NO ROUNDABOUTS--NO SAFE URBAN WALKING

IMPROVING BUSY BURLINGTON AREA INTERSECTIONS FOR WALKERS MEANS ADDRESSING ROUNDABOUT CONVERSIONS OR STRONG TRAFFIC CALMING

            No roundabouts--no safe urban walking 

After observing early planning for “improvements” to intersections on South Burlington’s Shelburne Road and Burlington’s Colchester Ave./Prospect St./Pearl St. one gets a clear view that walkers receive no safety boost and walker fatalities and serious injuries will continue unabated.

The intersections studied in a preliminary fashion over the past few months appear headed for new traffic signals which tend to orchestrate injuries and fatalities, not mostly end them.  Modern roundabouts, that new technology employing stone-age materials, cuts all fatalities and serious injuries by about 90% with single lane roundabout on average cut walker injuries by about 90%.  From another standpoint, any intersection but a roundabout or strong traffic calming generates serious injuries and fatalities overall by an average of 900%.

In regard to Shelburne Road, a Price Chopper employee on her way home died in a walker crash at the Burlington signal intersection with Home Avenue adjacent to the South Burlington border.  The long term plan calls would require two lane roundabouts which the South Burlington consultant rejected as they would require expensive right of way—and the consultant asserted he was not sure about two lane roundabouts and walker safety.  No walker has yet died in the U.S. and Canada after about 12,000 to 14,000 “roundabout years”, duplicating the experience in France with their over 30,000 roundabouts where about one walker fatality is recorded per 15,000 roundabouts each—about a quarter of U.S. and French roundabouts are multi-lane.

The numbers at Colchester Ave./Pearl St./Prospect St.(north and south) include in a five year period two walker crashes and three bicycle crashes.   The intersection boasts one of the highest crash rates in the State.   Without any serious consideration, it appears a roundabout will not even get analyzed for placement at this intersection even though a serious injury was recorded last year at Union St. and Pearl St. and Sam Lapointe received fatal injuries at Colchester Avenue and Barrett Streets. 

A recent AAA study proved highway injuries and fatalities a higher cost to metro areas than congestion and in the case of large metros the differential is more than two to one.  AAA suggests a White House conference on safety and adoption there of a “zero fatality rate” goal for the nation.   For walkers—and they must get prime consideration in any urban area in terms of service and safety—the sidewalk network provides a high level of safety along street segments but only a roundabout or strong traffic calming (like the Church Street Marketplace intersections, for example) provides safety and comfort for crossings. 

Even the Vermont Strategic Highway Safety Plan contains only one infrastructure investment among seven safety initiatives to improve safety: roundabouts at intersections. 

Then what to do in the case of Shelburne Road and the Burlington Road intersections?  The first requirement in both cases must be evaluation of feasible roundabout designs as part of any scoping study.  Since a fatality cost gets a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) social cost value of $6.1 million (1999 dollars), right of way and related costs may well come in quite high—but so does the cost of a life (FHWA uses a figure of $126,000 for an injury).  So far, no recognized roundabout design firms or designer has been involved in either of the cities studies even though most of the handful of pioneering roundabout practitioners since the era began in North America in 1991 have undertaken one or more tasks in Vermont, such as workshops and training, feasibility studies, and actual design or design assistance one or more  of the nine roundabouts now in place here. 

Note that with two states and two Canadian province transportation departments (including New York) adopted the roundabout the standard intersection treatment, and Vermont’s first in the nation requires that roundabouts be considered at dangerous intersections.  Governor Peter Shumlin in 2002 entered the historic first language in the transportation bill.  The recognition of roundabouts value over signals has been affirmed by adopted laws, policies, and practice not just through research.

In the case of the intersection at the corner of the UVM green, a roundabout which promises to reduce walker injury substantially (as well as car occupants) and afford a modest increase in bicyclist safety may not provide all desirable left hand movements offered by a signal—something that can only be determined by scoping.  A mini roundabout can also be considered.  But, if our first concern is safety at intersections a honest analysis by a competent roundabout design team needs to take place at the scoping level.  Then—and only then—can any citizen process, armed with the complete information, make a truly informed decision on what path to proceed to improve the safety and service at the Colchester Ave./Pearl St./Prospect St. intersection.  Ditto for Shelburne Road and other intersections to be evaluated in the future.

