80-20 Transportation Funding is Obsolete

(Submitted to http://www.whitehouse.gov)

The “Let’s Move” campaign encourages children to exercise each day for good health. If more Americans (children and adults) exercised while commuting to work or school, we would be healthier, without spending any extra time to exercise.

40% of vehicle trips are less than 2 miles. Many of these trips would be suitable for bicycling, if safe routes were available. However, relatively few Americans are willing to brave the fast motorized traffic that is part of most cycling trips. Many Americans would bike more, if they had safe routes. In Portland, Oregon, 6% of trips are by bicycle, but 60% of residents say they would bike more often, if safer routes were available, such as quiet backstreets filled with ‘bike boulevard’ signs, and dedicated bike paths physically separated from the highway.

American cities should be upgraded to support safe walking and cycling for Americans of all ages. These investments will be extremely cost-effective, because each pedestrian or cyclist requires a small fraction of the space and weight limit of each automobile. The investments will improve public health by increasing exercise, reducing air pollution, reducing traffic congestion among the remaining cars still on the road, and reducing traffic fatalities. Electric cars will merely reduce air pollution without addressing the other concerns.

Please increase the level of federal transportation funding for complete pedestrian/bicycle networks safe for all ages. The “80-20” rule for transportation funding, with 20% devoted to public transit, is obsolete because less than 2% of funding goes to pedestrian/bicycle infrastructure. 20% of Americans do not drive cars at all. “80-20” assumes that everyone who can drive alone, will drive alone. If we accept that assumption, then we accept that motorized vehicles will continue to kill more than 100 Americans every day, while permanently maiming hundreds more, and wasting millions of hours daily in traffic congestion. Widening the roads will not fix traffic congestion—if it could, then LA would be traffic-free by now. Electric cars will not fix it either.

The White House website says that
“Investments in high speed rail and advanced car batteries will lead to the transportation systems of the future.”
The “transportation systems of the future” are visible today in places such as Denmark and Germany, combining high speed rail with safe bicycle networks.

Childhood Obesity is Planned

Childhood obesity in America is planned. Whether or not it was originally intended, it is the direct result of 60-year-old planning practices still widely used today. American transportation planners, urban planners and agricultural planners make plans that take American children off the sidewalks and into cars, out of parks and onto the Internet, away from vegetables and toward processed foods full of corn and sugar. In order for moderate exercise and nutritional food to return to everyday American childhood, we need a change in plans.

40% of trips in the US are shorter than 2 miles, theoretically suitable for biking. 20% of all Americans, including 100% of American children under the age of 15, do not drive cars. However, only 1.2% of federal transportation dollars are spent on infrastructure for walking and biking. Not surprisingly, very few children have safe places to walk or bike. They need rides to school, rides to the park, rides to meet other friends, rides to go shopping, rides to go anywhere except the Internet. These rides are not necessarily part of modern life—rather, they are the logical result of conventional transportation and urban planning.

Narrowly defined missions for zoning regulations and school boards ensure that children’s daily lives are scattered across many rides in motorized vehicles. When children can walk or bicycle safely between their various daily destinations, they practice moderate daily exercise, finding their way and achieving goals. They develop a sense of independence, gradually and safely. In order to do this, they need nearby neighborhood schools, parks and shops; totally safe crossings at all intersections with motorized traffic; and bicycle paths safe for everyone ages 7 to 70. Large, homogeneous Euclidean Use-Zones and large, distant schools are antithetical to childhood health, because destinations are too far apart for kid-powered mobility. The benefits of small neighborhood schools for public health and for community safety and coherence, should be enhanced and recognized, to support school boards in keeping them open. Some specialized programs across multiple schools could occur in virtual online space. Other specialized programs could transport a few children occasionally over long distances, rather than transporting all children every day over long distances.

In terms of nutrition, U.S. agricultural subsidies make corn and sugar so inexpensive, that processed food manufacturers fill their products with corn- and sugar- based materials of low nutritional value. While I am grateful to farmers, and have nothing against agricultural subsidies, it seems to me that taxpayers’ money should support agricultural products with nutritional, social and ecological value. For instance, France subsidizes wine and cheese on small farms, rather than corn and sugar on large farms. I dream of agricultural subsidies based on monetized public health/ecosystem services: for organically grown vegetables, habitat restoration, and switchgrass fuel for obsolescent coal plants. In the meantime, a modest but healthy change in American agricultural policy would subsidize organically-grown soybeans for tofu rather than pesticide-grown corn for modified corn starch. Most corn goes into cows, and after the switch, most soybeans would still go into cows–but that’s another story. In Florida, a more dramatic switch would be to subsidize oranges instead of sugar.

