Upload
thetysonscorner
View
232
Download
7
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Road design and land use policy
Citation preview
The road is an element of city planning
as old as civilization itself. It originated
as tow paths dividing village huts, foot
paths through jungles and forests
cleared to ensure safe passage from
one location to another for commercial
trade, and from agriculturally rich
areas to populated centers. Cities have
evolved extensively through out
civilization but the basic principals
remain for roads. Within populated
regions smaller roads and sidewalks
provide separation of uses as well as
direct paths to intra-city destinations,
populated regions are connected via
arterial roads and freeways, and
agriculture hubs are connected to their
distribution and urban destinations
through interstate highways.
From ancient Rome to Industrial Paris
and even to today’s suburban centric
culture the road has been as important
of a component as any zoning,
architectural, or engineering decision.
The differences we see from antiquity
to pre-auto and post-auto city planning
are not a variance in the basic
functions of roads but instead in the
prioritization of the three fundamental
transportation purposes.
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 2
A CONNECTION BETWEEN
ROADS AND OUR TOWNS
TOO FAR NOTHING AROUND HERE IM NOT WALKING THERELETSOR DERINIDONTWANTTHEKIDSWALKING TOWO RK IAM TIREDOF SPENDINGMYPAYCHECKONGAS
PAGE 3
WHAT’
S LOCAL
It begins with tow paths or in the modern
era the local road and sidewalk. In the era
of the subdivision, neighborhoods have
taken on the identity of former villages
and towns. Several examples in Northern
Virginia can be dizzying, Braemar
(Manassas, VA) is a massive subdivision
which bears its own local identity with
residents. While it remains an
unincorporated region of Virginia,
encompassed by Manassas as a whole, its
shear size and acreage is equivalent to
most European towns/walled cities and its
population of over 2000 residents is
typical of the same. So why aren’t areas
like these incorporated townships or
cities?
In order to be a city or town, an area
must have variant uses. A city is hardly
just a population center, it is a location in
which goods/services are traded
commercially. Subdivisions, while
populated, lack this essential component
which makes creating a town/city
financially possible (otherwise town and
city functions could not be afforded
without extensive local taxes). Instead
these neo-villages arrange home owners
association fees in order to pay for
common functionality, and rely on county
jurisdictions to assist with all other
typical town/city actions.
Because people cannot find a
commercially viable service or trade
within their own subdivision, the
populated subdivision must be viewed as
only a portion of the overall modern
town/city, in the case of Braemar it
would be Manassas. The problem arises in
that the function of local tow paths have
always been for the purpose of intra-city
activity and the promotion of heavily
travelled paths to become commercial
active corridors, the idea of main street is
as old as the original bazaars. In the era
of subdivisions and the inability for a
person to travel without a powered
machine to the equivalent “main street”,
now known as commercial business
districts, town/city layouts now much
incorporate minimum 4 lane roads for
local paths within subdivisions, and 6 lane
roads for inter-subdivision travel in order
to provide for left turn, right turns, and
sufficient safe through passage for
vehicles. Markets, due to the congestion
of these roads, now are located in “super
centers” that are located for easy access
from heavy freight trucks instead of
located based on central resident access.
Because of the increase in size for local
roads, the division between agricultural
zone highways and local tow paths have
become scrambled which has created the
need for even wider road design,
available paved shoulders, and screened
right of ways that avoid direct access
from homes. These design criteria only 30
years ago were reserved for only
highways, but in the neo-village it is
impossible to maintain a separation.
The boundaries that are defined with the
neo-village highway now counteract the
original purpose of the intra-city road, to
promote commercial trade of goods and
services. The areas found between super
centers/groceries and subdivisions is often
a void zone, adjacent to wide roads with
frequent truck traffic. Empirically we
have now come to understand that the
market does not see economic benefit
from these formats except in the creation
of strip malls, a format that creates
massive parking regions in between super
centers/groceries and houses in order to
artificially stop the traveler.
