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!

So writes Jim Russell in a recent post over at Burgh Diaspora, in arguing that cities are wasting their money on Placemaking when they should be focusing more directly on talent development. In his view, widely held these days, Placemaking is about plunking down “cool urban amenities” and [...]]]>

Is this Placemaking? Some would say yes… / Photo: Brendan Crain

“People develop, not places.”

So writes Jim Russell in a recent post over at Burgh Diaspora, in arguing that cities are wasting their money on Placemaking when they should be focusing more directly on talent development. In his view, widely held these days, Placemaking is about plunking down “cool urban amenities” and increasing token diversity to make a city seem edgy or superficially interesting. It’s a simple cut-and-paste process of taking some signifier of young, contemporary, urban hipness (a bike lane, public art, a funkily decorated coffee shop) and inserting it into a neighborhood in the hopes of re-framing that neighborhood as the Next Big Thing.

That’s not what Placemaking is. Or at least that’s not how many of us who use the word mean it. For every person who thinks that you can ‘placemake’ unilaterally by dropping in cool amenities, there is another who believes that Placemaking is as much about the discussion that participants have with each other as it is about whether a space contains public art or picnic tables when all is said and done. The physical attributes of the space in question are important, but they are the means, not the end. If you’re not building social capital in the community where you’re working, you’re not Placemaking; you’re just reorganizing the furniture.

Context (the size of a site, its location within the city, its present configuration) gives the people who choose to participate in a Placemaking process a universally agreed-upon starting point. But for that raw space to become a place, people have to identify priorities, make decisions, and take action. Involving the intended users of a public space in that process helps the resulting design to be responsive to the community’s needs—including the inherent need of all communities for people to connect with each other. Any organization can pave a plaza, but it’s not a place until people are using it. By bringing people together around a shared starting point to define and work toward shared goals, Placemaking can play a critical role in strengthening local economies.

For hard evidence of this, look to Tokyo. Writing for Next City‘s new Informal City Dialogs, urbanologists Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava explain how the Japanese government relied on the citizens of Tokyo to rebuild their (literally) bombed-out neighborhoods incrementally after WWII, while top-level funds were used to build state-of-the-art infrastructure to connect those neighborhoods and facilitate their growth, both physically and economically, over time. “After the war,” they write, “one of Tokyo’s few abundant resources was memory.” That the city rebuilt on the foundation of those memories—of local traditions, building techniques, shared needs—is now one of the world’s biggest economic juggernauts is no coincidence.

In his critique of Placemaking, Russell looks a bit closer to home, at Detroit. The city, he writes, is currently benefiting from a big fish, small pond talent migration, where talented young professionals are moving back because, as one such person asks in a quoted passage, “Where else in the country can you make an actual impact on a whole city when you are in your 20s?” Since Detroit is infamously lacking in amenities and diversity, Russell argues, people clearly don’t move there “to live out [their] Portland fantasy on the cheap. You certainly don’t leave Seattle in hopes of a place-making upgrade. You migrate for opportunity, despite the challenges and the warts.”

There’s a disconnect here that bothers me: in so much of the contemporary mainstream discussion of Placemaking, the signifier has become the signified. “Placemaking” is now often used as a stand-in for the finished product; if a parklet is built or a cafe popped-up, it doesn’t matter who asked for it, or whether anyone even asked in the first place. The people behind the project will tell you that it’s Placemaking, regardless. The implication in these instances is that a place can be imposed on a community, rather than created with it. That’s the exact same logic that was used to justify slum clearance and build tower-in-the-park complexes in the US during the years when Tokyo was going through its incremental resurgence.

In Detroit, an abundance of cheap space lowers the barrier to entry for participating in urban revitalization / Photo: Brendan Crain

That brings us back to Detroit: a city that is, in many ways, the polar opposite of Tokyo when it comes to the development of Place Capital over the past half-century. But what’s happening in Detroit right now is not the result of some inherent “opportunity” that can be pulled from the air. Like Tokyo after the war, Detroit’s “challenges and warts” are the opportunity; they create a physical context that people can make tangible changes to, even as upstarts in their 20s with modest resources. The abundance of cheap space lowers the barrier to entry for participating in urban revitalization, and while most cities don’t have Detroit’s elbow room, people can still take part in the shaping of their communities by working together to define their shared public spaces. As my colleague Ethan put it recently, “Human capital and creative talent increasingly goes where it likes; talent increasingly goes to great places; but talented people become most attached to places that they help create.”

