Walking city, transit city

Boston is a walking city. I don't mean that the land itself gets up and moves around (which is apparently a thing), but rather that the people who live here get out and walk as a major mode of transportation. Latest data show that 15.5% of Boston commuters walk to work, putting us in the top 5 of American cities. Adding public transportation, and it accounts for just over 50% of all commutes. Of course, work is only one of the many reasons that we travel, and we shouldn't focus entirely on it. If you live in Boston, there's a strong chance that you walk to many daily activities. Only 63% of Boston's residents have access to a private vehicle. If you examine neighborhoods individually, you can find many census tracts for which fewer than half the people living there have access to a car. Some even dip below 30%, particularly in the most densely populated parts of the city. In those areas of Boston, daily life conducted on foot is the norm.

Further out, where the streetcar lines helped settle early suburbs, there are corridors of activity which also correspond to low car ownership rates and population density. Public transportation acts as a "walk accelerator" making it possible to travel on foot over longer distances and faster than a person could sustain alone. The streetcars are mostly gone, replaced by buses and light rail vehicles, but many of the land use patterns remain -- despite decades of automobile-oriented public policy.

The MBTA has a "key bus route" program which has selected 15 bus routes for certain service guarantees about span and frequency. That's great, although a bit mysterious (why those 15?). The agency has slowly pushed for improvements in those particular routes, with the construction of the improvement program coming this year (finally). While a key route program might make sense from a transit agency's point of view, it doesn't necessarily correspond to the needs of urban neighborhoods, which are broader in scope. The city needs to consider land use and transportation together when make future plans. Historically those two subjects have been the purview of separate agencies, in Boston, and as a result, both have suffered.

Today, it's becoming fairly widely understood that the presence of a subway station ought to make a big difference in how development is conducted in the vicinity. However, that's too limited a view. I believe that concept should be extended further. Non-car surface transportation, whether it be walking, biking, trolley or bus, is far too important to be neglected in the overall land use and transportation planning picture. In addition, there are plenty of neighborhoods with current residents that deserve better streets and access to the city around them.

With that in mind, I drew up a rough sketch of a "key corridor" map which is loosely based on the idea of "key bus routes" but intends to have a larger scope that encompasses land use planning, pedestrian safety improvements, and bike routes as well. The light blue lines, dots and polygons are the places where walking, biking and transit ought to be emphasized. The black lines are connections that are outside the city's developmental scope, and there's also some regions highlighted in turquoise where future changes are anticipated. The map is far from complete, so I welcome comments. The core of Boston is largely omitted, since it should all be considered a "key" region.

Key corridor map

You'll notice that many of the key corridors follow existing bus routes (key or not). That's because there is already a strong convergence between walkable areas and bus service. But the starting point is different. Rather than saying: "here's a good, frequent bus route" I am saying "this is a corridor near densely populated areas where people walk, and it ought to have high quality, frequent transit service of some sort." For example, the corridor between Roslindale Square and Forest Hills does not have a "key bus route" but it is, nonetheless, a very heavy ridership area and those parts of Roslindale are a fairly walkable area. Western Ave in Allston is another case, where the 70 and 86 buses are well-used but neither of them is a key route. That street is going to see some major development, as is the rest of Allston, and the bus stops along it ought to be designated for improved service. In addition to Allston, other neighborhoods on the map have historically been treated poorly by transportation planners, and have an existing population that can benefit from a commitment to expand the walking city.

Mayor-elect Walsh has claimed that he wants to conduct walk audits out in the neighborhoods, explore dedicated bus lanes, and better bicycling infrastructure. These key corridors could be the starting point for those kinds of improvements, as well as a land use planning process which is oriented around supporting walkable neighborhoods with convenient, frequent transit connections. A subway station is a fairly large commitment from the transit agency to providing "good service" in a particular area. A bus stop is not much by itself. But a planning process could make real guarantees about service, and give the same kind of commitment, and the same kind of environment in which to grow neighborhoods. We're not likely going to see too many new subway stations in the next few decades, especially with Boston's geology. So it's especially important that we are able to nurture walkable neighborhoods that are based around improved surface transit, and that new development gets directed into places where it can fit good transit geometry, rather than contributing to the traffic congestion and sprawl problem.

Some praise, but also criticism of Enrique Peñalosa's TED talk about cities

I have a few comments about Enrique Peñalosa's recent TED talk, which has been making the rounds. I'll say up front that he makes a lot of very good comments and it is worth watching. He's right: a bus with 80 people ought to have dedicated lanes. The streets should be safe for children and families. We have to rein in sprawl. But I have some criticism of the example pictures that he shows. I think that they undermine his message.

