Bending The Culture Curve

There's been a lot of news since the last post about complete streets and safety at this site.

Traverse City leaders are making traffic safety a priority and released a Bicycle Safety Rules PDF.

Also See IPR: Bike-Car Crashes Concern City Leaders In T.C.

There was a study released on the most dangerous cities for pedestrians in the U.S.
See NYT: On Wide Florida Roads, Running for Dear Life

And the University of Michigan did a study that concluded Michigan traffic accidents have a higher external cost to society than crime.
See DetNews: Traffic crashes cost Michigan $9.1B, more than crime

These reports gave me the impetus to mention something that I neglected in The Mandate Of Complete Streets.

That is Culture. What makes walking part of a culture and why are some areas safer? Is there a culture of safety?

When I think of a walking culture I think of the U.K. Specifically, The Ramblers. Walking is so important to the fabric of English society that the Ramblers ensure that at least once per year every foot path in the U.K. is traveled in order to maintain the public's right-of-way.

Can we have that? How do we make walking safely part of our culture when for the last 50 years the United States has been expanding roadways and making roads safer for vehicles but dangerous by design (Transportation for America PDF report) for everything else? How does the culture buy into the idea that more than vehicles move?

While Complete Streets are a new thing in the U.S., the similar concept of Living Streets has been in England since 1929.

So we could wait 80 years and let the ideas of Complete Streets filter through the culture, or we could use data to drive our decisions.

At my job I analyze data sourced from across Michigan and establish baselines of how many Internet problems per number of devices is normal and then look for areas with abnormal trouble rates and search for ways to lower that baseline rate.

When I read the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute study: Societal costs of traffic crashes and crime in Michigan: 2011 update, I realized similar data was available in the study's data source: 2009 Transportation Data Center
Data Set Codebook

We had accidents per county and the census can give us population. Perhaps I could apply them?

I found some Michigan web sites with traffic crash data:
-Michigan Traffic Crash Facts
-Michigan State Police Traffic Crash Statistics
-Michigan State Police Traffic Crash Reporting Information

They had the reports I was looking for as PDF's:

-2010 Michigan Traffic Crash Facts for County/Communities
-MICHIGAN STATE POLICE CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION CENTER CRASH STATISTICS NUMBER OF CRASHES REPORT STATEWIDE TOTALS FOR 01/01/2010 THROUGH 12/31/2010 (all caps is the original format)

Methods

I used the 2010 Census to get population numbers.

I exported the crash data from the PDF's to a spreadsheet.

I then calculated median accident rates per number of people in the community and also plotted these on a graph to look for trends.

I did not expect to see any trends or correlations as there seemed to be so many different variables that can have an effect on traffic accidents. But that is not what I found.

Results

The calculated median accident rate for Michigan in 2010 is 32.2 accidents per 1000 people. And it all fit on a trend line (which surprised me):



Next I uploaded the tables to OpenHeatMap to see if there was any pattern to which counties were above this 32.2 accident rate and which were safer. Green is a lower accident rate and red is a higher accident rate by population.

Link to larger version: Michigan County Accident Rate (You can hover over each county to see its Accident Rate score)


It appears to me that rural counties have a higher rate of accidents when weighted for population.

I then applied the same methods to Bicycle Accidents and Pedestrian Accidents.

The calculated median bicycle accident rate for Michigan in 2010 is 0.13 accidents per 1000 people.



Full size Map: 2010 Michigan Bicycle Accident Rate



The calculated median pedestrian accident rate for Michigan in 2010 is 0.15 accidents per 1000 people.



Full size Map: 2010 Michigan Pedestrian Accident Rate


The Bicycle and Pedestrian Accident rates do not show as strong a correlation as total accidents but there is still a pattern.

When looking at the county maps it appears to me that the counties with a strong biking culture have the highest rate of bicycle accidents. These would be counties hosting large Universities where many students use bikes out of necessity and Grand Traverse County where people choose to ride.

It is harder to make sense of the Pedestrian Accidents map. It could be suburban walkers who don't have access to sidewalks are in greater danger.

To explore this possibility I made a map of the Walk Scores Of Michigan's 65 Most Populous Cities with data from WalkScore:



What you see is that city cores have higher walk scores and the suburbs get progressively worse (clearly evident in Wayne County). But is this related to safety?

At MichiganTrafficCrashFacts.org there is a Data Query Tool that lets you build specific maps and tables for defined areas. I used it to look at Traverse City and Grand Traverse County.

2010 Crashes in Grand Traverse County involving pedestrians:

You can see that though many pedestrian accidents were reported within Traverse City proper these usually did not result in injury. But the pedestrian accidents in Grawn, Kingsley, and Williamsburg while fewer in number resulted in serious injury and fatalities.

