CNU 24: Best Moments, Part 4

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)

CNU 24: Getting Around Detroit

Downtown Detroit and the Detroit River

Being newly returned from the annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism, CNU 24, I have pages of notes to review, with the goals of extracting the best quotes and stories to share and also of reminding myself about the subjects into which I should dig more deeply.

But CNUs are more than four days of chatting with other urbanists and listening to speakers expound, often eloquently, on topics of city-building interest.  It’s also spending the better part of a week living in a city and learning its quirks.  Not having visited Detroit since 1999, I was particularly interested to wander about the city that has become the focus of much debate about the functions and failures of cities.

So, before I get to the content of CNU 24, I’ll write about my experiences as a visitor to Detroit.  Today, my topic will be mobility, both as a pedestrian and a transit rider.

Crossing the Street:  I was slow in making my reservations for CNU 24.  As a result, all of the hotel rooms set aside for attendees had been claimed by the time I began making plans.  After casting about, I found an acceptable hotel near the other end of downtown from most of the conference venues, but connected to the center of CNU activity by the Detroit Peoplemover, about which I’ll write below.

I arrived in Detroit on a Monday night, two days before the conference was to officially open.  I was there early to partake in a bus tour elsewhere in the state, which is another story I’ll eventually share.  Being in town early and at a distance from where I might bump into other early arrivals, I had a free evening.  After a day of flying, I was also hungry.

I have an aversion to hotel dining rooms, but Yelp quickly came to rescue, alerting me to a brewpub directly across the street.  It seemed a perfect solution.  I tidied up, headed downstairs, charged out the front door, spotted the brewpub no more than 100 yards away, and then came to a halt.  There was an eight-lane high-speed arterial between me and the brewpub.  And there was no crosswalk, at least not a direct crosswalk.

To walk to the brewpub, one had to cross the side street, then the arterial, and then back across the side street.  A total of three signal crossings to get to a front door that was no more than a long pitching wedge from where I stood.  There can be intersections where omitting a crosswalk is caused by legitimate site constraints.  But this one seemed solely the result of prioritizing drivers over pedestrians.

Wait, did I write three signal crossings?  Make that four.  The arterial was eight lanes wide, with a similarly wide median.  The lane count can be seen in the photo above.  And the same traffic engineer who had omitted the crosswalk also decided that cars shouldn’t wait for pedestrians to cross eight lanes of traffic plus the median, so timed the cycles such that walkers had to stop on the median.  So now four signal cycles were required to cross the street.  Four complete cycles as my hunger grew worse.

Except that four didn’t quite work out either. The second crossing of the side street adjoins a right turn only lane heading into a tunnel under the Detroit River.  As I waited for the light to turn green, drivers began making right turns on red in front of me.  It was a perfectly legal traffic motion.  But the turning cars gave momentum to the queued cars and when the light turned green, they kept on turning.  Fifteen cars and a city bus turned in front of me as I waited for someone to give me the right-of-way that was mine.  When the lane was finally empty, the light was again red.

So that was five signal cycles for a pedestrian to walk a hundred yards from a hotel to a brewpub.  Not much walkable urbanism in that equation.

Trying It Again:  The food and especially the beer were good enough that I returned to the brewpub twice more during the week.  Both times, I made the trek in four signal cycles, but both outings were still eventful.

The first time, I had to skip away from two cars that began slowing making the right turns without looking for pedestrians, one driven by a pair of young ladies flirting with a guy on the sidewalk and the other driven by someone absorbed in a cell phone call.

The second time, I left the brewpub to find myself fighting upstream through a sidewalk full of excitedly chattering folks.  A police officer told me to make my way quickly because beers and punches were beginning to be thrown.  I took her advice.

At least at this intersection, walking the sidewalks of Detroit was inefficient and eventful.

Transit Training: A truism among transit managers is that getting a new rider to take a first trip is one of the biggest challenges.  Even as a fan of transit, I concur that the first trip can be a source of trepidation.  Learning how to pay the fare, deciphering the route map, and knowing where to stand to catch the right train are all sources of uncertainty.

My schedule required me to catch the Peoplemover early Tuesday morning to the hotel where I would board my tour.   So I decided to take a trial run Monday evening to learn the system.  The plan worked out fine, with the only surprise being that the loop was recently reversed to run clockwise after years of running counterclockwise, so I was determinedly looking for a train in one direction only to have it sneak up behind me.

I finished the outing comfortable with the Peoplemover, an outdated but functional rail system that runs autonomous two-car trains around a loop of perhaps three miles through downtown Detroit.  A total loop takes perhaps twelve minutes, so having two trains running gives a headway of about six minutes.  It could have been a component of an efficient transit system if it connected to transit hubs.  Unfortunately, those transit hubs were never built, although Detroit is finally taking steps in that direction.

With my first trip complete, I looked forward with confidence to my Tuesday morning outing.  Perhaps too much confidence.

