San Diego

My Taco Shop Theory…

Economics, San Diego, Urban Design, Urban Planning, walkability

I write, draw, and lament often about how great mixed-use, walkable, transit-supported urbanism is for our civilization. In my part of world, San Diego, one our most civilizing characteristics is the local taco shop(s). Taco shops are ours and we do them best, especially in comparison to LA, ‘Frisco, and Sacramento. And I have a theory… “the best taco shop is the second closest taco shop to your home.”

Another theory I subscribe to is the use of the ‘transect’ to design, plan, and build neighborhoods. The transect is an environmental research tool. It is a cut or path through part of the environment showing a range of different habitats. Biologists and ecologists use transects to study the many symbiotic elements that contribute to habitats where certain plants and animals thrive. The urban-to-nature transect outlines our human habitat in a similar fashion. See here: https://transect.org/index.html

natural transect
transect

And the Transect Zones (T-zone) range from the most urban, T6, to the most natural, T1. And there are 4 other place types in between. The Transect can be used at the regional scale. For example downtowns are a region’s most urban, thus T-6, and State/Federal parks, T1, are the most natural areas that need to be preserved. Agricultural reserve areas (T2), edge of town suburbia (T3), small town centers (T4), and the middle of towns/cities neighborhoods are mixed-use (T5). And the Transect is best applied at the neighborhood scale.

Each walkable neighborhood, approximately 120-acres, .25 mile distance from center to edge (approximately 1,250 linear feet), and these have at least 3 transect zones within it to provide a mix of uses, places, spaces, and people at different income/life levels. The neighborhood main street center is T5, the neighborhood general area with a few corner stores is T4, and the neighborhood edge is usually T3 that leads to natural corridor or the next neighborhood edge leading to another neighborhood and its main street center.

This my complete, walkable, mixed-use, transit-supported neighborhood with the 5-minute walk from the neighborhood center to edge outlined:

And here are where my local taco shop and trucks are located by Transect-Zone:

And here is the location of my next and favorite taco shop:

If I took the time, you’d see that my favorite taco shop is on the edge of the next neighborhood to my south. It’s center is located a neighborhood grocery store (Food Bowl, who make great tacos in their deli too). And our older streetcar neighborhoods in San Diego are expertly shaped with neighborhood centers located every 5 to 10-minute walks apart from each other and our #2 Bus stops. And, every neighborhood essentially has a great taco shop located in it. To the north, The Taco Shop is located another half-mile to the north, then another favorite taco shop, open 24-hours, Saguaro’s, is another half-mile from there.

Below is a transect map of the neighborhood’s in the North Park Community Planning Area. My neighborhood is to the furthest south (and half in Greater Golden Hill). The Taco shop is on the edge of the next north neighborhood (see the off-set Upas St intersection). And Saguaro’s is on the edge of the next neighborhood to the north, and so on. Notice they’re all located on 30th Street, the only north/south street connected South Park/Golden Hill to North Park and all of the tacos shops are located on it (and Fern St where it changes names).

One of San Diego’s best cultural elements are our taco shops. When I travel somewhere for more than a few days and return… my first meal home is usually from a taco shop because I need it. And we’re fortunate enough to have a taco shop in most of our urban neighborhoods. I’m thankful for my local, but I eat there too often and it’s staled to my tastes… and it’s too close. A 5-minute walk to/from my house to my local taco shop only burns a few calories compared to the amount of calories served up by my favorite burritos, rolled tacos, and flying saucers.

Theories…

San Diego, Urban Planning

I believe your favorite taco shop is the one that’s the 2nd closest to you. Because you eat at your local taco shop too often, so it gets dull… while being thankful its there. But that 2nd closest shop?!? Yeah, that’s the one that has the stuff that have to make an effort to get there and it’s just that much better than your local shop.

I believe this to be true.

