Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Trails Committee widens its focus to include Franklin High School

Though Victory Creek subdivision can be seen from the Pleasant View Elementary playground, there is no way to walk from here to there - yet.

Last night's Trail Committee meeting was fruitful. While our focus remains on improving accessibility to Pleasant View Elementary School through the Safe Routes to School program, alderman and committee member Kristen Wilhelm located a Wisconsin DOT Pedestrian Roadshow/Walking Workshop grant that will bring a facilitator to Franklin for a series of presentations to community stakeholders. This will provide a introduction to the Safe Routes process as well as a focus on Franklin High School access issues - - effectively widening our initial area of influence to cover two Franklin schools.

Anyone who's observed the corner of Drexel and 51st before and after a school day -- and certainly before and after sporting events -- knows that something must be done to decrease the amount of vehicles on the road. As long as students from even adjacent subdivisions (see above) need a vehicle to get to school, that congestion will continue.

While Safe Routes to School deals with engineering and trail-building issues, the program also works to educate the community, making a safer environment for non-vehicular traffic. Once we add some connectivity, drivers will learn to treat these residential streets with a great deal more respect than they do currently.

Baby steps toward a walkable community

 

Two pieces of good news: 

Monday's meeting with Franklin Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Steve Patz went very well, and we can expect collaboration with the school district when applying for Safe Routes to School grant funds.

On Tuesday night, "Request from Trail Committee for approval to proceed with the grant writing and application process for community planning related to trails and pedestrian routes" was passed unanimously by the Common Council.

The Franklin Trail Committee meets tonight to keep the ball rolling.

"Walking buses" and veggies: Town residents come together to make healthy lifestyle changes

Judy Dilling (left) and Jen Chalmers (in red) help walk Lakeview Elementary School students home as part of the Vitality Project's "walking buses" last week in Albert Lea, Minn. The project has added an average 3.1 years to the lives of residents through improved diet, exercise and living habits.

With organizers' help, the city crammed five years of sidewalk and bike trail construction into a year to make exercise easier for its 18,000 residents. Restaurants added healthier menu options and grocery stores showcased wholesome foods. People snacked on fruits and veggies more and ate less fast food.

Schools stopped celebrating birthdays with sugary treats and started setting up "walking buses" that allowed kids to walk to and from school together with adult supervision. Employers gave workers time to exercise.

Organizers say the first-of-its kind experiment added an average 3.1 years to the longevity of about 2,300 residents who calculated their life spans by answering 36 lifestyle questions dubbed the "vitality compass."

Read the rest at: Town residents come together to make healthy lifestyle changes - JSOnline

Sustainable Design: all in the details

From Master Plan to Specs: Sustainable Design in Detail | Congress for the New Urbanism:

As planners, and advocates for healthier place making and urbanism, we often talk about the importance of scale. We recognize that city planning must be comprehensive in that the various scales of planning including the region, city, block, street, and building all must be addressed. Sustainable planning can be mapped on a spectrum of needs from the “big picture” of design all the way down to the specifications of individual buildings. It’s the attention to details the matter.

In a short article from copenhagenize.com, a small effort to improve bicyclist’s commute is demonstrated through the convenient placement of trash bins along bicycle paths. This may seem like an insignificant detail within the large realm of sustainable planning, but such efforts, catering to environmentally friendly methods of travel should be commended.

Speaking for myself, and the large community of supporters of New Urbanism, it’s refreshing to see little ways that pedestrians are taking precedent in an ever growing vehicular dominated society. Small efforts to support pedestrian and environmentally friendly places are integral to the overall success of the urban fabric. After all, it’s important to be reminded of whom we are planning for; those who live in the communities we are designing, improving and rallying for.

Read more here and here.

The tide is turning: Franklin takes a positive step toward community-building

Item G.6 on this past Tuesday's Common Council agenda reads innocently enough:

Reconstruction of S. 51st Street from W. Drexel Avenue to W. Puetz Road - 60 percent plan review and policy decision relative to additional funding in addition to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) funding.

