Source: Joseph Rose, The Oregonian June 23, 2009 09:45AM

More times than we can count, I’ve heard people say Portland’s bike love a lot like what they have encountered in Amsterdam. But a new report out of The Netherlands shows that they really don’t compare.

“The bicycle is the means of transport used most often in Amsterdam,” reportsBike Europe. “Between 2005 and 2007 people in the city used their bikes on average 0.87 times a day, compared to 0.84 for their cars. This is the first time that bicycle use exceeds car use.”

So, how do we match up exactly? Portland transportation officials have never compiled data looking at how many times residents use a particular vehicle on a daily basis.

But Greg Raisman, a traffic safety specialist for the Portland Bureau of Transportation who recently returned from The Netherlands, guessed nearly 40 percent of Amsterdam residents use their bicycles as their primary mode of transportation.

In Utrecht, a city southeast of Amsterdam with which Reisman is building a school-safety, transportation and health information-sharing partnership, the number is 35 percent, he said.

Although bicycles account for up to 20 percent of traffic on some Portland bridges, only 8 percent of respondents in a recent transportation audit said it was their primary mode of transportation. Ten percent said it was their secondary mode.

According to the Census Bureau, about 4 percent of the city’s residents say they get around primarily by bike. Raisman’s problem with that number: “If you ride your bike twice a week, it’s hard to reflect that when you’re asked to check a single box” for a question asking how you get to work.

Portland is still leaps ahead of other U.S. Cities when it comes to bicycle commuting and infrastructure. But given our divergent cultures, histories and urban forms, it’s not realistic to think think that out city will catch up to Amsterdam, Raisman said.

“But it would be a great thing to do,” he said.

Well, let’s see what happens when a gallon of petrol hits “$20 Per Gallon.”

For more information: http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/about.html

James Howard Kunstler calls suburban sprawl “the greatest misallocation of resources the world has ever known.” His arguments bring a new lens to urban development, drawing clear connections between physical spaces and cultural vitality.

Geography of Nowhere, published in 1993, presented a grim vision of America in decline – a nation of cookie-cutter strip malls, vacuous city centers, and dead spaces wrought by what Kunstler calls the ethos of Happy Motoring: our society-wide dependence on the automobile. 

Source: www.TED.com

Source: www.TED.com

By Brian James Barr

Beijing and London made headlines last year for building sustainable facilities for the Olympic Games. Now, Vancouver is continuing that trend by going for LEED Gold.

All 16 residential buildings in the city’s 2010 Winter Olympics Athlete’s Village will meet the USGBC’s Gold-level sustainability standards, according to Ian Smith, manager of the development office for Southeast False Creek, the district where the complex is located. Additionally, a 30,000-square-foot community center will be certified LEED Platinum.

The 1.4-million-square-foot complex will accommodate 3,000 athletes competing in the Winter Games, which start February 12, 2010. Master-planned by the Canadian architect Norm Hotson, the village is being constructed on Vancouver’s last strip of undeveloped waterfront, on an abandoned industrial site. Designers of individual buildings—mostly mid-rise structures made of glass and steel—include Arthur Erickson, Merrick Architecture, GBL Architect Group, Lawrence Doyle Young Wright Architects, Walter Francl Architect, and Nick Milkovich Architects, all based in Vancouver.

The project exemplifies sustainable design. The 100-acre site (approximately eight city blocks) faces west, maximizing daylighting and natural ventilation strategies, says Scot Hein, senior planner for the city of Vancouver. Green features include rainwater harvesting, a sewer-heat recovery system, and intensive green roofs; interiors will contain low-VOC materials made of recycled or sustainable resources. One of the buildings is designed to generate as much energy as it uses. “The Olympic Village development represents a strong civic statement with regards to housing mix, the quality of the public realm, and leadership in sustainable development,” says architect Nick Milkovich, whose firm designed the two most prominent waterfront residential buildings.

