Midwestern Consulting

The Economics of Place - buy at Amazon.com

New from the Michigan Municipal League:  The Economics of Place: The Value of Building Communities Around People

This is a collection of essays about planning the future of Michigan in general and Detroit in particular. Re-invention, re-vitalization, re-generation, re-population (maybe resurrection is more apt) is necessary to redefine our economy and redevelop our state. Creating a “sense of place” is at the core of this change and the authors readily illustrate that vibrant places will attract talent and bring economic growth.

Planetizen reviewed this book  and described it as an “arts-driven regeneration plan for Michigan like a modern day Magna Carta…”

This book may be more of a sourdough starter than a Magna Carta, but it is an important collection of thoughts.  But an “arts-driven” plan is too narrow in scope.  The early stages of the plan should focus on developing a mixture of land uses at a higher density that will create and support local jobs and services.

A chapter in the book written by Dr. Soji Adelaja and Mark Wyckoff, “Why the economics of ‘place’ matters” explains that “the term ‘sense of place’ is used to describe not so much physical geography or the attributes of that geography, but the emotional response one has to a special allure and warmth when at a location that has unique and attractive amenities.”  This article is about the role of “place” as it relates to economic development. Particularly interesting is a chart comparing the old and new economy with respect to place, and tables of examples of “place-based strategies to attract certain target populations and businesses.

In Detroit, where it’s so bad that it’s good, is an extreme example of a city in distress that is struggling in the early stages of regeneration. If you do not accept the notion that plowing Detroit under is the best alternative, redevelopment strategy should include rebuilding the population with new jobs, housing, infrastructure and amenities.

When a city’s population, economy and government is as seriously degraded as it is in Detroit or Flint, a key question is what comes back first, residents or retail? Simultaneous development of housing and services may provide the framework for sustainable re-development.  In Dan Gilbert’s ‘Big Bang Theory’ for Detroit, both have to come on line at the same time.  (See the video: Dan Gilbert’s vision for downtown Detroit retail from Crain’s Detroit Business).

Governor Snyder said recently that Detroit can and should return as a manufacturing based economy that opens its arms to immigrants.  That can be part of the vision that includes elements of a technology or knowledge based economy, and one that is partially “arts-driven” as suggested in “The Economics of Place”.

An aerial photo of the Lee Road roundabout mess

There has been a lot of discussion lately about “Complete Streets” – streets that accommodate all forms of vehicular and pedestrian transportation. And that creates the problem: putting apparently incompatible forms of transportation in the same space.  The solution often seems to be to subdivide the “shared” street into segments using signage or markings or signals that serve various uses. There goes the basic concept of “shared” use.

Two different approaches to solving potential conflicts are:

A. Provide visual cues and minimize regulatory signage:  Deleting or minimizing signs and symbols in favor of subliminal or visual clues appears to engage people more quickly, partly because they are not sure what they are seeing, and partly because the primitive part of the brain that reads the visual cues is faster that the rational part of the brain.  The colors and shapes of stop signs and yield signs are probably more effective than the lettering.  Commercial examples of symbols that are totally effective without lettering (branding) include the Shell Oil sign and now the Starbucks symbol.

Or,

B. Plaster everything with regulatory signage:  Most of the designs for these streets are full of signs of all descriptions, painted lanes, stripes, arrows, stop bars, flashing lights, and more. Reading and following these signs requires a reaction from our frontal lobes, the rational part of the brain. 

A good example of traffic regulatory markings and signage gone awry is on the roundabouts at the US-23 expressway Lee Road exit between Ann Arbor and Brighton.  Each roundabout has a forest of signs and a carpet of stripes, arrows and what all, and lots of drivers trying to figure out what the signs all mean while avoiding other vehicles whose drivers are doing the same.  To make matters worse, the signage and markings on each roundabout is different.  The roundabout on the west side of the expressway is under Livingston County Road Commission jurisdiction and the one on the east is under Oakland County Road Commission jurisdiction.

In a backwards sort of way, the amount of signage and markings on the Lee Road roundabouts may effectively be about the same as having no signs at all.  The visual cloud of directions can be so overwhelming that drivers ignore everything, shut off their rational brains, and simply go slowly and negotiate positions and directions with the other drivers while using the survival mode in their primitive brains.

An article in the March 2011 American Planning Association Planning magazine by Raymond Heinrich and titled “Traffic Accidents Don’t Just Happen…They’re Caused” provides an interesting take on traffic safety and regulations:  “When it comes to safety, the message is plain:  We are relying on signs, road paint, and the wrong side of our brain for traffic management instead of pattern recognition for vehicle guidance.  We should be learning from neurologists and cognitive psychologists who say that subconscious cues can automatically take road safety up a notch.”

Earl Ophoff, RLA is a registered landscape architect and can be reached at Midwestern Consulting in Ann Arbor, Michigan (734.995.0200).

Future roadway designs will be context sensitive

New Michigan legislation now requires future roadways to be planned and designed in a complete streets, context sensitive manner. This has brought up several topics of conversation.

The starting point on any road project now assumes that all types of transportation modes are justified on a given roadway unless you can show otherwise.  So rather than adding bike lanes, bus lanes, sidewalks, etc., those are built-in unless a case can be made to not include them in the highway cross section.  Each transportation corridor will be different and each will need to be considered with respect to the movement needs of all right of way users, the adjacent property uses, and visions for future corridor changes.

This approach creates a bit of friction when major new development or redevelopment project teams meet with County road commissions and local roadway agencies regarding the goals of any improvements to area roadways. This is really quite an interesting shift in thinking and clearly NOT something that our local County road commission has fully bought into as yet.

They likely will not have a choice though.  All transportation improvement projects in Michigan now must consider and implement the complete streets, context sensitive solutions.  So we may see that their rule regarding levels of service for all traffic movements have to be level D or better is amended.  Level of service E and F are going to be okay if they last for a relatively short period of time and do not present safety hazards to all right of way users. 

The new assumptions get at the same argument as the one we have seen about a sea of parking outside a shopping center. Providing parking spaces based on peak demand needed only a few times per year is dumb. So is designing streets for peak hour traffic. Why not design the roads to function properly for a multitude of users all the time? Let the peak hour traffic back up, let drivers select alternate parallel routes, or alternate modes of transportation, or alternate timing of their travels, or use designs like roundabouts that slow but maintain the flow while greatly reducing serious accidents.

To read a five-page summary of the complete streets context sensitive approach to roadway design, go here. 

To order the current recommended practice “Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares:  A Context Sensitive Approach” from the Institute of Transportation Engineers, please call 202.289.0222 and ask for publication # RP-036A.