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How to correct Chicago's open space shortage: 10 ideas that could help city's ... - Chicago Tribune (blog)

2011-10-15T05:40:37Z

How to correct Chicago's open space shortage: 10 ideas that could help city's ...
Chicago Tribune (blog)
It's no pipe dream, as a vote Wednesday by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning showed. The agency green-lighted the release of millions of dollars in federal funds to the proposed Bloomingdale Trail, a nearly 3-mile-long public park and bike ...

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Water-meter pitch may not be such a bad deal after all - Chicago Tribune (blog)

2011-10-15T19:58:38Z

Water-meter pitch may not be such a bad deal after all
Chicago Tribune (blog)
I called the Citizens Utility Board watchdog group and Josh Ellis, who oversees water resource issues for the independent Metropolitan Planning Council. They had nothing bad to say about MeterSave. And though one of my editors told me she had an issue ...

10-5-11 Poll: Should nonprofits manage scattered site rentals?

2011-10-11T19:03:50Z

Click "continued":http://www.rooflines.org/2425/10-5-11_poll_should_nonprofits_manage_scattered_site_rentals/ to see selected feedback.

Challenging Markets, Innovative Financing

2011-10-13T20:05:31Z

A contract-for-deed program making headway in North Minneapolis offers another look at how using the CLT model to offer potential homeowners once saddled with bad credit can turn into an opportunity to attain a permanently affordable home, while taking on the accountability of owning a home.

"Project: Reclaim":http://urbanhomeworks.com/index.php/housing/buy-a-home/reclaim, a collaboration between the faith-based nonprofit "Urban Homeworks":http://urbanhomeworks.com/ and the "City of Lakes Community Land Trust":http://www.clclt.org/ sells restored homes to low- and moderate-income homeowners who suffer from credit challenges or from tightening financing guidelines. The homes are sold through a low-interest contract for deed with a portion of the interest placed into a reserve account for the homeowner to use as a down payment when it's time to refinance.

A New Manual for “Living Streets”

2011-10-06T19:39:36Z

So if you were going to start fixing the streets of the United States — making them more safe for human beings, more pleasant, less dominated by speed and fumes and metal — where would you begin to think about it?

American streets don't have to look like this. Photo: waltarrrr via Flickr.

What about starting in the city that has come over time to symbolize the worst excesses of American car culture? What about starting in Los Angeles?

Well, today the Department of Health of the County of Los Angeles released a “Model Design Manual for Living Streets,” a resource for cities that want to make their streets into places where people can lead healthy, active lives:

This manual focuses on all users and all modes, seeking to achieve balanced street design that accommodates cars while ensuring that pedestrians, cyclists and transit users can travel safely and comfortably. This manual also incorporates features to make streets lively, beautiful, economically vibrant as well as environmentally sustainable.

We’re pleased to say that two members of the PPS team — Gary Toth, senior director of transportation initiatives, and project manager Pippa Brashear — contributed to the manual, along with a diverse group of people from around the country who care about making our streets more livable.

Problematic streets can be found everywhere in the country, and this manual is by no means just about Los Angeles. It’s is available at no cost to any municipality that wants to use it, and can be adapted to pretty much any situation:

Cities may use this manual in any way that helps them update their current practices, including adopting the entire manual, adopting certain chapters in full or part, modifying or customizing chapters to suit each city’s needs….

Since many municipalities lack the resources to undertake a major revision of their manuals, this model manual offers a template for local jurisdictions to tailor to meet their specific needs. Additionally, to lower the cost-burden to cities, the manual there are recommendations to maximize benefits and minimize costs associated with street design. Vital streets, innovative parking policies, and desirable neighborhoods resulting from living streets can increase revenues for the cities above current levels. Research finds that cities often experience increased economic development after adopting elements of living streets.

Sound good? Start downloading.

Photo: waltarrrr via Flickr.

Washington Square Park + Piano = Joy

2011-10-07T17:51:39Z

One of the perks of working at PPS is the location. Our new office on Lafayette Street is a short walk from a lot of great stuff (heck, we’re right next door to the Public Theater), including one of the best public spaces in New York, the nation, or the world: Washington Square Park.