Perhaps the most sustainable attribute is the long-term plan for the site: Once the Games are over, the Athlete’s Village will be converted into a mixed-use development. “Hardly any retrofitting will be needed after the Games,” says Smith. Ground-level units that will serve as training, dining, and healthcare facilities for athletes will be transformed into restaurants and shops, while living quarters will become private residences. The complex will feature low-income housing and market-rate units. In total, 737 residences will be offered for sale; in the two Milkovich-designed waterfront towers, these condos may fetch upward of $4.3 million each.

Many Olympic host cities, such as Athens and Barcelona, are now populated with empty facilities built for the Games. But when it comes to the Athlete’s Village, Vancouver isn’t worried about the so-called “Olympic Curse.” According to Smith, of the 300 units already put up for sale, 90 percent are sold. The rest will hit the market after the Games.

For more information visit:

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/090505vancouver_sustainability.asp

http://www.vancouver2010.com/en/sustainability-and-aboriginal-parti/-/31640/toq5zj/index.html

Governor Timothy M. Kaine today announced that Amtrak and the Commonwealth of Virginia have signed an agreement to operate an additional train between Richmond and Washington, D.C. during commuter hours. This new train, along with previously announced daily service between Lynchburg and Washington, D.C., provides more passenger and freight rail transportation options, and are the first state-supported intercity passenger rail services in Virginia. “We cannot engage the future without a strong commitment to passenger rail in these vital corridors, providing more transportation choices for all Virginians while helping grow our economy,” Governor Kaine said. “I appreciate the commitment of Amtrak, CSX and Norfolk Southern to make these new services a reality. This is a first step toward a national vision of rail and ensures Virginia’s place in that larger network.” The new routes represent the first phase of planned passenger rail improvements in Virginia’s I-81/Route 29 and I-95/I-64 corridors.

At full implementation, these services are estimated to remove 1.4 million cars from highways, save more than 8.3 million gallons of fuel and eliminate 66,000 tons of carbon emissions each year. These two projects, and the associated infrastructure improvements, display Virginia’s continuing investment in intercity rail, and are another step in positioning Virginia to be a national leader in high speed rail. Governor Kaine today attended a roundtable discussion with Vice President Joseph R. Biden, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and other Governors on the future of high speed rail in the United States. The additional Richmond to Washington, D.C. route will begin operation in December 2009, with stops at Staples Mill Road in Richmond, Ashland, Fredericksburg, Quantico, Woodbridge, Alexandria, and L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. The train is scheduled to depart Richmond daily at 7:00 am and arrive in Washington, D.C. at 9:30 am. Afternoon service is scheduled to depart Washington, D.C. at 3:55 pm and arrive in Richmond at 6:25 pm. Detailed schedules and fares will be finalized with Amtrak in the coming months. As part of this agreement, the Commonwealth will help fund Amtrak service for the first time with a $17.2 million investment over a three-year demonstration period. Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman said, “With its connections to the national passenger rail system, Amtrak is the logical choice to provide these new transportation options for Virginia, with direct service to many other East Coast cities, including Washington, New York and Boston.” The Amtrak Board of Directors’ approval expands the availability of Amtrak service between Virginia and the entire Northeast Corridor.

This agreement with Amtrak is the last of four major agreements to be signed with rail operators along each route, including the host railroads—CSX and Norfolk Southern—in addition to Virginia Railway Express. Virginia is one of only a few states in the country to successfully negotiate the addition of new intercity passenger rail service in major rail corridors, balancing freight and economic development needs with additional passenger rail options. In April 2009, Governor Kaine announced a similar agreement to operate daily passenger service between Lynchburg and Washington, D.C. with stops at Kemper Street in Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Culpeper, Manassas, Burke Center, Alexandria, and terminating at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. The train is scheduled to depart Lynchburg at 7:38 a.m. and arrive in Washington, D.C. at 11:20 a.m. Afternoon service is scheduled to leave Washington, D.C. at 4:50 p.m. and arrive in Lynchburg at 8:36 p.m. Service is scheduled to begin in October 2009.

http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/news/details.aspx?id=393

In an emotionally charged talk, MacArthur-winning activist Majora Carter details her fight for environmental justice in the South Bronx — and shows how minority neighborhood suffer most from flawed urban policy.

