So to summarize - more roads lead to more people driving which leads to a less livable city. Conversely, more people capacity leads to greater livability.
NPR had a story this week on how Complete Streets make streets safer for pedestrians who are crossing them. Especially for those people who cannot sprint across an intersection.
This is a concept that doesn't get much coverage - social costs.
When pedestrians are unnecessarily injured there is a cost to society that is accrued - lost wages, lost productivity - plus the opportunity cost of having medical personnel respond to an accident that could have been prevented by better design.
Rather some people shout the simpler slogan of "unfunded mandate". Yes, unfunded mandates are a burden but in this case it ignores the fact that it is a concept to guide a design process for when roads are built or repaired so the money is already there. I like to save the unfunded mandate accusation for when it really is a problem.
Do people in earthquake zones call building codes an unfunded mandate? No. Because like the Complete Streets design concept, taking time to do things right the first time saves people from having to pay a lot at some later time.
"This study finds that the factors associated with a vehicle crashing into a pedestrian and cyclist are largely the same as those resulting in a crash with another vehicle. Designs that balance the inherent tension between vehicle speeds and traffic conflicts can be used to enhance the safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists alike."
For my thesis, the Biogeochemistry of Waters Within The Grand Traverse Bay Watershed, I took water samples and modeled hydrology. I would never have based any conclusions on one time observations.
My last post was partly an attempt to show how people can look at the same numbers and draw different conclusions. These one time sample numbers that we get are interesting but they don't give us the whole picture.
The image below is from the 2006 Traffic Count map. My assumption is the green stars and numbers are where traffic counts were performed. I have circled the north and south Cass St count locations.
S Cass St has a count of 13,709.
N Cass St by Grandview Pkwy has a count of 3,235.
Missing is any count performed between the red circles north of Eighth St and south of Front St. Why not?
This north of Eighth St count for Cass is a very important number, and it may be the one number that does not lie. The Gordie-Fraser Engineering Study indicated that Cass St north and south of Eighth varied by only about 1000 daily trips. If that is true then there is no way Boardman Lake Avenue will do what was promised to the Old Town Neighborhood Association.
Or do we do what a City official stated Tuesday night after the BLA meeting in an informal discussion - "don't pay any attention to the traffic count numbers". If that is the case then don't use the numbers to argue for the road.
As I have said before, Old Town was promised a road, not a solution.
-The last census shows a very modest increase of 142 people in the city limits, which reverses the loss of population I reported in my last post.
-The number of people wanting a "No Road" option could give the impression that people are anti-road. But voting for "No Road" is more about expressing a dislike of any of the presented options.
That is why I and many other people want to see a larger traffic plan put in place. A larger vision - a grand vision perhaps?
I took those numbers and put them into a table (link to a MS Excel sheet).
The numbers show:
-Traffic on Cass St is predominantly downtown traffic. If Boardman Lake Avenue was going to take traffic off Cass St north of 14th then there should be a large difference in traffic on Cass north and south of Eighth St.
There isn't:
10,580 on Cass south of 8th is about equal to 9,699 on Cass north of 8th St.
This confirms that many people on Cass are heading downtown.
-Traffic decreased by 30% on Cass St between Eighth and Fourteenth from the traffic counts done in 1989/1990 versus 1997.
-Traffic on Eighth and Fourteenth streets are not related.
If traffic was using 14th St to get to 8th then these numbers should be roughly equivalent.
17,715 on 14th St is much less than the 29,609 vehicles on 8th east of Boardman Ave.
-We already have a Boardman Lake Avenue. It is Lake Ave and only 3,074 vehicles per day were using it in 1998.
-So what about the 14,514 vehicles on Cass St south of 14th?
14,514 vehicles on this stretch.
3,074 on Lake Ave + 10,580 on Cass St north of 14th = 13,654
This shows that we are not dealing with east-west traffic but north-south traffic into and out of downtown.
