Ballston Metro station, Arlington Co. Photo: Point Images/Flickr

The future looked as though it belonged to Fairfax County, and Arlington's decision to target development around its new Metro stations seemed quixotic and anachronistic.

But now, with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight, Arlington seems to have been extraordinarily foresighted in its decision to grow around Metro. From 2000 to 2008, Arlington's population grew by 10 percent -- all of it infill development, and a remarkable achievement for an inner suburb.

Even more remarkably, this growth has led to a negligible impact on local traffic. Daniel Malouff, author of the BeyondDC blog, reported this week on a meeting with Arlington's Department of Transportation, at which officials recounted some numbers that had emerged from research on the effects of county development choices.

Among the remarkable statistics:

1. Auto traffic counts in the Pentagon City area are level today compared with counts from 1975. Despite all the development that has occurred there in that time frame, including construction of one of the region’s largest and busiest shopping malls, there has been no measurable increase in traffic congestion.

2. [One thousand] units of urban-format TOD housing generates fewer auto trips per day than a single suburban-format McDonalds or 7-11. You can build 1,000,000 square feet of residential TOD and generate less congestion than 2,000 square feet of auto-oriented retail.

Arlington has very nearly maximized the development potential of available land around Metro stations, but it's looking to create new transit access for its communities by building a streetcar line along one of the county's busier thoroughfares (and running along its busiest bus routes). Already, denser, walkable, and mixed-used developments are replacing older strip malls on the planned line.

And of course, Fairfax County has been busily working to reverse its approach to transit and development, its streets and highways having bogged down under the weight of constant congestion.

Back when Metro was originally built, Fairfax did not attempt to lobby for routing through population centers, opting instead for a cheaper alignment along the median of I-66 (for the Orange Line), and along existing rail right of way (for the Blue Line). Stations were almost exclusively surrounding by parking; riders would nearly all arrive by car.

These decisions have proven difficult to reverse engineer, but Fairfax County has been trying. Along the I-66 corridor, the county is encouraging such transit-oriented development as can be accommodated. In Springfield (on the Blue Line), a large, walkable redevelopment plan has been slowly making its way forward despite the difficult economic situation.

But the biggest shift is occuring elsewhere. Fairfax County and the state of Virginia recently won federal funding for a new extension of the Metrorail system, to be run through the densest portion of the county at Tysons Corner.

The Silver Line will be used as a framework around which to completely remake Tysons into a dense, walkable downtown. The area may ultimately be home to over 100,000 people, and an employment center to rival downtown Washington.

The rest of the country will be watching. Tysons represents one of the most ambitious attempts to reengineer a suburban employment and retail center into a pedestrian friendly mini-city, fit for residents as well as workers.

Of course, the opportunities to make these kinds of changes are extremely limited. Very few heavy rail systems have been built in the past half century. Commuter rail and light rail systems are increasingly common in growing cities, but federal funding has simply not been made available for new lines on the necessary scale, and the federal government has not made transit-oriented development a priority in choosing where and how to allocate transportation dollars.

This is an inexcusable missed opportunity given transit-oriented development's record of accommodating population growth without contributing to new congestion. Hopefully it is one Congress will address when it gets around to crafting a new transportation bill.

The scene of the June 22 Washington D.C. Metro crash. Photo: AP

The proceedings got off to an appropriately somber start, as California Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) used his opening statement to explain that this spring's stimulus package contained billions for a Mag-Lev rail line from Orange County to Las Vegas.

This, of course, is completely false, and the quip was entirely unrelated to the rest of his remarks. I'm sure Issa's constituents will be glad to know that he's taking transportation issues seriously.

Testimony was heard from a number of experts, and from Patrick Tuite, a rider on one of the trains in the collision, who provided a riveting account of the accident. But not much in the way of new information emerged.

The facts of the incident remain as previously understood. A recently replaced portion of track circuitry intended to detect the presence of trains on the tracks and facilitate the automatic train control system malfunctioned intermittently after installation, including around the time of the accident. The operator of the striking train attempted to engage the brakes before impact, but to no avail.

The National Transportation Safety Board continues to investigate the matter and may not have a final report on it for some time. In the meantime, trains on the Metro system continue to operate in manual mode, and on reduced speeds and a single track at the site of the accident (creating major headaches for riders on the system, which is a critical piece of metropolitan infrastructure).

