Scan barcode
A review by treyhunner
Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck
5.0
I really enjoyed this read. Below are some tidbits that I found interesting from various sections of this book.
Car Traffic (Step 1):
- Traffic studies are meaningless due to induced demand: increasing the supply of roadways lowers the time cost of driving which causes more people to drive and obliterates any potential reductions an congestion
- There is a strong correlation between a metropolitan area's average traffic speed and its fuel use: more congestion means less fuel per capita and less congestion means more fuel per capita.
Parking (Step 3):
- The subsidy for employer-paid "free" parking amounts to 22 cents per mile driven to work and reduces the price of automotive commuting by 71%. Eliminating this subsidy would have the same impact as a gasoline tax of somewhere between $1.27-$3.74 per gallon.
- There are half a billion empty parking spaces in America at any given time (as of 2010).
- When private parking is outlawed and public parking minimums are set, the amount of needed parking spaces can be limited.
Transit (Step 4):
- When there's more transit, even non-transit users walk more: when more than 25% of workers take transit, more than 10% walk and when fewer than 5% take transit, fewer than 3% walk. Cities tend to be setup to support either driving or everything else.
- Walkability benefits from good transit, but good transit relies *absolutely* on good transit
- Investments in transit aren't investments in reduced traffic. The only way to reduce traffic is to reduce roads or increase the cost of using roads.
Pedestrians (Step 5):
- On most streets, a road diet (a dedicated left turn lane in the center) doesn't increase a street's carrying capacity.
- Though road diets are great when done right, left-hand turn lanes inserted where they aren't needed or made longer than needed make for roads that are one lane too wide which often removes the parking lane.
- Widening street lanes doesn't increase safety, it decreases it (just like distributing guns to deter crime).
- Risk homeostasis explains why the deadliest intersections are the ones that drivers can navigate without paying close attention because they feel safe.
- Sidewalk design has almost nothing to do with pedestrian safety: what makes sidewalks safe is whether it's protected by parked cars.
Bikes (Step 6):
- Passing cars give more elbow room to bicyclists without helmets, but this risk homeostasis is deceptive because most bicycle fatalities are due to head injuries.
- Trees help keep neighborhoods cool, so less AC is needed but more importantly they're a very effective carbon sink. Urban trees are 10 times more effective than more distant vegetation at absorbing car exhaust before it hits the atmosphere.
Car Traffic (Step 1):
- Traffic studies are meaningless due to induced demand: increasing the supply of roadways lowers the time cost of driving which causes more people to drive and obliterates any potential reductions an congestion
- There is a strong correlation between a metropolitan area's average traffic speed and its fuel use: more congestion means less fuel per capita and less congestion means more fuel per capita.
Parking (Step 3):
- The subsidy for employer-paid "free" parking amounts to 22 cents per mile driven to work and reduces the price of automotive commuting by 71%. Eliminating this subsidy would have the same impact as a gasoline tax of somewhere between $1.27-$3.74 per gallon.
- There are half a billion empty parking spaces in America at any given time (as of 2010).
- When private parking is outlawed and public parking minimums are set, the amount of needed parking spaces can be limited.
Transit (Step 4):
- When there's more transit, even non-transit users walk more: when more than 25% of workers take transit, more than 10% walk and when fewer than 5% take transit, fewer than 3% walk. Cities tend to be setup to support either driving or everything else.
- Walkability benefits from good transit, but good transit relies *absolutely* on good transit
- Investments in transit aren't investments in reduced traffic. The only way to reduce traffic is to reduce roads or increase the cost of using roads.
Pedestrians (Step 5):
- On most streets, a road diet (a dedicated left turn lane in the center) doesn't increase a street's carrying capacity.
- Though road diets are great when done right, left-hand turn lanes inserted where they aren't needed or made longer than needed make for roads that are one lane too wide which often removes the parking lane.
- Widening street lanes doesn't increase safety, it decreases it (just like distributing guns to deter crime).
- Risk homeostasis explains why the deadliest intersections are the ones that drivers can navigate without paying close attention because they feel safe.
- Sidewalk design has almost nothing to do with pedestrian safety: what makes sidewalks safe is whether it's protected by parked cars.
Bikes (Step 6):
- Passing cars give more elbow room to bicyclists without helmets, but this risk homeostasis is deceptive because most bicycle fatalities are due to head injuries.
- Trees help keep neighborhoods cool, so less AC is needed but more importantly they're a very effective carbon sink. Urban trees are 10 times more effective than more distant vegetation at absorbing car exhaust before it hits the atmosphere.