Archive for the 'Transit & Infrastructure' Category

The Need For Speed

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 23, 2008
in Architecture & Urban Design and Infrastructure
. 1 Comment

Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), on the insanity of intentionally engineering so many streets - including residential ones - to the standards of “safe” 30-40 mph driving:

Among the major issues, the newspaper reported:

The panel recommended that roads in urban areas be designed for speed limits of 30 to 40 mph, saying anything slower would be unrealistic and difficult for police to enforce. The panel also said trees should be planted farther from curbs on roads with 40 mph speed limits because of the danger they pose to motorists who hit them.

What strikes me in discussions like these is the weird disconnect between design and driver behavior. One of the reasons it can so often be difficult to enforce lower speed limits is that these limits are posted on roads that are intensely over-engineered. The supposed “fix,” as suggested above, is to assume that drivers are going to drive at a certain speed, and so to then rearrange the entire landscape — removing trees, etc. — to allow them to do so “safely.”

Of course, on the road “designed” for speed limits of 30 to 40 mph, they will inevitably drive faster. But then, of course, if someone crashes and kills a pedestrian or another driver, it’s an “accident,” it’s down to driver behavior; if they smash into a tree, it’s deemed poor traffic safety engineering. As the work of Eric Dumbaugh has found, looking at streets like the one above, at Stetson University in Florida, often the worst safety performance comes on the roads that are deemed “safe” by traffic engineers, while the best can come on tree-lined streets like the one above (which had no crashes and speeds below 30 mph during the five years he looked at it).

We consistently get urban speeds wrong in the U.S. In Germany, the land where speed is supposedly worshipped, the speed-limit free sections of the autobahn are contrasted by a mandatory, heavily enforced 30 KPH (that’s 18 mph, folks) limit in residential areas.

When I look at the super-wide, treeless, high-speed roads in your typical modern subdivision and contrast them with the narrow, tree-lined, slow streets in a traditional neighborhood setting, I find it curious that we’ve somehow come to the conclusion that it’s A-OK for drivers to careen through our neighborhoods at 30-40 miles per hour (or more), even in heavily residential areas. A return to traditional neighborhood design must include a return to streets designed to slow car traffic.

Preliminary Design For Magnolia Avenue “Complete Street” Makeover

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 17, 2008
in Architecture & Urban Design, Bicycling, Infrastructure, Magnolia Village, Near Southside and Transit
. 21 Comments

While we’re talking about Near Southside streetcar alignments, I thought I’d also bring you all the preliminary design renderings for Magnolia’s “Complete Street” makeover proposal, which would re-stripe the street from four lanes to two with a center turn lane, to slow traffic and increase safety, and add dedicated bike lanes. Again, these are preliminary, so details might change. Click for a bigger view:

Study: Bike Lanes Work

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 17, 2008
in Bicycling, Magnolia Village and Near Southside
. 5 Comments

As Fort Worth South, Inc. considers re-striping Magnolia Avenue to reduce traffic lanes and add bike-only lanes, a study has come out of Portland State University that shows that bike lanes really do encourage more bike riding, as reported in the Portland Tribune:

Despite the harrumphing of talk-radio hosts and the carping of car chauvinists, bike lanes do, in fact, work — and Portland State University researcher Jennifer Dill thinks she can prove it.

A year after strapping Global Positioning System recorders on hundreds of local bicyclists, Dill thinks she has enough data to demonstrate that “bike infrastructure” such as bike lanes, bike routes, and so on really do encourage people to get out of their cars and steer bikes away from busy thoroughfares that aren’t designed to accommodate them.

Three Potential Near Southside Streetcar Alignments

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 17, 2008
in Near Southside and Transit
. 6 Comments

Conducting a little research here - I’d like to present three potential alignments for the Near Southside leg of the streetcar and ask for comments from Readerland. These should not be taken as official alignments - I am just doing a bit of comment-gathering for various purposes. Inquiring minds want to know.

All three are very similar - the difference comes in the details of one part of the route. They are meant to hit all the major hospitals as well as utilize both South Main Village and Magnolia Village.

Option One - South Main to Magnolia to 7th Avenue to Terrell to Henderson to Magnolia to South Main.

View Larger Map

Option Two - South Main to Magnolia to 7th Avenue to Terrell to 6th Avenue to Magnolia to South Main.

View Larger Map

Option Three - South Main to Magnolia to 7th Avenue to Terrell to 6th Avenue to Humboldt to 7th Avenue to Magnolia to South Main.

