Tactical Urbanism: An Alternative for Urbanists with Less Patience?

Note the width from centerline to curb

In my previous post, I wrote about the need to move past vision into the long, often tedious task of execution if major land-use changes are to be made.

I live and believe that statement.  And I respect those who work daily toward the execution of land-use concepts that will make our communities stronger and more sustainable, especially those who have been undertaking the task for longer than me.

Within the past week, I’ve read as the Friends of SMART, the citizens group that pushed for the SMART rail system and continues to watch over its implementation, exchanged emails about their proposed “Founders’ Grove”, a public park in Santa Rosa that would remember the people who devoted much time and effort toward SMART, but passed away before the trains could begin running.  Communities thrive when idealists work hard for goals beyond their own life spans.

However, I understand there are also many who want to make a difference, but lack the willingness to work for goals that may be over the horizon.  As the cartoon of a pair of steely-eyed vultures on a branch notes, “Patience my ass, I’m gonna kill something.”

With those folks in mind, I want to recount a story I heard at CNU 22, the annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism, held in Buffalo in 2014.

In a medium-sized Canadian city near Toronto, a group of urbanists met regularly to talk about how to make their town more pedestrian friendly.  One particular intersection bothered them.  It was stop sign controlled, but many of the stops were perfunctory.

Even worse, both streets were unusually wide for two-lane streets.  For one right turn in particular, a frequent traffic movement, drivers had room to make a second lane leading into the right turn.  Pedestrians were intimidated by the rolling stops and the extra lane of travel.  Rather than risking their children, parents would drive them to school.  And senior citizens were blocked from shops they might have otherwise visited.

(The photo is from the North Bay, not Canada, but illustrates the concern.  Where the car is stopped, it’s more than 25 feet from centerline to curb, which is plenty of room for drivers making a right turn, including me upon occasion, to make a separate lane.)

The urbanists easily identified the traffic fix that was needed, a bulb-out that would keep the second lane from forming, thereby slowing traffic and making the intersection safer for pedestrians.

They took their suggestion to City Hall where it was shuffled to the bottom of a stack of other possible street improvements, few of which pertained to making the city safer for pedestrians.

Unwilling to let the idea die a quiet bureaucratic death, the urbanists hatched a plan.  One evening, after the sun had set, they arrived at the corner in a van, wearing safety vests.  By chance, a utility crew was working a block away, so the urbanists looked like another team on the same utility project.

As drivers passed by, few even giving a second glance, the urbanists laid down white striping, creating the bulb-out they’d proposed.  To ensure that the drivers saw the paint the following morning, they placed orange traffic cones along the perimeter.  And to show the world that this wasn’t an ordinary street project, they put a single yellow daffodil in each cone.  (I love the daffodil touch.  It makes the story come alive.)

When the sun rose the next morning, drivers quickly adjusted to the new paint and no longer made a second travel lane for right turns.  Pedestrians, puzzled at first by the change, soon learned that they could walk into the painted bulb in safety, making the crossing easier.  And they told their friends about the more pedestrian friendly crossing.

Meanwhile, City Hall fumed, threatening prosecution against whoever had laid down roadway striping without either approval from Public Works or an encroachment permit.  The urbanists, willing to take a chance, but stopping short of stupidity, remained quiet and out of sight.

But when the pedestrians began asking why City Hall was fussing over a change that had improved walkability, the tone shifted.  City Hall was willing to admit that the striping seemed a good idea, even finding money to redo the striping with better paint and to put up signage required for the bulb-out.  But some truculence remained, with a warning given that if anyone else undertook a similar effort, retribution would follow swiftly.

The urbanists began planning their next project.

The team had engaged in tactical urbanism, small, focused efforts to reintroduce walkable urbanism to places that have forgotten about it.

Not every tactical urbanist effort needs to tweak the nose of City Hall as much as the Canadian story, although some do.

Chuck Marohn of StrongTowns tells the story of a Memphis neighborhood that painted crosswalks and bike lanes without official sanction, although the City soon embraced the changes.

Another story from CNU 22 was about an abandoned brewery in downtown Memphis that was filled with trash and misbehavior.  A neighborhood group came together to do a clean-up, followed by stringing lights and rolling out a keg of beer.

At CNU 23 in Dallas, local consulting group Ash + Lime spoke about organizing events in empty downtown buildings in a nearby suburb, reminding the citizens of how much fun a well-filled downtown can be.

(For readers with long memories, tactical urbanism may sound similar to City Repair, about which I wrote a few years back.  The two are much alike and can be described as two sides of the same coin.  As I see the slight difference, City Repair is about building community from which small improvement projects flow while tactical urbanism is about identifying small improvement projects from which community growth flows.  Two good concepts with a small difference in perspective.)