What makes it so great? Well, among many, many other things, there’s this cat:

A perfect day for a piano in Washington Square Park. Photo: Sarah Goodyear

His name is Colin Huggins, a.k.a. the Crazy Piano Guy. He’s not crazy, unless you think playing a piano in a New York park is crazy, which it isn’t. He’s a classically trained pianist who hauls his baby grand around the city “making people obnoxiously happy,” according to his Kickstarter page, where earlier this year he successfully raised the cash to buy a new set of keys. And one of his regular venues is Washington Square.

Today being a beautiful, sunny fall Friday, the park was packed when I went there to eat my lunch. Colin played a few numbers to an appreciative crowd before taking a break. While he was tuning a couple of errant strings, a middle-aged guy with bright blue hair came up to him and said, “So, you got the baby grand, hunh? Now you’ve hit the big time.” Colin just smiled.

Yeah, Washington Square Park. It’s the big time, all right.

The state of transit trackers in Chicago

2011-10-12T13:07:03Z

A CTA passenger waits for a train in the snow at Belmont Brown Line station. Photo by Mike Priorie.

Knowing when your bus or train is about to come can help you make better decisions. “Do I have enough time to get coffee from the shop across the street?” “Can I pack my own lunch today?” “If I miss this bus because I can’t find my good shoes, how long will it be to the next one”? I’m sure we’ve all asked ourselves these questions*. The Chicago Transit Authority’s transit tracking services can help with the answers.

What is Transit Tracker?

Transit Tracker is a service provided by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) that provides information on when a bus or train will arrive at a specific stop or station. The information is given as a “countdown timer” based on the vehicle’s current position, the schedule, and historical arrival data (which may include recently recorded travel times). (Transit Tracker is not a name that CTA uses, but a generic term I’m using to represent both of their services, “Bus Tracker” and “Train Tracker”.)

Bus Tracker was launched on August 5, 2006, as a pilot program at a single bus stop for route 20/Madison; an electronic message board was installed in the bus shelter. Over a year later in March 2008, the CTA added bus tracker to thirteen routes that could be accessed via CTABusTracker.com. The last routes were added in May 2009.

Train Tracker was launched on January 8, 2011. I wrote about this launch and my involvement as a tester for CTA on Steven Can Plan.

How does Transit Tracker work

Bus Tracker uses Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) technologies present on the bus. A PC on the bus connects to GPS satellites to determine its current location; when a GPS signal is not available the PC uses the “deduced reckoning” method to determine how far it has likely moved since its last known location. These methods are very accurate and allow for the Automated Voice Annunciation System (AVAS) to announce the next stop at precisely the right time. Bus Tracker is based on Clever Devices’s BusTime product.

Instead of GPS, Train Tracker uses block signaling technology on the tracks to determine the approximate location of the train (read more on Chicago-L.org). A train can only be identified by the block it occupies, a length of track longer than a single train. The estimated arrival times are generated “by first measuring how long it takes a train to travel a portion of track and then averaging the times of the last five trains to move across a portion of track” (Train Tracker press release, January 8, 2011). Train Tracker was developed in house and uses QuicTrak software by QEI, Inc.

Both trackers provide passengers with estimated or predicted arrival times.

What has happened since Transit Tracker started?

After a Chicagoan reverse engineered the Bus Tracker feeds and wrote documentation for others to access the feeds, the CTA formally released an application programming interface (API, the feeds) and its own documentation. It then encouraged developers to use the API to build apps for the web, mobile devices, and other platforms (like dashboards in Mac and Windows). The CTA website features these apps.

For my Android HTC Sensation, I use Chicago Transit Tracker Lite although I just installed Transit Tracks tonight after a friend recommended it to me. Both allow you to add favorite bus stops and can locate nearby stops. I’ve posted a more detailed comparison.

APIs are available for buses, trains, and customer alerts. The CTA also provides for download the same data that Google Maps and other platforms use to generate maps and trips for using transit (called General Transit Feed Specification, or GTFS).

