You Can’t Go Home Again – Part 4, Roundabouts and an Urbanism Success

In my last three posts, I wrote of recent travels in the Pacific Northwest.  I lived in the region from 1982 until 2000.  During my journey, I was able to observe how urbanism has progressed in several communities that I once knew well.  In the first three posts, with links here, here, and here, I wrote about stroads, induced traffic, long-term impacts of land-use missteps, and missed opportunities for urbanism.

In this post, I’ll look at an unexpected urbanism success and the effective use of roundabouts.

Observation #6: Good urbanism can arise unexpectedly - Even while urbanism concepts were being denied or subverted elsewhere in Bend, another project was arising that would be recognized nationally for its urbanism.

 

That changed when the school district took at rigorous long-term look at optimal school locations and identified a need to serve the property.  (I had a small role in getting the school district study underway.)  The district approached the land-owner about a site for a future school, which was the final shove he needed to initiate a development plan.

Northwest Crossing is a neighborhood of small-lot and shared-wall single family homes, serviced by a street-oriented retail core.  The neighborhood is walkable and bikeable, with all ages able to easily access the retail area.

 

in the retail area were jammed with people celebrating a Friday evening.  The next, the retail street was closed for a fair.  The last, the sidewalks had a smattering of folks enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon.  It is a retail area that works for the neighborhood.

As befits its beginnings, Northwest Crossing has good non-vehicular access to public schools.  Also, in a feature lacking in most American cities, it has a senior living complex in the retail area from where active seniors can remain involved in their community.

Bend, more than many communities, suffered during the recent economic turmoil.  A former co-worker who remains employed in the land-use arena advised me that Northwest Crossing was only Bend neighborhood for which home construction never slowed during the hard times.  It’s more proof of something I’ve often written, that there is unmet need for urbanist living.

To my eye, Northwest Crossing isn’t quite the perfect urbanist community.  I’d prefer pockets of higher density and a broader scattering of small storefronts, but Northwest Crossing is accurately identified among the best urbanist places in the country.

Observation #7: Roundabouts work – For reasons that now escape me, Bend was among the first communities in the west to adopt roundabouts as a primary tool of traffic management.  By the mid 1990s, the city was promoting roundabouts as solutions for troublesome intersections.

Despite heated public meetings on the subject, by the late 1990s the city was moving ahead with several roundabouts.  During my time in Bend, I was involved in the design of several intersections that were to serve as interim solutions, with roundabouts intended as replacements as traffic increased.  Most of those replacements have now been implemented.

I don’t have an exact count, but Bend may have more than thirty roundabouts.  And they work well.  As I worked my way around a town that had changed dramatically since my time there, I found the roundabouts convenient and logical.  Driving through the roundabouts felt safe and courteous.  It was a very different feeling than waiting in a queue at a traffic signal.

And when I occasionally struggled with navigation, I enjoyed using the roundabouts to make safe and legal U-turns.

Roundabouts aren’t going to work in all traffic situations.  But for communities with moderate traffic levels on a diverse collection of arterials and collectors, Bend proves that roundabouts are a fine solution.

Observation #8: Roundabouts need differentiation - When I moved away from Bend, the move to roundabouts had barely begun.  But by the time I returned in 2004 for an arbitration hearing related to a former project, roundabouts had proliferated.  As I drove to the location of the hearing, I traversed a number of roundabouts, several of which had replaced what I remembered as conventional intersections.

Perhaps because my route was familiar but greatly changed, I found the roundabouts confusing.  Most looked similar.  As I entered a roundabout, I was suddenly uncertain where I was.

I successfully found my destination, but came away with the thought that roundabouts, perhaps more than regular intersections, need strong signage and differentiation so that all roundabouts don’t look alike.

It was as if my thoughts were channeled directly into the benevolent segment of the Bend community.  Through charitable contributions, sculptures have been installed at many of the roundabouts.  Even better, every sculpture is unique, giving each roundabout a sense of place.

One sculpture in particular has captured the attention of the town.  It is an orange and red bird intended by the artist as a phoenix.  The community has instead dubbed it the “flaming chicken” and often gives directions relative to it.

Bend may have done some things wrong.  But any community where directions can be given as “Go a half-mile past the flaming chicken” rather than “Go a half-mile past the Target” is doing something right.

In my next post, I’ll cross over the Cascades to offer thoughts on Portland.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

You Can’t Go Home Again – Part 3, Missed Opportunities

I recently traveled to the Pacific Northwest where I once lived for eighteen years.  The trip allowed me to observe how urbanism has advanced, or failed to advance, in several communities that I knew well once upon a time.  I’m distilling my insights into a series of “observations”, of which Part 1 on stroads and induced traffic and Part 2 on the long-term impact of land-use missteps were previously published.

