnecessary distances to walking, are annoying and patronizing to pedestrians. They are mainly benefiting motorists, who obtain a more pleasing view as they drive along a street with curving sidewalks. They also increase the likelihood of dirt cowpaths being formed by pedestrians seeking the shortest route.
• On-street parking is allowed and priced.
• Consider visually prominent gateway features at the entrances to centers to clearly signal to motorists that they are entering a low-speed, walkable setting that requires attentiveness.

 

Ingredients of a Walkable Street

By Dom Nozzi

How does a community create “walkable” streets? Streets that feels safe for all— particularly for seniors and children? Streets that are sociable due to large numbers of pedestrian users? Streets that are richly interesting? Streets that provide comfort? Streets that breed a strong sense of civic pride?

 

There are a number of essential ingredients that a community can (and sometimes must) use to craft and sustain a walkable street.

 

Convivial Concentration of Pedestrians. First and foremost, a walkable street must contain relatively large numbers of (preferably friendly) pedestrians. This obvious ingredient would go without saying, except for the fact that there are many who believe that various physical street design features are sufficient to create walkability. Actually, even the best-designed streets are not truly walkable if few walk them. On the other hand, even a poorly-designed street (in the physical sense) can be memorably walkable if it contains large numbers of pedestrians. Very little is more attractive and enjoyable to most humans—an inherently sociable species—than a vibrant, festive place filled with happy, friendly people.

This partly explains the overwhelming popularity of street festivals and public markets that are well known in their ability to create and sustain such gatherings.

 

Residential Densities. In order for a street to draw large numbers of pedestrians, large concentrations of people must either live within walking distance of the street, or the street needs to be a connecting conduit between two (or more) highly attractive destinations—destinations that are no more than, say, 3 to 5 blocks from each other. For example, a major university campus linked by a Main Street to a healthy downtown.

 

Human-Scaled Dimensions. People tend to feel most comfortable and safe when they are in “human-scaled” spaces. That is, spaces that do not dwarf them, make them feel insignificant, or over-exposed. Crucially, this means that horizontal and vertical dimensions of the surrounding physical elements of a street are relatively modest in size. In general, this means that streets are no more than two or three lanes wide. In the more urban areas of a town, buildings are pulled up to and abutting street-side sidewalks, and front porches are within “conversational distance” of sidewalks. Surface parking lots are tucked behind buildings and walls. Street lights are no more than about 20 feet tall (modest street light structures effectively establish a romantic ambience). The urban fabric is un-interrupted by gap-tooth parking lots. Instead, a continuous street wall is maintained. Buildings tend to be no greater than five stories, such as is found in Paris. Note, however, that buildings along a walkable street should generally be at least two stories in height in order to more effectively create the pleasing sense of enclosure. And to increase opportunities along the street for vertical mixed use buildings in which a first floor is occupied by an office or store, and above stories are occupied by a residence.

Human-scaled streets create the overwhelmingly pleasant feeling of being within an “outdoor room.” And, as a result, creating that all-important “sense of place.”

 

Active and Diverse Retail. An essential ingredient for a street to be walkable in the more urban area of a town is for the street to be lined with a rich collection of healthy, diverse, local retail establishments. Such an assemblage of enterprises ensures people that strolling down such a street will nearly always reward one with a fascinating cornucopia of sights, smells, sounds and potentially satisfying purchases—no matter how often the street is walked.

 

Traffic-Calming. For retail establishments and residences along a street to be healthy, and for pedestrians to feel comfortable, a walkable street nearly always must contain relatively low-speed motor vehicle travel. The most important way to provide such modest, comfortable speeds is to provide ample on-street parking, which not only slows cars but creates an extremely healthy, safe buffer between the pedestrian and moving motor vehicles. To calm motor vehicle speeds, it is also important that the street be no more than two or three lanes (ideally two travel lanes with “turn pockets”). Travel lanes should be no more than 10 or 11 feet wide. A prominent canopy of street trees and buildings pulled up to the sidewalk also create a moderating influence on motor vehicle speeds. A common mistake is to assume that the ideal form of traffic calming or creation of a walkable street is to create a “pedestrian mall,” a pedestrian-only street where motor vehicles are prohibited. However, such malls have nearly always failed in America. The lack of sufficient, nearby residential densities and the cultural dis-inclination to walk or bicycle means that the well-intentioned effort to establish such car-free areas typically (but not always) creates a “ghost-town” atmosphere in which there is so little pedestrian activity that the mall seems abandoned and vacant. Often, such malls end up being so little used that retail along the mall quickly dies from lack of patrons, and many cities that established car-free areas have converted them back to once again allow car travel.

The key is not to ban car travel on a street intended to be walkable, but to design the street in such a way as to obligate motorists to drive slowly and attentively.

 

24-Hour Activity. A walkable street must be alive day and night, instead of closing down at 5 pm. 24-hour streets tend to be not only more interesting and fun, but also much safer due to the benefits of “citizen surveillance” and “eyes on the street.” Again, 24-hour activity is promoted by the development of relatively high residential densities within the walkable catchment area of the street. Residences provide after-hours pedestrian activity as residents will walk to stores, services, culture, parks, and the homes of friends and family throughout the day and night. Studies by the nation’s leading investment indicator firms have shown over and over again that “24-hour” cities harbor the most healthy, profitable investment opportunities. Businesses and residences tend to thrive in such cities, which are seen as hip, cutting edge, exciting (yet safe) places to be for what Richard Florida calls the “Creative Class.” Some cities find it useful to control and restrict the percentage of buildings along a street intended to be walkable by limiting the number of offices along the street, since offices tend to be closed (and therefore deadening) after 5 pm.

 

Narrow Lots. An important way to create a lively, exciting and interesting street life is to establish relatively narrow property widths along the sidewalk. Doing so increases the frequency of doors that enliven the street, as well as windows and other elements essential to an enjoyable pedestrian experience.

 

Weather Protection. For comfort in hot climates or rainy climates, it is important on more urban sidewalks to provide awnings or colonnades on the front facades of buildings along the sidewalk. Another extremely important element is a canopy of tall, formally-aligned, same-species street trees overhanging the street and sidewalk (and limbed up so as not to obscure the view of retail building facades).

 

Wide Sidewalks. It goes without saying that a walkable street should provide sufficiently wide sidewalks. In general, such sidewalks should range from 8 to 20 feet in width, depending on the pedestrian volumes expected. Note that there is too much of a good thing when it comes to sidewalks. Overly wide sidewalks can be just as undesirable as sidewalks that are too narrow, because wide sidewalks that carry only a handful of pedestrians creates the undesirable sense that the area is not very active or alive, whereas a narrower sidewalk with the same modest number of pedestrians can seem “bustling with life.” Therefore, it is important that sidewalks use a width that corresponds to expected pedestrian use along the street-striking a balance between pedestrian comfort and the need to create a lively ambience even when there are not enormous numbers of pedestrians.

 

Unobtrusive Equipment. Trash dumpsters near (or on) sidewalks tend to create an unsightly and often smelly character for the sidewalk, and send the message that the sidewalks and public realm are disregarded—and that pedestrians are therefore not respected. For these reasons, a walkable street keeps dumpsters remote from public, streetside sidewalks, or has dumpsters use compatible, attractive screening. Similarly, outdoor mechanical equipment (such as heating and air conditioning equipment) can create an unattractive, noisy ambience for a public sidewalk. Walkable streets keep this equipment on building roofs or on the side or rear of buildings so that they are remote from public sidewalks.

A powerful mechanism for keeping unsightly, obtrusive equipment away from the public sidewalk is the alley behind buildings, where garbage and utilities can be inconspicuously placed. Walkable streets therefore tend to feature alleys.

 

Active Building Fronts. Increasingly, streets are neglected and degraded by buildings that turn their back to the street. On a walkable street, the fronts of buildings face the streetside sidewalk. Having doors and ample windows facing the street creates visual interest for the pedestrian, and energizes the street by providing a view of the inside of the building and having pedestrians enter and exit the building onto the sidewalk. Doors facing the street substantially reduce pedestrian walking distances.

Likewise, walkable streets feature residences with front porches, where porch occupants can interact with those on the sidewalk, and where pedestrians can enjoy seeing a home that sends a walkable, friendly character to the public realm, even when the porch is unoccupied. To be an active, interesting street, buildings along a walkable street have very little in the way of blank walls (which creates monotony and reduces security). Garages on walkable streets are recessed to avoid conveying the unpleasant message that a car, not people, lives here.

