Cascadia Scorecard Weblog

Rush Hour, By the Numbers

Sorry to be so Seattle-centric...but this post about Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct got me thinking. If the Viaduct is closed--whether for construction of a tunnel or a new aerial highway, or to make way for green space and a surface street--what happens to rush hour?  Does traffic in downtown Seattle get hopelessly snarled, and stay that way for at least 3 years?  Or do city transportation have some reasonable options for keeping people moving through the downtown core, even without a Viaduct?

Traffic studies show that the Viaduct carries about 105,000 daily trips. But most of those trips are at off-peak times when the surface streets have plenty of extra capacity. Sure, a trip along the Viaduct-less corridor would take a little longer than it does now; but the steet grid could easily handle the load.

But at rush hour -- particularly the afternoon -- there's precious little extra capacity on the city streets. So the thorniest problem that traffic planners will have to face will be accomodating rush hour trips on the street grid and I-5, during the busiest part of the day.

So, how many trips is that, exactly? And what are the options for dealing with the added load?

Earlier this week, the helpful and responsive folks at the Seattle Department of Transportation sent me some data that may help shed some light. As far as I can tell, it boils down to this: without the Viaduct, transportation planners will have to figure out how to accomodate the equivalent of 11,000 rush-hour car trips through the busiest part of downtown. Can they do it?

First, the data. (Feel free to skip the next few paragraphs if you're not a traffic geek.) Each year, the city collects data on traffic flows on the major arterials around Seattle, including the Viaduct and its on- and off-ramps. The data include figures for average weekday traffic, plus the traffic volume during the one-hour morning and afternoon peaks. Based on those figures, it seems like there are about 12,000 total vehicle trips on the Viaduct during busiest one-hour afternoon rush hour peak.

Now, without a Viaduct, some of those peak-hour trips will take quite a bit longer -- so people will shift their trips to other times of day, other modes, or forego them altogether. Based on published estimates of how much an increase in travel time decreases travel demand, it looks like demand for car trips may drop from 12,000 trips to 10,000 during the afternoon peak hour.

But some of those trips already begin or end in the Pioneer Square-to-Belltown corridor. A car that currently gets on at the Belltown northbound exit may have travelled through Belltown or downtown. So the peak number of cars added to surface streets after the Viaduct is closed will be somewhat less than 10,000.

To get a finer-grained look at where the traffic problems might be most severe, you can break down the trips on the former viaduct corridor into zones--Belltown, Downtown Core, Pioneer Square/Stadium, etc.--and look at the actual increase in travel demand in each zone. To me, it seems that the real pinch occurs in the Downtown Core--roughly, from Yesler in the south through Stewart in the north, and Alaskan Way on the west through Boren on the east. That area is already pretty packed during rush hour. With no Viaduct, peak-hour travel demand will increase by somewhere between 6,100 and 7,200 trips. (Note, this is a somewhat conservative estimate -- I'm assuming that some former Viaduct trips will "disappear"--i.e., move to other times or destinations--because they'll take too long; but I'm not assuming the same for trips already on the surface streets.)

So that's the one-hour peak. Over the course of a rush hour that lasts at least an hour and a half, that means that transportation officials will have to worry about accomodating the demand for some 11,000 addtional trips in the busiest part of downtown, during the busiest part of the day.

So, 11,000 extra trips: is that a lot or a little? It's a lot less than 105,000. But in my mind, it's still a lot of trips. The existing street grid may be able to hold a few more cars than it currently does. Some tweaks to traffic enforcement ("don't block the box"), elimination of some street parking during rush hour, and so forth may increase throughput a bit more. Still, even with those improvements, the demand for 11,000 extra trips could really jam up the afternoon rush hour. Even if people eventually adjust to the congestion -- by changing schedules or jobs, or switching to transit -- the early months could be brutal.

But if you add in transit improvements, accomodating 11,000 downtown trips seems much more achievable. The bus system already carries 31,000 people out of downtown during the afternoon peak. So getting 11,000 people to shift from driving alone to the bus would boost rush-hour transit ridership by a little more than a third -- tough, maybe, but not inconceivable.

And in theory, at least, there's ample capacity to handle that many trips in the bus tunnel, which is now closed for service. Once the tunnel reopens, it will be able to handle about 9,000 rush hour trips that right now are travelling on Third Ave. And when light rail starts running through the tunnel, its capacity could grow by a third or more. (To my surprise, it seems that the tunnel may have been underutilized; one estimate, a few years old now, is that the tunnel could carry 18,000 trips per hour (scroll down a bit to find the claim), with everyone seated, in buses alone. If that's really possible, then the tunnel alone would be meet the post-Viaduct demand.)

And then there's Third Ave., which is currently closed to cars during rush hour. If Third reverts to being predominantly a car corridor, it'll handle at most 2,000 vehicle trips during rush hour. But if it's kept closed to cars, and is used to handle an extended bus schedule, it can handle at least three times as many passengers.

So, there are three options -- (1) surface street and traffic enforcement tweaks, (2) adding light rail to the bus tunnel, and (3) keeping Third Ave. as a bus-only street even after the bus tunnel opens -- that could accomodate most, if not all, of the added demand for rush hour trips. If those options are phased in, as the Viaduct is phased out of service, it could be that many folks wouldn't notice much of a change to their afternoon commutes.

Yes, it would be tough to get people out of their cars onto transit. But if city officials have their way -- and the Viaduct is closed for reconstruction -- they won't have much choice but to try. There really aren't many other options.

And, as I've said before -- if a combination of transit and street improvements can keep downtown traffic moving, or at least bearable, for a mimimum of three years, why not see if they'll work as a permanent solution? Why spend billions of dollars to fix a problem that the city's already solved?

Sims Gets On The Bus

Is it a miracle? Can it really be so? Did I just read about a transportation plan that's actually useful and affordable? That can happen soon but also has long-term benefits?

I'm stunned by King County Exec Ron Sims' proposal to increase the sales tax to fund better bus service. For an additional 1/10th of a penny per dollar, Sims believes the county can drastically improve bus service--increasing the frequency and speed of routes and adding capacity to boot. (The Seattle Times reports; the P-I editorializes in favor.)

I have no idea what prompted Sims' outburst of sanity. These days, Puget Sound residents are accustomed to pony up for outlandish schemes of miracle monorails, glammed-out streetcars, multi-billion dollar tunnels, and vast highway expansion measures. (Not to mention problem-plagued light rail, the one transit option that's almost a reality.) Buses, on the other hand, are not especially sexy and they don't come with big-ticket political bragging rights. They're just staid, effective, flexible, and affordable. And--oh yes--they're already working so well that they're over-subscribed, at least in the city.

So on the upside, Sims' bus boosting proposal will improve mobility in the near future. On the downside, it doesn't promise flying saucers or citizen jet-packs, and it doesn't come with a flock of crazy-eyed proponents. (I do have a non-humorous quibble; but more on that later...)

Improving bus service is critical to the continued health of Seattle and the rest of King County too because it makes density work. As the region's density increases it should be able to leverage ever more viable transit--with more people in a neighborhood, it makes sense to run more buses, more often.

