Tearing Down Public Housing

All over St. Louis we are seeing the demolition of 1940-60s public housing projects.  The picture here, however, is the demotition of similar public housing in Toronto.

While I was in Toronto back in July I made it a point to seek out such areas.  All in all they don’t look much different although the population is more racially diverse.  Physically, Toronoto seems to have followed that of many other cities by creating mid & high-rise public housing that had little to do with the street, having a greater relationship to the parking lots.

Like St. Louis and so many other cities, Toronto is razing these structures and replacing them with more urban low-rise housing.  It is funny though, back when the middle class were seeking out single family detached houses we built public housing (which was originally targeted for the middle class, btw) as high rises.  Now that high rises are increasing in cities such as St. Louis and Toronto for the upper classes we are building low-rise public housing.

No matter the form, the public housing areas seldom get complete neighborhoods — walkable with a retail center.  The planners of these developments still assume a very suburban separation of uses philosophy.  Where is the new urbanism town center to create real viable neighborhoods with our public dollars?

Rail-Volution 2006: A Summary of My Experience Pt1

The 2006 Rail-Volution conference was exciting but exhausting. I did the math, I spent 23 hours in sessions between Sunday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon. The conference was quite intense.

The Conference:

This years conference was the 12th annual and it boosted over 1,000 attendees from something like 7 countries. St. Louis’ Citizens for Modern Transit (CMT) was among the sponsoring organizations of the conference and director Tom Shrout was a presenter. Other from St. Louis included a board member from CMT, a staff person from the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) and Clayton’s Director of Public Works, Paul L. Wojciechowski (Paul is both an engineer and a certified Planner). As a side note, we had a discussion about scooter parking in Clayton which I think we will get some attention along with more bicycle parking.

The 2007 Rail-Volution conference will be held in Miami next November. I’m not much of a beach person but the wealth of information from this conference makes it worth the effort. Although, I spent most of my time in really ugly conference rooms so I don’t know that it matters where the conference is held.

Streetcars:

Streetcars were the big thing at the conference with a number of sessions on them. Seems municipalities around the country are realizing their light rail systems are great for moving large quantities of people across the region (say far suburbs to downtown) but that they do very little to spur quality urban development along their routes. The streetcar, however, can step in to fill in the gaps. Systems across the country are doing just that.

Streetcar advocates are the first to say they are slower than light rail, but that speed is not the point. These systems are often less than 5 miles in total length. The streetcars function as a development tool first, transportation second. Pro-streetcar developers from Portland say they never would have taken the risks they did in the Pearl District based on a bus line that could have easily gone away. Thanks in part to the streetcar, this former warehouse area has gone from zoning of 15 dwelling units per acre (dua) to over 125 dua. Reduced parking requirements thanks to the transit has lowered development costs. The streetcar connects to downtown Portland where residents can then take bus or light rail to other parts of the region for work or shopping. So in addition to prompting billions in development, the remainder of the transit system has also shown increased ridership.

Both Portland and Kenosha WI placed the streetcar in vacant areas with zero ridership! The transit choice combined with new zoning has created outstanding development opportunities which is why the private property owners in Portland were willing to contribute to the capital and operational costs of their system. In Kenosha, the city owned all the land in question and were able to plan for its development.

I believe taking a streetcar from the Union Station MetroLink stop through the western edge of downtown and up to the Pruitt-Igoe site, vacant for over 30 years now, would help create a new neighborhood where one once existed prior to failed urban renewal policies. If done right, it could be dense and vibrant. Similar efforts could be used to bring development near other MetroLink stops such as the new Manchester Rd. stop in Maplewood (an old inner-ring suburb), the St. Charles Rock Road stop with the link extending through Wellston in the county to the city along MLK. Run the line for 2-3 miles and extend toward downtown over the next 5-10 years.

To all the critics that say streetcars are just for tourists and it is just a nostalgia thing are ignoring the facts — streetcars have a proven track record of spurring private development at high returns on the capital investment. The same cannot be said of the light rail systems costing 4-6 times as much per mile as streetcars. The regional light rail system approach was fine when started in the 1970s and 80s when people were still fleeing to the suburbs — the rail was used to get them back downtown. Well, things are different today with families comprising a smaller and smaller percentage of U.S. households and more singles and empty nesters moving back toward walkable communities. Regions that don’t embrace streetcars will stagnate while those that connect people on the micro level will prosper.

