A few weeks ago I woke up to a video in my social media feed about the rat race we are living in. If you haven’t seen the video yet, here it is. In fact the before night I was at an event listening to the story of a start-up’s story of their rise. It included a lot of the classic Hollywood elements like him sleeping in his office and him being in debt by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
While the story was certainly inspiring. The underlying premise was terrifying, here was a guy that was trying to start a company to actually bring some good in the world and this is how we were treating him.
Are you tired of living in this rat race? This rat race video and the entrepreneur’s story really brought me back to the question about how we invest our resources and whether there is anything we could do to end this rat race and transform it into a relaxed stroll.
Amsterdam is consistently considered one of the happiest places. Yet it is built predominantly around the bicycle. What gives?
Back in the 70’s when they started to transition to the automobile like everyone else they said no and over the last 40 years they transformed themselves back into a city for people. Cornelia Dinca and Thomas Schlijper from Amsterdam have put together a great documentation of Amsterdam’s transformation from its car oriented past here.
Building a car oriented city increases the amount you have to earn in order to live comfortably, contributing to the rat race and this is whether or not you drive or not. A car is an expensive and depreciating investment (over $10,000 per year). Building a city around the automobile makes it more difficult for local businesses to thrive. Roads built primarily around moving the most vehicles through as quickly as possible are also expensive, putting a strain on city budgets. The cost for maintaining this system is passed onto all of us with higher taxes with a diminishing return with a less livable city and fewer great destinations.
If you choose to opt of this rat race, even slightly less, you still pay for it. We all pay for it through the parking, through the piping and roads in the far edge suburbs. And what has all of this infrastructure solved, nothing it seems as our roads are still bumper to bumper in rush hour despite adding more and more lanes.
I like that this video addresses that we are stuck in a rat race, but it doesn’t address what the alternative looks like. So what does real happiness look like.
This is getting enough rest and having time to enjoy even just sitting still without anxiety. This is about enjoying your city without worrying about your phone or the need to buy something.
This is about connecting with your neighbours and acquaintances. This is spending time your loved ones.
This is about chatting with friends on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
This is the laughter or a smile from your child.
This is a mobility system safe enough that you don’t have a second job acting as your child’s chauffeur.
For women this means you can comfortably navigate your own city safely without the need for a $10,000 a year accessory (a car).
This is about not worrying about the safety of your children being run over or killed in a vehicle collision (vehicles are one of the top causes of child fatalities.)
All of this starts at the street level. We can change our streets to create a more enjoyable experience while you go about your daily business: work, live, play.
How about instead of designing our streets and neighbourhoods around speed to support this rat race we slow things down so that we can enjoy and connect with our own neighbourhoods and those living in them? It is time to transform this rat race into a relaxed stroll. Not only will our wallets thank us for it but we will get to enjoy our city more instead of having to go on vacation to find those experiences. If you want to improve your bottom line and create a more enjoyable city Slow Streets would be more than willing to help you achieve that.
Happy New Year! Slow Streets would like to welcome you to the Women Mobility Survey and Twitter Chat!
Have you ever wondered if our city streets, mobility networks, and public spaces could be redesigned to enhance the wellbeing and safety of women and girls? We would like to share an important survey addressing this question. Prepared through a partnership of Slow Streets, Green Our Walls, UN Women-USNC LA with the support of Women in Cities International, this survey aims to evaluate the everyday experiences of women in public streets, public spaces and transit systems. The information you provide will help us design safer, more equitable cities for all.
The survey will be open until January 31th, 2018, and should take 5-10 minutes to complete. All answers will be kept strictly anonymous. If you share the survey link http://bit.ly/WomenMobilitySurvey with the hashtag #urbandesign4women on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, you will be entered for the chance to win a fabulous prize! Please share this survey freely. Please get in touch with us at womenmobilitysurvey@gmail.com with any questions you may have about the survey.
We launch our survey with a Twitter Chat on Thursday, January 11, 2018at 12pm @UNWomenLA with partners @SlowStreets and @GreenOurWalls and under the hashtag #UrbanDesign4Women. We look forward to your insights to the conversation.
Please feel free to help us get the word out about the survey and Twitter chat! Included below are tweet examples you could share with your followers.
We look forward to chatting with you!
EXAMPLE TWEETS:
Join @UNWomenLA @GreenOurWalls & @SlowStreet on Thursday January 11, 2018 for #urbandesign4women Twitter chat! Let’s discuss how we can make our communities safer for women and girls.
Did you know that you can win a fabulous prize and make a difference in our communities? Take and share this Women Mobility survey http://bit.ly/WomenMobilitySurvey #urbandesign4women
Now that the Edmonton Election is underway, a critical conversation that should be discussed is how to make the city financially sustainable. Currently the city is approving large swathes of low density single family housing developments past the Anthony Henday. Is this a financially sustainable strategy for the city to be pursuing?
According to Strong Towns’ Charles Marohn, approving and building new green field developments is a ponzi scheme. Why? Often cities approve new greenfield developments to generate new revenue through property taxes and development levies. The revenue generated from these developments do not actually go towards funding the services needed for the developments being approved. These revenues often go towards funding necessary services in already developed or aging neighbourhoods elsewhere in the city. Eventually when the infrastructure serving these new neighbourhoods starts to deteriorate at the end of their lifecycle new greenfield neighbourhoods will have to be approved to fund the necessary maintenance and upkeep.
