As the great Jane Jacobs says, “Automobiles are often conveniently tagged as the villains responsible for the ills of cities and the disappointments and futilities of city planning. But the destructive effects of automobiles are much less a cause than a symptom of our incompetence at city building.”
As usual, Jacobs makes a great point. Automobiles and cities can work together, it is just that city planners do not know what to do with automobiles in cities. Since most cities have recognized the mistake of planning the city around the automobile and not the person, many have sought solutions to manage the growing problem of traffic congestion and the social, economic and environmental questions presented by continued urban sprawl due to auto dependence. One solution many cities have adopted is a rise in public support for increased public transit as a practical strategy to alleviate environmental concerns, reduce transportation infrastructure costs and ensure fair, affordable, and reliable transportation choices for individuals. However, not all cities have taken this route in mitigating transportation concerns, take for instance Wilmington, NC.
Unfortunately, part of my job involves shuttling people around an island. It might sound neat, but once the novelty wears off, it’s not. Most of the people I shuttle fly into Wilmington from someplace like Long Island, Boston, or Toronto. In fact, a lot of the people I shuttle don’t own a car. This summer I brought four different groups to the closest Wilmington bus stop operated by the WAVE Transit so they could visit downtown Wilmington. An hour later I picked them up. According to the visitors, a couple busses whizzed by, but no bus stopped for them. The stories were the same across the board. Waiting for a bus in 95 degree weather and 90 percent humidity without a place to sit and without shade was Wilmington’s way of saying please, please, please don’t even think about riding one of our buses. We will hope for rain and then laugh at you. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, here is a small (2 mile) section of the current state of Wilmington’s bus stops.
Now, consider other cities in the same situation. With a little over 55,000 people, Chapel Hill has about one-half the population of Wilmington but it is twice as dense. Chapel Hill has be able to use it’s density as an advantage and create a decent public transportation system. Higher density is important in creating an easily sustained and reliable public transportation systems, and it is also necessary in creating beautiful public spaces that are easily walkable with fewer cars. And honestly, it makes life more convenient and engaging by providing many amenities within close proximity to you and to each other. Usually, popular urban places are high density places, low density zoning causes more sprawl, and as you can tell by looking at any DOT’s budget, low density areas are more expensive to build and maintain. There are thousands of other cities (many right here in North Carolina) who provide a service that I do not get. Instead, my tax dollars go to (repeatedly) widening roads which lead away from the city.
According to the city of Calgary and their transportation planning department,
Extensive research identified that cities characterized by low-intensity development and widely separated patterns of housing, employment and urban amenities, are usually highly auto dependent and have relatively low utilization of transit, walking and cycling. Conversely, cities that incorporate compact, mixed-use, walkable development patterns are more likely to accommodate a higher proportion of trips via walking, cycling and transit than by private automobile.
It seems clear that establishing a high quality and reliable transit service is pivotal in creating inviting, vibrant and economically sustainable cities. If you take another city’s transit service and measure it’s success, it usually requires excellence in the quality and the frequency of service, the range in the locations and service choices, and the duration in hours of operation.
Again pointing to the city of Calgary’s transportation plan, they have created key strategies to achieve a better experience for their riders.
One of the key strategies to achieve this objective is to create a hierarchy of mixed-use nodes and corridors, which is closely integrated with frequent, highly reliable and comfortable transit service and incorporates well-designed streets thus balancing the requirements of all travel modes (walking, cycling, transit, goods movement and private autos). Another important direction is to achieve a better balance of new growth between established communities and new greenfield areas to maximize opportunities within the nodes and corridors hierarchy and allow for complete communities to develop. This enables the achievement of population and employment thresholds necessary to support enhanced service levels and new transit corridors and ensures the effective delivery of essential municipal services (e.g. transit, roads, recreation etc) to new growth areas.
So, Wilmington, what’s your move? Will you continue to blatantly encourage the use of automobile traffic in a city that already sufferers from overcrowded roads by not improving your public transportation, or will you make a few small changes that will go a long way.
