Posts about Walkability

Among the assets cited by residents were:

• The diverse population of Seven Corners, including diversity of cultures, ages, and incomes
• Plenty of affordable housing
• The history of the area, including events from the Civil War and the first shopping center in Northern Virginia
• The proximity to Washington, DC
• A variety of shopping and dining options
• Stable, established neighborhoods nearby

Challenges that need to be addressed:

• Route 50 and Route 7 are major barriers and make it extremely difficult to walk through the area
• Too much litter and too many illegal signs
• There is no chamber of commerce or other organization of business owners
• The schools are overcrowded and need renovation
• The larger Seven Corners area is divided among different jurisdictions—Arlington and the City of Falls Church, as well as Fairfax County

Just about everybody cited the traffic congestion as a huge challenge. The ideas that emerged for addressing it included improving the synchronization of traffic lights, totally redesigning the Route 50/Route 7 intersection, and providing an express bus to DC.

Other ideas mentioned for improving Seven Corners, some of them long-term:

• Improve the streetscapes
• Provide more community gathering places, such as parks, outdoor cafes, and farmers' markets
• Create a public/private partnership to spur revitalization
• Add an escalator to connect the two levels of the Seven Corners Shopping Center
• Provide streetcars to connect Seven Corners to the East Falls Church Metro station and other centers, such as Tysons and Alexandria
• Get rid of the large parking lots and create a central plaza
• Attract more young professionals, while also retaining a diverse mix of cultures, ages, and incomes
• Add amenities, such as bike trails, parks, soccer fields, a movie theater, more trees, open space, and public art
• Build mixed-use developments combining housing and retail

Binh Nguyen, president of the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce for the Greater Washington, DC area, said many of the Eden Center business owners had been thinking of leaving the area due to the declining economy and civil rights issues—even though some 70,000 people come to that shopping center every weekend.

But the possibility of revitalizing Seven Corners is a hopeful sign. "We want to be a part of this great community," he said, adding that Vietnamese businesses are interested in contributing to the development of a new community center.

Alejandria Caballero of the Fairfax County Department of Neighborhood and Community Services reported on the concerns of some of the apartment residents. They want more parks, more police patrols to make the streets safer for evening walks, more family-friendly restaurants, and a more accessible health clinic. They said the Willston Multicultural Center needs to be renovated and the pedestrian bridge over Route 50 needs to be cleaned up.

The biggest problem is traffic congestion, said Iqbal Khaiy, who also mentioned the lack of walkability, the overcrowded schools, and the need to create "a sense of place." She said it's important to "retain the character and diversity of Seven Corners and give it a facelift."

Jeff Longo said that even though he lives and works in Seven Corners, he can't walk to work because it's impossible to cross the street. The benefits of the area include convenience, diversity, variety of restaurants, and proximity to Arlington and DC, but there is "too much concrete and not enough green."

Debbie Smith called for "smart development that doesn't strain natural resources." And several people mentioned the need to retain the unique character of Seven Corners and not copy Ballston or Tysons Corner.

The OCR will prepare a summary of the comments to share at the next workshop, which will be held June 18, 7 pm at the same location, 6245 Leesburg Pike.

Meanwhile, a major clean-up effort to get rid of the litter and illegal signs, is tentatively scheduled for June 23.

Cross-posted at Annandale VA.

The show was famous for many things, but one is the long "walk and talk" or "pedeconference" shots where cast members walked through numerous rooms and corridors, having long conversations and even being joined by new people, while the camera followed without a cut.

Sadly, it's clear that in this video they didn't have quite a large enough set to do the kind of massive walk and talk from the show or its antecedent, Sports Night, but the good news is, people can walk much farther at a stretch in most places around the country.

We all know walking is good for health. I haven't seen any studies on the health benefits of talking at the same time, though.

Diverging diamond: Faster traffic, worse for pedestrians

Diverging diamond interchanges (DDIs) are designed to move cars more efficiently by reducing the number of signal phases at interchanges and allowing cars on freeway on- and off-ramps to move freely without waiting for signals.

To accomplish this, the surface street lanes (not the freeway) cross to the opposite (left) side of the center line as they to pass through the interchange.

Pedestrians have to cross to the median and walk between concrete walls, forcing them to cross half of the through lanes at each side of the bridge. In the case of the Greenbelt Road/Kenilworth Avenue interchange, that would mean crossing 3 or 4 lanes (depending on the final configuration of the design) at each side of the bridge.

Alternatively, the design could accommodate pedestrians the outside of the roadway, but then they must cross the free-flowing left turn on- and off-ramps where drivers will be focusing on making the turn fast rather than looking for people crossing.

