INTERSECT- Newsletter of the Washington Regional Network for Livable Communities Volume 10 Number 2 May 12, 2006 For back issues of Intersect, visit the Archived Newsletters Summary: D.C. Comprehensive Plan Advances to Final Round of Public Input Taming Traffic Through Transit-Oriented Development Alexandria Residents Call for an Affordable Housing Action Plan at Candidates’ Forum Centers and Boulevards: Montgomery Tries on a New Framework Growth Management Concept Metro Funding Bills Creep Along Vienna Metro Project Approved Affordability of Place: The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index Events & Thank You’s
	D.C. Comprehensive Plan Advances to Final Round of Public Input By Cheryl Cort The D.C. Comprehensive Plan update – which will chart the course of the District for the next 20 years -- is coming into the home stretch. After 18 months of community and task force meetings and workshops, the plan is nearing a final draft to be considered by the City Council this fall.  The draft plan will be posted on the Comprehensive Plan website on May 15 and a series of public input meetings held in May and June. The Comprehensive Plan update is the first major revision to the city’s plan since first adopted in 1984.  The Plan provides policy and planning guidance on the physical development and redevelopment of the city. It addresses a range of issues including: land use, economic development, housing, environmental protection, transportation, public facilities, urban design and historic preservation. The Comprehensive Plan draft documents embrace growth in population and jobs as a contribution to continued economic development, neighborhood revitalization, and strengthened tax base that support needed improvements in services, schools and infrastructure.  Increasing affordable housing choices is a prominent feature of the plan.  The Plan incorporates the Housing Strategy Task Force’s recommendations including Inclusionary Zoning and other land use measures that would preserve and produce more affordable homes. However, some neighborhood activists, skeptical that new households, businesses and jobs will benefit D.C., are calling for more restrictive policies in most parts of the District.  The revised plan provides a special focus on transit-oriented development to accommodate growth and better utilize public investments.  The draft document calls for improving pedestrian environments around transit stations, creating a mix of housing and commercial uses, a diversity of housing types and prices, well-designed and programmed public open spaces, greater pedestrian and bicycle connectivity, and a stepping down of densities from the station to lower scale uses in the surrounding neighborhoods. The draft also calls for expanded design review of new development.  The Transportation Element sets the goal of providing transportation choices that help move away from the single-occupant car towards more efficient and environmentally friendly options of walking, bicycling and transit. It also declares a focus on “transportation demand management” (TDM) – traffic reducing strategies for workplaces and residential developments, better management of on-street parking, and visible car-share vehicles. “Premium transit upgrades” for streetcar or bus rapid transit (BRT) corridors are also identified as priorities. Enhancements to bus service to improve reliability, reduced travel times, relief from overcrowding, increased frequency and service hours and improved local and crosstown connections are also identified as goals. Public presentations for each ward in the city will be convened beginning May 22 through June 8 (see events section below for details). On June 13, the Mayor’s public hearing will be held.  Input from these public sessions will provide feedback on the plan’s elements and the proposed land use policy map. The D.C. Council will hold public hearings on the final draft in September and October and adopt the final plan in November. For more information, see: www.Inclusivecity.org.