I believe San Diego doesn’t have a parking problem, it has a walking more than 50-feet problem. In fairness, I’ve seen Marcela Escobar-Eck, a San Diego consultant, tweet this before too. But, I see people driving in circles to find that as-close-as-possible space, complain about parking, and not just drive to the edge of the parking lot or a block over and walk to where you want to be. It’s silly and selfish… but we’re from silly and selfish stock.

I know this to be true.

I believe what Mike Davis was absolutely brilliant and wrote the best pieces on social equity and inclusion/exclusion than anyone in our business. He was as kind and giving as he was brilliant. A giant, lost.

And I think this is true.

Family is the basis/core of civilization. Our sense of belonging or home or family (groups) equates to providing us a moral responsibility to take care of each other and our home(s). This does not apply as innately to global-scale industries, economies, businesses, politics, and environmentalism. That’s a reason for the disconnect between mitigating for global warming, building a traditional neighborhood, and living in a suburban cookie-cutter house.

San Diego/Tijuana is a World Design Capital

San Diego, Urban Design

This is an excellent article about the need for design innovation in SoCal, and very apropos to San Diego. In short, the author explores ideas about the need to ween ourselves off of our car culture and recommends Building Expositions: “Design thinking is applied to urban design through rapid urban prototyping, and as such through the primary tried and proven vehicle of international building exhibitions, which have had a successful track record for more than a century.”

San Diego/Tijuana has a history of important building innovations, starting with San Diego’s two early 20th century world expositions. First with the invention of Spanish Revival in 1915 by Bertrand Goodhue, and then with suburban sprawl in 1935 by the Federal Housing Authority. The suburban auto-oriented pattern of building was first exhibited in ’35’s FHA suburban model homes by Neurta and Eckbo, and it changed the world.

In the 1950s, San Diego also invented Climate Change (Scripps GhG/carbon measurements by Roger Revelle and Charles Keeling), which dramatically changed our world too. We invented the modern LRT system, Transit-Oriented Development (Peter Calthorpe/Mike Stepner), modern ranchette house (Cliff May), modernist tilt-up construction (Irving Gill), Salk Institute (Lou Kahn), downtown urban malls (Jon Jerde/Frank Wolden), and we have UCSD’s Teddy Cruz’s study on cross-border construction techniques found nowhere else. Our latest UCSD/Tijuana Migrant Shelter (Teddy Cruz/Fonna Forman) and Cross-Border Terminal (Ricardo Legorreta/Blackson – yeah, I did the Site Plan) are important innovations too. Our bordering cities have a successful history of building innovation that needs to be celebrated.

This is the value of next year’s WDC2024. The World Design Capital is a legacy thread that builds upon our history of innovation and has the potential to reshape our future.

Buildings are spaces and places we inhabit as humans. Virtual Realities, Artificial Intelligence, and Autonomous Vehicles are appropriately named… they’re fake, false, impersonal, and limited. Salk/UCSD’s CAVE has faded after so much bluster in 2007, but is an early 3D/VR innovation, and something to be proud of. We need to build them to test our 21st century spaces and places, and share the risk/financing/rewards. For example, a heavy timber building was quietly built and successfully earthquake tested recently at UCSD. We need to test/build modular as well as Doug Austin’s concrete prefab patent idea. We need a place to share this knowledge and get onto our less suburban, auto-oriented future our climate and society demand.

UCSD is leading our region in design thinking, and its Park/Market facility is our region’s design creativity Hub. It’s the center of our WDC2024. We’re fortunate to have both coincide today.

When debating NIMBYs, I like to say that a community’s “character” is found in its memory (history) and expectation (vision). This idea of an International (USA/MEX) Building Expo center is a great idea and we have a history of success with it. Now we are able to ideate a new vision for our region during WDC2024 and beyond. It’s a character defining moment!

And I wish to carry this idea through the WDC year as one of its on-going legacy goals. #LFGSD!

