The Transportation Research Board has just published a new report by Nelson\Nygaard Principal, David Koffman, with help from Associate Project Planner, Ellen Oettinger. It’s about all the ways that public agencies use taxicabs for public transport services. The report includes 23 case studies and provides a dozen recommendations for what public agencies can do to make arrangements with taxicabs work better. It includes chapters about:

• General public dial-a-ride
• Demand responsive service for seniors or people with disabilities
• Subsidized taxi rides
• Wheelchair accessible taxicabs
• Non-emergency medical transportation
• Guaranteed ride home
• Student transportation
• 911 transport

The official title of the report is “Research Results Digest 366: Local and State Partnerships with Taxicab Companies.” It can be downloaded for free at:
http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/166621.aspx.

Imagine a city where everyone works for the municipality. The city provides housing for anyone who wants to live nearby, a bus system, and parking for anyone who chooses to drive. It embraces all three aspects of sustainability — economics, environment, and equity — and it favors growth. But with major financial limitations, air quality issues, and shrinking land availability, how is all this possible?

This is the position in which many U.S. universities have found themselves in the last 10 years. Intentions to grow, but nowhere to go. Acres of parking where cars are stored all day (and demands for more), but no room for classrooms, offices, athletic fields, or the active uses that define education and research institutions. Plus a mission to "be green" without a plan for getting there.

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A wide range of national studies suggest that low-income households are less likely to own a private vehicle and most likely to take transit. When these groups do travel by car, on average they make fewer and shorter vehicle trips and are more likely to travel during off-peak hours when road capacity is generally unconstrained. Similar to these national findings, local studies show that affordable housing in the Bay Area is also "low traffic" housing.

Despite these research findings, the conventional methods used by transportation planners to estimate auto parking demand and vehicle trips can overlook the "low traffic" of affordable housing. As a result, parking requirements are often too high for affordable housing, meaning that money that could have been spent on constructing more affordable homes may be wasted on unneeded parking. In addition, many communities prohibit "unbundled parking" (which allows for parking to be paid for separately from the price of housing, without increasing the total cost of both), meaning that low-income households often pay for parking spaces they don't want or need.

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Muni's fiscal crisis Muni is in the midst of a financial crisis. For the last five years, Muni has been able to patch over its structural deficit, primarily via a combination of one-time revenues, belt tightening, fare increases, and service cuts.

This year, an improving economy and more one-time windfalls may get Muni through another year, but these short-term solutions do not address Muni's real long-term issue: If Muni's structural deficit is not addressed head-on, in the years to come Muni may have no choice but to increase fares and cut more service.

This scenario is unacceptable: Muni needs to improve dramatically, not simply perpetuate the status quo. To make Muni the first-class transit system that San Francisco residents can rely on, City and MTA leadership must chart a course that will allow Muni to escape from its downward spiral of fare increases, service cuts, and dwindling ridership.

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Transit-oriented developments (TODs) in the United States have been modeled almost exclusively with a half-mile radius as a reliable limit for pedestrian walkability from and to a light rail station. New research has emerged to challenge this standard, with data indicating that transit users may be apt to walk greater distances than previously estimated. Variables such as housing density, employment density, and urban design all significantly affect walking patterns. Those factors are analyzed as expanders or contractors of the TOD radius, and the implications that a fluctuating boundary might have on the future of urban growth are considered.

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A clear consensus has emerged among city planners that removing minimum parking requirements is one of the most effective ways to promote healthier, more active and economically vibrant downtowns.

Despite this, the broad elimination of parking requirements continues to be a political third rail or practical impossibility in many places. Where minimum requirements trigger investments in public parking or other public investments (via "in lieu fees" or similar), broad removal may have even more barriers and fewer local cheerleaders.

Read the article from Parking Today (See pages 18-20)

“In the past decade there has been a semi-revolution in the world of cycling in North America. Through various means and for various reasons, cities have been investing more in cycling programs and infrastructure. Cities with heavy investment in cycling are consistently rated among the best places to live, the most economically rewarding, and the most progressive -- the choice of the ‘creative class.’”

The article makes the case that, because cycling is safer with more cyclists, the goal of a cycling program should be to increase the number of cyclists.  This will be done by understanding the needs of potential cyclists (as opposed to people who already ride).

Read the whole article from the TDP Newsletter

Anyone who sees municipal parking requirements simply as an issue of parking supply is missing the bigger picture. Parking requirements proscribed within zoning codes are a powerful tool for directingand shaping a city’s complete transportation framework. Such requirements can guide the aestheticand functional qualities of off-street parking facilities — ensuring that buildings play nice with thestreetscape and direct their traffic away from primary pedestrian, bicycle, and transit routes; require or incentivize support for sustainable modes of access;require or incentivize transportation demand management program commitments; and outline strategies for reducing the cost of accommodating vehicles — which in turn can lower the cost of the goods, services, and or housing being offered. As the world continues to develop and populations continue to urbanize, the collective ability of communities to use zoning and other tools to shape local transportation conditions around common shared values will have increasingly far-reaching impacts.

Read the whole article from the TDP News - A Publication of the Transportation Planning Division of the American Planning Association

Minimum parking requirements for new developments have been the standard in U.S. zoning codes for over 50 years. But the minimum requirements have several unintended consequences. They encourage driving and discourage the use of transit. They increase the cost of building housing by as much as 25 percent. They discourage the reuse of historic structures that cannot provide parking. And of course they foster sprawl by sending developers in search of greenfield sites.

Recent innovations in parking management philosophy — demand-responsive pricing of commercial spaces and residential permit parking, for instance — have called into question the need for minimum requirements. Many planners are beginning to ask the fundamental question: If on-street management can be improved to ensure availability, could minimum off-street requirements soon be obsolete?

In cities across the country, the answer could well be yes. Here are three approaches: 

• Tailoring minimum parking requirements to geographic context and demographic characteristics. Seattle allows reductions in minimum requirements in developments that provide affordable or senior housing, dedicated car-sharing spaces, or transportation demand management programs. 
• Eliminating minimum requirements, especially in downtowns or central business districts. Fort Myers, Florida, has eliminated parking minimums for downtown commercial and multifamily residential development.
• Establishing maximum thresholds to restrict traffic generated by new development, promote alternatives to the private automobile, and preserve open space. Parking maximums have been adopted in San Francisco and San Antonio, and are being considered in Washington, D.C., and Raleigh, North Carolina.

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