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 4
The scale of all design
elements in order to
occupy, use, and
house our vehicles for
even simple intra-city
travel shows the
impact of subdivision
design. This has hurt
the idea of Main
Street, now replaced
by fast food pop-ups
and gas stations. Main
Street, the idea stores
and restaurants lining
a central corridor,
cannot exist when one
must find a place to
park their vehicle and
where trucks and
through traffic
endanger adults,
children, and pets. It
isn’t that Americans
have become lazier
and can no longer walk
the same as our
grandparents and
Europeans, it is that
American towns have
become too vast for
residents to travel
from home to Main
Street. More important
than just the shear
distance, the American
town now has created
impassible obstacles
and abandoned night
time zones of strip
malls, that promote
blight and crime due
to massive parking
areas and poor
surveillance.
PAGE 5
0
Bipedal
CHICAGO
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 6
PAGE 7
FROM THE FARM TO THE
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 8
FROM THE FARM TO THE TABLE
The original villages at the birth of
civilization put people and markets
together at the hearts of the
population, converged on a main road,
and spoked to the surrounding
agricultural regions. Farm uses were
therefore the only demands on these
spoked roads and the farmers would
only have a daily commute into town
to sell foods and the daily commute
out of town, returning with goods,
money, etc. Trade from city to city
was accomplished via separate travel
ways that specifically connected
regions via a trade route.
In the neo-village model of subdivision
development, the region between
trade centers and farms have
expanded exponentially with homes,
forcing farms to be further and further
from their consumers. Consequently,
the cost of freight and the frequency
of trips necessary have forced machine
like efficiency in agricultural uses
which now favors economy by scale
operations instead of hard working
entrepreneurs. The 3 axle flat bed has
been replaced by the 18-wheeler
causing an additional expansion in the
amount of pavement needed for
loading docks and operations. One of
the biggest problems with creating
dense Main Street developments has
therefore become the lack of
marketability for delivery of stock to
stores/restaurants without excessive
loading dock access ways in the rear.
We must re-evaluate our farm
practices to understand that food
prices today have never been
historically so low. The average
American used 30% of their paycheck
for food only half a century ago, today
it is only 10%. While we no longer pay
the high relative cost for food, we are
paying additional taxes that go
towards road repairs, lowering
economic well being of small
businesses, and paying more and more
money towards oil subsidies and
commodity security overseas. These
are real costs that are delayed at the
dinner table, but come out of our
collective wallets every tax year.
PAGE 9
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 10
Beyond the collapse of the traditional
farm, highways that once connected
farms directly to distribution centers
and town farmers markets now must
be shared between commuters and
agricultural use which has created far
greater incidence rates for truck
accidents and excessive maintenance
costs for roadways. Truck corridors
require far different design criteria for
everything from slopes, expensive
durable materials, noise reduction
barriers, landscaped barriers for
pollution, and of course pavement
widths and on/off ramp turn radii. All
of these elements has created a city
land use system that has our DOTs as
the number one land owners in every
jurisdiction.
In order to turn the tide we must
return to the world of the greatest
generation. A world of;
PAGE 11
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 12
THE
REVERSE
EFFECTS OF N
I
M
B
Y
The birth of a suburb is far less
miraculous than a city. No
natural commodities are
necessary, no ease of access to
waterways, no particular
resources for industry, and for
the most part it is a zero risk
growth. A developer is all but
assured that by building
adjacent to other similar units
that they have foresight on
what the market will pay and
can judge the economics of
the project accordingly. The
suburb is, again, as old as
civilization itself. For centuries
some people have escaped the
cramped and crowded city
streets in order to live a bit off
the beaten path, trading the
comfort of access with the
relative safety of seclusion.
PAGE 13
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 14
The evolution of the town
has unbalanced the natural
ratio, by making the ease of
access temporarily lessened
through the use of freeways
in suburbs, it is eluded that
travel from one region to
another will always be
quick. Soon the inducing of
additional demand, the
process of growing further
and further out, creates
more traffic than originally
anticipated, requiring road
widenings. In an interesting
turn of events, it becomes
those who originated the
migration, outwards to the
suburbs, that typically now
stand against these road
projects.
They clearly would inherit
all of the detriment to local
businesses and accessibility
(something that despite the
neo-village model
eventually occurs from
redevelopment and the
scavenging of properties) as
well as pollution,
congestion, and treatment
of area as a through way to
greater commercial
prospects within the city.
