Archive for the ‘Pedestrian Experience’ Category
The Pedestrianization Fever Moves South
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| University & Bryant, in downtown Palo Alto. Courtesy of Flickr user ikkoskinen. |
Has the new 17th Street pedestrian plaza in San Francisco’s Castro District set off a spark? San Francisco is not the only Bay Area city that dreams of creating bustling new pedestrian open spaces, nor is it the only one that isn’t quite satisfied with the current state of its main street. But of all places, Palo Alto, which has of late gained more of a reputation for NIMBYism than for embracing progressive city planning? Well, sort of. Not surprisingly, this latest push for pedestrianization is of local collegiate origin, coming from students in a class at Stanford University’s design institute, but the idea seems to be catching on fast; the Facebook group created just this week has added on average more than 100 new members each day. Right now, it is basically a brainstorm to close off several blocks of University Avenue, Palo Alto’s main drag, to cars — specifically, the blocks between High and Cowper streets, accounting for most of the downtown commercial strip. The plan, which is of course only a sketch at this point, suggests initially allowing cross traffic through the pedestrian zone, but then later transitioning to a bona fide car-free zone in which motorists navigate a counterclockwise loop around the zone using side streets.
Bridges Tame the Valley’s Freeway-Laden Landscape
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| Mary Avenue Bridge; courtesy of LERA. |
So many freeways and expressways crisscross the auto-oriented sprawl of Silicon Valley, and they contribute to a physical environment that is inhospitable, forming actual and pyschological barriers to those who attempt to get around on foot or a bicycle. But pedestrians and bicyclists alike will be able to enjoy bridges that will provide additional routes of access over otherwise-impenetrable walls of freeway. Two new bridges at Borregas Avenue in Sunnyvale, crossing over both Highway 237 and Highway 101, have finally opened, and they will allow an anticipated 2,000 daily bicyclists and pedestrians to cross over the freeway instead of traveling a couple miles out of their way to the nearest through street. The spans will also ease access to Sunnyvale Baylands Park and the nearby Borregas VTA light rail station. Then, on April 30, a more visually impressive bike-ped crossing over Interstate 280 will also open, connecting the two separated halves of Mary Avenue, between Sunnyvale and Cupertino near the Highway 85 interchange. The Mary Avenue bridge will be the first example in California of a cable stayed bridge crossing over a freeway. Still further bike-ped improvements are due later this summer in Mountain View, Santa Clara, and San Jose. The Borregas corridor and Mary Avenue bridges are just two components of VTA’s rather extensive 25-year Bicycle Expenditure Plan, which represents a considerable investment in livable streets improvements scattered throughout Santa Clara County. Yours truly may prefer walking and transit over bicycling, but we nonetheless look forward to the day when San Francisco’s Bicycle Plan will have completed its wandering journey through environmental review — so that new bicycle infrastructure in San Francisco can catch up to these improvements in the South Bay.
Streets Stimulus
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| This is Denver, not the Bay Area, but one basic issue is the same: each driveway or mid-block curb cut is a lapse in security for a pedestrian. How many other walkable street mistakes can you find? Image courtesy of Flickr user Complete Streets. |
It is an urban planning mantra that walking and transit are flip sides of the same coin. Transit riders begin and end their trip on foot; so streets that create a secure and enjoyable pedestrian experience are an important component of eliminating car trips and reducing automobile dependence. Even motorists have to be pedestrians for a portion of their trip — which only highlights the fact that the pedestrian experience is the lowest common denominator, worthy of both investment and careful thought. Many older Bay Area neighborhoods that first came into existence around transit routes naturally get the basics right, without undue effort. These are places like our urban CBDs, and neighborhood commercial districts on the streetcar lines that once blanketed San Francisco and the inner East Bay — but also select suburban locations like the older Peninsula downtown districts that sprung up at railroad depots. By contrast, other Bay Area locales that were designed with the express purpose of catering to automobiles are pedestrian wastelands — characterized by dark, uninviting freeway overpasses; long suburban blocks punctuated by strip malls, parking lots, curb cuts; narrow, interrupted or even nonexistent sidewalks; and, generally, little to no active street environment. These latter places present the greatest challenge, and they require that a calculated planning effort be applied to create walkability out of auto-oriented design. In the summer of 2008, the title of America’s most walkable city was bestowed upon San Francisco, and many of the city’s beloved neighborhoods deserve the title. Other neighborhoods — the long, bland industrial blocks and wide traffic sewers South of Market come immediately to mind — do not, although citywide blueprints for active and complete streets are a work in progress.