This post, I’ll look at missed opportunities for urbanism in Central Oregon

Observation #4: Urbanism opportunities shouldn’t be dismissed by flawed logic - In my previous post, I wrote about how a large proposed residential/recreation community on the westside of Bend wasn’t approved by the Planning Commission, in large part because of concerns over a mixed-use core.   After nearly twenty-five years, I don’t recall all of the concerns expressed by the Planning Commission.  But I clearly remember a comment by the mayor.

The mayor played on the softball team fielded by the firm where I worked.  He played shortstop while I manned third base.  So we had occasional opportunities to chat about municipal matters, typically during pre-inning warm-ups.

One game, I broached the subject of the proposed project.  The mayor had a ready answer.  He had reviewed the conceptual plan and noted that the mixed-use core was larger in area than the entire Bend downtown.  And he felt that it wasn’t right to challenge the pre-eminence of downtown.

In 1990, there were two recently-built shopping centers on the north end of Bend, each of which had more acreage than downtown.  Furthermore, within a few years the city would approve a massive retail project on the eastside of town that would dwarf downtown.  So it wasn’t that the mayor believed new retail shouldn’t challenge downtown, only that any new retail shouldn’t look like a downtown.

I still regret not being able to muster the obvious response that the mayor’s comment deserved.  The layout of the Bend downtown had evolved over a hundred years and reflected a model that was time-tested.  The new shopping centers were guesses about what would work for the shoppers of the future.  Nor were the guesses particularly good, with all of the shopping centers having undergone major renovations since that time, while the downtown has continued to serve the community with limited alterations.

Any right-thinking mayor should have been thrilled to have new development that mimicked his successful downtown.   And I kick myself for not having the words to express that sentiment while fielding warm-up grounders.

For the record, the mayor wasn’t much of a shortstop.  Nor was I much of a third-baseman.

Observation #5:  Good urbanist intentions can go astray in the marketplace – Even if the Planning Commission had approved the large westside project, it’s very possible that mixed-use core would still have not come in existence.  The marketplace can often subvert urbanist intentions.

During my final years in Bend, a long-time sawmill a short distance south of downtown finally surrendered to the changing timber economy.  The site was sold to a local developer who put forth an aggressive plan for redevelopment, including an appealing blend of retail, office, and residential.  It had the potential to replace the missed westside opportunity.

By the time, I moved to California, only a small portion of the development had proceeded.  I recall a restaurant, a movie theatre, and a few offices.  I often thought of the site and hoped that it had met its goals.

It hadn’t.  Upon my visit to Bend, one of my first meetings was with a former client who suggested we meet in the Old Mill District.  I was distressed by what I saw.  Retail and offices were there in abundance but, except for a hotel with its transient population, there were no residents in the core of the property.

A solid network of non-vehicular paths allowed a good number of bicyclists and walkers to visit the Old Mill District from nearby residential areas, but nonetheless the predominant mode for reaching the project, and the mode on which the retail relied, was automobile.

 As a result, the retail area, although having an attractive street appearance, was backed by large parking lots.  The Old Mill District had become a lifestyle center, a visual simulation of a downtown, but without the soul, durability, or sustainability of a downtown or a fully-realized mixed-use area.  And as is typical of most lifestyle centers, many of the retail tenants were national chains.  There was only a smattering of local businesses.

The developer deserved credit for retaining many of the physical elements of the historical sawmill, but not for the form of the development.

A few Bend conversations confirmed my expectation.  Faced with the debt burden from property acquisition and the reluctance of lenders to support mixed use, the developer allowed his project vision to be tweaked, eliminating residential in the core.  It’s a pattern I’ve seen elsewhere, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

To be fair, there were still pockets of residential, including a charming rowhouse development near the north end of the Old Mill District, but none very close to the core.

Next time, I’ll write about a Bend project that did meet its mixed-use objective.

(Clarification: To avoid getting sidetracked into regulatory details, I implied above that the Bend Planning Commission was considering a project application for the large westside project.  Oregon readers will know that I’ve misstated the process.  Under Oregon law, Planning Commissions are legislative bodies, not quasi-judicial.

In this case, the Planning Commission was considering a text amendment to the zoning code, creating a new zone under which a project application could be submitted.  The actual application would have been heard by a Hearings Officer.  But the Planning Commission refusal to approve the text amendment stopped the project just as surely as a hearing denial would have.

The limited role of planning commissions is a quirk of Oregon law that I think is often beneficial to the land-use process.  But I didn’t want to sidetrack the discussion on this fine point of law.  Hence this parenthetical footnote.)

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

You Can’t Go Home Again – Part 2: Access Matters

In my last post, I began to list urbanist observations from a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest.  After spending a large chunk of my life in the Northwest, I found it insightful to return years later and to look at familiar places with different acuity.

My first two observations were about Highway 97 in Bend, Oregon.  For my next observation, I remain in Bend.