I hopped on the first train Tuesday morning, with my destination station firmly in my head.  As the train pulled into the station, I noted the location of the hotel where I would catch the tour about a block away.  I stepped to the doors, ready to complete my trip.  And the doors didn’t open.  As the only passenger on an autonomous train, there was no one to whom to complain.  A pair of would-be passengers looked back at me through the door, but seemed impassive.  Perhaps early morning door malfunctions were common.

After a thirty-second pause, the train moved on, the doors never having opened.  I quickly recalibrated, disembarked at the next station and found my way to the hotel in plenty of time.  But it took me several days to again trust the Peoplemover, which isn’t the way to build ridership.  However, the system never let me down again.  Indeed, it was integral to the success of my time in Detroit.

So walkability and transit had their small Detroit failures, much like most cities.  Perhaps Detroit isn’t a unlike the rest of the country as many would argue.  Lessons were being learned.

When I next write, I’ll return to the theme of becoming active North Bay urbanists, again listing opportunities to get publicly involved.

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

Having a Place from Which to Watch and to Entertain the World

My front porch

My wife and I bought our home a little longer than a decade ago.  We loved the house from the day we first saw it, but have continued to tinker with it, making it fit our needs even better and fixing the construction defects that the seller somehow forget to mention.

Ten years, a major remodel, many gallons of paints, and a wealth of handyman and landscaping projects later, the house is almost exactly what we want.  And yet we still find ourselves doodling with how to make one final change.

We’d like to make our front porch more useful.

It’s not a bad porch as it is.  It’s a secure place for the dogs to lounge in the afternoon sun, waiting for the mailman in hopes he has treats in his pockets.  And it has room for a rocking chair in which to peruse urbanist tomes.

But we’d like it to have room for two rocking chairs and a perhaps a table on which to set down wine glasses.

It seems unlikely we’ll ever find a solution for our dream porch.  The roof over the porch resists easy expansion.  The gas and electric meters are awkwardly located.  And even the driveway would be a conflict for an expanded porch.  It seems likely that we’ll have to settle for solitary, wineless enjoyment of our porch.

It’s odd that my wife and I are focused on the deficiencies in our porch.  Neither of us grew up in homes that had porches nor have we lived with porches for most of our adult lives.  We may have had raised concrete slabs or wood decks for the final steps to our front doors, but those elements were nothing more than an indifferent nod from the homebuilding industry to a bit of American architecture that seemed to slipping away forever.  What we had were called “porches” only for lack of a better word.

But we’re not alone in longing for a return to porches that truly function like the porches on which our great-grandparents lived their lives.  The homebuilding industry is taking a renewed look at how to build useful porches.

And folks are beginning to recognize the social value of porches, such as this inspiring tale of community spirit bolstered by a day-long Porchfest of music and other art on more than a hundred porches in a Georgia community.  (Disclaimer: As inspiring as I find Porchfest, my bucket of community involvement is filled to overflowing.  But if someone else wants to fiddle with the idea of a Porchfest somewhere in the North Bay, I’d been happy to serve as a sounding board.)

It’s as if there is something instinctual in the need for a porch from which one can observe the world, and be observed, while chatting with friends and family.

I’ve begun reading “The American Porch” by Michael Dolan.   A review will follow at another time, but I will share that Dolan believes there is something primeval in how we respond to porches.  He argues that early humans adopted porches long before they began to build houses.

He contends that the openings of cliffside caves, with their vantage points from which the surrounding terrain could be surveyed before retreating into the secure space behind, were the first porches and that the survival advantages those cave entrances provided have been coded into our DNA.

So in our desire for a more functional porch, my wife and I may be responding to something our Cro-Magnon ancestors understood.

I know that porches can fill a key role in walkable urban places.  Harkening back, as I often do, to Jeff Speck’s four essential elements of walkability, safety, comfort, interest, and usefulness, porches fit securely into the interest niche.

The interest standard for walkability is easily met in downtown cores with storefront windows, sidewalk cafes, and the panoply of life.  But the walk into surrounding single family neighborhoods can be less interesting, thereby inducing car travel, especially if the homes are snout houses with a blank wall of garage doors as the defining street view.

Homes with functional and well-used porches are the antithesis and antidote to snout houses.  And that’s true even when the porches are unused.  If a family is enjoying a summer evening on a porch, allowing greetings to be exchanged with walkers, the level of walkability interest is even higher.

I often walk the eldest dog in our household around the block in the evening hours.  Although the homes in our neighborhood are architecturally varied, there are only a handful of useful porches.  And only one of those is regularly occupied.  But that one is used well, with the homeowner enjoying many summer evenings with a glass of wine, his tablet, or his girlfriend.  (I’ve yet to discern which he prefers.)  I look forward to a casual exchange of neighborhood news with him.  It’s a nice capstone to my day.

As I’ve often written before, effective urbanism isn’t a simple equation; it’s a complex and subtle integration of many elements.  Porches may be among the more modest of the elements, but can complement good urbanism in surprisingly effective and comfortable ways.

It makes me disappointed that my wife and I can’t find a way to make our porch a little better.  But we’ll keep playing with it.

In my next post, I’ll look at the connections between urbanism and the on-going Paris climate change talks.

