Greetings. Sorry for the long absence, but like the rest of you, I have been both very busy and preoccupied with the cataclysmic changes roiling throughout the known universe. It is both a frightening and yet exciting time. Before the full magnitude of the "crisis" was made manifest, I was stopped in Coolidge Corner by someone with a BATV camera, who identified himself as someone from the TAB. He asked me to pontificate about how the financial crisis was playing out on 'main street', and more specifically, my house. Feeling somewhat cavalier at the moment, I opined about the opportunity for new ways of thinking and doing. How chaos frees us from complacency, in a sense because we do not have stability to lose by trying new things. I still believe that. I also believe that we must find new ways to do things, and as the ranks of those who have nothing left to lose grows and the threats from climate change mount the demand for change will swell into a tsunami. But enough of grand theories. Back to the home front.
I came here to write about what Dick Benka has characterized (in last Sunday's Globe article about our new Economic Development Director, Kara Brewton) as "one of the festering issues in town--the tension between development and the neighborhoods". Festering indeed. Boiling over might be more accurate. Neighbors have been driven to the extreme action of banding together, hiring a lawyer out of their own pockets and filing lawsuits. This has happened repeatedly. It might be easy to simply dismiss this as typical "nimbyism" or an unavoidable consequence of building in Brookline. But I don't think it is at all that simple, nor is it inevitable. Clearly there is a lack of honest dialogue and trust. We talk around the issues. We talk in sound bites and platitudes and everyone gets frustrated, thinking the other "side" simply doesn't listen or understand. Despite plenty of "process". Well guess what. It is every one's job to communicate in a new way to make themselves understood. To talk truth about what it is they are really concerned about and what's behind their motivations. That would be a good start.
These lawsuits can't be good for anyone involved. They cost the town money, eating up vast amounts of town staff time and effort. They create an unfavorable environment for development, causing a self-defeating situation for those who favor development, sending the message that it is especially difficult to build in Brookline and adding additional costs for project proponents. Costs that might have been directed more constructively towards amenities we truly value and invested in building the types of projects that will actually add value and benefits to the community beyond mere tax dollars. But more on that later.
As for those bringing the lawsuits, they don't seem to be having much success either, except perhaps making a very expensive point.
The reasons for this situation are complex and deeply rooted. But, one thing is for certain, regardless of your opinion or viewpoint on the subject, continuing on in the same way, holding dear to our entrenched "core beliefs" and willful compulsions will only lead to further conflict and more importantly for the future of Brookline, bad developments. At the very root of the problem is a focus on short term gain. The realities of real estate financing dictate this approach on the part of the land speculators and builders. This is to be expected. The problem is, the Town has fallen victim to this way of thinking as well. We have seen the ramifications of this modis operandi playing out in the financial crisis, and in fact the analogy to that situation offers some interesting insights. A few days ago we watched Alan Greenspan confess that his "theory of the way the world works had a fatal flaw", that in fact investment banks, left unregulated, did not act in a way that ensured their long term viability, let alone take into account the effects of their actions on the larger economy or the public in general. No kidding. In the same way, we cannot count on private developers to be thinking about the long term costs and benefits of their buildings on the community as a whole. That is a public sector job, our job. The point is, someone needs to do it.
Applied to planning and development decisions the impacts of this short term focus are multifarious. While no one would willfully choose to discourage a growth in Brookline's tax base, it is an open question whether or not the single-minded pursuit of commercial development (and housing development for that matter) at any cost is in fact going to have the desired effect in the long run. Why do I say this? Besides the immediate costs associated with lawsuits and ill will alluded to above, I maintain that there are substantial and numerous costs and long-term impacts attributable to new development that we are not accounting for that make the "accounting" a bit more ambiguous. In addition, there are many potential benefits and economic "generators" that could be included in new developments that would have long term, multiplier effects that are also not accounted for when assessing the "value" to the community of a given development. For instance, locally owned businesses contribute a far greater proportion of their income to the local economy both directly and through their communty intimacy and support of our many cultural and non-profit organizations. Mixed use development, near transit reduces the need for auto ownership and travel, engenders community interaction, fosters cultural engagement and is attractive to many young professionals, thus benefiting long term environmental quality, building community and increasing Brookline's relative attractiveness to new residents. It is, after all ultimately the future citizens of Brookline who determine her character, cultural capital and potential for innovation and adaptability. It is with these future citizens in mind that we must make all of our decisions.
