Remedial Street Grids

Street grids can be, in theory, an effective way to alleviate congestion on major suburban arterials. Frequently, lack of alternate routes, shared parking lots, and destination sprawl will concentrate traffic by virtue of the multiple car trips necessary to complete a set of errands.

Streetsblog DC has a great post about a rejected alternative to highway expansion in Charleston regarding a congested stretch of 4 lane suburban arterial. Read on:

The proposed secondary street grid would have been perpendicular and parallel to the existing arterial road.

To ease congestion on Savannah Highway, officials in Charleston have proposed an eight-mile, $489 million expansion of Interstate 526 through the towns of West Ashley, Johns Island and James Island.

One plan SC DOT rejected was developed by the Coastal Conservation League. The League opposes the I-526 extension, saying the project will destroy wetlands and perpetuate sprawl while having no effect on congestion on Savannah Highway. Their alternative proposal, “A New Way to Work,” could serve as a model for how to improve safety and make communities more livable while avoiding the expense and sprawl caused highway expansion.

“A New Way to Work” asserts that the congestion problems on Savannah Highway can be solved through street-level interventions in key locations. The biggest shortcoming of Savannah Highway, say League staff, is poor design. Their report notes that the road has a driveway every 80 feet, on average, creating a chaotic scramble between drivers who use the road to travel far distances and those who dash in and out of retail establishments. The lack of connectivity in the street network also limits drivers’ options, forcing traffic onto the arterial road.

What is needed, the report states, is a hierarchy of streets for different types of trips.

In its proposed redesign of Savannah Highway, the League would:

• Eliminate many curb cuts
• Install medians to control turning
• Repair connections between cul-de-sac-style, disconnected streets

These three principles are recommended by the Transportation Research Board to reduce congestion, preserve scenic landscapes and improve safety of motorists and pedestrians.

“It centers around the power of the network streets to relieve the knots in the system,” said the League’s Josh Martin. “We’re trying to create a really great, livable, walkable multi-modal street.”

Sigh.

Sprawl Repair

I wouldn't mind being Daniel Jarrett ... for a day ... or more ...

Because this is excellent.

Transit's Role in Sprawl Repair

" ... since government has much more direct control over the street than over the development parcels, we might move faster on sprawl repair if we focused on the arterial first, or at least at the same time."

He takes Fresno as an example--it has a massive road network largely dominated by arterials, and it does not face significant congestion challenges. Here's a sample pitch that he would deliver to local officials:

" 'What if we learned from Los Angeles's path?  Instead of waiting until it's really expensive, as Los Angeles did, what if we take early, gradual, inexpensive steps to make our arterials safe and attractive for transit?  That doesn't mean ripping up our single-family neighborhoods, but it does mean rethinking our arterials so that they're safe and attractive places for pedestrians, and so that they provide appropriate levels of priority to transit.  We don't need transit to be attractive to everyone, we're not 'forcing' people to use it, but it could attract people who already want alternatives to driving.  Let's face it, a lot of our citizens are struggling on low incomes, and cars are expensive.  Many families would experience sudden improvements in wealth if they could get rid of one or more of their cars.'

'So we need to gradually repair our sprawl.  That doesn't have to mean big increases in density.  We'd build some denser centers for people who want a more urban life, but we're not going to build townhouses in your back yard -- or at least not until you and your neighbors want us to.  Mostly, we just need to stitch things together so that people can walk and cycle more safely, both to complete local trips and to get to transit stops.  It means making sure that at every transit stop, there's a protected way to cross the street, because you can't use transit for a round trip unless you can use stops on both sides of the street.  It means adding pedestrian links to cul-de-sac neighborhoods, so that they are through-routes for bicycles and pedestrians while remaining cul-de-sacs for cars.  And it means making sure that the design of bus stops and transit priority conveys a clear message that transit riders are valued as citizens, and appreciated for the contribution they make to a sustainable and functional city.' "

North Camino Ramon Plan: The Vision vs. The Present

The North Camino Ramon Plan has captivated me at least in part because its projected vision is vastly different from its current reality. As the plan states, it:

strives to meet sustainability and greenhouse gas reduction goals as the plan area transforms from an automobile-dominated, low-density commercial area to a transit- and pedestrian- oriented neighborhood that will be a community focal point with a mix of uses.