(all images are from the TED talk)

Here we see his example of a bus rapid transit system in his country. I'll say that from a technical perspective, it's pretty neat. Cheap labor costs, reuse of existing roadway, good ridership all make this a cost-effective project. The big problem is the location. This is highway-median transit. Look at what the people have to walk across just to get to the station. The 3 lanes of cars that you can see are only a fraction of the total. There's even more lanes of cars outside the frame of the picture, on the other side of the pointlessly landscaped median. This is about as anti-urban a scene as you can get. For all that he talks about equity for people, this is an example of a highway where the vast majority of the space is dedicated to private automobiles. And I think that this is a miserable example and it won't inspire anyone to want to copy it. It puts the transit in a very inhospitable location.

This is an example from Guangzhou, China. It's slightly better, in that there's only 6 lanes of traffic surrounding the busway. But it's still a hideously wide, Hypertrophic corridor: there's even grade separation of pedestrians. You can't cross this street without going up and over. It's a highway. If you want to talk about superiority over subways, then you need to show us a corridor with urbanism that matches what a subway can provide. This is not that. This is not human scaled. This is a massive hole in the city.

A terrifying vision, Enrique Peñalosa's "Radiant City"

Now, at this point in the TED talk is where Peñalosa goes off the deep end. The last 2 pictures could have been dismissed as just unfortunate choices. But this here is his "vision" of the city of the future. And it is HORRIFYING!

The picture painted here is one that might make Le Corbusier's heart warm. Towers in the park. Giant highways. Grade separated pedestrian ways. It's practically a compendium of what-not-to-do in urban areas. This is a vision which was implemented in 20th century cities and turned out to be a complete disaster (e.g. 1950s public housing projects). What in the world is Enrique thinking?

I picked out these two examples of streets with large pedestrian/bikeway areas. Actually, it's not clear if the top example even has a roadway for cars. The major problem with these two pictures is: where's the life? Both are in almost completely dead scenes. There's no street life. There's no "eyes on the street" because they're both set in desolate places. Instead there's tons of "buffering greenspace." These would make fine recreational paths through a park. But for a city street, these violate the first principles of safety in numbers. Perhaps this is not his vision for a city street, he's not entirely clear. I hope not. This is not the vision of a vibrant city. At best, it is the vision of an outlying suburb. Compare that to this picture he also shows:

Isn't that obviously much better? Life, people, a human-friendly street and neighborhood. Simple. But not from Colombia.

I don't know what to make of Enrique Peñalosa in this talk. On the one hand, he says lots of good things, and even shows some nice pictures from places like Amsterdam. On the other hand, he highlights examples from his own country that look like the worst of the tragic mistakes from 1950s urban planning.

Thought experiment: how much bus service can you get for the price of a parking garage?

Looking through some old data, I noticed that there's a common theme: the marginal operating cost per weekday of your typical frequent MBTA bus route is about $20,000. For example, the 1 bus is $18,456 while the 39 is $22,206. The 57 comes in at about $19,544. All of them are estimated to recover approximately half of that in fares, so overall marginal subsidy per day is about $8,000 to $12,000.

Mind you, the marginal operating cost only factors in the cost of running a bus per hour, plus the cost of driving it per mile. Maintenance, depreciation, administration and other facilities are not covered. But if they had the equipment lying around, then it might be fair to say that adding a weekday's worth of 57-like bus service costs approximately $10,000.

We know that excavating an underground parking garage can cost from $50,000 to $100,000 per parking space (sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on conditions). Speaking loosely, then, each underground parking space could cover the net cost of approximately 5-10 weekdays worth of key bus route service. Let's just assume for simplicity that every day has the same cost as a weekday. Then a year's worth of key bus route service could be covered for the same cost as 36 to 73 underground parking spaces.

A year's worth of bus service. (photo source)

Does this come up in real life? I think it's fair to expect several hundred parking spaces to be built along every core bus line every year. I can think of several hundred that came online along Comm Ave just last year, including some built at a deep (expensive) level. And another few hundred planned for Washington Street in Brighton. The Fenway is seeing plenty of garage construction despite the parking maximums in the neighborhood. Then a quick browse of the BRA's website shows 216 spaces (aboveground) for Kenmore Square, 236 spaces (3 floors below ground) on Harrison Ave in the South End, and 63 underground spaces on E Street in South Boston, just to pick a few examples.