Take the current planning on the North & South routes for St. Louis. The assumption is light rail in the street. But, to keep speeds up the service will only stop roughly every mile. Should one happen to live relatively close to an infrequent stop and seek to get downtown quickly that is great. But what if you live between two stops — a half mile walk either way. And then your destination is a mile from your house, between the next two stops. In this case the costly light rail system that speeds right by you does nothing to help you get a mile down the road. You see, light rail is not intended to serve local needs — its greatest strength is moving people long distances such as downtown to the airport. Strong pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods are not built around light rail or bus service — they are built around streetcars.

All this is not to say we should not build any more light rail in the region, indeed we should. I think we can push more into North County from the current alignment near the airport — going up I-170 perhaps. Similarly, we can get to South County from the terminus of the newest alignment at Shrewsbury. The employment center of Westport can be served by connecting into the current system near Page or by a line coming north from Clayton along I-170. The reality is St. Louis city doesn’t have the tax base to “go it alone” on transit so we need county voters to help foot the bill. I’m fine with the county getting more costly and more longer to build light rail while the city would get less expensive but more development friendly streetcar lines.

In the various sessions at the conference focus was paid to funding streetcar systems. Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon spoke before the election on Tuesday about the intent behind the various funding programs. Preceding him at the podium were James Simpson, newly appointed Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration and his boss Mary E. Peters, Bush’s new U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Both promised improvements to the approval process for transit projects going through the Federal “New Starts” and “Small Starts” programs. Lobbying groups such as the New Starts Working Group are seeking improvements in the funding of projects not solely based on the speed at which systems move people but on the impact they will have on communities. Following the elections on Tuesday the mood was quite upbeat with many communities passing efforts to fund new transit projects. Pro-transit Congressman Earl Blumenauer will become the chair of the house committee on transportation. He will be pushing for changes at the FTA to look at criteria other than transit time reduction so that streetcars have a chance of getting some federal funding. One group gave away 200 copies of their new and highly detailed new book: Street Smart: Streetcars and Cities in the 21st Century.

Among the issues raised by streetcar advocates is the federal process for funding approval. Besides taking years too long, something Administrator Simpson recognized as costing projects millions in delays, they favor Bus Rapid Transit or Light Rail. The focus is on a reduction in travel time — commuter time. But, studies show commuting accounts for only 16% of household trips with the bulk of our trips being shorter runs to get groceries, do shopping, drop off the kids, or run errands. FTA guidelines currently look narrowly at reducing them time to get from A to B in a car which often leads to costly transit systems of little use for the bulk of our daily household trips. “Trips not counted” was an often heard phrase at the conference because the federal formulas simply do not account for the ‘trips not taken’ because of those living in compact urban environments thanks to streetcars — the trips taken on foot. The computer models for transit ridership also seem to not understand streetcars and often project ridership 30% or more below what actually ends up being the case. Getting the feds to accept more accurate modeling that accounts for many trips now being taken by foot or shorter trips taken by the streetcar is work that must still be done.

Further Reading/Resources:
• APTA: American Public Transit Association (director William Millar is a great speaker, very direct).
• Center for Transportation Excellent
• Reconnecting America (publisher of the Street Smart streetcar book).

Zoning

During many of the sessions I attended you wouldn’t know it that I was attending a rail transit conference. Much of the discussion was on zoning matters. The zoning discussions focused on areas I mention frequently: urban form and density. One session was entirely on form-based codes.

One speaker from Denver talked about their new Main Street Zoning overlay. This new zoning code is being used in the Colfax area of Denver with great success. Denver recognized their zoning, much like St. Louis’, made the urban buildings we love illegal “non-conforming” and the auto-centric buildings we attempt to tolerate quite permissible. The new zoning overlay can be optionally adopted by property owners, and most have. This allows them to, when they are ready, to build a more urban form without having to jump through many layers of political hoops with elected officials holding out their hands asking for “donations.” By reducing parking requirements developers can get more on a parcel of land. By making parking optional, this reduces costs and makes places more affordable.

Throughout all the sessions it was stressed that transit alone would not do the trick to revitalizing communities. The key was modern zoning that helps create density and high-quality pedestrian environments.

