Are banks a roadblock to walkable development?

Derek P. Jensen brings us this article on the only thing holding up transit-oriented and New Urbanist development in Salt Lake City: banks.  One of the biggest issues with banks is that their lending practices stress an abundance of parking, while one of the main purposes of these types of development is to reduce parking and encourage other modes of transportation.  Salt Lake City is having a hard time getting financing for the gateway district, which is expected to host a new TRAX light rail line and become a vibrant, walkable, 24-hour community, despite a number of local success stories in TOD.  Council Chairman Carlton Christensen explained that, even in the transit haven of Portland, early investors “had to have their hands held,” and the Council has the responsibility to educate investors.  Local builders agree; even after a tour of Portland and a conversion to the value of mixed-use development, they say they still have trouble finding financing.  Michael Morris of Zions Bank says that banks would be willing to be flexible if long-term investors were comfortable with less parking, but he doesn’t see that happening. “I don’t know if public transportation or fuel efficiency or the green movement is going to change that in the near term,” he says.  Apparently he’s never been to San Francisco, Portland or Washington, DC, or heard of Vauban, Germany or other communities making a lot of money off of green transportation and TOD.  Some people think that Salt Lake City is still a car culture city, but TRAX is already changing that, and as it expands, so will TOD.  Bruce Bingham, whose company is nearing completion of an office tower near the Gallivan Plaza TRAX station, deliberately scaled back the parking at his project because he knows that TRAX will  bring in workers without bringing in cars. “So far, it’s proven out that the TRAX stop is going to compensate for a lack of excess parking,” he says.  “The same conditions would exist for any transit-oriented development near a TRAX stop.”  He also says that developers shouldn’t worry about a lack of parking downtown. “The myth that there is a lack of parking in Salt Lake is just that: a myth.”  I hope that the continued success of TOD in Salt Lake City and elsewhere will soon convince lenders that these projects are worth their money.

Frightening Future for Island Traffic

Maura Yates brings us this story on the traffic on Staten Island, which is bad and getting worse.  Projections show a 35 percent growth in traffic in the next twenty years.  The story mentions an individual who moved to the island from Brooklyn and, at 29, took her driver’s test for the first time, because she will need a car for the first time in her life now that she lives on Staten Island.  There has been a ten percent increase in car registrations in the last decade.  To alleviate some of that congestion, Jonathan Peters of the College of Staten Island is encouraging transit-oriented development.  Unfortunately, Staten Island is the least transit-oriented of the boroughs.

Part of Staten Island’s problems are its streets.  Although it does have much greater connectivity than your average suburb, there are quite a few loops and lollipops in the system, and the large park in the center of the island, though an absolute asset to the community both of the island and the city at large, doesn’t help with road connectivity.  Staten Island also is very dependent on freeways to funnel traffic in and out.  This is partially due to a problem with external connectivity.  There are only four bridges and a ferry that connect the island to the rest of the city and to New Jersey, and only three of these options lead conveniently to Manhattan, where many of the residents work.

Another part of the problem is transit coverage.  The Staten Island Railway does a fine job of connecting the island together and routing commuters to the Staten Island Ferry, but it doesn’t connect to other rail transit systems throughout the area.  The bus system has pretty good coverage, but is too slow for many commuters.  The buses only drop people off at the ferry, which means that people would have to switch transportation systems to complete their journey, and every time you have to switch systems it makes people more likely to drive.  The subway in Brooklyn or the light rail in Bayonne is a similar story.  If someone has to ride the train to a bus stop to a subway station to get to downtown, they will probably drive instead.

There are a variety of solutions that Staten Island could pursue.  They could encourage TOD, as well as greater connectivity and infill development.  If the cities of New York and Bayonne and the states of New York and New Jersey are willing to spend some money to fix the problem, there are a number of ways they could improve the transit system.  One of the most effective would probably be to link the Staten Island Railway to the city subway.  The easiest way to do this would be to tie into the 95th Street-Bay Ridge Station in Brooklyn, either by adding a deck or taking a lane on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge for trains, or by building another bridge near the Narrows Bridge.  This would require the least amount of track and would probably make for the fastest route, but it would be either very expensive or impossible to refit the Narrows Bridge, and very expensive to build a new bridge and to but up the properties needed on either side and tunnel down to the station.  Not to mention possibly ruining the view of the Narrows Bridge.

Another option would be to connect the Staten Island Railway to the light rail in Bayonne.  The shortest route with the least amount of track would be from the Ferry to the industrial area on the southeast of Bayonne, but this would mean the construction of a new bridge and conflict between passenger and freight rail.  Another route could take it on or near the Bayonne Bridge, but this would require a lot more rail being laid and a lot more properties being bought, and still may need a new bridge.