	Taming Traffic Through Transit-Oriented Development By Cheryl Cort Transit ridership is booming and new transit service is planned for all around the region.  But what evidence shows that transit and transit-oriented development are getting people where they need to go and relieving traffic congestion? At WRN’s April 25 forum, “Taming Traffic Through Transit-Oriented Development,” Dennis Leach, Director, Arlington County Transportation Division and Mariia Zimmerman, with the national non-profit Reconnecting America addressed these questions. Zimmerman pointed out that converging trends are driving demand for transit-oriented development (TOD), and that TOD provides many cost savings and transportation benefits. By 2025, only 25 percent of American households will be families with children. She said the market is struggling to catch up with growing demand for TOD living.  Currently her organization puts 30 percent of the overall housing market in the TOD category, but only about 3 percent of new housing is constructed in transit-oriented locations.  “This puts tremendous pressure on the housing market,” she said. Zimmerman defined TOD as development generally within one half mile of a (fixed guideway, i.e. rail or bus rapid transit) transit stop; linked to a network of walkable, bikeable streets and transportation system; containing a mix of uses – retail, housing, workplaces with appropriate treatment of parking; at densities appropriate to its setting. TOD supports transportation goals of reduced time spent driving, air pollution and traffic congestion, while increased savings on personal transportation expenditures, and enhanced equity providing access for about half of Americans who do not have access to a car or are unable to drive, according to Zimmerman. She demonstrated through recent research that household costs are dramatically different based on the location of a family’s house. She also showed that the miles people drive each year continues to increase, but driving per household drops significantly based on a higher number of households per acre. People living near transit stations are five times more likely to commute by transit, Zimmerman said. She also said that driving is reduced by 20-40 percent for those living, working and/or working within TOD station areas. The evidence is in car ownership rates too. In the Washington, D.C. area, 12 percent of households own no car and 34 percent own one car. For Washington communities around transit stations, car ownership falls, with 30 percent households owning no car, and 45 percent owning only one.  In the D.C. area transit-accessible communities, more workers walk or ride transit drive to than work. Zimmerman pointed out that getting people to opt to walk or ride transit isn’t an accident.  Transit service alone doesn’t mean people will ride; it needs to be quality service offering high frequencies, reliability and a network that it extensive enough to get people to places they need to go.  The rest of the transportation network also needs to be supportive, giving people choices like car-sharing, bicycling and a safe, convenient walking environment.  Parking management is also critical, allowing TOD households to have the option to save money on the cost of parking and use it for other expenditures such as housing. Design and density are key factors in reduced parking demand.  A doubling of density shows a 40 percent decrease in car ownership. Different demographics also predict different car ownership rates: renters and seniors tend to own fewer cars. TOD households own fewer cars and drive less. Parking requirements need to reflect this, and reflect the mix of uses, transportation options and better serve TOD places, Zimmerman said.  The tools for ensuring that TOD is taming traffic include: carsharing (in San Francisco, nearly 60 percent of households gave up at least one car within a year); incentives to ride transit; pedestrian and bicycle facilities, transportation demand management programs; parking pricing – each 1 percent increase in parking fees is accompanied by 0.3 percent decrease in demand. Zimmerman stressed that there is no such thing as free parking.  Better management of parking can also provide desired turnover and availability of parking for commercial districts and revenues that could be shared with the community through parking benefits districts. Dennis Leach presented Arlington County’ experience with TOD and how it has expanded travel choices for residents.  TOD has allowed Arlington to grow with less reliance on automobile trips. Leach said that the County began with the development concepts that focus high and mid-rise development at transit stations, mix uses, foster a high quality pedestrian environment, and preserve and reinvest in surrounding residential neighborhoods.  In the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, between 1972 and 2002, office space increased from 4.9 million to 21.1 million square feet, retail and commercial space from 2.5 million to 3.4 million square feet, and for housing, from 13,400 million to 24,400 million square feet. Housing has increased from 14,400 to 24,400 units. Despite these massive increases in commercial and residential space, traffic has remained stable or only increased modestly. In fact, he said that traffic on Clarendon Boulevard was projected to be over 22,000 cars a day, but currently is only carrying below 13,000. The goals of Arlington’s transportation policies are to ensure that growth enhances the County.  