Archive for September, 2007

News Updates

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 19, 2007
in 747, Adaptive Reuse, Arlington, Bicycles, Burj Dubai, DOT, Davie, FAU, Hong Kong, Mary Peters, Public Transit, Sprawl, Stadium and Washington D.C.
. 2 Comments

Global:

  • A Town in Germany has decided to handle its traffic problems by removing all the traffic signals. The plan is to remove all signals in the city center to make life easier for pedestrians, evening the playing field and forcing traffic to no longer dominate the roads.

“The idea of removing signs to improve road safety, called “Shared Space,” was developed by Dutch traffic specialist Hans Monderman, and is supported by the European Union.”

Meanwhile Columbia, Missouri Business owners and a local developer are upset that the federally funded PedNet program will hamper vehicular traffic in favor of friendlier pedestrian and bicycle options. Who knew?

“The concern for the business owners and anyone who lives in the area is that the intersection will be less friendly,” Lindner said. “And vehicular traffic is always going to be the major mode of transportation in Columbia, so you can’t ignore the impact on it. We should be trying to alleviate congestion, not do things to make it worse.”

  • Discussions are underway about possibly merging the metropolises Hong Kong and Shenzhen into one Mega-City. The plan is being considered to make the region more competitive in the global market and to better link the existing cities.
  • Burj Dubai has officially surpassed Toronto’s CN tower, making it the tallest free standing structure in the world at 555 meters and 150 stories. Like most things in Dubai, the buildings’ final height is a closely kept secret, but it is expected to rise between 750 and 800 meters…

National:

  • They say everything is bigger in Texas, but Arlington’s Public Transit system is the smallest for cities with 350,000+ inhabitants. Actually, Arlington doesn’t even have a Public Transit System, garnering it the distinction of the largest American city without one.

“Arlington residents have voted down a public bus system three times in the last 27 years, worried about big buses lumbering down their quiet suburban streets, as well as the cost of a service that many believe would benefit only a few. But advocates say the city’s growing population, coupled with the pain of higher gasoline prices, make buses an easier sell now.”

Sell? You shouldn’t have to sell anyone a public transit system. If they want to choke in their own congestion and sprawl then so be it. Let them degrade their own quality of life rather than spend money on a transit system in a city where people clearly don’t get “it.”

  • The D.C. Council is working on some legislation which would make Bicycle parking a requirement at all apartment buildings with more than 8 units and 10% of automotive parking capacity at commercial establishments.
  • This excerpt speaks for itself:

“The Minneapolis bridge collapse on Aug. 1 led Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters to publicly reflect on federal transportation spending priorities and conclude that those greedy bicyclists and pedestrians, not to mention museumgoers and historic preservationists, hog too much of the billions of federal dollars raised by the gas tax, money that should go to pave highways and bridges. Better still, Peters, a 2006 Bush appointee, apparently doesn’t see biking and walking paths as part of transportation infrastructure at all.”

Click here for the full article…

Local:

  • FAU trustees approved plans to build a 30,000 seat, $62 Million stadium for the Owls’ football team on the Boca Raton campus. Construction is set to begin in 2009.
  • More reasons why converting every neighborhood into its own municipality is such a bad idea: identity crisis. The suburban bedroom community of Davie has been struggling to find itself for the past few years amid all the other South Florida “cities.”
“With all of the cuts, Transit will be down to 34 million annual miles of service. That’s seven million more miles, a 26 percent increase, that have been delivered since late 2002 when Miami-Dade County voters approved a half-cent sales-tax increase for transportation.

But it’s a whopping 10 million miles short of the 44 million miles that former Mayor Alex Penelas promised by 2008 during the campaign. The agency never got close, peaking at 38 million miles in December 2005 and paring back in three subsequent lineups.

In Transit’s defense, ridership has remained steady as the miles have been cut — an indicator that the planning and scheduling gurus aren’t sacrificing riders.”

