The sidewalk in front of some relatively high-density residential development near downtown Boulder (photo by Zane Selvans on flickr)

Over the last year or so, I’ve been involved with the planning and design of the public space that will accompany some of the first re-developments in the Transit Village/Boulder Junction, mostly Pearl Parkway between 30th St. and the railroad tracks.  I’ve primarily given feedback as a cyclist and pedestrian — someone who uses our streets under my own power.  Even in Boulder, those of us who don’t own, and only very rarely use private motor vehicles are still unusual.  Nevertheless, the long term goal of the TVAP is to have 60% of all trips in the region done by foot, bike or transit — anything but the much loved and loathed single occupancy vehicle (SOV).  I was particularly taken by something Tim Plass said in the PLAN-Boulder election forum this fall when asked to envision Boulder 30 years in the future: Every once in a while you’ll see an electric car on the road, but mostly it’ll be bikes and pedestrians and transit.  I agree with these goals; we should pursue them vigorously.  But the city being described by Plass and the TVAP is very different from the status quo today, and it’s difficult to take the steps necessary to realize it.  Sometimes I think of myself as a time-traveling constituent from this future city, describing what it is that we will want then, when the majority of people aren’t driving a private car everywhere they go.  One thing that I’m confident we won’t want is so much “free” parking.

How Much Does “Free” Parking Really Cost?

Parking often plays a surprisingly central role in our transportation and planning decisions.  Without it private automobiles are rendered useless, but it requires a lot of precious urban space, and it’s fabulously expensive — each parking space in a structure costs $15,000-$40,000 to build.  Surface parking is cheaper of course –$8,000-$15,000/space — but it destroys the fabric of cities by pushing places of interest away from each other, making car-centric cities hopelessly unfriendly to pedestrians, cyclists and transit users.  Yet somehow, despite its enormous impact, copious “free” parking is generally treated as an inalienable right by both developers and cities.  Its cost is hidden and almost completely socialized.  Each of us pays roughly the same amount for parking regardless of whether we own 4 cars or none, because the cost of parking is bound up in the cost of nearly all the goods and services (not to mention real estate) we purchase.  Broad ignorance of the real value and cost of parking results in some surreal discussions.

An example: the first agenda item at the Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) meeting last Monday was the expansion of the Neighborhood Parking Program (NPP) district on University Hill.  The problem is that lots of students, faculty and staff at the university don’t want to pay for an on-campus parking permit, preferring to park in nearby neighborhoods.  This ends up making it difficult for residents to park in front of their own houses.  The district has been slowly expanding for years, forcing “commuters” (many of whom actually live in Boulder and could bike or ride the bus instead) to park ever further from the university.  Residents purchase an annual neighborhood parking permit for $17.  At that price, the program can’t even pay for the signage and man-hours required to run it.  Commuters may also buy neighborhood permits, for $78 per quarter ($312/year).  Some members of TAB were concerned by the ad hoc nature of the University Hill parking district’s ongoing expansion.  “When will it stop?” they asked, somewhat incensed.  Staff had no answer, and that’s the surreal part, because there’s nothing mysterious going on here.  The parking district will stop expanding when the cost (inconvenience) of parking for free just outside the parking district on the Hill and walking (or biking, or taking the bus) to campus, is slightly greater than the cost of buying a CU permit. (Remote lot parking permits at CU cost about $120/year; more convenient spots go for closer to $600.)  On-street parking is finite and valuable, and it’s being given away for free.  It’s not surprising that this results in queuing (think Soviet era bread lines).  There’s some participation in the commuter permit program, but it isn’t as popular as the city would like, probably because people feel that buying a campus permit or walking from outside the parking district is a better value.  Of course it might also be convincing people to use their RTD pass, or bike to CU.  We can hope, anyway.

Valuing an on-street parking spot isn’t easy.  There’s only so much curbside space to be allocated, and demand is often large, because they’re so convenient.  Just as a point of reference, a metered space downtown brings in around $7,000 per year, most of which is re-invested in the downtown business district’s infrastructure.  I’m not some kind of market zealot — I believe in the value of some public goods — but here I just don’t see the case.  NPP districts continue to give the parking away essentially for free, but restrict its use to only the people who live right by it, functionally converting the public right-of-way into private property.  Ironically, the city is often usurping private property in the first place, in order to provide that right-of-way.  It would be simpler to just give the property back, and let the owners store their vehicles on it.  Or not — they might decide to use that space in some other way instead.  Neighborhood permit parking also fails if you try and scale it up, city wide.  If you’re allowed to park in front of your own house but nowhere else, then you can’t actually take your vehicle anywhere!  Whereas letting anyone park anywhere for free results in queuing, NPP is the equivalent of preferential rationing.  It’s a centralized and inflexible resource allocation decision.

One obvious solution is to meter the parking, and keep increasing the price until you have some target occupancy rate, allowing those who wish to pay to park to find a space easily.  One could also imagine a hybrid metered/NPP arrangement, in which residents can park at home for free (with a meter exemption permit for that block), but they have to pay the going rate when they park in other neighborhoods.  In the case of University Hill, the equilibrium prices would end up reflecting people’s willingness to walk from distant parking, the price of the permits for on campus parking, and their willingness to eschew the car altogether.  If the meter revenue were dedicated to improvements within their neighborhood (as it is with the downtown general improvement district) residents might not even complain about it too much.  Again, we can hope, anyway.

