Washington D.C. planning director Harriet Tregoning offered her assistance to New York City in eliminating parking minimums. Photo: Washington City Paper

Yesterday, the Department of City Planning asked experts from around the country how to make a more sustainable zoning code. Their response? Scrap parking minimums.

The recommendation came during a major conference held yesterday by DCP and Harvard University. Top urban thinkers from around the country gathered to discuss how the zoning code can make the city more globally competitive, socially equitable, architecturally significant and environmentally sustainable (for a good recap of the conference, check out the Architect’s Newspaper live blog).

When the conversation turned to suggestions for building a sustainable city, both panelists raised the issue of parking minimums.

“Parking is one of the biggest things,” said Harriet Tregoning, the director of D.C.’s Office of Planning, as she articulated how zoning can make cities greener. “[Washington has] removed our minimums for most buildings in the downtown and near transit.”

That policy puts D.C. significantly ahead of New York City. While the Manhattan core — admittedly a more populated area than all of Washington — has parking maximums in place, most of the city is still governed by parking minimums, even areas right on top of subway stations.

DCP is considering reducing parking minimums in the “inner ring” of neighborhoods around the Manhattan core, but not eliminating them. So building space for car storage will still be mandatory even in highly walkable and transit-rich neighborhoods like Harlem, while dense, transit-rich areas just a little further removed from downtown, like Washington Heights, may not see any reforms at all.

Tregoning said that D.C. opted to eliminate parking minimums entirely in response to “hard experience.” Having cut parking requirements in half, she explained, “we still had only half the parking used.”

D.C. is also replacing parking minimums with maximums in many places. The city received significant pushback from the public and developers, Tregoning admitted, so they developed a compromise. “You can build more than the maximums, but the first floor of that building has to be level and convertible so that if we’re right and you’re wrong, it can be something useful.”

Tregoning went so far as to offer herself as a resource to New York City should it decide to pursue parking reform. “We should think of ourselves as a band of brothers,” she said. “Why don’t we emulate success?”

The private sector, too, argued that removing parking minimums is critical to allowing sustainable growth. Developer Jonathan Rose noted that he applied for a mayoral override of the parking requirements for Via Verde, the green affordable housing project in the South Bronx that has received nothing but rave reviews. “We decided that affordable housing three blocks from transit in a great retail district didn’t need parking,” said Rose.

The goal of yesterday’s conference was to develop big ideas for the city moving forward. “Today’s discussion will really enable us to mark out new strategies for the city, for this administration and the next administration to come,” said DCP Director Amanda Burden at the event’s close. Will Burden listen to her invited guests and move boldly on parking reform?

The Washington Metro system keeps hundreds of thousands of cars off the streets a day, and is responsible for hundreds of millions in tax revenues and household savings per year. Photo: thisisbossi/Flickr

At the heart of the region’s success is, of course, the Washington Metro, which has shaped development for more than three decades. In fact, so much of the land near Metro stations has been developed that ridership is projected to reach the design capacity of the current system within the next 20 years. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is currently mapping out how to respond.

At a panel this morning, Nat Bottigheimer, an assistant general manager at WMATA, shared some results from an internal study the agency conducted as part of this process. The core question he investigated: “What is it you’re actually getting from a transit investment?”

The agency’s research and modeling produced some intriguing numbers demonstrating how the creation of Metro — its 86 stations and 106 miles of track — has benefited the region:

• Since the system was created, $212 billion in real estate value has been added within a half-mile of Metro stations.
• Land value near Metro stations generates $2.8 billion annually in property tax revenues. $195 million of that is directly attributable to transit.
• Households in the region reap the equivalent of $705 million per year in time savings thanks to Metro.
• Households save $305 million per year on costs related to owning and driving cars.
• Every day Metro riders walk 33,000 miles.

On the other side of the coin, there’s everything that Metro has prevented from happening. Without Metro…

• Commuters would have to put up with commutes that take 25 percent longer. This would effectively curtail people’s access to jobs and employers’ access to the workforce.
• The region would see more than a million additional auto trips per day.
• This traffic would require 1,000 additional lane miles to accommodate, the equivalent of two Capital Beltways’ worth of asphalt.
• Four to six more traffic lanes across the Potomac would be necessary.
• The downtown core would be eviscerated by parking. To store all the extra cars would take 200,000 parking spots, the equivalent of 170 blocks filled with five-story parking structures.
• All that car infrastructure would cost nearly $11 billion to build, and impose huge maintenance costs every year.

