It is no secret that market halls, market sheds, and market districts were once more prevalent in American cities [...]]]> This guest post features a collection of wonderful historic postcards and photos from the private collection of PPS markets consultant David K. O’Neil. We thank him for allowing us to share them with you here!

It is no secret that market halls, market sheds, and market districts were once more prevalent in American cities than they are today. Hundreds of markets burned down, were demolished, were removed for “higher and better uses” (oh, how I hate that term), or were replaced with empty “market squares”. Most towns, large and small, had at least one market that usually served as one of the most important, centrally located institutions in a growing city. Local economies were built around markets, which offered affordable opportunities to people who were looking to start a small business and vital lifelines connecting consumers and producers.

Many of these old markets were also quite beautiful, and as we prepare for our How to Create Successful Markets training workshop, we decided to reflect on some of our favorite old markets that are now gone forever…

The demolition of this genteel Southern market hall sparked the preservation movement that saved central Savannah / Photo: David K. O’Neil

City Market, Savannah, GA

Built on an earlier market site, this Romanesque style market hall was erected in 1872 and served as the central gathering place for the city until it was demolished in 1954.  The market’s demise was seen as a turning point in the preservation movement. A band of seven women who fought unsuccessfully to ‘save the market’ vowed to never lose another big battle, and they formed the Historic Savannah Foundation, which has gone on to save over 350 buildings in their city.

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The centrally located Washington Street Market was the largest in Buffalo at a time when the city was one of the most prosperous in America / Photo: David K. O’Neil

Washington Street Market, Buffalo, NY

Block between Chippewa, Washington and Ellicott Streets

Also known as the Chippewa Market, it was built in 1856 in the Romanesque revival style and measured 395 feet by 36 feet wide with a 24 foot veranda on each side. Hundreds of vendors sold their wares both indoors and out, anchoring a larger market district of jobbers, suppliers, warehouses and storefronts. Washington Market was the largest retail market in  Buffalo, occupying a 2.5 acre site. The others included the Clinton Street Market, Elk Street Market, and Broadway Market. After the market was demolished in the 1960s, the site was briefly occupied by a smaller market, but is now empty and serves as a parking lot.

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The fact that a grand market hall once stood on the National Mall underscores the importance that markets once played in cities across the US / Photo: David K. O’Neil

In this photo, food is unloaded next to the market with the Washington Monument rising in the background / Photo: David K. O’Neil

Center Market, Washington, DC

7^th St. NW and Pennsylvania Avenue

This grand market occupied one of the premier locations in Washington, DC, right on the mall! The market was built on a site chosen by George Washington himself.  A market operated here, in various forms, from 1801 until the 57,000-square-foot brick market hall was developed by a group of private citizens. Their architect was Adolph Cluss (who also designed DC’s still-operating Eastern Market) and the original part of the building went up in 1871, with an expansion added in the 1880s. It was also known as the Marsh Market, since the site was totally underwater at one time in the late 19^th century. A canal on the mall facilitated the delivery of goods from local and distant farms.

Center Market was destroyed in 1931, and the site is now occupied by the National Archives Building.

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This view of the old Maxwell Street Market shows a market district at its colorful, vibrant height / Photo: David K. O’Neil

Maxwell Street Market, Chicago, IL

Halsted Street from Taylor to 16^th Street

A classic market district, Maxwell Street Market was where waves of immigrants went for Sunday bargains, music, and cheap eats. Outdoor vendors would set up on tables, or sometimes just sell things right off the sidewalk itself. The market was home to many famous (and infamous) Americans: Benny Goodman, Muddy Waters, William Paley, and even the notorious killer Jack Ruby. In its heyday, the market ran for nearly a mile. Its slow demise began in the 1950s when the eastern part of the market was cut off for the freeway. The expanding University of Illinois at Chicago dealt the final blow when it demolished the last of the market for athletic fields and parking lots.  The ‘new’ Maxwell Street Market—aka Maxwell Street “lite”—still takes place on Sundays at Canal Street, but has little of the character of the old place.

