Twin Cities Streets for People

The author of this post, Nathaniel Hood, is a Strong Towns partner. In addition to contributing to this site, you can read Nate's work at his blog, Thoughts on the Urban Environment, and at the new Minnesota-based transportation site Streets.MN. You can also follow him on Twitter.

About a decade ago, Saturday Night Live did a skit that epitomized the spirit of the late 1990s. In a mock 2000 Presidential debate, Al Gore (played by Darrell Hammond) responds to each question in an exquisitely monotone voice saying “lockbox”. Upon each utterance, laughter and applause erupted. Soon enough, the word ‘lockbox’ ceased being an idea worthy of consideration and became something synonymous absurdity.

The SNL skit is unquestionably funny, but our cultural write-off of the ‘lockbox’ is not. For those younger than myself and unfamiliar with this ‘lockbox’ concept, let me explain. In 2000, then Vice-President Al Gore proposed this bizarre idea: the government should save money.

The ‘lockbox’ concept didn’t vibe in the era of tech market booms and the inflated housing fiasco. The idea that when the government runs a surplus, it should save money for future obligations just didn’t seem all that important.

Now, fast-forward twelve years to a much different existence and add a Strong Towns flare. It’s not just that we’ve invested in an inefficient infrastructure system with a low return on investment - it’s also how we’ve decided to acquire the money we’ve spent on this is inefficient infrastructure system.

The United States funds infrastructure largely through debt. This means that a $10 million road is not a $10 million road as associated costs are incurred through interest and other debt service payments. Chuck put it best: “Our current approach to infrastructure spending is impoverishing us as a country.”

The rudimentary idea of saving money for a rainy day (or creating a ‘lockbox’) has completely eluded us at the local level. We’ve ignored the simple principles of finance that parents attempt to instill in their growing children: save money and steer clear of the pitfalls of debt.

So, a local government wants to pursue a straightforward road project. Today, they can do it through a handful of ways. Most all of them require some form of debt. Depending on the road and its jurisdiction, cities can apply for Federal or State aid grants through various agencies, levy nearby property owners and developers, or raise the money locally through the issuing of bonds.

Even in the most localized and conservative of these situations, one where adjacent property owners or developers are charged for the “improvements,” doesn’t typically cover the full costs of the design, construction and maintenance. The rest is financed through debt from either the local, state or federal level, or some combination of the three (This is well-documented in the Strong Towns Curbside Chat Companion Booklet).

If communities want to be resilient, they’ll need to start making plans to transition away from traditional infrastructure financing mechanisms. Why? Because it rolls downhill: the Federal government cuts their budget by bleeding the States. The States pass those cuts down to the local level. This happened in Minnesota; local government aid was slashed and community balance sheets instantly became lopsided.

If, and when, the Federal or state government turns off the faucet, how will local governments pay for infrastructure? Under the current system, local governments won’t be able to. They have their hands tied.

In Minnesota, local governments can’t legally raise sales tax for an ambiguous future infrastructure projects or even put away money into a ‘lockbox’ savings account for long-term maintenance obligations. And, even if they could - it would need to be approved by the State legislature. As if to say, that a House of Representatives member from Fergus Falls should have any say whatsoever in the Mankato City Council’s decision, and subsequent approved community-wide referendum, to (for example) approve a .15 percent sales tax increase on alcohol (or gas, clothes, etc.) to support a small-scale local infrastructure project.

We can’t maintain the local infrastructure we have today under our current framework. If we want anything to change, we have to allow communities to get creative. As alarming (or funny) as it might sound, we need to allow cities and towns to have a ‘lockbox’. There are other options out there, but the most plain, simple, and uncomplicated way we can start doing this is through savings. Yes, that bizarre idea of setting money aside for the benefit of future generations.

This time around, instead of ‘lockbox’ – how about we go with something less Al Gore-esque? May I suggest local infrastructure bank?

 