Is there a way to determine what is financially productive and sustainable for the city coffers? According to Joe Minicozzi cities need to change their city making math. Often cities look at the revenue potential for developments from a lump sum perspective. With this approach a Walmart big-box store style development often becomes more attractive for city councils. This approach completely neglects how efficiently these developments are using land, which is a city’s most valuable resource. When you look at the potential tax revenue generated from developments based on the land area being used the math changes.
Edmonton’s 2015 property tax per square feet
Calculating the property tax generated per land area (tax density) demonstrates that those big box stores among single dwelling developments are producing some of the lower taxes densities for developments in Edmonton. When single dwelling households and the big box stores are producing some of the lowest tax returns on developments, should the City of Edmonton continue to approve them? Edmonton can ultimately change the tax burden on all Edmontonians by correcting the city building math and building the type of developments that produce the highest return on investment using the smallest foot print.
Edmonton’s 2015 property tax per square feet
So what is producing the highest tax density? Zooming in on the tax density map reveals that the majority of properties generating the highest tax densities are in the city centre. To be more specific the highest tax density generating properties tend to follow the streets that follow Edmonton’s historic street car lines. These include streets like 124 Street, Whyte Avenue, Jasper Avenue, 107 Avenue, 97 Street and 118 Avenue.
An example of the type of building that produces a higher tax density for the city.
What do these developments look like? Often they are 2-4 storey properties with a short frontage. These are also the buildings where you find most locally owned businesses operating from, due to the smaller square footage and therefore more affordable leases.
What about housing? What is producing the highest tax density for the city? On the lower end one unit dwellings like single dwelling housing are producing on average $4.3 per square meter. Meanwhile 4 story multi-unit walkups like in the photo above produce over double the property tax per square foot ($10.5/sqm). Almost any development type that has more than one unit per property would generate more taxes per square meter.
Why does this matter? When cities are looking balancing budgets to pay for necessary services, amenities and create vibrant neighbourhoods, any business owner would look to accomplish this in the most efficient way as possible. Building more units per development site translates into the city generating more property taxes per square meter. The more property taxes the city generates from the same area translates into reducing the amount of property taxes everyone collectively has to pay. In addition to this it means that the city can service more people with the same infrastructure which lowers the cost for everyone. If the city of Edmonton builds more strategic and denser developments, the tax burden is reduced for everyone.
Often there are protests about the appearance of the developments being built as people feel that they do not fit in with the existing neighbourhood characteristics. The westmount development in the photo above has 3 units however it maintains the appearance of the surrounding neighbourhood. It looks like a larger house, however it houses three separate units.
The difficulty of meeting friendly people in a city is a subject that often surfaces in news headlines. Why is this such an important topic? Depression and loneliness are becoming more prevalent issues each year. What can be done to counteract this? One of the key factors attributed to your happiness is the quantity and quality of social interactions you experience. So we know one of the ways to improve your happiness is to have more social connections. What, then is preventing us from forming more social connections, especially in cities with higher rates of loneliness and depression?
Donald Appleyard’s Livable Streets Social Connections with Neighbours with Varying Vehicle Volumes. People interact with fewer of their neighbours on streets with higher vehicle volumes.
While there are numerous factors, car oriented developments are certainly one factor. One study by Donald Appleyard evaluating different streets in San Francisco with varying levels of vehicle volumes found that people were more connected with their neighbours when the vehicle volumes were lower. Why would this be? Vehicles generally bring with them noise and pollution, which makes it uninviting to be outside. In these sort of environments you simply want to travel along the sidewalk and get into your home as quickly as possible. Furthermore when the only the affordable housing option being built are houses where it is easy to drive into your garage without ever needing to interact with your neighbours, it is easy to see why it is hard to make social connections in these cities. On the other hand inner city neighbourhoods that offer the most potential for meeting more people are more expensive and overrun with cars due to wayward transportation engineering since the 1950’s. Bringing down the cost of housing requires building more housing supply and policy changes, both of which are crucial but longer term courses of action.
People cycling on a protected cycling lane in Montreal.
Is there a way to balance out the higher cost of inner city living while increasing the opportunities of social interactions quicker? Cycling should be part of the answer. Cycling is an efficient and quick way for travelling around the city when it is convenient, safe and comfortable. Most trips are under 5 kilometers, which is at most 20 minutes by bicycle. Bicycles emit no noise and no toxic fumes. With cycling cities can be built at a human speed and scale. With a city built around cycling people are offered a chance to mingle with their neighbours again since their street is comfortable enough to let them.
Amsterdam and Utrecht have a 60% cycling trip mode share in the city centre
What exactly do social interactions look like in a city that is built around cycling and not the car? Places like Amsterdam and Utrecht paint a pretty good picture with 60% of trips in the city centre by bicycle.
A family and their child cycling together in Amsterdam.
Imagine the intimate moments you could have with your child with them sitting right in front you. Your child has a front seat to life instead of the back seat of a car. Imagine not having to buy a car seat and worry about your child’s safety. Imagine the excitement and giggles as your child gets to experience the wind, the smells, colours and people. You get to be right there for all of that.
Man’s best friend going for a ride.
Building a city at the human speed makes it easier to take your best friend for a ride.
A main retail street in Utrecht. Prioritizing cycling provides an opportunity for people to socialize while cycling but also allows those sitting at patios to hear each others and socialize.
Can you remember the last time you sat on a patio on a main street in your city. Do you remember how loud it was? Could you have a conversation with the person you were with? Without yelling? A city built around cycling can also help build a social city by reducing the noise levels produced by cars and letting you have a conversation with your friends on a patio without shouting.
