Podcast: The End of Planning by Pitchfork in Houston

This week on the podcast we're joined by Jay Crossley of Houston Tomorrow who discusses Houston's new general plan.  It was the largest city without on in the United States, and we'll talk about how it will guide future decisions in the Bayou City.  You can also find it at Streetsblog USA.

Podcast: Matt Johnson's 101 Rail Transit Systems

This week we chat with Matt Johnson of Greater Greater Washington fame about the 101 rail transit systems he's ridden and which ones he thinks are the best.  We also talk about the origins of the #NerdTrain.  You can also see a spreadsheet of all the lines at StreetsblogUSA.

Podcast: Gabe Klein's Start Up City

This week Gabe Klein joins us to chat about themes from his new book Start Up City.   It's a great conversation with lots of insights into the things that Gabe has learned as the head of transportation for both DC and Chicago.

Podcast: Live from Rail~Volution

At Rail~Volution we recorded a podcast in front of a live audience.  We talked with Catherine Cuellar of Dallas about the arts district and her love of transportation alternatives as well as Dave Unsworth about the new Portland bridge which doesn't allow cars along with a whole host of other transit projects.  Hope you enjoy it.

Most Read from November 12th

Here are Yesterday's Top Stories from The Direct Transfer Daily

 Image courtesy of New York Times

- Do self driving cars dream? If so, what will they see? New York Times

- A sunken plaza was designed for BART, but it was all a big mistake - SF Chronicle

- The Anatomy of a NIMBY.  Seattle's housing fights explained - Seattle Weekly

Bonus Seattle Quote -

"Our neighborhoods are shadowed by tall, bulky buildings. Gardens are being cemented, trees cut down. Those who can’t carry their bags of groceries up and down the hills are not invited into this dystopia." 

Most Read from November 11th

Here are Yesterday's Top Stories from The Direct Transfer Daily

Photo-Illustration by Darrow; © Richard Cavalleri/Shutterstock

- TRB Research: Linking Transit Agencies and Land Use Decision-Making Guidebook

- Boating is cool in Venice, Not so cool in Miami Beach.

- Turns out self driving cars are a plot for robot imprisonment.  So says Scott Adams. 

Most Read from November 10th

Here are Yesterday's Top Stories from The Direct Transfer Daily

 

Image via Lyft

- "Dallas doesn’t principally have a parking problem. It has a downtown Dallas problem"

- LA City Council will have to revote on mobility plan, critics hope it's their chance.

- Maybe Lyft only wants to be friends with rail lines, not buses?  That's what the image says to me 

Bonus Quote

"This experience has let me know that architecture can speak to and touch people and change things, regardless of what academia or what the old guard may want you to believe"

 - Germane Barnes

Podcast: Dr. Richard Jackson on Built Environment and Public Health

This week I'm joined by Dr. Richard Jackson who talks about how public health is connected the the way we live.  We talk about trees, the Surgeon General's suggestions about walking, indoor air quality, social capital in the age of the internet and climate change.  Hope you join us.

Podcast: Mike Lydon Talks About Pattern Cities, Tactical Urbanism

This week we're joined by Mike Lydon who chats with me about Tactical Urbanism and Pattern Cities. It's a fun conversation with some insights into how we can do small things to change our cities.

Weekend Reads from The Direct Transfer

Some recommended reads for the weekend or those with a reading budget. ;)

Politico Magazine dives into the topic of TOD and Evanston Illinois. It's long form so make sure to leave some reading time.

Governor Hogan has proposed a frequent bus network in Baltimore to replace the Red Line, but not everyone is happy, especially the mayor which you can see in the Quote of the Day.

And finally, if you were wondering what all the fuss is about for the Paris climate talks, Good Magazine has a short primer.  I'm sure we'll be hearing more about COP21 as it gets closer.

Podcast: Measuring Carbon Emissions at Street Level

This week we're joined by Dr. Kevin Gurney of Arizona State University to talk about measuring carbon emissions at a more human scale including at the street level.


Find out more at Streetsblog.

Most Read from October 12th

Here are Yesterday's Top Stories from The Direct Transfer Daily

Img via Kotaku

- A History of City Building Games: Sim City and Beyond | Ars Technica
 

- Better Buses Make a Better City | David Alpert in the Washington Post
 

- Nashville's Mayor Tried to Build a BRT Line, Didn't Expect the Extraordinary Opposition
 
 

Bonus Quote - Oh That Pesky Traffic

"The main problem Plano Tomorrow’s opponents keep coming back to is that it could technically allow high-density apartments to be built almost anywhere in the city. They say apartments are associated with a host of social ills like poorer school quality, stunted home values and more traffic." 

Podcast: Thinking About the Western US without a Car

This week I'm joined by Tim Sullivan to talk about his new book Ways to the West.  To write the book he took a three week road trip without a car and discusses the transportation and city planning history of many western cities.

