[A trimmed down version from Bike Portland's blog:]
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Jeff Olson, a planner with Alta Planning and Design asked:
If you were able to ask Mayors of large cities in the U.S. to go and ask Congress for anything, what should they ask for?
Niels Jensen:
“I’d ask for money”
Hans Voerknecht:
“Two things: Change the guidelines, and second would be parking. Change dramatically the way of parking. Allow no more parking in the streets 1/2 mile from homes and businesses so you remove all the short trips and people will know they don’t have the car in front of their door. You would also remove all this traffic noise and small particles in the air.
I don’t know if it’s true but I’ve heard Americans even use a car to post a letter around the corner. If you had to walk a 1/2 mile to get your car you wouldn’t do that anymore.”
City Traffic Engineer Rob Burchfield got the last question of the night (and it was a good one):
I want to ask about pricing the use of the automobile. In most of your countries and cities, it’s expensive to purchase a car, to get fuel, to park — and in addition, you’ve put restrictions on cars within your city. It’s simply not convenient to drive.
In the the U.S., that pricing is very absent. There’s very little political will to disincentivize the use of the automobile. We’re concerned that our goals for reaching higher mode split will be difficult to reach because of our inability to put price disincentives on car use. Is that a valid concern? How is it that you’ve come to have that political will?
Geert-Pieter Wagenmakers:
“While in Beaverton I saw all of these enormous rooms for all these cars… even a parking garage for cars! I asked, are you subsidizing this? If so, it’s socialism. You’re subsidizing a parking lot… and that’s out of the mouth of somebody from the business community.
In our country, every square meter is money and you have to use it as good as possible so it gains as much money as possible. And I know one thing, parking cars is not a beneficial way of industry.
Why are the tariffs for parking in the city so high [In Amsterdam, they're about $7 an hour, 24-hours a day]. First, it’s good for quality of life and second, for the people who really need to be in the city — like the people with their big Mercedes to go to the Gucci shop, or the business man who needs to go to an important meeting — now he has a place to park. In the old days, when parking was much cheaper, they had to search for a spot… so that’s good for business.”
Hans Voerknecht:
“One of the things is, if you would ask the Dutch public, ‘Would you rather pay less tax on your cars and pay less tax on your fuel,’ everybody would say ‘Oh yes!’ But the thing is we don’t ask them!
You shouldn’t ask all the time, ‘Do you want to spend money?’ Of course they say no. The thing is, if people are so narrow-minded, you need politicians… Democracy is not about doing the will of the people; it’s about choosing the best men and women out of the people who make the wisest decisions.
The costs of maintaining a road network is high and the users should pay for them… there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Fees work very well to affect the behavior of the people, but it also works well is to reward the people who do the desired behavior. In some cities, they have sort of a reverse congestion pricing: People whose cars aren’t seen in rush hour get up to 8 euros a day.”
Adelheid Byttebier chose not to directly answer the question, but instead shared some general advice for how to promote bicycling:
“Maybe we should look for best practices not only in the field of mobility or cycling but best practices that have worked in a completely separate field. What we have with our mobility problem is the means of transport itself — the car. It’s very socially accepted, it’s — certainly here in America — not so expensive, you can get everywhere with one, etc… On the other hand we know it’s not good for your health or for society in terms of sustainable living and so on.
This reminded me of the debate we’ve all had on smoking.
My father was a smoker and it was very social, not so expensive and it was about having a good time. But, at a certain moment, the decision was made to no longer have ads for smoking and to make it an issue and talk about the health aspects. it’s been a long struggle, but in Belgium we’ve just had a report on health and heart attacks and they’ve found we’ve had great results since we’ve restricted smoking.
Perhaps that experience will give us a good inspiration to try and do it a similar way concerning better modes of being mobile.”
As Portland (and the rest of America) strives to emulate places like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, we’ll come face to face with some of these hard truths about our transportation culture. Are we ready to face them? Are there limits to how much we can emulate Northern Europe?
These questions are sure to play out in the coming years.
http://bikeportland.org/2009/10/20/americas-top-bike-minds-ask-for-and-receive-advice-from-europe/
From the Baltimore Sun:
The benefits of students being able to walk to school with their parents or their friends are undeniable. As Joe Burris wrote in his Oct. 15 article, "Trying to get kids to walk to school," the practice makes for healthier kids and healthier communities. Programs like International Walk to School Month, where Maryland is the top participant among Mid-Atlantic states, are helping change behaviors.
But we also need greater attention toward building communities where people can live, work and play in the same proximity. In fiscal year 2008, 40 percent of school construction was outside of existing population centers, the so-called Priority Funding Areas. Typically, few youngsters would be able to reasonably walk to those schools.
Officials and school boards need to design and build new schools as integral parts of designated community growth areas and to reinvest in existing schools in our existing neighborhoods. That's smart growth. Giving families better options to make that walk would save public dollars, the environment -- and a few pounds to boot.
Richard Eberhart Hall, Baltimore
The writer is secretary of the Maryland Department of Planning
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bal-walkingletter1019,0,4077477.story
This is posted with permission from David T. Whitaker, AICP, the Deputy Director of Infrastructure Planning in Maryland about today's story.
