Streetsblog Capitol Hill

What makes a city great? According to Jeff Speck, the secret sauce is, quite simply, walking. If your city is a good place to walk — that is, walking is safe, comfortable, interesting, and useful — everything else will fall into place.

In Walkable City, his talked-about manifesto about healthy urban places, Speck lays out a simple formula for any city to become a pedestrian haven. “Putting cars in their place,” “mixing uses,” “getting parking right,” and supporting transit and cycling are a few of the 10 principles, he says, that separate the successful cities from the rest.

A planner and urban design consultant, Speck has a few other books under his belt. In 2000, he co-authored Suburban Nation with Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and he also co-wrote the recently released Smart Growth Manual with Duany and Mike Lydon. Meanwhile, Speck has served as the director of design for the National Endowment for the Arts and headed the Mayors’ Institute on City Design.

In Walkable City, he lays out a powerful argument, supported by careful research and highly-Tweetable facts, that fostering a culture of walking should be a central aim of every American city.

If you’re a professional planner or advocate, Walkable City is a new, essential reference. If you’re new to the subject, there’s no better introduction.

Streetsblog reached Speck this morning for an interview. Here’s what he had to say…

Angie Schmitt: You’ve taken the broad concept of civic health and boiled it down to this one act: walking. Can you talk a little about why this one activity is so important? How did you come to that conclusion?

Jeff Speck: I came to it very indirectly. I am a designer. I am a city planner. I was never focused on walking in any way, from a health perspective or a recreational perspective.

But then I started working with a lot of mayors. I oversaw the Mayors’ Institute on City Design for four years. Every two months, eight mayors and eight designers would meet. Each mayor would bring their top city planning challenge.

Listening to mayor after mayor and how they explained their idea of a successful city, it became very clear that both the best measure of a thriving place and perhaps the best contributor to a thriving place was street life: walkability. Being successful in walkablity is really nothing less than providing street life. In our age of digital connectedness, I think for a while people forgot how important it was to have a public realm where we come to gather physically. That is still in our DNA. We need that.

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The Obama-Biden transition team today unveiled its "Agency Review Teams" -- the people charged with "a thorough review of key departments, agencies and commissions of the United States government, as well as the White House, to provide the President-elect, Vice President-elect, and key advisors with information needed to make strategic policy, budgetary, and personnel decisions prior to the inauguration."

We skipped right to the transportation team, of course, and here are the names we found, with biographical info pulled directly from the change.gov website. We'd love to get your intel in the comments.

• Seth Harris is a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Project’s Agency Review Working Group responsible for overseeing review of the transportation agencies.
• Mortimer Downey is a self-employed transportation consultant who served for eight years as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation under President Clinton, and was an Assistant Secretary of Transportation during the Carter Administration. He has also been the Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and held various planning positions at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
• Jane Garvey is the Head of the U.S. Public/Private Partnerships at JPMorgan. In this role Garvey advises states on financing strategies to accelerate project delivery for governments. Garvey was the 14th Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, nominated by President Clinton. Prior to becoming FAA Administrator, Garvey was Acting Administrator and previously Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration.
  
• Michael Huerta is Group President of ACS Transportation Solutions, a company that provides technology solutions for collecting revenue, enhancing safety and promoting security for the transportation industry. From 1993 to 1998, Huerta served in senior positions at the Department of Transportation. Previously, Huerta served as the Executive Director of the Port of San Francisco and Commissioner of the City of New York Department of Ports, International Trade and Commerce.
• Federal Maritime Commission Review Team Lead John Cullather has worked for the House of Representatives for over 31 years, specializing in Coast Guard and maritime transportation policy.
• NTSB Review Team Lead Carol Carmody currently works as a consultant in international aviation and aviation safety. In 2000 she was appointed by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term on the National Transportation Safety Board.

Transit operators struggling to keep pace with demand as rising fuel costs strain their budgets received some welcome news on Friday. New York's junior senator has introduced a version of the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act. The bill, which would provide $1.7 billion for local transit agencies over the next two years (including $237 million for New York City), passed the House in June but lacked a Senate sponsor until now.

If the bill makes it through the Senate, the Oval Office figures to be a major hurdle. President Bush has signaled his reluctance to subsidize operating costs for transit, although that philosophy seems not to apply when it comes to subsidizing the habits of America's motorists.