Most Read: 82 Foot Buses for the Orange Line

Yesterday's most read article was about a piece of legislation (bill text) that would allow 82 foot buses on the Orange Line BRT in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley.  The article mentions that 65 foot buses have been in operation since 2007 when the longer buses were first tested and put into service.

Metro 65 Foot Bus via Flickr User L.A. Urban Soul

In doing some research looking for the bills that allowed the original change from 60 to 65 feet, I found a few strange things including no record of a bill passing that would allow for 65 foot buses.  SB 650, which was the original legislation, reached a third reading and was vetoed by then Governor Schwarzenegger.  But by veto time, the subject of 650 had changed.

The California Vehicle Code still says that articulate buses have a limit of 60 feet but according to the MTA, "Metro has been granted an exemption from Caltrans to permit operation of the 65-foot vehicle exclusively on the Orange Line transitway."

So they finally passed the bill to make 82 feet totally legal, without exemptions, and with 17 extra feet.

This bill would authorize the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to operate articulated buses that do not exceed a length of 82 feet on the route designated as the Orange Line in the County of Los Angeles. The bill would require the authority to establish a route review committee prior to operation of those buses, as specified...

The question is, why wasn't it legal before?  And why an arbitrary length such as 82 feet?  Well 82 feet equals 25 meters.  So it seems as if it's cluing off of international standards. But then there are 30 meter (over 100 foot) buses used in Dresden, so I'm not sure why not go all out if they might be available.

Auto Tram Extra Grand Used in Dresden

We've seen longer bi-articulated buses in action in places such as Curitiba on dedicated right of ways and in European cities but why haven't they found their way to the United States?  If I were to venture a first guess, it would be that we don't have many lines that necessitate the length.  The few that do are on busy city streets where turning and visibility with much smaller vehicles becomes an issue.

Research in the US (TCRP 75) focused on higher capacity buses found that articulated buses or "artics" were good at some tasks but not others.  The one task that agencies said overwhelmingly that standard articulated buses in their fleets were better was turning radius.  They found however that the buses were underpowered and poor at climbing hills and fuel economy.  The under-powering in one instance led to longer running times on corridors.  Another issue brought up was maintenance, with managers saying that another axle meant more repairs and less reliability.

However a case study of King County Metro in 2007 found that the buses were more cost effective per seat mile and had less maintenance issues than their 40 foot siblings.

Safety issues reported were instances where older articulated ends had a propensity to slide out wide on turns in addition to difficulty seeing boarding passengers towards the rear of the vehicle.

It was hard to find information on buses longer than 60 feet or even safety discussions, however in TCRP 90 it was noted that articulated buses have larger turning radii and overhang.  There also is a need to have longer bulb outs and stops to accommodate longer vehicles, which of course would increase costs. Maintenance facilities need to be set up for longer buses as well and I've heard that if maintenance managers had their way, they would get rid of trains and artics and just run 40 foot buses everywhere. Unfortunately for many of them they have customers.

I know this isn't a completely exhaustive look at longer buses but I was curious about them, after making claims without researching before that it was a safety issue that was keeping longer vehicles off the roads.  It still feels like this would be an issue when operating along side autos, bikes, and especially pedestrians, but for now, this is what I know.

I'm interested to see how LACMTA will implement this new rule on the Orange Line, and whether it will lead to increased ridership, as well as increased fighting on the bus vs rail argument.  As a frequent bus and train rider here in San Francisco, I will say I will always choose the rail route if possible.  But we can discuss preferences at another date too....    

Podcast: Learning About Louisville

This week on the podcast, Branden Klayko of Broken Sidewalk comes on the blog to talk about Louisville Kentucky.  Learn about this history of the city, the 8664 freeway fight, and local urbanist Grady Clay.

The Direct Transfer's Most Read for September 29

Quote of the Day

On USC's cancelling of thier successful transit pass program

" ...this is just a pay cut for anybody at USC who has a disability that prevents them from driving and the university’s lowest wage workers." - USC Professor Lisa Schweitzer

Most Read #1

Yesterday San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee sent a letter to the board of supervisors saying that he would veto an Idaho Stop law that had enough votes to pass.  His reasoning?  He "will not trade away public safety for convenience"  You mean like the five times he's been caught doing it himself with his city funded car?

Most Read #2

Adam Gopnick writes in the New Yorker that cities just can't win.  In their lowest times they are horrific places to be and on high they are unaffordable and unjust.  But his main point is to review a book on the New York City grid.  He notes "The grid, useful as an accelerant for pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles, ended up being unintentionally well-adapted to the imperialism of the car." 

Most Read #3

Kevin DeGood of the Center for American Progress writes about three white elephant transportation projects and how they are making a mockery of the federal process.  He argues for a competitive process, I'm not sure I can argue against him. 

Bonus Read

Telecommuting works best in moderation.  Too bad we can't say that work itself is best in moderation.