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The Sheriff Street Market was an ornate, stunning building that was Cleveland’s largest until the West Side Market opened in 1912 / Photo: David K. O’Neil

Sheriff Street Market, Cleveland, OH

Sheriff Street (E 4^th) between Huron and Bolivar

Built in 1891 by a private investor group, the Sheriff Street Market was Cleveland’s largest market until the West Side Market opened in 1912. The market was being remodeled to incorporate a bus terminal when it caught on fire and was largely destroyed. A small part of the building was left, and operated as a market until it finally closed for good in 1936. The site was released to a group of 170 tenants from the old Central Market (which had also suffered a fire) and continued until 1981 when the number of tenants had dwindled to a few dozen and the site was sold to make way for the Gateway sports and entertainment complex.

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While it didn’t stay a market for very long, the Dreamland Pavilion was an important local landmark in San Diego’s history / Photo: David K. O’Neil

City Public Market, San Diego, CA

First and A Streets

This market was truly more of a dream than a reality. Built at the turn of the last century, the market was intended to give San Diego an amenity enjoyed by other large cities and entice new residents to the growing municipality. The market did not last long, however, and the first floor was soon converted into a boxing arena while the upstairs became a dance hall.  One well-known traveling woman evangelist, Mrs. Aimee McPherson, thought San Diegans were in need of saving and rented the first floor to conduct revival meetings that were very well attended.

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This aerial view shows the market on the edge of Portland’s densely packed downtown–a location that caused quite a bit of controversy / Photo: David K. O’Neil

The building’s stately Streamline Moderne facade must have been quite an impressive site up close / Photo: David K. O’Neil

This view of the market’s interior belies the struggle its developers faced in making it profitable. The market was open for less than a decade before it was sold off to the Navy / Photo: David K. O’Neil

Portland Public Market, Portland, OR

SW Front Avenue, between SW Salmon and SW Yamhill

Opening to great fanfare on December 14, 1933, the 220,000-square-foot market was billed as the largest in the United States. Controversial from start, the market was seen as being in the wrong location and undercutting the city’s other public markets. With room for over 200 vendors, a 500 seat auditorium, on-site parking, elevators, and modern storage facilities, the market was developed by a group of private businessmen who planned to sell it to the City once it became profitable. Success never came, and the market closed in 1942 and was leased to the US Navy.  Subsequently, it was sold to the Oregon Journal Newspaper, which finally sold it to the City in 1968.  It was demolished in 1969 to make way for the McCall Riverfront Park.

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The solid, brooding old city hall towers over this scene of the market in full swing during its heyday / Photo: David K. O’Neil

An image of the original market’s demolition to make way for a new WPA-funded facility that still operates today / Photo: Claude Page

City Market, Kansas City, MO

4^th and Grand Streets

Many early markets in the US were housed on the ground floor of town halls, following an ancient tradition that came to these shores from Europe. The old City Hall in Kansas City is a dramatic example of this co-location of politics and commerce.   After the Depression, the complex was demolished and City Hall moved into ‘downtown’ while the market was rebuilt in the same location with assistance from the WPA. It continues to operate there today, and is once again experiencing record sales and crowds. The current market’s wish list includes seeing the trolley—which can be seen above—returned to service.

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The architecture of San Antonio’s market was downright delicate compared to some of the others seen above / Photo: David K. O’Neil

City Market, San Antonio, TX

Commerce Street at Milam Square

San Antonio’s market history goes back nearly three centuries, intertwined with the traditions of Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers. The historic market plaza was given to the people through a land grant by the King of Spain in the 18^th century. This elegant market house, designed by English-born architect-turned-rancher Alfred Giles, was erected in the plaza in 1900. Incorporating fanciful ironwork, cupolas, and verandas, the second story had a large auditorium used for concerts and (again!) boxing, all overlooking a landscaped park with a fountain. This was a far cry from the rough and tumble days of rowdy saloons, donkey carts, covered wagons, chili stands, and a hanging tree where horse thieves were strung up in the open plaza. This lovely old market house was torn down in 1938. A Mercado is operating on the site today.