Why is it that "substantial amounts of community process" fails to achieve the goal of community consensus and doesn't generate the hoped for feelings that we are furthering our shared civic goals? The principle problem with our Design Advisory Teams is the fact that they are concerned primarily with "design". As if all the questions about a particular development can be solved by changing the facade material. If we are lucky, we have talented architects on the DAT, but still, many fundamental issues about size, scale, use, function, public benefits, etc. have already been made, This is in fact and after-the-fact proposition, despite the fact that it happens before "formal applications have been made". This is because the legal parameters of what is allowed have already been determined, and as long as the developer adheres to these, they will be able to build what they want. The DAT can tweak the look of a building's facade and maybe, with a willing developer get a few more concessions, but ultimately it is all too late. The time to figure out how much of what type of development is desirable is well in advance, before someone has invested the time and money in coming up with a proposal. The community has not been involved adequately in making these fundamental decisions, in adequate detail. Here is where new thinking and dialogue is critical. Both "sides" must speak the truth with respect and a true desire to communicate and compromise.
Many of you are hanging your head and moaning now, saying, but we just went through that agonizingly long "planning process" to write our Comprehensive Plan, or the even more painful Coolidge Corner District Planning Council. But, our zoning does not implement key provisions of our Comprehensive Plan, and, as the CCDPC tried to address, it was not detailed enough. Many issues remain unresolved in terms of our current zoning, as it relates (or doesn't) to community goals. The evidence of this are the continuous efforts at amendment through Town Meeting Warrants, etc. On the commercial side, we need to re-evaluate the particulars of how our key commercial development parcels are zoned and what might result from their development as is. Then we need to engage in a highly interactive process of visioning about what we do want, using professional techniques that will engender problem solving and allow real solutions to emerge. (A key difference from what has been done thus far). What would benefit the community and still be potentially buildable from an economic stand point? The solutions will grow organically out of a deep understanding of our community. Not just the physical space, but the cultural and social interchanges that add vitality to life in Brookline. We need to identify the kinds of amenities that will attract new businesses, customers and residents. Asking ourselves questions such as: What kind of employment centers could possibly do well here? Are they the kind of developments we wish to see and can we comfortably accommodate them? If so, what can we do to encourage them? Are the benefits of employment within our borders worth an investment of this sort? How can we build on the vast capital of capable professionals who already live here, as well as existing businesses, such as the large number of design professionals living and working here?
For a case study, let's look at 111 Boylston St. With any development on Route 9 an immediate issue is traffic. Sadly, we lack the transportation planning capabilities to adequately assess the true impacts of a high intensity auto-oriented development like a medical office building (see my previous post Traffic: Route 9 and Beyond), let alone look into the system wide functioning of our transportation infrastructure. Suffice it to say, this development, in combination with general background traffic growth and additional regional development results in significant growth in traffic volumes. Delays will increase. Intersections that accommodate the required turn-arounds will fail. The upshot will be increased cut-through traffic on Walnut and Davis and other neighborhood streets. Increased pollution and accidents. Increased costs for roadway maintenance, police enforcement, health care, traffic calming and a decrease in both the quality of life and value of residential properties affected. Major transportation infrastructure improvements will be required, costing substantial sums. Any remaining roadway capacity that exists now will be "used up", making additional development of this type all the more difficult. All of these costs along with many others need to be carefully considered when weighing the value to the town of this development.
This is a commercial development, but it is unclear whether it will serve, employ or be owned by Brookline residents. We have not asked ourselves whether or not it makes sense to put this type of development here, or what other types of development might have made more sense. We relied on the "private market" to make this decision for us. Had a more thorough planning analysis been made, we could have tailored our zoning to encourage local businesses, or mixed uses, and have better defined an appropriate building mass, setting and public realm design. Such a design would better incorporate all new developments in the area into an overall scheme that takes the pedestrian and alternative transportation options into account. A more energy efficient building would also be more attractive to future tenants and have a longer life span in an energy scarce future. As we all know, the private market does not have our long-term community wide prosperity in mind. Nor does it take into account the "external costs" that are born by the public in general, Brookline taxpayers, or the nearby neighborhoods.
The impacts of the shadow caused by the height of the building is just one of the negative consequences brought about by a lack of forethought about the implications of re-zoning this and other parcels along Route 9 would have. The shadow is graphic and has a powerful immediacy, but is only a first order, direct impact. The neighbors' lawsuit is based on the notion that the Board of Appeals decision was "arbitrary and capricious". It was the Board's job to determine whether or not the Public Benefits given by the developer, in this case, some physical improvements for Davis Path and Boylston St. Park as well as a small cash contribution for the intersection improvement at Washington St. and High St. were, in fact adequate "compensation" for the increase in height allowed for the building. It is not necessarily that these public benefits were not well intentioned, nor that they are necessarily not actually good things for the town. But, those bringing the law suit have a point. The Board's decision was a forgone conclusion. The Board of Appeals had accepted the idea that the "benefit" of allowing the development outweighed any negative impacts articulated by the neighborhood residents. This despite the fact that one of the conditions of granting the special permit is that "the use as developed will not adversely affect the neighborhood." Left out of the Board's deliberations were the many more negative "externalities", some of which I have identified above.
