Slow Cars When Near People

It’s a sad fact that you have to get out of your car, occasionally, and at those times you’re vulnerable if you’re anywhere near a street. -Michael van Baker

Auto Imprisonment

Americans work two hours every day to pay for their cars.

The Asphalt Sheriff

Kasich says "There's a new sheriff in town"

And that guy is Jerry Wray, a guy who worked as an asphalt lobbyist for the the past 11 years:

...Kasich tapped Jerry Wray as the next director of the Ohio Department of Transportation...

…”We’re going to be looking at the program and making sure it is the right size and trying to review it from the viewpoint of safety, economic development and, of course, congestion relief,” Wray said.

Wray also said the $150 million that current Gov. Ted Strickland in October promised to give to city transit systems in Ohio over the next three years also might be in jeopardy...

…After retiring from ODOT in 1999, Wray became vice president of Flexible Pavements of Ohio, an asphalt industry lobbying association.

Voters in the state are having significant buyers remorse about the results of last fall's election. In a rematch 55% say they would now vote for Ted Strickland to just 40% who would vote for Kasich. -Weigel blog

Cutting the Cincinnati Streetcar funding only transfers federal money to a lower-ranked road project

...John Kasich and ...(ODOT) are making an ill-informed mistake by reportedly denying federal funds to the Cincinnati Streetcar – ODOT’s highest-ranking proposed transportation project. Cincinnati city officials relayed to local media yesterday that Gov. Kasich would likely not approve state funding for Cincinnati's streetcar project due to “shortfalls in state funds.”

....the funds in question are not state funds – they are federal pass-through funds, most likely Federal Highway Administration dollars such as Surface Transportation Program (STP) and Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) funds administered by ODOT. Under federal law, these funds must pay for transportation projects or transportation programs only. They cannot be used for education, health care, prisons or other programs unrelated to transportation.

.... “The streetcar funding has nothing to do with the state's deficit. If it is not used for the streetcar, it will go to a lower-ranked Ohio road project or it will go to another state’s transportation project.”

Funding applications to ODOT’s Transportation Review Advisory Council (TRAC) are ranked using a scoring process by whether a project will achieve a more balanced and integrated multi-modal transportation system, embrace environmental stewardship, promote community economic growth and development, and leverage state transportation investment. These goals are aligned with federal transportation investment programs.

All Aboard Ohio and the Ohio Environmental Council believe that a project may not be denied these funds if the project has met all existing scoring criteria established by and if there are sufficient federal funds available.

Ohio receives about $50 million in federal CMAQ funds each year and many times more in STP funds. The streetcar is seeking $36.8 million in new federal funding.

The first phase of the $129.8 million Cincinnati streetcar earned the highest score (84) of any transportation project, existing or new, anywhere in Ohio being considered by the TRAC (100 is the highest possible score). The second phase, extending the streetcar to the Uptown area for $58.6 million, achieved a very high score of 71.5. The streetcar will be powered by electricity – a clean, affordable and domestically produced energy source.

“Why is our governor against redeveloping Cincinnati’s downtown and Over-the-Rhine areas with the streetcar? Steel rails offer a far superior path to jobs and growth and clean air than yet another asphalt road pitted with potholes,” said Jack Shaner, deputy director of the Ohio Environmental Council.

By comparison, Ohio’s half of the $2 billion Brent Spence Bridge achieved a TRAC score of only 44. And the three components of the $632.2 million project to convert State Route 32 into an expressway in Greater Cincinnati's Eastern Corridor achieved scores of only 34, 39 and 48 (SOURCE).

“The Brent Spence Bridge and State Route 32 are costly, taxpayer-funded projects that will not create more long-term job growth for the region than the streetcar,” Prendergast noted. “In the case of Route 32, it will use taxpayer money only to disperse existing jobs and residents farther out, while weakening the city of Cincinnati's tax base, increasing our dependence on cars and foreign oil and making the region's traffic and pollution worse, not better.”