Vienna's Land Use and Transportation Integration: Maritime City (Seestadt)

I love Vienna (Wien).  It's one of my favorite cities after a trip I took there in 2007 with my family. It's a beautiful city with lots of history and a great transportation network.  So I tend to follow it from afar, especially when it comes to transportation developments.

Last week I came across an article in my daily search that piqued my interest.  Kind of a short ho-hum piece about Vienna extending it's subway and tram network in the International Railway Journal.  This was the line that caught me.

Under the plans, which were announced by the city's deputy mayor Mrs Renate Brauner on September 7, three extensions totalling 5.2km will be built linking new developments at the Nordbahnhof and Nordwestbahnhof sites to interchanges with the S-Bahn and U-Bahn networks.

When I dug a little deeper, I noticed that they were doing even more expanding in addition to something that we have been complaining about lately here in the US.  Building fixed guideway transit to stoke development in the city.  

I've discussed this before on the blog with references to Salt Lake City and Freiburg, but the Salt Lake example is much different than Europe due to higher densities and strict growth controls which have left open fields proximate to European downtowns with heavy development prospects.  We don't see that as much here in the United States with more sprawling auto-oriented development patterns.

The only US comparison that comes to mind is Portland with the South Waterfront which has had its own controversies, but the comparison is still apt.  The wholesale redevelopment of vacant or very underutilized property unlocked by transit investment.

But Vienna has a stout subway and tram network so it's a bit different in that they are connecting into lines with existing heavy ridership for their subways and tramways which are the focus of development change.  Subway extensions they've already built are currently changing open fields while they build new lines to alleviate pressure on the existing system (See U5 Below).

Here are the plans for expansion. The orange are tram extensions and the colors purple and blue are U-Bahn in the expansion map below.  I'm going to talk about the two nothernmost orange lines in a future post, but today we'll talk about Seestadt or Maritime City.

The Line 2 Seestadt U-Bahn Station opened in October 2013 on an old airport site in the Aspern area after almost 20 years of planning and construction.  It's a a perfect example of building transit to an area ready for new development.  It's the furthest right on the overall plan above. Luckily google can take us through a visual history with aerial photography.

Seestadt 2003 - Home to an Opel Auto Plant

Seestadt 2010 - Starting to Build U2 Extension

Seestadt 2014 - Housing Coming to U2 Line

 Seestadt Future Tram Extension and Existing U-Bahn

 Here's 2012 From a More Aerial View (via Google)

Here's a 2014 Construction Image

Here's a current image from the developed part.

As the crow flies, this development in Aspern is only 6 miles outside of downtown.  The subway extension to this area has been in the planning works since 1994 together with the development according to the city's planning page (translated).  The extension of line U2 has been under construction since 2002 and expanding slowly outward (translated).  It's taken 11 years and now traverses over 13km (7+ miles).

The development plans are for 20,000 housing units and 20,000 jobs on ~600 acres.  Assuming a 2 person per unit average over the whole development, that's 100 ppl/acre (workers+residents).  The only problem I have from the map plan above i that it seems like instead of an extension of the surrounding neighborhoods, it feels cut off from its surroundings.  

 

What's interesting to me about this project is the long tail, but also the fact that we aren't doing this type of thing all over the United States with the exception of a few western cities.  We have trouble building transit, let alone coordinating long term development policy.  Right now places like Raleigh have to fight off the state government which continues to try and kill projects. 

I didn't have time to go down the rabbit hole to see how much affordable housing was on site or whether there were massive subsidies, but we know that some folks in the US see the development of massive roads the same way Vienna see's transit.  You might argue that we need better transit to start with but we also keep arguing about it while the roads get built and the countryside sprawls.  In fact Tori Gattis of Houston was making comments about the Grand Parkway being able to open up enough land for Houston's sprawl-tacular growth.  Hurl...

As far as the Grand Parkway being the last ring we’ll need for a few decades, remember that the area of a circle is pi * r^2. As that radius increases, each additional mile adds a *lot* more land area. The Grand Parkway will be 170 miles long – almost here to San Antonio! Assume development 5 miles on either side of it, 170 x (5+5) = 1,700 sq. miles, at 3,000 people per mile is 5.1 *million* people being accommodated out there, which is almost a doubling of what we have now in the metro (6.5 million) and definitely a few decades of our growth

Does anyone....seriously....anyone.... think that is sustainable at all??  I'd rather have Vienna's model than Houston's outside the beltway.  

We'll cover more on the expansion of tramways in Vienna in another post soon.

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Most Read: Dam the Mediterranean

Yesterday's most popular article was one from City Metric that discussed a crazy 1920's idea to create a super continent by damning the Mediterranean Sea.  The purpose of which was to promote energy through hydro-electric power and peace through connectivity.

