“What Really Matters for Increasing Transit Ridership

• ERIC JAFFE
• MAY 21, 2012

At first glance Broward County, Florida, doesn’t look like the friendliest place for public transportation. The metro area just north of Miami has a couple downtown areas — Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood — but lacks a strong central business district. It also lacks much transit-oriented development. On the contrary, Broward has a very typical postwar, auto-oriented design marked by wide highways and sprawl.

Looks can, of course, be deceiving. As it happens, Broward County has one of the strongest transit systems among other mid-sized metro areas in the United States (population: 1 to 5 million). Compared to 26 other bus-only metros in its class, Broward trails only Orlando and Las Vegas in terms of cost-effectiveness, outperforming higher-profile places like Austin, Charlotte, Indianapolis, and Phoenix. Its buses are full, as measured by per capita ridership, and they’ve stayed that way in recent years, even as transit in general has struggled.

So what’s the key to Broward’s success? That’s the question at the heart of a report published online earlier this month in the journal Urban Studies. A Florida State research team led by urban planning scholar Gregory Thompson considered the history of Broward County transit and evaluated its performance on a number of metrics. What they found, in short, is further evidence in favor of multi-destination systems that get people from home to work rather than simply from home to downtown:

The analysis of transit work trip demand in Broward County indicates that the reason BCT [Broward County Transit] performs so well compared with most of its peers is that its multidestination route structure directly connects the county’s residential areas with the dispersed jobs to which they travel. … In Broward County, workers use transit to get to jobs in a multitude of locations that do not possess the built environment characteristics long thought to be important by most scholars in determining transit ridership.

It wasn’t always like this in Broward. In the 1970s the county’s bus routes focused on getting people to Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, and later down to Miami, as per the conventional transit wisdom of the day. When ridership failed to increase, the transit authority restructured the system into a grid that traversed high-density (if not the highest) employment areas. The shift made sense considering that most Broward residents are so-called transit-dependents: among riders, 60 percent are from households that make under $20,000 a year, and about half don’t own a car.

Thompson and colleagues analyzed more than 40,000 bus trips taken in Broward circa the 2000 Census. (While the age of this data is a drawback of the study, there’s evidence that Broward’s system changed little from 2000 to 2005.) Much of what they found isn’t all that surprising: population, median income, employment, and to some extent parking fees near work were all significant factors when it came to transit ridership.

So was in-vehicle travel time. While this isn’t surprising either, Thompson and company consider it perhaps the most critical aspect of Broward’s transit success. A short, direct trip means, first, that Broward residents can actually get to their jobs (or get out to find jobs), and second, that these same people don’t have to depend on friends or family to drive them to work (which in turn saves resources and frees these folks to get to jobs of their own). That travel time was a significant factor but transfer time was not underscores the efficiency of multi-destination grids. Contrary to popular wisdom, connections can often save time and reduce a system’s complexity (a point Jarrett Walker hammers home in his book, Human Transit.)

In a word, Broward County de-centralized its transit system. Instead of clinging to the belief that all jobs were downtown, it accepted that people need to access jobs in all kinds of places throughout a metro area. We’ve seen this before: Tallahassee recently reached this conclusion, as Emily Badger points out; Atlanta’s transit system also demonstrates the effectiveness of a multi-destination approach, as Thompson and colleagues have found. But since this realization remains the exception and not the norm, it bears repeating.”

Via: The Atlantic Cities

Photo: Flickr/Elvert Barnes

“Now Coveted: A Walkable, Convenient Place

By CHRISTOPHER B. LEINBERGER. May 25, 2012

WALKING isn’t just good for you. It has become an indicator of your socioeconomic status. 

Until the 1990s, exclusive suburban homes that were accessible only by car cost more, per square foot, than other kinds of American housing. Now, however, these suburbs have become overbuilt, and housing values have fallen. Today, the most valuable real estate lies in walkable urban locations. Many of these now pricey places were slums just 30 years ago. 

Mariela Alfonzo and I just released a Brookings Institution study that measures values of commercial and residential real estate in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, which includes the surrounding suburbs in Virginia and Maryland. Our research shows that real estate values increase as neighborhoods became more walkable, where everyday needs, including working, can be met by walking, transit or biking. There is a five-step “ladder” of walkability, from least to most walkable. On average, each step up the walkability ladder adds $9 per square foot to annual office rents, $7 per square foot to retail rents, more than $300 per month to apartment rents and nearly $82 per square foot to home values. 

As a neighborhood moves up each step of the five-step walkability ladder, the average household income of those who live there increases some $10,000. People who live in more walkable places tend to earn more, but they also tend to pay a higher percentage of their income for housing.