How often is Bus Tracker used

In 2009, the CTA changed thousands of bus stop signs with new signs that included instructions for customers to use the Bus Tracker program using a cellphone with text messaging capabilities. This program greatly expanded the potential user base for Bus Tracker to those without mobile web access, or web access at home.

I asked the CTA for information on its Bus Tracker by text message system for retrieving bus arrival times via text messaging (SMS). This feature was introduced on December 22, 2009. The CTA signed a two-year contract with TextMarks, an SMS marketing firm, to provide one million text messages per month. The CTA pays $3,500 per month for this service, or 3.5 cents per text message; it does get rollover messages.

I also asked the CTA for usage information. The results are fantastic: people are querying the system often! And it looks like so often enough that the CTA will have to upgrade its monthly plan (see table 1 below).

Why SMS access is important

The CTA should provide services universally to all passengers, agnostic to the technological capabilities of each passenger. Instead of creating its own iPhone or Android applications, the CTA rightfully abstained from this and instead created the ecosystem for private developers to do so. In addition to the ecosystem, the CTA has created a small market for those developers who have paid apps.

While it is easy for customers to access the official bus tracker website from home or work on a personal computer, not everyone has the equipment to access the helpful information on the go. Providing the service by SMS made the service more equitable. Some statistics follow:

“Some 83% of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73%) send and receive text messages” (Pew 1).
Only 44% of cell phone users access the internet (Pew 2)
As for smartphones, ”One third of American adults (35%) own a smartphone of some kind” (Pew 2).
80% of smartphone users access the internet (Pew 2).
There’s a significant population of Americans who reported mostly using their smartphone to go online, about 25%. One-third of this population lacks a home broadband connection. (Pew 3)

What are the benefits of Transit Tracker

W Grocer in Wicker Park provides a bus tracker display at the checkout counter. If it’s raining outside, you can wait inside for a few minutes until the bus comes.

A Transit Tracker doesn’t only benefit a transit agency’s customers; the transit agency can receive its own benefits. I’ve listed their benefits in two categories: customer facing, and internal support.

Customer facing

Transit trackers have been shown to increase passengers’ perception of the quality of service the transit agency provides. The following excerpt comes from a report about the OneBusAway tracker in Seattle, Washington.

There are two principal reasons for providing better transit traveler information: 1) to increase satisfaction among current riders; and 2) to increase ridership, especially among new or infrequent transit users and for non-peak hour trips.

It has been shown that transit traveler information can result in a mode-shift to public transportation. This stems from the riders’ ability to feel more in control of their trip, including their time spent waiting and their perception of safety. Existing studies…have shown that the ability to determine when the next vehicle is coming brings travelers’ perception of wait time in line with the true time spent waiting. Transit users value knowing how long their wait is, or whether they have just missed the last bus. In addition, it has been found that providing real-time information significantly increases passenger feelings of safety.

Download the report from University of Washington (PDF). I’ve provided a longer summary of this report on Steven Can Plan.

The variety of applications built on the Transit Tracker platform also help to create better opportunities to provide focused tools for people with different cognitive and physical abilities. These tools may be provided by the transit agency, or by the developers using the APIs.

Grid Chicago is in support of programs and policies that increase the population’s use of transit. Transit Tracker provides passengers with accurate information about the movement of transit vehicles enabling them to make the appropriate choices about their trips. They improve service reliability which has the real effect of attracting new customers.

Internal support

The “enabling technologies”, the systems that power the location and announcement systems, are also used to monitor the transit vehicle’s operational status. The following advantages were identified in a report for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) about the return on investment of real-time travel information (transit trackers).

Improved schedule/planning efficiency – “The monitoring capability of enabling technologies together with the analysis of the data allows the agency/operator to make better long-term decisions about service planning.” Page 42
Improved operating performance – “Services that show poor operating performance (e.g. poor schedule adherence due to recurring congestion) can be altered to improve productivity and reduce the fleet, labor, equipment and other material requirements for operations.” Page 42
Incident response – “The control center may be able to track the location of all vehicles with a certain level of confidence to determine the impact of an incident or non-recurring congestion on operations. Dispatchers can use this information to devise service interventions or emergency operations in real- time.” Page 44

Download the report (DOC) from Booz Allen Hamilton for FTA or view in Google Docs.

