Improving the Pedestrian Experience: The Cheap Way

Traffic improvements may sometimes be cheap. Below I show how to enhance the walkways around a University of Washington (UW) building, Schmitz hall, in Seattle at University Way and 41th street.

A bit of background. University Way is a lively shopping street one block west of the UW campus. It is a major pedestrian destination and also an important connection street. UW campus begins one block east of it, on the other side of 15th avenue. At the end of Campus Parkway (40th street) there is a much used walkbridge over 15th. Schmitz hall is located just between the walkbridge and University Way and hence a major walking corridor embraces it from both sides.

Let's start from north, approaching the campus from University Way (see the picture). We don't want to follow the sidewalk straight down (south)—then we have to climb up later again to reach the walkbridge. We take instead the level walkway around the hall, either by turning left, or south. However, as you can see, the most direct route to the walkway is blocked by a small decorative wall. This is the first cheap improvement: just remove the wall.

NW corner of Schmitz Hall at University Way (right) and 41th street. The walkbridge is at the SE corner of the building, behind it at left.

Compared to typical Seattle sidewalks, the walkway is surprisingly spacious. Unfortunately, a half of it is blocked by short stairs, leading to the sidewalk at about 1m above it (see the picture below). This makes a large swath of the walkway unsuitable as a connector route. I don't know if it is used for anything else. Note that even the narrow gap between stairs and a concrete pillar is blocked by a trashcan.

The walkway on the north side of Schmitz Hall. The wider left-hand side is mostly blocked by stairs (middle-left on the picture).

But the next picture indicates just how easy it is to recover almost half of its walkable width: a) move the bin; and b) remove the lower part of the concrete wall that lines the stairs. Metal handrails are enough for safety. You may even shorten the handrails a bit at the lower end. This is easy and cheap.

A trashcan is placed in the narrow passage between stairs and a concrete pillar.

The next obstacle is a bike rack. Well, not the rack itself but the bikes that extend far out of the rack. Fortunately the solution is easy: turn the rack 90 degrees and move it over to the left side.

The bike rack is placed gently between the columns. Unfortunately, the bikes occupy most of the walkway.

After passing the rack we reach the bridge with no further obstacles. However, there is another issue that can easily be solved. A bus stop is located at the 15th avenue, just at the end of the footbridge. Unfortunately, as the street is about 1m lower than the walkway at the end of the footbridge, one has to walk around the waiting shelter ("out of the picture" on right-hand side). This adds about 15 seconds to the walking time compared to the direct route.

Those arriving from campus over the walkbridge (visible in the background) must walk around the shelter to get to the bus. One should construct stairs at the direct line between the bridge and where the bus stops—in the center of the picture. The bus stands on 15th avenue, a wall of Schmitz Hall is visible in the upper right corner.

15 seconds feels rather long when the bus is just coming, and as a handy shortcut, many jump the wall instead. Indeed, this is a place where one can easily add small stairs.

Landscaping beneath the wall indicates that many passengers do not take the trip around the shed but just jump.

*

We need more attention to small details when desiging transportation infrastructure. The examples above indicate that improvement can sometimes be achieved with very little costs, or even at no cost if such considerations are taken into account in the original design. We need more awareness and understanding of pedestrian mobility at least as much as money. In this case it is about directness and space: we don't want to go around if a direct route is just here, and we don't like narrow passages.

*

AD ENDUM: I moved the bike rack out of way.

Bike rack moved out of way

Where Do People Meet? Urban Segregation in Cellular Data

Ott Toomet, Siiri Silm, Rein Ahas, Erki Saluveer, Tiit Tammaru

Immigrants and ethnic minorities often live more or less separately from the majority population. This fact is sometimes touted as a major problem that hampers social integration. But does the place where we live actually matter? Anecdotal evidence suggests that we do not interact much with our neighbors. Why should we worry then who they are?

To shed more light on this issue we analyzed the spatial behavior of Estonian speaking and Russian speaking population in Tallinn, Estonia. It is an interesting city as it is almost 50-50 split between the corresponding ethnic groups. We used cellphone data for the analysis. Mobile operators always record which antenna talks to our phones, and such data essentially form a spatial track of our activities where one can see our approximate location and time. It is relatively straightforward to analyze the tracks and deduce who were close to each other, and when and where it happened. Looking at the repeated patterns of calls we can also guess where people live and work. In this way we can see who can potentially meet each other, and where such meetings might occur.