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[Nice bricks are all over the sidewalks.]Oh Highland Park, the playground of my imagination, the paddle ball of my soul. If only I could quantify the amount of time I spend straining to excavate the mind of the Highland Parker, I could write a hell of a lot off my taxes.Highland Park is a beacon of civilization, lifting itself aloft over Saint Paul to symbolize the dreams we share when we open our garages, the look in the eyes of lonely souls everywhere that, from time to time, imagine themselves moving to the city.“I could live in Highland Park,” you think to yourself while sitting in your robot home, and you gently raise your eyes to stare just past the track lighting and conjure a world filled with umbrella’d strolls and dog parks and fine bread and interesting stationery.It seems like a nice place, different somehow from the dark parts of the city, those places burdened by uncomforts of rubbed shoulders or mysterious immigrants or the elaborate illegible codes of the wealthy. Next to all that, Highland Park beckons to you “normal”, a place where they accept your kind without asking too much from you.[The old Highland theater, built in 1939.][One of the finest shop windows in the Twin Cities.][A sidewalk of the old school.]In a funny way, Highland Park symbolizes the 50s, imaginary of the US in the 50s, highland park is that place. The older places in “the village” like Cecil’s, or the Highland Grill are some of the warmest most delightful destinations in the Twin Cities. The corner of Cleveland and Ford Parkway has its feet deep within our American imagination, the era when big cars and new appliances went hand in hand with “neighborhood” and kids on Schwinns with streamers and schools made from bricks and various Catholic traditions. It’s an era that’s since faded away to white, so hard to see against the clouds.[What Highland Park looked like in 1945. Note the absence of houses, presence of empty green fields.][Well ornamented lamppost surrounded by cars.]The reason is simple. Highland Park is a child of the 50s. It’s the one part of Saint Paul that somehow didn’t get built before the war. When V-J day finally came and the US attention turned to consumption and brand new homes, Highland Park lay empty along the river just at the end of town, the perfect place for progress to progress. urban suburbia, in a sense, highland park quickly filled with the finest sensibly sized homes back when homes really were sensibly sized, and its patterns are different somehow from the rest of town that bore the roots of depression and war and a million small stories.It’s a place built just when the automobile became normal, but just before its demands and exhausts got out of hand. So in a way, the neighborhood might be the perfect hybrid, the delicate see-saw balance of cars and the city. Or so the story goes...The only question is, Can it be done? If I know one thing, it's that you have to be suspicious of any place that calls itself “the village.” Can you build a walking neighborhood city without removing the cars? What kind of place do you find yourself in if you try? This was the question I assigned myself as I traveled the streets I knew so well from stories and lore.Walking around Ford and Cleveland, testing the story with my feet, the first thing you notice is the line between the old and the new. The Highland Theater juts up with its name in lights, and is obviously a history book. It's designed for walking, with the ticket window planted square on the sidewalk under the marquee. (Though nobody uses it any more.) If the theater had been built a bit later, it’d be surrounded by parking, placed out at arms length and it’d have more of everything, stimulation-wise flashing in your face. It’s the old part of the corner, and the shops alongside it on the North-East part of the neighborhood tell similar tales, with their brickwork and details that reward meandering.[The old walk-up window of the Highland Theater.][The Barnes & Noble has one of the more pedestrian friendly parking moats you'll find.][The strip mall on the corner. The parking lot moat here has doubled in size.]  [The fake second story Walgreen's, a brand new addition to Highland village.][Jewelry, billboards, and cars.]Then you get to the rest of the corner, which came later. Here things are designed differently. The main thing you see is parking. There are curb cuts galore, as just about every business is fronted by a strip mall swath of spots. Walking to most doors involves wading through this field of steel, dotted by the occasional elaborate islands of streetscape, festooned with native grasses or concrete planters trying their damnedest to botanize the asphalt. Highland Park tries so hard! It is desperate to have its cake and eat it, to create a place where you can walk and park at the same time, somehow, oxymoronic.And this goes on down the bluff to the river you find where the old automobile plant, which is where all the cars came from in the first place, and as you descend the parking lots grow exponentially until you’re faced with the giant Lund’s ocean and the groceries can only wave like mermaids riding seaward out of reach of paving stones.And the sidewalks run through this hybrid situation as best they can, crisscrossed with decorated red pavers that become impossibly slippery when wet, and each sidewalk seems to have more ornamented fences than a gay smuggling ring.What can you expect, I suppose, from a neighborhood that grew up in the 50s next to an automobile factory? They tried as hard as they could to make a walking / driving utopia, and it’d be difficult to find a better one.Nobody quite seems satisfied though, and if you go to any Highland Park community meeting and bring up the subject of parking, I hope you got comfortable first. The pedestrians are similarly slighted, at least in the parts of “the village” that aren’t by the theater. Highland Park is one of those 2-in-1 appliances, like a combination can opener / turkey baster, or the Hamilton Beach 22708 Toaster and Mini Oven. Technically it can do everything, but it doesn’t do either of them very well or very easily. It’s neither city or suburb, doesn’t have great walking or convenient driving. But it suffers to suffice for both. Love it or hate it, I suppose. Or both. Or neither.[The parking lot in front of the Lunds strip mall is oceanic.][This would be a nice sidewalk, if there were any buildings fronting it.][A four-lane curb cut.][A parking garage building.][A man walks through the brand new curb cut sidewalk, hoping not to be run over.]

KurzweilAI: OpenStax College plans free textbooks for popular college courses [The article doesn't even mention wikibooks like Fundamentals of Transportation. Free is there if you want it.] John Whitehead @ Environmental Economics: It is hard to stifle my outrage when... David Levinson http://nexus.umn.edu

I posted an article on County Seats at streets.mn... David Levinson http://nexus.umn.edu

Like Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, this post was conceived last spring in an ExcedrinPM and caffeine influenced dream after experiencing a migraine headache while driving west from the Twin Cities to visit Willmar and Olivia, Minnesota (as a test-run for a possible cross-country automobile trip with 3 children. The test was extremely valuable in that it proved the infeasibility of such a venture). It seemed it was going to be a brilliant post at the time, but I could not record all my racing thoughts quickly enough, so this is what remains.

There are 3143 counties and county-equivalents in the United States. Presumably there are a similar number of County Seats (or equivalents: parish seats in Louisiana, borough seats in Alaska, or shire towns in Vermont). County seats are geographically dispersed, older, mostly small towns, an intermediate station on the Central Place Hierarchy, providing local government services to the mostly rural areas they serve, and often central commercial services (banks, food processing, transportation, insurance, vehicle sales, etc.) for the smaller towns in their jurisdiction. They are often, though not always, the largest town in the their county.

Because governments are slow to move, and tend to establish county seats as the first thing they do, these places embody many of the physical ideals of small-town life so praised in American culture. Their heart is often a dense street grid anchored by a Courthouse, a government building, a police station, a jail, a hospital, and all of the other public and private services that are associated with County governments. Due to their early founding, they are disproportionately on rivers and railroads compared to newer, 20th (and 21st) century places. The rivers may now be scenic (as opposed to their former role as transport mode and water intake and sewage outlet). The tracks present the opportunity for freight and passenger rail services to larger hubs.