According to the 2011 Urban Mobility Report, released today by the Texas Transportation Institute, this delay cost the average D.C. driver $1,495 once you factor in lost productivity and increased trucking times. In Chicago, it’s $1,568. L.A., $1,334.

Every year, TTI puts out their Urban Mobility Report, and every year we criticize it for its autocentrism. After all, its sole measure is how fast a vehicle can speed down a given mile of roadway. Maybe your city is dense and friendly to pedestrians and bikes, so that it’s easy to glide past the automobile gridlock on your short commute to work. Or maybe transit provides an excellent and affordable alternative to traffic jams. None of that matters to TTI. If someone, somewhere, is sitting in traffic, that’s all that matters. All other measures and modes of urban mobility are ignored.

TTI doesn’t bother to figure out how much time is saved if one avoids that congestion by taking transit, but they do examine how much time transit riders save drivers by taking vehicles off the road.

How public transportation reduces delays for drivers, 2010. Source: 2011 Urban Mobility Report, via APTA.

If there were no transit, the country’s drivers would be facing an additional 796 million hours of traffic delay. (Take that, drivers who grumble when their gas tax “user fee” funds mass transit!)

“Operational treatments” like ramp metering, traffic light timing, and removing crashed vehicles from the road have become much more effective in the last 20 years but still don’t come close to the savings provided by transit, saving about 40 percent as much as transit in terms of hours of delays, fuel, and costs.

Still, in TTI’s examination of congestion relief strategies, public transportation is barely alluded to and never mentioned outright, while operational treatments get significant attention. There is a shout-out to smart growth, or “denser developments with a mix of jobs, shops and homes, so that more people can walk, bike or take transit to more, and closer, destinations.” They also suggest telework and, of course, adding capacity.

TTI warns that congestion is only as bad as it is because the economy is still sluggish. We can expect a rapid worsening of the situation when the economy rebounds – 3 more hours of delay by 2015 and 7 hours by 2020, per commuter, with costs rising from $101 billion to $133 billion, more than $900 for every commuter, and enough wasted fuel to fill more than 275,000 gasoline tanker trucks.

I guess it’s time to really get to work on expanding and improving transit service then; right, TTI?

Nearly three years ago Streetfilms took a day trip to Washington, D.C. to see their new bike-share system, Smart Bike DC, in action. We found the trial system a fun ride with great potential, but with only 120 bikes there wasn’t widespread use.

Flash forward to 2011. With more than 1,100 bicycles and 110 stations, D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare is testament to the imperative to “go big or go home” when deploying bike-share programs. Currently the largest bike-share system in the United States, the District’s second stab gives users much more flexibility and options to accomplish short errands and commute to work.

In fact, the next phase of expansion has just been announced, with 18 more stations and 265 more bikes coming this fall.

The handsome red bikes are easy to ride. With one swipe of a keycard you’re off and biking. During the morning and evening commutes (and lunch hours) you’ll see the bikes in very heavy rotation.  But what left Streetfilms most impressed was how many people were riding them in full business attire in the hot and humid summers around the capital. If that isn’t a sign of success, what is?

Streetfilms would like to thank the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) for partnering with us on this project.

Bike-sharing users might be safer because they take fewer risks while riding. These two women trying out Boulder's new bike-sharing system don't look like daredevils. Photo: dgrinbergs via Flickr

People riding shared public bicycles appear to be involved in fewer traffic crashes and receive fewer injuries than people riding their personal bicycles. In cities from Paris and London to Washington, D.C. and Mexico City, something about riding a shared bicycle appears to make cycling safer.

Paris’s Vélib’ is perhaps the most iconic bike-sharing system in the world. Launched in 2007 with 20,000 bikes, its widespread popularity not only transformed how Parisians traveled across their city but set off an explosion of new bike-sharing systems worldwide. With a few years of practice at this point, the Parisian experience is particularly telling.