Planning the Parking in Boulder Junction

In the Boulder Junction/Transit Village area the city is managing parking in a slightly different way.  Within the area covered by the TVAP, residential units are subject to parking maximums.  That is, each residential unit will have no more than one parking space associated with it.  So the 319 unit apartment complex at 3100 Pearl Parkway will have only 319 parking spaces in its underground garage.  Another 70 unit development will be built by the bus terminal and plaza to the north of Pearl Parkway.  It will have 70 designated spaces in a shared district/RTD parking structure.  In this one block, there will be about 400 residential units, housing perhaps 1000 people.  According to the developers, at least 600 parking spaces will be needed to service this population.  The plan is to satisfy any additional demand with parking spaces that are shared between RTD, the planned hotel, and the district at large, within a single structure.  The city has been incorrectly referring to this arrangement as “unbundled parking.”  It’s really “shared district parking,” and it ought to reduce the number of spots that need to be provided overall.  This is because the times of peak parking demand for RTD, the local residences, the hotel, and retailers will be somewhat different, leading to more complete utilization of a very costly resource.  Clearly, this is an improvement over having two huge parking structures across the street from each other, one of which (the Park-n-Ride) is full during the day, while the other (associated with the apartments) is full only at night.

However, truly unbundled parking is far more potent.  It completely separates (unbundles) the finances of the parking spaces from the uses they serve.  Assuming you need a parking space, you’d sign two leases — one for the apartment, and one for the parking space.  This does two things.  First, and most obviously, it frees those of us who have no car from an unfair obligation to pay for other people’s parking spaces.  This can easily reduce rent by 10-20%, maybe $1000-$2000 per year.  This is significant, especially for low-income households.  Second, and more importantly, it creates a price signal for both developers and would-be drivers.  If a developer builds 500 parking spots in a 319 unit development, at a cost of $20,000 each and can only get $500/year for each space, they’ve built too much parking, and are unlikely to even recover their nominal investment over the lifetime of the building.  If, with only one parking space per unit, the rent per space goes up to $1000/year, then suddenly they’re making money.  Not much though — that cashflow represents an internal rate of return of only 3.8%.  To make the 8% or so that they’d like would require charging about $1700/year.

Now, if you’re a motorist, I suspect you’re thinking something along the lines of “I would never pay that much for parking!”  You’d just live somewhere else, right?  Somewhere with “free” parking?  Except that you would pay that much.  In fact, you probably already do.  The other place has exactly the same parking costs — you just don’t have any choice as to whether you pay them.  The developer is still going to spend $20,000 to build each parking space, and they’re still going to make their 8% return on the project over all.  If their marginal investment in parking underperforms, they’re just going to make up for it by charging higher rents.  Worse, because residents have no incentive to use less of the valuable parking resource, apparent demand will be large, and will help to perpetuate the belief that lots of parking is required, and providing all that parking drives up the cost of future developments.  With the TVAP the city has gone from imposing minimum parking requirements to imposing a cap, but without having any idea what the real demand for parking is.  Without a transparently priced market, it’s impossible to know.

The city has no control over how the 319 parking spaces within the 3100 Pearl development will be managed; it’s up to the developer.  What if they were enterprising capitalists, and decided that voluntarily unbundling parking costs from residential rents was likely to make them more money than bundling it all together?  How would people respond to seeing the real cost of a parking space?  In the University Hill parking district they’re apparently willing to walk several blocks each day to avoid paying the $300/year that an NPP permit costs.  Those who wish to drive would surely be willing to do the same to avoid the $1700/year that an on-site underground parking spot at 3100 Pearl actually costs.  They might park at Whole Foods or Target, and let those stores’ customers foot the bill.  Even more conveniently, if the Boulder Junction Park-n-Ride ends up being managed like the one at Table Mesa, then they could just park across the street for free, so long as the vehicle gets moved every day.  Even if it doesn’t, each additional day is only $2 — far less than the real $5/day cost — meaning RTD would be subsidizing their vehicle storage instead.  And then there’s the on-street parking…

The Futility of On-Street Parking for Residents

In the 3100 Pearl Parkway block there will be a grand total of 12-16 on-street spaces.  They will be managed by the Boulder Junction General Improvement District (GID) via its Transportation Demand Management (TDM) and Parking advisory boards.  These boards will be made up of local property owners and citizens at large.  Throughout the design process, the provision of on-street parking has been held sacrosanct.  The developers threatened to walk away without it.  The city sees it as a way to bring activity to the street, and wants it to serve the short-term parking needs of nearby retail/commercial developments.  Meanwhile, the developers want on-street spots to be available as overflow parking for their residents, whom they cannot believe will really make do with one vehicle per unit.  These goals are mutually exclusive.  If the spots are managed as NPP, and are essentially free, then their convenience, combined with the sheer number of residents in the area will ensure that they are always occupied, and that turnover is very low.  This will render the on-street parking incapable of supporting local retail, and minimize the activity it brings to the streetscape.  Serving those two goals means high turnover, and consistent availability of at least one spot per block, and the best way to do that is by metering the spots.  Otherwise, these free spots will cannibalize demand for paid spots in the shared district parking structure, and encourage resident drivers to cruise for an empty spot on the (supposedly) low traffic, pedestrian friendly frontage streets.

I’m not just speaking hypothetically here.  In Pasadena, where I used to live, a similar transit oriented development was built straddling the light rail line to downtown Los Angeles at Del Mar.  It too had restricted parking, and in Pasadena all on-street parking is permitted overnight, and available to residents for a nominal fee if they can demonstrate they don’t have sufficient space to store their vehicles off street.  The city was shocked (shocked!) to discover that many residents simply requested permits, and so the reduced on-site parking had no impact on the number of cars per household.  This resulted in curbside parking adjacent to the development being completely occupied, much to the displeasure of the neighbors and nearby businesses.  This is a completely predictable failure, which we should avoid.