So, are Estonian speakers close to Russian speakers in Tallinn? Well, it depends on when. We find that when at home and at work, both groups are substantially segregated. However, this is much less true when people are elsewhere and busy with other tasks, such as shopping, but also during various leisure-time activities. Even more, such free-time segregation is not closely related to the environment in the place of residence and place of work (see the figures). Even those who live in almost completely Estonian or Russian neighborhoods experience a rather mixed free-time environment.

Fig 1. Relationship between free-time meetings and composition of residential neighborhood. Circles and triangles represent the averages across different neighborhoods. For Russians (red triangles), the percentage of Russian speakers ranges between less than 10% to almost 80%, for Estonians (black circles) between 20% and almost 100% (horizontal axis). Despite of living in such different neighborhoods, during free-time both groups meet own-group members for approximately 50-60% of the time.

Fig 2. Relationship between free-time meetings and composition of work neighborhood. The message is similar to that in Figure 1: work neighborhoods vary a lot, but it is not closely associated with our free-time environment.

What do these results tell us? There are several interesting conclusions.

• residential segregation may be less of a concern than often suggested. We spend much of our active time elsewhere, and much of the time we are at home we sleep.
• As a typical European city, Tallinn has a dense urban core where a substantial part of these meeting occur. It suggests that a dense vibrant downtown is favorable for bringing together people of different background. The results for Los Angeles may well be different.
• Finally, we do not know what is behind these meetings. Most of these are probably related to just being close to each other in a crowded city. But so are our relations with our neighbors: most of them we would not even recognize on street. There is need for more analysis on what are the "meaningful places" in terms of where do we actually socialize with people.

The full article is available at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0126093

Veeriku-Näituse-Downtown: A Functioning Pedestrain Highway in Tartu

Tartu is not the best place to move around on foot.  Although not a big city in terms of population, large business areas are impractically far for pedestrians, and there are few convenient options to cross roads, the river and the railway even in the urban core.  It also seems like the municipality has little clue what makes pedestrians thrive in the city.  But Tartu has examples of rather well functioning solutions.  One of these connects Veeriku neighborhoods over Näituse street to the inner city.  This route includes many such details that make a street a place where people thrive.  It also includes a number of obstacles, many of which can be easily fixed. Let's start from Veeriku.

A number of streets merge at the far end of Näituse making it the shortest route to downtown for many residential neighborhoods.  There are not too many cars and the sidewalks are of adequate width and quality.

 Far end of the Näituse street.  The sidewalks are wide enough and good enough here given the moderate number of cars.

 Unfortunately, the sidewalks turn less-than-adequate rather soon.  Up to the railway crossing, they are muddy and too narrow.  This is partly because of broken pavement, and partly because of the potholes in the roadway.  The situation might be acceptable for an unimportant street but not for such a central "pedestrian thoroughfare."  These problems are easy to fix by widening and improving the pavement.

Näituse street approaching the railway crossing.  The walkway suffers from broken pavement that renders it rather narrow on rainy days.

The first real bottleneck is the railway crossing.  One can easily see two problems: first, both ends of it are muddy and unpaved, and second, the sidewalk is too narrow between the tracks.  In places, the walkable width is only about 0.5m, far too little for this much walked route.  The main roadway is very close to the walkers with virtually no separating barrier in-between, but as the rails are not suitable for driving at full speed, the pedestrians are saved from the worst of the motorized traffic.  Fortunately, it is plenty of space here to widen the footpath.  Note also that as only the left-hand-side of Vaksali street (when looking toward the inner city) has a pedestrian crossing, that side is perhaps more important than the other.

Näituse street railway crossing.  The sidewalk is too narrow, and of too low quality at both ends.  It can easily be widened here.

Across the rails, the street is beautiful, tree-lined and with a separate footpath.  This is very nice.  The pavement is of sufficient quality for walking (but not for cycling).  My main complaint here are the parking cars: too often they occupy a substantial part of the walkway.  This may be acceptable for unimportant streets, but on such a major route the motorists should show much more respect for pedestrians.