Transitography 17

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 19, 2007
in 836, Congestion, Dolphin Expressway, Flickr, I-95, Miami, Palmetto, Photography, Traffic and Transitography
. 3 Comments

miami traffic jam, originally uploaded by noway.

If the view above seems familiar, its probably because you’ve been sitting in traffic for 50 extra hours per year.

“Americans sat in traffic 4.2 billion hours, or 38 hours per driver, in 2005, up from 4 billion in 2004, according to the transportation research center at Texas A&M University.”

Transitography 16

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 18, 2007
in Acela, High Speed Rail, Northeast and Ridership
. 0 Comments

Acela || 28mm Wide angle / Minolta X-570, originally uploaded by gossammer9.

Ridership on the passenger rail system is up 6% so far this year, the biggest jump since the late 1970s. On the Acela Express, trains that run at higher speeds between Washington, New York and Boston, the number of riders has surged 20% over the past 10 months. That’s enough new passengers to fill 2,000 Boeing 757 jets.

-Wall Street Journal

The Ecology of Concrete Conference

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 18, 2007
in Concrete and Green Buildings
. 0 Comments
THE ECOLOGY OF CONCRETE: Environmental Best Practices for Design and Construction in Concrete

October 13, 2007
Jorge M. Perez Architecture Center
University of Miami School of Architecture
1215 Dickinson Drive, Coral Gables
Starting at 10am
Keynote Address by Susan Szenasy, Metropolis Magazine, 6:30, reception to follow

This all-day event will introduce designers, contractors, building officials and the general public to the role of concrete in the environment and provide practical knowledge about how concrete’s impact can be mitigated using the most up-to-date techniques. Lectures will provide overviews of the problems that can be solved with Green Design as well as the specification and construction information needed to follow up in real world applications. 6.5 CEC for Landscape Architects. 7.5 CEU for Architects. General Public $175, USGBC SF and ASLA Members $125 ($175 after October 1), Emerging Green Builders $75. Sponsored by Hanson Slag Cement.

Go to www.southfloridagreenevents.com for more information and to register on-line.

Kendall Transit Clarification

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 18, 2007
in BRT, CSX, East Kendall Homeowners Organization, Ed Levinson, Kendall, LRT, Metrorail, Transit Oriented Development, UDB and Urban Growth
. 3 Comments

In a post I published last week on the transit options available to the Kendall residents, our message may have been presented unclearly and biased towards the CSX rail option. I’d like to clarify this position and reiterate the true stance of Transit Miami on this hotly contested issue.

The CSX corridor was never meant to serve as a replacement to the Kendall Metrorail, LRT, or BRT, but rather operate in conjunction with the east-west option. The belief stems from our knowledge of the low upstart cost of the CSX rail, along with the increased benefit citizens in the Southern part of the Kendall region would experience, an area currently overlooked by all presented alternatives.

Now, we don’t fully support plans to bring transit to the Kendall Dr. corridor unless some drastic measures are taken to ensure that the area adjacent to the corridor is reestablished and rebuilt in a more accessible manner. Revitalizing the strip shopping centers, vast swaths of parking lots, Malls, and dwellings along the corridor will all be keys to its’ success and should not be overlooked in the planning stages. We would not want the transit system to be considered, approved, or funded unless preemptive measures are taken to ensure that Kendall Dr. itself will be transformed into a true urban area that is more hospitable to transit oriented needs.

Similar measures should be set into place for the CSX corridor at key intersections and stations, creating accessible nodes or urban life. The CSX corridor should be limited to a southern terminus at Metrozoo to prevent “justification” of UDB expansion. UDB line movement will be critical to the success or failure of all transit oriented redevelopment in the Kendall region.

We support the use of the CSX corridor to serve as a complimentary system with a rapid transit system along Kendall drive as long as effective measures are put into place which would transform the suburban landscapes into transit oriented communities.

