BMTS Article Digest

September – October 2017

BMTS Pedestrian & Bicycle Advisory Committee Members: The following is a compilation of articles that may be of interest to BMTS Pedestrian & Bicycle Advisory Committee members. This and past digests can also be accessed in the Pedestrian & Bicycle Advisory Committee page of www.bmtsonline.com. Scott

Take a look at the National Center for Bicycling & Walking's newsletter, CenterLines. You can also arrange to have it emailed directly to you.

See http://www.bikewalk.org/newsletter.php.

CenterLines is the bi-weekly electronic news bulletin of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking. CenterLines is our way of quickly delivering news and information you can use to create more walkable and bicycle-friendly communities.

for

Go to www.BCWalks.com!

Check out these websites for Bike & Pedestrian Information!

https://www.facebook.com/coexistnys/ and https://www.youtube.com/user/CoexistNYS

or www.capitalcoexist.org

In particular, view the interactive educational video clips.

Driver sentenced in fatal hit-and-run

Man left scene of crash that killed BU student

ANTHONY BORRELLI

The driver who struck and killed 20year-old Binghamton University student Stefani Lineva last year will

spend three years on probation and 60 days working weekends in Broome County jail for admitting to leaving the scene of the crash.

Aizaz Siddiqui, 26, of Binghamton, had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of leaving the

scene of an incident without reporting, in connection with the Dec. 3 crash along Route 434.

Lineva was found against a concrete median on Route 434 near the Pennsylvania Avenue

exit that it is prohibited from pedestrian use.

According to prosecutors, Siddiqui would not likely have faced any criminal charge if he had stopped

after hitting Lineva — she was already lying in the road when she was struck — or returned to the

scene of the crash later on. “I do apologize, I know this doesn’t change anything, but I’ve been trying

my very best to right the wrongs,” Siddiqui told Binghamton City Court Judge William C. Pelella at

Thursday’s sentencing.

“I did not mean for any of this to happen.”

No matter what sentence was handed down, Pelella said, it won’t bring Lineva back. But hopefully, he

added, Siddiqui can find a way to pay tribute to her by making his own life a positive one and give back

to others.

“Maybe in her spirit,” Pelella said, “you can be the best person you can be.”

Lineva’s mother Daniela Atanassova- Lineva, spoke in court Thursday about the painful aftermath of her daughter’s death and her own questioning of why Siddiqui had kept on driving that night.

“No parent should have to bury their child,” Atanassova-Lineva said.

“They say that time heals, but it doesn’t.”

According to Binghamton police, Siddiqui was operating a 2013 BMW when he struck Lineva during the early morning hours.

Lineva had been drinking that night, police said, but investigators determined Siddiqui’s leaving the scene without alerting law enforcement officials rendered him culpable.

Defense lawyer Thomas Saitta called Lineva’s death “a tragedy waiting to happen,” since her blood

alcohol content was nearly three times the legal limit and evidence suggested she had been lying in the driving lane of Route 434 when she was hit.

There was also no damage to Siddiqui’s vehicle, Saitta said in court, arguing that supports a theory

Lineva had been lying in the road.

“Mr. Siddiqui didn’t see her until he was right on top of her, he indicated to police he swerved but he couldn’t avoid hitting her,” Saitta said.

“It could have happened as an accident that could’ve occurred with anydriver that night.”

Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said information was provided to detectives that led to Siddiqui

later being taken into custody, even as a $30,000 reward was built by contributions from BU, the City of Binghamton and other contributors over the course of three days after the crash.

Siddiqui was originally arrested on a felony charge of leaving the scene of a personal-injury accident resulting in death, which carried a possible penalty of up to seven years in state prison if convicted.

After Thursday’s sentencing, Broome County District Attorney Steve Cornwell described this case as a

difficult one, and said it seemed clear to the prosecution that there was no criminal intent by

Siddiqui to cause Lineva’s death. He said the plea agreement lined up with the facts.

“It’s a tough decision,” Cornwell said, “but we have to do what’s right under the law.”

Stefani Lineva

Press and Sun-Bulletin | Page A10 Monday, 11 September 2017

Car-centric Houston struggles after loss of countless

autos PAUL WISEMAN AND DEE-ANN DURBIN

ASSOCIATED PRESS

KATY, Texas - Bryan Harvey is frequently reminded that he shares a name with the storm that dumped

50 inches of rain on metropolitan Houston and unleashed the floods that have him working 14-hour days towing waterlogged cars.

Even in their despair, some victims have salvaged a smile by posing for pictures in front of the “Harvey’s Towing” sign on the side of his red Dodge Ram 5500 flatbed truck.