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This postcard gives some sense of the Wallabout Market’s size; it went on for several blocks / Photo: David K. O’Neil

This historic photo is mis-labeled as the Gansevoort Market in Manhattan. Today, Gansevoort is home to the upscale Meatpacking District, while Wallabout’s site is occupied by Brooklyn Navy Yard facilities / Photo: David K. O’Neil

Wallabout Market, Brooklyn, NY

North of Flushing Avenue, between Washington Ave and Ryerson Street

Built in 1894, the Wallabout Market was a spacious and more convenient location for Long Island farmers who preferred not to travel all the way to the Gansevoort or Harlem Markets in Manhattan. Designed in the Flemish Revival style by architect William Tubby, the Wallabout Market was a series of gabled buildings with a large open area for farmers to sell from their wagons. As urban development accelerated in the early 20^th century, the number of farms in King County (Brooklyn) plunged from a high of 10,000 in 1890 to less than 200 by 1944. The market’s demise was made final when the Navy Yard took over the market property in 1941.

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Today, of course, New York (particularly in north Brooklyn) is one of many American cities experiencing a market revival. We’ll be visiting several new markets within a stone’s throw of the old Wallabout site during the How to Create Successful Markets training workshop that we are organizing this May 31st and June 1st, including the Fort Greene Greemarket, the Brooklyn Flea, and Smorgasburg. Interested in attending? Click here to learn more and register today!

Placemaking is a process, accessible to anyone, that allows peoples’ creativity to emerge. When it is open and inclusive, this process can be extraordinarily effective in making people feel attached [...]]]> This is the first of a three-part series on transformative Placemaking. To read part two, click here. To read part three, click here.

You know that you’re in a great place when you’re surrounded by all different sorts of people, but still feel like you belong. / Photo: PPS

Placemaking is a process, accessible to anyone, that allows peoples’ creativity to emerge. When it is open and inclusive, this process can be extraordinarily effective in making people feel attached to the places where they live. That, in turn, makes people more likely to get involved and build shared wealth in their communities. “Placemaking, applied correctly, can show us new ways to help cultures emerge where openness is not so scary,” notes Dr. Katherine Loflin, the lead project consultant for the Knight Foundation’s groundbreaking Soul of the Community study, which showed a significant correlation between community attachment and economic growth. “We could find with consistency over time that it was the softer side of place—social offerings, openness, and aesthetics—that really seem to drive peoples’ attachment to their place. It wasn’t necessarily basic services: how well potholes got paved over. It wasn’t even necessarily for peoples’ personal economic circumstances.”

The study’s other key finding was that there is an empirical relationship between higher levels of attachment and cities’ GDP growth. This is important because, in Loflin’s words, “We have not recognized, as a society, the importance of [place]. Studies like Soul of the Community are helping to give us all permission to spend some time working on this stuff—and not in a kumbaya way, but an economic way.”

Placemaking, in other words, is a vital part of economic development. And yet, there has long been criticism that calls into question whether or not this process is actually helping communities to develop their local economies, or merely accelerating the process of gentrification in formerly-maligned urban core neighborhoods. We believe that this is largely due to confusion over what Placemaking is, and who “gets” to be involved. If Placemaking is project-led, development-led, design-led or artist-led, then it does likely lead to gentrification and a more limited set of community outcomes.

Who is the community, and what is their role?

The key question right now seems to be about ownership and belonging, in regard to who  has a right to participate when a Placemaking process is underway. In an article for Next City last fall, Neeraj Mehta started a great deal of chatter after raising this very issue when he asked:

“Which people do we want to gather, visit and live in vibrant places? Is it just some people? Is it already well-off people? It is traditionally excluded people? Is it poor people? New people? People of color?”

