Walkable Neighborhoods

REALTORS® & Smart Growth

on common ground WINTER 2017

WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOODS Market Demand for Walkability Linear Urban Parks Walking for Healthy Living

Walkability Is Becoming a Necessity Demand for walkable neighborhoods is increasing and this demand is changing real estate. People of all ages are recognizing the benefits of living in a place where they can walk to nearby shops, restaurants, recreation, and public transportation. The benefits are many — convenience, reduced time spent driving, and the health benefit of building walking into your day. But more than that, being walkable may be a major factor in your community staying economically competitive.

Walkable neighborhoods are driving economic growth as employers and businesses recognize the value of locating in these places to attract employees and customers. And walkable neighborhoods are not just in big cities. They can be in smaller cities and towns, older suburban communities or newly built suburban developments.

REALTORS® are experiencing this interest in walking from their clients, and have responded by providing information to buyers about the walkability of neighborhoods. Many REALTOR® websites and Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) include this information, such as providing a WalkScore (www.walkscore.com) for properties (see article on page 10). Some REALTOR® associations have seen the benefit of improving the pedestrian environment of their cities and towns, such as the Coastal Carolina REALTORS® Association, which used an NAR Smart Growth Grant to

Courtesy of The Office of TourismOhio

fund a walkability study in Myrtle Beach, S.C., (see page 58).

Many cities and towns are looking at a new type of zoning (Form-Based Codes) so that new development will foster walkable neighborhoods (see page 18).

Communities and REALTORS® who want their cities and towns to remain competitive — in business attraction, jobs, and the residential and commercial real estate markets — are making walkability a part of their economic development strategy.

Editor

For more information on NAR and smart growth, visit www.realtor.org/smartgrowth.

Joseph R. Molinaro Managing Director, Community and Political Affairs jmolinaro@realtors.org

On Common Ground is published twice a year by the Community and Political Affairs division of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (NAR), and is distributed free of charge. The publication presents a wide range of views on smart growth issues, with the goal of encouraging a dialogue among REALTORS®, elected officials and other interested citizens. The opinions expressed in On Common Ground are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, its members or affiliate organizations.

Assistant Editor Hugh Morris Manager, Smart Growth Program hmorris@realtors.org NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® 500 New Jersey Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20001

Distribution To order additional copies of On Common Ground, please e-mail us at OCG@realtors.org.

On Common Ground is now available in a new digital format optimized for tablets and smartphones: www.oncommonground-digital.org ©

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ON COMMON GROUND

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2017 National Association of Realtors®

On Common Ground

Winter 2017 The Walkable Demand

4

by Brad Broberg

What Makes a Community Walkable?

12

by Brian E. Clark

Zoning for Walkable Neighborhoods

Form-based codes gaining ground

by David Goldberg

18

These Suburbs Were Made for Walking

Density, walkability and community are establishing a foothold 24

by G.M. Filisko

Linear Urban Parks … Taking Off Around the Country

30

by Brian E. Clark

Affordable Walkability

Housing costs and rents in walkable neighborhoods are rising due to market demand 40

by Brad Broberg

Complete Streets for Safer Walks 46

by John Van Gieson

Walking Leads to Better Health 52

by Tracey C. Velt

Myrtle Beach: Working on Walking

City planners partner with REALTORS® to focus on walkability

by Bobby L. Hickman

58

Are People Driving More or Less?

Increase in miles traveled not as steady as it was in the 20th century 62

by Joan Mooney

REALTORS® Take Action

Making smart growth happen

66

Courtesy of Meet Minneapolis On Common Ground thanks the following contributors and organizations for photographs, illustrations and artist renderings reprinted in this issue: Yuri Chang, Smart Growth America; Ania Czarnecka, Ward Causing Communication; Meg Daly, Friends of The Underline; Marcus Fenton, Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy; Kären Haley and Sarah Frey, Indianapolis Cultural Trail, Inc.; Ellen Kehr, Blue Zones Project - Albert Lea; Ann McCarthy, EDENS; Kelly Mezzapelle, City of Myrtle Beach; Michael S. Papillon, Pike & Rose; Cheryl Persinger, Cadence; Kimberly R. Pontius, Traverse Area Association of REALTORS®; Lisa Quinn, Feet First; Samantha Thomas, Blue Zones, LLC; and Artie White, Tallahassee-Leon County Planning Dept.

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Photos courtesy of Arkansas Parks and Tourism

The Walkable Demand "My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60.

She’s 97 now, and we don’t know where the heck she is.”

Ellen DeGeneres, talk show host

By Brad Broberg

W

hether it comes from formal research or simple observation, the evidence keeps piling up.

Lots of people want to live and work where they can walk more and drive less. The demand for walkability is trending faster than a Taylor Swift tweet.

• A clear majority of people — 60 percent — favor neighborhoods with a walkable mix of houses and stores rather than neighborhoods that require more driving between home, work and play, according to the latest Community Preferences Survey from the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

• A survey by the American Planning Association found that 56 percent of millennials and 46 percent of baby boomers want to live in more walkable neighborhoods with a mix of uses.

• Half of the respondents to an Urban Land Institute survey said that walkability is either the top priority or a high priority when deciding where they want to live.

A little more than half — 52 percent — said they want to live where they don’t need to use a car so often.

• A report from NAIOP, a commercial real estate development association, showed office tenants prefer locations in walkable urban environments — either in cities or vibrant suburban centers — by a four to one margin over typical suburban office parks. The report also found that rents are higher and vacancy rates lower in vibrant suburban centers than typical suburban office parks.

Now comes “Foot Traffic Ahead: 2016,” a report published earlier this year by the George Washington University School of Business and Smart Growth America.

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Walkable urban locations within each metro have outperformed sprawling suburban locations over the last five years in the office, retail and multi-family rental housing sectors.

This analysis of the 30 largest metropolitan areas in the country found that walkable urban locations within each metro have outperformed sprawling suburban locations over the last five years in the office, retail and multi-family rental housing sectors.

In most cases, the gains in market share made by walkable urban development — using their relative percentage of occupied square footage as a yardstick — match the gains in market share made by non-walkable suburban development when it was dominant, but in reverse.

Photo by Elvert Barnes

Walkable urban places aren’t just gaining market share. They command rent premiums of 66 percent higher for multi-family, 71 percent higher for retail and 90 percent higher for office properties, as compared to drivable suburban locations, according to “Foot Traffic Ahead.” They also correlate to higher GDP per capita and a more highly educated workforce as measured by the number of college graduates 25 and older.

Although “Foot Traffic Ahead” doesn’t address sales prices, a related study, “DC: The WalkUp Wake-Up Call,” found that homes in walkable urban neighborhoods in metropolitan Washington, D.C., sell for 70 percent more per square foot than those in car-dependent areas.

Sales prices for commercial properties are up 125 percent in central business districts and 43 percent in highly walkable suburban places versus just 21-22 percent for properties in places considered only somewhat walkable or car-dependent, according to nationwide findings from Real Capital Analytics and Walk Score.

It all points to a structural shift in metropolitan development patterns, according to “Foot Traffic Ahead” co-authors Christopher Leinberger and Michael Rodriguez, who label the current real estate cycle a “watershed moment” in a gradual, but definite shift to walkable urban development.

Courtesy of washington.org

“The paradox of transportation in the late 20th Century is that while it became possible to travel to the moon, it also became impossible, in many cases, to walk across the street.”

Joell Vanderwagen, transportation consultant

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Metropolitan development patterns are often categorized as central city versus the suburbs, but “Foot Traffic Ahead” bases its analysis on whether a place is a WalkUP — short for walkable urban place — versus a drivable sub-urban place — a.k.a. sprawling suburban development — since each type of development can occur in a central city or the suburbs.

A WalkUP is a regionally significant location — like the Midtown District within the central city of Atlanta or Reston Town Center in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C. — that has 1.4 million square feet of office space and/or 340,000 square feet of retail space along with a WalkScore greater than 70 at the most walkable intersection.

There are 619 such places in the nation’s 30 largest metropolitan areas. The New York metro has the most WalkUPs — 67 — followed by the San Francisco Bay (56), Boston (54), Los Angeles (53), Washington, D.C. (44) and Chicago (38).

The New York metro also has the greatest concentration of occupied retail/office/multi-family space

in WalkUPs versus drivable sub-urban locations — 38 percent. Next comes Washington, D.C. (33 percent), Boston (32 percent), Chicago (30 percent), San Francisco Bay (25 percent) and Seattle (22 percent).

Taken at face value those percentages are a bit, well, meh. Despite gaining market share, WalkUPs still account for far less than half of the occupied retail/ office/multi-family rental space even in dense metros like New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston. In sprawling metros like Orlando, Phoenix and San Antonio, they account for as little as 3 percent.

The thing to remember, though, is that WalkUPs have a lot of catching up to do given that drivable sub-urban development was the dominant pattern for more than five decades and that many people still prefer it.

“We’ve spent 50 years building up places and infrastructure around the automobile and it may take a few decades for that to get back to (having) more walkable places,” said Mark Hinshaw, an architect and urban planner based in Seattle. “It’s a bit of a hyperbolic statement to say this is the end of an era.”

“Walkability is a word that did not exist just 20 years ago.

We made walking so unnatural that we had to invent a word to describe what we were missing.”

Dan Burden, co-founder Walkable and Livable Communities Institute

Courtesy of Arkansas Parks and Tourism

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Courtesy of Arkansas Parks and Tourism

Courtesy of The Office of TourismOhio

Courtesy of The Office of TourismOhio

The revitalization of central cities has spearheaded the trend toward walkable urban development and urbanism in the suburbs.

WalkUPs are most common where they have always existed to one degree or another — in central cities.

When growth flowed outward to suburbs after World War II, many walkable central city locations languished.

They didn’t disappear, though, and the revitalization of central cities has spearheaded the trend toward walkable urban development.

But developing walkable urbanism in the suburbs is also part of the trend. Thanks in large part to growth around suburban rail stations, Washington, D.C., is the most balanced metro with 49 percent of its WalkUp space in the suburbs and 51 percent in the central city, according to “Foot Traffic Ahead.” Others with notable shares of suburban WalkUp space include Houston (48 percent), Miami (46 percent) and Boston (41 percent).

Some metros that rank high in terms of their overall percentage of WalkUp space, rank low in their percentage of WalkUp space in the suburbs — a list that includes Seattle (17 percent), San Francisco Bay (11 percent), Chicago (7 percent) and New York (6 percent). That dichotomy presents great upside potential for those metros to urbanize their suburbs, according to “Foot Traffic Ahead.”

Besides ranking metros on their current level of walkable urbanism, “Foot Traffic Ahead” ranked each metro’s

development momentum based on WalkUp absorption, WalkUp rent premiums and upside for suburban urbanization. These rankings indicate how walkable or sprawling a metro’s future development is likely to be.

New York, Boston, Seattle and Washington, D.C., are one, two, four and six in the development momentum rankings.

No surprises there. But who would have thought reeling Detroit would be number three and sprawling Phoenix and Los Angeles would be five and seven?

“For decades, these three metros sprawled faster than most other metros,” writes Leinberger and Rodriguez.

“But since 2010, their development patterns have experienced a fundamental shift from drivable sub-urban to walkable urban, evidenced by WalkUP market share gains.”

“The pedestrian is an extremely fragile species, the canary in the coal mine of urban livability.”

Jeff Speck, urban planner

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Courtesy of Arkansas Parks and Tourism

After selling homes in metropolitan Washington, D.C., for 15 years, REALTOR® Laura Vickers doesn’t need to read a report to tell her that walkability is a “hot button” for home buyers.

“Every year the demand for that [walkability] seems to grow,” said Vickers, an agent with Weichert Realty in Arlington, Va. “There’s the convenience of being close to restaurants, shops, public transportation, jobs. There’s the feeling of being part of a community as opposed to being someplace where everything is spread out and you have to get in your car. And there’s the health component of encouraging walking and exercise.”

Courtesy of Arkansas Parks and Tourism

Two huge demographic groups — millennials and baby boomers — are driving the demand for walkable urban development. “Both of those groups are seeking out those places all over the country wherever they’re available,” Hinshaw said. “It’s happening in suburban areas ... and even in small towns.”

Supply is not keeping up with demand, though.

“Consumer research indicates ... 30 to 50 percent of us, depending on the metro, want walkable urban places (but) the supply is between 5 percent and 30 percent, so there’s significant pent-up demand,” Leinberger said.

The supply is being held back in large part by 50 years of development and transportation standards that work against it by prioritizing the moving and parking of vehicles over walkability, said Hinshaw.

The need for change hasn’t gone unnoticed. The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), for example, published a new public works manual with alternative standards that are more conducive to creating walkable urban environments, Hinshaw said.

Photo by UrbanGrammar

“You can’t just expect it to magically appear,” he said.

“There have to be development standards that cities adopt that allow it to happen, or better yet, encourage it to happen.”

Millennials and baby boomers are driving the demand for walkable urban development.

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ON COMMON GROUND

“Home is everything you can walk to.”

Jerry Spinelli, author

Courtesy of The Office of Tourism Ohio

Photo by UrbanGrammar

Walkability is on the front burner wherever economic competitiveness matters.

The buzz around walkable urban living extends beyond the 30 major metros examined in “Foot Traffic Ahead.”

Walkability is on the front burner wherever economic competitiveness matters.

As home to three Fortune 500 companies — Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt Transport Services and Walmart — the Northwest Arkansas region grasps the need to provide the kind of walkable urban living that attracts an educated young workforce.

Each of the region’s five largest cities — Fayetteville, Bentonville, Rogers, Siloam Springs and Springdale — have adopted new downtown master plans and are in various stages of adopting new codes to make it easier for smallscale developers to build infill housing.

“What’s so unique is that we’re really taking this on as a region,” said Matthew Petty, a Fayetteville city councilman. “Everybody agrees these (downtown) plans have been a commercial success, but we need more housing to make these commercial successes sustainable.”

Brad Broberg is a Seattle-based freelance writer specializing in business and development issues.

His work appears regularly in the Puget Sound Business Journal and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

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Photos courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

F i nd th e Walk Score ‌ Discussing walkability without mentioning Walk Score is like trying to discuss the weather without mentioning the temperature.

Walk Score, a website launched by two former Microsoft employees in 2007, is a much quoted authority on the walkability of real estate ranging from a home to a neighborhood to an entire city.

A recent Walk Score report showed that a one-point increase in the Walk Score of a home can increase the median sales price by an average of nearly 1 percent or $3,250.

Now owned by nationwide real estate brokerage Redfin, Walk Score uses a proprietary algorithm to calculate walkability scores on a scale of 1 to 100 for every address in the country, sharing its data with more than 30,000 websites that show a combined 20 million scores per day — a clear sign that people care about walkability when choosing where to live.

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Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

“The websites run the gamut from large real estate sites like Redfin to small mom-and-pops to regional brokerages (and) multiple listing services,” said Aleisha Jacobson, business director at Walk Score. “Since the very beginning, it’s been a viral spread. People hear about Walk Score, they check it out and want to add it to their site.”

Walk Score bases its scores on the walking distance from any given address to amenities such as stores, restaurants and parks, the number of nearby amenities and the ease of walking to them — with short blocks and regular intersections considered more pedestrian friendly. An address with a score of 70-89 is “very walkable.” A score of 90-100 is considered “a walker’s paradise.”

Photos courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

The report tying Walk Scores to sales prices looked at more than one million homes sold between January 2014 and April 2016 across 14 major metro areas. In all cases, a home in a more walkable neighborhood was more expensive than the same home in a less walkable location.

The biggest percentage premium was in Atlanta, where a one-point increase in Walk Score resulted in a 1.69 percent increase in the median sales price. The smallest was in Orange County, Calif., 0.02 percent increase.

In terms of dollars, the largest increase was in Washington, D.C., $4,386, and the smallest was once again in Orange County, $114.

Not all Walk Score points create equal value. A onepoint increase in Walk Score from 19 to 20 resulted in an average home price increase of just $181 across all metros. However, a one-point increase from 79 to 80 was worth more than $7,000. The escalating price premiums imply high demand relative to supply for homes in high scoring neighborhoods.

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And it’s not just baby boomers, either. According to a report by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the percentage of people without a driver’s license increased between 2011 and 2014, across all age groups. The paper said only 69 percent of 19-yearolds had licenses in 2014, compared to 87.3 percent in 1983, a 21-percent drop.

People want to live in places where they can walk and have easy access to public transportation.

Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

That means they want to live in places where they can walk and have easy access to public transportation. The increased desirability of walkable neighborhoods and downtowns has driven up the prices of homes, condos and apartments in the communities that have them.