2010 Crashes in Grand Traverse County involving bicycles:

What I see on this map is more bike accidents downtown, but worse injuries outside of downtown.

What do we do?

Based on these maps and tables I believe that implementing design concepts such as Complete Streets can make roads safer for people, whether they are walking, riding a bike, or driving a car. And I believe that if we make the roads safer for all forms of transportation then more people start using those other forms of transportation. The economy, freed from the burden of unnecessary accidents, grows.

By bending the accident trend lines we can change the arc of our culture.

There are still many questions though and I hope that the research here can serve as a baseline for the future. Two big questions I look forward to having answered are:

-do communities that implement Complete Street designs see their Accident Rate decline?
-do communities with better WalkScores have lower accident rates?

For anyone who wants to do their own research I have uploaded my spreadsheet to Google Docs from there is it easily exportable.

The Mandate Of Complete Streets

(Today's post at MWaT: Are Our Driving Skills A Collective Effort? reminded me to finish this post that I started earlier this summer)

When I think of Complete Streets I think of streets that are safe for everyone. And by making streets safer we lower what economists term externalities or "social costs".

A street designed as complete will be safer for everyone resulting in a net economic gain to society.

In other words, what is a life worth? Not just to that person's family and friends but to the economy as a whole? What are the economic benefits if lawsuits are kept out of the courts, insurance isn't used, employees don't miss work, first responders are available for other emergencies, and on and on?

Traverse City has had numerous conflicts this year between street users.

Example from 9and10: Two Bike, Car Crashes In One Week, Police Cautioning Everyone Be Safe

These pedestrian-bike-vehicle conflicts are happening across the country just as they did in 2008 when there was a spike in gasoline prices forcing people out of their cars.

The most well known accident this summer is the case of Raquel Nelson whose 4 yr old son was struck and killed while attempting to cross a multi-lane road (See NPR: Child's Death Casts Light On Pedestrian Traffic Woes)

A similar tragedy occurred in Traverse City in 2007. See the Record-Eagle:Boy from Greece, 6, killed in accident on U.S. 31

The boy's family stopped in the turn lane halfway across the road to wait for traffic to clear...

As a parent it is hard to imagine anything more horrific than having my child being run over by a semi-trailer while I helplessly watch and knowing design choices played a part in the tragedy.

Doesn't seem appropriate to call these accidents as if they were unpreventable.

Plenty of studies indicate the dangers poor street design poses. See Wired: Report: Streets Pose Mortal Threat to Pedestrians

More than 47,000 people were killed walking the streets of the United States between 2000 and 2009

And while dedicated bike lanes can improve safety for bicyclists pedestrians are always the most susceptible street users as a recent bike-pedestrian accident in San Francisco demonstrates (via NPR).

In the case of Raquel Nelson she was facing three years in jail for jaywalking, the person who was in the car that killed her son? Two years of jail time.

And here we have the problem. It seems that in a state where we are free to walk the beaches of the Great Lakes we are not welcome to walk across the street.

What Grist calls the criminalization of walking.

This is a design decision. Driving requires concentration though we act like it does not. It is why I won't even talk to my passengers when I drive. Yet I still feel the same urges to speed or to use my vehicle to "teach a lesson". We all drive on the road given to us. Apply the neuroscience of behavioral economics to roads and design streets for people.

That is my three word description of Complete Streets: design for people.

This is my hope for Complete Streets in Michigan. A stronger economy by design. And not just in the reduction of negative externalities, but as Fast Company reports complete streets build jobs: Want Jobs? Build Bike Lanes

Cycling projects create a total of 11.4 local jobs for each $1 million spent. Pedestrian-only projects create a little less employment, with an average of 10 jobs for the same amount of money. Multi-use trails create 9.6 jobs per $1 million--but road-only projects generate just 7.8 jobs per $1 million.

Your Speed

Is based on a feedback loop.

And you can be made to decrease your speed by 10% without even realizing it.

This is why a 'Your Speed' radar display is going up on W Front St.

Wonder how this works?

See Wired: Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops

If you like this kind of thing then pick up a copy of the book Nudge.

"Focus Is About Saying No"

The title quote is attributed to Steve Jobs.

This is why your old Mac's mouse only had one button and why the iPhone has only the physical Home button. The lesson Steve Jobs has given the world is say No to what is extraneous so you can focus your efforts on solving problems elegantly.

The people of Traverse City have spoken and they said "No Road".

No doesn't mean don't do anything though. People have their own reasons for voting No, those include:

"No" because the City must focus on traffic as a whole system.
"No" because there is no evidence showing that Boardman Lake Avenue will work.
"No" because roads like these have historically increased traffic.
"No" because other cities are tearing out roads that cut off neighborhoods from each other and amenities.
"No" because this road does not make the neighborhood safer.