The first county seat I became aware of was Ellicott City, Maryland, which is important in the history of transportation as the end of the first segment of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, just across the Patapsco River from Baltimore County and downriver from Baltimore City. [It is also apparently the largest unincorporated county seat in the US, since Maryland favors county-level government, beating Towson, MD]. It was founded as Ellicott Mills, and the founding family member Andrew Ellicott was a surveyor (and thus planner) of a number of US cities, notably Washington DC. Ellicott Mills is however much more organic, having started as a landing on the Patapsco. One needs to cross the Appalachian Mountains to see the street grid in all its regularity and ubiquity. Ellicott City was devastated by floods and fire, a location convenient for milling in the 18th century and for rail construction in the 1820s was relatively low ground, so few people live in the Main Street area, most are in suburbs at least a mile from the center of town.

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In contrast with the east coast, the county seat in Minnesota, and much of the midwest is a bit formulaic. I will discuss a few from the aforementioned road trip west on US 12 from the Twin Cities. Highway 12 is an old US highway, I-94 and I-394 cover much of its purpose through the metro, but where I-394 ends, US 12 resumes. It has been upgraded in many places (especially Orono and Long Lake), with overpasses, and reconstructed in others. It is not a freeway, but in many places it is no longer just a two-lane either.

Litchfield, the seat of Meeker County, Minnesota, is a regular grid transacted by a diagonal railroad tracks and Highway 12 (named Depot Street, so it seems the RR came first). In places, there is a frontage road on Hwy 12, serving local businesses. The town is about 15 blocks wide and 20 blocks high. The numbering scheme for the city with numbered EW streets north of the Railroad tracks, named south of the tracks, and named NS streets, after places or famous Minnesotans (which I guess are the same here). The town is near Lake Ripley, and has a municipal airport to the south. It is not terribly remarkable, certainly not at 45 MPH. I did not intend to stop there, and aside from refueling and separating cranky children, did not spend much time. Sorry Litchfield.

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Willmar, the seat of Kandiyohi County in South Central Minnesota, 2 counties west of the Twin Cities region out US Highway 12, has changed radically in its outward appearance. driving through we saw evidence (storefronts and like) of a large Somali and Hispanic population, yet it retains the historic architecture of 150 years of style changes. Willmar is important as a railway switch, as well as the many lakes on its northern end. It like many such county seats, is a cross-roads of 2 US Highways (12 and 71), which mostly, but not entirely adheres to the local grid. The local grid here is in fact not strictly orthogonal to the larger grid, instead being oriented by the railroad tracks and waterways, so it has to bend where it meets the traditional NS grid both north and south of the center of town (shown).

The town possesses a needlessly complicated street numbering system for such a small town, with 1st street being unique, but 2nd street (and subsequent numbers) appearing twice to the east and west of 1st street. The EW streets seem to be named after places, though eventually become numbered avenues, including other county seats and counties, but there is no obvious system. The town is roughly 20 blocks wide by 30 blocks high, though it is very irregular, and includes a set of big-box blocks, as well as parks

The downtown commercial areas are a mixture of buildings and surface parking lots, and probably differs very much from its appearance 100 years ago. I suspect the surface parking lots have been added over time, as older building become obsolete and the value of access to the center of town diminishes. The residential neighborhoods typically have original structures, and while the buildings may have learned, they appear largely to be the first structures on those parcels. The town has an airport.

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[One would think Kandiyohi would be the seat of Kandiyohi County, and it was until 1871, when the county merged with the now defunct Monongalia County, since neither county could afford a Courthouse on their own.]

Taking Highway 71 south brings you to Olivia, Minnesota (the crossroads of 71 and 212. Highway 212 will return us to the Twin Cities). Olivia, Corn Capital of the World, is the Seat of Renville County, and is also on the railroad. Its streets also follow the grid (though here, the NS streets are again numbered, but this time in one direction only, increasing from the east, while the EW streets are named after trees. The town is much smaller than Willmar, roughly 13 blocks wide and 13 blocks high. It too has an airport.

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Chaska, the seat of Carver County is just across the River from Shakopee, the seat of Scott County. They are now indirectly connected by a bridge over the Minnesota River, on which both were once ports. Both Chaska and Shakopee are thus now part of the 7-county metro area. Chaska has its own suburbs in addition to the old town, which has lost the fine-grained grid (though seems to have maintained the 1 mile grid of arterials). I should also praise Tommy’s Old Fashioned Malt Shop which provided sufficient caffeine to kill a headache, though I did not eat the food, it looked really good.

The Broadway area of nearby Carver, another historic river landing, which we found due to a wrong turn, is blessed with many places to satisfy a need for alcohol. Carver is disconnected from the main part of Chaska, though they are fairly close on the map. Carver also possess a grid askew to the larger patterns, but somewhat aligned to where the River must have once flowed.

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Shakopee, to complete our circuit has a more significant relationship with the Minnesota River, which still seems to matter from an economic perspective. With Canterbury Park and Valley Fair, the town has grown beyond its historic scope, and again as it expanded it lost its regularity. The old town is in part along old First Avenue with lots of smaller store fronts. Railroad tracks run down Second Avenue, and indicate how the economy used to work. Parking is now a prominent feature through the town though, with parking supply well in excess demand at most times.

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Can any of these places be restored to their relative significance and functionality they had at the turn of the twentieth century, when they were still regionally important with rail and water transport both good and frequent (and road transport poor)? That is, can local county seats resume the relative position they held before they became subsumed in the larger metropolitan system?

We are asking for genie-bottle insertion. Streets not on a grid will be difficult to retrofit. Subdivided parcels with single-family homes will be difficult to densify. The rest of the metro cannot be simply unmade. But while relative significance may be impossible, absolute significance, serving more people than ever, is certainly still possible.