 

Modest Turn Radii and Crossing Distances. An important way to create safety and human-scaled dimensions is to create a street which has modest turn radii at street and driveway intersections. Small “corner curves” slow down the speed of turning motor vehicles, and can substantially reduce pedestrian crossing distances. In addition to the value of small turn radii, features such as landscape islands, “bulb-outs” and landscaped (or hardscaped) street medians can provide a street with attractive features and significant safety increases for the pedestrian crossing a street. Not only does such street landscaping improve the visual appeal of a street, but they also tend to slow down motor vehicles and provide a refuge area for the crossing pedestrian.

 

Proximity. For a street to be truly walkable, destinations from residences to places of work, school, parks, and shopping need to be in close proximity (no more than approximately one-quarter mile from homes). Note that a useful way to reduce walking distances is, when possible and appropriate, to align sidewalks diagonally. Proximity strongly promotes walking trips, which tends to increase pedestrian volumes on sidewalks, thereby creating a safer, friendlier, more enjoyable sidewalk ambience.

Walkable streets also tend to contain what Ray Oldenberg calls “Third Places.” Third places are typically corner pubs, groceries, post offices or other facilities where neighborhood residents frequently run into each other and interactively chat or wave hello. They build neighborhood bonds and friendships, and their ability to act as “social condensers” promotes sociability, familiarity and trust.

 

Short Block Lengths. Block lengths on a street must be short to create modest walking distances. Generally, a block should be no more than 500 feet in length-preferably 200 to 300 feet in length. Short block lengths are an effective way to reduce motor vehicle speeds. It is no coincidence that the most walkable cities have the shortest block lengths.

 

Vista Termination. A powerful means of creating a memorable, picturesque street is to locate important civic buildings such as churches, city halls and libraries at the termination of a street vista. Such termination emphasizes the importance and visibility of buildings that are located in such places, which is precisely what should be done with the most important civic buildings in a community. By doing so, civic pride is cultivated, and those within the community are sent a strong message about what the community believes are the most significant institutions in the community. Vista termination also creates the impression that the walk does not seem onerously “endless,” as a goal is in sight in front of the pedestrian. As Andres Duany has said, nothing is more satisfying than a prominent civic building grandly terminating a street vista.

 

 

 

 

Appropriate Businesses. Walkable streets tend to heavily regulate or prohibit the establishment of car-oriented businesses. Such businesses—because they depend on attracting large volumes of motor vehicles—are typically create visual blight, and excessively scaled for large vehicles instead of pedestrians (for example, by incorporating large parking lots between the street and building, or having an enormous building footprint that is difficult to negotiate on foot). Often, such businesses deploy glaring, flashing lighting, and can be the source of substantial levels of noise pollution. Walkable streets therefore commonly prohibit “Big Box” retail, drive-through’s, auto sales and service, stand-alone parking lots, car washes, and gas stations. By discouraging pedestrian activity, such businesses drain vitality from public sidewalks.

 

 

_________________________________________________

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

Visit: www.walkablestreets.wordpress.com

Or email me at: dom[AT]walkablestreets.com

My memoir can be purchased here: Paperback = http://goo.gl/9S2Uab Hardcover =  http://goo.gl/S5ldyF

My book, The Car is the Enemy of the City (WalkableStreets, 2010), can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-car-is-the-enemy-of-the-city/10905607

My book, Road to Ruin, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Introduction-Sprawl-Cure/dp/0275981290

My Adventures blog

http://domnozziadventures.wordpress.com/

Run for Your Life! Dom’s Dangerous Opinions blog

http://domdangerous.wordpress.com/

My Town & Transportation Planning website

http://walkablestreets.wordpress.com/

My Plan B blog

https://domz60.wordpress.com/

My Facebook profile

http://www.facebook.com/dom.nozzi

My YouTube video library

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Top Ten Urban Design Books

 

 

 

By Dom Nozzi

In no particular order, here are the ten best, most influential urban design books that I have ever read. Each of these books changed the course of my life and how I view city planning and the world at large. I would strongly recommend that each of these ten books be required reading for every student, local government elected official, planner and engineer in your community.

 

The High Cost of Free Parking

By Donald Shoup (2005). My book, “Road to Ruin,” claims the key to quality communities is driven by how we build our roads. But in this groundbreaking work, the best planning book I’ve ever read in my 20 years as a city planner, Shoup persuasively shows that the excessive parking required throughout the nation is the primary factor for how our communities form, and plays a powerful role in how we travel. The parking we require new development to provide is scientifically unsound, economically irrational, counter to our community objectives, and thereby catastrophic for our cities and our quality of life. Shoup makes the pesuasive, disturbing case that how we manage our parking is the lynchpin to the future of our cities. Shoup’s book is exceptionally readable, witty and insightful. The book is thin with regard to urban design concepts, but as Shoup effectively points out, without the proper management of parking, quality urban design is not possible.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

By Jane Jacobs (1961). This book is universally and appropriately considered a classic in urban design, and is a pioneer in accurately describing what is necessary for a healthy city. Many of the timeless concepts used in urban design first gained prominence as a result of this book. It motivated (and continues to motivate) a great many professionals to become urbanists. As the author says, “Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city’s wealth of public life must grow.”

Cities and Automobile Dependence

By Jeff Kenworthy and Peter Newman (1989). The revolutionary, breakthrough book that changed my life as a planner. In its day, it turned conventional wisdom on its head with regard to traffic congestion, road widening and parking. Their international survey of cities shows that gas consumption and air pollution go DOWN as a result of congestion. That free-flowing traffic, big roads and excessive amounts of parking INCREASE gas consumption and air pollution (and also destroy community quality of life). This work also clearly shows the fundamental role that transportation plays in how a city forms. “The land use and urban form of cities are…fundamentally shaped by priorities in transportation…the essential character of a city’s land use comes down to how it manages its transport…higher average traffic speed appears to spread the city, creating lower density land use, a greater need for cars, longer travel distances and reduced use of other less polluting or pollution-free modes. The benefits gained in terms of less polluting traffic streams appear to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of extra travel and the resulting bulk of emissions.”

Home From Nowhere

By James Howard Kunstler (1996). The author combines an impressive understanding of quality urban design with hilarious, vitriolic, provocative observations about architecture in America. I have never laughed so hard in any book I have read. Or learned so much about the awful nature of buildings in the United States. Kunstler has made the point that, “what’s bad about sprawl is not its uniformity, but that it is so uniformly bad.” His other books about town-building and transportation are also worth reading: Geography of Nowhere, The Long Emergency, The City in Mind.

Cities in Full

By Steve Belmont (2002). The best case I’ve ever read about the merits of high residential densities in cities, and why such densities are essential for city health. A stupendous discussion about what ingredients are necessary for the well-being of a city. And why it is so important for a downtown to be the centralized community focus for jobs, housing and retail (instead of a polycentric city form). Excellent discussion about why the monocentric city is best for commuting.

The Great Good Place

By Ray Oldenburg (1991). Oldenburg discusses the crucial importance of “The Third Place,” the place we would traditionally go to after the work day for socializing with friends and regularly finding a sense of community, the place where “everyone knows your name.” They are distinctive, informal gathering places, they make the citizen feel at home, they nourish relationships and a diversity of human contact, they help create a sense of place and community, they invoke a sense of civic pride, they provide numerous opportunities for serendipity, they promote companionship, they allow people to relax and unwind after a long day at work, they are socially binding, they encourage sociability instead of isolation, they make life more colorful, and they enrich public life and democracy. Their disappearance in our culture is unhealthy for our cities because, as Oldenburg points out, they are the bedrock of community life and all the benefits that come from such interaction.

Suburban Nation

By Andres Duany, Jeff Speck, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (2000). A superb summary of the downfall of the American neighborhood and how it can be restored. “In [the traditional New England town], one can live above the store, next to the store, five minutes from the store or nowhere near the store, and it is easy to imagine the different age groups and personalities that would prefer each alternative. In this way and others, the traditional neighborhood provides for an array of lifestyles. In conventional suburbia, there is only one available lifestyle: to own a car and to need it for everything.”

