In a TAB op-ed today, I argue that the MBTA's requirements at Riverside Station are too much. They want to both develop the site and maintain the current volume of commuter parking. The traffic volume of the two uses would be crushing on the neighborhood. And, the garage necessary for commuter parking at present levels would fatally undermine the efforts to create an environmentally and economically sustainable walkable neighborhood center.
That the MBTA needs to choose between two visions -- commuter parking lot or transit-oriented development -- is dictated by the neighborhood. Trying to do both (or one and a weak-tea wave at the other) will create too much traffic. But, there's a larger issue at stake: what end should mass transit serve?
The MBTA can surround its stations -- new and existing -- with neighborhoods or parking lots. By neighborhoods, I mean dense, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. The combination of a viable transit option, dense housing, and a substantial commercial district is a recipe for sustainability. The people who live in such a neighborhood will be much less car-dependent.
Parking lots support sprawl. They encourage driving. They are used by people who, in every other aspect of their lives are going to be car-dependent. (I think we can safely assume that folks aren't driving to Riverside who could otherwise walk to the Wellesley commuter rail station.)
Infrastructure dictates transportation choices. So long as infrastructure supports a car-centric lifestyle (and gas remains relatively cheap), people will choose such a lifestyle. Zoning regulations that limit density inevitably require people to drive. Big commuter lots at T stations facilitate an ex-urban, low-density lifestyle.
Take away the commuter lot option and the dynamic shifts. The land at Riverside or at Alewife or at any other big commuter lot becomes available for a more sustainable lifestyle. The people who used to park and ride fully absorb the consequence of low-density living. They make commuting worse for themselves and other drivers, which is a good outcome. It increases the demand for transit options. It increases the cost of low-density living, which increases the demand for high-density options.
In the bigger picture, commuter lots are not the responsible option.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Competing desires at Riverside
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Riverside direct access from 128
Let's start with the bottom line: direct access to the proposed development at Riverside Station seems to make no sense.
The developer (credibly) claims that there is no technically viable plan for access to the site; any new access would have to go through the site to Grove Street. (More on this in a moment.) The neighborhood-proposed access to the site, even if it were technically viable, eats up a lot of real estate. On an already difficult site, it doesn't seem possible that direct access would leave enough lot for a commercially viable site.
Since direct access from 128 is either technically or economically not feasible, making support for the development contingent on direct access doesn't really make sense. There are a ton of good reasons to oppose development at Riverside. That it doesn't include access from 128 is not one of them.
So, what about the controversy over the developer's presentation, which was the subject of this week's TAB editorial? The other night, the developer's traffic engineer presented a series of slides showing what direct access to the site from 128 would look like. As I understood it, the purpose of the slides was to show the neighborhood what direct access from 128 would mean, given the technical limitations. Current highway dictate that access from the exit ramp could not start for 800 feet or so from the highway. And, the ramp would have to support a certain exit speed, which in turn dictates the radius of the curve. Which means that the ramp would not be able to end in the development, but would go through the site and terminate on Grove St. Then there are a number of other conditions that culminate in this new access replacing the existing exit, which would require another ramp that would go over the Charles River basin.
It's important to keep in mind that, on this point, the interests of the developer and the neighborhood are in opposition. Access to the site from 128 would be hugely expensive and eat into the opportunity to develop. So, skepticism is in order. It is appropriate to push back on (and have independently reviewed) any of the developer's claims.
But, the claim of bad faith? The neighborhood wanted the developer to evaluate direct access. The developer met with city and state officials and reported back that Mass DOT gave an unofficial thumbs down. (Is it reasonable to have the developer invest in a full MEPA review to get an official thumbs down?) The developer explained pretty clearly what direct access would look like -- in light of technical constraints -- and how it would not be any better for the neighborhood.
It appears that the accusation of bad faith arises because the developer didn't start the direct-access analysis with the neighborhood's proposal and, instead, treated the issue from a clean sheet of paper: if there were to be direct access, what would it look like. On this, the traffic engineer was probably damned if he did, damned if he didn't. Were direct-access proponents going to be pleased if the developer's traffic engineer had picked their proposal apart piece-by-piece?
