Coalition for Smarter Growth Executive Director Stewart Schwartz issued the following statement today on the Texas Transportation Institute’s congestion report: “Our congestion is a direct result of poor land use planning including the dispersal of corporate employers, the separation of homes from work, schools, stores and other services, and communities where the only option is to drive. The real news is that the Washington DC region now offers more and more residents options to avoid congestion and more and more people are choosing those options. The District of Columbia is experiencing booming growth and people are flocking to transit-oriented neighborhoods in D.C., Arlington, Alexandria, Bethesda, Silver Spring, and Hyattsville. Changing demographics and market demand are playing a big role as millennial and downsizing empty nesters are seeking these more convenient places where they can live closer to jobs and use transit, walk and bicycle…”
Category: Resources
The Next Generation of Transit: the Key to Montgomery’s Green Future
Join us for the Coalition for Smarter Growth’s panel discussion on the need to “invest in transit to improve our quality of life, protect our open spaces, and do our part in stopping climate change,” on Wednesday. February 13th from 6-8 pm at the Silver Spring Civic Building.
The Planning Department will be part of the panel, discussing the update to our Master Plan of Highways, which will move that functional plan beyond roadways to address bus rapid transit, bicycle-pedestrian priority areas, and MARC service.
The Coalition shares some interesting data about bus rapid transit:
and provides a good description of bus rapdi transit (it’s not what you might expect from buses!):
Photos courtesy of The Straight Line
Read the original article here >>
More bus service may come to 16th Street’s southern half
WMATA might beef up service on the busy 16th Street (S) line with a bus starting in Columbia Heights, where existing S buses often become too full to pick up passengers. That was one of the options WMATA and DDOT bus planners discussed with riders at a meeting last Monday.
Photo by Jess J on Flickr.
Every bus commuter knows that during morning rush hour, the people who board a bus early in the route are the ones who get the seats. They can get some reading or work done, or fit in one final snooze before they start their days.
But to riders who board the 16th Street “S-line” buses on the the southern half of the route, it’s not just a matter of getting a seat. Full buses pass them by, one after another, during the morning crunch. More and more commuters in that section have been giving up on the bus altogether and either waste money and gasoline on taxis and cars, or walk relatively long distances, making them late to work.
25 residents packed a daycare room at the Jewish Community Center on a cold and rainy night last Monday evening and shared not only their frustrations, but also their thoughtful ideas. Express and Current reporters also were there. Dozens of residents who could not attend emailed me their concerns and ideas, which I shared with WMATA officials.
For example, rider Mary M. wrote,
Just this week (Tues, Wed, and today, Thurs), it has taken me 45-50 minutes to get from 16th & V to 14th & I, and anywhere from 4 to 6 buses have passed the stop each morning because they are too crowded to accept any more passengers. (Also, on Tuesday morning, 2 buses that had hardly anyone standing passed us by in the cold). There are usually 15-20 people waiting at V St in the mornings.
At the meeting, S bus riders heard from WMATA bus planners Jim Hamre and David Erion and DDOT’s Steve Strauss. All 3 have a wealth of experience with District bus service. They have worked to make improvements in the past, like the S9 express bus. Rapid population growth in central DC has created challenges for bus service to keep up, they said.
But they offered hope of addressing this problem without affecting service for those who live along the northern half of the route. On Friday, in a follow-up phone call, Hamre also told me that WMATA is working on new proposals which he can discuss with the community around the 3rd week of February.
New route could serve half of 16th, if there’s a space to lay over
One possibility discussed with Hamre during the meeting is a rush hour route focused on the morning problem strip: Columbia Road to downtown DC. But one obstacle is layover space
We asked whether the route could run for only the 8-9 am hour, and therefore perhaps avoid the need for the parking stop. But the availability of a layover space is a very important part of running a bus route, the planners said. Would the elusive search for bus-length parking in one of the most congested parts of town stall this idea?
After the meeting, my wife Divya, who often jogs to Rock Creek and back, suggested asking about using the existing turnaround area on Calvert Street, by the Duke Ellington Bridge, where the 90s bus lines end today. That is less than 5 blocks from Columbia Road, and then just another 5 blocks from the 16th & Columbia intersection.
Hamre was intrigued by the idea when we discussed it by phone. While it’s not ideal, he said he’d look into it, among other possibilities. (None of those possibilities include reducing service to the northern half of the S route).
Other ideas that came up at the meeting include posting bus supervisors along the current S line to efficiently reorder buses en route, and consolidating certain stops that are very close together (at least during rush hour) along 16th Street.