Cultural Materialism

By Marvin Harris (1979). This book is about anthropology, not urban design, but it transformed how I think about human behavior, and therefore plays an essential role in my understanding why humans behave the way they do. For us to be effective in our urban design, it is necessary to know that humans behave largely due to the material conditions they face in their everyday world, and how very little behavior is due to the exhortation of ideas.

Trees in Urban Design

By Henry Arnold (1985). This should be a regularly consulted reference book on the shelves of all urban designers. An enormous wealth of information from an arborist who learned a great many things, in a long career, about the proper placement of trees to achieve better urbanism— how proper tree placement and selection can play a powerful role in creating a better city ambience. His prescriptions, while highly accurate and vitally important for a quality city, quite often run counter to what is frequently sought after by contemporary utility companies and other municipal engineers, which helps explain why most of our cities tend to be quite awful when it comes to their trees.

Stuck in Traffic

By Anthony Downs (1992). Another landmark book that changed how I think about transportation and city planning. In this highly readable book—required reading, by the way, for elected officials—Downs popularizes the concept of induced travel—what he calls The Triple Convergence. Why it is impossible for us to build our way out of congestion. He writes in an extremely understandable way about topics that are complex, yet crucially important—given the hundreds of billions of public dollars we spend to try to ease congestion.

 

Once you have read the above, there are ten additional, magnificent books worth your time.

 

The Car and the City. By Alan Durning (1996).

Zoned Out. By Jonathan Levine (2005).

Urban Sprawl and Public Health. By Howard Frumkin, Lawrence Frank, Richard Jackson (2004).

Getting There. By Stephen B.Goddard (1994).

Tomorrow’s Cities, Tomorrow’s Suburbs. By William Lucy (2006).

The Transportation/Land Use Connection. By Terry Moore & Paul Thorsnes (1994).

Fighting Traffic. By Peter Norton (2008).

Crabgrass Frontier. By Kenneth Jackson (1985).

How Cities Work. By Alex Marshall (2001).

Twentieth Century Sprawl. By Owen Gutfreund (2004).

The Wealth of Cities. By John Norquist (1998).

Visions for a New American Dream. By Anton C. Nelessen (1994).

Changing Places. By Richard Moe, Wilkie Carter Wilkie (1997).

Restoring the Rule of Law & Respect for Communities in Transportation. By Steve Burrington (1996).

Take Back Your Streets. By Conservation Law Foundation (1998).

The Next American Metropolis. By Peter Calthorpe (1993).

A Better Place to Live. By Philip Langdon (1994).

Divided Highways. By Tom Lewis (1999).

 

_________________________________________________

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

Visit: www.walkablestreets.wordpress.com

Or email me at: dom[AT]walkablestreets.com

My memoir can be purchased here: Paperback = http://goo.gl/9S2Uab Hardcover =  http://goo.gl/S5ldyF

My book, The Car is the Enemy of the City (WalkableStreets, 2010), can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-car-is-the-enemy-of-the-city/10905607

My book, Road to Ruin, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Introduction-Sprawl-Cure/dp/0275981290

My Adventures blog

http://domnozziadventures.wordpress.com/

Run for Your Life! Dom’s Dangerous Opinions blog

http://domdangerous.wordpress.com/

My Town & Transportation Planning website

http://walkablestreets.wordpress.com/

My Plan B blog

https://domz60.wordpress.com/

My Facebook profile

http://www.facebook.com/dom.nozzi

My YouTube video library

http://www.youtube.com/user/dnozzi

My Picasa Photo library

https://picasaweb.google.com/105049746337657914534

My Author spotlight

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/domatwalkablestreetsdotcom

 

 

Measuring Walkable Urbanity

What are the benefits of Walkable Urbanity?

By Dom Nozzi

A community fortunate enough to contain walkable urbanity is a community to cherish, celebrate and protect. A walkable place is lively, physically and financially healthy, fashionable, affordable, sustainable, sociable and safe. It is, in other words, a crystal clear sign of a high quality of life. Almost by definition, an attractive community is walkable and an unpleasant community is unwalkable.

 

Walkability exists when there is convenient access. The home is so close to a park, a grocery store, a movie theatre, places of work, nightlife and civic institutions that it is an easy, short walk to nearly all of life’s daily destinations. Car ownership must be optional if a walkable lifestyle is to exist.

 

Ironically, in the 20^th Century, travel by car was seen as the most convenient form of travel. Increasingly, however, we are coming full circle and realizing that past civilizations were right. That easy, quick access by foot, not car, is the key to convenience. And, importantly, living a rich, joyful life.

 

A walkable lifestyle is the most sustainable, low-impact, convivial way of living. Achieving and sustaining a walkable community is the most effective way to promote a high quality of life. More walking—not just for recreation, but also for trips to work, to school, to shops—is an ideal way to:

1. Improve one’s health, by warding off obesity and a host of chronic illnesses.

 

2. Increase affordability, by substantially reducing travel costs.

 

3. Get to know your neighbors, because the serendipitous experience of bumping into those who live on your street frequently occurs when one walks, but nearly vanishes when one drives a car. Healthy neighborliness is a necessary ingredient if a sense of community is to be achieved.

 

4. Promote travel independence and travel choice, because children, a large number of seniors, the disabled, and many low-income people are unable to use a car and are unable to travel on their own when a car is mandatory. Indeed, approximately one-third of all Americans are unable to drive a car.

 

5. Reduce air & noise pollution, as motor vehicles are a prime source of nearly all forms of noxious discharges to our skies. Indirectly, the compactness required for walkability reduces energy consumption per capita, which effectively reduces regional air pollution. The largest source of noise in most cities comes from car travel.

 

6. Promote a human-scaled neighborhood, because the existence of pedestrians leverages provision of modest sizes, speeds and dimensions. Very little is more effective in creating a high quality of life.

 

7. Reduce stormwater & “heat island” problems, because a reduction in use of motorized vehicles results in a reduction in petroleum products being released to surface- and groundwaters, and a reduction in the amount of impervious surface that must be provided. “Heat island” problems decline because of the reduction in needed impervious surfaces.

 

8. Reduce injuries and deaths, because motorized vehicle travel results in tens of thousands of injuries and deaths each year.

 

9. Increase the feasibility for smaller, locally-owned businesses, as larger pedestrian volumes are a necessary ingredient for the establishment and survival of smaller, neighborhood-based shops and services.

 

10. Increase citizen surveillance, as larger numbers of pedestrians on sidewalks increases the “eyes-on-the-street” phenomenon (also known as “citizen surveillance”), which increases public safety.

 

A walkable urbanism featuring convenient access is a powerful way for a community to attract and retain Richard Florida’s “Creative Class”, the young, smart citizens that communities depend on for a health economy and healthy overall community. “Brain Drain” is most likely to occur in placeless cities which lack the character, vibrancy, “hip-ness” and attractiveness provided inherently by a walkable community.

 

Ironically, despite all of the talk of the need for “sustainability,” improving the local economy, and improving neighborhood quality in America today, walkability is rapidly vanishing as a lifestyle choice throughout the nation.

 

Measuring Walkable Urbanity

Ann Breen and Dick Rigby (InTown Living, 2004) provide what I believe are clear, accurate criteria that describe the essential elements of walkable urbanity. They list four characteristics, which they point out should be present, to some extent, in all places that wish to be considered “urban.” Besides the obvious “walkability” criterion, they list

* Density

* Diversity

* Hipness

* Public Transit

 

I would add “Human Scale” to the list, although this can be considered to be implicit within the “Walkability” criterion. Properly modest building heights (no more than 5 stories, ideally), modest lot sizes, modest lot widths and building setbacks from streets and intersections, as well as modest dimensions for street widths, block lengths and intersection turning radii, are indispensable elements of urbanity (streets should also be connected, instead of cul-de-sac’d, to reduce walking distances).

 

A crucial scaling mechanism for creating a human scale pertains to off-street parking. If such parking is in front and pushes the front of the building far back from the street or intersection, all semblance of human scale (not to mention walkable distance) is lost.

 

Human scale sends the powerful message that a neighborhood or street is designed to welcome pedestrians rather than cars. The ambiance is one of safety, peacefulness, dignity and neighborliness. Walking is welcomed, and the character created promises that the stroll will be delightfully interesting, thereby ensuring frequent walks.

