We’ll Talk About Murals, But Only After Transit

I promised that today’s post would be about the murals newly adorning American Alley in Petaluma.  And it will be, but only after I chat about a transit issue that is even more essential to the future of Petaluma.  It’s a challenge that will be faced by many North Bay communities in the coming year.

I sit on Petaluma’s Transit Advisory Committee.   As such, I’ve had a front row seat for the magic that the Petaluma Transit staff has worked over the past few years.  With less than two-an-a-half full-time employees, transit ridership had nearly tripled since 2010.  Rider satisfaction is increasing.  The bus maintenance facility was expanded.  And technology such as an automatic vehicle locating system for the buses is being rolled out.  (While the Transit Committee has made a handful of useful suggestions, most of the credit must go to the staff.)

But the most significant opportunity yet may now be arriving at the two Petaluma train stations.  Late in 2016, the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) will begin running trains between San Rafael and Santa Rosa.  With the Petaluma prospects for station parking ranging from inadequate to non-existent, with bike routes degraded by hazardous segments that deter casual riders, and with transit-oriented development still nothing more than a glimmer on the horizon, there is a potential deficiency in the delivery of passengers to the train stations.  Petaluma Transit may be able to help.

Furthermore, with the success of the SMART likely to span transit-oriented development and walkable connections into existing neighborhoods, Petaluma Transit’s ability to deliver passengers to the train, if it can make the train successful, could be a critical step toward a more urbanist future.

But Petaluma Transit is already heavily stretched in meeting its current obligations of serving the segments of the community that rely on local transit to live their daily lives.

And there are few if any resources evident to help Petaluma Transit stretch even further.  At one time, it was expected that SMART would help in funding shuttles between train stations and destinations such as places of work and residential districts, but the recession and the resulting reduced SMART-funding sales tax proceeds forced numerous cutbacks, including the length of the system, several stations, and any hope of train-connecting shuttles.

So the a large portion of the burden of delivering people to the Petaluma train stations will fall solely on  the Petaluma Transit, who will try to pull yet another rabbit or two of their hat.  (And perhaps the Transit Committee will again be able to provide a few constructive ideas.)

The Petaluma Transit planning effort is just getting underway, but there is a way that readers can help.  If you live in Petaluma and expect to ride the SMART train, even if only occasionally, you can respond to this poll about the location of your home, how often you expect to ride the train, and how you hope to reach the station.  Your assistance will be appreciated.  This may even be the beginning of a long-running dialogue about how to tackle this puzzle.

Okay, now we can move onward to murals.

I previously wrote about a proposal to paint eight murals along American Alley in downtown Petaluma.  The Petaluma Planning Commission saw the opportunity as I had, approving the murals unanimously after only a short conversation.  The murals were completed over the weekend of November 7 and 8.

I wasn’t able to visit downtown during the mural painting weekend, but recently walked the alley, camera in hand, on a weekday afternoon.

It was an insightful experience.  The murals were much as had been proposed to the City, so it was like seeing old friends to amble down the alley and to come upon each mural looking both familiar and new.  But those who might have expected the murals to transform the alley would have been disappointed.  It was the same old American Alley, still utilitarian and still slightly dirty and smelly, but now with a hint of promise.

As Chuck Marohn of StrongTowns explained in a webinar early this week, the best urbanism is the urbanism that evolves slowly over time, incremental step after incremental step.  Urbanism that is brought to life fully formed will wear thin uniformly and may not adequately induce reinvestment thirty years hence.  But urbanism that is built incrementally and ages on a range of schedules will always be able to justify upkeep and regeneration.

The murals are one of those incremental steps.  They don’t completely change the alley, but they encourage more people to wander down a slightly tawdry alley.  And some of those people will visit the handful of shops along the alley.  And building owners, noting the increasing pedestrian activity, will find nooks and crannies for yet more shops.  If, ten years from now, American Alley is a bustling place, the weekend the murals were painted may be seen as a key step in the history of the alleys.

And, as recently noted by Sarah Goodyear in CityLab, the murals can serve to mark the alley as off-limits to the disreputable handful who would deface it with graffiti.

My favorite mural is the mosaic.  It’s not so much the design as the material choice.  I like adding one more texture to the range of textures already filling the alley, from the rough bricks with aging grout to the worn concrete driving surface to the newer stucco walls.  The mosaic seemed to add a grace note.

I can’t recommend visiting to downtown Petaluma to see the murals.  They’re not that impressive on their own.  But there are enough interesting places to shop and to eat in downtown Petaluma that I can recommend an outing there.  And as a part of your adventure, you really should wander over to American Alley to check out the new artwork.

In my next post, I’ll return to the subject of induced traffic.  I recently came across an article that does a fine job of explaining the concept in layman terms.  And I had a conversation with the staff of the Sonoma County Transportation Agency who gave me a different way to look at the subject.

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

Murals as Unexpected Urban Delights

For years, my reaction to downtown murals was indifference.  I suspect the lack of enthusiasm came from most murals falling into three types, none of which greatly appealed to me.

Some were heroic presentations of a civic past.  I respect our forebears and think they did the best they could based on what they understood, a standard to which I also aspire.  But I also believe that our forebears were fallible and prone to occasional character failings, as are most of us today.  I prefer histories that represent both the accomplishments and the feet of clay, a nuance for which murals are often incapable.  (I find the train mural, from Johnson City, Tennessee, among the least adulatory murals of the genre, but still not to my taste.)

Other murals were overly exuberant and primitive, like artwork from your second grader that you might affix to the refrigerator with magnets.  For a refrigerator, the artistic approach is fine.  As a downtown statement, not so much.

Lastly, some murals came from the graffiti school, where the primary message seemed to be “Look at how I’ve managed to deface the property of others” rather than “Look at my artistic vision.”

As a result, I was generally ambivalent when murals were proposed, something along the lines of “If you must, but don’t expect me to embrace the result.”

However, either my eye has changed or the nature of murals has evolved.  The civic hagiography trend seems to have gone on hiatus.  And what remains has become artistically colorful and vibrant, without the unfocused nature of primary school students.   Plus, Banksy has found a way to give graffiti, even if illegal, an air of legitimate social comment.

I now find pleasure in the occasional mural, especially ones that brighten an otherwise uninspired downtown vista or a walkable street.  All three examples shown here are from Petaluma and I enjoy all three.

Good public spaces and good architecture remains the best urban planning tools, but I now find that good murals can rescue bad or blandly functional architecture, bringing life back into public places.

Thus, I was pleased to learn that the O+ Festival is proposing to paint nine murals in downtown Petaluma over the weekend of November 7 and 8.  And I was doubly pleased to learn that eight of the murals will be along American Alley, a downtown asset with potential about which I’ve previously written and where the beginnings of a business boom are already underway.

The Petaluma Planning Commission will review the proposed murals on the evening of Tuesday, October 27.  My expectation is that the Commission will readily approve the plan.  However, I’ve been wrong before, so I’ll attend the hearing in case I should provide encouragement.

The proposed murals can be viewed here.   Thus far, my favorite is the Donato for the texture that it will bring to the alley, but I expect that all bring value to downtown Petaluma.

I encourage others with an interest in downtown Petaluma to attend.  The Planning Commission will convene at 7:00pm in the City Council Chambers on English Street.  If you’re there, please say hello. 

I recently wrote about the possibility of parklets coming to the North Bay.  The post elicited some comments to which I’m still responding.  In my next post, I’ll summarize the key points from the comments and my responses.  I’ll also set forth a possible next step.

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