Pop-Up Pandemic Plazas and Parklets

Innovation Districts, Public Space, San Diego, Urban Design, Urban Planning

PopUp1

Three Types of Open Air Spaces

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Pop Up Parklet

PopUp3

Pop Up Plaza

PopUp4

Pop Up San Diego Scenario

PopUp5

Pop Up Spaces Defined

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Pop Up Plaza, Parklet and Full Block Plaza

These illustrations and site plans are intended to assist our cities in enabling open-air markets in streets and rights-of-way. A follow up to the Podcast interview I had with Andrew Keatts this week (click here), the math shows that a full block provides the most area to enable more dining and shopping to be located in neighborhood centers located every half-mile or so apart. These ‘streateries’ would be managed and operated by local Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and Main Street organizations in order to be equitable across the city without it being shop by shop and coordinate efforts and resources (money) to enable us to have a safe place to go to dine in/out, shop in/out, and communicate with others.

San Diego simply doesn’t have enough local parks and plazas to handle the excess space needed to bring small businesses back to our neighborhoods. These places are intended to help small businesses reopen, as well as provide more public space to safely re-emerge from our homes and back into our neighborhoods. These standards would mitigate for social distancing while allowing the local shops to expand their capacity with the biggest issues to be planned for are conflicts between cars and people and maintaining socializing distancing.

The state is beginning to allow shops and restaurants to reopen at 50% capacity and still offer take out service. These plazas are intended to provide that other 50% capacity to help these businesses. In these standard 3-feet by 5-feet ‘safe zones,’ surrounded by a 6-feet social distancing area, are able to comfortably provide a table with two chairs, or a merchandise display, clothing racks, and a place to sit and wait for food while enjoying beverages in the summer time. They’re a safe relief value from the past 3 months of quarantine.

Importantly, American Disabilities Act standards are maintained. Stormwater runoff at the curb is maintained. And, a 15-foot clear fire access lane is maintained through the center of the streetscape as these spaces are marked off by tape and paint. The traffic barriers and reflective tape/paint costs money by the BIDs and local municipalities. The maintenance, cleaning, and daily operation will be a public-private partnership with local shops being active participants in managing these new public spaces. The shops that front onto the space, as well as in the immediate surrounding area, are able to benefit from this extra area and enhance the experience with lighting, signage, shade, seating, and sounds.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (@NACTO) has recently shared its open Streets for Pandemic Recovery design guidelines here. And, a favorite colleague,  Mike Lydon of @Streetplans, is leading a national Open Streets effort, which can be heard/seen here.

We rarely go out shopping and dining to stimulate the economy. The quality of these dining or shopping experiences will entice us to spend time and money because we go places for the experience. Opening streets to businesses involves a plan and design outcome that makes being there worth the time spent. I hope these are useful in starting that plan and beginning the design of our brave new world… outdoors!

Conservation of Culture Conversation

Public Space, San Diego, Urban Design

In the past, our culture (music, socializing, celebrations, food, worshipping) had secure foundations in public buildings, streets, squares and plazas (church, concert hall, theater, pub, halls, and markets), and in the private home.

Our parents added television, cars, the highway, and suburbia to these public and private places (drive-in theaters, drive-thru diners, freeway overpass protests, tv movies, tv evangelist, tv news, home theaters, homes cafes, home entertainment, backyard pools), shifting our culture towards a more private life.

Today, we are adding smart phone technology to these public and private spaces while shifting away from insular private suburban culture and towards a more balanced public and private life. These smart phones are our 21st century version of urban renewal, allowing us to re-inhabit and re-animate public buildings, streets, squares, and plazas cheaper, faster, and with more friends and family.

Within a century, everything has changed with how we share music, socialize, celebrate, eat, worship, and share our selfies with smartphone technology in our daily lives/culture. And, with this pandemic… it’s dramatically changing again. See you on the other side!