This morning as I was shuffling onto the 28 Express--a double-length bus crammed so full that we were standing in the aisles the entire length of the coach and crowding up near the driver--I wondered for the billionth time when Metro would start running twice as many buses. I also wondered why I wasn't on my bicycle. And I wondered whether I should drive more often. I'll bet my not-especially-dense Ballard neighborhood could fill double the buses, especially as more frequent departures tapped latent demand. And as nearly every week reveals new townhouses going up in formerly low-density lots, and condos rising along busy corridors, I wonder if we couldn't fill triple the buses.

So I'm all for Sims' bus proposal. All for it. I just hope that it doesn't get swamped by the headline-grabbers like the Alaska Way Viaduct tunnel, the regional transportation improvement ticket that voters will see this autumn, and all the other kooky multi-billion dollar career-makers. I'm hoping that local leaders--and local voters--remember that bus service works and it's a bargain.

Now a quibble. Why sales taxes? Most King County residents are already paying 8.8 percent and sales taxes are regressive, falling hardest on those who can least afford them. That's a problem, I think, in a county that's struggling with affordability issues. (Admittedly, some of that regressivity is mitigated because the higher taxes pay for bus service, which is especially important to lower income folks.) Wouldn't a better way to fund buses be something ingenious like a fee or tax based on the value of cars. Something more or less exactly like the monorail fee? *

* Yes, I know that such a tax/fee would require enabling legislation from Olympia. Enable it already. It has a host of benefits: it's progressive (because owners of more expensive cars pay more), it's nicely symmetrical (because it provides an incentive to switch from car to transit), and it's deductible from federal income taxes. It's also potentially localizable, meaning that your car tab renewal fee could pay for transit in your neighborhood. If West Seattle gets drastically better bus service, then West Seattle car owners could pay the bill. But if you live in Duvall and don't see many buses anyway, your fee could be proportionally lower. In any case, it would probably be far, far cheaper than the current monorail fee that's just about to expire.

Brazilian Whacks

It's interesting to see what Jaime Lerner -- the legendary mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, who created a world-class bus rapid transit system on a shoestring budget -- had to say about Seattle transportation, in a question-and-answer session with the Seattle P-I:

Is there a way to create dedicated bus lanes in a cramped city like Seattle?

"There are many ways, many corridors where you can have a really good system. ... Sometimes you think, 'Aaah we don't have enough space.' ... There's always a good solution."

How long does it typically take to set up a bus rapid transit system?

"You can build in two years a good system. It's not difficult, because it has not too much public works. It's very simple.

I tend to agree: bus rapid transit is far more viable than most people think.  It's cheaper, faster to deploy, and more flexible than rail.  Now that Seattle's monorail has been - uh - derailed, it's a solution that's worth considering for the corridor that the monorail was designed to serve.

And then there's this:

Some people say that if the viaduct were replaced with nothing but a surface road, heavy traffic along the waterfront would ruin it. Do you agree?

"If you provide good alternatives for public transport, you won't have traffic problems. ... Can you imagine how much better the city could become with 30 percent less of the cars running in the street? It's very easy. The main issue is having good public transport and after, if it's needed, the wall to protect the waterfront -- I don't have the answer to that. But definitely it's not the viaduct."

Seems as if the P-I editorial board may be inching towards the same conclusion.

Mossback's Catch-22

Another week, another anti-city screed from the Seattle Weekly's Knute Berger. There's lots to pick apart in this week's column by "Mossback," but I'll restrain myself.

According to Berger, increasing density won't address sprawl on the urban fringe because:

Big growth in downtown Seattle won't be a sponge for regional growth. In fact, it will likely drive additional growth in the region—just look at the San Francisco Bay Area, which has sprawled endlessly despite San Francisco's higher densities and incomes. A Seattle boom will generate more sprawl and more density, in part because we don't have the strict growth controls in place to truly limit it.

Berger's argument is a lovely compliment to sprawl industry flaks whose mantra is: we can't have growth controls because there's nowhere to build in the cities. But Berger doesn't want density because the growth controls aren't strong enough. No density without growth controls; no growth controls with density. This leaves us in a bit of a pickle.

The obvious solution that Berger overlooks is that increasing density can indeed help corral sprawl. Can density solve the problem all by itself? Of course not. Does that mean density is worthless for controlling sprawl? Again, of course not. Growth boundaries on the urban fringe are important too; and so is smart planning. (That is, density is a necessary condition of growth management, but it's not a sufficient one.)

Definitive proof that density reduces sprawl is hard to come by, but I can get close.

Check out this report, using Census data to track growth in 14 US cities during the 1990s. The cities that do best at controlling sprawl are also the ones boosting their density. Take Portland, Oregon. If Portland had grown like a typical city in the study--that is, if newcomers to Portland had spread out in the typical low-density fashion--the Rose City would have swallowed an additional 150 square miles of rural land. How did Portland spare so many farms and forests? A paired combination of density and growth boundaries. Seattle--with weaker growth controls during the period and anti-density Bergers in the mix--did worse than Portland, but not nearly so badly as places like Charlotte or Nashville.

Berger's argument is, in any case, weirdly perverse. He implies that density will actually speed growth into the Seattle region because--why?--people find density appealing? If people like density enough to move here, I suppose one strategy to prevent growth would be to outlaw density. Or we could try a massive urban uglification campaign, perhaps driving away current residents to boot. Even easier, we could just get rid of cops and fire departments and see how the region grows then. That'll show 'em. 

Truth is, I actually agree with Berger sometimes. I just wish he would stick to making claims he can support instead of getting carried away (see here and here, for instance). He's right to caution against damaging Seattle's historic and architectural legacy. And he's right to remind us, in a general way, to preserve the best of the old while we build for the future. But ranting about paying for parking (in urban neighborhoods, fer gosh sakes!) or "privatizing" sunlight by permitting skyscrapers (no, I'm not making that up) sounds less like civic smarts and more like incoherent ranting.

Say It Ain't So, Joe

I picked up a copy of the March issue of Seattle Magazine the other day, and happened across an article (print only, I'm afraid) by the estimable Joe Follansbee.  The article claims that Seattle suffers from an inferiority complex:  whenever Seattle residents compare their home town with Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, BC, they always decide that Seattle comes up short. Follansbee argues that Seattle should just learn to love itself just as it is, rather than falling victim to sibling rivalry.

Interesting enough idea.  But there's one thing that sticks in my craw:  in trying to puncture the reputation of neighboring cities, Follansbee claims that Portland has an unusally low number of children, compared with its neighboring metropolises:

Portland's downtown Pearl District, hailed as the embodiment of "smart growth"...had only three more children living there in 2000 than in 1990, according to demographers.  What's "smart" about a city without children?

Do we [i.e., Seattle] want to be like Portland, childless and..."proper"?

Enough already! This factoid--that Portland is devoid of tykes--is simply false. It doesn't even pass the 5 minute Google test; that is, it takes less than five minutes of web searching to see that it doesn't hold water.  And yet, it's a theme I hear again and again in discussions of Portland and smart growth generally.

It's high time to roast this chestnut.