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

Tripping Across the Political Spectrum in Search of a Home

Last week, I had a pair of productive and interesting conversations with Petaluma urbanists, one over beers at the estimable Ray’s Delicatessen and Tavern and the other over breakfast beverages on a deck next to the Petaluma River.  (What, you thought urbanists went to chain restaurants?)

After touching upon a number of local themes, I posed a question to both that I’ve been pondering.  For the fall 2016 municipal elections, what urbanism-leaning candidates might be running?

Both responded that they hadn’t heard any rumors about possible progressive candidates.

Do you see the flag in those responses?  The automatic equation between urbanism and progressivism?

In contrast, I was reminded of something an original member of Petaluma Urban Chat told me when we first met.  He told me that whenever he followed the threads of his core beliefs to their political manifestations, he found that the results were all over the political spectrum, so he had no idea where he belonged.

I thought there was much value in what my acquaintance said, so decided to try to follow the threads of my own urbanism philosophies to their apparent political connections.

To begin, I’ll offer simplified versions of the major forms of political thought in our time:

Conservatism: The belief that things may still be okay today, but can’t keep going the direction we’ve been going and would be even better if we went back twenty, thirty, or even more years into the past.

Liberalism: The belief that things need to get better and that the best path is to unfetter individuals to do their individual best.

Progressivism: The belief that things need to get better and that the best path is to empower government, as the expression of our collective will, to undertake additional tasks.

(On the last two, I understand the common perception is that progressivism is on the same scale as liberalism, but further down the scale, something like an uber-liberalism.  My definitions instead put liberalism and progressivism on different paths, which I find a more accurate model.  Politics, like much of the world, can’t be explained by one-dimensional models.)

 Using these definitions, where does my urbanism fit?

Urbanism as a conservative strategy: I find urbanism a conservative approach to land use, arguing that the land-use patterns of the past had many inherently good ideas and that we should taking lessons from them, rather than continuing to put the past further in the rear view mirror by encouraging drivable suburban development.

Also, as particularly championed by StrongTowns, many urbanists, including me, are uncomfortable with the current funding model by which much infrastructure is built using “transfer funds” from higher levels of government without adequate consideration of local need or ability to maintain.  The StrongTowns folks instead argue that we fostered better and stronger communities when we only built the infrastructure that we could build and maintain with locally generated resources.

When Petaluma Urban Chat was jointly reading the “Curbside Chat” booklet by StrongTowns, one participant noted, to his surprise, that “StrongTowns is the Republican argument for urbanism!”

I don’t want to know the party affiliations of the StrongTowns membership, but agree that many of the StrongTowns arguments fall into the conservative camp.

So clearly, my urbanism is conservative.

Urbanism as a liberal strategy: One of my frequent arguments for urbanism is that we know how to build workable places that don’t rely on the automobile, but that we can only build those places if we stop incentivizing drivable suburban development.  Instead, we need to give the folks who know how to work in a subsidy-free environment the freedom to develop the vibrant communities that we need.

So clearly, my urbanism is liberal.

Urbanism as a progressive strategy: There are many progressive arguments I could make for urbanism, but I’ll pick an easy one, walkability.

Imagine a block of ten homes where nine of the homeowners, following their good liberal tendencies, maintain their sidewalk segments with dedication, sweeping it clean, pulling weeds, patching cracks, and replacing entire sections when needed.  But imagine that the tenth owner, whether from a lack of goodwill or financial constraints, does none of those things, with the result that the sidewalk in front of his house is deeply cracked and weed-infested.

What’s the result?  The block is impassible for those in wheelchairs or walkers, or who just might be unstable on their feet.  Walkability is absent for those who might want to walk to do their shopping or other chores.

The only solution is to empower local government with the authority to maintain sidewalks, which is a progressive strategy.

So clearly, my urbanism is progressive.

And there you have it.  My urbanism and I are securely in the progressive liberal conservative camp.

Isn’t it nice when you know you have a home?

In my next post, I’ll offer a story about an Iraqi village that offers an insight into land-use planning.

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

In Praise of Magic Gates

While shopping at the Whole Foods in Petaluma a few days ago, I noted a gate that had previously escaped my attention.  It was a simple little gate, chain-link, self-closing, keyed from both sides.  But it had a magical function.

The gate provided direct walking access from a low-income, senior housing community to the front door of Whole Foods.  Even from the furthest home, the walking distance to Whole Foods was barely more than 300 feet.

Many seniors, whether because of declining health, waning skills, or reduced finances, no longer have cars.  At the Edith Street Apartments, those seniors needn’t be dependent on others, or on local bus service, for grocery shopping.

Some may argue that Whole Foods is an expensive place for low-income seniors to shop.  My response is that spending an extra dollar a pound for organic asparagus is a cheap trade-off against the cost of owning and maintaining a car.

I was charmed by the gate.  And by the circumstances that made it possible, those circumstances being adjoining sites with different, but complementary uses.

