Author: Mary Newsom

How Charlotte competitor builds its streetcar

St. Louis, one of the four cities in the running with the QC for the probably-not-very-exciting 2012 Democratic National Convention, was also a recipient of one of those $25 million federal grants for a streetcar project. In “St. Louis’ Loop District Gets Endorsement from Feds with Grant for Streetcar,” Yonah Freemark at thetransportpolitic.com gives more details about the project – the only one of nine cities whose streetcar projects got federal money this year that plans a project outside of its downtown.

Some interesting tidbits: St. Louis plans its project to use both overhead wires (like Charlotte) and battery power, which will let it run through some segments of the route without the wires. “This could make St. Louis the first city in the U.S. to experiment with this sort of alternative propulsion for rail vehicles,” Freemark writes. Indeed, in talks about Charlotte’s streetcar and the problem of how to deal with The Square (at Trade and Tryon in the heart of downtown) if the project’s next phase is built, the idea of batteries has come up. Looks as if St. Louis will be the guinea pig on this technology.

Also interesting is the way it’s being funded: In addition to the feds’ $25 million grant, the project will get $6 million from the local Council of Government/MPO (Imagine this: In many, many metro regions the “regional planning” body and the “regional transportation planning” body are the same – duh!). Private money, estimated at $5 million to $8million, is expected from donors McCormack Baron Salazar, a national urban development firm with headquarters in St. Louis, which committed $2 million in tax credit equity, and the St. Louis Development Corp., which has pledged $3 million.

And, writes Freemark, “Operations will be covered by a transportation tax residents in the surrounding area approved by 97%. This strong show of local support, both financial and political, is likely one of the reasons St. Louis won the grant from the U.S. DOT over so many competitors.” That tax is in the form of a 1-cent sales tax in a transportation development district.

Charlotte folks should be paying attention to several lessons here: Look to multiple revenue sources such as special districts and getting the private sector which will reap some benefits to pay in. But this part needs to be in neon, with flashing red arrows pointing to it: Combine the region’s splintered MPOs (Metropolitan Planning Organizations for those of you not deeply into transportation policy) and the region’s COG, so there’s one regional planning agency doing the planning for the region.

Remembering a designer who made a difference


Touring the soon-to-open greenway along Little Sugar Creek on Wednesday “Long-ignored creek debuts in starring role,” (slideshow here) my guides pointed me to some carved inscriptions in the pavement at each end of the pedestrian bridge that allows people to walk from Harding Place over the creek to the greenway. They were put there by the folks at LandDesign, in memory of the late Brad Davis.

Brad was a champion for parks, as well as good design. I met him shortly after I started writing my columns on city matters, and I respected the care he put into his work and designs. He was a long-time member of the county’s Park and Recreation Commission and helped found its nonprofit Partners for Parks. He died of cancer in 2007.

His colleagues at LandDesign, where he was a partner, donated money for a small memorial to him at the greenway. If you walk across the bridge you’ll see his words. I particularly liked those on the Harding Place side:
“Attaining good design is a real struggle between the idea of creating great spaces and meeting the regulations for public health, safety and welfare. When in doubt, do great design.”

Why conservatives should love streetcars

“‘For cities, conservatives’ banner should read, ‘Bring Back the Streetcars!’ ”

Read on. It’s from an article in The American Conservative, “What’s so conservative about federal highways?” by William S. Lind, director of The American Conservative Center for Public Transportation and coauthor of Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation. Reader Mason Hicks, who grew up in Lancaster County, S.C., but now lives in Paris (France) shared it with me recently.

Lind’s piece talks about the folly of a national transportation system that requires us to depend on foreign oil, and on only one transportation mode, and points out how it was government intervention in the marketplace (via billions spent on highways) that helped kill the passenger rail business.

And here’s another provocative excerpt: “The greatest threat to a revival of attractive public transportation is not the libertarian transit critics. It is an unnecessary escalation of construction costs, usually driven by consultants who know nothing of rail and traction history, are often in cahoots with the suppliers, and gold-plate everything.”

He writes of the importance of “avoiding the foxfire allure of high technology,” and says, “All the technology needed to run electric railways, and run them fast, was in place 100 years ago. It was simple, rugged, dependable, and relatively cheap. In the 1930s, many of America’s passenger trains, running behind steam locomotives, were faster than they are now. (After World War II, the federal government slapped speed limits on them.)”

It’s a provocative piece, especially in light of the Charlotte debate over whether the city should accept a $25 million Federal Transit Administration grant to help it start building a proposed streetcar line. Here’s what the Charlotte Observer’s editorial board said in today’s newspaper:
“Think streetcar vote was hard? Just wait.”

Weak mayor? Pat McCrory opines. In California.

Hmm. Ex-Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican who’s almost certainly running for governor again in 2012, has written an opinion piece for, of all things, the Sacramento Bee:
“Strong mayor or not, it’s still the bully pulpit.”