As it turns out, what's true for Portland's Pearl District -- that there aren't many children -- doesn't hold true for the rest of Portland.  Take a look at the Census Bureau's Portland "quick facts." As of the last Census count, 21.1 percent of the city's residents were children under the age of 18, compared with 24.7 for Oregon as a whole. 

So the city does have fewer children than the state as a whole, by 3.6 percentage points.  But take a look at the Seattle "quick facts."  Minors account for just 15.6 percent of the city's population.  In comparison, Portland is teeming with kids -- 40 percent more, measured per capita, than in Seattle.  And the gap between Seattle and the whole of Washington is 10 percentage points -- nearly 3 times wider than the gap between Portland and Oregon.

So it makes absolutely no sense -- none -- to ask whether Seattle wants to be "childless" like Portland.

Admittedly, Portland has fewer kids than many US cities.  But it's pretty much on par with Denver and Minneapolis, has a few more kids per capita than Pittsburgh, and far more than San Francisco (where under-18-year-olds are just 14.5 percent of the population).  In Vancouver, BC -- often held up as an exemplar of family-friendly urbanity -- children under 18 made up only 15.5 16.6 percent of the population in 2001. 

Diving into the Vancouver numbers a bit deeper, it seems that there's no major part of Vancouver -- not downtown, not the west side, not even the semi-suburban south end -- that has a kids-to-population ratio that's as high as in Portland.  And the kid-to-population gap between Vancouver and the whole of BC is wider than for Portland and the whole of Oregon.  Vancouver's denser neighborhoods have a reputation for having lots of kids, and in large part they do -- but only because they have lots of people, period.  As a share of the population, though, Portland has far more kids than "kid-friendly" Vancouver.

I'm sure this post won't put an end to the urban legend of Portland's childlessness (although it may perpetuate the impression that there aren't many kids in the Northwest's other major cities).  But I hope it helps.

On a deeper level, I'm puzzled by all the hand-wringing about childless cities.  As of the last census, families with children comprised less than one in three Northwest households.  And the number of childless households is growing for good reasons.  We're having kids later in life, and fewer of them -- largely because of better educational and job opportunities for women.  Plus we're living longer, so seniors are making up a far larger share of the population than they used to.  For the large and growing number of childless households, urban living has a strong appeal -- they're the ones who appear to be flocking to housing in dense urban centers.  So to the extent that the trends towards "childless cities" is real, it's largely driven by demographic changes that we'd be foolish to want to reverse.

What do the angst-ridden commentators lamenting the lack of children downtown want people to do? Have kids even if they'd prefer not to? Die before they get a chance to down-nest?  Move their families to urban condos in order to save some single-family detached houses for hipsters?  Help me out here, folks.

Parking Paradigm Shift?

Editor’s note: This post was contributed by Todd Litman, author of “Parking Management Best Practices," and founder and executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute. For more information see his free summary report (pdf), Parking Management: Strategies, Evaluation and Planning.

A great example of the maxim “no free lunch” is the common struggle over parking. Motorists often assume that parking should be abundant and free at nearly every destination, and any deviation from this is considered a problem that must be solved by developers (who are forced to construct ever larger parking facilities when building or upgrading buildings) and governments (who are forced to provide subsidized public parking).

But—as noted in these three recent Planetizen op-eds (and previously in this blog), none of this parking is really free. We all pay double through higher rents, higher prices, higher taxes, increased traffic problems and sprawl. These practices are also inequitable since they force non-drivers to subsidize parking costs, reduce travel options for non-drivers, and reduce housing affordability.

The good news is that a fundamental shift in parking planning is gaining momentum. Communities and planners are beginning to adopt the “no free lunch” approach to parking. They’re developing policies and programs—called parking management--that use parking resources more efficiently. And they’re reaping benefits ranging from more-vibrant downtowns to more-affordable housing to a greater variety of transit options.

Here are some examples of successful programs.

Downtown Pasadena Redevelopment: During the 1970s Old Pasadena’s downtown had become run down, with many derelict and abandoned buildings and few customers, in part due to the limited parking available to customers. Curb parking was restricted to two-hour duration but many employees simply parked in the most convenient, on-street spaces and moved their vehicles several times each day. The city proposed pricing on-street parking as a way to increase turnover and make parking available to customers. Many local merchants originally opposed the idea. As a compromise, city officials agreed to dedicate all revenues to public improvements that make the downtown more attractive. A Parking Meter Zone (PMZ) was established within which parking was priced and revenues were invested.

With this proviso, the merchants agreed to the proposal. They began to see parking meters in a new way: as a way to fund the projects and services that directly benefit their customers and businesses. The city formed a PMZ advisory board consisting of business and property owners, which recommended parking policies and set spending priorities for the meter revenues. Investments included new street furniture and trees, more police patrols, better street lighting, more street and sidewalk cleaning, pedestrian improvements, and marketing.

This created a “virtuous cycle” in which parking revenue funded community improvements that attracted more visitors which increased the parking revenue, allowing further improvements. This resulted in extensive redevelopment of buildings, new businesses and residential development. Parking is no longer a problem for customers, who can almost always find a convenient space. Local sales tax revenues have increased far faster than in other shopping districts with lower parking rates, and nearby malls that offer free customer parking. This indicates that charging market rate for parking with revenues dedicated to local improvements can be an effective way to support urban redevelopment.

Tri-Met Parking Management in Portland: The Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District, which manages transportation in the Portland, Oregon area, has implemented various parking management strategies around transit stations to minimize costs and support transit-oriented development.

These include:

• Sharing parking with Park & Ride and other types of land uses, including apartments, churches, movie theaters and government buildings near transit stations.
• Using lower minimum parking requirements around transit stations.
• Allowing Park & Ride capacity near transit stations to be reduced if the land is used for transit-oriented development, thus allowing walking and bike trips to replace car trips.

More Accurate Parking Requirements in Vancouver: Vancouver, British Columbia, is developing a more flexible approach to parking requirements for multi-family dwellings to support efficient transportation, smart growth and housing affordability objectives. The program is loosely based on the LEED TM Green building rating system. Developers receive credits for reducing the number of parking stalls, providing parking spaces for carshare vehicles, and providing annual transit passes to building occupants.

Rich Sorro Commons, San Francisco, California (USEPA, 2006): Rich Sorro Commons is a mixed-use project with 100 affordable units and approximately 10,000 square feet of ground floor retail. Conventional standards would require 130 to 190 parking spaces for such a building, but it was constructed with only 85 parking spaces, due to proximity to high-quality public transit services, the provision of two carshare parking spaces in the building, and the fact that the building provides affordable housing, with tenants who are less likely to own a car.

Reduced parking supply freed up space for a childcare center and more ground-level retail stores. Just 17 avoided spaces allows the project to generate $132,000 in additional annual revenues (300 square feet per space at $25.80 per square foot in rent), making housing more affordable. Two carshare vehicles are available to residents, giving them access to a car without the costs of ownership – a particularly important benefit for low-income households.