Incompatible with walkable vision for the corridor

What's most troubling is that the planning department is actually trying to create an urban, pedestrian environment immediately west of the interchange, yet they still proposed this design which does the opposite.

Early on in the presentation, planners showed before and after renderings of their visions for a walkable urban node where Beltway Plaza is today. They showed a suburban arterial transformed into a narrowed street with wide sidewalks, street trees, pedestrian lighting, and bike lanes. At previous meetings, they talked of building a street grid, of filling in parking lots with development, and making it easier and safer to walk in these new urban nodes.

They also talked of finding ways to link the different neighborhoods of Greenbelt that have been separated from each other by the various freeways in the area. They specifically mentioned finding better ways of linking the Golden Triangle office park with the Beltway Plaza area—two neighborhoods that are currently separated from each other by Kenilworth Avenue and its interchange with Greenbelt Road.

But planners are approaching rebuilding the Kenilworth/Greenbelt with the objective of moving more cars, faster. They are not thinking about creating a pedestrian-friendly environment in that space. They are not thinking about making cyclists feel welcome on the road.

And encouraging drivers to speed up as they approach what planners hope to be a walkable node is asking for trouble.

The cure is far worse than the disease

Today, Greenbelt Road crosses above Kenilworth Avenue at an interchange built in the 1980s. Most would agree that the intersection has its problems, mostly from the way the northbound ramps are offset and the close spacing of the north- and southbound off-ramps.

But the solution the county planners propose would be far worse than the current setup, especially for pedestrians and cyclists.

It is questionable why the county wants to focus on this intersection to begin with. It's not "failing" by traffic engineer standards, and in terms of driver delay, it's not even the worst intersection in the corridor, according to a study conducted in conjunction with the Sector Plan. But of course, highway engineers like to "fix" things whether or not they're broken.

Strong Towns executive director Chuck Marohn narrated a video about a DDI in Springfield, Missouri. A traffic engineer involved in the design created the video, touting how a pedestrian can walk through the interchange, but Marohn points out how absurd it is to say that this is actually pedestrian-friendly.

Marohn notes that while a DDI provides a path for pedestrians and cyclists, it's nothing like the kind of interchange one would design if the goal from the start were to make a space friendly to people walking and biking.

Building walkable communities and complete streets has to be more than an engineer running down an accommodation checklist. If we're trying to create a neighborhood where walkability is a primary goal, then pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users have to be a top priority, not just get the leftover road space and the bare minimum listed in the design guide.

The nascent urban districts at White Flint and Tysons Corner are transforming from suburbs to more walkable spaces. And like the Beltway Plaza area, pedestrians in those areas face barriers in the form of interchanges. Prince George's can't simply get rid of their interchanges, but they don't need to make the pedestrian condition worse by recommending converting an interchange to one that's sole purpose is to move cars more quickly.

The county's decisions about its streets affect the financial and physical health of its residents. A large portion of Prince George's residents outside the Beltway pay over 45% of their income for housing and transportation costs. These communities also have a Walk Score less than 50%, said Yolanda Takesian from Kittelson and Associates.

RJ Eldridge, a planner with Toole design and councilmember in the Town of Cheverly, pointed out that about 67% of county adults are obese or overweight, as are 33% of children ages 2-11.

Ortiz said that County Executive Rushern L. Baker has committed $17 million to a "Green Streets" fund. This will pay for sustainable streets that accommodate all uses, including walking and biking.

The county is no stranger to environmentally sustainable streets. Ortiz said that the county's Department of Environmental Resources pioneered bioretention, where streets include planted areas to absorb stormwater, around 1990. Their bioretention on Route 202 was the first in the nation. Bioretention has now become an accepted practice in stormwater management.

Incorporating walking and bicycling with green streets is a natural next step. Andre Issayans, Deputy Director of the Prince George's Department of Public Works and Transportation, listed several projects that will be the next "complete and green streets," including Oxon Hill Road, Harriet Truman Drive, and Ager Road. Construction will start on Oxon Hill Road in late summer or early fall.

Council Member Eric Olson discussed a bill he and Councilmember Mel Franklin have proposed that would allow the Planning Board to require developers to construct adequate pedestrian and bicycle facilities on new development. The Board would have to determine the infrastructure necessary to access destinations within ½ mile such as a public school, parks, shopping center or transit.

Developing a network for walking and biking goes beyond just transportation planning, but must include land use decisions as well, Eldridge elaborated. He said that that development codes must complement capital improvements from transportation. Infrastructure investment should serve many purposes beyond just moving cars.