It seems Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is pushing to turn the office, in California’s capital city, into a full-time, strong mayor form of government. And the local paper there (a McClatchy Co. sister paper to the Obs) requested the opinion of another non-fulltime mayor.

For those of you not deeply into local politics, here’s a primer on strong/weak mayor systems: In cities such as Charlotte that have a “council-manager” form of government, the mayor’s doesn’t hire or fire anyone or run any city departments. A professional city manager does that. The council makes the decisions such as policy, and hiring/firing the city manager. In Charlotte the mayor doesn’t even have a vote on the council, except in a few instances (ties, rezonings with protest petitions, etc.) Charleston’s Joe Riley, Boston’s Tom Menino, Chicago’s Richard Daley are all “strong mayors,” – they function as the chief city administrator.

McCrory concludes: “Regardless of the powers to the mayor’s office it will be the mayor who will get the blame or the credit for what happens in a city. Deserved or not.”

There are pros and cons to each type of government. Strong mayors can be more effective in changing city policy – witness Daley’s success at and worldwide acclaim for repositioning Chicago as a “green” city. City managers tend not to want to be strong enough leaders to get out in front of those who hire/fire them, which can lead to a sense that no one is leading the city – which was a recurring criticism during McCrory’s tenure. And with the job being a (wink-wink) “part-time” one, the post is only going to attract people who are wealthy, retired, self-employed, have very understanding bosses or have a job or whose pay is so low the mayor’s pay is a step up.

On the other hand, strong mayors can use their power to reward political allies and punish foes, even to a greater extent than “weak mayors.” (They can all do that, believe me.) And an inept or crooked strong mayor can do a lot more damage than an inept or crooked weak mayor.

My conclusion is that I’d like a strong mayor system if we had a mayor I liked and I’d hate it if we had a mayor I didn’t. And that’s not really all that helpful.

And commuter rail for North Mecklenburg lives?

Here’s a business-focused wrap-up of reasons no one should count the proposed commuter rail line to North Mecklenburg as dead. Business Today online writes “Economic Development Prospects Put North Line Rail Back on Track.” Although there’s not much new news in it, it’s a good wrap-up of why the North Line (a.k.a. the Red Line) remains an excellent plan, and one that the business community should get behind.

Now if they could just wire up some of that federal money for commuter rail …. That’s been the sticky wicket all along. The Bush administration’s transit-funding rules were written in such a way as to rule out virtually all proposed commuter rail transit, including this project. Those rules are changing. Stay tuned.

Renewing the old urban-suburban battle

Professional contrarian Joel Kotkin had a piece last week in the Wall Street Journal, “The Myth of the Back-To-The-City Migration,” that’s gotten folks stirred up. (That link doesn’t require a WSJ subscription). Here’s his thesis in a nutshell: “The great migration back to the city hasn’t occurred. Over the past decade the percentage of Americans living in suburbs and single-family homes has increased.”

His thesis flies in the face of other analyses that show a decided uptick, compared with recent decades, in the proportion of people wanting to live in urban areas. As is always the case, some people take issue with either Kotkin’s facts or his conclusions. Or both.

Here, for instance, is a two-part blog riposte that Bill Fulton wrote in 2007, in “It’s Time to De-Kotkinize the Planning Debate.” Fulton, a planner, publishes of the respected California Planning & Development Report, and is mayor of Ventura, Calif. He’s quite complimentary of Kotkin’s research for his books, but thinks the speeches play fast and loose with data.

And Sam Newberg (a.k.a. Joe Urban) offers this rejoinder, “Joel Kotkin Takes On Urbanists.” In an e-mail to me, Newberg adds, ” I like Joel Kotkin and most of his work. In this article – http://joe-urban.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/suburban-snapshots.pdf – I even found that he and Peter Calthorpe agree on the fundamental shape of regions, even if they disagree on the built form on the ground. The problem I have is that Joel Kotkin does us all a disservice by lumping the very widespread preference for mixed-use, walkable places with those who want a downtown high-rise condo – a big difference. We have not provided enough quality urban housing choices in this country – supply has not met demand. Federal policy, siloed decision-making, city zoning laws, lending practices, NIMBYs, and mechanisms for financing transportation and affordable housing are all to blame.”

And if you’ve read this far, you’re probably interested in Christopher B. Leinberger’s blog posting, “Walking – Not Just for Cities Anymore,” written after he debated Kotkin last week in New York. Leinberger is a developer and a visiting fellow at Brookings, who also writes for The Atlantic. He finds a surprising convergence in some of their thinking.

Leinberger and Newberg both finger one of the reasons that make me think Kotkin paints with too broad a brush. What’s “urban”? What’s “suburban”? That answer varies widely depending on geography, government and history. It’s all in the eye of the beholder and means a lot of the statistical stuff being tossed around today is, in my eyes, squishy.