Austin Parking Benefit District: Many neighborhoods experience parking spillover problems, including difficulty finding parking for residents and visitors, concerns that public service vehicles cannot pass two lanes of parked vehicles on the street, or that parking on the street reduces neighborhood attractiveness. These problems become an opportunity with the establishment of a Parking Benefit District (PBD) A PBD is created by metering the on-street parking (either with pay stations on the periphery of the neighborhood or with the traditional parking meters) and dedicating the revenue, minus City expenses for maintenance and enforcement, towards improvements in the neighborhood that promote walking, cycling and transit use, such as sidewalks, curb ramps, and bicycle lanes. Charging for parking and promoting alternatives reduces parking in neighborhoods and helps fund neighborhood benefits. The PBD may be used in conjunction with a Residential Permit Parking program to ensure that parking is available for residents and their visitors.

Using Parking Revenue to Support Transit in Boulder: Faced with a shortage of parking for customers, Boulder, Colorado. developed a program to encourage downtown employees to use alternative commute modes. In 1993, Boulder’s City Council mandated restricted downtown parking and appealed for parking demand management for the city’s commuters. The Central Area General Improvement District (CAGID), made up of many of downtown’s 700 businesses, responded to the Boulder City Council’s demands by creating a system using revenue from downtown parking meters to pay for free bus passes. The passes are provided for all of the district’s 7,500 employees, and cost $500,000 each year. The City of Boulder offers deeply discounted Eco-Passes to businesses outside the CAGID, and to residents, and encourages walking and bicycling. The program has changed travel behavior, freeing up valuable customer parking spaces and reducing parking costs, congestion, accidents and pollution emissions.

• Employee carpooling increased from 35% in 1993 to 47% in 1997.
• The district’s employees require 850 fewer parking spaces.
• More available parking has increased retail activity in downtown Boulder.

Although individual parking management strategies often have modest impacts, typically reducing parking requirements by just 5-15%, their effects are cumulative. A cost-effective, integrated parking management program can often reduce parking requirements by 20-40%, while improving user convenience and helping to achieve other planning objectives, such as supporting more compact development, encouraging use of alternative modes, and increasing development affordability. This can increase profits and help address a wide range of transportation and land use problems.

P.S. For more information, see VTPI’s summary report, Parking Management: Strategies, Evaluation and Planning

One Mile from Home

(Editor's note: See the two other posts in the walkability series, "Carless in Seattle" and "Dead Man Walking.")

Last week, I displayed the wreckage of our 1986 stationwagon; this week, its replacement: our 1996 Burley stroller/bike trailer. (It’s Cascadia-made in Eugene, Oregon.)

The kids have long-since outgrown the thing. But since we decided to experiment in car-less living, we’ve resurrected it to haul groceries, library books, and (recently) a broken vacuum cleaner.

The Burley’s range is only as far as you want to push it. And for my family, that limit seems to be about one mile. Less than a mile is a comfortable walk; more is a burden. (To extend the range, we can fit the Burley to a bicycle—on which, more another day.)

A one-mile perimeter, therefore, defines this car-less family’s pedestrian travel zone—call it our “walkshed.” Fortunately, because we chose to live in a compact community, our walkshed turns out to be well stocked.

We can stroll to scores of shops and services—248 to be precise. I know because I counted. You can, too, in less than 60 seconds. I’ll tell you how in a moment.

Among the establishments in our domain are a bowling alley, a produce stand, a movie theater, and a hardware store, plus public institutions such as our post office, swimming pool, farmers’ market, and skate park (new and very cool!).

We’ve got pairs of independent booksellers, thrift stores (we know them well), and bakeries (ditto). Three pharmacies, three yoga studios, and three video stores offer us medication, meditation, and mesmerization, respectively. Five grocers and six dry cleaners compete for our appetites and our wrinkles. Nine barbers eye our locks. Dozens of specialty shops hawk their curiosities in the range of our Burley: one sells only flags, another only gifts from Norway, a third only old magazines.

True coffee houses number six, only one of them a Starbucks (which, because it's so low, may be the most surprising number in this tally). Restaurants? We’re provisioned with 54! (And there are 151 within two miles: we’ll walk farther for great eating.)

Two neighborhood ice creameries are counteracted by an astonishing 42 dentists (none of them covered by our insurance, sadly). Two local smoke shops are outnumbered by an even more astounding 74 doctors (again, not covered by our insurance). And then there’s our one neighborhood orthodontist: he has straightened or is straightening all three of our kids’ teeth, for which we've paid him enough to buy three used Volvos or most of a new Prius.

I should perhaps note that, despite these large counts, we do not live downtown. Far from it—-in fact, five miles from it. Our neighborhood of Ballard is a typical streetcar community developed largely in the 1920s and replicated in every North American city of similar age.

I should also probably note that our neighborhood is definitely not Mayberry. It's got 44 auto shops, 10 taverns, and a liquor store. Oh, plus two sex-toy shops and two strip clubs. (Or so the signs say -- I’ve never been inside. I swear.)

All of these counts I did in my head or using the yellow pages, and you can do the same for your home if you live in the United States. (4/10 Update: This tool is really only reliable in states where Qwest offers local phone service. Elsewhere, the count is incomplete. Here's a map of their area. Tip of the hat to Joseph W., in comments, for this catch.)

Here’s how:

To get a fairly complete count of businesses (in Qwest's 14 states), go to this Qwest online phone directory, select the business listings, type “all” in the category field, click “near a street address,” type in your address, and choose “1 mile.” (Sorry, Canadians, I have yet to find a .ca that performs this trick.) If you’re lucky and the database gods are smiling on you (the site is temperamental), Qwest will promptly reveal how many businesses there are within a one-mile walk of your front door. Call this your Walkshed Index, your Burley Score.

Ours, as I said, is 248. There are two hundred and forty eight places where my family can do business within a mile of home, not counting public facilities. That number is not remarkably high: the walkshed index at my downtown office address is 6,623. Nor is it remarkably low: one suburban family I know has a score of 0. But it means that living car-free is more viable for us than it would be for many families.

What’s the Burley Score where you live?

P.S. More than one quarter of car trips in the United States are shorter than one mile, as we noted in Seven Wonders. One quarter!

P.P.S. Realtors provide detailed information to prospective home buyers on schools and resale values. They could as easily report the Walkshed Index-—high scores translate into thousands of dollars of potential savings in fuel and car payments.

P.P.P.S. According to one map-making friend, creating walkshed maps and yellow pages would be a relatively simple Google Maps “Mash Up.” Anyone know of such a tool? Anyone volunteer to do this project? I’d love to have a detailed map stowed in the “glove box” of our Burley of all 248 businesses in my home zone. (I can get close with the Qwest online directory, plus the cool mapping tools at Map24, Google Local, and Windows Live Local. But these tools are designed for car drivers, not walkers.) Ideally, I would want a walking map or PDA application that shows me the whereabouts of public restrooms, water fountains, bike racks, curb cuts, bus stops, and benches. Besides, the Qwest tool is clunky and imprecise. (My total score of 248 is inexplicably less than the sum of all the categories of establishments listed above!)

UPDATE: A reader points out (in comments) that Canada411.ca will calculate a metric version of the Burley Score. Leave "category" blank, choose 1 or 2 kilometers, enter your address, and you're set. I calculated a 2-kilometer Walkshed Index of almost 7,000 for  an address in Vancouver's West End.