The Countywide Master Plan of Transportation already outlines a Complete Streets policy. Eldridge recommends the next step is for the county to develop a design manual that brings Complete Streets principles to actual projects.

While the County representatives agree with complete and green streets, the forum ended on a note of reality. Many of the county's best intentions depend on funding. Planned projects may stay on the list far longer than anyone would like.

Residents also called attention to the fact that a walkable community is not only about infrastructure but about personal safety as well. Coalition for Smarter Growth Policy Director Cheryl Cort questioned the need for a new 4-lane highway to Branch Avenue Metro station when the county should be focusing on building a walkable community.

Slater said the project will include bicycle and pedestrian facilities, but that doesn't satisfy many residents concerned that the county still overbuilds auto infrastructure. It's great to accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists on roadways, but a high-speed highway with token sidewalks and bike lanes still doesn't create a livable place.

Prince George's has taken some significant steps, but county officials and supporters of better communities alike should continue to work together to address the challenges they face as a community.

Here's my approach. I think Wheaton's downtown is sorely missing a public place to go and just spend time. I know, for example, that if I go to Downtown Silver Spring, Bethesda or Rockville, I can spend several hours with my family without having to move the car. I can pick a destination—and the afternoon starts there. There will be other people moving about. I may run into friends. I can eat, shop at a market or in one of the stores. My kids can play at a fountain or other structure and I can knock off an errand.

Wheaton has many businesses to support this but it lacks a central place where people can gather. It lacks an Ellsworth Drive or Bethesda Row—not necessarily a town square, although it could be, but a place with a compelling and memorable identity that has been built and designed for people.

Wheaton's core already has many great shops. Some of my favorites there on Triangle Lane include Marchones, where I buy the best deli sandwiches, Showcase Aquarium, and one of the region's coolest stores, the Toy Exchange, which has vintage toys, from Star Wars figures to Lionel trains. In the surrounding blocks, there are notable restaurants such as Pho Hiep Hoa (where I discovered Pho), Nava Thai, Full Key, Hollywood East, Ren's Ramen, Caramelo Bakery (with the most spectacular saltenas), and the list goes on.

But what Wheaton does not have is a connecting space to weave the shops, and its identity, together. Typically I have to park at one restaurant and then get back in the car to drive to another location, which is a real pain with kids. I end up spending additional money somewhere else.

In my view, Silver Spring is a success not because of any particular office building in the area, but because of the public space that was created and the sense of identity it fostered. People just love going there.

Wheaton could have that, too. Wheaton has plenty of potential customers in the surrounding neighborhoods, but I suspect that many of them prefer to go out to other destinations that have more street life. They spend their money somewhere else, too.

It is hard to create street life in a parking lot, which is what we currently use as a big space at the center of the urban core.

If we are going to make Wheaton a real destination with appeal to families, teens, singles and everyone, we should start by building an urban park.

What is an urban park? My favorite is the spectacular Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, where I've spent hours soaking in the city. While I don't think we can go that far, we do have nearly $42 million proposed in the capital budget for Wheaton redevelopment.

We also need to remake Triangle Lane, pictured below, so that not only cars and delivery trucks can access the area but people can walk around in an enriching environment. We could have a wider storefront sidewalk for businesses and customers, pavers, lamps, benches and trees. Triangle Lane is, after all, "Wheaton Row."

Finally, reaching a little further out into the orbit of the urban core, we should get the new Wheaton Library and Recreation Center built as fast as possible. A quality community amenity like that will go a long way to getting residents in the surrounding area even more engaged in their own local community, and it may help attract new, higher income residents to the area.

Wheaton certainly needs new office workers to support the businesses, and the county needs to relocate agencies in order to reduce leasing costs. Fortunately, there are many places in Wheaton to locate new office buildings. We could even build a tall tower where the Mid-County Regional center is today.

We will see what the best approach is, but I am dead set against any construction impact that will wipe out the businesses on Triangle Lane. If these businesses have their parking removed during many years of construction, I am worried that many of them may not survive. There is a possibility that this approach will only end up sterilizing the small business ecosystem that makes Wheaton unique.

Wheaton is different, and we should take a different approach to economic development there. Don't wipe the businesses out and then build new. Nurture the core and let it grow organically. Make it a destination, and the people will come.

The regional average of Metro's 86 stations is 72.1. As one would expect, the District of Columbia is the top-scoring jurisdiction, with an average of 81.6. The remainder of the "diamond," Arlington and Alexandria, is a clear second place. Montgomery is in the middle, with Fairfax and Prince George's trailing well behind.