Meanwhile, in places like Louisville and the Denver suburbs, the prospect of service cuts and fare hikes continues to loom at precisely the moment that more people are depending on transit to get around.

 
This is part two of a two-part series on where candidates for president stand on transportation issues, authored by Streetsblog Los Angeles correspondent Damien Newton. Damien currently runs the blog Street Heat, which is soon to become Streetsblog L.A., our first foray into foreign territory. Damien was New Jersey coordinator for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign before relocating to California last year. Yesterday he examined the platforms and records of the Republican presidential candidates; today, the Democrats.

For the Democrats, the race for the nomination has been about one thing: change. Each of the Democratic candidates offer some vision of change for how our government views and funds transportation. Streetsblog noted in one if its first posts of the new year that Senator Barack Obama is the only Democrat that promotes cycling as part of his platform. Back in November, I noted on my blog that Obama has also pledged to force states and municipalities to include energy conservation in any transportation plan that involves federal funds, and says he would equalize tax benefits received by car and bike commuters. While Obama is strong on stopping sprawl and promoting walking and biking, he doesn’t mention transit anywhere on his web site that I could find. However, a look into Obama’s record shows a strong history of transit activism. As a U.S. senator, Obama worked with fellow Illinois Senator Dick Durbin to get financial help for Chicago’s L-Trains. As a state senator, he worked with community groups to increase access to transit for the disabled and underprivileged. As first lady, Michelle Obama could emerge as a vocal supporter of urban transportation projects; Mrs. Obama served as chair of Chicago Transit Authority’s Citizen Advisory Board.

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Mayor Bloomberg delivered his seventh State of the City Address yesterday morning at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The speech had several nuggets of news and info related to livable streets issues.

Touting the good news from 2007, the Mayor noted that New York City's streets are getting safer:

In 2007, we made the safest big city in the nation safer than it has been in generations. The fewest traffic deaths in nearly a century. Historic lows in jail violence. Historic lows in fire fatalities. And the fewest homicides recorded in modern history. This is New York City today.

And, in a roundabout admission that more can be done to improve safety, Bloomberg mentioned a new initiative aimed at making the city more livable for senior citizens (like his own 99-year-old mom), taking a page from Transportation Alternatives' Safe Routes for Seniors program:

Today I'm announcing a major effort called 'The All Ages Project.' In collaboration with the City Council and the New York Academy of Medicine, this project will completely re-envision what it means to grow old in New York... For instance: How can we ensure that more seniors are cared for in their own homes, rather than in institutions? And how do we make our city easier to get around in? Next month, we will begin to address that second challenge with traffic engineering improvements at 25 high-accident areas which are especially problematic for seniors.

He wrapped up with a lengthy push for PlaNYC initiatives, including a brief pitch for congestion pricing:

With the State's blessing, we'll also use technology to create a system of congestion pricing -- something no other American city has done. It will help us achieve four critical, inter-connected goals: reducing traffic congestion; raising money for mass transit; improving our air quality; and fighting climate change.

In 2004, after John Kerry and John Edwards conceded a second term in the White House to George W. Bush, the editors of Seattle's liberal-tarian weekly The Stranger published an essay entitled "The Urban Archipelago," calling on urban Democrats and their political candidates to unite on issues relevant to cities, where the majority of Americans live. Though an enjoyable read, most of the essay isn't suitable for print on a family blog, but here's a representative passage:

With all the talk of the growth of exurbs and the hand-wringing over facile demographic categories like "security moms," you may be under the impression that an urban politics wouldn't speak to many people. But according to the 2000 Census, 226 million people reside inside metropolitan areas -- a number that positively dwarfs the 55 million people who live outside metro areas. The 85 million people who live in strictly defined central city limits also outnumber those rural relics. When the number of city-dwellers in the United States is quadruple the number of rural people, we can put simple democratic majorities to work for our ideals.

According to the New York-based Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, those ideals include funding for police, health care, housing, utilities, transit and other infrastructure -- and, for the most part, still aren't being talked about in the heart of the 2008 presidential primary season by either dominant party. So DMI, in association with The Nation magazine, launched MayorTV, a series of interviews with mayors from coast of coast, in which they talk about why cities matter and challenge White House hopefuls to make urban America part of the national discussion. (Mayor Michael Bloomberg has so far not participated.)