None of the tactical urbanist projects noted above are in the North Bay, but the North Bay offers opportunities for tactical urbanism.  A couple of years back, I learned of two Petaluma businesses, aided and abetted by a Petaluma architect, who were going to install a parklet despite the absence of a City parklet policy.  (This was long before a group, with whom I’m working, began to develop a parklet policy for City consideration.)  I thought the idea was grand, offered to write about it when the time was right, and was disappointed when it faded away. 

I have no problem conceiving of other tactical urbanist projects that could make a difference in the North Bay.

Already having a full plate of longer-term goals, I won’t be taking the lead on any tactical urban projects, but will be happy to advise as needed.

So, if a decade or more of persistent involvement and advocacy to accomplish a single goal, albeit a major goal, isn’t consistent with your personality, perhaps tactical urbanism, with its lesser but still important targets, would in more keeping with your desires.

Either way, you shouldn’t sit back telling others what your city should look like in the future.  You need to be making brush strokes yourself, whether grand and time-consuming or short and incisive.  It’s up to you to make the future what you want it to be.

When I next write, it will be about the drought.  Some are ready to call it over and to lift all water use restrictions.  For at least two reasons, I disagree.

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

Stories from CNU 23: Infrastructure Patterns, Misallocated Fishing Piers, and the Creation of Funk

Nuts.   I still can’t share the update on Sonoma Marin Fairgrounds that I’ve been promising, although progress was made over the last few days.  I’ll continue to push for having something in my next post.

(For non-regular readers, I help organize a local urbanist discussion group.  The members have been assembling an independent land plan for a portion of the downtown Fairgrounds here in Petaluma.  The plan is proposed for implementation after the current lease expires in eight years.  I’ve been promising an announcement about the next step in the planning effort, but the pieces aren’t quite yet in place.)

In the absence of a Fairgrounds update, I’ll continue sharing moments that caught my attention at the recently completed 23rd annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism.   (The photo is from a public park near the host hotel.)  This post will almost, but not quite, empty my notebook of shareable moments, although I’ll return in more depth to the topics addressed at CNU 23 in the coming weeks and months.  (Earlier snippets from CNU 23 are here, here, and here.)

The Persistence of Infrastructure: I’ve previously written that, even more so than buildings that can wear out and be replaced, patterns of infrastructure can persist nearly forever.  Build a bridge connecting two towns and the towns become so intertwined that a bridge must always remain.  Construct a lock to allow river commerce to an upstream town and it may be years before the lock can be abandoned.  Configure a subdivision around an assumption that everyone will drive and the multitude of homes may never allow pedestrian/bicycle/transit-friendly revisions.

Maria Zimmerman of MZ Strategies phrased it succinctly during CNU 23.  ”Infrastructure is a way to make your great-grandchildren live by your values even after you’re gone.”

Even if our periscopes toward the future are often foggy and distorted, we should try to build as timelessly as possible.

The Worldview of Transit Managers: The discussion of transit systems can often seem bloodless.  Fare box recovery, route efficiency, traffic signal priorities, and paratransit optimization are important, but only occasionally do those topics evoke passion.

But transit consultant Jarrett Walker pointed out during CNU 23 that transit managers often get a different perspective.  It’s the transit managers who sit across from tearful mothers who claim that a fare increase won’t allow them to deliver their children to schools, causing Children’s Protective Services to take the children away.

It’s worth remembering that transit systems aren’t strictly balance sheets, but are also lifelines on which real people rely.

Not Everyone Needs a Fishing Pier: Staying with Jarrett Walker, he noted that some cities structure their transit systems around providing an equal share of the transit pie to every district.  As he described it, this approach makes about as much sense as giving a fishing pier to every district regardless of whether the district has a body of water.

Transit should be about serving people, not dividing political spoils.

The World is Different Than When I Finished College: In an updated snapshot of a point about which I’ve often written, Christopher Coes of Smart Growth America reported that 64 percent of all college-educated workers between the ages of 25 and 34 now decide where they want to live and then look for a job in that place.

For those seeking economic growth, the message should be clear.  Build places where the next generation wants to live and employers will follow.  (And yes, the Fairgrounds plan noted above follows that dictum.)

Looking for the Funk:  The Dallas-area firm Ash+Lime Strategies, which was active in the planning of CNU 23, specializes in the field of tactical urbanism.  Tactical urbanism is the use of small urban interventions in the hope of triggering bigger ideas.  Faced with a brick hulk of an abandoned factory, some urbanists begin making plans to raze the building and to build four stories of mixed use.  Others bring in a band and a beer trailer to see what magic happens.  The latter urbanists are tactical urbanists.

Ash+Lime partner,   Amanda Popken, speaking at CNU 23, described their goal as being “Create the funk that makes a place.”

I suspect that most North Bay communities have underused places with funks yet to be exploited.  Here in Petaluma, I’ll point toward the aging industrial area bounded by the Petaluma River, E. Washington Street, and railroad tracks.  So, how do we create the funk that would make those places?