A car on the sidewalk on Näituse street.  For most walkers this is a little obstacle but it substantially disturbs cyclists.  Note that there is enough space in front of the car to move it out of the walkway.

The final part of Näituse street, down from Kastani, suffers from somewhat narrow sidewalks.  Fortunately, a lot of pedestrian traffic heads to the other areas and cars are slow.  Further downhill, behind the wonderful Kassitoome, the sidewalks are just ridiculous.  In the lower end of the Baeri street, the right-hand side is far too narrow even for a single walker, and often cars are parking just next to it.

A sidewalk that is just plainly too narrow. Baeri Street.

The same is true around the Krooks pub: both sides are too narrow given the large number of pedestrians here.  In this place the street is substantially more important than in the beginning of our walk as it also connects Tähtvere and Supilinn neighborhoods with the downtown.  Wider sidewalks are needed.

Jakobi street in front of Krooks pub.  The sidewalks are inadequate and pedestrians are forced to stay very close to cars.  One should narrow the roadway, give more space to walkers, and install a speed table here.

The last obstacle, Jakobi-Lai crossing, recently got an adequate solution, although I was in favor of shortening the turn radius instead of installing the traffic islands.

It is rather easy to fix many of the existing problems. At the further end of Näituse street, one could simply widen the pedestrian area and pave it adequately.  There is plenty of space for it.  In the inner part of the city, this is not possible without squeezing the motorized traffic somewhat.  It is acceptable in my opinion, even in front of Krooks. One can remove one or two parking lots at the upper side of the street (these can potentially be moved over to the lower side) and widen the sidewalks on both sides by 0.5m.  This would roughly double the walkable width and make it a much more pleasant place. It is also a good idea to install a speed table to slow down cars driving so close to pedestrians.  Finally, parking on pedestrian areas must not be the default option.  If really necessary, one should take all the possible measures to avoid obstructing pedestrian traffic.

What makes good bicycle tracks

I have already written here that most bicycle tracks in Tartu are of unacceptable quality.  Too often they are not direct, not smooth, and in places too narrow.  As it seems, the planners do not understand the basic needs of cycling.  Here I explain a little.

Bike track in Aarhus, DK.  It is smooth, and it goes straight across the junction.  The same priority rules apply both for cars and cyclists.

First, safety is important but not all-important.  I have seen claims that safety is almost the sole characteristic of the bicycle traffic. This is simply not true.  Bike tracks are not (just) about safety. They are about a combination of safety, accessibility, smoothness, and speed.  If safety were the all-important requirement, we would never cycle, never walk nor even drive small cars.  But we do.  We accept a low risk of injury if this helps us smoothly to get where we want to go.

Junction of Riia and Raudtee streets.  The bicycle track ends here abruptly at a guardrail (center).  The cyclists are supposed to take a sharp turn right, then left, cross the street at pedestrian speed, and continue on a very narrow sidewalk (right).  It is a safe but very inconvenient solution. A car lane at the same place (left) has neither abrupt turns nor other obstacles.  As the street goes downhill, cyclists can easily achieve speeds here comparable to those of cars.

In order to improve the biking conditions, one must plan the lanes with this suitable combination in mind.  If cycle lanes are very safe but the ride will not be fast and smooth, people will not choose cycling (or choose to cycle elsewhere).  In practice, the picture is complicated by the heterogeneous preferences by cyclists.  Broadly, kids and slow rider prefer safety, fast riders smoothness.  But it is perfectly possible to cater to all of them in most cases.  Usually it is achieved through street hierarchy—slow speed is enough inside a city blocks but large thoroughfares should allow full speed cycling (at least 30km/h).  Cyclists are exactly like motorists from this aspect.

Left: bike track between Maarjamõisa hospitals and University biomedical center.  Except for a few curbstones, this stretch is adequate for short-distance connection inside the university campus.  Due to it's location, it cannot be upgraded for high-speed connection between different parts of the city.  Right: bike track next to a major thoroughfare, Võru street.  Unlike cars, cyclists are supposed to yield at the small sidestreet and take an inconvenient turn just after the junction.  This is a place where the track should be upgraded to allow full-speed cycling.