This issue was this: The stretch of 51st Street in front of Franklin High School is due for repaving. Despite its heavy use - and single entry-point to the school -  it has been without non-vehicular features (pedestrian and bike access) for as long as the high school has been there (approximately 1964). To simply re-do it as it is would be a lipstick-on-a-pig project, to be sure.

How did we get to this point? You may remember that, during the misguided "widen 51st Street" debacle, certain council members made a point of repeatedly saying that Franklin had "pretty much zero chance" of getting stimulus - aka American Reinvestment and Recovery Act  -  funds (city engineer Jack Bennett: "A chance in a million"; alderman Steve Taylor: "No chance in hell"; alderman Steve Olson: "We will not receive any federal dollars" ), therefor it was senseless to sweat the details.

At that juncture, the list considered for submission for the "no chance in hell" stimulus grant looked like this:

a) W. Puetz Road (S. Street to St. Martins Road)
b) S. Street (Puetz Road to Drexel Avenue)
c) S. 51st Street (North of Rawson Avenue to College Avenue in Greendale; the potential widened road)
d) Additional Project

These projects were chosen without public input based on what the city had in its medium range plans. The 51st Street item was particularly troubling in that it proposed a by-default widening the road; city administrators can deny it all they want, but the only plan filed at that point was indeed a default widening plan.

I addressed these auto-centric proposals in a post entitled "Common Council Tonight: Slouch toward mediocrity or reach for excellence?", which includes some background on how the projects were chosen.

I addressed the council on March 17th, saying in part:

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding should not be used to expand a system of roads that do not provide safe travel for people who are walking or bicycling. Too many Franklin streets are designed wide and fast, without sufficient sidewalks, crosswalks or bicycle lanes.

We, in fact, CREATE traffic with huge roads and no alternative.

Now we have an opportunity for a new approach. there's not a lot of time.

We currently have little or no consideration given for the safety of older people, children, or people with disabilities.

These incomplete streets are dangerous and create barriers for people to get to jobs, school, the doctor, and fully participate in civic life....

...

... I fear that Franklin seems content to ignore opportunities to increase connectivity and instead continues to encourage volume and throughput.

I have a list of almost 600 Wisconsin bicycle and pedestrian projects funded or co-funded by the federal government from 1993 to 2007. Franklin does not appear once.

We're going to have to address this.

As for 51st street: There are clear and ready-to-implement street schemes that can be deployed there to make it a neighborhood amenity and increase commercial foot traffic.

So let’s get on that.

I was far from the only one to speak out. The council heard from many, many residents who sounded a common theme: Why always automatically widen roads? Why can't we walk or bike anywhere in this city? Why no connectivity? Don't we care about the safety of children and the elderly?

It was a watershed moment made possible by the revelation that Franklin's stimulus requests threatened to be "business as usual" - auto-centric, and connectivity-be-damned. Responsive to the enormous amount of public input received, Mayor Taylor submitted a veto aimed at A) dismantling the poorly birthed project list and, B) constructing instead a list that addresses resident's concerns about safety, walkability, and accessibility.

Not everyone thought there was particular value in the discussion prompted by the aborted stimulus application items. Alderman Steve Olson - who repeatedly mentioned his own "lack of memory" at Tuesday's meeting, by the way - said the following months ago at the March 31st meeting:

The reality is, is - and I'm going to say it - this meeting tonight is a monumental waste of time. This common council and you all have had your time wasted for the last three weeks. We will not receive any federal dollars. We do not qualify for federal dollars based on the criteria that now comes before us. So this action item, whether the mayor's veto is withheld or overridden is meaningless, just as my colleagues have said.