Next time, my goal remains to offer a Fairgrounds update.  Failing that, I’ll riff on a way of thinking about transit that was offered at CNU 23.

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 22: Techno Narcissism

I returned a few days ago from CNU 22, the 22nd annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism.  The conference was filled with urbanist ideas and will lead to many blog posts.  Going to a CNU annual meeting to learn more about urbanism is like standing under nearby Niagara Falls to slake a thirst.

This will be my third post based on CNU 22.  I began with some broad insights about urbanism that were honed by the conference.

Next, I began to focus in a little more tightly on urbanist themes, but not in depth.  Just short snippets of conversations or observations to give a flavor of the conference.  That’s the mode in which I’ll continue today.

Eventually, I’ll delve more deeply into to the CNU 22 content, but that level of analysis is still more than a week away.  For today, it’s strictly snapshots.

Techno Narcissism: I’ve written about James Howard Kunstler on multiple occasions, including a review of his book “The Geography of Nowhere” and his response to the Chris Christie bridge controversy in New Jersey.

At various times, I’ve described Kunstler as an urbanist rabble-rouser or an urbanist flame-thrower.  But at CNU 22, I decided that he was more the urbanist Hunter S. Thompson.  The image was cemented when he attended an early Saturday presentation, deep in the bowels of the convention center in a partially dimmed room far from sunlight, wearing the darkest possible sunglasses.  Perhaps he was hiding the damage from a busy Friday night.  Perhaps he was burnishing an image.  Either way, he made a statement.

But he’d made his greatest mark at CNU 22 when he spoke at a plenary session the day before.  He’s a fiery and compelling speaker.  As the speaker after him noted, the scariest three words on the urbanism speaking circuit are “You follow Kunstler.”

He made numerous outrageous and incendiary comments, reminding me that I’m happy he’s on my side of the debate, not the other.

But that one comment that stuck out for me was his description of the vertical farms that have been proposed by a handful of architects.  The concept is large, multi-million-dollar green walls dedicated to growing produce for the population.  It seemed an odd and unnecessary idea to me, filling a need that could be met far more cost-effectively on an acre of bare land at the city fringes.  I suspected that architectural egos were overwhelming common sense.

Kunstler wasn’t as temperate in his response.  He described the concept as “techno narcissist bullshit”.

Not the words I would have chosen, but not ones with which I would disagree either.

(For the record, Kunstler is fine with urban gardens, using the flat rooftops that would otherwise sit empty.  It’s only the expensive vertical farms that attract his disdain.)

(Also for the record, I share most of Kunstler’s concerns about the path of civilization, but not the full extent of his pessimism.  I expect that we’ll muddle through with less catastrophic disruption than he does.  Although it’s past time to start muddling in the right direction.)

Under- Representation of Engineers:   On the first day of the conference, I attended a session on tactical urbanism, which is comprised of small-scale, low-cost interventions that try to prove up the concepts of urbanism without significant risk.

As the half-day session got underway, the organizers asked for a show of hands about the backgrounds of the participants.  Not surprisingly, most were urban planners, architects, or community activists.  But it was still disappointing that in a crowd of fifty-some people, there were only two engineers, including me.

I suspect that much of the conference had a similar ratio.  It’s a shame that more engineers don’t look at the bigger picture.  Perhaps it’s an indictment of the engineering education system.  Perhaps it’s the nature of the folks who are attracted to engineering as a career.  Either way, I’m pleased to fall several standard deviations from the mean.

Daffodils: At the tactical urbanism session, a community organizer from near Buffalo described a clandestine traffic project undertaken by him and his cohorts.  It was a great story that I’ll describe more fully in another post.

The climax came when the group, in the dead of the night, marked out an alternative curb line, trying to slow traffic and to improve pedestrian safety.  In addition to white paint, they marked the new line with orange traffic cones screwed into the pavement.

Then, to ensure that the citizens understood that it hadn’t been the public works department doing the work, the vigilante traffic engineers put a daffodil into each cone before they disappeared into the night.

To me, the thought of orange traffic cones topped with yellow daffodils is an enduring mental image of tactical urbanism.

IOBY:  An organization has been founded to help with crowd-funding of tactical urbanist projects.  The founder spoke at the tactical urbanist session, noting that her company accomplishes two goals, raising money and raising public awareness to opportunities and challenges.  She suspected that the latter will ultimately prove more important.

But the fun part was the name she chose for her organization.  Recognizing that NIMBYism (Not in My Back Yard) is often the opponent of tactical urbanism, she called her effort IOBY for “In Our Backyard”.   I love the message.

In my next post, more on CNU 22.

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

P.S. The photo is of a former single-family home about a block from the convention center and reflect the former glory of Buffalo.