MassDOT’s recently issued Healthy Transportation Policy Directive could actualize the most profound transformation in the state’s transportation system since the anti-highway movement convinced Governor Frank Sargent to cancel the massive Inner Belt project (the first time any state had done this) and his Transportation Secretary, Alan Altshuler, got the state’s Congressional delegation to pass legislation allowing Highway Fund money to be used for mass transit.   If carried through, it will push Massachusetts to the front of national efforts to modernize our transportation infrastructure.

On the other hand, the Directive is neither a law nor a court decree, merely an internal order issued by the current Transportation Secretary.  Its requirement that “all MassDOT funded or designed projects shall seek to increase and encourage more pedestrian, bicycle, and transit trips” could be legally ignored or (more likely) turned into an empty ritual as soon as the next governor gets elected.

But in the meantime, MassDOT Secretary Rich Davey is taking his Directive seriously.  Having the policy simultaneously signed by the heads of the Highway Division, Planning Office, MBTA, and even Aeronautics which sends a message to staff that anyone still clinging to traditional car-centric priorities will no longer have upper-level allies.  Even more important, Davey is also aggressively moving the multi-modal vision from policy to procedures, embedding new criteria into decision-making processes such as changing the way project proposals are evaluated and impact assessments are done.  And at the level of organizational culture, all this top-level posturing has the additional effect of emboldening those staff members who have bought into the new vision.

MassDOT’s transformation is not complete or assured.  At the Central Office, the small group of outside people brought in to develop a framework for sustainability planning expressed in both the GreenDOT operational suggestions and the Mode Shift policies have moved back out to non-MassDOT jobs and will be hard to replace.  Even more fundamentally, most of MassDOT’s road design and construction oversight is actually done in the six Highway Department District offices, whose staffs work closely with local Transportation Departments which are often reluctant to deviate from past car-centric priorities.  Other than the District Director and his/her Assistant Directors there are no authorized “change champions” in the District offices – people empowered to push for decision-making, design, operational, and attitudinal changes needed to fully implement the state’s Complete Streets and Mode Shift policy goals.  There is a bicycle and pedestrian coordinator in each District, but few have much experience creating state-of-the-art bicycle and walking facilities.  Transit planning is done by the 15 separate Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs), whose boundaries differ from the Highway Districts, and it isn’t always clear how transit needs are integrated with road designs.  The absence in most towns outside metro-Boston of ped-bike-transit Advocacy groups, or even Advisory Councils, deprives District staff of vital feedback and insights – as well as a vital source of local political support for effort’s to break out of the District offices’ past practices.

Nonetheless, the Healthy Transportation Directive, along with Secretary Davey’s efforts to institutionalize the new orientation, is a giant step towards accomplishing the third leg of Transportation Reform.  The first leg was creating a coordinated transportation system, pulling our scattered and warring transportation agencies into one organization.  The second leg was putting the system on a more sustainable and adequate financial footing – something that has not yet been accomplished (especially given the Legislature’s repeal, without any replacement, of the software-tax component of the already inadequate 2013 Transportation Financing bill).  The third leg, the one that makes the other two worthwhile, is using the consolidated governance structure and financing to create a 21^st century transportation system.  It’s good to see it moving forward.

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Movement building requires organizing activities and programs that have inherent value and meet people’s immediate needs while also raising their awareness of the importance of larger reforms and putting pressure on relevant officials and power brokers to implement those changes.   It’s a tricky combination to achieve.  Providing free breakfast to low-income kids, for example, makes access to good nutrition more affordably available but doesn’t necessarily force the commercial food system to change.

In recent years, enthusiasm for Open Streets programs has spread among progressive transportation, community renewal, and other advocates wanting to change the way cities use their largest physical asset, the space normally devoted to car traffic and parking.  The excitement has its roots in the CicloVia program started nearly 40 years ago in Bogota, Columbia, where over two million people, nearly a third of the city population, come out for a few hours every weekend to play, exercise, do yoga, dance, walk, run, bicycle, enjoy endless vendor offerings, and simply hang out with each other along nearly 76 miles of car-free roads. (The roads aren’t “closed to cars”, they are “open for people”!)   Open Streets are now held around the globe including at least 90 US cities.  Continue reading →

Tom Menino’s tenure is now measured in weeks.  Deval Patrick is entering the monthly count-down period.  But neither of them has left yet.  And until they do, advocates (and everyone else) seeking to advance their issues will have to deal with how these elected executives and their administrations function during their lame duck days — which is directly related to what kind of legacy they hope to leave behind.

Legacy is important because the incoming Administrations will have their hands full for at least their first six months assembling their teams, repackaging existing programs in their own image (and to their own political credit), and focusing their personal attention on the issues that got them elected. For John Connelly the focus will be on the schools.  While it’s still unclear what will be the theme of Marty Walsh’s first 100 days, for neither candidate is it likely to be transportation (except, perhaps, for school busing), public health, human services, or other “soft” issues.   So the plans and programs that the departing Administration leaves – and that are well positioned to be picked up by the incoming Transition Advisory Team will quietly continue.

Close out Administrations seem to follow a mixture of four different approaches:  the fade away, the goal-line defense, the project and people cementer, and the go for broke.  Each presents opportunities and problems for Advocates who, ultimately, have to also weigh the advantages of playing to the outgoing versus the incoming team. Continue reading →

You might have the impression, as once did I, that the passage of a bill by the Legislature and it’s signing by the chief executive makes it a law.  But trial lawyers know better.  A law is just a bunch of words waiting for judicial interpretation.

Case in point:  It’s true that bicycles aren’t cars, and aren’t (and in my opinion shouldn’t be) always treated exactly the same as cars.  But you might have had the impression that because bicycles are legally defined as “vehicles” (in Title 720 of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations paragraph 9.01*) they have the same right as cars to use our public ways – our roads.  After all Chapter 85, paragraph 11B of the Massachusetts General laws state, ““Every person operating a bicycle upon a way, as defined in section one of chapter ninety, shall have the right to use all public ways in the commonwealth except limited access or express state highways where signs specifically prohibiting bicycles have been posted, and shall be subject to the traffic laws and regulations of the commonwealth and the special regulations contained in this section….”

On the state level, the Massachusetts Supreme Court has indeed ruled that bicycles “are expressly authorized by statute to use most public ways,” (Opinion of the Justices to the Senate, 352 N.E.2d 197, 200 (Mass. 1976)).  However, perhaps because both common practice and common sense make the question silly, the right of a bicyclist to ride in the street has never been officially tested in a federal court.  Until now.

*Please excuse the complex source citations in this blog: at least it’s better than footnotes!

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TAKING THE LANE

In the _/Damon/_ case (Case 3:11-cv-30203-KPN (Document 88 Filed 08/09/13), US Magistrate Judge Kenneth Neiman of the Federal Court for the Western District of Massachusetts has ruled that “the court, in light of the plain language of the statutory provisions, has little trouble concluding that Massachusetts law requires a slower-traveling bicyclist to pull to the right to allow a faster-traveling motorist to pass when it is safe to do so under the circumstances…. Such safety, of course, would include the configuration of the roadway and its shoulders, as well as their conditions and/or states of repair.”

The most important aspect of the Judge’s decision, according to lawyer Andrew Fischer who represented the bicyclist, is that it goes further than the previous state ruling by establishing that cars do not take priority and that cyclists have a right to the full lane, and need not yield until and unless it is safe to do so. According to Fischer, this is the first confirmation of this right in any federal court.  While this ruling is not binding on other Federal or state courts, it can be cited as persuasive in Federal courts around the country and used by bicycle advocates as a Federal court decision.  (Full disclosure:  Andy is a contributor to LivableStreets Alliance which hosts this blog).

ALLOWING CARS TO PASS, SAFELY

At the same time, if a bicycle is a vehicle then, unless explicitly exempted, bike riders have to obey vehicular road rules.  This includes the provisions of Title 720 C.M.R. §9.06(5) that “the driver of a vehicle when about to be overtaken and passed by another vehicle approaching from the rear shall give way to the right when practicable in favor of the overtaking vehicle, on suitable and visible signal being given by the driver of the overtaking vehicle….”  This is made explicit for bicycles in Title 720 C.M.R. §9.06(a), which prohibits bicyclists from “unnecessarily” obstructing “the normal movement of traffic” as well as M.G.L. Chapter 89, §2, which requires bicyclists to “give way to the right in favor of the overtaking vehicle” and M.G.L. c. 85, §11B that says that “[n]othing in this clause shall relieve a bicyclist of the duty to facilitate overtaking as required by section 2 of chapter 89,”

Of course, when it comes to the legal system, nothing is simple.  In a confusing juxtaposition the Judge first stated that “there is nothing in M.G.L. c. 89, §2, or any other statutory or regulatory provision which indicates that the obligation of bicyclists to ‘give way to the right in favor of the overtaking vehicle’ does not apply on multi-lane roadways.”  So a cyclist still has to pull over, when it’s safe to do so, when a car comes up behind even if there is an empty lane in either direction on their left.

And then the Judge also noted that M.G.L. chapter 90, §14 requires that “motorists approaching and seeking to pass a bicyclist also must ‘slow down and pass at a safe distance and at a reasonable and proper speed.’”  And when it is not safe for the cyclist to move to the right, Mass Gen. Laws Chapter 89, §2, provides that “If it is not possible to overtake a bicycle or other vehicle at a safe distance in the same lane, the overtaking vehicle shall use all or part of an adjacent lane if it is safe to do so or wait for a safe opportunity to overtake.”   It is not clear how future court decisions will balance these somewhat conflicting requirements.

WHEN IS IT SAFE?

By his own admission, the bicyclist regularly rode in the middle of the lane no matter who or what was behind him based on a belief that he had “the right to use public roads in the same manner as motorists”.  This had already led to several run-ins with the local police.  The Judge rejected the idea that state law gives any unrestricted right to the middle of the lane for any vehicle.  But the Judge’s Summary Judgment Ruling deferred to a Jury’s deliberation in a future trial (should one occur) the factual question of the situational accuracy of the bicyclist’s statement that riding in the center of the lane even when cars or trucks are trying to pass “is often safer than riding closer to the shoulder of the road because motorists approaching from behind will notice him earlier, “perceive [him] as relevant and be able to react earlier if [he is] in a prominent position.”

However, in a footnote the Judge quoted the Criminal Model Jury Instruction for Use in the District Court, Instruction 5.240 (MCLE 2013), “Operating Negligently so as to Endanger”, which lists so many things that a “reasonable person” could be expected to take into account in determining the safety of an on-road situation that any defendant with a decent set of objective concerns should be able to avoid the charge.

Instruction 5.240 says, “In determining whether the defendant drove negligently in a manner that might have endangered the public, you should take into account all the facts of the situation: the defendant’s rate of speed and manner of operation, the defendant’s physical condition and how well he (she) could see and could control his (her) vehicle, the condition of the defendant’s vehicle, what kind of road it was and who else was on the road, what the time of day, the weather and the condition of the road were, what any other vehicles or pedestrians were doing, and any other facts that you think are relevant… the defendant’s subjective intent is irrelevant; the issue is whether or not he (she) drove as a reasonable person would have under the circumstances.”

POLICE POWERS

On the other hand (once again), the Judge did accept the policeman’s argument that he had to confiscate the bicycle in his role as “community caretaker” because “he felt its continued operation [in the middle of the lane even when overtaking motorists wanted to pass] would be dangerous.”  This very open-ended aspect of the law is usually applied to drunk drivers or situations where a “vehicle was disabled or the operator was arrested and, thus, the vehicle would otherwise be left on the roadway unattended. See, e.g., Rodriguez-Morales, 929 F.2d at 785-86; Commonwealth v.Motta, 676 N.E.2d 795, 801 (Mass. 1997). The doctrine, however, is not limited to that kind of situation; if anything, courts have defined an officer’s authority under the community caretaking role in quite broad terms. See Coccia, 446 F.3d at 238 (‘In performing this community caretaking role, police are “expected to . . . prevent potential hazards from materializing and provide an infinite variety of services to preserve and protect public safety.”’ (quoting Rodriguez-Morales, 929 F.2d at 784-85)). Moreover, the court has not found any case which establishes that an officer may not impound a vehicle (or bicycle) under this doctrine when the operator indicates that he or she will continue to operate in an unsafe manner.”