But, the greatest negative of all is the opportunity cost of what we could have had! This structure, and others like it, such as 1285 Beacon for instance, will be with us for a long time. Traditional economic development strategies promulgate a view of the world where municipalities or regions are in competition for development investment dollars. In some cases these strategies go so far as to grant tax subsidies to lure development, almost always losing fiscally in the process. In our case, we simply grant the right to build on our few remaining precious parcels suitable for commercial development. In a similar vein we seem to believe that we must allow what, in some cases seems to be an excessively tall and massive building footprint, and an anything will do attitude in order to "attract" development. The claim is made that we must do this in order for the projects to be economically viable. I find this hard to believe. While we cannot simply "get the project of our dreams", I do believe that had we had a better idea of what we did want, and what would be appropriate, before a proposal was on the table, a much better and still economically viable project could have been negotiated.
The fact that these projects are proceeding in these extremely difficult times and that housing values are holding their own and perhaps even still rising, testifies to the fact of Brookline's continued desirability as a place to live and do business. We are selling our selves short. It could have been so much better. Clarity of purpose, coupled with a deep understanding of Brookline's unique character and the characteristics that make it so, a reverence for her value, a vision of a workable future and top notch design adherence could go a long way towards achieving the goal of more appropriate development.
I know many of you will simply write me off as naive at this point, but I have seen countless examples of quality begetting quality. And we are quality, at least we were, and we are in danger of losing it. By knowing what we want, being clear and specific about it, demanding it, we will get it. In fact, this clarity would be a relief to all involved, including developers. The endless, nebulousness of our "process" could be shortened, with clearer guidelines allowing the initial proposal to be both closer to the ultimate goal and responsive to the particulars of the site. I am painting a picture here where, any future developments are in fact more in tune with Brookline's spirit, culture, physical layout and sustainability goals. Achieving this is what we need to do to make the process work, because it surely is not working now. It is a fundamental change in approach that will in fact require a commitment of resources, some new planning techniques and a willingness to be open to new ways of thinking. Being known throughout the region as the place to find, build and buy into a quality built environment that supports a vibrant forward-thinking community is what will ensure our long term prosperity. We need only value ourselves adequately, not giving in to the least common denominator. We are desirable enough to be in the position to demand the best. This will only have a synergistic beneficial effect, attracting new, progressive builders and residents, and therefore truly begetting economic development.
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Showing posts with label Economic Development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economic Development. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Traffic: Route 9 and Beyond
I've been thinking a lot about traffic, or more precisely, traffic congestion, lately. I'm afraid I'm going to have to discuss the nitty-gritty details of traffic volumes, turning movements and intersection capacities, later on, but it's all for a purpose. Namely, to illuminate a possible future and to give us a chance to think about just what kind of future we would like to be planning for and whether or not the two correlate.
I spent the better part of a week forecasting and analyzing the potential traffic conditions on Route 9 focusing in on the section between Brookline Avenue and Cypress St. I began by looking at the traffic study done by the consultant for the 111 Boylston St. development. This study estimates the number of new vehicle trips likely to travel to the site, predicts their likely travel route and analyzes the function of the intersections these vehicles will travel through in year 2013. Building on this information, I have forecast and plotted the potential traffic impacts of continued commercial development at the other available sites along Route 9 in this area, postulating that it would be built-out to the full amount allowed under current zoning and assuming it were similar in use to the 111 Boylston St. development. This has been an enlightening exercise, one that has led me to some interesting conclusions which I will describe in more detail later.
All the while when I was working on my "build-out traffic analysis", I of course experienced traffic congestion without even getting into my car. Just going about my daily life, I experience the nearly constant problem in Coolidge Corner that culminates in the log jam of cars traveling north on Harvard Street blocking the westbound Beacon Street flow, long after the light turns green. This phenomena results in some colorful words and gestures, as horns blare and agitated drivers execute maniac moves. Pedestrians, defiantly responding to their walk signal, (for which they have patiently waited), trudge through the middle of this, unconcerned about the plight of the cars stuck in the middle of the road. Note that, I said cars, not drivers. Once behind the wheel, our isolation, anonymity and sensory deprivation often cause us to act and be treated in ways that would never occur if we were face-to-face. Riding a bike is another way I experience congestion without getting into a car. It is often a game of chicken, where one needs to constantly second guess what a driver might do and they all behave differently around a bike.
Just to add to the immersion factor, I have been reading the fascinating new book "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What it Says About Us." by Tom Vanderbilt. What this book lacks in depth it makes up for in breadth, and one is able to come away with a few over-arching conclusions, the most persistent of which is that despite all the tools and aids we erect to guide, regulate, enhance and protect ourselves, our human fallibility leaves us vulnerable, as we come up against our limited capacity to perceive accurately, evaluate risk realistically or act rationally. Driving is an unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unmanageable and therefore dangerous pursuit. Controlling it or managing it is only partially successful because of the random factors of human psychology.