Of course this is an interesting look back at a time when refugees are clamoring to get into the EU from Syria and other nations. The connectivity is something that doesn't seem wanted by nations that feel they are more advanced than those who are producing refugees.  Each place has cultures and customs and even the EU which is very close together in terms of space has many varying looks at culture and norms.  It actually makes me think that the United States is pretty amazing given its vast geographic space.  Though we are mostly immigrants ourselves.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't discuss the huge amount of ecological damage this 1920 plan would have done.  At the time they thought it would make Northern Africa more habitable for European settlement but it would have also created a tangible connection that wasn't by boat.  

But what gets me really thinking about this is when I think about all the ideas to fill in San Francisco Bay.  While I marvel at our ability to move land and sea in ways that are amazing, it also makes me think that we're trying to fix something that's ever changing.  The Earth is a living, breathing thing and even our bridges and buildings will be forced out of place by moving plates and changing climates.  Best to design with nature, than against it.

Podcast: Telling Stories of Innovation in Transportation

This week I'm joined by the Transit Center's Shin-pei Tsay to talk about a report they wrote on transportation advocacy and innovation.  It's a great look at things advocates have done to change transportation fortunes in their cities and has tips for those who want to make change. 



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Most Read: Are Self Driving Cars Just Us Ignoring the Real Issues?

I'm going to start a new series on the blog called "Most Read".  It will feature the most read article from the day before on The Direct Transfer Daily as well as some thoughts I have on it.  It's been hard to blog lately but I need to get into it again to put some half baked thoughts to screen.

Today's most read piece was one by Jim Bacon entitled "The Slow, Inevitable Demise of Traditional Mass Transit"   In it he talks about WMATA's declining transit patronage in the region and that part of the blame goes to the union while local government support will not be able to keep up with demands. 

He then mentions the blue state transit model failure which just seems like tossing red meat to me. 

By “blue state,” I refer to a set of attitudes that are most prevalent in blue states: a sympathy for transit unions, which means high compensation costs and low productivity; a reluctance to charge riders the full costs of providing their service, which depresses revenues; and a proclivity to seek federal aid, which comes with expensive regulatory strings attached.

I don't have sympathy for bad work rules but I do think people should be paid fair wages.  I'm not necessarily pro union when these things are blatantly wrong but since when did anyone pay the full cost of the transportation service they use?  Well, everyone pays full cost but it's just snuck out of your pocket instead of a direct charge.  As many have said before and many will say again, why do we always have to pull out the "pay for itself" trope.  We know that nothing does!  If we did our cities would look a LOT different as there's a lot of subsidies flying every which way.

When Kevin DeGood came on the podcast, he had the numbers to prove it.  Data liberalization is amazing! He found 5.5 percent of roads carry 55 percent of the traffic.  That's definitely not paying for itself  and it shows an over-reliance on highways in major cities that carry so many cars, they can't keep up.  The interstates between cities many times do actually cover costs in gas tax revenue.  Once we get into the details. interesting findings come out.

But let's step outside this often debated construct for a bit and talk about "shared-ridership revolution".  At first blush after watching the debate for a while, I'm going to come out and say I don't like it.  Sure there are first mile/last mile solutions that make sense and they can be useful in a pinch, I just don't like the inevitability of self driving cars and the demise of transit in cities because I think its short sighted.  I think Tom Vanderbilt's article on futurism pushed me more towards the skeptical side as well.  He shares points other have made...

As the psychologist George Lowenstein and colleagues have argued, in a phenomenon they termed “projection bias,” people “tend to exaggerate the degree to which their future tastes will resemble their current tastes.” 

To me, bike share isn't usually the main focus of the topic while "Ride Hailing" otherwise known as Uber or Lyft is.  But these are just more convenient taxis and they are still two tons of metal running around on constrained streets in urban areas.  People also focus on self driving cars as if they are a panacea but I don't know if people noticed that 10 car BART trains and Muni buses and LRVs are always crush loaded at rush hour.  I'm sure many WMATA buses and trains are the same way.  

That is a GEOMETRY problem that these apps won't solve because they are projecting in their current paradigm. Suburban car problems.  Kind of like lots of tech and apps being 20 year old man problems.  If everyone in a city decided to hail a self driving car, we'd still have traffic but even more of it!  Think about those 60 bus riders each in those little google cars.  Still taking up way more space! 

The problem in my mind is that we continue to try and solve issues we created ourselves in a strange circular fashion. Technologists have always been saying we are going to keep moving out and will need mobility solutions for that change.  But going back to the "pay for itself" argument and the actual usage of roads, we find that the free roads are used to the point of congestion and are not actually supported at current "usage fee" rates.

So the question for me then is, are self driving cars the next freeway? Why are we trying to solve a problem (congestion and living too far from work) with more vehicles when all we have to do now is price roads accordingly and free up land uses?  When self driving car corridors get overused, are we going to have to price those corridors too?  Did we just build a whole system that went back to the old problem because we wanted a techno fix for something that only required economics?