Although we have not studied all urban areas to the same degree, these findings appear to apply to much of the rest of the country. In metropolitan Seattle in 1996, the suburban Redmond area, home to Microsoft, had the same price per square foot as Capitol Hill, a walkable area adjacent to downtown, based on data from Zillow. Today, Capitol Hill is valued nearly 50 percent above Redmond. 

In Columbus, Ohio, the highest housing values recorded by Zillow in 1996 were in the suburb of Worthington, where prices were 135 percent higher than in the struggling neighborhood of Short North, adjacent to the city’s center.  Today, Short North housing values are 30 percent higher than those of Worthington, and downtown Columbus has the highest housing values in that metropolitan area. 

In the Denver area, Highlands Ranch, an upscale, master-planned community 20 miles south of downtown, had housing in 1996 that cost on average 21 percent more than housing in Highlands, a troubled neighborhood adjacent to downtown Denver. Today, Highlands has a 67 percent price premium over Highlands Ranch. 

People are clearly willing to pay more for homes that allow them to walk rather than drive. Biking is part of the picture, too. Biking and walking are part of a “complete streets” strategy that public rights of way should be for all of society — not just cars.”

Via: The NY Times

Image: Josh Cochran

“Poor Pedestrians More Likely To Be Struck by Cars

By Kate Hinds | 05/14/2012 – 11:26 am

Three years ago, Sharon Rodriguez was walking to her job as a bartender at a hockey bar in downtown Newark, near where the Devils play. She says the light turned green, and she stepped out into the intersection.

“And then a car came towards, me, turning. It just hit me from the front. And I slid across the hood.” She wound up under the car – at which point, she said, the driver backed up and drove away.

Rodriguez says her head hit the hood with such force her fillings popped out of her teeth. She needed stitches in her chin, and her jaw had to be reconstructed. She was taken to the emergency room at The University Hospital in Newark. Dr. David Livingston, its chief trauma surgeon, says he sees 300 pedestrian injuries a year.

“And not surprisingly,” he says, “they tend to be a lot of the times quite severe, because there’s a car, going at a moderate-to-high rate of speed, and a person!”

In all of Newark, roughly five hundred pedestrians are struck by cars each year. It’s one of just two dozen cities across the country singled out by the federal government as a pedestrian safety focus city.

Another thing about Newark: its average household income is about half the state’s median.

While a grad student at Rutgers, Daniel Kravetz starting sifting through data for several counties in Northern New Jersey.  “And I started to notice that all the roads that were most likely to have a lot of intersections with high crash counts, were in communities where the population was either highly African American or highly Latino,” he says.

So he dug a little deeper. And found what he calls “a statistically significant relationship” between low income neighborhoods and high pedestrian crash totals.

That correlation shows up everywhere. “The higher the income level, the lower the likelihood for crashes to occur in an area,” Kravetz says. “And that was found in almost any study that analyzed that relationship.”

Researchers are trying to hone in on why this is. One obvious reason: car ownership is out of reach for many low income people – so they’re walking more, literally increasing their exposure to cars. But poorer neighborhoods often lack even the most basic pedestrian infrastructure. And advocates are turning their attention to trying to improve intersections, one corner at a time.”

Via: Transportation Nation

Photo: The intersection of Park Avenue and 4th Street in Newark (photo by Kate Hinds)

“Rust Belt chic: Declining Midwest cities make a comeback

Gritty Rust Belt cities, once left for dead, are on the rise — thanks to young people priced out of cooler locales.

By Will Doig. SATURDAY, MAY 12, 2012 12:00 PM EDT

More than any other city in America, Cleveland is a joke, a whipping boy of Johnny Carson monologues and Hollywood’s official set forfilms about comic mediocrity.

But here’s what else is funny: According to a recent analysis, the population of downtown Cleveland is surging, doubling in the past 20 years. What’s more, the majority of the growth occurred in the 22-to-34-year-old demo, those coveted “knowledge economy” workers for whom every city is competing. Pittsburgh, too, has unexpectedly reversed its out-migration of young people. The number of 18-to-24-year-olds was declining there until 2000, but has since climbed by 16 percent. St. Louis attracted more young people than it lost in each of the past three years. And as a mountain of “Viva Detroit!” news stories have made clear, Motor City is now the official cool-kids destination, adding thousands of young artists, entrepreneurs and urban farmers even as its general population evaporates.

It’s a surprising demographic shift that has some in the Rust Belt wondering if these cities should trumpet their gritty, hardscrabble personas, rather than try to pretend that they’re just like Chicago or Brooklyn, N.Y., but cheaper. Detroit has certainly proven that a city’s hard knocks can be marketed, from “ruin porn” coffee table books to award-winning Chrysler ads to “Detroit Hustles Harder”hoodies. Could other Midwestern cities go all-in on their own up-by-your-bootstraps appeal? “I think there’s a backlash in the American psyche that’s longing for that,” says Cleveland native Richey Piiparinen. “Look at Miami. We’ve learned that all that glitters isn’t gold.”