As it turned out, the Judge ruled not that the seizure of the bicycle was lawful but that the policeman should receive the benefit of the doubt if he says he thought that the seizure was lawful – which seems like a giant loophole to me.  Compounding the insult is that in this case the police forced the cyclists to walk nearly two miles to the station in order to retrieve his bike – which the Judge also found acceptable.

Still, while the reliance of the judgment entirely on Massachusetts law may limit its applicability in other states, the opinion’s reasoning, language and conclusions can be cited as persuasive in other courts, particularly since it was authored by a Federal judge.  And the bottom line is that the Judge said that “The statutes also create reciprocal obligations on the part of both motorists and bicyclists to ensure that passing would occur only at a time when it is safe to do so and only in a safe manner.” So, for what it’s worth, we now have federal precedent on our side!

Ride safely!

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Thanks to Andrew Fischer for bringing this case to my attention and helping me through the jargon!

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Related previous posts:

> Bikes Are Vehicles; But They’re Not Cars

> BICYCLING SAFETY: Preventing Injury Requires Multiple Strategies

> Time to Stop Behaving Badly on Bikes

> SAFE CYCLING – Actual, Subjective, Social; Solo or Group

> VULNERABLE ROAD USERS (VRU) PROTECTION LAWS: “Whoever Can Do The Most Damage Has To Be The Most Careful”

> IF VEHICLE MILES TRAVELED IS DECLINING, WHY DOES TRAFFIC KEEP GETTING WORSE

> CAMERAS, TERRORISM, AND TRUST: Fears and Memories Across the Generational Divide

I love cities.  They are the engines of our nation’s energy, diversity, cultural opportunities, social interaction, and entrepreneurial vibrancy.  Cities are where most of our population lives and where most of our economic growth originates.   Cities are the base from which we’ll create the future.

But I also love the natural world.  I think a connection to nature is essential for our peace of mind, for appreciating that we all eat (and live) on the table set by the natural world (and how vulnerable it is to our exploitation of it), and our understanding that the world and the universe is bigger and older than any of us and will survive long after we are gone.

You can get a bit of a nature fix in the city.  Sometimes a city-wide bike ride gives you a glimpse of what you know you should go back and explore some other time:  Boston’s Hub On Wheels and the Transportation Alternatives New York Century are always worth the effort.  (My condolences to everyone who let the early-morning rain keep them from this year’s Hub ride – by the time we started at 8am the rain had stopped and by 11 the sun was out in full bloom: a wonderful day!)  Our parks, our riverbanks, the harbor, the forests and farms that somehow exist within the metropolitan area – all these are vital for our mental and physical and even societal well-being.

But sometimes it’s really good to get out.  Really far out.

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WALK, HIKE, BIKE

Thoreau famously walked for dozens of miles, not just to get somewhere but mostly to just experience the world and think.  A group called FreeWalkers continues that tradition today.

Large bodies of water always feel infinite.  My wife likes to be next to the ocean, with its endless waves and openness.  Best is walking along an empty beach in the off-season, with the wind and still-warm sun beating down.  Or spending a day (or an overnight tenting trip) on Boston’s most overlooked natural resource, the Harbor Islands.

Myself, I like high-altitude backpacking and cross country bike trips.  Foot and bike.  Every year or two my friend Larry and I lift 40 pounds or so and head up.  We’ve gone to the Rockies, the Sierra Nevadas, the Alps, and even the Whites.  On my bike I’ve gone around Vermont and Massachusetts and across Maine (all with my cousin and brother), on the Bon Ton Roulet ride around the Finger Lakes (where the wine tasting rivals the cycling), across part of Massachusetts with the Mass BikePike tour, and this past week about 100 of us did the totally wonderful first annual, fully supported, Berkshires to Boston bike ride:  three days of gorgeous scenery (have you ever noticed that Vermont is really only an extension of western Massachusetts?) culminating on the fourth day with Hub On Wheels’ great circle around Boston.

(A note of special appreciation:  Berkshires to Boston is organized by the visionary and hyper-energetic Gary Briere, who somehow also finds time to be the Chief of Recreation for the state Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), as well as MassBike and lots of local people in each of the delightful towns we passed through.)

FROM FARM TO CITY

On a long ride over so many different types of paths and roads, the differences really stand out.  The comfort and pleasure of riding on low-traffic, tree-lined, relatively smooth pavement is tangible.   The tension of being next to heavy or high-speed traffic, the physical discomfort (and safety concerns) of riding on cracked and pot-holed asphalt, the ugliness of some of our commercialized streetscapes (although built-up areas can also be well designed) – all turn joy into jumpiness.

For those of us who live in cities, or simply recognize their central role in a sustainable future, the lesson is clear, at least for what it will take to get more people out of their cars and outdoor on foot or on bikes for commuting, recreation, exercise, or even for short trips to shop, visit, or for family time.  We need to step up our development of rail-to-trail and rail-with-trail conversions, our off-road paths through our parks and along water-ways, and our upgrading of low-traffic residential streets into pedestrian-and-cyclist-priority “neighborways” with low-speed limits. We need to line each of these routes with trees and storm-water-catching “swales” so that they become extensions of our parks, of nature, deep into our neighborhoods.  And we need these walkable and bikeable greenways not only in the suburbs but in the urban core.

Creating a regional Green Routes system that attracts large amounts of pedestrian and bicycle usage requires both lots of local efforts as well as a regional coalition.  Over the past year there has been a new effort, with significant technical support from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), to push forward on town-by-town projects.   In the “urban core” – the sweeping area between the lower reaches of the Mystic, Charles, and Neponset rivers – an effort has begun to identify gaps in the existing greenway segments and to link those segments together with each other and the larger regional system.   Regionally, there have been intermittent gatherings of people from advocacy groups, municipal government, environmental and recreation groups to explore how to work together for policy and funding changes to facilitate the local projects.   The opportunity for success has been immeasurably improved as a result of MassDOT’s recent “Healthy Transportation Policy Directive” (policy P-13-0001, issued 9/9/13 but not yet posted as of this writing).  It is a powerful statement that puts teeth into the requirement that sustainable ped/bike facilities must be included in every departmental project.  (We, the concerned public, need to make sure that it gets quickly integrated into every aspect of MassDOT policy and procedure so that it will survive the upcoming change in gubernatorial administration!)

We can’t, and shouldn’t want to, escape from nature.  But we must increasingly live in, and should welcome, the higher built-density of our expanding urban areas – both in the cities and in the emerging suburban “town centers.”  Combining the two imperatives is not only necessary, it’s do-able – but only if we make it happen!

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Recent related postings:

> NON-MOTORIZED HIGHWAYS: A Regional Green Routes System To Connect Municipal Bike Networks, Sidewalks, and Parks

> THE FUTURE OF RAILROADS: Why Rail-To-Trail Conversion Is The Key To Both Eventual Rail Restoration and Current Off-Road Networks

> RECLAIMING THE LESSONS OF PAST VICTORIES: Traffic Is Not Inevitable

> HEALTHY PEOPLE, SAFE TRAVEL, GOOD BUSINESS, PERSONAL CHOICE: Framing Mode Shift

> GREEN ROUTES TO THE FUTURE: Combining Regional Vision and Local Initiative to Revitalize Urban Transportation and Well-Being

Our roads feel more congested than ever.  It takes forever to get down Mass Avenue across Boston or Cambridge.  Memorial Drive, near where I live, is now backed up starting at about 4pm and continuing until nearly 7!  Route 93 out of Boston is perpetually stop and go, every day, at nearly every hour.  Sure, we all like to complain, but this is more than personal whining:  according to a new study, “even after $24 billion in Big Dig construction, Boston’s legendary traffic woes are still making the top 10 nationally for rush-hour tie-ups.  Boston is also leading the nation in year-to-year congestion level increases.”  Globe columnist Derrick Jackson points out that, “The Boston metro area is the nation’s ninth largest, but experienced the third highest rise in traffic delays since 1982, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. With the announcements in recent months of several new office, residential, and hotel skyscrapers, and with outgoing Mayor Menino wanting 30,000 new housing units by 2020, things will get much worse…”

My own experience is that it is almost always faster to cover 5 miles or less across town by bike than by car, or even by subway – unless you are starting and ending less than a block away from a station and you are lucky enough to immediately catch an arriving train.

But data also shows that each of us is driving fewer miles each year.  In 2012 Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) per person hit the lowest level since 1996.  Massachusetts drivers’ 8,318 average annual miles driven, down 4% since 2004, puts us near the bottom of the national list: 41^st! It’s not simply about the poor economy and unemployed people not needing to commute; there seem to be deeper trends. The percentage of women entering the workforce has leveled off, removing a key reason for the past increase in commuter traffic.  Cars no longer have the cultural cache of sexy masculinity or provide a symbol of adult freedom or even simply feel like fun – these days, they’re just glorified computers with mobile sound systems!   For the past decade or so, “Millennials” under age 30 have been driving and even getting their driver’s licenses less frequently than any previous similar-age cohort.  In fact, despite continuing population increases the nation’s total VMT has dropped nearly 1% over the past eight years.  More urgently, the actual levels of traffic have been lower than nearly all the predicted traffic volumes calculated using the state’s modeling formula over the past several decades.

So….where are all the cars coming from? 

THE STANDARD STORY

I’ve heard people say that it’s because of the building construction and bridge/road repair.  However, the traffic jams started appearing several years ago, even before the current boom in Stimulus-initiated road repair (which we were lucky to finally get after years of neglect under the banner of “no more taxes”).

Maybe it’s because even though we’re driving fewer miles overall, and even spending less time per day in a car, we’re taking more short trips?  Has the growing 18% of our  retail economy that happens on-line economy increased, rather than reduced the daily average of ten trips generated per household – commuting, shopping, visitors, pizza deliveries, mail, trash, newspapers?   It’s probably not primarily about population growth – of which our state has had relatively little in recent years.  Perhaps it is that our population is getting more urbanized and concentrated so that those who still rely on cars are moving around in a smaller overall area?

Whatever the reason, it’s clear that we can’t build enough new road capacity to de-congest without ripping down huge swaths of our city.  And even if we did, experience shows that expanding road capacity simply attracts more cars until it, too, solidifies into jam.  Roads can be improved.  We can improve intersections and signal timing.  We can fix potholes.  But, ultimately, there simply is no way to make more than minor improvements.   Some of our political and transportation leaders seem to understand that this new reality requires new policies – the GreenDOT program at MassDOT and Boston’s Complete Streets/Bike Network plans are good examples.  The state’s quick development of a T-line plan between Back Bay and the already congested Seaport boom zone is another.  It should be obvious that we need a vast expansion of transit, bicycling, and walking options.  But public understanding still lags behind and is expressed through complaints about lack of traffic-encouraging projects as well as fury about inadequate parking spots.

ANOTHER APPROACH?

At the same time that we expand non-car infrastructure, we also need to discourage over-use of cars by charging for downtown access, which might begin to help cover the true cost of allowing cars.  Globe columnist Derrick Jackson recently pointed out that London, Stockholm, Milan, Singapore, and domestically, New York, San Francisco, and Washington DC have all either implemented or proposed using congestion pricing and/or charging market-rates for parking to better control and limit downtown traffic.  As for the former idea,  Tufts University’s Julian Agyeman, says, “Some people consider [congestion fees] a tax, but it actually is a way to democratize the city by making it more accessible to more people.”

Our city and regional economy will flounder and our quality of life will suffer if we can’t create a cost- and time-efficient transportation system.  Facilitating increased car traffic won’t get us there.

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Some relevant previous posts:

> CIRCLING THE BLOCK: Saving Money, Time, and Aggravation Through Parking Reform

> ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION CREATES HEALTHY COMMUNITIES: How To Use Your Roads To Lower Your Doctor (and Insurance) Bills

> BUS SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT IS KEY TO TRANSIT: Local, Improved, Express, and Bus Rapid Transit

> NON-MOTORIZED HIGHWAYS: A Regional Green Routes System To Connect Municipal Bike Networks, Sidewalks, and Parks

PREPARING FOR SNOW:  WHEN SHOULD BIKE LANES GET PRIORITY?