Cycling also builds a more social city because it is easier to view, watch and interact with other people because you can actually see them. A city built around cycling means that people are not encased in a metal box. It is also easier to stop for spontaneous chats or shopping since you do not have to find parking for your car.
In a city that prioritizes cycling, extra road space becomes a children’s playground.
Creating a city prioritizing cycling, walking and transit allows our children to reclaim our city streets for play. This makes it easier for parents as they don’t have to drive them to the nearby park. Rather in a city that prioritizes cycling often a child’s imagination and their local street is enough to keep them entertained. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for cars but rather that you lower the speed and volume of cars to a humane experience.
In Montreal (a city with higher than average cycling mode share) a travel lane was replaced by a parklet with public seating.
Cars are also space hogs, it takes up alot of space to move and store them. In a city prioritizing cycling, the extra space freed up can be transformed into public spaces or patios which can provide more free opportunities to gather and meet your friends.
A city built around cycling means autonomy for children. Autonomy to navigate the city safely on their own to their sports practices. When time is our most valuable resource, parents are relieved of their second job as a chauffeur.
Imagine a city so safe for cycling that your child can get to their sports practice on their own steam. Imagine the time you would save not chauffeuring your children around everywhere. A city built around cycling makes it easier for children to see their friends without needing to wait for a ride from mom or dad. For parents, a cycling city means more free time for to relax or spend quality time with friends and family.
You shouldn’t have to put your life in danger the moment you take a foot off the sidewalk. Slowing a city down to a human cycling or walking speed allows us to bring out our sociability and happiness and create a more equitable and dignified city for everyone regardless of how they get around.
Cycling doubled in Edmonton immediately following the opening of the downtown bike lane grid.
Now the big question, does it take much to reorient and rebuild your city around cycling? While cities like Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Utrecht have high rates of cycling, it also took them 40 years to make the transformation. However, cities like Calgary and Edmonton have shown that entire networks of protected cycling lanes can be implemented relatively inexpensively and extremely quickly. The turn around for Edmonton’s 6 km downtown bike lane grid (which I was involved with) took less than a year from September 2016 to July 2017. The return on investment is almost immediate. Cycling in Edmonton nearly doubled after the first month after the bike lane network was opened, meanwhile cycling grew by 39% in Calgary.
The number of cycling trips in Calgary grew 39% immediately after opening the grid of bike lanes in downtown Calgary in 2015.
Slow Streets principal and co-founder Darren Proulx will be venturing across the ocean to the cycling capital of the world once again in 2017. Previously Darren visited Amsterdam in 2015, you can read a summary of his observations here. The itinerary this time includes:
Utrecht – April 1-3
Rotterdam – April 3-5
Amsterdam – April 5-10
Utrecht is quickly becoming know as a leader in implementing the latest best practice cycling designs, and given its smaller size this would provide a good case study for mid-size cities. Rotterdam was selected because of its similarities to a North American context with large road right-of-ways and modern buildings and a lower cycling rate (25% is lower relative to the rest of Netherlands) which would provide a good case study for North American design and how people cycling interact with cars. Finally Amsterdam will provide good insight into both good dense mid-rise built form, protected intersections and large city all ages and abilities cycling network design. This visit will be focusing on identifying protected cycling lane best practice and next generation designs including but not limited to:
woonerf
cycle streets
protected intersections & protected intersections
cycling network design
cycling lanes on retail streets
economic performance of fine grain retail complete streets
If you are around in any of these cities please reach out as we would love to meet you!
As part of the City of Vancouver’s process to consult with the public about the possibility of converting Commercial Drive into a Complete Street, the city hired a consultant to conduct an intercept survey of visitors to Commercial Drive. This survey asked visitors questions concerning how they arrived, how often then visit, where they came from, where they park if they drive and how they found the experience. The results were recently released and can be found here. I have attached one of the open house boards below.
The information from the Commercial Drive intercept survey is significant for a number of reasons. Most importantly is that it shows that 80% of the respondents arrived at Commercial Drive by walking, cycling or using transit. Secondly it also demonstrates that people walking, cycling and using transit visit more often than people who drive. Back in 2015 Slow Streets carried out an observation study of Commercial Drive to get a sense of how people are arriving and behaving. The results are similar. Our observations found that the majority of people at the observation sites were not arriving by car.
The conclusion to draw from this is that observations are great for contextualizing people’s behaviours in response to a street design. Our findings show primarily that regardless how people got around they spend most of their time experiencing the street while walking. However we at Slow Streets would never recommend solely relying on observations for transportation modal data. Intercept surveys are a great way to fill in the gaps for observations and flush out the data as was the case with the Slow Streets Burnaby Heights report. The Burnaby Heights intercept survey found that the majority of people were not arriving by car and that 69% of respondents said they walked, cycled or used transit to visit that day. What makes this even more significant is that the Burnaby Heights is a suburban community with a lower density and a high speed highway running through it, yet only 31% of the visitors drive.
This is hearsay if you were to talk to any small business owner. Most businesses will tell you that people that drive are critical for the success of their business, and will demand that you keep on street parking at all costs. This is clearly not the case on Commercial Drive, only 17% of respondents said they drove. In fact this scenario is often the case with older streets that were built with many small businesses along former street car corridors.
Businesses are often overestimating how many of their customers drive. Two separate studies from Auckland and Bristol found that businesses were over estimating how many of their customers were arriving by car. Why is this? Is it perhaps because people that drive are the most vocal about parking which is a critical part of their visit. People that walk, cycle and use transit often won’t feel like complaining about the quality of their commute since it rarely reflects on the businesses.
