Complete the Streets Pt 2: Saner streets for Franklin?

(Illustration courtesy of AARP)

How do you get developers and local governments to create public spaces more hospitable to the entire population, not just those with access to a vehicle?

Complete the Streets is an initiative designed to get cities, regions and states to enact and enforce street engineering and design policies that provide safe access for all - -  including older people, children, and people who who use wheelchairs or have vision impairments. Of course, it also means bicycles and pedestrians are given proper consideration.

In other words, Complete the Streets encourages enforceable policies that make the city and developers do more than the bare minimum; it forces them to look beyond self interest and observe the current and future needs of the community. It enables meaningful (and commercially profitable) public spaces. It means being able to safely walk to school rather than having to take a bus from two blocks away.

(Above) INCOMPLETE STREETS: This is what we consider "safe" neighborhood access to a school in Franklin?

 

But make no mistake: Developers will not do anything that they aren't forced to do, and local governments - - Franklin's most definitely included - - are loath to step on the toes of developers unless there is a clear statute or ordinance in place to cite.

Enter the Complete the Streets movement.

The membership of Complete the Streets is diverse: America Bikes, American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), Smart Growth America, the American Society of Landscape Architects and Paralyzed Veterans of America are just a few of the organizations lending support to the cause.

You may recall that local seniors activist Casper Green mobilized his constituency to support Mark Carstensen's Shoppes at Wyndham Village despite its elderly-unfriendly site plan. Mr. Carstensen's financial contributions and generosity to causes and organizations that Mr. Green champions trumped all other considerations. As a result, the very population that has the most at stake in terms of their loss of freedom and mobility due to a poor, Target-dictated site plan remains silent on the issue - - to raise concerns would seem "ungrateful." Mr. Green - - a genuine community asset and tireless volunteer - -  made it clear to me in my conversation with him that as far as he's concerned, when you criticize the "Shoppes" project, you are "against Mark."

Of course, a few weeks later Mr. Carstensen began to differentiate between "my part of the development, which is the Sendik's and all the outlying buildings" and Target's huge - - and site-plan dominating - - swath of property, which Target owns and wholly controls. Unified site plan? Nope. Target Corporate called all the shots. Well played.

Clearly, if the soon-to-be-reconstructed stretch of Drexel Avenue that fronts "Shoppes" is to be properly designed to allow as much usability as possible given Franklin's current center-less status, the mayor, plan commission and common council are going to have to ignore partisan pressure groups; veiled threats from Target; bluster from blog-wielding conservative mouthpieces ("my good friend the mayor", "my close personal friend the alderman"); and scoldings from the developer.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

That's why the Complete the Streets movement is invaluable. The organization works to identify and put in place enforceable guidelines at whatever level possible - - be it local statute, "best practices" rules, regional ordinance, etc. For example, the DuPage County (IL) Healthy Roads Initiative contains this language:

Construct a sidewalk or bicycle path where right-of-way is available; Ensure that the new construction project is safe for both the user and the community; Ensure that the new construction project adds a lasting value to both motorized and non-motorized users; Ensure the project incorporates context sensitive and environmentally sensitive design. Requires public meeting during preliminary engineering design; consensus should be reached.

Developer balking at creating a walkable site plan? Fear reprisal? Cite the initiative; "Nothing personal, but we have these guidelines to follow....".

And "connected" communities are more valuable communities. As noted in an excellent opinion piece from The Seattle Times:

People tightly wed to the single-passenger-car concept are least likely to accept the complete-streets idea. But 90 percent of us, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors, believe that new communities should be designed so we can walk more and drive less, and that public transportation should be improved and accessible.

Look around us. Clearly, Franklin is full of "incomplete streets," built for vehicles only, and built for speed regardless of environment.

Hope that's not your small child below, forced into the ditch trying to dodge traffic on the way to school. Simply pathetic.

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From the Complete the Streets web site:

The streets of our cities and towns ought to be for everyone, whether young or old, motorist or bicyclist, walker or wheelchair user, bus rider or shopkeeper. But too many of our streets are designed only for speeding cars, or worse, creeping traffic jams. They’re unsafe for people on foot or bike — and unpleasant for everybody.

Now, in communities across the country, a movement is growing to complete the streets. States, cities and towns are asking their planners, engineers and designers to build road networks that welcome all citizens.