Observation #3: Missteps can have long-range implications – If there was a signature project of my time in Bend, it was a large residential/recreational project on the west edge of the city.  I’ve previously offered anecdotes about the project, including the sapping of urbanism from the project plan, the allocation of space to non-vehicular users of the roadways, and the opposition to having on-site employee housing.

But there was story that predated those.

The project that was eventually built was far smaller than had been originally proposed.  The initial plan included almost 1,700 acres of land.  I don’t recall the exact number of proposed residences, but it must have been 3,000 or more, along with several golf courses.  But the key element, at least to me, was a mixed-use town center.  The plan called for several stories of residential, including lodging, over streetfront retail.  It would have been an unusually walkable development for its era.

The plan was rolled out in 1989, at the dawn of the new urbanism movement, so was well ahead of its time.  It was also a key moment in my education as an urbanist.

Unfortunately, neither the Planning Commission nor fate were as willing to be educated.  The proposal became stalled at the Planning Commission, although several meetings were devoted to its consideration.  Then, in August 1990, a forest fire burned much of the site.

Although no lives were lost, more than fifty homes were burned elsewhere in Bend.  But of at least equal importance to me, the project and its mixed-use core were dead.  Financing wasn’t available for a project on a burned-over site.  Nor would buyers have lined up to be in the path of the next fire.  More than 15 years would pass before development was again considered.

In its place of the larger project, a smaller, although still sizable, project was proposed, tucked into a mostly unburned corner of the larger property.  The development activities for the smaller project consumed the next few years of my life.

But there was a key mistake in the layout of the smaller project.  It lay astride the obvious route from the city to the full site.  But its web of surface streets was intended solely for internal traffic.  It failed to provide good access between the city and the remainder of the site.

With my still underdeveloped sense of urbanism, I didn’t note the seriousness of this omission.  Nor did anyone else.  I was just happy to get the project approved and to move into the myriad tasks of subdivision and engineering design.

But I was smarter a few years later.  When the developer proposed extending the project to the south, into another portion of the site that had escaped the fire, I argued for a strong access road into the remainder of the site, including the half-forgotten mixed-use core.  The road I proposed wouldn’t have been a perfect solution, but would have been an improvement over the initial development plan.

The developer rejected my suggestion.  For reasons involving separate land ownerships and monetary incentives, he had no interest in the larger property, only the immediate expansion.  And he could see no reason to spend money on the future of the community if it didn’t provide a return to him.

A state-issued engineering license makes engineers responsible for public safety.  If a developer asks an engineer to design a bridge that would collapse under heavy loads or to size a sewer line that would overflow under high usage, the engineer has the legal obligation to refuse.

But that legal duty doesn’t extend to poor land-use decisions that may harm a community.  Even though fixing a bridge or a sewer line would be less expensive than fixing a bad land-use pattern, engineers are under no obligation to be whistle-blowers on land-use issues.  Indeed, raising the concern would likely violate a fiduciary responsibility to the developer.  It’s an unfortunate aspect of the law that often troubles me.

Thus, I was without recourse when the developer chose not to pursue a more robust access route into the remainder of the property.  I could have surreptitiously mentioned my concern to city staff.  Or I could have raised my voice at a public hearing.  But either would have been unprofessional and grounds for termination.

And so the expansion was built without the stronger access.

Years later, after my departure from Bend, a different developer acquired the remaining land.  For a number of reasons, presumably including the lack of good access into the city, dense development wasn’t possible.  Instead, the land was developed into ten-acre lots and rolling golf courses.

It’s a nicely done development.  If one must do ten-acre lots and golf courses, one could hardly do better.  The plan was solid and well executed, with careful and appropriate details.  But it’s not the highest and best use to which the land could have been put.

During my recent visit to Bend, I dined with an old friend.  Afterwards, she gave me a tour of the westside of Bend, including the ten-acre lot project.  She retains a role in Oregon land use and shared my chagrin over the result.  But her disappointment was muted, as she’d had several years to become accustomed to the land use.

My disappointment was more acute.  I knew the ten-acre lot project had been built, but it was hard to look out over the swale where the mixed-use core was to have been built without wondering what I could have done differently.  I hadn’t necessarily failed, but I’d failed to succeed.

In my next post, I’ll write about what happened in place of the mixed-use core noted above.  It’s another unhappy tale.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

You Can’t Go Home Again – Part 1, Highway 97 in Bend

Returning to a place once known well, and now changed in ways both big and small, can reveal new truths about the place and the observer.  I was reminded of this during recent travels in the Pacific Northwest.

In past posts, I’ve made reference to my geographical past, although never in a comprehensive manner.  Perhaps some readers have assembled a complete picture of the places that I’ve called home.  But I should offer a biographical sketch to provide context to my recent travels. 