For all of you who have never been to San Ramon before, I decided to do some quick and dirty photojournalism to give you a sense of exactly how "automobile-dominated, low density" the plan area is. Slideshow @ the end.

One thing I noticed was that if you cleared the parking lots of landscaped curbs, cleared fences between parking lots, and cleared elevation grades, you would have a lot of room to build. As I biked around, I was frequently able to thread different parking lots into an ersatz right-of-way. Removing barriers between the lots would not a street network make, but there would be room for one. I say this without taking any measurements, or thinking about space for the buildings the City would presumably want to build along the new streets.

The blue arrows in the map below mark "parking lot rights of way" that, given either a dose of eminent domain, reform-minded ownership, or vigilante jackhammers, could become streets without bulldozing buildings. The red arrows mark routes that would need ... something more drastic. The blue circle corresponds to the planned center of the park that would itself lie at the middle of the mixed use retail/office/residential neighborhood.

This bears a passing similarity to the official plan:

I wonder if the final plan will insist on perfectly straight streets--a few kinks could avoid a big Planners vs. Community stand-off. But let's be clear, the parking lot right of way, even with street kinks, makes the eventual plan only a smidgen less ambitious. Those businesses all want their parking, and will be loathe to relinquish it. And the parking lot that's planned to replace lost surface parking (#5), looks like it will be built over office buildings that include local insurance agencies, HVAC management software, kiddie hair salons, and local soccer league administration. The other building the lot would replace houses the City of San Ramon offices, but hey, they've got greener grass in mind anyway: plans to build a new city hall complex (pdf) just south of this North Camino Ramon Development.

In any case, check out the slideshow of pictures I took. Here's a rough map of the route, to help you locate yourselves. The first picture starts on the northernmost street, looking west (AKA left, looking at the map), then south, then east, then the route kicks in.

"Automobile-dominated" indeed:

San Ramon Plans for New Urbanist Infill Project

The City of San Ramon has an ambitious plan. I'll frame it, hit some key design points, show a few maps, a few stumbling blocks, and some parting thoughts. All information is from the September 23rd Staff Report on this page.

The Frame

Today the city of San Ramon hosted a public comment session on its North Camino Ramon Specific Plan (NCRSP). The planners are speaking a language I did not expect to hear in this rather conservative, automobile-embracing slice of of suburbia. From the online staff report:

The North Camino Ramon Specific Plan seeks to facilitate the redevelopment of the Specific Plan area and strives to meet sustainability and greenhouse gas reduction goals as the plan area transforms from an automobile-dominated, low-density commercial area to a transit- and pedestrian- oriented neighborhood that will be a community focal point with a mix of uses.

As a nearby resident and frequent patron of existing stores who assumed that the garbled vomit of retail surface parking megablocks surrounded by clogged arterials would never change, I'm ... stunned.

Key Design Points

• The adoption of General Plan 2030 would re-designate all properties within the Specific Plan area not currently designated “Mixed Use” to “Mixed Use.”
• The preliminary draft calls for displacing 2,650,000 sq ft of retail, and adding in 4,325,000 new sq ft. 1500 dwelling units (1,650,000 sq ft) are also planned.
• A street loop will create new frontage for multi-level mixed use retail, restaurant, office, and residential uses, and enclose a linear public park: "a well-designed gathering place with site amenities and quality landscape features."
• The Transit Center, currently hidden in a commuter's only spot in the heart of Bishop Ranch, will relocate to the southern end of the street loop.
• Shared parking. Sounds boring, but this is a lynch-pin. Developments like these that have separate parking reqs for each tenant end up with a sea of duplicated parking. When each store has its own lot, drivers are encouraged to drive from place to place, rather than park once. Under such conditions, parking once would also be plain inconvenient; parking lots on foot are boring, unsafe, and take a long time to traverse.
• A broad landscaped path will link the Iron Horse Trail to the Commons, Transit Center, and will be designed to assist capture and filtration of runoff. The development at Camino Ramon and Sycamore in Danville completely failed at connectivity with the IHTrail, and it abuts the darn thing. Big plus here for ped and cycling connectivity.
• Secondary Streets. A Jane Jacobs-approved attempt at street gridding and connectivity that gives circulation options to people on foot. And increases street frontage lots for sale.
• Bishop Ranch Consolidation. "Relocation of the existing Bishop Ranch office space from other parcels within the Specific Plan area will be encouraged to allow more intensive development of other commercial and residential use." How they plan to entice/move existing office buildings around is beyond me.
• Diversified housing options. "Loft units, apartments over retail stores, apartment and condominium buildings, townhouses, rowhouses, and live/work units" for young professionals who like to be near commercial areas and possible employers.