For a number of reasons, it is going to be very difficult -- if not impossible -- to design an acceptable development. So far, the developer isn't there yet. But, direct access is no longer a meaningful issue. For either commercial or technical reasons -- or both -- it isn't going to happen. It's now a red herring.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Making a real deal with the MBTA on Riverside
At another interesting community meeting about possible development at Riverside Station, transportation advocate Bill Aldrich had probably the best insight: why isn't there any improvement to transit included as part of a project at a T station? Why are we only concerned with cars, cars, cars? Bill specifically recommended restoring the connection between Riverside Station and the commuter rail line, a relatively small piece of work that would add options for folks in Lower Falls and Auburndale.
The larger question is how to consider the MBTA as a player in negotiations over the site. The developers are the front men for proposed development on the site, but it's the MBTA wants something from the city -- a zoning change and then special permit approval that will allow it to generate new revenue in the form of a ground lease. The city ought to extract some things from the MBTA in return. Not just concessions here or there over density, program, traffic management, &c. in the context of the development. But, commitments to make Newton's transit needs a priority.
There are four things that should be preconditions to the development:
- Elimination or radical reduction in the required provision of commuter parking at Riverside
- Reconnecting Riverside to the commuter rail line
- Large(r) easement for walking and biking access along the Charles River Basin side of the site
- Green light the Needham Street rail extension
The second and fourth make sense on their own merits, so it would not be much of a concession on the T's part. The third should be relatively easy. The first I've touched on previously, and I'll address again in more detail in the future. It's a meaningful sacrifice on the T's side, but also more consistent with what should be regional transportation planning goals.
The key is to stop thinking only about what Newton's requirements are with respect to the specific character of this development. The MBTA wants something from Newton. What does Newton want from the MBTA?
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Riverside Community Meeting -- Thursday, June 17
Reminder that developer BH Normandy will be presenting their latest plans for Riverside Station at a community meeting on Thursday, June 17 at 7:00 pm at the Williams School Auditorium, 141 Grove St.
The Riverside Station Neighborhood Coalition created the flyer. (PDF)
Friday, June 4, 2010
Riverside Community Meeting Flyer
This is the flyer sent out by the active Riverside Station Neighborhood Coalition about the June 17 presentation at Williams School. Click through for a larger version.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Chestnut Hill Square and Riverside community meetings
The good folks at New England Development will present their latest plans for Chestnut Hill Square on Tuesday, June 1 from 7:15 to 9:00 at the Church of the Redeemer, 379 Hammond Street, in the Parish Hall behind the Church on the left.
The developers of the Riverside T station have rescheduled the community meeting that was recently canceled. The next meeting will be held on Thursday June 17, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at the Williams Elementary School, 141 Grove Street.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Access to Riverside
What with the focus on the not-to-be direct access from 128, a potentially important improvement to the Riverside story has been overlooked. In the previous incarnation, cars exiting from the west side (along the 128 ramp) could only go right. The developer has added a two-way approach to this entrance from Grove St., so cars can exit the development without going through the entrance directly on Grove St.
Turning towards the development's (back entrance) from Grove St., traffic would have two choices: to the development or to the 128N entrance ramp. From the development, traffic would have two choices: left to Grove St. or right to the 128N entrance ramp. The plans call for a flyover for the ramp-bound traffic from Grove Street over the development entrance.
Creating an exit out of the back side of the development will relieve pressure on the site and on Grove St. Traffic from the office buildings on the west end of the development won't have to go through the development and out Grove St. But, the flyover precludes an opportunity to make the stretch from Grove St. to the back entrance a local road, complete with on-street parking. There's no reason that traffic to the on-ramp can't negotiate a mini-roundabout or traffic signal in front of the back entrance.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
No Riverside meeting tonight
Presumably, the team is digesting my posts about Riverside parking. But, more likely, the cancellation is weather related.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Riverside -- what's the point?