Carter, who was awarded a 2005 MacArthur “genius” grant, now serves as executive director of Sustainable South Bronx, where she pushes both for eco-friendly practices (such as green and cool roofs) and, equally important, job training and green-related economic development for her vibrant neighborhood on the rise.

Source: www.TED.com

Four and a half million square feet of new office buildings and stores, stretching from downtown to Natural Bridge Road to the Mississippi. Ten thousand new homes.

New streets and sewers. Parks and a trolley line. Even its own power grid.

This is what McKee envisions over the next 15 years across roughly 500 acres on the city’s north side. Nothing less than a wholesale rebirth of a swath of St. Louis that hasn’t seen much new life in decades.

“If our city is going to be great again,” McKee said, “it’s got to come from here.”

The developer, head of McEagle Properties, sat down with the Post-Dispatch on Wednesday and laid out some of his ideas for the land, which his company has spent five years and $46 million secretly and not so secretly assembling.

It was McKee’s most public discussion yet of his goals, and comes a week before he intends to ask the city to provide “hundreds of millions” of dollars in financing to get the project off the ground.

All told, the price tag for NorthSide, as it’s called, would run well into the billions — McEagle estimates nearly $5.4 billion in assets created — and would need a big chunk of public money. McKee said he and his partners will seek at least $1.1 billion in aid from the city, state and federal governments.

McEagle’s goal, McKee said, is to build four “job creation centers” — office buildings, stores and light industry — and massively upgrade the neighborhood’s run-down infrastructure. McEagle wants to partner with residential developers to create urban-style, mixed-income housing across other vacant land in the area.

It’s an ambitious plan that comes during the deepest recession in decades, and will likely need a huge infusion of federal stimulus dollars. It also hinges on the success of several other major projects, including the new, $640 million Mississippi River Bridge, and will have to overcome the residue of five years of neighborhood suspicion over McKee’s north city land grab.
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The key to it all, McKee said, is bringing in jobs. He envisions 22,000 permanent jobs and 43,000 to build it.

McKee cited his company’s regional successes as proof that his NorthSide plan can be achieved. McEagle helped bring MasterCard and its 2,500 employees to WingHaven, its O’Fallon, Mo., development. And the company’s NorthPark project in north St. Louis County houses the corporate headquarters of Express Scripts, with 1,000 workers. His company, he said, knows how to land big employers.

“We don’t think you can steal these jobs from Clayton or St. Charles or St. Clair County,” he said. “We’ve got to create new growth.”

One potential source, McKee said, is the ongoing talks with Chinese officials about an air cargo hub and other investment in St. Louis — talks he helped launch. Yet he acknowledged that the three companies most interested in moving to NorthSide are already in the St. Louis area. He declined to name the companies.

But right now, funding the project is the biggest hurdle.

McKee said he has spent $46 million of his own money on it so far. And in December he reached a financing agreement with the Bank of Washington for about $165 million, according to mortgage documents filed with the city. Otherwise, there’s no private money yet.

“I don’t have people standing in line, whether bankers or developers, to help us on this,” McKee said.

So while he waits for that, he’s pushing for public help.

McEagle wants to use as much as possible of the $95 million in tax credits Missouri legislators created in 2007 for assembling distressed land, he said. It will apply, likely next week, for tax-increment financing from the city worth “hundreds of millions of dollars.” McEagle plans to buy city-owned property and swap land with the Missouri Department of Transportation and other public agencies. And McKee said he’s working with area senators and congressmen to steer stimulus dollars to the project.

Several pieces of the project fit nicely with the priorities President Barack Obama has set for stimulus spending. Among them:

— Completely rebuilt sidewalks and streets, some with medians and bike lanes; separation of storm and sanitary sewer systems; new parks and green space; and better stormwater collection systems.

— Plans being discussed with MoDOT to reconfigure the intersection of Highway 40 (Interstate 64) at 22nd Street to ease access to north St. Louis and to rework the off-ramp of the planned Mississippi River Bridge to feed directly into Tucker Boulevard.

