Project for Public Spaces » biking http://www.pps.org Placemaking for Communities Mon, 13 May 2013 20:45:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 Bringing the Benefits of the Urban to the Suburban: An Interview with Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh http://www.pps.org/blog/bringing-the-benefits-of-the-urban-to-the-suburban-an-interview-with-mayor-shing-fu-hsueh/ http://www.pps.org/blog/bringing-the-benefits-of-the-urban-to-the-suburban-an-interview-with-mayor-shing-fu-hsueh/#comments Tue, 28 Aug 2012 18:36:34 +0000 Mina Keyes http://www.pps.org/?p=78987 The Township of West Windsor in Mercer County, New Jersey is home to one of the busiest train stations in the country, US Route 1, and some seriously forward thinking bicycle and pedestrian development. The Township’s Mayor, Shing-Fu Hsueh, spoke with us about successes in making West Windsor more bicycle and pedestrian friendly, and efforts [...]]]>

Mayor Hsueh (left) poses with Jen Laurita of the League of American Bicyclists at BikeFest this past May. / Photo: Shing-Fu Hsueh

The Township of West Windsor in Mercer County, New Jersey is home to one of the busiest train stations in the country, US Route 1, and some seriously forward thinking bicycle and pedestrian development. The Township’s Mayor, Shing-Fu Hsueh, spoke with us about successes in making West Windsor more bicycle and pedestrian friendly, and efforts made by the community to bring together transportation, health, and sense of place. Here’s an example of local government practicing what it preaches, and exemplifying the goals of Pro Walk/Pro Bike® 2012: Pro Place.

 

The circulation element of West Windsor’s Master Plan includes a goal to:  “Create a pedestrian and bikeway system that makes walking and cycling a viable alternative to driving, and which improves bicyclist and pedestrian safety.” But isn’t West Windsor mostly suburban? Why emphasize biking and walking.

We can classify our community as a suburban community, so for people in West Windsor to enjoy all of our communities, walking and bicycling are very important. Our train station, Princeton Junction, is one of the ten busiest train stations in the New Jersey Transit system. On any given day more than 7,000 passengers board there, so  we are trying to bring high-density housing around the station, and encourage biking and walking in this area to minimize the use of vehicles. We are also in the process of developing a town center around the station.

Is there a relationship between Placemaking and land use, and biking and walking? Can either excel without the other?

The reason you have a sense of community and a sense of place is because of people. In West Windsor most of the future projects are private development, whether they be commercial or residential, and they’ll all be required to have a bicycle and pedestrian friendly design to get people out and about. This is what we are focusing on now, policy-wise, and so far we have been moving forward without any difficulty. The program has been received very well.

Can you describe some of the steps West Windsor has taken to improve its biking and walking infrastructure?

I think the first thing is that we have a Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan, the primary emphasis of which is to facilitate transportation improvements for bicyclists and pedestrians. It is also included as part of the municipal master plan. In it we try to identify opportunities and new ideas for extending bicycle paths and sidewalks in different parts of the West Windsor community. Unfortunately, funding for implementation isn’t always readily available, but step-by-step we are getting there. Annually, we have around $200,000 for these projects, and we also look for funding from both the federal and state government. In the last ten years, we’ve met a lot of goals.

West Windsor was one of the early recipients of a bicycle planning grant from the NJ Department of Transportation. How important do you think it is for state and federal agencies to assist communities with creating walkable and bikeable communities?

We used that grant to develop the Bicycle Pedestrian Master Plan.  It’s very critical because without that kind of support it’s extremely difficult for local governments to influence people on the importance of bicycle and pedestrian friendly design. With this grant, new doors have opened up and people have been inspired to become more devoted and come up with new concepts and ideas. If you don’t have that kind of initiative from the state and federal government, at the local level you are not going to have change.

What other kinds of support (non funding) do communities trying to achieve Livability need from state and federal agencies? West Windsor has been working with several NJ state programs, is that correct? Can you describe your relationship with them?

Since the master plan, a group of people has come together to create a nonprofit called the West Winsdor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance, and they have really opened up more opportunities to help the communities in our area. Also, for nine years running we have held the West Windsor Bike Festival; this year we had over 500 participants. I think seeing hundreds of people riding their bicycles really inspires a lot of people.

We also have a very good relationship with NJ DOT, which funded our bike/ped master plan was funded by NJDOT in 2003.

The Princeton Junction station serves as a transportation hub for thousands of commuters every day. / Photo: mtsofan via Flickr

Princeton Junction is one of the busiest train stations, yet there never seems to be enough parking! Can you describe your vision for increasing the viability of biking and walking to the station?

This is one of the reasons I wanted to do a transit  village around the station, for which we have already received official designation from the NJ DOT as the state’s 24th Transit Village. This designation “recognizes and supports West Windsor’s mixed-use development within walking distance of NJ TRANSIT’s Princeton Junction train Station.” The transit bridge is actually the first to be built in a suburban community.

I think this will open up opportunities for turning the whole neighborhoods surrounding the train station (although a lot of people don’t like the terminology, this is the reality) into a new-urbanized area. You really need to encourage high density around a transportation center in order to reduce the use of motor vehicles. Over the past two years, we have already covered the area around the train station with bicycle and pedestrian paths, and one step at a time we are creating more connections in the West Windsor  community to these paths so one day more people can walk or bike to the station.

Have you worked on building connections between mobility and public health interests? Is West Windsor’s Health Department involved at all in your efforts to increase walking and bicycling?

No question about that!  I think that’s one of the problems we have with society: a lot of people living as close as two houses away from their destination choose to drive, and I’d like to change that kind of habit by showing the link between transportation and exercise. Every year, for example, our Health Department personnel  support programs with the Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance to encourage kids to walk to school.

Do you think it’s important for elected officials and municipal employees to attend conferences like Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place?

Yes. The topics being covered at the conference are very much in line with what I am working on right now. I try to build communities that rely less on personally owned vehicles, and can walk and bike to come together for more community events. One example is the annual National Night Out, which we host in our community park where organizations like the Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance partake to provide the public with education. Last year we had over 2,000 people in attendance, and we expect that number to grow this year. We also have a farmers market which always has a stand to promote walking and biking. Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place is an excellent example of community members and experts sharing the knowledge necessary to bring together sustainable transportation, health, and local development, which make towns and cities happier places to live.

 

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For those of you interested in learning more about how to foster great streets and communities, register today for Pro Walk/Pro Bike® 2012: Pro Place, North America’s premier walking and bicycling conference, taking place September 10-13th, 2012 in Long Beach, CA. Join more than 1,000 planners, engineers, elected officials, health professionals, and advocates to gain the insights of national experts in the field, learn about practical solutions to getting bike and pedestrian infrastructure built, and meet peers from across the country.

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/bringing-the-benefits-of-the-urban-to-the-suburban-an-interview-with-mayor-shing-fu-hsueh/feed/ 1 How to Connect Designers & Advocates: An Interview with AASHTO’s John Horsley & Jim McDonnell http://www.pps.org/blog/how-to-connect-designers-advocates-an-interview-with-aashtos-john-horsley-jim-mcdonnell/ http://www.pps.org/blog/how-to-connect-designers-advocates-an-interview-with-aashtos-john-horsley-jim-mcdonnell/#comments Mon, 20 Aug 2012 17:06:16 +0000 Gary Toth http://www.pps.org/?p=78907 AASHTO’s Executive Director, John Horsley, and Program Director for Engineering, Jim McDonnell, joined PPS’s Gary Toth and Mina Keyes for a discussion about the state of the bicycling and walking program and how to make better connections between designers in state, county and city DOTs and bikeped advocates.

John, a native of the Northwest, [...]]]>

AASHTO's John Horsley (above) and Jim McDonnell (below)

AASHTO’s Executive Director, John Horsley, and Program Director for Engineering, Jim McDonnell, joined PPS’s Gary Toth and Mina Keyes for a discussion about the state of the bicycling and walking program and how to make better connections between designers in state, county and city DOTs and bikeped advocates.

