Green A City

Minneapolis Responds Quickly to Bridge Tragedy

Our hearts go out to Minnesotans in wake of the I-35W bridge collapse that occurred yesterday in the city center of Minneapolis.

We received an email this morning from the city describing how it is encouraging people to bike and walk in the downtown area, as many of the major roads in and around the accident site are closed today.

Minneapolis had the second-highest bike-to-work rate in the 2006 SustainLane US city rankings, with 2.3 percent of city residents biking to work. In last night's news coverage of the tragedy, it was apparent how many people used bikes as a way of navigating around the gridlock that seized area roads. 

The city also announced in today's email that "Stone Arch Bridge and Bridge #9 are also closed until further notice.  Bicyclists and pedestrians who need to cross the river must do so at either the Washington Avenue bridge at the University of Minnesota campus or at the 3rd Ave Bridge in Downtown.  Downtown bicycle commuters who regularly use West River Parkway are encouraged to use the LRT trail to and from Downtown."

May Minneapolis, neighboring St. Paul and all those injured have a speedy recovery.

The Impact of "Boomburbs" on Metro Sustainability

The Brookings Institute recently released a new book, Boomburbs: The Rise of America's Accidental Cities, and we were astounded by the hyper growth of many places that few have heard of nationally.

What's troubling is the negative impact these cities will have on the best efforts of urban centers to green their communities.

Located in more than 25 metro areas in the US, so-called boomburbs have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled in size since the 1970s or 1980s, with metros such as Phoenix having as much 42 percent of its total population residing in these new clusters.

Photo source: Wikipedia

While the SustainLane US City Rankings of the largest 50 US cities included only two of these so-called Boomburbs--Mesa, Arizona          and Arlington, Texas--these and other cities such as North Las Vegas, Nevada; Hialeah, Florida; Peoria, Arizona; and Chesapeake, Virginia will be truly pushing the limit in impacting smart growth planning approaches for water, natural resources, air quality and traffic impacts.

The problem is many of these boomburbs lack city planning, and rely instead on housing developers for master plans, which may or may not be cobbled together to form the basis for transportation and resource planning.

Worse,  say authors Robert Lang and Jennifer LeFurgy, boomburbs are quickly leapfrogging into cheaper agricultural land beyond metro cities, with even newer "mini boomburbs" that push into "increasingly remote locations and use legislation intended to promote rural economic growth to steal businesses from older, more developed suburbs."

Examples are provided of cities such as Frisco, Texas, which is outside Dallas-Forth Worth, poaching business from older Texas boomburbs such as Plano and Irvine.

"Boomberbs are truly 'driving cities'," say the authors. "Not only is public transit use low, but also average travel time to work is high." It's not surprising that Arlington, Texas (pop. 360,000), was the only city in the SustainLane US City Rankings to have 0 percent of its population commuting on public transit or biking to work.

The authors report on "freeway exit economies," where a community's economic growth potential is measured by the number of freeway exits and miles of freeway-facing frontage road it has. That's so it can pencil out how much land it can develop with low-slung strip malls, big-box retailers, corporate campuses and massive residential housing projects.

Boomburbs never mentions the environmental impacts boomburbs foist upon neighboring communities, regions and states (the book and supporting study were funded by the Fannie Mae Foundation).

But there is one glimmer of hope: most mayors and city councils of boomburbs are pursuing light rail as a solution to the congestion, air pollution, inconvenience and the resulting lack of prestige these mushrooming "driving cities" and their 10 million inhabitants are experiencing.

Bike Capital of the World?

We repost Warren's June 14th article from WorldChanging this week. -Editor

The Future of Carbon-Free Transport: Groningen, Netherlands

The future of carbon-free transport lives strong in Groningen. This Dutch city of 185,000 proves that bicycle transportation can reign supreme: people there make about 150,000 trips by bicycle every day.

Bicycles and pedestrians entirely rule the medieval-era city hub, cruising along on car-free dedicated pathways and short cuts with no traffic signals in some instances. But people also commute on bikes in large numbers from suburban housing spread out around the city to downtown jobs, via a ring-and-spoke network of paths. Overall, 37 percent of area commutes are made on bikes.

Boasting an official town bicycle planner, Groningen has created an infrastructure it refers to "continuous and integral," which includes massive surface and underground bicycle parking facilities, dedicated bike paths, and two-way bike lanes even on one-way auto streets.

Since the early 1980s, 30 city bicycle parking facilities have been developed, including one underground facility at the central train station that sells bikes, repairs bikes and offers valet and secure parking for more than 4,000 bikes. Parking is financed through a low-cost annual membership program that costs $50 a year, while bike valet positions create significant numbers of jobs at the public parking facilities and also at 15 local schools.

Bike parking and paths, however, are only the physical manifestation of the careful cycling cultural nourishment that has been provided by city leaders collaborating with citizens. In 1986 Groningen developed what is believed to be Europe’s first dedicated bike policy document, which focused on a broad spectrum of bike transportation and awareness programs. Educational programs now include teaching the health and economic benefits of cycling.