My favorite line in the book was this, "Parking is the gate way drug to full blown traffic abuse." A phrase much akin to Fred Salvucci's "Parking lots are fertility drugs for cars." My favorite section was about Hans Monderman, the Danish traffic planner who understood that it was the world of cars that was the guest in the human world of towns and cities and that by removing all traffic signs and designing roadways for slower speeds he could insert uncertainty into the driving experience, forcing drivers to expect the unexpected. Therefore to travel safely they must interact with pedestrians, bicyclists and other cars in a new context of shared space. To illustrate his point he closed his eyes and walked backwards into a traffic square of his own design and as predicted, the autos gently pick there way around him. As for "Traffic's" lack of depth, the nearly 100 pages of detailed notes offer enough source material for follow-up to anyone seriously interested in any of the many many research topics he touches upon.
But back to Route 9. The Article 15 debate focused our thoughts on the potential traffic impacts from the 2 Brookline Place development, thanks to Hugh Mattison, the Article's petitioner. The Article called for lowering the amount of required parking for this new, large and traffic intensive development, urging a shift towards utilizing the adjacent transit resources, as was originally intended by Town Meeting. We tried to tease out the nexus between vehicle trips and on-site parking. Concerned citizens living nearby wondered just how much of that new traffic would travel on their streets, or how they would be able to get out of their driveway as cars stacked up at a newly installed signal. We heard consultants predict how many new vehicles will traverse our crowded roadways to visit and work here and which intersections will be affected. They described what intersection improvements were necessary to mitigate those impacts.
The bottom line was that, despite a significant underestimate of volume, (the initial estimate for 2 BP was a total of 2,800 daily trips, for a 260,000 sq.ft. facility, compared to the total of 2,400 daily trips for a 66,000 sq. ft. facility at 111 Boylston St.) the intersection with Brookline Avenue and Route 9 cannot handle the demand for left turns off of Route 9 heading to 2 Brookline Place in the morning. These vehicles, once on Brookline Ave, will then need to turn left onto Pearl St., a new traffic light will be necessary at this intersection. Pearl St. itself will be strained, as it is a narrow roadway with parking, frequent double parking and many exiting and entering driveways. It is acknowledged that the Gateway East roadway improvement, (a major construction project involving State and Federal dollars), which lengthens the jughandle and aligns Pearl and Walnut St. into a four-way intersection with Route 9 is necessary to accommodate the traffic associated with this project. This is because it will allow eastbound vehicles to turn left, directly onto Pearl St., thereby solving the Brookline Avenue/Route 9 intersection malfunction.
These problems are near-term and close-in and even if these congestion difficulties are successfully managed, there are also the further afield "ripple" effects of the additional thousands of daily trips added both to the through traffic volumes on Route 9 and spread out through many already congested intersections, such as School St./Cypress and Washington. More through travel on Route 9 means there are less "gaps" to accommodate increasing volumes of turning vehicles, as these two demands work against each other. The hoped for "fix" of re-timing the signal that is often suggested for failing intersections offers little hope in this situation as all competing volumes are equally high. Changing the timing to allow for a higher volume of a particular turning movement will add additional delay will to Route 9, causing backups through succeeding intersections. Other major developments are happening just over our borders too, such as the re-development of the site of the old Omni supermarket in Chestnut Hill which increase vehicle trips on Route 9 substantially. Brookline will also be impacted by additional Longwood development and building over the air rights of the Mass Pike in the Fenway. These additional developments were not included in the traffic analysis for 111 Boylston St.
As everyone recognizes, Route 9 is already a heavily traveled roadway, carrying as it does approximately 31,000 vehicles a day. Anyone who uses it regularly for commuting knows you are just going to sit there, spewing pollution, wasting fuel and contributing even more to global warming than you might otherwise have had to, had you not been delayed. All this congestion results in poor air quality, increased greenhouse gases, increased stress, and lost time and money (for both individuals and businesses), negatively impacting our health, environment and economy. Desperate drivers begin diverting through neighborhoods to seek a quicker route.
As one approaches the city on Route 9, the delays increase due to the combination of heavy through travel and the increased frequency of cross streets and driveways with high volumes of crossing and turning travelers. What began out in the suburbs as a controlled access four lane arterial has become something of a hybrid roadway, still with its median barrier, but the intersections are less like a highway intersection with exit ramps and flyovers and more like a city cross street. Yet the roadway is still needed to carry its high volume of through traveling commuters.
Into this setting, let us consider the consequences of developing or re-developing, the other G 2.0 parcels on Route 9 near Cypress St. To orient you that would be the Audy Gas Station, and the 303 Boylston St. site on the north side of Route 9 and the Volkswagen Dealer, a small Electric sub-station and the U-Haul on the south side. The rest of the land along Route 9 between Cypress and Washington is zoned either G 1.0 or M 1.0 (CAM) and was not included in my "build-out" analysis.