Piiparinen recently referenced this trend as “Rust Belt chic” in a post on the blog Rust Wire, describing its allure as “the warmth of the faded, and the edge in old iron and steel … part old-world, working culture, like the simple pleasures associated with bagged lunchmeat and beaten boots in the corner. And then there is grit, one of the main genes in the DNA of American coolness.”

Demand for decay could spell a new era for post-industrial cities — or run its course as a faddish blip that attracted more media coverage than actual converts. Piiparinen believes the shift could last, as more and more people find themselves not just priced out, but burnt out by increasingly tidy, boutiquey cities like New York and Seattle. “The country in the 2000s, it became about growth, glamour, living beyond your means,” he says. “It was all aspiration. Now we’re comparing the foreclosed glass condo tower to the old brick building that’s stood for a hundred years.”

But Rust Belt chic is at least partly a romantic fantasy, and that makes it a risky way to try to revitalize. Last year, Guernica magazine ran a withering critique of what it called “Detroitism,” the fetish for crumbling urban landscapes mixed with eccentric utopian delusions, “where bohemians from expensive coastal cities can have the $100 house and community garden of their dreams.” What these dreams seldom include, however, are the almost unimaginable systemic problems many of these cities suffer from: failed schools, violent crime, the threat of municipal bankruptcy. Photographers parachuting in to shoot Michigan Central Station and Anthony Bourdain’s gushing endorsement may be clouding the fact that cities in crisis won’t be lifted by chicness alone.

What struggling cities need are jobs, and not just jobs at coffee roasteries in abandoned railroad terminals that make for great style-section articles. “The only way [a turnaround] will really happen is by reintroducing meaningful, equitably compensated work into these cities,” says Catherine Tumber, author of “Small, Gritty and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World.” “This longing can be expressed aesthetically, but it can only be satisfied by restoring the workforce.”

That kind of pragmatic attitude defines Jim Cossler’s approach. The CEO of the Youngstown Business Incubator in Youngstown, Ohio, Cossler wants one distinctly non-gritty thing for his city: software companies. “We don’t want to take any other company,” he says, because software firms are cheap to start up, their location is irrelevant, and they either succeed or fail quickly.”

Via: Salon

Photo:  StonePhotos via Shutterstock/Salon/Benjamin Wheelock

“ EDITORIAL> GETTING IT RIGHT IN THE QUEEN CITY

Alan G. Brake. May 11, 2012

America has a deep-seated anti-urban streak, which happens to dovetail, in the eyes of many, with a mistrust of government at every level. The Republican presidential primary has flared with anti-urban rhetoric, which is particularly shortsighted given the still-weak state of the economy, one in which urban areas are bouncing back faster than their rural and exurban counterparts. That cities are the country’s economic engine seems obvious almost to the point of being self-evident, so why is it still seen as politically advantageous to denigrate urban areas? And why are urbanists so bad at making the case for cities with the public?

Meet Cincinnati Mayor Mark Malloy. His mid-sized city is currently engaged in building three important, interconnected urban projects, which could bring a real spark to downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. One project will create a new mixed-use neighborhood in between the city’s riverfront stadiums, along with a generous new waterfront park. The first phase of the Banks, as it is called, is complete and the second is breaking ground within the month. The latter is a coordinated redevelopment—including renovation and new construction—of a large piece of the Over the Rhine neighborhood, just north of downtown. The third, and arguably most important, project is a long-planned and hotly contested streetcar line connecting both areas with downtown in between.

And Cincinnati is no bastion of progressive urbanism. It has long been plagued with a history of racial strife, white flight, and purse strings controlled by wealthy, exclusionary suburbs.

Malloy has been extremely effective in making the economic case for these developments as a necessary strategy for Cincinnati’s competitiveness. In a recent video for Smart Growth America, the mayor articulated his vision: “We’ve got to be able to attract and retain young people, and we’ve got to be able to attract and maintain the companies that are going to create jobs. People are looking for public transportation when they are deciding which city they want to be in. They are looking for public infrastructure to be in place. All the elements you see in larger cities that are stable, that have growing populations, we are trying to incorporate into Cincinnati so we can level the playing field.”

Malloy is making the case for Cincinnati’s urbanity, for its cityness, as a competitive advantage, something that many small and midsized cities have long scorned. He has put public space, place making, and mixed-use development at the center of his mayoral agenda. And he makes the case that it’s not downtown versus neighborhoods or city versus suburbs, but that an integrated, economically dynamic region only thrives when the center really holds.”