“When I was growing up, everyone who could afford it wanted to live in the suburbs,” Evers said. “But now cities are more vibrant, in part because they are walkable. My clients say they want to be in neighborhoods where they can walk to coffee shops, restaurants, the grocery and other stores, and entertainment.

what makes a community

walkable?

Photos courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

By Brian E. Clark

A

fter Clay Scarborough’s kids headed off to college a decade ago and he and his wife became empty nesters, they didn’t just downsize from their suburban home in the northern Atlanta suburbs.

“We were tired of commuting,” said Scarborough, who is now 62. “We knew we wanted to live in a more walkable community. So we sold our place in the suburbs and moved into a condominium in Decatur, which borders Atlanta and is just five miles east of downtown.” Their condo is 1,315 square feet and cost them $315,000.

“We got a place that is just about a block from the downtown square, which is ideal for us,” he explained, noting that within a short distance, he and his spouse can walk to a grocery store, pharmacy and restaurants. If they still

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We knew we wanted to live in a more walkable community. had kids in the house, their children would be able to amble to school, too.

The Scarboroughs aren’t alone in their desire to live in walkable communities. Studies show there has been a shift in Americans’ attitudes toward living in walkable versus drive-only communities, some of which don’t even have sidewalks.

“The most requested attribute I hear is walkability,” said Andrea Evers, a REALTOR® with Evers & Co. Real Estate in Washington, D.C., and who grew up in the suburbs.

“I noticed the change start to happen about a decade ago,” said Evers.

“Some of them, especially younger ones, don’t even own cars. They’re doing this in part because they want to simplify their lives and they sure don’t want to be chained to their cars. But not all neighborhoods are walkable. ”

(Below) City of Decatur bandstand on the Square Courtesy of the city of Decatur, GA

Scarborough, a semi-retired business executive, said he and his wife are convinced they now have a “healthier and better quality of life in Decatur. Atlanta has a lot of heavy traffic, but living here means we don’t have to be out in it much and that’s a pretty nice thing.

“I feel like we live in a wonderful bubble,” he said. “We walk for exercise and there is a great bike trail called the Path that starts in Atlanta, goes through Decatur and then continues 10 more miles or so out to Stone Mountain. After we moved here, we sold one of our two cars because we didn’t need it anymore.”

Settled in 1823, 14 years before neighboring Atlanta, Decatur covers four square miles, has a population of 19,000 and is the county seat of DeKalb County, Scarborough said. When he and his wife moved to Decatur, they purchased their condo in a building that has retail stores on the first floor with residences above them.

“The town center has a great old square with the county courthouse that dates to the 1800s, a history center and a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

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And it’s not just baby boomers, either. According to a report by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the percentage of people without a driver’s license increased between 2011 and 2014, across all age groups. The paper said only 69 percent of 19-yearolds had licenses in 2014, compared to 87.3 percent in 1983, a 21-percent drop.

People want to live in places where they can walk and have easy access to public transportation.

Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

That means they want to live in places where they can walk and have easy access to public transportation. The increased desirability of walkable neighborhoods and downtowns has driven up the prices of homes, condos and apartments in the communities that have them.

“When I was growing up, everyone who could afford it wanted to live in the suburbs,” Evers said. “But now cities are more vibrant, in part because they are walkable. My clients say they want to be in neighborhoods where they can walk to coffee shops, restaurants, the grocery and other stores, and entertainment.

“Some of them, especially younger ones, don’t even own cars. They’re doing this in part because they want to simplify their lives and they sure don’t want to be chained to their cars. But not all neighborhoods are walkable. ”

(Below) City of Decatur bandstand on the Square Courtesy of the city of Decatur, GA

Scarborough, a semi-retired business executive, said he and his wife are convinced they now have a “healthier and better quality of life in Decatur. Atlanta has a lot of heavy traffic, but living here means we don’t have to be out in it much and that’s a pretty nice thing.

“I feel like we live in a wonderful bubble,” he said. “We walk for exercise and there is a great bike trail called the Path that starts in Atlanta, goes through Decatur and then continues 10 more miles or so out to Stone Mountain. After we moved here, we sold one of our two cars because we didn’t need it anymore.”

Settled in 1823, 14 years before neighboring Atlanta, Decatur covers four square miles, has a population of 19,000 and is the county seat of DeKalb County, Scarborough said. When he and his wife moved to Decatur, they purchased their condo in a building that has retail stores on the first floor with residences above them.

“The town center has a great old square with the county courthouse that dates to the 1800s, a history center and a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

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(MARTA) stop,” he said. “There is a lot of development in new buildings close in, too. Ours is just 10 years old. There are also nice residential neighborhoods within a short walking distance, but we wanted the condo lifestyle.”

He said the square hosts frequent cultural events, including Saturday concerts, book, wine and other music festivals. Shops, restaurants, parks and churches are all within walking distance, too, he added.

Scarborough, who was the CEO of an Atlanta high-tech company and later ran a running shoe store in Decatur that he recently sold, said his wife works at the Emory University hospital, which is less than three miles from Decatur. Sometimes she takes the bus to work and then walks home, he said.

“We’re not quite ready to retire,” he said. “But we plan to age in place because Decatur is so nice. And the walkability is a big part of that.”

Kaid Benfield, author of “People Habitat: 25 Ways to Think About Greener, Healthier Cities,” said communities like Decatur are ahead of the curve because they have more than just safe sidewalks, but “interesting places to walk to like shops, restaurants, parks and transit.”

He said the best walkable communities — of all sizes — have short blocks, frequent intersections, and are wellconnected so pedestrians have a number of ways to get from their dwellings to sites they want to visit.

“The research shows people will walk around a quarter of a mile to get to a bus stop and half a mile to get to a rail stop, which roughly translates into five to 10 minutes,” said Benfield, who is Senior Counsel for Environmental Strategies for Placemakers, an urban design and planning company.

“People really are gravitating to neighborhoods that have good grids and connections,” he said. “They will pay on average another $100,000 for a house that has a 20 point increase in its walkscore.com grade. Generally, dense downtowns get a score close to 100, while a home out in the suburbs might only get a 50.”

He noted that towns that haven’t been that pedestrian friendly are changing their zoning codes to promote walkability. He said some of that has been driven by business executives who want to attract young talent.

Benfield said Dublin, Ohio — a well-to-do suburb of Columbus that is home to several corporate headquarters, is remaking its core into a walkable downtown with

The best walkable communities have short blocks, frequent intersections, and are well-connected.

Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

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Courtesy of The Office of TourismOhio

If a place is walkable, people will spend more money locally.

Courtesy of The Office of TourismOhio

the Bridge Street Corridor revitalization as the centerpiece.

The city has a population of around 45,000.

“They had more jobs than people and discovered that many recent college graduates didn’t want to live in suburbs that weren’t pedestrian friendly,” he said. “So the city, pushed by the business community, is doing things like re-making some of its giant parking lots. I think that’s a positive move.”

Karen Parolek, a principal with Berkeley, California-based Opticos Design, concurred with Benfield that “destinational” walking is key so pedestrians can easily get to stores, schools, restaurants, parks, public buildings and transit points.

Courtesy of the city of Decatur, GA

“If a place is walkable, people will spend more money locally because it’s easier for them to peak into a window, stop in and shop,” she said. When that happens, the money circulates within the community much more than if residents are buying something at a chain store, she added.

Parolek said having a walking path “through a green space is lovely, but that does not make a community walkable.

You really do actually have to have the destinations.”

The second major issue, she said is “always safety.”

Sidewalks need to be separated from roads, have no connection gaps, and be wide enough for people to walk side-by-side and still be able to have someone pass them on the sidewalk.

Moreover, traffic speeds on roads by sidewalks should be moderated and it’s best to have separation barriers such as parked cars so pedestrians have the perception of safety, she added. In addition, she said narrow intersections are best so walkers don’t have to cross many lanes of traffic.

“Bulb-outs, or curb extensions, at intersections can help,” she noted, “because they shorten the distance where pedestrians are out in traffic. They can pull sidewalks out to where there is parallel parking so pedestrians have safe places to stand on the sidewalk and see moving traffic.”

Decatur's Celebration statue on the MARTA plaza

Adequate street lighting is also important, especially for older adults because it increases their feelings of security, she said.

Parolek — no fan of cul de sacs — is also big on efficient sidewalk networks, which means no meandering paths “that are best left for recreational strolling. For destinational walking, you want short and efficient blocks.

The longer the length of a block, the more the pedestrian is stuck. These details make a big difference.”

Sidewalks need to be separated from roads, have no connection gaps, and be wide enough for people to walk side-by-side.

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She praised new national standards around street design to make them “multi-modal, complete streets.”

“Changes in technical design can make streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists with shorter blocks, slower speeds and calmer traffic,” she said. “It also includes making driving lanes narrower, reducing them from 12 to 10 feet in some cases.”

Unfortunately, Parolek said, many communities fail to make their walking areas interesting.

“That’s a critical point that’s too-often missed,” she said.

“For this to work, you need to make people want to get out on foot so it becomes a habit. The journey has to be engaging, so some communities are using parking spaces for ‘parklets’ with flowers and trees, as well as changing their zoning rules to allow sidewalk cafes and things like that.”

In addition, she said cities need to be thoughtful about what kinds of retail they allow on the ground floors of buildings in order to “activate” streets.

Sycamore Street shops and restaurants in downtown Decatur Courtesy of the city of Decatur, GA

“Too often, when architects are designing multi-story housing, they don’t understand retail and don’t design store fronts that are attractive,” she said. “So retail doesn’t succeed, store fronts stay empty then people don’t want to walk there.

Planners need to think about multi-story buildings from the ‘knees down’ so people will want to walk by them.”

Parolek, who also dislikes housing where garages face the street, acknowledged that not every part of a city or town can be made walkable.

“You have to make tradeoffs and look at options,” she said.

“You’re probably not going to put your resources to make areas around factories walkable. The same is true with shopping centers. But you probably would spend your dollars in a place where there are those all-important destinations.

You have to look at all things in context, so communities need to have challenging conversations.”

Christopher Coes is director of Smart Growth America’s LOCUS program, a network of real estate developers and investors who advocate for sustainable, walkable development. He said nearly all communities were laid out with classic grids and sidewalks prior to World War II.

Courtesy of The Office of TourismOhio

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You need to make people want to get out on foot.

Photos courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

“They were city oriented and developments were compact,” he said. “But after the war, there was a huge push for people to live in inner ring suburbs and later to exurban developments. It wasn't long before the rule of thumb was ‘how can we accommodate people who are driving from the burbs into the city in the morning and then back home in the afternoon. They wanted an easy commute rather than ways to walk or bike to work.”

That meant the safety of pedestrians often became an afterthought, he said, and some suburbs even dropped sidewalk requirements. City councils, pushed by neighborhood associations, voted in rules mandating wider “collector” streets so people could get to their jobs faster.

“In some cases, they even took out sidewalks as they widened roads, leaving less space for pedestrians,” he said. “Those kinds of things accumulated over the past 40 years so today the American built environment is primarily suburban.

“Now, though, we are noticing a shift in consumer preference. A lot of older, more-compact communities that have retained their natural walkability and fit the earlier model with grid streets have found themselves in a major recovery because they have a lot of goods and services in walking distance. They’ve taken off.”

Market studies have shown a strong demand for walkable real estate product.

He said market studies have shown a “strong demand for that kind of walkable real estate product. In some cases, we are seeing strip malls being redeveloped into walkable town centers. You’re also finding inner ring suburbs that are doing traditional town layouts and trying to return to that after 60 years.

“The pedestrian-oriented infrastructure was largely abandoned after WWII in favor of a car-oriented system. But now we are going back to reorient ourselves to a walking-friendly approach. Consumers are demanding it because, in large part, they don’t like being stuck in traffic while commuting.”

So they are voting with their feet and their checkbooks, just like the Scarboroughs in Decatur, Georgia.

Brian E. Clark is a Wisconsin-based journalist and a former staff writer on the business desk of The San Diego Union-Tribune. He is a contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dallas Morning News and other publications.

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Zoning for walkable neighborhoods: Form-based codes gaining ground

Courtesy of Arlington County

By David Goldberg

B

elieve it or not, zoning is hot. So hot that in September the White House itself identified zoning reform as a key weapon to address housing affordability and — yes — climate change.

Even without the Administration’s urging, though, a growing number of cities across the country have been taking a fresh, hard look at longstanding zoning codes. And as often as not, they are deviating from conventional zoning in favor of “form-based codes.” Simplistically put, conventional zoning codes are the DNA of driving-oriented places, while form-based codes are intended as the genome of walkable neighborhoods.

One of the remarkable features of the real estate market since the Great Recession has been the popularity of more urban, mixed-use settings. To meet the demand for those places and create walkable neighborhoods with character, communities are increasingly turning to formbased codes, and those codes are in turn shaping much of the urban development in the 2010s.

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Think of it as a three-dimensional approach to guiding development. Conventional zoning of the last 80 years or so is more two-dimensional, painting colors on a map where certain land uses — one-family houses here, shops there, offices over here — are allowed and others are restricted. Form-based codes are less concerned with separating uses and more interested in how each unit of development contributes to the way a neighborhood looks, feels and functions.

“They integrate master plans, zoning, land-use, subdivision control, public works and traffic standards as no unified document has ever before,” said Elizabeth PlaterZyberk, whose firm, DPZ, wrote the form-based overhaul of a zoning code for Miami. That city in 2010 became

Form-based codes are shaping much of the urban development in the 2010s.

A growing segment of the population wants to live and work in walkable, mixed-use, diverse places. the first to adopt a form-based code citywide. “It is about the intentional making of the public realm.”

“Use-based zoning was concerned with preventing bad things from happening,” said Tony Perez, director of form-based coding at Opticos Design. “It wasn’t about generating outcomes but telling us what we can’t do.”

Form-based codes first emerged in the modern era as a way to guide large, master-planned developments. The classic early example is DPZ’s 1983 code for Seaside, Fla., (though the term “form-based codes” wouldn’t take hold till about 2001.) But since the recession, “municipalities have come to understand they are important for sparking and guiding redevelopment, particularly of town centers,” said Marta Goldsmith, executive director of the FormBased Codes Institute (FBCI). “It’s no longer news that a growing segment of the population wants to live and work in walkable, mixed-use, diverse places, and the market has shown that they are high-value communities. Developers want to build them, many communities want them, but conventional zoning prohibits them.”

Courtesy of Arlington County

(Above) Columbia Pike in Arlington County, Va.

Courtesy of Visit Denver

Spurring redevelopment Until recently, nearly all form-based codes were a permissive overlay on traditional zoning, said Geoff Ferrell, partner in the code-writing firm Ferrell Madden. Where a conventional code might call for buildings to be set back from the street, often behind a parking lot, and would prohibit apartments over shops, say, the form-based code might actually encourage them. With a market looking to build just that sort of mixed-use project, areas that built up with now-discarded office parks and strip centers have found themselves “stuck in a development version of gridlock,” Ferrell said. “Applying a form-based code to make it easy to develop what you actually want is like releasing a logjam sometimes.”

That is exactly what happened for the Columbia Pike Corridor in Arlington County, Va., a next-door neighbor to Washington, D.C. By all accounts, Columbia Pike’s 2003 code reboot was the first time local government applied a form-based code to an area with multiple property owners, as opposed to being used to guide a master-planned development. The corridor, in south Arlington, “developed as a classic suburban strip, with garden apartments, drive-through restaurants, car dealers and gas stations,” said Chris Zimmerman, who served on the Arlington County Board from 1996 to 2014. “In the 1990s and early 2000s, we had a strong regional economy and Arlington was getting a lot of development, but it was nearly all along two Metro rail lines.” Columbia Pike, meanwhile, was lying fallow. “The community wanted the corridor to be more like a Main Street and serve the residents more. It was flanked by neighborhoods that were basically walkable, but the main thoroughfare was not at all.”

The question, Zimmerman said, was “How do you turn parking lots into something that is more urban? Nobody is walking in the door asking to go through a lot of trouble to redevelop these places, and the underlying zoning precluded it.”

In 2002, the county hired the urban design firm DoverKohl and code writer Ferrell to work with the community in developing a vision and a guide for producing it. Key elements were to encourage housing over first-floor retail, to preserve some historic sites and to meet the parking

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needs with public facilities. “Part of the strategy was concentrating parking so that every little development didn’t need to provide it,” Zimmerman said. A streetscape design plan also was a critical supplement to the form-based code, all designed with the idea that a streetcar might one day service the route (a feature that continues to be hotly debated in the political process).

Even without the envisioned transit, the vision for Columbia Pike has taken shape in the last several years. A housing nonprofit turned a former gas station site into a mixeduse building with 100 percent below market-rate units, across from a 10-story building of “upscale” apartments with ground-floor retail, Zimmerman said. The developer of Penrose Square — two levels of retail, with a grocery store, apartments in 6-7 story buildings — deeded land to the county to provide for the envisioned public square, which now has a fountain and hosts outdoor movies.