“The accident rate is lower on a Vélib’ than on ‘normal’ bikes,” a spokesperson for the office of Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë told Streetsblog. In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, Vélib’ riders were responsible for one-third of all bike trips in Paris but were involved in only one-fourth of all traffic crashes involving a bicycle.

The numbers are if anything more striking in London, where the Barclays Cycle Hire system — or “Boris Bikes,” to borrow the phrase locals have adopted in honor of their mayor, Boris Johnson — opened at the end of last July. Though the London government didn’t track the relevant safety stats of bike-share users compared to other cyclists, they provided us with the data to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations.

So far, after 4.5 million trips, no bike-sharing user in London has been seriously injured or killed in a traffic crash, according to Transport for London. Only 10 bike-sharing users were injured at all in the first 1.6 million trips on the system, a statistic that was compiled earlier. A spokesperson also told Streetsblog that they estimate that half a million bike trips take place across London each day, 20,000 of which are on Boris Bikes. Finally, during 2010, 10 people were killed, 457 seriously injured and 3,540 non-seriously injured while cycling in London.

Crunching those numbers, no people were seriously injured or killed on the first 4.5 million trips on Boris Bikes, while about 12 people are injured for every 4.5 million trips on personal bikes. And over 1.6 million trips, ten bike-sharing users received non-serious injuries, compared to an average of 35 such injuries for the same number of trips on personal bikes.

Stateside, transportation officials are seeing the same effect.

Chris Holben, the project manager for Washington D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare system, told the Boston Globe in May that bike-sharing users had a much safer rate of crashes than bike owners. He told Streetsblog that his observation was merely anecdotal, but it turns out that his instincts are likely correct.

In its first seven months of operation, Capital Bikeshare users made 330,000 trips. In that time, seven crashes of any kind were reported, and none involved serious injuries. In comparison, there were 338 cyclist injuries and fatalities overall in 2010, according to the District Department of Transportation, with an estimated 28,400 trips per weekday, 5,000 of which take place on a Capital Bikeshare bikes.

So while only seven bike-sharing riders were injured in 330,000 trips, on average, 13 people riding personal bikes are injured over the same number of trips. And bike-sharing riders suffered no serious injuries, while riders using their own bikes suffered injuries that were sometimes serious or even fatal.

In other systems, apples-to-apples comparisons with personal bike riders are impossible, but extremely low injury rates among bike-sharing riders still stand out.

In Mexico City, for example, only three ECOBICI riders have required a trip to the hospital after a traffic crash in the 1.6 million trips taken so far. That’s an impressive safety record in a city known for its dangerous traffic. Mexico City does not, however, compile the necessary data to accurately compare the ECOBICI safety rate with that of other cyclists, said a representative of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, which provided technical assistance on the city’s bike-sharing program.

Similarly, Minneapolis’s NiceRide system reported “no significant accidents or major injuries” in its first year of operation. In that time, Minnesotans took 37,000 NiceRide trips.

This is encouraging news for cities like New York that are eyeing bike-sharing systems of their own. Some have worried that bike-sharing would bring a flood of inexperienced new cyclists onto roads that are too dangerous, but if New York’s experience is anything like that of its peers, cycling will be safer overall once shared bikes are added to the mix.

Bike-sharing users are struck and injured less often than people on their personal bikes. One theory is that they're more likely to stick to safe routes like this one in London. Photo: d1v1d via Flickr

For now, we can only speculate as to the reasons for this phenomenon. Streetsblog spoke with two experts on road safety, Professors Norman Garrick of the University of Connecticut and Ian Walker of the University of Bath. Each offered a number of possible explanations for the discrepancy in safety numbers.

“It’s shorter trips, maybe,” proposed Garrick. If bike-sharing users are generally taking trips of less than thirty minutes so as to avoid additional fees, each trip might be fewer miles, leading to a lower crash rate per trip.

Walker hypothesized that bike-sharing users might be less experienced riders than those who own their own bike. “They therefore avoid mixing with traffic as much as regular riders, and ride slower, and so have fewer serious collisions,” he theorized. That might be easier to achieve if bike-sharing stations are sited near bike lanes, added Garrick.

Garrick said that even apart from experience in cycling, people who have avoided cycling until bike-sharing presents them with the option might be, by their nature, less tolerant of risk and stick to safer cycling behavior. “It could be that they’re more cautious people.”