— Co-generation power plants and renewable energy sources to power neighborhoods across the site.

— New parks, police and fire stations, community centers and an in-ground trolley line to circle the neighborhood and connect it with MetroLink.

It’s a lot of public money, but it’s the kind of investment that government should be making, said Richard Ward, a longtime economic development consultant in St. Louis and vice president of Zimmer Real Estate Services.

“There’s no reason to think that this kind of endeavor would not involve public money,” he said. “If anything should and would require a partnership with the public sector, it’s this. It’s the fundamental regeneration of an entire sector of the city.”

The plan is a huge opportunity for St. Louis, said Jeff Rainford, a top aide to Mayor Francis Slay. It’s “like nothing that anybody else has ever come up with,” he said, and it’s worth a shot.

But, Rainford warned, McKee’s idea is a long way from a detailed plan. And it will need complete community buy-in if he wants City Hall’s support.

State highway officials said they met with McEagle several months ago and that engineers have reviewed the proposed 22nd Street interchange. But nothing has been approved, and there’s no money set aside to build it, said MoDOT director Pete Rahn.

“We have not had a formal proposal,” Rahn said. “Until we have something like that, it is difficult to respond.”

Any land swap would have to be “value for value,” Rahn said, and fit within the state’s transportation plan.

The energy piece of the plan fits well with AmerenUE’s long-term goals for efficiency and use of renewable sources, said Steve Kidwell, the utility’s vice president for regulatory affairs, and the company will consider providing financing to help get the projects started.

“We see some really innovative and interesting ideas here,” Kidwell said.

Ameren hasn’t yet decided if it will apply for stimulus money, which includes billions for energy efficiency programs, or if it will partner with McEagle for those dollars, Kidwell said.

McEagle also must assuage the concerns of neighborhood residents, who have watched with suspicion as the company has bought up more than 900 properties, many of which have fallen into decay. Parts of Old North St. Louis, where some rehabbing has already taken place and where residents were vocal in their concerns about McKee, were left out of the plan.

McKee said he plans to use eminent domain very sparingly — only a handful of homes are in the planned “job-creation areas,” and the distressed-area tax credits can’t be used on eminent domain property — and will “reuse, retain and maintain every building that can be saved.”

McKee also said he’s sorry for the secrecy around the project these past five years, as he bought up property without saying what he was doing. He said he was just trying to keep prices in check.

“If there’s anything to apologize for, it’s that,” he said. “But I didn’t know how else to collect all this land.”

McKee has met in small groups with some neighborhood residents, but he plans to attend a community meeting tonight and address them in full for the first time. He wants their input, he said, and their help, to fill in the crucial details that will make the big vision into a reality.

“This is the beginning of a 15-year process,” he said. “It’s a vision. Not a plan. We’re a long way from the finished product.”

Jake Wagman and Ken Leiser of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) division at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) in Richmond, Virginia is pleased to announce a paid internship opportunity for the summer, 2009. The GIS division works to support the mission of VEDP: “To enhance the quality of life and raise the standard of living for all Virginians, in collaboration with Virginia communities, through aggressive business recruitment, expansion assistance, and trade development, thereby expanding the tax base and creating higher-income employment opportunities.” To assist in fulfilling this mission, we focus on cartographic products for project support, custom application development, as well as data creation and analysis. 

Summary: This internship will provide a valuable experience to students seeking a career in GIS. The successful candidate will receive hands-on experience with the suite of ESRI software products, namely ArcGIS Desktop 9.3, desktop extensions and ArcSDE. The successful candidate will work on a wide variety of GIS projects. Past internship projects have included digitizing and editing, creating metadata, researching and creating datasets by geocoding addresses, cartographic work to update standard maps used throughout the agency, and georeferencing image files to update datasets. The successful candidate may also conduct research and work directly with business development managers to assist with project support. The intern will participate as a VEDP staff member by attending staff meetings, retreats and social gatherings. Hours are flexible to accommodate class schedule(s) or other commitments.