Most municipalities and most state agencies have carefully negotiated lists of which streets get plowed clear of snow in what priority order.  First priority usually goes to busy highways and arterials, hospitals and schools, fire stations and emergency services.

But in some communities, a major portion of daily travel occurs by bicycle or on foot.   The corridor from Somerville through Cambridge to Boston (Beacon-Hampshire-Broadway-Main-Longfellow Bridge) often has more bikes than cars during the morning commute.  And there are key walking areas between bus and subway/trolley stops and nearby workplaces.

Carice Pingenot, who has just opened the area’s newest bike store called Bicycle Belle, recently asked me if it wasn’t about time that municipalities and state agencies created and publicized Priority Snow Removal Areas focused on bike and foot traffic?   Bike-lane priority streets would, like major car roads, have parking bans during snow emergencies.  Plows would remove the snow rather than push it to the side as is typically done on other streets – making room for cars but making it extremely unsafe for cyclists.  And where the priority route contained a cycle track, the responsible agency would have appropriate width plows available nearby.

In walking priority areas, nearby property owners would be regularly served with notices reminding them of (if necessary, newly passed) regulations requiring rapid and adequate shoveling.  If the sidewalk was public property, the city or state agency would either have contractors ready to go or create a plan for utilizing its own employees in a timely manner.

Climate change doesn’t just mean warmer overall weather.  It also means more extreme weather events.  As bicycling and walking become more important methods of urban travel, we need to be ready to make the surfaces they use as available as streets are for cars.

SEAPORT TRAFFIC JAMS

New development generates more trips.  Banks and contractors wouldn’t build residences, stores, or workplaces if they didn’t expect people to come to them.  However, these profit-seeking investments would seldom occur if governments didn’t spend other people’s money – the public’s tax money – to prepare an area for development and to deal with the inevitable transportation needs.  Unfortunately, land use and transportation planning are usually treated as separate processes in this country, and neither is integrated with quality of life, environmental, and sustainability issues.  In the absence of serious planning and spending for alternative ways to get into and around a newly developed area, travelers’ default option is to drive, usually by themselves in a Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV).  This is especially true if the roads are the only transportation facility that has been upgraded.

But if you build it they will come.  So it should be no surprise that Boston’s rapidly developing Seaport District, which has already reached anticipated 2025 levels of development, already has traffic jams:  “everyone seems to head out at 5 p.m., creating bumper-to-bumper traffic along the main spine on Seaport Boulevard, spilling out onto Atlantic Avenue, and clogging side roads throughout the area.”

As far back as the early 1990s, planners knew that the water front area would eventually need better transit facilities.  But, as the Massachusetts Sierra Club points out, the proposed Red Line branch was scrapped in favor of “an inadequate Silver Line bus tunnel that forces passengers into an awkward series of transfers to get almost anyplace else.”

Government’s short-term response is to open up more roads:  promoting use of the B Street tunnel to I-93, opening up the Haul Road to commuters during rush hour, eliminating the downtown HOV lane on 93 North.   While there is also discussion of encouraging the use of the No. 4 bus from North Station and adding another commuter ferry, these are wholly insufficient for the scale of the problem – which is too much drive-alone travel.  Worse – by making driving easier these steps will only encourage more driving.

The biggest need is to increase alternatives to SOV commuting, if only because thousands of waterfront area parking spaces are about the disappear: dropping from about 6,000 to 750!  Car pools are a start.  Express buses from the edges of the area, or even from outside the city, into the Seaport are another step.  There needs to be a more extensive network of bus routes – probably using mini-buses or vans – across the entire Waterfront and extending into adjacent areas.  A real Bus Rapid Transit line needs to be developed, perhaps using a current car lane on various roads and getting traffic signal priority at intersections.  The Silver Line needs to be upgraded, perhaps even turned into a light rail system and integrated into the rest of the MBTA system.

Non-motorized travel facilities need to be drastically expanded as well.  More Hubway stations.  Every building should be required to have a large amount of both outside bike parking areas (both open and covered) near entrances and indoor secure facilities.  Cycle tracks, or at least buffered bike lanes, need to be installed along each of the major roads and through the larger development parcels with connections to the South Bay Harbor Trail, South Boston’s Harbor Paths, and nearby MBTA stations.  A low-traffic-stress Green Routes system, suitable for bicycle commuting, needs to extend outward through Boston to the suburbs.  And the surfaces of both the bikeways and sidewalks need to be maintained and given priority treatment for snow removal.

Just as important: planners need to push for more residential construction so that people who work in the district can live there as well; no commuting needed.  This implies the need for retail stores, parks, and even schools – all of which should be paid for by the developers reaping fortunes from the public’s preparatory work.

In fact, developers should also be required to significantly contribute to the cost of upgrading the area’s transportation system.  This will only happen if the city, acting  through the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) and the Boston Transportation Department (BTD), and the state, acting through MassPort and MassDOT, work together with a unified goal of creating alternatives to SOV travel rather than simply facilitating driving.

The Innovation District has already been priced out of reach of the small start-ups that made it an economic driver; it is quite possible that lack of transportation will choke the rest of it to death.

There are situations where the danger is so great, the potential damage so devastating, the outrage to decency so powerful that you feel that immediate, radical change becomes an emotional and moral imperative.   And you do everything you can to advocate, to make the world take notice, to make people in power take action.  Right now.

But, with few exceptions, change happens slowly. Creating change requires getting decision-makers to act, attracting the support of powerful interests, or mobilizing important enough segments of the media and/or the public – none of which usually happens quickly.  And then implementing significant change requires transforming systems, which almost always have enormous inertial drag towards the status quo.  And having an impact requires the changed processes and outcomes to replace current conditions, which can be incremental and uncertain.

Advocates are sometimes wrong.  The problem may not be as big or as bad as they believe.   Or it is; but decision-makers, even those who want to address the issue, are not free to act as decisively as needed.   It is true that in moments of transfixing emergency – a devastating hurricane, a terrorist attack, a spreading pandemic – the government is able to command the entire society and mobilize a broad response; although George Bush showed us that such efforts are not necessarily well done and can create as many problems as they solve.   But in more ordinary circumstances, public (or even corporate) leaders are remarkably constrained.  At last year’s Boston Bicycle Update, when someone asked Nicole Freedman why she was talking about paint and signs when we needed to redesign our streets to stop the killing of cyclists, Nicole said, “paint can be laid down in months, moving curbs takes years.”  And that’s true, even were Mayor Menino to order it done.

Still, the more drastic the consequences of non-action the stronger the tension.  For some people, the distance between what should be and what is causes them to lose touch with reality and end up in violent dead ends that violate the very values that originally motivated them.  Other people are inspired to leap over the gap through symbolic action of ethical heroism.  However, most of the time, for most people, a belief in the possibility of change gives them the fortitude to endure the countless conversations, endless meetings, and repeated disappointments that are the necessary foundation for their eventual partial success – although they often hope for the emergence of a mass movements capable of driving their issue through the swamp of transformation.  In fact, it is exactly in the intolerable space between what ought to be and what is that advocacy (and most of life) occurs.

GOING TO EXTREMES

The inability to change the world can lead to cynicism or, more commonly, the focus on purely personal affairs that shapes most lives.  But it can push people to the other side of the spectrum:  extreme “voluntarism” – the belief that radical social change can be catalyzed at any time through the action of hyper-committed individuals.  (Che Guevarra’s “foco” strategies were a revolutionary version of this, with predictably disastrous results in Bolivia.)  This doesn’t only come from elitist or “vanguardist” arrogance.  Letting yourself feel too much of others’ pain can drive you crazy, especially if you believe it could be stopped and that you are partially responsible for making that happen.   Given a particular personality type and the dynamics of small, isolated, or beleaguered groups (both political and religious) the stress can lead to such poor analyses of reality that ideological perspectives over-rule understanding and violence seems to make sense.  The “Weatherman” spin-off of the anti-Vietnam War movement believed the killing would only stop if they “brought the war home” by attacks within the USA; immediately.  Earth First activists felt the globe-threatening destruction of our forests and environment had to be stopped; immediately.  Anti-abortion activists feel that women have to be stop ending their pregnancies, immediately.   The lack of immediate and complete success drove (and for the anti-abortionists still drives) each of them to violence.

Even if not pushed to extreme action, the effect of this tension can be dramatic and emotional.  Some friends of mine were panic-stricken this year as we passed the 400ppm point of no return for atmospheric carbon dioxide.   I saw the same angry intensity on the faces of people last winter as they demanded the city do something to stop the surge of cyclists’ deaths on Boston roads.

A different type of extreme behavior happens when advocates channel their commitment, and (especially when the action is individualistic) perhaps their egos, into self-sacrificing civil disobedience.  In a way, they ignore the limits of current reality and act, even if only symbolically, to force awareness of the problem and point to the final goal.  These people are the stuff of legends.  The people who poured real (or fake) blood on draft system files in the 1960s; the people who sailed into nuclear testing zones or the Greenpeace efforts to stand between harpooning whale ships and their intended victims– these and the others like them set a high bar of what it takes to live out your values.  But they are sometimes so far ahead of the rest of society that while they may bring attention to an issue and sometimes inspire future work, they seldom make an immediate difference – or sometimes any difference at all.

No less heroic, but much more effective as Movement building strategies, are collective actions — which often pass from symbolic to actual transformations of established power relations.  The thousands of people, a majority of whom were “ordinary” African-Americans, who risked or suffered beatings and arrest during the Civil Rights Movement, are our epoch’s most important examples.

THE MAGIC OF MASS MOVEMENTS

Rather than pretend they can create large scale transformation, many advocates (and others) wait for a Mass Movement to arise that will create enough pressure to force the leaders of government or business to take the desired actions.  In fact, Mass Movements are the desired but elusive goal of most advocacy efforts.  A Movement is not simply a protest, an outburst of anger at an intolerable situation or an effort to veto a threatening change.  It is also a demand for a more positive alternative, perhaps even a somewhat idealist vision.  At best, it is the mass application of bottom-up People Power — although the support of various sectors of the Establishment is usually welcomed and vitally needed!

And those of us who have participated in mass Movements, who have experienced the joy and affirmation  of being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of like-minded comrades, who have internalized the life-altering realization that nearly everything about human existence is shaped by human beings and can be changed through collective action – we are the lucky ones!  We know that “the personal is political” in ways that have given meaning, satisfaction, and community to our lives.

But Movement’s aren’t created; they emerge.  True:  this usually happens only after years of preparatory work by organizers and funders (the 40 years of care and cultivation that led to the rise of today’s Right-wing movement is a perfect example!).  But the exact timing of the emergence, the exact combination of events that trigger it, the extent to which is becomes not merely a ripple in the social fabric but a tsunami surging across the land – all this is utterly unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Movements often start out with transformational implications and hopes.  But they usually succeed by discarding their more radical overtones and finding ways to become “reforms” – minor or even major improvements to the overall functioning of the surrounding society or in the inclusion of formerly excluded groups into the established mainstream.  (This inclusionary dynamic is, in fact, one of the distinguishing and wonderful aspects of US society as compared to most countries of the world.)

The Women’s Liberation Movement originally envisioned the total transformation of sexual relationships, family dynamics, as well as the structure and culture of the business world.    It’s true that fathers now spend more time with their kids than they used to, and day care is no longer described as an excuse for maternal inadequacy.  But feminism’s biggest impact was to force business to open up the job market to individual women.  The Gay Liberation movement once sought to redefine sexuality; but its successful fight for Same Sex Marriage only came after re-oriented itself to demand inclusion into the once-denounced conservative institution of legal family bonds.   The Civil Rights Movement has not ended racism, but it has made it impossible to explicitly exclude people because of their skin color – and for a man of color to become President while people who remember lynchings are still alive.