The discussion that we're about to have is again a waste of time because we're not going to get federal dollars. We don't qualify. So, for my part I apologize that you're here. I'm glad that you're here; it's good to have people at common council meetings - you know, frankly, I get a little tired of seeing nobody here, so I'm glad you're here. But I think there are better things you could be doing with your time than worrying about a four-lane road that's just not going to happen.

Fortunately, my district's alderman, Kristen Wilhelm, and Mayor Taylor disagreed with Olson ("we will not receive any federal dollars") and made sure public input was gathered and weighed prior to our application for funds. The discussions and meetings for which alderman Olson had such little regard resulted in the decision that the stimulus application would concentrate on 51st Street in front of the high school. Furthermore, we were able to learn the following: Listening sessions - more "monumental wastes of time"? - reiterated and made clear that neighbors are very, very concerned with making that stretch of 51st in front of the high school, at long last, safe and accessible for non-vehicular traffic. That message was delivered without ambiguity.

Surprise: Franklin was granted a $1.5 million stimulus grant for 51st Street reconstruction.

Another surprise: Turns out City Engineer Jack Bennett submitted Franklin's stimulus funding request with plans and budgeting that DID NOT include the bike and pedestrian paths that all parties assumed were part of any plan for the street. In other words, the default plan (no paths) would go into effect if additional city funding could not be appended to the project to supplement the $1.5 million stimulus grant. With the grant, the city's expense to re-do the road with paths would still be cheaper than doing a road without paths minus the grant. Still, money's tight, right?

Long story short: On Tuesday night, this city took a huge step toward becoming a much more sustainable, attractive, and desirable community by altering the project slightly (putting off reconstructing the intersection, for instance) and preserving the pedestrian/bike paths that the community expects. A decision made for the citizens and not just their cars.

Aldermen Wilhelm, Solomon, and Skowronski voted for the re-budgeting and preservation of the paths plan; Alderman Olson voted against; Aldermen Sohns and Taylor were not present.

It's one small portion of the city, but a good, positive policy step; the people have been heard. Taken in combination with possible action by the Trails Committee regarding a Safe Routes to School program and its attention to 51st Street directly north of the intersection in question, Franklin is making strides toward improving its character and desirability by becoming more than simply a collection of subdivisions.

More later ....

Is Franklin ready for Safe Routes to School?

Rabbit path: The current walking/biking route from the Hillendale subdivision to Pleasant View Elementary

Last night the Franklin Trails Committee, of which I am a member, met for the second time since its formation. It's mission is to address the creation of a pedestrian and bike path or trail on or near 51st street between Rawson and Drexel, while also discussing citywide non-vehicular connectivity.

The very first hurdle the Committee - and, by extension, the city of Franklin - needs to overcome is the outdated idea of bike and walking paths as purely recreational. Alderman Tim Solomon, a fellow member of the Trails Committee and also on the Parks Commission, seems especially prone to seeing non-vehicular trails as frivolous park-type amenities rather than vital elements of infrastructure. After all, up until now the city's trails have been under the direction of the Parks Commission, and our street system is notoriously unfriendly (read: deadly) to pedestrians and bikes.

After Alderman Solomon traced on a map a winding, Parks-proposed trail that eventually empties out onto 27th street, I was emphatic about defining the difference between UTILITY trails - which I believe the Trails Committee is charged with creating - and pure RECREATIONAL trails, which, while of great interest to me personally, do nothing whatsoever to facilitate the kind of connectivity in the city that will in turn encourage economic development. The trail Solomon traced described a potentially wonderful, winding course though fields and woodlands, but ultimately led from nowhere to nowhere - - another path where we need to build a parking lot next to it, perhaps?

I'd brought to the meeting a fairly voluminous amount of information on the state and federal Safe Routes to School program and associated grants. It's been clear for some time now that the area surrounding Pleasant View Elementary, which is a few hundred yards from 51st street, is woefully ill-equipped for accommodating non-vehicular traffic of kids and their parents who live mere blocks away (the entire city of Franklin is, of course, declared an unusually hazardous transportation area by the County Sheriff). Solving the 51st street conundrum and adding simple trails through currently unused land south of the school as well as improving crossings to the north on Rawson will make it possible for children in the subdivisions surrounding Pleasant View to choose to walk or bike to school and add connectivity to commercial sites on Rawson that could do with some foot traffic.