 

BIPSM

While walkability “guru” Dan Burden lists his own criteria for walkable places on his web site, I really like this from him in April 2006: “…a powerful new way to measure the walkability and livability of a community…”Bump Into’s Per Square Minute.” (BIPSM)

 

BIPSM measures how many friends or acquaintances one bumps into per minute of walking on a sidewalk. A superb measure of the level of conviviality and sense of community.

 

A Comparison of Walkability

The Natural Resources Defense Council (Environmental Characteristics of Smart Growth Neighborhoods: An Exploratory Case Study) compares two neighborhoods in Sacramento, California with dramatically different densities, to show how density plays a profound role in creating walkability.

	Metro Square (20 dwelling units/acre)	North Natomas (6 dwelling units/acre)
Distance to:
Convenience Store	815 feet	15,388 feet
Supermarket	1,941 feet	14,458 feet
School	1,962 feet	17,181 feet
Bus Stop	666 feet	11,055 feet
Parks	347 feet	702 feet
Jobs in One Mile	29,266	0

 

How Many Businesses Are Within Walking Distance of Your Home?

A powerful way to assess the walkability of your home location or a location you are considering moving to is to determine the number of businesses within a one-mile walk of your home. A quick and easy way comes from Alan Durning (an author who wrote the superb book, The Car & the City). With this tool, you can, within seconds, find out how many businesses you can walk to from your home.

The method:

To get a count of businesses within a mile of your home (your “walkshed”), go to the Qwest online phone directory: http://www.dexonline.com/#, select the business listings, type “all” in the category field, click “near a street address,” type in your address, and choose “1 mile.” The Qwest site will rapidly list how many businesses there are within a one-mile walk of your front door, as well as their name and address.

My house has 148 businesses within a one-mile walking distance. Not bad, but homes within a big city downtown are usually within a mile of several thousands of businesses. But still, the number near my home is a lot better than the suburban home I grew up in when I was a boy. That home has a score of 0.

Durning goes on to point out that more than one quarter of car trips in the United States are shorter than one mile. That is a lot of trips that could have been walked. (In my opinion, most of these short trips are by car rather than by foot because for at least 98 percent of all car trips that Americans take, there is a free parking space at the destination, which begs us to arrive by car.)

Durning also indicates that “realtors provide detailed information to prospective home buyers on schools and resale values. They could as easily report the Walkshed Index—high scores translate into thousands of dollars of potential savings in fuel and car payments.”

A more recent, and in some ways better, Internet method of finding out the walkability of various locations is to use the http://www.walkscore.com website. As this site points out, Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle—not how pretty the area is for walking.

_________________________________________________

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

Visit: www.walkablestreets.wordpress.com

Or email me at: dom[AT]walkablestreets.com

My memoir can be purchased here: Paperback = http://goo.gl/9S2Uab Hardcover =  http://goo.gl/S5ldyF

My book, The Car is the Enemy of the City (WalkableStreets, 2010), can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-car-is-the-enemy-of-the-city/10905607

My book, Road to Ruin, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Introduction-Sprawl-Cure/dp/0275981290

My Adventures blog

http://domnozziadventures.wordpress.com/

Run for Your Life! Dom’s Dangerous Opinions blog

http://domdangerous.wordpress.com/

My Town & Transportation Planning website

http://walkablestreets.wordpress.com/

My Plan B blog

https://domz60.wordpress.com/

My Facebook profile

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Top Five Recommendations for a Bicycle-Friendly Community

By Dom Nozzi

What are the ingredients for creating a bicycle-friendly community? A community that feels safe, convenient and pleasant for all ages and abilities to ride a bicycle. It is important to understand, to begin with, that there are no easy, painless, overnight solutions. Over the past several decades, we have unconsciously done everything we could possibly do to make bicycling an exceptionally dangerous, unacceptable way to travel. It will therefore take quite a while for our cities and towns to see bicyclists crowding our streets. And change will need to be incremental and from a great many sources. There are no silver bullets.

Here are my top 5 recommendations for how to make a more bicycle-friendly community.

1. Parking Cash-Out. Local employers (particularly local government agencies and large private employers) must establish a parking cash-out program. By ending this enormous subsidy for driving a car to work, cash-out is the most effective tool we know of to recruit new bicyclists. An increased number of bicycle commuters dramatically increases bicyclist safety and comfort while riding, and promotes political action to improve bicycling conditions.

2. Centralization and Residential Density. Important facilities and events, such as the county farmers market, the conference center, the major movie theatre complex, the major fitness center, the main post office, major government facilities, and annual festivals must only be allowed in the central area of the city (subsidiary or duplicate facilities and events can be allowed in the periphery). Those facilities and events that are currently located in peripheral locations must be incrementally moved to central locations. Locating these facilities and events at peripheral locations substantially reduces their accessibility by a large percentage of commuter bicyclists. Such an effort is not only crucial to bicycling, but is also essential in creating a sense of community. Similarly, a city must establish higher density residential development within the central areas of the city. Doing so dramatically increases bicycling because such housing increases the convenience, safety and practicality of bicycling. Destinations such as school, retail, recreation, government facilities, jobs and culture become more proximate (more within bicycling range).

3. Traffic Calming and Road Diets. High-speed, inattentive car travel is one of the most significant reasons bicyclists feel unsafe and uncomfortable while bicycling—and why so many are discouraged from bicycling at all. Each time a street is traffic-calmed, or has travel lanes removed (road dieting), bicycling is dramatically improved and there is a significant increase in bicycling. A large percentage of streets carry car traffic that features uncomfortably and dangerously high speeds, and a number of streets can greatly benefit from travel lane removal (for example, 5- or 4-lanes to 3). Many of these diet opportunities provide a way to install an in-street bicycle lane on streets that do not have space today, and in-street bicycle lanes are, by far, preferable to off-street paths for commuter bicycle travel. Because 4-, 5-, and 6-lane streets are a primary cause of high speed car traffic and inattentive, reckless driving, it is important for a community to avoid building them, and to “diet” those that are already at that size. High-speed, inattentive driving significantly discourages bicycling in most every community.

4. Off-Street Path System. The off-street bicycle/pedestrian path system in nearly every community is either non-existent, or contains a number of path opportunities that have languished—unbuilt—for decades. The gaps in this “greenway” system must be eliminated. While completing the system will not result in a significant increase in bicycle commuting, it would dramatically increase recreational bicycling. A completed greenway system also plays the crucial role of recruiting novice bicyclists and non-bicyclists into becoming regular, confident bicyclists, because off-street paths provide a “training ground” that allows large numbers of untrained bicyclists to learn the skills and joys of bicycling in a safe, non-threatening, sociable environment.

5. In-Street Bicycle Lanes. Despite what is often believed, in-street bicycle lanes are much more desirable to a commuter bicyclist than are off-street paths or sidewalks. Paths can only feasibly link a tiny number of destinations that a bicyclist seeks to travel to, and even for the small number of destinations that can be reached by a path, using the street is nearly always faster and more direct than using an off-street path. And just like motorists, a primary desire by bicyclists is to find the fastest route to a destination when commuting. In addition, contrary to popular belief, studies have shown for several decades that in urbanized areas where there are numerous crossing driveways and streets, in-street bicycle lanes are significantly safer than sidewalks. Because paths usually create the same safety hazards as sidewalks (by having numerous driveway and street intersections), they are generally discouraged as a design treatment within urbanized areas. Given all of this, a bicycle-friendly city must ensure that as many major streets as possible contain in-street bicycle lanes. It is important to keep in mind that one size does not fit all. In general, in-street bicycle lanes are not appropriate on low-speed downtown streets or neighborhood streets. Their application tends to be most appropriate on higher-speed suburban arterial streets.

 

_________________________________________________

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

Visit: www.walkablestreets.wordpress.com

Or email me at: dom[AT]walkablestreets.com

My memoir can be purchased here: Paperback = http://goo.gl/9S2Uab Hardcover =  http://goo.gl/S5ldyF

My book, The Car is the Enemy of the City (WalkableStreets, 2010), can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-car-is-the-enemy-of-the-city/10905607

My book, Road to Ruin, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Introduction-Sprawl-Cure/dp/0275981290

My Adventures blog

http://domnozziadventures.wordpress.com/

Run for Your Life! Dom’s Dangerous Opinions blog

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References for #5 above:

Florida Dept of Transportation (1998). Florida Bicycle Facilities Planning and Design Manual. Tallahassee FL.

Florida Dept of Transportation (2002). Plans Preparation Manual. Tallahassee FL.