SB 375 and AB 1358: Victory for Livability Legislation
September 30 at midnight is the deadline for the Governor to sign bills into law, and in light of the record-late budget, legislation has been stacking up. Amidst all the signed and vetoed bills, I am happy to report that SB 375 and AB 1358, two important pieces of “livability legislation” that we have been following, have both been signed into law. SB 375, the landmark bill that unites transportation, housing, and land use planning with CEQA reform, is an important step towards incentivizing the growth of transit-oriented neighborhoods as part of a multi-pronged effort to achieve AB 32’s greenhouse gas emission mandates. The other bill is AB 1358, the Complete Streets Act, which will require local governments to account for all users of the street (including pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and the disabled) when updating the circulation elements of their General Plans. When governments then turn to execute the updated directives in their General Plans, we can hope to see calmer, more walkable streets emerge all over the state of California. The combination of both bills point toward a brighter future — turning our back on the unchecked proliferation of residential subdivisions and strip malls, while embracing the growth of dense, compact, walkable neighborhoods. Now, if only we could manage to stop raiding the public transit fund every year.
Complete Streets Act to Hit the State Senate Floor
Finally — the Complete Streets Act (AB 1358), first introduced in February 2007 and then later held in the Senate Appropriations Committee, has been reintroduced and will go before the full California State Senate next week (week of August 4, 2008). The bill was authored by San Francisco Assemblymember and presumptive 3rd District Senator Mark Leno, and its passage will be an important step toward reducing the automotive bias of streets, so that streets throughout California will be safer and more welcoming to all users. AB 1358 defines street users as “motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, children, persons with disabilities, seniors, movers of commercial goods, and users of public transportation.” In particular, AB 1358 requires that the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) set forth guidelines for streets that safely accommodate the movement of all users — this is similar to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Routine Accommodations, but would apply statewide — and it authorizes OPR to consult air quality management districts and transportation planners. In turn, when cities and counties revise the circulation element of their General Plans, they would do so in accordance with the updated OPR guidelines. Passage of AB 1358 will help California fulfill AB 32’s mandates for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which General Plan updates must now take into account — and it will lead to the creation of more livable streets throughout California.
An idyllic complete street; courtesy AARP.
If you live in California, contact your State Senator to express support for this bill, and pass the word onto others so that they can do the same. Mailed or faxed messages are preferred instead of telephone or email if possible, but communicate the message however you can before next week. Let’s get this bill through the Senate, onto the Governor’s desk, and signed into law. You can write a personalized message, or you could just adapt this template, conveniently provided by the California Bicycle Coalition:
Honorable [your State Senator's full name]
State Capitol, Room [your State Senator's room number]
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: [your State Senator's fax number, if sent via fax]Senate Floor Alert
Re: Support AB 1358 (Leno)I join the California Bicycle Coalition in urging you to vote YES for AB 1358, the Complete Streets Act, because it will require cities and counties to design roadways that make bicycling and walking safer, more feasible modes of transportation. As non-motorized transportation modes, bicycling and walking can help solve a variety of the problems California faces: traffic congestion, poor air quality, the threats from climate change, and worsening public health. It is imperative that roadway design enables motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians to travel safely. AB 1358 will result in roads that serve all users, not just motorists, as is now too often the case.
Thank you for supporting this landmark legislation to help make California cities more livable.
