Circling Back to Buses and Books

Petaluma Transit bus

I have several North Bay updates to share today, from new and improved bus routes in Petaluma to a revisited book club to a request for reading list suggestions.

A couple of months back, I wrote about how the staff at Petaluma Transit was working hard to build connections with SMART, the commuter train system that will begin rolling through the North Bay later this year.

The building of bus-to-train connections was a high priority effort for many parties, from SMART, which is eager to have fare-paying customers delivered to its stations, to Petaluma Transit, which is always seeking to better serve its community, to the City of Petaluma, which has an interest in keeping SMART riders from driving cars that would overburden streets and available parking.

The earlier post asked that local citizens attend the February meeting of the Petaluma Transit Advisory Committee, a group that I currently chair.  At the meeting, Petaluma Transit staff would present the route realignments and the public would be allowed to comment.

 The suggestion didn’t take root.  Perhaps because I began my marketing effort too late or perhaps because I didn’t reiterate the request enough, there wasn’t a single member of the general public in the City Council chambers that day.

It’s possible I wasn’t a complete washout as a publicist.  It may be that a greater number than usual watched the meeting on the local community access channel.  I know that a surprising number of local citizens watch the broadcasts regularly.

(True story: I began a trip last summer with a 3:15am taxi ride to the Sonoma County Airporter pickup.  Enroute, I chatted with the driver about Petaluma.  But he soon interrupted the conversation, asking how he knew my voice.  I said I had no idea, but he persisted, asking if I was ever on television.

The only television exposure I could suggest was the transit committee meetings on the local channel.  To which he responded, “That’s it!  I knew I recognized your voice.  You’re a local celebrity!”  Darned if I know how he might have set it up, but I still think it was a prank.)

Despite the apparent desultory response to my earlier public outreach, Petaluma Transit continued to refine the route realignments, which will soon be folded into the MTC-mandated Short-Range Transit Plan (SRTP).

The draft SRTP, including the route realignments, will receive its final review during an upcoming transit committee meeting, followed in May by its adoption, first by the committee and then by the City Council.  Implementation will be in August.

Everyone, from Transit staff to SMART to MTC to me, would like Petaluma citizens to look at the route realignments and to provide comments on points that might have been missed.  For the community to effective embrace SMART, and to thrive with reduced car dependence, it’s important that the routes work.

So please join us on Thursday, April 7, 4:00pm in the City Council Chambers at 11 English Street.  If you insist on watching from home, that’d be okay, but we’d really rather have you there in person.

If you want an advance look at the route proposals, Transit staff has assembled an on-line poll that depicts the routes and asks questions about how the new routes will serve your needs.  You’re encouraged to look at the poll and to offer thoughts.

And if you want to review the entire SRTP, which addresses many aspects of Petaluma Transit’s operation beyond route planning, it can be viewed under Item 7.A. of the agenda for the meeting.

Also, recognizing that 4:00pm public meetings don’t fit everyone’s personal schedule, Petaluma Urban Chat will dedicate their next regular meeting to the route realignments.  Petaluma Transit staff will attend the meeting, which will be Tuesday, April 12, 5:30pm at Aqus Café, 2nd and H Streets in Petaluma.  As always, all are welcome.

Staying on the topic of Petaluma Urban Chat, a casual gathering of urbanists that sprung from this blog and has been meeting since 2012, I recently turned over management of the group to Teddy Herzog, a Petaluma resident with an interest in urban topics and a desire to grow the group.  I love the meetings and will continue participating, but feared that my other personal and civic obligations, including this blog,  were interfering with my ability to nurture the group, so was pleased to accept Herzog’s offer.

Herzog and I have been meeting to plot a trajectory for Urban Chat.  An idea I resurrected was a book club.  There was a time when the entire Urban Chat functioned as a book club.  I thought it was a successful effort, but it ultimately became clear that not everyone had the time or inclination to be book readers.

So I won’t propose that Urban Chat return to being a book group.  But if there is a small group of readers and thinkers who wish to return to a study of books on city planning, I’d be happy to facilitate book selections and meetings.

The group needn’t be limited to Petaluma.  It might be fun to have participants throughout the North Bay, especially if we can find brew pubs along the SMART corridor and assemble for the meetings by train.  Perhaps we could even begin with a book on effective transit planning.  If you’re interested in participating, let me know.  A comment below or an email would be great. 

I have one last topic that continues on the subject of books.  In nine weeks, I’ll head to Detroit for the annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism.  CNU meetings are always great, but I’m particularly intrigued by the prospect of spending four days in Detroit, a key place in the debate over the future of cities.