-If we assume the projections from Gourdie Fraser are correct (although there is no basis for them), then 18,000 vehicles will be speeding up and down the shore of Boardman Lake on the new avenue. This is equivalent to the traffic on 14th St between Union and Division. Have you ever tried to cross 14th St as a pedestrian? Why would we do this to our Boardman Lake trail? This avenue would completely cut off the neighborhood while increasing overall traffic.
-The population of Grand Traverse County has declined by 2.5% since 2000, and the population of Traverse City has declined 4.5% since 1990.
-15,266 people come into Traverse City to work (105% of the population). 76% of them drive. The leave for work at 8 AM and return at 5 PM. Their drive is 10-20 minutes each way. And 90% of the cars are single occupancy.
What these numbers mean to me are the traffic counts from the 1990's are unreliable due to being taken in the summer tourism season; more people drive when gas prices are lower; the city population is getting older and declining; and currently jobs require people to come into the city.
That leaves me with these questions:
-Is this a problem that requires a $5 million solution?
-Why would traffic decrease on Cass St? How do we still not know where traffic is coming and going?
-Whatever people perceive this traffic problem to be, is it a problem that will exist with $5+/gallon gasoline? With a smaller city population? With more people telecommuting?
-When you look at the number of commuters heading into downtown for work, is this a problem that can be solved with a new street? Do we have a traffic problem or a housing problem?
-Is this a driving problem or a people problem? Cities are for people, right?
...cities across the United States look to erase some of the damage from urban highway construction of the 1950s and '60s – tearing up or replacing the roadways and attempting to restitch bulldozed neighborhoods.
We all want the same thing. We want a safe neighborhood with slower traffic going through it. And these numbers leave me unconvinced that the proposed Boardman Lake Avenue will make Old Town a safer place.
Theme song for this post from The Mynabirds, "Numbers Don't Lie"
For this morning's dog walk I had to wait a few minutes to cross Lake Ave by McCough's. There were five cars waiting to turn right at the stop sign.
Taking the kids to daycare at 8:15 I had to wait to be let out of the alley between Eighth and Ninth St. Of about 10 cars that were heading north on Cass eight continued downtown (including me).
Last night at 10 PM there were no cars on Cass, Eighth, or Lake Ave. I know because I stood in the middle of the street waiting a few minutes for the dog to finish sniffing whatever it was he was sniffing.
So... is a lot of traffic a couple times per day, and only on weekdays (not weekends) in need of a $5+ million solution?
Isn't Lake Ave already used as a bypass for Cass and Union streets, making it easier for 80% of the cars using Cass to go downtown?
I'm borrowing that line from Princess Bride to refer to the word "Avenue". To many residents of Old Town, Boardman Lake Avenue would be built to route traffic around the neighborhood. To the City, Boardman Lake Avenue would be built as infill development in order to create more tax revenue.
Residents don't want the increased traffic that would come with infill development and the City can't pay for a new road without property to capture taxes from.
What the City is planning on is having a process similar to what happened for The Barns at the Commons. But this would be for a proposed "West Boardman Lake Redevelopment Project" and would be completed by this April (I was being snarky at a City Planning Commision meeting when I referred to Boardman Lake Ave as a "construction project"; guess I wasn't really that far off base). However, nowhere is it mentioned that a traffic analysis would be performed by an outside agency.
This seems to me like planning to cook dinner before I even knew what ingredients I had available.
How can we rely on traffic analysis that was last done in 1993-1994 before downtown was such a huge draw? Wouldn't it be better to hire a firm to do a thorough traffic analysis first? Where is the traffic on Lake, Cass, and Union going to and coming from? How can we have a public study session if we cannot even identify the technical nature of the problem?
[this is the email I sent to Traverse City officials]
Dear City Officials,
I live in Old Town, on Ninth St between Lake Ave and Cass St, and I strongly oppose building Boardman Lake Avenue.