Three broad themes emerged in testimony. The first concerned funding problems, at Metro specifically and for transit generally. Former congressman Tom Davis spoke at length about the funding difficulties at Metro, which have contributed to a $6 billion capital needs shortfall (in his estimation; Metro's John Catoe noted that identified needs run to over $11 billion at this time).

Metro's idiosyncrasies greatly complicate its funding. Unlike any other transit system in the country, there is no dedicated revenue source; all appropriations are ad hoc. This is particularly problematic as the system stretches across two states and the District of Columbia.

To make matters worse, Metro is overseen by the subcommittee on the District of Columbia rather than through the transportation committee. Federal appropriations for the system must travel a different route than money directed toward every other system in the country.

In an effort to overcome some of these difficulties, Congress has passed a law matching $1.5 billion in revenue from newly established local dedicated funding streams, to the tune of $150 million a year for 10 years. That's an improvement, but it obviously only begins to close the system's capital needs gap.

And so other testifying experts, most notably American Public Transportation Association president William Millar, argued forcefully for passage of a new transportation funding act, which would include adequate resources for the nation's transit systems. Unfortunately, Mr Millar may have to wait until 2011.

The second broad theme was the safety record of Metro specifically and transit generally relative to competing modes of transportation. Millar noted that a transit journey is roughly 20 times safer than an equivalent automobile trip.

Passenger fatalities in the June 22 accident were the system's first in over 20 years. Transit accidents make news because they're large and rare, but annual deaths in automobiles are several orders of magnitude higher than in rail systems.

And finally, there was extensive discussion of rail safety procedures generally. Oversight of safety systems was a hot topic, as was replacement of equipment -- particularly relevant in this case given the track failure, but also the age and poor crash performance of the forward car in the striking train.

An interesting note on this score came from Brian Bilbray (R-CA) who argued that the move toward increased automation of train systems might be counterproductive.

In particular, he suggested that using automatic train controls with manual back-up was unhelpful, as operators tend to tune out while trains are in automatic mode. Rather, a system of manual operation with automated back-up might improve safety.

Amusingly, he compared the operating procedures in transit vehicles to those in the B-2 bomber. Of course, if transit systems had the budget per vehicle of the B-2 program, the issue of aging capital equipment might not have arisen in the first place.

In all, it seems the Metro crash will lead to some valuable changes in operating procedures, and it has already resulted in the speedy direction of promised funds to the system. But the accident mainly provides an opportunity to reflect on how safe transit systems actually are, and how the nation's inability to fund those systems adequately -- and build new ones -- is an unfortunate and significant policy failure.

Meet Gabe Klein, who was appointed to direct Washington D.C.'s Department of Transportation (DDOT) in December 2008. With a background including four years working for Zipcar, Klein was brought in to look at the city's mobility problems from a fresh perspective. As he says:

Cars are a part of our daily life here in D.C., but what we want to do is try to equalize the playing field. Encourage people to walk, to bike, to bike share; or instead of owning a car -- car share.

D.C. already has one of the lowest household car-ownership rates of any major U.S. city, so actively promoting these modes is essential -- as Klein points out -- to helping people move about with freedom.

The D.C. Metro accident that killed nine riders this week has renewed calls for rail safety upgrades and reminders that car travel remains far riskier than transit. But the crash is also shedding light on a problem that goes beyond Washington: tax shelter deals between banks and struggling transit agencies -- deals that were given a retroactive pass by Congress.

The tax shelters at issue are called "sale in, lease out" deals, also known as SILOs. Starting in the 1980s, local transit agencies began selling rail cars and other equipment to Wall Street firms, which would then turn around and lease the goods back to the agencies.

Why would either side want to get into such arrangements? Sarah Lawsky, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School, has explained the situation in detail. But the short answer is that banks got tax write-offs for their newly leased transit equipment, while local agencies got a cash benefit for giving away tax deductions they could not use.

Congress outlawed SILOs in a 2004 tax bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). His original language was retroactive, Grassley's office said yesterday in a release, "but was watered down during conference negotiations to apply only prospectively."

That exception for existing SILO deals was added by Congress amid fierce lobbying by both Wall Street and urban transit agencies, as the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

The Internal Revenue Service declared SILOs illegal in 2005, prompting some banks to accept lower payments in settlement deals with transit officials. However, Lawsky noted in an interview that some banks -- inspired by the congressional exemption --have decided to try their luck in court with transit agencies.