On the other hand, even as they evolve, Movements often spawn other Movements.  Over the past 70 years it was the Civil Rights Movement, confronting (still) the historic core contradiction of our democratic self-definition and the capitalist nature of our economy, that was the mother of most others.   The first Student Movement activists were those who brought their Southern experiences back to the campus.  They began the Anti-Vietnam War (and anti-Imperialist) Movements.  The Women’s Liberation Movement spun off from those, and then birthed Gay Liberation, which laid the base for the explosion of activism around AIDS, which led to today’s Marriage Equality efforts.

DAY-TO-DAY ADVOCACY

Unfortunately, most issues will never generate mass Movements.  Movements require that a substantial number of people feel significantly threatened and that they believe there is a chance to protect themselves.  The anti-Vietnam War student movement got a great deal of its energy from the prospect of being drafted and sent into the jungle.  The Civil Rights movement was both a fight for survival and a demand for dignity.

Having the right combination of underlying interests, demographic latency, and triggering incidents for a Movement is an unusual occurrence.  As a result, most of the time advocates channel their feelings into nondramatic, issue-oriented work.   They may adopt some aspects of “being the change they wish to create” and they may be willing to play a “pushy” role as leaders and organizers, but their key attribute is their long-term commitment and their ability to envision an alternative to the present reality.   It can be a very satisfying effort.

There is plenty to do.  The day-to-day reality of advocacy combines protesting to stop the unwanted, lobbying to get decision-maker’s attention and impact policy, and partnership with agency staff to make things work as well as possible.   Much of this has significant but small impact.  It is “reform” rather than “revolution.”  Still, it makes a difference.  And it is what advocates have to do to lay the groundwork for being able to take advantage of moments of major-change-allowing crisis or the emergence of a society-changing “Movement.”

Most advocacy campaigns never get beyond the contested issue level.   No matter — issue-oriented Advocacy is good, important work.  Combined with the emerging understanding of “tactical urbanism” – the focus on small, Do-It-Yourself, low-cost, and even temporary improvements done by agencies or citizens – it takes advantage of the currently possible to point the way for the desperately needed.   Without it, Movements would have no vision and society would get no better.

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Thanks to Victor Silverman, the “raft rower,” for feedback on an earlier draft.

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Related previous postings:

> SUCCESSFUL ADVOCACY: Lessons of the BU Bridge Campaign

> THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT AND ADVOCACY: Movement Building, Institutional Reform, and Organizational Development

> CHARITY, CHANGE, AND POWER: Advocacy and Movements

> OUR NEW EXTENDED FAMILIES: How the Built Environment and Public Services Shape Social Relationships and Democratic Government

> ADVOCACY 102: Advice For Job Seekers and Volunteers

The revelation during the hunt for the Marathon Bombers of how totally we are all tracked by the rapidly expanding web of electronic systems, and Edward Snowden’s disclosure of how easily it is for government’s security agencies to tap into those data streams, should change the nature of the comparatively trivial debate about installing red-light violation cameras at dangerous intersections.  But it has also revealed a generation fault line in people’s perceptions about the trade-offs involved.

Red light violation cameras, already installed in numerous US cities, clearly reduce violations.  Once the light turns red a sensor notices if any cars are in the intersection and reads the offender’s license plate, triggering an automate moving violation ticket being sent to the owner of the car – who can protest if s/he can prove someone else was driving at the time (except in New York, where the ticket is treated like a parking violation and the owner is legally responsible for the actions of anyone s/he has allowed to use the vehicle).

There are reports of jurisdictions setting the yellow light interval extremely short in order to generate revenue, although lengthening the yellow to give extra time is much more common.  And there are stories that fearful motorists jam on their brakes when the light turns, increasing the chances of getting hit by the unsuspecting following driver – although it is possible that these people were going too fast or close in the first place.   And there are cases of camera malfunction.

But these seem to be isolated exceptions – the overwhelming impact of the cameras is to reduce violations, slow traffic, and lower the accident rates.   And to give the police a new source of information about the location of individuals’ cars – not just when they run a light but, potentially, should their software be secretly changed and the supposed “civil liberty safeguards” ignored, for everyone passing through the intersection.  Despite this danger, as readers of this blog know, I am (warily) in favor of their installation – the increased safety seems to outweigh the potential civil rights infringements.

(Note:  this discussion about red light violation cameras does NOT include police surveillance cameras that monitor public spaces or political/cultural events, which raise a different and much more troublesome set of issues.)

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY

Like many other people, I’ve had numerous recent conversations about data, privacy, and civil liberties.  Nearly everyone is favor of doing whatever is necessary to prevent bombings and terrorism.  No one wants to risk another 9/11 – although there is some debate about the ability of the government to do the job in less intrusive ways.  What’s fascinating is how quickly these discussions show that people under 40, and definitely those under 35, seem totally at ease with the idea that information about themselves is floating around.  In general, it is us older folks who seem the most concerned.

Partly, I assume, younger people have simply grown up in a digital world structured around data sharing.  Not just about their public action (walking down the street or attending a concert), or even their private social actions (at a party or on a group trip), but even of their personal details (birthday, home address, job history, family connections).   Years ago, during my High Tech days, I was on the national Board of a group called Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR).  This was so long ago – 15 or so years –  that the World Wide Web was just beginning to be invented and absolutely no one foresaw the tsunami of commercialization that would almost immediately transform the Internet from a special space to an interactive mall.  However, even then CPSR understood that data sharing was built into the very structure of the Internet and we were warning that unless privacy controls were integrated into every layer of the system, there would quickly be no way to protect data security.  We lost that fight, rather overwhelmingly, and the business dynamics of cyber space have normalized an open-data version of reality for the “digital natives.”

WHO DEFINES THE ENEMY?

The other reason for the generation divide, I believe, is that younger people have not lived through a period of time when they were the enemy.  They don’t remember Nixon’s “enemies list” and the resulting IRS reviews and wire taps, or the FBI’s harassment of anti-war and civil rights activists much less its murderous “cointelpro” program, or the witch-hunting blacklists against the labor movement and their progressive supporters.   Those of us who were around back then, who were active in protest groups and movements have no doubt that if any of the currently available tools had been available back then, they would have been used against us – to keep us under surveillance, to facilitate the work of provocateurs trying to get our groups to do stupid things, to make getting jobs more difficult, to disrupt our personal lives, and perhaps to set up for court cases, jail time, or physical injury.  Those of us who were there know that these types of things happened – and probably still happen — and have little confidence that the new tools and powers will be only used against the “real” terrorists that we all agree should be stopped.

It is, as we should all recognize, a balance.  And when it comes to preventing injuries at intersections, I tilt towards safety.

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Related previous posts:

> ANOTHER GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE: Be Careful What You Wish For; You Might Get It.

> VULNERABLE ROAD USERS (VRU) PROTECTION LAWS: “Whoever Can Do The Most Damage Has To Be The Most Careful”

> ROAD RAGE, GUNS, & DEMOCRACY: Why Road Safety is About More Than Traffic Lights

When bank-robber Willie Sutton was asked why he held up banks, he supposedly quipped, “Because that’s where the money is.”  Cities, like every level of government, also have to go where the money is.   In this country, government’s aren’t usually able to set up state-owned firms able feed revenue back into the general budget.  So paying for social services and the huge variety of regulatory tasks needed to keep a complex society smoothly functioning requires our governments to collect taxes.  And healthy tax collection requires a healthy economy, which requires successful private businesses.

The big question for the people running for Boston mayor, and next year for Massachusetts’ governor, is what do we mean by a “healthy economy” and what strategies should we pursue to achieve it?

The current standard wisdom – in academia, the media, and government – is that business success comes from investment, and that only comes from the rich.   From this conservative (or “neo-liberal) perspective, it doesn’t matter if the well-off get insanely richer than ever before in history, eventually the goodies will flow down to the rest of us.  In these post-Regan years of free-market ideological dominance, greed is good.   Allowing the 1% to do whatever they want is the best strategy for solving nearly every problem.  Pulling the roof higher will supposedly drag the rest up the building upwards as well.

Even though, as the increasing amount of inequality and objective poverty in this country (and around the globe) makes it clear that this strategy seldom works as advertised, today’s political dynamics makes it hard to propose any other approach.  So it is probably a really good thing for Boston that Mayor Menino has never articulated a “grand strategy” for the city.  Ironically, Menino’s lack of an articulated development strategy has allowed him to develop a wonderfully varied set of piecemeal programs that actually pay attention to local Main Streets as well as sky-scraper developments, to public health as well as elite pursuits.  He’s shown its actually possible to pay attention to the neighborhoods as well as downtown – something we should demand of the candidates to replace him as well.

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PROSPERITY THROUGH INCLUSION

In the early 1900s, Progressives like Republican Teddy Roosevelt showed that government was an essential agent for dealing with domestic well-being.  During the1930s the Progressive vision shifted to the Democratic Party as Franklin Roosevelt groped for a response to disastrous collapse of employment caused by Wall Street’s frantic pursuit of speculative profits.  The New Deal strategy for prosperity was to both regulate financial institutions while also directly bolstering working class stability.  Refusing to continue the government’s traditional attacks on unions and the creation of a broad range of public institutions and social services laid the basis for a new strategy for a healthy economy and a business recover.    Instead of pulling the government back or reducing taxes,  the approach sought to use government programs to make sure that ordinary people had enough money and security to buy what they needed (and even what they wanted), while business (particularly the financial sector) would be prevented from blowing it all on short-term bubbles.    Prosperity would come from the bottom-up.

The New Deal’s innovation came from accepting the reality that trickle-down profits only followed the easiest and narrowest of channels.  Like water on a hill, the money flowing from business profits gather in pre-existing stream beds, differentially helping those already best positioned to secure the benefits but, short of flood conditions, not providing enough nourishment for the rest of the social landscape.  Making the rich richer mostly enriches those already well-off or well established – which is why those with power always prefer this approach.  However, the Great Depression (and, one would have hoped, our recent series of bursting dot-com and financial speculation bubbles) showed the failure of top-down strategies to solve basic malfunctioning.   Although he was no revolutionary, FDR saw that he could build a successful electoral coalition based on saving capitalism through using public programs to rebalance the power of various population sectors.

TWO-TIER URBANISM

The New Deal is gone.  The political coalition that promoted it was torn into shreds by the recist push-back against civil rights, the war on Vietnam, lack of funds, and the demands of business to lower costs (especially labor costs) in a global market.  The rhetoric is libertarian – pushing for laissez-faire freedom of action for business and, among many GOP leaders, for the rejection of nearly every public program created since the Progressive era began. But the actually practice is more authoritarian than libertarian, more pro-business than compasionate, using the government to enforce conservative values and hierarchies.

Fortunately, at the city level, mayors are more aware of the inescapable need in contemporary society to use government as a tool for local well-being.   Of course, even activist mayors can share the top-down vision – as most graphically demonstrated by New York’s Mayor Bloomberg.   In fact, the contrast between Menino and Bloomberg is a vivid demonstration of both Menino’s accomplishment and the challenge faced by his successors.

In New York, Bloomberg has aggressively favored the needs of the financial, real estate, media, and high tech businesses while using his power to create a city attractive to those who work in those high-flying sectors.  He has improved public safety, enacted public health and environmental sustainability measures, promoted radical approaches to ending mid-town traffic gridlock (including aggressive promotion of bicycle facilities!), and run a relatively well-managed and corruption-free administration.  As the Nation magazine’s editor’s point out, “Bloomberg’s is a vision of the city forged primarily around the care and feeding of thought leaders, professionals, and strivers – with little concern, and sometimes active contempt, for the ones who do the care and feeding….This is a fundamentally two-tier style of urbanism, one in which a cool, creative and well-managed metropolis glitters like something lovely, its radiance drawing attention away from the dimmed surroundings…. New York in 2013: a city of dazzling resurrection and official neglect, remarkable wealth and even more remarkable inequality….” Contributor Joshua Freeman adds, “…for hundreds of thousands of working-class families with unsteady work, low wages, unaffordable housing, crummy schools, and no union representation, New York City has failed miserably.”

