by
Niccolo Casewit, AIA,
April 15, 2010
Integrating divergent processes and focusing on the common concerns is the crux of our problem. Citizens and professionals almost always expect conflict between what is the reality on the ground and what seems like a great idea viewed from the heights of 30,000 feet. The planning and construction of a rail corridor initially causes some communities and individual property owners to be at odds with, or at the very least ambivalent about, the prospects of public transit actually improving life where people already live. It seems as though transit is imposed “from above” through decades of planning, construction, and testing until the system is fully operational and ready for passengers.
We read the critical “bad press” reports, hear the NIMBYs, and question Eminent domain along routes as though all a just a necessary step. It only helps to exacerbate the negative reports of the actual and forecasted “cost-over-runs”. Real costs can be attributed to factors like inflation in material, labor, complex technical revisions, environmental studies, the shear “added on” challenges of security, grade-separated alignments, bridges, tunnels, and even flood control. The real costs are staggering and sometimes we forget what for! The irony is that all this investment is being allocated to reconnect parts of the city that were once whole; older city corridors that have long become isolated from each other because of new highways leading to sprawl development.
The public has been asking for transit since the 1970’s; the West Line was already part of several failed Bond proposals in the early 1980s and 1990s but the issue was deferred, and funding finally materialized in 2004. Just getting public transit is a long-term commitment, so it is no wonder that the focus has been on the transit technologies. But what about life on the ground along each of these routes? Once the transit is accessible, will these neighborhoods thrive or, will they just be transit adjacent “Park and Rides?” Will current residents and businesses be displaced and “priced out?” Will the most undesirable neighborhoods just be left to gradually deteriorate? Will isolated sections of towns remain just “bedroom communities” where there is very little in commerce, recreation, art, music, and culture actually to be found? None of these scenarios is inevitable if the communities seize their own opportunity to Renew Life.
Each community can participate in shaping a better future with transit as the “functional” symbol and also a catalyst to achieve a shared vision for the livability in the future. The transit amenity is best leveraged to implement a shared vision through local re-investment in new small businesses, housing, and public “place-making” which will nurture, and nourish the whole community.
There is no silver bullet once a business corridor is in decline: Public Transit will not “save” communities—it’s the people who live and work near transit corridors who save communities! Successful transit as an amenity that can become a commonly utilized resource-but to function effectively transit must be supported by all the neighborhoods having access. Facilitating increased ridership through re-zoning for higher densities, creating developer incentives, and funding the infrastructure to connect people to a station node are all important ways a community can support its public transit investment. Indeed the current RTD “fare box” only accounts for 20% of RTD’s operational revenues, so one obvious way to increase local revenues is to increase ridership.
A neighborhood district is the essential building block that makes up a city. A district is an identifiable physical and social “unit” which is defined by experts as the existing, or developable land areas within a 10 minute walk, or a 20 minute bike ride to and from a light rail station, a well served bus stop, or regional commuter “nodes.” In terms of walking distances, this translates to a quarter-mile walk or even a one-mile bike ride depending on climate, the topography, and the existing pedestrian connectivity found in a given area.
The “Livability” of a neighborhood district is dependent on the character and quality of life afforded by a neighborhood. A functional neighborhood district is commonly defined by “New Urban” city planners as a place where residents and visitors of all ages are able easily to satisfy their daily needs without getting into a car. Ironically, traditional neighborhood design is a very old idea: simply vibrant places where friends live nearby, with access to public spaces where even strangers, visitors, and regulars can meet to share the news of the day — a diner, or maybe a farmer’s market, a family owned businesses on “Main Streets.”–This is not a novel idea—it’s as American as Apple pie!
Business establishments with private and public institutions can make living “car free” easier by offering free deliveries, extended hours, special loading zones (for certain times), supplying more bike racks and street benches, public drinking fountains all to accommodate people of all ages. In an organic way, these business and retail districts offer the goods and services which are needed every day by transit riders and others alike. Unlike the “big-box” shopping centers and indoor malls built during the 1980s and 1990s, the new community “anchors” are a social phenomena: usually it’s the well-established “mom & pop” businesses which become the local icons. The new logos are the small grocery stores, dry cleaners, coffee houses, restaurants (of course), and even book stores; these are prominent signs of life re-emerging. We count the number of doors on a street to measure the social equity shared by the community. The crowds arrive by foot, bicycle, and by transit; activity feeds on activity.
A critical demographic : the “young creatives” arrive early in a neighborhood’s resurgence; this is a good sign when the young fix things up, start businesses, and make the place “cool” again. These young people are the “early adopters” of a declining “area of change.” By virtue of their re-investment and hard work which often cannot be measured in dollars per square foot. With collaboration, the young and old can eventually help a neighborhood prosper again. New unique almost “tribal” sub-cultures begin to thrive together; art galleries, art studios, music venues, and theaters sometimes pop-up. Each Station area on a transit corridor may have its own identifiable atmosphere and unique brand, a synergy, which occurs when each district boasts a reputation for particularized goods and services which residents along the entire rail corridor can enjoy for variety, and convenience.
Urban green spaces, plazas and sidewalks can be fashioned into “informal” places for street performers of many types: from poets, folk singers, classical musicians, jugglers, and mimes! These outdoor public places are not undefined “open spaces” but are adjacent to the streets protected by plantings, follies, benches, low sitting walls; these places become their own destinations. All these places for people are only possible if there are enough people to create and take ownership of a “public realm.” The re-emerging community has to make sure that people of all ages and incomes levels can afford to live nearby such places. Transit itself does not increase business—It is business that increases business. Without the people 24-7 there is no real urban district. Everything should not be designed just around the car and the tree-lined parking lot. “Cars do not shop” — it’s people who shop!
Substantial housing densities are a necessary factor to support small businesses, and to create the transit demand, which in turn, is needed to support a convenient and affordable transit system. If readers are envisioning 30 story buildings—not to worry: Adequate housing densities can be achieved with buildings that are 3-5 stories tall. Single Family houses cannot support a walkable pedestrian district and still be affordable because it takes roughly 2,000 housing units to support one block of 2-story buildings with retail uses.
In the coming months, as a guest blogger for THE BACK FENCE, I will be exploring how our communities can leverage public transit to create vibrant and sustainable environments to live, work, and play!
I am very interested in reader comments and suggestions. Please email me at:
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You can purchase the documentary film,
TOD Reshaping the Great American City
from AIA Denver, 1515 Arapahoe St., Denver
and Sprawling from Grace below
Purchase the film Sprawling From Grace here
Below: Aerial view of Beaverton Station, Portland, Oregon
Photo: Niccolo Casewit
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