(Click picture below to see Complete Street transformation)

ELEMENTS OF COMPLETE STREETS POLICIES (from the Complete the Street website)

1. The Principle

• Complete streets are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities must be able to safely move along and across a complete street.
• Creating complete streets means changing the policies and practices of transportation agencies.
• A complete streets policy ensures that the entire right of way is routinely designed and operated to enable safe access for all users.
• Transportation agencies must ensure that all road projects result in a complete street appropriate to local context and needs.

2. Elements of a Good Complete Streets Policy

A good complete streets policy:

• Specifies that ‘all users’ includes pedestrians, bicyclists, transit vehicles and users, and motorists, of all ages and abilities.
• Aims to create a comprehensive, integrated, connected network.
• Recognizes the need for flexibility: that all streets are different and user needs will be balanced.
• Is adoptable by all agencies to cover all roads.
• Applies to both new and retrofit projects, including design, planning, maintenance, and operations, for the entire right of way.
• Makes any exceptions specific and sets a clear procedure that requires high-level approval of exceptions.
• Directs the use of the latest and best design standards.
• Directs that complete streets solutions fit in with context of the community.
• Establishes performance standards with measurable outcomes.

2.5 Implementation

An effective complete streets policy should prompt transportation agencies to:

• Restructure their procedures to accommodate all users on every project.
• Re-write their design manuals to encompass the safety of all users.
• Re-train planners and engineers in balancing the needs of diverse users.
• Create new data collection procedures to track how well the streets are serving all users.

See also another article about complete streets from the AARP here

Comments

[Josh Strupp]

This idea would be brilliant for the Shoppes project along Drexel (among other places) in my opinion. The question is what kind of cost would we be looking at in constructing something similiar to the concept in your article John? I'm not looking for an exact figure, but I would be interested in looking at other communities that have done this very tranformation in the past and what kind of pricetag was attached. Just curious.

[Greg Kowalski]

If I'm not mistaken, it was supposed to be MANDATORY for the Shoppes. If I read the Civic Center District section of the UDO, it leans heavily towards pedestrian-friendly and environmentally-friendly development and less on roads and sprawling parking lots.

But I could be mistaken.

[John]

Greg - the problem is how they define "it" and how "mandatory" Civic Center District guidelines are. The guidelines ended up being pretty elastic for the Shoppes site plan, and the city engineer already has bids on the Drexel reconstruction - and has picked a contractor - before a final design has been chosen.

[Greg Kowalski]

Ah yes, how could I forget all that maneuvering around specific pieces of the UDO just to get the hometown guy's wishes granted.

Maybe we should dub Franklin City Hall developers' "Cinderella's Castle."

[John]

Josh, pricing out such a project is complex to the extent that guys much smarter than me get paid lots of money to calculate these costs (though I will devote future blog entries to exploring these costs and, more importantly, who should bear them).

Problem is, there is no standard "per yardage" equation that I can take from, say, a project in Portland that would apply here with any relevance.

One thing is certain: Doing it right costs more than doing it wrong (i.e. the way we've been doing it).

ANOTHER thing is certain, though: In the not-too-distant future, we will be paying to fix today's poor design decisions, and it will cost much, much more at that point. AND we'll be missing the interim benefits that come from effective public spaces (not the least of which is an ACTIVE COMMERCIAL AREA).

But, looking back to a post I made on April 26th of this year and I have near-zero confidence in this administration's ability to rise to the occasion. Tell me if this sounds fishy to you:

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(From April 26, 2007)

At the April 2nd Franklin Common Council Meeting, city engineer John Bennett reported that he'd been directed by the council - - a mere week earlier - - to negotiate an engineering contract for reconstruction of the stretch of Drexel Avenue between Loomis and Hwy. 100; i.e. right in front of the planned Shoppes at Wyndham Village development currently under discussion. Bennett recommended awarding the contract to McClure Engineering.

It should be noted that McClure is also employed by "Shoppes" developer Mark Carstensen.

"This is a city project, and should be a city project," Bennett said. "We've had developers build roads that they turned over to the city, they were on farm fields; when they did it, they didn't have to deal with the public like we're gonna have to deal with the public. And I think this should be a contractor that answers to the city where we have at least some control." (More on that intriguing and loaded statement in a later post....).

“We have a price for doing it,” Bennett then said, adding that the city can leave open the idea of shared costs with the "Shoppes" development agreement.

The question is: How can "we have a price for doing it"? Is Drexel's configuration already decided, and it's already too late to make this road useful for moving people as well as vehicles?

[Greg Kowalski]

Great work in incorporating the current civic center crisis currently going on in Franklin.