The rough estimate of additional peak hour trips associated with the build-out would be:
AM Peak Hour: 1, 037
PM Peak Hour: 1, 355
Peak hour in this case refers to the peak hour on Route 9, not the peak hour at the development site, which because it is a medical office building will be busy with patients coming and going all day. These numbers may be too high, because they are higher than counts taken locally, but I also believe the consultant underestimated the "background growth" when they did not include the large additional developments in the area and assumed a growth factor of only .5% per year in volumes. Perhaps high gas prices will help achieve this low growth level. While these numbers alone may seem distressing, what is particularly problematic is the fact that at any given time at least half of the vehicles coming or going will need to reverse direction in order to access or leave their point of origin.
Despite the fact that these sites are very near to the Brookline Hills T-stop, they are valued and perceived by potential builders as auto-oriented building sites. Our current zoning code, with its on-site parking requirements and separation of uses, encourages and reinforces these perceptions. The resulting proposals are then not surprisingly best suited to a suburban setting with good highway access and plenty of parking to accommodate everyone accessing the site via automobile.
In the case of the land near Cypress St. and Route 9 it was estimated that 65% of the people coming or going to the site would be from the west. So, in the case of buildings on the north side of Route 9 accessing the site necessitates a U-turn. The 111 Boylston St. consultant predicted that everyone would achieve this maneuver at the Walnut St. jughandle. This requires the reversing vehicles to swing around the jughandle then turn right onto High St. and immediately left onto Route 9 at the Washington St./Route 9 intersection. This intersection was already functioning at LOS D in 2007 during the AM peak hour. With the addition of 111 Boylston it is predicted to function at LOS E. With higher through volumes on Route 9 and/or High/Washington St. the LOS will further degrade. This is before we add in any additional development on the remaining Route 9 parcels. In addition to the limiting factors of high through volumes on Route 9 this intersection is severely constrained in another way. The closeness of the High/Walnut Street intersection to the Washington/High/Route 9 intersection means that only about 3 left turn vehicles can fit in the left turn lane. Two source lanes of traffic are competing for those three spaces, cars traveling north on High St. and those folks who are reversing direction from the jughandle. With high demand from both sources, it becomes increasingly difficult for the jughandle cars to ever get into this lane. The entire signal cycle length at Washington/High/Route 9 is 90 seconds. That means there are 45 cycles per hour. 45 times 3 cars per cycle and this intersection can "process" at a maximum (if everything works perfectly) of 135 left turns. The 111 Boylston St. study predicted a demand of 129 left turns here during the AM peak hour. The project developers for 111 Boylston St. are contributing some mitigation dollars to the Gateway East jughandle improvement, which is postulated to aid the functioning of this intersection by allowing more space for vehicles waiting to make the left onto High St. This is a marginal improvement to the basic limitation of the left turn at Washington/High/Route 9.
For my build-out analysis, instead of assuming that everyone who needed to reverse direction (east to west) would do so at the jughandle, I anticipated the capacity limitations of this intersection and assumed that half of the people (124 during the AM peak) would instead turn left at Cypress, (no easy trick either) then right on Davis and then right on Route 9. This circuitous route is not self-evident and diversion attempts will, until they are learned, result in circling and wandering before a new route is learned. This alternative route is likely to be used even more than this, given the degree of difficulty I have described at using the left turn at Washington/High/Route 9. Half of those not diverted to Davis are still going to be trying to turn left at the failed Washington/High/Route 9 intersection, or will be executing illegal U-turns or finding other routes.
For development on the south side of Route 9, those leaving the sites who wish to return to the west will simply turn right on High Street, right on Walnut and then either right on Cypress or continue straight. I estimated an additional 490 vehicles in the PM peak hour on Walnut. While these vehicle numbers may be high, they nevertheless illustrate the inevitable result of additional auto-dependent development of these particular parcels, namely, the reverse direction move will be accommodated on Davis and Walnut Streets, two residential streets that are already suffering the physical and environmental assault of too much traffic.
Other roadways that serve as limited access commuter routes, such as Route 1 in Dedham for instance while also accommodating intensive retail development has done so by providing an elaborate system of controlled access ramps, frontage roads and signalized turnarounds. Clearly, we are not looking to develop to this intensity, but it illustrates the elaborate engineering machinations necessary to accommodate the disparate functions of through travel, localized access and intensive roadside development.