Two studies estimate that the streetcar will stimulate new Downtown/Over-The-Rhine development worth $1.5 billion, or roughly 15 times the cost of the streetcar.

...TRAC last December recommended awarding $36.8 million of ODOT’s share of federal funds to two phases of the streetcar project. The first phase is slated to receive $35 million of the state’s allocation of federal funding in 2012, on top of $15 million already awarded for 2011. The Uptown phase was recommended to receive $1.8 million.

More Info Here

How Wray sees Ohio, covered in asphalt:

.

Auto Poverty

Three interesting blog/articles:

First, Steve Mouzon, the author of a blog called The Original Green has two good posts up about called automobile poverty. The first post is about the financial costs of driving, but the second post about the health of walking is even better, because he posted a picture of himself before and after he moved to a walkable neighborhood. Pretty impressive.

Secondly, I stumbled upon this interesting graphic, created by Patrick Kennedy at his blog about living car free in Dallas:
Lively City vs Empty (click to enlarge)...


Thirdly:
An article here about how some cities are removing highways:

Removal of aging highways is a strategy some cities are using to try to boost their downtown districts.

In New Haven, Conn., a mistake of the past – one that displaced hundreds, razed a neighborhood, and physically divided a city – is finally set to be rectified: A highway is going to be demolished.

...cities across the United States look to erase some of the damage from urban highway construction of the 1950s and '60s – tearing up or replacing the roadways and attempting to restitch bulldozed neighborhoods.

"For people who live and work around [urban highways], they always had huge negative side effects: They broke up the urban fabric, were noisy, and divided cities,"...

....Two things are driving these extreme make-overs. One is the simple fact that many highways built in the postwar years are nearing the end of their useful lives,... The other, is a growing faith that urban centers, including some that have been long neglected, have development potential.

Dusting + Cars = Miserable

Unfortunately, I could not stay home or walk to work today, but had to drive to a morning meeting. What a miserable mess:
 

Sidewalk Gas Pumps

This photo is of a common gas pump configuration found in some European cities. Compare this to the typical gas station which is hazardous to pedestrians.

 

 

I got this photo off of an email listserve last year and I cannot remember who took the photo or even what city it was taken in.

SF Eliminates Dept of Parking and Traffic

This news is a few months old, but interesting.

... "The demise of the parking and traffic division is good news for those of us who think that streets are about more than just parking and traffic, auto traffic,"

"The real question is has the thinking changed."...

BTW, on a follow up to the Enquirer's strange headline a few weeks ago that generated tons of mis-information, about the streetcar eliminating parking spaces, Tom Vanderbilt has a great piece in Slate on the high cost of free parking:

Minimum parking requirements are based on a form of “circular logic,” in which planners estimate parking need by looking at the highest levels of parking demand at suburban locations with free parking and no transit options. As a result, the space devoted to cars often exceeds the space devoted to humans (one study found mall parking lots were 20 percent bigger than the buildings they serviced), and the country is awash in a surplus of parking supply....

... the most invidious cost of parking lots is also the most difficult to measure: the way that they kill any attempt at decent architecture, both on the level of individual buildings and on the level of city development more broadly. Your favorite buildings, your favorite cities, and your favorite vacation destinations all have one thing in common: a distinct absence of massive parking lots. So why are these things mandated by zoning regulations across the U.S.? It makes precious little sense, and it’s high time that minimum parking requirements died a long-overdue death...

Cars Kill Daily

Car kills boy walking home from school
Funeral services have been scheduled Sept. 11 for Devar Johnson, 8, who died after being hit while walking home from school Sept. 3 in East Price Hill.

The accident, which occurred near the busy intersection of Glenway and Grand avenues, remains under investigation. Neighbors said the driver, Yolanda Washington, 24, said her brakes failed.

Metro bus rolls and kills nurse
A worker helping a disabled student from an ambulance into Woodward High School was killed Monday morning when a parked Metro bus rolled 30 feet down a driveway in the parking lot and struck her.