"We think we can boost the numbers of cyclists even higher," said bicycle planner Cor van der Klaauw on Josh Hart’s Car Free Blog. "We have programs to introduce new immigrants to cycling. Many of them came from places where the car is the ultimate status symbol. We need to show them that in Holland, they can get around very easily by bicycle, status symbols aside."

Groningen's bicycle planning has not occurred in a vacuum, but rather complements an integrated scheme that includes low-priced parking facilities for cars, strong public transport and careful public transit linkages between car parking areas and centers for employment and education. With these amenities, cars use, especially in the city center, was successfully restricted without impacting local business.

Other so-called northern European "cycling cities" may be more known (Amsterdam; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Ghent, Belgium) but none can match Groningen for its complete vision and high rate of daily velocipedic participation.

The Netherlands averages a 26 percent national cycling rate, Denmark scores just under 20 percent and Germany achieves about 10 percent, according to a report published by Dutch research group Fietsberaad (Number 7).

While bicycles in the US currently comprise only 0.4 percent of all commuter trips, some North American cities are actively promoting bicycle transportation--through planning dedicated mapped routes and facilities--as a way of reducing global climate change-causing carbon emissions. San Francisco, for instance, has announced a goal of having bicycle trips make up 10 percent of all city trips by 2010.

What’s behind the high rates in Europe, besides the history of bicycle use and culture? According to Fietsbaraad: "Accepting the cyclist as a 'normal' traffic participant with equal rights in the '50s and '60s has been a crucial factor; (so has) the realization of a motor car infrastructure (that) is not at the expense of the cyclist….”

Warren Karlenzig is Chief Strategy Officer at SustainLane, where he directs the company’s US city rankings, and SustainLane Government, an open-source best practices sustainability knowledgebase for state and local government officials and their constituents. Warren is lead author of the newly released How Green Is Your City? The SustainLane U.S. City Rankings (New Society Publishers). His blog is www.greenacity.com

East Bay Freeway Meltdown: Why Public Transit is the Future

After yesterday's literal meltdown of key freeways serving the San Francisco Bay Area because of a freak gas-tanker explosion,  the focus today is on how the Bay Area's strong public transit system will pick up the slack.

Which begs the question: What does your metro region look like if a similar manmade or natural disaster strikes your freeway system?

There will be free rides on all public transit today, as Gov. Schwarzenegger pitched in $2.5 million in funding to reimburse transit agencies.

The Bay Area has some of the highest public transit ridership rates in the nation, along with metro areas and cities such as New York City, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.

But what happens if a key interchange or highway system (New Orleans) is taken out of metro areas with little or no public transit in place? Does the Governor of Indiana make an announcement that all gasoline will be free so the people of Indianapolis can still get to work despite gridlock? Does Arlington, Texas, with zero public transit, just let people stay home from work or school until the problem is fixed?

Top Ten Green Cities: Review of "The Climate Code" Episode on SustainLane's US City Rankings

The Weather Channel's "The Climate Code" covered in-depth The SustainLane US City Rankings yesterday, featuring reports from the top ten cities out of the largest 50 US cities SustainLane ranked in 2006. Look for How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings from New Society Press in April with expanded and updated information on the rankings.

Yesterday (rebroadcast Saturday, January 27 at 3, 5 and 11 p.m. Eastern), we heard about the following cities:

1. Portland, Oregon

Portland provides a great example of what cities, citizens and businesses can do together to improve their quality of life along with the local economy.

Once having some of the nation's poorest air quality, Portland now has some of the best air and tap water quality nationwide, along with free public transit downtown, the highest bike-to-work rate, the most LEED-certified buildings, strong local food and an emerging alternative fuels economy. Plus the real estate community has backed the first residential home multiple-listing service with green features in history.

2. San Francisco

San Francisco is a close competitor with Portland for managing sustainability programs that help provide the nation's best solid waste diversion rate (recycling and commercial composting), and feature bold projects for solar and tidal energy generation. San Francisco's housing affordability remains an issue that forces many to commute long distances into the city. Fortunately the Bay Area features strong public transportation to help make that commuting less polluting and congested.

3. Seattle

Mayor Greg Nickels, who appeared on "The Climate Code," is a strong national advocate for climate change policy, clean technologies, green building and effective sustainability policy management. Seattle, its port authority and King County, have been teaming up on biodiesel ferry and bus initiatives, while the city has strongly pushed for restoring native forests in the Emerald City.

4. Chicago

My hometown, and each time I visit, I'm more wowed by what I see under Mayor Daley's leadership. Mayor Daley, who spoke on "The Climate Code" about wanting to go from #4 in the SustainLane rankings to #1, has been greening streets, freeways and even abandoned industrial sites.

Chicago blends the aesthetic with the technical aspects of sustainability: the world's largest green roof at Millennium Park underlies a Frank Gehry-designed bandshell, all part of an ongoing study to reduce urban heat-island effect.