John, a native of the Northwest, has been Executive Director of AASHTO since 1999. Before that he was Associate Deputy Secretary of Transportation (1993 to 1999) where he was the DOT’s advocate for intermodal policies and quality of life initiatives. John was elected to five terms as County Commissioner in Kitsap County, a community just west of Seattle. He is a graduate of Harvard, an Army veteran, a former Peace Corps volunteer and Congressional aide.

Jim McDonnell started his career at the North Carolina Department of Transportation, where he served for nine years, the last five as a senior transportation engineer developing the state’s long-range transportation plan. Between NCDOT and AASHTO, he worked for TransCore/SAIC doing transportation planning and traffic engineering studies for a number of state transportation departments. A registered professional engineer in North Carolina, McDonnell has a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from Duke University and finished master’s degree coursework at North Carolina State University. At AASHTO, in addition to providing support to the highway and research committees, Jim has been associated with a number of special teams and projects including the development of the US Bicycle Routes System and the National Partnership for Highway Quality.

John Horsley will be participating in both Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place and the CNU Transportation Summit in Long Beach next month. On September 10th, John will be debating the merits and shortfalls of AASHTO’s Functional Classification System with with Jeff Tumlin of Nelson Nygaard at the CNU summit. The following day (Sept. 11), John will join a lunchtime plenary discussion about future directions for transportation at Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place. He will also be available to PWPB attendees that afternoon at a 4pm Meet the Transportation Insiders session with  Billy Hattaway of the Florida DOT and PPS’s Gary Toth. If you have a question you’d like John to answer that day, please email it to asktheexpert@pps.org.

 

While there are some solid programs out there, in general biking and walking still seem to be on the periphery of a transportation establishment that was groomed to provide high speed travel. Do you see that changing in the 21st Century?

JH: There is growing support for bicycling and walking at the community level, for instance the Safe Routes to Schools program funded by Congressman Jim Oberstar… there are communities around the country that have learned that if they can get more students to walk and bike to school, they can reduce busing costs. We also see the recreational use of bicycling increasing. The grassroots demand is increasing.

The problem I see in addressing bicycling and walking is that since 2008 the bottom has dropped out of the tax base for counties, cities and states. Now they can just barely provide the basics for their existing transportation system with respect to maintenance and preservation, let alone adding facilities.

You indicated that there is leadership at the community level: What about the state DOTs?

JH: If you look at the history of the Transportation Enhancement Program, it has been remarkable how much bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure has been funded. Every dollar of the $6.2 billion allocated for bicycle and pedestrian facilities over the last 10 years has been invested by the states. States like California, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington have each spent more than $200 million on bike-ped projects. Smaller states have invested a lot as well. Most of that came from the Enhancement Program.

Those numbers are impressive, but will the cutbacks in the most recent bill affect bikeped investment?

JH: Let me share a couple of numbers on the program to put things in perspective. The average funding over the course of SAFETEA-LU from 2005 to 2010 came to $854 million a year (if you add it all up and divide by five). In the new bill, the transportation alternatives program will get about $814 million a year, and until all of the details are fleshed out, it is unclear how deep of a cut it is. However, the T4A suggestion that this represents a 1/3 cut may be fair. Since states are now allowed to opt out of 50% of the funding, the challenge will be to develop a strategy to convince DOTs that that 50% will indeed be better spent on biking and walking than the other important uses that they could spend funding on. This goes back to the point I made earlier that governments at all levels are facing challenges in funding basic program needs. Every facet of transportation: preservation, capacity, biking, walking will all have to compete for funding.”

Did the Transportation Enhancement Program mandate that all of its funding go to bikeped?

JH: Bicycling and walking, as I recall, got a little more than 50% of the TE funds. Scenic beautification, rail-trails, and historic preservation also received significant funding.

Will we see you in Long Beach?

JH: Make friends with staff at the state DOTs. The fact is, state DOTs plan, design and build, I would say about 1/3 of the infrastructure in the country. The development of bicycling infrastructure, especially for long distances, is not going to happen unless the DOTs think their communities want it.

JM: A lot of advocates already know their bikeped coordinators well. In addition, many State DOT bikeped coordinators rely on volunteer help within local communities to do their jobs more effectively. Advocates understand the local wants and needs of their communities and can be a resource of information to the State DOTs.

Can you elaborate a little more on what you mean by “make friends”? Do you see room for improvement?

JH: I’ll start by sharing what is going on in Missouri. Kevin Keith, Secretary of MoDOT, has been leading bike rides because he believes the bicycling constituency is important. There are some advocacy groups that think that they can make progress by beating up on states, demonizing states, but that will get you absolutely nowhere. Finding ways to collaborate and cooperate is the way to go.

So, do you see more and more state DOTs recognizing that bikeped is an important constituency?

JH: Let me share an anecdote. Two years ago, the President directed federal agencies to seek suggestions on regulations that were outdated or outmoded. AASHTO suggested that the requirement that DOTs write up justifications for not including bikeped facilities on every project be eliminated, as it was becoming a paperwork nightmare. As a result of this suggestion, State DOT CEOs were buried in emails, tweets, all levels of communications ripping them apart, saying “What is AASHTO thinking? Tell them to shape up!” Within days, I received at least a dozen calls from CEOs asking AASHTO to retract that suggestion, so we took it off the table. Instead, we sought to work through the issue with bikeped leaders such as Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists. AASHTO and the DOTs have learned the importance of the bikeped constituency and won’t take them lightly again.

Do you think there are places where biking and walking can achieve meaningful mode shares, such as downtown Portland which anticipates achieving 10% of commuting trips soon?

JH: We see numbers of that scale in many cities around Europe, but it is a rarity to see numbers of that scale in the US. This is probably a result of the lack of density and a scarcity of facilities. I went to the Velo Mondiale conference in Amsterdam in 2000, which was the first time I saw the network of bikepaths they have in urban Amsterdam… they have facilities all over the place that make bikes a viable alternative. We are still a long way away from that here.

JM: We shouldn’t just focus on infrastructure, though. In Washington, DC, for example, the Capital Bikeshare program is an effort that seems to have contributed more to bicycling in the city—and for a lot less money—than making improvements to the infrastructure itself. I have seen an increasing number of the red Bikeshare bicycles being ridden throughout the city by commuters and others, which demonstrates to me that there is latent demand… We have to be creative to find the best ways to accommodate people and to provide them with a choice, including supporting the entrepreneurial spirit that ignited the bikeshare program in the first place

JH: The DC Bikeshare program was the brainchild of Gabe Klein, the previous director of transportation in DC; Gabe is now the Director of Transportation for the City of Chicago.

You have long recognized and promoted the importance of land use in making transportation “work”. How does that transfer to biking and walking? What is the role of Placemaking?

JH: Studies show that we can’t sustain the current pattern in this country developing in low densities and sprawling, while continuing to provide transportation infrastructure that can keep up with the demand. I was working on this 20 years ago when I was a county official, to concentrate development in existing centers. If we can get the land use regulators, developers and transportation folks to work together collaboratively, they’ll naturally come up with community design that is bikeped and transit friendly. Unfortunately, every time data comes out, we find that our communities are still growing in the same old way; we still have a lot of work to do.

Moving forward, if we create greater density, the grid pattern, there will be more and more room for bicycling and walking as an alternative. This allows you to get to your destinations more readily as opposed to the cul de sac approach, which makes it difficult to get anywhere without a car.

Would you say that all of the needed collaborative efforts are part of the role of Placemaking?

JH: The beauty of what PPS does is that you guys add heart and soul to the design. The activities that result when you have a sense of place—when you have communities designed around a sense of place—create vibrant centers that draw people to live there, recreate there, shop there. This is the heart of soul of communities: creating a sense of place that encourages people to walk.

