WalkBoston news

Here at WalkBoston, we're busy getting ready for our annual meeting on Thursday! I hope you're all planning to attend. Click here for the invitation and details. Spread the word!

Also, we got a nice little writeup in the Globe over the weekend. Click here and skip about halfway down the page to "Walking group has a major footing in transportation".

Cell phone impairment and pedestrians

There's a lot of talk lately about the dangers of distracted driving. In Massachusetts, state legislators are working on a safe driving bill (it passed in the House in February, and is currently in the Senate) that would ban handheld cell phone use for talking, texting, and other communications, but provides for people to continue using hands-free devices.

You may be aware that studies show that drivers using cell phones to talk or text are as impaired as drivers who are legally drunk. While there are obviously characteristics that make cell phone impairment different from chemical impairment -- most notably the ability to put the phone down when traffic seems to be getting more complicated. Other studies show that cell-phone impairment exists even when using a hands-free device.

Because pedestrians are often overlooked by drivers (have you ever zipped by a pedestrian waiting to cross at a crosswalk, either because you didn't see them in the busy urban environment or because you didn't feel like stopping? I have, I'm sorry to say!), and are small and slow as compared to other cars, WalkBoston sees pedestrians (and bikes) as being at special risk from distracted driving. So, this week we wrote state senators to say:

I’m writing with regard to S.2290, the safe driving bill. WalkBoston, Massachusetts’ pedestrian advocacy organization, and our membership of over 2500, strongly supports a ban on cell phone and electronic communication devices by drivers. We ask you to vote in support of this bill. Distracted driving is a danger to pedestrians and all users of our streets and roads, and banning the use of cell phones and other such devices is an important piece in the safety puzzle.

Studies have shown that hands-free devices do not significantly reduce the distraction provided by electronic devices, so we additionally support future legislation that limits drivers’ use of hands-free devices as well.

Thank you very much for your support of S.2290 and your attention to the safety of all residents and visitors of the Commonwealth.

Creative visualization of transportation data

In addition to being a bit of a transportation geek, I love creative and engaging ways of displaying data, so this post over at infrastructurist is enough to make me scream like my mother at a Beatles concert in the 60s. How are people in major US cities getting to work? Check it out.

It's the middle of February; how's your winter going?

You wouldn't expect your neighbor to clear the snow on the street in front of his house, so why would you depend on him to clear the sidewalk in front of it?

(From Phil's Blog)

In Massachusetts, we get most of our snow in February and March, so I'm anticipating some big storms in the next few weeks, but we've had a couple of notable ones already this year. Last week's dud notwithstanding, last night walking home from Davis, before most of my neighbors had shoveled their walks, I found myself slipping and sliding all over the place! That's not exactly the kind of excitement I'm looking for on my walk home.

How is your neighborhood doing on snow clearance? Does your city have a snow clearing ordinance?

This Thursday, StreetTalk: "Streets for whom?"

StreetTalk
Streets for whom?
by Barbara Knecht, Director of Design, Institute for Human Centered Design

Thurs, Feb 4, 7-9 PM
@ LivableStreets office, 100 Sidney St, Cambridge

Open to the public. Suggested $5 donation. Complimentary beer provided by Harpoon.

Should Segways be allowed on sidewalks? Should all bicycles travel only in designated bike lanes? Should motorized scooters be treated as if they are wheelchairs? Where should roller blades, skateboards, adult tricycles, bikes with trailers or kick scooters travel? The world of personal mobility is expanding. But all those other modes are having a hard time finding their place on the streets and sidewalks of our cities. It seems someone always thinks one or more of the alternatives is unsuitable. The solution becomes clear if one applies a universal -- human centered -- design approach to the problem. It isn't simple, it is just clear. It ends the discussion about vehicles. It starts a discussion about people and how they can get around in the city. Barbara will discuss the concept of human-centered design and showcase examples of streets in South America, the US and around the world. A Q&A discussion will follow the talk.