But as we move from the 20th century paradigm of one person-one car-three parking spaces with new technologies and new prices, we can probably refill the parking-marked “old towns” and “main streets” and make them practical, and charming. Places people not only work, shop, govern, and play, but are happy about it. A seven-county Twin Cites metro area should be able to support an even more vibrant Stillwater, Anoka, Hastings, Shakopee, and Chaska, in addition to Minneapolis and St. Paul, for starters. Places not just for day-trippers, but also for the daily needs of locals. The same is true of the exurban and non-urban counties.

Within what seems a continuous and uniform suburbia or rural landscape lies an old hierarchy of places created in the 19th century, as ports, county seats, and railroad stations and termini that can provide the nucleus for a more diversified, more pedestrian-scaled built environment. These are natural nodes of development, geographically advantageous with the historic transport network, and still somewhat privileged.

Before we started this voyage, my wife joked about traveling to all 87 county seats in Minnesota. My OCD is limited. That I think is impractical in the short run unless inexpensive child care comes to pass. However Buffalo, Elk River, Cambridge, and Center City remain on the agenda.

Transportation takes too long: Slate asks: Should it take decades to build a subway? It's too easy to slow down urban mass transit improvements. Here's how to fix the system. Bureaucracy Lack of funding Politics Existing infrastructure Mismanagement Addiction to... David Levinson http://nexus.umn.edu

02/07/2012

Can you follow any major news outlet lately without seeing coverage of bicycling and walking over the course of a week?

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[Mississippi Riverfront, Minneapolis.][Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis.] [Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis.] [Lyndale Avenue, Minneapolis.] [University of Minnesota campus, Minneapolis.] [Cathedral Hill, St Paul.] [Cathedral Hill, St Paul.] [Ballard, Seattle.] [Frogtown/University, St Paul.] [St Anthony Main, Minneapolis.]

The Salem English Lutheran Church at 28th Street and Garfield Avenue South in Lyn-Lake has been transformed into the SpringHouse Ministry Center. The center consists of three worship halls, a large common gather room, a kitchen, shared office space, a large shared youth wing, and numerous meeting rooms that three congregations now share. First Christian, Salem English Lutheran, and Lyndale United Church of Christ combined forces to creatively share one building while still maintaining their identities and positioning their organizations to focus on their core mission rather than trying to maintain aging buildings.

SpringHouse transformed the existing Salem church by demolishing a 1950s wing and selling that land along with a parking lot to Brighton Development who built affordable housing on the corner of Lyndale Avenue and 28th Street called The Greenleaf. SpringHouse then was able to renovate their building by splitting the large worship hall into two worship halls with a common space in the middle, along with renovating the garden level to create a well-lit worship hall, meeting room area, and youth wing.

In my opinion, the space was well designed and constructed well. The shared youth wing has a large community room with rooms coming off of it for art, drama, and more. According to one congregant, sound management was taken into great consideration during the design and the groups can not hear each other while in the various worship halls.

Interestingly, the three groups plan to rotate through the different worship halls.

Here are a few photos:

The completely renovated SpringHouse Ministry Center at 28th Street and Garfield Avenue

The common space between worship halls on the main level features lots of stained glass from the original worship hall.

The South Worship Hall is the most traditional of the worship halls.

The North Worship Hall is more contempory but features high ceilings and a three-dimensional cross that slowly rotates overhead.

The Suburban World Theater in Uptown Minneapolis is for sale.

Remember the sign on the outside of the theater not long ago about the Suburban World Theater being closed for renovations? Well, sources indicate that the renovation was required by the City, such as roof repairs. The property is now owned by the bank, presumably because the previous owner couldn’t make the required payments on the mortgage.

Now the Jesse Olson Group of Coldwell Banker Burnet has it listed for sale at $899,000. The listing says: “A truly unique venue. Built in classic Granada Style, with Spanish facades and original stars still illuminate from the ceiling. NOW BANK OWNED. Many Updates, including roof, electrical, plumbing and more.”

The building, located at 3022 Hennepin Avenue, has changed hands numerous times over the last 15 years or so. I remember when it was a Mann Theater, and yes, even saw Titanic there. After Mann closed, it has been a Cinema Grille and a random event house that the most recent owner operated. The interior is on the historic registry due to its Mediterranean-inspired walls and star-studded ceiling. The lighting inside is terrible for anything other than movie-watching but with the right operator, the space could be fantatic.

My dream would be for it to become an event center and concert hall like the Varsity Theater has become. Uptown could use more live music and performance, and the Suburban World Theater presents that opportunity.

David Hembrow reports that a new lighting system has been installed along a rural stretch of bike path in The Netherlands. The bike path is parallel to a rural highway connecting several small communities

The new lights will operate at night time at half power, but passing cyclists can press a button at either end of the route to switch the lights onto full power for enough time to ride the 3 km distance. This measure reduces both energy consumption and disturbance of night-time wildlife due to the lights. If it’s successful, the same system will be installed at other locations in Drenthe.

This is a great idea, but why wait for them to push buttons to activate the lights? Why not use some active detection methods to turn the lights on automatically?

Snelling Avenue, or MN Trunk Highway 51.

Over the past decade or so, the hierarchical roadway system used by engineers and planners to classify roadways in the US has increasingly received criticism for being outdated. Many individuals blame the hierarchy system for the predominant suburban development pattern. For example, the author(s?) of the Wikipedia entry titled Street Hierarchy don’t try very hard to hide their bias, and would have the casual reader convinced that the hierarchy system is synonymous with suburbanism.

This isn’t true, of course. Classifying roadways into a hierarchy continues to be the most logical (and historical) way to develop roadway networks (including urban grids). Hierarchies can exist within grid networks, without cul-de-sacs, with integrated land uses, with robust pedestrian and bike networks, and without forcing reliance on automobiles.