The MBTA ought to be in the business of reducing car trips -- both number and mileage.
The single best thing that the MBTA can do to reduce car trips is to create dense, walkable, mixed-use communities around transit hubs. It's not just that many of the residents and on-site workers (including retail workers) will use the T to travel to and from work. It's also that a dense, walkable, mixed-use community has the potential to reduce the number of non-work car trips for the folks who live in the new residential development and for people who live nearby.
Done right, dense, walkable, mixed-use communities are an antidote to the car-centricity that is polluting our environment, clogging our streets, and ruining our health.
Park and ride, while it is better than ride and ride, doesn't offer nearly the same overall benefits. Park and ride, by its very definition, doesn't reduce the number of car trips. Each commute includes a to and a from drive, albeit a shorter ride than the alternative. And, park and ride is part of -- and enables -- a more suburban, car-centric lifestyle.
Between the two models, there is no question about what's the right approach.
But, what about the neighborhood? How should neighborhood concerns and desires play in the T's decision about how to develop the site?
There's another word for dense, walkable, mixed-use communities: urban. Not everyone who lives near Riverside is going to be delighted with an dense, urban outpost in the middle of what is a pretty suburban 'hood. But, the potential value of the right kind of development is bigger than objections to fundamental nature of the right development.
But, the neighborhood has a right to demand that the MBTA do the development right. And, maintaining a vestigial park-and-ride capacity and all of its traffic while adding the new traffic of eminently justifiable mixed-use development is simply unfair and unkind to Riverside's neighbors ... not to mention that clogging an already restricted site with a garage big enough to accommodate 1,000 park-and-riders seriously undermines the developer's ability to create the right kind of dense, walkable, mixed-use community.
Hey, MBTA. Do it right or wait until you're ready to do it right.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Riverside and Parking, Pt III
If it's better for surrounding neighborhoods to eliminate the park-and-ride spaces, why are nearby residents concerned that the developer create enough parking to satisfy current park-and-ride demand. In fact, why do some want more T parking, enough to satisfy demand on Red Sox game days?
In a word: overflow. Neighbors don't want the traffic that now goes directly to the Riverside lot to start trolling the neighborhood and parking in front of their houses.
But, on-site parking to prevent parking on residential streets is a crude tool with substantial negative consequences. Adding on-site parking limits either or both density and walkability. Without a walkable, human scale, Riverside will be just another sprawly, car-centric, suburban strip mall. Less density means less opportunity for the vitality that people on the street create. And, as surely as night follows day, parking generates traffic.
There are tools, however, that can limit neighborhood parking: residential parking permits, short-duration parking restrictions. I'm not sure that on-street parking should be discouraged on all streets around Riverside. On-street parking slows traffic and creates a buffer between moving traffic and pedestrians on the sidewalk. But, if the neighborhood wants no parking on a street or streets, parking ought to be restricted directly, not indirectly by requiring "enough" spaces on-site.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Riverside and Parking, Pt II
Yesterday, I argued that the MBTA's current use of the Riverside Station lot as a park-and-ride lot is incompatible with the development vision of a mixed-use, transit-oriented community. While there are some compelling arguments against development in Newton (at least right now), any development ought to be mixed-use and transit-oriented. Let me expand a bit on why.
Residential density is economically and ecologically sustainable. Dense residential near commercial districts creates a starter group of customers that don't need to be accommodated with expensive and ecologically unsound parking. This means that the stores can be closer together -- denser -- which in turn makes for a more pleasant shopping experience.
If you're thinking Newton Centre or Coolidge Corner, you're on the right track.
Transit is a tremendous enabler of residential and commercial density. To the extent that residences can be provided with a minimum of parking, the denser the residences can be. Providing for cars takes space. And, to the extent that shops can be provided with customers and employees with a minimum of parking, the denser the shops can be.