In reference to Roger Scruton’s article, https://www.futuresymphony.org/why-musicians-need-philosophy/

How to Enable Social Housing in San Diego

San Diego, Urban Planning

The Trouble with California’s Constitution Article 34

We Californians added a state constitutional requirement in 1950 for voter approval before the building of any public housing. Article 34 was passed then because the real estate industry argued that public housing is publicly funded infrastructure similar to schools or roads, and that taxpayers should have a right to vote on low-income housing projects. At that time, the campaign also stoked racist fears about integrating neighborhoods along with the McCarthy-era rhetoric about the need to combat socialism (sounds terribly familiar to our health care and higher education dialog today).

The Supreme Court of the United States upheld Article 34 in the early 1970s. And today, State Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) has introduced legislation to repeal the Article on the 2020 statewide ballot. San Diego is experiencing an acute housing crisis. The State is instructing cities to lower regulatory barriers to building Affordable Housing (AH), and San Diego has complied with some parking reductions, an AH incentive program, and other tools to assist private and non-profit developers to build more AH housing. However, all are encumbered by high land and labor costs with the majority of the savings on the cost of newly constructed buildings found in permitting and processing, which is a low percentage of the cost of housing.

Public housing built on public land is provides the cheapest delivery mechanism to build cheaper housing for people who cannot afford market rate housing. Bottom line, the land is the cheapest, the labor is well-negotiated, the outcomes are more predictable than using subsidies, waivers, and other regulatory tools to subsidize new construction. The City of San Diego needs to build 12,000 new units annually to keep up with demand (we might build half that on a good year), and we’re trying to double our production with one hand tied behind our back by only relying on private development transactions. We’re in a crisis and it’s time to untie the other hand.

HousingProductionSanDiego

The following are my recommendations for how our region’s cities, and City and County of San Diego can begin to build public housing:

  • Build local state governance representative support for Senator Allen’s bill to repeal Article 34 via Honorable Toni Atkins and Hon. Lorena Gonzalez. Because this will need political will from the Democratic/Labor left, public housing offers the incentive of more construction and management jobs and housing opportunities for trade workers.
  • Take the lead in proposing a statewide ballot proposition to repeal Article 34 by obtaining signatures from 8% of the registered voters who voted (12,464,235 total votes) in the most recent election for governor. This is impossible as we’d need 997,139 of signatures @ $6.20 per signature = $6,182,260.00!
  • Lead a local ballot measure to ask for a majority public vote on allowing the county and cities to build Low-Income (Subsidized) housing on City, County, Agency, and State lands. Initiated by either a petition signed by registered voters or via State Legislature such as Ms Gonzalez or Ms. Atkins, which again needs political will from the Democratic/Labor left, offering more trade jobs and housing opportunities for trade workers is the incentive for their support.
  • Build Middle Income, non-subsidized “Essential Workers” housing that is above the subsidized state-defined Moderate-Income Affordable Housing program, which is >120% AMI. Average Median Income (AMI) for all counties established by HUD is $64,800 for 2019, which is $77,760. San Diego’s annual median income is $76,662. Start building Median Income Housing for rent on City and County lands today betting that Article 34 will be repealed and you’ll have future AH housing stock available – This could be done in conjunction with a non-profit education platform to help local citizens strengthen their neighborhoods through small-scale real estate projects. The Incremental Development Workshop trains small-scaled developers to build capacity and value for locals to be education on how to use San Diego’s inherent land values (as owner/developers or trades/labor) to invest in their own neighborhoods, retain their stake in a neighborhoods, and raise values lot-by-lot without displacement. Importantly, this could be financed by allowing local municipalities to borrow against their assets and rental income in the same way as registered providers and the private sector.

A common fear over this method of delivering AH is the possibility of skewing the housing construction market’s ability to fill any new market demands/needs. Our construction costs today are going through the roof (and has historically) as the ability to attract and retain construction workers in an expensive housing market makes workers scarce. So, the concern about the potential pressure on the existing skilled labor force is very real and illustrates the need for cheaper housing in our region.

