Urban Design: The Future of Integrated Transportations

To accommodate high population growth and control traffic congestion in Seattle, the city is seeking solutions that will provide better mobility and integrated transportation choices for the public. Establishing a network of shared mobility hubs in partnership with transit agencies and private mobility services is one of the potential solutions that the city is currently looking into. This week, our Project Manager Josh discussed the potentials of implementing shared mobility hubs and autonomic vehicles in Seattle, and shared his thoughts on how these integrated transportation choices might transform travel experience in the future.

Written by Josh Janet, Project Manager | PE:

The passage of the Sound Transit 3 (“ST3”) package last September by a majority of King, Pierce, and Snohomish County voters will substantially expand light rail, bus, and other public transit systems to provide better connections throughout the region. Although the staff at Urbal have been generally supportive of the package, we joke from time to time about the timeline associated with these new connections. My coworker Kendra and her husband Tyler celebrated the birth of their first child, Arlo Oester, at the end of 2016; he will be at least 13 years old by the time the light rail extension opens near his home in West Seattle (assuming this schedule is accurate).

I thought about ST3 during a few panels at the 25th annual convention for the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) this past week. CNU is a non-profit organization of architects, urban planners, engineers, developers, and others interested in improving the quality of the built environment “to build vibrant communities where people have diverse choices for how they live, work, and get around”. These panels discussed mobility and how technology can address the first and last mile problem (i.e. the problem of how users get to and from bus and light rail stations when they are not located near them in the first place).

Shared Mobility Hubs

An example of a shared mobility hub.   |  Image by Sophia Von Berg via Shared-use Mobility.

Shared mobility hubs (“Hubs”), or integrated mobility hubs, are central locations in neighborhoods that provide a variety of transportation options and services. These Hubs are intended to encourage a greater reliance on alternative transportation options beyond car ownership, and may include features like the following:

• Access to bike lanes and bike infrastructure;
• Bike-share, bike storage, and bike repair services;
• Changing rooms;
• Electric vehicle charging stations;
• Ride-share parking (like Car2Go and Zipcar);
• Drop-off and pick-up areas; and
• Bus stops.

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is currently planning a network of these hubs around the city, and has even hired a team of dedicated staff members to lead the efforts. The criteria they are using for the development of these hubs include:

• Hubs to be built around or near transit stops;
• Street space will be dedicated only if necessary;
• Hubs need to be located near users;
• Hubs need to incorporate quality wayfinding, lighting, and cohesive branding to integrate them; and
• Fare integration needs to be incorporated where possible.

It’s anyone’s guess as to whether these will actually be implemented or planned to death, but I’m curious to see where SDOT is thinking of locating these. I’m on the fence as to how often these will be used and if they’ll make any dent in changing the paradigm for vehicle ownership at all.

Autonomous Vehicles

 Seattle will be the first place to test BMW ReachNow's autonomous cars.   |   Image by BMW via The Drive

Autonomic Vehicles (“AVs”) are the elephant in the room when it comes to the future of transportation in America. Everyone seems to expect these to be on the market “soon,” but it remains to be seen in what form and under what kind of operations and regulations they will be allowed on the road.

The biggest question in my mind, beyond how AVs will share the road with normally-operated vehicles, is whether or not AVs will be allowed for purchase by private citizens. Personal AV ownership has the potential for two huge impacts to our environment. The first is that, under normal circumstances, an individual will drive to work and drive home, resulting in two (2) trips generated on any given day. With personal AV ownership, does that car get parked in a parking lot or garage during the work day or does the owner send the car home? Many planners and techies seem to be expecting that AVs will reduce the need for parking in urban centers, but this scenario would effectively double the amount of trips being taken per day and worsening congestion.

The second impact is that personal AV ownership may place pressure on increasing sprawl away from urban centers. There are generally limits to how long people are willing or interested in sitting in traffic, but if you no longer have to focus on driving in that space and can instead read a book, watch a movie, or even operate an easy bake oven, then the time it takes to get to work may be less of an impact on where people choose to live relative to their employment.

The only scenario I’m somewhat comfortable with right now is the use of AVs for ride-sharing services, but even that begs the question- where do those cars go between use? Do they just drive around the block aimlessly until they’ve been re-directed by an app service? Are they re-directed to the nearest shared mobility hub?