A few Metro stations are right on the borders of jurisdictions: Friendship Heights between DC and Montgomery, and Capitol Heights and Southern Avenue between DC and Prince George's. This analysis counts each toward the score of both jurisdictions.

Nationally, the District and Arlington/Alexandria score favorably. The DC Metro stations by themselves fall just behind Chicago and Boston.

Unfortunately, Fairfax and Prince George's fall to the bottom of the pile. Fairfax's low score is somewhat understandable since it has only 5 stations, most of which serve mainly as park and rides.

But Prince George's has 15 stations, more than any other jurisdiction aside from the District. The county is at a disadvantage because of the placement of many stations. But even so, Prince George's has not committed to transit-oriented development around its stations. It also has a history of allowing development on the fringes of the county to short-circuit demand for offices and retail near Metro.

Fairfax, on the other hand, is working to reinvent Tysons Corner as a walkable urban place around 4 new Metro stops. Interestingly, adding the 5 stops on the Silver Line already under construction would raise Fairfax's average to 61.8.

While Walk Score is not a perfect measure of walkability, the fact that Tysons already has some pretty good scores bodes well for efforts to transform the employment center into a bona fide urban center.

I analyzed the 11 heavy rail systems in the United States. Some of these cities also have light rail, commuter rail, or other transit systems, but I didn't count those. That means in Boston, I looked at stations on the Red, Blue, and Orange lines, but not Green. (Why?)

I also combined heavy rail stations from multiple operators in the same region. For example, the Philadelphia score counts both SEPTA and PATCO heavy rail stations. New York's includes PATH and the Staten Island Railway (SIRT).

And the winner is... Los Angeles?

I was surprised by the results. Los Angeles scored the highest! I certainly did not expect that. Though in hindsight, it makes a good deal of sense.

Los Angeles has only 2 heavy rail lines, the Red and Purple lines. Those lines are confined to a relatively small area in the LA Basin, with the exception of 2 stations on the Red Line in the San Fernando Valley. And while Southern California has a reputation for being sprawling, the LA Basin is actually fairly dense, especially where the Metro has been built. As a result, its score isn't dragged down by suburban park and ride stations.

In the same respect, I was surprised that BART scored better than WMATA. Large portions of the DC system serve areas that are urban or urbanizing. In contrast, BART's system is much more suburban-oriented and has very little in the way of urban circulation.

Also surprising is that New York is not an outlier. It does come in a close second to Los Angeles, but I really expected it to be off the charts compared to everyone else. The New York City Subway alone scores 90.47 without PATH and SIRT, still just below LA; SIRT averages 71.45 while PATH is higher, 92.23, but its relatively small size (13 stations) means it doesn't change the New York average even a tenth of a point.

What is not very surprising is that the sunbelt cities (except LA) score more poorly than the more urban older cities (except for Cleveland). Cleveland is at a disadvantage because of the structure of its transit system. The system only has one stop in the central business district, and that station's score isn't that impressive anyway, which harms the average.

Distribution matters

The chart above shows how Walk Scores for stations in each system are distributed. The green bars give the average score. The rectangle shows the 25th and 75th percentiles, and the lines with dots at each end show the highest and lowest Walk Scores for any station in that system.

At the high end, several cities had at least one station (sometimes several) with perfect 100-point scores. The lowest score for any station nationwide was 28 points. Two stations in the Washington region—Arlington Cemetery and Morgan Boulevard—and one station in San Francisco—North Concord/Martinez—had that score.

The distribution is important in understanding how well distributed the well-scoring stations are in the system.

In Washington, the distribution is weighted more toward good-scoring stations, but there are still a lot of poor-scoring stations, too.

Compare that to San Francisco's BART, where there are fewer poor-scoring stations. Instead, there are a large quantity of stations in the middle of the distribution.

New York and Cleveland offer contrast to each other. While most New York stations score very well, Cleveland's don't rank above medium.

Limitations

The Walk Score algorithm is not perfect. It works by calculating the quantities and distances of various amenties. There are other factors which it does not measure that help to define the walkability of an area.

For example, a street grid makes an area much more walkable than a sprawling network of superblocks and culs-de-sac. The quality and proliferation of sidewalks also influences walkability. But these factors aren't currently part of Walk Score; there's no good data file for Walk Score to use that shows where there are and aren't good sidewalks, for example.

Regardless, Walk Score gives us a standard and fairly good measure to compare transit stations (and systems) to each other.