Portland Metro councilor Robert Liberty on the politics of urban sustainability.

Councillor Robert Liberty speaks in Vancouver about "The Politics and Principals of Urban Sustainability". The talk is largely about Portland, OR and its growth boundry. This discussion focuses on the link between density and good urban development. Portland is well known as a leader in 'Smart Growth' and is therefore a focus of much attention, both from those wishing to learn leasons and from those worried that such an example--if ultimately proven successful--could be a danger to there ideology. The discussion of politics is a significant part of the talk and altough it starts offf with some negative developments it finishes on a high.

Invited by the Vancouver City Planning Commission (Vancouver, BC) to speak on the "Politics and Principals of Urban Sustainability," Clr. Liberty gives an engaging and interactive description of the history and progress of communities adopting 'smart growth' in spite of initial public opposition.

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Audio from the CNU 2007 Transportation Summit

The CNU 2007 Transportation Summit has been covered in this blog several times, the presentations are now available online as is audio from the conference:

Use the timetable to decide what you want to listen to. Or watch.
 
Day 1 Morning:               Audio Quality: Muddy    
Day 2 Early Morning:     Audio Quality: Muddy    
Day 2 Morning:               Audio Quality: Clear      
Day 2 Early Afternoon:  Audio Quality: Clear
Day 2 Mid Afternoon:     Audio Quality: Clear
Day 2 Late Afternoon:    Audio Quality: Clear



 

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CNU 2007 Transport Summit: Video

Last month i attended the Congress for New Urbanims transportation summit. Finally, the video is available. These two clips present some highlights and the full unedited video is availalbe bellow that.

CNU Transportation Summit Highlights: 1 of 2


CNU Transportation Summit Highlights: 2 of 2


This video covers:

Street Design Manual Comparison: 3 examples – each organization presents their respective manual and gives a brief explanation.
9:30-9:50am Marcy McInelly & Norman Garrick
CNU-ITE manual-Major UrbanThoroughfares
9:50- 10:10am Andy Cameron presenting the UK manual for streets and design codes as an implementation tool
10:10-10:30am Ellen Greenberg presenting the West Australian Liveable Neighborhoods Code -street standards component Australia-manual.

This video has an error and will be updated shortly (b)

This video covers:

11:00-11:45am Michelle Dix, Managing Director of Planning, at TFL, former director of Congestion Charging Design Challenges- Current and Future Reforms, Street Patterns and Hierarchy –challenging conventional transport modeling and “predict and provide”. An overview of TfL's role & responsibilities Review of Congestion Charging successes/failures & unforeseen consequences of the scheme Talk tailored to cover street-level modal share and design-led innovation
11:45am-12:00pm Alain Chiaradia, Space Syntax
Alain will discuss Network Connectivity and the Space Syntax approach to
structure analysis and distribution and mix of uses according to key movement
nodes

This video covers:

Transportation and the Carbon Challenge
13:45pm-13:55pm Jacky Grimshaw to introduce the afternoon
13:55pm-14:15pm Norman Garrick framing the afternoon
Introduction to LEED for Neighborhood Developments (LEED ND)
14:15pm-14:45pm Hank Dittmar, Chief Executive, Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment. Hank will discuss the BRE analysis scores 85% for Sherford on Eco Rating – presentation of methodology; how this project inform LEED ND Policy lever of Climate Change.

This video covers:

Shared Space Integrating Design and Placemaking
10:45am-11:15am Q&A Hans Monderman, Ben Hamilton-Baillie, Daniel Moylan
11:15-11:30 BREAK
11:30-12:00pm Stephen Marshall, transportation planner and urban designer, will discuss how zoning and modernist principles have created street designs for cars, and not people. New street designs that promote access and connectivity will be
discussed as necessary alternatives.
12:00-12:30pm Lucinda Gibson, Vice President, Smart Mobility Regional Modeling and Network Functional Classification
12:30- 1:00pm Yodan Rofe will address the role of major streets as urban places and creators of a continuous urban fabric, using the "pedestrian realm" as the basis for a new paradigm in urban street design. He will show examples of transforming urban roads from mere traffic conductors into great streets and generators of urbanity.

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CNU: 2007 London Transport Summit (Day 2--Late Afternoon)

The late afternoon on Tuesday finished strong with presentations by Shelley Poticha (President & CEO, Reconnecting America) and Jacky Grimshaw (Vice President for Policy, Centre for Neighbourhood Technology).