Barbara Knecht, R.A. is Director of Design at the Institute for Human Centered Design. She is also co-director of the IHP "Cities in the 21st Century" and a consultant to Westhab, Inc., an affordable housing and community development organization. Ms. Knecht holds a BA from UC Berkeley and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University. She was awarded a Kinne Fellowship, a Loeb Fellowship, and received a Graham Foundation grant. She serves on the Metropolitan Life/Enterprise Foundation Awards for Excellence in Affordable Housing, the Board of Directors of Care for the Homeless, and the Streetscape committee of the Municipal Art Society.

Hosted by LivableStreets Alliance.
For more information: www.livablestreets.info/node/2450, 617-621-1746, events@livablestreets.info

Today's worst idea: dashboard computing

Yesterday's New York Times included Driven to Distraction - Despite Risks, Carmakers Integrate the Web With the Dash. This article reports on the increasing number of carmakers and technology companies that are working together to integrate computers and cars for "infotainment" in the front seat.

The first wave of these “infotainment systems,” as the tech and car industries call them, will hit the market this year. While built-in navigation features were once costly options, the new systems are likely to be standard equipment in a wide range of cars before long. They prevent drivers from watching video and using some other functions while the car is moving, but they can still pull up content as varied as restaurant reviews and the covers of music albums with the tap of a finger.

I don't think I have anything to say about this that you can't think of yourself. It's a terrible idea to put more distractions in front of drivers, especially bright distractions that require them to take their eyes off the road for seconds at a time. This is bad for drivers, bad for pedestrians, bad for cyclists, and has the potential to be bad for buildings and signposts as well.

Mr. Walker vs. Mr. Wheeler

You know how, when you're walking, drivers are all inconsiderate jerks, and when you're driving, pedestrians are slow, annoying obstacles?

Certainly Disney's Goofy has some experience with this: Goofy in Motor Mania!

Putting ourselves in other people's shoes is one of the trickiest, and frequently, most easily overlooked elements of sharing space with others. When I'm on a crowded sidewalk, everyone around me is walking too slowly and seems totally oblivious to how they're blocking the sidewalk. When I'm standing talking to friends, I'm annoyed at the person brushing by me in a hurry.

In fact, switching modes makes us better at all of the modes we use. By changing our perspective on the road, we can become more aware of all the elements of the travel environment and the factors that are most prominent to each. When I'm on a bike, I'm acutely attuned to how closely cars pass me, so, now, when I'm in a car, I give cyclists more space, for example.

Do you use multiple modes on a regular basis? Has it made you better at moving around in the urban environment?

Fund public transit! Call your legislators and Gov. Patrick

For those of you with short attention spans for this sort of thing, I'm going to start with my call to action and then move into the essay portion of it.

Did you or someone you know get stuck in Tuesday night's transit nightmare as a result of the red line train derailment? Were you relying on the red line to get you home, or on one of the buses that got pulled off its regular route in order to scramble for the tens of thousands of people who normally get around on the red line? Did you, perhaps, miss your commuter rail train, which runs infrequently after prime hours, due to the delays all over the system? Or were you in a car, and found yourself mired in gridlock as people who normally commute by public transit fled to cabs and private vehicles?

However you feel about the MBTA, effective and reliable public transportation is essential to the daily functioning of the greater Boston metro area. You don't even have to use it for it to make your life better, because if the more than one million daily trips currently served by the MBTA switch to cars, you can believe your commute would not be improved. Our roads don't have the capacity to serve all those trips by car, and our land mass doesn't have the capacity to expand roads to serve them, even if we did want to become Los Angeles.

If public transit makes your life better, call your legislators and the Governor's office today to insist that they fund an effective and reliable public transit system. To find your legislators' information, click here and enter your information. You want to call or write to your Senate and Representative in General Court. Governor Patrick's contact information is at the bottom of this post.

When you call, say that you rely on public transit, and that you want better funding and/or debt relief for the MBTA.