Fixing Staten Island’s traffic and transit problems won’t be an easy or a quick job, but it would help the island deal with intense growth over the next few decades and could make for a more sustainable lifestyle.

Design plans revealed for land at Laurel Park

Janene Holzberg brings us this story on plans for a transit-oriented development in Laurel, outside of Baltimore, MD.  The plan includes mixed-use buildings that could be up to ten stories.  The buildings will have 775 residential units, 650,000 square feet of office space, and 120,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.  The development will be behind existing buildings on nearby US 1, and will go to the county border.  The development will be built around the Laurel Park MARC station.  These plans finally come five years after the area was zoned for TOD.  Jeff Hayes, the developer, wants to create a “smart-growth community unto itself,” and to “encourage people to get out of their cars, walk around and enjoy what’s being developed there.”  The entrance road will be redesigned to function as an urban boulevard.  This development is hoped to spur more development along the US 1 corridor.  It’s good to see TOD happening in more suburban communities, and I hope that this project gets built and does help to revitalize the corridor and set a good example for the surrounding area about how to use MARC stations.

Free Parking Versus the Free Market

In this article, Eric de Place calls on conservative think-tanks to address an issue that they rarely have: public parking.  This issue is rarely fought by conservatives, but in reality, it embodies many of the things that make their collective skins crawl: distortion of the free market; government intervention through minimum parking requirements; and an economic burden, especially on those who are taxed for parking but don’t use it, and on those who are required to build parking when they could make more money by developing the property in another way.  He suggests that all curbside parking be metered or that this extra space be put to better use, such as HOV lanes or wider sidewalks.  He also suggests dynamic parking prices that shifts in proportion to the demand.  He cites the few articles he could find on the subject, which are paltry.  He insinuates that conservatives may not be wanting to address this issue because it is generally unpopular and because conservatives generally are partakers of the car-dependent lifestyle.

I’ll be straightforward; I wouldn’t call myself a free market capitalist, because that economic theory is based on the assumption that markets are flawless and that people always make rational decisions, neither of which is true.  That being said, I’m something of a Keynesian.  Keynesian economic theory, though it does allow for government oversight and the action of a “spender of last resort,” still beleives that the free market should be the dominant force in economies, with the government stepping in when things get out of hand (Keynesianism isn’t socialism.  Look it up.).  I believe that parking is a situation that the government does not need to and, indeed, shouldn’t control, and that it should be turned over to the market.  If people actually had to pay what parking was worth (as well as what gasoline was worth), I think that more people would choose to drive less, and we would have better cities.

Resiliency and Revival: Transit-Oriented Development as a Road to Sustainable Growth

Tali Trigg shares this story about the economic advantages of transit-oriented development.  research shows that TOD can work as a buffer against economic downturn in modern downtowns.  It also “promotes economic development, enhances real estate value, and increases favorable labor access, both for laborers and employers; all of which are key tools for survival in an economically equalized playing field.”  Transit is also a much better investment than roads.  The extension of LA‘s Bus Rapid Transit Orange Line will create 210,000 jobs and $32 billion in economic output.  Generally speaking, investing $1 in transit nets you $2 in savings.  Transit projects create 19 percent more jobs than road projects.  It also saves money on gasoline, parking and land value to the tune of about a billion a day.  These urban developments also have a lower per capita level of consumption than outlying areas.  It also generates enough tax revenue to cover infrastrcture costs, something that suburbs are unable to do.  Instead of funding transit through sales tax, we need to invest in what can become an economic engine for communities.

Our Views: A no-brainer passes us by

The Advocate of New Orleans brings us this article on a missed opportunity in Louisiana.  Because of Hurricane Katrina, Baton Rouge and New Orleans have been brought a lot closer together.  As an army of planners have been working on how to rebuild the area, one of the most common and important ideas has been a rail connection between the two cities.  Most people are supportive of the idea, they just want to use someone else’s money to finance it.  Fortunately, the economic stimulus package was made just for these sort of projects.  Unfortunately, Bobby Jindal, the state’s governor, is a Republican, and opposed to the stimulus.  The plans that were drawn up by the state Department of Transportation and Development were abandoned.  Now no one is willing to pay the $18 million to subsidize the system, even though this is smaller than the sum that DOTD simply lost more than that amount last year.  History has shown us that this sort of project is a sound investment.  Louisiana had a great opportunity to invest in two of it’s largest cities.  That opportunity may be gone.