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 18, 2007
in Automobile Dependence, Dolphin Stadium, Parking and Tailgating
. 2 Comments
I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us but the list of “Best Tailgating Cities” came out recently and was topped mostly by the worst autocentric cities across America. Among the top ten were Miami at number 6 with Tampa right behind us at Number 7. Although parking availability wasn’t the only criteria, it was one of the key factors examined by Joe Cahn, a “Tailgating Expert.”

Transitography 15

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 17, 2007
in Congestion, Driving, Parking, Parking Lots, Pollution and Urban Heat Island
. 0 Comments

Harborcreek Mall, originally uploaded by maniwa_pa.

We often times refer to the automobile as the culprit behind much of our congestion and sprawling woes when perhaps we should attribute more of our attention simply to the amount of parking made available in our cities. Like cars, parking lots degrade our cities on two fronts: contributing to congestion (due to their “availability”) and adversely affecting our local climate change.

“The problem with parking lots is that they accumulate a lot of pollutants—oil, grease, heavy metals and sediment—that cannot be absorbed by the impervious surface,” Engel says. “Rain then flushes these contaminants into rivers and lakes.”

And we haven’t even begun discussing the “urban heat island” effect that parking lots contribute to, which can raise temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius, according to Indiana state climatologist Dev Niyogi.

Metro Monday: The Tragedy of Suburbia

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 17, 2007
in James Howard Kunstler, Metro Monday, New Urbanism, Sprawl, Suburbia and Video
. 2 Comments

The Tragedy of Suburbia is a 20 minute presentation by James Howard Kunstler which just about sums up everything we are trying to achieve with this website. His witty presentation is thorough and identifies many of the main problems facing every American city. It goes hand in hand with many of the issues addressed in our book of the month: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces; and will provide you with some great visual evidence on our planning deficiencies.

Now, you’ll notice this video is marked under our weekly Metro Monday feature but clearly lacks any mention of public transit. We’d like to emphasize that this is done on purpose. Our message is that transit is far more than trains, buses, and automobiles; it’s a comprehensive study of these systems and their interactions with our urban landscapes and people. It includes our buildings, their uses, and the way people interact with them on a daily basis…

Is Corn-Based Ethanol a Sham?

Published
by
Ryan Sharp
on September 17, 2007
in Alternative fuels, Energy, Ethanol, biofuels and corn
. 2 Comments

Politicians are hyping corn-based ethanol as a major industry that South Florida should embrace. In June, the Senate all but announced that America’s future is going to be powered by biofuels, mandating the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. According to ethanol boosters, this is the beginning of a much larger revolution that could entirely replace our 21-million-barrel-a-day oil addiction. In light of these developments, I thought it was necessary to take a closer look at corn-based ethanol.

So, is it really the magic bullet that will provide clean fuel, allow us to sever ties with oil-rich terrorist nations, and save American farmers, all while not asking anyone to even think about changing their driving habits?

Of course not.

While there are several sources that outline the limitations of of corn-based ethanol, I think a recent article by Jeff Goodell does a particularly thorough job articulating the issue. Click here to check out his article, “The Ethanol Scam: One of America’s Biggest Political Boondoggles”.

A second source that I like is Robert Rapier’s energy blog, R-Squared. The information here can get rather technical, but it nonetheless serves as an alternative voice to Big Corn insiders, who are the ones doing most of the studies and making most of the claims regarding corn-based ethanol’s “merits” (reminds me of the oil industry).

It’s critical that as citizens, we don’t allow Big Corn and its crony politicians to conspire to swindle us with another “magic bullet” energy fix that won’t even require use to alter our driving/consumption habits.

Transitography 14

Published
by
James Wilkins
on September 16, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 7 Comments

What urban museum is illustrated here? Showing the qualities that many of our readers find to be the most important for a museum in an urban park. Lots of green space. Structure not imposing of the natural elements, but vice versa. Design ingenuity. Walkability. To name just a few.