Surface With A Smile?

I wouldn't call it momentum, exactly, but there seems to have been a bit of movement on the idea of replacing Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct with a surface boulevard -- a modestly-priced alternative to an aerial rebuild or tunnel. Now, just to be clear, I'm still not convinced that this is an ideal solution. Transportation is complicated, and while other US cities that have removed downtown highways (San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Portland) have never suffered the gridlock that skeptics predicted, the unique layout of Seattle's traffic corridors, industrial areas, and job centers might mean that losing the Viaduct's capacity would create nightmare rush hours for people working (and living) downtown.

Except there's this:  the current plans for the tunnel and aerial rebuild already assume that the city can make do without the Viaduct for three to four years.  That's how long it will take between the moment the existing structure is closed for demolition, and the new one is open for traffic.

Now, I've heard plenty of people argue that traffic will come to a standstill if the Viaduct is replaced by a surface boulevard.  But I've never heard anyone from the city or state admit that their prefered options will do the exact same thing, for at least three years.

So either: a) transportation officials aren't being up-front about this -- and the replacement options have a hidden downside that nobody's talking about publicly; or b) they don't think it's really all that much of a problem, and that they'll cobble together some combination of transit incentives and surface street improvements that will keep traffic flowing.  And if it's the latter, then, goodness gracious, if it can work for 3 years, then why not 10, or 20, or longer?

More to the point, it seems to me that there's pretty good reason to believe that downtown traffic won't have to come to a halt if the Viaduct is closed. 

The official figures say that the Viaduct carries 105,000 trips per day.  But during much of the day the Viaduct is lightly travelled, and there's usually extra capacity on surface streets and I-5. 

The real problems might come during rush hour, when just about every traffic conduit in downtown is full.  But in reality, not that much traffic actually travels on the Viaduct during rush hour.  With only 2 lanes, the Battery Street Tunnel carries at most 10,000 vehicles into downtown during a typical morning rush hour, and 10,000 northwards at the end of the day.  (This is assuming 2.5 hours of rush hour, and a generous 2,000 cars per lane per hour.)  So that means -- from the North anyway -- that the transportation system needs to deal with about 10,000 round trips that would no longer be able to go on the Viaduct.  (I haven't thought things through, but I bet it's a similar number of round trips from the south.)

That's still a lot of trips, but it seems a lot more manageable than the official figure of 105,000.  And there are lots of options to keep people moving.  A new boulevard could handle some of the car and truck trips. Sound Transit may take some pressure off I-5 and other surface streets once it opens.  Improved bus service -- more buses combined with priority timing for buses at traffic lights -- could carry many of the commuters.  Tweaks to the street grid could help keep traffic flowing a bit better.  Some people will simply opt to take their trips at different times of the day, or even forego them.  (Even during rush hour, only a minority of trips are direct trips from work to home.)

Those are just the conventional options.  One unconventional solution--or unconventional in the US at any rate--would be to try what Stockholm and London have already done:  charged drivers to enter downtown. Both congestion pricing schemes have been more more successful than critics might have predicted:  congestion has gone down enough that many commuters believe the tradeoff is worth it.

But the thing to remember is this: unless the city decides to leave the Viaduct as it is (or to retrofit it as some have suggested) this isn't really an optional exercise. The city is going to have to do some combination of these things, and people are going to have to adjust. 

The only question, then, is whether the residents of greater Seattle should spend a few extra billion dollars to fix a problem they've already solved.

Stockholm Syndrome II

I while back I mentioned that Stockholm, Sweden was starting a short-term trial of congestion pricing -- essentially, making drivers pay to enter downtown. London instituted a similar system in 2003, which has proven unexpectedly popular: it's reduced traffic levels by 15 percent, while boosting downtown driving speeds considerably. Stockholm's experiment seemed like it was off to a rockier start -- the city was far less congested than London, and the charges were, if anything, even less popular with commuters.

So it may come as something of a surprise that Stockholm's trial has been greeted with less opposition than predicted:

On the first day the overall number of cars travelling to and from the city centre was down by 25%... Many of Sweden’s most skeptical media suddenly changed their view. Those who were expecting chaos suddenly found themselves reporting on the success of the charge, with one tabloid even running the headline “City reclaimed!”

There's no guarantee that voters will choose to continue the experiment.  But the early success should be food for thought for any city looking to reduce congestion without expanding road space.

Seattle's Growing Up

Solid article in the Seattle Times today on the rising building height limits in downtown Seattle.

The article even includes a brief historical note on the 1989 voter-approved height cap following the construction of the super-tall and hideous Columbia Center Columbia Seafirst Center Bank of America Tower BankAmerica Tower Columbia Tower. Seattle's thinking on downtown density has changed quite a bit since then. Instead of constricting development, most are enthusiastic about new development in the city's core--development that is revivifying once-dormant neighborhoods.

Seattleites have change their minds partly because of the dawning realization that downtown density is good environmental policy. It's a superbly efficient use of land (among many other environmental benefits). Over the last two decades, residents watched sprawl devour the Cascade foothills and lowland farms and realized that the salvation for natural spaces was partly in the city.

The article does include once curious bit:

There's scant evidence, however, that the changes would curb sprawl over the next 20 years by pulling more people downtown. Under current or proposed zoning, city studies project about 10,000 new households downtown and 29,000 new jobs in that period. [Emphasis mine.]

That's a non-trivial number of households and jobs, but it's odd--at the least--that city growth projections are the same with or without the height increase.

What's going on here? Are the projections mistaken? Or is the height zoning change just a matter of aesthetics, not a substantive policy to increase downtown density?

Sprawl of Boise

In NEW's seven-city study of Northwest cities and sprawl--part of our Cascadia Scorecard project--Boise ranked worst. What's heartening is that many Boise community leaders, members of the media, and advocates in Idaho are bent on doing something about it.

An Idaho Statesman editorial this weekend--which cited our energy and sprawl research extensively--laments the city's smart-growth record and notes the strong connection between Idaho's sprawl and energy habits. (Idaho also consumes the most energy per capita in the Northwest.)

"Our decisions about energy use — and the land-use policies that drive energy use — can prove costly. . . . And it's a critical message for a state that, for all its growth, still embraces a love of the highway and a general lack of interest in public transportation."

Back From The Dead

Just as we suspected, Oregon's Measure 37 -- a law that requires state and local governments to compensate landowners for rules that reduce property values -- wasn't actually dead.  The state Supreme court just resuscitated it, after a lower court had struck it down last fall.

The Oregonian has more details and context.

Timing is Everything

One benefit of living in a compact neighborhood rather than a sprawling suburb: you don't spend as much time in your car.  The following chart, derived from a national transportation survey, makes the point pretty clearly:

The bottom line:  if you live in a compact place, you don't drive as much.  Of course, the total amount of time that people spend getting from place to place doesn't vary much by neighborhood density.  What changes is how people travel.  If you live in a compact neighborhood, you're more likely to take a trip on foot or by transit.  If you live in a sprawling one, you take virtually all your trips inside a car, truck, minivan, or SUV.

