Post Tagged with: "Sprawl"

War on cul-de-sacs – Now, it is the world’s greatest threat

May 10, 2009 at 11:36 pm

A clever new polemic submitted to the Congress for the New Urbanism has earned first place in that organization’s 2009 video contest.  Written and produced by the team of First + Main Media and Paget Films, Built to Last posits that the world’s greatest threat is not war, global pestilence, or even the swine flu. No, it is the cul-de-sac. 

Okay, so it may not be the cul-de-sac per se, but the filmakers rightfully make use of the ubiquitous 20th century artifact as a primary symbol for what could indeed be the world’s greatest threat: the organization of America’s middle class lifestyle.  And while many Americans may continue to have difficulty even with that idea (isn’t America’s lifestyle non-negotiable?), I hope that more of our country’s citizens are tiring of the ongoing media blitz surrounding the seemingly trivial issues of how one can shop ‘green’ to save the planet.

Thus, whether you live on a cul-de-sac or not, please take that message with you. The more educated we become, the more likely we are to participate in the debates that will slowly shift our culture to a more sustainable lifestyle. And as the videographers suggest, we can start by building things that last. 

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Now available! Policy Briefs and Audio/Video recordings from the Transportation For America Webinar on Transportation and Housing/Development

April 22, 2009 at 4:19 pm

Transportation for America’s webinar on Transportation and Housing took place last week.  This is the third one in a series of webinars that explore the deep impacts of our transportation system on our housing and job markets, public health, energy needs, climate, economic competitiveness, and nearly every other pressing issue facing our country today.   This particular webinar on Transportation and Housing/Development had almost 300 people in attendance, who heard from development experts on the connections between transportation policy, real estate development, and affordable housing.  The following links will take you to the products (policy briefs and A/V recordings) from the session.

With economic crisis putting jobs in jeopardy, homes in foreclosure and entire communities in peril, Americans are facing extraordinary challenges in finding affordable and accessible housing options. Now more than ever, we need federal leadership to help make the critical link between our housing and transportation policies and creating revitalized communities where people can find good places to live and convenient ways to get around.

Shelley Poticha, President and CEO of Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit Oriented Development moderated the discussion and provided an overview of the Transportation for America Campaign.

Christopher Leinberger, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Partner of Arcadia Land Company; discussed the benefits of walkable urbanism and the linkages between land value and transportation systems. Ann Norton, Senior Staff Attorney at the Housing Preservation Project, provided a snapshot of Blueprint planning from the Minneapolis / St. Paul Metropolitan Area that links up transportation and land-use planning. Finally, John McIlwain, Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute discussed policy options for locating housing around transportation nodes and creating compact, mixed use, mixed income neighborhoods.

There are still more webinars on tap.  Sign up for more sessions on the webinars page. The next session is April 30  (2-3:30PM) on Transportation, Public Health and Safety.  Here is a brief description of the upcoming session:  Transportation influences the health and safety of communities by affecting physical activity levels, traffic speeds, and air pollution. This session will investigate the needs of paratransit and transit-dependent populations, the success of Complete Streets and non-motorized transportation programs, and the connections between transportation and active living.

(Source: Transportation for America)

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Streetsblog Interviews John Norquist @ Congress for the New Urbanism – How to Fix National Transportation Policy: Part I

March 26, 2009 at 4:59 pm

(Source: Streetsblog)

How can federal policy encourage walkable street networks instead of highways and sprawl? 

connected_network.jpg

The news coming out of Washington last week jacked up expectations for national transportation policy to new heights. Cabinet members Ray LaHood and Shaun Donovan announced a partnership to connect transportation and housing policy, branded as the “Sustainable Communities Initiative.” The second-in-command at DOT, Vice Admiral Thomas Barrett, told a New York audience that “building communities” is a top priority at his agency.At the moment, however, the scene on the ground shows how far we have to go before the reality catches up to the rhetoric: State DOTs flush with federal stimulus cash are plowing ahead with wasteful, sprawl-inducing highway projects. Ultimately, you can’t end car dependence or create livable places without enlisting the people building those roads — the metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), state DOTs, and other entities that shape local policy. How can the feds affect their decisions?

john_norquist.jpgThe Congress for the New Urbanism has some intriguing answers. During the stimulus debate, CNU proposed a new type of federal road funding that would help to build connected grids — the kind of streets that livable communities are made of. The proposal didn’t make it into the stimulus package before the bill got rushed out the door, but the upcoming federal transportation bill will provide another chance. CNU President John Norquist — a four-term mayor of Milwaukee who first got into politics as an anti-freeway advocate — was down in DC last Thursday to share his ideas with Congress. Streetsblog spoke to him afterward about what’s broken with national transportation policy and how to fix it. Here’s the first part of our interview.

Ben Fried: During the stimulus debate you sent a letter to James Oberstar, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and among other things you said that discussion of national transportation policy often presents a “false dichotomy” between transit funding and road funding. What did you mean? 

John Norquist: Well, maybe “false” is the wrong word for me to have used, but it’s a dichotomy that’s very limited. If the debate is about transit versus roads — and currently the battle lines are drawn at 20 percent funding for transit, 80 percent for roads — it’s a really limited debate. It leaves out the whole discussion of what kind of roads to build. So if you have a city with boulevards and avenues and no freeways, it’s going to be a lot more valuable. You look at Vancouver, they have no freeways whatsoever, and they have a fabulously intense and valuable real estate and job market. And then you look at the places that have invested all the money in the giant road segments and they tend to be degraded. It’s not roads versus transit — it’s good street networks-plus-transit versus mindless building of out-of-scale roads. I mean they’re basically putting rural roads into urbanized areas and it’s counterproductive, it reduces the value of the economy, it destroys jobs, destroys real estate value. For what, so you can drive fast at two in the morning when you’re drunk?
Click here to read the entire interview.
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Freakonomics Special: Los Angeles Transportation Facts and Fiction – Driving and Delay

March 12, 2009 at 6:43 pm

(Source: Freakonomics,New York Times via Planetizen; Photo Courtesy: respres@Flickr)

 TransportGooru recommends reading Eric Morris’s  six-part series that discusses stereotypes about Los Angeles transportation.   So, start with the Introduction first and read up the rest.

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Here is the article on Driving and Delay:

Time to bring the quiz to a close. We’ve seen in past posts that, by the standards of U.S. cities, Los Angeles is not sprawling, has a fairly extensive transit system, and is decidedly light on freeways. The smog situation has vastly improved. The final two stereotypes await.

Thanks to the great distances between far-flung destinations, and perhaps Angelenos’ famed “love affair” with the car, Angelenos drive considerably more miles than most Americans. 

Answer: False.

 According to the Federal Highway Administration, Angelenos drive 23 miles per resident per day. This ranks the Los Angeles metro area 21st highest among the largest 37 cities. The champions (or losers) are probably Houston, followed by Jacksonville and Orlando, all of which are over 30 miles per day. New Yorkers drive the fewest miles (17 VMT per resident per day), thanks in large part to relatively high transit ridership and lots of walking trips.

Despite our reputation, we Angelenos don’t exhibit any particularly great predilection for freeway travel either. Los Angeles ranks 14th out of the 37 largest metro areas in terms of highway miles driven per resident per day. To be sure, this is above the median, but it hardly points to the sort of unique freeway fetish Angelenos are accused of harboring.

Click here to read th entire article.  
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