Second, road users are always interacting and have to adjust to other road users.  This is partly achieved through planning of roads and junctions.  It is important to realize that adjustment is costly, usually involving breaking and speeding up again, and often maneuvering.  Current cycle tracks put too much of these adjustment costs on cyclists.  The tracks almost never go straight across intersections, even at the main thoroughfares, often forcing bikes to slow down to walking speed in order to cross curbstones and take sharp turns.  Second, instead of dedicated bike lanes, cyclists are often expected to ride on pedestrian walkways.  This is an acceptable solution only if these are wide and not crowded.  The most critical points are typically bus stops, turns around street corners, and areas near pedestrian crossings.  Sidewalks in these places are often narrow, visibility low, and many people standing and waiting.  Now compare this with the car lanes at the same stretches.  Those almost always retain their width, there are hardly ever obstacles like curbstones, and they go straight across the junctions.  Most of the the adjustment costs are shifted to cyclists and pedestrians.

Seems like the planners mainly follow two aims: the lanes must be safe, and the motorists should not bear the adjustment costs. Unfortunately, this leads to unusable cycle tracks.

Bicycle Lanes in Tartu

The last decade has seen a number of dedicated bike lanes built in and around Tartu.  Unfortunately, their functionality is rather limited. Below I explain why.
*

There are different cyclists.  In the one end we have slow local riders like children but also adults pedaling only a few blocks.  At the opposite end are regular fast commuters who move distances around 10km.  (I ignore bicycle racing and related issues here.)  Below, I explain what are the main problems with the existing lanes, in particular for the commuter group.

Junction of large roads as it ought to be: Nordre Ringgade crossing Nørrebrogade in Aarhus, DK.  The bike lane is just at left of the photographer, the markings are visible on street.  Note the lane is straight, and there are no curbstones.

First, the bicycle lanes should be straight.  The lane should be free of pylons, traffic lights but also pedestrians, and avoid unnecessary sharp turns.  In my opinion, this is the most problematic side of the current lanes.  All too often they are bent away from the street at junctions, and the bend typically includes a combination of a sharp turn, high curbstones and a
guardrail.  Hence one cannot cycle at typical speed for faster riders, 20-30 km/h, even along the major thoroughfares (like Võru street or Räpina road).

This is how it works in Tartu.  The guardrail works as a barrier and does not allow unhindered cycling.  But note the ongoing construction further down—the bend on the car lane is being smoothed out.  Junction of Tartu-Ülenurme road and Kuslapuu street (right).

Note that one almost never encounters such obstacles on car lanes.  It is also a safety issue, making cyclists less visible and rendering the right-of-way unclear.  Similarly, the existing cycle lanes almost never allow full-speed entry and exit.  Fast riders, notably out-of-town, cannot take sharp turns.  Hence the short dedicated tracks are seldom usable—the tiny gain in safety does not justify a large loss in speed.

Junction of large roads done wrong.  This is right-turn-lane of Aardla street joining one of the main thoroughfares, Võru street just ahead of us.  Note that just on this picture, cyclists are supposed to cross two curbstones and take a 90-degree turn on a rather narrow lane.  The only way to cross this junction at typical bike speed is to stay away from the bike lane.

Unfortunately, I have not experienced any improvement here over the years.  Even the newest tracks, like the one along the Räpina road, expect too much maneuvering and yielding from the cyclist.  Note that straightness is less of an issue for slow-speed local riders.  Hence the current quality of the track network may well cater for that group.

Second, the lanes should be direct and broadly follow the shortest path between the main destinations.  This is often a thorny issue as the shortest paths are typically occupied by large streets. For instance, neither Riia, Narva nor Võru streets have any dedicated cycle lanes despite offering direct access between large stretches of the city, and being often considered too dangerous for biking.  The suggested alternatives, Kesk street next to Võru and the way over Näituse street to reach Maarjamõisa hospitals, are substantially longer.  Directness matters for everyone, despite their distance and speed.

