Wednesday, September 16, 2015

The North Park Blocks: A Civic Barometer

Art in the Pearl provided a respite from the controversy surrounding the homeless “take over” of the North Park Blocks.  For four days aesthetics ruled the public realm, as thousands sauntered through the historic grounds to enjoy the creativity of the human hand.  The linear greens functioned as the Olmsted Brothers envisioned in their exemplar 1903 park plan: shared spaces for “developing healthfulness, morality, intelligence, and business prosperity.”  Parks also serve as a city’s civic barometer, “the surest manifestations of the intelligence, degree of civilization and progressiveness of its citizens.”https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/9046 The homeless in the North Park Blocks announce civilization’s failure. The Great Depression is the last time so many dispossessed resided in urban parks.  It is not a park problem, but a societal failure. 
North Park Blocks August 2015
I started studying the North Park Blocks in early June, part of a project to document the livability of the Pearl District.  In 2013 Orlando adopted a sustainability plan inspired by Portland, and I moved to the Pearl to experience the future Orlando desires.  The Orlando plan defines livability as neighborhoods with “complete streets and green public spaces” that “encourage walking, public gathering and neighborhood-oriented shopping activity.” To assess the public life in the Pearl’s parks, I took my cues from Jan Gehl, the architect who was instrumental in transforming Copenhagen into the world’s most sustainable city.  Gehl is the founder of Public Studies, a field where “look and learn” is the basic premise.  He pioneered a systematic approach to assess public life by counting users and categorizing uses in public spaces.https://islandpress.org/book/how-to-study-public-life  For my study of the North Park Blocks, I developed the following categoires for users: 
1. Sitting on Benches
2. Walking through the Park Blocks (north south direction)
3. Hanging Out
4. Possessing Camping Gear.

I also counted individuals playing basketball and bocchi, and listed the number of children using playground equipment and the number of adults supervising them. My counts were made at the lunch hour (12 pm-1:30 pm) and the early evening (5:00 pm to 6:30 pm), and I also recorded the temperature. 

In mid-August after completing a count, a KATU cameraman and reporter approached me.  The spike in the number of homeless had raised concerns, and I was asked my opinion.  For the homeless the North Park Blocks are a haven, for residents they represent an underutilized asset.  The problem, I found, was that park blocks had gone from a shared space to an occupied space. As one neighbor put it, the park blocks had gone from “funky” to “scary.” Civlility, a park's essential attribute, had vanished. http://northparkblocks.org/2015/08/katu-tv-park-drugs-public-sex-off-leash-dog-attacks/   

Over the summer users with camping gear intensified, increasing by 29 percent from July 10 to August 30. The block between Glisan and Hoyt experienced no change, while the remaining blocks had increases that ranged from 20 to 100 percent.  The blocks between Burnside and Couch, and Flanders and Davis Everett and Flanders had highest aggregate numbers, averaging nearly 13 users with camping gear. 


NPB Users with Camping Gear
6/20- 7/10
After 7/10
% Change
Glissan-Flanders
1.0
1.0
Na
Flanders-Everett
1.8
3.5
100
Everett-Davis
10.6
12.7
20
Davis-Couch
5.0
6.0
20
Couch-Burnside
8.6
12.9
50

Heading back to the North Park Blocks the day after the festival, I was interested to see what I would find.  The stench of urine at Hoyt and 9th Avenue recoiled my senses and thoughts.   I watched a lost soul with a scraggly beard stoop down to pick up half a cigarette and then withdraw his hand.  Unhappy with his finding his face remained frozen, creased in a permanent frown.  As he stumbled on, I heard the cheery voices of two coeds.  Their range of expression struck me.  Quick but subtle changes in gestures and facial features revealed the mental dexterity of individuals sharing experience and making sense of life.  It is the sensation that imbibes a college campus, but seldom the North Park Blocks.  In sections where campers congregate, extremes tend to be the norm: loud voices, drama, and expletives.  Homelessness is not a crime, but city parks were not intended to shelter the indigent. Ideally, parks should function like a college campus, environments to better ourselves, attune our senses to nature, and engage in civility.