View Larger Map

The streetcar study committee will be having a special meeting on the 24th to discuss the Near Southside alignment.

Streetfilms: National Bike To Work Day

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 17, 2008
in Bicycling
. 0 Comments

Here’s a Streetfilm about National Bike To Work Day, back in May of this year, with reports from various cities across the country. Texas was represented by Austin. Might be interesting to plan some sort of push for next Bike To Work Day here in Fort Worth.

Streetcar Study Committee Refines Routes

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 16, 2008
in Transit
. 10 Comments

Andy Nold of North Texas Historic Transportation reports on the latest goings-on from the streetcar study committee:

The Streetcar Study Committee further refined the corridor options today based on information provided by the city staff and their return from a fact finding junket to the Pacific Northwest. Prior to the meeting, the committee was evaluating six corridors for inclusion in the proposed starter system.

After discussion, Lancaster Avenue was removed as an option for both the Cultural District route and the eastside. The committee adopted 7th Street as the preferred corridor to the Cultural District and Rosedale as the preferred southeast corridor.

A special meeting to determine the exact routing through Downtown and on the Near Southside will be held October 24th. The primary discussion relating to the southside was deciding whether to route the line down Hemphill or South Main.

Personally, I’m pulling for South Main over Hemphill.

I’ve also been hearing similar things to what Andy has mentioned elsewhere - the starter route, from what I’m hearing, will likely be a line that runs from the Cultural District through Downtown then to the Near Southside. I think that’s a great plan for a starting system, and would be more immediately useful than a smaller route but still not so complex as to break the bank the first time out.

I had expected that the committee would take another session to discuss the Near Southside route. I think Fort Worth South, Inc. is pushing for a route that’s a bit different from that shown in the whitepaper, and it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of that October 24th meeting.

As I anticipated, the starter system won’t include lines like the Stockyards, TWU, and TCU and will instead leave those to later expansion. While I’m greedy and would love everything at once, reality of course means doing this in stages. I think the proposed starter route would give the system a great footing to grow on.

Streetfilms: Bicycle Boulevards 2

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 16, 2008
in Bicycling
. 0 Comments

Following up on yesterday’s post about bicycle boulevards, here’s another Streetfilm about similar boulevards in Berkeley, California.

Streetfilms: Bicycle Boulevards

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 15, 2008
in Bicycling
. 0 Comments

This Streetfilm showcases “bicycle boulevards,” in this case in Portland, Oregon. Streets that feature extensive traffic calming and an emphasis on bicycle traffic over automotive traffic. Interesting to hear thoughts on how some of these techniques might be used here in Fort Worth.

Streetfilms: Physically Separated Bike Lanes

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 14, 2008
in Bicycling
. 3 Comments

This Streetfilm shows designs and techniques for creating physically separated bicycle lanes in urban environments. In many cases, it’s simply a case of swapping the locations of the bike lane and the on-street parking to provide a barrier. I’d be interested in hearing from other Fort Worth urban cyclists on the interest, merit, and possibilities for physically separated bike lanes here in Fort Worth.

PBS NOW Showcases Weaknesses Of Car-Dependent Planning, Promotes Transit And Walkable Traditional Patterns

Published
by
Kevin Buchanan
on October 13, 2008
in Architecture & Urban Design and Transit
. 1 Comment

The new episode of the PBS series NOW, Driven to Despair, is a very well-done showcase of the problems and weaknesses of car-dependent planning and far-flung suburbia. The episode introduces us to the Schleighs, a family living in California exurbia in a large four-bedroom house. Mr. Schleigh gets up at 4:00 AM every weekday to begin his 72-mile (that’s 72 miles one way) commute before traffic snarls the freeways. While the kids wonder why daddy’s already gone so early in the day, the family is spending $1,600 a month on transportation. With the adjustable rate mortgage that helped get them their big suburban home about to go up, the family’s feeling pretty desperate.

What follows after that can be fairly described as a 25-minute ode to transit and traditional neighborhood design, showcasing people living in more traditional neighborhood settings and using rail transit regularly to cut time, costs, and stress. One resident of a walkable, bikeable, transit-enabled traditional urbanism community remarks “When gas prices started to skyrocket, we just didn’t really notice. We spend maybe $100 a month on gas.”

It’s a great video, and one of the best examinations of the problems of car dependent planning I’ve seen in a more mainstream media source. Click the link above to watch the whole episode on the PBS web site.