Zipcar parking, Portland Oregon (photo by Rosa Say on flickr)

If we really wanted to use the on-street parking to serve residents, the only way to make it significant would be to dedicate some of it to carshare vehicles.  Zipcar, the largest carshare company in the US, estimates that each shared car substitutes for 15-20 private vehicles.  Incidentally, this is also roughly the number of people who can be served by one parking spot converted into a bike corral.  A single parking space in front of 3100 Pearl, if dedicated to car sharing, would do the job of all the parking spaces combined when they’re dedicated to private vehicles.  Our own local non-profit car sharing company, eGo CarShare has surveyed their membership and come to similar conclusion: a large proportion of their membership either gets rid of or avoids buying a second car as a result of the service. San Francisco now mandates by law that all new developments (either for rent or for sale) larger than 50 dwelling units unbundle their parking and provide on-site parking for carsharing.  The Bay Area’s non-profit City CarShare has put together a great selection of best practices and case-studies (PDF) looking at developments that integrate both of these strategies.  When I mentioned the possibility of a dedicated car share spot to TAB they were supportive of the idea.  Planning Board raised the objection that this would amount to allocating public right-of-way to private use.  Even if it’s true legalistically, this strikes me as somewhat disingenuous.  Neighborhood permit parking has the same effect, but ensures that the limited parking resource serves many fewer people.  Anyone can join the car share, and it means the limited parking resource ends up serving many more people.  If you want on-street spots to serve residents, it’s clearly the best option.

Thy (Unbundled) Parking Structure Overfloweth

The biggest problem with making the true cost of parking transparent is that it’s difficult to do in isolation.  You can’t effectively charge for something when someone else is giving it away for “free” next door — hence the issues with overflow from the NPP on University Hill.  To really work, all of Boulder Junction will have to have a unified parking market — the on-street parking, the shared RTD structure, and the underground lots associated with the residences need to have comparable prices, adjusted for how desirable they are.  Otherwise, people will simply flock to the underpriced, subsidized options, and leave the ones which are appropriately priced vacant.

Imagining a restaurant that was run the same way may help clarify the absurdity.  The normal “free” parking arrangement in the US is analogous to everyone in the restaurant ordering whatever they want, with the bills from all of the tables getting added up and divided equally between all the night’s patrons.  The 95 lb vegetarian waif and the 500 lb sumo wrestler gorging on sashimi pay the same amount.  Making parking costs transparent and unbundled in just one location is the like telling a single table that they’ve got to pay their own check, but that they’re free to go eat food from other tables.  This table then orders nothing for themselves, and wanders around grazing, letting the rest of the patrons pick up their tab.  Neither of these arrangements is fair, and both encourage people to order more expensive food than they normally would.  This is why most restaurants tend to charge people for the food that they themselves order.

Overflow isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it ultimately results in transparent pricing being implemented in adjacent areas.  Eventually, as with the University Hill NPP district, the parking market becomes large enough that people just bite the bullet and start paying, or biking, or taking the bus.  This assumes that they’re really committed to their destination within the parking district.  The fear on the part of the city and developers is that people aren’t particularly committed to their destination.  Faced with the cruel injustice of being forced to pay for their parking in an obvious way, people might decide to go somewhere else instead and pay for their parking in an obfuscated way.  Fair enough.  We don’t have control over parking policy in Broomfield or Longmont.  Actually implementing transparent parking prices might drive some people away.  But we get something in exchange — we get a different kind of city, that will attract a different kind of citizen to replace those drivers.

Note From a Future Citizen

Freiburg, Germany (photo by adeupa de Brest on flickr)

Those new citizens are the educated, innovative young people driving us toward “Peak Car”.  We Millennials are less interested in having “stuff” than having access.  We’re dreaming a new American Dream that looks less like a McMansion and more like a neighborhood that makes you feel at home, with all your day-to-day needs met within a five minute walk.  When you aren’t driving you never even think about parking.  If we’re planning for a future when 60% of trips aren’t done by private car, when “every once in a while you see an electric car, but mostly it’s bikes and pedestrians and transit,” then we’re planning for a future in which most of the time, most people don’t care how much parking there is or how much it costs.  Allowing our durable urban form to be dictated by current expectations about parking is politically expedient, but a mistake in the long run.  It’s expensive, space intensive, and precludes us from building a truly livable, sustainable, human city.  If we simply allow people to see how costly parking really is and give them the freedom to make transportation decisions based on that information, we will have made a surprisingly large step in the right direction.

photo by Zane Selvans

Last fall, representatives from Community Cycles participated in a discussion with the city and various stakeholders regarding upcoming redevelopment along Pearl Parkway.  I wrote about the experience and the Transit Village Area Plan (TVAP) more generally from the perspective of a human-powered urbanist.  Mostly, we looked at different possible streetscapes for Pearl Parkway between 30th and the railroad tracks.  The property at 3100 Pearl Parkway is slated to be developed in the near future, as a 320 unit rental apartment complex, and as one of the first major developments in the area plan.  The city is interested in experimenting with novel street treatments in order to try to make the place special and attractive.  Community Cycles got involved largely because the TVAP “Connections Plan” had, with minimal fanfare, superseded the Transportation Master Plan (TMP) and removed the bike lanes which had long been planned along Pearl Parkway in favor of off-street only infrastructure.  We felt that this change was not necessarily in the best interest of cyclists, and wanted to ensure that whatever did end up getting built would be safe and efficient.