“You have a place you can go and see people walking, which you would not have seen 20 years ago, with sidewalk cafes, a town square, kids playing in the fountain,” said Zimmerman. “We’ve been able to create a place.”

Denver was another early adopter that saw striking results, and has since gone on to apply form-based codes across the city. In the late 1990s the city was looking for a way

to stimulate redevelopment of a derelict warehouse district with environmental issues along the Platte River. The region was planning to make significant investments in taking down looming viaducts and building a light rail line and wanted to draw new residents and businesses to a restored waterfront. A series of planning and visioning exercises and negotiations with developers resulted in the Commons Planned Unit Development. “It was form-based before people called it that,” said Abe Barge, senior city planner with the city of Denver.

Going citywide In the years since, the Central Platte Valley has developed into a walkable, urban jewel. The sprawling Commons Park is lined with mid-rise residential buildings with ground-floor restaurants and shops. Hundreds of new residents keep the human-scale streets lively, but trails through the park and along the river allow for respite from the hubbub. “It was so successful that we have taken the same ideas citywide,” Barge said. In 2010, the city adopted a new zoning code with a form-based approach that seeks to make development easier for those who adhere to the city’s design intentions, added Barge, who was on the consulting team for the code, before joining the city.

A streetscape design plan is critical to the form-based code.

South Platte River Fest in Denver, Colo.

Photos courtesy of Visit Denver

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The Miami 21 code incorporates streetscape design and green infrastructure.

In some areas, such as the traditionally car-oriented Colfax Ave., the code is guiding redevelopment of strip-style businesses to create a walkable street, by moving buildings closer to the street and parking lots farther away.

Elsewhere, the codes are being specially tailored to take advantage of existing buildings and urban form to create unique districts. One of those is another warehouse/ industrial area north of downtown called River North, known locally as RiNo. Driven by adaptive reuse of older buildings — though new construction is popping up, too — RiNo has become a favored location for art galleries, furniture makers, illustrators, authors, wineries and breweries and studio spaces. A form-based overlay is driving the recreation of Arapahoe Square, set between the high-rise development of the commercial core and the lower-density neighborhoods of Curtis Park and Five Points.

Miami in 2010 adopted a citywide form-based code and “became a national, groundbreaking model because city officials completely replaced the existing zoning code,” according to the Form-Based Codes Institute.

“The intention was to make a city that was booming become a walkable, transit-friendly city, where the growth would be managed with some predictability that the old use-based code could not provide,” said Plater-Zyberk, whose firm led the Miami 21 planning process that tailored the “Smart Code” for Miami. “There was desire to incorporate historic preservation, additional open space and affordable housing. … The commercial corridors often barred housing, and at the same time the strips were molting into high-rises, though not in a walkable, urban fashion and they were impinging on the neighborhoods behind them.”

Where the existing zoning code prescribed the possible location of 46 different uses, the new code concerns itself with eight, and many can be mixed, depending on the area of the city: residential, lodging, office, commercial, civic, civil support, educational and industrial. The code is rendered in an illustrated atlas that has 11 “transect” zones, from natural to sub-urban (up to two stories) to low-rise urban, urban center plus 7 levels of urban core intensity. It provides illustrations of the transition from one zone to another.

“If an applicant complies, the project can be approved without the discretionary reviews that can delay projects and

Courtesy of Visit Denver

make them more expensive and unpredictable,” The FBCI’s Goldsmith said. The Miami 21 code goes beyond the typical scheme by incorporating streetscape design and green infrastructure, view corridors and preservation of historic districts. It also incorporates a “public benefits” aspect, granting developers additional density for affordable housing or contributing to an open space fund.

While noting that the transformation the code envisions is “slow because it emerges a building at a time,” PlaterZyberk said, “We are seeing things that make us feel good about the code. A CVS or an auto store on the commercial corridors would have been built behind a parking lot, but now it’s not. Buildings are coming to the street now.

Downtown the parking garages are being lined with useful space, residential or office.”

Redeveloping outmoded suburban districts After seeing the success in expanding the traditional walkable, urban form within cities, some much younger local jurisdictions that never had such neighborhoods have

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begun using form-based codes to transform driving-oriented places, said Lee Einsweiler, a principal at Code Studio, which has worked on several such projects.

The city of Lacey, adjoining the Washington state capital of Olympia, is one of those. “Lacey grew up around one of the first enclosed malls, so it was classic, late 20th century auto-oriented development,” said Thera Black, who was a senior transportation planner at the regional planning agency when the city began working with the agency on plans to create a downtown where there had never been one. The chosen area was dubbed the Woodland District, anchored by a 1966 mall and office parks that had been vacated by its state-office occupants. “We had a sea of parking and abandoned suburban office buildings, surrounded by big streets, high traffic and a freeway interchange,” Black said.

Courtesy of GMCVB

But the area also had key assets to build on, including the presence of St. Martin’s University and the Lacey Transit Center, as well as three of the region’s major multi-use trails — the Chehalis-Western Trail, the Woodland Trail and the Interstate 5 Bike Trail. The city wanted a walkable, mixed-use downtown but two key hurdles remained: The existing zoning code precluded it, and the development market was hardly beating down the city’s doors. “We had to ask ourselves if we had the economic clout to compete in this market. It’s harder to make this kind of development pencil out than suburban, greenfield development. What did we have to offer?”

Before going further then, Woodland District planners commissioned a market study of development potential that projected a potential of 3,600 housing units and 15,000-plus jobs — commercial and government jobs by 2035 — if development regulations enabled the right kind of development, Black said. “What the form-based code does,” she added, “is let the developer understand what the city is looking for in terms of built form and relation to public realm, without tying their hands as to exactly what use they can put in that building. It’s not so overly prescriptive that the developer can’t respond to the market and viable tenants and uses.”

Because it is a successful pioneer in using the code to transform a suburban jurisdiction, the FBCI recently gave Lacey its Driehaus Award for excellence. “Lacey was exemplary for transitioning an auto-dependent community of surface lots into a walking urban and transit-ready environment. The form-based code was the vehicle for getting from the auto-oriented place to the walkingoriented place.”

Though still a work in progress, results already are visible.

Developer MJR has purchased a half-dozen abandoned suburban office buildings and is redeveloping them to be mixed-used and walkable. “The coolest is that our South Puget Sound Community College decided not to build a satellite campus in a more-distant suburban area. They sold that property and moved near the

Courtesy of Visit Denver

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What the form-based code does is let the developer understand what the city is looking for in terms of built form.

Courtesy of GMCVB

Miami, Fla.

Courtesy of Arlington County

transit center. Now there are students around, a bustling coffee shop, there’s housing there that is full. That has been a great shot in the arm.”

Lessons learned and what’s next Since Miami and Denver led the way, a number of other cities have taken on major rewrites of ossified zoning regimes to incorporate form-based approaches. After exhaustive citizen involvement, Cincinnati, Ohio, is applying the code to 42 neighborhoods in order to implement the resulting visions. Buffalo, N.Y., is adopting a “Green Code” that will take the practice to the next step, Einsweiller said, including the elimination of parking requirements. Los Angeles is engaged in a process dubbed Re:Code that will be strongly form-based.

Meanwhile, planners are scrutinizing the emerging built results to tweak and improve the practice. “We are starting to think that we might not be able to get a code that obviates the need for discretionary review altogether,” said Denver’s Barge. Individual sites sometimes offer design challenges that deserve stakeholder input, he said. The city is trying to devise a way to provide limited review for particular cases. “The hardest thing to do,” said Zimmerman, of Arlington, Va., “is to figure out how you make necessary adjustments for unforeseen circumstance

but not undermine your code with a lot of place by place exceptions.”

“The biggest issue before us right now is how to move this beyond the communities that already have the means and the market in their favor,” said planner Ferrell.

Plater-Zyberk agreed: “A lot of communities don’t have the resources to make these changes. There are a lot of places that could use sprawl repair or the reconstitution of their downtown, but form-based codes are not off-the-rack like a lot of the old codes were, so how are we going to enable these places to make these kinds of changes?”

Those challenges aside, form-based codes are “not the new thing anymore,” Perez said. “It’s just the way zoning is done in places that care about walkability and character.”

David A. Goldberg is the vice president of communications for Action for Healthy Food, a national nonprofit working to reduce the quantity of sugar and other unhealthful substances in our food supply, and formerly was the founding communications director for Smart Growth America. In 2002, Mr. Goldberg was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University, where he studied urban policy.

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These Suburbs Were Made for Walking Suburbs are no longer the universal land of subdivisions with two cars in every driveway.

Density, walkability and community are establishing a foothold.

Photo by David Madison

By G.M. Filisko

C

onsumers long to be able to walk to and from work, and on the way home maybe window shop, perhaps stop into a local sports bar for a drink, and then pick up dinner at a grocery store or restaurant before heading home — but many want this vibrant urban experience without the cost or hassle of living in a major urban center.

Increasingly, Americans can find that lifestyle in a suburb miles from a big city center as developers turn toward high-density, mixed-use development in suburbia, often by transforming an old or worn commercial or industrial property. The focus is on providing spaces in which residents can live, work and play without revving up their car.

It’s possible this trend is simply a fad pushed by developers chasing millennials. But Doug Loescher, the revitalization program manager for the Office of Community Revitalization in Fairfax County, Va., doesn’t believe that.

“Personally, there’s really no way to turn back the clock,” he says. “This is a permanent shift that’s necessitated by

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economic and environmental drivers. As population grows, the demand for space, efficiency, and lower environmental impacts will only increase. Those point toward this new form of development.”

Slow strides to walkability Decades ago, the idea of walkable communities was mostly theoretical, but it existed. “People consider walkability a relatively new trend, but that’s false,” reports Richard Murdocco, who holds degrees in urban studies and urban, environmental and transportation planning and blogs about development at www.theFoggiestIdea.org.

“In the early 1960s, plans for Nassau County, N.Y., argued for denser development around train stations,” says Murdocco. “It was an academic concept. But the recent recession fueled renewed interest in multi-family residential development that’s walkable. With the recession, the single-family home market basically crashed.

And in older areas in the Northeast, it can be a headache to build single-family subdivisions. A cocktail of factors has led to the rise of walkability.”

Compact, high-density development is the most efficient use of resources.

Urban areas, of course, have a natural leg up on walkability. Suburbs have been slower to adapt to the concept, but Loescher says three factors are changing that: • Economic –“As new development happens in other areas, there’s the growing issue of older and functionally obsolete commercial centers in areas that need to be redeveloped to remain vibrant and thriving to contribute to the area’s tax base,” he notes.

“We saw an area in Northern Virginia that was very dense,” notes Bucklew. “Fairfax County is one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country. It has great transportation nodes, and the Dunn Loring Metro stop had just been put in. The county had also identified this area as one that it wanted different development to take place around. The demographics spoke to that Northern Virginia consumer, but they didn’t have a place to come together.”

• Environmental –“It’s recognized that compact, highdensity development is the most efficient use of resources and can achieve reductions in environmental impacts through the density and the design,” says Loescher. “The interaction of walkable, bikable, compact urban areas is intended to reduce auto traffic as well as contribute to healthy communities.”

• Demographics –“There’s been a shift in public opinion and preference over the way we live and interact in our communities,” contends Loescher. “The entire smart growth movement is driven by people’s desire to live in a different way rather than being in their autos and to interact with their community and know whom they’re doing commerce with. It’s also been documented for a while that millennials have a strong desire to experience the urban context.”

Photo by Anne Chan

Mosaic District in Fairfax County, Va.

These factors have converged to create a “tidal wave” of change in the planning profession during the past 10-15 years, asserts Loescher. It’s only today that the result is becoming apparent. “Early projects, such as the Mosaic District — which has taken more than 10 years to come to fruition — are now visible and serve as models for other locations.”

Loescher is referring to a former multiplex movie theater surrounded by vast surface parking in Fairfax County that was redeveloped by Edens, which opened the first phase of retail space in 2012, according to Katie Bucklew, vice president of development at Edens. Today, there’s about 450,000 square feet of retail, 73,000 square feet of office space that serves as a single corporation’s headquarters, 780 residential units and 137 townhomes, and a 148room hotel. The final phase is under construction and will bring two additional buildings with 50,000 square feet of retail and 220 additional residential units.

Photo by Anne Chan

The entire smart growth movement is driven by people’s desire to live in a different way.

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Fewer cars, more transit Also within the Washington, D.C., metro area is Pike & Rose in North Bethesda, Md., a former strip shopping center transformed into a walkable mixed-use community by Federal Realty Investment Trust.

The development sits on roughly 25 acres, says Mickey Papillon, CSM, the project’s vice president and general manager. “If you think about a triangle with the top cut off, that’s how the project is laid out,” he explains. “In the bottom part, the longest lengthwise, we’ve built four blocks that have been completed and open. We have about 500 residential units, 125,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and then 80,000 square feet of commercial space.”

The residential units are in two buildings and range from $1,500 to the high $3,000s, depending on size.

One building, called the PerSei, is more than 95 percent occupied, reports Papillon. The second, the Pallas, is undergoing leaseup but is more than 80 percent leased.

The second phase of construction is underway. It’ll add six more blocks of development, completed in phases, with the final sections opening in the first quarter of 2018.

They’ll include another 272 apartments, 99 condos, a 177-room hotel, and an additional 200,000 square feet of retail.

Papillon says the environment for a successful walkable community isn’t created in a vacuum. “One of the biggest things for us was making sure we were providing a better quality of life, and top of mind for us was transit-oriented development,” he says. “The corner of our project is a stone’s throw to a Washington, D.C., metro red-line stop.”

Walkable on a broader scale What’s also notable about today’s trend toward suburban walkable development is the range of projects underway.

They can be compact and high-density, and they can be more expansive with pockets of density. They can also be built from the ground up rather than repurposed from existing, but tired spaces.

In Henderson, Nev., about 15 miles southeast of Las Vegas, The Landwell Co. began developing Cadence, a 2,200-acre mixed-use development in 2014 with a 10-15year buildout plan, says Cheryl Persinger, vice president

A successful walkable community includes transit-oriented development.

Pike & Rose in North Bethesda, Md. Residents of Pike & Rose enjoy getting to know their neighbors at a community pig roast

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of marketing. Currently, 185 families live there. When the development is complete, it’ll have 13,250 residential units ranging from single-family homes to apartments, townhomes and condos.

Complementing the residential will be 1.1 million square feet of commercial and retail space that will include offices, a veterinarian’s clinic slated to open in 2017 and Smith’s Marketplace, a grocery, landscaping, housewares, and more store expected to open in the first quarter of 2018.

To encourage walking and biking, all streets include bike lanes. The developer has also introduced a free bike-sharing program with 20 bikes currently available for pickup at four locations within the community.

Cadence is a 2,200-acre mixed-use development in Henderson, Nev., about 15 miles southeast of Las Vegas When the Cadence development in Henderson, Nev., is complete, it’ll have 13,250 residential units ranging from single-family homes to apartments, townhomes and condos.

Denver-based Coventry Development Corp. is also creating expansive but still walkable communities.

It’s currently in the thick of building two large-scale communities on previously undeveloped sites, according to Keith Simon, executive vice president.

RidgeGate, a 3,500-acre mixed-use community in Lone Tree, Colo., began in the early 2000s with the Sky Ridge Medical Center as its centerpiece. Its 20-year development plan is still underway, adding residential neighborhoods, retail and office space.

Also under construction is Springwoods Village, a mixed-use, walkable community about 20 miles north of downtown Houston that broke ground in 2011. ExxonMobil has a 10,000-employee office campus at the property, as does Southwestern Energy, with 1,000-1,500 on-site employees. Those are within walking distance to three residential neighborhoods, two hotels and a hospital.

For Coventry, the idea isn’t to re-imagine underperforming commercial properties. “We typically take large parcels of land, in the 2,000-4,000 acre range, out from core of the cities they surround but along highway corridors that at the time were on the path of growth,” says Simon. “We purchased all these parcels in the 1960s and 1970s when there was nothing out there. Fortunately, our group has great patience and had no debt and waited for the time to be right.”

The property on which Springwoods Village sits was purchased in 1961 and has been managed by Coventry as a pine forest since. “We’re trying to keep the

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Ridgegate, a suburban walkable community in Lone Tree, Colo., which is part of the greater Denver metropolitan area.

pine forest character along the roadways and in some of the parks,” says Simon. “People like that.”

Coventry’s also betting that people will like living in a high-density district within the larger project.