I have been talking marginal costs up until now, but spaces are typically not added one-by-one. Instead, it's whole levels at a time. For example, a developer might propose 80 dwelling units and 60 parking spaces in an underground level. Some misguided neighbors might demand more parking spaces be added. But the only way to do that would be to go yet another level underground. Perhaps the developer can add another 40 parking spaces by doing that. The garage now costs about $5 to $10 million to excavate. Those costs are passed onto to the eventual tenants, and create more traffic and pollution in the area.

Alternatively, the developer could propose to pay for a year's worth of frequent bus service. The cost of adding that additional underground level could easily cover the marginal yearly cost of running a key bus route. Furthermore, doing so would help everyone in the neighborhood rather than a handful of car-owning tenants, would ease traffic and pollution instead of increase it, and would contribute to a better urban environment. And there's likely more than one such eligible development project per year.

I have heard people propose the option of replacing parking subsidies with transit subsidies. It's also a similar idea to value capture. It seems like it may be feasible after all. Some might say that it's unfair to put the burden of providing the public service on a private project (the usual objection to value capture) but I believe it is also unfair for the government to force people to subsidize parking spaces. If you're going to have parking quotas, which are ultimately harmful to the public, then it behooves you to allow them to be replaced by transit support payments, which are beneficial to the public.

Bad parking policy, in one picture

On one side of the street, BTD has installed parking meters at the "usual rate" of $1.25/hour. On the other side of the street, the curb is left largely unregulated except for street cleaning. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out which side is which.

What you are seeing here is a case of poorly designed parking policy. The metered spaces have a price that is too high, and are therefore going wasted. The unmetered spaces have a price that is too low, and are therefore overcrowded. The correct price is somewhere in between, where "correct" means: achieves a reasonable level of utilization that still leaves a few spaces open for new arrivals. Prof. Donald Shoup's rule of thumb is that prices should be set to achieve approximately 85% utilization, which ensures that there will be at least 1-2 parking spaces available on every block, at almost all times.

BTD's bad parking policy and refusal to consider reform means that people continue to suffer unnecessary headaches, and they make claims of parking "shortages" even while most of our neighborhood is covered in asphalt. Although I don't own a car, I still find it important to fix. For one thing, it's the right thing to do. For another, bad policy in one area tends to infect other areas. Much of our land use policy, for instance, is dictated by the supposed "shortage" of parking. Even though about half the residents of this neighborhood don't have access to a car, they are forced by zoning rules to subsidize other people's parking. Those regulations came about because the on-street commons is managed improperly, creating an overcrowding problem. And then, instead of solving that problem the correct way, politics dictated bad ideas like "minimum parking quotas" which dump the burden onto the people who are least able to afford it, and also least able to oppose it.

This goes beyond just rent, and home prices. Economic development in this neighborhood is artificially depressed because of regressive policies like minimum parking quotas. The suburban-style space requirements of that many automobiles are too much for a compact city neighborhood. The net effect of this heavy-handed government regulation, to force more cars on us, is to squelch normal, healthy, incremental growth. Instead, we get almost nothing, and hardly any changes, for decades. That's a lot of lost jobs, lost opportunity, a heavy price to pay, all because of an irrational fear of parking "shortages" caused by broken policies that do not make sense in urban areas.

Follow up to Cambridge Street overpass public meeting

For those who weren't able to attend the meeting about the Cambridge Street overpass, here are some great links to follow up with:

• http://sicloot.com/blog/2013/11/meeting-on-the-cambridge-street-overpass/
• http://CambridgeStreetOverpass.blogspot.com/
• http://tinyurl.com/CambridgeStreet

Help make the Cambridge Street overpass safer and better

MassDOT has called a second public meeting on the Cambridge Street overpass replacement with some updates. They intend to issue the notice to proceed in the early winter.

Despite some changes, the plan still calls for a fence down the middle of the street, blocking pedestrian crossing for over a quarter-mile. The plan does not address any of the existing ADA incompatibility issues, and it still calls for mixing of walkers and multiple streams of bikers by the Franklin Street pedestrian overpass.

Several advocates and community members have written a new public letter to the agency calling for more changes to the design. I encourage everyone to check it out and sign it, particularly if you live in the area. I also encourage everyone to come to the public meeting on November 19th, at 6 p.m., in the Jackson Mann school's auditorium.

What does the election of Marty Walsh mean for walking in Boston?