Shelley spoke about Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and the current challenges facing this industry and the successes to date. This was viewed perticularly through the lens of reducing carbon emmissions, something that we have to get really serious about. Mode shift, from car to active transport and mass transit.

Shelly recently contributed to New Transit Town which can be bought here.




Jacky Grimshaw then spoke about some work that CNT have been doing in relation to new urbanism and climate change. In particular the link between new urbanism 'Transects' and carbon emissions was very interesting to me, tremendous work, really forward looking. I was not supprised to hear that CNT have been working with US Mayors through ICLEI and also with the clinton global intative on fighting climate change.

Related: More on the conference here, related audio and video, including the talks by Jacky and Shelly will be coming soon.

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CNU: Transportation Summit 2007 Presentations

The presentations from the CNU transportation summit will be available from here as soon as they have been uploaded. Last years presentations are currently available here.

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CNU: 2007 London Transport Summit (Day 2--Afternoon)

During the afternoon of the second day we listened to several excellent presentations.

Lucinda Gibson (VP, Smart Mobility) gave a fascinating and insightful look into the world of traffic modelling. This realm is often looked on with some scepticism by new urbanists and smart growth advocates because model results rarely back up there experience of mixed use and compact development advantages. Lucinda described the reasons for model failure; these can be placed in two categories, both of which are common place. Firstly the purposeful distortion of models where they are deliberately skewed to meet political agendas, this can be readily done by giving model variables unrealistic values in a subtle but systematic way. Secondly, the real errors of models that do not capture the traffic system accurately. In terms of demand there are a whole range of factors which would likely reduce the outcome, from increasing oil prices, climate change legislation and increasing environmental awareness, whilst these cannot reasonably be included in a model they should be factored in to analysis of the model and appreciated as downward factors that increase the likelihood of lower ranges of traffic. This talk was fascinating to me and i`m sure that anyone working against highway extension would do well to heed Lucinda's advice and look carefully at the traffic model both in terms of its values and how they where derived and any significant exclusions.

Yodan Rofe (Professor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) then gave a talk on the use of urban Boulevards as an alternative to urban motorways (highways). Yodan made a powerful case for the use of pedestrian realm as the new urban paradigm. In the case of an urban Boulevard street life is encouraged by having wide pavements and then some parking and a slow moving access street, after this is a broad tree planted area bordering the central through traffic lanes which contain high speed vehicles. Studies have found that this combination of barriers between pedestrians and the fast moving traffic is sufficient to make development along boulevards possible. This is in stark contrast to current motorways (highways) running through cities which are often at different levels and protected by barriers and fencing. Motorways currently offer no accommodation between place and transport function, they are human repelling and street life destroying. The quantity of recoverable urban highways is vast.


Jacky Grimshaw (VP, CNT), Norman Garrick (Associate Prof. UCONN)and Hank Dittmar (CE, Prince's Foundation) then spoke about the reasoning behind LEED-ND. The case was made, and quite convincingly, that buildings rated in isolation of there context risk failing the sustainability challenge. For example a company moving out of a high density mixed use urban setting into a low density single use suburban setting is almost certainly going to force part of its workforce off mass transit and into there cars. Journeys and emissions will increase, and the true advantage of a LEED-Platinum building may be in doubt; greater emissions in the transport/building total are likely even if the old building was relatively inefficient. There where a variety of data used in these presentations but with some overlap, Kenworthy's data which is well known was used, but other data which addressed some critiques of the aforementioned data set where also presented. Among the more striking correlations found was presented by Norman Garrick who showed a phenomenally tight match between year of incorporation of US cities and road fatalaties!

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CNU: 2007 London Transport Summit (Day 2--Morning)

The first day had a range of tours through various parts of London where design improvements had been implemented. Without this on the second day we covered less ground physically but more figuratively.

Day 2: Tuesday 13th November 2007

First off there where two related talks on pedestrian friendly urban design, accommodating traffic but equalizing the currently dysfunctional relationship of priorities between human and vehicular traffic. The first talk was given by Ben Hamillton-Baillie who has worked on the UK Guide for Streets and done research into the legal situation with regards signage and barrier requirements. It is important that councils can feel confident that they are legally secure if they decide to avoid using excessive signage and barriers. It turns out that in the UK at least the fears of litigation by drivers are unfounded. There are many guidance notes, green paper and other reports on signs and street design but virtually all of it is advisory.