At Springwoods Village, what Simon calls the heart of the community is CityPlace, a 60-acre district with a mix of shopping, dining, office space, residential units and hotels. It’s under construction, with the 250-unit residential rental portion and 8,500 square feet of groundfloor, street-edged retail space to be completed by the end of 2016.

“CityPlace will be the most dense area, and it’s in the middle so everybody can get to it by walking,” says Simon.

“We’re trying to make it a complete community within the community.”

Though it’s early in the process of developing Springwoods Village, Simon estimates that at least half of the people buying homes are ExxonMobil or Southwestern Energy employees. “One reason these companies have decided to embed their companies in these communities is that they think it’s going to give them an advantage in recruiting and retaining employees, particularly with younger employees,” he states. By coming into a community like

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Developers are betting that people will like living in a suburban high-density district. ours, they give employees that option — but not that everyone is going to do that.

“Companies also typically hire summer interns, and apartments tend to spike up a bit in the summer with those kids,” adds Simon. “They rent and walk to work. So it’s a big factor. That said, we want the community to be diverse and not just a company town.”

Why not everywhere?

Developers admit it’s not easy planning and developing successful walkable suburban communities. “There are challenges in trying to do this in the suburbs,” says Simon. “Some cities are better than others in terms of being open-minded about this. They have to be open to more density to make it work. We’ve got great support of our municipal partners. But I do know there are a lot of suburban cities that cringe at the density you have to create to achieve the critical mass that makes this work.”

Americans want to live where they can walk to most destinations.

Affordability can also take a hit. “What happens is that you create this development, but it starts eking into and hurting you on the affordable housing front,” adds Simon. “The units become pretty darned expensive because it’s a great environment, but you can be a victim of your own success. You have to think about how to incorporate workforce housing to accommodate all your employees.”

The biggest challenge may be that while many Americans say they want to live where they can walk to most destinations, many still covet their car. That’s a challenge developers don’t expect to go away, though they do expect people to eventually end up driving less.

Murdocco says urban planners and developers could achieve bigger reductions in auto use with incentives.

“I’ve found that these walkable developments aren’t incentivizing use of transit,” he argues. “They’re not taking measurable steps to reduce auto dependency. There are no rent reductions if you don’t take a parking spot

with your unit. Or they don’t offer a discount voucher if you can show you’re using the train or riding the bus.”

At Pike & Rose, Papillon says Montgomery County officials pushed his company to include fewer than typical parking spots. “What we’re finding is that the initial resident is more likely than not to have a vehicle,” he says.

“But it’s good news that the ratio of units to cars is still less than a standard apartment building in a suburb off a highway. We do have fewer cars.

“But I do think the parking and auto-use question is very dependent on your community and the area you’re in,” adds Papillon. “Honestly, people just want options.

And we’re providing an option to them with something they’ve never had in this area.”

G.M. Filisko is an attorney and freelance writer who writes frequently on real estate, business and legal issues. Ms. Filisko served as an editor at NAR’s REALTOR© Magazine for 10 years.

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would be a healthful and economic asset for the community. I knew that other places around the country were doing similar things.”

Daly, who had managed a friend’s real estate company for several years, learned that the property — 120 acres under the raised Metrorail tracks —was owned by Miami-Dade County. That was a huge relief, she said, because the cost to acquire the land would have been as much as $90 million.

Friends of the Miami Underline held lots of public meetings and hundreds of people turned out.

She also learned that the county’s master plan for parks called for developing the corridor, once a commercial railroad line that was abandoned became the Metrorail.

“I was lucky,” she said. “I ended up meeting Maria Nardi, who heads planning for the parks department. I told her of my ‘crazy’ idea and she said it wasn’t crazy at all because it was something they had hoped to do.

“But she said they didn’t have the ‘bandwidth’ to champion a project of this scope, so I said, ‘I’ll do it.”

Linear Urban Parks … taking off around the country

The Atlanta BeltLine Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

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“It was painful initially, but also really inconvenient,” said Daly, president and CEO of Friends of the Miami Underline, a recreational trail and living-art park development that will run 10 miles under the region’s elevated Metrorail line and connect South Miami, Coral Gables and Miami. Backers hope it will eventually become the spine of more than 250 miles of trails.

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“Before we ever put any pen to paper for the design, we held lots of public meetings and hundreds of people turned out,” she said. “We are now formalized partners with the county Parks and Recreation Department and MiamiDade Transit and have agreements with the municipalities that run along the corridor.

The Miami Underline's future “River Room” features oolite seating steps, orienting visitors toward views of the river and downtown Miami. Paths that connect to nearby pedestrian and bike routes reinforce connections to the Miami River Greenway, across the river and into downtown.

Character zones that draw from the surrounding neighborhoods differentiate and organize The Underline along its 10-mile length.

“We’ve also gone on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, hosted bike rides, other public events, met with Rotary clubs and talked to school groups. We were everywhere.”

By Brian E. Clark

hen Meg Daly fell off her bike four years ago and broke both of her arms, she was in a world of hurt. To make things worse, the 55-year-old Miami businesswoman couldn’t drive, which limited her ability to get around.

Daly began discussing the idea with anyone who would listen, including the many neighborhoods — both rich and poor — through which the Metrorail runs.

“I live near the University of Miami, and after a couple of months of healing, I had to get to physical therapy,” she explained. “I figured I could take the Metrorail, which runs along U.S. 1 to Coconut Grove and then just walk the rest of the way to my physical therapy.”

She ended up strolling that last distance between the columns under the raised Metro tracks in the shade during July and thinking “it’s not that hot here, so why aren’t we doing more with this land?

“I thought, look at what the High Line did in New York.

[The High Line is a 23-city-block-long, former elevated railway reclaimed as a public space in the heart of Manhattan’s West Side.] That was the inspiration for this idea, repurposing industrial infrastructure into something that

She said the first section of the Underline will go through a “dense, growing area called Brickell, which is just on the other side of the bridge over the Miami River to downtown. It’s been our financial hub, but has now turned into a hip community with lots of condos, apartments and great restaurants. But it’s not very green or walkable.”

Friends of the Miami Underline incorporated in 2014 and hopes to start building in the fall of 2017. Daly said the Brickell section of the Underline also will greatly benefit the “other side of the tracks,” which includes Little Havana, heavily Spanish speaking and has many mid- to low-income residents. She said the Underline will cost around $10 million a mile, compared to what she said will be $14 million a mile for Atlanta’s BeltLine.

Photo by Sam Kim

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would be a healthful and economic asset for the community. I knew that other places around the country were doing similar things.”

Daly, who had managed a friend’s real estate company for several years, learned that the property — 120 acres under the raised Metrorail tracks —was owned by Miami-Dade County. That was a huge relief, she said, because the cost to acquire the land would have been as much as $90 million.

Friends of the Miami Underline held lots of public meetings and hundreds of people turned out.

She also learned that the county’s master plan for parks called for developing the corridor, once a commercial railroad line that was abandoned became the Metrorail.

“I was lucky,” she said. “I ended up meeting Maria Nardi, who heads planning for the parks department. I told her of my ‘crazy’ idea and she said it wasn’t crazy at all because it was something they had hoped to do.

“But she said they didn’t have the ‘bandwidth’ to champion a project of this scope, so I said, ‘I’ll do it.”

Daly began discussing the idea with anyone who would listen, including the many neighborhoods — both rich and poor — through which the Metrorail runs.

“Before we ever put any pen to paper for the design, we held lots of public meetings and hundreds of people turned out,” she said. “We are now formalized partners with the county Parks and Recreation Department and MiamiDade Transit and have agreements with the municipalities that run along the corridor.

The Miami Underline's future “River Room” features oolite seating steps, orienting visitors toward views of the river and downtown Miami. Paths that connect to nearby pedestrian and bike routes reinforce connections to the Miami River Greenway, across the river and into downtown.

Character zones that draw from the surrounding neighborhoods differentiate and organize The Underline along its 10-mile length.

“We’ve also gone on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, hosted bike rides, other public events, met with Rotary clubs and talked to school groups. We were everywhere.”

She said the first section of the Underline will go through a “dense, growing area called Brickell, which is just on the other side of the bridge over the Miami River to downtown. It’s been our financial hub, but has now turned into a hip community with lots of condos, apartments and great restaurants. But it’s not very green or walkable.”

Friends of the Miami Underline incorporated in 2014 and hopes to start building in the fall of 2017. Daly said the Brickell section of the Underline also will greatly benefit the “other side of the tracks,” which includes Little Havana, heavily Spanish speaking and has many mid- to low-income residents. She said the Underline will cost around $10 million a mile, compared to what she said will be $14 million a mile for Atlanta’s BeltLine.

Photo by Sam Kim

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“We really need something like this because Miami-Dade County is one of the most dangerous places to bike and walk in the U.S. We just don’t have quality infrastructure for people to get out safely,” she said.

Daly predicts the “economic impact of the Underline will be impressive, with property values for ones that are close to increase 25 percent. But our impact zone is as much as a third of a mile away and even at that distance property values are expected to increase 5 percent.”

She said there is $3 billion in planned development along the Underline, which includes transit-oriented and transit-adjacent development.

“All of that has kicked into high gear as the Underline has come along and property values are already rising,” she said, noting that a design review committee is reviewing numerous developers’ plans. “We strongly believe if we don’t do things right next to the Underline — which is just 100 feet wide — we’ll be missing opportunities.”

If all goes well, Daly hopes the Underline will be built out in six years, so she can push her yet-unborn grandchildren along the trail in strollers.

The Atlanta BeltLine In Atlanta, Paul Morris, CEO of the Atlanta BeltLine Inc. (ABI), said his organization has worked with neighborhoods since the inception of a plan that would repurpose 22 miles of an unused rail corridor into a walking and cycling loop and streetcar line.

“The original initiative involved hundreds of meetings in neighborhoods from 2003 to 2005, before the city council adopted the resolution that formed the redevelopment act,” he said.

“We met with people in the 45 neighborhoods that are adjacent to the BeltLine on either side. Linear parks are built on railroad lines that really were the dividing line for a lot of these communities, and that was the case in Atlanta as well.

“A neighborhood coalition came together and was the engine that prompted the city council to think big and embrace this notion of reclaiming the rail corridors, the industrial lands that were associated with them and converting them into 1,300 acres of new parks, linear transportation networks, housing and economic development in areas that were post-industrial.”

The economic impact of the Miami Underline will be impressive.

(Above) The future “Brickell Gym” will activate the space between the Metrorail columns and provide much-needed recreational opportunities for Brickell residents.

(Left) The future approach to Brickell Station will be a gathering space for residents, showcasing the existing oolite outcrop.

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Photos courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development

Many businesses are paying the Atlanta BeltLine for access licensing agreements to put paths to their properties.

He said plans call for 22,000 new housing units on the trail, with at least 20 percent of them in the affordable housing category. To reach those who will be affected by the BeltLine, his organization has used what he calls a “robust social media network.

“But we discovered that in some of the more underserved neighborhoods, those technologies and platforms don’t always reach everyone. So our communications team created pop-up community events to meet with neighbors, answer questions and hand out collateral material so they can know what’s coming up.”

In addition, he said, sometimes the ABI will host Saturday resident roundtables that don’t have specific agendas.

Rather, he explained, community members can ask questions and control the conversations.

Though there was some NIMBY opposition to the BeltLine, Morris said it has been enthusiastically accepted by most of Atlanta, which is often criticized for having some of the country’s worst urban sprawl and backedup commuter traffic.

“When the first part of the BeltLine was completed in 2012, one of the things that every resident and business asked for was a ‘good neighbor fence,’” he said.

“But within six months of when we’d cleared out the

corridor, all those fences were torn down because they realized it wasn’t such a bad thing.

“They want access to it now. Many businesses are paying us for access licensing agreements to put paths to their properties.

“We’re seeing REALTORS®, developers and politicians calling the BeltLine their version of waterfront property in Atlanta. There really has been, in only the past few years, a fundamental shift. Neighborhoods that were some of the most vociferous opponents are now wondering when they are going to get their section of BeltLine.”

So far, public and private investment in the project has totaled about $450 million. Approximately $53 million of that has been spent to acquire property, clean up and build parks, trails, housing and create jobs.

“This is more than transportation, open space and community development. It’s economic development, too, and we track that annually,” Morris added. By the end of 2015, we had exceeded just over $3 billion in private development.”

He hopes the BeltLine can be completed in 15 years.

ABI owns about two-thirds of the 22 miles needed for the trail and 75 percent of the 1,300 acres it hopes to

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acquire for new parks. Seven miles of trail have been built to date and another 10 may be added in connector trails.

The BeltLine goes through every kind of neighborhood, from wealthiest to the poorest. The East Side Trail and historic Fourth Ward Park are in what was, in 2009, one of the highest crime zones in the city. Today, over the last 36 months, there has been just a total of 18 crimes reported.

Morris said that has come through a lot of effort and also the fact that 1.3 million people used the 2.3-mile section that we built. We have our own police precinct that specializes in patrolling and serving the BeltLine — both built and unbuilt segments and adjacent parks.

The specially trained police patrol in bicycle teams and work with fire and rescue units. “In a way, they have become the face of the BeltLine for a lot of the

The police have become the face of the BeltLine to a lot of the community.

community,” he said. “It’s sort of like having our own mounted patrol. People like having their photos taken with the bike cops. They put additional eyes on the corridor. With them around, people know it’s safe and secure.”

Come November, Atlantans will vote on two ballot initiatives to fund much of the BeltLine, its operating costs and build and run a crosstown streetcar network. Combined, the cost would be more than $2.5 billion.

Morris said he is optimistic they will pass.

“The community really has decided this is something that is important — enough so that elected officials have put it on the ballot to ask voters if it is something that they should go ahead and fund their share of,” he said.

The 11th Street Bridge Park in D.C. In Washington D.C., Scott Kratz, executive director of Building Bridges Across the River (BBAR), said 700 meetings have been held since 2012 in neighborhoods on both sides of the proposed 11th Street Bridge Park.

He said a key part of the project is the Equitable Development Plan aimed at making sure the new park — built on piers left over from a now demolished bridge — benefits the lower-income, east side of the river. BBAR runs the Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC) in the east side’s Ward 8, which is 98 percent African-American.

“The communities on the opposite sides of the Anacostia River couldn’t be more different,” he said. “The west side has the booming Navy Yard and Capitol Hill, while the communities east of the river have historically been under-invested. There is about a $390,000 difference in the value of homes on one side of the river and the other.

And a $70,000 difference in annual household income.

So a pretty stark discrepancy.”

Courtesy of Atlanta BeltLine

Stan Jackson is president and CEO of the Anacostia Economic Development Corp., which is based on the east side of the river. He said the “inclusivity” of the planners was well received.

“Our [east side] community will experience some transformation because of this project, and that needs to be jelled into a continuum that can do something about the wide disparities that exist in education, income, jobs and housing. The bridge park can be a catalyst to stimulate development and progress.”

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A community day at THEARC, run by Building Bridges Across the River, included activities for children and families and cleanup of its organic garden. Building Bridges Across the River, whose mission is to improve the quality of life for children and adults who reside east of the Anacostia River, is developing the 11th Street Bridge Park. The Park is located in Ward 8 and will be Washington, D.C.’s first elevated public park located on the piers of the old 11th Street Bridge spanning the Anacostia River.; Photos courtesy of THEARC

A key part of the project is the Equitable Development Plan aimed at making sure the new park benefits the lower-income side of the river.

Jackson said he is concerned that the gentrification of east side neighborhoods near the bridge may force some current residents out.

“There will be both challenges and benefits,” he said.

“We know that. All change isn't bad, though. The key is how you manage it and having a say in what happens.”

Kratz said the project got its start when former D.C. planning director Harriet Tregoning — a champion of urban walkabilty — “saw a unique opportunity when the old 11th Street vehicular bridge had aged out. She wondered if instead of getting rid of the old infrastructure, could we save some of it and repurpose it for this public space.”

Kratz, a former vice president of education at the National Building Museum who lives a few blocks from the western terminus of the bridge, volunteered to help and spent countless hours meeting “any group that would have me.

“Basically, I was asking permission. This was especially important on the east side, because planning often

happens ‘to’ lower-income communities rather than including them in the process.”

He said the Equitable Development Plan started with “building trust, which is a fragile thing. We wanted to make it responsive to the tens of thousands of neighbors who would be affected by the park because we know these big projects can have unintended consequences.

Typically we bemoan the effects of gentrification after it’s too late to do anything about it.”

The park — which will be 1,200 feet long, 180 feet wide at the west side expanding to 187-feet wide on the eastern end — will attract an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million visitors a year when it is opened.

“We turned to the community early on and asked for ideas to make sure this civic space would boost the local residents,” Kratz said. “At the end of that 18-month process, we posted the recommendations online and then announced 19 final proposals in three categories

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of workforce development, small business and housing, which will include new and rehabilitated dwellings.