We're trying to focus on the problem so we're saying No to building Boardman Lake Avenue.

We want to focus on enjoying and making better what we have.

Focus on building a trail and an Old Town park.

Focus on access to Boardman Lake.

Focus on complete street design. We want Cass, Union, and Lake Ave to be residential streets too. To do that they have to look like neighborhood streets. This means traffic calming.

We need to focus on making the streets we have better.

Focusing on Traverse City traffic issues is about saying No to Old Town's Boardman Lake Avenue bypass.

My Notes from the March 22nd West Boardman Lake Public Meeting

MWaT has a summary: What Are We Trying To Do With The West Boardman Lake Clusterf#@k?

And I have to say that I too am in a kind of numb state after the meeting and still trying to make sense of what happened. The best thing to do right now is simply to report the notes I took 24 hours ago.

-overall sense of sadness. Sad that this road is a foregone conclusion since every option was for a road and sad that the consultants were put into a position where they could not truly reflect the overwhelming sentiment that this road is not a prudent investment at this time. They had a tough job. City hired them to do one thing, the public pushed them to do the opposite.

-why didn't the traffic counts slide have any numbers for Cass St north of Eighth?

-the consultant admitted that it is unknown (his word) if this road would induce traffic. In other words, it is unknown if it would even solve the problems it is supposed to fix.

-the "Low Quality Habitat" slide showing a picture from the west shore of Boardman Lake. This low quality habitat is where I saw red-winged blackbirds, geese, swans, buffleheads, loons, mallards, and mergansers last weekend. West Boardman Lake is where I have heard the rare spruce grouse roosting. It is where I have seen mink, muskrats, beaver, foxes, and this past Thanksgiving, I caught a fleeting glance of a bobcat along the west shore of Boardman Lake. Other people have seen otters on west Boardman Lake. The slide was a picture of the exact spot where I pick raspberries in July. Low quality?

-how many people use the Boardman Lake trail? Because if there are a series of HAWK crosswalks across the new Boardman Lake Avenue, requiring vehicles to stop for pedestrians, why would anyone drive on this road if there was a good chance of unpredictable stops? Plus having a HAWK crosswalk behind Old Town Condos would create considerable light and noise pollution for them.

-if people were looking for a bypass Lake Avenue would have more traffic

-if the Hagerty parking deck becomes a destination due to increased employment then why would anyone take Boardman Lake Ave to get there?

-when you state that Boardman Lake Ave "will give better access to the city" you are in fact making the argument that traffic will increase, though you were trying to argue for the road because you think it will decrease traffic. Better access = more traffic.

-the traffic issue is speed. This is an issue everyone can agree on. The only option that deals with speed is traffic calming though there will always be speeding drivers.

-roundabouts are supported overwhelmingly and got covered in green dots (meaning good), yet they are still belittled by some. Why?

-Building this road feels like a done deal that only needs political cover to purchase Copy Central. It feels like a political decision, not a traffic decision, because no one in authority will state publicly that this road will definitely relieve traffic. Because it won't.

So rather than fix traffic we're going to build a road because the politics do not allow an attempt at a city grid solution here (red arrows are the problem):

Numbers Do Lie

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.

Here are the updates to my last post.

-The City Engineering department has maps with traffic counts from 2003 to 2006 available here: http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/city-engineering/maps

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?

The Numbers Don't Lie

The main contention of those Old Town residents who support Boardman Lake Avenue is that this north-south road will solve east-west traffic.

I wanted to test this hypothesis. I collected the traffic count numbers from the Gourdie Fraser studies.

-p. 14, Gourdie Fraser Engineering Study for Boardman Lake Avenue, 1994, http://www.gourdiefraser.com/Boardman%20Lake%20Avenue/1994_Study_opt.pdf (traffic counts done predominantly in July, including July 5th!, and August, 1989)

-Table III-1, Gourdie Fraser Engineering Study Update, 1998, http://www.gourdiefraser.com/Boardman%20Lake%20Avenue/1998_Study_opt.pdf (traffic counts done predominantly after Memorial Day and early June, 1990)

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.

Other numbers from city-data.com:

-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.

Other numbers:
-In 1989 gasoline average $1.72/gallon in today's dollars, in 1997 it was $1.68. (Source: DOE, Retail Motor Gasoline and On-Highway Diesel Fuel Prices, 1949-2009)

-5 yr average gasoline prices from GasBuddy


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?

-If brownfield funds become unavailable (See
IPR: State Tax Reforms Could Diminish Interest In Urban Redevelopment) is this road a prudent investment by the city?