The inner suburbs see none
of the improvements from
the road projects, touted as
congestion removal and
increased access projects.
PAGE 15
The signature piece of the
Embarcadero Center by
Architect and sculptor John
C. Portman, Jr
This stretch of bay frontage
previously was buried under
an elevated freeway, now it
is the commercial heart of
the city of San Francisco.
’
Sadly, it starts from a mistaken
ideology. By opposing the natural
and slower redevelopment within
their suburb, and higher density
in commercial districts, they
create an atmosphere in which
land developers must look
horizontally, instead of
vertically, for new jobs and
economic growth. The shift to
look further out is encouraged by
farther suburbs which need a
growing population’s tax revenue
to provide social services and
jurisdictional functions. Rarely
do these further suburbs need to
aid in the maintenance and
improvements of roads closer to
the city of which they are the
greatest population of users by
total road miles.
Roads have become massive
barren lands 90% of the time in
order for the flood of traffic to
be accommodated every rush
hour morning and evening. When
the commuters are done
travelling through the inner
suburbs they sweep out like a
tide eroding the commercial
viability of the region, but unlike
the tide they do not replenish
the proverbial community
shoreline by purchasing goods
and services. The net effect is a
city that retains its economic
strength, a far suburb which
retains a large tax base with
little funding burdens, and an
inner suburb which has been
robbed of both population and
jobs as it becomes a gap land of
stagnation.
When we began to redesign our
communities to fit in line with a
departure from civilization, we
forgot all of the elements of
humanity that we would stay
connected too. Unlike the
self-sufficient farmer the
majority of the world
cannot sustain itself, it
relies on the collective
knowledge and skills of
society for 100 different
direct and indirect
interactions every day. As
we pulled apart the threads
of what defined
transportation and land use
we found new challenges we
had to accommodate, cheap
food production and
delivery requiring massive
truck routes and loading
facilities, increased lengths
and areas of pavement that
stretch far further and run
empty most of the day to
branch to more remote
areas, and combined freight
and commuter routes which
created more accidents and
more traffic are just a few
of the challenges now
faced.
We object to sprawl when it corrects a problem but not when it destroys our natural surroundings
THETYSONSCORNER.COM PAGE 16
When we began to redesign our
communities to fit in line with a
departure from civilization, we
forgot all of the elements of
humanity that we would stay
connected too. Unlike the self-
sufficient farmer the majority of
the world cannot sustain itself, it
relies on the collective
knowledge and skills of society
for 100 different direct and
indirect interactions every day.
As we pulled apart the threads of
what defined transportation and
land use we found new
challenges we had to
accommodate, cheap food
production and delivery requiring
massive truck routes and loading
facilities, increased lengths and
areas of pavement that stretch
far further and run empty most
of the day to branch to more
remote areas, and combined
freight and commuter routes
which created more accidents
and more traffic are just a few
of the challenges now faced.
To address our societies land use
problems we must readdress the
foundation of our planning
decisions. Are we living more
comfortable lives now that we
live outside of cities? Our
connection to our neighbors
dwindles in the face of further
isolation and separation as we
consign to our role of reluctant
service users from ever
consolidating providers. We must
all sacrifice the immediate
gratification of the cheapest
product if it is provided at a
reasonable price in a more local
origin. While we pay 10 or 15%
more in this method, we spend
that additional money in our own
backyards, which is returned
more efficiently when our own
services and skills are needed.
The Main Street and the local
mom and pop aren’t dead, we
just need to stop making bad
choices that kill them off.
Small changes in design, a return
to 10’ lanes that are design for
cars not 18-wheelers, requiring
concessions by freight users to
utilize smaller delivery vehicles
inside of inner suburbs, and a
basic understanding that some
reinvestment through new
developments (specifically those
that provide more housing
options and quantities) is
healthy. While mass transit helps
connect cities and communities
together, we all could solve the
problems of land use by acting
more like our grandparents
generation, without a significant
portion of the anticipated public
funding need.
PAGE 17 PAGE 17