Streetsblog Los Angeles

With impressive urgency, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has spent his first months in office retooling and reconfiguring how the “City That Works” works. Emanuel’s energy is evident in changes from beat-cop deployment to the push for a longer school day, but perhaps the mayor’s most tangible efforts can be seen in his ambitious transportation agenda.

With Mayor Rahm Emanuel signaling a commitment to high-performance bus rapid transit, the Chicago-based nonprofit Metropolitan Planning Council envisions a 95-mile BRT network that would carry an additional 71,000 daily riders.

With Chicago DOT Commissioner Gabe Klein at his side, Emanuel has already implemented the city’s first protected bike lanes as part of a plan to add 100 miles of bike lanes within four years, announced a $1 billion upgrade to the Chicago Transit Authority’s Red Line, and passed a $2 “congestion fee” on downtown parking garages that will go towards the creation of a CTA Green Line stop that serves McCormick Place – the nation’s largest convention center – and a downtown circulator bus route being billed as bus rapid transit.

The circulator could be an interesting harbinger of Emanuel’s bus policy and how far he will go with BRT. He has stated that BRT projects in Chicago will include “dedicated bus lanes, signal preemption, pre-paid boarding or on-board fare verification, multiple entry and exit points on the buses, limited stops, and at-grade boarding.” As it’s proposed now — with off-board fare payment and signal priority — the downtown circulator is a step in this direction. But it has yet to be seen whether Chicago will commit to high-performance BRT that sets a precedent for other American cities.

From Boston to Kansas City, U.S. cities tend to implement “BRT-lite,” where the actual benefits fall well short of expectations. Most of this disconnect is due to poor marketing by transit agencies trying to drum up excitement for projects that don’t meet true BRT standards. When the projects deliver less than promised, the reputation of BRT as an effective transit solution suffers.

Chicago has a chance to change this perception and serve as a model for cities nationwide by building a “gold-standard” BRT system, based on the rating system established by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Budgets may be tight, but as Emanuel is showing with his funding plan for the downtown circulator, he’s not afraid to raise new revenues. And BRT’s lower construction costs relative to rail may make it the most realistic way for Chicago to move ahead on expanding its transit network.

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Image: James Yamasaki / The Stranger

Under the headline, “Okay, Fine, It’s War,” Seattle’s The Stranger blog this week published a manifesto “of and by the nondrivers themselves.” They’re sick of being called “militants” for caring about pedestrian safety, and they’re tired of the specter of a “war on cars.”

We heartily recommend that you read the whole thing, but here are some of our favorite parts. Like this, from the first plank of the manifesto: “The car-driving class must pay its own way!”

For cars we have paved our forests, spanned our lakes, and burrowed under our cities. Yet drivers throw tantrums at the painting of a mere bicycle lane on the street. They balk at the mere suggestion of hiking a car-tab fee, raising the gas tax, or tolling to help pay for their insatiable demands, even as downtrodden transit riders have seen fares rise 80 percent over four years.

No more! We demand that car drivers pay their own way, bearing the full cost of the automobile-petroleum-industrial complex that has depleted our environment, strangled our cities, and drawn our nation into foreign wars. Reinstate the progressive motor vehicle excise tax, hike the gas tax, and toll every freeway, bridge, and neighborhood street until the true cost of driving lies as heavy and noxious as our smog-laden air. Our present system of hidden subsidies is the opiate of the car-driving masses; only when it is totally withdrawn will our road-building addiction finally be broken.

They go on to demand better, more expansive transit, safer streets and sidewalks, and traffic calming. And this:

This antagonism [between car driver and nondriver] traces directly to the creation of the modern car driver, a privileged individual who, as noted, is the beneficiary of a long course of subsidies, tax incentives, and wars for cheap oil. But the same subsidies that created this creature (who now rages about the roads while simultaneously screaming of being a victim in some war) can—and must, beginning now—be used to build bike lanes, sidewalks, light rail, and other benefits to the nondriving classes.

That’s the kind of manifesto we can get on board with.