The most significant local Boston election of my adult lifetime, to date, has come and gone. The new mayor will be Marty Walsh. So let's take a look at some of the things he said in forums and questionnaires gone by:

With one exception, I thought that his response to the Transportation Forum questionnaire was pretty good:

To me, livability means the ability to leave your house and have things to do outside. In my neighborhood in Savin Hill, I can go out and walk down my street feeling safe knowing that a few minutes away I have a park or coffee shop to go to or a T station that can take me into town. Livability means access to things that make life enjoyable, like amenities, recreation and transportation, among others. This city has so much to offer and we need to make all of those offerings accessible to everyone.

Simple and clear. And something that he has lived. Boston will have a mayor who lives in a walkable neighborhood, within 5 minutes of a rapid transit station.

[...] "Walk audits" performed by advocates are a good mechanism for getting concrete details about the safety, spacing, and timing of our street intersections and traffic signals, among other details. Boston's transportation planning should not only incorporate, but actively solicit this level of feedback. In addition to holding regular community meetings around planning, and scheduled walks, we can market and develop the city's digital tools to ensure that transportation input is easy, detailed, documented, and sufficient. Boston's next mayor can build a safer city where residents feel comfortable in their own communities. Meeting the needs of walkers throughout all areas of the city is important for many reasons. We need to make sure pedestrians are safe everywhere. Boston's Complete Streets is doing great work around making the streets safe for everyone.

[...] I think a Boston Walks Director is a good idea. However, that person will need to focus on the whole city and not just Downtown. It is a big task but I believe pedestrians will have a much easier time under my Administration.

If he follows through on this idea of "walk audits" and continues to support the Boston Complete Streets effort, then I think we are in pretty good shape. And he is right that a Boston Walks Director should focus on the entire city.

I would work with the MBTA to explore dedicated bus lanes on high-density, underserved routes and work to implement an Urban Ring service. I would also work to reach out, listen to, and incorporate the ideas of Bostonians in all transportation planning. This can be accomplished through annual neighborhood meetings with the Mayor and regular communication with residents through Little City Halls. I would also add targeted outreach to non-English speakers and communities of color to make sure all Bostonians are being heard. I would also make it easy for people to comment on transit problems through platforms like Citizen's Connect, mobile apps, and other technological means. Things get done when people's voices are heard, and as mayor I will make sure the MBTA runs as efficiently as possible.

The mayor does not have direct control over the T, as Marty has pointed out on other occasions, but he does have control over the streets. So creating dedicated bus lanes would be one way the city could improve bus service directly. Admittedly, he just talks about "exploring" it, not really a commitment of any sort. For what it's worth, his responses to this questionnaire do match up with his campaign platform.

The one exception, if you are still wondering, is his stated support for the Casey Overpass. However, this position was walked back in a later interview. I think he genuinely does care about process, and bridge-favoring activists may have led him to believe that it was insufficient in this case, a misconception that was later cleared up.

From the Boston Globe's questionnaire:

I am a strong proponent of expanded late ­night T service, and, as mayor, would coordinate with the MBTA and MassDOT and work with businesses (24­ hour businesses, restaurants/bars) and colleges and universities to assess demand. The most realistic funding approach is probably a mix of state aid and creative public­ private partnerships here in the city. Having represented Boston for 16 years on Beacon Hill, I am the candidate best positioned to win the necessary support from the Legislature. Beyond that, I would work with private institutions, especially universities whose students are likely to be major users, to fully fund the extended service.

Okay, sounds reasonable. More on this in the future.

Different policies should apply to different areas of the city depending on local parking situations. Minimum off­-street parking requirements should be required for new residential development in neighborhoods where parking is at a premium. Incentives could be provided for those developers to promote transit ­oriented development which would require less parking.

Not the greatest answer, but not terrible either. As long as transit oriented development means parking quotas are significantly lowered or eliminated, then it will work out. I find the hint of "incentives" to promote transit oriented development intriguing, though it should be unnecessary.

An ideal “cycle track” is safe and allows easy access for bikers to get through the city quickly. “Cycle tracks” can only be implemented where there is adequate right­-of­-way. There are many additional factors involved in choosing appropriate locations, such as parking and connections to other bike lanes and/or facilities.

I know this isn't quite about walking, but I find this a fairly uninspiring answer to a question about cycle-tracks, which is disappointing because he has given decent answers in other places, such as the Boston Cyclists Union questionnaire:

Yes. Biking is becoming more popular in Boston and we are not keeping up with the need for proper infrastructure that will keep our bikers safe. As Mayor, I will work to bring more cycle tracks and bike lanes to Boston, especially in busy areas where accidents are common. Bikers need to feel safe on our streets, and that means more bike infrastructure, more cycle tracks and bike lanes, and better transportation planning throughout the city. A Walsh Administration will make biking a priority because it is a safety issue, and all Bostonians deserve to feel safe in our city.