Consultants rejected a roundabout from further consideration at the Burlington intersection because of an “unacceptable footprint.”   Interestingly, there exists plenty of right-of-way at the two intersections along Colchester Avenue, Fletcher Allen Health Care entrance and then East Avenue.  A final aside, while a list of Vermont roundabouts I have maintained has included the traffic circle in Winooski, I am now delisting it.  Normal practice calls for a two lane roundabout to be no more than 180 feet in it largest diameter versus the roughly 500 feet, top to bottom, of Winooski “circle.”  Again, the Winooski design never received analysis and scoping involving a competent, experienced roundabout designer. 

THE ECOS "POPULATION ELF"

The Ecos “Population Elf”

The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission (CCRPC) in its “Ecos" regional plan wants County citizens to add the “Population Elf” to the Easter Bunny and Abominable Snowperson.  That’s right, even though the under- 18 population continued to decline 2000-2010 somehow the Population Elf elevates future population growth to double that for the last decade to over 2,000 yearly, and the CCRPC claims 35,000 population growth from 2015 through 2035.

Forget recent continuing decline in population increases in Vermont and the County decade by decade, and forget the pesky Census (it’s only a “government estimate” really) which suggests Vermont with practically no increase in the under 65 age group 2000-2030 while the over 65 age crowd more than doubles.  (Governor Douglas tended to side with Census and not the Population Elf on population data.)  And, of course, forget the under 1,300 average yearly County population increase 1990-2011, and under 1,000 yearly 2000-2011—again those pesky Census folks at work.  

Then there are those stubbon under-30 generation folks who increasingly refuse to get driver licenses—a drop of 20% at last count.  But the Population Elf will get after these young folks to get to their Chevrolet freedom and stop shifting to those 50 Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA) Link commuter buses each workday.  Yes, about 50 commuters abandoning their cars yearly for the bus, perhaps to try to make their family budgets work.

Oh, Burlington citizens, just ignore the fact that all major approach streets from the burbs—Colchester Ave., Main St., the Northern Connector, Pine St., Shelburne St.—boast traffic declines of 8 to 29% since traffic peaked about 20-25 years ago in the late 1980s.  Believe the Population Elf and his twin, the Traffic Growth Elf, not the lying statistics! The Population Elf will get to work to change the accelerating downward trend in City car traffic after it stops the flood of commuters converting from car drivers to bus riders.  The Population Elf assures us transportation sector stops its cutting greenhouse gases, now about back to about 1990 (down 8% 2000-2010 statewide) and aiming at 1980s and even 1970s levels.

The CCRPC inherits the legacy of the former Metropolitan Planning Organization where the Vermont Digger nicely summarized, $40 million in design and planning funds went down the tubes on the Circumferential Highway.  Maybe with a little extra help the CCRPC Population Elf can revive this plan also.

Seriously, what we need at this point is a little honesty and integrity in regional and local planning.  Population and traffic numbers and projections need to be backed up with peer reviews of those with long term experience in the areas.  

In transportation policy and programming this means accepting the end of the car age and starting by plowing full speed ahead with commuter rail from the Burlington to Montpelier, St. Albans and Middlebury.  Finally, it means unclogging intersections for all users and that goal along with safety, the first priority, cannot be done without converting County intersections on a priority basis with roundabouts.  At the same time let’s revive the Burlington waterfront with a quality connection using light rail to the Marketplace, UVM and Fletcher Allen.  However, even with all this the Population Elf likely remains in the realm of myth, right where it began in Ecos.

AMERICANS ABANDON THE CAR

WHY VERMONTERS—AND AMERICANS—ABANDONING THEIR CAR BECAME A TREND FOR NOW AND THE FUTURE AND NOT AN ABERRATION

…...or why bus, commuter rail, and Amtrak grow and car travel stalls and slides backward

If economics historically gets tagged with being the “dismal science” then transportation economics deserves placemet as the muck at the bottom of the economic swamp. For a century transportation economics mostly remained deep inside the academic walls. Moving goods mostly addressed costs and efficiencies moving a carload of freight from factory to port to a destination whether that be a coal fired electric plant or after warehousing and braking the carload down, delivery by a firm like UPS to a customer on main street.

When dealing with moving people from place to place, transportation economics mostly examined large metropolitan areas for where to put the next subway stop, bus route, or airport hub. Household transport economics started and ended from the advent of the car with the household car—the numbers of car per household, annual growth in car travel, new holiday car travel records, how high could driver licensing percentage could go among the driving age population, highway crash statistics, etc.