Two weeks after Harvey slammed Houston, wreckers like Bryan Harvey are still hauling cars and trucks

from flooded neighborhoods to dealerships or to vast fields where insurance adjusters can assess the

damage. Harvey killed at least 70 people, destroyed or damaged 200,000 homes, and inflicted an automotive catastrophe on one of America’s most car-dependent cities.

The Houston area has lost hundreds of thousands of cars, said Michael Hartmann, general manager of Don McGill Toyota of Katy, a city of 17,000 about 30 miles west of Houston.

“We have a shortage of rental cars and people not sure how to go about handling claims and just what to do with their lives,” Hartmann said.

The wreckage has forced Houstonians to scramble to try to rent or borrow cars or to work from home

— if they can. Some have it worse: They can’t return to work until they resolve the transportation problems, depriving many of income and slowing the city’s return to business as usual.

Where cars are everything

Few American cities depend on cars as much as Houston. More than 94 percent of the city’s households

have cars, second only to Dallas, the Cox Automotive consultancy says. Houston is even less amenable

to walking, bicycle-riding and mass transit than freeway-mad Los Angeles, according to Walk Score, which promotes walkable communities.

Cars are “everything here,” Hartmann said. “Cars are part of a person’s lifestyle. Most people in our area work 25, 30 miles from home.”

Cox estimates that up to 500,000 cars and trucks were damaged or destroyed, amounting to nearly $5

billion in damage. Auto insurance claims have reached 160,000, according to the Insurance Council of

Texas. Cars are being taken by the hundreds to a makeshift lot at the 500-acre Royal Purple Raceway

in Baytown, about 35 miles east of town. Most of the time, the insurance adjusters declare the cars a

total loss.

“Put yourself in the shoes of the adjuster,” said Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Texas insurance

council. “He’s just seen, say, a 2015 Toyota Camry. He knows this vehicle has been underwater for six

days. They can look at it, but they know water is all throughout that vehicle. They know it is totaled. … He’s going to see the same vehicle many times.”

In the meantime, there’s a desperate shortage of rental cars. Enterprise Holdings, which includes the

Enterprise, National and Alamo brands, has moved thousands of vehicles to southeast Texas and plans

to have brought in at least 17,000 by the end of September. The Avis Budget Group, which operates

Avis and Budget, is moving 10,000 vehicles into the affected areas, waiving late fees, one-way rental fees and rental extension fees in and around Houston.

Rethinking suburban sprawl?

Urban planners, like Kyle Shelton of Rice University in Houston, say the city and its suburbs were ill-prepared for a storm like Harvey.

“We’ve lost 500,000 to 1 million cars,” he said. “How are those people getting around now?”

Bus and train service is limited, especially in suburban areas such as Sugar Land, which never joined

the region’s transit authority. The region would benefit if people were living closer together rather than spread out over 2,000 square miles as they are now.

“Denser places would be more easily served and better connected to emergency services,” said

Shelton, director of strategic partnerships at Rice’s

Kinder Institute for Urban Research, who wonders

whether Harvey will change attitudes toward

suburban sprawl and the area’s dependence on cars.

Hartmann at the Toyota dealership is skeptical: “I

don’t think it will change anything.” Car culture runs too deep.

Few American cities depend on cars as much

as Houston, and Harvey’s record rainfall left

flooded neighborhoods with cars submerged and, in most cases, impossible to salvage.

MICHAEL CIAGLO/HOUSTON CHRONICLE VIA AP

Why we should take suburban poverty seriously

As low-income people migrate further out to the suburban fringe, they become more isolated from services and transportation, according to a report by CNU focused on Seattle.

ROBERT STEUTEVILLE SEP. 8, 2017

Like most of America, the Seattle region is experiencing rising poverty in its suburbs. From 2005 to

2015, the suburban poverty rate grew by 29.7 percent in the Puget Sound region, a rise that is more

than double that of the central city.

At the same time, the total number of people in poverty in the suburbs increased four times as much

as in Tacoma and Seattle combined. The poverty rate is still lower overall in the suburbs, but 70

percent of the region’s impoverished people now live outside of primary cities as a result of

migration, immigrants settling in the suburbs, and changing economic conditions in the region.

The suburbs are becoming far more diverse all across the US. Low-income people are moving from

areas with high access to transportation and services, to areas of low access. CNU covers this and

other trends in Combating the Suburbanization of Poverty, focusing on the Seattle region.