How do you see biking and walking infrastructure playing out in rural states, particularly in rural centers?

JH: Let’s take a state like Vermont, which is not only one of the most beautiful states around, it’s also one that takes quality of life very seriously. Their Agency of Transportation takes walking and bicycling seriously—they work with their villages to create centers. In other states, you are seeing villages embracing walking and bicycling as part of creating and maintaining a rural sense of community, for example, in Missoula, Montana.

Rural economies that used to depend on mining and agriculture are turning to a new economy: recreation … so the amenities that rural communities provide for bicycling, walking, and fishing are critical. Of the $500 to $700 billion that is spent on recreation, a good deal of it is spent in rural America.

Click here to download AASHTO's "The Road to Livability"

As we watch this whole process of advocating for more livable places playing out, we do see rural places doing some of this stuff; yet there seems to be confusion about what livability is all about. Could this be a communication/framing issue?

JH: Unfortunately, in some quarters, the livability initiative is sometimes perceived as a conspiracy to restrict people from being able to use their cars. If the message is not stated clearly, rural places like South Dakota might think that such programs will ensure that rural America does not get any transportation funding. The message comes across as elitist and has had a tendency to alienate rural America from the livability movement. As we move forward, we have to take care that folks who are passionate about bicycling and walking don’t come across as dismissing good highway and street design as legitimate and necessary for a healthy rural economy.

With that said, things are changing within transportation. When I worked in the Clinton Administration, transportation had little to do with human beings. This led us to develop initiatives like the Transportation and Community and System Preservation Program. The recent AASHTO publication, The Road to Livability, shows a baker’s dozen ways that good infrastructure investment, including bicycling and walking, contributes to livability.

Can you talk about the AASHTO Bike Guide and how it might (or might not) fit in for designers using the Green Book?

JM: The AASHTO bike guide was developed as a companion to the AASHTO Green Book and the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). There is alignment between these publications to ensure that the guides would complement each other and could be used in collaboration with each other.

The Green Book is not an easy book to follow. Depending on one’s skill on how to use it, it can be the source of good or evil from the community’s perspective. Can you talk about how the Bike Guide might be written to help ensure that it is interpreted to achieve the best and balanced outcomes?

JM: The Green Book is written for transportation engineers. It’s a technical reference manual that provides the parameters within which an engineer can design a safe and effective facility. However, it is not a cookbook, and there is a significant amount of flexibility inherent in the ranges of values that can be used for various design decisions. It is intended to be flexible to accommodate the wide range of situations that a designer might face, and the preface and introductory chapters of the Green Book talk extensively about the flexibility that is promoted within the design guidelines.

The Bike Guide is an extension of the Green Book, as it contains additional detail specifically related to the design and operation of bicycle facilities and how they interact with on-road and off-road networks.   The two guides are meant to be used in coordination with each other. This is the fourth edition of the Bike Guide, and it was created based on a lot of research conducted over the past several years, including surveys of the bike community on what they felt was needed in the update. Numerous NCHRP research projects contributed to the Guide, in addition to expert opinion from practitioners around the country. Staff from state DOTs, local governments, academia, and the bicycle community contributed.

We acknowledge that the Green Book has language in the preface encouraging flexibility. However, most designers use it like a cook book, and go right to the tables and skip reading the preface and introduction.

The Green Book and the Bike Guide both have a lot of useful information to give designers what they need to incorporate bicycle facilities appropriately into transportation projects, and provides them with the background knowledge needed to design correctly. For example, the Bike Guide includes fundamental information about the appropriate “design vehicle” for a bikeped facilities to ensure that it is designed for safe operation—it may or may not be a bike; it could be a rollerblader, it could be a bike pulling a trailer. In addition, we have more than doubled the size of the Bike Guide in the latest edition. It has a lot of information that designers and engineers will recognize from a design and safety perspective, such as calculations of the sight distance needed for a bicyclist to come to a stop safely. These guides provide the tools for engineers and designers, who are probably traditionally more used to designing roads, to really understand how they can incorporate bicycle facilities into their designs. And it is in a language that they will understand and feel comfortable with.

We are now doing a second print of the Bike Guide because it’s selling so well.

Is there a way that Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place and the National Center for Biking and Walking can help spread the word about the guide, or assist with its implementation and acceptance?

JM: The bike guide can be the connection between the advocates and the DOT engineers who have been doing traditional geometric design for years. It allows these two groups to talk to each other using a common language. It could also help advocates learn how to be better understood by the State DOT engineers by being able to talk to them in a language they’ll understand.

JH: Logically, if you have spent 99% of your time designing roads for gas and diesel powered vehicles that are much faster and much heavier, you are just not schooled in the principles that are extensively articulated in the Bike Guide. It is enormously helpful to designers to have this new area of knowledge expressed in terms that they’re familiar with and by an Association that they trust. From the perspective of our members, it would be doubly helpful if the Bike Guide became a common framework for use by the advocates in talking to those who are doing the designs at the county, state and city levels.

This is great, because the Green Book is difficult, even for designers to pick up and interpret what it is telling you to do. It really is not user friendly.

JH: Let me tell you a story from my past as a County Commissioner. I had a “green” waterfront community come to me and ask us to build a bike path along a seven mile stretch of road from an arterial and into the community. So I asked our Chief Engineer to lay out bike lanes on the road. The next thing I heard, the community was up in arms because the designers had staked out an alignment that would have eliminated a tree canopy that had been growing there for a hundred years, and that had defined the character of the road and the entrance into this glorious waterfront and recreational community. So a landscape architect stepped in and brokered an alignment that works for the community, the bicyclists, and the engineers. You need someone who understands both the flexibility of the Green Book and how you can achieve aesthetic, as well as geometric, objectives.

Do you have any closing thoughts for our audience?

JH: Develop relationships with state DOT professionals; this is the best way to achieve the goals of Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place. State DOT employees are hard working people who care as much about communities in their real lives as anyone else. Show the professionals good examples of wonderful sense of place to motivate them to achieve goals for the common good of the entire community.

 

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For those of you interested in learning more about how to foster great streets and communities, register today for Pro Walk/Pro Bike® 2012: Pro Place, North America’s premier walking and bicycling conference, taking place September 10-13th, 2012 in Long Beach, CA. Don’t forget to send questions that you have for John Horsley to asktheexpert@pps.org.

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/how-to-connect-designers-advocates-an-interview-with-aashtos-john-horsley-jim-mcdonnell/feed/ 2 How Walking and Biking Add Value to Your Community and Change the System: An Interview with John Norquist http://www.pps.org/blog/how-walking-and-biking-add-value-to-your-community-and-change-the-system-an-interview-with-john-norquist/ http://www.pps.org/blog/how-walking-and-biking-add-value-to-your-community-and-change-the-system-an-interview-with-john-norquist/#comments Tue, 10 Jul 2012 20:33:19 +0000 Mina Keyes http://www.pps.org/?p=78417 Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place keynote speaker John Norquist, who currently serves as the President and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism, spoke with us recently about the role and responsibility of decision makers, what urbanists need to learn, and what CNU’s 2012 Transportation Summit—immediately preceding Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro [...]]]>

CNU's John Norquist

Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place keynote speaker John Norquist, who currently serves as the President and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism, spoke with us recently about the role and responsibility of decision makers, what urbanists need to learn, and what CNU’s 2012 Transportation Summit—immediately preceding Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place on September 9-10 in Long Beach—means for the conference this year. Before joining CNU, John served as the Mayor of Milwaukee, WI, from 1988-2004; in 1998, John was named one of Governing magazine’s Public Officials of the Year.

Following the interview, we’ve put together a list of related PWPB:PP panel discussions. This year’s conference will take place in Long Beach, CA, from September 10-13. Early registration rates are available through this Thursday, July 12th—so don’t delay!

 

How does biking and walking contribute to, and fit into a great street?