TOD/TDD/TND

Speakers from the mothership, Portland, talked about their streetcar project and how it came about. Speakers included folks from the city, the originally reluctant transit agency, and from the developer community. Together they forged a relationship that is mutually beneficial. They pointed out the high-density urban neighborhood that The Pearl District has become benefits even those that don’t use the streetcar — by having a walkable environment many are finding they can do many trips by foot. This brought up the benefits of walking, something many of us (me especially) need to do more of. They continued to street that the funding going into the streetcar was not just about moving people from point to point, the overall affect was much deeper. As housing costs near transit is often very costly Portland officials made 30% affordable housing part of the deal as well as mandating a percentage of rental and for sale units be under 700sf.

Speakers from Seattle talked about their new streetcar system that will open in 2007 as part of the South Lake Union re-development area. This area until the last year or two was basically low density warehouses between downtown Seattle and Lake Union. It had almost no residents and very little justification for increased bus service. But, with the streetcar and a good transit oriented development plan this overlooked area in Seattle is bustling with new high-density development — before the streetcar takes in its first paying customer!

I’ll have more in a future post on additional sessions from the conference, including a panel session on the future of cities — looking at changing demographics in our urbanized regions.

Normal: Razing Indoor Mall for Outdoor Shopping

Yesterday I stopped in the greater Bloomington-Normal area along I-55 while returning to St. Louis from Chicago. I happened upon something quite interesting, a former mall that was razed to create an outdoor shopping area. Nobody is going to confuse the ‘Shoppes at College Station’ with say the outstanding Country Club Plaza in Kansas City but it is clear some attention was paid to pedestrian connections.

Let’s start with the original mall (image at right). The mall had three anchor stores — a Target (upper left with light roof), a Von Maur department store (upper right) and a Hobby Lobby (bottom, center). In the remake, all three of those remained but the middle mall section was removed entirely. This is a highly suburban and auto-centric section of Bloomington-Normal with Veteran’s Parkway serving as the Business Loop for I-55. I passed another mall not 3 miles down the road and just about every chain you can imagine in countless conventional strip centers. The headquarters for State Farm Insurance was maybe a mile or so away. (See map of mall)

The remaking of suburban mall sites is increasing of the last say 10 years, making it more and more “normal.” Sadly they did not go far enough in Bloomington-Normal as an upscale strip center basically replaced the old mall. In many other places, the former mall sites get parceled out with real streets (aka public streets) and a mix of uses including office and residential. These will often connect to adjacent residential areas.

But they did one thing right (sort of) in Bloomington-Normal: internal pedestrian connections.

New meets old with the new Ann Taylor connecting to the old Target store which appears to have received a face-lift. You’ll note the large sidewalks and pedestrian crossings as well as the city bus in front of Target. Many private properties like this, especially those with more upscale stores like Ann Taylor, don’t like public transportation within their borders so that was a pleasant surprise. I guess this also prevented them from having to make connections to non-existant sidewalks on the main public streets.

The “brick” pedestrian crossings are in fact just stamped concrete, but these provide a nice visual clue to motorists as well as a strong suggestion to shoppers to consider walking from store to store rather than get in the car to drive within the property.

The center of the former mall contains a large planting area with sidewalks on both sides — this helps you cross the large parking area without having to walk in the auto drives. While this has many flaws, it is certainly better access than most of our suburban style shopping centers such as Loughborough Commons, Gravois Plaza, and Southtowne Center in the city and a mile-long list in the suburbs themselves.

What are the flaws you ask? Well, the landscaping is treated as a decorative element rather providing shade. I personally would have created a strong allee of trees to provide shade for the pedestrian as well as a major visual element. As it is you feel a bit exposed out in the middle and I doubt we’ll see anyone sitting on the benches in the middle of the area despite the attractive “public” art that is provided.

In this view you can see how the pedestrian areas are clearly delineated. These were not an afterthought but planned as part of the project.

I don’t want to give them too much credit as the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) requires connections between buildings:

4.3.2 Location.

(1) At least one accessible route within the boundary of the site shall be provided from public transportation stops, accessible parking, and accessible passenger loading zones, and public streets or sidewalks to the accessible building entrance they serve. The accessible route shall, to the maximum extent feasible, coincide with the route for the general public.

(2) At least one accessible route shall connect accessible buildings, facilities, elements, and spaces that are on the same site.

