Watching a Towering Surf of Common Sense Crash Against an Adamantine Cliff of Codes and Regulations

Crossing location

A few days ago, I wrote about an upcoming hearing on a proposed at-grade crossing in Santa Rosa.

The proposed crossing would confirm and reopen an existing pedestrian/bicycle connection between the two halves of Jennings Avenue, passing over railroad tracks that were recently returned to use.  It was a crossing that, although never official, had long served as a route between homes, businesses, and schools on both sides of the track.

During the many years that the tracks were unused, no one had taken notice of the crossing.  But with freight service and now SMART trains returning to the tracks, the crossing had become a concern for the California Public Utility Commission.  After considering options, including the possibility of an $8.2 million separated grade bridge, the City of Santa Rosa applied for approval of an at-grade crossing.

In the earlier post, I advocated for the at-grade crossing.  I also expressed concern that the rule-bound rigidity of the process was so time-consuming that many of the students who could have used the crossing to reach elementary school will have driver’s licenses before a decision is rendered.

I attended the hearing two evening ago.  Nothing in the process caused me to change either earlier assessment.  But I nonetheless came away feeling optimistic about people and about urbanism.

I felt energized because I watched a neighborhood of modest means and little influence rally together in large numbers and with enthusiasm to argue for an amenity that they found essential to the well-being of their lives.  And also because the amenity that the neighborhood wanted was walkable urbanism.  It was a naturally occurring, unselfconscious advocacy for a more walkable urban world.  And that makes me happy.

On my way to the hearing, I stopped by the location of the proposed crossing.  The sun and fence didn’t allow a good photo of the tracks, but the signage was clear enough to give a mirthless chuckle.

Detour sign

The City, responding to the closure by the PUC, suggested a walk-around of 0.6 miles and 15 to 20 minutes to replace the crossing, a length of walk that usually deters walking.  And that’s without noting that a segment of the recommended walk would be along a five-lane arterial without a sidewalk, for which the walking route is a narrow sliver of bare dirt behind a curb and perched above a steep slope declining to a creekbed.

Give a moment to ponder that.  The PUC is suggesting that students on their way to elementary school walk on a two-foot dirt path between quickly moving cars and sometimes quickly moving water.  And they make that suggestion for the sake of public safety.

It was with that absurdity still vibrating in my head that I arrived at the hearing.

The evening opened with the City summarizing the steps to date, the different alternatives that were considered, the environmental process that was followed, and the application to the Public Utility Commission for the at-grade crossing.  The location of the elementary school west of the tracks and the growing number of elementary school students living east of the tracks were also noted.  It was an unexciting, but factual and necessary, summary.

An engineer for the Safety and Enforcement Division of the PUC then made what was the most unhelpful presentation of the evening.  He noted that the PUC policy is to reduce the number of at-grade crossings, that many more deaths occur at at-grade crossings than at separated grade crossings, and that the City should have pursued the $8.2 million separated grade crossing when the funds might have been available.

It was a presentation which left a wealth of unanswered questions.  Would people actually use the separated grade crossing or would they revert to cars?  Would students cut the fences and continue crossing at grade, without the safety measures?  How would the City justify plopping an $8.2 million dollar concrete structure into the middle of a residential neighborhood, a physical juxtaposition that would much like plopping a tyrannosaurus rex into a petting zoo?  Were the fatality totals adjusted for the deaths that were ruled suicides?

It was a perfect example of a solution that looked at the problem through a pinhole rather in its entirety, which is the antithesis of good urbanism.  Luckily, the neighborhood effectively destroyed most of his arguments as the evening continued.

Acknowledgement: Due to my poor stenography skills, the following “quotes” are imprecise.  I’ve assuredly missed words and probably even combined the sentiments of multiple speakers.  But, regardless of attribution, all of the points below were made during the public comments, which began with City representatives and elected officials, and then continued with neighborhood residents.

“The crossing, although never approved, has been in use since the late 19th century, predating cars.  And not one single fatality has been experienced in that century plus.”

“Speaking as a wheelchair user, I could never climb the separated grade crossing and would be isolated unless an at-grade crossing is provided.”