Mitigating homelessness will require rethinking policing, social work, and provisions for the mentally ill.  Fortunately, there is progress on this front. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has initiated the SOAR (Security, Outreach, Access, and Recovery) program to end homelessness through increased access to Social Security income support.  The first step is to recover people who need a safe stable place to live, and then provide the necessary medical care. Next, individuals must secure meaningful work and have the means to enhance job skills through education.http://soarworks.prainc.com  SOAR is one of the few federal programs to draw bi-partisan support, and it will assuredly be discussed in the upcoming race for Mayor.  Ted Wheeler, who is challenging incumbent Charlie Hales, placed homelessness at the top of his priorities.

Since adopting the Olmsted Brothers’ Park Plan over a century ago, Portland has gained national renown for its parks.  The North Park Blocks illustrate the issues a progressive city with a welcoming public realm encounter.  The solution to homelessness belies a single policy; it requires a civic investment that demands time, money, and resources.  In return, Portland can elevate its public life and public spaces—a manifest sign of a civilized people.









Monday, September 7, 2015

Why FDOT needs a Portland Conversion Experience



This summer has been a disaster for the Orlando’s brewing urban renaissance.  It started with Governor Rick Scott scuttling funding for the University of Central Florida’s downtown campus, and it ended with a dismal report from the Center for Disease Control that pegged Florida as the most dangerous state for bicyclists.http://www.tbo.com/news/politics/floridas-bike-death-rate-highest-in-nation-20150829/ Its fatality rate of 0.57 per 100,000 population is more than double the national average of 0.23 per 100,000.  To put this finding in perspective, in 1975 the national bicycle death rate was 0.41 per 100,000.  Pedestrians and motorists also die at an alarming rate in road rage addled Florida, and metropolitan Orlando is the flashpoint.  Imagine Mad Max meets Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride on steroids. It has the nation’s highest Pedestrian Danger Index, and the thousands of residents living in guarded, gated subdivisions on the urban periphery have a greater chance of dying in a traffic “accident” than being murdered in central Miami.  At a time when high bikescores and walkscores translate into investment, Orlando has a brand it cannot afford.
Mr. Toads Wild Ride, Orlando's Special Hell
Florida spawned the nation’s killing fields because its “transportation system” was reduced to an exercise in road building.  The opening of Disney World in 1971 spurred the construction of a mass of wide high-speed roads that fueled a repetitive suburban pattern, which had the subtlety of a Stalinist Five-Year plan.  In 1998 the Orange County Commission rejected federal dollars to build a light rail system, ensuring the spread of a fragmented mass of paved mediocrity designed to SUV dimensions.  By 2000 Orlando was the most sprawl threatened city in the nation. Its disjointed form resembled a mutant human body with the elongated tentacles of a freakish octopus attached to its torso.  A renegade group of traffic engineers at the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) realized their myopic system would eventually implode, and they started pushing for reform.
In 2000, Florida dominated the list of most sprawl threatened cities
Billy Hattaway personified the effort.  He had a “conversion experience” in 1996 after spending 10 days examining pedestrian-friendly infrastructure in West Coast cities.   Frustrated by the failure of FDOT to evolve from its 1970s mindset, he shifted to private practice in 2002.  Over the next decade he earned accolades for his expertise in designing "complete streets," which provide safe access for all ages and users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders.  A change in leadership brought him back to FDOT in 2011 as a district secretary.  He now leads a ramped up bicycle-pedestrian safety initiative.  The problem is Billy Hattaway is not governor and, while change is fomenting, FDOT simply does not have enough Billy Hattaways. 