Unfortunately, the meeting last fall didn’t really come to a clear conclusion.  We only got through two of the four possible street cross sections, and were told that there would be a follow-up meeting to complete the process and rank the alternatives, but that never happened.  Actually it turns out that’s not true — it did happen — Community Cycles just wasn’t invited to participate again, so we didn’t have any part in ranking proposed designs.  The various options considered back then and the resulting rankings can be seen in the Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) info packet from the October 17th meeting (PDF).

Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge (and flooding the bike path) at this point. Recently several of us got to meet with city staff again to go over the somewhat narrowed universe of street cross section options, and give feedback from a bicycle’s perspective. The sketches below show what they look like. I’ll talk about why we picked what we did. You can click on the images for larger versions where the annotations are readable.

Across all of the options, we stressed that car speeds are not really a function of signage or laws, but are rather determined by the physical engineering of the space. If this is to be a human-friendly street, it has to be physically impossible for someone to drive too fast here. The treatment is only 2 blocks long, and the only reason for someone to come into the side-streets is to park. People can drive 5 mph for a block without suffering any hardship whatsoever. We also strongly advocated that the city prioritize completing the multi-use path connection along the Boulder Slough (the canal which passes behind both 3100 and 3000 Pearl Parkway), which will link the controversial “underpass to nowhere” near Ras Kassa’s Ethiopian Restaurant up with the bike path along Foothills Blvd. Currently the responsibility for construction of that path falls to the developers of the adjacent properties (because the path will double as emergency vehicle access to the rear of the buildings), but 3000 Pearl Parkway, which sits at the corner of 30th and Pearl, doesn’t yet have any definite redevelopment plans. Without the city stepping in to build that section, there would be about a 50 foot gap in the path for the foreseeable future, which would be pretty irritating. Hopefully they’ll be able to find a little bit of funding somewhere to get it done.

Alternative 1

Pearl Pkwy Alt1 (click to enlarge)

In this option, the existing multi-use path which parallels Pearl Parkway is retained, serving as a shared space used by both bikes and pedestrians.  It provides a 10 foot wide human-powered right-of-way in front of the stoops which open onto the street.  Immediately adjacent to the multi-use path is either a standard curbside parking lane with some trees interspersed, or the parking can be moved to the far side of the side-street, along the median separating it from the main thoroughfare.  The latter was our preferred alternative for several reasons.

We want the road to serve both cyclists who are simply traveling through this area, and those who are coming from and going to the 3100 Pearl development itself.  For the through cyclists, traveling in the same direction as the automotive traffic on their side of the street, we want the facility to be safe, legal and efficient.  For local contra-flow cyclists, who will be fewer in number, and not going very far, it simply needs to be safe and legal.  The 3100 Pearl development is on the south side of the street, so cyclists who are traveling eastward (toward the railroad tracks, Foothills Blvd, and the various industrial and office parks out that way) will be the ones going the same direction as automotive traffic.  If they’re concerned with speed and efficiency, and are comfortable sharing space with automobiles (as many relatively fast commuter cyclists are) then they can simply use the side-street’s automotive right-of-way, which will be very calm and quiet, avoiding potential conflicts with slower cyclists and pedestrians on the multi-use path.  Additionally, if we make the curb “mountable” (smoothly angled, such that one can ride over it, even obliquely) even those cyclists who would prefer to be on the multi-use path have the option of avoiding conflicts pretty easily, should the path become congested.

We strongly supported putting the street parking on the far side of the side-street from the building itself.  This helps to emphasize the shared, human-friendly nature of the street, as even drivers will have to walk across it to get to and from their vehicles.  It also removes hazardous car doors from the normal bicycle travel zones — for both those on the multi-use path, and for riders toward the right side of the side-street lane.  Putting the cars on the far side of the side-street is also important for another reason.  The automotive right-of-way is only 10 feet wide here; this is good because narrow lanes calm traffic effectively.  However, emergency vehicles claim to need at least 14 foot wide lanes for easy access on rare occasions (for some reason the Fire Dept. is convinced that its vehicles must increase in size over time, don’t ask me why).  Having the multi-use path and the side-street adjacent to each other, with a modest, mountable curb means that a fire engine has a 20 foot wide emergency access right-of-way.  The curb also acts as a “shoreline” for the visually impaired, delineating the separation between humans-only, and motor vehicle spaces.  The hope is that we can come up with a curb cross-section that can both function as this kind of guide and allow wheelchair access across it.

Alternative 2A

Pearl Pkwy Alt 2A (click to enlarge)