Skateboarder killed by car
MIAMI TOWNSHIP -- A Loveland teenager skateboarding on Paxton Road was struck and killed just before midnight Friday, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

Woman charged for hit and run:
A woman has been charged with leaving the scene of an accident that killed a 3-year-old boy in Logan Township in southeast Indiana.

The Dearborn County Prosecutor’s Office announced Friday that Christie Shackleford Grammer, 31, has been charged with felony failure to stop after an accident resulting in death.

The boy, Jack Carpenter, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, which happened around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday on North Dearborn Road between Henderson and Dearborn roads.

Cars in the Park

Several types of cars regularly drive in Washington Park. The maintenance man drives his car into the park almost everyday and parks next to the bathrooms while he cuts the grass and sweeps up. The garbage truck drives through the park emptying all the garbage cans and making muddy ruts where the paths aren't wide enough. Weekly, church groups come and encircle the bandstand while they preach in the park. And of course the police drive into the park most everyday. And all of these vehicles must enter the park by driving over a sidewalk curb, and into walk paths that are not intended for cars.

Usually the police come through around 10pm and loudly announce that the park is closed. Mostly they stay on the walkways, but this is not always the case. I can recall many times seeing the police drive into the grass and shine their lights onto sleeping people, telling them that the park has closed and they must go to the perimeter sidewalk.

I hate cars driving in the park. The only real time it is neccessary is when doing construction or emptying the garbage cans. Even then, it seems that the smaller vehicles could be used.

Of course, I'm writing this in response to the tragic death of Joann Burton. A park police officer drove over her while she was lying in the grass of the park before noon last Tuesday. I have no animosity to the officer. He was operating in a system, a society in which the car is an extension of our body, is a replacement for our legs. Although on occasion I will see officers on foot in the park, it is pretty rare. And it seems to me this is less a result of police policy and more a result of our societal agreement that cars are integral to our mobility. And this accident has much less in common with a police shooting than it does the many car accidents that happen everyday.

After all, it is common to read news stories in which someone backs over a family member in their own driveway. By all accounts, he was driving on the walking path, and decided to drive across the grass, but first had to back up slightly. In this situation, he would not have been able to see her on the ground behind his right fender.

The difference between this and a family driveway accident is that the officer is a public servant with powers and authority given to him by the city, and Ms Burton was a poor citizen with no power. Thus, the lawyers will argue the penalties and punishment.

Today in the park, people sit on benches and talk, people walk very slowly to keep cool, and there is the sound of a solitary basketball. Squirrels are eating Ginko fruits. There is cursing and drinking, but also kids playing and people joking and laughing. Life continues here after death just like innumerable days before.

Costs of Washington Park (ing)

Cars are a twentieth century reality, and so far, they continue to be a reality in this century. And as long as personal autos are the dominant form of transportation, then we must have places to park them. In the city, this often results in demolition for surface lots or construction of ugly garages.

And in any form, parking spaces are expensive. The expense is two fold: first is the actual money required to build and maintain parking spaces, and the other is the waste of land. In order to avoid the latter (the creation of huge wastelands of parking around places of public assembly such as sports stadia or places like Music Hall), garages are required.

A simple suburban asphalt parking lot is more expensive than many people think. First there is the cost of the land itself. Then the preparation of the land, the gravel base and the asphalt and lighting. Also there is the drainage. Large parking lots require lots of collection and detention of stormwater, and this system requires design and maintenance. The result is that suburban surface parking lots often end up costing $5,000 per parking space.

But when garages are required, then the numbers really start to get high. $30,000 is a standard quoted amount.

So all of this has been in my mind as I was hearing about the development of underground parking at Washington Park. The area that will get the underground parking was the location of Washington Park Elementary. It now is a large gravel lot and our local swimming pool, which sits empty this year.

At Washington Park, they are building 450 parking spaces for a cost of 27 million. The park itself is estimated to cost 20 million more, with a total of $47 million. But look at that number for the underground parking. If my math is right, that is $60,000 per parking space. Think about the numbers for a minute. At that rate, the cost of the Cincinnati Streetcar is equal to about 2,000 parking spaces!