For instance, what parts of Charlotte are “urban”? I could give you a good argument that almost nothing in Charlotte is urban – not even uptown – if you envision urban as containing streets and where you can walk a few blocks down a sidewalk lined with storefronts and find dozens of stores selling goods you need for daily life (as well as interesting specialty stores), offices, apartments, nightlife, small industry, a variety of transportation options, schools and other public institutions. Dilworth, by that definition, is primarily suburban. In fact, it was designed as a turn-of-the-century streetcar suburb. It’s within a mile of downtown, and it’s slowly densifying, but is still predominantly single-family housing with reasonably big lawns. So is Dilworth “urban”? “Suburban”?

Is Davidson urban or suburban? What about Piper Glen? Davidson is not part of the city limits of Charlotte. But its older areas are denser, more walkable and have more urban fabric than the large-lot, single-family golf-course-focused subdivision of Piper Glen, which is within the city limits and therefore, in some definitions, urban instead of suburban.

Leinberger makes a good distinction. He writes, “Unfortunately, the concept of dividing the world into city versus suburbs is no longer so relevant. I have been dividing metropolitan places as either ‘drivable sub-urban,’ meaning low density, modular, and dependent upon the car/truck for most trips; or ‘walkable urban,’ meaning at least five times more dense and integrated and dependent upon many transportation modes (transit, biking, and, yes, cars and trucks).”

I think Kotkin is right in his generalized position that many people still prefer suburban-style living. But by that does he mean half-acre lots? Cul-de-sacs? Eastover and Myers Park, which are considered in-town but which have huge lots and a sprinkiling of cul-de-sacs? White picket fences and that fabulous federal subsidy we get for taking on a mortgage? Terms must be better defined. And just because plenty of people still prefer that way of life, does that mean other people who want another way of life shouldn’t be offered it, especially if the other way of life takes a lot fewer tax dollars to support?

I’ve seen enough studies from people who make their living analyzing real estate markets to be convinced there remains an unmet market for more urban-style living – by which I mean walkable neighborhoods where you don’t have to drive so far for everything, where single-family houses and shops are rigidly kept apart from apartments and condos – basically, the kinds of places where you never see a “berm” or a buffer. ( And everything I just wrote should be read with the proviso “When the real estate market comes back.”)

When cultures collide, you get – chipmunks?

OK, this is just a fun little posting to illustrate how we can all be so embedded in our own cultures and circumstances that we sometimes need to see things from others’ eyes. I remember experiencing this years ago, when I traveled to Europe the first time. Among the things that struck me (in addition to great french fries, excellent bread and tasty beer) were small differences in things I had simply never realized might be different: doorknobs (they were handles, not knobs), light switches (the flat kind) and pillows (round bolsters).

So last week we were walking down a street in Athens, near the Central Market, and we pass a pet store. In a cage, next to the usual birds, etc., we see for sale – for 35 Euros each (about $43) – chipmunks. Yes. Photo evidence here:Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Major income stream in the back yard! Just got to work out a few hundred details …

New look at old problem: Paying for transportation

RED WING, Minn. – Planning consultant Scott Polikov from Fort Worth, Texas, has an idea that needs a bigger audience. It’s about how you find money to build transit systems. That’s a problem Charlotte is facing, along with dozens of other U.S. cities. Based on his thinking it’s something Charlotte has possibly mismanaged, along with many other places.

The key understanding is that building a transit system (or any transportation system, whether it’s highways or canals) creates huge profits for real estate interests. Example: A transit authority will announce it’s building a line, and where the stations will be. Then it will go out and buy right of way, often through eminent domain, along that planned route, paying now-higher land prices, since the building of the line will make that land worth more.

“In Europe, the landowner pays for the right to have the station,” he said.

Why shouldn’t the government (that is, all of us, since we are the government) capture some of the value that it’s creating (that we’re creating) by building that infrastructure?

Indeed, in the pre-crash era there were developers who were seriously thinking about putting up millions to build Charlotte’s proposed commuter rail transit lines, because they knew it would make their development significantly more valuable. The same was true for the Triangle Transit proposed transit line.

Sometime, credit for real estate development will re-emerge. When that happens, why shouldn’t the Charlotte Area Transit System, for instance, auction off the development rights at the transit stations? And then use that money as a revenue stream? (Yeah, yeah there are a lot of legal issues involved, not to mention political ones.)

Consider how development has occurred along the Lynx light rail line through South End. The line was fixed. In an understandable effort to lure transit-oriented development at the station areas, the city has doggedly gone in and pro-actively up-zoned land to the TOD zoning – thereby giving away huge land value to the property owners. It also gave away any real power the city planners might have had to force better urban design onto that TOD development. If you’re already allowed by right to do your TOD, why should you listen to the city’s request that you do something different – for instance, including some affordable housing units?

(I’m at a yearly conference among people affiliated with the Citistates Associates, a loose coalition of planners, economists, think-tankers, current and former elected officials, Chamber of Commerce execs, etc., who share an interest in metro region growth issues.)