Streets, Roads, and Stroads

Chuck Marohn, writing for the Strong Towns blog, has an interesting post on the third piece of public right of way typology, the park road. The post was good but what caught my interest was a summary of a TEDx talk he gave last year:

To review, a road is an efficient connection between two places. It is high speed and safe, which implies that it has limited access (intersections are inherently unsafe at high speeds) and highway geometries. It is essentially a replacement for the railroad which was, as its name suggests, a road on rails.

In contrast, streets create a platform for capturing value. A properly designed street will maximize the value of the adjacent development pattern in ratio to the infrastructure investment within the public realm. To do this, auto traffic will be slow and will (equally) share space with other modes of transport, including pedestrians, bikers and transit alternatives.

A STROAD is a street/road hybrid. And yes, I have often called it the “futon of transportation alternatives”. Where a futon is an uncomfortable couch that also serves as an uncomfortable bed, a STROAD is an auto corridor that does not move cars efficiently while simultaneously providing little in the way of value capture. Anytime you are driving between 30 and 50 miles per hour, you are likely on a STROAD, which has become the default option for American traffic corridors. Cities wishing to be Strong Towns should have a active policy for reducing the amount of STROADS within the community.

Recognizing the different functions and characteristics of roads and streets is vital to creating great places. Roads are for movement. Streets are for life. Places people love are made up of streets. Roads connect places with each other.

Here is the TEDx talk introducing the concept:

Long Exposure

Diana Eftaiha has put together a great set of long exposure landscape images by Trevor Cotton for The D Photo. She quotes Trevor:

Living on the south coast of the UK, I am primarily a seascape photographer, and a big fan of long exposure work. I am not a ‘purist’, and whilst a captured image with perfect light can look great straight from the camera it is seldom that conditions are such that they convey the mood I seek.

The resulting images are really interesting, compelling works of art.

Can Glass Towers Really be Green?

John Straube, writing for Building Science, on the efficiency of all-glass buildings:

When I see a fully glazed, floor-to-ceiling commercial or institutional building, I see an energy-consuming nightmare of a building that requires lots of heating and cooling at the perimeter just to maintain comfort. The result, on a cold winter day, is that offices exposed to the sun require cooling, while those in the shade need heat. Unless the control system is highly tuned, too many of the occupants will also be uncomfortable. Although it is well accepted that “green” buildings are above all low energy consumption buildings, there is a mistaken belief, almost a myth, that buildings with large expanses of glass are somehow green.

He digs in and does a nice technical analysis of why large expanses of glazing really don’t make sense from an energy standpoint. It’s amazing how many LEED certified glass towers there are considering that even high performance glazing systems still pale in comparison to alternative options. I’ve been involved with a few glass curtain wall projects and, even though these were high performance LEED projects, we did not use a thermally broken system. Given that admittedly small sampling, it seems rare that a thermally broken system is actually specified.

No Room for Parking

Rob Manning, reporting for OPB, discusses the Portland trend towards multi-family projects with no off-site parking:

One of those developers is Dave Mullens with the Urban Development Group. He opened the Irvington Garden in a close-in Northeast Portland neighborhood last year. It’s 50 units with no parking places.

“The cost of parking would make building this type of project on this location unaffordable,” Mullens says.

Mullens calls the difference “tremendous.”

“Parking a site is the difference between a $750 apartment and a $1,200 apartment. Or, the difference between apartments and condos,” he says.

…

Planners and developers say successful, no-parking projects have two things in common: frequent transit service, and a nice, walkable neighborhood.

Parking is an amenity and should be treated as such. Parking minimums required by most zoning ordinances obscure the fact that there is a cost associated with the parking. We should eliminate the minimums and let the market determine both the quantity and cost of parking. We might find that in some places, like Portland, we can decrease the cost of housing by almost 40%. That is a significant difference!

Counter-Intuitive

Patrick Kennedy, writing at Walkable DFW, on the counter-intuitive nature of traffic planning:

Have you ever noticed that virtually everything about traffic planning is counter-intuitive? Mostly, that is because the real world works opposite the way traffic engineering operates.

Here is a pretty fascinating study by the HSIS (Highway Safety Information System) looking at road diets from Iowa specifically (15 sites) as well as around the country (30 sites in addition to the 15 in Iowa). Predictably, “accidents” (shall we say collisions) dropped on average from 23.74 to 12.19 yearly accidents per mile averaged from the Iowa sites and 28.57 to 24.07 on the nationwide HSIS sites. Though the information isn’t provided regarding average speeds before or after, we can hypothesize that the severity of the accidents diminished as well.

