BLOG: Transit Placemaking
Sam Adams
Hello again from Salt Lake City, Utah.
Outside of the Pearl and the emerging South Waterfront districts and a few other transit stops, I would like improve upon our local efforts at what planners call “placemaking” around transit stations.
Transit stops and stations can help the surrounding neighborhoods and business districts succeed with good planning and placemaking. Transit stops and stations should not just be a convenient place to hop on the bus, lightrail, water taxi, tram or streetcar. People make a sense of place so transit investments must also be places where community can come together in safe, comfortable, convenient and well-design spaces.
An example of poor local placemaking, in my opinion, is the existing downtown bus mall. It’s design does not add to the vitality of local businesses, and it does not provide the amenities it should to transit riders, much less an adequate sense of safety. We must address these issues as we add lightrail to the downtown bus mall.
Another example of inadequate placemaking is the newest lightrail line - the yellow line - to North Portland. The lightrail stops themselves are great. But the project has yet to produce 
significant new public/private community investments in the surrounding brotherhoods apart from the transportation infrastructure itself. My staff team, along with community leaders and me are trying to help address the lack of placemaking as we work to revitalize the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center at the intersection of North Interstate Avenue and Killingworth Street.
The addressing the community challenges of placemaking and its uglier cousin gentrification are a key concern to me as we begin construction of the South/North line through East Portland.
So, as my second report from the 10th Annual Rail-Volution Conference I am passing along some notes and my thoughts about a seminar I attended titled, “Creating and Sustaining “Place” with Transit,” and a presentation made by Troy Russ, a planner who is working on a project in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Russ described how in transit’s early days, transit engineers come on to the scene with a hero mentality, that they were going to save locales from the automobile. Unfortunately, he says, in many cases they applied a transit equipment engineering-only approach to the transit solution. This did not create a sense of place for people. Seattle’s early Monorail efforts might be examples of the engineering-only approach.
There are four different types of transit stations each with its our form and function according to Russ:
· The ½ mile walk up station: This is the most localized transit station. They are often grouped together. The role of this transit station is to serve the transit needs of where it is located, not try and shape it. Bus stops in existing neighborhood business districts might be example of this type of transit stop.
· The 1mile bike circulation station: This is the most common type of 
transit stop. It often includes a “kiss-and-ride drop-off site, bike station and often combines bus stops with lightrail stops. This station will impact the surrounding neighborhood or business district. The integration of land use and transit planning for this type of station is key. The Gateway Transit Center is an example of this type of stop.
· The 3 mile park and ride station: This is a transit station most often accessed with an automobile. Sound traffic planning for the surround neighborhood is key for this type of stop. This type of stop is like the Westside lightrail park and ride transit centers.
Russ says that transit role change depending on the context for each stop. For the walk up transit stops the emphasis is on mobility. For the bike circulation stops the emphasis is on placemaking and redevelopment opportunities. For the park and ride transit stops, the emphasis on reducing congestion in and out of a neighborhood.
Some stops might be a combination of each element but it is important to be clear upfront what the goals are for each transit stop and that the efforts of placemaking be made on clear-eyed understating on the neighborhood context for each stop.
Posted by Sam Adams on September 9, 2005
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Comments by site visitors
Sam, since you are at a three day conference dedicated to the transit part of smart growth, please expose yourself to the other side of these issues. A good place to start would be the American Dream Conference that was held in Portland last year.
At that conference, a CPA who specializes in transit system auditing gave a talk on the economics of transit systems. Light rail faired poorly because, for the same amount of money, you can get MORE PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR CARS with well designed bus systems. He proved it in LA.
Crime problems along transit was mentioned in this thread. That American Dream Conference brought in a British police officer who specializes in reducing crime through architectural design. He pointed out several things that we are doing wrong in Portland.
Finally, transit REQUIRES density to work well, especially light rail. Wendel Cox gave a talk on transit and density in various cities around the world. (They probably mentioned Wendal at Railvolution)
There IS an other side to much of what you get from Railvolution, please investigate it before Portland is led further down the drain by planners.
I suggest you do this: View the DVD I gave you a while back. This is a DVD of selected presentations from last year’s American Dream Conference.
I have an eight DVD set containing most of the conference that I will drop by your office next week.
It is essential to Portland’s future that you see both sides in this matter.
Thanks
JK
Posted by: jim karlock | Sep 9, 2005 5:41:14 PM
It is folly to think that Portland's problems can be solved by Public Transport alone, be it Max, Bus or a combination of both.
The North Portland extension of Max is a perfect example. It took the only alternative to an overcrowded I-5 and reduced the capacity of Interstate Avenue by more than 50%, turning I-5 into even more of a parking lot than it was before. Whatever small amount of development that has taken place is all heavily subsidized.
If you are going to have mass transit in an area such as down town Portland, with city blocks that are really only
1/2 a block long, then put the system underground, where it belongs.
The rest of the world is removing street cars and building subways and freeways and synchronizing traffic lights to facilitate traffic flow, while we're tearing up already inadequate surface artieries and putting streetcars on them, installing bicycle lanes and doing everything we can impede automobile traffic.
We build Max and street cars, subsidize development with tax abatement and other "economic development" give aways and pat ourselves on the back for what a great job we've done. That puts us into the 19th Century; we happen to live in the 21st. Sort of like Bill Gates and Microsoft; if they work another five years, they might have an operating system almost as good as Apple's, vintage 2001.
Real, lasting growth is created when you provide business, especially small business, with a realistic, fair tax structure that is equally applied to all; a pool of educated, qualified labor , streets that a free from pot holes and don't look like Front Ave (excuse me, Naito Parkway), which is a disgrace; a downtown that isn't a shooting gallery and panhandler's paradise and which doesn't take the most expensive, taxable real estate off the tax rolls in order to create low cost, public housing and/or milliion dollar condominiums. Let the market place regulate development .