BOSTON IS MORE THAN ITS LEADERS

The hot leaders of Boston’s economy — the “Ed, Med, and Tech” sectors and their spin-offs – are a key component of any conceivable prosperous future.  Their needs, and the needs of those who lead their creative efforts, must be addressed.  But there are other possible components of a vibrant city and a healthy economy, and the cool, hip, young, and active aren’t the only members of our population.

Mayor Menino has started programs that address many of the key issues – the next mayor needs to not merely continue them but to make them his/her own by massively increasing their scope and impact as well as addressing the missing gaps.   Housing:  Reclaiming foreclosed or abandoned houses in ways that preserve their long-term affordability by low-to-mid-income families.  Business Development:  incubators for small service and manufacturing start-ups in Dorchester neighborhoods full of immigrants with currently untapped skills and aspirations.   Wage Levels:  raising the minimum wage, enacting a higher Living Wage, expanding Union apprenticeships.   Schools: Expanding in-school tutorial and enrichment programs as well as afterschool sports and skills activities.  Open Space: Upgrading our non-famous parks and playgrounds, as well as the sidewalks and street furniture that makes nearby stores and residences attractive.  Transportation:  Improving bus service and creating a city-wide network of non-motorized paths to allow people to get to jobs without cars and families to play safely together.  And more, and more.

We do need lots of specific ideas from the candidates.  But even more, we need a believable commitment to improving our economy in ways that lift all boats, a convincing promise that the city will be an active agent for a democratic range of interests, a credible program that sees the long-term success of the rich and rising as based on the well-being of those who make the city’s everyday operations possible.   Thomas Menino stepped up to city-wide leadership from his Main Streets efforts; on what will the next mayor stand?

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Some related previous posts:

> GUNS, TAXES, TRANSPORTATION, AND THE MEANING OF LIFE: Why Government Is A Precondition for Livability

> IMPROVING LIVABILITY, CONTROLING DISPLACEMENT: Can You Upgrade a Neighborhood Without Destroying it’s Community?

> QUICK, VISIBLE, REMOVABLE: Improving City Life By Unleashing Citizen Creativity Through Government Initiative

> PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS The Priority Must Be Enhancing Public Value

> BUS SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT IS KEY TO TRANSIT: Local, Improved, Express, and Bus Rapid Transit

> NON-MOTORIZED HIGHWAYS: A Regional Green Routes System To Connect Municipal Bike Networks, Sidewalks, and Parks

The importance of the two Circle The City events this summer – July 14 on Huntington Ave. (“Avenue of the Arts”) and September 29 on Blue Hill Ave – go beyond the ability to walk, bike, roll, dance, play, eat, and hang out on car-free streets.   It’s more than the zumba, street games, yoga classes, vendors, music and participatory arts activities, and multiple miles of safe space for family-friendly cycling, strolling, and hanging out.

Yes: Circle The City is about good, clean, healthy fun.  It promotes local businesses and connects neighborhoods to nearby parks.   It helps promote discussion about how we can best use our largest publicly-owned physical asset – our streets – as more than and underpriced subsidy for car storage and movement.

But the more fundamental role of the 80 or so Open Streets Initiatives in North America, and more in other countries, it that it brings people together to not only build a sense of community but to also re-invigorate our civic culture.   Civic culture is the shared assumptions and trust which allows an extremely diverse and fragmented public to live together.  At a minimum, it allows tolerance of difference and formal civility.  At its best, it fosters inclusion and appreciation of multi-sourced contributions to our societal well-being and strengthens our commitment to egalitarian democracy. Civic culture is about seeing ourselves as one people.

CIVIC CULTURE IS A BUILT ENVIRONMENT

But civic culture requires both space and cultivation.  It does not happen on its own and, in fact, much of our commercial media and current politics thrives on making us all more fearful of each other, less trusting of those different from us, more insecure about our material well-being – dividing us into nervous isolation.  We need space, time, events, and reminders that if “Boston Strong” means anything in the long run, it means finding ways to express and be glad about the fact that we’re all in this together.

That is why Open Streets events are ultimately about rejecting the paranoia.  It’s about regaining the ability to walk down the street without assuming we’ll be mugged, to interact with others without assuming we’ll be cheated, to enjoy other people’s presence and voice.  And it isn’t pushing too hard to say that this is part of what allows us to send our children to school without assuming they’ll be mistreated, to gather in community meetings without assuming they’ll end in violence, to see our changing demographics as simply a fact (or even as an opportunity) without assuming it’s a cause of alarm.

The power of Open Streets comes exactly from its positive simplicity.  A stretch of reclaimed pavement, long enough for a real bike ride, with “activity nodes” spread along the way that make strolling worthwhile.   It’s bigger than a block party, more diverse than an ethnic festival, more city-wide than a neighborhood play street, more spread out than a parade, and more organized than a spontaneous “happening.”  It’s a place where people come together, to share with others, to enjoy the collective energy, to remember that our city is full of people who are both very different and quite the same as ourselves.

Circle The City is a unique partnership of the City, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, LivableStreets Alliance, the Boston Collaborative for Food and Fitness, the Fenway Cultural Alliance, the Boston Bicycle Union, the Sustainability Guild, and you – come!

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Thanks to Jessica Parsons, Circle The City’s Project Manager, for leading the charge, and to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and the Barr Foundation for their support!

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Some related previous postings:

> OPEN STREETS & CYCLOVIAS: Creating Space For Urban Transformation

> NON-MOTORIZED HIGHWAYS: A Regional Green Routes System To Connect Municipal Bike Networks, Sidewalks, and Parks

>ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION CREATES HEALTHY COMMUNITIES: How To Use Your Roads To Lower Your Doctor (and Insurance) Bills

> VULNERABLE ROAD USERS (VRU) PROTECTION LAWS: “Whoever Can Do The Most Damage Has To Be The Most Careful”

All too little attention and praise has been given to MassDOT’s recent announcements of state funding for the Neponset River Greenway, the inclusion of Community Path design as part of the Green Line extension, and funding for a major expansion of the Bruce Freeman Trail.  These are impressive steps – both symbolic and concrete – towards the re-orientation of the department from a highway to a multi-modal transportation agency.

But all three of these announcements feel like executive decisions.  It’s good to know that the leadership takes its own vision seriously.  We need lots more decisions like these.  But change at the top is not enough.  To truly embody its new role as set out in the 2009 Transportation Reform Act, MassDOT also needs to change its internal operations – the tools it uses, its reward and supervision structures, its culture and social dynamics.

MassDOT leadership understands this.   Secretary Davey is quite aware that MassDOT is a huge bureaucracy whose culture and history – as in most state and municipal transportation engineering departments – is both authoritarian and bureaucratic.  It’s structured like an old-style military operation with lots of layers between top and bottom.   To avoid getting in trouble you followed the rules and your orders; you didn’t talk or work with anyone outside your own chain of command; doing anything different or new was a punishable disloyalty.

To counter this, MassDOT leaders are trying to foster front-line initiative, to empower the district-level project managers and engineers.  The message is that the Central Office trusts them to do what’s best, both individually and as a district-level team, subject only to minimal central oversight.  It’s exactly the type of operational dynamic that MassDOT needs to achieve.   But it’s not enough – in fact, in the short term it may make things worse.   

MassDOT IN MIDSTREAM

The problem is that in the midst of this decentralization, many aspects of the old Highway Department culture and processes remain.  The traffic prediction tools being used still overestimate future car trip numbers and are almost incapable of bicycling or pedestrian demand analysis.  The skills of many traffic engineers still reflect the highway-based focus of their professional training.  Doing things differently requires much more time than simply repeating past practices, and the often over-worked staff often doesn’t feel that it has the luxury of being creative.

So MassDOT is stuck mid-stream.   Many MassDOT staff are working hard to embody its new direction.  But some are not.   More than one District staffer has been heard saying that cars are still what most people use and therefore what the roads should be designed for.   In other cases, it’s that neither the project managers nor their engineers simply don’t know what state-of-the-art multi-modal design entails or feel uncomfortable about incorporating such “non-standard” techniques in their work. And most of the rest of their office-peers are in the same boat.

The problem is compounded by the team loyalty that every District office has – and which they have to have in order to create a supportive and productive work environment.   No one wants to be the office critic, looking over their co-workers’ shoulder.  And in too many cases neither the District Bike/Pedestrian Coordinator (who provides the first opportunity for district-level oversight) nor the District Director or Chief Engineer (who are supposed to double check) have the time, skill, or perhaps the willingness to disrupt group cohesion to push back and require the needed revisions.

By the time local project plans get to the Central Office, the single state-wide bike/ped reviewer simply can’t catch all the problems and even when he does, his suggestions can easily be ignored because there is almost no post-construction review of what actually was done.  When things slip through the state ends up with sub-optimal designs. Non-car facilities are (usually) present, but at the minimal levels possible and neither creatively designed nor thoroughly integrated – it’s barely ok, but not really good enough.

Where progressive Transportation Advocates are able to intervene in the design process, good designs are created.  But anything done without external critiques has an unacceptably high chance of non-compliance with current MassDOT policy, or at least being a sub-optimal approach.  So Boston-area work improves; many parts of the rest of the state suffer from traditionalist designs.

RECONCILING POLICY AND PACTICE

The fact that MassDOT leadership has established more progressive policies is a vital first step.  Now it’s time to make sure that the entire organization follows them by eliminating the procedural corners in which old practices continue.  Some steps might include:

–  Create a stronger connection between District Bike/Ped Coordinator and Central Office – bring them in for group training & discussion; make part of their annual evaluation come from the Central Bike/Ped person.

–  Official change the responsibilities, authority, and title of District Bike/Ped Coordinator to give them power to intervene in any District project to critique plans and require changes to better achieve the state’s Mode Shift goals for transit, walking, and bicycling; re-title them as District Mode Shift Oversight Leaders.

–   Conduct annual Mode Shift Audits of each District Projects, utilizing Central Staff and appropriate outside consultants (including Advocates), to evaluate the extent to which their work is aligned with MassDOT priorities and policies.

–  Include high Mode Shift Audit “scores” as part of the evaluation criteria for District Directors and Chief Engineers.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

The point of this list is not to pick on particular Districts or Project Managers, but to make it clear that this is a real and much too common problem. Here are some examples — there are probably lots more.  READERS, please let us know what other projects you would add to this list of sub-optimal designs!

• Route 114, Peabody – The approved plan included only 4′ shoulders, the minimum allowable bicycle accommodation when there’s no parking between the bikes and the curb.  However, the District Field Engineer could not find the approved striping plan so instead used an old plan which had wide lanes and no shoulders. There are now 2 travel lanes in each direction, a center shared left turn lane, and no shoulders or bicycle accommodation of any kind. (District 4)

• Neponset River Bridge –This started as DCR project and was inherited by MassDOT. The sidewalks are wide enough to be shared by pedestrians and slow cyclists.  But the on-road conditions for vehicular cycling are very dangerous with shoulders narrowing from 4′ in some places down to 2′ in others.  And there are neither road markings nor signed guidance when the road’s outer lanes enter and exit to Hancock St.  (District 6)

• Route 105 at I-495, Middleborough — After LivableStreets pointed out deficiencies, MassDOT did agree to somewhat improved pedestrian safety measures, including sharks teeth yield lines at unsignalized crossings. However, bicycle accommodation is a minimal (and unmarked) shoulder of 4′ – which goes to 0′ under the I-495 bridge. Meanwhile, this project added a travel lane in each direction and a left turn lane. Turn radii for cars coming on and off of the ramps to I-495 are also much wider than they should be for pedestrian and bicycle safety (although one was tightened up a bit in response to a LivableStreets request for tightening all the turn radii). (District 5)

• Hines Bridge, Amesbury –The rebuilt structure should have been designed to allow at least 5’ bike lanes.  Instead, bike accommodation was supposed to be handled by 1′ 8″ shoulders next to 11′ 6″ travel lanes. After LivableStreets complained, the shoulders were widened to 2′ 2″ with 11′ travel lanes – and signs were added suggesting bicyclists walk their bikes because the bridge is narrow! (District 4)

• Fore River Bridge, Quincy/Weymouth –More worrisome than the lack of bicycle markings on the 5′ shoulders is the absence of clearly marked space guidance for cyclists in the rotary – also making it confusing for car drivers who want to avoid hitting them.  (District 6)