Transit near housing means that residents can use transit for a large percentage of trips, reducing car trips and parking demand. Transit near a commercial district means that some portion of customers and employees can arrive by transit, reducing car trips and parking demand. And, mixed-use development means that the denser residences provide stores and restaurants with customers who arrive by foot.
The result of reducing the parking demand and designing to suit nearby residents and those who arrive by transit is an attractive, walkable community.
Even a walkable community, however, generates car trips. Not everybody walks to shop in Newton Centre. Lots of people who live in Coolidge Corner drive to work. Dense residential development around transit doesn't eliminate car trips, it just creates far fewer than traditional, car-centric development.
Thinking globally and regionally, the benefits of and the need for creating transit-oriented development are clear. But, it's not so clear that Newton should be bearing the burden of the traffic new development creates*, even if it's relatively smaller than comes with traditional models. The choices at Riverside are not between suburban development and transit-oriented development. They are between no development and substantial development.
Fortunately, there is a trade-off to be made. If the T eliminated its requirement for park-and-ride spaces, the reduction in traffic volume would substantially offset the traffic generated by the site. And, just as importantly, eliminating the park-and-ride spaces would free up significant space on the site and developer dollars, which would lead to a richer, more walkable, more connected development.
Again, the city's position needs to be no deal if it includes park-and-ride.
* Development creates other burdens on the city, not the least of which is increase school enrollment. Those burdens are every bit as significant as traffic, but traffic is the scope of this blog.
Riverside and Parking, Pt. I
While there are lots of pieces to the Riverside story, it's starts and ends with parking. Parking defines the current site and parking will define whatever gets built.
The station, in its current configuration, is a T-friendly, neighborhood-unfriendly suburban park-and-ride model. There are roughly 1,000 spaces. The drivers who fill those spaces drive through Newton streets (though some come off 128), but contribute little to Newton.
Riverside Station is a big ol' slab of suburban sprawl, with all its attendant ills. (Compounding the problem, the MBTA has turned Riverside into another kind of parking lot: for trolleys. As other lots have closed, Riverside absorbs more and more storage and service.)
Park-and-ride, though, is a good model for the MBTA. The Green Line itself, like all T services, operates at a deficit. But, parking is a revenue generating proposition. So park-and-ride sprawl makes sense from a very limited perspective.
From the wider perspective, park-and-ride is a short-sighted disaster. Each mass transit station is an opportunity to create denser, walkable, sustainable communities. Setting aside, for the time being, the question of whether Newton can absorb more housing -- a reasonable concern -- these opportunities should not be squandered on surface parking to be used by people whose only connection to the site is to drive to and from.
The MBTA is, sorta, exploiting the opportunity with the planned development at Riverside. But, it's a half-assed, revenue-inspired nod to Smart Growth, not a full commitment to sustainable development.
How so? The MBTA has hobbled the developer with a requirement that the new development include the same number of park-and-ride spaces. So long as there is that requirement, it won't work and Newton should reject any plan.
It's a relatively small site. Even concentrating the parking in a garage, the parking will overwhelm the site and limit the opportunity to create the kind of walkable, sustainable, mixed-use development that the site deserves.
And, it's a site with relatively limited access. The surrounding community cannot absorb the traffic to be generated by the new uses on top of the traffic already generated by the 1,000 commuter spaces.
Newton's got to make the MBTA choose to develop the site right and give up the park-and-ride, or not develop at all.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Riverside Roundabouts II
Here, on the other hand, are two views (looking north, top, and south, bottom) of a horribly unsafe roundabout, from outside Sydney, Australia. Just think how you would navigate this if on foot or bike. If Riverside Development installs anything like this, it could create a pedestrian and bike-hostile barrier even worse than the current Grove Street bridge over I-95.
(On the lower view, that white car is about to enter an on-ramp to the Great Western Highway toward Sydney, an interstate similar to I-95. Southbound cars like that, in a hurry to get to the city, hardly need to slow down at all because the central island is so small and hardly represents an obstacle. The big trucks barrel northbound or southbound with little slowing.)