This builds on a common frustration among people who work in community development and related fields: oversimplification of what we mean when we talk about “the community.” Places are almost never the product of a singular, evenly-connected community, but the intersection and overlapping of multiple or many diverse groups. “The community” often includes people who never speak to each other, or may not even notice each other, depending on the quality and availability of welcoming public spaces in which to connect.

Places are almost never the product of a singular, evenly-connected community / Photo: PPS

This is the very problem that Placemaking aims to address. The most important tenet is that the process must be open and welcoming to all who want to participate. This is not to say that everyone will get what they want out of Placemaking. The point is that there will be an opportunity for people not just to share what they want, but also to listen to their neighbors’ ideas, and to be part of the process of shaping the public spaces that they share with those neighbors. The end result should be a space that’s flexible enough to make room for many different communities, and encourage connections between them.

What role do artists play?

Perhaps one of the most significant changes that has taken place in the public dialog around Placemaking, over the past several years, has been the rise of the “creative” modifier. Creative Placemaking’s proponents (including the Knight Foundation-supported ArtPlace) have contributed substantially to the public awareness of the importance of public space, and the role of public art in creating great places, by positioning artists at the center of the Placemaking process. Unfortunately, this privileging of one type of activity over others also seems to be the source of many of the recent questions around who benefits, and who is allowed at the table.

Whether we like it or not, “creativity” has come to mean something quite specific over the past decade or so. Dr. Richard Florida’s movement-sparking book, The Rise of the Creative Class, was boiled down into sound bites so frequently and consistently after its publication, that the idea of “creativity” became the purview of a specific group of people. Suddenly everyone was talking about “creative types,” and scheming to build more coffee shops and bike trails in order to lure young people with liberal arts degrees to their city to create design blogs and tech start-ups. The idea, perversely, and in contradiction of what Florida was actually arguing, became that a certain kind of person with a certain kind of creativity was most valuable to local economic development, and cities should try to be more like the places that were already attracting that kind of person in order to steal them away—rather than fostering the creativity of people who were already living in a given place.

The sidewalk cafes so often cited as indicators of gentrification can be a great way to enliven some public spaces–but only in response to an existing need within the neighborhood / Photo: PPS

Roberto Bedoya hits the nail on the head in a provocative post originally published shortly before Mehta’s:

“What I’ve witnessed in the discussions and practices associated with Creative Placemaking is that they are tethered to a meaning of ‘place’ manifest in the built environment, e.g., artists live-work spaces, cultural districts, spatial landscapes. And this meaning, which operates inside the policy frame of urban planning and economic development, is ok but that is not the complete picture. Its insufficiency lies in a lack of understanding that before you have places of belonging, you must feel you belong. Before there is the vibrant street one needs an understanding of the social dynamics on that street – the politics of belonging and dis-belonging at work in placemaking in civil society.”

In other words, while the intentions of Creative Placemaking’s proponents are undoubtedly good, and their work very frequently wonderful, the fact that a lot of people just don’t consider themselves to be “creative types” limits the potential outcomes. No doubt, part of the drive is to expand creativity and the arts to impact community development and open the arts up to more people, but to start off by limiting the Placemaking process to a certain set of outcomes from the get-go is not the way to go about it.

Every place can be vibrant. Vibrancy is people.

Also problematic is the fact that so much debate has centered on a flawed definition of “vibrancy” that further limits the Placemaking process’ capacity for transforming communities. Ann Markusen, who co-authored the original paper on Creative Placemaking for the NEA, highlights this problem in an essay that she wrote for arts management hub Create Equity, questioning the movement’s early evolution. Markusen asks:

“Just what does vibrancy mean? Let’s try to unpack the term. ArtPlace’s definition: ‘we define vibrancy as places with an unusual scale and intensity of specific kinds of human interaction.’ Pretty vague and…vibrancy are places?  Unusual scale? Scale meaning extensive, intensive? Of specific kinds? What kinds?”