Under a conventional use-based zoning code, such as the one that covers the area of the Whole Foods and the Edith Street Apartments, those kinds of adjacencies happen once in awhile.  But under a form-based code, a form of land-use regulation that is a central tenet of urbanism, those adjacencies happen far more often.  Indeed, one might argue that a well-administered walkability-focused form-based code allows the market to naturally seek out complementary adjacencies, which is far better than relying on the occasional fluke.

A most recent tabulation of city Walk Scores makes the same point, noting a quick rise in the urban walkability of Miami after the adoption of a form-based code.

Returning to the Whole Food gate, applause goes to whoever spotted the opportunity and helped make this gate possible, a list that likely includes Whole Foods, PEP Housing as the owner of the Edith Street Apartments, and the Petaluma Planning Department.  But an ovation goes to those who argue everyday for a land-use pattern in which opportunities like the magic gate become increasingly frequent.

Taking advantage of serendipity is a wonderful thing.  Creating a world in which serendipity is increasingly common is even better.

Next time, I’ll talk about convocations of food trucks, both as a concept with which Urban Chat has been tinkering for the Fairgrounds reuse plan and as a concept whose time has already arrived.

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

Urbanism and Senior Living: The Insights Keep Coming

With Thanksgiving Day nearly upon us, and with many folks already traveling, I’ll limit myself today to a handful of links.  But they’re good links.

About a month ago, I wrote a series of posts on urbanism and senior living, from the how senior life might be conducted downtown  to getting around without a driver’s license to walkability.  But even after those posts were put to bed, good thinking on the subject continued to arrive in my computer.

If you only have time to follow one link today, this is the one I’d recommend.  A recently opened Alzheimer’s and dementia care facility in the Netherlands has been configured like a walkable village center.  The patients, all of whom are in the advanced stages of their disease, live in bedrooms of what appear to be single-family homes, often decorated in a style consistent with earlier periods of their lives.  They have the freedom to wander, but not to leave, under the watchful eyes of attendants who double as gardeners and postal clerks.

Compared to standard U.S. residential care facilities, the Dutch village is an expensive way to care for seniors with dementia, but not impossibly so.  The monthly cost is about $8,000, compared to a more typical $5,000 to $6,000 in the U.S.  And the approach is successful, with the residents more comfortable and living longer than those under conventional care.

My wife was diagnosed three years ago with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.  She’s coping well with the condition, with more grace that I’d likely muster, but she knows that the extent of her daily life is shrinking, with a reduced ability to travel and to interact with unfamiliar people.

I asked her for thoughts on this article.  She was immediately enthusiastic.  She has a group of on-line acquaintances, all with early-onset Alzheimer’s.  In my wife’s words, “We know we’re no longer living normal lives, but a place like this retains the illusion of a normal life and that would be important to us.  I’m not surprised that the residents live longer.”

The message for urbanists is if that protected walkable settings can be successful in the care of advanced dementia patients, then walkable urban settings, with limited cars and lots of plazas and small retail shops for daily life, can provide a comfortable home for seniors who are only beginning their final decline.

Building on the subject, Harry Grabar, writing in CityLab, notes a dual function that walkability can provide.  Walkable settings can retain seniors and their financial resources in a community.  And those same walkable settings can attract the creative millennials who will provide the next wave of economic prosperity for the community.

Writing in New York Times, Harriet Edelson notes that most seniors live beyond their years of driving, by seven years for men and ten years for women and should therefore include non-driving transportation in their retirement plans.

Lastly, Eric Dishman of Intel, in speaking to a civic club in Portland, Oregon, lists the efforts underway to find uses for technology in helping seniors age safely in place.  (His speech was interesting, but not particularly compelling, I’d check out the other links first.)  I applaud the efforts by Intel and others, but note that the place where seniors age needn’t be the suburban family home, but perhaps should be a downtown apartment in a walkable setting.

As you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with parents or other aging family members, give a little thought to where you want them to live their final years.  And think about how urbanism can help fill a need.

Have a good holiday.

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

Urbanism and Senior Living: Getting Around on Foot

A theme of this election season has been strategic decision-making around the varying approval thresholds for different forms of tax measures.  Is it better to seek a general tax measure, which requires only 50 percent plus one for approval, even if it means battling skepticism about how the revenues will be spent?   Or is better to specify the uses of the revenue, even though that would bump the approval standard to two-thirds when the electorate might not be able to muster a two-thirds majority over whether the sun will rise in the east tomorrow?

Or perhaps the 55 percent rule will apply, although that option is limited to certain types of school bond measures.  (If someone wants a legal summary of the various California approval standards, the Legislative Analyst’s Office provides one here.  The flowchart is nicely done.)

Also, during my years in Oregon, I watched the double-majority standard in action, a rule that was so perverse in its unintended consequences that the voters finally repealed it in 2008.

But what if I wrote that there was a type of infrastructure for which 100 percent voter approval was required?  It may seem surprising, but it’s nonetheless true.  In large areas of our cities and towns, sidewalk upkeep, and therefore walkability, requires 100 percent participation from property owners.