Born and raised in California, I had enough wanderlust that I didn’t want to spend my entire life in the Golden State.  In 1982, I transferred with my employer to Seattle, where I managed a water resources department.

For family reasons, I moved to a smaller town in 1987, picking the community of Bend in Oregon’s high desert, east of the Cascades.  Now with a different employer, I still worked in water resources, but also in land use.  I lived in Bend until I returned to California in 2000.

I retain strong attachments to Seattle and Bend.  Seattle, despite its weather and lack of diversity, remains my favorite big city.  Not that I dislike San Francisco, but I’d pick an afternoon in Seattle over a week in San Francisco.  There just something about the air, the streetscapes, and the neighborhoods that feels right.  I haven’t lived there in over 25 years, but when I set foot on a Seattle sidewalk, it still feels like home.

However, the connection to Bend is even stronger.  It was the first place where I felt fully integrated into a community and where I felt my contributions made a difference.

That isn’t to imply that I had great power in Bend because I didn’t.  I didn’t hold public office nor did I manage large resources.  But I sat on several local committees, provided engineering services for projects that changed the face of Bend, and could get my phone calls returned.  (This would have been in the days when phone calls were still the dominant way of conducting business.)

At one time, it seemed that I could walk in downtown Bend, especially in the non-tourism season, and have a nodding acquaintance with over half the people on the sidewalk.  It was a life I enjoyed.

And now I was heading back to visit both cities.  Every year, I join friends for a weeklong tour of minor league ballparks, breweries, and other assorted sites.  This year, we chose to visit the Pacific Northwest.

Over the course of ten days, I revisited the old places that were once so familiar to me.  And I was looking with eyes that were more attuned to urbanism.  It was ten days filled with surprises and urbanist observations.

Observation #1: Stroads can hide in plain sight - For many years, Highway 97 was the primary north-south route through Bend.  It was impossible to live in Bend without being on Highway 97 several times a week.

Despite that history, when StrongTowns introduced me to the word “stroad”, I never once thought of Highway 97.  (For those readers who aren’t familiar with the term, a stroad is a vehicular way stuck halfway between being a rural road and a city street.  It’s an uneasy blending of the two which results in a dangerous place to drive and an impossible place to walk.)

Upon my arrival in town, I drove Highway 97 to see what had changed along its route.  To my surprise, I realized that it was, and had always been, a stroad.  Although Highway 97 has sidewalks, they are unfriendly places.  I don’t recall seeing a single pedestrian during my recent visit.

Furthermore, the highway, which was already full of driveways when I lived there, now has even more driveways, with every driveway providing an opportunity for vehicular conflict.  (While in Bend, I spoke with an old friend who assured me that the state highway department access management group has been emasculated to the point that few driveway permits are denied.)

Highway 97 was an ugly place.   And a disappointing reminder of what we can overlook in our daily lives.  I drove on a stroad on a near-daily basis for 13 years, but never thought of the transportation failure I was seeing.

Observation #2: Induced traffic is real - I’ve previously mentioned induced traffic only in passing.  It’s a topic that deserves a complete exploration, but that will be at another time.  For now, I’ll offer a brief introduction.

The theory of induced traffic argues that drivers make decisions about taking trips and selecting routes based on the availability of traffic capacity.  At the simplest level, whether a driver makes an optional trip depends on whether the driver expects to encounter heavy traffic.

In real life application, the result is that new traffic capacity, whether from new lanes or new streets, is often consumed by non-essential trips.  Conversely, loss of capacity, such as from street closures or construction, often results in fewer trips being taken.  Congestion doesn’t remain static regardless of street capacity, but it’s closer to static than most older traffic models predict.

The theory of induced traffic is one reason that urbanists argue that we can’t build our way out of traffic congestion.  As long as a local economy remains active, new street capacity will be sucked up while providing little traffic relief.

A theory isn’t proved by a single anecdote, but I found a piece of supporting data for the theory of induced traffic during my visit to Bend.

Highway 97 was bypassed by the Bend Parkway during my final years in Bend.  The intent was to reduce traffic on Highway 97.  This was my first trip back to Bend with the Parkway in full operation.  I could have taken the Parkway, but choose to stay on Highway 97 to take a look at the town.  (This was when I realized that Highway 97 was a stroad.)

In the time I was away, Bend had grown, but only slightly.  Although it remains a popular tourist destination, population growth has been slight and property values had plummeted during the recent recession.

Under a conventional theory of traffic generation, traffic on Highway 97 should been far less than I remembered.  Total traffic growth should have been small and much of the previous traffic should have moved to the Parkway.  The prediction would have been wrong.  Highway 97 was bumper-to-bumper through much of Bend.  Induced traffic is alive and well in Bend.  Although I’ll wager that someone in Bend is arguing to add more capacity to deal with the congestion.

Next time, I’ll write about a Bend land-use decision in which I played a key, but unsatisfying, role.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)