To ensure that I’m prepared, I’ve assembled an expansive list of books about Detroit, seven total of which I’m deep into the third.  But if readers have Detroit tomes are of particular interest to them, I’d appreciate titles.  I may have time to slip an eighth or even a ninth book into my reading list.  An email or a comment below would be great.

That covers my topics for the day, from bus route planning to urbanist reading.  Lots of chances for community involvement.

Next, I’ll return to the topic of universal housing, the extent of its deficiencies and how walkable urbanism can help.

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

Tidying Up the Urbanist Loose Ends

There always seems to something further that can be written on past topics.  Today will be a day to add supplement details to past discussions on transit funding, Petaluma Urban Chat, City Repair, and curvy bike paths.

Petaluma Transit Advisory Committee: As previously described, the Petaluma Transit Advisory Committee, on which I serve, met yesterday to consider an agenda with items of broader scope than our usual agenda items.

After hearing from the Friends of SMART and the Greenbelt Alliance, the committee voted to ask the Petaluma City Council to consider devoting a portion of the funds from the upcoming Measure A, if it passes, to transit.  Except for the one committee member who missed the meeting, the vote was unanimous.

The suggested transit funding was ten percent of the increased sales tax proceeds, an amount that is roughly consistent with pledges previously made by the Sonoma County Supervisors and by the Cities of Santa Rosa and Sonoma.

The use to which Petaluma Transit would put the funds was left undecided, but several possibilities for enhanced service were noted.

The agenda also included an update from a SMART representative about the interfaces between Petaluma Transit and SMART, including bus stop location, train schedule, and development plans for the mixed-use complex planned for the parcel adjoining the station.  No resolutions were reached, but lines of communication were opened, which was appropriate with SMART’s beginning of fare service barely 18 months away.

Petaluma Urban Chat: A recent post on food truck parks elicited a number of interested responses, including from folks who are planning on putting their own trucks on the street and folks who have been considering developing food truck parks.  Accordingly, I’ve scheduled a food truck discussion for the upcoming Petaluma Urban Chat meeting, Tuesday, May 12, 5:30pm, at the Aqus Café at 2nd and H Streets.

Admittedly, most of the folks who contacted me about the food truck post haven’t yet confirmed their attendance for the meeting, so we may mostly end up talking with each other, but there are worse things that talking urbanist philosophy over a cold beer.

Also, the meeting will be somewhat curtailed.  Aqus has scheduled a Sustainability Mixer for 6:30pm the same evening.  I’m planning on staying around for the mixer, although I’m often a bit cranky at sustainability meetings.  It bothers me that many of the sustainability causes championed at meetings like this tend to be dealing with the impacts of drivable sprawl and yet few folks, except for the Urban Chat attendees, talk about the alternative to drivable sprawl.  But I usually hide my crankiness well.

City Repair: Next, I recently wrote that the flurry of City Repair ideas from fall 2013 had mostly disappeared without a trace, the only possible exception being neighborhood libraries.

However, one of those lost projects has continued moving ahead quietly and with little notice.  In the next week, an on-line survey should be distributed to neighbors about the traffic on Fair Street in front of Petaluma High School.  The results may be used to formulate a City Repair intervention on the street, which is particularly wide and prone to car/pedestrian conflicts.

When available, I’ll provide a link to the survey.

Curves versus Gentle Bends: Last, I recently vented about curvy bicycle/pedestrian paths, arguing that tight curves impeded efficient travel for no valid reason.  A bicycling architect who I know well promptly responded that long straight stretches are boring for bicyclists.

Perhaps I could have been more precise in my description of the types of path to which I was taking offense, although I would have expected that my endorsement of “a gently bending street that provides constantly changing vistas to draw pedestrians onward” would have made it clear that I wasn’t arguing for long straight streets.

But just to make the point completely clear, I love long radius curves that provide a continuously changing backdrop for travel by foot or on bike.  Regent Street in London is my go-to example, but I’m unable to find a photo in my files.  Noble Street in the Uptown District of Dallas will serve instead.  I think Noble Street is how city streets should be designed and encourage urban designers to follow that approach where possible.

Conversely, I detest tight little curves that slow travel and serve no point except feeding the ego of the designer.  The new bike path at the Petaluma soccer fields on E. Washington Street is a fine example.

I hope this makes my thinking perfectly clear.

Even worse, the architect prefaced his comments with “Spoken like a true engineer.”  Nothing like relying on imprecise stereotypes to make a point.  Harrumph.