-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?

That's why cities all over are tearing out highways rather than building new ones. As described in this CS Monitor story:
Downtown need a makeover? More cities are razing urban highways

...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"

Monday Morning Traffic

Some observations.

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?

Road Flares

When you are on the road and have a problem you light a flare to send a signal. What signal will Traverse City send?

When the barn on Lake Avenue was burning earlier this winter the Traverse City Fire Department woke up all the neighbors at 2:30 AM by banging on doors and telling them to get ready to evacuate. The TCFD made the decision to let this barn burn rather than risk contaminating the Boardman River with the fertilizer stored inside. How is that for foresight? My neighbors and I loved that barn, but we also love that the TCFD made that decision. A barn, or even our houses, are temporary and can be rebuilt, the Boardman River will outlast us and cannot be redone.

What does the community value?

My wife and I moved here in 1999. There were signals that drew us here. The wind turbine on M-72 was new, Outside Magazine had just named the area a top destination. We visited with the goal of making Traverse City our permanent home. We camped at DH Day and drove slowly through the leafy neighborhoods looking at rentals. We saw that Traverse City was the ideal mix of urban and un-paved spaces. We saw signs that Traverse City was starting a wave we wanted to ride.

Look at this picture from Anderson Aerial Photography (visit the link for a huge version of the file).
What a place! My wife and I feel fortunate that we have been able to make a life here.

When you look at the area from the air the Boardman River is like a necklace draped over the landscape, giving the community a jewel to appreciate amidst the urban fabric.

I value that in-town Boardman Lake supports mink, beaver, red winged blackbirds, fox, bobcats, swans, loons, buffleheads, and a wide variety of sport fishing opportunities. Doesn't everyone get some pride out of telling out-of-town friends that we can hear loons - from downtown! Where else would this be possible?

What does the community value?

More car capacity or more capacity for the things people enjoy?

This winter I have seen my neighbors using the area where the Boardman Lake Avenue will go as an impromptu sledding hill; a safe space for teaching children how to XC ski; a play area for people and their dogs. Spring is coming and one of my favorite things on the first nice day is to grab a snack at Oryana followed by a walk over to Boardman Lake while experiencing the warm sunshine and the first red-winged blackbirds of the year.

This is what I value.

But now the City is calling this the West Boardman Lake Re-development project. I feel as though the City is appealing to our values by re-badging a road building project as parks and trails and we'll just throw a road in there for good measure. Thus I have become skeptical of the entire process. I have the sense that the City has already decided that a road is going to be built and all that matters now is how.

Though I am skeptical of a new road I am proud of my neighborhood. I am thankful to live in neighborhood where there is a small number of residents who care enough for the health and safety of their neighbors that they volunteer their time to make our neighborhood a better place. It is difficult for families with two careers, two kids, social engagements, and many other commitments to make it to the Neighborhood Association meetings so their dedication is appreciated. But Neighborhood Associations are not elected bodies, and never did I think they were decision making entities. Perhaps I missed it but I was never given a survey about my thoughts for a Boardman Lake Avenue. I never saw a neighborhood meeting where the pros and cons of a new road were discussed.

Because the dedicated tiny band of volunteers who are our Old Town Neighborhood Association were promised a road, they weren't promised a solution. The assumption was made that they were equivalents so the discussion never came up. But a road is not a solution.

Those of us who are in opposition to a road want the same thing as those who were promised a road - we all want a solution to traffic speeding through our neighborhood. It is well known in Engineering Departments that adding roads decreases overall traffic efficiency. They know about the Braess Paradox. Why didn't anyone tell the Old Town Neighborhood Association?

I am not opposed to building Boardman Lake Avenue to be divisive, I oppose it because I love my neighborhood and my neighbors and I want the best solution for all of us - all of us in Old Town and in Traverse City.

I want to find a traffic solution that signals to everyone that we develop our city for people, not cars.

I want to signal that we value financial responsibility, the well-being of our residents, and the health of our land and waters.

A flare is not only a signal to "come here", but it can also be a warning. These arguments are some of my road flares:

-History: Ask yourself this - if there's too much traffic going through your neighborhood what is the better solution, creating more capacity for more cars or making it easier for traffic to go around your neighborhood (e.g., on S Airport Rd)? History shows that a community has NEVER built a road like Boardman Lake Avenue and seen a decrease in traffic in the neighborhood.

-Financial: once the road is built the brownfield money spent on it is no longer available for any other projects. Where does the money come from when residents in Slab Town and Traverse Heights demand solutions too? How does Traverse City justify on-going maintenance costs of a new road while other streets are in need of repair and modernization, and with the City facing a $30+ million pension shortfall?