Sincerely,
[signature, followed by your printed full name and address]
Reclaiming Market Street
Whatever you might happen to think about San Francisco’s District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly, we should at least thank him for reigniting the conversation about closing off Market Street to cars, specifically the over two mile stretch between The Embarcadero and Octavia Boulevard in Hayes Valley. This comes fast on the heels of plans to close off car access to several miles of The Embarcadero for two weekends later this summer (one of which is Labor Day), plans that have prompted protests by angry Fisherman’s Wharf merchants. Yes, the discussion of car-free Market Street does resurface from time to time, and “Da Mayor” Willie Brown’s former proposal of such a policy was unsuccessful — but it is nonetheless encouraging to see that the conversation continues. Merchants, of course, will always raise hell protesting any proposal that involves limiting vehicular access to their stores, but anyone in San Francisco who is in the know and who drives a car (or is that an oxymoron?) already tries to avoid Market Street, except to cross it. We should be careful when applying the usual merchant complaints (usually raised in the context of neighborhood commercial districts) to a discussion of Market Street, which is a special case that deserves a special conversation — and which is a natural location to experiment with the creation of livable urban spaces. Market Street is not a place to “score a parking spot,” and essentially any location from the Ferry Building to the Castro District is a short stroll from a subway station, to say nothing of the plethora of bus stops lining the street from end to end.
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| Market Street, as it once was: car-free. |
The Bay Area gets no more transit-rich than Market Street. Besides frequent local and regional underground rail service, the surface of San Francisco’s main boulevard features a lively and hectic mix of historic streetcars, bus lines converging from neighborhoods all across the City, and bus stops both on the curbs and island platforms — complete with constant pedestrian flow and people jumping across the so-called “safety zone,” which is the lane that separates bus boarding islands from the sidewalk. In some sense, Market Street has not changed all that much from what it must have been like in the early 20th century. The automobile has replaced horse and carriage, and there is only one pair of surface streetcar tracks used by the F-Market & Wharves line, instead of the two pairs we once had (the other pair was rebuilt below ground). Rather than being inundated by streetcars, as in the image at right, the Market Street of today is inundated largely by buses, punctuated by the occasional splash of color from an F-Market historic streetcar. But what has not changed is that fundamentally, Market Street is still best suited to pedestrians and transit riders; dense transit and pedestrian traffic, combined with highly restricted automobile turns, make Market Street a taxing experience for drivers. But really, San Francisco’s main boulevard could be made a more successful place for everyone, no matter what their mode of transportation is. Current conditions are not especially friendly for cyclists, though that would certainly improve if only we could free up pavement now used by automobiles. Market Street is transit-rich, but congestion prevents transit from being truly functional, at least at peak travel times. And although pedestrians enjoy generously wide sidewalks, auto-pedestrian collisions, most of which occur in the unaptly-named “safety zone,” suggest that we must go further to maximize pedestrian safety.
On Walkability, Density, and Transit Villages
It’s official: according to the WalkScore.com rankings, San Francisco has been determined to be America’s most walkable city, as reported by the Chronicle. Our fair city’s score of 86 out of 100 just edged out New York’s 83, Boston’s 79, Chicago’s 76, and Philadelphia’s 74. The WalkScore algorithm does have some shortcomings (which the site frankly admits) — pedestrian conditions on Stockton Street in SF’s Chinatown could be much better than they are now, but that did not stop Chinatown from receiving a top score of 99 out of 100, a score largely based on the high density of a large variety of shops and services in a very compact area. But for anyone who has strolled through San Francisco’s downtown or neighborhood commercial districts, this news does not really come as too much of a surprise. Check out the complete listing of neighborhood scores here.
But the most revealing part of the article was not the part glorifying San Francisco, but rather, the part indicating that the Bay Area, taken as a whole, could be much more walkable than it is now. The Bay Area region fell in third place, “well below the greater Washington, D.C., and Boston regions,” according to the Chron. This reflects the fact that while the Washington, D.C. area has allowed Metro to shape dense land use patterns near stations (even for stations outside of the central core), the Bay Area has been slower to allow BART to have the same effect. We should be careful about discussing density and walkability in the same breath, as they are not equivalent. An older suburban downtown whose buildings front directly onto the street is quite walkable, if not particularly dense, and on the flip side, high-rises alone cannot make a neighborhood truly walkable if the street level fails to provide safety and amenities for pedestrians. But well-planned density that is sensitive to the street provides the extra bodies that make a walkable district that much more bustling and successful.