This is good news for businesses because cars are actually quite inefficient with space and you can actually move more people walking, cycling and using transit with the same space. The vehicle travel lanes on Commercial Drive are primarily only used for vehicles because they are designed for moving cars through quickly and are unsafe for cycling or walking. This means that if you were to reallocate two travel lanes for cycling lanes or wider sidewalks this opens up the street for more potential customers.
Similarly on-street parking is usually such a small portion of the overall parking in the area. Slow Streets research found that Commercial Drive’s on street parking only made up 13% of the total area’s parking. This means that businesses would be better off trading those parking stalls to create better places for people to sit and stay to enjoy their spoils. The more people you have on your street, the more interesting, exciting and vibrant it is for other people passing by. This will further attract more people to the street and higher revenue potential for the businesses. Still not convinced? This article put together a complete and comprehensive source of studies from around the world demonstrating that removing on-street parking for more cycling lanes has little negative economic impact for businesses.
Transportation demand management is an critical element of any multi-modal transportation plan that prioritizes people and mobility options over only simply moving automobiles quickly. There are many great examples such as investing in high quality mobility options as alternatives to driving, parking sharing, demand based pricing controls such as congestion charges, behavioural prompts, demand based market priced parking or employee transit pass subsidies combined with removing free parking incentives. However the best transportation demand policy may be to build complete communities with dense, mixed use neighbourhoods with fine grain retail especially when combined with neighbourhood wide traffic calming. The dominant transportation modes are often a direct result of the built form. There is a direct relationship between the composition of our land uses and how people get around.
An example of a three storey mixed use mid rise apartment building in Edmonton.
A multi-family unit in Vancouver that has been built to look like two separate single family houses.
To be clear, for the purposes of this article dense land uses includes primarily row houses, town houses and small to mid rise apartments that are 5-7 stories tall(Row House: 0.9-1.2 Floor Space Ratio (FSR), 7 Storey Building: 1.45 FSR). Jan Gehl recommends 5 stories as the optimal height where you can still have building to ground interactions between people. Buildings up to five floors tall also offer the best sustainability benefits in terms of heating and energy efficiency. Shorter buildings also allow cities to spread the density to cover more of the property and fill the space better creating a complete street wall and a more interesting urban environment. Places like Vancouver demonstrate that you could have taller buildings than this, however it is recommended that you have a step back for any floors above the fifth floor to maintain a great human scale feel.
Often the majority of trips in cities with higher densities and mixed land uses are under 5 km. In Vancouver 54% of all trips are under 5 km. A recent report from Ryerson University estimates that 33% of the 4.35 million trips within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area are between 1 to 5 km. According to the European Commission the average length of walking trips in seven European countries varies from just under 1 km (Great Britain) to 2.8 km (Finland). These distances are best for walking and cycling. Trips that are 3-5 km are optimal for cycling. Building mixed use neighbourhoods where the essential services and amenities (groceries, tools, dentists, doctors, day cares, restaurants, bars, schools, parks, public spaces, community centres, etc.) are within 400 meters will help generate more trips that are 5 km or under. Having higher density residential uses will introduce more people to the neighbourhood which has a double effect of increasing the number of people on the streets and providing more potential customers for businesses. According to the book Principles of Urban Retail planning and development a small corner store requires 800-1000 houses within 160 acres to be financially sustainable.
Mixed Use Buildings – London and New York
What does a dense mixed use neighbourhood look like? Generally there are two models: mixed use buildings throughout the neighbourhood or neighbourhoods that were built around streets cars with separated land uses but every day needs are still within a 5 – 10 minute walk. London and New York serve as examples of the mixed use building model.
London
London’s fine grain retail and high density row houses creates an interesting urban environment that invites people to naturally be out in the city walking, cycling and enjoying the patios.
The streets in London’s Shoreditch neighbourhood are taken over by people. This is only possible by the fine grain retail and higher density that makes driving through quickly difficult.
London’s Brick Lane Road.
Night or day, London’s Soho neighbourhood is very comfortable and inviting to walk around. The higher density row houses and fine grain retail invites people out onto the streets.
You could pick any neighbourhood in London as a good example of a complete community with dense mixed commercial and residential land uses. In most neighbourhoods in London you could walk for hours in any direction comfortably. The dense mixed use creates an interesting and inviting environment that attracts more people to the streets and many different activities including aimlessly walking around.
New York City
Fine grain retail creates an inviting and interesting atmosphere in New York City’s Greenwich Village, a dense walkable community with midrise apartment buildings.
Fine grain retail and dense midrise apartment buildings create a vibrant walker’s paradise in New York City’s Alphabet City.
While New York City has many complete communities including but not limited to Greenwich Village or the Alphabet City. The Alphabet City as a complete community has a park and mixed use buildings with many a community park, restaurants, bars, businesses and grocery stores. You would rarely need to leave your block in the Alphabet City.
Bumper to bumper vehicle congestion in London’s Soho neighbourhood. People walking and cycling are not being rewarded for their space effectiveness.
Bumper to bumper vehicle congestion in London’s Soho neighbourhood which makes it uncomfortable for people walking and cycling.
While both London and New York City do a great job at creating complete communities which makes it easier to walk, bike and use transit. They both fall short from preventing vehicles from entering every street. Allowing vehicles to co-opt every space degrades the quality of the street public space experience for walking and living as it introduces noise and emission pollution. While London does benefit from a congestion charge that has been very effective at reducing the number of vehicles on the road, space hogging cars are still permitted in almost every nook and cranny while people walking and cycling fight for over the left over space.