Wachtel, A. and Lewiston, D. (1994). Risk Factors for Bicycle-Motor Vehicle Collisions at Intersections. ITE Journal. September.

Forester, J. (1984). Effective Cycling. MIT Press.

Forester, J. (1983). Bicycle Transportation. MIT Press.

Context-Sensitive Access Management

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_management)

By Dom Nozzi

Wikipedia defines “access management” as “…the regulation of interchanges, intersections, driveways and median openings to a roadway. Its objectives are to enable access to land uses while maintaining roadway safety and mobility through controlling access location, design, spacing and operation. This is particularly important for major roadways intended to provide efficient service to through-traffic movements…” (

 

As a planner in FL for the past 20 years (where “growth management” is essentially a code word for ensuring that new development does not delay or slow down cars), I observed that “access management” was touted strongly—to the detriment of pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users. And the overall quality of life.

 

Detrimental because speeded up car traffic (particularly “through” traffic) is toxic to safe, comfortable, convenient walking, bicycling or transit use. Common access management tools, such as longer block lengths, funneling car trips onto fewer and therefore larger roads, and less road crossings, are obstacles for pedestrians, bicyclists or transit users.

 

Tellingly, because we operate in the “Happy Car” paradigm, even pedestrian, bicycle and transit advocates have become advocates of access management, even though such management typically undercuts pedestrian, bicycle or transit travel.

 

The Zero-Sum Game

Design for motor vehicle transportation is a zero-sum game. Almost inevitably, when conditions for cars are “improved” (“speeded up,” “made more efficient,”, etc.), conditions for all other forms of travel (bike, pedestrian, transit) are degraded.

 

An enormous part of our problem here is what economists call “The Barrier Effect,” which is a principle stating that certain things create barriers to the use of something else. In this case, the Barrier Effect is caused by cars. Single-mindedly designing our transportation system for cars creates substantial barriers for those wishing to use transit, walk or bicycle. Who in their right mind, for example, would feel safe bicycling on a six-lane road?

 

In other words, whenever we modify a road to create “efficient” or “free-flowing” or “less congested” roads (usually by widening the road or adding turn lanes), the Barrier Effect means that we are simultaneously and unintentionally making it harder to walk, bicycle or use transit. A classic “zero-sum” game where, when cars win, all other forms of travel lose. It means that road “improvements” for cars recruits even more motorists who were formerly walking, bicycling or using transit.

 

A self-perpetuating vicious cycle of unintended consequences. One where spending millions of dollars of our tax money on road widenings makes us our own worst enemy.

 

The Need for Context-Sensitivity

The first task for a planner seeking to determine appropriate design is to first determine where in the community the design will occur. Once this is known, the design can be tailored to be “context sensitive.”

 

One must know if the design is to be applied in suburban/drivable locations, or urban/walkable locations. If the former, conventional access management tactics tend to be appropriate, as the imperative is to minimize car travel delays and maximize car speeds.

However, in urban/walkable/compact/mixed-use locations, the pedestrian is the design imperative. In such locations, it is therefore essential that slow-speed (and “attentive motorist”) design be emphasized to maximize pedestrian comfort and safety. Access management tends to undercut such a design objective, because motorists can drive faster and less attentively when access management is successful.

A quality pedestrian environment must include relatively short block lengths, as well as mid-block crossings and cross-access within blocks. Again, access management tends to undercut these essential design tactics in walkable locations.

 

Speaking as a bicycle commuter, I tend to find a reduction in driveways (another common access management tool) to be an inconvenience for bicycling. I understand the safety problems associated with too many driveways, but we shouldn’t forget unintended consequences.

 

When the words “safety” and “efficient” and “mobility” are used in the field of transportation, such words tend to be euphemisms for higher speed, unimpeded car travel. And the last thing a healthy, low-speed, pedestrian-friendly downtown needs is faster, unimpeded, through car travel. Higher speed (“efficient”) car travel in a downtown (not to mention excessive, under-priced off-street parking) drains the lifeblood out of a downtown.

Again, be careful about where various designs are applied. Avoid “one-size-fits-all” solutions. What is beneficial for higher-speed suburbia is almost always detrimental to lower-speed walkable downtowns, where transportation choice must be emphasized. 

 

Be sure you are context-sensitive—that you are applying the right design tools to the appropriate locations of the community.

 

A Solution

A solution to this dilemma, then, is to establish zones in your community. In your suburban (drivable) zone, conventional access management tactics can be employed appropriately. In your more compact, urbanized, higher-density (walkable) zone, access management tools should be avoided.

 

The walkable zone (or zones, if the community intends to create additional walkable locations other than in its downtown) should be exempted from access management. More appropriate tools, such as short block lengths, connected streets, mid-block crossings, on-street parking, cross-access within blocks, and narrow streets, should be employed. Unlike in the suburbs, in the walkable zone it is desirable to slow car traffic and obligate motorist attentiveness.

 

One-size-fits-all, when applied to such strategies as access management, is detrimental to the diversity of lifestyles and transportation choices found in healthy cities. Let the suburb be a suburb. But let the city be a city.

_________________________________________________

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

Visit: www.walkablestreets.wordpress.com

Or email me at: dom[AT]walkablestreets.com

My memoir can be purchased here: Paperback = http://goo.gl/9S2Uab Hardcover =  http://goo.gl/S5ldyF

My book, The Car is the Enemy of the City (WalkableStreets, 2010), can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-car-is-the-enemy-of-the-city/10905607

My book, Road to Ruin, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Introduction-Sprawl-Cure/dp/0275981290

My Adventures blog

http://domnozziadventures.wordpress.com/

Run for Your Life! Dom’s Dangerous Opinions blog

http://domdangerous.wordpress.com/

My Town & Transportation Planning website

http://walkablestreets.wordpress.com/

My Plan B blog

https://domz60.wordpress.com/

My Facebook profile

http://www.facebook.com/dom.nozzi

My YouTube video library

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My Author spotlight

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Should We Subsidize Parking for Low-Income Households?

 

 

 

By Dom Nozzi

Subsidizing parking for low-income people is a mistake, in my opinion.

 

 

There is no easy way for a city to subsidize only low-income motorist parking. All motorists will be able to take advantage of this detrimental, market-distorting welfare. Not just the low-income.

 

As a result, the city would be subsidizing and therefore artificially inflating the number of people who travel and park by car. Without such a  subsidy, those who have a choice would be given a financial incentive to walk, bicycle, carpool or use transit. In effect, then, the parking subsidy promotes an increase in Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV) travel. In a compact, walkable downtown, when parking is properly priced to reflect actual costs, travelers are given a market signal to engage in non-SOV travel.

 

Subsidized downtown parking is toxic for the long-term health of a downtown, because the suburbs will always out-compete downtown when it comes to motorist convenience, and because “happy cars” downtown degrade the walkable quality of life in downtown—which the downtown needs to be able to leverage.

 

In addition, given skyrocketing gas costs (which we will experience for the foreseeable future), why would a city be promoting more auto dependence by subsidizing it? Shouldn’t a city be promoting more sustainable, affordable forms of transportation?

 

Similarly, auto transportation is an enormous and growing part of the low-income household budget (typically outweighing housing cost savings that are often found for housing in the suburbs). One hundred years ago, the average household spent about two percent of its budget on transportation. Today, the average household spends 22 percent of its budget on travel, and this percentage is growing. If a city is truly interested in helping low-income households, promoting auto travel by subsidizing parking is the last thing it should do.

 

Cities sincerely interested in helping low-income households should know that a much more sustainable and affordable strategy is to subsidize transit-friendly or walkable downtown housing. Subsidized parking simply perpetuates an unaffordable, unsustainable household expense.

 

This is not a call for low-income houses to get rid of all of its cars, necessarily. It is simply a recommendation that such households use their car(s) less often, or drive alone less often, or own less cars (one instead of two, or two instead of three). 

 

True affordability, in the 21st Century, comes from strategies that reduce the need for car travel for low-income households, because it is unaffordable for a low-income household to spend so much of its budget on travel.

