Planners work to find biking hot spots

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Planners in Montgomery County are working to determine how to best accommodate bicyclists as the county continues to grow. They’ve created a tool known as a “heat map” to figure out the best places to invest in bike infrastructure.

With limited funds, planners have to prioritize bike infrastructure, just like other types of infrastructure. This tool should help planners figure out which projects will have the biggest impact.

As expected, the primary bicycle hot spots are in the more urban communities in the downcounty area. Silver Spring, Bethesda, and Friendship Heights top the list of areas with high cycling demand.

Wheaton, White Flint, and Rockville also have high demand for cycling infrastructure.

The map was developed by measuring proximity … Continue reading

Is Walkability Worth as Much as a Walk-in Closet?

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It may be, according to a new report from CEOs for Cities that measures home value in walkable and less walkable communties.

The data in Walking the Walk is based on Walk Score, a website that measures the walkability of any given address by counting how many destinations (parks, library, stores) are within walking distance.

(I would quibble this approach only to note that my house is close to a hardware store, sushi shop (!), and a national park, but with few sidewalks leading to them, walkability is limited.)

Nonetheless, using data from ZipRealty in 15 major markets, they found home values were between $700 to $3,000 higher than is less walkable neighborhoods.

So it seems a sidewalk and a place to walk can increase not … Continue reading

London, Paris, Bethesda?

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The Gazette reports this week that Shared Bikes Could Come to Bethesda. Cities around the world and around the country are finding that bike share programs add a new level of livability and possibly contribute to reducing traffic congestion.

While it could be fun to just bike around Bethesda, the proposed bike station could be the start of a bike share network throughout the County. Why not pick up a bike in Bethesda and pedal down to Friendship Heights or Silver Spring. I can imagine small fleets of biking scientists pedaling from Bethesda to NIH.

Bike sharing could also be the start of thinking about suburban transportation in a broader way. It doesn’t have to be solely about congestion. Some congestion is inevitable, … Continue reading

High Line Part Two

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The second half of the High Line opened this summer and even though it’s a one-off, not likely to be funded in these straightened budget times or replicated in less dense environments, it’s still intersting to think about making parks out of places that are not traditionally green.

Enjoy the pictures.

 

Urban Planning at Silverdocs

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At one of America’s best theaters this week, the Silverdocs film festival is showing The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: An Urban History. Pruitt-Igoe was a St. Louis public housing project, notorious among Planning 101 students as athe worst example of urban planning/social engineering/redevelopment ever. The photo of its implosion–dusty and collapsing, is iconic.

This film “reclaims the mythology of Pruitt-Igoe by questioning and recontextualizing its demise.” The interviews with former residents should be interesting.

Also of interest to planning junkies–The Revenge of the Electric Car, and Surpriseville.

Silver Spring’s AFI is One of the Best

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Reusing an old movie theater is one of historic preservation’s toughest challenges. Often they are large downtown spaces that have been made obsolete by suburban multiplexes that can out-compete with free parking and lots of screens.

But every once in a while, they manage to survive, sometimes through re-use. The MacArthur Theater in the District’s Palisades neighborhood has lost a good deal of its romance, but at least the streetfront landmark survives, if only as a CVS drugstore.

I spent many hours in Brookline Massachusetts’ Coolidge Corner Theater, sureptitously unwrapping bagels and cream cheese while gorging myself on Frank Capra, Bette Davis, and Cary Grant. Even in this era of Netflix couch potatoes, that theater survives with membership and vigorous … Continue reading

Eco -logy meets eco -nomy: it all comes down to home.

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Excerpts from David Korten’s “Living Buildings, Living Economies, and a Living Future” from Yes! online, May 18, 2011:

“Integrating multi-purpose buildings into a larger multi-building neighborhood or district system adds opportunities to develop public green spaces, community gardens, edible landscaping, and small-scale poultry and livestock production, as well as natural wetlands and living machine water purification to continuously recycle nutrients, water, and energy.

Integrative projects also create opportunities to balance the utility loads of businesses, which generally have greater energy needs during the day, and residences, which have greater needs during nonbusiness hours. Bringing residences, employment, shopping, and recreation together in close proximity minimizes transportation requirements and facilitates the sharing of autos, bicycles, appliances, and tools, and community connections … Continue reading

Dangerous by Design

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No, not the bad boys your mother warned you about, but the streets you may (try to) walk along everyday.

Transportation for America’s latest report has plenty of media-catching data:

between 2000 and 2009 more than 47,700 pedestrians were killed in the United States, the equivalent of a jumbo jet crash every month in that same time period, a pedestrian was struck by a car or truck every 7 minutes while motorist deaths have dropped 27 percent in the past decade, pedestrian fatalities have fallen at only half that rate, by just over 14 percent.

But you won’t be surprised to hear that a scant fraction of federal transportation funding distributed to states for local projects is dedicated to pedestrian safety. … Continue reading

A Learning Opportunity from NCPC: Contemporary Design, Historic City

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What: 2011 NCPC Speaker Series Contemporary Design, Historic City: The Balancing Act Between Innovation & Preservation When: Tuesday, June 7, 2011 6:30 – 8:00 PM Where: Koubek Auditorium – Crough Center for Architectural Studies School of Architecture and Planning Catholic University of America

 

As a city filled with historic structures and landmarks, architectural preservation in the nation’s capital receives a lot of attention. Yet, as Washington continues to evolve, there exists a growing need for new development and a desire for more modern and inventive architecture. Making sure the two can successfully co-exist is the responsibility of the agencies involved in the planning and design review process. Join a panel of distinguished design and planning experts as they explore … Continue reading

Bicycle Conference Follow-up

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guest post: David Anspacher

Last Saturday, the Montgomery County Civic Federation’s bicycle conference got representatives from various agencies together, including M-NCPPC, MCDOT, MDOT, MD SHA, and WMATA, to talk about their bicycle planning and implementation activities.

In the late morning, attendees  began developing an action plan for advancing bicycling in the County. There were lots of good ideas, many dealing with ways to reduce the speed of car traffic.

Francoise Carrier, Chair of the Planning Board, provided concluding remarks. She identified three ways that the Planning Board can work to improve bicycling:

through master planning, find opportunities to break up large blocks and expand the street grid, creating a network of low volume, low speed roads overlaid with  bike … Continue reading