"Some people want to settle and take 20 cents on the dollar," she said. "Some people want to say no ... we entered into these deals before the statute."

It remains to be seen whether the SILOs played a role in this week's D.C. Metro crash. But when federal safety inspectors asked the WMATA, which runs the D.C. Metro, in 2006 to replace its aging Rohr series rail cars -- the model that crumpled in this week's crash -- the agency declined.

WMATA was "constrained by" SILO leases from phasing out the Rohr cars, it said.

And that's just the beginning of the fallout from the tax deals, which have affected transit systems all across the country.

AIG served as a guarantor for many SILO deals, and its collapse late last year prompted several banks to seek "termination payments" from transit agencies that were otherwise up to date with their SILO leases. D.C.'s WMATA, in fact, was one of those transit networks fighting legal battles over AIG's unraveling.

A report released by Moody's Investors Service in March found that 17 of 25 major transit agencies embroiled in SILOs had lowered their risk by renegotiating with banks in the aftermath of the credit crisis. But that doesn't mean urban transit systems are all out of the woods -- Atlanta's MARTA transit agency was left with a $390 million exposure even after unwinding many of its SILOs, according to Moody's.

According to the DC-based Tax Foundation, New York MTA made SILO deals involving $2.389 billion in assets, but declined to disclose its current liability.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are still trying to convince the federal government to step in as a guarantor for the transit deals. After former President Bush declined to hear their appeals, Reps. Jim Moran (VA) and Chris Van Hollen (MD) inserted language into a January bailout-reform bill that would give Treasury backing to SILOs, but the bill was never taken up by the Senate.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), whose home-state transit agency faces $150 million in looming bills from SILOs, introduced a bill this week that would impose a 100 percent windfall-profits tax on any payments requested by banks. In a statement on his proposal, Menendez said:

Development of our mass transit systems is going to help us get out of this economic crisis and create long term economic security. If some of the nation’s most heavily-used transit systems were forced to pay tens of millions of dollars to banks seeking a windfall, that would not only hit millions of commuters today, it would slow the wheels of our economy.

Inauguration parade rehearsal. Photo: Travir/Flickr

The discussion online has covered chokepoints in the Metro system, proper pricing of park-and-ride spots, and the advantages of banning private auto traffic on Virginia-DC bridges. And bike valet parking and the utility of pedicabs. Predictably, AAA came out strong against the restrictions on car traffic, apparently contending that the optimal "mobility" solution would be to let streets completely clog up with private motorists.

This weekend I spoke to a relative of mine in the DC area who predicted carmaggeddon on the Maryland side of the district, as drivers attempt to bypass the ban. I suppose we'll know soon enough whether Virginians are that attached to their cars.

A section of Tysons Corner slated for infill development. Image: Fairfax County/PB PlaceMaking [PDF]

Four of the line's stations are planned for Tysons Corner, a collection of malls and offices so unwalkable that traffic clogs streets when employees break for lunch. Only 17,000 people live there, but it provides 167,000 parking spaces for the hordes of commuters and shoppers who drive in on a daily basis. In this excellent NPR segment (listening to the audio is well worth the time), Robert Siegel looks at how Fairfax County officials are attempting to transform Tysons Corner into a more urban setting:

...a central part of the plan is to build residential housing, and plan for 100,000 people. But that means more than build apartment houses -- Tysons is also utterly inhospitable to pedestrians.

Clark Tyler, who chairs the Tysons Corner Land Use Task Force, says there are nine lanes of traffic near Tysons Corner Center, but the street lights give pedestrians only 40 seconds to cross them. Sidewalks mysteriously end.

So, what will the new Tysons be like? 

"Hopefully it will have sidewalks that aren't hyphenated," Tyler says. "It will have a grid of streets, shorter blocks, it will have a circulation system, so the other thing that would be radical is what they call LEED certified -- or green buildings that are energy efficient -- and all the rest because that's what we've recommended."

Buses to get you from the rail stations to these stores -- right now, that sounds like science fiction. It also sounds like a city.

Siegel's guide, Chris Leinberger of the Brookings Institution, sees Tysons Corner as a watershed of sorts, a model that other sprawling edge cities might follow. As the story makes clear, however, there are still plenty of misconceptions to dispel about density and smart growth:

Mayor Jane Seemans of the neighboring town of Vienna has some concerns about the Tysons plan. Will it increase her town's traffic, which is already congested? Will Vienna's schools and parks become overcrowded? "It's the impact that it will have on our quality of life in Vienna... We just want to make sure that we have a voice in the continuing development."