In other places with skill shortages, such as the UK and middle-America, they are turning to establishing factories to create homes using modern modular methods of construction.
The rise and fall of our housing market influences the amount of Inclusionary Housing fees collected, which exacerbates the one-hand-tied-behind-our-back conundrum. And to build a significant amount of AH, we need new housing starts funded by developers’ contributions and any reduction in these contributions has a considerable effect on the  availability of AH. As a capitalist society there are always uncertainties in the market related to finance, labor force to construct housing, professional skills and shifts in the proportions of dwellings in each of the 10 housing market types.

Here are the ten (10) types of housing markets in San Diego (and who is responsible for building each type):

  1. Low/Mid-Rise New Construction Housing for Sale (National, Regional, Local developers/builders);
  2. Low/Mid-Rise New Construction Housing for Rent (National, Regional, Local developers/builders);
  3. High-Rise New Construction Housing for Sale (National, Regional, Local developers/builders, Trades);
  4. High-Rise New Construction Housing for Rent (National, Regional, Local developers/builders, Trades);
  5. New Affordable Housing for Rent (Housing Commissions + Non-Profit AH Developers, Trades);
  6. New Special Needs/Workforce Housing (Housing Commissions + AH Non-Profit developers, Trades)
  7. Existing Special Needs/Workforce housing (Housing Commissions + AH Non-Profit developers, Trades)
  8. Existing Housing Stock for Sale (Investors/Homeowners);
  9. Existing Housing Stock for Rent (Investors/Homeowners)
  10. New Custom and Self-Built Housing (Investors/Homeowners).

There are two (2) additional types of housing missing in San Diego that are available to other human beings in other parts of the world:

  1. Social Housing for Sale (Agencies, Housing Commissions + Trades);
  2. Social Housing for Rent (Agencies, Housing Commissions + Trades).

A hard truth is that our well-trained construction trades limit worker availability capacity (scarcity) that drives up construction costs. Another hard truth is that cheaper labor doesn’t offer the same level of quality . Affordable Housing built in private low to mid-rise development mostly excludes Trades Labor. And, Trades are used for all high-rise development, for rent or for sale, because of the expert skills needed to construction tall buildings. And, the trades-only construction scenario for AH/Special needs housing is detrimental to the cost of construction but imperative to the political will to build it. In my opinion, this illustrated clearly the failure of capitalism.

The need for more construction workers is real. The need for housing to house new construction workers to live in is a chicken/egg conundrum San Diego has had to deal with for a century. And, it is a common insistence from the development industry that the nation is suffering from a labor shortage.

So, the best solution is to cultivate a local construction trade industry, rather than hope to poach workers from other cities. San Diego City College has a trade apprenticeship program that a national developer is working with to building their own General Contracting company to build a new project in San Diego. This is the future of construction.

These are my recommendations to deal with the labor market via private corporate leadership (Chamber, Trades, Economic Development Corporation’s role):

  • Build up skills to support housing delivery including labor trades, capital program accountants, legal and structural engineers as well planners and surveyors;
  • Assume that some housing will need to be provided with direct involvement of local municipality;
  • Recognize that corporate leadership is central to success in housing delivery;
  • Recognize the role of local industrial strategies in supporting local housing needs for a full range of dwelling types that can house people who can support the local and regional economy.

These are my recommendations to enable social housing in local municipalities:

  • Understand the Cities, County, and Agencies have different buckets of money to access and land taxation rules than neighboring cities;
  • Recognize in housing finance policy that the number and mix of homes required in San Diego over the next forty years cannot be provided entirely by private sector funding;
  • Consider the role of the municipality as a patient investor in its area;
  • Consider providing all 12 types of housing that might be required for local needs if this is not being met by other providers;
  • Establish a housing and planning delivery team to manage the implementation of all housing plans regardless of public or private proponent;
  • Establish a housing delivery board to monitor progress and delivery;
  • Establish a housing delivery forum of all providers in the area to meet regularly to discuss progress and problems;
  • Establish a housing intervention fund to help overcome issues on individual sites (funding can be made as a grant, a loan or in return for development equity);
  • Promote how housing supports the local economic objectives (e.g. retention of younger professionals and graduates living in and moving to the area);
  • Assess all sites in municipality ownership for housing suitability;
  • Include more detailed housing delivery outcomes in SANDAG’s annual monitoring report;
  • Consider purchasing land for housing as an investment for the longer term;
  • Work in conjunction with non-profit education platforms, such as local Labor/Trades Unions, LISC, and NeighborWorks, to trains locals construction trades and how to be small-scaled developers to build capacity and value for locals to be education on how to use San Diego’s inherent land values (as owner/developers or trades/labor) to invest in their own neighborhood through small-scale real estate projects. The Incremental Development Workshops encourages locals to retain their stake in a neighborhoods, and raise values lot-by-lot without displacement or outside forced gentrification, and;
  • Establish a funding subsidy program through grants for local authority direct delivery of housing and other mechanisms such as by bonding or the general fund.

I have in my hand a list of 135 known socialized housing projects throughout Vienna that prove this is a viable tool to addressing San Diego’s housing crisis. Thanks to Voice of San Diego and Unsplash for the graphics, and political consultant Andy Kopp for the inspiration.

Innovation Districts… in San Diego?

Innovation Districts, San Diego, Urban Design, Urban Planning

Innovation Districts are a contemporary economic development model focused on geographic areas where medical institutions (Med), research universities (Ed), and technology industry companies (Ted) are purposely clustered and connected with entrepreneurs, start-ups, accelerators, and incubators. These new era economic generators are a market shift from previously isolated suburban research parks towards mixed-use, walkable, amenity-rich places. These Med-Ed-Ted hubs, innovation districts, are useful tools to provide a competitive advantage for large swaths of a city over a single, isolated, private development project.

A question is when is an Innovation Districts more of a big picture policy/vision organizing and fundraising tool or a more refined geographical place defined by its regulatory structure?

THE IDEA DISTRICT – East Village, San Diego

In downtown San Diego, California, Local developers, David Malmuth and Peter Garcia of IDEA1, have identified and marketed their project in East Village as an Innovation District as an ‘education corridor’ from Balboa Park to Petco Park. These types of districts are well documented by urban scholar Bruce Katz here in 2016 and 2019. And a great model of success is found in San Francisco’s Mission Bay, one of the 20 or so of successful innovation districts across the nation.

Innovation District success is found, as Mr. Katz has written, “… in their complexity and integration of what was previously separated and ‘siloed’— people, quality of place, and innovation.” One of San Francisco’s Mission Bay accomplishments is found in its governance, which is evolving from the alignment of strategies and tenants to more sophisticated interventions around place-making. Another of its successes is found in attracting anchor companies, such as Dropbox in Mission Bay, as well as Quicken Loans in Detroit, Comcast in Philadelphia, and Amazon in Seattle’s South Lake Union.

Important urban design elements listed by Mr. Katz include providing a platform for various activities. This means its jobs and work, R&D and education, the arts and transportation. This variety provides the necessary critical mass to support each other. Scientist and creatives, teachers and residents, artists and employees, entrepreneurs and students. The scale and intensity cultivate an ‘eco-system’ that grows innovation and creativity that competes from the local to national scales. These plug into the existing economic infrastructure and governance, which infuse it with civic champions, business entrepreneurs, and leadership. And, finally, Mr. Katz says these big moves led to many small wonders that creates interest and complexity to what is replacing the conventional Class A Business Park model.

While the education anchors (City College and UCSD International Studies) are found in San Diego’s East Village today, it lacks a few of the key ingredients listed above to form a successful Innovation District. Importantly, an important portion of downtown’s governance is transitioning from Civic San Diego to the City of San Diego Development Services Department (DSD) with Civic San Diego still retaining some its economic development functions, such as Tax Credits, but losing its planning, permitting, and parking district oversight.