In a carryover from English common law, California homeowners are responsible for the repair and maintenance of the sidewalks in front of their homes.  Originally, English landowners were responsible for the entire roadway.  The government eventually, in the interest of commerce, assumed street repair, but the takeover didn’t progress far enough to include the sidewalks.

(The original road maintenance obligation is one reason why English towns and early American towns are often characterized by multi-story common-wall houses on narrow lots.  The narrow lots reduced the repair obligation.  Coincidentally, the narrow lots also helped communities satisfy Jeff Speck’s “interest” and “usefulness” elements of walkability.  It was only when government took over road upkeep that the lots of the middle-class began sprawling sideways, which also undermined walkability.)

There may be sidewalks, such as in the downtown retail areas, where a city has assumed sidewalk maintenance to preserve commercial activity, but most sidewalks remain the responsibility of the adjoining homeowner.  As a result, as any property liability expert will avow, California homeowners also remain responsible for any personal damages that result from poor sidewalk conditions.

However, even the threat of lawsuits isn’t always sufficient to motivate sidewalk repairs.  With stagnant middle-class wages, the need to save for college educations and retirement, and the desire for the newest electronic toy, sidewalk repairs often fall far down household priority lists, below the point at which funds are exhausted.

In the recently-developed parts of a town, the sidewalks constructed as part of the initial development typically remain in good condition.  But nearly every block in the more mature areas of a town will have a stretch or two where the footing is too treacherous for 80-year-old grandmothers to walk to the store. 

Even if a neighborhood is lucky enough to have a Ray’s Delicatessen and Tavern a block away, that destination, which should be the hallmark of a walkable neighborhood, may still require a car trip by the less foot-sure residents of the neighborhood.  And the only immediate solution is the impossible expectation that all property owners promptly attend to deteriorating sidewalks, the 100 percent standard I noted above.

Nor is complete neighborhood concurrence fully adequate to support walkability.  In many older neighborhoods, street repairs have often included lifts of asphalt that have raised the centerline elevation by six inches or more, without changing gutter line elevation, resulting in the frequently-seen humped street cross-section.

Even if a mobility-limited pedestrian is lucky enough to encounter an intersection which has been retrofitted with handicap ramps at their mandated 8.3 percent slope, the pedestrian may be faced with grades of 12 percent or more to cross the street.  The only solution to hump-backed street is full reconstruction, a task well beyond the financial capability of most towns.

To highlight the absurdity, my wife and I were recently sitting in our Petaluma parlor when a man in an electrical wheelchair rode by.   A few minutes later, he returned.  Both times, he was in the street, not on the sidewalk.  In a town that disgruntled drivers have dubbed the Pothole Capital of California, wheelchair users still find it safer to ride in the streets than on the sidewalks.  That should give pause.

This overview on the reality of sidewalk maintenance is part of my ongoing discussion about urbanism and senior living.  There is a strong case that seniors can live richer, fuller lives in a walkable urban setting.  But sometimes those downtown residential locations are a block or two from the social opportunities that can enrich a senior life, a distance in which the sidewalks may be in disrepair.

And for seniors who have been relegated to the suburbs by a lack of downtown options or the difficulty of selling suburban homes for an adequate price to fund retirement, good sidewalks can be essential to reaching the occasional neighborhood store or the bus stop from which downtown can be reached.

There are no easy fixes to the sidewalk repair deficiency.  We could impose fines on homeowners who are delinquent with their repairs, but that seems draconian.  We could do government repair on more sidewalks, but that would require more tax revenues.  (Even within the many tax measures on the November ballot, sidewalk repairs are barely more than a rounding error.)   Or we could build communities where the ratio of people to linear foot of sidewalk is pushed upward, making it easier to build a consensus for sidewalk upkeep.  I favor the last.

In any case, it’s ironic that we can build systems that, with the touch of a key fob, give seniors extra time to cross busy streets, but we can’t find a way to maintain the concrete to get them to the street crossing.

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

(Disclaimer: I have a sidewalk in front of my home that is beginning to crack because of a tree root.  It isn’t yet a big trip hazard, but is heading that way.  Repair is scheduled for spring.)

Walkability under Attack

A recent article in CNN Money reviewed Walgreen’s current strategies regarding store locations.  Much of the information was standard corporate-speak for the benefit of stock market investors.  But there was some startling information near the bottom of the article.  It was troubling in its content and in the fact that it was presented in a matter-of-fact manner.

The more mundane portion of the article was about corporate acquisitions recently completed by Walgreen’s.  The acquisitions had resulted in near-duplicate store locations, so closings were pending.  Chain consolidations steal character from our towns at a time when the towns should be aggressively preserving character, so the acquisitions and subsequent closings are disappointing.  Store closings also lengthen walks, inhibiting walkability.  But acquisitions and subsequent closings are part of many corporate business models in the early 21st century.

It’s also disappointing that the average age of the stores being closed is only ten years.  The fact puts a dent in the plans of many communities to rely on sales taxes for long-term financial stability.  But once again, it’s the current model for many corporations.