Given this context, the second talk, by Hans Moderman covers a change in paradigm that is legally practical. Interestingly Hans has a very libertarian perspective on the relation between people in cars and on there feet. The key idea is of changing the behaviour of drivers not by using laws but by changing context: don't set 30 mph speed limits that people don't follow, slow traffic even further by simply designing streets that are amenable to lower speeds. Introducing uncertainty for the driver and re-enfranchising the pedestrian are methods. The ideas that Hans puts forward (Telegraph Article) are based on careful and long term measurement of test schemes and on universals of human behaviour. It seems--and this is gaining acceptance--that people behave rationally if you don't dictate rules to them! Removing confusing signage and road marking are part of this as is a general reduction of street clutter; another part is making it appear thorugh choice of materials and careful design that cars, bikes, people, all have a right to the street. The feeling that is created for drivers is one 'like driving on a cycle lane that you are allowed to use' there is a sense that people and bike have the right to walk wherever they like and that you just have to deal with it: bye and large people do deal with it very efficiently! In fact watching a video clip of a Hans Moderman roundabout at a busy junction is hypnotic in its fluidity. One junction with >20'000 cars a day was seen to function without a single cyclist stopping in 24hr!

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Congress The New Urbanism: 2007 London Transport Summit (Day 1)

I`ve just arrive back home from the CNU transportation summit in London. I'd write something here about my train journey if this blog was for rants...but as it isn't, i`ll just give a quick overview of the event. There is video and audio from the conference on the way so stay tuned!

Day 1: Monday November 14th

There where three presentations that we where still talking about the next day. The first was on the CNU-ITE manual 'Major Urban Thoroughfares' (Large PDF). This manual in its current form is by no means supported by everyone from CNU--the same is probably true for ITE--but it is still seen as progress on the issue of major roads in cities. Some felt that motorways have no place in an urban context and that boulevards are the way so solve this conflict, a significant divergence still exists between ITE and CNU on when this idea and many others should be applied. it would appear that there is significant conflict mainly on the applicability of certain measures to a given place. Perhaps a history of projects and careful cross comparison can help settle these debates. Reducing uncertainty is part of the issue but the other significant part is politics, society needs to ask itself what it wants its streets for...are they only a means or are they also of value in there own right? This idea of place vs function was a reoccurring theme.

The second presentation of note was on the new uk planning guidence for streets 'Manual for Streets' is compromised in several ways but significantly it is now the only relavent DfT/DCLG document on road design: it superceedes that last document which has been officially binned giving this new advice added strength. For the first time the govornments official guidance is specifically geared towards enhancing the urban environment in order to make it more walkable.

The final presentation that caught my attention was by Transport for London (TfL) on the congestion charge (currently a flat £8 fee for driving in central London) and alternatives to travel by car on London. Despite what you might have heard the congestion charge does actually bring in significant amounts of revenue for TfL the administrative costs are significant but around 2/3rds of the revenue is plowed back into transport investment. Of this the vast majority goes on the bus service and particularly bus station upgrades and security. However the total TfL revenue is several billion pounds annually so the congestion charge is only a small part of the overall total. The key success of TfL has been its ability to get people out of cars and onto buses. I think that this is an important example for other cities. Congestion charging is best used as a compliment to improved and extended bus services. In this way people from every part of society can effectively be moved out of cars and on to mass transit.

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Smart Growth Forum

Six of California's most respected experts in land use planning and smart growth came to Grass Valley, California to share their land use planning experience with our community. Carville Sierra, Inc. hosts Smart Growth Forum  June 16, 2006.

Experts include:

• Judy Corbett, Local Government Commission
  
• Tom DiGiovanni, New Urban Builders
  
• Tim Frank, Sierra Club
  
• Steve Frisch, Sierra Business Council
  
• Steve Lawton, City of Hercules
  
• Prof. Wassmer, California State University, Sacramento

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CNU Transportation Summit 2007 (London)

I`m off down to London shortly to attend (and blog about) urban transport and planning. I have been doing quite a bit of reading recently about sustainable urban transport and design so i`m really looking forward to speaking to some of the people who are at the heart of this effort to plan more sustianable communities.

Looking at the agenda i`m particularly keen to see the Hans Monderman's presentation on shared spaces. This guy is a genius, there are many articles on his work but one in the Telegraph of London recently caught my eye.

Talking about removing traffic lights from...well, just about everywhere:

"It works well because it is dangerous, which is exactly what we want. But it shifts the emphasis away from the Government taking the risk, to the driver being responsible for his or her own risk.

"We only want traffic lights where they are useful and I haven't found anywhere where they are useful yet."