“We’ll build on parking lots east of the river as well as other empty lots for a mix of market-rate and affordable housing in what is a historic district.

More than 1 million people rode their bikes and walked on the Burke-Gilman Trail this year.

“We’re also funding a home-buyers club for people east of the river to boost financial literacy for residents and provide access to capital for those who are interested in buying to capture some of that rising equity and stay here.

“We wanted to hit this early before property values start to go up. If you own your house, that’s great, but it you are part of the 75 percent east of the river who rent, there is the potential to be displaced. We wanted to get a jump on this before the market takes over.”

Katz’s group has raised $15 million out of a total goal of $45 million to date.

“It’s enough to begin pre-construction and that’s pretty exciting,” he said. “We’re doing everything from permitting and right-of-way and further design work. We hope to begin construction in 2018 and the earliest we’d open up is 2019.”

Burke-Gilman Trail in Seattle In Seattle, the 12-mile-long Burke-Gilman Trail begins in the Ballard neighborhood on Puget Sound, goes through the University of Washington campus, continues north on Lake Washington and east into King County, and links with another 25 miles of additional bike and pedestrian paths. Started in 1978, it is considered one the granddaddies of all urban trails in the United States.

Peter Lagerwey, who was a project manager for the city on many of the trail segments, said several pieces were already in place before he moved to Seattle in 1984.

“More than 1 million people rode their bikes and walked on it this year, making it one of the most heavily used trails in the United States,” he said. “So it’s been a great success.”

He said he worked with numerous neighborhood groups and businesses on the trail and agreements were reached with all of them except for several in an industrial district of Ballard.

As a result, there is a missing link of 1.5 miles that have been blocked by several lawsuits and injunctions, the last of which required a full environmental impact statement (EIS) on the trail.

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Photo by TIA International Photography

“The EIS is out now and there is a window for people to appeal in court, and I suspect they will,” he said. “The city already owns the land, but the businesses say the trail would conflict with their truck traffic, so cyclists still have to ride in the street.

“The city will prevail eventually, this just adds to delays and costs. We did lots of planning and meetings with people, but opponents have used the courts to block what almost everyone would agree is a great trail and a real benefit to the city and its residents.”

Like the linear parks themselves, the process of creating these urban developments can move from inspiration to discussion to planning and even litigation, but backers and residents agree the journey is worth the work.

Brian E. Clark is a Wisconsin-based journalist and a former staff writer on the business desk of The San Diego Union-Tribune. He is a contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dallas Morning News and other publications.

Tr a i l s bring b ig d ol l ars to rur al towns

By Brian E. Clark

When my 16-year-old daughter and I went on one of our weekly outings last summer, we hopped on our bikes in Verona, Wis. (population 10,600) and pedaled 13 miles on the Military Ridge Trail to Mount Horeb (population 7,500) for an early dinner at the Grumpy Troll Restaurant. Then, as the sun set, we cruised back on the old Chicago and North Western Railroad corridor.

Photos by Jon Dawson

That ride is repeated thousands of times each summer on the 40-mile-long trail near Madison, Wis., and hundreds of thousands of times each year on other trails around the country, pumping millions of dollars into rural communities.

According to the Wisconsin Bicycle Federation, cycling boosts the Badger State’s economy by a whopping $1.5 billion annually through tourism, recreation, retail and manufacturing, providing more than 13,200 jobs.

It brings in $535 million in tourism dollars from outof-state visitors alone, and it all started when Wisconsin built the Elroy-Sparta Trail back in 1967 on an abandoned Chicago and North Western rail bed. Since then, the state has spent more than $240 million on bicycle projects.

Bill Kalscheur, treasurer of the Friends of the Military Ridge Trail and a former grocery store owner in Mount Horeb, estimates that more than 100,000 people ride the trail that cuts through his town each year.

Military Ridge Trail near Madison, Wis.; Photo by Michael Leland

“Mount Horeb and the Grumpy Troll are a big destination for a lot of the riders, too, but businesses in the towns of Verona, Riley and Blue Mounds also benefit,” he said. “It’s a great trail because it connects to Gov. Dodge State Park, Blue Mounds State Park and there’s a new spur to Brigham Park.

“We haven’t been able to afford an economic impact study on the trail, but we know people have moved here because of the trail and our other assets.”

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In Pennsylvania, David Kahley, president and CEO of the Progress Fund, said the 150-mile-long Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) bike trail is key to the economic redevelopment of towns on the route, which runs from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md. (population 20,500).

He said cyclists who ride the trail typically spend $140 a night per person when they stay overnight at one of the communities “and they also drop other money on meals and shopping in stores. For those communities it’s a nice economic stimulus.”

“Study after study has shown that trails boost communities of all sizes economically and in other ways, so there’s no longer any real debate about that,” he said.

He said the Progress Fund recently won a major Place Making award from the Urban Land Institute for funding nine separate investments in West Newton (population 2,200), which is 35 miles from Pittsburgh.

“The question in my mind is how big this benefit can be because the market is huge for people who want to hike and ride gentle trails like these where they don’t have to huff and puff up steep hills. My group runs a regional economic development program that helps redevelop small towns by taking advantage of the adventure of riding a trail like the GAP.” Kahley said the Progress Fund runs the Trail Town Program, which has “transformed the future of a number of small towns in southwestern Pennsylvania.”

“People don’t just want to stay overnight in these little towns,” he said. “They have become cool places to hang out and even move to for hipsters and others. The real estate in those communities has become more valuable because of that. For some buyers and developers, trails are the new golf courses. And they are a lot easier to build and maintain, too.”

In Wenatchee, Wash. (population 35,000), Shannon Kraft, marketing coordinator for the Coldwell Banker

Great Allegheny Passage bike trail runs from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md. Photos by Jon Dawson

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Levigne office, called the Apple Capital Loop Trail a “tremendous asset to our valley.

“Thousands of people who live here love it because it gives them a great place to walk, run, bike and skate.

We also get lots of visitors who use it.” Wenatchee is about 120 miles from Seattle on the east side of the Cascade Mountains in the heart of the state’s applegrowing region.

She said the asphalt trail, which totals nearly 18 miles with recent extensions, goes through downtown Wenatchee and then loops out into the countryside along the Columbia and Wenatchee rivers. Parks along the trail are often filled with picnickers, walkers, Frisbee players, yoga classes and other recreational users.

Photo by Ben Brooks

She said many sellers use their locations near the trail to market their homes.

“Some people may not want to live close to the trail because it brings more people, but others think proximity to the path is a great thing,” she said. “People say one of the reasons they moved here is because of the trail.”

Kraft said business has boomed along the trail in recent years too, noting the conversion of an old fruit warehouse into a successful restaurant. In addition, she said the Pybus Public Market — which she described as a smaller version of Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market — opened a few years back in a former steel manufacturing plant near the trail on North Worthen Street and within a stone’s throw of Riverside Park on the Columbia River.

“The market has been a big hit, offering everything from produce and meat — including pheasant, duck and frogs legs — works by artists, music and food. It’s now considered one of the best public markets in the Northwest and people can walk or bike to it on the trail.”

Apple Capital Loop Trail in Wenatchee, Wash.

Photos by Gene Bisbee

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Affordable Walkability

The annual Great Neighborhoods competition sponsored by the American Planning Association (APA) recognizes communities for their design, character, sustainability and other desirable qualities. While the winning entries typically embody the kind of classic walkable urbanism that was the norm before World War II, many of them miss the mark when it comes to both affordability and diversity.

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photos by Julienne Schaer

Housing costs and rents in walkable neighborhoods are rising due to market demand

By Brad Broberg

S

ome people call them amenities. Emily Talen calls them “the good stuff.”

Baked into most walkable urban neighborhoods, they are the just-aroundthe-corner perks that make housing in walkable urban neighborhoods so popular, yet increasingly expensive and in short supply.

“The places with the good stuff — shops and parks and schools and everything else — those are the high demand places and we’re not producing them fast enough and we’re not making sure a diverse set of people are occupying those kinds of places,” said Talen, professor of urbanism at the University of Chicago.

That’s a big takeaway from a study Talen and colleague Julia Koschinsky led for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The study targeted

the supply of HUD-supported housing within walkable locations in six cities — Chicago, Boston, Phoenix, Atlanta, Seattle and Miami.

“We looked at different kinds of affordable housing — vouchers, public housing, mixed-income housing that combines market rate with subsidized housing — and we found that across the board there was a lack of affordable locations in walkable neighborhoods,” Talen said.

But the problem doesn’t just hurt people who are getting government assistance. “Regular folks ... are getting priced out and being forced to move away from walkable places,” she said.

That’s what happens when demand overwhelms supply. “It’s the millennials, it’s the aging baby boomers, it’s the elderly. There’s a lot of different demographics all converging on this demand for walkability,” Talen said.

There's a lack of affordable locations in walkable neighborhoods.

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WINTER 2017

In an analysis of winning entries between 20072014, Talen found a $108,000 difference between the median price of homes in Great Neighborhoods versus the census tracts immediately next to them.

When she explored demographic trends over time, Talen found that the ratio of white residents increased between 1970 and 2010 while the ratio of black and Hispanic residents fell compared with cities as a whole.

There’s a word for that sort of thing: gentrification.

Central city neighborhoods that languished during the exodus of the middle class to the suburbs — a.k.a. white flight — are back in demand in many metros because of their walkable mix of homes, stores, restaurants, public transit and jobs. The greater the demand, the higher the prices and the less affordable those neighborhoods become to their current residents, who often belong to disadvantaged minority populations.

to the top third in the metro area and the percentage increase in the number of college graduates age 25 and older also was in the top third.

The rate of gentrification rose in 39 of the 50 cities.

More neighborhoods gentrified in New York — 128 — than any other city. The greatest rate of gentrification

The greater the demand, the higher the prices and the less affordable walkable neighborhoods become to current residents.

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Christopher Postlewaite

“Gentrification in America,” a report published by Governing magazine, found that gentrification, while still the exception overall, is accelerating. Census tract data from the nation’s 50 most populous cities showed that nearly 20 percent of tracts with lower incomes and home values have experienced gentrification since 2000 compared to only nine percent in the 1990s.

The report looked specifically at census tracts — which roughly correspond to neighborhoods — where the median household income and home value ranked in the bottom 40th percentile of the metro area at the start of 2000.

A neighborhood was considered to have gentrified since 2000 if two things became true over time based on the latest census data: the percentage increase in the median home value (adjusted for inflation) rose

Courtesy of NYC & Company/ Photo by Christopher Postlewaite

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The annual Great Neighborhoods competition sponsored by the American Planning Association (APA) recognizes communities for their design, character, sustainability and other desirable qualities. While the winning entries typically embody the kind of classic walkable urbanism that was the norm before World War II, many of them miss the mark when it comes to both affordability and diversity.

In an analysis of winning entries between 20072014, Talen found a $108,000 difference between the median price of homes in Great Neighborhoods versus the census tracts immediately next to them.

When she explored demographic trends over time, Talen found that the ratio of white residents increased between 1970 and 2010 while the ratio of black and Hispanic residents fell compared with cities as a whole.

There’s a word for that sort of thing: gentrification.

Central city neighborhoods that languished during the exodus of the middle class to the suburbs — a.k.a. white flight — are back in demand in many metros because of their walkable mix of homes, stores, restaurants, public transit and jobs. The greater the demand, the higher the prices and the less affordable those neighborhoods become to their current residents, who often belong to disadvantaged minority populations.

to the top third in the metro area and the percentage increase in the number of college graduates age 25 and older also was in the top third.

The rate of gentrification rose in 39 of the 50 cities.

More neighborhoods gentrified in New York — 128 — than any other city. The greatest rate of gentrification

The greater the demand, the higher the prices and the less affordable walkable neighborhoods become to current residents.

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Christopher Postlewaite

“Gentrification in America,” a report published by Governing magazine, found that gentrification, while still the exception overall, is accelerating. Census tract data from the nation’s 50 most populous cities showed that nearly 20 percent of tracts with lower incomes and home values have experienced gentrification since 2000 compared to only nine percent in the 1990s.

The report looked specifically at census tracts — which roughly correspond to neighborhoods — where the median household income and home value ranked in the bottom 40th percentile of the metro area at the start of 2000.

A neighborhood was considered to have gentrified since 2000 if two things became true over time based on the latest census data: the percentage increase in the median home value (adjusted for inflation) rose

Courtesy of NYC & Company/ Photo by Christopher Postlewaite

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was in Portland, Ore., where 36 of the 62 neighborhoods (58 percent) with low median incomes and home values gentrified. Next came Washington, D.C. (51.9 percent), Minneapolis (50.6 percent), Seattle (50 percent), Atlanta (46.2 percent) and Virginia Beach (46.2 percent).

the nation’s 25 largest cities — “As Affordable Housing Shrinks, Where Can Families Live?” — revealed a yawning affordability chasm for family-size housing in the 10 most expensive cities.

Although racial makeup didn’t factor into determining whether a neighborhood gentrified, the share of non-Hispanic white residents in neighborhoods that gentrified increased 4.3 percent. Neighborhoods with lower incomes and home values that didn’t gentrify lost small amounts of overall population while experiencing gains in their minority populations. In addition, average poverty rates increased almost 7 percent in neighborhoods that didn’t gentrify while falling slightly in those that did.

In cities like Boston and Seattle, just 17 percent of all home listings on average had three bedrooms and were affordable to families earning the area median income based on spending no more than 30 percent of income on housing and utilities. The outlook did brighten in other cities covered by the report, where an average of 63 percent of listings met the size and affordability criteria. In Detroit and Ft. Worth, 80 percent or more of homes fit the bill, however it should be noted that Detroit and Ft. Worth are much larger in land area than Boston and Seattle and have more room for a variety of housing.

No one faces a more stacked deck than middle-income families seeking to buy a suitable home in the hottest urban centers. A Governing magazine report covering

But what about families who aren’t quite making the median income? The report found that a family earning 75 percent of the area median income could afford less

No one faces a more stacked deck than middle-income families seeking to buy a suitable home in the hottest urban centers.

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Marley White

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Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Julienne Schaer

than half of the homes in most of the 25 cities, even if they were willing to settle for two-bedrooms. In nine of the cities, they could afford just one in five homes.

Finding affordable rental housing is just as hard. More than half of renters in the nation’s 25 largest cities spend more than 30 percent of household income on rent, according to the latest census estimates. Plus just 5.2 percent of the rental stock consists of units with three bedrooms or more.

Urban planning expert Christopher Leinberger, coauthor of “Foot Traffic Ahead: 2016,” doesn’t deny that rents are often “too damn high” in walkable urban neighborhoods, but argues that looking at housing costs alone is myopic.

A key finding in “Foot Traffic Ahead” was that higher housing costs in walkable urban places (WalkUPs) within the nation’s 30 largest metro areas are offset by lower transportation costs and greater access to higher paying jobs — mainly due to the greater density and better transit service found in WalkUPs. The finding is based on a social equity index that takes into account housing and transportation costs (as a

Demand drives up the cost of land and therefore the cost of housing in walkable urban neighborhoods. percentage of household income for households earning 80 percent of area median income) plus the number of nearby jobs.

Eight of the 10 metros that rank highest for walkable urbanism also rank in the top 10 for social equity while seven of the 10 metros that rank lowest for walkable urbanism rank in the bottom 10 for social equity.

“It doesn’t avoid the challenge that we have of producing affordable housing, but if you earned 80 percent of area medium income, you’d much rather be in a walkable community like Seattle or Washington, D.C., than be in Tampa or Phoenix,” Leinberger said.

As demand drives up the cost of land and therefore the cost of housing in walkable urban neighborhoods, the answer is obvious — increase supply by amending codes and regulations to allow more housing to be built in such places, Leinberger said. “If we shift 2 percent

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Julienne Schaer

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by TaggerYancey IV

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Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by TaggerYanceyIV

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Marley White

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Joe Buglewicz

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Julienne Schaer

of our metropolitan lands from low density to high density, gentrification becomes a thing of the past,” he said.

That’s one place to start, but there’s another hurdle: the nation’s housing finance system. A recent report from the Regional Plan Association (RPA), “The Unintended Consequences of Housing Finance,” described how federal loan programs fail to adequately support the kind of small-scale, mixed-use, infill development that is partand-parcel to walkable urbanism.

Federal Housing Administration, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae underwriting rules typically cap commercial floor

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space or income at 15 to 25 percent of a multi-family building, but those caps are too low to work for a small infill project. To stay within the required cap on commercial versus multi-family, a developer would have to build a larger project that would be out-of-scale — and possibly prohibited — in many neighborhoods.