Street Car Developments with Separated but Walkable Land Uses
Vancouver – West End
A typical Vancouver West End residential road. Little to no cars driving through resulting in an comfortable and inviting walking environment.
Unlike New York or London, Vancouver concentrates the retail businesses on 3 roads in the West End. The result is a vibrant, interesting, convenient and inviting walking environment.
The West End neighbourhood in Vancouver offers a different model than London or New York City for incorporating commercial uses with higher density residential land uses. The West End was developed around a street car network that operates on Davie, Denman and Robson Streets. These streets were also developed with fine grain commercial uses, meanwhile the majority of land surrounding these retail streets is primarily residential land uses that were developed to support the fine grain retail businesses and increase ridership on the street car. You do find some businesses within the neighbourhoods that have been grandfathered in, increasing the convenience for residents of the West End. All of this serves to put most residents in the West End within 400m (5 minutes) walking distance of fine grain retail and services and a high frequency bus transit service (arriving every 6 minutes for most times of the day). In fact it is because of the higher residential density of the West End that allows the very high transit frequency which helps with the longer regional trips in Vancouver.
A bodega on Denman Street in Vancouver.
A neighbourhood bodega in Vancouver’s West End.
The higher residential density also supports a high density of retail businesses. Just to put this into perspective, in the West End you have eighteen grocery stores and bodegas within a 15 minute walk for most people, seven of which are large scale Safeways, Whole Foods and No Frills. In most North American cities you would be lucky to have one large scale grocery store within a 10 minute walk. It is the smaller bodega’s or produce markets that bring the convenience closer to the residents by reducing walking distances. This doesn’t include the West End’s hundreds of restaurant, bars, businesses and amenities. Density is convenience. Having more people makes having more businesses possible, the higher volumes of customers can also serve to drive down prices for local businesses due to economies of scales. This combination creates an interesting and comfortable urban environment that encourages people to walk or cycle to their destination. The numbers speak for themselves 67% of people walk (40%), bike or use transit to work.
Traffic Calming
An example of a Vancouver traffic diverter than allows people walking and cycling to pass through while preventing vehicles.
One major difference between Vancouver’s West End and New York City’s Alphabet City are the noise levels. Despite the high density of the West End, while you will often find many parked cars you will seldom see large volumes of vehicles travelling through. This means the West End is often very quiet. This is contradictory to what most people will assume about density. Often when you hear of new residential apartment buildings going up, you will also hear of the protests that more people will bring higher traffic volumes, noise and congestion. Traffic models will also often demonstrate that neighbourhoods will be suffering from chronic congestion. When done correctly higher densities combined with mixed uses encourage more walking, cycling and transit usage as is the case with all of the examples presented in this article. The missing ingredient is often neighbourhood wide traffic calming.
Two elements are critical for this success. The first is the high frequency transit service which provides an alternative to automobile for long distance trips in Vancouver. The second is the neighbourhood traffic calming and diversions. Traffic diversions are necessary to prioritize local traffic for local residents and keep out people making regional trips trying to travel through. High quality and frequent transit is necessary to provide an attractive alternative to the car for long distance trips. The both of these combined tends to keep traffic volumes down and primarily on the retail streets. This is the case in Vancouver’s West End as traffic tends to stay on Denman, Robson and Davies Streets and out of the neighbourhood. Even then the majority of traffic on streets like Denman Street are primarily coming from other parts of the city and are passing through on their way across the Lions Gate bridge north.
Barcelona Superblocks
Car, scooter, lorry and bus traffic will then be restricted to just the roads in the superblock perimeters, and they will only be allowed in the streets in between if they are residents or providing local businesses, and at a greatly reduced speed of 10km/h.
Barcelona offers another version of this traffic calming through the creation of superblocks that prioritize walking and cycling over driving.”A superblock will consist of nine existing blocks of the grid. Car, scooter, lorry and bus traffic will then be restricted to just the roads in the superblock perimeters, and they will only be allowed in the streets in between if they are residents or providing local businesses, and at a greatly reduced speed of 10km/h.” These superblocks would put everyone within 400m (5 minute walk) of transit while improving the quality of life for the residents with reduced noise, pollution and congestion.
Edmonton – Oliver
Edmonton’s Oliver Neighbourhood
Oliver is one of Edmonton’s most attractive neighbourhoods which has higher density residential land uses and is surrounded by old street car corridors. However often when walking through the neighbourhood, it will be empty. How is it that one of Edmonton’s most attractive neighbourhoods with the highest density is often empty? Oliver lacks the finer grain commercial uses and most critically the small scale grocery stores on 2 of 3 of its nearby retail streets, Jasper Avenue and 104 Avenue. Groceries are a basic necessity, when you don’t make them readily available like Vancouver’s bodegas this forces people to have to travel farther to get their groceries. When the grocery store and other necessary services and stores are within a 5 to 10 minutes walk this means that people can take more trips spontaneously more often. When the grocery store is farther away this means people are more likely to take fewer trips by driving and buy more products at once. A study in Portland showed that people walking and cycling actually spend more overall than people driving because of this phenomenon. Making our communities more walkable has significant positive economic impacts, therefore creating complete communities that also decrease driving rates is also better for the local economy.
Edmonton’s historic street car corridor on Jasper Avenue has many gaps in the street wall next to a high capacity, high volume stroad. This detracts from its ability to keep you feeling safe, interested and comfortable.