While a very real shift with intended and unintended consequences, this change appears to be an opportunity to better align the city’s planning/permitting of private property with its traffic, transportation and parks duties. Historically, these services have been ‘siloed’ and this shift might be an opportunity to better align the implementation of the Downtown Mobility Plan with new projects being entitled in East Village to craft a distinctive Innovation District to strategically attract anchor company tenants.

The City of San Diego’s Economic Development Department, and local Non-Government Organizations, the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and Downtown Partnership, provide incentive programs for new businesses to locate downtown. And, this may be an opportune time to advocate for a dedicated Innovative District with additional incentives and municipal services available to private development, possibly via a Joint Power Authority consisting of a combination of City of San Diego Economic Development Department (Christina Bibler), EDC (Mark Cafferty), Civic San Diego (Andrew Phillips), SD City College (Ricky Shabazz), UC San Diego (Mary Walshok), and California State University (Adam Day) agencies, or some other enabling tool post-redevelopment to purposely provide a competitive advantage for East Village over San Diego’s rival innovation hubs across the US West and beyond.

Why Design (still) Matters!

San Diego, Urban Design

I have running dialog (troll) with a pessimistic friend about the value of our jobs and which of us is cumbersome to this world (yes, I’m listening to Rock Hits ’96 on iTunes… it’s Friday afternoon). And, I had been on the losing end of the troll on the value of urban design in the midst of our coastal cities long-standing housing crisis. His contemporary point is that designing for highest and best use raises existing land values and because everything is already too expensive good design is framed today as an agent of gentrification, and something to avoid.

Times have changed. My past assumptions are regularly challenged in this early 21-century new socio-political context. And, in my circle (social class) of friends and colleagues, I see increasing anxiety as we feel left behind economically and ‘good design’ is only valued by the wealthy to create investor opportunities. See, I was losing!

Searching, I found this terrific article on What makes a beautiful place, by Tristan Cleveland, a researcher at Happy City. And his point on the value of beauty beautifully translated to my points on the value of urban design, which I’ve restated from Mr. Cleveland’s brilliant prose with the following turn:

At the human scale: Design makes a difference in our lives by helping us feel safe and comfortable while walking and socializing in our neighborhoods, which helps us feel happier and experience a deeper sense of belonging to places and people.

And,

At the city scale: Design makes a difference in enabling cities to more easily attract and retain residents and businesses with inviting public streets, civic spaces, and interesting places. Well-designed places are a practical and essential way to bring vitality and dignity to city living.

I think I’m winning… what do you think?

A Better Transit Network in San Diego

Climate Action Plan, San Diego, Transit, Urban Design

(Original Post: https://sandiego.urbdezine.com/2019/01/26/walkable-transit-san-diego/)

At last week’s State of the City address, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer enthusiastically stated, “I want to radically overhaul the system itself. The bureaucracy has been set up to empower anti-housing forces that delay or deny projects at every tum… We need to build more housing near employment centers and transit.”

This is a rejection of our long-standing, auto-oriented, one-size-fits-all approach to city making. Fortunately, in 2008, our City of Villages plan began to shift the standards of new construction of private development from single-family, single-use land use outcomes towards more mixed-use buildings and blocks filled with offices, shops, affordable housing, and market-rate homes. This proclamation officially transitions San Diego from focusing on suburban outcomes, as we have for the past 60+ years, to building within our urban neighborhoods.

Now it’s time to do the same for our transit services.

With the Mayor’s emphasis on using transit to connect our employment centers to new housing construction, it is time to shift our transit modes from its one-size-fits-all, over-reliance on Light Rail Transit (LRT – The Trolley) to a mix of transit modes. The problem today is that our Trolley acts like Commuter Rail by linking downtown to Santee and the border, as well as acting like a Streetcar by linking downtown’s Little Italy to Gaslamp. No matter where it is in the city, the trolley stops every 15 minutes at over 56 stations. Plus, it is limited in its ability to climb hillsides to access and serve the neighborhoods and districts located on our mesas.