-Safety: A new traffic signal where Copy Central and Midtown are will lead to more congestion and more access points onto Eighth St. More access points create more opportunities for accidents.
Pedestrians who want to access Boardman Lake Trail will now have an additional road to cross, and a road that will be designed for a high volume of traffic. This will make it difficult for families who bike from Oryana to the Boardman Lake trail to do so without risking a conflict with a speeding vehicle.

-Health: There is known contamination between Cone Drive and Boardman Lake. Another unknown is how much more pollution will be encountered, therefore the remediation costs are unknown. And if this corridor is polluted who will build there? Plus, excavating through contaminated soil will threaten Boardman Lake. This road will increase salt and sediment runoff into Boardman Lake too.
And for Midtown residents, an extra traffic light here will lead to more waiting traffic polluting their air.

Traverse City has a chance here to reject the failed road building policy from the past and embrace a solution that makes the neighborhoods more livable.

Consider...

Would we build Eighth St the same way today? Would we bisect the City with a four lane street that pedestrians cannot cross?

Would we build Grandview Parkway the same way today? I think that if we were given the chance to do it over we would not cut ourselves off from the Bay.

Would we build Division St the same way today so that this busy street blocks pedestrian access to 500 acres of parkland?

So why would we try to build a new street that will block easy access to Boardman Lake, the library, and the Boardman Lake trail? Is that what we value?

I believe that we value solutions.

Traffic is like a giant bucket of water. Or a dam with an insatiable amount of water trying to get over it. You start with some trickles of water coming from a few holes. You make new holes and the water doesn't come out of those existing holes any more slowly, but you do get your feet wetter a whole lot quicker. Add more roads and all we'll end up with is a flood of traffic.

Add more capacity for people and we signal the reasons why we love living in Traverse City.

[this was Part 3 of what ended up being a three part series. Earlier posts are
Part 1: Traffic is a Gas
Part 2: You Can't Undo A Road]

You Can't Undo A Road

Once a new road is built it will be there for a lifetime.

If it ends up being a mistake it becomes a very expensive mistake that the City has to subsidize. Roads, like parking, are an entitlement that once established cannot be rolled back. Best to avoid them in the first place.

Boardman Lake Avenue should be a last resort, not a first option.

If the concern is about traffic through the neighborhood then should the City make it easier for traffic to flow around the neighborhoods? Or should Traverse City add an extra path for traffic to use through the neighborhoods?

We all want to do something about traffic through our neighborhoods. I am not opposed to doing something to make the flow of traffic safer but I am opposed to a solution that will exacerbate the problems the neighborhoods face.

If someone can show me an example of where a new road like Boardman Lake Ave has helped then I would be happy to revise my opinion. But I have to base my opinion on the facts, and they are that roads such as this do not alleviate traffic congestion.

Here are the possible scenarios I see for Boardman Lake Avenue if it is built:

A: Boardman Lake Avenue works as advertised. Although there are no historical examples of this ever happening I'll indulge in a little fantasy. Cass between 14th and 8th is only used by local traffic and people wanting to go downtown take the long way of the new road. But if this is the case then we have a high speed (I know people say it will be 25 mph but 8th St is 25 mph too) high volume road sitting between Old Town and Boardman Lake and the library. People who used to walk to the library will now be intimidated by this road crossing and hence drive to the library.

Riverside Apartments becomes a local crash zone as pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers try to negotiate multiple intersections on Eighth St.

Other residential areas such as W Front St demand action to the traffic that bakes up in front of their houses every day. Slab Town and Traverse Heights neighborhoods demand that the City do something about the cut-through traffic.

And they have a point. If the City is going to build a road for a few people in Old Town then every other neighborhood has a right to demand a similar solution to their traffic problem.

B: Boardman Lake Avenue is built and since most people are heading downtown, most people do not use it. The result is a multi-million dollar road to nowhere.

C: Boardman Lake Avenue is built as the West Boardman neighborhood. New houses and businesses are built. Not too much changes. The neighborhood just gets a little bigger, the City gets a little bigger tax base.

Problem with this scenario is I don't see how there's that much room for a new neighborhood, plus who would choose to live between Cone Drive and Boardman Lake when there is a know contaminated groundwater plume between the two?

D: Boardman Lake is built and Braess's Paradox takes over. Most people initially use the new road, but as the new road becomes busy drivers switch to Cass in an attempt to find a better route. Other drivers try the roads and finding neither overly congested start using Boardman Lake Ave and Cass more often. This leads to more traffic using 14th. More traffic on 8th. It becomes more difficult to drive anywhere in town because of the increased traffic volume that the new road has enabled. It becomes more difficult to walk from Old Town neighborhood to anywhere because high volume/speed roads have caged it in.