In addition to being "an ATM for the major presidential candidates," said DMI Executive Director Andrea Batista Schlesinger in a recent TV interview, "If cities aren't functioning, being the economic engines for their regions, then it becomes the problem of suburbs and exurbs, and it becomes the problem of the country."

Video: Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, via MayorTV/YouTube

The Philly CarShare program (Motto: "Why own when you can borrow?") is one of the most successful of its kind in the country. Currently in its fifth year, the Philadelphia-based non-profit recently surpassed 30,000 members and is generating $10 million annually to pay for a small staff, the purchase and maintenance of a fleet, and a reduction in rates when possible.

Started by two city planners, a community activist and an investment banker, Philly CarShare's goal is "fewer cars clogging streets and lungs." Yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

One of Philly CarShare's advantages is the relationship it has with local government. In 2004, it awarded Philly CarShare a contract that allows multiple departments to share cars, and then frees them up at night and on weekends for use by city residents.

As a result, Philadelphia was able to sell off 329 vehicles. Since the program started, the estimated saving in lower insurance costs, less use, and less abuse is $6 million, according to Jeff Friedman, a consultant for the city's Office of Fleet Management.

Nationally, Sheehan says, studies show that each shared car takes six to 10 private vehicles off the road. Factor in the number of car purchases postponed or canceled, and the number jumps to about 25.

Photo: Jonathan Wilson

Last week, the European Parliament proposed that car advertisements throughout the EU include tobacco-style health warnings about the environmental impact of automobiles. The New York Times reported:

Under the plan, 20 percent of the space or time of any auto ad would have to be set aside for information on a car's fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, cited as a contributor to global climate change. So, should we prepare for warnings along the lines of, "Driving this car may damage the health of the planet"?

Perhaps not just yet. The European Union lawmaking road is long and curvy, and the Parliament cannot initiate legislation. Instead, it sometimes tries to legislate by press release, taking populist stances in an effort to put pressure on industry and the European Commission. The commission, which holds much of the real lawmaking power within the 27-country bloc, often takes a softer line.

Chris Davies, a British member of the European Parliament who sponsored the measure, said the proposed labels could make a difference. Many auto ads now seem to be aimed at enticing consumers to buy bigger, faster, more gas-guzzling cars than they need, he said. "The rationale is to try to get carmakers to compete on environmental information about their cars, rather than purely on power, speed and appearance," he said.

Photo: Rob Godspeed

Writing in this month's Reader's Digest, Matthew Kahn, an environmental economist at UCLA's Institute of the Environment, analyzed data from 141 nations and ranked the planet's greenest, most livable places.

While Northern European nations like Finland, Norway and Sweden fared well, the United States performed poorly in several categories, ranking #107 in Greenhouse gases, #106 in energy efficiency, #63 in air quality and #22 in water quality. No U.S. cities made it into the top ten greenest/most livable, but New York is getting close. Chinese cities are bottom of the barrel. 

Top Five
1. Stockholm
2. Oslo
3. Munich
4. Paris
5. Frankfurt

Bottom Five
68. Bangkok
69. Guangzhou
70. Mumbai
71. Shanghai
72. Beijing

U.S. Cities
15. New York
22. Washington, D.C.
23. Chicago
26. San Francisco
57. Los Angeles

The author, who also wrote Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment, identifies car ownership as a major problem. "If China's car-ownership rate matched that of the United States, one billion cars would be on China's roads. That would translate into total gas consumption of 520 billion gallons per year—nearly half the current world use." Even at the current rate in which people drive in in Beijing today "the level of one type of particularly harmful air pollution is more than four times the level in New York City." Thankfully, the world's newest subway line was just finished in Beijing.

 

Detroit car makers lost another battle in their fight against stronger emissions regulations last week, this time in Vermont.

The Burlington Free Press reports:

In a major victory for states' efforts to combat global warming, a U.S. District Court judge in Burlington ruled Wednesday that federal law does not bar Vermont from imposing tougher greenhouse gas emissions limits on cars and light trucks starting in 2009.

Judge William Sessions also rejected automakers' arguments that the standards -- written in California and adopted by Vermont and 11 other states -- are technologically impossible and financially impractical to meet.

The California rules would require automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 37 percent by 2016.

During a 16-day trial in April, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler testified they would simply stop selling most models of cars and pickup trucks in Vermont, California and the other states if the emissions limits take effect.

Photo: Teknorat/Flickr