_________________________________________________

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

Visit: www.walkablestreets.wordpress.com

Or email me at: dom[AT]walkablestreets.com

My memoir can be purchased here: Paperback = http://goo.gl/9S2Uab Hardcover =  http://goo.gl/S5ldyF

My book, The Car is the Enemy of the City (WalkableStreets, 2010), can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-car-is-the-enemy-of-the-city/10905607

My book, Road to Ruin, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Introduction-Sprawl-Cure/dp/0275981290

My Adventures blog

http://domnozziadventures.wordpress.com/

Run for Your Life! Dom’s Dangerous Opinions blog

http://domdangerous.wordpress.com/

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The Car is the Enemy of the City

By Dom Nozzi

The emergence of the car in the 20th Century led to a downward spiral for downtowns of most American cities. Retail, cultural, civic and employment began decanting outward to the suburbs. For the first time in history, the car had made close proximity of home, work, school and retail unnecessary.

 

Downtown property owners and retailers scrambled to find ways to reverse the flight from the downtown.

 

By the 1930s, many decided, understandably, that the solution was crystal clear. People were no longer going downtown because they couldn’t get there (conveniently, at least) with their cars. The obvious remedy was to build highways and parking lots so that people could conveniently drive downtown and park.

 

The sheer number of dying downtowns in America today stand as a testament to the ruinous consequences of this approach.

 

Cars are the enemy of the city because there are fundamental, irreconcilable, clashing needs of the car habitat in contrast to the needs of habitat for people. And a city downtown must be designed as a people habitat.

 

The ideal habitat for cars is a downtown that is almost entirely composed of parking lots, highway overpasses and a few scattered, one-story buildings. But what is left of such a downtown for people?

 

People feel unsafe standing next to roads with high-speed traffic. They feel inconvenienced and uncomfortable walking in large asphalt parking lots.

 

Because they take up so much room, cars need lots of space. People, on the other hand, prefer modest, human-scaled spaces.

 

People, unlike cars, enjoy the enclosed, “outdoor room” feeling created by buildings close to the public sidewalk, and are convenienced when homes are close to offices and retail. A community is most productive and creative when residential and commercial densities are relatively high.

 

And most of us enjoy being sociable and neighborly; strolling on a sidewalk filled with other people.

 

We naively comfort ourselves when we conclude that we can create, in our downtowns, a quality car habitat and people habitat in the same space.

 

As the countless number of ghost-like downtowns shows, the problem for American downtowns is not that people avoid downtown today because they can’t get there. Most people don’t come downtown anymore because they don’t want to get there. Increasingly, our downtowns have become places that only a Chrysler could love.

 

We have become our own worst enemy. In our blind pursuit of accommodating cars downtown, we have failed to realize that we have destroyed the reasons for going there. The human habitat is nearly always degraded when we improve the car habitat. Improving conditions for our Chevy’s almost assuredly harms conditions for Aunt Gertrude, office worker Fred and little Bobby.

 

In nearly all struggling downtowns, what is most needed to attract people is to provide more attractions, not places to park in order to reach the attractions. We need to dedicate ourselves to densifying and intensifying our downtowns if they are to be more healthy.

 

A downtown that is exciting, human-scaled, walkable, and filled with activities is a downtown that most people will figure out a way to get to, regardless of the “lack” of free parking. Major attractions draw enormous numbers of people, even though the available parking is “insufficient.”

 

The annual art festival. The yearly parade. The big sporting event. Walkable, exciting cities such as Charleston, Savannah and Portland draw thousands and millions of visitors each year, even though the amount of free parking in such cities is extremely limited. Visitors are so eager to visit such wonderful places that they are willing to put up with expensive, scarce parking.

 

And who among us is unaware of dying downtowns that have plenty of free parking but don’t have any sort of critical mass of activities that would attract people? Places such as Houston, Detroit, Buffalo or Jacksonville?

 

Granted, we must be careful to strike the proper balance when it comes to improving our downtown. Clearly, there is a need for downtown parking. But almost always, American downtowns need more attractions, buildings and activities than more parking. Often, downtowns considered to have “insufficient” parking actually have too much surface parking—particularly too much free parking.

 

We need not prohibit cars from downtowns. We simply need to design our downtowns so that cars behave themselves; so that the needs of people come first.

 

Downtown can never out-compete the suburbs on suburban, car-based terms. Suburbs will always be able to provide more parking and wider highways more cheaply. Downtown can only compete where it can have competitive leverage. That is, by being compact, walkable, romantic, unique, rich in history and human-scaled.

 

Ground-level parking lots create an obnoxious, deadening tear in the fabric of downtown that destroys the vibrancy it so desperately needs to be attractive, alive and exciting. We need to return to the tradition, in our downtowns, of making people the design imperative, instead of cars.

 

 

A version of this essay was published in the Gainesville Sun on May 18, 2008.

_________________________________________________

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

Visit: www.walkablestreets.wordpress.com

Or email me at: dom[AT]walkablestreets.com

My memoir can be purchased here: Paperback = http://goo.gl/9S2Uab Hardcover =  http://goo.gl/S5ldyF

My book, The Car is the Enemy of the City (WalkableStreets, 2010), can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-car-is-the-enemy-of-the-city/10905607

My book, Road to Ruin, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Introduction-Sprawl-Cure/dp/0275981290

My Adventures blog

http://domnozziadventures.wordpress.com/

Run for Your Life! Dom’s Dangerous Opinions blog

http://domdangerous.wordpress.com/

My Town & Transportation Planning website

http://walkablestreets.wordpress.com/

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https://domz60.wordpress.com/

My Facebook profile

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Downtown Master Plan Returns to the Timeless Tradition

 

 

 

By Dom Nozzi

Until the advent of the auto age about 100 years ago, the imperative for developers was to make people happy. This tradition led to design that was pedestrian-oriented, human-scaled, compact and ornamental.

 

 

Since that time, however, the focus has changed. Development is now oriented toward making cars, not people, happy. Because car-based design nearly always creates barriers for other types of travel, it creates a growing, self-perpetuating vicious cycle. After decades of using this car-oriented model, we now find that it is nearly impossible to go anywhere without a car.

 

Yet the terrible tragedy is this: Cars and people have vastly different needs. Cars require wide, high-speed highways and enormous parking lots (preferably in front of buildings). When not in cars, people are repelled by such design. But because of our dependence on cars, almost all of us are compelled to become our own worst enemies, calling for development that makes car travel easier.

 

Unintentionally, then, our quality of life is in a downward spiral of our own making, as the car-oriented world we’ve advocated has created an increasingly unpleasant community. As we expand our communities for cars, the world for people shrinks.

 

Downtown Richmond, like downtowns across America, has suffered from this problem. After working as a senior city planner in Florida for 20 years, I recently relocated to Richmond and was immediately struck by what has happened to downtown. Vast amounts of downtown now consist of deadening, sterilizing off-street surface parking, and massive, high-speed highways.

 

To be healthy, a downtown needs to build on its competitive strengths: compact, walkable, charming, romantic design. A crucial aspect of this is leveraging “agglomeration economies.” That is, a healthy downtown benefits from a compact concentration of offices, retail, civic buildings and residences.

 

Yet our single-minded efforts to facilitate our cars is a powerful dispersant. Offices, shops, government buildings and homes scatter to outlying areas, leaving an abandoned, scary, unhealthy downtown. Designing for cars, in other words, drains the lifeblood out of a city.

 

Because a person in a car consumes 19 times as much space as a person in a chair, cars devour an enormous amount of space, which subverts the walkable compactness that downtown needs. The resulting “gigantism” (huge parking lots, monster highways, endless sprawl) has undercut the livability of downtown Richmond.

 

The key for a revitalized downtown is to return to the timeless tradition that was abandoned a century ago. Richmond is therefore fortunate to have hired Dover, Kohl and Partners to prepare an update to its downtown master plan.  This firm is nationally celebrated for skillfully restoring this compact, walkable tradition.

 

Dover Kohl’s plan for downtown Richmond contains essential recommendations: Convert most one-way streets to two-way operation. Reduce the stifling dominance of off-street surface parking. Emphasize buildings and density that activate the streets and sidewalks. Small (and slow) is beautiful.

 

Not coincidentally, the recent Crupi Report assessing Richmond’s future reaches similar conclusions: “focus on … walkable, two-way streets … human scale … people-friendly … [design].”

 

The report cites Shockoe Slip and Shockoe Bottom as good starting points: “space that brings people together …construction using traditional design … charm and sense of place that comes with more classical architecture.”