I am not saying parking under Washington Park is a bad idea. I'm certainly not saying the streetcar is too expensive, but just look at the comparison. Cars are very expensive, and in this discussion we are just talking about the spaces to park them when they are not in use! Nevermind the insurance, gas, environmental destruction, the wars for oil etc etc. This is just parking them somewhere!

My only point is that parking is not free. Someone pays for it. In the city, users must pay for it by paying a usage fee. In the suburbs, it is paid for by the stores owners. But who pays for the sheer ugliness of a 10 acre parking lot? There are many parking spaces at shopping malls that only get used once a year. But the land is ruined for all 365.

I read somewhere recently that "the cost of all parking spaces in the U.S. exceeds the value of all cars and may even exceed the value of all roads."

Parking costs billions of dollars a year.

And all we want is an option. An option to walk and an option to for transit that supports walking and biking.

On a related note, click here to view an expensive underground car park in Budapest.

Gas Taxes Lowest in History

The subsidy of the driver continues. In USA Today:

....drivers will pay less than ever at the pump for upkeep of the nation's roads — just $19 in gas taxes for every 1,000 miles driven, a USA TODAY analysis finds. That's a new low in inflation-adjusted dollars, half what drivers paid in 1975.

....Americans spent just 46 cents on gas taxes for every $100 of income in the first quarter of 2010. That's the lowest rate since the government began keeping track in 1929. By comparison, Americans spent $1.18 in 1970 on gas taxes out of every $100 earned.

Although the federal gas tax — 18.4 cents per gallon — hasn't changed since 1993, tax collections are down because today's vehicles go farther on a gallon of gas, cutting tax collections while increasing wear and tear on highways. Inflation since 1993 has eroded the value of the tax to maintain roads.

"The gas tax isn't going to work as the user fee to finance the highway system in the 21st century," says Robert Poole, transportation policy director at the free-market Reason Foundation...

Americans Die by Car Crash

It was the leading cause of injury death in most age groups. (link is to a PDF file) Car accidents are the leading cause of death (not just injury death) in the U.S. from age 1 to 34.

Sounds Like A 5chw4r7z Quote

This quote in an article about the extreme congestion on the Cross-Bronx Expressway sounded like something 5chw4r7z would say, while relaxing on his fabulous downtown balcony:

“If I’m having trouble with my wife, I come here and watch the traffic. I thought I had problems, but look at these poor people. They sit in this traffic every day. These people have it so bad compared to me.”

Fifth Street Closures

 

One of the significant changes to Fountain Square during it's reconstruction was the replacement of a steep wall along Fifth Street with shallow steps. This change opened up the square to Fifth Street. This gave me some concern at the time, because cars can travel pretty fast through this block, and there was no barrier to keep kids or others from walking out into traffic.

But there was a flaw in my logic. The old wall supported the notion that the street is meant for fast cars, and that we the pedestrian must be separated from them at all times. The better approach is to tame the car, not the pedestrian.

To that end, Council has passed an ordinance encouraging the closure of this block on some weekends. I hope this becomes a regular event in the summer, and I hope that other ways of reclaiming our public streets are found.

Qualls’ motion will create pedestrian-friendly Fifth Street

Fifth Street between Walnut and Vine Streets will be closed to through traffic to create a more pedestrian-friendly environment near Fountain Square for two upcoming festivals; if successful, the change could be expanded to include more weekends next summer....

“Streets are really the public living rooms of our communities,” Qualls said. “This will enhance what’s already a great public space in downtown by creating a richer variety of uses and activities in an environment where people feel comfortable, safe, and sociable.”

“Public spaces don’t have to be defined by parks or squares, said Fountain Square Managing Director Bill Donobedian. “The city has so many assets that can be repurposed so we can get more out of them. If we step back and ask ‘what if,’ Cincinnati can be as exciting and dynamic as any city, if not more so.”...

