New York City unveils ‘Sustainable Streets’ plan

After NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to charge drivers for taking private vehicles into some areas of Manhattan was killed by political opponents, the city's transportation department last month unveiled a more modest proposal aimed at "bring[ing] a green approach to transportation that will simultaneously ease travel conditions in our growing city while squarely facing the problem of climate change and improving the city's quality of life."

Sustainable Streets will increase bus service, as well as add bus lanes, bike racks and 200 miles of cycling lanes next year, among other things, according to the Gotham Gazette. There are a few more details (including video introducing the program) at Streetsblog.

Moody Street woes?

The Boston Globe had an article last Sunday about problems on Waltham's redeveloped Moody Street, with some stores closing - notably the Construction Site, a unique children's toy store and one of the district's anchor draws (they're going to keep an online presence only, at least for now).

"The wonderland window displays of wooden toys that once greeted shoppers who crossed the bridge over the Charles River into Moody Street's heart are no more," the article notes. "And the Construction Site is not the only independent enterprise to leave the street in recent months. The past year has also seen the departure of Maxima Gift Center, Harry's Shoe Store, Brickman's Furniture, and Lexington Music Center. "

Why the woes? The piece says:

"A lack of unity and cooperation among business owners, the absence of an overarching plan for encouraging shopping and business in the downtown area, slow foot traffic during the day, a lack of parking in the evenings, complicated city permitting processes, the loss of large anchor stores such as Jordan's Furniture (which left Moody Street in 2004), and not enough affluent shoppers interested in buying higher-end products."

It's a cautionary tale for those who believe "redevelopment" is a process with an end, as opposed to needing continued nurturing and updating. One analyst quoted in the story believed the area's "inner city" urban issues are scaring away affluent suburbanites, but a shopowner who closed a Waltham store told the Globe that many customers weren't from Waltham. There are plenty of residential units around, but most of those people likely work elsewhere. Are the stores open late enough at night to attract the locals? The loss of Jordan's as an anchor store was difficult for many other businesses. What can draw people to the retail center? Is there enough variety and critical mass to appeal to locals year after year? Is there a need to try to attract more daytime businesses to the area where people working in jobs other than retail could shop there during lunchtime? Particularly as the economy softens, even successful downtowns have to work to stay that way.

‘Pedestrians will be given priority over parking spaces’

"Pedestrians will be given priority over parking spaces as part of a facelift for Praia do Carvoeiro," starts a newspaper report on renovation plans for a village in Portugal.

"We want to make this an area of beauty for people and not cars," a spokesman for the area told The Online Resident. Adds the article:

"Parking spaces next to the square and beach are to be removed to make the entire area more pleasant for residents and visitors to walk about."

Do you know of  many American towns where traffic flow and parking don't take priority in planning discussions over streetscape aesthetics? And pedestrian appeal suffers.

One way to gauge whether a place has aesthetic appeal for people, as opposed to cars alone, is simply to see whether a lot of people are out walking around. If a place is walkable - it feels safe, attractive and inviting - and the weather's good, people should be out. If they're not, something's wrong.

Former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist has been credited with another simple method: the "Postcard Test." Would people want to buy a postcard of a neighborhood scene?

By the way, here's an overview picture of Praia do Carvoeiro. However, you don't need stunning oceanfront to pass the postcard test, as places like Concord, Mass. clearly demonstrate.

Cheap energy, and community

Cheap energy has had a profound impact on our communities, and I'm not talking about pollution/greenhouse/Earth Day issues. As many (including me) have written, designing our communities around the automobile has led to the pedestrian-hostile streetscapes that give us Rte. 9 aesthetic urban blight, and the need to drive our cars less than half a mile from one strip mall to another, because the walking environment is so unpleasant and unsafe. However, an article in yesterday's New York Times magazine notes that cheap energy has had other effects on our sense of community:

"Cheap fossil fuel allows us to pay distant others to process our food for us, to entertain us and to (try to) solve our problems, with the result that there is very little we know how to accomplish for ourselves. Think for a moment of all the things you suddenly need to do for yourself when the power goes out — up to and including entertaining yourself. Think, too, about how a power failure causes your neighbors — your community — to suddenly loom so much larger in your life. Cheap energy allowed us to leapfrog community by making it possible to sell our specialty over great distances as well as summon into our lives the specialties of countless distant others."

Now, I don't want to go back to the days when all we were able to buy or use came from within a day's horse and carriage ride away. But author Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) makes an interesting point. It is cheap energy that allows us to buy food grown in South America and toys/electronics/clothing made in China, more affordable than if they were grown or manufactured close to home; just as it's cheap energy that's encouraged suburban sprawl by making housing more affordable 30, 40, 50 or more miles from urban job centers.

What can we do about it?

Plant gardens and grow some of our own food, Pollan urges! Sound like a small, inconsequential response? He argues passionately that "it’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do — to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind. . . . You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on specialists to provide for yourself — that your body is still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its own support."

There's nothing quite like the sense of satisfaction I get picking our home-grown tomatoes and basil for a summer salad, even if I've got to add slices of Vermont-produced cheese and a drizzle of Spanish olive oil to the plate. Not to mention, little matches the incredible sweet, juicy taste of a tomato picked fresh from the vine. It's a completely different foodstuff from that which has been been transported thousands of miles out of season.

Being outside in the garden on a daily basis, I also see my neighbors, I notice my local environment, and I feel more connected with my neighborhood. Much moreso than if I get in the car and drive to my local super Stop & Shop, even if I run into my neighbors there.

Suburban New York vs Boston Rail Service: Ours is worse in every way

My parents live 3 miles farther away from Manhattan's Penn Station than I do from Boston's South Station, so comparing commuter rail service from each home is a reasonable endeavor. Of course, New York is a much larger city, so suburbs there are more densely populated 20 miles out than they are here. So, I expect that trains run more frequently on Long Island, especially off peak  (33% more into the city between 9 am and 5 pm). And, that stations are more convenient to more people on Long Island than they are here (by the time I drive the 6 miles south to get to the Framingham commuter rail station, I could be close to one-third of the way into Boston if I headed east instead.)

However, I do expect it to take a shorter amount of time to get from Framingham to Boston by rail than it would to travel the longer distance between my parents' home and New York City, especially since they need more stations to serve a more densely populated area. Yet it's just a 40-minute trip on Long Island, while most trains on the Framingham line are slated at just under an hour (56 minutes).

In other words: It usually takes about 50% longer to travel a shorter distance by commuter rail in Boston's western suburbs than on Long Island.

Shameful.