If you want low cost housing, create a Portland Housing Authority to build and maintain it, rather than a corporate welfare program for a few, favored, developers .
In short, create a clean, safe, efficiently run city with good infra structure, public schools and higher education facilities and the world will beat a path to your door without the necesssity of million dollar give-away programs.
Thank You.
Posted by: Jerry Nothman | Sep 9, 2005 5:56:46 PM
It is folly to think that Portland's problems can be solved by Public Transport alone, be it Max, Bus or a combination of both.
The North Portland extension of Max is a perfect example. It took the only alternative to an overcrowded I-5 and reduced the capacity of Interstate Avenue by more than 50%, turning I-5 into even more of a parking lot than it was before. Whatever small amount of development that has taken place is all heavily subsidized.
If you are going to have mass transit in an area such as down town Portland, with city blocks that are really only
1/2 a block long, then put the system underground, where it belongs.
The rest of the world is removing street cars and building subways and freeways and synchronizing traffic lights to facilitate traffic flow, while we're tearing up already inadequate surface arterials and putting streetcars on them, installing bicycle lanes and doing everything we can to impede automobile traffic.
We build Max and street cars, subsidize development with tax abatement and other "economic development" give aways and pat ourselves on the back for what a great job we've done. That puts us into the 19th Century; we happen to live in the 21st.
Real, lasting growth is created when you provide business, especially small business, with a realistic, fair tax structure that is equally applied to all; a pool of educated, qualified labor , streets that are free from pot holes and don't look like Front Ave (excuse me, Naito Parkway), which is a disgrace; a downtown that isn't a shooting gallery and panhandler's paradise and which doesn't take the most expensive, taxable real estate off the tax rolls in order to create low cost, public housing and/or milliion dollar condominiums. Let the market place regulate development .
If you want low cost housing, create a Portland Housing Authority to build and maintain it, rather than a corporate welfare program for a few, favored, developers .
In short, create a clean, safe, efficiently run city with good infra structure, public schools and higher education facilities and the world will beat a path to your door without the necesssity of million dollar give-away programs.
Thank You.
Posted by: Jerry Nothman | Sep 9, 2005 6:04:29 PM
Sam, I swear I dedn't write this:
-----------
In short, create a clean, safe, efficiently run city with good infra structure, public schools and higher education facilities and the world will beat a path to your door without the necesssity of million dollar give-away programs.
Thank You.
Posted by: Jerry Nothman | Sep 9, 2005 6:04:29 PM
---------
But I should have.
Jim Karlock
Blogger@saveportland.com
Thanks
JK
Posted by: jim karlock | Sep 9, 2005 10:55:56 PM
Mr. Adams came away from the Railvolution conference in Salt Lake with the dish they served in heaping portions: pro transit propagandas.
If he had looked around with open eyes and mind, he would have seen a disaster scene.
Salt Lake downtown is on life support.The LDS Church has promised massive development to save upper Main Street.
Light rail supporters promised the TrAX trains of UTA would save downtown. In October of 2003 140 downtown businesses published an open letter to the city council saying the promised salvation from light rail was a broken promise. A look at all the boarded up stores and the damage caused by the year-long construction which drove business away and killed other businesses was proof of the failure.
The most notable business killed by light rail construction was the Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution begun nearly 140 years before by the great Mormon colonizer Brigham Young.
What the mass transit madness managed to do was to uncreate some of the last vestiges of a unique and great city.
Salt Lake once had the highest density Trolley system in the world.
But,Light rail is nothing like the trolleys in terms of cost, geographic distribution, walk access, and taxpayer cost; it paid, not consumed taxes.
If Mr. Adams had traveled to the end of the line on the TrAX train. he would have seen what a full UTA bus looked like. Only a small share of buses leaving the last rail station at 100th South in Sandy are reaasonably full; all "full" buses are express buses headed South to the next county. The rest of the buses coming and going at the last two stations are virtually or totally empty. (These two are the busiest stations outside the CBD). Car dependence has increased because most of the former bus riders now drive to the rail stations, according to a May 2000 Onboard UTA survey.
This is another place created by transit hype: a place of great waste.
Since light rail, the bus system has hit a historic low water mark versus cars as measured by percapita share; less than 1/2 of 1%. Buses that only carry a couple of riders, average, as they drive around, waste a lot of fuel and create a lot of dangerous diesel exhaust; most of the the buses weigh 17 tons, get 4 mpg, and cost$300,000.
Beyond the UTA propaganda, there is much to learn about transit and transportation in Salt Lake.
M. Packard
Posted by: Michael Packard | Sep 13, 2005 2:26:09 AM
It's really obvious that we need another freeway. I can't believe we have this South Waterfront redevelopment plan, when we could be putting another freeway - preferably 6 to 10 lane - going down to Salem. Portland is such a poor place to live with all the crime, it's obvious that everyone in the future will live in Salem and commute up to Portland to work.
The only good thing I will say about the Max is that, unlike the busses, it doesn't help clog up the freeway with extra traffic.
Posted by: Toto | Sep 13, 2005 3:39:37 PM
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Excellent points taken in your article, Sam. Although we truly do have one of the best transit systems in the nation, we must continue to work diligently at maintaining their safety and adding vitality to the neighborhoods near the stations. Several stations along the Max line are, quite frankly, scary. We really need to curb the graffiti, drugs, and trouble in these areas (and all areas of our city, for that matter) to ensure a strong sense of security and safety for travelers. In addition, building a sound infrastructure near the stations is essential. I look forward to seeing these types of improvements continue in the future.
Posted by: Arnie | Sep 9, 2005 4:39:24 PM