Here, I’ve already found some benches that you can install if you aren’t ready for a full-fledged bus stop. Below I’ve also included a couple of visualizations just so you know there is plenty of room available - that is unless your saving that space for the next time you widen the road. I know that if you had no other choice than riding the bus, you probably wouldn’t want to stand while waiting about an hour for your ride. Really, it’s the small things. I would love to see my tax dollars go to something I am proud of.
Cities and transportation: A longer essay
As the great Jane Jacobs says, “Automobiles are often conveniently tagged as the villains responsible for the ills of cities and the disappointments and futilities of city planning. But the destructive effects of automobiles are much less a cause than a symptom of our incompetence at city building.”
As usual, Jacobs makes a great point. Automobiles and cities can work together, it is just that city planners do not know what to do with automobiles in cities. Since most cities have recognized the mistake of planning the city around the automobile and not the person, many have sought solutions to manage the growing problem of traffic congestion and the social, economic and environmental questions presented by continued urban sprawl due to auto dependence. One solution many cities have adopted is a rise in public support for increased public transit as a practical strategy to alleviate environmental concerns, reduce transportation infrastructure costs and ensure fair, affordable, and reliable transportation choices for individuals. However, not all cities have taken this route in mitigating transportation concerns, take for instance Wilmington, NC.
Unfortunately, part of my job involves shuttling people around an island. It might sound neat, but once the novelty wears off, it’s not. Most of the people I shuttle fly into Wilmington from someplace like Long Island, Boston, or Toronto. In fact, a lot of the people I shuttle don’t own a car. This summer I brought four different groups to the closest Wilmington bus stop operated by the WAVE Transit so they could visit downtown Wilmington. An hour later I picked them up. According to the visitors, a couple busses whizzed by, but no bus stopped for them. The stories were the same across the board. Waiting for a bus in 95 degree weather and 90 percent humidity without a place to sit and without shade was Wilmington’s way of saying please, please, please don’t even think about riding one of our buses. We will hope for rain and then laugh at you. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, here is a small (2 mile) section of the current state of Wilmington’s bus stops.
Now, consider other cities in the same situation. With a little over 55,000 people, Chapel Hill has about one-half the population of Wilmington but it is twice as dense. Chapel Hill has be able to use it’s density as an advantage and create a decent public transportation system. Higher density is important in creating an easily sustained and reliable public transportation systems, and it is also necessary in creating beautiful public spaces that are easily walkable with fewer cars. And honestly, it makes life more convenient and engaging by providing many amenities within close proximity to you and to each other. Usually, popular urban places are high density places, low density zoning causes more sprawl, and as you can tell by looking at any DOT’s budget, low density areas are more expensive to build and maintain. There are thousands of other cities (many right here in North Carolina) who provide a service that I do not get. Instead, my tax dollars go to (repeatedly) widening roads which lead away from the city.
According to the city of Calgary and their transportation planning department,
It seems clear that establishing a high quality and reliable transit service is pivotal in creating inviting, vibrant and economically sustainable cities. If you take another city’s transit service and measure it’s success, it usually requires excellence in the quality and the frequency of service, the range in the locations and service choices, and the duration in hours of operation.
Again pointing to the city of Calgary’s transportation plan, they have created key strategies to achieve a better experience for their riders.
So, Wilmington, what’s your move? Will you continue to blatantly encourage the use of automobile traffic in a city that already sufferers from overcrowded roads by not improving your public transportation, or will you make a few small changes that will go a long way.
Here, I’ve already found some benches that you can install if you aren’t ready for a full-fledged bus stop. Below I’ve also included a couple of visualizations just so you know there is plenty of room available - that is unless your saving that space for the next time you widen the road. I know that if you had no other choice than riding the bus, you probably wouldn’t want to stand while waiting about an hour for your ride. Really, it’s the small things. I would love to see my tax dollars go to something I am proud of.