Now, from an interview about housing development from the Globe:

Ideally, increasing the overall supply of housing should help to meet demand and moderate rent increases. The demand is so strong, however, that even as new apartments are built, rents continue to increase. As a result, the city is increasingly unaffordable for many of its residents.

I'm glad to see that he understands the basic structure of the problem. Some self-styled "progressives" mistakenly think that building more housing results in higher prices, because they get confused when the strong demand outstrips the small increase in supply.

We must proceed with caution with relation to reducing parking in our residential neighborhoods because we must take into account the many young families with children who need access to a car as well as residents in our southwest corridor neighborhoods who don’t work downtown. I support policies that make it easier for people to get around Boston without a car. I want to make sure every resident of Boston lives no more than a five minute walk from an accessible form of alternate transportation, by extending HubWay and Zipcar into our neighborhoods, installing new car charging stations for electric cares out in the neighborhoods and modernizing the MBTA system.

An answer that's trying to have it all ways, and one that obfuscates the question, which did not ask about reducing parking, but rather, about reducing parking quotas. At some point, there will be an unavoidable conflict between livable, walkable neighborhoods vs minimum parking quotas. To which side his policies will lean towards is still an open question.

Marty wasn't my first choice, but I did ultimately end up voting for him. Both of the remaining candidates after the preliminary election had plenty of nice things to say about improving walkability, bicycling conditions, public transit, development of housing, jobs, and a host of other important issues. But that's just words, and campaign promises are cheap. I didn't have anything more solid to base my vote upon, so I had to go with my gut. I felt that Walsh would be more likely to follow through, so he got my vote. In the coming months, it'll be important to continue to advocate and make sure that the good parts of the Menino era are continued, such as Boston Complete Streets and Boston Bikes. There's been a lot of hard-won progress in the last few years. I don't think we're going to regress, but it's always important to keep pushing and reminding politicians of the value of walkable neighborhoods.

Conservative traffic studies are radical, part 2

Last year I wrote an article entitled "Conservative traffic studies are radical" about the New Balance project traffic study that presumed, as usual, an increase in traffic volume of 0.5 percent per year. I pointed out that this assumption was untrue for the past ten years, using data from MassDOT. At a public meeting, I was able to confirm this data with the consultant that was hired to do the study. But he labeled the 0.5 percent per year assumption as a "conservative" one.

I believe it is disingenuous to call this a conservative estimate because the implications are radical. These kinds of predictions can be used as a weapon to justify deadly street widenings at the expense of the neighborhood. Historically, many widenings were brought about due to fear of increased traffic. Of course, we know that wider roads may induce additional traffic, so no problems were typically solved this way, and the result was usually more dangerous to pedestrians.

With this in mind, as I was reading through the Hotel Commonwealth expansion project PNF, I noticed this very interesting table and quote:

As shown in [Table 2-4], traffic at the specific stations has decreased within the given timeframe. In order to remain conservative, this study assumed a traffic volume increase of 0.5 percent per year.

I suppose that this represents progress, in a small way. In the past, I had to push for the project consultant to admit, in person, that traffic volumes were actually declining. Here, it is written in print. However, the evidence presented has not stopped them from making the strange leap to the usual assumption: "0.5 percent per year."

I find this to be a very strange definition of "conservative." Shouldn't that mean expecting an existing trend to continue? If traffic volumes are declining in recent years, then might they not continue to decline? Especially since we know that traffic volumes are largely a function of provided roadway space. Instead, it seems that traffic "experts" have redefined the term "conservative" to mean "does the exact opposite from the trend."

Well, all I can say is: they wouldn't be the first people to redefine "conservative" to mean something much more radical.

New MBTA map announced

New MBTA map design from Mikheil Kvrivishvili (see also: larger PDF from UHub)

Congratulations to Mikheil Kvrivishvili for winning the contest. First, before I jump into criticism, let me just say that the map has many fine features and represents a great deal of effort performed at great risk. The MBTA's copyright policy on this contest was barbaric, essentially demanding that artists hand over their rights to their work without any idea of what would happen next. I hope that MBTA management is working out a suitable arrangement with Mikheil for what was essentially free labor; the free publicity generated for him is a start. I also hope that the MBTA will do the right thing and return the rights to the other maps back to their original artists.