We are looking forward to seeing WMATA’s proposals later this month. As soon as the meeting is confirmed, we will share it here and elsewhere to hopefully get an even bigger turnout than the one we had last Monday. Thanks go to the Jewish Community Center for providing the space, WMATA and DDOT officials for attending, and Noah Smith, who collaborated with me to organize the event.
Photo courtesy of Jess J on Flickr
Group Argues New Transit Options Key To Growth In Bethesda, Montgomery
A new group is joining the cause for transportation dollars to build the Purple Line light rail and Bus Rapid Transit system, both of which supporters say would ease congestion in Bethesda.
The Coalition for Smarter Growth, a D.C.-based nonprofit that until now has dealt largely with North Virginia transportation and sprawl issues, has turned its attention to Montgomery County and will host an event focused on the area next week in Silver Spring.
“The Next Generation of Transit: The Key to Montgomery’s Green Future” is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Feb. 13 at the Silver Spring Civic Building and will feature County Councilman Roger Berliner (D-Bethesda-Potomac), Smart Growth America CEO Geoff Anderson, Montgomery County Planner Larry Cole and Purple Line project manager Mike Madden.
The Coalition for Smarter Growth helped host a happy hour on White Flint development last week. It will focus its message next week on what the group argues are the environmental benefits of transit projects:
Montgomery County residents care about the environment. The county has been a leader in progressive planning from its award-winning Agricultural Reserve and extensive stream valley parks, to affordable housing and the revitalization of Silver Spring.
Now, Montgomery County is at a crossroads. The county is expected to add over 200,000 new residents and over 100,000 new jobs in the next 20 years. Traffic and pollution will only grow worse if we don’t give people better options for moving around. Over 34% of greenhouse gas emissions in Montgomery County come from transportation. Linking transit and transit-oriented communities can make a major contribution to fighting climate change and reducing air pollution.
But among our transit projects, the Purple Line may fail for lack of funding, WMATA needs to continue restoring its aging infrastructure, and the county needs more rapid transit connecting more places. We need to act now as a community and support a three-part transit agenda linking the Purple Line, Metro and the proposed Rapid Transit System. Investing in transit alternatives will be critical for doing our part to solve climate change, improve our air quality, support sustainable development and create good green jobs.
Join us with Geoff Anderson of Smart Growth America and Roger Berliner of the Montgomery County Council to discuss transit and smart growth solutions to climate change. We’ll also get the latest updates on Montgomery transit projects and strategize with us about how we can do our part through investing in transit.
For more information, visit the event website.
Flickr photo by ACTransit.org
Background Memo on Virginia Transportation Funding
1. VDOT is wasting money on the wrong projects. These include: Route 460: This $1.4 billion proposed new highway between Suffolk and Petersburg; over $1.1 billion of taxpayer funds, plus tolls. The current Route 460 carries just 11,000 trips per day. Coalfields Expressway: $2.8 billion for a new highway in least-trafficked area of the state. Charlottesville Bypass: This $243 million project doesn’t solve congestion and saves minimal travel time for commuters. North-South Corridor: This estimated $1 billion piece of an Outer Beltway around D.C. doesn’t address commuter needs and would add development and traffic in areas without infrastructure. Meanwhile, the state says it will not contribute to roads for Tysons, it hasn’t provided adequate funds to reduce tolls for Dulles Rail and Midtown/Downtown Tunnels, and it has zeroed out secondary road funds.
Miller gooses debate about transportation funding
Regional authorities’ idea raises some concerns
Testimony before the D.C. Zoning Commission: Support Case No. 04-33F Text Amendments: PUDs and Inclusionary Zoning – Termination of Affordability Controls upon Foreclosure
Please accept our testimony on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. My organization works to ensure that transportation and development decisions in the Washington D.C. region accommodate growth while revitalizing communities, providing more housing and travel choices, and conserving our natural and historic areas. I also note that we have been working to create and implement a successful Inclusionary Zoning program since its inception in 2003.
We are here to express our strong support for these amendments. We concur that the proposed text amendments are needed to ensure that IZ and ADU covenants conform to FHA guidelines. We appreciate that the city can take other steps through regulations to protect the public’s interest in its investment in below market rate homes without conflicting with FHA requirements. We look forward to the District developing these regulations to complement this action.
These amendments are critical to removing a major barrier affecting the IZ program. Administration of IZ has experienced a number of substantial challenges as units have come on line in the last year. While these challenges remain a major disappointment, they can be overcome. The first challenge is the severe understaffing of both the IZ program and the management of ADUs – affordable dwelling units generated through PUDs and public land dispositions. It appears that no more than one or at most two DHCD staff members manage every aspect of the ADU and IZ programs. Elected officials have touted the benefits of these affordable housing units, but they have not provided the modest funding needed to adequately support these assets. A few more staff members and continued support for adequate housing counseling services are needed to ensure that these programs have the resources they need to work with applicants and developers.
