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| Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit on a quiet Saturday monring |
I’ll return today
to CNU 24, the annual gathering of the Congress for the New Urbanism recently
conducted in Detroit. I’ve previously
offered the highlights of the opening day talks by Andres Duany, in two parts, and Kaid Benfield.
Today I’ll
move onto Jeff Speck, who is a personal favorite. Not only do I have a passion for his topic,
walkability, but I love the way he presents his material, with quiet, confident
good sense. And, although our exchanges
have been limited to simple stuff such as “Please sign my book” and “I’m sorry
about spilling beer on your shoes”, he seems a genuinely nice person.
He did nothing
at CNU 24 to change my opinion.
My favorite
moments from his talk are below. As
before, the quotes are reconstructed from my notes and are likely imprecise,
but capture Speck’s intent.
On the many
elements of modern life that can be improved by walkability: “Also supportive
are economists, climatologists, and epidemiologists.”
On the underfunding
of transit, an essential complement to walkability: “Between 1970 and 2010, the
number of road miles in the U.S doubled.
Transit funding increased by 10 to 20 percent.”
On the lack of
awareness of the impacts of a drivable world: “We naturalize car deaths,
considering them an inescapable fact of modern life.”
On how the lack
of housing can inhibit downtowns: “A downtown with little residential can have
a density of five to ten people per acre, similar to the most sparse
suburbs. And housing would begat retail
and restaurants.”
On when
transit becomes essential to complement walkability: “Walkable neighborhoods
don’t need transit. Walkable cities do. Streetcars are pedestrian accelerators.”
On the
effect of pedestrian friendly road diets on traffic: “There is typically little
change in the average daily trips after a road diet.”
As always,
quiet commonsense, delivered with good humor.
When I next
write, I’ll take an urbanist perspective in perusing the recent Civil Grand
Jury report for Sonoma County.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
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