Qualifications: The qualified intern will be a student in (or recent graduate from) an undergraduate or graduate program seeking on-the-job experience in GIS. Ideal candidates will have some experience using GIS and working knowledge of ESRI’s ArcGIS product family. VEDP operates off a Microsoft Office platform, and experience in Word, Excel, and Outlook is expected. Applicants should be task-oriented, highly organized and possess a strong interest in GIS. The qualified applicant will be a self-motivated, conscientious individual who can work independently with minimal supervision, as well as communicate closely with staff. 

Benefits: The successful candidate will enjoy the benefits of working in downtown Richmond with a team of GIS professionals who foster growth toward a career in GIS. Course credit is offered with participating schools. You can read more about VEDP and the GIS division on the web at: http://www.yesvirginia.org and http://gis.vedp.org. 

Term: This position is for 15-20 hours (paid) during the summer of 2009 (June 1 – August). 

Application: Please send your resume and a cover letter by May 15th, 2009 to Lyndsay Duncan, Virginia Economic Development Partnership, 901 East Byrd Street 18th Floor West, P.O. Box 798, Richmond, Virginia 23218-0798 or email to LDuncan@yesvirginia.org. 

The report formalizes the identification of ten high-speed rail corridors as potential recipients of federal funding. Those lines are: California, Pacific Northwest, South Central, Gulf Coast, Chicago Hub Network, Florida, Southeast, Keystone, Empire and Northern New England. Also, opportunities exist for the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston to compete for funds to improve the nation’s only existing high-speed rail service

What we’re talking about is a vision for high-speed rail in America.  Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city.  No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes.  (Laughter.)  Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination.  Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America.

Now, all of you know this is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future.  It is now.  It is happening right now.  It’s been happening for decades.  The problem is it’s been happening elsewhere, not here.

In France, high-speed rail has pulled regions from isolation, ignited growth, remade quiet towns into thriving tourist destinations.  In Spain, a high-speed line between Madrid and Seville is so successful that more people travel between those cities by rail than by car and airplane combined.  China, where service began just two years ago, may have more miles of high-speed rail service than any other country just five years from now.  And Japan, the nation that unveiled the first high-speed rail system, is already at work building the next:  a line that will connect Tokyo with Osaka at speeds of over 300 miles per hour.  So it’s being done; it’s just not being done here.

There’s no reason why we can’t do this.  This is America.  There’s no reason why the future of travel should lie somewhere else beyond our borders.  Building a new system of high-speed rail in America will be faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or adding to an already overburdened aviation system –- and everybody stands to benefit.

The inclusion of high speed rail in the Recovery Act was one of many symbols of the new vision for America and its economy that guided the plan.  As the Vice President explained in his introduction, joined by Transportation Secretary LaHood, in addition to putting Americans to work across the country it went towards several the Recovery Act’s key goals.

And we’re making a down payment today, a down payment on the economy for tomorrow, the economy that’s going to drive us in the 21st century in a way that the other — the highway system drove us in the mid-20th century.  And I’m happy to be here.  I’m more happy than you can imagine — (laughter) — to talk about a commitment that, with the President’s leadership, we’re making to achieve the goal through the development of high-speed rail projects that will extend eventually all across this nation.  And most of you know that not only means an awful lot to me, but I know a lot of you personally in this audience over the years, I know it means equally as much to you.

With high-speed rail system, we’re going to be able to pull people off the road, lowering our dependence on foreign oil, lowering the bill for our gas in our gas tanks.  We’re going to loosen the congestion that also has great impact on productivity, I might add, the people sitting at stop lights right now in overcrowded streets and cities.  We’re also going to deal with the suffocation that’s taking place in our major metropolitan areas as a consequence of that congestion.  And we’re going to significantly lessen the damage to our planet.  This is a giant environmental down payment.

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/16/a-vision-for-high-speed-rail/

Flint, Mich., once a city of 200,000 and growing, is down to 110,000 and still shrinking. Dozens of proposals have been floated through the years to somehow slow the endless decline, but another is rapidly gaining support: speed it up, and let the forest reclaim decaying neighborhoods.