The North side of Oliver is flanked by another Stroad with big box store developments like this, which makes walking unpleasant.
A dispersed big box store environment along a Stroad that prioritizes moving vehicles through quickly over high quality access for the local residents creates an unpleasant and uninviting walking environment.
Part of the issue in Edmonton are the restrictive covenants, a legacy left by Safeway that prevents future grocery stores from opening in old Safeway locations or anywhere nearby. This only serves to create an artificially competitive market for big chain grocery stores within a 5 minute driving radius, while residents lose out on improved convenience and access. The maps above put this in perspective, Oliver only has four grocery stores within a 15 minute walking distance of most residents, meanwhile Vancouver has eighteen. The second issue are the gaps and reduced commercial business densities imposed on the retail streets by unnecessary and costly minimum parking requirements. Minimum parking requirements required existing businesses to buy the neighbouring property to only demolish it for parking, doubling their costs while halving the number of businesses attracting people.
Intensifying Commercial Land Uses
A food truck pod in downtown Portland on what would be another boring and inefficient use of valuable land as a parking lot.
Portland also demonstrates that a food truck pod also works in the suburbs.
The great news is that Edmonton has already relaxed the minimum parking requirements. Cities with these retail street gaps should also contemplate encouraging land owners of parking lots to consider temporarily filling them with food truck pods similar to those in the City of Portland which can be found both downtown and also in lower density residential neighbourhoods. The result is that you can provide more low cost entry opportunities for home grown businesses, therefore increasing city revenues, jobs, residential convenience and making the community more interesting. Increased business density also supports existing small businesses on retail streets as it invites more people to the street which can result in unintentional spill over shopping. Edmonton’s Corner Store Pilot program, while still in its infancy may also offer an opportunity for intensifying lands uses. The program invests in improved landscaping, infrastructure and placemaking in addition to providing customized operations advice for struggling fine grain retail community centres.
What about the big chain stores? Often they are the biggest culprits for willingly building massive parking lots for their stores. A Costco at the base of a residential tower? A mixed use mid rise development with a Home Depot, Winners, Save-On-Food, Canadian Tire, Best Buy and Homesense, including a dozen small businesses on the ground floor and residential units on the top floors? Vancouver offers a model that works. Cities often underestimate the negotiating power they have to foster and shape better urban design that increases the convenience for people without destroying the urban fabric that invites more walking with parking lots.
To deter high volumes of vehicle trips that degrade the quality of the urban environment with their noise, pollution and costly collisions, the best thing you can do is build dense mixed use neighbourhoods that are naturally convenient, exciting and inviting for walking and cycling. While this will convince most local residents to ditch the car, the differences between Vancouver’s West End and neighbourhoods in New York City or London demonstrate that neighbourhood wide traffic calming is usually also necessary. Neighbourhood wide traffic calming will mitigate traffic that is simply trying to move through contributing little to the community and prioritizes the driving trips for the local residents. It is also important to have high quality and frequent transit service within a 5-10 minute walk to further discourage the need of a car for longer vehicle trips.
Blank walls often create unwelcoming dead spaces. This space has conflicting messages, the bench says “please come sit down and stay,” meanwhile the “No Loitering” sign says don’t. Photo Source: (Flickr David Wilson https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidwilson1949/)
You have probably seen a sign similar to the one above. Signs like these are often used in areas where people seldom tend to stick around for long. These are usually areas that are aesthetically uninteresting with single land uses such as along blank walls, in parks only serving as open space. The lack of oversight or “eyes on the street” as Jane Jacob coined, can often bring unwanted behaviours like vandalism and public use of drugs, hence signs like these are used as a way to try and prevent these activities. This sign approach assumes that the threat of police or bylaw officers with the authority to remove more people from the space will solve the problem. The lack of people in the space providing a natural oversight and check of unwanted behaviour was the problem in the first place.
An Edmonton park designed primarily for providing open space surrounded only by single family housing uses is completely empty. If the neighbourhood starts to decline this park could become problematic.
We must refrain from assuming police are actually what prevent crime. Police are best for addressing situations that already happened. The best thing to do for creating crime-free cities is to have people out on our streets as much as possible, this provides witnesses. Potential offenders are uncomfortable with witnesses.
As an example in Noord (North) Amsterdam was Noorderpark a park that had issues with people using hard drugs. In North America our reaction would be to send police in to kick them out or put up signs saying “The consumption of drugs and alcohol is prohibited.”
Amsterdam not only didn’t do that, but counter intuitively they built a bar that serves alcohol (Noorderparkbar) along with playgrounds for children, wading pools, washrooms and indoor and outdoor cultural programming space (Noorderparkkamer). The city followed the Project for Public Spaces place making principles of creating at least ten activities to get as many people, for as many different reasons to be in the space.
The result? Noorderpark now is now a safe, enjoyable place to take your family. The quicker we accept that having mixed uses and many activities (yes including drinking establishments), the further we will benefit with more vibrant places that improve our safety and happiness.
Through my travels I have been able to visit, experience and observe numerous markets. A few basic elements for successful markets can be distilled despite observing markets in a wide range of cultures including Asian, Eastern European, Western European, North American and Latin American cities, affluent or impoverished neighbourhoods and warm or cold climates.
Design: Scale and Context
London’s Camden Locks Market, very cozy!
A smaller market with less space will always seem fuller with fewer people, hence more attractive. For most people there is nothing more unappealing than an empty space. The goal should be quality over quantity, wait for the demand to build and then you can expand the market. The city of Edmonton market started on only 104 St., it has now expanded to take up a second street on 102 Ave. every Saturday.