So clearly the mandate from the feds is to connect buildings via accessible routes, so the above may not be out of great concern for creating a good environment but simply a desire to comply with ADA requirements. Yet when I look at the shopping centers mentioned above I do not see attempts for compliance with the standards.

At the Rail-Volution conference in Chicago I met a “Transportation Accessibility Specialist” who works for the U.S. Government in helping to write the ADA guidelines. I will be corresponding with him in the future to determine if some of our recently constructed shopping areas past muster or not. Enforcement of the ADA requirements does not fall to the local jurisdictions such as the City of St. Louis which is why projects may get built that do not meet the standards. No, the enforcement falls to the U.S. Department of Justice. I will seek out accessible advocacy groups to help file complaints against local projects that appear to fail to comply with the accessible route requirement of the ADA.

This image is the opposite view of the one above, again showing how the path is clearly marked. This is beneficial to pedestrians of all types — those on foot and those in wheelchairs. My visit was prior to 10am yesterday morning so many of the stores were not yet open but I did see a number of people already walking between buildings that did have open stores.

We can make pedestrian connections even in highly suburban contexts and especially in our urbanized neighborhoods and commercial streets. The car is not banished to provide for a walkable route. The lesson is that if you provide a clear path people will use it and the better the path the more traffic you will see.

Oregon Congressman Talks About St. Louis

Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) took time from his busy schedule to attend the annual Railvolution convention held in Chicago this year (the day before the election no less). Following his address to the attendees, I asked him for his take on St. Louis:

Blumenauer is apparently somewhat of an expert on smart growth and transit. He was involved in the establishment of Portland’s infamous “Urban Growth Boundary” when he was in his early 20s, after being elected to the Oregon State House.

He is right, we need to get it right and fight sprawl in our region. Now if only we had someone in congress as dynamic and committed to good urbanism as Blumenauer.

You Either Love It Or Hate It

Personally, I hate it. What you see at right is the Sharp Centre for Design at the Ontario College and Art & Design in Toronto (OCAD). This building is not some relict of some 1960s failed urban experiment but a new structure built in 2004, designed by British Architect Will Alsop.

I didn’t know the building even existed until I spotted this oddity from the CN Tower. From the air I was not impressed but I wanted to see it in person. The next day and a short streetcar ride I was face to face with this architectural statement. Will Alsop is one of those acclaimed architects with very few actual buildings constructed, quite possibly a very good thing.

The bright painted victorian-era building is the oldest structure on campus which now serves as an art supply store. Of note is the pedestrian crossing signs which alert motorists of a pedestrian crossing zone. These were present on numerous streets that had long distances between major signalized intersections.

As a pedestrian it is hard to have a normal relationship with this building — likely the point entirely. The architect wants us to contemplate and question the design. He is begging us to debate his work.

I wasn’t sure if it was better to walk next to this building so that I could look across the street to a more pleasing (conventional) urban scale or walk next to the urban from and try to avoid looking at the building screaming for attention. It is like a car wreck, you can’t help but look despite the carnage and nightmares you’ll have later.

The base of the building is a rather clean modernist box with some nice window & door detailing and a good use of color. The entrance, however, is set below the sidewalk level for no reason that was readily apparent. This further decreases the pedestrian-building connection that I seek in urban settings.

Architects dig this kinda design. One of my favorite architects, the late Bruce Goff, did nothing but unusual anti-urban buildings. In his defense these were primarily residential structures on remote sites where the context was trees, not people. In architecture school I did my fair share of zany concepts.

We certainly need architecture as art but some art ages better than others. In 30 years time I think this building will be viewed as an eyesore, for those that don’t already think so. Often it is the specialty project that presents maintenance challenges as the buildings age, making them obsolete far faster than you’d think based on their initial price tags. Will this school muster the funds to rehab this building when it is falling apart or will they quietly let it fall into ruin or raze it for the latest craze of the day.

Art, as they say, doesn’t have to match your sofa. Do buildings as art have to match the street? No. If they did they’d cease to be art. For me I prefer my leading-edge art to be the exception, not the rule. These one-off buildings are OK as long as we maintain some sense of normal urban streetscape. The last thing we need is for a Blockbuster video to recreate this look on nearly every street corner in America. Cheap knock offs of a painting isn’t so bad, but cheap knock offs of high-design buildings is something we can do without.

– Steve