While ADUs are largely managed by individual developments with oversight from DHCD, IZ was designed to more closely manage the recruitment of applicants and the placement process. The intention was to provide greater assistance to residents in search of a home they could afford and allow them to come to one place to find assistance, rather than chase project after project. ADUs have not experienced the problems in leasing or sales of units at 80 percent AMI that IZ has. Considering these differences, and other factors, DHCD is in the midst of revising the IZ regulations. We hope this process will take no more than a couple of months. Apparently, the regulations were too rigid to respond to obvious needs in practice, such as ensuring that an applicant who enters a lottery for a for-sale unit is qualified to get a mortgage for that unit. There appear to be a variety of glitches in the IZ regulations that are inhibiting the smooth process of connecting the right applicant with the right unit. We are hopeful that this regulations revision will resolve these problems within the next several months.
You are here today to resolve one of the other barriers that we have recently encountered – the rise of FHA as the leading backer of affordable residential mortgages, and FHA standards that conflict with affordable housing covenants common among local government programs. These amendments will allow prospective buyers to secure FHA financing and purchase affordable units subject to the Inclusionary Zoning program and ADU requirements. We welcome these appropriate and necessary text amendments to the current PUD and Inclusionary Zoning regulations to improve the effectiveness of these programs and increase the availability of affordable housing in the District of Columbia.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Cheryl Cort
Policy Director
Hospital case studies point the way for Prince George’s
What’s the difference between a hospital that’s a springboard for economic development, and one that’s not living up to its potential? Answer: Design, location, and connectivity. Local groups compiled a set of case studies to point the way as Prince George’s County moves forward with its proposed Regional Medical Center.
Image from ZGF.The new hospital is an important healthcare facility for the county, and as an employer of 2,000 workers, it can also catalyze economic development in an area where new investment has lagged.
Hospital officials are rumored to be interested in a sprawling 80-120 acre suburban-style site away from Metro, likely the old Landover Mall site. The sponsors of the case studies hope that these examples of great hospitals, designed by leading architectural firms, can help decision-makers understand the benefits of a more mixed-use, compact and transit-oriented site.
Matrix of case studies. Click to view full size.Envision Prince George’s Community Action Team for Transit-Oriented Development, the Coalition for Smarter Growth, and American Institute of Architects Potomac Valley collected the design case studies. They provide examples of mid- to large-scale hospitals with footprints of 1.5-48 acres. In fact, larger hospitals (measured in number of beds) are at the lower end of this range of acres, while the smaller hospitals tended to occupy more land area.
While Prince George’s continues to pursue additional federal offices (like the new FBI headquarters), a new $600 million medical center could be one of the best opportunities to jump-start transit-oriented development at one of the county’s 15 underutilized Metro stations.
In contrast to courting federal agencies, the state and county control the decision about where to locate and how to design a new medical center. Not encumbered with stringent federal security requirements, a regional medical center offers a better opportunity to connect to surrounding uses and fuel spinoff economic activity than an FBI or Homeland Security building.
Why a smaller, urban footprint?
Hospitals must plan for growth, and a working “rule of thumb” for traditional suburban or rural 200-bed hospitals (similar in size to the Prince George’s facility) is a minimum of 40 acres. This footprint provides a suburban or rural site with room for the initial building, associated drop-offs, parking, and room for future growth. Growth is common in medical facilities, whether for outpatient clinics, specialty centers, or the hospital itself.
Seattle Children’s Hospital. Photo from ZGF.Hospitals in a more urban context plan for similar growth, but within sites that are typically 10 acres or less. This smaller footprint offers several benefits over a suburban medical campus. Connecting a hospital center to a larger mixed-use environment where people can work, shop, and live helps attract and retain highly sought-after skilled healthcare workers. By better integrating into the surrounding community, an anchor institution like this can support a vibrant, walkable, thriving new hub.
Designers also point to sustainability benefits from a more urban design and context. A limited footprint disturbs less land and reduces the heat island effect. Placing a more compact medical center in an urban hub also allows for more environmentally-friendly transportation choices with frequent transit service, and walk and bicycle options for short trips. Driving and parking will remain an important mode of access, but a more urban hospital allows for lower parking supplies, greater access for those who do not have a car, and the choice to take some trips on foot or by bicycle.