However, this doesn’t mean that our existing hierarchical systems are optimal, or that we should just continue doing exactly what we’ve been doing. There are some very clear drawbacks and challenges associated with our existing system, but I don’t think eliminating the hierarchy will solve the problems – it will only create new problems. We need to recognize the limitations of the existing hierarchies, and modify the system to address these challenges. We don’t need to eliminate the hierarchy – we need a more complex, more flexible hierarchy that does a better job accommodating the needs of urban and rural areas.

Roadways in the US are classified in at least two separate hierarchies: functional classification, and jurisdictional classifications. The two systems are roughly correlated, though not nearly as much as they should be.

Functional Classification describes the purpose and operational characteristics of a roadway and includes principal arterials (think freeways), minor arterials, collectors, and local roadways. Each of these classifications may include sub-categories.

Jurisdictional Classification describes who owns the roadway and includes state (a.k.a. Trunk Highways)(for this discussion, we can assume all federal roads are owned by the state), counties, cities/townships, and private roadways.

The following are a few of the most common scenarios that demonstrate how applying the hierarchical system on the ground becomes challenging:

Mismatched Land-use, Access, Mobility, and Hierarchical Level This is probably the most common implementation challenge that results using the hierarchical system, particularly when applying the hierarchical system retro-actively to existing networks. This challenge occurs when the land use and urban context of the roadway are not well aligned with the functional classification. The classic example is a small town whose main street is also a busy state Trunk Highway. A roadway can not provide both the land-use and access characteristics expected of small-town main streets as well as the mobility expectations of trunk highways. As a result, these roadways often perform poorly in all respects. A more robust functional classification system could do a better job recognizing the differences in expectations of Trunk Highways in undeveloped areas from urban cores. (NOTE: The existing system does this somewhat by applying different access management requirements in urban & rural areas, but the system could be further improved.) Another good example of this problem is a collector roadway that is designed with the land-use and access characteristics of a minor arterial.

Over-reliance on a Single Level of the Hierarchy or Levels Underdeveloped In some areas, communities become over-reliant on a single level of the hierarchy, or a particular level of the hierarchy is underdeveloped. For example, in some communities, it’s difficult to get anywhere without using a county roadway, or a minor arterial, usually because all of the local roadways have been severed to accommodate the larger roadways. This is an indication that too many roadways have been classified too high (typically, not enough collectors, too many minor arterials). If the functional classification system in a community funnels too many trips onto higher class roadways too often, the system is unbalanced and will function poorly.

Mismatched Jurisdictional and Functional Class There is a rough correlation between jurisdictional and functional class, but not as much as there could be, especially at the county level. Some county roadways are principal arterials, others function much more like collector roadways. In addition, the State-Aid system that allows cities and counties to use state dollars on local or county roadways substantially muddies the water. Cities or counties own the roads, but any improvements made to that roadway must pass a MnDOT review process and must employ state design standards.

Funding Disparities between Functional Class Hierarchy Levels The funding available for each level of the hierarchy is not equal (I’m not saying it necessarily should be). Roadways in a higher functional class are eligible for more funding sources than roadways in a lower functional class. There are very few sources of funding for local roadways other than local taxes and assessments. Federal transportation dollars are typically available only for principal and minor arterial roadways. This creates an incentive for jurisdictions to request the highest classification possible for each roadway. The result is that some roadways are classified too high.

Funding Disparities between Jurisdictional Class Hierarchy Levels The agencies that own roadways are also subject to different funding sources. While it’s logical that each jurisdiction should be responsible for funding improvements to their own roadways, disparities often exist that can result in questionable use of funds. For example, imagine a local community has money to use for roadway reconstruction. The greatest need for investment in the community may be a county or state roadway that runs through the municipality, but there is little incentive for cities to use local funds to improve county or state roadways. In the end, the city may choose to use the local funds on projects of secondary importance on local roadways while the primary needs on a county or state roadway remain unmet. (NOTE: This being said, collaboration and funding participation between cities, counties, and the state to accomplish shared objectives on county and state roadways is commonplace and highly encouraged at all levels.)

The problems with our current hierarchical systems are clear. There is room for improvement. However, we don’t have to scrap the system entirely to improve. I believe that a clear hierarchy of roads is important for a community, and that the problems I’ve identified here can be solved through improvements to the existing hierarchical systems. The arterials and collectors we build tomorrow don’t have to look, feel, or operate like the arterials and collectors we built yesterday.

For reasons that will become clear before long, I’ve calculated the average speed on each segment of the Hiawatha line (which apparently for the purpose of marginalizing those with color blindness has been renamed after some color, not sure which).

More precisely, I’ve calculated the average scheduled speeds – I used the posted schedule for the line and Google Earth to measure the track length to get the average speed.  Segments are measured from the apparent midpoint of each platform, and where the two tracks deviate or the tracks disappear under an airport or a megamall I guessed a bit or used the rail layer from GE.

In an interesting twist, the scheduled speeds diverge a bit from the official map.  The map shows 2 minutes between Target Field and Warehouse District stations, but 3 minutes are scheduled, perhaps for padding at this terminal, where I believe trains often reverse.  More mystifying is the reversal where the official map shows 2 minutes between Franklin and Lake and 3 between Lake and 38th, but the schedule switches those.  It makes more sense for the segment between Franklin and Lake to take a bit longer, considering the curve on the viaduct over Hiawatha, so maybe it’s a typo?  Regardless it perhaps shows the folly of relying on the scheduled time to determine average speed instead of observing in the field, but who has time to ride back and forth with a stopwatch?