People complain that there's too much traffic. The City tries various traffic calming measures as they are the only remaining resource to deal with the situation.

History shows Scenario D is the predictable outcome.

Now consider a scenario where the entire traffic system is considered. Where road planning is done from a high level and for the good of the Community, not just one neighborhood.

The world is lazy. Capitalize on the laziness of people. Equilibrate and optimize traffic so that staying out of the neighborhoods becomes the lazy way to drive around and everyone can find happiness with the situation.

Think of the system.

I think about Pac Man - gobbling up dots around the outside edge of the screen - that is how I think about traffic going around the outside of the neighborhoods rather than through them.

Right now it is easier to drive through the neighborhoods. Why would we add another road to neighborhoods then? To make it even easier?

I think it is easier to edit than create so I am going to present my City wide traffic system plan as a starting point for others to edit and destroy:

-S. Airport Rd has to be a better east-west route with fewer stops and starts. There are so many stop lights there that it has become a hurry up and wait track.

The traffic light by Logan's Landing has been a disaster in my opinion. Auntie Pasta's has closed. The YMCA is going to move their main building. Rather than a traffic light here put in "Michigan left's" down by Goodwill and by Verizon. Recent research shows eliminating normal left hand turns can make a great improvement in traffic flow.

See:
Smithsonian: Life Without Left Turns

NCSU: Operational Effects of Signalized Superstreets in North Carolina.

-Are traffic lights needed at both Barlow and Park Dr? Remove access to Park Dr from S Airport Rd.

-Re-align Barlow - Woodmere - Railroad Ave with a roundabout at E 8th for an additional way into downtown.

-Division St needs to be a boulevard in the same kind of transformation that Woodmere Ave saw. Go from four lanes to two with "Michigan lefts" at key points.

-Redesign Grandview Parkway to force slower speeds with fewer stops. Right now it cuts off the city from the bay front in much the same way that I fear Boardman Lake Avenue will cut off the lake and library from the west side neighborhoods.

-Put in roundabouts at the peripheries of the neighborhoods. Use astrophysics. Let the mass of the roundabouts guide the traffic in a nice even flow. Division and 14th, Front St and Garfield Ave, Front St and Railroad Ave, Front St and Union, Front St and Division, as just a few examples.

Just as it was easier for Pac Man to go on the outside I imagine that if traffic had an unimpeded, though slow, flow at the edges of town then this would become the preferred route rather than through the neighborhoods.

And if traffic in the neighborhoods does not improve with a system approach then perhaps a Boardman Lake Avenue would be needed. But let's not have our first step be building a mistake we can't undo.

Likewise, if we drive from our neighborhood to the post office, The State, Horizon Books, or downtown restaurants and demand that the City build us a road to make our drives downtown easier then we're not helping matters. We need to undo those habits.

So I think I will add a Part 3 to this series - "road flares".

Traffic Is A Gas

Gases are defined by the Ideal Gas Law.

PV = nRT

Decrease the pressure and the volume increases. Add roads to increase volume in an attempt to decreases traffic pressure and you get stymied because your n is not a constant and not predictable. It increases as volume does. So like a gas filling an empty balloon, traffic will fill the roads given to it even though individual drivers are unpredictable. This is why cutting edge university Engineering Departments model traffic as a kinetic gas.

In other words, a gas will find equilibrium across the volume given to it.

Optimization is different. Optimization is constricting volume to force the flow where you want it to go.

How I think about this is like a gas grill.

Your tank connects to the grill, you turn a valve (a stop light?) and the gas is evenly distributed through many tiny holes for an even heat.

This is equilibrium. Equilibrium is gas using all of these jets evenly. It is calm.

But if you need to crank up the heat on your grill for searing then you use a dedicated burner that has an almost direct line to the gas source.

This is optimization. Optimization is forcing the gas to use one area of your grill.

Traffic calming attempts to slow down the flow so that equilibrium is attained.

If you want to optimize traffic you have to force it by closing other roads. This is why the Andrews University study shows a Boardman Lake Boulevard but also closes off Cass. On net the number of roads doesn't really change in their class exercise.

But Cass is not going to be closed. Not just is it the lifeblood of many businesses but this is also the historical route into Traverse City. You've probably seen the "Old Indian Trail" markers around - I was curious about them so I mapped out their route from Lake Mitchell to Grand Traverse Bay.

This route that has been used for hundreds if not thousands of years and it followed the terrain across the Country Club and then right down present day Cass.


View Cadillac to Traverse City Old Indian Trail in a larger map

I mention this only for perspective, I'm not saying "this is how it has always been so let's not change it" but it is worth noting that this path has a certain allure since out of all available paths, it was used.