A Few Maps

A bird's eye view of the North Camino Ramon Specific Plan.

The write-overs I did underwhelm in the legibility dept, so from the top down: CC Road, Norris C (Road), and "Red arrows = the only existing through streets."

As you can see, super blocks engulfing parking engulfing retail/offices. It's possible to traverse most of this area in your car without ever leaving a parking lot.

Got that spatially mapped? Here's the tentative plan, screen-captured from the Staff Report pdf.

I really wish they had done this with transparent color coding--seeing the existing built environment would be much more useful. After some tedious split screen comparing (and heck, I know this area really well), I was able to see a few stumbling blocks.

A Few Stumbling Blocks

1. The street loop/mixed use core/linear public park bisects an existing supermarket. Now as much as I'd like to see a complete street routed down the snack food aisle of my local Lucky's, this seems improbable. And if not Lucky's per se, the street might cut through Big 5 Sporting Goods, or Ruggies, or Thrifty. I don't think they'd be keen either. I'm curious whether the City can tell either a) the store, b) the developer who owns the property or c) both, "clear out, we're putting a retail, sidewalk, parking, street, sidewalk, public park, sidewalk, street, parking, sidewalk, retail sandwich right through the property you have prosperously occupied for, I don't know, at least as long as the author of this blog post has been breathing. Eminent domain? Does the City actually own that land? Can they force them out? Mmm ... property law and contract law would be useful here ...

There's also a big hunk of 24 Hour Fitness where the #10 #3 #7 triangle is on the above map. I'm sure there are more examples, but for the sake of length I'll move on. Let the record show that I cannot wait to see how they will re-build the built environment.

2. The secondary streets won't create blocks as small as downtown Danville's, which will be the reference point for just about all future users of this future "downtown" space. Smaller blocks = more walkable and browsable, but I suspect stumbling block #1 above is the reason why more streets are not going in.

3. By far my biggest stumbling block is looking at the existing land use, and reading their plan, and saying "impossible." If you've used this area, you know that this plan is the diametric opposite of everything you associate with the space.

Parting Thoughts: Visualizing the Transformation, Difficultly

I'll be back with some ground level pictures tomorrow, but I'll leave you with a closer look at the sense of impossibility I feel.

A closer look at the northwest corner. The "w," "m," and "ng" in "Crow Canyon Commons Shopping Center" mark the new street + park + retail loop route. And you can see there is very much a building in the way, and more beyond it.

All three of the secondary cross streets will be on this parcel. Hard to imagine with so many buildings in the way! I think one of the secondary streets (the one just north of "#1" on the above plan) will intersect the new street + park + retail loop by running along the line of green that demarcates the parking lot border between the clusters of office buildings south of the CC Commons Shopping Center, and north of the 24 Hour Fitness (the dark gray rectangle partially cut off by the lower frame). The other two will go north and south of that one, though how they will finagle the right of way is beyond me.

And please, please note the oceans of underperforming asphalt parking. Can't wait to see them repurposed.

Why Suburban Retrofits Matter

Not just because it's a "fashionable/elitist/patchouli-munching lifestyle choice" as some would deride it. Check out this post over at Smart Growth America. Highlights:

In a new study, the American Lung Association in California has thrown its support behind that state’s plans for more smart growth communities because of the striking positive health implications.