Or the other case may be true, said Walker — bike-share users could be more dedicated cyclists with an above-average skill level. “Most people don’t hire bikes from such a scheme, suggesting that the people who do hire from them might be those with a greater than average interest in cycling.” That could be especially true of the tourists taking them out, who might not have brought their own bike along with them.

The physical qualities of the shared bikes themselves might be responsible for their increased safety. “They are slower and they are very visible,” said Garrick.

That visibility might help motorists not only notice the bike-sharing user, but respect her as well, said Walker. “I suspect they are also, in most people’s minds, a sign of a novice or occasional cyclist. As such, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if drivers took more care around people using them than they do around ‘professional’ looking cyclists.” Walker’s own research has shown that drivers passed cyclists more closely if they were wearing helmets or appeared to be male.

Significantly more research will be needed to determine which combination of these factors actually explains the better safety record of bike-sharing users. But in the meantime, cities with bike-sharing systems on the horizon should be pleased to hear that the program will likely be a boon for street safety.

Photo: Clarence Eckerson

In Washington for the National Bike Summit, Clarence Eckerson snapped a shot of this ad for the capital’s NBC affiliate and its reporter Joe Krebs (described in his bio as “an avid swimmer and cyclist”).

In January, Dave Alpert at Greater Greater Washington noted the astounding difference between livable streets coverage in his city, where reporters are apt to pick apart a shoddy hit piece, and in New York, where, “It’s not clear how much of [the bike lane] ‘revolt’ is widespread negative public sentiment versus the objections of relatively few amplified by hostile press outlets.”

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that a prominent DC newser happens to ride a bike. Or maybe it’s further evidence that in order to do justice to the urban transportation beat, it helps to have a press corps that doesn’t see every urban transportation story through the prism of a windshield.

For New York’s distracted-driving, hatchet-wielding journos, that would be a different angle for sure.

The city of Philadelphia recently released a draft of its new comprehensive plan, Philadelphia2035 [PDF]. The plan’s release makes New York the last city in the four largest Northeastern metro areas that hasn’t so much as stated a commitment to cutting back on off-street parking.

Philadelphia2035 calls for controlling congestion by adding parking maximums into the zoning code and pricing on-street parking high enough so that 15 percent of spaces are always free. Here in New York, we still pretend that adding off-street parking reduces traffic congestion.

At the same time, Philadelphia is moving forward with a brand new zoning code. According to an article by PlanPhilly’s Nick Gilewitz, the new code will eliminate parking minimums downtown and in the city’s many rowhouse neighborhoods. While Gilewitz notes that parking minimums will still require significant amounts of new parking in some relatively dense neighborhoods, he concludes that the end to many parking minimums “is a huge step forward in recognizing that Philadelphia has incredible public transit resources that can, and perhaps should, shape development.”

New York’s other Northeastern competitors, too, are trying to halt the overproduction of off-street parking and the subsidization of on-street parking. Boston’s equivalent of PlaNYC, for example, calls for raising meter rates and eliminating most free on-street parking by putting a price on residential parking permits. It also calls for expanding the area where new off-street parking is banned and cracking down on exemptions to the ban where it’s already in place.

In practice, as the city rezones, Boston is switching parking minimums in many neighborhoods to parking maximums, according to the editor of CommonWealth Magazine [PDF]. When directly involved in the development of large projects, Boston is pushing developers to turn entire floors of parking into housing.

Washington, D.C., meanwhile, is working its way through a citywide rezoning. According to Greater Greater Washington, “parking minimums would disappear in most cases,” with only the least transit-served neighborhoods keeping them. The Office of Planning’s draft language [PDF] includes city-wide parking maximums to “prevent an over-supply of off-street parking that would contribute to traffic congestion and the inefficient use of land.”

D.C.’s draft language also allows the city to grant exemptions from any remaining parking requirements if it can be shown that parking demand will be below the minimum, if the developer creates a plan to reduce driving to work, or if a project is near transit.

While it follows that the city with the best transit system and lowest car-ownership rate in the country would lead on parking policy, New York is instead falling further behind.

“If we want to give meaning to multi-modal transportation … and if we want a vibrant city, then we must encourage safety for people who walk and bicycle.”