Obviously, if you like spending time in your car -- and some people definitely seem to view driving as quality private time -- then this information probably won't affect you one way or another.  But if you don't really like driving, then this may give you a clue about how to cut your car time in half.

One Less Car = One Less Parking Spot

At the risk of making this blog too Seattle-centric, I thought I'd point out this nifty article in today's Post-Intelligencer about the city's efforts to promote alternatives to the car -- everything from walking to biking to transit to ride sharing to van pools.  And there's ample reason to be concerned about rising car traffic, particularly downtown--not just on environmental grounds, but on financial ones.  Cars, you see, take up lots of space in a crowded city; and storing them all is expensive, and takes up real estate that could be put to far better uses.  From the article:

In the next 19 years, the city expects 22,000 new housing units and 50,000 new jobs.

Assuming the same percentage of people continued driving alone to work, the city estimates it would have to build 20 city blocks of 10-story parking garages downtown.

That's a lot of parking.

Also note the upside-down state of transportation finances. Funding for the bus system is nowhere near where it needs to be to accomodate all the new riders the city is hoping for.  And meanwhile, city officials still seem hell-bent on spending billions for roads, some of which will just make downtown's car problems worse. Obviously, the city deserves a lot of credit for its low-cost efforts to promote alternatives to the car; but in the bigger picture, you have to wonder if they've got their priorities straight.

The True Cost of Home Ownership

City housing is unaffordable. It's cheaper to buy a house in the suburbs, where you can get more for your money. Right?

Not so much, according to a new study from the Brookings Institute, "The Affordability Index," which challenges the conventional wisdom by arguing that the best way to assess affordability is with reference to the costs of both the home and the transportation necessitated by the home's location.

In an analysis of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan region, it turns out that the suburbs aren't nearly as affordable as they first appear; nor are city neighborhoods nearly as pricey. That's largely because suburban residents must spend more on cars ownership and use--they have, on average, 2.1 cars per household--while in-city residents can rely on cheaper forms of transport--they own only 1.2 cars per household. Even when in-city transit is factored in, a city resident spends less than half as much on transportation as a resident of far-flung suburb. That's real money--roughly $500 per month--that can make a big difference when it comes to affording a house.

But in deciding where to buy (or rent, for that matter), few of us assess the transportation-related costs, a factor which surely contributes to buyers choosing far flung developments. If planners can devise ways to apprise buyers (and renters) of the true costs of their housing choices, it would likely encourage residential density and mixed-use zoning. Because living near good transit service and within a short walk of services isn't just eco-groovy--it's smart financial planning.

Below the fold, two maps of affordability in the Minneapolis area...

(Click for larger versions.)

Polling Portland on Growth

A new poll of residents in Portland's metro region suggests that Oregon's contentious growth management policies are, on balance, acceptable to most folks.

Most Portland-area residents want to preserve farms and forests by squeezing into cities, use cars less than they do now and invest in the quality of water and air.

But Oregonians want their planning and their property rights, too. While more than three-quarters said land regulations protect quality of life and home values, nearly half also said rules hurt too many private property owners.

I don't have much to add here, but there's a bit more about the survey results in the full article by the Oregonian.

Food vs. Shelter: The Planning Debate

In the debate over growth management, it's easy for the parties to forget that it’s never us against them, it's us against us. For just one example, planners must strike a balance between our needs for food (in the form of nearby farmland) and shelter (in the form of decent housing for a growing population). And promoting density, while important in many respects, is not the whole answer to problems of growth.

Oregon's land-use task force is beginning to study what the state’s citizens want, and The Oregonian is running a good series on planning that addresses the balance between desirable housing and fertile farmland. The articles offer some goods insights and they got me thinking.

Density done wrong does no one any good. Urban village development (and their traditional counterparts) must attract buyers, not be foisted on them. A subdivision crammed with more houses is not a real solution. It’s still auto-dependent and segregates homes from shops and services. It adheres to the letter of planning for density, but ignores the spirit—density ought to empower residents with choices, not just wedge people together. Intelligent planning is required to build attractive homes that also offer privacy and a sense of space, as well as easy access to amenities. The point of smart planning should not to force people into the city, but to create more good places there for those who want it.

Even with good density alternatives, some people may still want a house with a big yard. I think that it’s important to offer a mix of housing types, but these larger more distant lots come with all sorts of hidden costs to society: higher costs to supply public services like water, sewer, and emergency response farther out—not to mention negative externalities like air pollution, road-building, and possible watershed deterioration from the added impervious surface. And it’s also important, as The Oregonian article notes, that we preserve farmland and other green places.

And space is not the only reason people may want to move into rural areas: they also may want to be closer to nature. I think it's important to ask how best to connect people to the natural world without sacrificing the very nature they crave. I worry about getting caught in a vicious cycle as people move farther and farther out until there's scant rural land left and our cities are so sprawling that most people must rely exclusively on cars for transportation.

I favor setting aside space within cities for neighborhood parks, community gardens, and large semi-wild areas like Forest Park in Portland, Discovery Park in Seattle, and Stanley Park in Vancouver. Unlike fenced-off backyards, these areas let people connect both to nature and to their community.

But really, I see growth planning and development disputes as a symptom of a larger issue: population growth. Our grandparents could reasonably expect to build a house on a half acre lot outside the city because land was plentiful, but people weren’t. Sprawl and population growth have reversed that equation to the point where we need to change our housing expectations if we want our grandchildren to have access to nearby farms and local produce.

Just a few thoughts sparked by the Oregonian series. Take a read and see what you think.

The Roads Ahead

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.

A History of Selling the Suburbs

"Making Headway: A Little Logic Along Life's Journey." That's the helpful title of an advertising brochure--circa 1930 or so--promoting what was then ex-urban development in north Seattle. I thought the ad copy was so intriguing that I just had to share some excerpts...

No one who is normal can be content to remained imprisoned within the four walls of the modern stuffy apartment, with its lack of yard, grass plot, flower beds and garden for the kiddies' play and the family food.

Life to you must mean more than that. It must have freedom of both air and area to fully develop.

These, too, without the penalty of city taxes and with less expenditure of travel time than is experienced in many massed and narrowed neighborhoods.

Get your feet off the hard, distressing pavement of the city for at least the evening period of the day.

Leave behind the unattractive canyons of trade and turmoil. Rest your nerves and your soul for the next day's problems.

Do this midst your own fragrant flowers--on your own clover meadows, surrounded by the fruits of your own handiwork. THIS IS REAL LIVING.

All through life the worth-while man and woman yearns for just these things: an acre of rich, fragrant, deep meadow soil--surely a scarce commodity in Western Washington--that responds gladly to the vigorous and intelligent touch of ambitious and loving hands.

Now is the logical time to acquire that "DREAM PLACE." Values have never been so reasonable, and with real soil as the basis, your investment is sure to increase in value.

In a very few years any productive soil ten miles from the busy center will be considered choice and in great demand. VALUES WILL INCREASE considerably.

Hard surfaced highways and automobiles have brought the outer fringes of the city close enough in to suit particular people.

These tracts are but a mile beyond the city limits... YOU ARE NOT TAXED TO THE BONE.