But beginning about 1990 a shift began, a tectonic shift with more and more statistics showing a slowing—and now even a decline—in car travel. Statistics now show a drop of young people getting drives licenses in a 15 year study 1995-2010, and in Burlington, VT a sudden abandoning by about 500 commuters to and from the Queen City for the commuter “Link” services operated by the Chittenden Country Transportation Authority (CCTA). Oh, one more statistic—nationally the median household expenditure for transportation which reached as high as 19-20 percent at times dropped to 16.0 in 2008-2009, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Behind the tectonic shifts, there appear to be two extremely powerful economic forces which together determine the economics of the household at work. And, those two powerful economic forces tell us we have not seen anything yet on the drive by households to shed high cost driving for either public transportation or just not making certain trips altogether. Those two forces are: basic wages and the cost of housing. The best measure of a nation's income and trends comes in the “average manufacturing hourly wage” data. That average wage peaked about 1970 and since 1980 dipped slightly during the interim and now sits about the same level $19.14 (August 2012, average hourly manufacturing wage for “production and non-supervisory employees”). Simply, little has changed in the income of the typical worker in manufacturing in the U.S. in over three decades.

The second major factor affecting transportation for households is the cost of housing. Here the news gets even worse. From 1980 to 2009 in constant 2000 dollars, median rent (usually a two bedroom unit) increased from $376 to $689 monthly, 83%. So, no real increase in wages for three decades and housing cost rising over 80%. What do these have to do with transportation? Or with households cutting back with expensive local transportation represented by the car and its 50-cent-a-mile typical expense (the current reimbursement Federally approved rate)? Simply there is a very strong economic force in the decision making of households to minimize the joint cost of housing and transportation, the two areas that consume about half (49% for families in 2011) of the average households. So we have experienced three decades of flat manufacturing wages and during that time an 80% increase in housing costs as measured by the median rents. Finally, the periodic national travel survey reveals that from 2001 through 2009 for every age group travel by car declined with he largest decline in miles of travel, an average of 20%, came in the under-30 age group.

Where does that leave a household who for a long time experienced the pressures of rising housing costs and no wage increases—everything else being equal. Reducing housing costs represent a far more difficult short term possibility (long term too!) to change than transportation costs. When an opportunity to more than halve the cost of a necessary trip—getting to and from work, for example—it is no surprise why a commuter between Burlington and Montpelier chooses a Link commuter bus costing 10 cents a mile versus solo driving at 50 cents a mile—a daily saving of $32 based on the 80-mile roundtrip by Link service priced at $8 and $40 for the solo drive. Finally, with these two factors at work it comes as little surprise that the growth of outer suburbs of metropolitan areas over the past two decades suddenly ended and that in many metropolitan areas the long term decline in city centers ended an in many cases central cities gained population. The housing and transportation cost relationship fully explains these two metropolitan developments.

What's more there appears little change in the future of the increasing housing-transportation cost to the household—the household faces increased housing cost over and above inflation and car travel costs doing the same. Perhaps this relationship explains why when the Boston area transit agency increased fares on bus-subway-commuter rail services by 23% early this summer there was no drop in passenger numbers. The increase in public transit fares were insufficient for a typical household commuter or transit user to switch to an alternative, such as the car, and those who used transit were not “cruising” or taking public transport just to see the countryside, they were making mostly necessary trips to work, professional appointments, school, etc.

We can expect that there will be a continued abandoning of the car for necessary trips—and even for discretionary trips—if reasonably priced service alternatives are provided—right now that is really just about any public transit, including Amtrak, which generally enjoys high single digit and double digit growth each year.

HOW DO WE MAKE U.S. STREETS SAFE FOR WALKERS?

The following responds a reference by a Burlington Walk Bike Council to a U.K. paper advocating walking and bicycling for attaining better public health.  My response to that suggestion follows...


The better question is "what about the U.K. and North America."  The U.K., U.S. and Canada (more U.S. and Canada) record  far lower walk/bike rates, particularly in the bike department than typical European nations where walk/bike urban numbers often hit 20-30% while the U.S, and Canada remain bottom feeders at about 10% walk and 1% bicycle. 