While a footprint of 10 acres may seem small compared to a suburban campus of 40 acres or more, hospital complexes around the country and beyond are developing successful, busy hospitals on sites as small as a few acres.
The just-released case studies of 11 successful moderate to small-footprint hospitals of comparable size to the planned Prince George’s regional medical center share 3 common success factors: access, flexibility for future growth, and a connection to the surrounding environment.
Success factor: Access
An important factor for any healthcare facility is convenient and easy access to and from the site. High-quality public transportation, stores and services, and housing within walking distance create opportunities for staff and visitors to get outside the hospital while still being nearby, and enable some to come and go without having a car.
Access to Champ de Mars medical center. Image from CannonDesign.Several of the examples in the report show major hospitals that are integrated into city blocks. Hospital staff and visitors have easy access to a local services and transit options. For example, the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center is a 448-bed hospital, 7 stories tall situated on 3 acres of land. Within a block is the Red line light rail station and major bus routes.
GWU hospital entrance. Photo from Smithgroup JJR.Closer to home, the 6-7 story, 371-bed George Washington University Hospital occupies 2 acres. The front door of GWU Hospital opens onto the busy entrance of the Foggy Bottom Metrorail station and is embedded in a thriving urban district that mixes health, university, private office, retail and housing uses in a highly walkable, transit-accessible environment.
Medical facilities woven into the fabric of a larger mixed-use district served by transit can have an advantage when competing for medical professionals who desire to be in a lively, diverse place, and need flexibility with their commutes in a two-worker household.
Success factor: Flexibility for future growth
While suburban hospitals are typically designed with extra acreage to accommodate future growth, urban medical centers can anticipate similar growth, but plan smartly within a more constrained footprint.
Main entrance, American Hospital Dubai. Image from AECOM.Planning a smaller-footprint facility guides planners to take into account their overall surroundings, making better use of pedestrian connections to the surrounding community and supporting services. In the case of both the vertical high rise addition to Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, with the 260-bed Bunting Center inpatient hospital on 1.5 acres, and the 350-bed American Hospital Dubai campus on 11 acres, planning for growth accounted for the sites’ larger surroundings.
The hospital designers from AECOM point out that an urban design and location provides significant advantages in offering the ability to walk to a nearby restaurant to avoid yet another meal at the hospital cafeteria or the convenience of staying at a nearby hotel for someone visiting a sick relative.
Success factor: Connection to green spaces
Numerous studies show that access to outdoor places and views of green spaces create a state-of-the-art healing environment. But urban hospitals don’t need to concede healing green features to their suburban and rural counterparts. Roof gardens, courtyards, and natural light are all achievable in small-footprint hospital centers.
Roof garden view, Bunting Center at Mercy, Baltimore. Rendering from AECOM.The centerpiece of the Bunting Center at Mercy Hospital healing environment is a multilevel roof garden, accessible on various floors and overlooked by room occupants above the midway point along the rise of the building. The 9th floor garden offers direct access from the ICU waiting room.
On the 28 acre campus of the 600-bed Seattle Children’s Hospital, 41% of the campus is dedicated as open space. Pedestrian paths are provided throughout the facility to promote walking and offer outdoor connections.
Innovative design and urban context show the possibilities
The 11 case studies offer examples of innovative architectural design, connectivity to the surrounding context, access to transit, green features and compact footprints. These features highlight how a regional medical center for Prince George’s and Southern Maryland could establish a new leading healthcare facility that not only attracts the staff and patients it needs to succeed, but fits into a larger district that thrives on the influx of activity.
Photos courtesy of Greater Greater Washington. Read the original article here.
Congestion Pricing Draws Skepticism From Area Commuters
Commuters are skeptical that congestion pricing will reduce traffic congestion in the metropolitan Washington area, according to a study released Wednesday by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board. Instead, they prefer alternatives to driving, in the form of commuter rail, express bus service, or bicycling and walking, the study found.
“They really want to make sure that there are clear benefits,” says TPB planner John Swanson. “That it’s going to fund new transportation alternatives, better transit, bikes, peds, all those new improvements, but particularly transit and high quality bus.”
The 65-page report (pdf) weighed the attitudes of 300 area residents from Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Study participants were asked to consider three scenarios: 1) placing tolls on all major roadways including interstate highways; 2) charging a per-mile fee measured by GPS systems installed in cars; and 3) creating priced zones similar to London that would charge motorists to enter a designated area. The scenarios received tepid support.
For many, driving not a choice
The study participants spoke of congestion in personal terms: in family time robbed, or the stress of dealing with incessant traffic. To most commuters, driving is not a choice.