Cities across the United States are working to make public urban spaces with heavy pedestrian traffic more pedestrian-friendly by closing them to vehicular traffic, Qualls said. The most famous successful example is New York City, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced in February that the city would make the eight-month-old pedestrian plazas in Times Square and Herald Square permanent. The Broadway closure that created the plazas result in improved pedestrian safety and foot traffic – a 35 percent decline in pedestrian injuries, and a 63 percent reduction in injuries to drivers and passenger; foot traffic in Times Square increased 11 percent and in Herald Square by 6 percent, according to city data. The city banned vehicles on Broadway from 47th to 42nd Streets and from 35th to 33rd Streets...

Bad Streets = Death

 

Parents of toddler killed in crash file lawsuit
The Denver Post

...Both the Colorado Department of Transportation and the city of Aurora are being sued in connection with Havana being widened in 2003 to only 7 feet from a Baskin-Robbins.

...In addition the suit names the parent company of Baskin-Robbins because the store's wall facing Havana was made of glass and did not have safety barriers....

There are many things that led to this tragedy, including the driver being high on meth, but there is no denying that the design of the road is very bad. The speed limit is posted as a 40MPH, but the width and number of lanes encourages speed. And then to have a glass storefront right up by the street with no barriers, no parking lane?

(Street view of accident location from Google Maps)

Dirty Road Snow

Snow melt is a great time to visualize the pollution caused by cars. When you see the filthy slush on the sides of the roads, do you ever stop to think, what is all that black stuff? Is it just dirt and sand? Well, the sidewalks don't ever get so disgusting from the bottoms of shoes, not even close. Seems the filth must be a combination of engine oil and gasoline droplets combined with rubbings from tires maybe mixed portions of the asphalt that are continually breaking up. And what kinds of chemical additives and heavy metals are in all these pollutants?

I don't know how hazardous all this is in the snow to us who walk and play in it, but when you realize that this stuff is all normally stirred-up and mixed in the air around roadways and in our lungs and then it is later washed into our storm sewer system and into the Mill Creek River, then you can start to see the real environmental damage done by car traffic.

Haste Makes Waste

For every hour spent in a car you will, on average, decrease your life by 20 minutes.

More Teens Waiting to Drive

In the Washington Post Sunday:

...The quest to get a driver's license at 16 -- long an American rite of passage-- is on the wane among the digital generation, which no longer sees the family car as the end-all of social life...

...Focused on tough classes, the debate team, dance and color guard... "It just wasn't a priority,...It was just never the next thing that needed to get done in my life."...

...a striking national shift: 30.7 percent of 16-year-olds got their licenses in 2008, compared with 44.7 percent in 1988...

..."In this economy, if my daughter were to drive, just the insurance would be $1,200 a year or more, and that's a lot of money," ...

...Johnson notes that his college-age children still don't have licenses. "Neither one has risen to the occasion," he said. "Both have decided that Washington, D.C., is a great place to use their 'BMW' -- bus, Metro, walk."

...Plenty of parents don't want their children driving at 16, given the congestion and peril of the Washington area's roads and the fact that car crashes are the leading cause of teen deaths...

iPhone = Car Keys

A London based company has introduced an application for the iPhone that allows members to locate the nearest zipcar type rental auto, unlock it, and drive away.

Number of Cars in US Declines

Yaaah!!:

The auto fleet in the United States shrank by an estimated 2 percent in 2009...

The decline – the first seen since World War II – was driven in large part by the recession, which sharply curbed new car sales. But broader social and economic forces were also at work, including the saturation of the American market and a declining interest in cars by the latest generation of young Americans...

Shrinking auto fleets are nothing new: in Japan and a number of European nations, the number of cars on the road either stabilized or declined years ago.

...a smaller fleet will lead to lower oil use and reduced spending on oil imports, which cost the United States an estimated $327 billion in 2007.

Fewer cars will decrease traffic congestion and reduce demand for road construction and repair, potentially freeing up billions of dollars for investment in public transportation projects...