(Think this is an easy problem to tackle? Readers of this blog are aware of the torturous hand-wringing over whether to connect east toward 51st street or, inexplicably, send traffic through Hillendale subdivision.)

It turns out that the city has grant money available to build a sidewalk on the east side of 51st street from Drexel to Claire Meadows - - which seems fairly useless until you consider extending a path east from the West Evergreen stub-road through the vacant land south of Pleasant View.

Safe Routes to School offers fairly substantial grant dollars, but in order to have a chance at getting those funds the community - especially school officials - need to commit to a SRTS program that offers resources on everything from polling parents on their attitudes regarding walking or biking to suggesting sign placement and speed-abatement enforcement options.

So, in order to capture grant funds to help pay for improvements, Job One is to get the school administration on board with the Safe Routes to School program. Cross your fingers.

(See also Franklin Today.)

We dare not observe International Walk to School Day in Franklin, Wisconsin

Today is International Walk to School Day.

But not in Franklin, Wisconsin, where nearby is still far away. There is no ambiguity about it: The County Sheriff has determined that all of Franklin School District is in an unusually hazardous transportation area.

Bikeable neighborhoods prove profitable for Portland realtor

What happens when you recognize that bike and pedestrian connectivity is a UTILITY and not merely "recreation"?

From Smart Growth Around America: Bikeable neighborhoods prove profitable for Portland realtor:

The latest batch of annual census data examining Americans’ travel patterns came out this week . The American Communities Survey surveys a cross-section of the country at random to find out, among other things, how they get to work. Do they take transit, do they walk, do they ride a bike?

Portland continued their national dominance of percentage of people who ride bikes, jumping all the way from 4.2% to 6.4% in one year. The city has invested in making biking safer and more attractive, which has paid off with more people biking, fewer cars on the road and cleaner air. With biking growing in popularity each year, scores of enterprising people have started bike-related businesses to ride the rising tide of bike culture in the city.

One enterprising Portland realtor combined the growing demand for homes in convenient locations with Portland’s biking fervor to boost her bottom line — filling a niche that was previously empty. When Portlanders want to buy a home that lets them bike to the office, the grocery store, or the post office, they call Kirsten Kaufman, whom Portland Live calls the “Bike Broker.”

Riding around Portland on her custom-built bicycle, she showcases homes that provide easy access by bike, by foot, and by public transportation — that is to say, the kinds of homes that more people want these days, but that other Realtors might not think to showcase. Kaufman has capitalized on the fact that convenience, short commutes, and access to the community without having to drive everywhere is as much a marketable selling point as good schools or low crime with a growing segment of homebuyers.

Riding on bicycle also gives her a better sense of the neighborhoods she’s selling in.  Of her strategy, Kaufman says:

“I started doing focus groups by showing homes by bike to cycling advocates. All of the feedback I got was positive. Once I actively started marketing to people who want to drive less, my business increased. This year versus last year, I’ve almost doubled my business in the worst real estate market ever. I took that to mean it was a good idea.”

Doubled her business? Sounds like she’s onto something.

Making Suburbia More Livable for Retirees

From the decidedly pedestrian-unfriendly layout of Shoppes at Wyndham Village to the habit many city administrators have of referring to bike and walking paths as no more than frivolous "recreation facilities" (more on that when I post about the first Franklin Trails Committee meeting), Franklin can be a tough place to function if you happen to be elderly, differently-abled, or without a vehicle.