Number of people below the federal poverty level in the US, by community type, 1970-2015. Source: Brookings Institution analysis

From a household financial perspective, the suburbs can be a poverty trap. Families move to the

suburbs seeking lower costs, but get the hidden extra costs of transportation. As net residential

density drops, vehicle miles traveled rises, and so does the combined cost of housing and

transportation as a percentage of income. Cars are expensive, and they are needed to access jobs

and make essential household trips in the spread-out automobile-dependent suburbs.

This situation is worse for the working poor in outlying areas of the region, where housing plus

transportation (H&T) costs for a family earning $33,000 a year can be as high as 76 percent of

household income—an unsustainable pattern.

While the demographics of the suburbs have changed, transportation options remain limited. Most

Puget Sound residents live close to a bus or rail line, but few reside near high-frequency transit.

That’s especially true for minorities and low-income people outside of cities.

Most approaches to poverty reduction rely on increasing income through employment and skills by

training, and by subsidizing necessary services such as child care. These important efforts have not

been enough. The Seattle region cut unemployment by two-thirds since the depths of the Great

Recession of 2008, while the poverty rate declined only slightly.

The good news is that poverty reduction is a two-sided coin—reducing expenses is just as

important as raising incomes. “Saving a family a dollar is actually better than providing a dollar in

income, because we don’t tax the savings,” notes Scott Bernstein, President of the Center for

Neighborhood Technology and member of the Congress for the New Urbanism. “Achieving both

can begin to reduce poverty.”

Sound Transit 3, adopted November 2016, is a tool for the region to help low-income and working-

class families—but it needs to be linked specifically to poverty reduction. Investments that pair

transit-oriented development with affordable housing can reduce household expenses as

transportation choices grow. Land-use policies that create walkable neighborhoods linked to

regional transit could connect new and existing transit lines with neighborhoods where people live

affordably. Because four out of five household trips are not work-related, building more walkable

urbanism in the suburbs helps balance family budgets. Low-income and working-class families

should have easy access to the basic necessities of life, and neighborhoods built around the five-

minute walk are key to accomplishing that goal.

Source: Center for Neighborhood Technologydecaturfiets

A dedicated pool of money is needed to ensure that resources are distributed to reach those people

who need them most. A small portion of ST3 would amount to a large sum of money to leverage

private and nonprofit funding to lower costs and create jobs for those on the lower end of the

income scale.

Additionally, tying opportunities to the area’s excellent workforce development programs will

ensure that the region’s growing manufacturing, construction, transportation, and technology

sectors will have access to the people who need that work.

Communities around the US are piloting programs that address the growing problem of suburban

poverty. Many of them connect services, affordable housing, transit, and walkability to reduce

household costs and provide access to jobs and the day-to-day needs of low-income and working-

class families. These case studies emphasize several important points: Collaboration in the suburbs

is important—both among the many jurisdictions and the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Also, place-based programs are key—especially those that connect transit, neighborhoods,

affordable housing, and critical services.

Seattle and King County have a history of tackling difficult problems, pioneering policies across

the US on issues like energy efficiency and climate change. King County’s commitments to equity

and social justice, paired the region’s investments in sustainable communities and climate

readiness, makes Seattle a highly promising place to demonstrate accelerated poverty reduction in

the suburbs and serve as a model for other regions nationwide.

EUROPE | UTRECHT JOURNAL

If You Build It, the Dutch Will Pedal

By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE

SEPT. 6, 2017

UTRECHT, the Netherlands — When city officials unveiled the first section of the world’s largest bike parking garage in Utrecht, a small city in the center of the Netherlands, late last month, the feeling of accomplishment was short-lived.

Cyclists crossing an intersection near the Central Station of Utrecht, the Netherlands. Credit Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

While many of the 6,000 new, state-of-the-art bike parking spots filled quickly, city engineers focused on the work ahead: creating thousands more such spots and hundreds more miles of bike paths to ensure that even more Utrecht residents can comfortably commute by bike.

“We found that if you build it, people will use it,” said Lot van Hooijdonk, a vice mayor, about her city’s seemingly insatiable public demand for bike infrastructure.

Utrecht, with 330,000 residents, is the Netherlands’ fourth-largest and fastest-growing city. It is also one of the most bike-friendly places in one of the world’s most bike-friendly countries.

As fast as Utrecht can build underground bike parking garages, most spots are taken. Credit Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

The second part of the world’s largest underground bicycle parking garage is being built in Utrecht. Credit Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

While promoting biking used to be an issue for more progressive political parties, recent successes have made it one of broad agreement in mainstream politics.

“All politicians now take cycling seriously,” said Mark Wagenbuur, a well-known blogger and bike activist.