Oops, forgot to mention that distance is in miles

Hiawatha runs through a fairly diverse set of environments, which I’ve broken down into three categories.  While these are probably imprecisely named, they are fairly consistent.  At-grade and Separated at-grade both have grade crossings, but Separated at-grade has far fewer.  Below grade (which I suppose I should have called grade-separated) has no grade crossings.  The At-grade segments have an overall average speed of 12 mph, while Separated at-grade doubles that to 24 mph.  Below grade is the fastest, with an overall average of 29 mph, but you may have noticed that some of the separated at-grade segments exceed this.

Clearly the segments have characteristics that differentiate them from each other more than my simplified categories suggest.  The fastest segment, between 38th and 46th, is straight and has only one grade crossing.  Meanwhile the segments that are largely in tunnels have quite a bit of curvature to them, and since both segments have portals grade may be an issue as well.  And of course some segments have subsegments of more than one category – between the VA and Fort Snelling are sections that are at-grade but largely free of crossings and a long above-grade section.

Central may introduce another category, since the body of it will run at-grade, but with far fewer crossings than Downtown Minneapolis or even Bloomington, yet more than Hiawatha between Franklin and the park.  So who knows if anything valuable will come from this exercise – only the fates can tell…

Tom Vanderbilt @ Wired Autonomous Cars Through the Ages (a slideshow) JULIA FRANKENSTEIN @ New York Times: Is GPS All in Our Heads? : "Varying their viewing direction — facing north, facing east — we then assessed their pointing error.... David Levinson http://nexus.umn.edu

Ken Orski writes: Why Pleas to Increase Infrastructure Funding Fall on Deaf Ears Letting the nation’s roads and bridges deteriorate may worsen traffic congestion and add to our commuting woes, but when water and sewer systems begin to fail our... David Levinson http://nexus.umn.edu

By Tom Niemisto, {related_entries id="article_author_blogger"}Tom Niemisto, Video Production Specialist

A major tenet of sustaiability lies in the small decisions made every day that add up over time. The three R's of environmental friendliness can be applied to transportation, especially for Minnesotans who must rely on cars to get around.

You may have heard of the driving habits and tricks to help get the better gas mileage (inflate tires, use AC less, windows up, etc.). But even more important is reduction: taking fewer trips overall, especially since 48% of all trips are shorter than three miles.

 

Street canvassers for a variety of causes have become a regular feature at the corner of Hennepin and Lake.  What do you think of their presence in the neighborhood? Do you donate to corner canvassers?

There is no simple approach to building a Strong Town. There are no one or two universal ideas that, if implemented, will change the trajectory of America's cities, towns and neighborhoods. This is hard work. For a city to get there, current priorities need to be realigned and everyone -- from the mayor, the city engineer, the maintenance worker and everyone in between -- needs to be working to get more value out of our existing investments.

As a finale to the series we've been running that began with a simple comparison of the tax base from two nearby blocks -- one developed in the traditional pattern and one in the suburban -- I am going to share what I would advise a city's mayor to say in response. This is written as an address from the mayor to the staff.

Team,

I don't need to tell you that we are going through difficult times. You've all had your budgets cut in each of the last four years. Many of the things we used to do as a city, we are no longer able to. The trajectory we are on gives us little confidence that things will be different anytime soon. If we're going to tell ourselves that it's halftime in America, then we need to have the courage to make some dramatic, mid-game course corrections.

I've read the report from Strong Towns that showed how the 26-year tax increment subsidy we gave to relocate Taco John's resulted in a tax base, even before we deduct the subsidy payments, that is 41% less than the old run down block up the street. It surprised me, as I'm sure it surprised you, and caused me to do a lot of soul searching. And, quite frankly, it made me angry.

I'm sick of being told that our failure is some type of statistical anomaly. That decline in our core neighborhoods is normal. That we are destined to be a second tier city that fortune somehow passed by.

The thing I'm upset about is not how the report exposed our incorrect assumptions about growth and prosperity -- I'm actually grateful for that. The thing I'm upset about is what we've been doing to our own town, our own residents, our own families for these many years. We've done this to ourselves.

It ends today.

As of this moment, we're all going to be working with the same core goals with respect to the NE Brainerd neighborhood. In the next ten years, we are collectively going to work to accomplish the following hard, measurable goals:

Double the tax base of NE Brainerd (8% per year average increase).

Increase the total number of jobs in NE Brainerd by 150% (10.5% per year average increase).

Increase the population of NE Brainerd by 50% (4.5% per year average increase).

Hold budget increases for the city to less than 3% annually, an increase of just 30% over the next decade.

This is our only path to solvency. We need to grow our tax base, population and total jobs using the resources we have while not adding to our long-term liabilities. This is the opposite of what we've been doing. In real terms, our tax base has been in decline. We've lost population and jobs to the surrounding communities. In the name of growth, we've taken on a stunning amount of long-term obligations for infrastructure maintenance; liabilities we have no hope of meeting.

It ends today, and here is how we're going to do it.

Last week I contacted Mn/DOT and our representatives at the Minnesota Legislature to demand changes to the highway the runs through this neighborhood. It is the most destructive infrastructure we have for our overall tax base. I've laid out a proposal that would have our city be a laboratory for an experiment in shared space design. I've also formally offered to guarantee control of access rights and elimination of access points on the periphery of town -- something we've long fought against in the pursuit of strip highway development -- so highway speeds can be increased outside of town in compensation for slower speeds within. I'm optimistic this dialog will bear fruit as Mn/DOT is more desperate to reduce their long-term obligations than even we are.

As for our staff, here is what I expect of each of you.

City Engineer

I know this is going to be tough because you have the greatest course correction of them all. Listen closely. I'm not joking on any of this.

Tomorrow morning you are going to get all the paint you need and you are going to stripe every street in NE Brainerd. These streets are bizarrely wide; completely out of proportion for a neighborhood such as this. I want to see on-street parking areas defined, narrow (10 feet or less) driving lanes identified and the remainder of the space dedicated to bike lanes.