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| Courtesy Beyond DC. |
Consider Bethesda, Maryland, pictured at right. Located on the D.C. Metro Red Line, Bethesda is a great example of how dense, walkable districts can bloom around rail nodes, even in an otherwise suburban setting. (Check out this Google satellite map of Bethesda. It shows how the densely urbanized streets that are within easy access of a Metro station are very clearly delineated from the suburban neighborhoods further from the line.) The Bay Area, by contrast, is adamantly low-rise, not just in the suburbs, but also in most neighborhoods in San Francisco and Oakland. In general, only the urban downtown districts make any attempt to reach for the sky — so we have not truly leveraged the potential inherent in most of the rail nodes scattered around the Bay Area. The idea of mid-rises or even shorter high-rises at places like San Leandro and Millbrae BART stations might seem unthinkable — but the Bay Area’s conception of cities, walking, and transit would be quite different if even suburban cities had permitted miniature skylines to sprout at their rail stations. It is also interesting to note that the different development patterns have given rise to contrasting effects on transit ridership. Both BART and Metro are slightly over 100 miles long, and the two systems are of comparable age (Metro is just a few years younger). And yet, while BART reported an average of 367,570 daily riders last quarter, Metrorail set a record last Friday, July 11 of 854,638 riders — a higher ridership than BART can even support as long as its service patterns require operation of four routes through a single transbay tube. What explains the pronounced difference? The fact that Metro has twice the number of stations as BART for approximately the same amount of track certainly goes a long way toward making the system accessible to more people. But another factor (though certainly not the only other factor) that explains the difference must be that Metro has helped give rise to dense, walkable cities, which feed the system with a natural ridership base that is largely missing from BART because the land use around BART stations (already too few to begin with) is often not that intense.
Better Streets for the Mission District
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| Courtesy SF Planning Dept. |
San Francisco is arguably one of America’s most walkable cities, with its dense, lively downtown complemented by a multitude of compact, bustling commercial districts that provide pleasant strolling experiences. But it also has its fair share of boulevards, like outer Geary and 19th Avenue, whose designs are rigged to maximize automotive throughput — at the direct expense of the pedestrian experience, which ranges from drab and noisy, at best, to downright dangerous, at worst. These boulevards may be wide, but they fall considerably short of grand. Solutions range from reducing speed limits on 19th Avenue to landscaping and dedicated bus lanes and stations on Geary that provide a sense of place and a pedestrian oasis in the median. In contrast to 19th Avenue, the Mission District boasts thorough transit access and a collection of comfortably walkable commercial strips, but there is room for improvement, as the bland landscape of Cesar Chavez (pictured above) demonstrates — with its long, multi-lane, infrequent pedestrian crossings; ample space for cars but narrow sidewalks; inadequate transit and bicycle amenities; and no greenery in sight.
What’s Your Walk Score?
One of the themes I hope to discuss in this blog is how to improve the pedestrian experience. Above all, we should design our neighborhoods so that they are conducive to walking and use of public transit, rather than increasing convenience for automobiles. Walking and public transit are flip sides of the same coin, and it often makes sense to address both issues once.
Of course, in the old days, this was a no-brainer. The Bay Area’s oldest neighborhoods (generally speaking, those neighborhoods in the urban core, and some of the suburban downtowns) were laid out before the automobile became a standard mode of travel, and those neighborhoods — with their attractive architecture and streetscape, narrow streets, and first floor businesses with interesting storefronts — represent what is perhaps the ideal pedestrian experience. Once upon a time, we built cities the right way, but when automobiles became a standard possession of every upstanding American family, city planners — especially in suburbs, where new neighborhoods were popping up — made the mistake of planning around cars, and in doing so, destroy any semblance of a quality pedestrian experience.
Nowadays, seeing the detrimental effect that planning around cars has had on travel patterns, city planners have returned to embracing walkable neighborhoods. There’s a great website called Walk Score, in which you can type in an address, and the website will count the number of businesses and pedestrian amenities in the neighborhood of that address. Results are reported in many categories: grocery stores, restaurants, bars, cafes, parks, schools, theaters, libraries, and so forth. Obviously, the more such amenities that exist very close to your home, the higher a “walk score” your neighborhood will be given.