You can’t have a prosperous neighborhood where people can engage in social interaction and converse if they have to drive everywhere. If you can accommodate biking and walking, you’re much more likely to have social interaction, social equity, and a high performing real estate market — it all comes together. If you have a walkable environment, people that aren’t wealthy and those who are, actually end up in the same proximity. They interact, and it strengthens the culture, the economy, and the outcomes that you get.

Can you tell us some of what was happening when you were Mayor of Milwaukee?

The Functional Classification System needs to be entirely reevaluated. In certain rural contexts, it makes sense, but applying it to urban contexts doesn’t. For example, Greenwich Village is rated F (lowest) based on congestion. It’s congested with people who want to be there! They’re buying stuff, and creating jobs, and creating art. It’s a completely non-context sensitive classification that rates Greenwich Village an F. And that’s what gave rise to the CNU/ITE jointly-produced Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach. It’s a recommended practice that illustrates how to implement mixed-use streets.

Some environmentalists blame the road lobby for selfishly seeking financial gain by supporting highway expenditures and opposing money for bicycle and transit infrastructure. Actually, all contractors have to be a little selfish, or they would go out of business. What the road lobby needs to realize is that can make money by building lots of streets, alleys and sidewalks. Did you know there are more miles of streets in metropolitan Chicagoland than the whole interstate system? The idea that somehow the road building industry should be appalled by being asked to design streets to include cyclists is strange. There’s a lot of pavement to be laid for bus and bike lanes. Pavement is ok as long as it adds value to the community where it’s placed. That’s what the road builders need to learn.

As mayor, John pushed for the removal of Milwaukee's Park East freeway spur, which is now being re-developed as a mixed-use neighborhood / Photo: Paul Hohmann via Flickr

 

How can we help the development and real estate sectors recognize the return on investing in Active Living by Design?

Mixed-use walkable communities are performing much better in the real estate market right now than communities that are auto-centric. The return on value per acre is much higher in walkable urban environments. We have a lot of land in the United States, but land that’s convenient to where the people are is a limited commodity. For developers, it’s a natural fit for them to be able to have more intense development in urban real estate. If everyone’s relying on cars, you have to accommodate all those vehicles by using up land with parking facilities, and surface lots that are not only expensive, but ugly. Developers have a lot of reasons to embrace a more walkable development pattern but it’s hard for them because many government policies obstruct them.

The Functional Classification System that is still the core of the AASHTO Green Book and DOTs all over the country encourages oversized roads and auto-centricity. Then there are Federal policies including those issued by the Federal Housing Administration that are pushing separate use zoning through their mortgage and capital programs that assign high risk to buildings that include both housing and retail. [Editor's Note:  John notes that Shaun Donovan and HUD are aware of this and are trying to make changes.] That really undermines the ability of developers to produce the kind of urban walkable environment that people increasingly want. What can be done on a small scale to shift that? Make a case to local officials that neighborhoods with both housing and amenities such as retail create a stronger tax base for local governments. Compact, well-connected neighborhoods with sidewalks are great for bikers, and even those who don’t ride bikes benefit from stronger communities.

At Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place we are aiming to broaden how people think about biking and walking by bringing together architects, urbanists, and people in transportation. Can you talk about the collaboration between these disciplines and what you hope for the future?

Whether you’re an architect, engineer or designer, you should aim for the triple bottom line where you have environmental, economic, and social benefits. Block sizes and intersection density, these are some of the issues that have a profound effect on these benefits. If you have a well-connected grid of streets, you’ve created an environment where somebody who needs a job has a much better chance of connecting socially and economically; whether they’re working a great job, or marginal job, at least they’re around money.

But when you have a disconnected, auto-centric grid like the one they’ve created in Detroit over the last 60 years…you can see the outcome. The city’s transit system is almost nonexistent.  If you look at the poorest neighborhoods in NYC, in the Bronx, because of a fabulously well-connected city grid and transit system, someone living there can be at Wall Street, the district with the highest job density per acre in North America, in just 35 minutes for a $2.25 transit fare. The money’s in the middle instead of being dispersed out in enclaves, and that gives people chances. This type of street grid and transit also fosters walking and biking.

What do you think New Urbanists need to learn?

They need to embrace and appreciate bicycling more and more. Bicycling is an important catalyst to move communities toward an urbanism that is ecologically sound and economically productive. The bicyclists are the ones who often bring pressure for change in transportation the more they take over the more the good things happen. Those interested in cities need to appreciate them more as bicycling is very compatible with everything that is urban. We ought to promote it even more than we already do.

What is a message you’d like to promote at Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place?

The Functional Classification System needs to be entirely reevaluated. In certain rural contexts, it makes sense, but applying it to urban contexts doesn’t. For example, Greenwich Village is rated F (lowest) based on congestion. It’s congested with people who want to be there! They’re buying stuff, and creating jobs, and creating art. It’s a completely non-context sensitive classification that rates Greenwich Village an F. And that’s what gave rise to the CNU/ITE jointly-produced Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach. It’s a recommended practice that illustrates how to implement mixed-use streets.

Some environmentalists blame the road lobby for selfishly seeking financial gain by supporting highway expenditures and opposing money for bicycle and transit infrastructure. Actually, all contractors have to be a little selfish, or they would go out of business. What the road lobby needs to realize is that can make money by building lots of streets, alleys and sidewalks. Did you know there are more miles of streets in metropolitan Chicagoland than the whole interstate system? The idea that somehow the road building industry should be appalled by being asked to design streets to include cyclists is strange. There’s a lot of pavement to be laid for bus and bike lanes. Pavement is ok as long as it adds value to the community where it’s placed. That’s what the road builders need to learn.

Can you tell us a little bit about the plans for CNU’s 2012 Transportation Summit this year?

We have some of the most forward thinking transportation experts who are really serious about challenging the norm in transportation. We’re not interested in talking about this stuff forever; we want to change the system now. It’s not about changing a legislature in Congress that changes a funding budget; the goal is to fundamentally change transportation so that it becomes about adding value instead of just moving vehicles.

I think the Summit being held at the same venue as PWPB:PP will lead to a really effective cross-fertilization that leads to a higher level of achievement. Our goals are to change the functional classification system, that’s too focused on creating capacity for motor vehicles. Any road built in a city should accommodate walking and biking. Period. We all need to raise our expectations, and demand more. We need to push, and we can win!  No more car right of ways in cities that don’t have accommodations for bikers and walkers!

 

Suggested PWPB:PP Panel Sessions:
(For the full list, click here)

Panel 1: Advocacy Campaigns for Better Bikeways

Learn how advocacy campaigns at Chicago’s Active Transportation Alliance and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are educating and organizing residents and allies to move bikeways projects forward

Panel 4: Innovative Public Engagement for Pedestrian and Bicycle Planning: Engaging the Community Using New Technologies, and Sustaining Momentum

Learn how to engage oft-underrepresented community members in the planning process, utilize cutting-edge engagement tools and mobile workshops, and foster public dialogue about the role of walking and bicycling in a community.

Panel 18: Times Change, People Change, Needs Change

Learn how designers must continue to update their conceptual approaches and their detailed designs to reflect current values, new techniques, and the discoveries of recent research.

Panel 21: Bikeway Design Details: Small Facilities, Large Issues

In this session, a qualified panel of experts will describe some of the unique problems they faced in bikeway design, their approach to finding solutions, and will share their knowledge and procedures with others.

Panel 42: The Power of the Performance Metric–Getting your Jurisdiction Back on Track

This session describes a collaborative effort to calculate new metrics for the City of Los Angeles. The process sheds light on how complicated and multidimensional the transportation system is, and on the power of outsiders to change it.

Panel 44: Congressional Action on Transportation: What it Means for You

Learn the latest developments in Congress on the transportation bill, the impact on bicycling and walking on the ground, and lessons learned about effectively communicating the benefits of bicycling and walking.