That was Phil Mendelson, the city council member in Washington, DC, who chaired a hearing on pedestrian and cyclist safety earlier this month (as quoted by TBD). Contrast his opening remarks with the intro to a hearing last December by New York’s own James Vacca, the transportation committee chair who considers sound bike policy a “tradeoff” between safer streets and more parking.

The DC hearing was marked by emotional testimony from victims and family members of DC residents lost in collisions with drivers. Several spoke of mistreatment at the hands of police. Among them was Ruth Rowan, the mother of Alice Swanson. In July of 2008, 22-year-old Swanson, riding in a bike lane on her way to work near Dupont Circle, was killed by the driver of a garbage truck. According to Rowan, shown in this video from David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington, the investigation into her daughter’s crash was stalled by a detective who went to great lengths to blame Swanson for her own death, despite a mountain of contradictory evidence.

What is clear is that, whether in DC or New York, pedestrians and cyclists are routinely held to a model of care and responsibility not expected of their counterparts sheathed in glass and steel. Vacca has shown substantial interest in pedestrian safety, slowing down speeders, and opening up crash data, so maybe he would consider convening a council hearing that shines a spotlight on the vital issue of NYPD crash investigations, which all too often seem to reach conclusions before all the facts are in.

Given the current topsy-turvy climate, where cyclists and pedestrians are singled out for scorn and scolding while their killers are spared comparable scrutiny (at least two pedestrians dead in the last two days), it would be nothing short of revelatory to hear Vacca and other prominent council mems echo Mendelson, who — while issuing the obligatory call for enforcement “against pedestrians and cyclists as well” — at least acknowledged that, “If someone is driving a 2,000 or 4,000 pound machine, they need to be held to a higher standard.”

The retail giant, the nation’s largest employer, has been eyeing the untapped New York City market for years. So far, opposition to Wal-Mart’s notorious labor record has kept the chain outside city limits, but a new push to establish a beachhead in the five boroughs is now underway.

The likeliest site for a Wal-Mart in New York City, East New York's Gateway Center, is a collection of big-box stores and free parking with its own highway off-ramp. Image: Google Maps.

The likeliest site for the city’s first Wal-Mart, according to Crain’s columnist Greg David, is at the Gateway Center in East New York. The shopping center’s website brags that it’s “one of the largest suburban-style retail developments” and touts its sea of free surface parking. In other words, a Wal-Mart on that site would stick to the most traditional big-box design, straight out of Bentonville.

Bringing Wal-Mart to New York City doesn’t have to be that way, though. A similar lobbying blitz is underway in Washington, D.C., where Wal-Mart is attempting to open four stores. Unlike in New York, however, Wal-Mart is attempting to win support by adapting its stores to the urban environment. For one of the stores, they propose a five-story building with smaller retail along one side of the block and apartments above the stores. “It may be the most well-executed new urban big box department store in America,” said Greater Greater Washington.

The executives in charge of expanding Wal-Mart into D.C. clearly believe that good design is the key to winning the support of that city’s decision-makers. Here in New York, though, no such pitch is underway.

This plan for a Washington, D.C. Wal-Mart integrates the store into the urban environment. But is a Wal-Mart worth integrating? Image: Greater Greater Washington.

Then again, would you expect there to be? It’s hard to imagine that when the City Council holds its first hearing on Wal-Mart on February 3, they’ll be concerned with its car-centric, traffic-inducing design. After all, this is the same City Council that responded to merchant opposition to the Flushing Commons development by throwing in $3 million to offer free and discounted parking at that project’s 1,600-space garage.

Of course, a D.C.-style design wouldn’t change the economic arguments against Wal-Mart.

In fact, a new report by Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio and the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development [PDF] argues that smaller Wal-Marts might make the situation worse by spreading the negative effects of the store to more neighborhoods. Write the authors:

The overwhelming weight of the independent research on the impact of Wal-Mart stores on local and national economies – including jobs, taxes, wages, benefits, manufacturing and existing retail businesses – shows that Wal-Mart depresses area wages and labor benefits contributing to the current decline of good middle class jobs, pushes out more retail jobs than it creates, and results in more retail vacancies. There is no indication that smaller “urban” Wal-Mart stores scattered throughout a dense city in any way diminish these negative trends. Rather, such developments may actually result in more widespread economic disruption.