My opposition is based on the fact that the proposed street will only create the problem it is seeking to solve. As a daily pedestrian I see a traffic speed problem, especially on Lake Ave, but not a traffic volume problem. Building a new road will only exacerbate the speed problem and cause traffic congestion.
Because building more roads will always lead to more traffic by definition - this is why traffic gets modeled as a gas - it expands to fill the space given to it.
Does the city want to build roads or fix the traffic issues? - you can't do both.
The neighbors I talk to want to fix traffic issues, not build more roads.
I understand things have been said to long-time residents of Old Town about the traffic in our neighborhood. But that was before Tom Vanderbilt wrote 'Traffic' in 2008. Before the Braess paradox (i.e., "in a network in which all the moving entities rationally seek the most efficient route, adding extra capacity can actually reduce the network’s overall efficiency") was understood to apply to traffic models. And in the last 10 years many communities tried to build their way out of traffic congestion only to fail; while communities that have closed streets have improved the flow of traffic.
Why would Traverse City try the failed road building solutions of the past?
Here are my questions for everyone to consider before Boardman Lake Avenue is built:
- Has a traffic study ever been done to indicate that this new road would work as intended? Or does the preponderance of traffic use Cass St as a north-south corridor into and out of downtown. How much traffic is related to St. Francis school pick-ups and drop-offs?
- Is there an example anywhere, of any town, ever successfully decreasing in-town traffic by building a new road? The answer I have found is No, more roads always create more traffic within five years. The lesson other cities have learned is you cannot build your way out of traffic problems and more streets always lead to more traffic.
- Does Traverse City want to spend so much money on a new road without trying much less expensive traffic calming measures first?
- What would be the environmental impact on Boardman Lake from more road salt and sediment?
- How will pedestrians safely access the Boardman Lake trail? I heard a person say at an Old Town neighborhood meeting that the Boardman Trail bridge was built so pedestrians could avoid walking next to busy Eighth St. But now we might put a new high-volume street between the neighborhood and Boardman Lake? So instead of having to walk next to a busy street we'll have to cross one?!
- Wouldn't this road simply move the traffic problem elsewhere such as...
- Would Boardman Lake Ave cause dangerous backups on Eighth St as vehicles attempted to turn south?
- Would Tenth St become a favored east-west route?
- How much more traffic would all of Old Town see?
Finally, as conditions exist now it is almost like being caught in a perceptual three-sided box. What I mean by that is that there are three boundaries that are perceptually hard to cross as a pedestrian- 14th Street, 8th Street, and Division Ave. Let's not complete the box with a high speed cut through that will not solve anyone's problems.
The bill, which passed by a 74-30 margin, would amend the Driver Education Provider and Instructor Act to require more education about laws pertaining to bicycles during the classroom instruction of segment 1 driver’s education. Emphasis also would have to be placed on bicycle awareness.
LaHood has proven to be much more than a roads-and-bridges secretary. He's been an outspoken and articulate proponent of high-speed rail. He's mounted an aggressive campaign against distracted driving. He's jumped up on a table to address the National Bike Summit, saying that, "I really came here just to say thank you to all of you for hanging in there with us. You all have made a big difference."
And perhaps most significantly, he has emerged as a defender of the "livable communities" concept, advocating for the construction of a transportation infrastructure that would make walking, biking, and modern public transit available -- and attractive -- options for every American.
A pedestrian and bicycle pathway may be established within the right-of-way of a county road built on an easement granted for highway purposes, without first obtaining the consent of each owner of property abutting the highway."
The Braess Paradox implies that new paths will result in longer times for all travelers in a network. What has been determined is that under high loads there is no change in travel times, and with low demand new routes are used but the travel time does not change.
So, my take-away of this study is that if the proposed Boardman Lake Ave is built, it will get used, but won't shorten anyone's trip and will be a very expensive exercise in futility.
Traverse City does a great job with street events in the summer (e.g., Friday Night Live, Cherry Festival parades, and summer street fairs), but there are large cities that are doing even more.