In a country where there are more bikes than people — 22.5 million vs. 18 million — daily usage has grown 11 percent in the last decade, mostly because of the introduction of electric bikes, which lengthens the time many older people can use two-wheel transportation.

Deadly bike accidents have decreased 21 percent over the last two decades, according to state figures. Much of that is attributed to less competition with motor vehicles — the more people ride, the safer it gets.

More important for the nation’s bottom line, the country’s preference for the bicycle could save its economy $23 billion each year, according to a recent study done at Utrecht University and published in the American Journal of Public Health. The study suggested that the Netherlands’ vigorous cycling habits prevented 6,500 premature deaths each year.

Most of the 6,000 spaces in the first part of the world’s largest bike parking garage filled quickly when it opened last month in Utrecht. CreditIlvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

“Biking saves medical costs since biking contributes to people’s overall physical activity levels, and getting sufficient physical activity prevents against many noncommunicable diseases, including obesity, Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and some types of cancers,” Dr. Carlijn Kamphuis, the study’s lead author, wrote in an email exchange.

Frans Jan van Rossem, Utrecht’s head of bicycle programming, put it another way. “Our revenue is healthy people, less traffic and beautiful living,” he said.

On Mr. van Rossem’s watch, the city has expanded its bike network and made innovations that have brought the average number of daily bike trips to 125,000. The city estimates these are worth $300 million in socioeconomic benefits that include health care savings, reduced air pollution and increased productivity.

“It didn’t fall from the cold blue sky,” said Ms. van Hooijdonk, the vice mayor, whose yearly city budget includes an average $55 million for bike infrastructure projects and improvements.

Not everyone, though, thinks the battle is won. Milieudefensie, a crowd-funded group of environmentalists, took the federal government to court last month over air quality, which it says is far below that called for by the European Union.

The Dafne Schippers bike bridge over the Amsterdam Rhine canal incorporates the roof of a school.CreditIlvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

Utrecht, like many other European cities, spent several postwar decades trying to make automobile use easier.

The effort included building a four-lane highway over centuries-old canals, making space for parked cars on its narrow cobblestone streets, and planning for a highway that was to cross the medieval city’s cathedral square.

Decades later, the concept of progress looks quite different.

At Dafne Schippers, a new elementary school named for the Dutch sprinter, the green roof serves as an access ramp to a bicycle and pedestrian bridge that stretches 360 feet across the Amsterdam Rhine canal, a major water thoroughfare. Yet children playing recently during recess hardly seemed to notice the steady stream of cyclists.

A 15-minute ride from City Hall (which, like all other new buildings, has its own biking garage — this one for 1,650 bikes), a small start-up, Springlabs, is trying to perfect a device that tells bikers how hard to pedal to catch the next green light.

“Cities want to innovate,” said Jan-Paul de Beer, the company’s director. “They want to do new stuff to make the cycling experience even better.”

A special section in Utrecht’s new underground bike parking garage is for bigger bikes, which usually have children’s seats attached. CreditIlvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

His traffic control system, Flo, is being tested in Utrecht, in Eindhoven and soon in Antwerp, Belgium.

Finding bike parking in Utrecht’s medieval downtown can be made easier by a smartphone app or a glance at the large digital street signs that show those garages with empty bike parking spots.

“These old cities weren’t made for cars,” Mr. Wagenbuur said.

Utrecht’s cycling network includes nearly 250 miles of dedicated bike lanes. Large signs alert car drivers that they are merely guests on these roads and should limit their speed to less than 20 miles per hour.

Besides its sheer size, the Utrecht Central station biking garage boasts several innovations. Cyclists can check in and find their spot while riding their bikes. Sensors on the racks give real-time information, making finding a free spot during rush hour much easier.

The project’s cost, $48 million, was paid not just by the municipality, but also by the region and the national train service, which recognizes that increasing the availability of bike parking leads to an increase in riders.

“Cycling is like a piece of magic: It only has advantages,” said Ms. van Hooijdonk, who like the majority of Utrecht’s residents commutes to work by bike.

A version of this article appears in print on September 7, 2017, on Page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: A Dutch City Can’t Keep Up With Bikers’ Demands. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Press and Sun-Bulletin | Page A10 Monday, 18 September 2017

Bicyclists get free roadside assistance in Hartford PAT EATON-ROBB ASSOCIATED PRESS

HARTFORD, Conn. - Maureen Hart was riding home on the Founders Bridge into Hartford when the tire on her bicycle went flat.