 

Downtown Richmond is rich in history and should leverage that asset by retaining and celebrating its ornamental, historic buildings. City officials also should consider restoring some of its cobblestone and brick streets — an excellent way to induce civic pride.

 

In my work, I have come to learn that quality of life is a powerful economic engine. Downtown Richmond should take advantage of this by returning to the tradition of designing for people, not cars.

 

The Dover Kohl Downtown Master Plan is an excellent place to start. 

 

A version of this essay was published in the Virginia Business Magazine on April 1, 2008.

_________________________________________________

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

Visit: www.walkablestreets.wordpress.com

Or email me at: dom[AT]walkablestreets.com

My memoir can be purchased here: Paperback = http://goo.gl/9S2Uab Hardcover =  http://goo.gl/S5ldyF

My book, The Car is the Enemy of the City (WalkableStreets, 2010), can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-car-is-the-enemy-of-the-city/10905607

My book, Road to Ruin, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Introduction-Sprawl-Cure/dp/0275981290

My Adventures blog

http://domnozziadventures.wordpress.com/

Run for Your Life! Dom’s Dangerous Opinions blog

http://domdangerous.wordpress.com/

My Town & Transportation Planning website

http://walkablestreets.wordpress.com/

My Plan B blog

https://domz60.wordpress.com/

My Facebook profile

http://www.facebook.com/dom.nozzi

My YouTube video library

http://www.youtube.com/user/dnozzi

My Picasa Photo library

https://picasaweb.google.com/105049746337657914534

My Author spotlight

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/domatwalkablestreetsdotcom

 

 

A Vision for American Communities

By Dom Nozzi

Many American communities are places with a high quality of life; a youthful, active and well-educated population; communities rich with diversity, culture, and historical features; and within a region possessing outstanding yet fragile natural areas.

 However, in many places, the quality of life is seriously threatened by a significant levels of sprawl, farmland loss, habitat destruction, air pollution, noise pollution, visual blight, neighborhood decline, and the death of town centers. 

American communities deserve to be a place where seniors and children can be more independent-instead of dependent on others for a car ride. A place where people can experience a sense of place and a sense of community; where they can feel good about themselves, and their fellow citizens, and feel a sense of pride and respect for their community.

To promote a livable, sustainable future for people of the community, therefore, development should be measured against the yardstick which asks: “Does it make life more safe, convenient, affordable, equitable, sustainable and pleasant for people? Are there sufficient transportation and lifestyle choices provided? Does the development induce civic pride?” There are a number of components necessary to achieve such a design vision:

To maximize access and promote vibrant town centers, community-serving land uses in the community should be centrally located. Residential subdivisions should be discouraged in remote, auto-dependent locations—typically a distance greater than three miles from the town center core, which represents the limit of convenient bicycle and transit range. Neighborhoods should be designed at a compact, pedestrian scale—which means that jobs, parks, schools, and civic uses are within the 1/4 mile convenient walking distance of the center of the neighborhood. All new housing, businesses and community parks are within easy walking distance of a neighborhood center or neighborhood transit stop. Town centers are no larger than 1/4 mile in radius. The town center core should be restored (when necessary), pedestrianized, and revitalized to promote compactness, a sense of community and a sense of pride, as should other neighborhood commercial centers. It should be a town center of entertainment, culture, cuisine, and public life.

Land should be taxed instead of buildings/improvements. Because nearly all communities in America tax the latter, many properties sit unused, abandoned, neglected, or underused as parking. Why? Because the tax structure penalizes infill and renovation of such property. An effective solution is to tax land more heavily than buildings.

Speculators holding deadening town center parking lots are penalized. Developers who want to create new, energizing buildings and building expansions or improvements are rewarded.

On-street parking is provided in town centers to calm traffic, enhance the pedestrian environment, and promote town center businesses (by providing convenient parking and a pleasant place to stroll). More residences are established within town centers. In these centers, densities and Floor Area Ratios are high enough to make transit efficient. High-quality infill that respects neighborhood compatibility is encouraged.

The design imperative must be the pedestrian in town centers.

A Vision for Town Centers

Mixed Use. Retail, office, residential, industrial, and park uses should be seamlessly integrated to promote access, serendipity, and affordability. A mix of housing affordability should be encouraged by allowing well-designed, unobtrusive “granny flats,” carriage house apartments, and residences above offices and retail. Small grocery stores and other small shops at neighborhood street corners are encouraged. Housing integrated with non-residential uses (by being either proximate or mixed within a building) enhances security through citizen surveillance, reduces the need for motor vehicle travel, increases housing affordability, and promotes more vibrant commercial areas. Through such design, it is pleasant, safe and convenient to live in a town center without being forced to use a car. Bicycle and pedestrian links from neighborhoods to transit stops are well-designed and required of new development. Mixed use zones prohibit land uses which discourage pedestrian activity, such as car washes, gas stations, motels, storage facilities, stand-alone parking, auto dealerships, and drive-throughs.

Modest Building Setbacks. Buildings should create pleasant “outdoor rooms” by forming modest, human-scaled spacing with nearby buildings. This is achieved by setting maximum building setbacks (also known as “build-to lines”), which typically mean buildings are pulled up close to the street to ease pedestrian access and create outdoor rooms. A rule-of-thumb building-height-to-street-width ratio is 3:1. Modest building setbacks and streetwalls formed by buildings along the street will create an intimate atmosphere that people will feel comfortable to be in.

Vistas. Streets should be designed to be memorable and pleasant, which usually means the incorporation of important buildings to terminate street/corridor vistas. Important civic buildings are typically located at vistas, or in other honorable locations that are highly visible to the community so that they are afforded the respect they deserve, instead of being trivialized by being tucked into a commercial strip away from the town center core.

Modest Provision of Parking. Too often, stores, offices and cultural/entertainment facilities are designed to maximize the amount of free and convenient auto parking available. This maximizes the number of patrons from a wide area. The problem is that it creates a regionalized land use which thereby externalizes costs to the community through negative stormwater impacts, incompatibility with nearby neighborhoods, heat island effects, “gap-tooth” impacts that reduce commercial/civic vibrancy, promote noise pollution, create visual blight through promotion of a “sellscape,” and dangers due to the high vehicle volume generated. The preferred approach is a cap placed on town center parking supply (unless it is put within a multi-story garage with first floor office and retail), and market-based pricing of parking. In addition, minimum parking requirements are coupled with maximum requirements so that developers do not provide too much parking.

Interconnected Streets. Streets should be designed to connect with other streets, as was done traditionally to ease travel by pedestrians, bicycles, emergency vehicles, cars and transit. Streets that terminate through use of cul-de-sacs externalize costs to society by increasing auto dependence (cul-de-sacs significantly increase travel distances by transit, pedestrian, and bicycle). While the cul-de-sac is popular because it minimizes vehicle trips on it by people not living on the street, it promotes more trips by car for those living on the street, which increases noise and air pollution, and safety problems for other neighborhoods. An interconnected grid pattern is most efficient and convenient for all forms of travel, and is well-ventilated enough so that there is “real time” trip route choice (particularly needed if there is an emergency trip and a route is congested). In addition, a connected network minimizes congestion by distributing trips on streets so that not all trips are forced onto one or a few major roads. Gridded streets are also more memorable and less confusing than the curvilinear, spaghetti and lollipop design of auto-oriented street networks.

A Sense of Community. Development design fosters an attractive public realm promoting face-to-face interaction, friendly exchanges with fellow citizens (instead of angrily competing with them for space on a high-speed road), and centrally located regular gatherings such as festivals, farmers markets, concerts and rallies. Citizen participation is encouraged for decision-making by an invigorated civic life. Healthy, interactive neighborhoods allow shared day care, shared labor, shared tools, and shared surveillance.

Respect for Local History. It is important for a community to retain historical structures from the past, partly because such structures were often designed for the pedestrian–which inherently promotes livability. In addition, they often embody quality aesthetics since more dignity, respect, attention to detail (visible to the pedestrian but forgotten today, in which the speed of travel on our major roads, and building setbacks, are too high to care about or notice detail) and a desire for long-term durability were typically incorporated into historic structures. Also, historic structures serve to remind us of where we were in the past and what was important to us, which informs us about how we got where we are today. This includes renovation and restoration of cherished buildings and neighborhoods of the past-respecting the historic design in the process.