More interestingly however, is that average daily traffic counts actually INCREASED when reducing the amount of lanes on a road. On the dieted Iowa roads, traffic (vehicular only) increased from 7,987 to 9,212 cars per day. On the 30 HSIS dieted roads, traffic increased from 11,928 to 12,790. More traffic, slower roads, safer.

Patrick has some interesting thoughts on why this is.

The Places of Italy

Sara Lieberman, writing for Fodor’s, has an article recommending what to skip and what to see instead when visiting Italy:

Rather than wait in lines to see art everyone else has seen, or taste gelato that everyone else has sampled, take the road less traveled. Some of Italy’s most beaten paths, like the Amalfi Coast, Florence, and Pisa can (and should) be skipped in favor of more intriguing, less tour-bus-filled counterparts. Read on for the best alternatives.

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Italy twice in my life and I always hold the hope of returning. I agree with the first recommendation - Cinque Terra over the Amalfi Coast. Cinque Terra is exquisitely charming and provide the quintessential Italian village experience. I say “both” for Florence versus Siena, although I had the best pesto of my life just around the corner from the main Piazza del Campo. I strongly disagree with the choice of Milan over Rome. Rome is one of my favorite places in the world with its rich history, old world charm, and intensely walkable nature. I’ve only been to Pisa out of the last two but I would guess that the recommendation for Lucca is a good one. Pisa is very touristy and crowded. The truth is that you probably can’t go wrong with any of the options- it is Italy after all!

Job Sprawl

Tanya Snyder, writing for StreetsBlog, has an interesting look at how job sprawl effects dual-income households:

Job sprawl has spread at the same time that dual-income households are on the rise. While more research is needed to gauge the effects on working couples and families, it stands to reason that dispersed employment makes it harder for two people to both land jobs with a sane commute, and to figure out where to set up a household.

The growing decentralization of employment also lags behind the increasingly strong demand for city living. The housing market is beginning to correct itself after the distortions of past decades, when developers over-built in the suburbs. Growth is stalled in outer suburbs and lighting up in central cities and walkable suburbs. Housing values in walkable places weren’t hit as hard and are rebounding faster than the McMansion neighborhoods that became “toxic” foreclosure zones.

It’s interesting that most people relate sprawl to housing but it’s happening with jobs as well. The decentralization of job centers that has been happening since the mid–20th century is making it hard for dual-income households to come up with a workable living situation.

Driving Less

Are younger Americans driving less? The answer seems to be yes, but why? It seems that for an increasing number of people the car is viewed not as an enabling technology for mobility but as a liability. With an unprecedented number of young Americans choosing to live in compact, walkable neighborhoods driving becomes a hassle and an expensive one too.

Source:Are Younger Americans Driving Less?

via Urbanism News

Place Matters

Dr. Katherine Loflin, in a TedxSoCal video, makes a compelling and well-grounded case for the power and importance of place in our lives. The more people love their Place, the more economic activity and growth occurs. Placemaking is all about crafting places people care about. Places that nurture and fulfill. Places that inspire. Places that people feel attached to. Placemaking is about crafting lovable places because, for so many reasons, place matters.

After the Olympics

I have previously been pretty critical of the effect the Olympics have on the host cities, particularly Beijing, although the claims of ruin may have been overstated. [1] That’s why I found Granta’s collection of reflections by writers from various Olympic host cities to be quite fascinating, particularly the divergent thoughts on Beijing.

First A Yi:

Ever since we hosted the Olympics, the sky has often turned very blue and even today it’s still very blue, whereas before the Olympics, leaving the house was sometimes akin to taking a swim in a melancholy ocean of grey.

Then Isabel Hilton

Tourists traipse round the two most spectacular venues, the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, expensive white elephants in a city rich in grand monuments but low in sporting passion; the great capital is running out of water and the kayaking centre has run dry; the baseball field has turned to sand; the Olympic construction boss is serving time for taking bribes.

Creating a successful Olympic district is a hard problem that requires thoughtful design for both the short lived needs of the games and the long term viability of the new neighborhood. From what I’ve seen, it appears that London has set itself up for a more successful post games transition than Beijing did four years ago. I was particularly fond of the way London infused its history and culture into the games by hosting many of the events in temporary venues set up on palace grounds and sending the long races through iconic parts of London. I hope to see this trend continue.

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1. Regardless of the validity of the claims of ruin, Beijing at least represents a missed opportunity for creating a thriving, vibrant district in a central part of the city.  ↩