The design is clearly a conservative approach, duplicating many style elements of the existing map. However, I think that there were some places where the MBTA really should have looked for some significant change:

The map doesn't really do frequency mapping and even takes a step backwards. Frequency mapping means that the width of the line on the map has some relationship to the frequency of vehicle arrival on the ground. Several designs were submitted that showed the Green Line frequency being cut to one-fourth on the surface branches, compared to the subway. Anyone who has ridden the Green Line "B" branch knows that it is unfair to categorize it in the same class as the Red Line through Cambridge. Yet, that is what the current and new maps do.

The T actually asked designers to make the key bus route lines smaller, and now the commuter rail lines are bigger! For example, this is confusing to a person trying to get from Hyde Park to Back Bay at an arbitrary time of day. The commuter rail looks like the more important element of the map, but it only stops there twenty-one times a day, with a huge gap at peak hours. The 32 bus is generally the more usable option.

The map is worse than the current one at depicting geographic relationships. Yes, of course, it's not supposed to show accurate geography. But introducing cleverly chosen hybrid elements of geography can help users make smarter decisions about selecting one line or the other, or perform out-of-system transfers. A big loss that stands out to me is the disconnection of Cleveland Circle and Reservoir. These are essentially the same station, with track connection via the Reservoir carhouse. Travelers going between branches of the Green Line can exploit the proximity of the "C" and "D" (and also nearby "B") at Cleveland Circle to save time and avoid transferring at Kenmore. Instead, this new map depicts the three branches as being further apart than Heath Street and Forest Hills -- stations which are not at all close to each other. Another one is Copley/Back Bay, which is a major Green/Orange/commuter rail out-of-system transfer, but is not even hinted at by this new map, despite being in a heavily touristed area. Well, at least the depiction of the 39 bus route is fixed.

In other places, geography is inexplicably included: the Needham line being a prime example. Why is it relevant to show that the Needham line curves northward? That could have easily been a short strip of station names. Why is there a dip in the Newburyport line near Chelsea? That's a useless geographic element. Why does the Blue Line take a sharp 90-degree turn -- making it ugly and exceptional -- while the Green Line does a soft turn between Haymarket and North Station? Why is the Silver Line airport loop reduced to a tiny note, while the nearly irrelevant downtown meanderings of the Silver Line occupy a huge portion of the map?

It appears that a significant compromise was made in order to include all of the Green Line "station" names. This is a really puzzling goal. Many of these "stations" are just strips of asphalt, or a post in the street, located two blocks away from each other. The names of the Silver Line stations are smaller, but not really any less significant. I don't think it was worthwhile to give up all geographic cues about the Green Line in exchange for full, large-font station names that are nearly the same font-size as the major underground stations. Shouldn't we be working on eliminating some of these ridiculously bunched stations, anyway?

Is Chestnut Hill Avenue "station" nearly as important as Kenmore?

St Paul Street "station" is only slightly better. Is this really comparable to Copley?

The new map includes Assembly Square, which isn't open yet. Fair enough. But why not the upcoming "Boston Landing" commuter rail station in Brighton? That also reveals a geographic error: the 57 bus and the Framingham line are mixed up. Without the new station, it wouldn't really matter. But with the new station, it's important to ensure that the 57 bus is shown south of it, especially if the MBTA wants to encourage walking transfers between them.

The MassPort shuttle buses at the airport continue to be de-emphasized, which is unfortunate. They are actually quite decent, especially with the new low floor buses, and new real-time countdown boards, which are also integrated with the Silver Line. I personally prefer using the Blue Line to Logan, but it seems that the MBTA is trying to push all the tourists towards the Silver Line (not to mention the free fares!). Actually, on second thought, I'm okay with this.

The new map design is an improvement on the old map and a significant clean-up. I think the major flaws are: missing the chance to do frequency mapping, emphasizing commuter rail over key bus routes, compromising geographic elements for Green Line "station" names, failing to hint at sensible out-of-system transfers, and turning the Silver Line airport loop into a line, somehow.

Car-free housing in Boston is natural

(Also check out Paul McMorrow's rebuttal: Boston could be car-free, it's how people actually live.)

There are so many flaws in Tom Keane's most recent column for the Globe, that it is almost too easy to pick it apart. Take the first sentence:

CAR-FREE condos and apartments, the latest fad in residential living, are really little more than a gimmick: good for greens and developers, perhaps, but bad for residents.