5. Oakland, California

Oakland is a great "sleeper" in the top ten, with growing public transit use, policy supporting more local food, renewable energy and a move toward energy security. New Mayor Ron Dellums is instituting a "green collar" jobs program for youth and low-income workers, so that the clean tech jobs the city is trying to lure can equally benefit professionals, skilled people in the trades, unskilled workers and students.

6. New York City

With the country's best urban public transit system, New York is not resting on its laurels. Mayor Bloomberg is putting his weight behind city appointments, committees and processes that are making a sustainability plan a reality in 2007. Out of such activities, look for the city to assume a leadership role in developing alternative fueled vehicles, renewable energy (including tidal) and Gotham-scaled green buildings.

7. Boston

The Bean goes Green. Boston is poised to become the leading city for green building with its new zoning requiring that all buildings over 50,000 sq. feet be LEED (the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. Add that to high renewable energy use, great public transit, walkability and low sprawl, and you get a promising future. Weakness: recycling. 

8. Philadelphia

Philly's #8 has been a surprise to some, but the city is a great model for local urban food, with strong networks of farmers markets and community gardens. The city also is riding a wave of interest in sustainability from citizen groups, business (including the local Business Alliance for Local Living Economies), and just plain folks who have been attending large planning and visioning meetings.  From that process the city needs a sustainability plan that city officials buy into, along with more recycling and renewable energy.

9. Denver

When cities claim that they can't build public transit like that of such "older cities" in the top ten, I always point to Denver. The city and 30 surrounding towns in 2004 passed a ballot measure to build out more than 100 miles of new light rail and other new public transit lines.

Mayor Hickenlooper has made sustainability the foundation for the city's future, through economic development that will be integrated with the new public transit. The skinny: 4x current public transit ridership in 15 years and a vital new American city.

10. Minneapolis

Minneapolis wants to increase its energy and food security, as Mayor R.T. Rybak described on "The Climate Code" yesterday. The city will continue being the leader in renewable energy for Midwestern cities, while bolstering farmers markets and community gardens (it's already #1 in that area), and green building. 

Cities with good public transit earn more in rent than their suburbs: WSJ

Today's Wall Street Journal has a great article "Downtown, Where the Price is Right." The article cites a new study comparing office rents in major U.S. cities compared to surrounding suburbs. The cities where downtown rents fetch the highest premium over their 'burbs:

1. Manhattan;  2. Boston; 3. Washington, D.C.; 4. Chicago;  5. Montreal; 6. San Francisco

And the cities where suburbs fetch the highest premium compared to downtown city rents:

1. St. Louis; 2. Oklahoma City; 3. Phoenix; 4. Kansas City, MO; 5. (tied) Detroit, Nashville, Philadelphia

One key difference between the top group and the bottom group is that NY, Boston, DC, Chicago and SF have the nation's highest rates of commuters who takes public transit to work and who walk to work.

In St. Louis, OK City, Phoenix, Kansas City and Nashville rates of public transit use are much lower--Nashville and Oklahoma City's public transit use rates are about 1%, and St. Louis' is the highest at about 10%. Compare to NY, DC, SF and Boston, which have commute-to-work on transit rates of 30-50%. Walk-to-work rates for these cities are about half or less of NY, DC, SF, etc. (The outlier is Philly with a high public transit use rate and walk to work rate, but with downtown renting for 6% less than suburban office space)

My point: cities need to have strong public transit and walkability to be desirable. Said the research director for the study, "These are all areas that evoke prestige and provide superior high-quality public transit, are generally considered safe and all seem to contain inviting, pedestrian-friendly public spaces."

What's especially fascinating is that vacancy rates aren't such a big factor. Chicago may have a 16% office space vacancy rate in its downtown, but it still can fetch 41% more in office space rent per square foot than can its suburbs.

Take note city planners and policymakers: public transit and walkability mean bigger bucks for business, tourism, and more money for tax rolls. We don't need to even get into the air pollution and global climate change caused by all that driving in the transit-poor cities, do we?

SF Mayor: 10% city trips by bike by 2010

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom dropped a big one this past week announcing a goal to have 10% of all city transportation trips be by bike by 2010. Wow. This is an aggressive goal for an American city and a noble one, as bike commuting reduces air pollution, congestion on roads, greenhouse gas emissions, and economic dependence on oil, besides making people healthier and more connected to their urban environment.

Currently about 1.8 percent of people commute in SF by bike (Portland has a nation-leading 2.8 percent of commuters traveling by bike). If you say it can't be done, look at Copenhagen Denmark's 36 percent bike commute rate.

I've been commuting by bike for 20 years, starting in Chicago--yes, even in the winter--and now I commute from Marin County to downtown San Francisco every day by bike and ferry.  I rode in the first or one of the first Critical Mass rides in SF, which has since spread to more than 400 cities on every continent except Antarctica. It's been a blast and I believe my personal actions have had positive macro and micro impacts.