What a stunning denunciation of the state of our transit system that we are leasing trains from Maryland, just to keep things afloat. Maryland's investment in its system is so much better than ours that their surplus markedly upgrades our regular fleet.
Really, really deplorable.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Maryland hand-me-downs
A sign that opening day is upon us
What's in the bag? A parking meter that has been installed on Beacon Street near Audubon Circle/St. Mary's Place in Brookline. Perhaps more importantly, it's just a few blocks from Fenway. Attention-paying readers will recall that Brookline is instituting market-based meter rates on Red Sox game days as a way of ensuring that there is turnover of spaces during games. Space turnover means that businesses in the area, particularly restaurants, don't suffer because all on-street parking is consumed by game-goers.
What does that have to do with this meter-in-a-bag? You can't do market-based rates with old meters. You've got to have new technology. Hence, the appearance of this meter -- and a bunch more on Beacon. They've been installed in time for opening day and the institution of the new game-day rate policy.
Friday, March 18, 2011
High-speed rail and walking to a village
One of the key arguments in favor of inter-city rail is that it will improve opportunities for air travelers.
Last year, nearly a million people flew between Logan and JFK or LaGuardia (and presumably several hundred thousand to Newark). High(er)-speed rail between Boston and New York would provide a more competitive alternative to flying, which would reduce the demand for flights. Reduced demand for flights to and from New York would up limited terminal space and takeoff/landing slots for flights to destinations that cannot be easily served by rail, basically any place outside the Northeast corridor.
If you want more and better air travel choices, encourage rail improvements to remove congestion from airports.
That lesson scales. Better mass transit for commuters takes drivers off the roads, making less congestion for those who need to commute by car. Better bike accommodations encourages people to bike rather than drive, when they can, freeing up space for drivers who can't bike -- too far, picking up kids, &c. Better pedestrian accommodations encourages people to walk rather than bike or drive, ...
The larger point is that mobility options are not anti-car (or anti-air travel). They are pro-mobility. Everybody wins.
Magical things happening in Newton Centre
Dear Mayor Warren,
Just wanted to let you know that, sometime today, a squad of bike-rack fairies seemed to have hit Newton Centre, sprinkling magic post-and-ring bike racks all over the center.
Just wanted to let you know. Could be a city-wide epidemic.
Pics tomorrow.
Fondly,
NS&S
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Bike lanes and priority bike lanes, what's the difference?
In light of the regulatory hurdles to "real" bike lanes in Newton, given the actual amount of on-street parking for long stretches of key roads (Beacon, Comm. Ave., Walnut, Parker, Langley, &c.), and given the necessity to provide more explicit bike accommodation than striped shoulders to attract less experienced cyclists to the streets, there's a strong case to be made for so-called priority bike lanes.
In practical terms, though, one might ask: what's the difference? The difference boils down to whether the outside, left edge of the bike lane is solid or dashed. That's it.
If the outside edge is dashed, a bike lane is not exclusive to bikes. The dashed treatment is seen wherever bike lanes cross intersections or where the bike lane slots between the travel lane and a right-turn lane. The clear intent of the lane, even when dashed is to provide a safe haven for bicyclists. It's just not as rigidly exclusive.
Where parking is currently allowed, but rarely used, the priority bike lane should be superior to the striped shoulder. It should be just as effective at keeping cars in the travel lane and out of the shoulder. It should be more effective at delineating space for bicycles, attracting inexperienced cyclists. And, if anything, it should act as a mild discouragement for the otherwise legal parking.
A net win that can be accomplished without regulatory change.
Is a "real" bike lane preferable? No question. Better to have parking prohibited, even where it's rarely used -- maybe especially where parking is rarely used, since there's little downside. But, the difference isn't worth the fight. Not now, at least. Put in priority bike lanes, which will improve accommodation and spur ridership growth. Revisit the issue when the demand is higher.
Friday, March 4, 2011
How bikes and legal parking can co-exist
Alex: Priority bike lanes.
Watson: What is the solution to the conflict between parking regulations and traditional bike lane rules?
