Dwayne Hunn
Pedestrian Pockets II
Last
week’s interview with Architect Peter Calthorpe touched on some of the economic
consequences of short-sighted land use policy. This column touches on some
political and policy problems.
We have no technological problems with providing the answers.
Architects and engineers can design cost efficient housing and transit
solutions. Build it and they will come applies
as well to the heavy on the brown mustard, hot dog eating baseball fan, as to
the American desiring enjoyable and affordable housing and transportation. The
snobbish estate dweller, however, doesn’t want one blade of grass touched in
his Fields of Green to allow Joe
Sixpack to live nearby.
Houseboat liver Calthorpe’s architectrual work hinges on the
belief that:
“We need to design communities and housing for a more diverse
cross section. We need to think about affordability in terms of transportation
as well as mortgage and rental costs. This all adds up to design that is more
integrated-- mixed-use, walkable communities where every trip doesn’t have to
be in an automobile.”
This week’s column refers to the decade long 101 Corridor Study
Plan which, wounded from its Transit Tax defeat in 1990, stumbles along. That
plan concluded that Rail/Highway & Bus/Highway transit alternatives would
yield the most effective transit solutions for Marin and Sonoma counties.
Rail and Pedestrian Pocket
developments offer an invigorating symbiotic mix for what ails our nation today.
The diversity and self-sufficiency offered in Pedestrian Pockets is given
environmentally sound travel mobility when built adjacent to a rail line. Being
able to move from one PP to another, or to a shopping center while viewing
patches of open space in between, or to work in the big city--offers economy,
free time and pleasure-- three gifts lacking when strapped behind a freeway
wheel.
What hinders Pedestrian Pockets
implementation?
Main hindrance is inertia. Inertia of: existing zoning
regulations, existing vested land use designations, a financial community which
feels safest repeating last year’s products, and developers who only want to
deal with their isolated site rather. than regional concerns. And, quite
honestly, the inertia of envinonnienta1ists who see their role in resisting any
development rather than defining and advocating an ecological pattern of growth
for an entire region.
The sum total of this inertia is what propels a pattern of
growth which we know is bad for the environment, costly to communities,
individually and socially stressful, and quite frankly, esthetically repugnant
to most. But we do it anyway.
How do PPs fit with the 101
Corridor Committee’s two preferred alternatives — Rail/Highway and Bus/Highway?
A difficult question. I believe ultimately a healthy pattern of
growth for a region will require and sustain light rail. If the BART study’s
40% utilization can be generated by PPs, this demand could only be satisfied by
light rail. But it is a bit of the chicken and egg problem — how do we get
there from here? If PPs are built without light rail, they would generate too
much auto traffic. Without PPs, light rail would have a very low ridership and
need to be heavily subsidized.
It is the transition time that is tricky. One scenario would
use the right-of-way for express buses and carpools while the PPs are
developing. When they mature and the ridership is high, a light rail should be
installed. The danger, of course, is that it would never be installed and the pressures
to turn the bus way into an auto expressway would be great. Although less
efficient in the short run, I favor the light rail as a way of committing our
growth to this compact transit oriented future configuration.
If we look 20-30 years down the road, we know we have to make
such an investment. Even though it seems expensive now, it will be just more
expensive later. I recently read that the CEO of Exxon expected to be out of
the oil business by 2010 because US oil reserves would be depleted by then. We
must plan our communities with that perspective in mind.
How much of Marin and Sonoma’s
projected population do you believe could be housed in PPs?
Anywhere from 50-70% of
the Association of Bay Area Governments’ projections could fit in viable sites
for both counties. The numbers are much lower for Marin because we have only a
few viable sites left. Sonoma, however, has a great capacity for this type of
development. The Marin sites along the North West Pacific right-of-way are
limited by their adjacency to wetlands. Sonoma really doesn’t have this
limitation north of Petaluma.
So the concept is not to
eliminate all of our single family subdivisions and office parks, but merely to
create a land use pattern that offers an alternative to people in businesses
seeking more convenient accessibility and more affordable options.
Does Marin still have time to
do this?
Unfortunately, in Marin these sites are dropping by the wayside
as they develop oriented toward the freeway or lower density single use
activities. The fabric of these developments should be diverse--townhouses,
condos, elderly and young, in-law and rental units. We don't need to build
isolated, segregated apartment blocks. We should be integrating our needs for
private ownership with the need for affordable rental, housing for elderly and
college students by allowing in-law apartments in our communities.
Mixed-use zones, where you have jobs and retail, must be the
center these developments. Our current land use policies segregate our land
uses, we must get away from that. Diversity is the idea. Ground floor retail. Second floor apartments.
Most popular office parks are now integrating retail and
services. In the East Bay a lot of the areas that are being focused toward
carpooling understand that if they want people to carpool they have to create a
pedestrian environment for their mid-day and afternoon trips.