Transitography 12

Published
by
James Wilkins
on September 15, 2007
in Art, South Pointe Park and beautification
. 1 Comment

Transit and transportation are almost never issues that come stress free. Public art is one remedy to alleviate that stress. Check out this somewhat representational and yet somewhat abstract large scale outdoor sculpture to be erected at the intersection of two main highway arteries in Missouri. The selection is based on a visibility issue as well as any therapeutic value, however, art, anywhere, is always a good thing. We shouldn’t forget the visually soothing phenomenon of water, so abundant in Miami. How could it be further capitalized upon?

US-1 Overpass Updates

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 14, 2007
in Community Meeting, Douglas, MDT, Overpass, Pedestrian, Public Works, UM and US-1
. 3 Comments
I was driving by the Douglas Road pedestrian overpass last weekend when I noticed that the fence designed to “force” people into using the overpass still hadn’t been fixed after an accident partially destroyed it last summer. Interestingly enough, a new path has formed in the grass and once again there are people darting across this treacherous stretch, rather than climbing the flight of stairs or using the elevator. We analyzed this particular overpass a year ago.

Meanwhile plans to build a third US-1 pedestrian overpass adjacent to the UM Metrorail station are currently underway. The Miami Today News Reports:

The meeting is 4-7:30 p.m. Sept. 27 at the Holiday Inn University of Miami, 1350 S. Dixie Hwy in Coral Gables. Free hotel parking is available.

Free Hotel Parking? Yes, let’s drive to a planning meeting designed to build better facilities for walking. This doesn’t make any sense… I came up with a visual as to how close this meeting will be to the Metrorail:

Transitography 11

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 14, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

nightwalks, originally uploaded by fubuki.

Transitography 10

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 13, 2007
in Conservation, E85, Environment, Fuel, Gas Station, Miami and Pollution
. 6 Comments

Bonneville Salt Flats, originally uploaded by gm_blogs.

In the spirit of Miami catching up with the rest of the country today with the opening of our first E85 Fueling Station…

Ryan will be back later today to discuss why E85 really isn’t all it’s cut out to be…

West Kendall Residents Remain Misinformed about Transit

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on September 12, 2007
in CSX, East Kendall Homeowners Organization, Ed Levinson, Kendall, LRT and NIMBY
. 12 Comments
Here we go again folks. The special interest groups of Kendall are working hard to make sure the area never builds any reasonable transit options to deal with their congestion. You may recall my previous open letter to the EKHO and Edward Levinson. We’ll I began writing them (and the Herald) a new letter today in response to this article and found myself repeating much of my previous sentiments…

Here’s the quote by Ed which really inspired me to write to them again:

”This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It’s total insanity,” said Kendall Community Council member Edward Levinson of what he believes will become a traffic nightmare at the intersection of Kendall Drive and 97th Avenue.

That’s right folks…We’re going to scrap the cheaper LRT on existing tracks and ROW, because of possible traffic tie-ups along Ed’s commute.

You wouldn’t trust a gambling chimpanzee with your life savings, so why would you allow special interest groups and homeowners associations to plan a transit system around their vehicular needs? Sound foolish? I hope so. But that’s precisely what’s happening at the Citizen’s Transportation Advisory Committee’s Subcommittee meetings in Kendall where plans are underway to design new public transit for area residents.

Various homeowners associations, backed by Kendall Community Council member Edward Levinson, are working to garner public opposition to a plan that would make the Kendall community more accessible to area residents by using the existing CSX rail corridor.

The group opposes the proposed light rail transit because of possible congestion the at-grade crossings could create for vehicular commuters such as themselves. Not to mention, many of them believe that their homes (built along the previously existing rail corridor) will decrease in value due to added rail transit; this belief has been disproved statistically nationwide (Source: APTA.)

The Kendall community is at a crossroads. The inability to embrace alternative forms of effective transit is disconcerting, particularly in a region currently choking on the congestion induced by its own unchecked growth and sprawl. It is typical of the mentality fostered in this particular region and has been cultivated by our addiction to the automobile.

It is of paramount importance that our citizens educate themselves on the benefits of proper public infrastructure and urban planning before they take up such a bold position against reasonable measures which would help steer the future growth of our community.