With its one-size-fits-all use, our Trolley does not really perform to its fullest LRT function, nor is it capable of being a true Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or Streetcar. LRT is a fixed-rail system intended to serve city-to-city, such as connecting Chula Vista to La Mesa to Santee. BRT is intended to serve community-to-community, such as North Park to City Heights to Rolando. And, Streetcars are intended to serve neighborhood center to neighborhood center within each community, such as from North Park’s 30th street from Adams Avenue to Upas.

Our city’s new Rapid Bus service is essentially an Express Bus, or BRT-Lite, that flows with traffic, stopping at streetlights, and merging with all traffic on the freeways with 15-minute waits between buses. We do have a short segment of BRT, but it is located on a half-mile stretch on Park Boulevard in Hillcrest. And, we have one historic Streetcar circling a downtown loop on our LRT tracks. These limited modes are our best opportunity to quickly expand access to our city with cheaper and lighter forms of transit.

We need a mixed-modal, walkable to/from transit network to compete with the auto-oriented infrastructure we’ve built over the past 60+ years. It is easier to drive a car around than to take transit because we purposely designed and invested to do. San Diego needs to add BRT on major corridors and local neighborhood Streetcars to connect our mix of surface street buses and fixed rail trolley network.

Since 2013, San Diego has been a member city of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), who state in their Transit Street Design Guide (Island Press, 2016, page 178)  “Cities with both buses and a dedicated right-of-way rail system (LRT) have historically structured the former (bus) as a feeder service to the latter (LRT). Bus Rapid Transit can be used to upgrade new parts of the network into trunklines… Streetcars and Buses can also form a multi-hub network.” Just last month the City of San Diego’s Development Services Department stated that it, “is allowing the incorporation of NACTO design concepts as presented in the Urban Street Design Guide (Island Press, 2013),” to plan and design projects. These new rules will permit more dedicated BRT and Streetcar lines throughout the city.

The hierarchy of San Diego’s full-range of public transit service modes are as follows:

  • Heavy Rail (Amtrak) – Connects San Diego to Los Angeles and the nation a few times a day;
  • Commuter Rail (Coaster) – Connects three coastal cities at peak hour times;
  • Light Rail (Trolley + Sprinter) – Connects Santee, San Ysidro to San Diego (with a new line up to University City next year) and Oceanside, San Marcos to Escondido with frequent stops every half-mile or more. Our bus networks feeds into our main LRT lines;
  • Bus Rapid Transit – Easily retrofitted into our wide streets with dedicated bus lanes, separated from traffic, and given priority at intersections to be competitive timewise with local car trips. These connect our canyons (Mission Valley) to our mesas (Clairemont Mesa and Rolando);
  • Express Bus (Rapid & Breeze) – These run faster schedule by not making as many stops as than normal bus services between the same two commuter or destination points on quicker routes;
  • Local Bus – The bulk of our transit service with stops every quarter-mile throughout the city;
  • Streetcars – Modern and historic cars that run on rails that usually flows with traffic on main streets and connects neighborhood to neighborhood;
  • Shuttles (Paratransit, Flex & Lift) – Connects people with daily service and those of us with physical, cognitive, and visual disabilities throughout the city.

The hierarchy of San Diego’s full-range of private mobility modes are as follows:

  • Shuttles (Airport Shuttles, Van Share) – Connects people with daily service and those of us with physical, cognitive, and visual disabilities throughout the city.
  • Bicycles & Jitney facilities – Connects people up to three to five miles comfortably at a slower speed;
  • Pedestrians & scooter facilities – Connect us up to a quarter to half mile distance at a walkable pace.

To support our Mayor’s vision for San Diego, we need to build a more sustainable transit network that focuses on connecting job centers to neighborhood centers with BRT and interconnecting Streetcar lines. Our zoning requires our new housing to be constructed as mixed-use and accessible by pedestrians. The new BRT study investment our City Councilmembers, Georgette Gomez and Chris Ward, announced this week is the right start to building the right mix of transit types to connect new housing with job centers.