More Than Talking Heads: Congress for the New Urbanism Promotes Healthy Cities and People

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), which I helped to plan this year, is in Atlanta next week, May 19-22. It's the 18th year of the event bringing the nation's most prestigious proponents and creators of livable, sustainable communities to the city for two days of networking, collaboration, education, tours and special programs. Anyone who would like to discuss development practices and public policies, learn from recent innovative work and advance new initiatives to transform communities, is welcome.

See an excellent video: SPRAWLANTA.

CNU is an urban design and development movement dedicated to developing community oriented principles of traditional town and city planning in contrast with the prevailing system of formless sprawl. New urbanist developments are walkable, provide a diverse range of housing options, encourage a rich mix of uses, and provide welcoming public spaces (read the CNU charter). If you are developer, architect, landscape architect, town planner, urban designer, engineer, environmental consultant, transit/transportation planner, bike and ped advocate, housing specialist, real estate broker, regulator, government official, or interested member of the public, you should check it out.

This year's conference is titled New Urbanism: Rx for Health Places and has been organized with assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of the strategies that the CNU promotes to make communities more livable, energy efficient and better positioned for economic success are the same ones health officials promote to make places healthier. Studies have shown that there are numerous health, social, environmental and economic benefits that come from a more connected way of living that flourishes in towns where people can walk, bike, and interact with their neighbors.

There will be a number of impressive speakers at the conference, but one particular highlight will be David Byrne, front man for Talking Heads. David will speak about how cities reveal themselves differently when traveling on a bicycle as opposed to a car. In addition to David's musical talents, he has spent the past several years writing the Bicycle Diaries, a book chronicling his use of a bicycle as his main form of transportation.

I hope to see you at the congress.

Why You Become a Different Person When You Get Behind the Wheel

I just ran across an interview with Tom Vanderbilt who writes the blog "How We Drive" and wrote the book "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)," and I had to share it.
In the interview, Vanderbilt talks about the psychology of driving and the many false impressions drivers use to operate their vehicles. I have always been fascinated with the behavior of driving and how when a person gets in that enclose bubble we call a car, they become a different person. Why does that happen?
Well, Vanderbilt has spent a great deal of time researching this phenomenon and many others. This interview is a very refreshing discussion of the psychology of driving which is often overlooked in our car culture. I immediately ran out and bought the book.

Here are a couple other interviews of Tom.

InfoDesign Interview
Amazon Interview

Here are a couple Reviews of his book.

Washington Post
New York Times
USA Today

Georgia Lawmakers Pass Needed Transportation Funding Bill

It is hard not to be cynical when writing about transportation/transit funding in Georgia, but I will do my darnedest not to interject cynicism into this update. Recently, there has been a glimmer of hope in the long fought battle to get the State to step up with some leadership and money. Just last night, at the eleventh hour, the Georgia State Legislature voted and approved a measure that would allow 12 designated regions around the state to tax themselves for transportation improvements.
As reported in the AJC:

The bill would divide the state into 12 regions. A “roundtable” of local elected officials in each region, working with an appointee of the governor, would draw up a list of projects for the region. The region could then submit the list to its voters for their approval in a referendum, along with a 1 percent sales tax to fund them. No county could opt out of a region’s tax, but a roundtable could decline to hold a referendum in the region.

If approved by a region, the money would not start funding for approximately three years. So what is a region to do if they need money sooner? Well, I'm not sure if there is a solution across the board, but MARTA was offered some relief when the legislature included language in the proposal that "lifts, for three years, a restriction on how the transit agency can use its revenues from sales taxes, freeing up several million dollars for operations."
Thank goodness for small miracles. So to recap, the legislature has spent years working to pass a piece of legislation that 1) allows us to tax ourselves for transportation projects and 2) allows us more flexibility to spend money we collected by taxing ourselves. Nice.

When Public Transit is Cut, Everyone Suffers

Transit agencies across the country are struggling to make ends meet and are being forced to cut service. Too often, their hardship is treated differently from departments of transportation. For example, I often hear that transit is a subsidy, while roads are an investment. Here in Atlanta, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Agency is in especially dire straits, and the state treats it like a red headed stepchild (MARTA is the only major transit agency in the world that does not get state funding).

In today's AJC, Jim Durrett, a MARTA board member, explains that when transit services are cut, transit riders aren't the only victims.

READ THE OP/ED

Seeing Is Believing

I often think about how the design of a street can eleicit a feeling from those who use it similar to the way a piece of art or architecture elicits a feeling. Unfortunately, most people using a street do not know why they are feeling a certain way. They just know they are.

A recent article that highlights Steve Price's work shows streets transformed from places that create a negative reation to places that create a positive one.

"The work, done mostly with Photoshop, rests on the premise that seeing a proposed development can be more useful to people than receiving lots of information about it. There are limits, says Price, to explaining a design proposal with things like dwelling-units per acre, setbacks, building heights, traffic volumes, and vehicle-miles traveled. They might be perfectly good arguments, he says. They’re just not how people come to understand and support civic changes."

What are your reactions to the changes?

See the article here.

Parking Companies Not Paying Valet Attendants at Least Minimum Wage: Beware

In the hyper competitive valet industry, the question of whether to pay the employees a minimum wage plus tips, tip wage plus tips, or have the valets work for tips only is always a quandary. At Lanier, we have chosen to take the high legal ground by paying minimum wage plus tips. Of course, this has resulted in Lanier having to pass on many of valet opportunities. But, let the buyer beware. Two recent articles, one in the National Restaurant News and the other in Service First Newsletter, point out that not only is the valet company potentially liable for underpaying the valets, but so too is the entity that hired the valet company.

Parking Management key to successful transportation system

When I left the Perimeter Transportation Coalition (PTC) to come work for Lanier Parking Solutions, many people asked how someone who worked so hard to promote alternative transportation could work for a parking company. I would say that I am a big advocate of paid parking, because it encourages people to think about the cost of driving trips, and as a result they may change their travel behavior (i.e biking, walking, transit, and carpooling). Ninety-nine percent of all U.S. driving trips end in free parking spaces, but when the economic and environmental consequences are considered, these parking spots are not free at all. Smarter parking management, which is what Lanier has touted for the past decade, will benefit consumers and businesses in time and money saved. This has now been confirmed by a recent study by Insitute for Transportation and Development Policy (TTDP).
"U.S. Parking Policies: An Overview of Management Strategies," co written by Professor Rachel Weinberger, John Kaehny, and Matthew Rufo, illustrates how parking management in most U.S. cities creates additional traffic and air pollution and feeds auto dependence. As long as parking is considered independently of transportation policy, parking demand and traffic will continue to increase in the form of excess auto trips, on-street parking shortages, and a decline in the overall pedestrian’s environment. This is not only true from a macro level (region and city) but also from a micro level (mixed use development and retail establishment). Traditional parking policy prioritizes private automobile use, undermining the use of public transit, walking, and bicycling as travel modes, spurring significantly higher household travel costs for all.
A balanced transportation system, with the automobile and parking being one component, is the end game. The parking policy of the past 30 years has been a huge impediment to creating such a system. But as the ITDP study indicates, there seems to be change in the air. Download the full report.