Stranded on her way home from a friend’s house, Hart took advantage of a program she’d learned

about just days before. While at a jazz concert in Bushnell Park, she and other friends who rode there

were approached by a city bicycle “safety ambassador,” who gave them a phone number to call if they ever needed roadside assistance.

Hart called that number, and soon a bicycle mechanic was on hand, putting a new tube in her tire.

“This is such a cool service,” she said. “I know people who live in Portland (Oregon), and that’s a really bicycle-friendly city. They don’t have anything like this. This is amazing.”

The free roadside assistance initiative is run by the Hartford Business Improvement District. It is part of

the organization’s Clean and Safe program, which puts those “safety ambassadors” on downtown

streets, giving free assistance to stranded motorists, providing security escorts, and acting as another set of eyes and ears for police, said Jordan Polon, the business district’s executive director.

The group added bicycle assistance in May to encourage bicycle commuting in the city and ease some of the fears associated with it, she said.

Since then, Polon said the team has performed 42 roadside assistance calls for bicycles.

“Our research has indicated that Hartford is the first city in the United States of America to offer a free

roadside assistance program for bicycles,” she said. Eddie Zayas is one of the district’s “safety

ambassadors.” Like the vast majority of the others, he’s a city resident. He wears a fluorescent yellow

uniform and an identification badge and patrols on his bicycle downtown. He carries with him a two-way radio, a tool kit and three different sizes of bicycle tubes.

He looks for bicyclists who need help and takes service calls.

If a repair is too complicated, he arranges to have the bike taken to Bici Co., the same downtown bicycle workshop where the ambassadors received their training.

“But 95 percent of the time it’s a flat tire,” he said. “I can repair those in a couple minutes. People love

it. They are always trying to pay me. I tell them, ‘No, it’s a free service.’ ” The service comes as the

city is working to improve commuting options, said Sandy Fry, bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for

Hartford’s Department of Development Services.

The city recently adopted a “complete streets” initiative, which means any future road project must

include bicycle lanes and options for pedestrian traffic, such as

sidewalks. She said in many cases, it will simply involve restriping roadways. In others, it will require widening existing roads.

“We’ve got the line in the sand now,” she said. “Everything going forward is going to accommodate all road users, not just vehicles.”

Eddie Zayas is part of a program that provides roadside

assistance to cyclists.

PAT EATON-ROBB/AP

Also see…

AAA – Introducing Bicycle Roadside Assistance! https://www.northway.aaa.com/membership/aaa-bicycle-roadside-assistance

Tragedy, death sometime darken the joy of high school sports in New York State John Moriello, New York State Sportswriters Association

Published 10:05 a.m. ET Sept. 21, 2017 | Updated 10:31 a.m. ET Sept. 21, 2017

John Moriello, who has been

an ardent follower and

commentator on New York

high school sports for

decades, is writing a weekly

column called "Best in

Upstate," which is designed

to fly above all of the state

sectional borders. You can

reach

Johnt nysswa@gmail.com or

@nysswa on Twitter. He

oversees the NYSSWA web

page of high school rankings.

Politicians will tell you two ways to fall into disfavor are to propose closing the local post office or try merging the

school district with a neighboring community's schools.

Those institutions go a long way toward forging a town's identity.

Similarly, a community's high school is a social magnet where residents gather for football Fridays and mid-week

basketball games — events that generate excitement in school hallways and local hangouts. Memories created there

can last a lifetime.

Sadly, we were reminded six times late this summer that high school sports are not all happy memories of fun,

games or winning seasons.

In the span of just over a month, two downstate football players died during workouts before the start of the season.

Two upstate athletes died in automobile accidents. And last week, a sophomore soccer player at Section 3 Otselic

Valley, between Cortland and Norwich, died from congestive heart failure at his home.

Cross country training dangers

A sixth death was 14-year-old Claire Allen, a distance runner who had just completed her second day of freshman

classes Sept. 7 at Geneseo High School in Section 5. Allen was struck by a car and killed while running along Route

39 about a mile north of the school. She and a friend had extended their workout a bit when she was hit.

No charges were filed against the driver. Livingston County Sheriff Thomas Dougherty characterized it as a

"horrible, horrible accident."

It was believed to be the first such tragedy involving a scholastic runner since September 2000, when Dereck

Farney of Beaver River, near Watertown, was killed while attempting to cross a road during a workout.

News of Allen's death traveled quickly through the running community and has already affected routines at some

schools.

A coach at the Wayne Eagles invitational on Saturday said he expects his school's board of education to formalize a

policy by the end of the year prohibiting runners from training along roads. Another coach said he printed out a story

about the Geneseo accident and read it to his team before reminding them in great detail of safety rules.