This definition is not just vague, it’s unnecessarily limiting. If vibrancy is defined explicitly as an “unusual” condition, it furthers the idea that Placemaking is geared toward the production of specific kinds of spaces and amenities, rather than toward the enabling of citizens to use their public spaces to highlight their neighborhood’s unique strengths, and effectively address distinct challenges. We may have come to think of vibrancy as a finite quality after seeing our cities stripped of their dense social networks through decades of freeway-building and suburbanization, but that is a misconception.

Vibrancy does not need to be limited to a few ‘unusual’ areas; vibrancy is people / Photo: PPS

Every neighborhood—every plaza, square, park, waterfront, market, and street—can be vibrant, but if people don’t feel like they can contribute to shaping their places, vibrancy can’t exist. Period. Gentrification, which is often blamed on honest attempts to create more vibrant, livable places, is what happens when we forget that vibrancy is people; that it cannot be built or installed, but must be inspired and cultivated. Says DC-based community organizer Sylvia Robinson: “I consider gentrification an attitude. It’s the idea that you are coming in as a planner, developer, or city agency and looking at a neighborhood as if it’s a blank slate. You impose development and different economic models and say that in order for this neighborhood to thrive you need to build this much housing, this much retail.”

Cities’ “soft” sides matter—and so does how we talk about them.

When Placemaking is perceived to be geared toward a specific set of outcomes, it undermines the work that everyone in the field is doing, and leads to the kind of criticism that we saw from Thomas Frank, whose blistering takedown of Placemaking in The Baffler should make even the most seasoned Placemaking advocate wince. Frank writes:

“Let us propose a working hypothesis of what makes up the vibrant. Putting aside such outliers as the foundation that thinks vibrancy equals poverty-remediation and the car rental company that believes it means having lots of parks, it’s easy to figure out what the foundations believe the vibrant to be. Vibrant is a quality you find in cities or neighborhoods where there is an arts or music ‘scene,’ lots of restaurants and food markets of a certain highbrow type, trophy architecture to memorialize the scene’s otherwise transient life, and an audience of prosperous people who are interested in all these things.”

And then, toward the end of the article, the clincher:

“Let’s say that the foundations successfully persuade Akron to enter into a vibrancy arms race with Indianapolis. Let’s say both cities blow millions on building cool neighborhoods and encouraging private art galleries. But let’s say Akron wins…What then? Is the nation better served now that those businesses are located in Akron rather than in Indianapolis? Or would it have been more productive to spend those millions on bridges, railroads, highways—hell, on lobbyists to demand better oversight for banks?”

This is a straw man argument that many of us are tired of hearing: that focusing on the ‘soft’ side of cities, the very things the Soul of the Community study found most important, is a waste of money when cities should be focusing on hard infrastructure. But if we allow Placemaking to be framed (or even worse, practiced) in a way that leaves people feeling unwelcome or excluded, we’re setting ourselves up for exactly that sort of criticism.

Better communication between the people who share rapidly-changing neighborhoods is vital to the future success of our cities—and, considering the fact that 70% of the world’s population will be urban by 2050, to the future of global society. That is what we advocate for when we advocate for Placemaking. We do not work for better public spaces so that people will have somewhere to sit and eat gelato; we do it so that they will have somewhere to sit and talk with their neighbors. Whether or not that conversation is about art (or politics, or food, or education, or sports…) is beside the point.

You know that you’re in a great place when you’re surrounded by all different sorts of people, but still feel like you belong. When people feel encouraged to participate in shaping the life of a space, it creates the kind of open atmosphere that attracts more and more people. In their inclusiveness, our greatest places mirror the dynamics of a truly democratic society. As we put it in our introduction to the Guide to Neighborhood Placemaking in Chicago (written for the Metropolitan Planning Council), “Placemaking allows communities to see how their insight and knowledge fits into the broader process of making change. It allows them to become proactive vs. reactive, and positive vs. negative. Simply put, Placemaking allows regular people to make extraordinary improvements, big or small, in their communities.”