Yes, bike lanes. I want them everywhere and I want no ambiguity over what they are. I realize people are going to look at you funny as I'm sure very few residents in this area even own bikes anymore. Nonetheless, this is going to cost very little and it needs to be done. It is neighborhood triage. The first step of creating value is providing people with options. Today they have one. Tomorrow they will have one more.

Stripe these streets. They are too wide and communicate car domination. Paint is cheap. Striping for bike lanes will add immediate value where little exists today.Next, I want to see a list of all the projects we have planned for this neighborhood for the next ten years. In each and every one, we are going to do three things. First, we're going to reduce costs dramatically by narrowing the pavement width. Our streets will be better looking and cheaper too. Second, we're going to redirect the savings into building quality sidewalks. Remember what I said about creating value by giving people options? Now they will have three (four after I get to the transit coordinator).

This isn't saving us money. It is wasting the hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in sidewalks elsewhere which are now cut off. This is how you kill a neighborhood. It needs to end.

And just so I'm clear about creating value through choice; if we're going to meet our goals, we need to work within a private market that is just as financially strapped as we are. Perhaps even more so. The more alternatives we give people -- for biking, walking or taking transit to get to where they need to go -- the more competitive we will be. If a family can move to NE Brainerd and only have to own one car, they save $8,000 each year by not having to have that second car. For $8,000 per year, they can spend $118,000 more on a house (which is more than most houses in NE Brainerd are worth). That's where we are going to get the private sector investments to turn this neighborhood around.

The third thing we are going to do with each project is to install urban vegetation. Not the quasi-nature stuff you're apparently fond of and not a bunch of weeds in a stormwater pond. We need vegetation that will be stately. We're building an urban neighborhood which is distinctly different from the suburban neighborhoods on the edge of town. It is subtle, but we need to get this right.

And as a final note, just so we're clear: your primary objective is no longer about moving cars. In fact, if we had to list your departmental priorities, that would be just about the last one on the list. Your top priority -- with no close second -- is to create value throughout the existing neighborhoods of this city. Not new neighborhoods on the edge of town. Not new growth out along the highway. Not to help people get to the WalMart in the next city more quickly. Throw away that hierarchical road system map that you have -- it represents an antiquated, 1950's mentality.

We're not about moving cars anymore; we're about building a strong town. 

Planner

Your task is going to involve an equally dramatic shift in priorities and approach. I hope you are up to the challenge because right now, not only is the Planning and Zoning Department not creating value for this city, you are simply a bureaucratic obstacle to be overcome by anyone wanting to do something positive. I don't want to lose you -- I want you to be part of the team -- but the approach needs to change 180 degrees.

Let's start with a mental exercise. I want you to envision what a healthy, successful NE Brainerd would look like. What would be there? I know this is difficult because you and your predecessors have been focused on battling the symptoms of decline: a high percentage of rentals, poorly maintained properties, petty violations for trash and lawn maintenance, building code violations. What would success look like?

Let me help. Success would be a mix of housing options. There would be some rental, some owner-occupied. There would be a mix of types too. Some single-family and some multi-family. I'd also expect that a successful neighborhood would have both high earners and families on the low end of the wage spectrum. One should also expect to see a smattering of neighborhood commercial uses. All of these components would be intermingled and and designed to be completely compatible with each other.

Look at what our city code says. It calls for predominantly one use: single family. We have other "pods" of uses -- essentially arbitrary lines where we separate different types of housing from each other -- where multi family is allowed. These are next to our commercial areas because, ostensibly, poor people live in multi-family and they won't object as loudly to the terrible looking way we do commercial development.

Take a look at what our use-based code has gotten us in this neighborhood.

A lot of low value uses, like garages. Notice how this one is adjacent to the alley yet the cars access from the street, making this space not only look run down by design but also degrading the street, parking and pedestrian spaces.

Use-based zoning doesn't care how the property interacts with the public realm. As a result, you get garages and cars framing the public space, even when an alley is readily available.We also have apartments being built. This is considered positive new growth, although it adds to the hostile feel of this "neighborhood". Many more of this type of building and we might as well just gate each property, put up watch towers and call in the national guard. This is a very anti-neighborhood design.

The use-based code only worries about how the building is being used -- apartment -- and whether it meets the setback, coverage and parking requirements. There is no concern about how this design detracts from the public realm and lowers the value all the neighboring properties.

Our current code also creates artificial buffers around properties, leaving unnecessary gaps throughout the neighborhood. I realize that many people believe we are "built out", but that is a ludicrous notion. We copied an ordinance from somewhere else, but we never stopped to measure our own neighborhoods and determine how it would mess them up. For us to reach our goals, the free market needs to be set loose to fill in gaps like these with productive structures.

When suburban development codes are applied to urban areas it creates artificial buffering -- gaps -- in the urban framework. Not only does this artificially limit what property owners can do productively with their property, but in doing so it severely limits the tax base along with other measures that would improve the productivity of the place (like an additional utility connection on the same pipe).

Then we have the way that commercial properties interact with the neighborhood. We've designed them to be all on the edge and to be accessed only by automobile. Since the defining feature our ordinance demands is parking, we get buildings that have huge parking lots and, thus, face the parking. Here is what our residents get to look at from their homes. Not exactly creating much value for them.

Can we expect our neighborhoods to thrive when we allow them to be treated like this? Why do we allow these commercial properties to not only not provide any access to the people living right across the street (they must drive like everyone else), but we allow them to point their unadorned rear, complete with dumpsters, right at them. To create a neighborhood with value, we need to show it respect.

