Streetsblog Capitol Hill

It’s well-established that density and mixed-use development reduce driving. Right? But strategies like those don’t work the same way everywhere, according to new research published in the Journal of Transport and Land Use. While in major cities, denser development is linked to lower rates of driving, researchers found that in smaller cities it might not have much effect at all. The research suggests that for smaller cities, a focus on reducing block sizes and improving street connectivity may be the most effective way to cut down on driving, though the authors caution that more research is needed to draw universal conclusions.

According to new research, block sizes help explain why some people drive less than others in Norfolk, Virginia. Photo: Joey Sheely, Wikimedia

The research team, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration, sought to drill down and identify how urban characteristics affect driving levels in different types of places. They looked at four different case studies: Seattle, WA; Richmond-Petersburg and Norfolk-Virginia Beach, VA (grouped together as one case study); Baltimore, MD; and Washington, DC. Using travel surveys and land use information, they modeled the impact on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) of five factors: residential density, employment density, mixed-use development, average block size (which they use as a stand-in for “measuring transit/walking friendliness”), and infill development (or distance to city center).

While the authors knew from previous research that these five factors all contributed to reducing VMT, they found that the Virginia regions didn’t follow the same patterns as the other three. In the smaller urban areas of Richmond-Petersburg and Norfolk-Virginia Beach, they found, mixed-use development did not have a significant impact on reducing driving.

“This is probably because in smaller urban areas, even those living in neighborhoods with well mixed land development may still need to travel far to reach work and non-work destinations,” the researchers write. “In other words, mixed development areas are less likely to be self-sufficient in smaller urban areas.” Mixing uses proved to be a good way to reduce driving in the larger metros.

These findings would seem to show a major weakness of New Urbanist-style “town centers” developed in otherwise suburban areas. A small walkable area isn’t enough to actually spark a real shift in transportation habits – the urban area has to be big enough that most people’s needs can be satisfied without a car. But lead researcher Lei Zhang said the findings don’t warrant that conclusion. “The paper has a small sample size,” Zhang said. “I wouldn’t want to generalize the results to other places.”

Zhang and his team are working on another paper that broadens the scope of their analysis to 20 urban areas. They hope this bigger data set will help planners evaluate land-use plans and how those decisions affect driving rates in different types of places.

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Here’s a good way to get a sense of the importance a given city assigns to the well-being of pedestrians: press the “walk” button at an intersection. Then look at your watch.

It may not be a perfect measure, but there certainly seems to be a correlation in Baltimore. The signal timing at several intersections in the southeast part of the city is prompting outrage by citizens who say a deference to motorists makes pedestrians second-class street users and threatens their safety. Rebecca Smith, founder of the Downtown Baltimore Family Alliance, summarized the issue recently in a letter to the Baltimore Sun.

Crossing the road is dangerous in Baltimore thanks in part to crossing signals that force pedestrians to wait or run. Photo: Baltimore Sun

Meanwhile, Network blog Baltimore Spokes points out that pedestrians account for 42 percent of city traffic fatalities:

Seriously, don’t walk in Baltimore. We have the highest count of pedestrians in traffic crashes of any other county.

Pedestrian signal timing is such that you can’t cross when the signal is green for cars and you can’t cross when the signal is red. Then, finally you have four seconds to get across the road, that is assuming you pressed that button.

Like Rebecca we are wondering where the City’s Complete Street Policy is in all this.

Smith and Baltimore Spokes are have requested that the offending signals be returned to their original timing. Secondly, Smith has requested that a walk signal be included in every sequence of signals, whether or not the button is activated. Finally, she asks that there be a countdown mechanism that gives pedestrians a clear sense of the timing of oncoming traffic.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Next Stop STL explains how the St. Louis region’s transit agency, Metro, played a critical role in the aftermath of the tornadoes that touched down Friday. PubliCola examines the claim of King County Executive Dow Constantine that anti-tunnel advocates in Seattle are attempting to force people to “abandon their cars.” And Grist comments on the irony of a sprawling development an hour-and-a-half outside Phoenix that is marketing itself as “green” by virtue of its rooftop solar panels.