As far as Burlington [VT] is concerned the Marketplace with its shared space intersections nears Nirvana territory. But "routes to the marketplace" reflect the kind of desperate conditions which make our non-Marketplace areas in the typical category of a a few hundred percent greater walk casualty rates and bicycle casualty rates per mile of travel compared to German and Netherlands as Rutgers Jean Pucher reported in an extensive paper devoted to the very subject you bring forward, health and walking and bicycling published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2003--it is a landmark study

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CE4QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpolicy.rutgers.edu%2Ffaculty%2Fpucher%2Fajphfromjacobsen.pdf&ei=h_DEUIjiM5C00AHN7ID4Dg&usg=AFQjCNFZvvfNX2TcBrNIZF4cL8DELcmFbw&sig2=DuRNWGc2Hu_d9n54I5IUuQ

Pucher did further work in this area showing incidence of obesity, diabetes, etc. versus proportion of walking and bicycling modes [in several nations] with the expected results.

Am J Public Health. 2010 Oct;100(10):1986-92. Epub 2010 Aug 19.

But the problem we face comes in great part--not that we do not have sidewalks in Burlington or some (but not enough) bikeways of various types--the problem lies in essentially unsafe intersections where signals kill, injure, DELAY, pollute and uglify.  Until we unplug the major intersections so that one, for example, cross arterials with little delay (think Battery, Main, Pearl, Winooski, North, etc.) then encouraging folks to walk amounts to choosing your poison. 

Roundabouts--probably because they traffic calm a block or two on all legs--have that peculiar feature that the more you build the safer they all become.  Anything but a roundabout on average generates about a 900% greater rate....[of] serious injuries and fatalities--like Sam Lapointe in January [walker killed at a signalized Burlington intersection].  To be an advocate for walking and health, you have to be an advocate for roundabouts along all urban walking corridors.  Of course, roundabouts bring major improvement in car occupant safety too--think of Karen Borneman at St. Paul and Main just two years ago now [young woman killed in a T-bone two-car crash at the intersection about 150 feet from  Burlington City Hall].

So the task is clear--prioritize the conversion of intersections to roundabouts so as to enable more walking and bicycling in a safe environment.  

EVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION VIEWS

 My interest in public transport goes back some time, probably inspired like many by Jane Jacobs in "Life and Death of Great American Cities" as part of a master's program slanted to the degree possible toward urban policy, housing, transportation and planning.  For about a decade or so, carried around an economic study by a Bowdoin economist William Shipman who I respected which laid public transport in the foreign land of "public subsidy", that is,  something not worthy of serious consideration because it could ever stand on its own two feet economically.   Only after getting involved in State transportation policy in the 1980s did the epiphany occur that the biggest "subsidy", that foreign idea, was actually going to the family car and the solo driver.  

One example, FHWA's Highway Statistics series published each year shows an astounding amount of capital investment in highways each year--about 40% and growing--comes from non-highway user revenues, mostly in the form of local property taxes and general funds (particularly tax exempt bonding which carries a stiff tax expenditure price).

Remember, starting with the Reagan Administration, no highway bill proposing tax increases in the gas tax passes the Congress without the support of those who support public transportation, and in spite of decades of effort by one party to abolish Amtrak it just finished its 42nd year with two consecutive years of record setting passenger numbers.   While the walker/bicycle interests spearhead the conversion of urban streets to users other than solely for the automobile, and local transit agencies in Vermont through perseverance and careful exploration of new areas (like the Link commuter buses into Burlington), two major laggards remain, mostly because of the contortions of both states and Congressional constraints: intercity and commuter rail, and urban light rail. 

For Vermont this means moving quickly to install commuter rail services along three corridors into Burlington which can now be justified from a number of viewpoints, and reviving the carefully planned light rail service from the Burlington waterfront and Union Station to the Church Street Marketplace and then onto UVM and Fletcher Allen Health Care.

Have always viewed public transport is a form of social justice, but as important it can now be viewed as a necessary cement to the economic viability of urban areas and absolutely essential force for a sustainable society.  This view coincides with our current view of walking and bicycling in urban America as also symbolizing these same values related to a viable economy and a sustainable society.

Consider that with a limited "subsidy" Link commuter buses to Burlington provide a dependable service for about 10 cents a mile versus 51 cents a mile (federal reimbursement rate for a government worker using a personal car) for a solo driver.  So a Montpelier commute each day, 80 miles round trip costs $8 a day by Link and $40 by solo drive.  Anyone who does a monthly household budget can quickly calculate what this does to the monthly and annual family budget.  And employers are quickly picking up on how important shifting employees from expensive solo commuting to public transport means a more stable workforce, a happier more efficient workforce, all of which contributes in a measurable way the bottom line.  

So, suddenly public transport now appears to be gaining a new connotation--transportation for the middle class!