Mobile Workshop 68: Improving Bicycle and Pedestrian Access to Transit

This session will explore ways in which improved multi-modal access to transit has helped reshape communities regardless of their size or local economic conditions.

 

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For those of you interested in learning more about how to foster great streets, register for Pro Walk/Pro Bike® 2012: Pro Place, North America’s premier walking and bicycling conference, taking place September 10-13th, 2012 in Long Beach, CA. Join more than 1,000 planners, engineers, elected officials, health professionals, and advocates to gain the insights of national experts in the field, learn about practical solutions to getting bike and pedestrian infrastructure built, and meet peers from across the country. Register before Thursday, July 12th, to receive the discounted earlybird rate!

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/how-walking-and-biking-add-value-to-your-community-and-change-the-system-an-interview-with-john-norquist/feed/ 6 Bridging the Gap Between Transportation & Community Health http://www.pps.org/blog/bridging-the-gap-between-transportation-community-health/ http://www.pps.org/blog/bridging-the-gap-between-transportation-community-health/#comments Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:07:49 +0000 Mina Keyes http://www.pps.org/?p=78157 While serving as Senior Program Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kate Kraft contributed to setting up the successful New Jersey FIT: Future In Transportation program at the New Jersey Department of Transportation.  She currently works as a Community Health and Wellness Consultant and  serves on the board of the

Kate Kraft

While serving as Senior Program Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kate Kraft contributed to setting up the successful New Jersey FIT: Future In Transportation program at the New Jersey Department of Transportation.  She currently works as a Community Health and Wellness Consultant and  serves on the board of the Rails-toTrails-Conservancy.  Kate is an expert on community health, Active Living, and behavior change. She spoke with us at PPS about her views on biking and walking and where she feels the future of community health and transportation are headed.

Kate has been actively working to bridge the gap between transportation policy and community health since before a common-sense link existed between the two. She remembers the creation of this linkage happening between the late 1990s-early 2000s when, she says, “it was time to re-engineer activity back into our lives by changing the environment in order increase physical activity for health benefits. We had engineered activity out of our lives, so routine physical activity was no longer there.”

This began with what Kate describes as the analytical process between her and her public health colleagues. “Based upon what we knew about changing behavior,” she recalls, “we needed to change the environment in order to have a sustained behavior change. We started working with urban planners and transportation engineers to really focus on ‘How do you create an infrastructure toward walking and biking not only for leisure, but for transportation?’ And with that, we found this wonderful world of pedestrian advocates and biking advocates who, for years, had been trying to get safer walking and biking facilities.”

Such an endeavor, of course, met with immediate challenges. Before the early 2000s, Kate notes, the built environment, “was pretty much out of the mainstream idea in the health field because the health field was used to a different way of thinking about how you address problems.”  Now however, she points out that, “every community, and every public health department now recognizes that in order to address  health and manage obesity, we have to have an environment that’s conducive to routine physical activity, such as walking and biking for transport, not just exercise classes.”

This knowledge and understanding can be attributed to what Kate acknowledges is, “one of the things we have now that we did not have a few years ago: some evidence base about particular design characteristics and built form that really support more activity levels.”  Another, and perhaps more difficult challenge to work with is policy changes: “What is going to be key for the future is translating that evidence into action, and in this case the action has to do with policy changes.  Policy changes are going to have to happen in an environment at a time when there are real economic challenges in this country.  There is real concern about the condition of transportation funds.”

Kate emphasized that one of the most important things in creating more walkable and bikeable communities is that, “we have to be very deliberate to make sure we aren’t creating pockets of elitism.  If you’re not deliberate about bringing in underserved communities, it won’t happen. Ongoing collaboration between planning and transportation must keep in mind community fairness and equity. Working in low-income urban communities, and bringing in bike/ped programs has to be a part of economic development.”

While she recognizes that this is challenging in the face of other seemingly more urgent urban issues such as job security, housing, and education, Kate points out that these social issues are inextricably linked to health and transportation. “It is really about moving from a culture where we think having a walkable and bikeable community is only for the privileged; from that being a ‘nice thing to have,’ to a necessary thing to have.”  This, while perhaps most important, is what may be most challenging.

Examples of Healthy Places, where the relationship between infrastructure and health in the urban context are evolving, are sprouting up around the country.  One city that is proving to be an excellent example of what Kate advocates for is Seattle.  Active Seattle, an Active Living by Design program, works to “increase physical activity and healthy eating through community design” in five communities within the city.  It has conducted neighborhood walking audits, identified problem sidewalk areas which were repaired and enhanced by the Seattle Department of Transportation, and provided active living education to physicians in low-income health clinics through a series of orientations for medical providers to name a few of the program’s endeavors.

Active Seattle’s Placmaking success is due in large part to the engagement of a mix of stakeholders, including community members, decision makers, and government agencies.  This inclusive approach, vital to creating place in community, has shifted the way government funding is processed.  The program successfully advocated for $875,000 in the mayor’s 2006 budget for sidewalk construction and $1.8 million for supplemental crosswalk and sidewalk improvements.  The actions taken by Active Seattle align nicely with what Kate sees as, “an opportunity rather than a challenge: the ongoing collaboration of different disciplines.”

When asked why it’s important for health practitioners to add their voices to the growing discussion about how to create healthier communities, Kate notes that, “public health operates from a science base, which needs to be used in decision-making; doctors need to be vocal about activities’ impact on the public’s health.” She also underscores the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration again by pointing out that, “Conferences like Pro Walk/Pro Bike bring together advocates and practitioners so that they can share good ideas, expand their thinking, and cultivate the networks they need to be good advocates for bringing health into that mix.”

Kate’s optimism is a testament to the work she says has, “come a really long way in a short amount of time.” Coming from someone inside the health profession, this should be encouraging to everyone working to advocate for Healthy Places!

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/bridging-the-gap-between-transportation-community-health/feed/ 0 How “Small Change” Leads to Big Change: Social Capital and Healthy Places http://www.pps.org/blog/how-small-change-leads-to-big-change-social-capital-and-healthy-places/ http://www.pps.org/blog/how-small-change-leads-to-big-change-social-capital-and-healthy-places/#comments Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:03:36 +0000 Project for Public Spaces http://www.pps.org/?p=78014 According to Dr. Richard Jackson, a pioneering public health advocate and former CDC official now serving as the Chair of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA, the idea that buildings, streets, and public spaces play a key role in the serious public health issues that we face in the US “has undergone a profound sea change [...]]]>

Families peruse stands offering a variety of fresh foods at a farmers market in downtown Milwaukee / Photo: Ethan Kent

According to Dr. Richard Jackson, a pioneering public health advocate and former CDC official now serving as the Chair of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA, the idea that buildings, streets, and public spaces play a key role in the serious public health issues that we face in the US “has undergone a profound sea change in the past few years. It’s gone from sort of a marginal, nutty thing to becoming something that’s common sense for a lot of people.”

That’s good news, but as a profile of Dr. Jackson in the Chronicle of Higher Education notes, today’s click-driven media climate means that the message of public health advocates like Jackson is “often pithily condensed to a variation of this eye-catching headline: ‘Suburbia Makes You Fat.’” And while these pithily-titled articles may do some good in alerting more people to the problems inherent in the way that we’ve been designing our cities and towns for the past half-century, they oversimplify the message and strip out one of the most important factors in any effort to change the way that we shape the places where we live and work: social capital.

Highways, parking lots, cars, big box stores–these are merely symptoms of a larger problem: many people have become so used to their surroundings looking more like a suburban arterial road than a compact, multi-use destination that they’ve become completely disconnected from Place. Real life is lived amongst gas stations and golden arches; we have to visit Disneyland to see a thriving, compact Main Street. To question a condition that’s so pervasive, as individuals, seems futile.