Cities are still thriving.  People want to be near other people.  And while ride sharing is useful in cities now, it's only useful because transit many times is not.  Guess what the problem is usually with transit and even biking and walking.  CARS ARE IN THE WAY!  Give me self driving buses that come every two minutes in a grid with their own lanes.  Do you think we'll need as many self driving cars in cities then? I bet at some point we'll even have to create congestion cordons just for self driving cars.

So why are people saying transit will be changing under the disruption of the "shared ridership revolution"?  Instead of this circular problem I feel like we're creating, why not just address the main problems?  Housing affordability and road pricing.  Tech can't seem to wrap its collective heads around those problems though because right now, those are political problems.  So let's just build a car that will drive itself. 

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Podcast: Your Brain on Two Legs with Antonia Malchik

This week we talking with Antonia Malchik who recent wrote a piece at Aeon Magazine called "The End of Walking" We talk about experiences walking around the world and in foreign countries. We also talk about the importance of your brain in motor function.

Podcast: The Urban Displacement Project

Miriam Zuk of UC Berkeley joins me this week to talk about the Urban Displacement Project.  They take a look at gentrification and displacement in the Bay Area.  Definitely have a listen.

Podcast: Remaking California's Transportation System

This week I'm publishing a audio series that I did for the NRDC Urban Solutions program that discusses California's greenhouse gas policies and their effects on transportation policy.  It's gotten some good reviews but also a bit wonky, so I know you all will enjoy it.

Podcast: Indexing Livability for All Ages

This week we have Rodney Harrell of the AARP Public Policy Institute to talk about the Institute's new Livability Index.

Map Wire: A Change in the Pearl

At Reconnecting America we looked into a lot of streetcar projects.  For some the streetcar has become an example of the worst of transit planning.  Spending money for transit that's got a land use focus really gets people worked up.  But the maps we're looking at today are just going to look at one area of the streetcar, change in property values proximate to the alignment.  The other mobility issue is a whole other can of worms we can open at a later date.

One of the projects we worked on was looking at the value capture potential of the H Street Streetcar in DC.  In order to compare other lines, we looked at property value changes over time.  And as with other studies we had done on value capture, we found that values increase a lot when you start with a blank slate.

The key to creating value substantial enough to pay for infrastructure or affordable housing or anything else requires a lot of land, and a lot of land that is starting from zero or near zero.  This can mean vacant parcels or underutilized parcels which I discussed in the last map post. 

The maps below show two 6 year periods of the Pearl District, and you can see distinctly a lot of value being created where the vacant property of the rail yards were located West of the Post Office property.  It was interesting to see the changes after buildings were constructed.  I'd be interested to hear what others think of the maps.  You can find similar ones for Seattle and Tampa in the Map Room.  It would be interesting to look at the property value change now in 2015 vs 1997 when the streetcar plan was announced. 18 years is a good period of time to see what happened.

  [PDF 97-03] + [PDF 03-08]

A New Congestion Paradigm in LA

I don't get why we continue to focus on congestion in cities as something we need to "fix".  Repeatedly we focus on congestion as if when it were solved our problems would be over.  But congestion is the sign of a successful city, and curing it as Detroit has doesn't seem to be the right answer either. 

But that doesn't really matter if we have created a better system of mobility and access.  Back in 2011 CNU was in Madison and Joe Cortright was having a discussion with Tim Lomax of TTI about their mobility report which measures hours of delay.  Confused by how they measured delay and thinking about my own situation, I noted out loud that I didn't count.  I never saw any of the congestion on the roads because as a BART rider, I wasn't a part of it...yet we had one of the WORST ratings.  It's because we as a society are often only talking about congestion on roads, and I wasn't on the road, but I had more reliable access to my job than anyone on the road.

This is partially why "congestion" in its current use is bad metric for deciding transportation investment.  We don't account for moving people around more efficiently, just cars.  And there are a lot of people that don't seem to count.

But this new plan being discussed in Los Angeles is going to show the benefits to thinking about mobility in a different way.  The old way of "congestion" would increase according to the environmental report.  The Level of Service Standard that has been used for environmental reporting would increase intersections receiving an E or F congestion score from 18% to 36% under this plan that includes increasing dedicated lanes for buses and bikes.  

In most places this is a red alert to widen the roads and speed up the cars. But under the newer more mobility focused measure of average vehicle miles traveled the plan would increase VMT to 35 million miles per day instead of 38 million which would come if the plan were not implemented.   

3 million miles per day means a lot when we're talking about emissions and mobility, showing that just because a few more interesections are more congested, providing mobility for more people has great benefits.

Of course the opposition still lives in the old paradigm and is upset. Richard Katz, a former member of the MTA board still worries about "congestion". 