This cartoon, by Tom Toles of the Washington Post via Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, refers to DC subway funding, now under attack from conservative "think tanks." But it could just as easily apply to transportation and public works projects across the country, which continue to be largely overlooked despite their prior role as job generators in otherwise hard times.

With the first US bike-share system starting up just a short Amtrak ride away in Washington, DC, you know it wouldn't take long for the Streetfilms crew to make the scene. This week, Elizabeth Press, Clarence Eckerson and Robin Urban Smith took the already-popular SmartBike DC for a spin, and talked to local citizens, advocates and Alice Kelly of the District Department of Transportation, who hints at a possible expansion of the 120 bike fleet:

"Knowing what we know now, of course, we would have launched it bigger. But when we were initially thinking about this we really weren't sure how popular it would be. The rising cost of gas and the ever-increasing green attitude of everybody is now showing us that yes, the city will support a broader program."

Today the city will join the ranks of Paris and Barcelona with the launch of the first high-tech public bike-sharing program in the United States, forcing such cities as San Francisco and Chicago to look here to see chic alternative transportation in action in America.

One critical difference between SmartBike and its European counterparts is the size of the network. When Vélib debuted in Paris, it provided 10,000 bikes at 750 locations. The SmartBike planners are taking a gradualist approach, starting off with 120 bikes stationed at 10 sites concentrated near downtown D.C. So far, 150 memberships have been sold, the Post reports.

The fact that D.C. has cleared the hurdles of getting a system up and running is piquing the interest of other cities, according to the outdoor advertising firm that sponsors SmartBike:

"We're getting inquiries from all around the country to see if they can take the same program and implement it in their city," said Steve Ginsburg of Clear Channel Outdoor.

Which American city will go live with public bike-share next? New York recently signaled its interest in a bike-share program, and Portland is actively pursuing one, despite some setbacks. The highly informative Bike-Sharing Blog has put together a Google Maps mashup showing where programs exist, and where ones are in various stages of study and planning. By my count, 14 cities are in the running to follow D.C.

Photo of a SmartBike DC station: afagen/Flickr

Mayor Bloomberg chose Sadik-Khan, and now we have separated bike lanes, brand-new plazas, a boulevard-like design for Broadway, and more. We need a similarly visionary leader for DDOT.

Perhaps because D.C. is such a wonk-filled town (or maybe because it was one of America's first planned cities), greater Washington boasts a healthy number of really smart, high-quality blogs covering urban planning, transportation policy and livable streets. I'll be looking forward to seeing how these bloggers help shape the public discussion as Fenty goes about choosing his next transportation commissioner. Here's some good D.C. reading...

• The WashCycle
  
• Beyond DC
• Goodspeed Update
• Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space
• Rethink College Park

Politico is reporting

Some of the facts don't quite seem to add up just yet -- specifically the part about the Novak not knowing he hit someone and an eye-witness saying the victim was "sort of splayed onto the windshield."

"I didn't know I hit him. I feel terrible," a shaken Novak told reporters from Politico and WJLA as he was returning to his car. "He's not dead, that's the main thing." Novak said he was a block away from 18th and K streets Northwest, where the accident occurred, when a bicyclist stopped him and said, "You hit someone." He said he was cited for failing to yield the right of way.

The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident.

As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said a "black Corvette convertible with top closed plowed into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed onto the windshield."

Bono said that the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk" signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and that Novak then made a right into the service lane of K Street. "The car is speeding away. What's going through my mind is, you just can't hit a pedestrian and drive away," Bono said.

Apparently, Novak's got a rep as an "aggressive" driver, Again, from Jonathan Martin and Chris Frates at Politico:

In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th streets Northwest for allegedly jaywalking. "'Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!' Novak snapped before speeding away," according to an item in The Washington Post's Reliable Source column.

Novak explained to the paper: "He was crossing on the red light. I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don't run the country, all I can do is yell at 'em. The other option is to run 'em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that."

Two years later, the same column reported that Novak had gone to a racing school in Florida. "I've wanted to be a racecar driver all my life, and anyone who has watched me drive can tell you that," Novak said.