Administrators at Churchville-Chili, which only recently had given a handful of runners permission to run along a

major road bordering the campus, did a 180-degree turn because of the lack of sidewalks or low-traffic residential

tracts nearby.

"We did make a decision before this season to let some of our top guys once a week go off campus but with

(reflective) vests, etcetera," Saints coach Chris Memelo said at the Wayne meet, a chance for competitors to scout

the course that will be used for the NYSPHSAA championships in November. "Once we heard about the accident

out in Geneseo, our AD talked to us and said he didn't want any runners even near the roads. We told the guys, 'I

know we told you it was OK, but we can't allow that kind of risk.'"

Added Memelo: "It's unfortunate. The kids get a little bored running two and a quarter miles on campus, but I told

them we're off campus three days a week (for meets) anyway."

Distance runners are a bit of a different breed in the world of high school sports.

The better ones are logging 50 or more miles a week beginning in mid-summer, mixing "LSDs" (long, slow

distances) with speed workouts meant to challenge the body's work capacity.

Monotony — not to mention the effect the pounding has on the joints and shins — is why they'll spend as little time

as possible on the school's 400-meter track during practices, while football and soccer players practice on fields

behind the school.

Road training breaks up the drudgery and allows runners a better opportunity to judge their pace than if they were

running full-time on trails, which can get muddy or overgrown with brush later in the season.

It's also good preparation for college, where workouts are generally too long to be fully confined to trails and campus

settings.

At Syracuse University, which has become a force in NCAA Division I cross country, the team generally avoids

pavement but shakes up the routine several times a season with demanding workouts on Sweet Road, a hilly

stretch of road with wide shoulders in Manlius.

Keeping them safe

Mike Lacko coaches at Somers in Section 1, where twins Matthew and Greg Fusco are projected as contenders for

the state Class B championship. He said road training is less of a worry because there are multiple trails near the

school that offer different challenges as well as a variety of scenery.

"But any time we're on the road, I make them wear reflective vests," he said. "They all have them. And it's single file,

one by one and no passing. ... I'm always out there with them, making sure the first kid comes back and the last kid

comes back."

Even when high school coaches are adamant about staying on school grounds, some of the better ones will put in

extra work on their own.

"They're supposed to stay on (school) property," said Penfield coach Dave Hennessey, "Trying to keep them there

is like herding cats for us."

The saving grace is that sidewalks are plentiful near the high school.

Hennessey, recognized by the National Federation of State High School Associations as the winningest high school

cross country coach in U.S. history, is familiar with the stretch of road where the Sept. 7 accident occurred.

"They don't have anywhere else to go," he said. "They're on (Route) 39. To get in and out of the school you're on

'39.' That's part of the tragedy, the location of the school."

Why walkability is not a luxury Walkable places are vital to health and welfare—and contrary to perceptions, they also reduce household costs.

ROBERT STEUTEVILLE SEP. 28, 2017

Joel Kotkin criticized walkable neighborhoods as elitist in his 2016 book The Human City:

Urbanism for the Rest of Us. The title of the book refers to the idea that compact, walkable

neighborhoods are not for middle-class Americans who are struggling to raise families, put children

through college, and pay for necessities like health care and transportation. Kotkin said that cities

lack “middle-income housing affordability” and that “Higher-density housing is far more expensive

to build.”

The Urban Land Institute, whose members build urban housing, published a 2016 report

called Housing in the Evolving American Suburb that said “walkability has become somewhat of a

luxury good that many households will not be able to afford.”

There is some truth to that point of view—Redfin found that a 1 point rise in Walk Score adds

nearly 1 percent to the price of a home in a survey of 14 US cities.

So, should we be building more sprawl to create affordable housing? Is walkability an extavagance

that adds nothing essential to day-to-day living? On the contrary, the evidence strongly suggests

that walkability lowers overall household costs while contributing substantially to individual

families’ needs. In metro areas, the most affordable places to live are walkable neighborhoods.

Walkability adds material value to a home that millions of people are willing to pay for, as reflected

in the Redfin survey, and market demand is growing for walkable neighborhoods. At the same

time, walkability also lowers transportation costs and allows for a wider range of housing types,

some of which are more affordable.

Housing prices are rising in many walkable urban neighborhoods, generating concerns over

displacement and gentrification. Partly this is due to long-depressed housing values in these

neighborhoods that have now reversed—but the trend is also due to public policy. The development

of new housing in walkable neighborhoods is severely constrained by zoning and infrastructure.