In my next post, I’ll begin my summary of the best moments from CNU 23, the recent annual meeting of the Congress from the New Urbanism.

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 23: First Impressions

I’ve recently returned from the 23rd annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism.  As always, I return wearied by the long days crammed with information and insights, but full of enthusiasm and new ideas that I’m eager to bring to bear on North Bay land-use issues.

My plan is for CNU 23 to dominate this blog over the next few weeks, but not to the exclusion of North Bay thinking.  I’ll try to walk the fine line between sharing my experiences and keeping an eye on local stuff.

Today, I’ll begin my thoughts from CNU 23.  Next week, I’ll offer a sampling of the best individual comments from the Congress, followed in later weeks by deeper explorations of the content.  But for today, I’ll write only about the theme that struck me most forcibly at CNU 23.

In the past, I’ve found the use of the word “Congress” to describe the group as a slightly curious, although acceptable, word choice.  In my thinking, I was using the “assembly” definition of “congress”.  But in a re-education that began with the first session I attended, I was educated that “Congress” had been selection intended in the more legislative sense.

A CNU Congress is intended as a place where the best and most insightful thinkers about land-use planning can gather to exchange perspectives, to seek common ground, and to consider compromises that give the best syntheses for contemporary urbanism.

(In a humorous note that was made several times during CNU 23, it was remembered that some of CNU founders thought that four Congresses should be sufficient to reconcile any differences and to settle on a single approach to urbanism.  Twenty-three Congresses have now been completed, the next two are already being planned for Detroit and Seattle, and the end of the Congresses is no longer discussed.)

My enhanced education began with Professor Emily Talen talking about the four disparate philosophies that have fed urbanism over the past century and continue to play roles today.  Her terms for the four streams were incremental urbanism, regional planning, zoning, and garden cities.  She traced the roots of each stream and then described the role that each has assumed in contemporary urbanism, including the tensions that remain between them.

This new and more profound understanding of the past and future of urbanism isn’t necessarily a comfortable place to be.  Talen’s vision of urbanism, although it includes bedrock principles, isn’t of a single formulation that can universally applied, but of a philosophy that must constantly evolve as new information is brought to the table and as new situations are faced.

My personal example of this thinking is the connection between climate change and urbanism.  Going back to the founding of CNU, and in my own experience as recently as 2011 when this blog was started, climate change has had a role in the urbanist conversation, but wasn’t necessarily the central factor.

This relationship between urbanism and climate change is now quickly changing, with climate change becoming perhaps the strongest argument for new urbanism.

In the abstract, I’m comfortable with this continual evolution although I find the constant sense of motion to be unsettling at times.

Following Talen, Andres Duany connected this on-going evolution to the CNU membership tallies.  As he described it, the membership total of CNU remains stable at about 3,000 people despite an annual influx of 500 new members.

Duany’s explanation is that 500 people also depart each year, many because of a difficulty of accepting the continual tension between the different urbanist streams.  His belief is that many of the former CNU members have instead joined groups that focus on single aspects of urbanism, such as complete streets or public places.

Duany doesn’t bemoan those who have moved on, but celebrates CNU as the place where cutting edge thinking continues to happen.

I look forward to sharing more about CNU 23 in the coming weeks.

Schedule Reminders

I have two calendar reminders today.

As described in my last post, the agenda for the upcoming meeting of the Petaluma Transit Advisory Committee touches upon aspects of transit funding and regional coordination beyond where the committee agendas often go.  As the committee chair, I can promise discussions that will give grist for further thought.  If this sounds interesting, please join us.  The meeting will be Thursday, May 7 at 4:00pm in the City Council Chambers at City Hall, 11 English Street.

Also, the regular monthly meeting of Petaluma Urban Chat will be Tuesday, May 12, 5:30pm at the Aqus Café, 2nd and H Streets.  I’m awaiting a couple of final confirmations so can’t yet announce the subject, but am planning a topic that I think will interest many.  For now, please put the meeting on your calendar and then look for more details two posts hence.

My next post will come from my recent travels.  My route to Dallas, where CNU 23 was held and where the photo of the public art was taken, was circuitous.  On my way to the Big D, I attended a family wedding in West Virginia, took advantage of a spare day to watch a ballgame in and to wander the downtown of Morgantown, and joined an old friend for an early evening tour of Pittsburgh.  The next post will describe a public plaza in Pittsburgh that caught my attention, although not necessarily in the way the designer intended.

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