“The availability of other options besides driving — such as transit, walking and biking — increased receptiveness to pricing,” the report states. “Participants also spoke favorably of proposals that would maintain non-tolled lanes or routes for those who cannot or do not want to pay.”
Transit advocates see the report as validation.
“What’s most interesting about this report is that it was an effort to seek public support for congestion pricing, but what it documented was the much stronger support for transit and improvements in how we plan land use in order to give people more choices to get around,” said Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
Changing attitudes on gas tax
The study’s authors — the TPB partnered with the Brookings Institution — found that respondents favored raising the gas tax as an easier, fairer alternative to implementing a congestion pricing program.
The gas tax “is a hidden fee,” said Swanson. “We learned that people actually like that. There is a general sense of the invisibility of the gas tax being a problem and potentially a benefit, something that’s strangely attractive to people.”
Participants by-and-large identified transportation funding shortfalls as a critical problem, yet expressed doubts the government would make the right choices if additional revenues were made available through congestion pricing.
“I think people get that there is a lack of funding. They also get the fact there are a number of other problems. There aren’t alternatives,” says TPB board member Chris Zimmerman.
Zimmerman, whose background is in economics, is unsure congestion pricing would even work.
“Even if you are paying a gas tax, it’s not related to your use of any particular road,” Zimmerman said. “An economist looks at that and says of course you are going to get inefficiency and congestion.”
The Washington region saw two major highways shift to congestion pricing in 2012. The ICC in Maryland charges variably priced tolls; the 495 Express Lanes charge dynamically priced tolls and offer free rides to HOV-3 vehicles.
In the case of the Express Lanes, the state of Virginia will not receive toll revenues for 75 years per its contract with its private sector partner, Transurban.It remains to be seen if the new toll lanes will ultimately reduce congestion in the heavily traveled corridor. The ICC also has its critics more than one year after the first tolls were charged, with critics noting the road is underused.
Read the original article on WAMU.
Photo courtesy of Michael Galvosky.
Smart Growth Forum Reveals Stunning Land Value Increases in DC
On Tuesday night, the Coalition for Smarter Growth kicked off their Walking Tours and Forums series with a discussion about walkable neighborhoods. Chris Leinberger of Locus Development, Ed Lazere of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute and David Bowers of Enterprise Community Partners met to discuss affordability and access issues in urban, walkable neighborhoods. In DC, as well as other cities, walkable urban areas are becoming more desirable than sprawling suburban ones, and the rapid increase in land and housing values are leading sought-after sections to be out of reach (cost-wise) for more and more people.
As you might expect from an event hosted by the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the talk had an urbanist, pro-walking, anti-car slant. Here are a some of the more interesting sound bytes and statistics:
The Increase in Land Values in Certain Sections of DC is “Stunning”
Chris Leinberger dropped a staggering statistic regarding how much DC land values have increased in the past decade. On one particular site in Capitol Riverfront, he shared, the land value was probably at around $5 per square foot a decade ago. That same land was recently sold to Toll Brothers at a cost of $825 per square foot. “That increase is stunning,” he said.
DC’s Supply of Housing in Constrained
In part because of zoning regulations and the height limit in areas surrounding the downtown core, supply in DC is unusually limited, keeping the costs up. Leinberger was heartened that both are under discussion. “We have to understand that zoning isn’t handed down from God,” he said. “We made it and we can change it. Creating more walkable urban places with drive down land values.”
No Car, More Money
“If you remove one car from your household, you can increase the mortgage you can afford by $150,000,” Leinberger said last night, based on car payments, insurance payments and monthly gas outlays. Another interesting car-related fact from Leinberger: If a city reduces car ownership by 15,000 owners, $127 million stays in the city.
The Lack of Affordable Housing Must Be Addressed
Ed Lazere pointed out that DC lost half of its low-cost rental units and 70 percent of its low-value homes in the last ten years. In 2000, half of the apartments in the city rented for $700/month or less, a rate that seems unbelievably low now.
David Bowers told a few stories of long-time residents getting pushed out of their homes in rapidly-developing neighborhoods like Columbia Heights and Petworth. Now, organizations are starting to look to the new frontiers — Anacostia and Congress Heights — to start helping residents stay put. “It’s a preservation and resident displacement prevention initiative.”
A few of the possible solutions discussed include supporting Choice Communities (formerly known as HOPE VI), a program that turns housing projects into mixed-income projects; supporting the creation of accessory dwelling units or “granny flats”; and funding the Housing Production Trust Fund and programs like the Home Purchase Assistance Program and the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act.
Read the original article on Urban Turf.
Photo courtesy of CTDataHaven.