The report goes on to catalog the research supporting their argument that Wal-Mart would be a disaster for workers and small businesses. If Wal-Marts wipe out smaller retailers, that would also be quite a disaster for the city’s pedestrian environment.

We’re hoping, though hardly holding our breath, that at February’s hearing the Council looks not only at what Wal-Mart means for the city’s economy, but what big box development means for the city more broadly. Whether we’re talking about a Wal-Mart, a Costco, or another brand of big box, what does this kind of building mean for traffic, the environment, or street safety? What questions would you like to see the Council address during its Wal-Mart hearing?

A big expansion of bike-sharing in D.C. will make public bikes a real transportation option for many more people. Image: Pedal_Power_Pete/Flickr

D.C. was the first American city to institute a bike-sharing program, known as SmartBike. That program was hampered by its small size -- only 120 bikes at ten locations, and by a business model that catered too much to advertising giant Clear Channel at the expense of bike-share users. The next iteration of bike-sharing would drop Clear Channel, GGW reports, switching to an operator whose incentives call for expanding the system and who would be willing to work across multiple jurisdictions. Yearly memberships would cost $80, with every ride free for the first half-hour. 

Looking ahead, 1,100 bikes might be just the beginning for D.C. The region is applying for federal funding to more than double the size of the program announced today, and Arlington, at least, has already announced its intention to add more bikes and stations down the line. 

Today's announcement adds to the wave of bike-sharing breakthroughs in American cities. Denver launched its 500-bike program, currently the largest in the country, on Earth Day, and both Minneapolis and Boston are scheduled to open 1,000-bike systems later this year. In New York, the most recent government action on bike-sharing occurred last April, when the Department of City Planning released an extensive study of how a system could work here. 

Washington, D.C.'s Bikestation is one of the sleeker and more fully-featured bike parking facilities that Streetfilms has ever seen. Located at Union Station, the Bikestation provides secure parking for more than a hundred bicycles, offers repair, rentals, lockers, and a changing room. Members get 24/7 access.

Have a look and see how D.C. has made their biggest transit hub even more multi-modal with top-notch bike parking.

The pay by phone option is being offered at 700 parking spaces in three areas of the city: around Dupont Circle, Union Station, and downtown on K Street, I Street, and New York Avenue NW. Meters that offer the service will be marked with a green sticker like the one at right, which lists a location number specific to that space.

The system lets customers specify how much time they're paying for and can send a reminder via text message when that time is about to expire. It's also integrated with enforcement, making parking agents' jobs easier.

What does this have to do with livable streets? High-tech payment mechanisms fit together hand-in-glove with parking policies that reduce cruising and cut down on traffic. Like muni-meters, pay-by-phone makes it feasible to do things like set occupancy targets and price parking accordingly. The convenience factor is also a big deal. Because motorists appreciate those text reminders, the pay-by-phone system creates more political space to raise meter rates during peak hours.

According to ITDP's recent report on U.S. parking policy, the city that's way out in front on high-tech parking payment is Miami, which has 5,500 spots covered by its pay-by-phone system.

While we were down in Washington, DC for the National Bike Summit, Streetfilms got the chance to check out some of the capital's innovative new bike infrastructure.

Tops on our list: the city's first protected, contraflow lane for bicyclists. The district DOT has redesigned 15th Street NW between U Street and Massachusetts Avenue to accommodate two-way bike traffic on a one-way street. Northbound cyclists get a shared lane moving in the same direction as car traffic, and southbound cyclists ride in a parking-protected lane. The treatment has also slimmed down the street, removing a vehicle lane and calming traffic.

DC transportation officials say that when designing this protected bike lane, they looked to New York and Montreal for inspiration. Contraflow lanes could help make critical new connections in New York's bike network, like the gap between Park Slope and Fort Greene that Brooklyn CB 2 recently asked DOT to take a look at. So hopefully some of that inspiration will work its way back up the Acela corridor to NYC.

Although not captured in the video, DC has also just finished a curbside, un-protected contraflow lane on the narrower Champlain Street in Adams Morgan. See pics after the jump.

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.