The policies emphasize walkability, expanded travel choices, transportation demand management (TDM) strategies, efficient management of curb space and parking, multi-modal street operations that give access to all modes, quality transit service (including the local bus service ART), and improved pedestrian and bicycle facilities (sidewalks, trails, on-street bicycle lanes). The County’s TDM/commuter services give people expanded choices that mean that not all travel is by private vehicle.  TDM planning is done for all new site plan development which currently means that half of all housing units are covered. Since 70 percent of Arlington residents do not work in the County, and the county imports 160,000 workers a day, he explained that it’s not practical to do anything other than promote transportation options and encourage riding transit for so many residents and workers moving in and out of the county every day. One quarter of a million people ride transit everyday in Arlington, most of them access it by walking, he explained.  While traffic in the region has grown, Metrorail ridership from 1997 to 2006 has grown by 35 percent. In the transit core of Arlington about as many people drive alone as ride transit to work.  Another 10 percent walk and eight percent carpool.  He said that transportation needs to design for shared use – walking, transit and shared cars.  Arlington is revamping its TDM and parking management policies to address spillover concerns and update development review. Transit-oriented development has meant that residents have grown less reliant on auto trips, but this shift is not due to any one policy but rather a bundle of policies, he said. Leach cited buildings that are mixed use or create a mixed use environment, active management of parking, and TDM as key elements to reducing vehicle trips.  “It is not a short term commitment,” Leach said. In 1991, TDM became part of the site plan process as a voluntary program. What begin only covering commercial development, TDM now covers residential developments under the site plan process. Overall, Leach observed that the bundle of policies is paying off. He said Arlington chose to focus on creating a livable community rather than traffic throughput.  Arlington residents have bought into the process through extensive consultative processes and by gaining short as well as long term quality of life benefits. Leach said that short term investments include undergrounding utility wires, adding and improving sidewalks, increasing bus service and amenities.  The long term payoffs have been a vibrant mainstreet environment, attractive retail choices, and connections to job centers. View the presenters’ powerpoint presentations at: http://www.washingtonregion.net/events/index.html
	Alexandria Residents Call for an Affordable Housing Action Plan at Candidates’ Forum By Stephen Wade On March 9, Housing Action, an Alexandria affordable housing advocacy group, co-sponsored with nearly 20 other local organizations convened a forum on housing with city council candidates.  The forum provided the community with an opportunity to voice their concerns and ideas around affordable housing for Alexandria.  City Council candidates also had an opportunity to discuss how they would stop the loss of affordable housing in the city and increase its supply. The forum was attended by more than 80 residents. “The problem is that we, as a community — businesses, non-profits, faith groups, homeowners, are not yet sufficiently focused, organized and active to preserve and secure affordable housing," said Jim Hoben, co-chair of Housing Action. Nancy Carson, the other co-chair, said "we need a much stronger vision. We need inspiration.” Housing Action made two specific near term recommendations. They called on the city to create an Affordable Housing Action Plan that would be staffed by an outside consultant. This Action Plan would comprehensively look at the housing needs across the city, identify policies for both preservation and production ranging from more flexible zoning to more targeted public funding, and identify the necessary implementing administrative bodies and actions. An advisory committee, with the assistance of a consultant and made up of for-and non-profit developers, government representatives from multiple agencies, community representatives, and other interested parties, would guide the development of the Affordable Housing Action Plan. Housing Action also called for a new housing czar, a full-time staff person in the city manager’s office to oversee the affordable housing efforts. Since the forum, the city council tentatively scheduled a Council/Citizens work session for June to further discuss the creation of a Affordable Housing Action Plan. Also, the city announced the creation of a new position to coordinate Affordable Housing Preservation and has hired Helen McIlvanie, the former Director of the Arlington Housing Partnership. The event significantly raised the visibility of affordable housing as an election issue and provided fresh ideas that the new council will be encouraged to immediately implement. For more information about the candidates’ forum and about continued efforts in Alexandria, see www.housingaction.net. In other Northern Virginia affordable housing news, on April 4, housing advocates and community, faith, and labor leaders gathered at the Fairfax County Board Supervisors building before the budget hearing to express support for dedicating two cents per thousand dollars of assessed value to fund affordable housing and a rent supplement program.  Advocates highlighted how a rent supplement program could leverage the success of the 1-cent dedicated by the Board in 2005 to serve those with the greatest housing need.