FLINT, Mich. — Dozens of proposals have been floated over the years to slow this city’s endless decline. Now another idea is gaining support: speed it up.

Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods.

The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval.

“Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”

The recession in Flint, as in many old-line manufacturing cities, is quickly making a bad situation worse. Firefighters and police officers are being laid off as the city struggles with a $15 million budget deficit. Many public schools are likely to be closed.

“A lot of people remember the past, when we were a successful city that others looked to as a model, and they hope. But you can’t base government policy on hope,” said Jim Ananich, president of the Flint City Council. “We have to do something drastic.”

In searching for a way out, Flint is becoming a model for a different era.

Planned shrinkage became a workable concept in Michigan a few years ago, when the state changed its laws regarding properties foreclosed for delinquent taxes. Before, these buildings and land tended to become mired in legal limbo, contributing to blight. Now they quickly become the domain of county land banks, giving communities a powerful tool for change.

Indianapolis and Little Rock, Ark., have recently set up land banks, and other cities are in the process of doing so. “Shrinkage is moving from an idea to a fact,” said Karina Pallagst, director of the Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective Program at the University of California, Berkeley. “There’s finally the insight that some cities just don’t have a choice.”

While the shrinkage debate has been simmering in Flint for several years, it suddenly gained prominence last month with a blunt comment by the acting mayor, Michael K. Brown, who talked at a Rotary Club lunch about “shutting down quadrants of the city.”

Nothing will happen immediately, but Flint has begun updating its master plan, a complicated task last done in 1965. Then it was a prosperous city of 200,000 looking to grow to 350,000. It now has 110,000 people, about a third of whom live in poverty.

Flint has about 75 neighborhoods spread out over 34 square miles. It will be a delicate process to decide which to favor, Mr. Kildee acknowledged from the driver’s seat of his Grand Cherokee.

He will play a crucial role in those decisions. In addition to being the treasurer of Genesee County, whose largest city by far is Flint, Mr. Kildee is chief executive of the local land bank. In the last year, the county has acquired through tax foreclosure about 900 houses in the city, some of them in healthy neighborhoods.

A block adjacent to downtown has the potential for renewal; it would make sense to fill in the vacant lots there, since it is a few steps from a University of Michigan campus.

A short distance away, the scene is more problematic. Only a few houses remain on the street; the sidewalk is so tattered it barely exists. “When was the last time someone walked on that?” Mr. Kildee said. “Most rural communities don’t have sidewalks.”

But what about the people who do live here and might want their sidewalk fixed rather than removed?

“Not everyone’s going to win,” he said. “But now, everyone’s losing.”

On many streets, the weekly garbage pickup finds only one bag of trash. If those stops could be eliminated, Mr. Kildee said, the city could save $100,000 a year — one of many savings that shrinkage could bring.

Mr. Kildee was born in Flint in 1958. The house he lived in as a child has just been foreclosed on by the county, so he stopped to look. It is a little blue house with white trim, sad and derelict. So are two houses across the street.

“If it’s going to look abandoned, let it be clean and green,” he said. “Create the new Flint forest — something people will choose to live near, rather than something that symbolizes failure.”

Watching suspiciously from next door is Charlotte Kelly. Her house breaks the pattern: it is immaculate, all polished wood and fresh paint. When Ms. Kelly, a city worker, moved to the street in 2002, all the houses were occupied and the neighborhood seemed viable.

These days, crime is brazen: two men recently stripped the siding off Mr. Kildee’s old house, “laughing like they were going to a picnic,” Ms. Kelly said. Down the street are many more abandoned houses, as well as a huge hand-painted sign that proclaims, “No prostitution zone.”

“It saddens my heart,” she said. “I was born in Flint in 1955. I’ve seen it in the glory days, and every year it gets worse.”

Mr. Kildee makes his pitch. Would she be interested in moving if the city offered her an equivalent or better house in a more stable and safer neighborhood?

Despite her pride in her home, the calculation takes Ms. Kelly about a second. “Yes,” she said, “I would be willing.”