"Taking away lanes, which creates congestion, to try and force people to choose a different method of transportation other than the car, is a horrible way to solve a congestion problem," he said. "Why? It creates more congestion … and people don't respond well to being forced to do things."

I would argue that we're forced to drive cars.  Our system should give us opportunities that don't involve driving.  But we know how that works in most places.  LA doesn't have more room to expand the roads, so there has to be another way.

Others are also upset at not being able to focus on congestion anymore.

"Cars are just going to sit there," said Don Parker, a board member with Fix the City, an advocacy group fighting the plan. "So labeling it a mobility plan is just not reflective of what the plan actually does."

Of course what he doesn't mention is that if cars just sit there, it's less likely they can hurt people in collisions at high speed.  Or that they aren't creating greenhouse gasses.  Or that people are finding more sustainable means of mobility.

While we don't know where the plan will eventually end up, this is an exciting move that we'll hopefully start to see in other cities over time.  Thinking less about "congestion" which we've been trying hard to fix since we started building freeways over 60 years ago will benefit everyone more.  Instead, let's think of how we can get the most people to the places they want to go.  Car optional.

Podcast: Discussing San Antonio Transportation

This week on the podcast we're joined by Trish Wallace and Jillian Harris of the San Antonio Transportation Department to talk about the cities current past and current plans for mobility.

Map Wire: Calculating Underutilized Land on Transit Lines

For Realizing the Potential: Expanding Housing Opportunities Near Transit, a report done for FTA and HUD, we looked at five transit lines that were existing or under construction at the time. The lines included different transit modes including streetcar, light rail, and commuter rail. 

This map shows the method we created to look at underutilized land, or land where the building values were worth less than the land on which they were located.  Parcel data is always tricky given different estimating methodologies and tax systems as well as values attached to different land use types, but using this ratio gives an idea of how much land along a line might be available for redevelopment.

In the maps you can see that an established line such as Boston's Fairmount has less underutilized parcels than say Charlotte.  The parcels are also much smaller.  But Charlotte, based on the maps posted last week, has a lot of industrial land.  There's also something to be said for industrial preservation, and transit lines can create a lot of pressure for redevelopment, even in places with productive industrial uses.  It's a less mentioned form of displacement that has been happening in cities with industrial cores that have been on the receiving end of a lot of redevelopment and adaptive reuse. 

In any event, this map might be of interest. 

 

[Large Size PDF]

Map Wire: Land Uses in 5 Transit Corridors

Back in 2008 we finished a report called Realizing the Potential: Expanding Housing Opportunities Near Transit.  It was one of the first times that HUD and FTA had worked together and was a starting point for those agencies eventually working together as the Partnership for Sustainable Communities along with the EPA.  You can see many of the recommendations for FTA and HUD to work together in this action plan from 2008 presented to congress.

But in the Realizing the Potential report, we looked at the affordable housing situations of five different rail corridors. I did 5 maps for each line looking at land use and housing data. The map below represents the different land uses on those corridors in Boston along the Fairmount Line, the Denver West Corridor which was recently completed, the Portland Streetcar, the Charlotte South Corridor, and Minneapolis' Hiawatha Line.  Each map individually can be found in the report or in the map room.  I believe this was put together for a powerpoint.

 

[Full Size PDF]

The interesting part is the huge difference in developable land on each line.  While Boston is a built out corridor, Charlotte has a lot of industrial properties and large parcels that could be changed to housing.  This was a fun map to make, but I must say the Boston parcel data was not fun to work with.

Podcast: Tanya Snyder Joins to Talk Earthquakes and City Kids, Not In That Order

This week we're joined by Talking Headways alum Tanya Snyder to discuss a whole bunch of issues including single family zoning in Seattle, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, folks leaving the cities they love and kids in cities.  Join us for a fun half hour of chit chat about this and that.

Map Wire: High Speed Rail Flashback

I'm starting a new series of posts based on maps I've made in the past.  Today's maps are from 2011 and feature the big hopes for the United States high speed rail program.  Due to continued lack of funding after the stimulus and blockages from Congress, plans outside of California and Texas have been slowly moving along without much fanfare.  There's been lots of talk about the Northeast Corridor but as I tweeted recently, I wonder how many New York Times articles it would take to get it going. 

It's fun to take a look back at what we were thinking about in the past.  Perhaps at some point it could be our future.

You can find the originals here [Investment Levels] + [ Project Pipeline]

Podcast: The Freeway That Never Was

This week on the podcast we chat with Brendan Wittstruck about I-755 in St. Louis, a freeway that was never built.

Podcast: High Speed Rail Lessons for California from France and Germany

Eric Eidlin joins the podcast to talk about his German Marshall Fund research on High Speed Rail in France and Germany.  Definitely check it out as there are lots of great discussions about station land uses, station locations, and last mile connections.