Like Russell, many people today are beginning to voice the concern that Placemaking is “counterproductive” to economic development, because they’ve been led to believe that the process is simply about cutting and pasting things that worked somewhere else into struggling spaces. But great places and strong local economies are created in the same way: by getting people together to define local challenges and come up with appropriate solutions to address them. Placemaking makes tangible the opportunities inherent within a place so that they might be taken advantage of. People develop places; thereafter, places develop people.

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Note: You can read Jim Russell’s response to this blog post by clicking here, and Brendan’s follow up right 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.

League of American Bicyclists President Andy Clarke shared his thoughts and experiences with us at PPS on what bicycling means as a movement and how it has changed over the last 25 years. Andy, having been a part of the movement in the US since it involved just a handful of eager cyclists, [...]]]>  

Meet Andy Clarke!

League of American Bicyclists President Andy Clarke shared his thoughts and experiences with us at PPS on what bicycling means as a movement and how it has changed over the last 25 years. Andy, having been a part of the movement in the US since it involved just a handful of eager cyclists, shed some light on why passion is not enough, and what eager cyclists need to do today, more than ever, to keep the movement going. Before joining the League in 2003, Andy provided technical assistance to the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center on site at the Federal Highway Administration, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for America Bikes, and as a member of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycling Professionals.

Can you tell us what is new and innovative in the bicycling world?

What I see happening in the bike movement is a realization that we are indeed a part of something bigger, and that we are not just a special interest group. We see that through things like bike sharing and open streets events with activities and programs that are much more open, public, and acceptable than they have been in the past. Times have changed from when we were a little bit more focused on the lycra-clad, recreational, weekend warrior-type rider. We’re finding that image very limiting in terms of where the bike movement needs to be, and how it relates to the urban environment and the creation of great communities. In order to be successful, and to thrive and grow, the bike movement has got to appeal to a broader, more mainstream audience.

We are coming to realize and accept that bicycling is only as good as the walking environment and transit system allows it to be. We live and die together; we have to understand that in order for bicycling to flourish, walking must thrive and for transit to work, bicycling needs to be part of the mix.

You referred to this as a “movement”, which suggests one of Fred Kent’s favorite terms: the “zealous nut.” Can you talk about how this group of “zealous nuts” has turned bicycling into a movement, and what people who are interested in Placemaking might learn from that success?

When I first moved to the US from the UK twenty-five years ago, the movement was pretty slow. There were not many full-time bike advocates at the national level. There were a handful of states that had bike coordinators, there were lots of riders’ clubs and events, and lots of riding activity going on, but it wasn’t really a movement. I think we’ve seen that change quite dramatically and I think there is a lot to learn from how we’ve managed to achieve that and in some cases change perceptions. One striking growth is the National Bike Summit. For the first two or three years we quite literally had to remind people not to wear lycra just to prove a point. We’ve got to grow up as movement.

The Placemaking movement has got early adopters and the passionate smart people who are way ahead of the curve in realizing this is where we need to go with our communities. Twenty-five years ago, as far as most people were concerned, the American City was dead and buried. Now, that has changed completely because of those pioneers from CNU and elsewhere. There’s a point at which that passion has to turn into some degree of normalcy, and it has to become a part of the planning, landscape architecture, and architecture vernacular. It has to become something that everyday traffic engineers aren’t going to think is going to get them in trouble or have them lose their license over. We all have to grow up, and that will piss off some of the purists in movement. They’ll think we’re selling out by becoming more mainstream and pragmatic.

Can you tell us a little bit about the Federal Transportation Bill, and what it will mean for those who like to ride their bikes?