The RPA report also laid bare the lack of a secondary market for conventional mixed-use loans — a problem fueled by federal guidelines that label loans nonconforming. Without a secondary market, banks must hold the loans on their balance sheets, which discourages them from making the loans in the first place.

There need to be different policies working together to ensure that more people can afford to live in walkable neighborhoods.

“We need to acknowledge that we don’t want [walkable urban places] to become just another pocket of wealthy areas,” said Sarah Serpas, co-author of the Report. “There need to be different policies working together to ensure that more people can afford to live in those neighborhoods.”

Mariela Alfonzo is the founder of State of Place, which provides cities, developers, and other clients with software analytics — covering more than 290 walkability and economic data points — that help them understand, compare and communicate the return on investment for any given walkable urban strategy or project.

“Even though there’s a rise in demand for walkability, there are still a number of barriers (to increasing the supply),” Alfonzo said. “There are NIMBYs, there are traffic engineers who want to maximize the flow of cars ... there are developers who are not on board and lenders who don’t fully understand the pro forma that goes with more urban, mixed-use, compact development.”

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by TaggerYanceyIV

State of Place can help overcome those barriers and drive affordability through increased supply by quantifying the benefits of walkability and comparing different strategies and projects, Alfonzo said. For example, the biggest bang for the buck might come from upping the walkability of an existing neighborhood by adding pedestrian amenities — wider sidewalks, reduced traffic speeds, public spaces — rather than building an expensive new mixed-use development.

Alfonzo said State of Place helps answer the question: “Are there more cost effective ways that aren’t necessarily just creating new residential units that very few people can afford?”

Brad Broberg is a Seattle-based freelance writer specializing in business and development issues.

His work appears regularly in the Puget Sound Business Journal and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Marley White

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Complete Streets for Safer Walks (Below) The City of Tallahassee’s Gaines Street revitalization created a pedestrian friendly street and improved infrastructure to help develop a destination district that would be home to a blend of commercial, residential and cultural uses.

secretary of FDOT’s District One. “The state didn’t rank very well. Improvements were very necessary.”

Hattaway is overseeing FDOT’s efforts to implement a comprehensive Complete Streets plan. He said the implementation plan will be completed early next year, but the department is already requiring its engineers to incorporate Complete Streets values into all the projects they design.

Among the changes in FDOT’s designs, Hattaway said, are reducing lane widths on urban streets from 12 to 11 feet, making room for seven-foot wide bicycle lanes.

Florida law requires motorists maintain a three feet separation from bikes. Hattaway said FDOT is going on “road diets” — reducing four-lane streets to two traffic lanes with left turn lanes and medians to improve pedestrian safety at crosswalks in the middle and wider bike lanes on the outside.

Roundabouts are an important element of Complete Streets plans because they slow traffic. just in general enhance the quality of life for our residents and really create good senses of place and connections within our cities.”

Hennepin County is about halfway done with developing an extensive network of bike trails connecting downtown Minneapolis and its suburbs, Yemen said.

“We have about 673 miles of bikeways out there currently that are considered part of our county system,” she said. “Between what the city’s working on, and the county’s working on, we’re trying to connect those trails

On busy U.S. 41 in downtown Sarasota, Hattaway said, FDOT is developing a plan to replace nine signalized intersections with roundabouts. Roundabouts are an important element of Complete Streets plans because they slow traffic, improving bike and pedestrian safety.

Courtesy of Visit Indy

By John Van Gieson

A

few years ago Florida had a vexing PR problem. Transportation safety studies released by Smart Growth America in 2011 and 2014 reported that four Florida metropolitan areas — Miami, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville — had the worst pedestrian death rates in the country. Proportionately more pedestrians were killed by motor vehicles in Florida than anywhere else. Beyond the terrible cost of human life, that’s a major image issue in a state where the economy depends so heavily on the tens of millions of tourists who visit its beaches and amusement parks annually. Officials of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) reacted to the negative pedestrian safety ratings by deciding to implement a Complete Streets policy statewide and asking Smart Growth America for its assistance.

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Complete Streets are streets designed and built, or renovated, to ensure the safety and mobility of all users, whether cars, trucks, buses, bicyclists, pedestrians or mass transit riders. Smart Growth America administers the National Compete Streets Coalition, providing a wide range of assistance to governments eager to upgrade their transportation networks.

The Complete Streets movement has grown rapidly since the term was coined by bike advocate Barbara McCann in a 2003 memo. McCann is now an undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has joined Smart Growth America in presenting awards to cities, counties and states that have developed the best Complete Streets plans.

“It was really about safety and access for everyone using the roadway, and that’s how the Complete Streets movement got started,” McCann said.

The National Complete Streets Coalition grew out of the discussion McCann triggered in 2003 and became part of Smart Growth America. Among the members of the Coalition are the AARP and the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

“The biggest reason for our efforts here at the Florida DOT was the 2011 report by Smart Growth America called Dangerous by Design,” said Billy Hattaway,

Smart Growth America reports that cities, counties and states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have passed more than 950 Complete Streets policies. Those policies differ considerably, but share common objectives.

Complete Streets are streets designed and built to ensure the safety and mobility of all users.

Kelly Yemen, bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for Hennepin County, Minn., said the goals of the Complete Street policy she helped to develop are “simply to increase bicycle ridership, improve health, reduce vehicle miles traveled on our roadways, improve the environment and

Courtesy of Meet Minneapolis

47

secretary of FDOT’s District One. “The state didn’t rank very well. Improvements were very necessary.”

Hattaway is overseeing FDOT’s efforts to implement a comprehensive Complete Streets plan. He said the implementation plan will be completed early next year, but the department is already requiring its engineers to incorporate Complete Streets values into all the projects they design.

Among the changes in FDOT’s designs, Hattaway said, are reducing lane widths on urban streets from 12 to 11 feet, making room for seven-foot wide bicycle lanes.

Florida law requires motorists maintain a three feet separation from bikes. Hattaway said FDOT is going on “road diets” — reducing four-lane streets to two traffic lanes with left turn lanes and medians to improve pedestrian safety at crosswalks in the middle and wider bike lanes on the outside.

Roundabouts are an important element of Complete Streets plans because they slow traffic. just in general enhance the quality of life for our residents and really create good senses of place and connections within our cities.”

Hennepin County is about halfway done with developing an extensive network of bike trails connecting downtown Minneapolis and its suburbs, Yemen said.

“We have about 673 miles of bikeways out there currently that are considered part of our county system,” she said. “Between what the city’s working on, and the county’s working on, we’re trying to connect those trails

On busy U.S. 41 in downtown Sarasota, Hattaway said, FDOT is developing a plan to replace nine signalized intersections with roundabouts. Roundabouts are an important element of Complete Streets plans because they slow traffic, improving bike and pedestrian safety.

The Complete Streets movement has grown rapidly since the term was coined by bike advocate Barbara McCann in a 2003 memo. McCann is now an undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has joined Smart Growth America in presenting awards to cities, counties and states that have developed the best Complete Streets plans.

“It was really about safety and access for everyone using the roadway, and that’s how the Complete Streets movement got started,” McCann said.

The National Complete Streets Coalition grew out of the discussion McCann triggered in 2003 and became part of Smart Growth America. Among the members of the Coalition are the AARP and the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Smart Growth America reports that cities, counties and states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have passed more than 950 Complete Streets policies. Those policies differ considerably, but share common objectives.

Kelly Yemen, bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for Hennepin County, Minn., said the goals of the Complete Street policy she helped to develop are “simply to increase bicycle ridership, improve health, reduce vehicle miles traveled on our roadways, improve the environment and

Courtesy of Meet Minneapolis

47

to downtown so there are comfortable and protected facilities all the way.”

B E FO R E

Basic bike lanes are off to the right side of traffic lanes and separated from cars by a painted line. In some advanced Complete Streets plans, the bikes lanes are separated from traffic by upright plastic strips called delineators. Better, safer options include curb-raised protected bike lanes and separate trails set aside just for bikers and pedestrians.

“All of us want to see the delineator lanes turned into curb-level bike lanes,” Yemen said. “You get a whole lot more riders than you get just by putting paint on the ground.”

Curb-level bike lanes shared with pedestrians are expensive, however. Yemen said it will likely take some time to add funding for extensive networks of curb-raised bike lanes to city and county transportation budgets.

Columbian Way in Seattle before upgrades Courtesy of Seattle Department of Transportation

Bike lanes and trails get much of the attention in Complete Streets improvements, but pedestrian safety and accessibility are equally important.

Walking improvements include installing curbed sidewalks where there aren’t any, putting in curb cuts and medians to make it easier for pedestrians to cross busy streets, clearly marking cross walks, removing brush and other obstacles that force people to walk in traffic lanes and installing street lights so walkers can see where they’re going at night

AF T ER

“Major considerations in designing and building pedestrian-friendly walkways include complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act, making it easier for older residents to get around and protecting the safety of children walking to school,” Yemen said.

Myrtle Beach, a major summer resort on the South Carolina coast, won a 2016 Mayor’s Challenge Award from the U.S. Department of Transportation for its plans to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety. Myrtle Beach officials wanted to provide safe walking spaces for the 14 million tourists who visit its famed beach each year.

The Coastal Carolinas Association of REALTORS® proposed a walkability audit by noted planning consultant Dan Burden, and the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® provided a $15,000 grant to help pay for it. The local association presented the walkability plan to the community this fall, and the city is moving forward to implement it.

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Complete Streets safety upgrades on S. Columbian Way in Seattle Courtesy of Seattle Department of Transportation

The Indianapolis Cultural Trail can serve as a model for similar projects in other communities.

“Our density on the ocean front has increased, but the capacity of our streets really hasn’t followed suit,” said Myrtle Beach planner Kelly Mezzapelle. “We need to make the area more walkable so people don’t have to get in their cars and drive everywhere they want to go.”

(For more on Myrtle Beach walkability improvements proposed to the city by the local REALTORS® association, see the story on page 58) Indianapolis, Ind., has attracted international attention with its Cultural Trail, an eight-mile bike and pedestrian pathway linking six cultural districts in the city’s downtown area. The Cultural Trail connects museums, galleries, theaters, a growing restaurant scene, bars and other attractions.

Courtesy of Visit Indy

The Indianapolis Cultural Trail combines the latest and best facilities for cyclists and pedestrians.

Planners from U.S. cities and as far away as Cologne, Germany, have visited Indianapolis to see how the trail can serve as a model for similar projects in their communities. In 2015, Smart Growth America rated the Indianapolis Complete Streets Policy the best in the nation. Because of the Cultural Trail, the New York Times put Indianapolis on its list of 52 places to visit in 2015.

The Times said planners are flocking to Indianapolis “to see how the city most famous for a 500-mile car race managed to swap autos for bike lanes and still keep everything rolling smoothly.”

Karen Haley, executive director of Indianapolis Cultural Trail, Inc., said the trail combines the latest and best facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians. She said the trail is wider than a typical sidewalk, shared by bikes and pedestrians, protected by curbs and separated from the street in places by a botanical garden. Haley said the trail cost $63 million, including $4 million for public art, all of which came from private donors or federal grants.

“No local tax dollars were spent to build the Cultural Trail,” she said.” ”It’s helped put Indianapolis on the map in terms of a city that’s getting it right when it comes to urban development and connectivity,” Haley said. “It really is allowing you to visit or work in our city without owning a vehicle.”

Courtesy of Visit Indy

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Greg Ballard, who was mayor when Indianapolis won the 2012 Smart Growth America award, said the Cultural Trail has had a huge economic impact on Indiana’s capital city.

“Within a half mile of the trail there’s an increase in assessed value of over a billion dollars,” Ballard said.

“That’s massive. There’s no question that there’s additional economic development along trails. People want to live next to the trails. We had a Fortune 200 company here in Indianapolis open up a headquarters. They wanted to be on the trail.”

In “Safer Streets, Stronger Economies," a 2015 report based on policies implemented in 37 cities, Smart Growth America concluded that Complete Streets policies created safer streets; increased foot, bicycle and transit traffic; and stimulated economic growth.

“Our analysis found that safer conditions created by Compete Streets projects avoided a total of $18.1 million in collision and injury costs in one year alone,” the study reported.

It went on to report that the economic impact of many of those policies had not yet been studied, but 11 places reported increased employment and eight said their Complete Streets policies “were at least partly responsible for increased investment from the private sector.”

One of the projects involved in the study was the Complete Streets renovations of Edgewater Drive, the main street in the College Park neighborhood north of downtown Orlando, Fla. The street was reduced from four lanes to three, bike lanes were added and on-street parking spaces were widened. The report indicated auto traffic decreased by 12 percent, but bicycle traffic increased by 30 percent and pedestrian usage was up by 23 percent.

Complete Streets policies created safer streets; increased foot, bicycle and transit traffic; and stimulated economic growth.

B E FO R E

AF T ER

Before it received Complete Streets upgrades, the Seattle street pictured above was not pedestrian friendly.

The Complete Streets upgrades to the Seattle street included sidewalks and curb cuts for pedestrian safety.

Photos courtesy of Seattle Department of Transportation

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Courtesy of Meet Minneapolis

In addition, collisions dropped by 40 percent and injuries fell by 71 percent.

“As a result, more people want to be on Edgewater Drive,” according to the report. “The corridor has seen 77 net new businesses open and 560 new jobs created since 2008.

The most dramatic results, however, were in long-term real-estate and business investment. Since the project was first proposed, the value of property adjacent to Edgewater Drive has risen 80 percent and the value of property within half a mile of the road has risen 70 percent.”

Planners are strong advocates for Complete Streets policies, and more and more elected officials are getting on board, but selling projects to the public can be challenging.

Smart Growth America rated the Complete Streets policy in Reading, Pa., as the best in the country in 2015.

Reading received a perfect score of 100, the first time that happened in the annual Smart Growth America ratings.

“Reading totally got it,” said Emiko Atherton, director of the National Complete Streets Coalition. “They understood how policy can shape the feel of a community and took it to heart.”

Courtesy of Meet Minneapolis

Complete Streets policies can shape the feel of a community.

Since then, however, the mayor whose administration developed the Complete Streets Policy lost his bid for re-election in the primary. The new mayor is committed to the Complete Streets Policy, said Ralph Johnson, Reading’s director of public works, but there are complications.

“Trying to get the citizens to buy into Complete Streets seems to be more challenging than we were expecting,” Johnson said. “It’s change, and change takes time.

The city is a financially challenged city so implementing the policy is a challenge for us to accomplish at an expeditious rate. We need to be patient and move at a steady rate.”

John Van Gieson is a freelance writer based in Tallahassee, Fla. He owns and runs Van Gieson Media Relations, Inc.

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a Complete Streets policy, which ensures that projects are planned and designed to meet the needs of every community member, regardless of their age, ability or how they travel,” says Dan Burden, director of innovation and inspiration of Blue Zones LLC in Minneapolis, Minn.

Photo by Kent Kanouse

Albert Lea immediately passed a Complete Streets policy and looked at its built environment in a different way.

Courtesy of USDA

Walking

Leads to Better Health

By Tracey C. Velt

Courtesy of USDA

(Above) Albert Lea, Minn., has new walking paths and a revitalized, walkable downtown.

(Below) The Blue Zones project held a walking event to kickoff its pilot program in Albert Lea.

M

innesota is known for its healthy ways. After all, it’s ranked as the sixth healthiest state in the United States, according to America’s Health Rankings by the United Health Foundation. However, the small town of Albert Lea, Minn., wasn’t experiencing that same success.

“Our county health indicators were well below the average in our state,” says Ellen Kehr, the organizational lead of the Blue Zones Project in Albert Lea. “We tried smaller programs to encourage exercise but realized that we needed to take a bold look at building a culture of well-being so these programs can thrive.”

Enter the Blue Zones Project, which through policy and programs aims to transform communities across the United States into areas where the healthy choice is easy, and people live longer with a higher quality of life. Albert Lea was a pilot program in 2009. Blue Zones has since successfully worked with Hermosa, Redondo and Manhattan Beaches, Calif., and the state of Iowa.

“When it comes to the built environment, it’s about making walking the natural and easy choice by implementing

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“We revitalized downtown, slowed down traffic, widened the sidewalks, increased access to the two lakes that sit on either side of the downtown and filled in more than seven miles of sidewalk gaps around the lake,” says Kehr. “Our community-wide walking and biking went up 40 percent.”

Not only that, but the community well-being — an overlooked benefit to increased physical activity — went up 2.8 percent between 2014 and 2016. Also, smoking dropped considerably and now is less than 15 percent, far below the national average of 18.5 percent in 2015. According to a recent study, the environmental transformation led to a foot-traffic influx, revitalizing the city’s downtown. Restaurants added outdoor dining areas and 15 businesses have opened since 2013. The changes added $1.2 million worth of property value, and developers have invested more than $1.5 million in building permits since 2013.