Okay, now I'm going to get into some nitty gritty about the MBTA and its history and why, even if you think it's been mismanaged in the past, it needs more money going into the future:

Also, why do I care? How does this relate to pedestrian advocacy? A robust and reliable public transportation infrastructure supports and encourages the use of walking as a primary or secondary mode of transportation. As a dedicated walker who hopes never to have to own a car in order to function in my life, I'm deeply invested in seeing public transit work well for broad swaths of the population. In Boston and surrounding communities, as in many other cities across the country, this hope is threatened by significant disinvestment in public transit by state and local governments.

In general, the MBTA is pretty great. Oh, sure, I have some of the same complaints that many people do, including poor late night coverage, doubts about effective management, frustration at rising fares without improvements, and annoyance at poor communication with riders when things go wrong. Still, I'm able to use it as my primary mode of urban transportation for distances further than a couple of miles (which I typically walk.) The fact that I and others can rely on it that way often goes unremarked as we focus on our complaints, but it's worth remembering that part of the bad rap the MBTA gets is simply that we're all more likely to be vocal about complaints than compliments.

Why will more money make things better?

In the major transportation reorganization in the state this year, many of the issues people pointed to regarding mismanagement were addressed. Compensation rules are in line, now, with other state transportation departments, and upper management of the MBTA is being reorganized, as well, to improve the agency.

Since 2000, the MBTA has suffered increasing debts due to a change in funding structure. Prior to 2000, the state covered the difference between MBTA revenue and expenditures (and before you complain that public transit needs to pay its own way, I'd like you to show me any road in the state of Massachusetts that does the same -- and most of them are free!!). Starting in 2000, the MBTA started receiving money from sales taxes collected. Unfortunately, due to a slower economy than predicted and the increase in internet spending at that time, these revenues were lower than expected. Paired with Big Dig debt that was shifted to the MBTA, this made a bad situation worse.

Today, one third of every dollar the MBTA spends goes to debt service. This is an immense amount of money. Think what public transit could do with 30% more money! One long-term solution to the problem of funding the MBTA is to reduce their debt load so that money isn't going down the drain every day. But where will that money come from? Increased taxes, naturally. Governor Patrick tried this summer to increase the state gas tax, some of which revenues would have given the T an immense boost. He couldn't muster the political will to make that happen, however, so instead, tens of thousands of people yesterday paid with their time after a train derailment, just as people every day pay with their time when the green line is slow, or there's a switch problem at JFK or a bus doesn't come as scheduled.

I don't care about the MBTA as an agency, but I care a heck of a lot about public transit in the Boston area. It needs more money to work better now and to keep working in the future. Across the country, transportation infrastructure, including transit (like the MBTA), roads and bridges, is suffering deterioration and years of underfunding. Now is the time to change that pattern, and giving mass transit in Massachusetts a boost is part of the solution. Call your legislators and the governor today to encourage them to make forward thinking the bottom line.

Also, consider joining the T Rider's union to advocate for better public transit in the Boston metro area.

Boston, MA Massachusetts State House
Office of the Governor
Office of the Lt. Governor
Room 280
Boston, MA 02133

Phone: 617.725.4005
888.870.7770 (in state)
Fax: 617.727.9725
TTY: 617.727.3666

Santa should have cookies AND veggies if he's going to walk

I am utterly charmed by this analysis of Santa's energy expenditure while delivering presents.

According to our Holiday Calorie Calculator, if Santa had a cup of carrot and celery sticks at each household instead of cookies and milk, he would only consume 50 calories at each house and would only be eating 4.6 billion calories. Because he is burning off 13 billion calories by walking, he would actually lose all of his weight and disappear. A combination of veggies at most households and cookies or skim milk every few households would keep him in energy balance.

Travel lanes vs parking vs active transportation

Getting back to removing travel lanes, we need to become bolder in our thinking and stop believing there’s a level playing field out there. The cities that have high rates of walking and bicycling also have conditions where driving is difficult, expensive, even painful. We cannot continue to think we can add or create walking and bicycling infrastructure while maintaining mobility for drivers and hope to see anything more than a miniscule modal shift. Rare and expensive parking is part of the needed pain for drivers, but off-street parking should be reduced before on-street parking is threatened. We should be advocating for new traffic engineering rules such as “Never have more than two lanes of traffic in each direction.” “Never require a person to cross more than three travel lanes at once.”