Third big issue is evenness.  Even street surface is a must.  The most problematic point here are the curbstones, but also the overall profile of the lanes.  A high-quality bike lane should not have any curbstones in the first place.  Second, the surface profile should be smooth enough.  If certain sections must be lower (for instance, to facilitate driving across the sidewalk), one should smoothly lower the lane level along a longer stretch.

Junction of a major thoroughfare, Võru street with a sidestreet.  Note three problems here: the surface is not smooth enough even given sunken curbstones; the curbstones on the street side cannot be crossed at all, essentially cutting the width by a third; and finally the profile is too steep even behind the curbstone.

Finally, particularly on the older roads, the quality of pavement is also an issue.  Fortunately, here a clear improvement is visible over years.  Evenness matters more for fast riders, but the curbstones also hurt the slow ones with small wheels, like children.

The final issue is the lane width.  In general, the lane should permit for two cyclists to ride next to each other.  This is especially important with children (the parents want to "cover" the street side), or for overtaking slower cyclists.  True, such 1.5-2m wide lanes are not feasible everywhere.  But one should avoid unnecessary bottlenecks.  Far too often the guardrails, traffic lights, and improperly installed curbstones narrow down otherwise adequate lane.

Bus stop done well.  Nordre Ringgade, Aarhus, DK.

Bus stop not done well.  It expects too much maneuvering in a narrow section of the bike lane.  One of the main thoroughfares in Tartu, Võru street.

A specific problem is posed by bus stops.  These are frequently located at a particularly narrow section of combined sidewalk/cycle lane where the shed and waiting people also take up space.  Bus stops require extra wide, not extra narrow lanes.  Inadequate width hurts more the fast riders.

Nordre Ringgade crossing Aldersrovej near Trøjborgcenteret.  All done well: no curbstones, the cycle lane retains it's width, and the profile is smooth.

*

Virtually none of the existing cycle lanes around Tartu follow these standards.  The quality has been improving from the perspective of slow riders but for long-distance cyclists the lanes are simply inadequate.  Realistically, I would recommend the planners the following:

• Rename the current cycle lanes to "cycling-enabled sidewalks". Permit cycling there given one does not endanger pedestrians.  For faster riders, permit cycling on the car lanes as well.
• Understand the different types of traffic.  Lanes for slow-speed riders need not to follow the same standards as high-speed thoroughfares.  Think what kind of traffic is dominating on certain streets.
• Most importantly, before designing the next traffic project, learn about the capabilities and requirements of cyclists!  Bike lanes are costly, and if not constructed properly, they may be more of a hindrance than help for cyclists.

Daniel B Hess about Tartu

Early June, me and Kadri Leetmaa did an interview with Dan B. Hess from SUNY Buffalo.  The interview is published in Tartu Postimees in Estonian.  Below, I put the (almost) original English version.

-----------------------------------------------


 

-->

What does a town planning expert from the United States think of Tartu? Kadri Leetmaa (Institute of Human Geography) and Ott Toomet (Department of Economics) talked to Daniel B. Hess, associate professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.

KL and OT: Welcome back to Tartu. Can you tell us a little bit about your encounters with this city?

DH: Slightly more than a year ago I visited Tallinn University of Technology Tartu College for 6 months. I taught courses about town planning in the Landscape Architecture program and also had discussions with various professors in both Tartu and Tallinn about town planning education since this is not taught here as traditionally done in the U.K. and North America. My research during that stay focuses on preservation of historic districts in Tartu and understanding Soviet-era planning. This time I am here with 11 students from the University at Buffalo on a 3-week trip. We spend most of the time in Tartu and Tallinn and also visit Viljandi, Pärnu, Otepää and Riga. The students learn about sustainable town planning and Europe. They very much enjoy taking advantage of all the Tartu has to offer from their lodging on Raekoja plats.

KL and OT: What do you think are the most important planning issues Tartu has to address?

DH: This is an important question. I thinking strengthening the city center is an important priority. There is vacancy in some buildings and under-utilization of building space; filling this space will help bring density to the center and generate activity and diversity. It may also help reduce expansion on the urban fringe, although the demand for detached homes can be a powerful force in changing urban structure. In the same way, I see the new decentralized buildings of the University of Tartu as destabilizing the center and promoting a sprawled city. New university buildings on the urban fringe also promote travel by car, are likely to have large surface parking lots, and scatter and weaken the critical mass of students in the center.