In conclusion, childhood obesity can be addressed effectively by changing our plans. Without changing our plans, and without modifying our existing infrastructure that is based on obsolete plans, the epidemic of childhood obesity will just get bigger.

Enough Roads Already!!

In my experience, when New Urban planners are presented with the challenge of improving the walkability of an existing cul-de-sac suburb, they are likely to recommend an abundance of well-connected streets, in a complete grid of short blocks. I believe that there is a safer, healthier, cheaper, more eco-friendly alternative.

What if existing cul-de-sac neighborhoods don’t need more roads, to become walkable? While they need a dense fully-connected network of public right-of-way, a complete grid of paths for pedestrians and cyclists can be overlaid onto an existing subdivision at a fraction of the cost of “completing” the street grid. Performance-based zoning can also be overlaid on an existing residential area, so that home-based businesses, agriculture and homesharing can flourish, without expensive variances and without annoying the neighbors. Most suburbs need new public places, as simple as a covered bus stop or as elaborate as a new commercial zone. Many need to legalize Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), to increase density for public transit. But they don’t necessarily need more roads.

In fact, the wide pavement of the typical post-1950 street network contains an abundance of public space that can be shared by various non-motorized uses. For instance, residents of cul-de-sac neighborhoods sometimes claim the public pavement of the cul-de-sac for weekend parties, in a pale echo of the village greens of the early 1700’s. Many municipal greenstreet programs reclaim parts of the pavement for stormwater management and habitat enhancement. While City Repair typically enhances the public benefits of paved intersections, a similar process could enhance the woonerf-like aspects of existing cul-de-sacs.

Can you imagine that a cul-de-sac neighborhood could be improved so much, that pedestrian, bike, and transit together would account for a majority of trips? A 1990 study in Village Homes of Davis, CA, (a quintessential eco-friendly cul-de-sac neighborhood with a hybrid transportation grid) found that residents used 36% less energy for motorized travel than a nearby control group. However, most existing cul-de-sac neighborhoods generate more vehicle-miles-travelled, compared to a complete, motorized grid. Even with a great citywide bike network and pretty good bus service, Village Homes still generated more than 11,000 miles travelled per car annually, with 1.8 cars per household (Thomas Lenz 1990, unpublished masters thesis cited here p.54).
By itself, Village Homes is too small to generate enough ped/bike traffic to support much of a commercial district, or convenient transit service. Still, Girling and Kellert (2000) showed the benefits of a hybrid transportation network in this computer model.

In my opinion, an aging suburb in need of revitalization, could be organized as clusters of 4 to 6 neighborhoods of 500 to 600 residents each, with each cluster centered around a small commercial district with a café, convenience store, public transit stop with outstanding service, carshare options, elementary school, etc. If the local ped/bike network and the public transit service were safe and inviting, with easy and pleasant access to a wide variety of destinations, many residents might loosen their addiction to cars. In the 1960’s, Denmark was as car-happy as the US–change is possible, with appropriate planning. Performance zoning would be essential, to create diverse destinations within existing residential zones, and to raise the residential density. The idea could be prototyped with manageable changes in existing physical and regulatory infrastructure. These changes might be significantly less expensive than cutting new, complete road grids through existing suburbs.

If we assume that automotive transportation and Euclidean use-based zoning will remain dominant and ubiquitous in the US, then we accept that each day cars will continue to kill nearly 100 Americans while permanently maiming hundreds more and emitting copious GHG’s. In this scenario, cul-de-sac neighborhoods are worse than complete-grid neighborhoods, because they usually generate more Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT) per household.

However, if we suppose that automobiles could conceivably comprise a minority fraction of total trips for some neighborhoods, and that existing single family homes could support appropriate, neighbor-friendly business activities, then a cul-de-sac neighborhood with a complete, dense ped/bike grid would have significant advantages. For instance, residents would enjoy walking, cycling, and playing in public spaces, in relative safety from sudden encounters with tons of 40mph metal (“Skinny Streets” by Girling & Kellett p.80 reports that cul-de-sac neighborhoods are 4 to 8 times safer than ‘complete’ street networks. Most folks who have lived in both cul-de-sac and short-block neighborhoods will find this statistic easy to believe). For stormwater management, while a retrofit is more challenging than new construction to implement surface drainage, the percentage of impervious surface can still be substantially less than a “complete” New Urban street grid.