As I discussed below, there are long stretches of Newton streets on which we want to have bike accommodations where there isn't a lot of parking, but parking is legal and the street is not wide enough for travel lanes, bike lanes, and parking in the shoulder. Because parking is legal, bike lanes are not permissible. (Note, some of these same roads have stretches where parking is legal and regularly used (at least during the day). Those stretches are a different case.) And, striped shoulders -- legal for parking and separate space for bikers where no one actually parks -- are not sufficient accommodations to attract new riders to the streets.
In sum, we've got shoulders that are currently available for biking and for parking, but without real demand for the parking and no way to make it more inviting to ride in them.
The answer to the problem is some sort of hybrid treatment of the shoulder that designates it's a place for bikes to ride, but also acceptable for parking. Putting a sharrow in the shoulder isn't a good idea, because sharrows designate -- as the name suggests -- a shared space for moving cars and moving bicycles. We don't want to create an invitation for cars to drive in the shoulder.
But, priority bike lanes might work. Priority bike lanes are, essentially, bike lanes with the bike lane stencil, but using dashed lines rather than solid lines to demarcate the lane. Priority bike lanes indicate to bicyclists and motorists where bikes are expected to travel and where motorists are supposed to yield to bicyclists. They are typically used where there is no other facility for bikes and bicyclists need to ride in the travel lane. They set out a space for bikes that cars may also use.
For the problem of the regulatory conflict on our street's shoulders, they may be perfect. Because they define a shared space, there is no need to undo parking regulations to install them. The combination of the striped line and the stencil should provide motorist with notice to expect bikes and to be careful. The stencil will invite the less advanced rider. And the dashed line will allow the accommodation to co-exist with the seldom used right to park.
There may be some design niceties about whether it might be good to bring a priority bike lane a little into the travel lane, But, otherwise, that's it: a bike lane with a dashed line rather than a solid line. The answer to the regulatory conflict that prevents us from taking full advantage of the space in the shoulders.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Paying for paving
We're wrapping up a winter with unusually high snow removal costs. And, we've got an epidemic of potholes that are going to have to be fixed.
This might be a good time to reflect on the fact that maintaining a traffic infrastructure costs serious money and that we expect road conditions that exceed our willingness to pay for them. It's time for a higher gas tax, with a distribution to municipalities for roadway maintenance based on traffic volumes and a significant distribution for transit and other alternative transportation.
What's the real conflict between bikes and parking?
It is an article of faith that, in Newton, there are two major impediments to bike accommodations: too narrow streets and legal parking. Combine them and they eliminate the possibility of bike lanes. There just isn't room in the right of way for travel lanes, bike lanes, and parking. That requires at least 20' -- 9' travel lane, 4' bike lane, and 7' parking shoulder -- and more like 23' in each direction. So it's posed as an either or: bike lanes or parking.
But, maybe things aren't as bad as they seem.
Along the streets where parking is principally overflow parking, there is no real competition for space between bikes and cars. The shoulder is predominantly available for cycling and a striped shoulder separates bikes from traffic pretty well. But, because of regulation, that nice space for biking can't be designated as an official bike lane. A bike lane can't be striped where cars can legally park.
For long stretches, it isn't a conflict between actual cars and actual bikers, but a conflict of regulations.
On those long stretches of road, why isn't a striped shoulder enough? From my own experience (principally on Beacon and Winchester) the stripes keep the cars out of the shoulder. But, the goal is broader than making life safer for the bikers on the road now. We want to encourage more riders. And, unfortunately, the stripes don't attract new bikers to the shoulder.
Less advanced riders, the riders we need to attract to our city streets, don't feel comfortable without more explicit bike accommodations.
So, what are we to do? One option is to disallow parking, at least from the stretches where parking is infrequently used. That's certainly a better balance of accommodation for bikes and cars: full time access for bikes at the expense of occasionally used parking. But, it invites a political battle.
What if there were a way to create bike accommodations that attract new riders without taking on the parking regulations? The answer lies in this bit of reality. If the regulations did allow parking and a bike lane to co-exist on these up-for-grabs stretches of road, the actual incidence of parking wouldn't be too much of a concern. Occasionally, a biker would have to go out into the road. Not ideal, but much better than what we have now. And, not too different than what you see with the occasional illegally parked car in official bike lanes in other cities.
Next up: the solution.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Riverside lot not for Newton residents
Natick man got a ticket from Wellesley the day he parked in Newton, in the Riverside lot. Funny story. Wellesley town staff used a hand-held ticketing scanner, supposedly coded not to issue tickets, to do a license-place survey of cars in the Riverside lot. But, they accidentally issued tickets on the surveyed cars.