How often have you felt that craving for the larger opportunity, the greater area for expansion, the garden of your dreams, where the wife and kiddies could relax without that dress-parade attitude, secure from public gaze?

This is hardly possible when confined to a midget city lot, and certainly impossible in a stuffy, noisy flat.

Love, health, freedom of action; an environment of lawns, blossoming trees, trailing berry vines, roses, and the succulent vegetable bed--all are a part of that dream, that yearning for better and bigger things. THEY ARE YOURS TO COMMAND.

TWENTY MINUTES in your own car from Pike and Fourth, or not more than a half-hour by comfortable auto bus, over the paved Bothell Highway, will land you at A REAL HOME.

Whether a merchant, manufacturer or salaried worker, you can live, laugh, and "be one with nature" in these fields of growing things, while less than a half-hour away by auto to the busy marts... the "maddening throng" of the stuff and noisy city will have no evening charms for you.

I'm not intending to cast aspersions. One of my favorite things about my new house, is the small backyard. The allure of outdoor space and a connection to nature, however mediated by civilization, is a strong one for home buyers. Still, it's interesting to see how the new developments were sold with promises of restorative nature; while the certainty that those green places would disappear was used to sell the homes' future appreciation. Something of an irony, I think.

(Credit for finding the brochure to Todd Burley, outreach coordinator at Homewaters Project--and former NEW intern extraordinaire. He leads walks through the now fully urbanized Thornton Creek watershed where these homes were built.)

Survey Says...Huh?

Some snippets from an opinion survey of Puget Sound residents, conducted last year by Washington's transportation department, yield a bit of a conundrum: 

• When asked whether there's "enough", "not enough", or "too much" money going into the state's general -purpose roads and highways, 51 percent of respondents say "not enough," and only 9 percent say "too much."  That is, the majority of respondents want to spend more money on roads.
• When asked the same question about transit, 45 percent say "not enough" and 16 percent say "too much." 

Comparing transit and roads, the figures are fairly close -- but still, it seems that survey respondents think that road spending deserves a boost more than transit does.

But...the very next question in the survey asks respondents to choose between two statements:

• "We’ve got enough roads and highways. We need to expand our transit system with more buses, light rail, and other transportation choices to give commuters choices for their commute."
• "We’ve got plenty of transit. We need to maintain the roads we have, expand existing roads and highways, and build new roads to make faster connections for people in our region."

The result -- 51 percent of survey respondents in the Puget Sound agreed with the former statement; 38 percent with the latter.  That is, survey respondents support new transit over new roads, and by a fairly wide margin.

What gives?  How can public opinion tilt towards more funding for roads, when a majority believe we already have enough?

Rather than simply saying that the public is confused on the matter, a deeper dive into the survey results sheds some light.  When asked about specific funding priorities, respondents preferred to devote more money to maintaining and fixing the existing roads than on building new ones.  So the apparent preference for road spending, in all likelihood, largely reflects an overall desire for smoother and safer roads, not more of them.  Which makes sense: new roads almost always go at the urban fringe, since most other places already have a road network -- which means that only a few residents see much actual benefit from shiny new highways.

What's less clear to me is how survey respondents would have thought about road widening projects.  Does, say, adding lanes to I-405 on the east side of the Puget Sound region count as new highway spending (because it adds to capacity)? Highway maintenance (because it's not creating a whole new road, just widening an existing one)?  Or transit (because if current plans go forward, buses will be one of the big beneficiaries of the new lanes)?  It's not clear -- and how people think about any given road project likely depends in no small measure on how its proponents talk about it.

But what is pretty clear is this:  when asked what share of tax money should go to roads vs. transit, the split is 53 percent for roads, 47 percent for transit.  Let's see if the legislature concurs.

Slim City

New studies of King County, Washington find that sprawl is linked to dirtier air and bigger bellies. Walkable neighborhoods (those places with higher residential density, more street connections, and nearby to shops, schools, and parks) appear to be healthier for residents and less damaging to air quality--even when taking into account age, income, education and ethnicity.

A few key findings (liberally excerpted from the full coverage in the Seattle Times):

• On average the Body Mass Index — a measure of height and weight — of residents of the more walkable neighborhoods was lower, and they were more likely to get 30 minutes of daily exercise.
• People who lived and worked in more walkable neighborhoods produced fewer pollutants associated with smog.
• A 5 percent increase in a neighborhood's walkability index was associated with a 0.23-point drop in Body Mass Index. Bigger changes in a neighborhood's walkability would be expected to produce greater differences in weight.

Burnaby on Peak Oil

Editor's note: This is by Gordon Price, former city councillor for Vancouver, BC, Director of the City Program for Simon Fraser University, and NEW board member.

In my 15 years on City Council in Vancouver, I read a lot of reports. Ninety percent of them were not exactly stimulating: lane pavings, grant approvals, appointment of the external auditor … all the things that keep a city going. Occasionally, a report would appear that grabbed your attention – and on a very rare occasion, would actually change your understanding of the world, or at least your city.

I’d like to say that such a report recently appeared on the agenda of the City of Vancouver. But it didn’t. It appeared in Burnaby – the municipality just to the east. And what a subject: "Global Peak in Oil Production: the Municipal Context."

For those interested in the subject, there’s not a lot that’s new in the report; it’s primarily a background piece. Even on those terms, it makes informative reading. What makes it significant, however, is that it was requested by politicians, prepared by staff and comes with the seal of government –- as far as I know, the first such report of its kind in Canada.

It’s not as dry as you might guess, what with some amusing quotes at the head of each section - "Today no one disagrees that the wolf is out there but differences in analyses and opinions as to when it will attack the sheep still prevail." It provides a Canadian perspective, and, after noting that "It is too late to panic. It is time to plan," it provides an appendix of actions that the municipality might take.

Will action follow? I haven’t heard the results of the debate, but the mere fact that a government body is opening the door to a subject that most leaders would prefer remain firmly shut off is a tangible action all on its own.

River of Hope

If the little town of Eatonville is known at all to outsiders, it's probably as a village on the way to Mount Rainier. But it's also a great example of private landowners working to restore salmon habitat in nearby Ohop Creek. The local project was just awarded $1.1 million from the state's Salmon Recovery Fund. (The Tacoma News Tribune has a terrific article).

What's really encouraging about the Eatonville initiative is that it belies the developer-inflamed hysterics that may generate a takings initiative in Washington, similar to Measure 37 in Oregon. There doesn't seem to be much "rural rage" in Eatonville, just plenty of farmers and other landowners who value wildlife--and who are looking for growth management to blend regulation with smart incentives.

Sprawl, Health, Place: Notes from Buckley, WA

I recently attended a conference in Seattle for promoting physical activity in urban environments. Alliances between the public health and planning communities are moving out of academia and are being forged on the ground. And it was encouraging to see that what we’re trying to do in my small town in Washington with respect to walkability is what you’re supposed to be doing. 

But walkability by itself is a tough sell. First, many people in suburbs like ours don’t have the time to walk. Suburban dwellers choose to live far from the city, which makes for long commutes that reduce exercise time [another (pdfs)], Second, not everyone cares about walkability or other single-issue items. So, we’re talking about the walkability amenity as one component of a larger small-town, outdoor-recreation, and natural-environment quality-of -life ethic. This softens the impact of rapid change, allows people to see how placemaking (making spaces more attractive and compatible for human uses) benefits them, and it takes away the fear that this is some big-city scheme brought out to the country.