Bikers and walkers chat at a market in Portland, OR / Photo: npGREENWAY via Flickr

That’s why, if we want to see people challenging the way that their places are made on a larger scale, we need to focus first on developing the loose social networks that are so vital to urban resilience. This is the stuff Jane Jacobs was talking about when she wrote, in the Death and Life of Great American Cities, that “lowly, unpurposeful, and random as they appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city’s wealth of public life must grow.” When people are connected enough to feel comfortable talking about what they want for their neighborhood with their neighbors, it’s much easier to muster political will to stop, say, a highway from cutting through Greenwich Village–or, in contemporary terms, to tear down a highway that was actually built.

In Dr. Jackson’s words: “The key thing is to get the social engagement. Community-building has to happen first; people need to articulate what’s broke, and then what they want.” Serendipitously, gathering to discuss a vision for a healthier future is an ideal way to build the social capital needed to turn the understanding that our built environment is hurting us into action to change the existing paradigm. At PPS, we have seen first-hand how the Placemaking process has brought people together in hundreds of cities around the world with the goal of improving shared public spaces; it’s a process that strengthens existing ties, creates new ones, and invigorates communities with the knowledge of how they can make things happen.

The Healthy Places Program (HPP), which began last year as a collaboration between staff members working in PPS’s Public Markets and Transportation programs. “There are many different elements that make up a healthy community,” says Aurash Khawarzad, an Associate in PPS’s Transportation division, and a key player in getting HPP off the ground. “There are social factors, environmental factors, etc–and what we at PPS can do is take these people in our offices who are focusing on their own areas and bring them together.”

Aurash Khawarzad leads a Healthy Places workshop in upstate New York / Photo: PPS

With that collaborative mission in mind, Khawarzad and Kelly Verel, a Senior Associate in PPS’s Public Markets division, set out on a trip across New York last fall to facilitate a series of day-long Healthy Places workshops with local, regional, and state public health officials and a host of community partners. In partnership with the New York Academy of Medicine’s DASH-NY, the PPS team visited a range of communities, from rural towns, to suburban stretches, to major and mid-sized cities. The workshops were designed to help participants understand how multi-modal transportation systems can be better designed to create a network that links a series of destinations, including healthy food hubs and markets, to create a built environment that promotes well-being by making healthy lifestyle choices (like walking, biking, and eating fresh food) more convenient and fun. They focused not just on what wasn’t working, but on brainstorming ways that participants’ communities could become truly healthy places.

Any expert worth their salt will tell you that maintaining good health is not just about exercise or diet, but both together. In much the same way, addressing the problem of bad community design and its impacts on Public Health requires that we not just promote better transportation or better food access alone, but that we focus on both simultaneously. “The reaction we got from the the Healthy Places training attendees was really good,” notes Verel. “I think people have been really siloed in their efforts. We would ask people what they were doing and they would say ‘access to food in schools,’ or ‘rails to trails,’ and that they focus exclusively on that area.”

Understanding public health within the context of Place is essential, because the problems created and reinforced by our built environment are so broad in scope. HPP takes that case directly to local decision-makers and creates a learning environment where they can build their understanding of how Place effects health together, in a cross-disciplinary setting. This “silo-busting” is absolutely critical; as Dr. Jackson writes in the introduction to his latest book, Designing Healthy Communities (a companion to the four-part PBS special of the same name):

“For too long we have had doctors talking only to doctors, and urban planners, architects, and builders talking only to themselves. The point is that all of us, including those in public health, have got to get out of the silos we have created, and we have got to connect—actually talk to each other before and while we do our work—because there is no other way we can create the environment we want. Public health in particular must be interdisciplinary, for no professional category owns public health or is legitimately excused from it.”

The emphasis, there, is added, as this phrase strike at the heart of the problem we face. To shift the default development model from “low-density, use-segregated, and auto-centric” to one that promotes healthy, active lifestyles and more vibrant communities will take strong leadership from people who aren’t afraid to work across departments, and “turn everything upside-down to get it right side up.” PPS is certainly not the only organization to recognize this, and we’re thrilled to be part of a growing movement. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has its own Healthy Community Design Initiative program. Internationally, Urban Age made designing for public health the subject of a major conference in Hong Kong held late last year (from which a full report is now available).

New bike lanes are just one part of Pro Walk / Pro Bike: "Pro Place" host city Long Beach, CA's strategy to become "Biketown USA" / Photo: waltarrrrr via Flickr

Of course, individual citizens have hardly been waiting around and twiddling their thumbs. Active transportation, healthy food, and community gardening advocates have been working for decades on the ground, pushing for incremental changes to the way our cities and towns operate. Just through the robust conversations taking place online around issues like #completestreets, #biking, and #urbanag, it’s easy to see how well-organized and resonant these movements have become. Mounting public awareness is pushing more public officials toward programs like HPP, to learn about how focusing on Place can facilitate inter-agency collaboration around the common cause of improving public health.

Whether you’re looking at this issue from the top-down or the bottom-up, there will be several opportunities to gather with active transportation and public markets professionals, advocates, and enthusiasts from around the world this fall for debate, discussion, and more of that vital social capital development. As part of the Healthy Places Program, PPS is hosting two conferences, just one week apart: the 17th Pro Walk / Pro Bike: “Pro Place” conference in Long Beach, CA (Sept. 10-13); and the 8th International Public Markets Conference in Cleveland, OH (Sept. 21-23).

Cleveland, which will host the 8th International Public Markets Conference in September, is home to the historic, bustling West Side Market / Photo: Catherine V via Flickr

If you’re approaching Healthy Places from the transportation world, Pro Walk / Pro Bike (#prowalkprobike) will explore how efforts to advocate for safer and better infrastructure for active transportation modes are being greatly enhanced as more and more people learn about the benefits of getting around on their own two feet (with or without pedals). If you’re more of a “foodie,” the Public Markets conference (#marketsconf8) will highlight the burgeoning local food scene in Cleveland and throughout Northeastern Ohio, and will spotlight the iconic West Side Market, arguably the most architecturally significant market building in the US. Both events will focus on how supporters of active transportation and public markets, respectively, can grow their movements by busting down silos and thinking h0listically about how their chosen cause can be part of the effort to create Healthy Places.

If you can’t make it to Long Beach or Cleveland, there are plenty of Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper steps that you can take to get your neighbors together and talking, out in public space, building local connections. “Something like a playstreet or a summer street shows people that, not only do they like this kind of varied activity and flexibility and want more of it in their community’s streets, but that they can actually make it happen,” Verel explains. “It takes more basic manpower–putting up tents, handing out flyers–than actual lobbying or money to get the DOT to shut down a street for one day and focus on social interaction and healthy activity.”

And you can start even smaller than that. PPS mentor Holly Whyte once wrote that “We are not hapless beings caught in the grip of forces we can do little about, and wholesale damnations of our society only lend a further mystique to organization. Organization has been made by man; it can be changed by man.” If our problem is that we have become siloed and isolated, at work and in our neighborhoods, then the most immediate way for us to start re-organizing is to reach out to the people around us, with something as simple as a friendly “hello” on the street. An interaction like this might seem ‘lowly, unpurposeful, and random’–but at the very least, it will make you feel happier and more connected to your community. And guess what? That’s good for you, too.

So, here’s to your health!

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Click here to register for Pro Walk / Pro Bike: “Pro Place”
(Early Summer rate available until June 29)

Click here to register for the 8th International Public Markets Conference
(Early bird rate available until July 31)
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A Playstreet-style fundraiser for cicLAvia in Los Angeles / Photo: waltarrrrr via Flickr

 

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/how-small-change-leads-to-big-change-social-capital-and-healthy-places/feed/ 7 More Great Movies for Placemakers http://www.pps.org/blog/more-great-movies-for-placemakers/ http://www.pps.org/blog/more-great-movies-for-placemakers/#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 14:40:51 +0000 Project for Public Spaces http://www.pps.org/?p=74481

An iconic scene from Woody Allen's 1979 classic "Manhattan"

According to the @UrbanismAvenger, interviewed recently by The Atlantic Cities editor Sommer Mathis, “There are ALWAYS urbanist themes in movies, if you look. Cities themselves are often heroes, or at least key characters, in the story. Whether the city is New York or Asgard, cities in movies can inspire us to be better urbanists!”