Why is Wellesley doing a survey of an MBTA lot in Newton? Because the town wants to know the transportation choices that its residents make. And, enough of them are presumably using the Riverside lot to matter. And, apparently, folks from Natick, too.
How, exactly, is this good for Newton?
Saturday, January 8, 2011
How the aldermen helped kill the Atrium
The Atrium has a bunch of flaws*, but when you ask people why they don't like to shop there, the number one complaint is parking. Not "they don't have any stores I like." Parking. It was parking when there was William-Sonoma and other now gone stores were there. It was parking when the economy was humming along.
Parking. Parking. Parking.
People hate it.
But, when you consider the Atrium from a land-use perspective, the number one thing it's got going for it is parking. It's a building with over 100,000 square feet of retail space and around 20 surface parking spaces. It's a giant parking structure with a few stores above it. By comparison, the first phase of Chestnut Hill Square is going to have just under 250,000 sq. ft. and 699 surface parking spaces. To be fair, the planned but not guaranteed second phase will have a 300+ space parking garage when the 90-100 residential spaces are built. And, the second phase will eliminate about 100 surface spaces. But, in the end it'll be about 600 surface spaces.
So, what's the board got to do with this?
In a not-even-perfect world, we'd have a lot more structured parking. Surface parking encourages sprawl, creates run-off problems, &c. But, structured parking is at least marginally less appealing for shoppers who drive. So, a mall -- like Chestnut Hill Square or the Mall at Chestnut Hill -- will be a more appealing option than something like the Atrium, which is served almost exclusively by a parking garage. When Land Use and then the full board capitulated to New England Development's one-less-surface-space-and-we-walk threat**, they not only doomed Chestnut Hill Square from a land-use perspective, but they made things worse for the Atrium in this particular regard. It's not only a competing mall within spitting distance, it's a competing mall with more surface parking.
Obviously, this is a regional problem. Making more structured parking at Chestnut Hill Square wouldn't undo the attraction of the surface parking at the Mall at Chestnut Hill or the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center or any of the dozens of surface-parking surrounded shopping options in the area. But, it sure would have been nice if the board had not reduced the incentive to provide structured parking.
* Pedestrian access across the front is awful. The wall along Florence Street is inhospitable. No open space. Possibly even not enoughsurface parking.
** The irony, of course, is that New England Development built the Atrium and it's underground parking garage, which undoubtedly cost 2 or 3 times per parking space what an above-ground garage would cost, and built it with far more capacity then has ever been met by demand.
Monday, December 13, 2010
The bridge is out of the bag
Shots of the Lower Falls bridge now that it is fully stripped and painted and no longer in a baggie.
In the last shot, the wood under the tarp appears to be the new surface for the bridge.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Alderman Baker is good at what he does
Watching Lisle Baker at work last night, I couldn't help but wish that he and I shared the same values. More so than any of his colleagues, he's willing to say I'm not happy with what I see and I want an answer or change. He's civil. He's well-prepared.
Most importantly, he's patient and tenacious. He doesn't get discouraged or distracted if the first answer he gets is not an answer he likes.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Drive-thru open space
Though the rezoning that New England Development requested for the Chestnut Hill Square site will not obligate them to provide open space, there is universal recognition that open space is important enough that they ought to provide a little on a site that may include up to 100 residential units. It's important even if there end up being no residential units.
The open space provided is really inadequate. The measure of its inadequacy is the lengths NED goes to take credit for open space. Here's the open space map provided by NED:
A will probably be a nice little space. Too small to really act as a "garden" for the 100 residential units, but a real open space. Note, however, that it could only be open space. Squeezed between the apartment building to the right and the parking lot to the left, it's a leftover squib of land. There's no way it could be developed.
B is a pedestrian plaza. It's all hardscape. And, its virtues are likely oversold. But, it's arguably open space.
C and D are a stretch. They are primarily passages between the two buildings on either end of the parking lot. Such passages are a good enough feature that we should overlook the fact that they too are oversold as open space, in this case as potential gathering spaces.
E is too small to matter. I hope that it functions as a lively outdoor cafe, as advertised.