After the manifesto, The Stranger goes on to report on the rising numbers of crashes between cars and cyclists, the violent anti-bike rhetoric being spewed by car drivers that are the  “victims” of some imagined war on cars, the massive disparity between funding for car infrastructure and everything else, and the heroes of the non-driver, beloved both for their advocacy and their tight asses. Read it, read it all.

Minneapolis has dozens of miles of off-street facilities.

Only 11 cities in the U.S. have earned the title of Gold-Level Bicycle Friendly Community from the League of American Bicyclists. In May, Minneapolis joined the select ranks and, last week, the city got a chance to show off its bike progress to a national audience of active transportation advocates and officials.

When Mayor R.T. Rybak took the stage at the Safe Routes to School National Conference, he made it clear that Minneapolis is gunning for Portland, aiming to be the best biking city in the nation. Not surprisingly, many of the 600 attendees were eager to see the anatomy of a gold-level bicycle friendly city firsthand.

The city’s rise is thanks, in part, to the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Project, a program created by the last federal transportation bill that put $25 million in the coffers of four cities to increase bicycling through infrastructure improvements. To showcase the innovations spurred by those dollars, in Minneapolis, Shaun Murphy, the city’s non-motorized transportation coordinator, and Steve Clark, walking and bicycling program manager for Transit for Livable Communities, took Safe Routes participants on a bike tour of some of the completed and in-progress projects.

Drawing largely from Clark’s cheat sheet, here are the “10 Design Solutions that Can Transform your City.”

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Obviously, Tijuana could use some help with their planning. For more images from Rojas' workshop, visit the Latino Urban Forum Flickr Page.

On August 5^th and 6^th I facilitated a high-energy, successful community visioning activity for Camino Verde, a colonia in Tijuana organized by Reacciona Tijuana. This project started as a collaboration between Giacomo Castagnola, architect/artist and myself as part of an urban planning art exhibition being organized in October for the Museum of Latin American Art.

I wanted Castagnola to experience the new method of community engagement for urban planning I developed. Castagnola, based in Tijuana has many colleagues working in the realm of art and social change.  He identified Gabriela Posada del Real as a partner and she identified the project area. The Tijuana colonias are an ideal venue to implement this hands on method of community engagement.

Del Real identified Camino Verde as the project site. She is currently working there with Luis Garzón an artist painting houses and fences. She also has a strong relationships with the women of this community. Camio Verde is an informal neighborhood or colonia in Tijuana that developed along a dry creek similar to LA’s Arroyo Seco.  This creek forms a valley. On both sides of the valley homes and small business have developed along the hillsides.  The roads and houses developed organically embracing the topography shaping a unique landscape.

In the middle of the informal development is the dry river bed which creates a strong sense of place in the community since it proves both physical and visual open space. The major road with buses run along it and commercial business have developed along it.  On the weekend a weekend swapmeet has developed on this road and river bed.

The creek has been channalized with concrete similar to the LA River.  Garbage and graffettii fill the concrete channel, however many children play in it because it provides the only centrally located, flat open space in the hilly landscape.

Tijuana city officials want to cover the concrete river bed and create a much needed park and open space.

Our process was two fold. It was to engage the community in the urban planning process and hear their ideas about the place they live.

Our workshop took place outside on a small concrete soccer field adjacent to the river bed. The women of the community set up tables, chairs and a tarp for shade that was attached to fences on either side.  Four tables were set up in a square with color consruction paper placed on it. The building materials were placed in the middle of the square to allow for easy access.

A participant explains her model.

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Despite the rather obvious link between transportation investments and development patterns, land use planning is simply not a consideration at your average state DOT.

The town of Metuchen is one of New Jersey's "Transit Villages," a program designed to encourage sustainable, transit oriented development. Photo: NJ.com

Most state DOTs — and there are notable exceptions — see their primary responsibility as building highways, never mind that highways are likely to spur outward development, which leads to the need for more highways. What comes after the highways are built is considered by many to be beyond the state transportation agency’s scope.