The future of Transit Tracker

Governor Quinn signed legislation this year that requires the remaining Regional Transportation Authority service boards to implement transit trackers of their own. That means by July 1, 2012, Pace and Metra will have a service that provides passengers with real-time departure and arrival information.

The legislation didn’t provide guidance on how Pace and Metra will have to create these services. Advice is a stone’s throw away: they should consult the experts at CTA in order to create a robust arrival times service that works on many platforms and devices; they should also nurture a developer ecosystem to ensure that the information is broadcast in web and mobile applications.

Mayor Emanuel and Forrest Claypool standing in front of a bus shelter with an LED bus tracker display. Photo by CEI Media Group.

CTA president Forrest Claypool and Mayor Emanuel announced in Hyde Park on Friday, September 30, 2011, the future installation of 400 LED bus tracker displays inside bus shelters. 150 signs will be installed by March 2012 – view a map of the first locations.

At least one developer is working on the “next generation” of trip planning apps.

Transitflow will be an iPhone app that helps you plan your travel in real-time. According to [Adam] Greenfield, the aim is “to take a step beyond generic journey-planning and timetable apps, and offer people something that will reduce or eliminate the kind of experiential hassles the current generation of interactive services does very little to address.”

It will do this by notifying you of relevant data at various points throughout your journey; for example telling you when to leave your home to catch a train and then, during the journey, advising you in real-time how long it will take to get to your destination. [emphasis added] (ReadWriteWeb)

Suggestions for improvement

I posted a message on the @GridChicago Twitter asking people for their suggestions on how to improve Transit Tracker. Here’s what they came up with:

The CTA’s transit trackers should explicitly mention when the next bus is (according to the schedule, even if it’s not coming soon), and when the last bus is (so you can plan to leave to catch that bus or any before it). The Bus Tracker website only shows the next buses up to 30 minutes away. PerilousApricot [The CTA's website bus tracker will say that "no service is scheduled for this stop at this time"; some app makers give confusing messages for times when there are no upcoming buses or no service.]
Post a QR code at each bus stop so people with smartphones can scan and get linked to a webpage with the estimated arrival times. Deprogrammer9
Provide historical arrival/departure data. It could be rich for analysis, such as quantifying real differences in commute times before/after service cuts. gensym [This data could also be used to measure travel speeds and congestion levels in different parts of the city.]

How do you think the CTA could improve or expand its bus and train tracking services?

Appendix

Table 1 – Incoming messages for Bus Tracker by text message

Month	Year	Messages	Rollover Messages Remaining
June	2010	222,675	777,325
July	2010	229,183	1,548,142
August	2010	347,981	2,200,161
September	2010	695,348	2,504,813
October	2010	954,917	2,549,896
November	2010	1,032,805	2,517,091
December	2010	994,930	2,522,161
January	2011	1,321,305	2,200,856
February	2011	1,587,552	1,613,304
March	2011	1,813,785	799,519
April	2011	1,735,321	64,198
May	2011	1,683,952	-619,754
June	2011	1,772,403	-1,392,157

Sources

Pew 1 - Americans and Text Messaging.

Pew 2 - Americans and Their Cell Phones.

Pew 3 – Smartphone Adoption and Usage.

*Okay, maybe not – I’ve never asked them myself. I rarely ride transit because I bike around town almost exclusively. Most of my trips this year on transit has been to visit suburbs for bike parking consultations, or to travel in a group to go out on the weekends.