ST3 makes sense under today’s challenges with population growth throughout the region, but AVs have the potential to re-write the book on transportation, and I’m wary that it will be for the better.

Urban Design: Tent Cities

Work in progress of a tent encampment at south Seattle.   |   Photo by Josh Janet

Every year, King County organizes a “One Night Count” of both the unsheltered homeless population throughout the county and those individuals staying in shelters or transitional housing. As of the January 2016 count, nearly 3,000 people were living on the streets in Seattle—a worsening crisis that the city has been trying to address for decades. Following the city’s authorization of homeless encampments in 2015, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine declared a state of emergency to tackle its rising homelessness. This week, our Project Manager Josh discussed the use of encampments in Seattle, and shared his experience of volunteering with the set-up of encampments around the city.

Written by Josh Janet, Project Manager | PE:

Homelessness is a topic that can evoke wildly varying but passionate responses, especially when discussing how to address it. In 2015, the city of Seattle hired a consultant to provide her suggestions on how the city should respond to the growing crisis, and the report that was produced called for re-allocation of funding from transitional housing to rapid re-housing. The consultant had very choice words for homeless encampments in particular: “Encampments are a real distraction from investing in solutions. You can see it takes a lot of energy to get them running and they don’t solve the problem. You still have people who are visibly homeless, living outdoors.”

Although rapid re-housing may work for some, many local homeless housing advocates challenged that it has not shown to work for more vulnerable members of the community. Neither the report nor the consultant’s comments address that fact that if housing isn’t available today, individuals and families that are homeless don’t really have any other options.

Seattle is one of the few cities in the country that has attempted to regulate the use of encampments around the city. The Seattle Municipal Code allows encampments to be accessory uses on property owned by religious organizations and interim uses (up to three months) on other property that meet certain restrictions (such as a 25-foot buffer from residential properties). The maximum allowed number of residents is set at 100 and the site must meet a number of safety standards, including the placement of fire extinguishers and 100-person first-aid kits, designated smoking areas, power protection devices and associated safety posts. Encampments are also required to provide and maintain chemical toilets, running water (either indoors or properly discharged outdoors), and garbage removal services. Cooking facilities aren’t required but need to meet health standards.

I first volunteered with the set-up of an encampment when the Tent City Collective was provided space in a parking lot on the University of Washington’s campus, back in December (right down the street from the College of Built Environment in Gould Hall). With the three months up, the collective had to move this past weekend to another site, located in south Seattle near Renton. Less visible than the UW location, this new spot pits residents much further from services and employment and was basically a large mud pit when they were in the process of constructing the new encampment.

If you’ve never been to an encampment, wooden pallets are arranged in a 3x4 pattern for families and in a 2x2 pattern for individuals. Plywood sheathing is nailed onto the pallets, and these provide a basis for tents to be installed such that they do not need to be set on the ground (staying dryer and warmer). Each unit of pallets must be set 4’-0” apart to provide city-regulated clearance aisles for emergencies. In-between, organizers set them at 1’-0” apart to provide some space for access but also squeeze in as many tents as they can onto the site. In a separate area is the “kitchen,” a covered area where milk crates full of donated or collected foodstuffs are stored for resident use. Other supplies are stored here as well.

One of the biggest challenges for the homeless population in Seattle is security. It comes up often when the Mayor discusses the perceived need to clear out places like “the Jungle,” the area underneath I-5 between roughly South Dearborn Street and Lucille Street. In a talk at the Central Library last June, however, former and current residents of the Jungle spoke to the critical need for stability and community that the Jungle provided. If a homeless individual is on their own, it is likely that whenever they leave their tent behind with possessions in it, it is going to get ransacked. Imagine leaving your home every day and finding all of your possessions gone that evening, forced to start from scratch again the next morning. Encampments and other “village” style communities allow for individuals and families to leave for the day, whether for work, food, support services, school, or just needing a break, and return to a relatively stable environment.