A decade ago, however, the state of New Jersey — historically a poster child for sprawl — achieved a transportation planning breakthrough. Two administrators at the New Jersey Department of Transportation set out to reverse the whole dynamic. They wanted to make transportation projects more holistic, serving communities rather than subordinating all other concerns to the hallowed cause of car capacity. They wanted to infuse transportation planning with a land use strategy that would minimize costs and environmental impacts.

At the time, the Garden State was rapidly approaching the limits of its developable land. And the standard practice of tackling congestion with more roads just seemed to be a fiscal impossibility, says Jack Lettiere, who led NJDOT from 2002 to 2006.

“We spent tens of millions trying to relieve congestion,” said Lettiere. “The faster we went, the slower we went. People were getting mad at us. Funds were getting low.”

Working with planning director Gary Toth, Lettiere sought to institute a new approach. They created a program within the department called New Jersey Future in Transportation (FIT) and, though later administrations have diluted its impact, the concept remains influential.

At the time, NJDOT was building on a concept, pioneered by the state of Maryland, called “Context Sensitive Solutions.”

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Regular reader and occasional commenter Bob Davis is in Memphis for vacation, doubtless having a great time riding their electric streetcar system.  However, he also sends word that not only does Tennessee have a three-foot passing law for cyclists, but the Volunteer State just made the law more powerful and easier to enforce.  He writes:

Share the Road signs, Tennessee Style.

I was in Memphis TN last week, and found an article about laws that would go into effect in Tennessee on July 1, 2011 (one finds similar articles in many states, and in California, there’s usually such a list just before New Year’s Day).  What’s of interest to Streetsblog readers is that, to quote the [Memphis] Commercial Appeal: “Tennessee’s 2007 law requiring motorists to leave at least three feet between their vehicles and cyclists they pass is expanded by a new law requiring higher standards of care by drivers, and enhanced penalties when bicyclists and pedestrians are hurt or killed in crashes involving motor vehicles.”

Even though I don’t ride a bike, and can still move fairly fast when crossing a street, Streetsblog has raised my consciousness on such matters, and I just wanted to let Angelenos know that progress is being made elsewhere.

If you’re interested, you can read “”Scoffing at Laws Will Pay a Price” at the Commercial Appeal website.  This article should be required reading for Sacramento lawmakers as they debate our own, somewhat watered down, 3-Foot Passing Law.

(In the third installment of our series on bicycling around L.A. County as part of our Bike to Work week coverage, long time reader Michelle Chavez writes about bicycling in the Antelope Valley.  Chavez’s work is really top notch and includes an interview with (which you can read in its entirety here) and a bike commute in one minute in the A.V.  Pay special attention to the road conditions. – DN)

The Antelope Valley covers an immense area 60+ miles north of the City of Los Angeles. Within the valley are 2 large cities with populations above 150,000, Palmdale and Lancaster, and several smaller desert communities.  Politically, the valley is part of 3 different counties — Los Angeles, Kern, and San Bernardino — with most of the population living in Los Angeles County.

Cycling is very popular here as a recreational sport. You can ride only a short distance and find yourself out in the country. On a Saturday or Sunday morning with various cycling clubs or groups, you can go out on a peaceful ride through the countryside with fairly empty roads and gorgeous desert views for miles and miles.  You might experience high winds, but hey, that’s character building.

Caffe Racers on the windy California Aqueduct. (Michele, Brian, Sarge, and Alex)

The flip side of that is that in the city cycling for transportation is more difficult, though not impossible.  The people who laid out the roads here did so on a grid pattern with arterials on a mile and half-mile grid. Most of those arterials have very high speed limits of 50, 55, and even up to 65 mph.  This makes biking challenging, even on the streets that have bike lanes. Read more…

Chicago Mayor-Elect Rahm Emanuel has snapped up Gabe Klein, former head of the District Department of Transportation in Washington, to head up his transportation team in the Windy City.