Libertyville, IL: "Where Small Houses Mean Brisk Sales"

2011-09-29T18:37:13Z

The School Street Libertyville development in Libertyville, IL is the subject of the below piece from Marketwatch. Watch this community take off and design its way out of economic malaise:

Rahm's first budget: Hotel tax hike, library hours cut, parking fees up - Chicago Sun-Times (blog)

2011-10-12T04:59:30Z

Rahm's first budget: Hotel tax hike, library hours cut, parking fees up
Chicago Sun-Times (blog)
The Metropolitan Planning Council and Inspector General have endorsed congestion pricing. We owe it to our residents to deliver services in the most efficient and cost effective manner possible. Chicago's ward-based garbage system is obsolete and other ...

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DeKalb measures up well in collecting water data without state help - Dekalb Daily Chronicle

2011-10-13T10:30:47Z

DeKalb measures up well in collecting water data without state help
Dekalb Daily Chronicle
But in the wake of the state's budget crisis, other organizations such as the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council and Northwest Water Planning Alliance have formed to help the ISWS collect data about existing water resources. ...

The economics of bike sharing programs

2011-09-26T20:42:14Z

This past Thursday, on Chicagoland Car-free Day, the City of Chicago announced the release of a request for proposal to implement public bikeshare. Coincidentally—or perhaps not—the announcement came one day after Capital Bikeshare of Washington, DC celebrated its one-year anniversary.

Launched by Chicago's current Department of Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein (then of DDOT) under contract with an outside vendor, the iconic red bikes affectionately known in the District as "Cabis" have logged a million trips, making it the most successful bikeshare program in the country.

As noted in recently on the Huffington Post, Capital Bikeshare continues to expand outside the District and is exploring corporate sponsorship for supplying the capital expenditures needed to install the $50,000 docking stations (new stations inside D.C. are covered under CMAQ funding). London's system, Barclay's Cycle Hire, is an example of this solution.

While Huffpost states that the revenue stream generated by fees is not enough to cover the operating costs of the system (about $23,000 per station annually) both Josh Moskowitz of DDOT and Scott Kubly (formerly of DDOT, now of CDOT) assert that the operations and management for Capital Bikeshare is entirely self-sustaining—even profitable for the department.

Running public bikeshare in the black is of course a reasonable goal, but it should not be seen as an obstacle to implementing, maintaining and expanding systems. This perspective is short-term and reactionary because it is almost always championed by those who wish to limit such systems on principle and ignores the long-term cost savings to taxpayers.

The gamut of possible savings and economic benefits to the public was explored at length in Elly Blue's series of articles, "Bikonomics," on Grist.com this summer.

Air quality and particulate pollution alone cost United States taxpayers as much as $90 billion a year. Our car-centric lifestyle has played a major role in the increase of diabetes. One in 3 Americans born after the year 2000 will be afflicted with Type 2 Diabetes—which costs an estimated $116 billion per year.

In all, the indirect costs—those not paid for by the driver (coupled to gasoline, maintenance, parking, etc) and deferred “downstream” to the public—cost us hundreds of billions annually.

Those costs, including impacts to public space, real estate values and congestion are estimated at 39 cents per mile driven according to the website calculator True Cost of Driving. At 3 trillion miles driven in the US last year, that equals $1.17 trillion—about one third of the entire United States budget for 2011.

This alone justifies running any public transportation option at a deficit, especially bike share. Fiscal sustainability should be welcomed, but as a side-benefit. The number one metric in determining success should be ridership, e.g. vehicle miles prevented.

One million rides in Cabi’s first year have accrued nearly 890,000 miles. At 39 cents per potential vehicle miles prevented, Capital Bikeshare gave DC taxpayers a maximum net savings of almost $350,000 in its first year.

DC’s phenomenal success in bikeshare has elevated the offering to priority status with the planners of cities like New York City and now Chicago. It has also provided a valuable example of a public-private partnership in implementing a unified system across multiple jurisdictions, such as neighboring counties in Virginia and Maryland.

Last week, New York City announced it had signed a contract to implement a city-wide public system of 10,000 bikes and 600 stations.

Chicago’s RFP calls for an initial installation of 3,000 bikes and 300 stations, with another 2,000 bikes and 200 station by the end of Summer 2012. Read more on Chicago’s bikeshare RFP at Grid Chicago.

Image Gallery:

October is Walk to School Month!