This sounds boardering on the insane but it really works:

Thus far, Drachten's drivers and pedestrians have voted the experiment a success.

"I am used to it now," said Helena Spaanstra, 24. "You drive more slowly and carefully, but somehow you seem to get around town quicker."

Tony Ooostward, 70, was equally enthusiastic. "Everybody is learning. I am a walker and now you are the boss at the crossroads, everyone waits for you. But at the same time pedestrians wait until there are a number wanting to cross at the same time."

Kanaan Jamal, 39, like many people in Drachten, uses a bike to get around. "It is very smooth — a lot better than other towns," he said. The consensus is that the creation of uncertainty by taking away the lights and even in some places the road markings has worked

"Anybody who is new here doesn't know what to do. They don't know who has priority, the car, bike or pedestrian. It's all confusing, but because of that everybody takes care," Mr Jamal said.

The flyer for the event describes it's purposes as follows:

At the invitation of The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, the annual CNU Transportation Summit 2007 will be hosted in London on November 12th - 14th. By bringing together key opinion formers from both sides of the Atlantic as well as the Middle East and Australia, we hope to promote a cross fertilization of the best advances in global transportation reform for cities. The summit will be an opportunity to learn how reforms can be delivered in the current economic and planning climate. We will explore questions such as: Against the background of a booming economy and increasing population pressures, London’s Mayor Livingstone has initiated a series of transportation reforms in the UK capital, including public realm improvements and Congestion Charging, that have brought about genuine modal shift, improving quality of life and promoting a vital urban environment. What are transport planners responsibilities to the carbon challenge, and how can emissions reduction be achieved? How can we use transportation as an opportunity to create and design urban places we want? Speakers: Hank Dittmar, John Norquist, Jacky Grimshaw, Norman Garrick, Marcy McInelly, Andy Cameron, Michelle Dix, Ben Hamilton-Baillie, Daniel Moylan, Hans Monderman and Lucy Gibson. We would be delighted to see you for this special CNU/ Prince’s Foundation event, an opportunity to share transportation reforms with a global network.

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'Green Development?' only if the planning is right.

In the US, certification of buildings as energy efficient has been a huge success, particularly since LEED (Leadership in Energy Efficient Design) developed a standard that could be built
to and shown off.

Now that builders and architects are familiar with the requirements of LEED it has become a standard offering, particularly for high quality space: people are at last putting a premium on well designed comfortable and healthy space.

This trends is great news, and as it spreads further into the building sector as a whole, and internationally it looks set to make a significant impact on carbon emissions.

However, there is one further step to green building. Namely, accepting the fact that a green building miles from work is not truly green. Site has to be considered. Compact urban development is the most sustainable form of growth. Enter LEED New Development
(LEED-ND).

"Just as other LEED systems have improved building efficiency and energy performance, LEED-ND will reward efficient use of land and the building of complete and walkable communities,"

said John Norquist, President and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

"It is helping to reinforce a more complete understanding of sustainability that extends all the way from the individual building to the neighborhood and community."

Relevant Links:

• LEED-ND Report (describes the features for a sustainable building development).
  
• Comments on the draft report where taken: a summary response is available, this gives a superb short overview of the key tensions in the LEED-ND concept.
  
• USGBC: the home of LEED-ND
• Health and LEED-ND: Illustrates the health benefits of sustainable communities.

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Virginia Tech New Metropolis Lecture Series

I think i prefer listening to podcasts than reading, i linked to the City of Sydney's City Talk Podcasts the other day...particularly a talk by Jan Ghel.

I have just found another great series of podcasts and i`m wondering how many more are out there.

Lectures focus on cutting-edge topics and ideas about metropolitan development in the United States and abroad. Once a month, Virginia Tech invites speakers of broad regional, national and international reputation in scholarship, research, and policy.

My favorite from this series would have to be the following:

August 29, 2007
The Dollars and Sense of Sustainable Development - Ed McMahon, Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute.

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Big and green?

There is a very interesting debate going on over at Grist.

A "speculative 15,000 square foot mansion in Manalapan, Fla., will be the first home of its size to be certified green by the U.S. Green Building Council and the Florida Green Building Council." Is that a good idea for USGBC? That's my question to you. Obviously people are going to build big homes -- and it is better if they have green features. But should USGBC single out such "eco-mansions" for positive recognition?

My response to this is bellow, i agree that a low energy home is better than a high energy one but i think there is a more important argument.