A hybrid transportation grid with a dense, fully connected pedestrian/bike network, can revive an aging suburb or a half-completed bankrupt subdivision in need of eco-friendly market repositioning. In combination, a performance-zoning overlay can create diverse destinations within each walkable/bikable neighborhood, without major public expenditure and without annoying the neighbors. If the non-motorized grid and public transit systems are good enough, then new businesses and additional residents can thrive, without a net increase in motorized traffic.

No, I can’t prove it yet, that all the pieces of this holistic solution will fit together as planned. But the potential benefits are so high, that it’s worth trying. “All” that’s needed to get started, are a few new rules, a few new paved walkways, a few covered bus stops, and a lot of negotiation—already areas of expertise for many local governments and developers.

Drawbacks of Typical Transportation Planning/Analysis in the U.S.

Inaccurate assumptions in transportation planning practices and policies hinder the effectiveness of many transportation projects and many potential business ventures.  If a transportation engineer tells you “We’ve performed a detailed analysis, and determined exactly what is needed.”, you might consider asking whether that analysis was based on any of the questionable assumptions described below.

The primary goal of conventional transportation planning is to ensure that there will be no traffic jams for motorized vehicles during the busiest fifteen minutes of the year, twenty years from now, assuming that the Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) grow every year by 3%, regardless of rising fuel costs, global warming, public transit development, telecommuting, or anything else.  This goal is usually accomplished by widening roads, adding left turn lanes, increasing speed limits, removing pedestrian crossings at one side of a busy intersection, etc.  These ‘amenities’ are often financed with System Development Charges, a tax on developers.  There is usually NO consideration of pedestrians or cyclists, except as impediments to the smooth flow of motorized vehicles.  The overall effect is to overbuild automobile roadways now, expecting them to become comfortably full (but not overcrowded) in twenty years.  The motorized traffic projections are based on data collected 1950-1980, in the manual of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE).  The well-documented effects of “induced traffic” are rarely considered, in which a wide, new, free road attracts more users than expected.

In the USA, transportation projects are not evaluated for cost-effectiveness in relation to other priorities, or for functionality after completion.  It is generally assumed that projects will function as predicted, and that all available Transportation money should be spent.

“There is not enough data” to account for present conditions.  For instance, the fact that freight companies at the airport in Portland, OR schedule their trucks to avoid the local peak rush hour is irrelevant.  50-year-old field-based data, that was poorly sampled at the time from a random portion of the country, is considered superior to anecdotal local data based on experience today.

There are no generally accepted practices or data to describe pedestrian and bicycle facilities, safety, and trips.  For example, many transportation engineers do not consider themselves qualified to distinguish between the service level provided by an 8-foot wide grade-separated bike path, versus a 2-foot wide bikelane on the shoulder of a 6-lane arterial with a 45 mph speed limit.  This is not usually part of the planning process.  Neither do they feel qualified to distinguish professionally between the pedestrian experience of running across a 6-lane arterial at a short signal light, versus strolling across a 2-lane connector at a long signal light.  It’s usually not part of the job description.

Besides roads and bikeways, there’s parking.  In most municipalities in the US, retailers are required by law to provide 3 or 4 parking spaces per 1000 sf of retail space.  With access lanes, each parking space requires a total of 300 sf.  In other words, the total parking space must be roughly as large as the building itself (900 to 1200 sf of parking, for every 1000 sf of building).  Some large retailers believe this is wasteful, and that less parking is actually needed.  This simple policy has created countless dead zones across America, at the outer corners of the parking lots of suburban malls, where shoppers only park during the week before Christmas.

Urban businesses that want to re-use an existing building must provide ample parking.  If the owner of a potential neighborhood business such as a restaurant believes that many potential customers will walk and bike, the business owner must pay for extensive research and analysis to prove that fewer parking spaces are needed.  Without spending tens of thousands of dollars for research and/or System Development Charges, the new business use will not be permitted.  This dooms many small commercial locations in historic buildings.  The property owner must either acquire adjacent properties to demolish the adjacent (often historic) buildings for parking, or else find a race-to-the-bottom use such as a used tire store or battery store, for which the zoning code requires minimal parking.  This policy prevents large residential zones from being renovated into walkable mixed-use areas with multiple neighborhood commercial centers.  Each potential business would need to overcome huge regulatory impediments, in order to provide residents with the nearby amenities that are essential for a walkable neighborhood. Portland, Oregon is one of the few places in the US where some of the retail parking requirements are relaxed, if a public transit route is nearby.