   

ROUNDABOUTS--WALKERS, BICYCLISTS, ETC.

A new study on walkers and bicyclists at roundabouts by the Minnesota Department of Transportation received some attention this week on the roundabout listserv hosted by Kansas State University.


(The study summary and access address to the study itself can be found at:
http://www.cts.umn.edu/Publications/catalyst/2012/november/roundabouts/

One of the most interesting aspects of the study was the walker delay.  A comparable traffic signal delay to the two roundabouts the authors stated would be 30 seconds while at the two lane roundabout the delay was 9 seconds and at the single lane roundabout 2 seconds.  The one lane roundabout was described as being in a "residential" area with 83 percent of drivers yielding to walkers.  The two-lane roundabout was described as being in a "suburban" area and 45 percent of drivers yielded to walkers.

My comment on the listserv to the study sent today was:


Not sure there are surprises here. What we know about walker--and bicyclist safety for that matter with no walkers and one bicyclist  fatality at a partially roundaboutized Los Altimatos Circle--is that the US/Canada roundies with all their early variations from current practice appear to be hitting the mark set by France with a walker fatality every 15,000 or so roundabout years.

This record so far surpasses signed/traffic signal performance that little regard (Lost Altimatos, again, a good example) can be given to safety at most existing roundabouts, rather it is more important to get more on the ground and access the 30% or so extra reduction in walker crash rates which come in all roundabouts once a certain (unknown) density of roundies occurs.  Of course, again, no one in the world has taken the effort to identify the crash reduction by mode out at incremental distances to a quarter mile from the center of roundabouts, i.e., the point where the traffic calming effect ends. 

The basic rules of roundabout design continue to apply for walkers and bicyclists--the smaller the roundabout the lower the speeds, the safer for non-motorized users. Wallwork ramps at entry/exits [for bicyclists to exit/enter rather than continuing through on the circular roadway.]x
Regarding yielding rates which clearly make little difference in  roundabout safety--roundabouts are by definition safe for walkers and bicyclists versus alternatives--regardless of yielding rates, just look at the overall safety record. 

My view on those persons with severe visual handicap continues that current street designs for them except in two cases remain unsafe at any speed--roundabouts or no but certainly for signs and signals.  (Remember US fatality rates for walkers and bicyclists are a few hundred percent higher than in urban Germany and the Netherlands--see Jean Pucher study on this).  Those with severe visual handicap can only be provided access in two cases:  (1) shared space and (2) use of a combination of traffic calming techniques (usually with roundabouts) reducing vehicle speeds to about 10 mph and below.  Incidentally, James Kunstler pointed to only three street malls in the U.S.--Burlington, VT Church Street Marketplace (where I am right now), Pearl Street Mall in Boulder and Santa Monica.  One of the first, Sparks Street in Ottawa still struggles, in my view because the lack of sufficient nearby parking and residential housing.

EXPANDING BURLINGTON CHURCH STREET MARKETPLACE ALONG CROSS STREETS

A Seven Days article regarding the desire of merchants adjacent to the Church Street Marketplace evoked my letter below referencing my long held belief that converting adjacent space along cross streets outward from the edge of the Marketplace a great deal of sense--"shared space" with a mix of vehicles and walkers can easily be installed with benefits for all.   The Marketplace businesses themselves are understandably cool to this idea because the side street merchants are not included in the special tax district which funds various activities on the Marketplace.  My suggestion is to seek a middle ground on the issue and move forward with "shared space" where appropriate.  This letter was not published by Seven Days:

Agree with side street merchants push for an enhanced connection from the Marketplace onto College, Bank and Cherry Streets as a natural step economically beneficial to all. This "pushout" approach particularly makes sense on Cherry where constant bus runs flows end with the new transit center. I made a strong comment on the PlanBTV that the “shared space” where vehicles and walkers mix comfortably at Marketplace street crossings can be carefully expanded east and west with similar paving and side area treatments. (Check out “shared space” through a google.) This works for traffic and enhances the fronting businesses. Yes, this will increase economic vitality of side areas but the presence of slow though yielding vehicle traffic means less realistically per square foot sales potential than similar stores on the Marketplace proper. The Marketplace needs to recognize side street businesses cannot be expected to pay the same rate of support they are required to do. A compromise figure can certainly be found. This becomes win-win as the Marketplace overall becomes more attractive to shoppers with enhanced side areas leading into the original--still remarkable after all these years--Marketplace areas.