Podcast: Janne Flisrand Talks Raising Community Voices

This week on the podcast, Janne Flisrand, an Urban Anthropologist, Network Weaver, and writer at Streets.mn talks about which voices we are including in city discussions, community meetings, equity and more.  Join us!  And don't forget you can find us on iTunes and Stitcher.  Just type in Talking Headways.

Podcast: Mary Newsom Talks Charlotte's Appetite for Growth

On this week's talking headways podcast, the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute's Mary Newsom talks about Charlotte's history, urban growth, and transportation.

An Urban Issue Podcast Library

I started doing a podcast with Streetsblog just over a year and a half ago.  It was a way to do something without having to think through a whole blog and just have a general conversation about all the news I was finding each week with my friend Tanya.  It has since evolved to one where I'm the host and we have guests from week to week to talk about what's going on in cities. 

But I'd been listening to sports, comedy, and the usual NPR style podcasts for a long time.  Some of my favorites I still listen to today are the Men in Blazers who mix in pop culture with US and International Soccer and the Scott Mills daily from the BBC.  Random I know. 

But urban issue specific podcasts were few and far between.  And still kind of are, but the list is growing.  I though I would put together a list folks might find interesting but I also hope more will try their hand at interviewing friends and colleagues who have something interesting to say.  Ira Glass says not everyone has an interesting story, but in this world of transit and cities, I imagine most of the people who work in the field have a strong knowledge of their field and can share experiences.

I know I probably missed some so add your favorites to the comments section and I'll add them to the list.  Also, I tried not to post podcasts that were not ongoing at this time.  There's quite a few that have started and fizzled out. 

The Urban Issues Podcast List

APA Planning Podcast - his one is a little bit of everything in the planning world.  It's likely you'll be able to find something to enjoy, but it might be hit or miss week to week.
iTunes | Stitcher
 

Cascadiacast - This podcast based in the Pacific NW and housed at the Urbanist. 
iTunes


Civic Strategies Podcast - Otis White talks with urban leaders about what's going on with their cities once a month.  You can listen to it on his website.
  

Damien Talks - Streetsblog LA's Damien Newton has California guests on to talk about transportation and livable streets issues.
Libsyn


Monocle Urbanist Podcast - Monocle is a British magazine and this podcast takes you to different parts of the world to discuss urban policy and design.  I really enjoy this one because it's great each week.
iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud


Live @ SPUR Podcast - SPUR has great evening and lunchtime speaker events and they just recently started putting them together in podcast form.
Soundcloud


Urban Solutions Audio -  Audio Clips produced for the NRDC Urban Solutions program.  Covering urban issues from transportation to water.
Soundcloud


Streets.mn Podcast - Bill Lindeke puts together a great informational podcast about the comings and goings of urban issues in the Twin Cities.
iTunes


Strong Towns Podcast - Chuck Marohn sometimes talks on his own, and sometimes has guests.  Mostly they talk transportation and cities, sometimes they talk the Hunger Games.
iTunes | Stitcher


Talking Headways Podcast - I'm biased of course but I think it's pretty great.  Hosted at Streetsblog we talk about transportation and urban issues each week with a new guest.  Early episodes included the wonderful Tanya Snyder as co-host.
iTunes | Stitcher


The Infrastructure Show - Professor Joseph Schofer of Northwestern University talks infrastructure of all kinds.  Panama Canal or Bust!
iTunes


The Indy Show - The folks at Urban Indy have just dipped their toes into the podcasting waters, let's hope they keep it going.  Great first episode.
Episode 1


This is the Nature of Cities Podcast - Accompanying the Nature of Cities blog, this audio series discusses the ecology of cities.
iTunes


Transit Matters Podcast - Broadcasting from Boston about transportation issues, Jeremy Mendelson talks MBTA and more.
iTunes |


Urban Cincy Podcast - The guys at Urban Cincy put on a great podcast talking about local Cincinnati issues with a panel of guests.  Super enjoyable.
iTunes | Stitcher


Urbanism Speakeasy - Host Andy Boenau has guests each show talking about urban issues such as transportation and urban design.
iTunes | Stitcher 


The Urbanophile - Aaron Renn has various guests on his audio podcast usually connected to either his site the Urbanophile or City Journal.
Soundcloud


99% Invisible - Roman Mars and company discuss design in all it's forms.  Not quite a city focused podcast but lots of elements and one of the most popular on the planet.
iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

Podcast: The Sharing Economy

This week Brooks Rainwater from the National League of Cities joins us to talk about what city leaders think about the sharing economy. We also talk some robots and singularity. Fun times. Enjoy!

Even a 5 Year Old Knows to Skip the Drive

After getting rid of my car about 5 years ago, I often miss being able to do certain things like driving up the coast or heading out to a great trailhead. I can still do those things but now there's a bit of a mental burden to paying $10 per hour for that privilege. Of course that's what keeps me from more VMT, but I also forget what driving was sometimes like. For many it's a necessity, but also a burden. This commercial might be a good representation of the reason why younger folks are waiting until later to get a driver's license. Because while enjoyable on the open road, driving often can be a pain.