This is the “shared street” design which has been favored by some within the Planning Department.  Here, bikes and pedestrians going either direction, and cars going with the flow of traffic all share the same right-of-way, though it’s still necessary to create a small humans-only zone at the margin, to accommodate the sight impaired.  That area can be set off from the roadway either by bollards, or a curb.  The idea is that the area would be active enough that the constant presence of bikes and pedestrians would act to calm traffic, with cars crawling through as guests at 5mph.  We felt that this scenario was pretty unlikely, since the side-street is right next to a very busy arterial.  Pearl Parkway carries about 35,000 cars a day.  If you want to know what that looks and feels like, go stand next to Canyon Blvd. downtown some time, and try to have a conversation or just chill out on the sidewalk.  It’s not particularly pleasant.  Given the other better amenities which residents will have available to them — the courtyards inside the buildings, the very calm and quiet Junction Place, running north-south, and the Boulder Slough path behind the development — it seems to us unlikely that this area is where people will choose to linger.  There also isn’t going to be much in the way of street-level activity here.  There’s very little retail planned for this stretch of road, and only six of the 300+ units actually have stoops which open directly onto the sidewalk.  If you’re driving to/from the development, you’re likely going to use the direct access to the underground parking garage, and never set food on the street itself.  The majority of the building’s bike parking is also in the parking garage, so even cyclists won’t necessarily be passing through on this sidewalk.  Given all these issues, we felt that this particular “shared street” really won’t end up being shared all that much, and the 14-foot-wide travel lane would be an invitation to cars to travel faster than they really should, with the few pedestrians really inhabiting the narrow 4′ strip along the building side of the street, and no particularly safe contra-flow bike option.  It’s also unclear whether the city will be able to change the governance of this kind of space, giving bikes and pedestrians legal protection through vulnerable user laws (recently passed in New York, Delaware, and Oregon, and common in places like the Netherlands and Denmark where bikes and pedestrians are taken seriously as transportation), making any accidents which did happen here automatically the fault of the motor vehicles.  We felt that many, if not all, of Planning’s shared-street and place-making goals could be met using Alternative 1, with parking on the street side, while providing calmer traffic and better dedicated bike and pedestrian facilities.

Alternative 2B

Pearl Pkwy Alt 2B

This last design option has a dedicated contra-flow bike lane on the street-side, with parking along the building-side curb.  Bikes traveling with traffic would use the main automotive right-of-way, pedestrians and the disabled would be corralled in the narrow sidewalk between the parking and the building, and those few cyclists opposing traffic would be on the far side of the street from the building.  Nobody really thought this was a good option.  Because of the requirement for a 14-foot emergency access lane, there can’t be any physical separation between the contra-flow bike lane and the main side-street traffic.  Again, this provides cars with a 14 foot wide unobstructed space, which will encourage inappropriately high speeds, and there’s precious little space dedicated solely to humans.  I love the contra-flow lane on 13th St. downtown, but I think it really only works well because of the median separating it from traffic.  This contra-flow lane in the midst of many lanes of car traffic also poses major issues at the intersections.  How does a contra-flow cyclists integrate with traffic safely when they come to the end of the block, and have to cross the side-street traffic they’ve been paralleling?

The Saga Continues

At this point, it’s been more than a year since the initial design meeting.  The original developer (Scott Pederson) has sold the 3100 Pearl property on to someone else, and decided instead to work on the RTD center and/or hotel to be built across Pearl Parkway on the north side.  Ground is supposed to be broken on these projects by early 2012, just a few months from now.  We need a final design so engineering plans can be brought up  The above options went to TAB as informational items in October.  The developers signed off on either Alternatives 1 or 2A.  We advocated in multiple meetings and public fora for Alternative 1 with parking street-side, and feel that it does a good job of satisfying everyone’s needs: it offers on-street parking, buffers the residences from a busy road, provides good emergency access, a large amount of dedicated human-powered space, efficient through travel for bikes (on the road), safe local travel for slower bikes and pedestrians (on the path), a decent chance of being a livable space, easy snow removal, etc.

Unfortunately, the design has been tweaked by Planning yet again, so it won’t be a real agenda item subject to approval by TAB in November.  I’m very happy to have had the opportunity to participate in the process, and certainly hope to be able to give human-powered feedback to the city in the future, but at this point I’m also looking forward to this episode finally ending so we can move on to other more exciting issues.

You know, crazy stuff like… just how are we going to price the limited parking in the Transit Village?

Earlier neighborhoods were literally built on a scale for the human body, with architectural embellishments at eye level and blocks and sidewalks designed for foot travel. The human measuring stick hasn’t changed much over the last 200 years, and so, in theory, that model should still apply.“That is the fundamental connection between looking back toward older methods of design,” Garrick says. “We need to remember when we’re designing that we’re designing for humans, not for objects, and not for the movement of these objects. It’s about human beings, about humans being able to get from one place to the other.”

Read the entire article at The Atlantic Cities: Debunking the Cul-de-Sac.

Waterview Concept Plan (http://tinyurl.com/3qbm4ow)

A handful of new housing projects in east Boulder, some just being completed and some only in the concept stage, promise to shift the city’s population center eastward and could significantly change the character of their surroundings.

In rough order of expected completion, the projects are:

• Two Nine North (formerly called the Residences at Twenty Ninth Street), 238 rental units at 30th and Walnut, currently renting and expected to be completed this year;
• The second phase of the Peloton, about 190 condominium units that will be built inside an already completed shell at the project on the north side of Arapahoe at 32nd St.;
• Junction Place Village, 319 rental units on Pearl east of 30th St. on the current Earl’s Saw Shop site that won city approval late last year;
• Eighty permanently affordable units that will be part of the RTD transit station development at Boulder Junction (aka the Transit Village); and
• Waterview, 288 rental units on an empty site on the north side of Arapahoe just west of South Boulder Creek, which was given a chilly reception when the Planning Board considered a concept plan this week.

If all the projects are approved and completed at their proposed scales, they will add up to over 1100 new units that could come on the market within the next few years.  The result could be a marked change in the character of an area that currently is dominated by industrial, office, and some retail uses.