These realities are lost on many of the suburbanites quoted in the Post story, notably Northern Virginia Congressman James P. Moran Jr., who predicts the District's economy will dry up as its streets become more people-friendly (an argument also heard -- and ultimately rejected -- recently in San Francisco, of all places). But one out-of-town legislator has a more tempered view, and offered an insight that also rings true around these parts.

"You'd like me to lambaste the District, but we're all in the same boat," said Montgomery County Council member Nancy Floreen (D-At Large). "I am sympathetic to some of these initiatives. But the challenge is finding the right balance. Not everyone can ride Metro or walk to work."

She placed blame for the problem, in part, on the federal government, which offers many of its employees free parking in the city.

While DC can't stop the feds from giving away parking, it has launched its aforementioned market rate metering program for curbside space, even dedicating a good share of the proceeds to pedestrian and bike improvements. And with no far-flung authority to answer to, the District is free, for example, to use automated traffic enforcement, including red light and speeding cameras.

Left to its own devices to achieve its stated goal of encouraging transit use, biking and walking, it will be interesting to see how this major US city pulls it off, and what other cities, including ours, can learn from it.

Photo of crosswalk flags on Connecticut Ave by billadler/Flickr. DC has one of the highest pedestrian death rates among large US cities.

The Toronto Star gave parking policy maven Donald Shoup some major play earlier this week, running a profile of the UCLA professor excerpted from journalist Tim Falconer's new book, "Drive." In the piece, we learn why Shoup believes planners are apt to make bad judgments when it comes to the optimum supply of off-street parking:

...planning departments always insist that developers include a minimum number of parking spots. Shoup doesn't have much respect for the ability of urban planners to determine how many spots are necessary. Since planners don't learn anything about parking in school, they learn it on the job, but because parking is so political -- NIMBY neighbours constantly squawk at the thought of anyone parking on their street -- what they really learn is the politics of parking.

Hardly surprising, perhaps, but certainly applicable to New York, where parking minimums have facilitated pedestrian-hostile development, as on Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue. It also raises the question: Even if the city were to muster the political will to adopt Shoupian pricing for on-street parking (following the lead of San Francisco and Washington), would it have the fortitude to address another big part of the equation by reforming zoning regs that require parking in certain residential buildings?

A story in today's Times about the suspension of alternate-side parking rules in Park Slope shows the warped sense of entitlement such measures would run up against:

“Parking is such a joke in this neighborhood that no matter what they do, it won’t make a difference,” said Buddy Ferriola, from the deli Pollio on Fifth Avenue. “You got 20,000 cars and 2,000 parking spaces.”

Attention aspiring Streetfilm directors: U.S. PIRG has noticed that transit doesn't seem to be on the radar of most pols, so it's enlisting the YouTube generation to help lawmakers see the light. From the U.S. PIRG website:

Are you tired of being stuck in traffic? Shouldn’t we have better options? In the last decade, people went from spending 18 hours per year stuck in rush hour traffic delays to a whopping 38 hours. And as we all know, time spent stuck in traffic is time you never get back.

We want you to create your most persuasive video about why we need more and better public transportation. What’s your vision of a 21st century transportation system? We'll use the winning videos to help decision-makers imagine a better future. Your video will be a critical part of an effort to educate city councils, legislatures across the country, and lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

Videos must be submitted by July 4th. A few are already online -- Clarence, meet your competition.

We're nearly a couple of weeks into baseball season, and fans of the Washington Nationals are enjoying their new transit-, bike- and pedestrian-friendly stadium. The DC complex, with its transit links, shuttle buses and valet bike parking, is so accessible -- and city efforts to encourage fans to get there by alternate means so successful -- that on Opening Day its relatively few parking lots weren't even full, reports Greater Greater Washington:

Good for DC for resisting the warnings from team owners and various commentators that the world would end unless the entire neighborhood were converted to parking as New York did to the South Bronx. Looks like parking demand is elastic, after all.

The Yankees, while we're at it, are in Kansas City tonight; the Mets host the Phillies. 

Photo: ShepDave/Flickr

On short-term transit improvements: 

The authority [MTA] shall provide for transit projects designed to mitigate projected immediate effects on ridership occasioned by the imposition of congestion pricing fees prior to the operation date.

On the transit lock box:

The authority shall establish a fund to be known as the "traffic congestion mitigation fund" which shall be kept separate from and not commingled with any other moneys of the authority...

[The fund reimburses the City and MTA for capital costs and administrative costs of pricing, and for the initial short-term transit improvements. The rest is for payment of bonds and capital projects.]