Utopian suburbia?

GreenWayNeighborhoods.net presents a wholistic vision for the future, with reference to components of that vision that already exist today.

 

The website tells details about how communities of the future could function more effectively as wholistic systems, that support more fully the health and wellbeing of humans, other species, and the planet.  To my knowledge, there is no place on earth yet that embodies all the components of the system described here. While research on various aspects of existing communities suggests that the whole system will function  well, this has not been demonstrated yet.  Some portions of this website were written before I fully understood that the whole system has never been built anywhere. 

 

The first developer or community to embrace the whole system will be taking a radical and risky step.  The success of the system will depend on proving the following hypothesis:

 

I believe that a cluster of walkable GIC (greenways interlaced with cul-de-sac) neighborhoods around a central commercial district, with great public transit service from this district to others like it, can be designed/retrofited and operated so that the total vehicle-miles-traveled and vehicle-related-casualties are dramatically decreased, in comparison to a typical suburb AND in comparison to a New Urban dense street grid.

 

Experientially, this will require that the main connectors and arterials of the GIC system must have vehicle traffic that is so sparse and slow and calm, as to feel like the residential streets of a dense street grid.  The vehicles will travel 20 to 25 mph, not 35 mph.  The roads will probably be 2 lane, not 4 lane.  A significant portion of the total traffic on these arterials will be buses, streetcars, and bikes.  Even though each trip by a motorized vehicle is longer (because the GIC design requires an indirect route for motorized vehicles), the total vehicle miles travelled will be less, because so many vehicle trips are replaced by walking, biking, and transit.

 

Most transportation planners do not share this belief, because most cul-de-sac neighborhoods generate more vehicle-miles and more traffic casualties.  While the interiors of these neighborhoods are relatively safe, the extra traffic on connectors and arterials makes the whole system more dangerous overall.  I am not aware of any cul-de-sac neighborhoods yet, where the levels of

• Pedestrian/bicycle network connectivity,
• Residential density,
• commercial/residential proximity,
• physical division into areas of 500 residents each,
• program support for alternative transportation
• fast, convenient, pleasant public transit service, and
• connector/arterial traffic calming,

are all so high, that the entire community travels fewer vehicle miles, more safely, compared to a new urban dense street grid.  I believe it’s possible, but I can’t prove it yet.

 

Even Village Homes in Davis, CA, the original inspiration for this website, is one GIC neighborhood surrounded by typical sprawling suburbs.  It demonstrates some components of this vision, but it is not extensive enough to demonstrate the complete regional system.  For example, there is a large 2-lane connector on the east side of Village Homes, and a larger, very busy 4-lane arterial on the south side.  For a bicyclist, there is a stark contrast between the pastoral, idyllic experience of bicycling around within the beautiful trail system of Village Homes itself, versus the adrenaline-pumping experience of crossing the adjacent, busy 4-lane highway with no traffic signal, to access the regional bikepath network.  Even if a bike tunnel provided safe passage under the highway, the highway itself would still be dangerous for all travelling on it, walking beside it, or crossing it at other locations.  With the future system that I envision, this busy 4-lane highway would be replaced by a  2-lane road of 25 mph traffic, with plenty of buses and/or streetcars.  The road will not be overcrowded because people-powered trips are so incredibly convenient, economical, and pleasant.  

 

In the US in 2009, the ideas described in this website could help a courageous developer or community transform a half-complete or half-dead cul-de-sac subdivision into a world-leading green innovation in wholistic community design.  When Village Homes was built in the 1970’s, the street plan represented a radical innovation—even though it was based on a design that was almost 100 years old.  Today, countless people have travelled from across the world to admire and experience Village Homes, and property values are significantly higher than in surrounding neighborhoods.  While the investors did not flip the property quickly, they eventually created a good financial return and a great community.

 

As foreclosures continue and gasoline prices rise, suburban blight will spread.  Any of the ideas in this website could be used individually, to improve incrementally the livability of existing suburbs.  And, whoever implements the whole package completely, will see a profoundly positive transformation in the livability and sustainability of their community.