We agree wholeheartedly, and have been thrilled by the response to our post a few weeks ago about films that demonstrate Placemaking principles. Folks have made a lot of great suggestions, and we’ve culled eight of our favorites below. Keep ‘em coming!

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Rear Window (1954; director, Alfred Hitchcock)
Cindy FrewenWuellner suggests several Hitchcock films, our favorite of which is this classic featuring Jimmy Stewart as a man with a unique view of the life of his neighborhood. Eyes on the street! (Or the courtyard, as the case may be).

A Thousand Clowns (1965; director, Fred Coe)
According to Rob Sadowsky, the key moment for Placemakers here is a scene featuring Jason Robards giving a tour of NYC by bicycle, “because it’s the best way to see the world.”

Manhattan (1979; director, Woody Allen)
Commenter Dbpankratz nominated Woody Allen’s classic, considered by many (including at least one person here at PPS HQ) to be one of the “greatest love letters to New York” ever made for the silver screen. The film beautifully illustrates the intimate link between place and identity.

Blade Runner (1982; director, Ridley Scott)
Adrian Riley likes the dystopian urbanism of Scott’s sci-fi classic, which contrasts “the world the underclass are forced to inhabit” with wealthy residents cloistered in gleaming towers. The city is “dirty, wet, crumbling and constantly being adapted, but also grittily exciting in a way few science fiction film environments are.”

Lisbon Story (1994; director, Wim Wenders)
Wenders’ film-about-a-filmmaker shows how intoxicating the power of Place can truly be. Tiago Oliveira loves it for its portrayal of “the soul of a City and the wonder of its People and Places.”

Before Sunrise & Before Sunset (1995 & 2004; director, Richard Linklater)
Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy’s decade-long romance starts with a chance encounter on a train, and features the two lovebirds walking the streets of Prague and Paris. Both of these films, suggested by two commenters. Julieta and Todd, highlight the ability of human-scaled cities to create a feeling of comfort that promotes public affection.

Be Kind Rewind (2008; director, Michael Gondry)
Highlighted by Plantanbanda, this flick focuses on two video store clerks who accidentally erase every tape in the store. (Remember tapes?) In their quest to re-shoot the entire cinematic inventory, they enlist the help of the entire neighborhood.

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/more-great-movies-for-placemakers/feed/ 0 Early Bird Registration for Pro Walk / Pro Bike 2012: "Pro Place" is Now Open http://www.pps.org/blog/early-bird-registration-for-pro-walk-pro-bike-2012-is-now-open/ http://www.pps.org/blog/early-bird-registration-for-pro-walk-pro-bike-2012-is-now-open/#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:10:25 +0000 Project for Public Spaces http://www.pps.org/?p=73615

A sharrow points the way toward Long Beach's iconic Villa Riviera / Photo: waltarrrrr via Flickr

With so much attention focused on a certain conference in Long Beach last week, we want to make sure that complete streets advocates, placemakers, transportation wonks, and other walking and cycling enthusiasts don’t miss the news about another big event on the horizon in this sunny California city: early bird registration for the 17th Pro Walk / Pro Bike conference has just opened. The conference, which will focus on the theme “Pro Place” is scheduled for the week of September 10-13, 2012, and you can reserve your seat for a reduced rate up until Wednesday, May 16th.

Pro Walk / Pro Bike is a biennial event, founded in 1980 by the National Center for Bicycling & Walking, and serves as the premier venue for presenting work and meeting peers from the fields of transportation planning, engineering, health, advocacy, public policy, research, and more. The chair of this year’s host committee is Charlie Gandy, a cycling and pedestrian advocate with some serious cred. Currently the director of Livable Communities Inc. and a board member of the California Bicycle Coalition, Charlie previously served as the Director of Advocacy Programs for the Bicycle Federation of America, pioneered the concept of the Bicycle Friendly Business District as the Mobility Coordinator Long Beach’s Bike Long Beach program, and founded the Texas Bicycle Coalition (now Bike Texas).

To get a sense of Charlie’s approach to the subject at hand for September’s conference, one need look no further than his talk on Creating Charismatic Communities at last summer’s TEDxSoCal event. Charlie talks about encouraging the development of the personality of place, and explains how the city of Long Beach has spent the last few years “looking at basic urban design and health issues and coming up with some new and different ways to articulate them…and has been developing fans and followers.”

All of us here at PPS are excited for this opportunity to work with Charlie to bring together transportation reform advocates from around the country for a discussion of how placemaking can help create more equitable transportation networks in our cities. This conference is central to our effort to Build Communities Through Transportation, and we’re looking forward to meeting with other placemakers in September to talk about the latest and most cutting-edge case studies in building more walkable, bike-friendly, charismatic communities. We hope to see you there!

We’ll be bringing you more information in the next couple of months as the Pro Walk / Pro Bike host committee culls through the hundreds of event proposals received from across the country in response to an open call and begins to lay out the full schedule. In the meantime, you can stay up to date with the National Center for Bicycling & Walking (which officially became a program of PPS last June) by signing up for their bi-weekly Centerlines e-newsletter.

Bicyclist-friendly Long Beach's downtown boasts a crisp new Bike Station / Photo: waltarrrrr via Flickr

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/early-bird-registration-for-pro-walk-pro-bike-2012-is-now-open/feed/ 1 Submit Your Proposal for the 2012 Pro Walk/Pro Bike Conference! http://www.pps.org/blog/submit-your-proposal-for-the-2012-pro-walkpro-bike-conference/ http://www.pps.org/blog/submit-your-proposal-for-the-2012-pro-walkpro-bike-conference/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:18:08 +0000 Project for Public Spaces http://www.pps.org/?p=73232 The 2012 Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference, to be held September 10–13 of next year in the bike-happy city of Long Beach, Ca., is starting to take shape, and you can be a part of it.

Do you have a proposal for a presentation? The call for submissions is open; click here to find out all the details. The deadline is February 1, 2012.

Long Beach has been building a great network of bike lanes, making it a natural choice for the next Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference. Photo: waltarrrr via Flickr.

Pro Walk/Pro Bike is presented by the National Center for Bicycling and Walking (NCBW), a resident program of PPS.

This is a great opportunity to share the work you are doing to make communities safer and more attractive places for walking and bicycling. The conference will be attended by national leaders in the fields of transportation planning, engineering, health, advocacy, public policy, research, and more.

Your proposal should reflect one of this year’s conference themes. Here they are:

  • Invest + Govern. Bicycling and walking investments are ready to compete in the new cost-conscious reality and political climate in which we live. We encourage presentations that: quantify the benefits and cost savings to the individual and community; present the business case for supporting bicycling and walking; detail financing models for making investments; and other topics.
  • Advocate + Include. When our transportation system is balanced, everyone can prosper; when transportation decision-making is inclusive, it builds community. We encourage presentations about: environmental justice achieved; outsiders’ perspective on our work; programs that engage low income and underserved communities; and other topics.
  • Design + Engineer. New approaches to planning, designing, and building infrastructure are luring new people into cycling, and improving safety for all road users. We encourage presentations that: continue the professional development of planners and engineers; discuss the latest transportation engineering publications/manuals; and present best practices for finding flexibility within existing design standards.
  • Healthy + Safe. Our neighborhoods can enhance our health and quality-of-life by facilitating social connections and by making walking and biking trips easy and convenient. We encourage presentations from public health professionals and others who have developed successful and low cost models/programs for physical activity/built environment focused interventions. Also included in this category: innovative injury prevention programs, food access programs, programs that address childhood obesity, and programs that prioritize populations experiencing health disparities.
  • Plan + Connect. Changing demographics, emerging technology, and better collaboration across disciplines, agencies, and travel modes is moving us closer to seamless travel in many major cities. We encourage transportation planning related presentations on the following subjects: successful intergovernmental partnerships; exemplary public involvement practices; innovative and cost-effective applications of technology to improve service; and model bike/ped planning.
  • SRTS + Beyond. For work that focuses on improving the safety, desirability, and ease of movement for young people walking or biking to/from school. We encourage proposals on the following subjects: best practices for including youth in planning; exemplary Safe Routes to School programs (K-12); developing schools as neighborhood assets/destinations; and developing community-wide youth mobility plans.