Gabe Klein helped build a bike-friendlier DC. Now's he's headed to the nation's third-largest city. Photo: Ready Set DC

Klein earned a reputation as a transportation star in the nation’s capital, helping put Washington on the national map as a leading bike- and transit-friendly city. During his tenure, he oversaw the creation of the country’s largest bike sharing system and built DC’s first separated bike lanes. Klein was also instrumental in helping move forward a streetcar system for the District, and under his leadership, the city pursued a wide-ranging parking reform effort [PDF].

The hiring decision signals Emanuel’s commitment to making Chicago a world-class biking city, one of his campaign promises. Emanuel has also made transit the centerpiece of his proposed transportation plan. According to the Washington Post, Klein turned down offers to run state DOTs before accepting Emanuel’s offer.

Klein was ousted in the political shuffle when Vincent Gray took over the Washington mayoralty from Adrian Fenty in the fall. His ascension to the top transportation spot in the nation’s third-largest city is unusual — DOT chiefs rarely leap from one city to another. Emanuel’s decision to hire a well-known DOT leader from another city speaks to the newfound emphasis on transportation policy in urban politics, and the star quality that some innovators in the field have attained.

In a statement on his blog, Klein said he was excited to help make Chicago a leader in progressive transportation planning:

This is an opportunity to continue public service in the 5th largest urban economy in the world, for a leader every bit as reform-minded and results oriented as former DC Mayor Adrian Fenty; to make Chicago an example nationally for innovation in transportation and public space, and most importantly, to positively impact quality of life for the 2.6 million residents of Chi-town.

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All images from the Latino Urban Forum Flickr Page.

(Note: This is the second installment in our four-year series about how Baltimore, Maryland. Our first installment, “Baltimore Getting Serious About Bikes” appeared in May, 2008. – DN)

The Baltimore Interactive model is a thought provoking; birds eye view of this city. The model is designed for the participant to ponder, explore, and participate in creating a vision for this city by moving objects around it.

The six feet by six feet large model captures the city’s majestic rolling hills, and it’s European urban form of small street blocks, narrow streets, and intimate squares adorned with monuments. The five hundred small structures placed on the model add life to the map by adding a third dimension. Like a painting the model illustrates the city’s the beauty and charm in a creative, and graphic presentation.

The model is a condensed version of Baltimore’s center core that begins with Federal Hill to the south and ends at North Avenue to the north. From the east the model begins at Martin Luther King Street and to the west it ends with Little Italy and Greenmont Cemetery.

To facilitate quick recognition of Baltimore the major streets, landmarks such as the Howard Street light rail, Lexington Market, North Avenue Market, Camden Yards, and Penn Station were added and labeled along with geographical features such as the Inner Harbor and Federal Hill which visually define Baltimore’s center. Read more…

The Twin Cities region is reassessing the role of highways in its transportation system.

Minneapolis-St. Paul is investing in a new system of transitways and priced traffic lanes instead of traditional highway expansion. Planners there say the region will never be able to build its way out of congestion with highways.

Like many communities throughout the country, Minneapolis-St. Paul is moving beyond the decades-old assumption that the only way to eliminate congestion is with more outward-stretching asphalt. This fall, officials in the Twin Cities voted to roll back highway expansions and increase access to transit options instead.

Local planners say it’s time to acknowledge that the region simply can’t afford to accommodate growth by building new highways.

“We couldn’t keep going on acting as if we were going to get money to build our way out of congestion,” said Arlene McCarthy, Director of Metropolitan Transportation Services for the Twin Cities Metro Council, which drafted and approved the new plan. “One county alone could easily consume all the money the region has. That’s the reality.”

With vehicle trips expected to increase 35 percent by 2030, regional planners estimate it would cost approximately $40 billion to even attempt to tackle congestion with traditional road projects. But only about $8 billion is expected to be available to the regional planning agency over the next ten years.

The goal of the Twin Cities 2030 Transportation Plan is to maximize the use of existing freeways by adding bus lanes or priced traffic lanes in shoulders wherever possible. The new framework will require increased emphasis on transit and other non-automotive modes.

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