Hermosa Beach, Calif., is another Blue Zones area, where smoking and obesity rates dropped after implementing Blue Zones’ programs.

After implementing changes in another Blue Zone area — Hermosa, Redondo and Manhattan Beaches — smoking rates fell 30 percent while obesity rates dropped 14 percent. Also, the number of people who consume at least five servings of fruit or vegetables a day jumped 10 percent, and the cities secured an additional $3.8 million in state and federal funding for future planning initiatives.

Encouraging Americans to Walk It’s no surprise that cities such as Albert Lea and others are looking to increase the physical activity of residents.

In 2015, the Surgeon General issued a Call to Action called Step It Up! encouraging the promotion of walking and walkable communities. Step It Up! includes five strategic goals, which are: to make walking a national priority; design communities that make it safe and easy to walk for people of all ages and abilities; promote programs and policies to support walking where people live, learn, work,

It’s about making walking the natural and easy choice.

Photo by InSapphoWeTrust

53

a Complete Streets policy, which ensures that projects are planned and designed to meet the needs of every community member, regardless of their age, ability or how they travel,” says Dan Burden, director of innovation and inspiration of Blue Zones LLC in Minneapolis, Minn.

Photo by Kent Kanouse

Albert Lea immediately passed a Complete Streets policy and looked at its built environment in a different way.

“We revitalized downtown, slowed down traffic, widened the sidewalks, increased access to the two lakes that sit on either side of the downtown and filled in more than seven miles of sidewalk gaps around the lake,” says Kehr. “Our community-wide walking and biking went up 40 percent.”

Not only that, but the community well-being — an overlooked benefit to increased physical activity — went up 2.8 percent between 2014 and 2016. Also, smoking dropped considerably and now is less than 15 percent, far below the national average of 18.5 percent in 2015. According to a recent study, the environmental transformation led to a foot-traffic influx, revitalizing the city’s downtown. Restaurants added outdoor dining areas and 15 businesses have opened since 2013. The changes added $1.2 million worth of property value, and developers have invested more than $1.5 million in building permits since 2013.

Hermosa Beach, Calif., is another Blue Zones area, where smoking and obesity rates dropped after implementing Blue Zones’ programs.

After implementing changes in another Blue Zone area — Hermosa, Redondo and Manhattan Beaches — smoking rates fell 30 percent while obesity rates dropped 14 percent. Also, the number of people who consume at least five servings of fruit or vegetables a day jumped 10 percent, and the cities secured an additional $3.8 million in state and federal funding for future planning initiatives.

Encouraging Americans to Walk It’s no surprise that cities such as Albert Lea and others are looking to increase the physical activity of residents.

In 2015, the Surgeon General issued a Call to Action called Step It Up! encouraging the promotion of walking and walkable communities. Step It Up! includes five strategic goals, which are: to make walking a national priority; design communities that make it safe and easy to walk for people of all ages and abilities; promote programs and policies to support walking where people live, learn, work,

It’s about making walking the natural and easy choice.

Photo by InSapphoWeTrust

53

Physical activity is associated with improved quality of life, emotional well-being and positive mental health. and play; provide information to encourage walking and improve walkability; and fill surveillance, research, and evaluation gaps related to walking and walkability.

According to the Call to Action, physical activity can reduce illness from chronic diseases and premature death, help prevent risk factors for disease (such as high blood pressure and weight gain) and protect against multiple chronic diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, some cancers, type 2 diabetes and depression). In children and adolescents, physical activity can improve bone health, cardio respiratory and muscular fitness. In addition, says the report, among adults, physical activity is associated with improved quality of life, emotional well-being and positive mental health.

Getting Back on Their Feet,” which outlines other benefits to walking and physical activity.

“You can attribute everything from lower local healthcare costs and better school performance to more creativity, reduced anxiety and increased economic health in communities with walkable neighborhoods,” he says.

Walking, it seems, can cure a host of ills. In fact, according to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, each .62 mile walked per day is associated with a 5 percent decrease in the likelihood of obesity. So, why isn’t everyone doing it?

Getting People to Walk

Besides reducing illness and disease and improving emotional well-being, the rising interest in walking is due to the promises beyond better health. According to author Jay Walljasper, “taking a walk is one of the best ways to meet new neighbors and deepen ties with those you already know.”

“Research is saying that telling people to exercise doesn’t work,” says Marcus Fenton, an independent public health planning and transportation consultant and adjunct associate professor at Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. “At the same time, a growing body of research shows that if you build an environment where people walk in daily life, it’s effective. The design is important.”

Walljasper co-authored a book called, “America’s Walking Renaissance: How Cities, Suburbs and Towns are

Walljasper agrees. “Exercise must be baked into peoples’ days. If you have to get in your car to go to the gym, you won’t

Making roads safer for pedestrians encourages people to get out and walk more.

Photo by Kent Kanouse

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Photo by Jim Larrison

do it that often. But, if you’re walking to the bus stop and back, your daily commute can get you that magical exercise,” he says.

Safety concerns can also be a barrier to walking. Several factors according to the World Health Organization can influence pedestrian risks, such as unsafe driver and pedestrian behaviors and challenging physical environments. In surveys of parents, the most commonly reported barrier for walking to school was the distance to school, followed by traffic-related dangers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Study, “Barriers to Children Walking to or from School.” Fear of crime or perceptions of an unsafe neighborhood may also be potential barriers to walking.

Policy Decisions and Advocacy The lack of solutions to these problems has led to policy decisions and advocacy groups forming to encourage this type of physical activity through programs, infrastructure and more.

When it comes to walking, says Amy Schumann, an environmental health planner with Public Health Seattle and King County, “There are two approaches to getting people to walk. One is programmatic, through senior centers, walking school buses (where an adult is designated the lead to walk kids to school) and motivational programs. These are all important and helpful.”

Courtesy of Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau

The other approach is through environmental change.

“The assumption is that we all want to walk more in our community, but some communities have barriers to making that possible. The stronger focus on the environmental changes that benefit communities; the more people get active in their daily activities.”

Feet First Feet First in Seattle is hoping to create walkable places by removing barriers.

“The mission of Feet First is to make cities across Washington State more walkable places,” says Lisa Quinn, executive director of Feet First. “We have an advisory council that looks holistically at the areas, with the departments of transportation and health, the coroner

The built environment can influence physical activity and encourage people to walk, bike and enjoy their communities.

WINTER 2017 55

and other officials.” The group conducts walking audits, where they, “take a deeper dive into the neighborhood, determining safe routes to school, identify barriers and make recommendations for creating a more walkable and safe community.”

One such audit took place in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle that included a group of Mercer Middle School staff members, students and their families, neighbors, cycling advocates, a local business owner and transportation planners from the Seattle Department of Transportation.

“The goal of the walking and biking audit was to make observations and recommendations on ways to improve walking and biking access for students and families on their way to and from school,” says Quinn.

“After presenting our recommendations to the city, the Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Parks Department worked together to support our recommendations.”

Feet First conducts walking audits. One such audit took place in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

In 2015, Green Stormwater Infrastructure techniques were used with a new drainage swale, including small native trees and a French drain to the east of the sidewalk. New street trees were added, contributing to the cities’ goal to increase the urban canopy 30 percent by 2037.

Improvements also include parking surfacing, wheel stops and a rock wall. The improvements around the neighborhood have connected the park and a greenway to get people by foot easily to the library, store and light

Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans To obtain substantial health benefits, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’, 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity, or an equivalent combination each week, and that children and adolescents be active for at least 60 minutes every day. People who are inactive and those who do not yet meet the guidelines are strongly encouraged to work toward this goal.

Adults with disabilities who are unable to meet the guidelines should avoid inactivity and try to get regular physical activity according to their abilities.

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rail station, says Quinn. The project supports a Safe Route to School that includes a Walking School Bus. It has also improved the overall health and connection of the neighborhood, according to Quinn.

The benefits of walking and physical activity can’t be ignored.

Another organization that aims to provide a voice for walking and walkable communities with federal agencies is America Walks, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit national organization.

“We opened another round of micro grants in October to fund small interventions in communities around the country,” says Kate Kraft, executive director of America Walks.

The grants, about $1,500 each, provide communities with assistance so they can develop a community engagement strategy or organize a rally to jumpstart a walking campaign.

“We’ve done a lot of work in the state of Iowa with a statewide walking effort,” says Kraft, who notes that they’ve also worked in the San Francisco region passing Complete Streets policies.

Community Planning Local governments are also trying to effect change.

Schumann and her team frequently work with jurisdictions to strengthen healthy language in comprehensive and local plans.

“We help them update their guiding documents that set the tone for the city, so it moves forward with transportation, parks and rec and roads on the same page, thinking about walking and biking.”

She also works with transportation planners to change the focus from moving the most number of cars through an area to building complete streets and adding mobility to move people, rather than cars, through areas.

“A few years ago, we worked with Seattle on a pedestrian master plan that included health data from the health department to provide a more collaborative, comprehensive plan,” Schumann says.

The truth is that the benefits of walking and physical activity can’t be ignored and communities know it.

Many housing sites now offer walk scores (walkscore. com) that show how easy it is to walk to stores and restaurants from the house.

“The thing that keeps us passionate and motivated about this work is the focus on equity and social justice,” says Schumann when talking about Seattle. “There are so many communities that have been left out, and the amenities that some neighborhoods enjoy isn’t the reality for a lot of people. Providing the basic infrastructure so that people can safely walk their kids to school or walk for enjoyment and exercise is a basic human right. We focus on bringing attention to this need and distributing the funding fairly.”

It’s hard to believe that something so easy — walking 30 minutes a day — can provide so many astonishing community, physical and mental health benefits. The fact that it can also offer social justice to communities is an equally important aspect.

So, what are you waiting for — get out there and walk!

Tracey C. Velt is freelance writer who specializes in the real estate industry. She has more than 25 years of experience writing for industry publications.

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Courtesy of Discover South Carolina

More and more communities are trying to reach out to millennials through walkability initiatives in downtown areas. but this is not just for tourists,” Coleman added. “A lot of people who live here get around on foot.”

Walkability was already a local concern well before the NAR grant became available. Johnson said there was a committee in place to address walkability and bikeabilty issues throughout the city, but particularly along King’s Highway. When he learned that NAR was considering offering a pilot program on walkability to local associations, he immediately asked that Myrtle Beach be considered.

Myrtle Beach

Working On Walking

City planners partner with REALTORS® to focus on walkability Photo by McCaffery Interests, Inc.

Market Commons in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Myrtle Beach’s interest goes beyond providing a more appealing environment for its residents. Tourism is the main industry in the Grand Strand area — a 60-mile arc of

By Bobby L. Hickman

V

isitors to the popular seaside resort of Myrtle Beach, S. C., can enjoy a beautiful afternoon strolling along the white beaches of the Grand Strand and nearby shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues.

“When you come to Myrtle Beach, you probably drive eight to 10 hours to get here, so you don’t want to stay in your car once you arrive,” said Nate Johnson, government affairs director for the Coastal Carolinas REALTORS® Association. “We have a beautiful boardwalk at the beach.

The Ocean Boulevard area has been redone. Utility lines are underground; there are bike lanes and sidewalks.

It’s awesome.”

However, for those who venture into the heart of the city, it’s a different story. A major thoroughfare, U.S. 17 (Kings Highway), bisects the old downtown area. Some streets lack sidewalks. In others, businesses stretch to the roadside, so pedestrians must walk into the street to pass.

“Some sections of that road are scary,” Johnson added.

The wide lanes were designed to move cars — not people — so tourists and residents find some intersections dangerous, uncomfortable and unwelcoming.

That’s why city leaders and Coastal Carolinas REALTORS® are working together to make the entire city a safer and more pleasant setting for walkers and cyclists.

The local association obtained an NAR Smart Growth Grant that brought a nationally known walkability expert to town during the summer of 2016. City planners, private citizens, business leaders and local advocates came together for a “walkshop” — a walkability workshop followed by a walking audit of the most challenging section of downtown. The result was a list of recommendations for making the city more walkable that will be implemented over the next few years.

“Great strides have been made on Ocean Boulevard, but when you get over to Kings Highway, it’s a stopping point,” said Carol Coleman, director of planning for the city of Myrtle Beach. Improving the corridor will help visitors and locals alike. “Tourists are our bread and butter,

City leaders and Coastal Carolinas REALTORS® are working together to make the entire city a safer and more pleasant setting for walkers.

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“I’m really surprised that other government affairs directors have not pursued this grant opportunity,” Johnson said.

“More and more communities are trying to reach out to millennials through walkability initiatives in downtown areas. There are great opportunities to increase the tax base for cities by making downtown more accessible.”

beaches between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. Myrtle Beach anchors the Grand Strand, which drew almost 18 million visitors in 2016, according to the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

Myrtle Beach has 29,000 permanent residents, and some 200,000 to 250,000 tourists come to the area weekly, Johnson noted. Those visitors flock to the oceanfront boardwalk, the Ferris wheel, coffee shops, restaurants, amusement parks and musical shows near the Atlantic Ocean. But the runners, walkers and bikers who frequent Ocean Boulevard are scarcer downtown.

The Ocean Boulevard improvements accompanied the redevelopment of the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base property, a 4,000-acre military base that closed in 1993. Some 114 acres at the base were redeveloped as Market Commons. The project was conceived as an urban village, Coleman said, featuring a town center area surrounded by different types of residential districts.

“Everything there is walkable and bikeable,” she added.

“City leaders have seen that people really do respond to this approach.”

However, she continued, “The problem we see is that other parts of the city haven’t seen the same opportunities.”

The challenge is most acute in the older part of the city where Myrtle Beach originated — where Kings Highway “divides the town like the Mississippi River,” as one resident put it.

Coleman added, “We’re hoping to find a way not necessarily to replicate the success of Market Commons, but to recreate the downtown area so it would have the same opportunities.”

Photo by Myrtle Beach TheDigitel5

The NAR grant offered a perfect opportunity to focus on revamping downtown Myrtle Beach, Johnson said.

Once he got approval to apply for the grant, he went to the Planning Department to see if they were interested.

When they saw Dan Burden was one of the people who would come, they jumped at the chance.

Burden is co-founder of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute and currently a director of Blue Zones LLC, a community well-being improvement initiative.

Coleman said she and several of her staff had previously heard Burden speak at national planners’ conferences,

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More and more communities are trying to reach out to millennials through walkability initiatives in downtown areas. but this is not just for tourists,” Coleman added. “A lot of people who live here get around on foot.”

Walkability was already a local concern well before the NAR grant became available. Johnson said there was a committee in place to address walkability and bikeabilty issues throughout the city, but particularly along King’s Highway. When he learned that NAR was considering offering a pilot program on walkability to local associations, he immediately asked that Myrtle Beach be considered.

“I’m really surprised that other government affairs directors have not pursued this grant opportunity,” Johnson said.

“More and more communities are trying to reach out to millennials through walkability initiatives in downtown areas. There are great opportunities to increase the tax base for cities by making downtown more accessible.”

Myrtle Beach’s interest goes beyond providing a more appealing environment for its residents. Tourism is the main industry in the Grand Strand area — a 60-mile arc of

beaches between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. Myrtle Beach anchors the Grand Strand, which drew almost 18 million visitors in 2016, according to the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

Myrtle Beach has 29,000 permanent residents, and some 200,000 to 250,000 tourists come to the area weekly, Johnson noted. Those visitors flock to the oceanfront boardwalk, the Ferris wheel, coffee shops, restaurants, amusement parks and musical shows near the Atlantic Ocean. But the runners, walkers and bikers who frequent Ocean Boulevard are scarcer downtown.

The Ocean Boulevard improvements accompanied the redevelopment of the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base property, a 4,000-acre military base that closed in 1993. Some 114 acres at the base were redeveloped as Market Commons. The project was conceived as an urban village, Coleman said, featuring a town center area surrounded by different types of residential districts.

“Everything there is walkable and bikeable,” she added.

“City leaders have seen that people really do respond to this approach.”

However, she continued, “The problem we see is that other parts of the city haven’t seen the same opportunities.”

The challenge is most acute in the older part of the city where Myrtle Beach originated — where Kings Highway “divides the town like the Mississippi River,” as one resident put it.

Coleman added, “We’re hoping to find a way not necessarily to replicate the success of Market Commons, but to recreate the downtown area so it would have the same opportunities.”

Photo by Myrtle Beach TheDigitel5

The NAR grant offered a perfect opportunity to focus on revamping downtown Myrtle Beach, Johnson said.

Once he got approval to apply for the grant, he went to the Planning Department to see if they were interested.

When they saw Dan Burden was one of the people who would come, they jumped at the chance.

Burden is co-founder of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute and currently a director of Blue Zones LLC, a community well-being improvement initiative.

Coleman said she and several of her staff had previously heard Burden speak at national planners’ conferences,

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so they knew his work well. They also had some of his posters on the wall at their office, “which we had him autograph,” she laughed.

Johnson added, “I didn’t realize he was the pope of walkability. So when NAR and I offered to bring Burden — an industry guru — to the community, the city planners were quickly on board.”

He first enlisted community support by meeting with the mayor and city managers. Those officials then encouraged others to take part: the police department, private citizens, the Chamber of Commerce, key Department of Transportation personnel and many others. Some 25 participants attended the “walkshop” sessions, conducted on June 30th

by Burden and Samantha Thomas of Blue Zones.

In addition to the work sessions, Burden led a walking audit of a 10-block stretch of Kings Highway, taking measurements and making suggestions for improvements.

Coleman said she and her staff already had some ideas for upgrades, but they kept quiet to see what Burden recommended first. “He latched on to some of the things we have been saying,” she added. “It was gratifying when someone who is a leader in the profession comes in from the outside and sees some of the same things we noticed.”

For example, Johnson said, Burden found the lanes on Kings Highway were 14 feet wide, but the traffic really only required 10-foot lanes. Simply repainting the lanes to be 10 feet wide on a four-lane stretch makes an extra eight feet available on each side of the road for bike lanes.

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Various members of the Myrtle Beach community attended the “walkshop” sessions.

“As we walked, I saw city engineers writing notes on their hands and taking pictures of areas for possible changes,” he said. “Plus, things like repainting the street won’t break the bank: it’s part of the existing maintenance budget.”

In another exercise, the group made a human circle at an intersection to simulate a roundabout. “When cars came by, people slowed down and correctly went around us,” he said. “They knew what to do. It demonstrated how roundabouts slow down traffic and make drivers more aware of the intersection.” New roundabouts — with stop signs and decorative elements — are another approach Myrtle Beach can implement going forward.

After the “walkshop”, Blue Zone produced a 95-page report titled “Walkable Myrtle Beach: Envisioning a More People-Friendly and Prosperous Kings Highway.” The report reviewed current conditions, recapped pedestrian safety issues, covered general walkability principles, shared photographs of problem intersections and made recommendations for specific changes in downtown Myrtle Beach.

The process for implementing those improvements began in early October with a follow-up community session to plan next steps. Coleman said her team has detailed goals

that could be accomplished within 100 days (“low hanging fruit”), in two years, and in five years.

“There are places we hope to do some quick, easy fixes,” Coleman added. “Sidewalks are expensive, but resurfacing a lane and painting a walkable/bikeable corridor is not costly. We expect to see lots of improvements in the not too distant future.”

Walkability has significant economic benefits that can help a community.

Johnson added that more than 50 participants were expected to participate in that follow-up session. Some of those newcomers were from other nearby cities along Kings Highway: North Myrtle Beach, Surfside, and Garden City. “Everyone on the Grand Strand has an issue with access, and wants to make the road more pedestrian-friendly and walkable,” he added.

He noted that Myrtle Beach city leaders have already agreed to budget $200,000 annually for walkability improvements, such as new sidewalks. His goal for 2017 is bringing in an expert on walkability and the economics of downtown areas for another work session.

While walkability often focuses on improved quality of life, it also has significant economic benefits that can help a community. Johnson noted that Myrtle Beach is bounded by water to the east and west, and there is little additional land for new residential or commercial development. “Making the downtown area more accessible will make more opportunities available.”

There are also a number of regular tourists who want to retire in Myrtle Beach. “They’re attracted to the idea of living here and walking to the beach,” Johnson said.

One reason millennials and retirees alike are moving to the Market Commons area is the walkable community.

“When you retire, you want to be able to walk or take a golf cart to do whatever you want — drop in the local coffee shop, take in a movie or go to the grocery store.

The city realizes it could do the same thing downtown.”

The NAR grant has also helped strengthen the working bonds between the city and the Coastal Carolinas association, Johnson and Coleman agree.

“Part of our job is building relationships with local officials and staff,” Johnson noted. “This grant has helped us do that.”

He said city staff members increasingly seek association input on new ordinances being considered, property rights questions, and various housing issues.

Dan Burden, co-founder of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute, led a walking audit of Kings Highway in Myrtle Beach.

Coleman agrees. Working with the association on the NAR walkability grant and another placemaking grant has been beneficial for city planners and the community at large. “It’s refreshing to work with a group of people who put their money and their work where their mouth is,” she said. “We don’t work with another group that does so much to benefit the people on a daily basis in Myrtle Beach.”

Bobby L. Hickman is a freelance business journalist based in Atlanta.

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Are people driving

more or less?

Increase in miles traveled not as steady as it was in the 20th century Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Julien Neschaer

Courtesy of WSDOT

By Joan Mooney

A

re Americans driving more or less? Does the increased popularity of walkable neighborhoods have a significant effect on driving? Or are our roads handling more traffic than ever? The measurement Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) helps to gauge trends in driving. VMT is tracked by the Federal Highway Administration, and data is released on a monthly basis.

It is not surprising that VMT has increased greatly over the years as the nation experienced increased suburban development, increased car ownership and a growing population. But in the 21st Century, the trends have become less clear.

Vehicle miles traveled rose steadily from 1980 to November 2007, when it started a decline that lasted 18 months.

That was the longest drop the Federal Highway Administration had seen since it started keeping track in 1950, said spokesman Doug Hecox. It was a long struggle

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The last big increase in VMT occurred as baby boomers came of working age. for VMT to recover, and the drop and slow return coincided approximately with the recession and slow economic recovery. VMT was fairly flat from 2010 until mid-2014.

Then in 2014, VMT increased. In 2015, a new VMT high was reached, and 2016 figures are expected to be higher still. Does that sharp increase mean that millennials have embraced the car after all?

The last big increase in VMT occurred as baby boomers came of working age and formed families, and women joined the workforce in large numbers. So are millennials taking on their parents’ habits? Few observers think so, offering other explanations for the recent rise.

Where there’s more infill and transit-oriented development, people are driving less.

“Gas prices dropped dramatically, unemployment dropped dramatically, real wages went up,” said Sam Schwartz, former New York City traffic commissioner and author of Street Sense: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars. “Those are some reasons.”

Driving habits vary by community. The places that were more affected by the recession, many of them rural areas, are seeing a greater rise in VMT now, said Eric Sundquist, managing director of the State Smart Transportation Initiative at the University of Wisconsin. Where there’s more infill and transit-oriented development, people are driving less.

Per capital VMT decreased Although total miles traveled is up, travel per person decreased from the end of 2007 until mid-2014, when it started to rise. Per capita VMT, though an imperfect measure because it counts babies and others who don’t drive, is a way to take population into account. As total VMT stayed fairly steady from 2010 to 2014, population grew, so each person was driving less. Overall, that may present a more accurate picture than just total VMT. “Alternatively, when total VMT is up but per capita VMT is down, that could be because total VMT includes long-distance trucks, buses and other business driving that is not included in per capita VMT," said Alan Pisarski, an independent researcher who studies travel behavior.

dry cleaner, dropping off children at child care). Such employment changes may not be reflected in total VMT.” Clearly, VMT is tied to the economy — but not as closely as it used to be, said Sundquist. For much of the 20th century, VMT grew at the same rate as the economy. That relationship started to break down in the 1990s as VMT stopped growing as quickly as the economy. But the two are still somewhat linked. With the economy still recovering, we are likely to see a continued increase in VMT, Sundquist said.

The question is whether the recent increase in VMT is a return to a long-term trend or a blip before we see VMT decline, as more baby boomers retire and millennials continue to drive less than their parents did. The question debated by developers, planners, automakers and others is, what will millennials do when more of them have families?

Millennials’ driving habits The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and Portland State University did a survey of different age groups with and without children at home. For millennials

Courtesy of NYC & Company/Photo by Tagger Yancey IV

The single largest category of increased travel in total VMT is “goods delivered,” such as Amazon Prime, said Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. So the increase in total VMT could be caused by more business activity. But if per capita VMT is down — and Pisarksi cautioned that we will not have meaningful per capita VMT figures for another six months to a year — it could mean that each person is driving less because there are not as many jobs as before the recession, said Pisarski. For a large sector of the population, driving is associated with work and related activities (trips to the

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with children in the household, the survey found no significant difference in the share that chose an attached home in a walkable community or a detached home that required more driving. For members of Generation X (those born from 1965 to 1980), only 40 percent of those with kids chose an attached walkable home vs. 49 percent who had no children at home.

Those figures would seem to indicate that so far, at least, millennials have stayed with their preference for attached walkable homes, even as they have formed families.

Millennials have stayed with their preference for attached walkable homes, even as they have formed families.

Photo by Julienne Schaer

“Are they going to be just like previous generations — move to the suburbs, get station wagons and a garage and drive everywhere?” said Chris Zimmerman, vice president for economic development at Smart Growth America. “No, because they have fewer kids and they have them later.”

“Younger people have chosen more urban lifestyles. They don’t necessarily want to give it up and move to the suburbs. The market has shown they clearly don’t want that.”

Sundquist agreed. Millennials are driving less at their current average age of 30 than baby boomers or Gen Xers were at that age.

“The mindset is different now,” Sundquist said. “They’re not as afraid of transit; it’s not a foreign concept. Cities are more livable now, crime rates are lower.” It’s not just a choice between driving everywhere or not owning a car at all. A family could decide to have one car instead of two.

But Taylor of UCLA was part of a large study for the Federal Highway Administration on millennials’ travel behavior from 1990 to 2010 that reached a different conclusion. Although it’s true that millennials are driving less than previous generations were at the same age, the study looked at markers of adulthood instead of age. Those include paying their own bills, finding a partner, having a child and buying a home. In the past 25 years, those rites of passage have stretched out so that people are marrying and having children much later.

The study found that once those adult markers have been reached, millennials drive as much as previous generations.

The decline in VMT during the recession was mostly caused by economic circumstances, Taylor said. The group of millennials Taylor calls multimodals — more likely to live in more urban environments, relatively well educated, with access to cars, but also likely to travel by walking, biking or transit — increased by 50 percent between 1990 and 2010.

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Courtesy of NYC & Company/ Photo by Wes Tarca

oversupply of housing there and a very limited supply downtown. Housing is now cheaper in most suburbs after the policies of the past 50 years, followed by changing consumer preferences, created a glut.

There are more people who want to live in a place where they can walk to their daily needs than have it, Zimmerman said. “It takes a long time for the housing supply to catch up.”

The undersupply of urban housing is partly driven by policy. “Much of city zoning requires single family housing,” said Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute. “Until that’s corrected and zoning codes are more flexible, people will be fighting over that limited option.

“Whether in the future there’s going to be more driving depends on [cities and their zoning codes]. Cities are growing faster than suburbs. The basic trend is there.

Now we are failing to provide affordable housing in walkable neighborhoods.”

The majority of millennials live in the suburbs and drive to work.

That’s a large proportional growth, but their share of all millennials went from only 3 percent to 4.5 percent.

The vast majority of millennials, said Taylor, live in the suburbs and drive to work. When VMT decreased, it was not because the average person drove less, but because the types of travelers shifted. At the end of the period studied, in 2010, there were more multimodals and more carless young people. The carless were more likely to be unemployed and struggling economically. Their carless lifestyle was not a choice.

“The vast majority of young travelers travel almost exclusively by automobile,” said the report Taylor helped write for the Federal Highway Administration. That’s probably because most millennials, like most Americans, live in the suburbs. Just 4 percent of urban neighborhoods have more travel by foot and transit than by car.

Litman has found what he called a “latent demand for living in a more multimodal neighborhood. If you ask, ‘Would you rather drive less and rely more on walking, biking and public transit?,’ most Americans would prefer to reduce their driving, provided their alternatives are good.”

It’s not just a matter of everyone wanting to live downtown. All types of neighborhoods are affected by changing consumer demands. “An increasing portion of the suburbs are redesigning themselves so they do have some mixedused walkable neighborhoods,” said Litman.

Smaller cities are joining the trend. Schwartz, who runs a transportation planning firm, Sam Schwartz Engineering, said, “We’re traveling to places we’ve never been invited before.” In cities like Los Angeles, Tampa, Boise and Grand Rapids, a lot of young people don’t want to own a car. They have a host of options their parents did not in the sprawling suburbs — ride-hailing services like Uber, public transit, walking and biking. For housing and transportation planners, all eyes are once again on the millennials.

Joan Mooney is a freelance writer who has written

Undersupply of urban housing

extensively about transportation for Urban Land

But as Smart Growth America’s Zimmerman points out, most Americans live in the suburbs because there’s an

magazine and other publications. She also wrote the NAR’s water infrastructure toolkit.

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REALTORS Take Action ®

Making Smart Growth Happen

REALTORS® Help Welcome Visitors to Suttons Bay The village of Suttons Bay, located along the eastern shoreline of Michigan’s scenic Grand Traverse Bay, created a unique welcome mat for the picturesque community’s many visitors. Thanks to an NAR Placemaking Grant to the Traverse Area Association of REALTORS® (TAAR), a once scruffy intersection has been transformed into a cheery welcome and rest area for users of the Leelanau Trail. The NAR Placemaking grants are designed to assist local REALTOR® Associations around the country in funding lighter, quicker, cheaper placemaking projects. In Suttons Bay, the grant helped turn an eyesore into an oasis.

Slightly more than 600 residents call Suttons Bay home, but each year thousands of tourists from everywhere visit the coastal community. It boasts a popular beach

and park and a large marina. The community doesn’t have a stoplight, but what the walkable village does feature is a variety of retail shops, restaurants and charming family-run accommodations. Many people arrive in Suttons Bay via a network of trails, bikeways and pedestrian ways called the Traverse Area Recreation and Transportation Trails Inc. or TART. TART has transformed railroad corridors and other easements into popular recreation spaces. The 60-mile network of trails attracts bikers and walkers for much of the year and is groomed for cross country skiing in the winter.

Suttons Bay sits at the trailhead of one of TART’s most popular trails. The 17-mile Leelanau Trail connects Traverse City to the south with Suttons Bay via a paved, off-road trail winding through farmland and vineyards and around lakes and ponds. Visitors don’t have to bike both ways, but can take advantage of a bike and ride bus that returns them to Traverse City.

For years, when TART trail users arrived in Suttons Bay their first view of the community was an overgrown intersection at the edge of town. Suttons Bay’s village manager and Chamber of Commerce officials were looking for ways to provide visitors with some much needed wayfinding signage and restore the community’s deteriorating red British-style telephone booths. It was just the type of project for an NAR Placemaking grant.

“When I first learned about a grant that might be available, I immediately started looking for a suitable project.

It needed to be small scale, but permanent and not temporary,” explains Kimberly Pontius, executive vice president of TAAR. TAAR secured a $2,500 grant and also added $500 of its own funds to the pot. That started the ball

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Photo by David Cornwell

rolling and construction was completed by the end of the summer 2015.

“It really was a stone-soup project,” says Pontius. “We had something to offer and others all added something, too.

I know they say ‘it takes a village’, but in this case, that’s the truth.”

Suttons Bay Village Manager Wally Delamater agrees. He said the project shows “simple success when working together.”

“Private and public funding partnerships set an example of working together. This collaborative example was used to leverage other aspects of the project.”

The total project cost was approximately $12,000.

The NAR grant and TAAR funds were used to restore the iconic red phone booth and provide signage that is protected from the elements and accessible year round. The Chamber also contributed some funds. The village provided the concrete for the site and a local company donated heavy equipment time. A nearby local business donated landscaping materials. The owner of land adjacent to the rest stop granted permission for an easement that made the placement of the site possible. And volunteers added time and muscle. The result was an attractive rest area and popular photo stop.

Photo by Bruce Bodjack

“Previously when folks arrived in Suttons Bay, they would say ‘now what’? says Pontius. “Now they have a place to take a break. And the phone booth is a wildly popular spot for selfies.”

It’s often difficult for small communities to get the seed money needed to launch civic improvement projects.

In addition to funds, strong community partnerships are essential to success.

“Small communities can usually come up with volunteers but seem to always fall short on funds,” Delamater explains. “The NAR grant was a catalyst to not only generate local support in rehabilitation of the phone booths, but provided a funding partnership between the public and private sector to establish the rest area kiosk as a welcome to Suttons Bay.” Suttons Bay’s welcoming rest stop doesn’t appear to be the end of the line. Pontius explains that the project’s success is serving as the impetus to restore another of the red phone booths. Working together, leaders from the private and public sectors have come together in a true community partnership that has created a lasting community asset.

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