Context-Sensitive Design. The region and its towns use a “transect-based” regulatory system that includes land development codes acknowledging that one size does not fit all. That the full range of lifestyles are provided for in communities. Not just the suburban, car-oriented lifestyle, but also the walkable urban lifestyle and the rural, pastoral lifestyle. Suburban design should be one of many lifestyle choices, not the only choice. That is, creating urban, suburban and rural zones in each community, and applying variable, appropriate regulations for each zone that are designed to maximize the quality of each zone for that lifestyle. Transect-based regulations help unify “overlay” plans, which have proliferated in recent decades as a way to try to customize regulations for special places in the community. This proliferation often results in an enormous number of overlays throughout the community, which becomes confusing, contradictory and difficult for administrative staff and developers. There are rural, suburban and urban road design specifications.

Proper Scale and Local Ownership. Except in the case of prominent civic land uses, properly scaled design means that the design is based more to serve a neighborhood than a region. This promotes access, a seamless connection to the residential areas served, minimized noise and sign pollution, less visual garishness, and structural compatibility with nearby structures. By requiring proper scale, we protect and promote smaller, locally-owned businesses which are better at keeping money circulating in the local economy. We also discourage “big boxes,” which are typically out of scale, not locally owned, predatory on locally-owned small businesses, promote auto dependence, and exhibit other relatively high levels of externalized costs. In addition, in pedestrian-oriented areas, drive-throughs are prohibited, since they are hostile to pedestrians, promote auto dependence, harm small local businesses, remove pedestrians from the sidewalk (pedestrians are the lifeblood of a vibrant town center) and cater to citizens living in remote locations. Another way to describe proper scale is “human” scale.  

Street Design. To promote sustainability, access, serendipity, and livability, town center streets should be designed to promote moderate motor vehicle speeds (by using traffic calming techniques), and use by all forms of travel (pedestrian, bicycle, transit, car, handicapped, senior citizen, child, etc.). Travel lanes wider than 11 feet are phased out. Lanes from 8 to 10 feet are preferred. Local street turning radii are no more than 15 feet. Streets serve multiple purposes, and are never more than 3 lanes in size. In addition to car travel, they are safe and pleasant for bicycling, socializing, business transactions and recreation for children, as they had been so used in the past. Streets designed to accommodate high auto volumes and speeds inevitably create a strip commercial “sellscape,” especially when the street reaches the 40,000 ADT and 40 MPH threshold (the “40/40”). In addition, when street capacity is increased by adding travel lanes or turn lanes, traffic volumes and suburban sprawl inevitably increase due to the phenomenon of the “triple convergence,” “travel time budgets,” and the fact that road modifications that make life easier for cars is a “zero-sum” game which inevitably makes life less feasible for all other forms of travel (pedestrian, bicycle, transit, etc.). Street blocks should be no longer than 500 feet in length. Subdivisions are designed with alleys. Gateway streets announce that a person has arrived in a “town center within a forest.” Parking lots are prohibited from fronting a street to avoid “gap tooth” areas hostile and unpleasant for the pedestrian. Instead, they are on the side or rear of the building. Houses incorporate front porches, sidewalks on both sides of the street, and picket fences. The house has a modest front yard setback so that porches are within “conversation distance” of the sidewalk. Commercial, residential, and civic buildings face the street and are pulled up to the street to form street walls and outdoor rooms. Building walls facing sidewalks have windows to provide pedestrians with visual interest. Main Street and University Avenue in the Gainesville downtown core are reduced to three lanes to slow traffic, improve retail health, promote residential and office development along the corridor, increase use by bicycles and pedestrians, provide on-street parking, and enhance aesthetics of these key corridors.

Aesthetics. Strong sign and lighting controls work to retain a calm, soft, gentle, “small town” and friendly atmosphere. Overhead utility infrastructure is incrementally placed underground or otherwise hidden from view to reduce visual impact. Roadways are well landscaped, as are gateways, medians, and parks. Graffiti is cleaned up and guarded against, as is litter and dumping.

Character of Buildings. Buildings are designed to be compatible with the region’s historic architectural vernacular.

Recycling and Energy Conservation. Economic, regulatory and convenience incentives are used to promote aggressive recycling and reuse (particularly reuse of buildings). Incentives are established to reduce local energy consumption, thereby protecting groundwater, surface water, and air quality, as well as reducing our local vulnerability to oil volatility and increasing self-sufficiency.

Greenways. Our overemphasis on designing for cars has given us communities featuring low densities, streets that are not interconnected, dangerous roadways, and long distances between trip origins and destinations. Greenways allow us to “retrofit” our suburbs by creating safe, pleasant, and convenient pedestrian and bicycle connections from neighborhoods to trip destinations such as jobs, parks and shopping, which reduces auto dependence. They recruit new bicyclists and pedestrians. They also reduce crime by increasing citizen surveillance, increase equity by creating a low-cost alternative to expensive car travel, and promote environmental conservation by promoting public land acquisition along wildlife corridors and increasing citizen awareness and appreciation for our ecosystems. To the extent possible, greenways and other corridors are used to reconnect significant natural areas fragmented by sprawl and roads. The community works to minimize the adverse impacts of urban and other human discharges (particularly stormwater and exotic vegetation) to such areas. Significant natural areas, when necessary, are restored and buffered.

Economic Health. Livability, environmental conservation, and quality of life strategies are used as engines to promote long-term retention, expansion, and recruitment of environmentally benign employers. Eco-tourism is nurtured and developed so that a vested economic interest in protecting the natural environment is created.

Community Definition and Farmland Preservation. Town centers have well-defined edges that clearly show a transition from urban to rural farmland, instead of urban strip commercial and residential dribbling out into rural areas around the town center. Farmland is protected and preserved from urban encroachment by urban growth boundaries, thereby ensuring a local supply of farm-fresh produce and enhancing local self-sufficiency and sustainability.

Equity. People living in central areas of towns and cities should not see their taxes increase in order to subsidize costly sprawl development. Instead, regulations should prevent such development. Sprawl development that has not been prevented should pay its own way. By designing for people and livability rather than cars in the manner described above, we make cars less necessary for life in town centers. This means an increase in equity along the continuum of economic classes, since car ownership is so costly for households. In a car-designed community, we find that we are closing off opportunities for those households that are less wealthy.

Serenity. A crucial way to promote quality of life—particularly in town centers—is effective noise control. Noise pollution is growing exponentially in most communities, and results in a great many people deciding not to live within town centers. Screaming emergency vehicle sirens, shrieking burglar alarms, whining parking lot vacuum trucks, police helicopters, and highly annoying leaf blowers are destroying the quiet ambience that citizens have the right to enjoy and expect. The rise in incivility, in part, translates into an inability to understand the fundamental principle of civilization: Your right to swing your fist ends at the beginning of your neighbor’s nose. People have the right to be free from the pollution of others. Nothing prevents a community from significantly reducing its noise problems except political will.

A livable, sustainable community is a vision we can realize with proper community design. Such design can serve as a powerful economic engine that brings jobs to the region. And it can reduce the polarization that the county has seen between developers, and the neighborhoods and environmentalists who oppose them. Instead, we can build bridges between such groups, and at the same time create a high quality of life and a sustainable, equitable community.

 

_________________________________________________

 

Visit my urban design website read more about what I have to say on those topics. You can also schedule me to give a speech in your community about transportation and congestion, land use development and sprawl, and improving quality of life.

 

Visit: www.walkablestreets.wordpress.com

 

Or email me at: dom[AT]walkablestreets.com

 

My memoir can be purchased here: Paperback = http://goo.gl/9S2Uab Hardcover =  http://goo.gl/S5ldyF

 

My book, The Car is the Enemy of the City (WalkableStreets, 2010), can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-car-is-the-enemy-of-the-city/10905607

 

My book, Road to Ruin, can be purchased here:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Introduction-Sprawl-Cure/dp/0275981290

 

My Adventures blog

 

http://domnozziadventures.wordpress.com/

 

Run for Your Life! Dom’s Dangerous Opinions blog

 

http://domdangerous.wordpress.com/

 

My Town & Transportation Planning website

 

http://walkablestreets.wordpress.com/

 

My Plan B blog

 

https://domz60.wordpress.com/

 

My Facebook profile

 

http://www.facebook.com/dom.nozzi

 

My YouTube video library

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/dnozzi

 

My Picasa Photo library

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/105049746337657914534

 

My Author spotlight

 

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/domatwalkablestreetsdotcom