Currently, the town center is quite lovely, surrounded as it is by parks and greenery. I think there is much opportunity to densify (in smart ways, of course) built-up areas and vacant land near the centrum and avoid sprawling, or, even worse, leap-frogging, suburban development of single-family homes. I suspect there is demand for renovated flats in the city center, and new residents would help activate the centrum on nights and weekends.

KL and OT: Emajõgi is a dominating feature in Tartu geography.  However, it does not feel like an organic part of the city. It remains too "far away" from people and everyday life.

DH: Agreed. Most of the riverbanks contain greenery and public space, unlike other cities in Europe built on canals and rivers where buildings directly align with the water (think of Venice). So a lack of adjacent development on the riverbanks maintains the natural river environment, but it also keeps the citizenry at arm’s length from the Emajõgi. In some cases, greenery on the riverbanks is a direct result of bombed-out sections from World War II that contained historic riverfront commercial buildings. New commercial opportunities can be sought for bringing people to the water’s edge, especially near less developed places like the western landing of the Market Bridge. Special events and festivities along the riverbanks can reinforce access to the water for the citizenry. Future cultural institutions may seek riverfront positions (imagine the newly-opened science in a riverfront setting in which the river was used in the building and its plazas and exhibits).

KL and OT: Compared to other cities you know, how easy do you feel it is to move around and reach everyday destinations in Tartu?

DH: Deputy Mayor Raimond Tamm informed us that 40 percent of trips in Tartu are made on foot. The students were quite shocked by this high figure, as the share of pedestrian trips in U.S. cities is much lower, and lower still in U.S. metropolitan areas and suburbs. The compactness of the city, especially in the central areas, encourages walking and, to a lesser extent, bicycling. I can think of few Western cities that have pedestrianization at this high level. I consider this to be a strong characteristic of Tartu’s urban structure and its inhabitants’ lifestyles, and serious effort should be devoted to maintaining it. Of course there are many examples of automobile-scaled development (surrounding Lounakeskus, for example) that discourage walking. And I am distressed that a key intersection at the “new commercial center” of Tartu—Riia-Turu intersection—is fashioned in a way that promotes the “throughput” of vehicles but prohibits pedestrians from crossing the street. That is, vehicles are favored here at the expense of pedestrians and bicyclists, and pedestrians experience impedance in reaching shopping opportunities, institutions (the historic market building), and the riverfront. Rethinking the relationship between pedestrians and vehicle travel here could encourage more retail activity and kiosks and “activate” the streets with pedestrians.

KL and OT: You are interested in Tartu historical neighborhoods like Supilinn and Karlova.  Can you put these districts in perspective?

DH: These districts are very special and the wooden houses are appealing; however, the districts are preserved not through policy decisions but through “neglect” during Soviet times. In other cities, such districts of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century “worker tenements” were demolished to make way for new development. It is no wonder that Karlova and Supilinn are cherished by residents and visitors because they remind of us simpler times and display a distinctly Estonian style of urban-rural living with wood fires, unpaved roads, cluttered courtyards and gardens, and fruit trees.

KL and OT: A large share of household in Tartu reside in Soviet-era high-rise estates.  There is a certain concern that these neighborhoods will end up being socially deprived.  Can we avoid such a process?

DH: When the Soviet Union disintegrated, many experts predicted that the housing estates would transform into “ghettos”, however this generally did not happen in Estonia or elsewhere. Working in the favor of the districts is a decades-old tradition in Estonia of living in apartment blocks (unpopular in the United States) and little stigma attached to the districts. What made the districts attractive in the first place was the availability of nearby services, including kindergartens and schools, playgrounds, retail and commercial opportunities, and space for socialization and recreation. To maintain the stability of the districts, I think the city must always maintain the infrastructure and services, otherwise the districts may lose their appeal, and residents may pursue other housing opportunities. This is a real danger in Estonia, as the population is shrinking although the country seems to follow some of the best-known strategies by focusing on technology and information economies, tourism, and culture.