All five projects are within or very close to one census tract, bordered roughly by 28th St. on the west, Arapahoe on the south, 55th St. on the east, and the Diagonal and Independence on the north.  In the 2000 census, this tract had a population of 6,125 and an average household size of 2.0 people, with a 50-50 split between rental and owner-occupied units.  If the new units also averaged a household size of 2.0, they would bring an additional 2,200 people to the area, raising the population in the census tract by over a third from the year 2000.

This could add energy and vitality to the east end of town, parts of which are almost deserted at night and on weekends, and could give a boost to local stores and restaurants.  It could also add to the traffic congestion in an area whose urban design is still heavily auto-centric, with large roads at wide spacing rather than the denser grid found in older parts of the city.  And it could increase pressure on city services in the area, such as the East Boulder Recreation Center and nearby fire stations.

The city has planned on significant growth in the eastern part of town for some time.  The Boulder Junction design calls for a total of 1400 to 2400 units at build-out, and the current update of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan focuses on changes east of Folsom.  But these projects are among the first to start making the concept a reality.

The city has also tried to address the downsides of the growth.  According to information from city staff, “There was concern initially about increased traffic with the redevelopment of the Boulder Junction, and as a result, [the Transit Village Area Plan] calls for a high percentage (55 to 70 percent) of all trips to be made by non-single occupant vehicles.”  The plan uses parking maximums, managed parking, increased bike parking, and other tools to try to achieve this.

Although the city says it hasn’t received any application materials for the second phase of the Peloton, Michael Brunette, a salesperson for the Peloton, says the project will start “soon,” most likely this year.  The shell of the buildings is complete, so the phase 2 project just involves completing the interior build-out.  Brunette said in his observation, the siting and design of the Peloton were successful in allowing residents to reduce their use of cars, saying many of the residents walk to King Soopers for groceries or to 29th Street to shop.  Asked if he was worried about the competition from other new housing projects that will be coming to the area, he said no.  “We fall into our own niche,” he said.

Waterview Site Map (http://tinyurl.com/3qbm4ow) Click to enlarge

The Waterview project’s future is uncertain at this point after a lukewarm response from the Planning Board.  Waterview’s site is particularly challenging to plan.  It has the benefit of bordering South Boulder Creek and the parallel multi-use path, but its only street access is to Arapahoe, which in this location has six lanes and fairly high traffic speeds.  To its west is a self-storage facility; to its east, across the creek, is a car dealership.

In the view of city planning staff, “Both the Peloton and Waterview provide opportunities to create a finer grain [street] network and [bring] residential uses into industrial single-use areas which often have a more suburban form.”  However, creating an attractive design that maximizes the benefit of the creek and multi-use path and minimizes the effects of the industrial surroundings, while anticipating the possibility of future redevelopment of neighboring properties and the creation of a street grid in the area, will be a challenge for the architect and city planners.

Residential use is allowed within industrial zoning districts, with certain restrictions and subject to city review.  As a result, other large swaths of east Boulder that are zoned industrial are ripe for redevelopment with housing, particularly those with older and smaller buildings and those adjoining Boulder Creek, South Boulder Creek, Valmont City Park, or open space.

Union Depot (photo by Roger Wolvington)

The project will incorporate RTD’s planned bus station, along with 78 to 80 affordable housing units, a 135-room hotel, restoration of the historic Boulder Union Depot into “a lively gathering place” and a 360-space parking garage. Boulder Housing Partners will be involved in the development of the affordable housing. The developers state in their concept review documents that the project will use solar energy as “a key component,” depending on the continued availability of Xcel Energy’s solar rebates.

The RTD garage will be underground, with the mixed-use project built atop it. The bus station will have seven boarding gates for local, regional and bus rapid transit coaches and will be the third RTD station in Boulder. The parking garage will provide park-and-ride spaces for transit users and parking for the apartments and hotel.

Consideration of the concept plan will be on the agenda for the April 21 meeting of the Boulder Planning Board. The meeting will start at 6 PM and be held in the council chambers at the Municipal Building. Public comments will be heard at the meeting.

An initial look finds, at least from my perspective, an imaginative concept that conforms to the principles behind the admittedly mediocre Transit Village area plan. The 3.2 acre site is zoned MU-4, which allows (and indeed encourages) high density development. The actual architectural details will evolve from public hearings and input from City planners, members of the Planning Board and ultimately the Boulder City Council.

Concept Plan (from http://tinyurl.com/64kwl27)

Three issues may cause some controversy:

• Should Union Depot be restored and used for public purposes or leased as a private restaurant or entertainment facility? When the depot was located across 30^th Street in what was then the parking lot of the Crossroads Commons shopping center it was managed by the Boulder Jaycees as a meeting place for community organizations.
• The residential units wrap around the parking garage on the east and south sides. The apartments on the east side will be adjacent to the BNSF railroad tracks, which could result in noise problems for residents.
• The concept plan shows the apartment building to be four stories in height, which should be within the city’s 55 foot height limit for the Transit Village. However, the hotel is portrayed in the architectural renderings as having five stories, which could violate that ordinance.

Pedersen Development Company has already received city approval for Junction Place, another transit-oriented project directly across Pearl Street from the RTD project. That project will include 319 apartment units atop about 16,000 square feet of retail space. Both Junction Place and the RTD project will capitalize on the Transit Village’s concept of lessening reliance on auto use by including facilities for bike share and car share, reduced garage parking spaces for tenants and with covered bicycle parking.

It is difficult for developers in the current economic environment to obtain construction financing. However, Boulder’s land use policies limit, to some extent, the potential for overbuilding, so market conditions for apartments are particularly favorable. The last market-rent apartment project built in Boulder was in 2003. Construction on Two-Nine North, the new apartments at 30^th and Walnut streets, will be completed later this year, well before Pedersen’s Junction Place project comes onto the market.