The new and distressing information is an admission by Walgreen’s consultants about a strategy for new markets.  They acknowledge that the chain sometimes acquires and develops multiple properties within a short distance of each other, especially if the locations are at key intersections and have good visibility.  Walgreen’s pursues this strategy despite the expectation that some of the locations will fail and soon be shuttered.  The argument is that Walgreen’s can afford to take a loss on some new stores if it allows them to secure key locations, to block competitors, and to saturate the marketplace.

I understand the corporate perspective.  But what about the civic perspective?  Walgreen’s strategy of cannibalizing their own stores might not do great harm in a drivable urban setting.  If a particular business is no longer available at one location, car drivers need only continue to the next block or the next community and do their shopping there.

But in a walkable urban setting, that underused building, whether shuttered or leased to a business with a lower sales volume, can become a barrier to walkability.  Faced with a large, unappealing building that fails the walkability standards for interest and usefulness, pedestrians might turn back, ending their shopping.  Or they might drive to destinations on the far side of the barrier.

In a world of subsidized streets, free parking, and underpriced gas, walkability is a delicate plant.  Walgreen’s, in its willingness to monopolize and then to under-utilize key locations, seems eager to stomp on the plant.

This subject relates to another concern about chains.  Many use a distinctive architecture as part of their branding strategy.  The problem is that when they abandon a building, such as when they cannibalize themselves, they leave behind a building that was clearly built for an earlier user and therefore exudes a sense of failure.  Restaurants seem particularly prone to this, with repurposed Denny’s and Taco Bells evident in many towns.  During my years in the Northwest, a restaurant with a giant anchor out front was the often the sign of a failed Sea Galley.

Compared to the restaurant chains, the Walgreen’s architecture isn’t particularly distinctive, but has enough character that a former Walgreen’s can be identified by a discerning eye.  And evidence of a failed Walgreen’s on a key downtown site can be a drag on a community.

This likely isn’t a workable solution, but it’d be good if all chains who insist on distinctive architecture can be required to provide a bond ensuring that all architectural details tied to the chain be removed when the chain ceases use of the building.  The problem is that it’s difficult to bond for an event that may occur a year from now or fifteen years from now.  But the goal is worthwhile and perhaps there are other ways to achieve it.

Until then, perhaps we should stop patronizing chains that shamelessly cannibalize themselves, thereby stealing our walkability.

(Acknowledgment: Walgreen’s is currently engaged in a tussle with the City of Petaluma over a proposed site near Petaluma Valley Hospital.  The primary point of contention is whether Walgreen’s can include a drive-thru pharmacy.  In general, I’m supportive of the Petaluma ban on drive-thrus, agreeing that they eat up space, waste gas, and reduce human interaction.  But if a case can be made for a drive-thru, it would seem to be at a pharmacy where ill people can be saved a long walk through a store.

I didn’t write today about the Walgreen’s anti-walkability strategy to influence the pending Petaluma decision.  It’s only a coincidence that the Walgreen’s consultants chose this particular time to stick their feet in their mouths.)

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

Northern California Tour: Carmichael, One Step Forward, One Step Back

Over recent weeks, I’ve been recounting a Northern California daytrip I took in late February.  My goal was to look, however briefly, at destinations that I hoped would offer urbanist insights.  I began my day with stops in Suisun City, Woodland, and Freedom Park Road in North Highlands.

Today, I reach the far extent of my outing, the unincorporated community of Carmichael, northeast of Sacramento.

Like many children of my era, my parents relocated several times during my youth as my father pursued greater professional success.  I don’t begrudge my parents the moves.  I’m pleased with how life turned out for them and I even believe that the occasional childhood move is good training for making new friends and learning how to live in new places.  Although I wouldn’t have minded if the number of school year moves had been fewer.

Luckily for me, the moves ended shortly before I entered high school, so I was able to spend those key years in one place.  That place was Carmichael, which I still describe as my “hometown”.

Carmichael was a good place to spend those final years of youth.  I retain largely fond memories of my time there.  Over four decades, I remain in contact with several old classmates, some of whom even read this blog on occasion.  Indeed, I communicate more regularly with my high school friends than with my college friends, which seems to speak well to the years in Carmichael.  Also, I met my wife during my Carmichael years.

With that said however, Carmichael had a land use pattern that was horribly misdirected.  Arterials lined by strip malls surrounded by vast expanses of residential, much of it far beyond the quarter-mile that is a reasonable walking distance to retail.

As a high school student, I was disappointed that most of friends could only be visited by a risky bicycle ride or by parental car, but it was the land use pattern to which much of my generation was accustomed.  It was just the way things were.  It took decades before I realized that my high school discontent wasn’t surliness but the germ of an idea that better land use patterns were possible.

My mother still lives in the home from where I attended high school.  So I’ve had a continuing reason to visit Carmichael over the years.  Like many communities that experienced their greatest growth immediately after World War II, it hasn’t aged well.

The strip malls have deteriorated, working their way down the economic scale.  It’s not uncommon to see a strip mall with over half of its space available for rent on a corner, while new strip mall is being built only a block away, as our tax codes and land use rules further undermine the already weak walkability.  (The Walk Score for Carmichael is 40, with the note “Most errands require a car.”  I think they overestimate the walkability.)