Change is needed. Traffic through Old Town is coming and going somewhere. But adding a link to the traffic network will only allow the gas that is traffic to expand to fill the new route.

And isn't it traffic volume that the loudest complaints are about?

Has anyone ever been injured by traffic volume though? Couldn't high traffic volume be considered beneficial? The people in those cars are full of potential - potential customers, potential employees, potential friends - better to have too many than not enough. What about traffic speed? I have had plenty of close calls due to speeding traffic in Old Town. Heck, I even find myself and my pedestrian-centric attitude challenged sometimes when I am driving and turn to head north on Lave Ave and see an uninterrupted stretch down to Eighth - I feel a primordial urge to floor the gas pedal.

I believe we need to address the speed problem first.

So what can be done to calm the traffic system for all the neighborhoods? And how to do it in a way that provides better flow and better safety on both sides of the windshield?

First thing is to think about it as a system and not individual street. This is where I think smart designs like roundabouts can play a role.

I was dubious of roundabouts initially. Though the argument that tourists won't understand them doesn't work for me - tourists seem just fine with our city's one-way streets. Plus traffic lights were new in the 1920's yet people quickly got used to them. Same thing with the "Michigan left". People can deal with it.

The planets of the solar system interact with each other and this is how I think about in-town traffic. It is a system where the mass of one body can interact with another. This is why I think of traffic roundabouts like the gas giant planets. Their presence protects the inner system from rogue comets and asteroids but their mass also allows astrophysicists to use them as gravitational slingshots like the Cassini interplanet trajectory


Image from Wikipedia Commons

Similarly the neighborhoods of Traverse City can be protected by roundabouts at the peripheries. Shunting and routing traffic in the proper direction by encouraging its flow without stopping it.

Because the human brain is built to prefer motion over non-motion. Think about Lake Ave - cutting down Twelfth and by Oryana to Lake Ave is actually a longer path and a longer trip than going Cass to Eighth but involves fewer stops so it is perceived as being shorter (also another case of traffic finding an equilibrium).

Roundabouts work in a similar way. Traffic is slowed down but doesn't stop so the overall experience is perceived as being more efficient. Concomitantly this efficiency will lead to roundabouts directing traffic away from the inner neighborhoods. And like the inner planets being protected from cosmic debris by the gas giants, the inner neighborhoods will be friendlier to life with traffic speeding through them.

Next will be part 2 - "You can't undo a road".

"I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means"

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.

This is probably why this is being referred to as a "Development Project" now. MWaT had it earlier this week: Introducing The “West Boardman Lake Development Project”

The R-E later: TC delays Boardman Lake Ave. contracts

Relevant documents have been posted to scribd by Gary at MWaT: City Commission Packet Jan. 3, 2011 (begin at page 40)

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?

Timely related news via Grist: Do roads pay for themselves? Well, no

Thoughts On The Proposed Boardman Lake Avenue

[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.

Thanks for your consideration.

Additional reading:

'Traffic: why we drive the way we do'
http://tomvanderbilt.com/traffic/

Removing Roads and Traffic Lights Speeds Urban Travel
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=removing-roads-and-traffic-lights

Braess Paradox
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox

Why Traffic Engineers Don't Get The Braess Paradox

Or traffic calming ideas.
It isn't in "the book".

See Grist:
Confessions of a recovering engineer

An engineer designing a street or road prioritizes the world in this way, no matter how they are instructed:

1. Traffic speed
2. Traffic volume
3. Safety
4. Cost

Crazy Ideas Department - Paying For Red Lights To Go Green

This does sound crazy but the prevalence of smartphones and their coming ability to pay for transactions makes this a real possibility. In-depth discussion is at 3quarksdaily: Free-Market Moloch? Paying to Make Red Lights Turn Green

Interesting concept...

Importing Ideas

Saw two European transportation related things today that caught my attention.

1. A friend posted to Facebook this picture with the comment of "Typical Amsterdam bike rack.":



2. Originally from France, via GOOD: The Merits of the Diverging Diamond Interchange

Understanding Braess

And calming traffic.

Simply put - adding capacity to a network decreases overall efficiency.

See Scientific American: Removing Roads and Traffic Lights Speeds Urban Travel

Why? There's math for that (see Wikipedia). How I see it is based on the psychological experiment that asked people if they'd rather live in a neighborhood where they made $100,000 and their neighbors $50,000; or a place where they made $200,000 but surrounded by people making $400,000. People overwhelming wanted to be richer than their neighbors even when that meant passing up a doubling of their income. A study from the U.K. confirmed this experiment: Happiness Is ... Making More Money Than the Next Guy. Or as They Might Be Giants sang, "I don't want the world, I just want your half".
This is how drivers behave - why they do not make the most efficient choice. Some drivers are simply looking for a way to get to the next spot before the other guy.