As long as rapid re-housing is promoted as the primary method for addressing homelessness, there is going to be a lag between identifying the most vulnerable members of our community and actually finding affordable housing for them along with whatever support services they need. Encampments should not be seen as a city goal, but in the short-term, they provide a measure of normalcy that is better than the alternative. If you are interested in helping tent city residents in the future, whether through support or volunteering during their next set-up in three months, you can find more information on Tent City Collective’s Facebook page.

Urban Forestry: Trees for Seattle

The presence of trees plays a significant role in our urban environment. Integrating trees into the urban fabric properly can help support a healthy community by adding positive social, economic, and environmental values to the city. This week, our Project Manager Josh discussed the importance of urban forestry, and shared his experience of volunteering with the city of Seattle’s task force to protect urban forests in Seattle.

Trees for Seattle is the urban forestry task force for the City of Seattle.   |   Image via Trees for Seattle.

Written by Josh Janet, Project Manager | PE:

I worked briefly in the planning department of the City of Normandy Park in 2015. One of the common concerns that we would hear from citizens related to tree removal- half of the residents wanted to remove trees on their property to improve their views of the shoreline or expand their homes, while the other half wanted desperately to save all trees for ecological purposes.

Beautiful scenic views and home renovations notwithstanding, trees provide a number of benefits to urban environments. One of the programs managed by the city of Seattle for encouraging and developing urban forestry is Trees for Seattle (TFS), formerly known as “ReLeaf.”

TFS advocates for increasing the urban canopy cover across the city while nurturing and supporting existing trees and green spaces. Canopy cover is defined as the “percentage of the city that is covered by trees, as seen in an aerial view.” There are obvious advantages of trees- they are pleasant to look at and increase property values. Trees also provide natural stormwater management through the reduction of runoff of paved surfaces; reduce the urban heat island effect, which diminishes the need for HVAC in the height of summer and winter; and mitigate air pollution near congested streets.

According to the report Urban Tree Canopy Analysis Project Report: Looking Back and Moving Forward, commissioned by the city of Seattle in 2009, “the city adopted an Urban Forest Management Plan in 2007 with a goal of increasing the city's tree canopy to 30% [in 30 years]. In order to prioritize investments to those actions that will create the greatest tree canopy gain, the City determined that they needed a better understanding of current canopy cover, recent trends in canopy gain and loss, the impacts of development, and tree planting potential. They also wanted to create a baseline to monitor progress against the 30% canopy cover goal.”

Additional reports provided on the TFS website only date back to 2007, but they state that at that time, the city had around 22.9% tree canopy coverage. The Eastlake neighborhood, for which Urbal’s office is located, included less than 15% overall canopy coverage. I would suspect this number has not improved much since then, considering the incredible growth in development experienced along Eastlake Avenue.

So how can the average citizen get involved with Seattle’s urban forestry efforts? TFS also organizes volunteer work parties to promote stewardship in neighborhoods across the city for the natural environment. More than 100 work parties have been conducted at sites city-wide, engaging over 150 volunteers, including one in the Wallingford neighborhood that I volunteered at this past weekend (as well as once last year).

The work at this particular site- the landscaped triangle at North 46th Street and Aurora Avenue North- began in 2014 with the removal of invasive species that were not only harming existing mature streets, but causing sightline issues for pedestrians near a busy arterial. TFS removed English Ivy (growing into tree canopies), Black Locust Seedlings, and various grasses. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2015, the group once again weeded invasive species, but also placed 250 new plants in the area. They chose White Rock Rose shrubs for the triangle due to its high drought tolerance, low growth traits, and low maintenance needs. Ironically, White Rock Rose is not a native Pacific Northwest species, but there are no concerns that this plant is going to overtake native plants.

Volunteers helped clean up the site after removing invasive weeds in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle.   |   Image of Wallingford Work Party via Trees for Seattle.

I would encourage those that are interested in either urban forestry or just volunteering more to take a look at TFS’s website for upcoming volunteer work parties. The organizers bring food and coffee for volunteers as well as all the necessary tools and gloves for the work. The work can be backbreaking, but it’s a rewarding experience as you witness the growth over time of new trees and shrubs in your neighborhood.

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Source:

• “Watershed Forestry Resource Guide.” Center for Watershed Protection and US Forest Service. Last visited: 08 Feb 2016. Available WWW: http://forestsforwatersheds.org/urban-tree-canopy.