Some would choose to simply disregard the needs of the through traveler, taking "possession" as it were of "our part" of Route 9. However, this is a short-term and self-defeating proposition. Mobility for commerce, such as delivery trucks, tradesmen, customers and employees are all essential to the fabric of our economy. By developing highly intensive auto-dependent commercial uses on these particular parcels we are causing a much greater problem than we are solving. As currently configured these sites are attractive to business because of the amount of traffic that passes by. This is why a use like the VW dealer, while we may not think it optimal, is at least in terms of function, sensible. It is seen by a lot of people, but does not "generate" a great deal of trips. Same goes for the gas station. Gas stations aren't destinations and pull their customers from the passing flow, thereby not adding to existing volumes. Audy's has its own difficulties with the driveway on Cypress being so close to the intersection, but that's another issue.
But, it doesn't have to be this way, there are other alternatives, which are more in keeping with the goals outlined in our Comprehensive Plan and in harmony with a more sustainable vision for Brookline. This corner, Cypress and Boylston St. has some of the bones necessary to become a walkable, mixed use "village" that takes advantage of its T access and allows nearby residents to fulfill some of their daily shopping needs without driving. Altering our zoning to more precisely define mixed use guidelines and to devise an overall vision for public realm amenities will allow an alternative vision to take shape. Thereby, reducing the negative traffic impacts on our neighborhoods and Route 9 itself and maximizing the value of our transit resources and residential density, making for a more effective and longer-term economic development strategy. These goals were loosely stated in the Comprehensive Plan and further refinement could help us articulate a creative and specific plan for a new neighborhood commercial area. The Town will be seeking a smart growth planning grant from EPA or other sources to do just that.
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I spent the better part of a week forecasting and analyzing the potential traffic conditions on Route 9 focusing in on the section between Brookline Avenue and Cypress St. I began by looking at the traffic study done by the consultant for the 111 Boylston St. development. This study estimates the number of new vehicle trips likely to travel to the site, predicts their likely travel route and analyzes the function of the intersections these vehicles will travel through in year 2013. Building on this information, I have forecast and plotted the potential traffic impacts of continued commercial development at the other available sites along Route 9 in this area, postulating that it would be built-out to the full amount allowed under current zoning and assuming it were similar in use to the 111 Boylston St. development. This has been an enlightening exercise, one that has led me to some interesting conclusions which I will describe in more detail later.
All the while when I was working on my "build-out traffic analysis", I of course experienced traffic congestion without even getting into my car. Just going about my daily life, I experience the nearly constant problem in Coolidge Corner that culminates in the log jam of cars traveling north on Harvard Street blocking the westbound Beacon Street flow, long after the light turns green. This phenomena results in some colorful words and gestures, as horns blare and agitated drivers execute maniac moves. Pedestrians, defiantly responding to their walk signal, (for which they have patiently waited), trudge through the middle of this, unconcerned about the plight of the cars stuck in the middle of the road. Note that, I said cars, not drivers. Once behind the wheel, our isolation, anonymity and sensory deprivation often cause us to act and be treated in ways that would never occur if we were face-to-face. Riding a bike is another way I experience congestion without getting into a car. It is often a game of chicken, where one needs to constantly second guess what a driver might do and they all behave differently around a bike.
Just to add to the immersion factor, I have been reading the fascinating new book "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What it Says About Us." by Tom Vanderbilt. What this book lacks in depth it makes up for in breadth, and one is able to come away with a few over-arching conclusions, the most persistent of which is that despite all the tools and aids we erect to guide, regulate, enhance and protect ourselves, our human fallibility leaves us vulnerable, as we come up against our limited capacity to perceive accurately, evaluate risk realistically or act rationally. Driving is an unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unmanageable and therefore dangerous pursuit. Controlling it or managing it is only partially successful because of the random factors of human psychology.
My favorite line in the book was this, "Parking is the gate way drug to full blown traffic abuse." A phrase much akin to Fred Salvucci's "Parking lots are fertility drugs for cars." My favorite section was about Hans Monderman, the Danish traffic planner who understood that it was the world of cars that was the guest in the human world of towns and cities and that by removing all traffic signs and designing roadways for slower speeds he could insert uncertainty into the driving experience, forcing drivers to expect the unexpected. Therefore to travel safely they must interact with pedestrians, bicyclists and other cars in a new context of shared space. To illustrate his point he closed his eyes and walked backwards into a traffic square of his own design and as predicted, the autos gently pick there way around him. As for "Traffic's" lack of depth, the nearly 100 pages of detailed notes offer enough source material for follow-up to anyone seriously interested in any of the many many research topics he touches upon.
But back to Route 9. The Article 15 debate focused our thoughts on the potential traffic impacts from the 2 Brookline Place development, thanks to Hugh Mattison, the Article's petitioner. The Article called for lowering the amount of required parking for this new, large and traffic intensive development, urging a shift towards utilizing the adjacent transit resources, as was originally intended by Town Meeting. We tried to tease out the nexus between vehicle trips and on-site parking. Concerned citizens living nearby wondered just how much of that new traffic would travel on their streets, or how they would be able to get out of their driveway as cars stacked up at a newly installed signal. We heard consultants predict how many new vehicles will traverse our crowded roadways to visit and work here and which intersections will be affected. They described what intersection improvements were necessary to mitigate those impacts.