“As a parent, I’d never let my child use the separated grade crossing because they couldn’t see around the corners and wouldn’t know what dangers might be waiting for them.”

“If we want to reduce greenhouse gases, we must provide useful walkable solutions.”

“As a researcher on the issues of a post-carbon world, we need to encourage pedestrians by providing facilities that meet their needs.”

“I’m now 46 years old, but remember being a student at this school and crossing the tracks with friends on a Saturday afternoon to see movies.”

“Listening to the speakers this evening, we’re hearing common sense swamping rules.”

“If we wish to encourage seniors to give up driving when they’re no longer safe behind the wheel, we must provide walkable alternatives.”

“The at-grade crossing has been in multiple City of Santa Rosa plans, from the General Plan down, for many years.”

“The concern with the railroad tracks is 32 trains per day.  But nearby Dutton Avenue, which students also cross while walking to school, has 32 cars every 110 seconds during morning peak.  And the cars will be traveling faster than the trains.  Are we even asking the right question?”

While none of the speakers may have been overly eloquent, the overall voice of the neighborhood was highly eloquent.

The remaining question is whether that eloquent voice will be heard.  After the now completed hearing, which was targeted toward collecting public comments, a more rigorous evidentiary hearing, complete with testimony and cross-examination, will be held in San Francisco in mid-April.  PUC staff will then draft an order for consideration by the full Commission during the summer.  Overall it seems a welter of decision-making in which the desires of the neighborhood might be lost.

Having little prior experience with the PUC process, I don’t know what to expect as a final result, but hope that a neighborhood arguing with a unified voice for an urbanist solution won’t be lost to a blind reliance on rules that shouldn’t apply to a changing world.

I’ll keep you advised.

I recently glanced at my notes from the recent StrongTowns/Urban3 visit to the North Bay.  I spotted a quote from Chuck Marohn of StrongTowns that I’d written down, but somehow still not really heard.  Coming across it again, it spoke to me in a whole new way, with deep implications about urbanism.  I’ll ruminate in my next post.

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

Making Good Urbanist Decisions with Less Kerfuffle

Typical pedestrian rail crossing

Coming up in days is a public hearing in Santa Rosa on a proposed Jennings Avenue pedestrian crossing of the railroad tracks.  The hearing is worth the attention of those who support walkable urbanism.  But urbanists should also be concerned about the extended process that led to the hearing, a process conducted under rules that result in tortuous advances and a too frequent reliance on the automobile as the default solution.

I’ll write first about the automobile dependence.

Among the many problems that the drivable suburban paradigm has bestowed upon us, such as climate change and municipal financial dysfunction, is a decision-making process in which proposed solutions are too often reliant on the automobile.

Concerned about the noise of a manufacturing plant interfering with the quiet of residential neighborhoods?  Put the industrial zoning at the urban fringe, buffered from homes, with the unavoidable result that employees will all drive there.

Unsure about making repairs to aging and overcrowded schools?  Combine several schools into a new supersized campus at the outskirts of town, with provision for the drop-off for the children who now must be delivered by car.

Unhappy with the occasional traffic jam in the downtown core?  Add traffic lanes even if the additional pavement saps the pedestrian vitality of the district.

Three perceived problems.  Three heavy-handed automobile-oriented solutions, none of which are urbanist and all of which promulgate the drivable suburban paradigm.

Even worse, these solutions, as ill-conceived as they are, are usually the result of an increasingly burdensome and lengthy process that is designed to spit out the least objectionable answer rather than the best solution.  I usually point to CEQA as the prime villain in the process, but the state and local approval processes that run parallel to the CEQA process are scarcely better.

To be clear, I don’t object to the increased environmental and public participation elements of the CEQA and parallel processes.  But I’m deeply concerned with the time they require and the often unsatisfactory and auto-oriented results.

Today’s case in point, that illustrates both the automobile reliance and the slow process, is the proposed Jennings Avenue pedestrian crossing in Santa Rosa, near the coming Guerneville Road SMART station.  The crossing is currently enmeshed in the CEQA and approval processes.

The automobile connectivity of Jennings has long been severed by the railroad tracks.  But for many years the opportunity to clamber over the tracks and to save a detour of more than a half-mile was irresistible for pedestrians and bicyclists heading to the nearby junior college, elementary school, or regional mall.  Daily counts of more than a hundred crossings were noted.