In fact, we routinely sacrifice the quality of life for our residents, along with their property values, on the alter of new growth. That is a tradeoff that has not served us well and one I am no longer willing to make. Any new development needs to add to the overall value of what is existing, not detract from it.

Today I am going to propose an ordinance that will repeal our entire zoning code. Six months from today, it will cease to govern this city. I would rather have no code than the one we have now, but I do believe that a mixed-use, form-based code with a streamlined approval process would have great benefit for this neighborhood. You have six months to have it in place.

Here are the parameters I expect from a new code.

• It must provide for a mixture of uses within neighborhoods. Limit commercial properties to the intersections if you must, but they must be allowed throughout.
• It must provide for a mixture of housing styles. We have to allow the neighborhood to mature. We're not omniscient enough to say exactly where that will happen and when so we need to get out of the way and let it happen naturally.
• We must regulate how structures address the public realm. Everything that is built from this point forward needs to improve the public space. No more bare walls. No more side entrances. No more garages out front. If we want people to invest in this neighborhood, they need to travel throughout it and know that their investment will be respected.
• There will be a build-to line -- not a setback line -- to ensure that all structures properly frame the public realm. 
• All garages and parking areas shall be to the rear of the lot, always behind the dwelling. They will be accessed from the alley where one is available. We're building a neighborhood for people to live in, not cars.
• Approvals for construction under this code must be able to be done within two hours. People need to know clearly what they can do, they need to be able to walk into city hall and then walk out that day with a permit. No long public hearing process. No ambiguity. If the form of their building meets the code, I want it approved. We are going to be the least bureaucratic regulatory department in the state.

Oh, and there will be an immediate ban on new surface parking. The entire neighborhood we are looking at is eight blocks square. Theoretically, if our streets were not so hostile to pedestrians, the entire place is within walking distance of itself. Despite that, people rarely park on any of the streets. Surface parking is a cancer on the tax base. There will not be another surface parking lot built until all those on-street spaces we pay so dearly for are filled.

Our obsession with rental properties is over. We do not have a problem with rental properties, or better put, rental properties are not the problem. They are the symptom. The problem is neighborhoods that lack value and reasons for people to invest in their future. Your job is no longer to fight over rental properties. It is no longer to administer red tape or checklists, to ensure that each use is in its proper place, that there is enough parking for each Black Friday rush of vehicles.

Your job, plain and simple, is to improve the value of the public realm. If you make our public spaces -- the space between structures spanning across the street -- more valuable, our neighborhood will grow and prosper and we will meet our goals.

I'll continue this dialog next week as our mayor addresses Economic Development, Parks and Recreation, Housing Rehabilitation Agency, Public Utilities, Maintenance, Transit, Public Safety, the property tax system and the city's school district, churches and civic organizations.

 

Thank you to everyone that has been following this series from the beginning of 2012 until now. We've appreciated your feedback. If you would like to support our efforts to get this message out to more communities, please consider supporting us with a tax-deductible donation. We are a 501(c)3 non-profit working to spread a timely message of resiliency across the United States. Thank you for your support.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Tram and Rail, 1914

The New York Review of Books has published a new edition of Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories, and they’re posting excerpts on their blog to promote it.  Here’s an excerpt of their excerpt of a story called “In the Electric Tram.”

People do, after all, tend to get somewhat bored on such trips, which often require twenty or thirty minutes or even more, and what do you do to provide yourself with some modicum of entertainment? You look straight ahead. To show by one’s gaze and gestures that one is finding things a bit tedious fills a person with a quite peculiar pleasure. Now you return to studying the face of the conductor on duty, and now you content yourself once more with merely, vacantly staring straight ahead. Isn’t that nice? One thing and then another? I must confess: I have achieved a certain technical mastery in the art of staring straight ahead.

It is prohibited for the conductor to converse with the esteemed passengers. But what if prohibitions are sidestepped, laws violated, admonitions of so refined and humane a nature disregarded? This happens fairly often. Chatting with the conductor offers prospects of the most charming recreation, and I am particularly adept at seizing opportunities to engage in the most amusing and profitable conversations with this tramway employee. It pays to ignore certain regulations, and summoning one’s powers to render uniforms loquacious helps create a convivial mood.

From time to time you do nonetheless look straight ahead again. After completing this straightforward exercise, you may permit your eyes a modest excursion. Your gaze sweeps through the interior of the car, crossing fat, drooping mustaches, the face of a weary, elderly woman, a pair of youthfully mischievous eyes belonging to a girl, until you’ve had your fill of these studies in the quotidian and gradually begin to observe your own footgear, which could use proper mending. And always new stations are arriving, new streets, and the journey takes you past squares and bridges, past the war ministry and the department store, and all this while it is continuing to rain, and you continue to behave as if you were a tad bored, and you continue to find this conduct the most suitable.

But it might also be that while you were riding along like that, you heard or saw something beautiful, gay, or sad, something you will never forget.

Sidewalk Rating: Sans Soleil The town magnet, it will be seen, offers, as compared with the country magnet, the advantages of high wages, opportunities for employment, tempting prospects of advancement -- but these are largely counter-balanced by high rents and prices. Its social opportunities and its places of amusement are very alluring, but excessive hours of toil, distance from work, and the "isolation of crowds" tend greatly to reduce the value of these good things. The well-lit streets are a great attraction, especially in winter, but the sunlight is being more and more shut out, while the air is vitiated that the fine public buildings, like the sparrows, rapidly become covered with soot, and the very statues are in despair. Palatial edifices and fearful slums are the strange, complementary features of modern cities.[Ebenezer Howard.][The 86'd board at Palmer's.]*** CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LINKS! ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ***back door! back door, please!pushing doesn't help, ladytouch here to open[fm bus haikus.]*** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ************ ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ***