Walkability: Fact or Myth

1. Walkability:Fact or Myth Does walkability make for a sustainable community? Lane Kendig, Founder Kendig Keast Collaborative

2. Walkability Values • Walkability is good planning. • Separating pedestrians from automobiles makes walking more desirable and safer. • Planning for pedestrian connectivity is needed. • Walking is good for health. • Highly promoted as a sustainability strategy.

3. Does Walkability = Sustainable? “Walkability reduces automobile trips and thus makes more sustainable community.” • For this to be true the following must be true: • There must be a significant modal split change. • Total automobile mileage significantly reduced. • Questionable.

4. Evaluate Whether Trips Walkable? • Home based trips. • Work. • Shopping. • Socializing • Recreation. • Kids’ activities. • How long are these trips?

5. Walking Facts • Speed: 3.1 mph. • Distance: ¼ to ½ mile. • Time: 5 to 10 minutes. • Average walking commute: 11.9 minutes.

6. Commuting Trips

7. Shopping Trips • Scale determines walkability. • Neighborhood - Walkable • Drug store, convenience and smaller. • ¼ to ½ mile spacing 1,500 – 4,000 people. • Community - Automobile • Supermarketand hardware anchors • 2-3 miles spacing 7,000 – 13,750 people. • Regional - Automobile • Regional centers, category killers, building supply. • 5-10 mile spacing 50,000+ people

8. Socializing Trips • How many of these are walkable? • Visiting neighbors. • Church. • Social organizations. • Meeting friends. • Eating out.

9. Recreation Trips • How many of these are walkable? • Walking for exercise. • Picnicking. • Movies. • Theater • Trail bikes, skiing, camping, boating. • Museums. • Sporting events.

10. Trips for Children • Which are walkable? • Day Care. • Schools – percent of children walking declining. • After school events • Soccer, baseball, swimming, football, hockey. • Dance, gymnastics, ice skating. • Scouts

11. Walking Trips • Work – few walkable except in highest intensity cities. • Shopping – only neighborhood stores. • Social – only neighborhood based. • Recreation – most are auto trips. • Children – most are auto trips that require parent to make two stops.

12. Sustainable StrategiesWalkability is the Low Hanging Easy. Little impact. Too few trips. Short distances. Over hyped.

13. Case Studies • A review of New Urbanist communities. • Build-to lines. • Residential in walking distance? • Market Area for retail? • How is parking handled? • True urban character?

14. Urban Enclosed Space • Buildings enclose space D/H. • Spaces are streets and plazas. • Space is architectural Height of Enclosure Distance across space

15. D/H = 0.25

16. D/H = 0.5

17. D/H = 1.0

18. D/H = 4.0+ D/H = 3.0 D/H = 3.0 to 4.0 D/H = 3.0+

19. D/H = 7.0 to 10.0

20. New Urbanist Center

21. Most Parking to RearVIEW FROM OFFICE BUILDINGS

22. View from Townhouses

23. Parking Dominates Aerial Perrysburg – Source Map Quest Imagery

24. Looks like a great streetscape!

25. Until one sees parking lots to rear. Auto-urban

26. Category killer retail Parking fields. Pretend urban street. Parking fields. Big box retailers. Out parcels. Auto-urban new urbanist shopping center with at grade parking fields. Aurora, Colorado.

27. Mashpee Commons Nearest residential 1,700 ft. walkable commercial surrounding parking Regional Center, 3.5 miles to town. Surface Parking. Auto Urban. Example from Sustainable Development Projects, APA Press.

28. Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg Not too different from last 3 examples lots of surface parking.

29. EFFICIENCIES All examples based on offices with 3.3 parking spaces per thousand square feet.

30. Sustainability Requires Picking the High Hanging Fruit

31. Picking the High Hanging Fruit • Structured parking mandated. • Higher density uses less land. • Eliminate auto-urban strip commercial, down zone and no new. • Build new transit. • Plan nodes of regional scale on transit.

32. True Urban • Structured parking to provide: • Floor area ratios well above 1.0. • Enclosure of space. • More building sites. • Mixed Use. • Vertical mixed use with residential. • Horizontal mixed use with high density residential next to retail/office.

33. Santana Row, San Jose, CA Structured Parking Residential High density residential Structured parking. + High density urban residential.

34. Lake Oswego, OR New Urban Old Auto-Urban High Density Housing

35. Two story urban of traditional downtown.

36. Street Face Adjacent Housing Structured Parking Entrance

37. Mizner Park Mixed use: Commercial. Office. Multi-Family. Town Houses.

38. Mizner Park, Boca Raton, FL

39. Town House Street Face

41. Ground Floor Commercial • “Build and they will come” is not valid planning. • Beware of competition. • Existing businesses unlikely to relocate. • Do market study to determine need. • Mandating ground floor commercial is a mistake. What happens if it does nor rent?

42. Salt Lake, UT Struggling town center, no supermarket anchor.

43. Pretty, but substantial vacancies.

44. Still auto-urban as it relies on surface parking.

45. Bossier City, La. Surface Parking dominant land cover Build in highway commercial corridor, no nearby residential.

46. Eliminate Strip Commercial • Too many communities zoned strip commercial. • Older cities did it on streets with trolley or bus service. • Suburbs on all arterials. • The pattern is not sustainable. • Create nodes instead.

47. Strip Commercial Zoning, Milwaukee

48. Eliminate Strips Build Nodes Strip Commercial Node surrounded by high density residential

49. Do Not Fear Height • Tall building can be integrated into old communities. • Allows town centers to grow and provide mixed use. • Height is a design issue and can be handled.

50. Tall Building from Historic Area