Two recent transportation studies indicate that motor vehicle parking requirements for residential development in Boulder are higher than optimal, but that the lower standards enacted for the Boulder Junction area are about right or even lower than recommended.

Writing in the December 2010 issue of ITE Journal, researchers Daniel H. Rowe, Chang-Hee Christine Bae, and Qing Shen report on a study of parking demand and supply at apartment buildings in two areas in King County, WA.  One area, First Hill/Capitol Hill near downtown Seattle, is urban and described as having “high population density and robust transit service.”  The observed average parking supply was 0.74 spaces per dwelling unit, and the average parking demand (measured on weekday nights, the time of peak parking usage) was 0.52 spaces per dwelling unit. The other area studied, the suburban, jobs-heavy area of Redmond, had average parking supply of 1.66 spaces per unit, with average demand of 1.08 spaces per unit.

In Boulder, most zone districts require a minimum of one space per dwelling unit for residential construction.  In most of the higher-density zones, the requirement increases with the number of bedrooms in the unit.  In the RH-1 and RH-2 zones, the minimum standard is one space per unit, but it increases with unit floor area.  The parking requirement for the RH-2 zone is currently under review.

It’s not clear how the two King County areas relate to Boulder, but it seems reasonable to assume that transportation usage patterns in the more urban parts of Boulder, such as near downtown and around CU, would fall somewhere between those in the areas studied.  That would indicate a parking demand per unit below 1, meaning current Boulder land use codes require excessive parking.  However, developers frequently request parking reductions below what the code requires.

It appears that no analysis has been done of the actual amount of parking provided, on average, for recent residential development projects in Boulder.  The largest residential project currently under construction, the Residences at 29th St., was permitted for 240 units and 303 parking spaces, for a ratio of 1.26 spaces per unit.  This was a reduction from the required 316 spaces, or 1.32 spaces per unit.

According to a document provided by the city’s Planning Department, “[s]everal recently approved multi-family projects have included approval for a parking reduction, based on specific Site Review criteria within the land use code.  The approval of parking reductions is very site specific and must meet the criteria for a parking reduction….”  The document summarizes those criteria as:

• The parking needs of the use will be adequately served through on-street parking or off-street parking.
• If a mix of uses is proposed, shared parking at varying times of use is appropriate.
• The nature of occupancy of the proposed development reduces the need for off-street parking spaces.
• Alternative modes of transportation including proximity to transit lines or multi use paths [are] available nearby.

The Planning Department document gives other examples of recent projects and their approved parking provisions.  The student-oriented apartment project at 985 16^th St. received a 50% parking reduction, due to its proximity to campus and students’ heavy usage of transit, and the Boulder Housing Partners Senior Housing project at 4990 Moorhead received a 25% parking reduction, due to transit availability and the lower auto usage of seniors.  The 98-unit Violet Crossing project at the corner of Violet and Broadway in North Boulder will provide more parking than required, when on-street parking is included.  Specifically, 104 spaces are required (a ratio of 1.06), but 132 spaces will be provided (a ratio of 1.35).

Writing in the same issue of ITE Journal, researchers Richard Lee, Robert Rees, and Mackenzie Watten document a study of parking demand at transit-oriented development (TOD) in the San Diego area, and recommend a parking ratio for residential units at TODs of 1.25.  They cite in particular engineering guidelines that call for a ratio of 1.0 spaces per unit in urban locations, and a study of TOD parking demand in the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland, Oregon showing average peak demand to be 1.15 spaces per unit.  The authors added a 10% convenience factor to the 1.15 number to get the recommended 1.25.

Boulder’s only TOD, Boulder Junction (formerly known as the Transit Village), has no parking minimum but a parking maximum of 1.0 spaces per residential unit.  Junction Place Village, a 319-unit development recently approved for the area, will have the maximum allowed parking.  Speaking before the city’s Planning Board last year, developer Scott Pedersen said that lenders were hesitant to provide construction financing for projects with parking ratios below 1.0.  Pedersen did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article.

Getting parking ratios right for development projects is crucial, but not always easy.  Too little parking can jeopardize a project’s economic viability and cause parking overflow to neighboring areas.  But too much parking increases costs, can reduce green space, and acts as an incentive to the use of automobiles.  Donald Shoup has extensively explained the downsides of excessive parking in his classic book, The High Cost of Free Parking.  Boulder planners need to continue to monitor both general research and local experience regarding proper parking ratios, and update codes accordingly, so that projects provide the minimum necessary parking, but no more.

If developed as the plan foresees, Boulder will have, over the next several decades, missed a great opportunity to create a vibrant public place, rail or no rail. Property owners and developers will benefit because Boulder’s public officials were timid when the plan was being adopted. To make matters worse, the timidity lingers on.

DERAILED: The long, troubled saga of the Transit Village | Boulder Reporter.

Never heard of the Transit Village?  See Transit Village 101.

On Tuesday night (March 2, 2010), the Boulder City Council provided direction for initial implementation and funding for the Transit Village Area Plan (TVAP).

David Driskell, Executive Director of Community Planning & Sustainability, presented an overview of plans for the Transit Village that includes two phases of development and a search for a new name.  Phase 1 includes 1200 dwelling units and 1000-1600 jobs.  The Phase 1 area extends west of the train tracks to 30^th St., and from Valmont Rd. to the North Boulder and Farmers ditch south of Pearl Parkway.  Phase 2 anticipates 800 dwelling units and 2600 jobs and includes the area east of the tracks to Foothills Parkway bounded by Valmont to the North and the railroad tracks to the South.