It means that people who want something different from their communities, and from what DOTs typically offer, have got to show up and be part of the process to ask for, demand, and insist better places, streets, and communities. My big fear is that the new Highway Bill is a huge throwback to the 1950s. Many state DOTs, unfortunately, will take the opportunity to revert back to where they’ve always felt more comfortable. I think where the biking, walking, and Placemaking community needs to come together and focus on effecting change is at the city council, municipal, and especially the state level. They need to make sure they’re raising their hands and saying, ‘We don’t want more six-lane divided highways. We want more places where people can live, breathe, and travel safely and conveniently.’

You’ve been a part of Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place since it was just called Pro Bike, back in 1988.  What changes have you noticed, other than the name, of course?

For years, Pro Bike had almost exactly the same number of attendees; we used to joke that it had an audience of 234 people, and that was it! I think we’re at a point, now, where our movement could easily sustain a 1,000-person conference every year. Over the last 25 years it’s grown in leaps and bounds in terms of sophistication, our technical knowledge, our expectation of what our professions should be doing, and how we can participate in those professions.

I remember in 1992, in Montreal, we wanted to start up the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals, and 60 of us got together at a meeting room at Pro Bike and said, ‘You know what? It’s more important that we are well represented within the American Public Works Association, American Planning Association, ITE, and other existing professional organizations.’ At the time, there was a burgeoning interest in the potential for those associations to address bicycling and walking issues.  Within two years, when we met again in Portland, Oregon in 1994, we realized we needed to be working within all of those professions, but there was still no one looking out for us. There was still no one making sure that there was a career path, and that there were professional development opportunities for bicycling and pedestrian professionals. The movement and the profession have grown in size and the momentum is quite incredible.

Why should Placemakers care about walking and biking, and why should walkers and bikers care about Placemaking?

We are one in the same. When you look at great places, you see people walking and riding bikes in them. In reading the blog of some students from the University of Oregon who recently spent some time in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, it was really interesting to see the differences that they saw between these two cities. Copenhagen, they felt, was more immediately transferable because there was much more of the same kinds of corners, streets, and engineering, but there was this kind of amazing attraction with Dutch Placemaking. In Amsterdam it’s all negotiated, there isn’t dedicated space or order. It’s all a little bit more chaotic but it’s much more civilized…you wonder how it works, but it does!

I think understanding the intangible and seeing a place work is something that, when you’ve been doing this for awhile, you just know—but it’s very hard to document or put down on paper. I think there’s a certain segment of the cycling population that wants to know where their place is, but we will all benefit from a little more chaos! That seems to be the key to Placemaking: if a place is too sterile, too ordered, too segmented, it just looses vitality. That vitality is what we want! It’s what attracts people to those places.

The League of American Bicyclists is sponsoring the appearance of Mikael Colville-Anderson at PWPB:PP. Can you talk a little bit about why you think it’s important that he address our audience, and what he can teach us about Copenhagen?

Mikael is an immensely talented presenter and speaker, very challenging and iconoclastic. Anyone who thinks they’re doing something “hot” is going to get a rude awakening when Mikael comes and looks at their stuff. He is not afraid to slaughter a few sacred cows and call things out when they’re stupid, and I think we need that. When we gave Portland our top bicycle friendly community award for the US, Gil Penalosa pointed out that Portland would be a pretty shitty Dutch city—the standard we’re using in this country is not exactly world-class! Part of the attraction of getting Mikael to come to Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place is that he has no hesitation pointing that out. He’ll do that with gusto, I’m sure, but in a very informative, helpful, and well-presented way. I’m looking forward to it.

The National Women's Bicycling Summit will take place in Long Beach directly following PWPB:PP.

The National Women’s Bicycling Summit, organized by some of your staff, will take place immediately after PWPB:PP. Can you talk about why you’re supporting that even, and what you hope it will accomplish?

We are excited about the interest in the topic, but I don’t know where it’s going to take us; it’s not my place to suggest it either. It’s an extremely timely event that speaks to the fact that we have been a very Type-A personality driven group for a long time. Even on my daily commute, I pass through places where, if you’re not on the bike trail, you have to be pretty alpha male to ride on these streets. As you get into Arlington, you see that change completely, with a much greater diversity of people riding for everyday activities. It’s really critical that we use this as an indicator of how well we’re doing, and if we’re not serving that segment of the population, we’re simply not doing our jobs.

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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. Remember: standard registration ends on August 10th!