A recent report by Touro College professor Michael Lewyn details how America’s most expensive

cities—like San Francisco and New York—have highly restrictive zoning laws and approval

processes for new housing. To address the nation’s affordable housing problems, we should build

more housing in existing walkable neighborhoods, build more walkable neighborhoods in general,

and lower the barriers to building them.

Housing and transportation

Most analyses of affordability focus only on the cost of housing. The most common standard for

affordability is that someone should not pay more than 30 percent of one’s income on housing. But

that is a misleading and incomplete analysis—each house comes with a location, and the cost of

transportation varies dramatically depending on walkability and transit service. The Center for

Neighborhood Technology’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index (H&T Index) combines

housing and transportation cost data for every address in US metro areas. H&T costs together are a

better measure of household costs. CNT prefers the affordability standard of 45 percent for housing

and transportation combined.

The H&T Index reveals that walkable places reduce combined housing and transportation costs.

The 25 largest traditional cities (combined Walk Score of 78, very walkable) have 19 percent lower

combined housing and transportation costs than the 25 largest sprawling cities (combined Walk

Score of 40, automobile dependent). In traditional cities, non-automotive commuting is 7.5 times

higher and automobile ownership is a third lower. See the table below, which I created from H&T

data and other sources.

Even without taking transportation into account, the actual price of housing in walkable city

neighborhoods is more affordable than popular perception would indicate. The priciest walkable

neighborhoods are usually offered as examples in news articles, because these are the best known.

These include Georgetown in DC (Walk Score 97), Society Hill in Philadelphia (Walk Score 99),

Newbury Street in Boston (Walk Score 91), Pacific Heights in San Francisco (Walk Score 96)—all

neighborhoods that are popular with visitors and journalists. Few people think about lesser-known

neighborhoods on street grids, miles from downtown—but these are far more common than the

tourist-rich historic neighborhoods. They may not have Walk Scores in the 90s, but they are still

walkable.

The Redfin numbers control, as they should, for differences in house size, type, age, and condition.

Yet a wider range of housing is available in traditional cities compared to their sprawling

counterparts—which consist mostly of detached single-family houses. The so-called “missing

middle” provides affordability, although this does not show up in apples-to-apples comparisons

with the suburbs.

Furthermore, traditional cities have a lot of old housing. In the most expensive neighborhoods, the

great majority of this housing is fixed-up, modernized and expensive. But in many city

neighborhoods, a good portion of this housing is in mediocre-to-poor shape, and it is cheap. Much

of this housing is in neighborhoods with high crime and poor-performing schools, which keeps

costs down. That’s not a good tradeoff, but it contributes to affordability in city neighborhoods.

Many walkable neighborhoods have low housing and low transportation costs—a combination that

is affordable even to low-income households and is available nowhere else in metropolitan areas.

That reality helps to explain why a disproportionate share of poor people live in traditional cities.

They choose walkable neighborhoods partly for economic reasons.

Constraints on walkability

New housing construction in cities is often constrained by NIMBYism and zoning, as Lewyn

reports. Moreover, the creation of new walkable neighborhoods—once a routine activity of cities

and towns—is severely constrained by zoning and infrastructure. Building new housing in existing

walkable neighborhoods and the creation of new walkable neighborhoods are two distinct but

related problems, and this distinction is little understood by many policy wonks and commentators.

Prior to 1950, building new walkable neighborhoods was easy. A city or town would plan out a

new area of street grid and builders would construct houses according to existing building codes.

But after 1950, street grids were discouraged by public policy and almost never built. Planners and

traffic engineers laid out new communities in dendritic street patterns, designed like the branching

of trees. These patterns now make up the vast majority of our metro areas, funneling traffic from

isolated subdivisions onto high-speed, high-volume arterial roads that are dangerous and repellent

to pedestrians. Building new walkable neighborhoods within such street patterns is highly

problematic—a task that modern zoning, with its separation by use and building type, makes even

more difficult. These twin problems, which limit the supply of walkable neighborhoods, are very

much operable today. Planners and transportation engineers could change these street patterns and

free up the market to build new walkable neighborhoods, but this practice is highly resistant to

change.

During the last half of the 20th Century, market forces favored the suburbs over cities, which helped

to maintain low costs in walkable neighborhoods. This was a mixed blessing for low-income

residents. Many city neighborhoods saw little or no investment for many decades, partly because

property values did not justify maintenance. That meant that tens of thousands of homes in places

like Philadelphia, Detroit, Buffalo, and Baltimore became uninhabitable and rotted, collapsed, or

burned to the ground.

But this century, demand has grown for historic, mixed-use neighborhoods and new, middle-class

residents have moved in—accompanied by developers.