I learned this lesson first hand.  In 2013 the final plans for SunRail, Central Florida’s new commuter rail line, were being completed.  I oversaw a $25,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency that funded a team of Rollins faculty and students to draft plans to improve pedestrian and bicycle access to Winter Park’s new SunRail station.  Since Winter Park was forecasted to be the busiest stop, our project would offer a prototype for the other 15 SunRail stops.  We proposed establishing a SunTrail bicycle route on the railroad right-of-way modeled after Cambridge, Massachusetts (it has the highest bikescore in the nation) and link it to a system of complete streets and green streets.https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29405235/EPA%20Booklet.pdf  If the plans were idealistic, they were also grounded.  A five-day trip to Portland (sans automobiles) allowed faculty and students to examine the nation’s bicycling capital, the only major city awarded Platinum standing by the League of American Cyclists.  Green streets, cycle tracks, and bicycle boulevards were foreign to Orlando, and we marveled as commuters zipped by at rush hour, running in packs and sounding like giant swarms of bees.  The Orlando City Council was set to adopt a sustainability plan modeled on Portland, so our faculty group was eager to share our work with FDOT planners.
Proposed SunRail Trail 
The meeting was desultory at best.  The idea of narrowing traffic lanes, building cycle tracks, and reducing traffic speeds drew the response of a Stalinist planner encountering the profit motive: NYET.  The fact that the proposals were drawn from historical precedent and Baldwin Park, a thriving New Urbanist adjacent to Winter Park, mattered little.  “Baldwin Park is contrived,” one apparatchik informed us. “It is contrived,” I replied (my family lives in Baldwin Park), “contrived for pedestrians, bicyclists, and, good health.”  Hoping to find common ground, we shared our enlivening experience in Portland.  “Portland is not a good model for Central Florida,” was the response. After a deep gulp, I broke the silence and asked, “What is the model?” I’m still waiting for the answer.
Bike trail in "contrived" Baldwin Park
Disappointed but not deterred, we turned to the City of Winter Park.  Rick Geller, an astute attorney and former Orange County Planning Commissioner, took the lead.  He was championing an effort to construct Central Florida’s first cycle track on Cady Way Road, which would link the Cady Way Bike Trail to Brookshire Elementary.  He regularly biked with his two daughters to Brookshire and knew the dangers.  After our trip to Portland, he also knew a cycle track was the solution.  The PTA soon supported his initiative, but he was stymied after a report from a consultant hired by Winter Park dismissed the project.  Geller drafted a 34-page rebuttal.https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/433234ce-9fb0-4a38-bd6f-ec2a6484828f  Thorough, rational, and data based, it made a much more compelling case.  He was shocked when the bike coordinator for MetroPlan, the region’s transportation agency, claimed the project was unnecessary because “there were no collisions between bikes and cars on Cady Way Road during the past 10 years.”http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-bike-lanes-winter-park-20150119-story.html  It was an obvious non sequitur. Cady Way carried 5,000 automobiles a day, which is 250 percent higher than the maximum traffic volume for safe biking. Geller pressed his case and logic, and opposition gave way.  

There is a new mindset in Winter Park.  The city is spending $500,000 to remove two traffic lanes on Denning Drive to create a buffered bicycle path.  At the same time, Forest Michel, the greenway expert who led the student design of the SunRail Trail, and Jill Hamilton-Buss, the director of Healthy Central Florida, have engaged Winter Park officials to implement the SunRail Trail.http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/sunrail/os-sunrail-bikes-winter-park-20150630-story.html  This summer the Winter Park public works department constructed the Cady Way Cycle Track.  A local television station featured Geller and his daughter biking to the first day of school.  It was a hard won victory, and the pink tee shirt Melissa Geller wore embraced the vision the FDOT planners lack.  It had one word, “Portland.”


Billy Hattaway was awarded the John Nolen Medal in 2015, and named a Public Official of the Year by Governing in 2014http://www.governing.com/poy/poy-billy-hattaway.html



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