The "latest fad?" I suppose that Tom believes that 19th century apartments were built with parking spaces? A little bit of history tells us that minimum parking requirements began with the 1950s zoning codes, a fad of its time, and the result was decades of disaster and urban decay. Then there's a little shot at people who live without a car: according to Tom, they must be either those wacky, crunchy "greens" or some market cooked up by sneaky, greedy developers. According to Tom's reasoning, these dastardly developers are just itching to dump millions of dollars creating a product that nobody will buy.

Thus, real estate developer Related Beal LLC is now proposing to create 175 units near TD Garden without adding in any new spots. 

There’s a certain sleight of hand to the idea, since residents wouldn’t have to abandon their cars. As Related Beal acknowledges, it’s hoping to piggyback off of existing nearby parking. So this isn’t actually a car-free building as much as it is one that dumps the problem on someone else.

I feel strange explaining the concept of a market to someone as old as Tom Keane. The idea that residents could rent or purchase a parking space in a nearby garage should not be that difficult to grasp, and it's not much different from the many other transactions which take place between residents and local businesses. For example, most apartment buildings are not constructed with grocery store requirements. However, most people seem to understand that when a resident wants a bottle of milk, they can walk down to a nearby store and buy one. We do not need to build "minimum grocery store requirements" into the zoning code because those products are handled perfectly well by normally operating markets. And parking spaces are no different. They are just one type of land use, among many, that can be purchased or leased on the real estate market.

But suppose new buildings truly were car-free, with residents somehow compelled to give up their cars? A few might be persuaded to do so, but in the long run such a proposition would run headlong into one big problem: Even in Boston, people need cars. Manhattan, a uniquely dense and compact island, can get away with car-free living. Boston, spread out and part of a much larger metropolitan area, cannot.

Well, I just pointed out that there is nothing stopping a person from renting space for their automobile, much like they rent space for their bed and belongings. But the second part of this paragraph is hilarious. It makes me wonder if Tom has ever actually visited New York City. Actually, I'm starting to wonder if this former Boston city councilor has ever visited Boston, a city that prides itself on being a "walking city" with a compact urban area. Manhattan, just one piece of NYC, is much larger than Boston proper. Yes, that borough is densely populated, unique, and "can get away with car-free living." Boston is also densely populated, unique, smaller, and has many residents who "get away" with car-free living despite Tom's protestations.

As much as some may denounce the automobile, almost all of us own one — about 91 percent of American households, according to the US Census Bureau. In Boston, as in other cities, the numbers are lower, with only 63 percent of households having a car.

Tom gets weird here: it's true that 91% of American households own a car. Well, so what? 99% of American households don't live in downtown Boston! What's the relevance of choices made by people living in Marion, Ohio to a development project in Boston? Approximately nil. But let's move on. It's true that according to the American Community Survey, approximately 63% of Boston city residents have access to a car. That number is more relevant, and significantly lower. What's even lower: the number of residents with access to a car when you focus on the neighborhoods around downtown Boston.

• Beacon Hill census tracts: 33%, 40%, 47% have access to a car
• West End census tracts: 50% have access to a car
• North End census tracts: 26%, 31%, 33% have access to a car
• Waterfront census tract: 40% have access to a car
• Leather District census tract: 43% have access to a car
• Chinatown census tract: 27% have access to a car

All of these numbers are significantly lower than 63%, the citywide rate, because the citywide numbers include some extremely suburban areas such as West Roxbury and Hyde Park, where the car access rate can exceed 95% in some tracts! But we're not talking about development in West Roxbury. We're talking about development on the Shawmut peninsula, which has been an urbanized settlement for centuries, long before the invention of the automobile. And it continues to be place where people live with low rates of car access.

Sometimes that’s an income issue; buying and maintaining a vehicle is expensive. Still, there are many city dwellers — mostly younger people — who choose not to have a car as a lifestyle decision. They can get to work without one, and find it easy to walk or bike their way around town.

Good for them. But merely because someone chooses not to have a car right now doesn't mean things won’t change. Green intentions notwithstanding, as life goes on it becomes increasingly likely a car will come into the picture. 

Living without a car is the norm for the majority, in some cases, the super-majority, of people living today in central neighborhoods of Boston. But according to Tom, it must all be either poor people, young hipsters, or environment-saving die-hards. I have trouble believing that 70% of the North End, 60% of Beacon Hill, and 73% of Chinatown is populated in this narrow fashion. But this is essential to Tom's argument, because in his view, they can all be dismissed, because they are not "real Bostonians." That's the undertone of his argument, in any case. Let's look at the text:

The average American, for example, changes jobs frequently (well more than 11 times during a working lifetime, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data). A new resident of a car-free building might be working just down the street. But two years later, another position might beckon, located, say, at one of the many office parks that have sprouted up along Routes 128 and 495. [...] More likely, the once car-free resident will end up buying a car and moving to a place that’s more auto-friendly.