Michael Ronkin

Active modes of transportation -- walking and biking (among other, less common forms like, say, rollerblading) -- are an important element of moving people from place to place in urban areas. Because urban space is so constrained, this is more true than in, for example, suburban or rural areas, though those spaces could also benefit from increased biking and walking, where possible. Of course, the density in urban areas also facilitates these choices: you have to have things worth walking or biking within a reasonable distance for that.

If you've been paying attention to this stuff, you're probably aware of the increasing focus on parking, and the way it spreads out human settlements while also making it easier for people to deal with their cars. Cheap or free parking has a lot to answer for in the eyes of new urbanists, smart growth proponents, and others who love the vitality of urban areas. Are cities for cars, or are they for people?

It made my day

A friend recently introduced me to the entertaining website It Made My Day. It has nothing to do with pedestrianism or urban planning; it's just funny little stories about things that made people happy.

So what does that have to do with WalkBoston? Well, I just read one that made my day:

I was in my backyard doing yard work when I heard my neighbor’s two children playing loudly. I realized they were playing cops, but instead of robbers, the offender had run a stop sign, driven in the carpool lane by herself, and changed lanes without signaling.

This just warms the cockles of my traffic-geeky heart.

Texting while driving

Today's Boston Globe reports that the Boston City council is developing a measure to ban texting while driving in the City of Boston.

This is great. As far as I can tell, no one doubts that texting and driving are incompatible activities, and, yet, many people combine them. I will admit that, although I very rarely drive, I have texted while driving.

I know it's unsafe, that it distracts me from the road, and that people like me are exactly the problem. I imagine that other people are in the same position. In the moment, I feel like, if I can just get the text sent, some important piece of information will have been exchanged and then I'll be back at my normal capacity for safe driving. It only takes a moment! This makes it feel more okay than drunk driving, even though studies indicate that it makes you a worse driver than someone who's slightly drunk. That, combined with the inevitable "but I'm a better driver than most people" belief leads to people texting while driving, even though they (we) know better.

As with so many choice is life, I think it's okay for people to make bad choices if the consequences land squarely on their own shoulders. Unfortunately, choices that make people less safe drivers frequently injure and kill people who are not involved in the decision-making process. Given that, I'm in support of policies that encourage people to make the right choice, and this is one of them. I hope the City council is right that this move will spur Massachusetts to finally adopt a similar policy state-wide.

Less texting while driving will make our roads safer for everyone, and that's better.

Six bills to keep an eye on at the federal level

Every six years, the federal transportation bill needs to be re-authorized. The current one is overdue to be reauthorized -- the vote on it was postponed from October to December 18. The following bills could move forward as their own pieces, or get bundled into the broader re-authorization. If any or all of them are of interest to you, it's absolutely worth a call to your legislators. For help finding your senators' and representative's contact information, click here.

Livable Communities Act (S. 1619 / H.R. 3734) – Gives local governments the tools to integrate their transportation, housing, economic development, energy and environment needs by authorizing $400 million in competitive planning grants and $3.75 billion over three years for implementation of sustainable development projects. The bill also creates an inter-departmental council responsible for coordinating sustainable development policies at Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency and others.

Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S. 1733) – Allocates 2.4% of the proceeds from auctioned emissions permits to fund clean transportation projects that help reduce carbon emissions. The Senate’s climate bill more than doubles the amount for clean transportation in the House version and substantially incorporates language from a separate marker bill known as CLEAN-TEA (S.575 / H.R. 1329).

Federal Assistance for Transit Operations (H.R. 2746) – Allow public transit agencies representing cities larger than 200,000 people to flex part of their capital transit funds for operating expenses, creating greater flexibility for use of federal dollars in urban areas.

Complete Streets (S.584 / H.R. 1443) – Ensures that all users of the transportation system, including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, children, older individuals and individuals with disabilities are able to travel safely and conveniently on and across federally funded streets and highways.

Another goal included in the national transportation objectives bill is tripling transit use, cycling, and walking.