It's F and G, though, that really take the cake. They are bigger together than either the garden or the plaza. Take them off and the paucity of open space would be glaring. You can understand the developer's desire to have them on the map. But, calling them open space is an insult to the city.
Take a closer look. Click on the picture to see it full sized. Then come back. The unshaded part is F.
It's the world's first drive-thru open space! A car-centric innovation brought to you first in Newton.
It's part of the driveway. It includes parking spaces. Handicap, to be sure, but parking spaces. You can't get to a a quarter of the upper lot parking spaces without driving through one or the other of these so-called open spaces. No one will or could linger without getting run over. You might as well call all of the parking lot open space.
Again, there's no explicit legal requirement to provide open space. But, the developer wants a zoning change and a special permit to build what it's building. And open space is a quid pro quo for that very valuable benefits that the zoning and special permit confer. So, the board order (in its draft form), includes language stating that the site has open space. And, by recommending the board order, six of the city's alderman consider this open space. Paved. Parking lot. Driveway.
Sidewalks on Boylston St.
At the Land Use meeting on Tuesday, city attorney Ouida Young got into a heated exchange with Alderman Deb Crossley about a draft board order finding related to pedestrian accommodations. At one point, Young said that Route 9 is not pedestrian-friendly and never will be.
The comment is unfortunate on at least four levels.
First of all, it's not accurate. There are parts of the corridor that are quite pedestrian-friendly. Here's the situation in front of the Capital Grille. Decent sidewalk. Huge grass berm. Wide shoulder before the travel lane.
Second, it is dismissive of or ignorant of the fact that, regardless of the quality of sidewalk, people use it.
Not caring about pedestrian accommodations is a real screw-you to the people who use those sidewalks by people who only drive on Route 9 and cannot imagine walking beside it.
Third, it fails to acknowledge that the Chestnut Hill Square proposal doesn't just fail to provide good pedestrian accommodations, it makes the existing conditions much worse. Here's a picture of the sidewalk in front of the site. Again, wide shoulder, a grass berm, decent sidewalk.
Here's a picture from NED's materials. NED has since agreed to put a berm between the sidewalk and the roadway, but the berm is no wider, the sidewalk is no wider, and the shoulder will now be an active turning lane for a large portion of traffic into the site. Bottom line: the situation is worse.
In front of David's, as the NED rendering shows, it's much worse. The roadway widening eliminates or (possibly) reduces a very wide berm.
Fourth, it's not consistent with what many of us understand is the city's policies on promoting pedestrian mobility. It is critical that we make it easier and more attractive to walk around our city. Car traffic is destroying our quality of life. It's killing the planet. The infrastructure needed to support our car dependence creates sprawl. We have to take every opportunity possible to actively promote walking.
No, Route 9 is not the most attractive place in town to take a stroll. But, it is a tremendous opportunity, nonetheless. There are people, lots of people. It's the densest residential area in the entire city. There are destinations. The Mall at Chestnut Hill, the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center (lower mall), the shops on Boylston across from the shopping center, the Atrium, Barnes & Noble and Milton's, Hammond Pond, MIshkan Tefila, Webster Conservation, Longwood station, &c.
If we connect those people and places, if we create a network of really good pedestrian accommodations, we can get people out of their cars. Not all of them. Not all the time. But enough to make a difference.
Route 9 and its traffic is an impediment, but there is no reason to give up on making a walkable district. In fact, if anything, Route 9 and its traffic should be a constant reminder of why we need to promote walking.
So, it's incredibly discouraging to hear from city staff, the lead negotiator on the board order that's going to define New England Development's responsibilities, that promoting pedestrian mobility on Boylston St. is a waste of time.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Land Use fail on Chestnut Hill Square
On the substance, there's lots to say about tonight's 6-2 Land Use vote to recommend a board order granting a special permit to New England Development, but here are three little bits of atmosphere that give a sense of why there wasn't a better outcome:
- The board order includes and makes reference to a site plan that counts as open space active parts of the site driveway, as in space that cars will regularly drive through
- City Attorney Ouida Young got into a heated debate with Alderman Deb Crossley, arguing that Route 9 is not pedestrian-friendly and won't be pedestrian-friendly
- The three Ward 6 alderman were non-participants in the discussion, despite the site's proximity to and impact on the neighborhood
A thoroughly discouraging outcome.
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