The bottom line was that, despite a significant underestimate of volume, (the initial estimate for 2 BP was a total of 2,800 daily trips, for a 260,000 sq.ft. facility, compared to the total of 2,400 daily trips for a 66,000 sq. ft. facility at 111 Boylston St.) the intersection with Brookline Avenue and Route 9 cannot handle the demand for left turns off of Route 9 heading to 2 Brookline Place in the morning. These vehicles, once on Brookline Ave, will then need to turn left onto Pearl St., a new traffic light will be necessary at this intersection. Pearl St. itself will be strained, as it is a narrow roadway with parking, frequent double parking and many exiting and entering driveways. It is acknowledged that the Gateway East roadway improvement, (a major construction project involving State and Federal dollars), which lengthens the jughandle and aligns Pearl and Walnut St. into a four-way intersection with Route 9 is necessary to accommodate the traffic associated with this project. This is because it will allow eastbound vehicles to turn left, directly onto Pearl St., thereby solving the Brookline Avenue/Route 9 intersection malfunction.
These problems are near-term and close-in and even if these congestion difficulties are successfully managed, there are also the further afield "ripple" effects of the additional thousands of daily trips added both to the through traffic volumes on Route 9 and spread out through many already congested intersections, such as School St./Cypress and Washington. More through travel on Route 9 means there are less "gaps" to accommodate increasing volumes of turning vehicles, as these two demands work against each other. The hoped for "fix" of re-timing the signal that is often suggested for failing intersections offers little hope in this situation as all competing volumes are equally high. Changing the timing to allow for a higher volume of a particular turning movement will add additional delay will to Route 9, causing backups through succeeding intersections. Other major developments are happening just over our borders too, such as the re-development of the site of the old Omni supermarket in Chestnut Hill which increase vehicle trips on Route 9 substantially. Brookline will also be impacted by additional Longwood development and building over the air rights of the Mass Pike in the Fenway. These additional developments were not included in the traffic analysis for 111 Boylston St.
As everyone recognizes, Route 9 is already a heavily traveled roadway, carrying as it does approximately 31,000 vehicles a day. Anyone who uses it regularly for commuting knows you are just going to sit there, spewing pollution, wasting fuel and contributing even more to global warming than you might otherwise have had to, had you not been delayed. All this congestion results in poor air quality, increased greenhouse gases, increased stress, and lost time and money (for both individuals and businesses), negatively impacting our health, environment and economy. Desperate drivers begin diverting through neighborhoods to seek a quicker route.
As one approaches the city on Route 9, the delays increase due to the combination of heavy through travel and the increased frequency of cross streets and driveways with high volumes of crossing and turning travelers. What began out in the suburbs as a controlled access four lane arterial has become something of a hybrid roadway, still with its median barrier, but the intersections are less like a highway intersection with exit ramps and flyovers and more like a city cross street. Yet the roadway is still needed to carry its high volume of through traveling commuters.
Into this setting, let us consider the consequences of developing or re-developing, the other G 2.0 parcels on Route 9 near Cypress St. To orient you that would be the Audy Gas Station, and the 303 Boylston St. site on the north side of Route 9 and the Volkswagen Dealer, a small Electric sub-station and the U-Haul on the south side. The rest of the land along Route 9 between Cypress and Washington is zoned either G 1.0 or M 1.0 (CAM) and was not included in my "build-out" analysis.
The rough estimate of additional peak hour trips associated with the build-out would be:
AM Peak Hour: 1, 037
PM Peak Hour: 1, 355
Peak hour in this case refers to the peak hour on Route 9, not the peak hour at the development site, which because it is a medical office building will be busy with patients coming and going all day. These numbers may be too high, because they are higher than counts taken locally, but I also believe the consultant underestimated the "background growth" when they did not include the large additional developments in the area and assumed a growth factor of only .5% per year in volumes. Perhaps high gas prices will help achieve this low growth level. While these numbers alone may seem distressing, what is particularly problematic is the fact that at any given time at least half of the vehicles coming or going will need to reverse direction in order to access or leave their point of origin.
Despite the fact that these sites are very near to the Brookline Hills T-stop, they are valued and perceived by potential builders as auto-oriented building sites. Our current zoning code, with its on-site parking requirements and separation of uses, encourages and reinforces these perceptions. The resulting proposals are then not surprisingly best suited to a suburban setting with good highway access and plenty of parking to accommodate everyone accessing the site via automobile.