You see this as drivers speed down Lake Ave past Oryana and McGoughs. They aren't going to save a lot of time by doing this but if they can get ahead of the car that they were behind a few minutes ago on Fourteenth then they are satisfied.

And as an experimental guy found out in Seattle, one bad or good driver can impact everyone else for the worse or better.

I believe this is the essence of the Braess paradox, additional network choices lead to inefficient decision because the agents look at only getting to the next hop in the network. By eliminating choice you increase efficiency since there is no competition for an alternative route.

This has been proven New York, Stuttgart, Seoul, Los Angeles. It can work in Traverse City too. Plus, it is much cheaper to close a road than to build a new one.

This is something I want Traverse City to consider as the City plans to introduce traffic calming ideas. I'm going to listen to them then will have more to say about it and about the proposed Boardman Lake Ave.

Negating The Braess Paradox

Via PhysOrg: Scientist proves Braess paradox 'disappears' under high traffic demands

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.

Epistemic Closure In Traverse City (And Applying Astrophysics To Roundabouts)

There's a reason it is called Division St.

The Traverse City Commission had a meeting where no one spoke against roundabouts on Division St. A local AM radio station took calls from listeners for an hour and no one spoke in favor of roundabouts.

Obviously there are two different communities in Traverse City. One is open to trying new things. The other lives in fear of change - locked in their own world of epistemic closure with the same AM talk radio station on all day and predictable TV at night.

These two communities represent a fundamental split in the people of Traverse City. There are folks who think of this place as the small town where nothing changes and everyone hunts and fishes. The others think of TC as a micropolitan that attracts the educated and creative class with its natural beauty and concentrated amenities.

My opinion on Division St and Grandview Parkway is I want easier pedestrian access across these busy streets and slower traffic. And if a series of roundabouts is the best solution then that is what I would like to see.

But I am not convinced that a series of roundabouts would succeed.

Rather I want to apply astrophysics to the transportation problem in Traverse City.

The gas giants of the outer solar system or like the townships surrounding Traverse and the hospitable inner planets of Mars, Earth, and Venus are like the neighborhoods.

Much like the gas giants protect the more hospitable planets of the inner solar system from bombardment by cosmic debris from dark space I want to see roundabouts at the city limits protecting the inner neighborhoods. For example, a roundabout at 14th St. and Division would use the gravity of the circling traffic to sling vehicles in various directions into and out of Traverse City. And just as spacecraft use gravitational deceleration before landing, the mass of the roundabout would slow down traffic coming into the city's neighborhoods.

And just as a gas giant cannot survive in an inner-solar system neither can a roundabout survive in a neighborhood.

(ref: geologists and astronomers believe the gravitational pull of Saturn and Jupiter deflect possible planet killing comets, asteroids, etc that enter the solar system and this is what gave the early Earth time to evolve life)

Roundabout proponents claim that they make pedestrian access easier because you only have to look in one direction as you cross. So I tried an experiment. I walked towards the Bay on Oak St and attempted to cross at the crosswalk where Grandview Parkway is divided by a median. I only had to look one way before crossing each half of the street, and though it was better than crossing an undivided road, it was still not as easy as using a pedestrian underpass.

Or a stop light for that matter. The punctuated equilibrium of traffic that a light provides is why I go to Seventh St when I want to walk across Division. But no one is arguing for more traffic lights even though you clearly improve pedestrian access if you stop traffic for a few minutes.

So put roundabouts outside of the neighborhoods and make Division St into a Woodmere Ave-like boulevard north towards the Bay with one or more pedestrian tunnels connecting Central Neighborhood to The Commons. My hope would be that by constructing fewer roundabouts the savings could be used to pay for a green and welcoming Division St boulevard.

With all of this hoopla over roundabouts imagine what would happen if the suggestion was to remove all the traffic signs?

Links:
IPR: Roundabouts Praised At Public Meeting

MyNorth: Should Traverse City Have Traffic Roundabouts?

PlanForTC: roundabouts on Division?

MWaT: Car advocates, beginning to rally

TCBN: Ron Jolly

R-E: Skeptics, enthusiasts debate roundabouts

Shut Down Lake Ave

I maintain that if Traverse City is serious about traffic calming then the first step is to put up barriers to close the interesection of Lake Ave and Eighth St and then let the Braess paradox go to work.

View Larger Map

The latest example again comes from New York when a congested thoroughfare was closed and congestion improved.

See the NYT: What if They Closed 42d Street and Nobody Noticed?

I've mentioned this concept before: Understanding Traffic With Braess' Paradox And The Nash Equilibrium