The stores upon which many residents rely, such as supermarkets, have concentrated into fewer locations, further overburdening already congested streets.

The community remains proud of their lack of sidewalks, although I suspect that the pride is stronger among those who are behind their steering wheels than those walking the narrow line between rushing traffic, raveling pavement edges, and roadside ditches.

The transit system is limited and more suited for commuting to workplaces in Sacramento than for local chores.

Against that backdrop, I was pleased a few years ago when Sacramento County, aided by a committee of Carmichael residents, began to assemble a plan for turning the community toward urbanism, at least along the main arterial.  The Fair Oaks Boulevard Concept Plan was a strategy to convert the land for a block or two either side of the arterial into a walkable, transit-oriented setting.

I watched from afar as the plan came together.  On several occasions, I even considered traveling to Carmichael to testify at public hearings on the plan.

My comments would have been simple and to the point.  I would have lauded the community for their farsightedness.  Then I would have cautioned that the adoption of a plan, no matter how well conceived, is only a minuscule step along the path to urbanism.  That the real hard work comes in convincing developers that the commitment to urbanism is real and in securing the funds for the infrastructure improvements to complement the new development.

Eventually, I choose not to testify.  The trip would have been long and I was unsure that four years of living in a community nearly a half-century ago, no matter how many fond memories I may have collected, entitled me to participate in their process.

Perhaps that was a mistake by me.  The plan was eventually adopted and remains a good template for turning Carmichael toward urbanism.  But when a small amount of funding became available for improvements along Fair Oaks Boulevard, the money didn’t go toward building a path for urbanism.  It was instead dedicated to improving a street intersection within the plan area.  Rather than building a place that might be better suited for people, the county once again improved the world for cars.

I’m not suggesting that the intersection improvements weren’t needed.  Traffic has increased since the intersection alignment was first established and multiple incremental fixes had gradually made the intersection awkward and difficult to drive.  But intersection improvements shouldn’t have been the highest priority.

It’s true that the intersection improvements included new sidewalks.  But how many pedestrians can be seen on those sidewalks?  It was only me with my camera and a scruffy gentleman awaiting a bus.

If the supposed goal of the community is a move toward urbanism, spending scarce resources on street improvements fails to open the doors to urbanist developers.  Even worse, it sends a message that the commitment to urbanism is, at best, half-hearted.

Just because one lived in a place years ago, and remembers it with affection, doesn’t mean that the community should make wise decisions long after one left.  But one can hope. 

Schedule Note

Another meeting of Petaluma Urban Chat is upon us.  We’ll meet at the Aqus Café at 2nd and H Streets in Petaluma on Tuesday, April 8.  We’ll convene for conversation at 5:30, with the discussion beginning at 5:45.  The discussion will again be about “Happy City” by Charles Montgomery.

As attendance was below average last month, we’ll return for a second time to the first five chapters of the book, giving all a chance to comment on the logical framework that Montgomery has begun to construct in support of his argument that human happiness is strongly tied to well-designed urban settings.  Even if you haven’t read the book, you should find the conversation engaging.

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

Northern California Tour: Freedom Park Road

Two weeks ago, I began recounting a recent daytrip I took through Northern California.  My goal was to look, however briefly, at destinations that I hoped would offer urbanist insights.  I began my day in Suisun City, a city center of well-conceived urban redevelopment and a personal favorite.  I continued with a stop in Woodland, checking on how the burgeoning big box district was affecting the attractive but languishing historical downtown.

Today, I’ll describe the next destination on my meandering route and the reason I conceived the daytrip, a recently reconstructed road in North Highlands, near Sacramento.

Sacramento County received an award from the local chapter of the American Planning Association for the redesign and reconstruction of Freedom Park Road within the former McClellan Air Force Base.  The grounds for the award are evident.  Wide and comfortable sidewalks.  Roundabouts in place of stop signs.  Stormwater runoff routed into vegetated swales.  Energy-efficient lighting.  A pavement mix design that included recycled tires.  All the elements of an environmentally-sensitive road design.

That is, all the elements of an environmentally-sensitive road design except the most important one.  Walkability.  Freedom Park Road has fine sidewalks, wide, without obstructions, and safely set back from the vehicle lanes.  But during the fifteen minutes I spent visiting the street, not one pedestrian came by.  None.

Nor is the reason surprising.  There are few destinations along the street.  Residential developments front on the street, an apartment complex to the south and small-lot single-family homes to the north.  But there’s virtually nowhere to go for anyone who lives in either.

Retail is usually the key destination.  At the east end of Freedom Park Road, where it terminates at an arterial, there are strip malls on both corners, but they‘re half-empty and moribund.

Otherwise, there’s a park that includes casual play and organized sports areas.  But casual play parks sometimes struggle to attract users and it’s likely the many of organized sports participants arrive by car from points of origin far beyond Freedom Park Road.

There’s also an aerospace museum that I’ve visited and enjoyed.  But realistically, how many times can people visit the same museum?  Perhaps twice a year?