NCBW and PPS are excited about putting together what is sure to be a productive and thought-provoking conference!

Photo: waltarrrr via Flickr.

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/submit-your-proposal-for-the-2012-pro-walkpro-bike-conference/feed/ 1 A Goofy Way to Design Our Cities http://www.pps.org/blog/a-goofy-way-to-design-our-cities/ http://www.pps.org/blog/a-goofy-way-to-design-our-cities/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:48:58 +0000 Craig Raphael http://blog.pps.org/?p=2768

Once upon a time, streets once belonged to everyone. They were a “commons” where people walked, biked, boarded streetcars,stopped for conversations.  It’s where kids played and dogs napped.

But that all changed during the second half of the 20th Century. Streets became the exclusive property of automobiles, and [...]]]>

Once upon a time, streets once belonged to everyone. They were a “commons” where people walked, biked, boarded streetcars,stopped for conversations.  It’s where kids played and dogs napped.

But that all changed during the second half of the 20th Century. Streets became the exclusive property of automobiles, and everybody else had better get out of the way, or else!

An old Disney cartoon, starring a character looking likes very much like Goofy, shows how this Tragedy of the Street  came to pass. It can be watched on the website of Bike Walk Twin Cities, one of many organizations that have sprung up recently to reclaim the streets as a public space that should be available for everyone.

See it here: http://tcsidewalks.blogspot.com/2009/06/classic-sidewalks-of-silver-screen-21.html

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/a-goofy-way-to-design-our-cities/feed/ 2 New Bike Trails Changing the Face of American Cities http://www.pps.org/blog/new-bike-trails-changing-the-face-of-american-cities/ http://www.pps.org/blog/new-bike-trails-changing-the-face-of-american-cities/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 15:11:53 +0000 Craig Raphael http://blog.pps.org/?p=2199

When springtime comes, a middle-aged man’s fancy turns to bikes.

‘Tis the season to skip out of work for a day or two, and log some serious mileage on the old two wheeler.

Here in Minneapolis, I can easily pedal around the city’s famed Lakes or cruise along the [...]]]>

When springtime comes, a middle-aged man’s fancy turns to bikes.

‘Tis the season to skip out of work for a day or two, and log some serious mileage on the old two wheeler.

Here in Minneapolis, I can easily pedal around the city’s famed Lakes or cruise along the forested gorge of the Mississippi River in the comfort and safety of a specially designated bike trail.

In the middle of a metropolitan area of 3 million people, I can quickly find myself on a bike trail deep in the woods. Then, ready for some cosmopolitan excitement and a good lunch, I can head downtowns (either Minneapolis or St. Paul) on scenic riverfront trails free of auto traffic.

This extensive system of bike trails is great not just for recreational rides–it’s boosted biking so much that Minneapolis now trails only Portland in commuters who travel to work on two wheels. This surprises most of-of-towners who know us mostly for freezing winters. Yet I bike all winter for work and for fun, and can attest that bike paths are busy on all but the most severe cold, snowy or icy days.

Urban bike paths are becoming a trend across the continent. PPS helped out Indianapolis, a city most known mostly for racecars, in constructing the ambitious eight-mile Cultural Trail bike and pedestrian greenway right through the center of the city. Davis, California has been serious about building bike trails and bike lanes since the 1960s, and now boasts that 17 percent of its daily commuters travel by bike. Boulder, Colorado devotes as much as 15 percent of its transportation budget to bicycle priorities.

Like parks and lively shopping streets, bike paths are important public spaces that enhance the congeniality and community spirit of a town. They not only provide people with transportation and exercise, but also with the pleasure of meeting up with their neighbors. At their best, bike and walking trails become a kind of linear town square—the spot where people spontaneously gather after supper and on the weekends.

Let me map out some of my most favorite afternoons here in Minneapolis. I bike to Minnehaha Creek Parkway, a dozen blocks south of my house and head east on its winding, waterside path through city neighborhoods to Minnehaha Falls, made famous by 19th Century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in “ The Song of Hiawatha.”

Watching the water tumble over a 50-foot wall of rock fascinates and relaxes me. Then I amble over to Sea Salt, a independently-run café in a historic park building that serves topnotch fried fish, best enjoyed on the outdoor patio. Sipping a beer while waiting for my shrimp taco to arrive, I plot the rest of my journey.

From here bike trails lead to historic Fort Snelling, the first white settlement in Minnesota and Pike Island, part of a state park where the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers meet. The Dakota (Sioux) Indians believe this confluence of rivers is the origin of the universe. On a bright spring morning I am convinced they’re right.

Or I can take the bike trail in another direction toward the downtowns of both Minneapolis and St. Paul along wooded riverbank most of the way. Another pleasing option is to tour Minneapolis’s fabled chain of lakes, six of which lie alongside the bike trail in rapid succession.

While the Twin Cities are legendary for their great park systems, we are equally blessed with a superb network of trails—made possible by visionaries of the 19th Century who fought to claim local lakefronts, riverbanks and creeksides for public use. These superb public assets have been expanded in recent years through the work of a new generation of visionaries.

Many communities throughout the country large and small are now installing impressive trail systems and linear parks. Even densely packed Manhattan is thrilled to gain a new wonder—the High Line, an elevated freight train track now reclaimed as parkland. Most new desirable suburbs now boast bike trails that don’t simply loop around a pond, but carry people to schools, recreation facilities, nature preserves, the local library, farmers markets, restaurants, or shopping districts. People are no longer content to cycle in circles; they want places to go and things to do.

On a recent Sunday, I headed to the Midtown Greenway, a rail-to-trail bike and walking path a dozen blocks north of my house. I followed it more than 20 miles west through the suburbs to Carver Regional Park—a glorious expanse of woods and prairie dotted by lakes and more bike trails. I also stopped in on a tavern and a deli in Victoria, a small town right on the trail. When I first moved to Minneapolis from Iowa many years ago, I immediately loved life in the big city life—except for one thing. I dearly missed being able to bike all the way out into the countryside. The distance was too far and the roads too inhospitable.

But now thanks to the citizen advocates and park officials in the Twin Cities who have built an impressive trail system throughout the metropolitan area, that dream is now available any day I have a few hours to spare.

A portion of this article first appeared in Parks & Recreation magazine. Reprinted with permission from National Recreation and Park Association.An old rail line running through Minneapolis now serves as a popular bike and walking trail.

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/new-bike-trails-changing-the-face-of-american-cities/feed/ 1 Places in the News: December 29, 2008 http://www.pps.org/blog/places-in-the-news-december-29-2008/ http://www.pps.org/blog/places-in-the-news-december-29-2008/#comments Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:34:14 +0000 Brian Geraghty http://blog.pps.org/?p=1284 The latest in urban planning, placemaking and citizen action:

Murrieta, CA gets a new farmers market just as demand for one is increasing. [The Press Enterprise] South Dakota is offering grants for farmers markets. [Farmers Market Coalition] A federal stimulus for city parks? [Gotham Gazette] Some praise for public [...]]]> The latest in urban planning, placemaking and citizen action:

  • Murrieta, CA gets a new farmers market just as demand for one is increasing. [The Press Enterprise]
  • Not good enough to simply be ‘a park in and of itself’. [Tulsa World]
  • Five reasons why biking is better than walking. [Dead Dog Cafe]
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