Put aside the falsity of using "average American" here. And let's also put aside the likely possibility that a new job can easily open up in downtown Boston just as much as it might on the highway belts. Suppose this hypothetical resident changes to a job located on the Route 128 belt and it's not transit accessible, so they are forced to buy a car. And then they have a choice to make: either rent a parking space, or move to another home where they will also rent a parking space (but possibly cheaper).

So... what's the big deal, Tom? People make this kind of decision about their life all the time. There's no Commandment that states: "Thou shalt not have to make any difficult decisions about the cost of parking." The cost of housing and the cost of transportation -- which, for cars, includes parking -- is a factor in just about everyone's living decisions.

We live in a free country, free as in liberty, not free as in "free parking." That means we're supposed to have the ability to make choices. That also means we accept the consequences of those choices. If I choose to live in a building with no parking spaces, then that means I must later choose to rent a parking space if I choose to buy a car. Not much different from choosing to live in a 1-bedroom apartment. If I later decide that I want a second bedroom, then I need to either rent one, or move to another apartment which has one.

Then too, as people couple up or have kids, the need for a car rises. In Boston, most of those without cars are singles — fully 50 percent. But as household size grows, the rate of car ownership climbs to 75 percent. Anyone with children can understand why; parents spend their days shuttling their kids from playdates to school to sports to after-school activities. Cars are a necessity. By making it a hassle to own one, we push families out to the suburbs.

Aha, now we get down to it. According to Tom, it's impossible to have a family without a car. Well, not so impossible that 25% of car-free households do it. But impossible, nonetheless! Obviously, there were no families prior to the invention of the automobile. Humans sprang fully formed, with 2.5 children and a home with a white picket fence, from the bowels of Henry Ford's Model T plant.

I kid, but let's take his paragraph apart and see the real driving force here: "Anyone with children can understand why; parents spend their days shuttling their kids from playdates to school to sports to after-school activities."

That's the nub. Tom Keane is fully committed to the idea that parents must spend their days shuttling their kids between social and educational activities. It probably has never occurred to him that the reason why parents are forced to shuttle their kids around is because they are growing up in a suburban environment where it is unsafe to travel in any other way but a car!

We, as a country, have spent much of the latter half of the 20th century building a living environment which is downright hostile and dangerous to children: suburban sprawl. Wide roads, desolate stretches, miles of nothingness between life. There is, indeed, only one way to traverse these deserts, and that is a car. So, if Tom Keane were writing about some development project out in the boonies, and not in the heart of the city of Boston, he might have a point.

But we're talking about development in a densely populated urban area. A place which is known for its walkability. A place where the majority of residents already live without cars. Let's think about context: the prescriptions that apply to sprawling subdivisions don't make any sense at all in middle of Boston. The lifestyle of parents in faraway exurbs is not comparable to that of parents in a compact city. One final claim:

Cars are a necessity. By making it a hassle to own one, we push families out to the suburbs.

Cars are not a necessity. We are not "making" it a hassle to own one. That "hassle" is just part of the nature of living in an urban neighborhood. It will never be like living out in the suburbs, and no amount of parking garage construction will ever change that. Face it: if a family wants the suburban experience, then they will end up moving to the suburbs no matter how much you try to bend over backwards to squeeze cars into the city. Meantime, you will damage the quality of life for families that are trying to live in the city. We can't compete while playing by the suburban rulebook. It's impossible.

What the city can offer is an alternative to suburban or exurban life, and yes, that extends to families as well. In the city, you have a chance to build an environment that values human life more than automobile convenience. In the city, you don't need a big backyard because the shared public space, the parks, the streets, the freedom of the city, gives you a much more interesting and diverse place to be. And that applies to children as well, who don't need to be "shuttled" by private vehicle to every place in their lives, but could actually attend their activities by walking around the local neighborhood, and learning to be self-sufficient. This is how urban neighborhoods have functioned, successfully, throughout history. This is the advantage that urban neighborhoods have over suburban neighborhoods, and it serves nobody any good to throw it away.

Minimum parking requirements are a failed, urban renewal-era experiment which are leftover from the bad old days. It is long past time to end them, and start focusing on building great urban places which won't make people feel like they need a car to escape.