Over the next few weeks, as we prepare for the first meeting of the Placemaking Leadership Council in Detroit on April 11th and 12th, we will be exploring the relationship between individuals and the Placemaking process in further detail. More to come soon.

We work for better public spaces so that people will have somewhere to sit and talk with their neighbors / Photo: PPS

This is the first of a three-part series on transformative Placemaking. To read part two, click here. To read part three, click here.

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 21^st 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.

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Millennium Park's Crown Fountain engages children in Chicago

What is the best public place in Chicago?  Sylvia O. thinks it is a community garden on Chicago’s far South-East Side, Brian S. nominated the Chicago Riverwalk for its “ingenuity and imagination,” and Afshan H. chose Harmony Park, the “go-to place in the Village of Arlington Heights.” The community, of course, is the expert.

The Metropolitan Planning Council, who partnered with PPS to launch a Placemaking Campaign for the city of Chicago last year, has encouraged city residents and visitors alike to participate in their What Makes Your Place Great contest.  From June 3 to July 27, dozens of people submitted entries.  Now, the organization is asking for votes – more than 2,000 votes have already been cast!

From now until Sep. 14, visit PlacemakingChicago.com to view the entries and vote for your favorite photo and video. The site also features a Google map showing the location of each great place.

Four winners, two photo and two video, will be announced on Sept. 25, 2009. One winner in each category will receive a Grand Prize award, selected by a committee of Placemaking experts; and one winner in each
category will receive a People’s Choice award, selected by public vote. In addition to bragging rights and a great prize package, winners will have the opportunity to showcase their favorite places at an MPC event
on Oct. 28, 2009.

Voters are encouraged to review all of the fantastic entries, which highlight not only some of the regions best public places, but also some truly beautiful and inspiring photography and videography.

Their latest project is the transformation of the intersection of Division Street, Ashland Avenue, and Milwaukee Avenue, at a crossroads also known as the Polish Triangle.  MPC has gathered insight [...]]]> Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council, our partner in Placemaking Chicago, a city-wide Placemaking campaign, continues to make strides in applying Placemaking in Chicago.

MPC asks residents what they want to see in the Polish Triangle

Their latest project is the transformation of the intersection of Division Street, Ashland Avenue, and Milwaukee Avenue, at a crossroads also known as the Polish Triangle.  MPC has gathered insight and feedback from more than 700 people, using online surveys, in-person workshops and by starting a public group on the Placemaking Movement – PPS’s online social network.  So far, ideas from the community have included public art and traffic calming.

Participants map out ideas at an MPC workshop

More information:

• Placemaking in Chicago [pps.org]
• The Polish Triangle networking group [The Placemaking Movement]
• Residents come out in force to shape the future of the Polish Triangle [MPC]
• www.placemakingchicago.com

Photos in this post from MPC’s Flickr page

In Chicago, PPS recently teamed up with the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) to provide training to both local officials and community leaders focusing on community-led Placemaking initiatives, and to assist them in setting up a Placemaking campaign for the city. The partnership includes the recently-published Guide to Placemaking in Chicago, which [...]]]>

In Chicago, PPS recently teamed up with the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) to provide training to both local officials and community leaders focusing on community-led Placemaking initiatives, and to assist them in setting up a Placemaking campaign for the city. The partnership includes the recently-published Guide to Placemaking in Chicago, which provides basic training on Placemaking at a local level and highlights specific examples of citizen-led Placemaking in the city that has already led to sweeping improvements on local streets and in neighborhoods. The book also guides communities in evaluating their public spaces and provides a framework to engage local businesses and government in helping implement improvements.

The partnership also included two days of training, for both city officials and community activists alike.

For more information on the Chicago campaign and to download a free copy of A Guide to Placemaking Chicago, visit www.placemakingchicago.com

Further Info:

• The Social Life of Our Urban Spaces [The Gapers Block]
• Project Experience: Placemaking Chicago [PPS.org]