The study conservatively estimates that if the state of California realizes Vision California goals to decrease driving and create more walkable, mixed-use communities by 2035, the state will avoid:

• $1.66 billion (yes, with a “b”) in pollution-related heath costs
• 140 premature deaths
• 260 heart attacks
• 215 acute bronchitis incidents
• 95 cases of chronic bronchitis
• 2,370 asthma attacks
• 101,960 other respiratory symptoms
• 205 respiratory ER trips and hospitalizations
• 16,550 lost work days
• 132,190 tons of criteria pollutants

And those are just the physical health benefits. Streetsblog leads with an article about driving related stressors, and the mental leaps and assumptions through which we turn cars and their automated mobility into expectations. And get all bent out of shape when reality gets in the way of our self-involved worldview. I wrote here about how cars facilitate me-first kind of thinking.

What We're Reading: Retrofitting Suburbia

Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs is the full title, and totally encapsulates the tome's intent.

What's been most interesting so far are the market forces it describes. To authors Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, the financial incentives for retrofitting are present and only gathering more steam.

To wit:

• Reduced percentages of suburban households with children
• Growing market for multiunit housing in suburban locations
• Continued growth in percentage of jobs in suburban locations.
• First-ring suburbs that are aging and depopulating, and becoming comparatively central thanks to newer, farther-flung developments

And here's a quote that stood out for multiple, perhaps paradigm shift-related reasons:

"The future promises to alter our relationship to place as we continue to shift from an industrial to a postindustrial economy and society. This economy is digitally enabled to be less dependent on geography, making the qualities of individual places matter more in locational decisions ... a primary goal is to build and support an identifiable, durable place to which people will be attracted."

At first I thought, you ninny, we are obviously post-industrial. Then I remembered that I am 24, and the author could be double my age. I've never even really lived in an industrial economy, so acknowledging post-industrialism feels calling my music habits post-vinyl.

My second impression is that her assessment of our evolving geography is on point. A knowledge economy is, at least comparatively, a movable feast. In determining where to look for jobs, or where I'd like to live, I determine my shortlist exclusively by quality of place. After that cut, other factors dominate (well, just one, really--employment), but I hadn't really considered the implications of such radical mobility. With the power of the internet fueling national and international job searches and instant information gathering, the barriers to getting a job in x place because it seems like the bomb.com get lower and lower. And let's get tighter: even moving to x neighborhood, or x street. It seems more people than ever have* the kind of choosing power and information re location and place that is traditionally reserved for appliances and car stereos. A more powerful customer can certainly shift the old demand curve ...

*Or do they? Having a family with a stable financial background and a college education seem completely essential here. And those are two big caveats. As suburban places improve and diversify their land-use in desirable ways, I wouldn't be surprised if traditionally marginalized groups get priced/elbowed out into the newly least desirable spaces ... actually I kind of expect it. Keeping the less-mobile in mind will be critical to ensuring that the boon from these market forces (better places) are equitably available.

Re-burbia

A frustration with suburban sprawl is that there just doesn't seem to be anything that can be done about it: origins and destinations are spread out, cars are obligatory, there are no public spaces. And it all seems so permanent, so ... built. The experience of walking in such an environment makes me feel like an afterthought--the lonely consequence of a planner who hedged his bets: "Well, no one will want to walk in a place like this ... but I better put in some sidewalks, just in case."

You have to throw pedestrians more than a bone to get walkability, and that's exactly what this really sweet entry in the Re-urbia Suburban Design Competition does. Take a look:

Infill development has the potential to gradually transform suburban sprawl into spaces that can support additional uses. I extra extra love these ideas because no raze n rebuild is needed; the new blends in with the old. The big developments that result from clearing large swaths of land always feel less than real, a bit ... sterile. Like plots of mixed use simulacra. Better to go incremental, though incremental, by definition, is slow.

Here are the rest of the finalists. Definitely worth a peek.

Update: the person who submitted this portfolio to the competition did not disclose her affiliation with New Urbanist titans Duany, Plater and Zyberk et al., but apparently she is one of the principals. Still great work, just not quite the diamond in the rough it once seemed!