Become a Patron of The Overhead Wire and The Direct Transfer Daily

Hey All!

Thanks for keeping up with The Overhead Wire and The Direct Transfer in your RSS feeds or by checking back in to the website. Many of you are using the RSS instead of getting the daily email and that's awesome. As many of you know, for nine years I've put together The Direct Transfer Daily (formerly The Other Side of the Tracks) and for the last few months (and a year+ with Tanya Snyder) have been doing the Talking Headways Podcast at StreetsblogUSA. In my previous job there was a bit of support for these projects however now that I'm working on my own as a consultant that isn't as sustainable. It probably wasn't sustainable before but I love doing it and still do.

I'd like to keep collecting news and podcasting to share information with folks who love cities. Hopefully I can also write more at The Overhead Wire and here. My intern Kelly has been loading news and writing posts and I need to keep paying her for that great work and pay for some of my time creating these resources.

So if you're so inclined I would really appreciate your support. The Patreon is a monthly subscription donation that you choose. It can range from cents to $150 a month. That higher level will allow someone to co-host the podcast with me once a year. $2 a month gets you a sticker with our loveable Overhead Wire logo on it.

You can pledge continuing support for The Overhead Wire on Patreon here.

Folks have also been asking if they can give one time. I'm more than happy to have your support that way too. You can click on the PayPal Link Below.

So let's keep this going. Thanks so much for continued reading of our link collections and listening to the podcast. We really appreciate it and I hope they help you as well.

Podcast: Tara Pham Discusses St. Louis and Civic Innovation

This week on the podcast, Tara Pham joins the podcast to talk about St. Louis.  We talk about the music scene, civic innovation, the internet service economy, and her company's focus on collecting better data for cities.  Check it out!

Podcast: Bruce Katz Discusses UK devolution and the Power of Metro Regions

This week Bruce Katz from the Brookings Institution joins us to talk about plans for devolution in the United Kingdom and how the lessons from that process can be applied here in the United States by the federal and state governments.  Lots of great quotes in this one, so you'll want to take a listen.

The Next Big Tech Hub?

With the tech-driven growth that many places have seen, cities all over the US are trying to become the next big tech hub. Cities are trying to woo developers, incentivize start-up development, or become the next city with Google Fiber. However, Chattanooga, with its superfast fiber-optic broadband network, knows that high speed Internet isn’t the only thing that’s needed to attract tech companies. They’ve already seen economic growth from the higher broadband speeds, but they’re also trying to increase density and strategize ways to continue growing sustainably by diversifying development.

But while other cities strive to attract large tech companies, Mountain View is growing wary of them. Recently, the city denied a Google plan to build its new headquarters there, despite Google offering $240 million in community benefits for the development rights. Instead, Mountain View awarded LinkedIn the rights to develop in North Bayshore, in order to avoid becoming dependent on one big company.

There is some reason to their fears. Silicon Valley’s rapid growth has transformed nearby cities, and it’s spilling over. Demand for housing is high, and it’s driving up rents. The existing infrastructure is nowhere near sufficient to handle the volume of users, resulting in traffic congestion and constant transit woes. Bay Area cities have grown rapidly, and there is definite backlash. Even cities in the East Bay have seen dramatic and rapid development. Many cities located near BART stations have seen an influx of housing and retail development.

One developer, Lennar, is counting on the continued spillover of tech workers into neighboring cities. They’ve bought an 11-acre chunk of land in Fremont that they intend to develop into 2200 houses, apartments and offices. This is in addition to two other large housing developments that Lennar is intending to build in San Francisco. Other developers have followed suit and bought parcels of land, albeit smaller. While these developments will take over a decade to complete, demand is high, and still growing.

Podcast: Yonah Freemark on TOD

This week we have Yonah Freemark on the podcast to talk about TOD in Chicago.  How come the population is shrinking even in strong market parts of the city and what can we do about it?  Yonah also mentions why the zoning code is the way that it is and his definition of TOD.  Listen in to hear more.

Podcast: Missing Middle Housing with Dan Parolek

On this week's podcast we have Dan Parolek of Opticos Design.  He talks about different housing types that we don't often think about building such as duplexes and mansion houses.  They even put together a nifty website missingmiddlehousing.com.  

So check it out if you get a chance!

Podcast: Transportation, Festivals, Water, and More! in Milwaukee Wisconsin

On this week's Talking Headways podcast we chat with Jeramey Jannene of Urban Milwaukee about his fair city.  He discusses a whole bunch of topics including the streetcar, transit funding, freeway teardowns, bike share, and water.  So check out this week's episode and find out more about the density of Wisconsin's largest city.  You can also find it on Streetsblog, iTunes, or Stitcher.