There’s been a lot of ink spilled lately over population losses in cities. And these gloomy numbers from Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic help explain why:

The city of Cleveland lost 17 percent of its population, but all of its innermost Census tracts grew by at least 20 percent. Photo: Cleveland Skyscrapers

• Baltimore lost 4.6% of its population since 2000
• Chicago: -6.9%
• Cincinnati: -10.4%
• Cleveland: -17.1%
• Pittsburgh: -8.6%
• St. Louis: -8.3%

But that’s only half the story, says Freemark. While many cities got kicked in the shins if you look at their overall populations, downtowns and their surrounding neighborhoods enjoyed a resurgence. Check out these stats Freemark pulled together:

• Baltimore‘s downtown residential population has grown by 11.6% since 2006 and now provides living space for more than 40,000 people.
• Chicago‘s Loop saw a 76% increase in inhabitants since 2000 and the Near South Side more than doubled in population over the same period (even as the number of jobs downtown declined by 60,000).
• Cleveland‘s most central census tracts each gained 20% or more in population between 2000 and 2010.
• St. Louis‘ central neighborhoods gained several thousand people in total.

And those are just cities with overall population losses. Many cities posted strong gains overall, including Newark, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle.

The public policy implications are clear, Freemark says:

There is a strong and increasing interest in living downtown, whether in the winds of Chicago or the fog of San Francisco. This downtown growth falls closely in line with the narrative that Americans are moving back to the city — it’s just that in many cases they’re only moving to a specific part of it: The high-density downtown. Thanks both to public and private sector investments, these built-up cores offer the amenities people think of when they imagine living in the city: The ability to walk to and from retail, easy access to public transit, and more.

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With Election Day fast approaching, Streetsblog Capitol Hill is turning our attention this week to key governor’s races. As Ya-Ting Liu of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign recently wrote (and as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has made painfully clear), “decisions by state and local elected officials ultimately determine whether federal transportation policies become instruments of reform or tools to be abused.” Today we look at the gubernatorial election in Maryland.

One of the key races for transit advocates to watch next week will be Maryland’s vote for governor. The election will determine the future of a light rail line designed to link the northern suburbs of Washington, DC, providing an alternative to driving along the notoriously congested Washington beltway.

Governor O'Malley announcing the decision to build the Purple Line as light rail - Photo from Washington Post via ACT for Transit

Governor Ehrlich raising campaign funds at Columbia Country Club- Photo by Patricia Metzger via ACT for Transit

The Purple Line has been under consideration since 1987. Incumbent Democrat Martin O’Malley is a staunch supporter of the light rail line and has been instrumental in advancing plans to build it. Republican challenger Bob Ehrlich (who served as governor before losing to O’Malley in 2006) has pushed to turn the Purple Line into a bus rapid transit corridor. And during his term as governor, he pushed through a new highway, the Intercounty Connector.

Opposition to the Purple Line has largely been organized by members of an exclusive country club, which the line will pass through. Other neighbors have campaigned against the line by claiming (untruthfully) that it will narrow the Capital Crescent Trail, one of the most popular bike/ped trails in the Washington area, and diminish its wooded nature by cutting down the trees alongside it.

In fact, area bike groups from the Washington Area Bicyclist Association to Silver Spring Trails strongly support the building of the Purple Line as light rail. “It is important that bicyclists reject the assertions that the trail and transit are incompatible,” WABA said in an alert. In fact, the plans for the Purple Line include the completion of unfinished portions of the Capital Crescent.

Still, Ehrlich has made clear his preference for a BRT alternative, which is estimated to cost $386 million to $1 billion, compared to $1.68 billion for light rail. A state analysis found that light rail would be faster and would attract more riders than BRT. (Meanwhile, a study by the World Resources Institute favored BRT, saying it would ”cost less, offer similar services, and fight global warming better than light-rail cars.”) Light rail is expected to attract more development along the corridor.

The state has already spent eight years and about $40 million planning the Purple Line. While Ehrlich didn’t put an end to the plans while he was governor, he did “obfuscate, alter, study and delay” it, according to his own appointee to the Metro board.

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