Street Market in Chiang Mai Thailand
Edmonton’s 104 Market on a Human Scaled Street
Madrid’s Rastro Market takes over the street
Buenos Aires’ San Telmo market occupies a narrow human scale street
Rich or Poor markets operate by the same basic rules.
The best markets are located right within the the urban fabric, sandwiched between human scaled buildings (2-5 storeys tall). This serves to frame the market creating an environment that is rich in details and comfortable. This also helps reinforce keeping a sense of smaller scale. The immediate walls of the surrounding buildings frame the market and make it feel smaller. Markets can be linear along a street or inhabit a space such as a plaza.
Bangkok’s riveting Chinese Market can often be overwhelming for all senses, however it still applies the same principles that make great markets.Even this market in Thailand that is interrupted by regular trains follows the basic rules of all great markets.
The following are a list of great street markets lined with fine grain retail that I have had the opportunity to visit: Edmonton’s 104 Street Market, Amsterdam’s Ten KateMarkt, Berlin’s Turkish Market (Türkischer Markt), London’s Columbia Road Flower Market, Chiang Mai’s Sunday Night Market, Street Market in Villazon, Bolivia, Bangkok’s Chinese Market, Madrid’s Rastro Flea Market, Buenos Aires Feria de San Pedro Telmo Sunday Market, Delft Saturday Flea Market
The walkway of the Camden Locks Market offers a rest from the hustle in London
Seating and Music at the center of the cross roads in Edmonton’s 104 St Farmers Market
The square of the adjacent Abbey offers a reprieve from the crowds of the Borough Market in London
Green space provides a reprieve at the Recoleta Market in Buenos Aires
The market should also be designed to give people the choice how much they want to be involved in the actual market. Some people may choose to sit back on the sidelines and people watch, others will want to be moving through the market perusing the offerings. Therefore it is important to provide the opportunity and space to step away from the market to sit, relax and enjoy their spoils but still be near the fun. This also means providing seating (both unofficial or official) nearby in the form of ledges, stairs, patios, movable chairs and benches.
Activities: Retail and Food
London Columbia Road Flower Market with fine grain retail stores behind.
Since a market is a form of public space it should follow the same guidelines for creating successful public space as outlined by the Project for Public Spaces, including the principle of encouraging at least 10 activities. Therefore when designing a market, surround it with many small businesses such as retail stores, restaurants and bars to make it even more successful. This adds a layer of detail to engage and give people more things to do. Since most markets often run only 1 day a week, anchoring the market with permanent brick and mortar businesses will also help create an identity for the place when the market is not there. Not only will the market create spill over revenue for these businesses but they will create more activities and an even more interesting place.
While this open Market in Zagreb may be bustling with activity while the market is open, the space becomes empty and unwelcoming because of the lack of businesses surrounding it.
While not always necessary, but the market should offer products that cater to local residents. It is the continued use by local people that build up demand and identity. You will never forget some of the burliest English men shouting “Clematis for a fiver” at the top of their lungs.
While the market can focus on selling art, crafts or plants, for best results food vendors should be allowed either in the market or in nearby restaurants or grocery stores. Food is an essential experience of the human existence, we depend on it. Having it around will attract locals and visitors alike and improve the positive experience of the market.
London’s Borough takes advantage of the left over space from the elevated rail above to provide protection from the elements.
It is also possible to have interior markets, while this will add to the infrastructure costs it provides protection from the elements. Alternatively you could also utilize the left over space to provide space away from the elements such as London’s Borough Market under the train tracks.
Madrid’s Mercado de San Miguel
Torvehallerne interior market in Copenhagen
Torvehallerne interior markets in Copenhagen attached to great public space.
Chiang Mai Interior Market
With interior markets it helps to line the exterior walls with windows and retail businesses but ensure that the windows are permeable to allow people to see all of the fun going inside and draw them in. The worst thing you could do is line the windows with shelving for storage. The following are some of the great interior markets I have visited: Florence’s Central Market, Budapest’s Great Market Hall, Madrid’s Mercado de San Miguel, Copenhagen’s Torvehallerne and numerous enclosed markets in Seville.
It may have happened to you, one day you may have passed by a public space with distinguished, clean and polished design and landscaping but it is empty except for a handful of people. On other days it may be full of energy and people but only when there is programming like a festival or concert. While programming is a great way to give back to your citizens, cities should focus on making plazas great destinations at all times.
The Place Diagram is one of the tools PPS has developed to help communities evaluate places. The inner ring represents a place’s key attributes, the middle ring its intangible qualities, and the outer ring its measurable data. (Source: http://www.pps.org/reference/what_is_placemaking/)
When a place is designed correctly you will know, there will be people in it. Project for Public Spaces offers a great rule of thumb for inviting people into a space, the Power of 10. Design public spaces to offer at least 10 activities for people to attract different to the space for different reasons at different times of the day. This can include things like water features for people to interact with. People are also a natural invitation for other people, most people like to be around other people even if it is to just sit quietly and people watch. When you design public spaces around accommodating large events like the new Art Gallery in Vancouver and Churchill Square in Edmonton, when there is no programming to invite people the space feels out of scale, empty and uninviting. With public spaces, scale plays a big role in their success, smaller spaces feel more vibrant and full with less people.
Cities do a great job activating public spaces with water features and meandering paths.