The Maryland Department of Planning is aware of the site and funding situation for Evergreen Elementary School in St. Mary's County. While Evergreen Elementary exemplifies the highest category of LEED, it falls a bit short of the mark in terms of being a community oriented, walkable elementary school per Maryland's Smart Growth model. This was not from lack of effort on the part of St. Mary's County and by the Maryland Interagency Committee on School Construction (IAC) which assisted in the funding of over $12.3 million of the $26+ million cost of construction of Evergreen Elementary School.
The Maryland Department of Planning worked with St. Mary's County in the 2004/2005 time period to locate a suitable site within a certified Priority Funding Area (PFA) for the future Evergreen Elementary School. Maryland's Priority Funding Areas: http://www.mdp.state.md.us/fundingact.htm
St. Mary's County had grown extensively over the preceding decade due to unprecedented residential growth at the Patuxent Naval Air Base. The county had not land banked school sites in anticipation of the major increase in residential growth and then the county found themselves in the difficult position of obtaining a school site in the then aggressive real estate market in Southern Maryland. The Maryland Department of Planning spent many hours reviewing different site proposals from St. Mary's County for a new elementary school. Maryland had a policy of encouraging new sites for public school construction projects into planned growth areas or PFAs, but there was no regulatory mechanism at the time in Maryland to make certain that this was the case. Ultimately, the County opted for the best site that it could locate and made a commitment to build to the highest LEED standard while using the Green technology at the future Evergreen Elementary School as a instructional tool. The Maryland Department of Planning and the IAC agreed to this site at that time since Maryland was then in a period of examining and reassessing capital expenditures for public school construction in terms of Maryland's Smart Growth and neighborhood conservation initiatives and regulatory framework.
We have completed this examination and recommendations are currently being forwarded to the Governor's "Task Force on the Future for Growth and Development in Maryland" to address school siting/funding issues related to Smart Growth community schools, walkability, site needs, land banking, adequate public facilities, community oriented design, and continuity of State funding commitments to public school construction. The recommendations to the Task Force focus on three specific areas: 1. PFA Review of New School Construction; 2. Vertical Schools (urban oriented site design); and 3. Six Year CIP (Commitments of State funding in future years).
My agency has also worked to improve overall coordination of school planning functions between St. Mary's County Public Schools and St. Mary's County Department of Planning and Zoning. The current Planning Director for St. Mary's County is a member of the Task Force and he is chairing a work group developing recommendations on PFA Review of Schools, Vertical Schools and the use of Six Year CIPs.
A link to the Task Force on the Future for Growth and Development in Maryland: http://www.mdp.state.md.us/future_growth.html
A link to MDP's Models and Guidelines No. 27 - Smart Growth, Community Planning and Public School Construction: http://www.mdp.state.md.us/pdf/MG27.pdf
We in Maryland have learned a lot about school siting, school capacity as a factor in residential growth, school sites and design, long term land banking, renovation and replacement, school site inflation, as well as funding and timing for school related capital expenditures since the 2004/2005 time period. As a result, it is a good bet that in the future new school construction in Maryland will be both Smart Growth Oriented and Green.
David
David T. Whitaker, AICP
Deputy Director of Infrastructure Planning
Maryland Department of Planning
I strongly urge transportation planners and engineers in our region, especially Balt City and County, to take a look at this innovative new set of tools and consider local implementation. Conventional painted bike lanes and other "weak" measures including sharrows and off-road bike paths, that do little to create complete streets, IMO, are all inadequate tools for enabling a fundamental shift towards widespread "transportational" bicycle use in the region. The dense, interconnected grid of streets in Baltimore could easily accommodate a network of bike boulevards.
- SS on EnvisionBaltimore.
What are Bicycle Boulevards?
Bicycle boulevards take the shared roadway bike facility to a new level, creating an attractive, convenient, and comfortable cycling environment that is welcoming to cyclists of all ages and skill levels.
In essence, bicycle boulevards are low-volume and low-speed streets that have been optimized for bicycle travel through treatments such as traffic calming and traffic reduction, signage and pavement markings, and intersection crossing treatments. These treatments allow through movements for cyclists while discouraging similar through trips by nonlocal motorized traffic. Motor vehicle access to properties along the route is maintained.
The TRB report that was mandated under the 2005 Energy Policy Act . The report, press release, and a summary are available at http://www.trb.org/Publications/Public/Blurbs/162093.aspx.
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Finally, the report underestimates the data and real-world examples showing clearly that significant reductions in vehicle miles traveled result from better designed, more walkable communities with real transportation choices. More than 200 studies have been conducted in recent years on the connection between development patterns and vehicle miles traveled, and there are examples around the country of communities that have seen reductions in VMT, greenhouse gas emissions, and oil usage due to better community design. Here’s just a sampling:
http://1000friends-ct.blogspot.com/2009/09/driving-and-built-environment.html
Recommendation 1: Policies that support more compact, mixed-use development and reinforce its ability to reduce VMT, energy use, and CO2 emissions should be encouraged.
Eco-friendly town bans cars and residents live carbon neutral (they actually get money back from the electric company as the produce more electricity then what they use.)
Parking garages are sprouting up like skunk cabbages. By adding to the parking glut, Baltimore continues to suburbanize itself with cheap easy parking encouraging even more people to drive into the city in lieu of public transit or bicycling.
it works like this: Auto oriented transit planning = Reduced travel options = Alternative modes are stigmatized = Suburbanization = More auto oriented land planning = Generous Parking and supply = More Dispersed Development = Increased Car ownership rates = more auto oriented planning and so on......
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