• Route 5, West Springfield — MassDOT did add zebra crosswalks, concurrent signal timing in some locations, and sharks teeth yield lines and flashing pedestrian beacons at the I-91 on and off ramps, which improved the situation for pedestrians.  However, the only bicycle accommodation was 8′ shoulders that regularly disappear in favor of right turn-only lanes in many locations. Share the road signs were added as well, but it still remains a very challenging street for bicycling. And just as with the Route 105 project, turn radii for on and off ramps to I-91 are too wide for pedestrian and bicycle safety.  (District 2)

• Kendrick and Highland Ave Bridges, Needham and Newton – These bridges are being rebuilt as part of the Route 128 Add-a-Lane project.  A new interchange is being added at Kendrick Street where one does not exist today. In both projects, travel lanes on the surface streets are being added, and interchanges are being designed with high speed merges on the surface streets. Although MassDOT has agreed to include bicycle lanes after advocates pressed them on it, the high-speed design of the roadways is at odds with pedestrian and bicycle safety and does not fit the character of these streets at the ends of the projects.  (District 6)

• Mass Ave, Boston (South End) – After much pushing from advocates the designs were revised to include 5′ bike lanes, but not for the entire length. Two key blocks are still missing them. Also, crosswalks were poorly designed such that they overlap the path of cyclists, putting pedestrians and cyclists in conflict with each other at the intersections. Design also left a gap in the bike lanes at Columbus Ave, rather than connecting them. Sidewalk narrowing resulted in minimally ADA-compliant sidewalks in many locations.  (District 6)

• Route 99, Everett/Boston –MassDOT’s final plan was an improvement over the original design, but at the expense of pedestrians. Because MassDOT wanted wider (11′ and 11.5′) travel lanes along with the 5′ bike lanes,  they ended up narrowing the east sidewalk from 10′ to 8′ (which includes trees) and did not widen the narrower west one (6′) at all.  (Districts 6 and 4)

• Mass Ave, Arlington – Advocates originally asked for a single 11’ west-bound lane with a 4′ cobble-stone median for the length of the corridor.   The District 4 engineers insisted that DOT standards prohibited crossing such a median to make left turns onto private driveways, although it was never clear why this was the standard or why it wasn’t safe in the Arlington context.  So instead, the west-bound lane was to be 14-15′ to leave extra space for left-turning cars to move out of the way of thru traffic so the latter didn’t have to swerve into the bike lane.  This plan would retain the cobbled flush median but only in the heart of the business district where there are no driveways requiring a left turn over the flush median.  (District 4)

• Route 20 (Main Street), Westfield – Main Street between Elm Street and Main Line Drive used to have 4 narrow travel lanes, no shoulders, and a green strip between the road and sidewalk.  After “improvement” the car lanes were wider, the shoulders were often smaller than the planned 4’, the green sidewalk buffer was gone, and the sidewalks were reduced to no more than 5’ – broken up by parking signs. A multi-modal approach would have either narrowed the car lanes or only included 3, added a 4’ or 5’ bike lane, and not degraded the sidewalk.  Ironically, in this case the State oversight official had rejected the District plan as inadequate, but it had been built anyway!  (District 2)

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Thanks to Phil Goff and especially Charlie Denison who watch-dogs these projects and compiled this list.

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Related previous posts:

> NON-MOTORIZED HIGHWAYS: A Regional Green Routes System To Connect Municipal Bike Networks, Sidewalks, and Parks

> CRISIS AND OPPORTUNITY AT MASSDOT: Money, Internal Operations, and Political Support for Change.

> LIVABLE STREETS – From Theory to Practice

We’ve all done it; cruising around the block looking for an open parking space.  In fact, we all do it so much that studies suggest between 8% and an incredible 75% of the traffic in high demand areas have already reached their destination and are wasting time (and gas) looking for a place to pull over.  Studies in 10 cities found that it took between 3.5 and 13.9 minutes to find an on-street parking spot.  In Harvard Square, nearly a third of the drivers were cruising at peak time, with an average search taking 11.5 minutes.   (It’s even worse overseas: the global average of cruising time is 20 minutes, and in Nairobi it’s not unheard of to spend an hour searching for a spot!)

Parking is the emotional volcano in our conflicted relationship with car dependency.   Even though 99% of auto trips start and end in a “free” parking space, we have what consultant Mark Chase describes as a “famine mentality” – we are always afraid of its disappearance.  And the current method of apportioning the available on-street spots using residence permits, free or low-cost meters in commercial areas, handicapped reservations, loading zone and no parking areas simply doesn’t assuage our anxiety.  Until we have created enough viable alternatives to using our cars –improved public transportation, better bicycle and pedestrian facilities, a whole range of car-sharing and taxi-like services — we need a way to ensure that parking spots are available for those who really need or want them.

The way forward starts by recognizing that we are already paying a very high price for our dysfunctional parking policies through air pollution, wasted fuel (and the resulting climate volatility), time,  and aggravation.   Some of that cost comes directly out of our own hide, much of it is externalized to the more vulnerable members of society and the world at large – and to our children.  The second step towards a solution is understanding that by changing the way we price parking, we can solve or at least reduce many of those costs.  Parking, like most things, has never been and will never be truly free.  But at least we can cut a better deal. 

THE BEST DEAL IN TOWN

Why do we do it – driving and driving to find an on-street parking spot?  One reason is our desire for convenience – we all have a fantasy of pulling in right in front of the store or the friend’s house or our workplace and just rolling in.  We’re so committed to this vision that at least 10% of us (based on a UK report) are willing to sneak into reserved handicapped spots.     We have this fantasy even though we also rush out before or after work to spend an hour sweating at the local gym or running/biking through every kind of weather.  Somehow, the idea of walking from the car to our goal always registers as inconvenience rather than exercise, as an assault from the elements rather than a chance to breathe the outdoor air.

Partly we do it because it’s so cheap.  In most residential areas it’s free, available on an unlimited basis for the minimal cost of an annual resident’s sticker.  Even in metered downtown areas, we get to use public street-space in high-cost districts for a minuscule fraction of the going rental price of adjacent property.  In Boston, parking costs $1.25 per hour – less than a cup of coffee!  And anytime the city proposes an increase everyone denounces it as a horrible way to raise additional revenue, a piling on of insult to the existing pain of finding spots.

And mostly we do it because off-street private parking is so expensive.   Because on-street parking is cheap everyone wants it, which makes it so hard to find on-street spots that the garages can exorbitantly jack up prices.  And even without price-gouging, building an off-street space is expensive:  each spot on a lot costs about$10,000 to create; each spot in a garage costs more than twice as much; and underground parking built in the Boston Area cost more than $100,000 per space to build!   Recently, a single parking space in Boston’s Back Bay sold for $300,000!

THE BILL COMES DUE

The result is that a huge percentage of our street space is pulled out of circulation and dedicated to passive storage of a single type of object for the 95% of the time that it is not in use.   Taxpayers subsidize the cost.  Economist Edward Glaeser points out that “on-street parking carries a huge opportunity cost. Boston could get far more than $30,000 [a year’s maximum possible total of meter fees] for a permanent parking spot on Newbury Street, which could be used by a food truck or even a mobile boutique.”  And if it is going to be given away to facilitate transportation, why just to cars?  Glaeser adds that the space “could also be used for other valuable purposes, such as bike lanes or extra pedestrian space.”

The costs also seep into housing prices.  A San Francisco study found that requiring new developments to include off-street parking raised housing prices by an average of $47,000 and increased the household income necessary to purchase a home by over 13%.   And into public health – increased traffic-related air and water pollution are a major source of respiratory and other problems.  And into the overall livability and attractiveness of our country – the insatiable demand for parking drives much city planning and suburban design, leading to wasteful use of space and less friendly neighborhoods.  A case in point is the recent spectacle of a developer in transit-rich Allston who wanted to provide Zip-car and bike parking but no car parking in exchange for lower purchase fees – but who got trashed by neighbors who wanted to protect their own on-street spaces.   (His brilliant solution: include only half the normal number of spots, on a 1 spot per 2 units basis,  and offer to hire valets if the 180 spot capacity is exceeded who place cars tightly enough to fit even if it required temporarily blocking in long-term parkers. )

Our current parking system also hurts business.  Many retail shops think that the presence of a parking spot right in front of their door is key to attracting customers.  However, that spot is most likely being taken by an employee of that business or a neighboring business who got there early and keeps feeding the meter.  Furthermore, one parking place equals only one customer, who has no incentive to move their car even after they’ve left the store.  In fact, study after study shows that most downtown customers have walked to the store.   (Of course they did – even if they came by car it’s unlikely they would have found an empty spot right in front of that store!)  Which makes the creation of an inviting environment the key to keeping customers around while they meander from store to store – trees, benches, places to meet and talk with friends, and less intimidating and smelly and noisy traffic.

Parking garages might seem an easy fix.  But as noted above, they are extremely expensive to build and on street spaces will still be packed if the garage is more expensive.  Existing off-street parking space already uses enough land to cover the state of Connecticut –the first public garage was constructed in Boston in 1898!  We need to better use what we have before building more.  And, as with highways, expansion is an expensive and only short-term solution: if you build it, they will come, and come, and come – increasing car traffic until the new facilities are just as congested as the old ones and the competition for off-street spots is even worse.

Simply reserving more on-street space for parking won’t work either.   So long as it’s free or extremely low-cost, the only “cost” is convenience so drivers will give excessive value to spots closest to their desired destination and keep circling until they can get one.   The hard reality is that there will never be enough free parking to fully satisfy the potential latent demand.  So we ration it in a variety of ways.  Currently, we mostly use a “first come, first served” approach and we reserve spots for people with certain residence or workplace or handicapped stickers.  Increasingly, cities are limiting the total time a spot can be continuously used by one car.   We all know about the problems with each of these approaches.

TOWARD PARKING REFORM

So what to do?  Requiring all employers and residential developments to create Transportation Demand Management programs would be a great foundation.  TDM implements strategies to reduce single-occupancy vehicle travel by facilitating car-pooling, providing subsidized transit passes, setting up better bike parking and even bicycle purchasing benefits, and reducing the amount of on-site parking.

But TDM is long-range and indirect.  We need something that is more visible and fast-acting.   UCLA professor Donald Shoup posits that we should charge just enough for parking so that there are always a few available spaces.    And what if parking fees were recycled back for communities to use for local improvements and ways to make the public way – streets, sidewalks, parks — friendlier, safer, and more inviting?  And what if doing this would also make housing less expensive, increase local business, and reduce both injuries and illness?

Of course there’s a price – we’d have to start thinking about parking not as a guaranteed right but as a commodity to be sold.   Markets are a form of rationing, usually by ability to pay but potentially by allowing a trade-off between price and convenience.  We also need to consider the needs of low-income people who need a car (and a place to park).  We can accommodate them through targeted discounted parking.

New technologies allow cities to adjust the cost of every parking spot (or every group of parking spots) according to the demand for that location.   In the more advanced systems, the price can change every hour of the day, every day of the week.  The more demand at a particular time the higher the price until it reaches a level where at least a few spots are always open for someone who wants to be there so badly that they’re willing to pay that premium for the privilege.   When and where demand is lower the prices are too, as the distance from the high-demand area increases cost drops until, a couple blocks further away, it’s nearly free – meaning that people who are willing to walk get the best deals.  If that lower-demand area or time is where or when you want to go, you’re in double luck – an available and low cost spot!   In Pasadena, a similar system has been created and fine-tuned so that 15% of the possible parking spots are always free – if you really have to park near a particular place you can.

In San Francisco, the SFpark program has put these theories into practice on a large scale by installing sensors in ten neighborhoods throughout the city. After having the pilot system in place for over two years and almost a dozen price adjustments (the price is adjusted $0.25 at a time up or down every six weeks depending on measured parking occupancy), in 1/3 of spaces the cost of parking has gone up, 1/3 of spaces have stayed the same, and 1/3 of spaces have seen prices increase. Overall, the cost of parking has gone down as underutilized spaces are being accurately priced and better used.  This approach is  scalable and just as applicable in a small downtown as they are in urban neighborhoods.

