With this
post, I’ll close my far-flung cogitations on the alternative location for the
second SMART station in Petaluma and the conclusions to which my thinking led me.
I fear I may
have confused a few readers by the way I connected the dots in my head. It seemed logical to me, but know that I don’t
always think like other people. Today,
I’ll try to smooth over any rough patches in my logical progressions.
(When I was
a student at Cal, I took a class on the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. I was enroute to becoming the first civil
engineering graduate in Cal history to complete the liberal arts requirement,
normally met with lower division classes in American history or political
science, with upper division classes on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
For my class
term paper, I tried to compare and contrast Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov and
Nietzsche’s Superman. It was a worthy
topic, but I didn’t have the chops for it.
In one particular tortured section, the professor, a Nobel Laureate in
poetry, wrote in the margin “I have no idea what you’re saying.” So if I lost you somewhere during my
preceding posts, you have my apologies and the knowledge that you’re in good
company.)
To recap
where I’ve been, I introduced the alternative location for the second station and
why it would solve dual problems for SMART, delved into the regulatory constraints on
the alternative location, and described the insights about urban growth boundaries and
transects to which the contemplations took
me.
To me, the
most important conclusion is that urban growth boundaries, the limit beyond
which cities may not expand, and transects, the urbanist theory by which cities
progress logically from wilderness to urban cores, are fully complementary, the
coherency to which the title refers. The
declining leg of transects, as the uses transition through lower density
development to agricultural uses is exactly where the urban growth boundary
should be.
The only
caveat is the urban growth boundaries must remain fixed, or nearly so, over
time. A city that conforms to the theory
of transects would have appropriate uses at its boundaries, perhaps low-density
residential, development-supported agriculture, large natural parks, or even
improvements such as community airports or multi-field sports complexes.
To move an
urban growth boundary beyond these uses, allowing apartment buildings or strip
malls on the far side, would result in an incoherent, difficult to serve
community. The fact that we’ve built communities
in this way for seventy years doesn’t mean we should continue to do so.
This summing
up leaves three lingering questions to address before I close.
Why did
city building of the past not need urban growth boundaries?: San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and New
Orleans. These are all fascinating places
that we love to visit. But they grew
during an era when no one spoke of urban growth boundaries or transects. Why do we now need tools of which the city
builders of the past knew nothing and yet succeeded well?
The answer
is the automobile. The great cities we
enjoy today reached their near final form when people moved about on foot, on
horseback, or by common conveyance.
Those means of transport limited how far people could reasonably travel,
so cities remains relatively compact, a feature that we continue to find
attractive.
If San Francisco
hadn’t been settled until after the car was commonplace, it would likely look
very different. More freeways and wide
streets to enable people to leave quickly after work. More chain stores. Less population.
Indeed, I
suggest that if the Bay Area hadn’t been settled until after the advent of the
automobile, San Francisco wouldn’t be the dominant city. Instead, that distinction would have gone to
Oakland or San Jose for their easier access to the suburbs of Hayward, Fremont,
Morgan Hill, and Gilroy.
With no
disrespect to either Oakland or San Jose, both of which have places I enjoy, I’m
happier living in a Bay Area where San Francisco is the dominant city.
To a large
extent, planning tools such as urban growth boundaries and transects are little
more an attempt to recreate the development patterns that existed before the
automobile. And maybe even to improve on
what early city builders accomplished.
What
happens when a city is complete but development pressure remains?: What
if a city is logically bounded by physical barriers such as rivers, bays, and
steep hillsides or by appropriate man-made limits such as airports and golf
courses such that future development would bust the transect? And what if the same city has bumped up the
transects to create an appropriate number of urban centers and urban cores, but
is still experiencing development pressure, perhaps because its form is
successfully attracting the creative class?
What then?
To me, this
is where the garden city fits. New
villages or towns can be encouraged a few miles from the city. But the new places must be compact places,
with strong transit connections to the larger city. People who prefer fewer lights at night or
perhaps a lower housing cost could live in the new places, but still be
convenient to urban life.
This idea
may seem far-fetched, but I actually proposed something much like it a few
years back. Sonoma County acquired Today
Lake, a dry lake bed and productive farm in the hills a few miles southeast of
Petaluma.
Shortly
after the acquisition, my wife and I attended a fall festival at Tolay
Lake. At the time, County planners were
still trying to develop a vision for the place, so were asking people to join
an email list.
I eagerly
signed up and even more eagerly filled in the comment section with my thought
that Tolay Lake could be a small village, perhaps something like Seaside, Florida, populated by park
employees, workers at a small model farm, shopkeepers to meet the needs of the
residents, writers and artists who would enjoy the quietude, and perhaps a few
weekenders also. Cars could be
discouraged, with a frequent bus connection to Petaluma.
I impatiently
waited to see if my thoughts would make the email newsletter. I never found out. I wasn’t even put on the email list. It can be tough to be out in front of the
curve.
Where
does the second SMART station belong?: If the alternative location for
the second SMART station is a poor solution, what then? What other sites remain?
I’ve looked
at the rail alignment through Petaluma.
There aren’t many other reasonable places for a second train station.
I understand
there was once consideration of placing the second station by the proposed
River Front project, near the 101 overcrossing of Lakeville Street. However, that site is too close to the
downtown station. I could see a location
along the proposed Rainier Connector, but that option
is likely more than a decade away. The
Corona Road location made sense, but SMART may have poisoned that well with
their acquisition strategy.
And that
leaves one location I can see, a location that a reader first pointed out to
me. There is a currently vacant parcel
along North McDowell Boulevard a short distance north of Corona Road. It has good rail frontage. It’s a little smaller than the Corona Road
site, but could still accommodate a fair number of cars.
The only
problem is that the site is currently proposed as the parking lot for the successful
pub at the Lagunitas Brewery. A parking
lot that is needed to address the current problem of patrons crossing McDowell
Boulevard to reach the pub.
To my mind,
the only way that the parcel can be freed up for use as the SMART station is if
aggressive traffic calming is implemented
on McDowell. If traffic be slowed to 25
mph, then pedestrian safety would improve and the street parking on the opposite
side could continue to serve the Lagunitas pub.
It would be
a very urbanist solution. But it would
solve a lot of problems. And, as another
reader has pointed out, urbanist pioneer Peter Calthorpe long ago sketched up an
urbanist community on the opposing side of the tracks. Although that project would require moving
the urban growth boundary, violating a principle that I elucidated above, the
proximity of housing, train station, successful pub, and McDowell bus corridor
is a compelling urbanist vision.
And the
reason I’m here is to point out the urbanist solutions.
Okay, having
thrown a lot of words at train stations, transects, etc, I’m ready to take a
breath. Perhaps the readers feel the
same. The next post will pick apart a
recent ad that was intended to make us feel good, but falls short on urbanist
grounds. It’s such an easy target that
the post will be short.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
The Lagunitas-area brew pub district fits the Petaluma character, as well as our "brand" in numerous ways. It should be safe and walkable!
ReplyDeleteBarry, I like the idea of brewpub district also. And I'm disappointed that the current solution is to provide better parking for Lagunitas without addressing inter-brewpub connectivity. But at the same time, I'll acknowledge that my solution, particularly the traffic calming on McDowell, would be a non-intuitive solution for many Petalumans.
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