It strikes me that when we talk about many topics such as: 1. Business Energy Usage 2. Green Buildings 3. National 'Intensity' targets. We are talking about emissions relative to the past. We need to talk about emissions relative to our planet, in other words, one big paradigm change of the climate challenge is saying no to relative targets: we dont live a a relative planet the logic dosent work. If we accept relative targets for buildings (90% bigger than that size, when smaller sizes are possible) then why not for businesses? If for businesses then why not for countries? If for countries then why not for the world...answers are all the same.

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Urban Management In Asia: Recommended Reading

My interest for the last week or two has been urban planning and sustainable transport. Well, to be honest it was sustainable transport and has broadened out into planning.

In particular i have been reading about bus rapid transit, cycle cities, suburban sprawl, transport and health etc., I have been reading about cases from all over the world but i thought i would be nice to look at what is (or could be) happening is Asia.

The institute for global environmental stratgegies (IGES) has done pioneering research on post-2012 priorities for Asian nations. It does, however, get a touch less theoretical.

There are a great series of report/articles/papers on climate change and urban development on this page. Including entire books for free download!

A few highlights:

'Air pollution control in the transport sector' is a publication most interesting to me for its case studies, which i ususally find to be far more interesting than discussion in the abstract. Atleast for an amateur it is easy to understand the issues through comparison.

The fourth chapter consists of six case studies and one comparative analysis on policies related to transport and environment in Asian cities.

'Urban Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Asian Mega-Cities' is a lot broader than transport policy however it maintains the comparative approach and takes care to analyse the data. If you can see the numbers then there is a good chance you can realistically appraise the issues for yourself. As with many issues related to climate change good data is really the start.

[the report] aims to quantify CO2 emissions from energy use and analyse their driving factors for selected Asian Mega-Cities-Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai.

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Help stop destructive road proposal

******************************************************************
URGENT ACTION ALERT - help stop destructive road proposal
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2 minute email action: Here

Along with local communities, Friends of the Earth Scotland, WWF Scotland, the Woodland Trust, Campaign against Climate Change and many other groups are opposing plans to construct the environmentally-damaging Aberdeen bypass.

What is the problem? This £300 million road will simply encourage more car traffic and increase climate pollution. It would also cut a swathe through 46 km of countryside - much of it designated greenbelt and rich in important wildlife.

What should happen instead? Plans for this road should be shelved. The money should be spent on an integrated transport system that has a focus beyond cars.

More information: http://www.stopthebypass.com

What can I do?

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No matter where you live in the world, we need you to formally object to this road scheme by Friday - the 9th February 2007.

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My take on this fiasco...


There are several bizzare aspects to this project. The foremost is that there really isn't much need for a bypass of Aberdeen. It sits by the east coast and has little through traffic. If congestion could be solved by building new roads then in the case of Aberdeen these would be wider trunk roads.

The second factor is the price, oficcially £200-400 million, analysis carried out on behalf on one of the main opposition groups estimates nearer to 800 million. The exact figuers are not important, there magnitude is. Aberdeen is a city of 200'000. I can't think of another area where funding of £1-2000 per person would be allocated (to take official figuers). And this outlay would benefit the tiny percentage of the traffic that does not want to actually want to go into Aberdeen. And this benefit, judging by past experiance of road building, won't last long.

The final factor is the reason for this sites existance, climate change. Whilst many are worrying about how society will cope when it inevitably starts to decarbonise in a meaningful way, authorties are outlaying huge sums of cash to allow the implementation of what may euphemistically called 'poor transport policy'.

In some of the worlds great cities climate change and integrated transport systems have been recognied as the challenges opportunities that they are. In London, car ownership has started to decline as disincentives are put in place alongside well developed alternatives. Public transport such as buses, trams and local rail services provide some of the answers, whilst active transport such as cycling, walking, rolar blading etc, provide the other important element. All of these have serious benefits for both the health of the planet and it's people. In a society of epidemic obesity it might have been thought that getting people onto there bikes would have recieved slightly higher priority. Indeed, if these alternatives are provided for with safe cycle lanes, a certain degree of pedestrianisation, a well funded public tranpsort system and facilities that enable these to be used in combination then you have the start of an integrated tranport system that allows for higher mobility, fewer emissions, and a healthier population.

This year in a city of 8 million, London will achieve a great deal with £150 million in funding. If Aberdeen where to spend even a fraction of the officially estimated £400 million on such policies then it would be the greenest city in europe and amongst the most mobile.

Please support this campiagn to throw out the vested interests and inneficiecies of the past and move to a cleaner, healthier and more mobile future.

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