Phase 1 developments include:

• the Steelyards
• the  proposed Junction Place Village apartment development south of Pearl
• the RTD site (which may now include housing)
• the Depot site at Junction Place (the planned north-south road west of the tracks)
• the planned Goose Creek Bridge
• a still vacant southeast portion of the Steelyard site
• the Sutherlands site
• an area west of Sutherlands proposed for 65 townhomes
• the City-owned Pollard site slated for mixed use and mixed income housing with about 50% permanently affordable units

Council has discussed revisiting the uses at the City site and staff recommends revisiting them in a couple of years.  The City has received a pre-application for the Sutherlands site that includes a good mix of uses.  This site has a challenging connections plan, includes the train platform, and will have mixed use development, possibly with a hotel.

With the approval of Council, the City will now proceed with:

• creation of an Access District (for parking and multimodal corridors)
• rezoning for interested properties
• Goose Creek bridge design
• a request for proposals for the Transit site
• application for historic assessment grant for Depot site
• review of the connections plan north of Goose Creek to Valmont
• revisiting the concept for the City-owned site
• review the Phase 2 plan
• develop a plan for the area south of the Transit Village to the CU East Campus.  (The East Campus is now slated for major expansion in CU’s Flagship 2030 Plan.)

The Transit Village site includes a pocket park near the Depot, an ambitious public art program (42 proposals have been received from artists), an aggressive stormwater plan, and the Access District.  On Thursday March 4, Planning Board considered a concept plan for Junction Place Village, a mixed-use development with 300 apartments and 11,000 square feet of non-residential floor area on 5.02 acres located south of Pearl Parkway and the future Junction Place.

Tuesday’s Hearing and Council’s Deliberations

One of the more interesting discussions related to renaming the Transit Village.  Staff provided a list of alternative names, and asked Council members to vote on their favorites.  Suggestions include Boulder Junction, East Boulder Village (EBo), Boulder Commons, Goose Creek (Greens/Central/District/Commons), Goose Creek Junction, Depot Square, Depot Commons, Depot East, Depot Junction, Boulder Junction Ara, Boulder Wye, East and Boulder Ara (EBA).  The terms Ara and Wye are historic names (pointed out by resident Kurt Nordback and historian Silvia Pettem) for the original train stop that was established in 1873 on almost exactly the same spot as now occupied by the Boulder Jaycees Depot.

Before the public hearing on the motion, Macon Cowles asked members of the public, particularly property owners, to please address whether they believe the area plan should move forward.  He mentioned concerns about connections through and surrounding the site, the changes wrought by the delay of the rail component (to 2017, at the earliest) and CU plans to greatly expand the East Campus, and whether this plan was capable of creating a “hip, new urban place.”

Five  property owners/developers testified, and all but one said they support moving forward with the plan.  They cited the time and money investments already put into redevelopment plans, and John Pawlowski called it a “good idea, good concept, and good vision.”  Owners like the flexibility of the plan, and expressed some concern about connections, getting the parking component right, and funding for the required infrastructure.  A minority opinion was voiced by Roy Young, a small business owner of a Phase 2 property, who suggested that the connectivity plan means paving, creating more streets, and a car-friendly place rather than a really pedestrian friendly place.  Andy Bush and Bob Sutherland were strongly supportive the plan, believing it will create something really exciting and stimulate economic activity in an area of the city that is waning.

Lisa Morzel offered a motion (seconded by Crystal Gray) to direct the interdepartmental staff team to move forward on implementation tasks as described and discussed at the January 2010 Joint Study Session and listed in Attachment A of the staff memo.

In arguing for the motion, Lisa Morzel said, “Property owners have participated in good faith.  Now is the time to let this move forward.”  Of the supporters, K.C. Becker, George Karakehian, Ken Wilson, Macon Cowles, and Suzy Ageton expressed some reservations, mainly about the connection plans, but supported it largely because the property owners support it and because it has staging and flexibility that will allow the plan to evolve as it develops.  Matt Appelbaum opposed the motion, saying he “doesn’t see enormous benefit” in a plan that is huge for the City and is the linchpin of east Boulder redevelopment.  He fears that approving this now might lock in some developments that will be regretted later, especially if plans for the Pollard site change, and he does not believe this plan is good for market rate affordable housing.

The motion passed 8-1 with Matt Appelbaum opposed.

First,  I question the assumption that we want any developer to “help people move into the city.”    Growth will happen without planners assuming we need to encourage it.   This 300-unit proposed development sounds great, and well located to serve many of the current and aging (soon to be car-free) Boulder residents,  right at the transit hub.   The apartments won’t be rent controlled,  nor prohibited from going-condo.   If well done, this will become the new hot, metro-Boulder housing, and quickly be priced accordingly.

Second, the policy requirement for permanently affordable housing in any development must be reaffirmed and stripped of the cash buy-out option.  The developers do the math to make money.  No matter how high the price is set,  developers will find a way to make money if they have full rights to develop a property for the highest return.  Current city planning has a projected future imbalance,  job growth outstripping housing growth.  We already have an existing imbalance causing more and more commuters to drive into work in this high-priced town.   City leaders can mitigate this accelerating problem with a strong commitment to affordable housing.   City leaders, please revise this policy before the next development is approved without the permanently affordables.  Our future diversity and quality of city life hangs in the balance.