To further reduce the demand for on-street parking in the most congested areas as well as put some downward pressure on the prices charged by private garages, cities could lower the cost of using a public garage – perhaps making the first 90 minutes free.   And replacing an occasional parking spot in front of a willing store, such as a café, with a bike parking corral creates space for up to 10 customers instead of just one!

A market-oriented approach is not problem-free.  Markets seldom embody the “voluntary exchange between willing participants” that capitalist mythology describes, if only because the two sides so seldom have equivalent levels of knowledge, choices, or power.  And markets seldom create as much social as private value, if only because the pressure to externalize long-term costs affects all participants so strongly.   But markets are very good at “clearance” – using price differentials to find a buyer for every product.  However, to avoid at least some of the discriminatory effects that markets inevitably create, reserved handicapped spots would remain and low-income families could apply for discounted parking cards or get annual rebates of their parking fees.

The transportation benefits go beyond the availability of parking.  One study suggests that a $1 parking surcharge in Boston would cut traffic enough to roughly halve the time it takes a driver to get through the central business district – an impact equivalent to imposing a $1 congestion fee.

THE CARROT AT THE END OF THE STICK

The best part of this approach is what could be done with the parking money.  For example, at least half of all revenue, after expenses, could be available to the community as part of a “Neighborhood Improvement Fund” to pay for sidewalk repair, tree planting, benches and table, cultural events, and anything else that neighbors decide would make their street space better.   This would create the political will within neighborhoods to advocate for parking pricing.

Of course, this is just the beginning.  Subsidized parking creates an incentive for people to use their cars rather than transit or bicycle, which leads to even greater traffic congestion.   Current zoning rules create additional perverse incentives.  Boston zoning requires a minimum of one off-street parking spot for every unit of housing, and once you’ve paid for a spot it feels silly not to use it for a car…which you then drive rather than find an alternative.  Zoning provisions are almost entirely focused on avoiding tenants parking their cars on street.  If the price was set correctly, a new development would not result in net new cars, but in a gradual, perhaps imperceptible increase in the cost of parking.

In areas with abundant transit options, if developers were allowed to leave out the parking they could both add additional units and lower the sale price.  To encourage this, some cities have parking space maximums instead of minimums.   To keep on-street parking demand low developers are urged to negotiate agreements with car-sharing and car-rental firms for discounted use, and often required to provide ample indoor bike-parking facilities.   When off-street parking is required, developers are allowed to set up arrangements for the use of an existing nearby parking garage for long-term parking.  Put all together, it is likely that the much feared new-development spill-over of cars onto neighborhood streets might be avoided.

At a minimum, zoning laws should be changed to require landlords to separate the cost of the housing from the cost of the off-street parking and allow tenants to opt-out of the parking purchase if they wish.  However, separating the cost of parking from a unit will have the intended effect only  when the price of parking on street is high enough to encourage use of the garage over a City permit – and Boston’s are currently free!

TIME TO GROW UP

Change will be controversial.  Parking is an emotional trigger for the feeling of vulnerability caused by our dependence on our cars.   We love our cars, but they are expensive and troublesome.  For most,  given our current transportation system and land-use sprawl we can’t escape needing them.  So the idea of having our ability to park taken away is infuriating.  We get pretty agitated about it.   It would be short-sighted and insulting – as well as political suicide – to expect everyone, or even most people, to suddenly give up their cars. Happily we don’t need to do this to solve the parking problem.   We only need to  provide enough incentive for a few people to willingly walk further to park, or to use a car-sharing service instead of their own vehicle.  We need to find ways to create choices, and to begin shaping the decision-making context so that it makes sense to park elsewhere – or to not drive at all!

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Thanks to Mark Chase and Mike Izzo for feedback and facts.

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Related previous blogs:

> NEW GARAGES FOR THE DOWNTOWN: How Can We Get What We Need?

> COMPLETE STREETS AS AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY: The Green Beyond The Paint

> AVOIDING “NIMBY” – Navigating Between Fear and Greed

> Streets Are Public Property: Revitalized Streets are a Lever to Revitalize Public Life

Paradigm shift.  A fundamental change in one’s core understanding of a situation.  It’s hard to do.  It takes abandoning everything you’ve been taught and believed and that made sense, then adopting something totally new and perhaps both untried and unsettling.  It takes going from a belief that the sun goes around the earth to understanding that it’s exactly the opposite.  And, as Galileo found out, there is often a powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – an Inquisition – ready to attack you for questioning orthodoxy.

In transportation, shifting paradigm means switching from a belief that roads are primarily about carrying through traffic to prioritizing their power to facilitate local neighborhood livability.  It means switching the starting point for road design, even of busy roads, from a highway to a city street – understanding that softening the edges of a highway still results in something very different than a city street with peak-hour flexibility.

Paradigm shifts are often the necessary (even if not sufficient) foundation for a change in an organization’s strategic direction.  The car – and its attendant roads, parking spaces, garages, and dealerships – were once seen as the basis for economic growth and personal success.  We now know better.  We now know that we need a more balance transportation (and energy and land use) agenda.  MassDOT needs to play a central role in this transformation – a fact the state government and MassDOT itself understand as reflected in the Healthy Transportation Compact section of the Transportation Reform Act and in the Greenhouse Gas Emission reduction laws, as well as in MassDOT’s own GreenDOT program with its energy conservation and efficiency goals and its commitment to triple the number of trips made by bike and foot and transit.

But despite constant waving of the new multi-modal banners, MassDOT’s actual work is still a frustrating combination of new rhetoric and old practices. What’s happening around the McGrath/O’Brien Highway is a case in point.   MassDOT’s proposed short-term repair and long-term replacement designs are much, much better than what now exists or what MassDOT had originally planned to do.  But underneath the talk of “boulevards” and “accessibility” is still an 8-lane behemoth justified by faulty assumptions about the inevitability of future traffic growth and traffic engineer’s inability to give priority to anything besides car-movement level of service.

What Somerville needs is the replacement of the highway – no matter what it is called or how many trees are planted alongside – with a design that has as its deepest goal the knitting together of the city’s road-brutalized neighborhoods.   Commuters heading into or out from East Somerville, the Union Square area, and the Innerbelt zone will be as richly served by non-car transportation as any other place in the region.   MassDOT’s opportunity, and its possible paradigm shift, is to start by designing city streets and an over-abundant set of state-of-the-art facilities for non-motorized movement.  Transportation and land use are the twin determinants of much of our built environment.  MassDOT has been working very hard to re-invent itself as a transportation agency rather than as a highway department.  They’ve come a long way.  McGrath is a chance to push further, to show that their commitment to health and sustainability will be expressed not just in words but in concrete – and paint and grass and the revitalization of Somerville.  Continue reading →

In recent years, bicycling has increased nationwide.  However, the growing numbers are most visible in urban areas where car congestion and mixed-use density make cycling particularly useful, which also gives bicylists the political clout to push for improved safety facilities.

Bicycling isn’t just faster and cheaper than other forms of urban travel, it’s also healthier.  Regular bicyclists live, on average two years longer than non-cyclists and a level of fitness equivalent to someone 10 years younger.  Students who bike (or walk) to school perform better on tests, regardless of the amount of other out-of-school physical activity.  Overweight adolescents who bicycle at least half the week are 85% more likely to become normal-weight adults.  The health benefits of cycling have a positive impact 20 times larger than the negative impact of safety risks experienced by cyclists.

Which isn’t to say that anyone wants to be in a bike accident, or that cycling is safe enough.  But there are no “silver bullet” single solutions.  Success requires understanding the full range of strategies and implementing as much as possible of each.

Around 75% of bicycling accidents are “solo” events, due to potholes or the rider’s own errors.  But these tend to cause minor injuries rather than death.  Being hit by a car, truck, or bus is more serious.  Aggressive passing, turning into a cyclist’s path, speeding, running red lights or stop signs – these are the driver actions that are at least a contributing cause in up to 85% of cyclist fatalities.  According to the Boston Bicycle program, the city had 8,329 car crashes in 2012 of which 426 involved a bicyclist, leading to 5 cyclist deaths.  The small increase in bike injuries from 2010 to 2012 occurred almost entirely during the darker winter months when the rent-a-bike Hubway stations were closed.  And while only 2% of Emergency Room visits resulting from bike accidents are for head injuries, these lead to 36% of the subsequent move from ER triage to a hospital admission.

Just as Medicine focuses on making sick people better, there are ways at both the individual and policy levels to reduce the severity of accidents.  Public Health, in contrast, seeks to prevent people from becoming ill in the first place – and there are also a very broad range of actions at both the individual and policy levels to reduce the likelihood that an accident will happen.

Post-accident, injury reducing actions are mostly and best done voluntarily by individuals (for example: wearing a MIPS helmet or signing up for a bike skills training class) although there are a few things that can be done on a policy basis to protect people from accident-caused injury (such as requiring trucks and buses to have “side guards”).   Fortunately, however, there are many things that can be done to reduce the odds of having an accident in the first place.  These range from increased training, to road design (providing more traffic-separated protected bike lanes of various kinds), to bans on distracting driving (and cycling!), and more.  Increased safety for bicyclists, and for everyone else, requires understanding each of the approaches suggested by each strategy, and then making sure that as many as possible get implemented.

Policy changes can be focused on the transportation context or on society at large.  As with the public health hierarchy illustrated in CDC Director Dr. Thomas Friedman’s Health Impact Pyramid the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle – actions that provide the greatest amount of improvement for the largest number of people at the least per-person cost and are most likely to be both technically and politically do-able.  Continue reading →

Genie’s are, by mythological definition, very powerful.  They can open cave walls, turn dirt into gold, and make carpets fly.  They are also devious, granting wishes in ways that turn benefits into burdens – an autonomous force from whom, in exchange for letting them out of the lamp, we can demand short-term assistance but whose ultimate actions and effect are beyond our control.

The unpredictable long-term impact of liberated genies crossed my mind last Friday as I stared out my window at the absolutely empty streets and sidewalks.  The marathon bombing victims were in the hospital, the killers were shooting in the streets.  An entire metropolitan area had been asked to “shelter in place” – to lock ourselves down – and we, myself included, complied with a willing conformity even greater than during previous emergencies such as when we were ordered to stay off the streets during last winter’s blizzard. We all, myself included, applauded at the equally unprecedented coordination among every type of police and emergency agency and every level of government, rather than the turf-protecting disarray that has so frequently characterized such interaction.  We all, myself included, were amazed and relieved that so many images of the bombers were able to be found and analyzed so quickly from so many sources and merged with information from cell phones and even more sources that we had never before realized could be so effectively tapped.  We wanted the situation dealt with, and we were all, myself included, very glad that the bastards were found, using any means necessary.

But looking out the window I suddenly thought, “it wasn’t so long ago that I was part of a small minority of the population who were fighting to stop the US invasion of Southeast Asia, and most of the country – including elected officials and police leaders at nearly every level of government – thought we were traitors; now that there has been a precedent of unrolling the full might of the government over an entire region, will it become easier to use the same tools to attack the next effort by US citizens to stop the country from catastrophic actions.”

The answer is obviously “yes.”   In fact,  given how frequently local police and the national FBI have tracked, harassed, framed, and even killed  people whose opinions they find offensive, both in the past and today, it is difficult to imagine that these tools are not already being used in less dramatic ways for the same purposes.   Continue reading →

Enthusiastic support for Public-Private Partnerships (P3) seems to extend across the entire political spectrum. The P3 label is a huge umbrella, providing space for small-government conservatives who think business can do things better, pragmatic liberals who want to harness the resources and energy of the private sector during a time of government fiscal constraint, and innovation progressives looking for strategies to extend the public sector’s positive influence.

Many government leaders, elected or appointed, also wave the pro-P3 banner.  For good reason:  Public-Private-Partnerships can substitute for budget increases or even fill-in after budget cuts. A P3 allows public agencies to potentially tap into expertise or funding they would otherwise lack, allowing them to do mission-accomplishing things that would be otherwise unlikely or even impossible. The private partners sometimes add legitimacy to a project and can provide powerful institutional voices calling for increased public funding in their area of interest.  P3s can also leverage public assets to promote job-creating private investment, including targeted training and entry-level opportunities for underserved populations or in key growth industries.  In some areas, as in parks, the private partner’s ability to see revenue opportunities in a traditionally “passive” asset adds to the sustainability of the public resource.

