This week on foot

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This week we learn The Awful Truth About the Transpo Bill’s Bike/Ped Loophole, and how it may reduce the amount of funding for bike and pedestrian projects nationwide. Fortunately, we can always take things into our own hands with DIY speed bumps: Traffic control for neighborhoods that don't rely on federal funding...

And we need it, since this week there was a Pedestrian fatally struck by car in West Los Angeles and a Big-rig kills pedestrian on LA area freeway. Yet at the same time a new Plan Calls for Wider Wilshire, Skinnier Sidewalks. Is LA still not understanding the importance of walkability?

If so, LA isn't the only one: in the Bay Area we learn this week about The opportunity that Apple is missing to build a better neighborhood, while Inadequate transit, sprawl cut off workers from jobs across the country and there's a big MassDOT Mistake: How Not to Rebuild Main Street.

But elsewhere things are looking more promising. As pedestrian accidents mount, Ocean City looks for answers, Greensboro police emphasize pedestrian safety and Bronx teenagers campaign for pedestrian safety, win neighborhood ‘slow zone’ from city for Mount Eden. While New Jersey's

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more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/09/4618596/big-rig-kills-pedestrian-on-la.html#storylink=cpy

2010 law to reduce pedestrian injuries sees mixed results, at least New sidewalk improves safety for pedestrians along Route 31 in the Flemington/Raritan area, and North Van walkabouts teach residents how healthy living is planned.

Which is important, because Health expert says children need more unsupervised play time--but for that to happen they need safe streets to play on, unlike in Covina where a Pedestrian struck by Metrolink train identified as 14-year-old Glendora boy.

Elsewhere in the world there's Another Sydney pedestrian run over, and they're worried about Big box social engineering in Calgary. In India we're reminded that Walking and cycling saves us lakhs per day and in Manila Realtor envisions a bolder Makati with better walkability.

Perhaps they can look to Oregon, where a New pedestrian and bicycle bridge across Interstate 5 opens Saturday in Southwest Portland. You never know. A Pedestrian bridge could be an 'iconic structure'.

Pedestrian Mall: Friend or Foe?

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Scott Donyon has a problem with pedestrian malls. As he writes on the Better! Cities & Towns blog:

The idea seemed solid. Give multiple downtown blocks over to pedestrians and, in the process, take on the new suburban malls with a compelling destination to draw crowds back downtown. Only, in most cases, it didn’t really work out that way.

Here’s why: The problem — at least the most visible one — was that we had relinquished our streets to the automobile, relegating all other users to second or third class status. We had taken the complexity of the public realm and dumbed it down into a single-use car sewer. Cars good, walking bad.

So how did we try to fix that? By doing the exact same thing, except in reverse. This time it was cars bad, walking good, which presents a similar set of problems because community doesn’t thrive in the all-or-nothing extremes of complexity reduction. Instead, the workable solutions tend to be the ones found in the messy middle ground, where culture and commerce intersect and competing interests are confronted and reconciled.

I agree that all-or-nothing approaches rarely work, but I don't believe the problem with pedestrian malls is eliminating vehicles per se. As this study from earlier in the year explains, walkable centers generally don't have a sufficient market within their pedestrian shed (the distance people will walk to get to the center) to support their businesses. Instead, they need to "import" customers from surrounding locations via transit, biking, or driving--modes that accommodate longer trips. A sustainable pedestrian mall will allow for these trips, even if it doesn't direct them straight through its core.

That's one reason that Estes Park is so ideally suited for a pedestrian-mall-type road closure: the parking lots that ring main street allow outsiders to drive to the downtown perimeter and park, then leave their vehicles behind and browse on foot. (And why is window-shopping on foot better than driving through a main street? It encourages impulse buys: you're much more likely to pause for an ice cream cone if you don't have to search for parking first.)

A Destination without a Destination Street

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We're back from a week in Estes Park, Colorado, and it turns out that it's true: you can take the girl out of the planning department, but you can't take the planner out of the girl. All week, every time we drove or walked down the city's main street (above), I felt an uncontrollable urge to call up the local town council and beg them to do a walk audit. As you can see above, while the city has made some effort to improve walkability by adding bulb-outs at key intersections and decorating the on-street parking with bricks, there's still a busy, four-lane road cutting through what is nominally the prime tourist street of a town with a tourism-based economy.