Such projects may include, but are not limited to, new buses and bus facilities, bus rapid transit routes, park-and-ride facilities, commuter rail improvements and subway expansion and rehabilitation. Congestion pricing revenues shall not be used for any other purpose. Priority in the distribution of funding shall be given to those areas in need of additional transit investments.

On the "livable streets lock box":

There is hereby established a special fund to be known as the "transit enhancement fund" [financed by parking fees in the congestion zone]...  The revenues of such fund... shall be used solely to provide additional transit, pedestrian, bicycle, and parking management improvements, including, but not limited to, expanded ferry service, bus signalization, bus rapid transit investments, bicycle facilities and pedestrian enhancements.

On residential parking permits:

The city shall complete the community planning process already underway with respect to a citywide parking policy and a residential parking program prior to the operation date. The city shall ensure that neighborhoods adjacent to the congestion pricing zone are provided an opportunity to opt into the residential parking permit program.

As expected, the bill goes on the describe RPP quite thoroughly. The details match what we heard from Mayor Bloomberg and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan at last week's unveiling of the RPP proposal. But there is one surprise:

Fees collected pursuant to regulations authorized by this section shall be credited to the transit enhancement fund of the City of New York.

This means that fees collected from RPP would go towards the "livable streets lock box," but before you get too excited, it's worth noting that residents would not have to pay a fee to get a permit (they just have to prove residency). So would any revenue actually come from this provision? We consulted a source experienced in interpreting legislation, who said this language leaves the door open for RPP to serve as a dedicated "transit enhancement" funding stream, should fees be collected at some future time.

By the way, have we mentioned what DC is doing with parking revenues these days?

In a first for a big east coast city, Washington, DC, is putting the ideas of celebrated parking reformer Don Shoup to work. Spurred by concerns over game day traffic surges caused by the opening of a new baseball stadium, the city council recently created two performance parking pilot project zones. The most important provision of the legislation is that 75 percent of the meter revenue, after initial expenses and maintenance, "Shall be used solely for the purpose of non-automobile transportation improvements in that pilot zone." This includes a menu of transit, bicycling and pedestrian improvements including sidewalk widenings, traffic calming, separated bikeways and real-time information signs for buses and trains.

The project is especially exciting, because once parking money from the pilot zones begins to translate into actual neighborhood improvements, DC voters will want more parking reform and parking revenue return in their neighborhoods.

The force behind the legislation was Council Member Tommy Wells, whose campaign slogan, "For a Livable and Walkable Community," is prominently featured on his web site. Wells says he held "over a dozen community meetings and town halls" to build a consensus around the plan. His work seems to have paid off. The new zones and especially the revenue return provision have been cheered by the press and local livable streets advocates, including those at Greater Greater Washington.org.

Along with using "revenue return" to create a constituency for parking reform, the basic idea behind Shoup's work, and DC's performance parking zones, is simple: underpriced curbside parking meters result in completely full curbs and low turnover, which in turn causes parking shortages and cruising and double parking. The problem is solved by raising and lowering meter rates to achieve vacancy targets.

Other highlights of Washington's new performance parking zones:

• Curbside vacancy targets of 10 percent to 20 percent
  
• Gradual meter rate increases capped at $0.50 a month
  
• Authority to the DC DOT to "adjust parking fines as needed"
  

It's unclear if the DC DOT will vary prices during peak and off-peak periods to achieve the vacancy targets.

Alas, Shoupian doctrine didn't escape the legislative meat grinder unscathed. The DC law undercuts itself by turning off meters on holidays, freezing meter rates in some areas and, worst of all, exempting Residential Parking Permit holders from meters in other areas. However, on balance, DC's new parking experiment is an exciting step forward and should serve to inspire the New York City Council to get smart about solving New York's parking dysfunction.

Photo: pickles_pics/Flickr

"DC SmartBike" will launch as a pilot program in the coming weeks with 120 bikes at 10 stations, available for an annual subscription of about $40. It's not exactly Vélib, but it's a start. During an address at the Bike Summit earlier this week, Emeka Moneme, head of DC’s DOT, said that his department is also looking at developing a region-wide bike-share network in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia. For more coverage of the city's bike-share plans, check out the excellent DC bike blog WashCycle. 