In the case of the land near Cypress St. and Route 9 it was estimated that 65% of the people coming or going to the site would be from the west. So, in the case of buildings on the north side of Route 9 accessing the site necessitates a U-turn. The 111 Boylston St. consultant predicted that everyone would achieve this maneuver at the Walnut St. jughandle. This requires the reversing vehicles to swing around the jughandle then turn right onto High St. and immediately left onto Route 9 at the Washington St./Route 9 intersection. This intersection was already functioning at LOS D in 2007 during the AM peak hour. With the addition of 111 Boylston it is predicted to function at LOS E. With higher through volumes on Route 9 and/or High/Washington St. the LOS will further degrade. This is before we add in any additional development on the remaining Route 9 parcels. In addition to the limiting factors of high through volumes on Route 9 this intersection is severely constrained in another way. The closeness of the High/Walnut Street intersection to the Washington/High/Route 9 intersection means that only about 3 left turn vehicles can fit in the left turn lane. Two source lanes of traffic are competing for those three spaces, cars traveling north on High St. and those folks who are reversing direction from the jughandle. With high demand from both sources, it becomes increasingly difficult for the jughandle cars to ever get into this lane. The entire signal cycle length at Washington/High/Route 9 is 90 seconds. That means there are 45 cycles per hour. 45 times 3 cars per cycle and this intersection can "process" at a maximum (if everything works perfectly) of 135 left turns. The 111 Boylston St. study predicted a demand of 129 left turns here during the AM peak hour. The project developers for 111 Boylston St. are contributing some mitigation dollars to the Gateway East jughandle improvement, which is postulated to aid the functioning of this intersection by allowing more space for vehicles waiting to make the left onto High St. This is a marginal improvement to the basic limitation of the left turn at Washington/High/Route 9.
For my build-out analysis, instead of assuming that everyone who needed to reverse direction (east to west) would do so at the jughandle, I anticipated the capacity limitations of this intersection and assumed that half of the people (124 during the AM peak) would instead turn left at Cypress, (no easy trick either) then right on Davis and then right on Route 9. This circuitous route is not self-evident and diversion attempts will, until they are learned, result in circling and wandering before a new route is learned. This alternative route is likely to be used even more than this, given the degree of difficulty I have described at using the left turn at Washington/High/Route 9. Half of those not diverted to Davis are still going to be trying to turn left at the failed Washington/High/Route 9 intersection, or will be executing illegal U-turns or finding other routes.
For development on the south side of Route 9, those leaving the sites who wish to return to the west will simply turn right on High Street, right on Walnut and then either right on Cypress or continue straight. I estimated an additional 490 vehicles in the PM peak hour on Walnut. While these vehicle numbers may be high, they nevertheless illustrate the inevitable result of additional auto-dependent development of these particular parcels, namely, the reverse direction move will be accommodated on Davis and Walnut Streets, two residential streets that are already suffering the physical and environmental assault of too much traffic.
Other roadways that serve as limited access commuter routes, such as Route 1 in Dedham for instance while also accommodating intensive retail development has done so by providing an elaborate system of controlled access ramps, frontage roads and signalized turnarounds. Clearly, we are not looking to develop to this intensity, but it illustrates the elaborate engineering machinations necessary to accommodate the disparate functions of through travel, localized access and intensive roadside development.
Some would choose to simply disregard the needs of the through traveler, taking "possession" as it were of "our part" of Route 9. However, this is a short-term and self-defeating proposition. Mobility for commerce, such as delivery trucks, tradesmen, customers and employees are all essential to the fabric of our economy. By developing highly intensive auto-dependent commercial uses on these particular parcels we are causing a much greater problem than we are solving. As currently configured these sites are attractive to business because of the amount of traffic that passes by. This is why a use like the VW dealer, while we may not think it optimal, is at least in terms of function, sensible. It is seen by a lot of people, but does not "generate" a great deal of trips. Same goes for the gas station. Gas stations aren't destinations and pull their customers from the passing flow, thereby not adding to existing volumes. Audy's has its own difficulties with the driveway on Cypress being so close to the intersection, but that's another issue.
But, it doesn't have to be this way, there are other alternatives, which are more in keeping with the goals outlined in our Comprehensive Plan and in harmony with a more sustainable vision for Brookline. This corner, Cypress and Boylston St. has some of the bones necessary to become a walkable, mixed use "village" that takes advantage of its T access and allows nearby residents to fulfill some of their daily shopping needs without driving. Altering our zoning to more precisely define mixed use guidelines and to devise an overall vision for public realm amenities will allow an alternative vision to take shape. Thereby, reducing the negative traffic impacts on our neighborhoods and Route 9 itself and maximizing the value of our transit resources and residential density, making for a more effective and longer-term economic development strategy. These goals were loosely stated in the Comprehensive Plan and further refinement could help us articulate a creative and specific plan for a new neighborhood commercial area. The Town will be seeking a smart growth planning grant from EPA or other sources to do just that.
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