Ironically, some of the Franklin politicians who roll their eyes (and I mean that literally) at suggestions that we make walkability and accessibility a priority are themselves approaching (or already in) their golden years. And who can forget the large contingent of Franklin's elderly community that Casper Green mobilized to attend a public meeting supporting developer Mark Carstensen's Shoppes at Wyndham Village despite a site plan distinctly unfriendly to the elderly? 

This past weekend's Wall Street Journal features a story about how many suburbs are "retrofitting" to better serve their aging population - and retaining that population, who otherwise would leave for Florida or Arizona retirement communities. And this means keeping our older neighbors in the mainstream and participatory in community life, not concentrated in "elderly housing facilities."

Why can't we "age in place"?

Sitting in his office in Fayetteville, Ga., Ken Steele, the town's mayor, is poring over a local street map, explaining how this suburb of Atlanta hopes to transform itself into a "lifelong community"—and why neighborhoods across the country need to do the same.

"Every small community has the same problem," says Mr. Steele, age 69. "We want residents to be able to age in place, to meet their needs…here, without having to move away."

To that end, he indicates on the map how a new street grid could reduce traffic in the center of town and help Fayetteville become a "walking community"; how new town homes and condominiums, in an area where single-family homes have long been the norm, could give residents of all ages more housing options; and how new greenways and parks could promote social interaction.

"Lenders, landowners, developers—they're all talking now," Mr. Steele says of the project. "We really can't afford to wait."

That sense of urgency is understandable. The nation's sprawling suburbs—home to as much as half of the U.S. population and more than 30 million people age 55-plus—may have been a good place to grow up. But the suburbs are proving a tough place to grow old.

Indeed, as the country ages, suburbia's widely assumed benefits—privacy, elbow room, affordability—tend to vanish. Maintaining yards and homes requires more effort; driving everywhere, and for everything, becomes expensive and, eventually, impossible. (Research shows that men and women who reach their 70s, on average, outlive their ability to drive by six and 10 years, respectively.)

Even something as simple as the absence of sidewalks can discourage older adults from walking through their neighborhoods and seeing other people.

Suddenly, "all that privacy that drew people to the suburbs in the first place can become isolation," says Ellen Dunham-Jones, associate professor of architecture and urban design at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

One answer, of course, is to leave. Active-adult communities and assisted-living facilities exist to mitigate some of the drawbacks of growing old on a cul-de-sac. That said, the vast majority of older adults don't want to move. Fully 85% of surveyed individuals age 50-plus told AARP, the Washington-based advocacy group, that they wish to remain in their communities for as long as possible. And those communities, invariably, want the same thing: a strong mix of ages, interests and abilities among residents.

Perhaps a better solution, and one finding favor in more circles, is the idea of "retrofitting" suburbia and developing, as seen on the drawing board in Fayetteville, "lifelong communities." Such projects typically involve taking a neighborhood or site within an existing town or suburb and creating a compact, walkable community—one with alternatives to single-family homes, such as condominiums or row houses. Ideally, older residents in large homes will have the option of downsizing and remaining in a community where they can access restaurants, shopping and other amenities and services on foot.

Read the rest at: Making Suburbia More Livable for Retirees - WSJ.com.

New Report: Walkable Neighborhoods Increase Home Value

If the inverse is true, look for home prices to continue to plummet in UNwalkable Franklin:

A new report from CEO for Cities, “Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Home Values in U.S. Cities,” argues that more walkable neighborhoods increase home values. According to CEO for Cities, data was analyzed “from 94,000 real estate transactions in 15 major markets provided by ZipRealty and found that in 13 of the 15 markets, higher levels of walkability, as measured by Walk Score, were directly linked to higher home values.” CEO for Cities adds: “The study found that in the typical metropolitan area, a one-point increase in Walk Score was associated with an increase in value ranging from $700 to $3,000 depending on the market. The gains were larger in denser, urban areas like Chicago and San Francisco and smaller in less dense markets like Tucson and Fresno.”

Read more at: New Report: Walkable Neighborhoods Increase Home Value « The Dirt