If there was a star at yesterday’s National Bike Summit, it was Portland, Oregon. After Earl Blumenauer, one of the city's congressional reps and a former county commissioner, delivered the morning address, Portland's bike planners and advocates shared their strategies at some of the more urban-focused panels. Portland’s transportation commissioner, Sam Adams -- who is now running for mayor -- was scheduled to deliver a post-lunch plenary, but he canceled with the flu. Instead, a contingent of five other Portland bike luminaries shared the podium.

Two things stood out about the city that has achieved a cycling mode share of six percent and is aiming much higher:

They’re big believers in bike boulevards.

Streetsblog and StreetFilms have covered Portland's bike boulevards before, but I wanted to share some of the reasoning behind them. Portland has essentially set the goal of becoming the Amsterdam of the U.S. (as far as bikes are concerned), and they don’t think that’s possible if they rely mainly on bike lanes on heavily trafficked roads. According to their surveys, only one percent of people making trips (all modes) on Portland streets fall under the category of “fearless” cyclists. The bigger chunk of bike mode share comes from people who have safety concerns, and another huge portion of travelers -- 55 percent -- say they would cycle if conditions were even safer than today.

Their surveys also tell them that what makes people feel safe is biking on low-traffic streets, leading them to convert more streets into bike boulevards. By building facilities where bikes outnumber cars and riders seldom have to stop, Portland’s bike planners believe they can make cycling a desirable mode for trips like, say, taking your kids to the library.

They do intensive education and outreach.

The Portland Office of Transportation runs an outreach program called SmartTrips, which Streetsblog first covered last September. Here's a little more about how SmartTrips operates.

Every year the program selects an area of the city to target for outreach. Beginning in April, they send out information about walking, biking, and transit to everyone in the area, contacting each household at least five times. The first thing they send is an order form, which people fill out to request things like bike maps, a schedule of rides, and leg bands. When the SmartTrips office receives an order, interns deliver the goods by bike within three days.

"People are shocked that interns get there by bike, and that the city is actually doing it," said SmartTrips' Dan Bower. "Every year we get a 8-10 percent reduction in drive alone trips in the target region." Noting that ridership is skyrocketing in Portland despite the fact that the city hasn't built many new bikeway miles in the past five years, he summed up his program's raison d'etre: "If you build something, it's worth your while to tell people about it."

Also worth noting -- this list of “five things you don’t know about Portland,” presented by the crew who spoke at the lunchtime plenary:

1. The growing social acceptance of biking
   Even residents who don’t bike say they like living in a city that is so bike-friendly.
   Store owners are calling the city and asking to have on-street parking removed and replaced by bike parking.
   
2. Financing – they haven’t spent big bucks, yet
   Only one percent of Portland’s transportation budget is spent on bike facilities. Ridership is way up nonetheless. Now that cycling is at six percent mode share, there is talk of allocating funds based on mode split.
   
3. Biking boosts tourism
   According to Travel Portland, being named the nation’s top cycling city has been very valuable for tourism. Portland is now attracting conventions based on its bike infrastructure. The North American Handmade Bicycle Show, a convention that draws 15,000 participants, is a case in point.
   
4. Low-cost publicity and lobbying
   Every year, Cycle Oregon stages a policy-makers’ ride, inviting influential people to get away from their desks and see what’s working for bikes in the city and what’s not.
   
5. The economic development crowd is getting behind biking
   There are now 10-15 bike manufacturers in Portland and new bike shops popping up all the time. It’s a stretch to call this a “thing you don’t know.” Portland’s bike industry has actually gotten national press.

Well, you know what they say about necessity. Freedman invented a rather ingenious method of planning a bike network. Her team created a modified Google Map that enables cyclists to log on and trace the routes they ride every day. Watch the data pile up, and voila -- sensible bike routes. "We found out where the actual desire lines are," she said. "Using existing technology was great."

In addition to figuring out where to stripe lanes, Freedman is using Google Maps to rate streets on bike-friendliness. "Anyone can go onto Google and rate a road," she said. "Is it good for beginners or just for experts?" The results will be reflected in Boston's first official bike map, which Freedman touted as an example of the city's strategy to personalize bike education and training. (Did I mention they're starting from scratch?)

Total cost? Next to nothing. "Basically the public is creating the map, and the sponsor will print," she said.

Update: While trying to track down the Google Map, which reader Eric Fischer links to in the comments, I found this explanation of how riders use it from Boston blogger Velo Fellow. 

Photo: Active Living Network