Overall, it’s not surprising that the only folks I saw along Freedom Park Road, other than the drivers of

passing cars, were a handful of teenagers sitting at the entry to the apartments, looking at the world through bored, half-closed eyes.

If we use Jeff Speck’s “Walkable City” for its walkability punchlist, the shortfalls are further highlighted.  Safety?  Yes.  Comfort?  So it appeared to me.  Interest?  Not much.  Most of the uses are not visually appealing, set far back from the street, or both.  Usefulness?  Nope, barring the occasional purchase that can be made at the struggling strip malls or the infrequent desire to play on a swing, there’s not much useful on Freedom Park Road.  With all four points needed to for a street to be walkable, Freedom Park Road falls well short.

I understand why the APA gave an award for the road reconstruction.  I’m sure that design touched on many of the hot buttons in environmental design.  But the fact remains that virtually every street in downtown Sacramento, by facilitating walkability, provides more environmental benefit than Freedom Park Road.

Don’t misunderstand my point.  I’m not saying that vegetated swales and energy-efficient lights are bad road elements.  Instead, I agree that they are very good road elements.  But the ultimate good road element, the essential road element, is walkable urbanism and if we aren’t encouraging urbanism, we’re only chipping at the fringe of the environmental challenge.

In his book “Hot, Flat, and Crowded”, New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman argues that many Americans, faced with the environmental challenges of the 21st century, are going only as far as a “green party”.  Rather than making fundamental changes in their lifestyles, they’re setting out the recycling can, replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs, throwing a handful of confetti, and carrying on with life as they’ve always known it. 

He makes a good point.  All of us, me included, can and should do more to face the challenges of our time.  And passing out an award for a road that doesn’t address walkability, the keystone of environmental sustainability, is a good example of a premature and unjustified green party.

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

Venice 2007: Venturing Inland

For a holiday respite, I devoted my Friday posts through December and January to recounting my trip to Venice in 2007. Using photos and notes from the trip, I highlighted the urbanist issues of day-to-day life in perhaps the most famous car-free city in the world.

However, I reached the end of January without exhausting the stories and insights that I’d hoped to share.  With Venice being too fascinating to leave behind with tales untold, I decided to continue with the occasional Friday post into February and beyond.  Today will be the first of those extra posts.

During my time in Venice, I took several day trips to other Italian cities.  The first outing was to Padua, only thirty miles from Venice, but far enough to become familiar with railway travel in Italy.

(Language note: The outing to Padua also alerted me to another of my language faux pas, much like “Pompa”.  The train station in Venice was called “Ferrovia”, which had a romantic sound to my ear.  I liked the feeling of “Ferrovia” on my tongue.  And then I realized that the train station in Padua was also called “Ferrovia”.  Upon cogitation, the reason became evident.   “Ferro” is the Latin root for iron and “via” is the Latin root for road.  “Ferrovia” wasn’t the cool name of the Venetian train station; it was the generic Italian word for train station.  Oops.)

Padua was a great daytrip, but not because of any one aspect of the city.  Padua has a number of points to recommend it.  The sprawling and lively outdoor market.  The sense of history in standing before the University of Po where Galileo worked on his theories of planetary motion.  The antiquity of the formerly Roman city of Patavium.  The Donatello equestrian statue that is considered a milestone of the Renaissance.  All of these add to the Paduan experience.

But ultimately what mattered was that Padua was an accessible city, fully walkable and enjoyable from the train station.  It was a walkable urban place that opened itself to the traveler in a way that too few American cities do.

As was true of most of my Venetian adventure, my travels eschewed rubber-tired vehicles.   Vaporetto along the Grand Canal to train to electric single-track street car into downtown Padua.  It was a fine way to travel.

Within Padua, the outdoor market is reportedly the second-best outdoor market in Italy, made even more memorable by the architecture surrounding it, including the Palazzo della Ragione, the 13th century town meeting hall.  With interior dimensions of 235 feet by 85 feet and no interior columns, the Palazzo remains an impressive engineering effort, even 700 years after its original construction.

The light inside the Palazzo was faint for photography, but I took my favorite photo of the day in the frescoed colonnade outside.  I’ve always been a sucker for a good colonnade

Moving away from the downtown core I found the Duomo for Padua.  It’s a handsome building, but plays second fiddle to the real star of Padua, the Basilica of St. Anthony.  The Basilica is a major pilgrimage destination for Catholics, many of whom want to see the tongue of the well-spoken St. Anthony that displayed in the Reliquaries.  The Reliquaries were closed when I was there, so I missed the tongue.

 

The horse statue in front of the Basilica is interesting.  It may look like town statues everywhere, but when it was cast by Donatello, it was the first life-size bronze equine casting in over 1000 years.  One more sign that the Renaissance was truly underway.

Lastly, I visited the cloisters of the Basilica.  As always, I can’t resist a good colonnade.

Becoming foot-weary, I headed back to the train station (ferrovia!) and thence Venice, thrilled by the amble around Padua and the quiet joy of a walkable town.

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