Most cities do a good job at introducing the water features, seating, greenery, nice views and paths. However the most critical element that will tie them all together often remains elusive. Commerce. Commerce in the form of food and beverages is often best since everyone needs to eat and drink which invites them to stay in the space while they consume it, especially if there is a patio or movable chairs. Patios, where people can eat and drink, naturally attract people, which will in turn attract more people. However other commerce such as retail will also do the trick, but not as well.
This was first identified by Jane Jacobs in The Life and Death of Great American Cities. Jacobs’ astute observations led her to conclude that parks should be immediately surrounded by buildings of fine grain retail shops that open up towards the park. While Jacobs at the time may not have had the hard data to back this up, but this has since recently been confirmed. A City Observatory study found that surrounding a park or plaza with fine grain retail businesses will indeed increase the number of people using the space. “As we showed with our recent Storefront Index (which measures the number and concentration of customer-facing retail and service businesses in cities), the difference between an under-utilized park and an activated one is substantially explained by the presence and density of adjacent storefronts.”
Since stores tend to attract people, the benefits of storefronts include improving safety, having people around adds eyes on the street which deters crime and makes other feel a space is inviting and safe. Commerce around and in parks also create jobs and support the local economy. Having a cafe on public land is also a new revenue source for governments on what would have otherwise been a sunken cost.
Think about your favourite cafe. Do you use it as a meeting point, have you ever gotten the inspiration for a great idea, have you laughed or met new people. Our private establishments can bring a wealth of social benefits and done well they can extend this to our public spaces.
The following are examples of great public spaces around the world that have integrated commerce effectively to produce vibrancy.
Copenhagen’s Numerous Public Spaces
Copenhagen is renowned internationally as one of the leaders in creating great public spaces, and sure enough in every space you will find either a cafe or a perimeter of ground floor retail. For more information on Copenhagen’s place making continue to this article.
Copenhagen’s Isreals Plad is well activated besides the numerous different types of seating, children’s playgrounds, sports courts and of course two enclosed markets off in the distance.
Copenhagen’s Sankt Hans Torv plaza is wrapped by ground floor commerce including a restaurant and patio which invites people and activates the space well.
This cafe patio achor’s and activates Copenhagen’s Super Kilen.
Copenhagen’s Stoget is a walking only street, but it is well activated by the numerous shops and restaurants flanking the street.
Director’s Park – Portland
Portland’s Director’s Park is one of the best examples of a well designed public space. The space is activated with many activities that include a wonderful splash park, movable chairs, games but most critically the space is surrounded by buildings with ground floor retail. In addition to the ground floor retail surrounding the plaza, there is also a cafe that anchors and spills out into the space.
Portland’s Director’s Park is one of the best examples of a well designed public space. In addition to the many activities that include a wonderful splash park, movable chairs, the space is surrounded by buildings with ground floor retail.
In addition to the ground floor retail surrounding the plaza, there is also a cafe that anchors and spills out into the space.
Portland Pioneer square
Portland’s Pioneer Square utilizes a cafe (seen off in the distance) to help anchor this vibrant space.
Portland’s Pioneer Square utilizes a cafe (seen off in the distance) to help anchor the space.
Madison Square Park – New York City
The Shake Shack in New York city compliments Madison Square Park in New York City nicely. The activities from the Shake Shack spread out into the park as people enjoy their spoils.
The Shake Shack activates the Madison Square Park in New York City
The activity from the Shake Shack spreads out into Madison Square Park as people enjoy their spoils.
Memorial Park – Calgary
Calgary’s memorial park is another great example of a public space done well. It does a good job creating ten activities with a splash park, movable tables and chairs. However it is the Boxwood Cafe that anchors one corner of the space which serves to really tie it together and draw people into the space.
Calgary’s memorial park is another great example of a public space done well. The Boxwood Cafe anchors one corner of the space which serves to draw people into the space.
Calgary’s Memorial Park does a good job achieving the 10 activities, with a splash park, movable tables and chairs.
Plaza Del Teatro Vs Plaza Santa Domingo – Quito
Quito’s Plaza Santo Domingo consistently fails to fill its over sized plaza. The buildings that wrap the plaza offer little to interact with other than to look at.
One of my favourite examples are these almost identical plazas from Quito (the capital of Ecuador). On the one hand you have a space that was consistently empty. In another nearby plaza musicians were commonly playing which resulted in people gathering around to listen. However when you look at the rest of the plaza it is wrapped by fine grain retail and restaurants.
Quito’s Plaza Del Teatro is often very full, exciting and engaging. Aside from seating, there are little activities except for the fine grain commerce that wrap the plaza.
Quito’s Plaza Del Teatro is often very full, exciting and engaging. Aside from seating, there are little activities except for the fine grain commerce that wrap the plaza.
Quito’s Plaza Del Teatro is often very full, exciting and engaging. Aside from seating, there are little activities except for the fine grain commerce that wrap the plaza.
Streets are public spaces that naturally do this well, their problem is often the reverse they have the people attracting commerce but often also the loud noises and little space that cities mistakenly sacrificed for the sake of moving cars through quickly which contributes little to the local economy.
London street that attracts people
While it may take considerable effort, planning and capital to install a permanent cafe, quicker, faster and cost effective solutions already exist. Changing the bylaws and permitting food carts and trucks can add the commerce element for little expense on the city’s behalf, yet the results will be immensely rewarding.
The power of temporary. Despite the cold and rainy day and an empty plaza at the plaza in Olympic Village, this food truck was enough of invitation for this handful of people to brave the cold and wet.
SLOW STREETS 