National Transportation Objectives (H.R. 2724) – Sets quantifiable national transportation objectives to ensure that federal transportation investments advance national purposes tied to health outcomes, improvements in the areas of energy efficiency, environmental protection, economic competitiveness, safety, safety, connectivity and equal access. This would be the first time the country has established a set of quantifiable national transportation objectives since the Eisenhower-era bill that appropriated money to build the interstate highway system. Some targets in the current version of the bill: reducing driving by 16% and reducing the average household’s combined housing and transportation costs by 25%, over a 20-year period.

Transportation Workforce Development Funding (H.R. 2444) – Requires that 0.5 percent of federal Surface Transportation Program and Highway Bridge funding go toward workforce development and job training. Dedicated funding for workforce development in transportation sector will greatly benefit communities that are currently left out of the labor force, especially low income communities and communities of color.

Transportation for America and the reauthorization of the transportation bill

You all probably already know about Transportation for America, the excellent transportation and lobbying organization that is bringing transportation interests to national planning, beyond the simple cars-and-highway message that has been so prevalent for the last several decades. If you don't, you may want to check them out.

One of the things you can do right off the bat there is send a note to friends and family to encourage them to support more comprehensive thinking in this year's reauthorization of the transportation bill.

Spread the word!

Jaywalking: use your brain so you don't lose it

It won't come as a surprise to anyone to hear that I'm a pretty brazen pedestrian. When I'm in a crosswalk, I don't always wait meekly on the curb for cars to stop as they ought to but often don't; many times, I'll step -- with care -- into the crosswalk and bully drivers into yielding to me as the rules of the road require. I have been known to knock on the windows of cars that have stopped in the middle of crosswalks to point out to the driver that he or she is blocking my way, and once or twice, I have used my newspaper to whack the windshield of a car that ignores the crosswalk in order to save a few seconds. I don't necessarily advocate for others doing the same, but it is important to me that users of all modes share the streets, and when I'm on foot, I consider crosswalks my domain.

Still, though, when I'm out and about in and around Boston, I see a lot of incredibly bad pedestrian behavior. Over the weekend, I was driving along the Riverway in Boston around 9PM, and a couple of young guys crossed in front of me. They were in a crosswalk, at a light ... but crossing against the light. In the dark. On a fast-moving street. After screeching (literally) to a halt on the wet pavement, it was all I could do not to jump out of my car and yell at them. No driver wants to hit a pedestrian, and that moment of a close call is terrifying.

One of my mantras about safety is that everyone is 100% responsible for being safe all the time. Stepping into a crosswalk without looking and attending to oncoming cars makes me 100% responsible for the accident, just as the driver who fails to pay attention and yield is also 100% responsible. In that case, the law is on my side, which would, no doubt, make my stay in the hospital exactly the same as if the law weren't on my side.

I also abhor bad pedestrian behavior because I think it makes other users less respectful of pedestrians in general. I'm not going to tell people not to jaywalk -- there are times when the design of a city or roadway makes it nearly impossible not to, and many more times when the design makes it extremely impractical. But do you really trust strangers to care as much about your life as you do? If you're going to jaywalk, do it with care -- for everyone's sake.

What factors lead to this accident?

Last Monday, my colleague Kate came to work with news from near where she lives in Revere of a pedestrian struck and killed. We haven't found the story in the Globe, yet, but here are a couple of small pieces about it:
WHDH
FOX

Obviously, these are pretty sketchy and preliminary, and there's more information to be had, but I have some questions:

Was the pedestrian in a crosswalk? How fast was the car going? What was the speed limit?

The WHDH article includes a quote from a witness:

"Between the car being black, the pedestrian being dressed in black, with the weather being what it is and the poor lighting...it was just a tragic accident," said Keith Donnelly, a witness.

While wearing black at night does reduce one's visibility to cars (at a week-long festival I attend, people who don't make themselves visible at night are called "darkwads"), there are other factors at work in this -- and other -- accidents, and which we often take for granted and forget to consider:

Design speed: We all know what a speed limit is, and we all know we break it at least some of the time. This is because the speed that a section of roadway is engineered to handle gives us cues that tell us we're safe at higher speeds. Studies have shown that drivers recognize and understand the subconscious clues of roadway engineering and limit themselves by design speed rather than posted speed at least some of the time. Is the design speed for this stretch of road appropriate for the pedestrian use it gets?