Public-Private-Partnerships are relationships – structured as anything from simple gifts to informal working relationships to legally enforceable contracts around some task, service, or project – between a public (or semi-public) agency and some non-governmental non-profit or for-profit organization.   The contract can be a lease for use of a public asset by the private partner, usually with some degree of exclusivity and control over its use by others, and often combined with a promise to improve and/or maintain it for the duration.  Or even the sale of public assets either absolutely or “in-effect” through extremely long-term leases or more subtle de-facto control over a particular location or asset.

MANAGING DIVERSE MOTIVATIONS

Like market and product regulation, P3s are a way to try to align private effort and investment with public purposes while managing the inherent tension between the two.  Too often, Public Agency officials want private sector dollars and help but don’t want to either give up control or allow any return on the investment. Too often, private partners think Public Officials are just selfishly (or incompetently) making things difficult, and come across as pretentious or arrogant rather than respectful of the public agency’s own plans.  For a partnership to succeed, the public agency has to have a predictable, transparent, and timely decision-making process around partnership proposals that makes it less tempting for well-endowed proposers to make a political end run to the Governor’s office or the Legislative leadership. And the private proposer has to use its relatively less constrained freedom to innovate as a way to enhance public value rather than simply self-aggrandizement.

P3s hang off the public sector in many directions, each of which has its particular characteristics and issues.  They are becoming a standard part of Park and Open Space operations, especially around the new types of downtown mini-parks that are expensive to create and program and are often run as economic development projects by nearby Business Associations or Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) rather than the city.  In transportation, a public-private partnership is often, as stated by Mass. Secretary of Transportation Richard Davey, simply “an alternative financing strategy.”  And education-oriented partnerships can range from truly learning-helpful to insidiously channeling the next generation of consumers towards brand loyalty.  A lot of what is called Partnership is simply outsourcing – the privatization of our prison system, social services, and many other once-public activities has had as many negative as positive results.  Continue reading →

“It’s not the vehicles,” points out MBTA General Manager Dr. Beverly Scott, “it’s the people and places.”  She’s right – transportation is not ultimately about moving things from one place to another, not about the roads or rails, but about the world that grows up around the travel routes.  The value of transportation comes from the ways it improves the health, prosperity, and well-being of the lives around it.  That is why LivableStreets Alliance chose its name. And that is why it is so inexplicable that the Massachusetts’ Legislature has once again “kicked the can down the road” by drastically underfunding our transportation needs.

The Governor first released a huge 10-year transportation plan, “The Way Forward”, and then asked for a huge increase in revenue – nearly $1.9 billion a year – to cover both transportation and educational improvements needed to maintain, and in some ways to simply regain, our economic competitiveness.  Next step is a bond bill to provide the funds, to be paid back via the new revenue, to get started.  (The education money will go towards universal pre-kindergarten, extended hours for struggling schools, and millions in reverse some previous and massive cut-backs to public higher education.)   As several business advisory groups have repeatedly said, not investing in those areas will eventually cost even more – an estimated $11 billion in property damage, injury and loss of life as well as the loss of up to 15,600 jobs!

The Legislators’ political fear is clear.  Most of them intend to run for re-election. They remember that Bill Weld ended a long streak of Democratic gubernatorial success by running against the “big spenders on Beacon Hill.” It will be electorally useful to say, “I helped hold the line.”    However, a majority of the state’s residents support raising taxes and fees dedicated to transportation (61% and 62% for gas tax and income tax respectively).   The sobering experience of unemployment and budget cuts has reduced public support for the Tea Party’s reactionary anti-tax, anti-government hysteria.

Even more important, from an Establishment perspective, while the business community used to be the primary denouncer of “Taxachusetts,” most of their organizations are now in favor of increased spending on transportation and education.   Even the Massachusetts Taxpayer’s Association proposed transportation spending several hundred million more than the Legislature.  One reason is that, as another group has pointed out, “taxes in Massachusetts are stubbornly average, [by both] income [and] gross state product measures…. taxes are actually lower in Massa­chusetts than they are in nominally low-tax states like Kansas, West Virginia, and Indiana….They have been for the past three decades, and they would remain so even under Patrick’s … $1.9 billion tax proposal.”  A new national study ranks Massachusetts “the most competitive state for business, again!”

There is, of course, another perspective. The state is eventually going to have to upgrade its transportation system – or risk economic deterioration.  As both the Boston Globe and Governor Patrick have said, if you’re going to get attacked for raising taxes anyway why not go high enough so that your constituents gain something of real benefit as a result?  Isn’t it worse to have to go back and ask for more later on?  If you’re in for a dime, you’re in for the dollar!  Continue reading →

If you build it, they will come.  Given the starting assumptions, Boston planners have come up with an excellent design for the reconstruction of Melnea Cass Boulevard in lower Roxbury.  It is a layout worthy of the Urban Ring vision that inspired it.

Unfortunately, the assumptions are flawed and, therefore, so is the proposed design.  The Field of Dreams magic doesn’t work if you only build half a baseball field.  And building a short stretch of roadway won’t bring Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service, or any other kind of public transportation, if there are no plans to build the rest of the system.  Melnea Cass Boulevard needs improvements that will promote economic development, reknit the abutting neighborhoods, and facilitate alternatives to car traffic. Money is available, up to $9.5 million, using state and city funds to supplement a $5.5 million earmark Congressman Capuano inserted in a federal bill.  But for all the still-needed functionality of a city-encircling transit system, an Urban Ring to complement our mostly in-and-out commuter lines, the city’s currently proposed design – which will create a 0.9-mile segment of the long-planned Bus Rapid Transit network – will serve neither the still-needed Urban ring nor the through-rushing car commuters, nor the adjacent neighborhoods.

The critical component of the proposed redesign is the insertion of two additional lanes for eventual use by BRT buses, and until then as a “priority lane” by emergency vehicles and various buses that use all or part of Melnea Cass – although the temptation to allow cars might be hard to resist.  Because a “transit reserve” was created along the road after the BRA wiped out the residential neighborhood in the 1960s, no private property needs to be taken for the project, which will simply occupy the existing “right of way.”  However, even though the official term for the project is “reconstruction” the reality is that the new design is a dramatic, 40-foot widening of the asphalt.

The required 40-foot expansion of the road will create a longer, 108-foot crossing for pedestrians (similar to Beacon Street at Coolidge Corner) mitigated by a mid-passage pedestrian island.  It would remove up to 40 feet of grass and trees from most of the Lower Roxbury (northeast) side, as well as trees and planting adjacent to the townhouses on the Madison Park (southwest) side of the Boulevard.   The 200 mature trees to be eliminated would be replaced by 300 (admittedly less attractive or shady) young saplings and a storm-water-handling bio-swale.

There will be 8’ sidewalks on both sides of the boulevard with a two-way bike path on the in-land side. On-street parking will be added along several blocks to both support future retail shops and calm currently fast traffic.  At key intersections, left-turning lanes will eliminate a major cause of wait times and backed-up congestion.

However, most of these improvements could be done without adding the two lanes, the component that has sparked intense community opposition.  The “Friends and Neighbors of Melnea Cass Boulevard” would like to see traffic speed reduced through retiming the traffic lights for a 20 mph signal progression through the Boulevard, longer walk signal duration with raised cross-walks, and improved bike path (on both sides of the road, as planned in the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan) connections with the Southwest Corridor path and the South Bay Harbor Trail to make an inviting connection to downtown.   (While pedestrian connections are vital, bicycling is better for weight control because most people walk too slowly to impact calorie accumulation.)  The community groups also support better bus service throughout the area on both Key and Regular route as described in the Roxbury/Dorchester/Mattapan Transportation Improvements Study.

The community critics are correct in pointing out that it is hard to show that the current design will achieve any of the Melnea Cass Project’s own goals to “return the street to the neighborhood”, “create a street for the community rather than for vehicle traffic passing through”, “enhance pedestrian safety”, and “encourage activity/create attractive front yards for new developments.”

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Motor vehicles hit more bicyclists and pedestrians on Commonwealth Avenue in front of Boston University than anywhere else in the city.  Last year, five bicyclists were killed in the metro-Boston area, in almost every case by getting hit then run over by a truck (which, in almost every case, made the fact that they were wearing a helmet irrelevant).  One of those happened on Comm. Ave.  It’s partly that a growing number of BU students ride bikes, and not all of them are as careful as they should be.  It’s partly that drivers aren’t as careful as they should be, especially truck drivers making right turns which, because of the size of their vehicle, they have to do illegally from the left lane, compounding the danger caused by their mirrors’ large blind spot.  It’s partly that, as Boston Traffic Department (BTD) Commissioner Thomas J. Tinlin has pointed out, “It’s the one spot in the city that truly has all modes of transportation” – cars, trucks, trolleys, cyclists, pedestrians, skate boarders, and more.  But mostly it’s that the street layout is simply unsafe.

To its credit, BTD and the Boston Bike Program have come up with a number of innovative improvements for Comm. Ave. which, if they prove effective, may be used in other danger areas as well.  New signage will tell drivers to “yield to bicycles when turning right” and “suggest” that cars go no more than 25 mph even though the official speed limit (set by state law) is 30.  Bike lanes will be outlined with recessed highway reflectors on wider (6”) lane-lines. Non-skid green paint will show the continuation of the bike lane through intersections.

The city’s proposals are real improvements over current conditions and will bring the bike lanes to a higher safety level without having to do expensive construction. (Hopefully, they will also fix any pot-holed sections of bike lane pavement, as well as ensure that all drains are properly working along the way.)  Of course, better still would be protected bike lanes, created either by installing rubber posts (removable during snow season) along with cross-hatch striping, or by a curb separation that forms a street-level or sidewalk-level cycle track.  And there should be separate bicycle traffic lights synchronized with Green Line, car, and pedestrian signals to create a “green wave” street allowing steady progress at a safe 15 mph.
Unfortunately, cyclists will continue to be killed on Commonwealth Avenue, and elsewhere, unless police enforce the “no right turn from the left lane” law — meaning that distributors will have to use appropriate-sized trucks for city deliveries instead of gigantic 18-wheelers.  Just as important: both trucks and buses, starting with public vehicles, must be required to have “side guards” that prevent hit pedestrians and cyclists from getting thrown under the wheels.

But the biggest long-term issue for safety on Commonwealth Avenue — for car occupants and pedestrians as much as cyclists — is what will happen with the Turnpike overpass area between Mountfort Street and the BU Bridge.  The city and state are being pressured to adopt a plan that would prioritize car traffic, recreating conditions that will be unsafe for bicyclists and pedestrians – including potentially eliminating the new bike lanes on the BU Bridge. Unless MassDOT and BTD stand up against this violation of their own Complete Streets policies, the presence of reflectors, green paint, and thicker lines further up the road won’t mean very much.

The resurgence of bicycle as a valuable transportation vehicle over the past twenty years, first in Europe and now in the US, a still very much a work-in-progress.  Boston has taken progressive and creative positions in several key road redesign projects, most recently by opting for the “surface option” on Rutherford Avenue in Charlestown which will help re-knit the neighborhood across the current asphalt wound.  Cars are becoming more expensive, traffic congestion more pervasive, and people are looking for better alternatives.  We need to increase safety for everyone on the road regardless of their method of travel.  Hopefully, these first steps on Commonwealth Avenue are just the beginning of a continuing process of experimentation and improvement.

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Related Previous Postings:

> A BICYCLE BOULEVARD ON COMMONWEALTH AVENUE?

> ENOUGH KILLING: How to Make Bike-Car Collisions Less Deadly

> VULNERABLE ROAD USERS (VRU) PROTECTION LAWS: “Whoever Can Do The Most Damage Has To Be The Most Careful”

> SIGNS, PAINT, AND FLEXIBILITY: Creative No-Cost Ways To Improve Road Intelligibility