New and old residents of these rising neighborhoods see real value and utility in walkability. For

one thing, the degree to which a neighborhood is walkable translates directly to basic

transportation. In America, we spend a lot of money on cars, and few people would call these

expenses a “luxury,” unless you are driving around in a new Mercedes. The cost of driving a mile,

according to the IRS, is now 53.5 cents. Living in a walkable neighborhood, versus a suburb, can

easily cut driving in half, reducing expenses by $5,000 or more a year, a savings that is realized

after taxes. A walkable neighborhood essentially provides a family with an equivalent value in

transportation. If transportation is not a luxury, it follows that neither is a walkable neighborhood.

One motivation for millennials to move into walkable neighborhoods is to avoid the expenses of a

car—especially since many of them still have car loans to pay off.

Walkability has health utility, as well. As Lewyn reports:

People in less walkable areas are more likely to be obese and to suffer from diabetes and other

obesity-related diseases. For example, one study by three Arizona State University scholars created

a “walkability index” (measuring the distance of churches, schools, and entertainment from

neighborhoods studied) and found that a "1 percent increase in the walkability index of a

neighborhood is associated with a 50 percent reduction in the likelihood that it will belong to a

high disease as opposed to a low disease cluster for obesity . . . 49 percent lower likelihood for

diabetes, 39 percent lower likelihood for hypertension, and 40 percent lower likelihood for heart

disease …. "

Nobody would say that health is a luxury. To the extent that walkable neighborhoods contribute to

health, it follows they are not a luxury good. Similar cases can be made for walkability and safety

(fewer automobile deaths and injuries), pollution (reduced tailpipe emissions), and time (fewer

hours spent commuting).

Walkable neighborhoods add value and utility to lives of people of all classes. They are willing to

pay for that value. Walkable neighborhoods also enable a lifestyle that has the potential to reduce

overall costs while providing health and welfare benefits.

Walkability is not a luxury or an extravagance for the elite, although it may feel luxurious at times

to be in a human-scale neighborhood. Walkability contributes to basic necessities and is a rational,

market-driven choice for a substantial and growing number of Americans. It is a key to greater

affordability. Public policy should respond by both reducing the barriers to building housing in

walkable neighborhoods—and allowing more walkable neighborhoods to be built.

Home USA 5000 Abandoned Bikes From ‘Burning Man’ to Be Given New Life in...

5000 Abandoned Bikes From ‘Burning Man’ to

Be Given New Life in Hurricane-Ravaged Towns

by McKinley Corbley - Sep 28, 2017

Over 5,000 bicycles that were

abandoned at this year’s Burning

Man festival in the Nevada desert

are to be given new life benefitting

victims of Hurricanes Irma, Harvey,

and Maria.

The photo of the dusty bikes

originally sparked controversy in

light of the obvious betrayal of the

Burning Man tenet “Leave No

Trace” – but now, volunteers are

refurbishing the bicycles for new

homes across the country.

The workers who rounded up the

bicycles in Black Rock Desert have

already begun cleaning and

prepping over 100 bikes for

shipping from Reno to Florida. Next, the bikes will be given to distribution programs and organizations

throughout Florida and the Caribbean.

The project’s GoFundMe page has already raised $3,800 of their $10,500 goal in order to pay for shipping and

handling.

The crowdfunding campaign’s creator, Meg Kiihne, said the bikes will provide valuable transportation to those

affected by the weather disasters.

Additionally, Kiihne says their distribution partner plans on opening bike repair maintenance hubs in the

afflicted regions, creating dozens of jobs for the devastated economies.

Kiihne says she first got the idea for the project after seeing the photo of the lonely “Burner bikes”.

“As I have told every reporter since, I didn’t think very long about the next steps,” says Kiihne. “As someone

who has worked as a live event director/producer and has had the vision for years of getting more bikes to more

lower-income communities, I honestly didn’t think much. I reacted on what I knew was needed and could be

done.”

Bizarre lane markers baffling drivers in The Netherlands

Fox News

What may be the world’s narrowest car lane is just two inches across.

Drivers in the Dutch town of Oostzaan have been trying to figure out what to make of new road

markings that appear to leave no room for their vehicles.

One Twitter user described the layout as “violently Dutch.”

But unlike many seemingly strange lines painted on roads, these are no mistake.

A local Green Party politician said they are there to get the attention of drivers and encourage them

to slow down on the stretch of road, where speeding was reportedly an issue.

Despite the encroachment of the bike lanes, he said cars are legally allowed to cross the lines as

long as they give bike riders the right of way.