The Power of Transit-Oriented Development

Ryan Avent of Streetsblog brings us this story on the history of transit-oriented development in Arlington, VA.  Back in the 70’s, when DC was building its Metro system, Arlington was bounded by a floundering DC on the East and a flourishing suburban Fairfax County on the West.  Despite this, Arlington decided to focus growth on infill around the new Metro stations.  It has paid off.  Arlington has expereinced a 10% growth in population this decade, all infill.  Traffic, on the other hand, is about the same as it was in 1975.  Most amazing is the fact that “1,000 units of urban-format TOD housing generates fewer auto trips per day than a single suburban-format McDonalds or 7-11. You can build 1,000,000 square feet of residential TOD and generate less congestion than 2,000 square feet of auto-oriented retail.”  Having exhausted their existing train stops, Arlington is extending their transit opportunities to include a new streetcar.  Fairfax is actually trying to make the change from suburban to urban development.  They have been trying to focus development near the stations that they had built far from population centers and had turned into park and rides.  They will also be extending the Metro out to Tyson’s Corner.  It’s great to see that history has proven TOD to be a sound development pattern.

Is your suburb the next slum?

Melinda Fulmer brings us this story on the downfall of the suburbs.  The recession, high gas prices and demographic shifts have all combined to bring down the value of fringe communities.  Arthur Neslon, whose stats have been featured in other articles of mine, is predicting that there will be a surplus of large suburban homes because of a lack of demand.  Some of those will sit vacant, some will become low-income housing, and some will be divided up into multifamily units.  Fulmer uses Elk Grove, CA, as an example of a city that is slumming.  Housing values have gone through the floor, the necessary infrastructure isn’t getting built, and crime rates have multiplied.  The price of suburbs, including commuting, might make them too expensive even for low-income housing.  People have been asking for walkable communities near transit and services for years, but developers have built homes on the fringe because land is cheaper and zoning laws less restrictive.  Baby boomers will be selling their now-childless homes so that they will have less to maintain and will move closer in.  The suburbs won’t be completely deserted, though.  People will still drive far for lower taxes, bigger houses, better schools and less crime, although there are reforms that are coming about in many cities to improve schools and school choice, and if Elk Grove is any example, crime may migrate.  The suburbs that will do the best are the ones that have the best amenities and at least some mixed uses – some version of New Urbanism.  The best thing that suburbs can do is turn their oversized big box stores and endless parking lots into walkable, mixed-use town centers.  They will need to improve transportation services both for shoppers and workers in their communities.

UTA proposes high-density development in Sandy

Rebecca Palmer and Laura Hancock bring us this story on the rumblings of transit-oriented development in Sandy, UT, the southern anchor of the Salt Lake Valley and in some ways a growing compliment to Salt Lake City.  The current terminus of Salt Lake’s TRAX light rail is in Sandy, and they want to develop the area in a high-density, mixed-use fashion.  The development is facing some opposition, mostly because high density projects in Utah have historically been terrible, so high density is immediately associated with slums, and from local leaders who are afraid of the traffic increases in the area and don’t understand the fact that the whole purpose of transit-oriented development is to make people less dependent upon cars.  Currently, the station is home to about 1,200 parking spots, but the developers plan on taking 500 of those away and turning the land into buildings, which shouldn’t be a problem considering that the transit line is being extended and a lot of the people who used to drive to the station will be able to walk or drive to one that is even closer to their homes.  All I can say is that I hope that Sandy and UTA don’t kowtow to some of the conservative idiots that live in Sandy and work for and read the Deseret News, which published this story.  This could be one of the best things to ever happen to south Salt Lake County.

When the real estate market recovers, smart growth will claim a larger share. Here’s why.

Kaid Benfield of NRDC brings us this article on the changes in the real estate market that show positive indicators for smart growth, transit-oriented development and New Urbanism.  The shift from sprawl domination to some level of urbanity was already beginning before the recession, and that along with rampant foreclosures and rising gas prices could very easily continue the trend, hopefully to the point where sprawl doesn’t come back as the dominant building form.  There are more foreclosures in suburbs than in cities, and city property values have declined less and in some cases even increased during the recession.  Central cities and inner-ring suburbs are experiencing a building boom, and urban schools are seeing greater enrollment.  At the same time, suburban locations have seen a drop in their share of building permits being granted.  Surveys show that the majority of people want offices and shops near their homes, don’t want greenfield development, want to redevelop old areas, want to live in communities where they can walk more and drive less, and want more public transportation.  Only 25% of Americans want single-family homes on large lots (bigger than 1/6 acre).  Benfield argues, as many have, that a large part of this is due to demographic shifts.  We are no longer a nation of traditional families.  People are having fewer children, they are taking longer to have them (if they do), and they are living longer after they leave the house than previous generations.  People without children care less about big backyards and privacy than they do about having things to do and opportunities that don’t require a car.  We need to plan for singles and non-nuclear families as well as traditional ones.