Via: The Architects Newspaper

Photo: AERIAL VIEW OF CINCINNATI’S WATERFRONT SHOWING THE BANKS REDEVELOPMENT ALONG THE OHIO RIVER. COURTESY CASTELLI MANAGEMENT

“4 Tips For Starting A Farm In Your City [Video]

By Jude Stewart. May 7, 2012

Urban-farming innovators such as Detroit and Cleveland offer an object lesson in how cities can transform disused land into tomorrow’s (healthy) dinner.

Consider this paradox: 49 million Americans live with daily food insecurity, 23 million live in urban food deserts, and collectively we’re all getting fatter. Simultaneously vacant lots, concrete grooves, and other desolate, empty spots dot urban landscapes, while a quarter of traditional agricultural land is severely degraded according to the UN.

Enter the urban farm: a fast, smart, cheap way to bring healthy food closer to those who need it, transform ugly vacant spaces into lush gardens, and promote a healthier, greener, more connected urban community.

Populate empty lots with crops.

Cities like Cleveland and Detroit are leasing abandoned lots to urban farmers for practically nothing—provided the lessees are committed to filling those spots with edible greenery.

If your lot’s soil is poisoned with lead or other contaminants, simply truck in new soil in raised beds. Even cheaper: Plant your veggies in burlap bags filled with clean soil. Roll the sacks up and fill with more soil as the plants grow, and you can transport them indoors when winter hits.

Use your roof.

ASLA’s video suggests restaurants harness their roofs to grow ingredients for their own meals. Big-box stores can lease or farm their own vast roofs and sell the proceeds in-store or via local greenmarkets. Rooftop farms use wasted space and lower your utility bill, too.

Fill up your food trucks.

Mobile trucks sell prepared foods—often unhealthy at that. Why not use them as fresh-fruit stands? Food truck legislation in many cities has relaxed in recent years. Opportunity knocks, suburban farmers: Coordinate with a food truck owner to sell your produce wherever there’s a need in your city—not just at the Saturday greenmarket. Hook the kids on juicy berries or watermelon in summer, and you may make a confirmed veggie fan year-round.”

A recently released video by the American Society of Landscape Architects uses case studies from edible-city innovators, such as Cleveland and Detroit, to offer practical advice for bringing urban farms to your backyard (or corner lot or rooftop). Here are four helpful tips:

Plant a garden in your own yard (or farm the job out to someone else).

Acres of perfect green grass are both a hassle to maintain and, nutritionally speaking, useless. Inhabitants with yards in D.C. and Portland can even lease their yard to those with greener thumbs—and take a cut of the produce they yield.”

Via: Fast Company

Photo:  Flickr user Joel Carranza

“Urban farms, gardens, reforestation all part of Detroit Works vision for remaking city.

John Gallagher. May 8, 2012

Faced with growing vacancy in the city, Mayor Dave Bing’s Detroit Works long-term planning team is moving closer to recommending a set of diverse options for remaking Detroit’s neighborhoods.

In an interview with the Free Press, planning team leaders say they envision some neighborhoods remaining traditional residential while others evolve toward open land used for storm-water retention ponds, urban farms and energy production.

The slate of draft ideas for community debate moves the process toward a future discussion of specific ideas for specific neighborhoods.

Some areas, such as the city’s Indian Village or Palmer Woods neighborhoods, might continue to thrive as areas of single-family residences. Other districts suffering considerable vacancy might transition to what the team calls “green residential,” a mix of homes and small community gardens or parks.

Still other neighborhoods that are almost entirely abandoned might be used for reforestation or experimental fields where sunflowers and other plants could be used to detoxify contaminated land.

The team leaders emphasized that residents and community groups will play a major role in deciding what happens in their districts.

“They have the authorship as to what tool is applied where,” said Dan Kinkead, an architect and planner with Detroit-based Hamilton Anderson Associates who is part of the technical team.

Menu of options

The draft ideas are just a menu of options for discussion. They are not attached to any specific districts in the city.

The team is expected to produce a final report by late summer, offering options for residents and civic leaders to consider rather than strict recommendations about what should happen where.

“There is room for a broad spectrum of interventions to be played out,” said Toni Griffin, a City College of New York professor of urban planning who co-chairs the Detroit Works technical team developing the list of options.

Karla Henderson, Bing’s group executive for planning and facilities, said the mayor and his aides are looking forward to receiving the report from the planning team.

“We’re very interested in what comes out of the community conversations and how that aligns with some of (the team’s) recommendations,” Henderson said Monday. Once the report is done, work can then begin on deciding what options should be implemented and how that might take place, she said.”

Via: Detroit Free Press

Photo:  AMYLEANG/DETROIT FREE PRESS

“In D.C., low-cost apartments disappearing at rapid rate

By Annys Shin, Published: May 6(2012)