 

If you want to make an existing cul-de-sac community more livable and sustainable, many New Urban planners will suggest that you change the street grid in order to enhance connectivity.  I suggest that there is a better solution—less expensive, and more effective at addressing a broader range of concerns.  If you address each of the following items, more or less in order, then I believe (but can’t prove yet) that you will be delighted with the results.

 

• Monitor results over time, in terms of total vehicle miles travelled by residents
  • The suggestions below represent radical innovations when compared to standard American practice.  Any community that successfully implements most or all of these innovations, will be a world leader among livable communities.  To secure full bragging rights for later, team up now with a local university or planning department, to track your progress over time, starting with a baseline before improvements.
• Increase pedestrian/bicycle network connectivity
  • Much easier and less expensive than building new roads
  • Addresses traffic congestion as well as many other concerns such as safety, health, global warming, sense of community, etc.
• Increase residential density
  • In America, public bus systems work well with densities of 12 or more residents per acre.  Local shops can rely on foot traffic with densities above 40 residents per acre, while intermediate densities can support local shops with bicycle traffic. 
  • Many existing American suburbs could meet these requirements with the addition of a few Accessory Dwelling Units (“ADU’s” or “granny flats”) on every block.  Regulations should support and manage this increased density, rather than making ADU’s illegal and hidden.
• Increase commercial/residential proximity
  • People will walk more, when they have more destinations to walk to.
  • Realistically, this means allowing coffee shops, dentist offices, daycare centers, convenience stores, beauty shops, etc. within existing residential districts.  This brings up issues of noise, traffic and safety, which should be addressed locally in terms of fundamental values and desired performance, rather than a simple ban on all nonresidential uses.
  • Use a combination of “Form based” and “Performance based” zoning code to support this.
  • Modify commercial parking requirements to account for ped/bike/transit customers, and to support commercial uses without the need to demolish adjacent buildings for parking.
  • “Form based” zoning code provides an incremental improvement over the “Euclidean” or “Use based” zoning code that has been almost universally adopted in the US since the 1950’s.  Form based codes were used throughout America in the early 1900’s to create the beautiful downtown areas that many people enjoy today.  While Form based codes are generally better than Euclidean codes, one must be very careful to permit the greenbuilding innovations that will be essential in order for our society to become sustainable and regenerative.
• Physical division into areas of 500 residents each
  • There are many sociological and anthropological studies to support this
  • As one recent example, California has begun to separate large high schools such as American Canyon High School into subdivisions of ~500 students each.  Students and teachers within each division have a clear sense of community, and 4 or 5 divisions are physically clustered together to share common spaces such as the library, culinary arts lab, theater, and shop.  This is very similar to several GIC neighborhoods of 500 residents each, clustered around a common commercial district.
• Program support for alternative transportation
  • Most Americans are in the habit of driving.  Programmatic support with ongoing promotions and education is essential, to help residents change habits.
  • Simple programs can make a surprisingly large difference, such as organizing volunteers to accompany new bus riders on their first few trips, and hosting periodic free bike tune-ups and safety lessons.
• Fast, convenient, pleasant public transit service
  • This presents a “chicken-and-egg” problem in existing neighborhoods.  How many neighborhoods along a bus route must become more walkable, before the transit authority increases the level of bus service?  A streetcar track provides a level of permanence and confidence, to encourage development along its route.
  • Bicycles can help with this transition, so that more people have non-motorized acces to each transit stop.  This requires comprehensive planning, with bike lockers at transit stops, or bike racks on buses, or even a bikeshare program.
• Connector/arterial traffic calming
  • This comes last, after all the other measures have reduced the traffic levels. 
  • This can be a regional challenge, if an arterial is used for through-traffic from distant neighborhoods.  Ideally, those distant neighborhoods would also implement all the measures above, so then they would create lower volumes of through-traffic in your neighborhood.  This suggests a role for evangelism, to share the news about successful implementation of the previous measures.
  • Interim solutions may involve pedestrian signal lights, overpasses and tunnels, to provide safe passage across busy streets.  Davis, CA has built many examples of these measures.  Building a pedestrian bridge or tunnel is more expensive than a crosswalk, but it’s a lot less expensive than building a new road—and, strategically placed, it might serve as many people as an entire new road.

These basic ideas can be applied at various densities.  The most obvious application is in existing, low-density, cul-de-sac neighborhoods.  But much denser applications are possible, which I’ll discuss in a later post…

Introduction

This blog will contain thoughts related to http://www.GreenWayNeighborhoods.net, about ways to create safer, healthier neighborhoods.