2011-10-03T20:59:05Z

Walking and biking to school are great ways for students and families to get a daily dose of physical activity.

But that’s just part of the story.

When kids get active on their way to school, it improves air quality around schools, and students who bike and walk to school are likely to earn higher than average scores on standardized tests.

Every year, familes are invited to participate in International Walk to School Day, which always takes place the first Wednesday of October. This year, for the first time, communities can choose to extend their celebration during the entire month of October.

Are you and your children walking and biking to school this month? Is your school celebrating International Walk to School Day/Week/Month?

If so, here are just a few resources that can help you get started:

Active Trans offers free downloadable bike and pedestrian safety lessons.
Register your school’s Walk to School Day event. By registering, you can gain access to certificates, press releases and other goodies.
Get bike safety tips.
Request a visit from Chicago’s Safe Routes Ambassadors program.

Apps for Metro Chicago Illinois Round 2 Channeling the Community Spirit

2011-09-28T18:00:00Z

By Mandy Burrell Booth

Smart Cities Collaborative Executive Director Dan O’Neil will represent A4MC’s Esteemed Round 2 Judging Panel and Announce A4MC Community Round Finalists live at Public Voting Kickoff & Apps Showcase October 7th at Columbia College (Chicago) The A4MC Community Round Finalists will be announced at a Public Voting Kick-Off & A4MC App Showcase Friday October 7th at 3:00 pm at Columbia College 916 S. Wabash (Lobby on First Floor). Virginia Carlson, President of the Metro…

Bikers who text might not be long for Chicago - WBEZ

2011-10-03T10:37:30Z

WBEZ

Bikers who text might not be long for Chicago
WBEZ
Laurino said she has the support of the Active Transportation Alliance, as well as the Metropolitan Planning Council. If the ordinance passes committee, it would go to the full City Council on Wednesday. "We're just looking to level the playing field ...

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Charlotte, NC, Chicago Host Infrastructure Forums - Nation's Cities Weekly

2011-10-03T14:00:53Z

Nation's Cities Weekly

Charlotte, NC, Chicago Host Infrastructure Forums
Nation's Cities Weekly
The Chicago region has been very successful with regional collaboration on several levels. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) and the Metropolitan Planning Council (MCP) — partners with NLC in developing the programming for the event ...

America At A Loss For Transportation Funds - Forbes

2011-10-03T20:28:04Z

America At A Loss For Transportation Funds
Forbes
The United States has to find new ways to pay for roads and bridges—either through technological or financial innovation—or else learn to live without them, experts agreed at a Metropolitan Planning Council forum in Chicago Monday. ...

Bloomingdale Trail close to securing major federal funding - Chicago Tribune (blog)

2011-10-05T15:06:47Z

Bloomingdale Trail close to securing major federal funding
Chicago Tribune (blog)
The board of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning will vote Oct. 12 whether to grant its final approval to the project, said Luann Hamilton, a CDOT deputy commissioner. If no hitches occur at the federal level, design and engineering work could ...

Don’t X Out Public Transportation Day

2011-09-20T17:38:51Z

Our friends at the Metropolitan Planning Council invited CNU to participate in Don't X Out Public Transportation Day here in Chicago. Chicagoans, read below for the details on today's event, courtesy of the MPC. And for those of you outside Chicagoland, find a rally to attend today and tell Congress to maintain funding for public transit!

Chicagoland Public Spaces to be Highlighted in App Contest - Patch.com

2011-08-31T16:17:32Z

Chicagoland Public Spaces to be Highlighted in App Contest
Patch.com
But now the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) is looking for someone to develop an app that could help users discover great public spaces throughout the Chicago metro area. The nonprofit is holding a contest for any web developer or community group ...

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Arrested Development: Economy sunk subdivision dreams - MyWebTimes.com

2011-09-24T02:36:48Z

Arrested Development: Economy sunk subdivision dreams
MyWebTimes.com
Mandy Burrell Booth, of the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council, gave her take on the situation and agreed with Ottawa's approach. Burrell Booth said there seems to be more interest in living in urban environments, instead of suburban or rural ...