What's particularly absurd about this, is that the layout of the surrounding streets and parking have actually been designed to encourage drivers to either 1) bypass downtown Estes Park entirely by using a parallel side-street or 2) park in one of the many lots surrounding main street and walk into downtown. If the idea is to make Estes Park's main drag a "destination" for pedestrians to leisurely stroll along, window shopping and purchasing the occasional ice cream cone, why destroy the street's walkability by clinging blindly to the idea that vehicles must retain their dominance in the streetscape?

In fact, why even keep the street open to vehicles at all?

As I mentioned, the main street is surrounding by parking lots and paralleled by a bypass road for through traffic. There's really no reason I can see to keep main street open to vehicle traffic to all. At a minimum, imagine what the road might look like if it followed the model of Central City, Colorado:

Note the narrow, woonerf-style street that clearly tells pedestrians, "this is your space, we just let the cars borrow it now and then." Downtown Estes Park has a slew of great features for pedestrians (a riverwalk with pocket parks, human-scale buildings, street trees), but until the city gives up on the idea that all streets must prioritize vehicles, it's never going to be the great destination that it should be.

LA Walks Community Meeting

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Join Los Angeles Walks for a Community Meeting on July 10

Los Angeles Walks wants your feedback on expanding our current campaigns. Come by and let them know what you think would make walking in L.A. safer, easier, more convenient and more fun! Snacks and drinks provided.

July 10, 2012, 6:30-8:30pm
Downbeat Cafe (downstairs)
1202 North Alvarado St. (Just north of Sunset)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Agenda:

•    6:30 pm meet & greet
•    6:45 pm introduction to los angeles walks
•    7:00 pm dialog about 'how do you walk in la?'
•    8:15 pm wrap up and next steps

More info at the LA Walks website here.

This Week on Foot

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The big news is bad news this week, as we learn the Complete Streets Provision Eliminated From Final Transpo Bill. Yet even without the support of the feds, cities across the country are still working to implement Complete Streets projects, like in  Reno where they're looking for Public Input on Sutro Complete Street Project. Elsewhere Asheville's Charlotte Street could see pedestrian-friendly improvements, a Pedestrian plaza plan discussed in Rowlette, Texas, Shrewsbury Walkability Study Examines Sidewalks, Safety and the Santa Monica Pedestrian Action Plan To Make Sidewalks More Friendly.

Yet the federal government has some companions, like the Bikers rally against city's vote on Complete Streets. It seems kind of odd, given The Grave Health Risks of Unwalkable Communities. Shouldn't we want more  On the Road Again besides just cars?

Here in LA we've got plenty on the road--and the sidewalks too, like the Lighthearted street art delights (and confuses) downtown L.A. visitors. And those sidewalks will be getting some improvements, since Alarcon has $500,000 for sidewalks in the Valley. Even better, after one advocate shot a video to raised awareness of the problem, the LADOT promises that a Signalized Crosswalk Coming for Sunset and Vista . Of course, it wouldn't hurt to do some road dieting along Sunset also, since we know that Narrow lanes equal safer streets. From safety to where? Discussing the future of safe streets at a CNU talk can answer that question, but you'll have to check out this story to learn Which American cities are the healthiest?

Elsewhere in the world, Pedestrian bridge collapses in Lahore, one killed, while Pedestrian struck, killed by Metrolink train in San Fernando, and  Road death toll rises for the first time in a decade with worrying increase in cyclist and pedestrian fatalities. Good thing Cops set up sting to keep pedestrians safe, but can they prevent Distracted driving, changing culture leading to clashes between cars and pedestrians?

Back here in California, the 'No parking' model doesn't sell in Santa Monica, and we wonder Will Los Angeles Say Goodbye to LOS? If it does, maybe they'll send Greetings From Walkable, Bikeable, Transit-Oriented Asbury Park, N.J., where they're doing more than just changing CEQA standards to promote active transportation.

Finally this week, we learn about how Research Suggests Denser Development Is Good for Single-Family Home Values and consider Aging: A Collective Response, while we also contemplate All change – the future of travel. Hopefully it won't be a Big box boondoggle because some people out there care about Keeping the village way of life (aka the walkable one).