If the pedestrian was in a crosswalk, how well-signed and -lit is the crosswalk? Especially if this is a fast stretch of road where pedestrians are relatively infrequent, it's important to call attention to crosswalks and make them as visible and noticeable as possible.

If the pedestrian wasn't in a crosswalk, is it because pedestrian needs aren't served here? Where was the nearest crosswalk?

Yes, drivers are responsible for being attentive to other road users, and pedestrians are responsible for the same, but sometimes the deck is stacked against all users. Whenever I read about a pedestrian accident, I want to know if this was one of those times.

Traffic accidents -- both lethal and non -- are a tragedy for us all.

Complete streets in the news

The concept of "complete streets" -- streets and roadways that are designed not primarily for cars and secondarily for everyone else, but designed right off the bat with all users in mind -- is gaining traction and attention throughout the fields of transportation and urban planning around the US and the world.

Yesterday, US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood wrote on his blog a post titled "Report, petition call for safer roadway planning". In it, he cites Transportation for America's recent report, Dangerous by Design.

Bike and pedestrian advocates have been pushing this message for years, and it's pretty darn exciting to see the conversation really moving into the mainstream.

Does your neighborhood contain complete streets?

More on jaywalking

Continuing with the questions and answers that came up during my chat on the Boston Globe last month:

One of the participants in the chat (Kelly) commented:

Also I've noticed, there is no uniform pedestrian system in Boston. In cities like New York, the lights always cycle through pedestrian walk signs. At the intersection of Beacon St. and Park where dozens of pedestrians cross every cycle, you have to push the button, the walk sign will not appear unless you do. Many people aren't used to that-they expect the walk signal to cycle through because that happens automatically at many other intersections.

And another commenter (Michael) said:

Some how In Seattle, pedestrians and motorist obey the laws in a very civil manner which tells me that enforcement is the issue here in MA. People in Seattle will wait for the light to change before walking even if there are no cars in site.

These two comments go together very nicely, and here's why: Michael is arguing that enforcement would solve the problem of jaywalking in Boston, and Kelly is pointing out that other cities have uniform systems for pedestrians.

If you've spent much time walking around Boston, you've probably noticed what Kelly did: sometimes there's a button for you to push to get a WALK and sometimes there isn't. Sometimes when you push the button, it works, and sometimes it appears to do nothing. If there's no button, you really have no idea if you just didn't find the button or if you'll get a WALK or what.

All of this says to people on foot that their needs have not been strongly considered in the design and construction of the city. And if their needs aren't being met, why should they obey the law? I don't think jaywalkers are like bank robbers and going out of their way to break the law. They're just people trying to run errands and get things done over the course of the day.

So then if I'm a person who crosses when it says DON'T WALK but I'm walking with the green light, fine, that's jaywalking, even though it's probably pretty reasonable from a traffic flow and safety perspective in most cases (lots of intersections all over the state, country and world are set up with pedestrians getting the WALK along with the parallel green), but it's a small chip in the block of the habit of obeying laws that pertain to walkers.

So, where does that leave all of us? We want the streets to be safe for drivers, for cyclists, and for walkers. AND we want people in cars, on foot, and on bikes to be able to get their errands done. Does simply enforcing existing laws succeed in doing that?

Walk rather than T!

Getting around Boston by T and on foot? Check out these10 MBTA trips you should walk instead. Our own Wendy Landman helped identify these!

A defense of jaywalking

Monday, Slate published an article by Tom Vanderbilt (of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do fame) titled A defense of jaywalking. In it, Vanderbilt addresses some of the complexities of data available about pedestrian behavior, the history of street-use paradigms, and biases in crash reporting.

This is a great article, and if you're interested in jaywalking, walking in urban areas, or mode-sharing paradigms, I think you'll find it worth reading. Check it out!