As long as the tracks were unused, the casual trespassing wasn’t an issue.  But with freight use of the tracks now reestablished and with SMART revenue service beginning later this year, the Jennings Avenue crossing moved into the spotlight, with one of the first steps being fences that blocked the access and forced many to rely on cars for trips that had previously been completed on foot.

Walkable urbanists responded to the closure and quickly noted the need for a pedestrian crossing, designed like the one shown in the photo.  But the rules of the California Public Utility Commission weren’t ready to accommodate that solution.

The CPUC interpreted their precedent as a no net gain standard, requiring closure of another approved crossing before allowing an approved crossing at Jennings.  When the crossing to be closed was identified in another neighborhood, the residents and business owners in that neighborhood quickly objected, some even retaining attorneys to argue their side.

A pedestrian overcrossing at Jennings was suggested as a workaround.  But the estimated cost was $8.2 million, with the likelihood that the city would lack the funds for maintenance  and the probability that many pedestrians and bicyclists would object to the long climb and descent, instead cutting the fence and continuing to cross the tracks at grade.  Perhaps luckily, the construction funds never became available.

Eventually, a CEQA EIR was initiated, with its hundreds of pages of project descriptions, comments, and responses, adults arguing as children continued to be blocked by fences denying them the freedom of crossing the tracks and expanding their world.

Both within the EIR process and outside of it, the neighbors voiced comments in support of the pedestrian crossing.

“My friend and I live on opposite sides of the tracks, and we like to visit each other’s homes often.  We are climbing over the fence because we don’t want to walk a half-mile to see one another.”

“The new fence requires cyclists from west Jennings to ride on Dutton, which is a very busy street, to reach Coddingtown; the bike/pedestrian pathway along the SMART Tracks no longer works for them.”

“For years we have walked across the tracks to get from our home to the Coddingtown shops.  It’s safer to cross the tracks at Jennings than walking along Dutton to Guerneville Rd.  The sidewalks along Dutton expose us to a lot of turning traffic, and drivers seem unaware of pedestrians.”

Despite the strong neighborhood support for the crossing, the process still moved forward at a stultifying pace.  But a milestone has been reached.  After years of preamble, the CPUC will hold a public hearing on Monday, February 1 at the Helen Lehman School, 1700 Jennings Avenue, Santa Rosa.  The hearing will begin at 7:00pm.

I intend to be there.  Whether or not I speak, I’ll be there in support of the pedestrian crossing.  But my bigger issue will continue to be the time it took us to get this far.  And the extent to which car travel became the default solution during the process.

It’s often said of the criminal justice system that “Justice delayed is justice denied.”  And it’s true.  Someone who lives under a cloud of pending prosecution for three years before being exonerated has still lost three years during which the full vitality of life has been denied.

The same can be said of land-use actions.  A good solution three years hence is worth less than a good solution today.  Imagine a sixth-grader, beginning to spread her wings and to experience the world beyond parental oversight.  Perhaps the wing-spreading includes walking to school by herself, including a careful crossing of the railroad tracks.

Now imagine that the crossing is denied to her for several years as adult battle under their arcane rules, during which time her parents continue to give her rides to school.  By the time the issue is decided, she has lost that first breath of walkable independence and instead remained car-dependent.  Personal growth has been lost and may never be reclaimed.  A potential urbanist has been stunted.

If the Jennings Avenue crossing matters to you, please attend on Monday.  But even more importantly, if you’re troubled by the process to which this matter has been subjected, continue to work toward changing the rules to allow more expedient solutions and to default less often to the automobile as a band aid.

In my next post, I’ll write about the “last mile” problem, the Achilles heel of transit systems.  People may have an interest in using transit for daily activities, but can be deterred if there is a difficult final link between the transit stop and their destination.  There are many solutions to the last mile problem, from transit-oriented development to improved walkability to allowing bikes on transit.  The staff at Petaluma Transit has been working to address the problem with well-targeted bus routing.  Their ideas will soon be rolled out for public comment.  I’ll give details when I next write.

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