Another example of a tough sell: stopping sprawl. We know that wealthy societies sprawl more [pdf, pg 8] than poor societies--it’s what they do. We enable sprawl by considering land as a commodity that can be bought and sold, rather than as a place that delivers ecosystem services ( e.g. stormwater reduction, air pollution filtration, heat island mitigation, etc)[also 1, 2, 3]. It’s easy enough for property-rights proponents to argue that market forces drive big-lot subdivisions and should drive choices. Well, market forces make traffic congestion too, but never mind that. Ecosystem services--by not being counted in our economics--can’t even enter into the lot-size argument.

But out here in Buckley, people like their large lots--it’s why they live here in the first place; you won’t catch exurbanites dreaming of dense neighborhoods close to transit. But interestingly, folks living on big lots can tell you why small lots have positive qualities: commuters to downtown don’t have three hours a week to mow, weeding a half-acre garden isn’t realistic for a busy household or for seniors, houses are less expensive, etc. Our new senior housing project--to be completed in 2007--will be cottage-style, a good example.

So we’ve tried to emphasize the benefits while gently pointing out no one is asking current residents to move to smaller lots--there are still larger lots in town. When we did zoning changes in Buckley last year, people seemed to respond to the idea that small lots are to diversify our economic base and to provide affordable and senior housing (that is: housing for mom or dad), not to repudiate their life choices.

I’m finding that we stop making unhealthy communities the same way we stop sprawl: not by attacking it directly but by multiple approaches, the most important of which is pointing out sprawl is economically unfeasible to continue. Businesses like walkable neighborhoods because loyal, local customers have something to walk to. Smaller lots--a component of walkable neighborhoods--allow seniors to age in place and create opportunities for young couples to build a family. Cities (especially in Washington where you can’t even tax to keep up with inflation) can deliver services more efficiently when they are compact. Lastly, making your city attractive to a wider range of society allows you to avoid placing all your economic eggs in one basket.

And it may make your city healthier as well (.pdf).

Bumper to Bumper Jumper

A few years ago, Seattle was widely known as one of the most congested cities in the country.  Annual rankings by the Texas Transportation Institute placed the metro area's traffic as one of the nation's 5 worst -- and in some years greater Seattle was ranked among the worst 3, along with places like LA and San Francisco.

Then, a couple years ago the TTI changed its method of estimating congestion, largely to give credit to cities that are using congestion reduction strategies (metered on-ramps, quick clearing of accidents, transit service, etc.).  After the change in methodology Seattle's congestion plummeted in the national rankings.  In last year's report, Seattle ranked twentieth in congestion delay per traveller, about what you'd expect for a city of Seattle's size.  Generally, more populous cities have worse traffic, so Seattle's congestion, rather than being among the nation's worst, now seems to be about on par with expectations.

By comparison, Portland, OR ranks 26th in congestion delay per capita among US cities, while Charlotte, NC -- ranked as a "mid-sized city" rather than a "large city" like Portland and Seattle -- came in at 22nd place.  That's slightly worse than Portland, though in fairness the two are probably in a statistical dead heat.  That said, it's telling that Charlotte, despite a smaller population, was ranked as having worse congestion than Portland.  We happened to cover Charlotte in our sprawl report covering 15 select US cities a few years back.  Of the cities we studied, Charlotte was easily the most sprawling -- its average density is lowest, and it consumed more land to accomodate new residents than any other city in the study.  So if someone claims that low-density development can ease traffic congestion, tell them about Charlotte.

Of course, I think that the congestion rankings should be viewed with some skepticism; as Seattle's plummet shows, congestion rankings may have more to do with theoretical models than with reality.

Still it seems worth noting that Portland (a city with a justified national reputation for controlling low-density sprawl) seems to have about the same level of congestion as Charlotte (which is at the opposite end of the sprawl spectrum).  Which leads me to think that "sprawl" and "congestion" are two largely unrelated phenomena -- and that traffic congestion may be far more strongly affected by idiosyncracies in a city's transportation system than by population density per se.

Happy 2004!

Washington state's health department just released some mortality statistics for 2004. And there's quite a bit of good news: for Washington residents, 2004 was the healthiest year ever. Life expectancy -- the number of years a newborn can expect to live, given the year's mortality patterns -- surged by more than 7 months, an unusually large jump. For the first time ever, the average infant's life expectancy in the state topped 79 years: baby girls could expect 81.6 years of life; baby boys, 76.9 years.

Another bright spot: vehicle fatalities declined. The risk of dying in a car crash in Washington is at its lowest point since the health department started keeping records: holding population structure constant, crash risk has declined by more than half since 1980. 

Of course, British Columbia maintained its health lead, with substantially higher life expectancy and lower crash risk than Washington. But the gap, at least for life expectancy, seems to have narrowed a bit.

Of course, it's worth noting that we'll have to wait another full year to find out whether these health trends held up during 2005.  And we'll have to wait even longer for information for Oregon and Idaho. Apparently, we Americans do a far better job of tracking our financial health (GDP, unemployment, wages, and the like) than our physical health. Which may be one reason that the US is among the richest nations in the developed world -- but also one of the least healthy.

Make Room!

The good ship Cascadia has another 227,000 passengers.

The US Census Bureau has issued population estimates for the states, which allow us to give an updated Cascadian population tally. As of July 1, 2005, the region – counting British Columbia, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington – had 15.6 million people. (Adding western Montana, southeast Alaska, and northwestern California pushes that figure up by another million or so, but running the county-by-county figures takes more time than I’ve got at the moment.)

The (four main jurisdictions of the) region added 227,000 inhabitants over the preceding 12 months. That's about the number that live in greater Olympia, Washinton. And it's a 1.5 percent increase, the largest since 1997.

The resurgence stemmed from rising domestic migration into the region. Natural increase (births minus deaths) remained stable at around 70,000 per year, as did international migration at around 50,000 per year. (International migration is hard to tally reliably at present. As the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey comes online, we’ll be able to track it better.)

The extra 227,000 Cascadians, especially the adult migrants, bring new resource consumption, pollution, and traffic as they arrive. But just to be unpredictable today, let me point out that they also bring new talents, productivity, and resources with them.

One dimension of in-migration that’s little noted is the way that growing populations allow more-rapid transformation of metropolitan areas. Cities that don’t have growing populations do not have many opportunities to build complete, compact communities, filling in their urban form. And compact communities can actually reduce resource consumption among their residents. It’s conceivable, in fact, that adding population--if it goes into the right kinds of smart-growth neighborhoods--might lead to such large per-person reductions in resource consumption that the aggregate total remains unchanged or even diminishes.

So migration brings big challenges (about which there’s more here) but it also brings opportunities.

Parks Instead of Parking - Literally

Talk about cultural creatives!

Via a blog reader, here's a nifty story about a "landscape remixing" effort in San Francisco that illustrates a point we've long made in a small, powerful way.