	Centers and Boulevards: Montgomery Tries on a New Framework Growth Management Concept By Cheryl Cort “Greenfield development is almost over,” the Montgomery County Planning Department document began.  Most of the County’s future growth will be located in already developed areas, it continued.  The County is embarking on a series of community dialogue workshops over the next six months to examine how it can respond to continued robust growth in population and jobs through a new framework for planning that focuses on “revitalizing centers, reshaping boulevards and creating great public spaces.”  While expanding transit and road infrastructure will remain a priority, the County will shift the focus to improving transit access or adding capacity between existing job and population centers, rather than extending new facilities outward into surrounding undeveloped areas. The Centers and Boulevards initiative will examine the County’s commercial centers and major arterial roads, with the goal of renovating them into vibrant community centers located along grand boulevards, with attractive public spaces, and accessible from surrounding neighborhoods on foot or bike and connected to each other by public transport.  Additionally, the County will address the key concerns of maintaining the integrity of the agricultural reserve, providing more affordable housing, and improving the balance between jobs and housing. The County recognized that transitioning from auto-oriented suburbs to pedestrian-oriented, transit-friendly, more urbanized areas will be a challenge.  The keys to the transition include encouraging mixed-use, mid-density development that allows everyday destinations within centers.  By creating more street connections from surrounding neighborhoods people don’t have to use the arterials or highways for local trips, and more trips can be by bicycle and on foot. Centers also should offer pedestrian and bicycle amenities such as bike racks and lockers, special pavement and lighting.  Buildings should be interesting at the pedestrian scale. Shared and on-street parking should be emphasized. In between centers, multi-modal boulevards should be created, including bus lanes, bicycle paths, medians and wider sidewalks.  Bus stops should offer more comfortable and informative places. While the County has strong consensus that the agricultural reserve should be protected, and existing residential communities should not experience any major changes, how to respond to growth is a major challenge.  County officials are hopeful that the Centers and Boulevards Initiative can plan a future vision for growth and better places. For more information, http://www.mc-mncppc.org/strategic_planning/centers/index.shtm.
	Metro Funding Bills Creep Along By Cheryl Cort The District of Columbia jumped first with its promise to fully fund the essential capital needs of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA or Metro) over the next 10 years to keep up with growing ridership.  On April 27, Mayor Anthony Williams signed the D.C. Council bill offering to dedicate half a cent of the sales tax to Metro to generate $50 million a year.  Elected officials from Maryland and Virginia also spoke at the event urging their colleagues to make similar commitments to Metro. The D.C. law does not go into effect until the U.S. Congress, Maryland and Virginia step up with their own share of Metro funding, nor does it specify how revenues removed from the general fund will be replaced.  Northern Virginia Congressman Tom Davis’ bill was the impetus for the D.C. law. The Davis bill offers to pay half of Metro’s $3 billion 10-year capital budget, if local dedicated funding matches the federal commitment.  The 10-year capital program would pay for 340 new Metrorail cars, 275 new buses and other improvements that will alleviate crowding and provide service that keeps up with demand. The federal bill only covers capital funding shortfalls and does not address the added operating costs associated with the expanded capacity from the new capital investments.  The Metro funding bills in Maryland and Virginia are stalled.  In Maryland, several bills were introduced proposing to dedicate existing sales tax revenues to pay for Metro’s funding needs along with transit funding needs in Baltimore and the rest of the state. These were substituted for a study bill to assess the state’s operating and capital needs for transit, including Metro’s $300 million annual funding shortfall for capital and operating costs. The study is due Dec. 15, 2006. The funding bills failed win strong backing from transit-supporters in Maryland in part due to concerns that changing the current approach to funding both transit and roads out of the current Transportation Trust Fund would ultimately undermine transit funding and cap growth in future transit funding.  Baltimore interests were also skeptical about a timeline driven by the urgency for Washington area transit funding, though all the bills offered substantial shares of the revenues to the Baltimore area and the state’s other transit systems.  Advocates hope that the study by Maryland Department of Transportation can help clarify transit funding priorities throughout the state and identify a funding mechanism that maintains the Transportation Trust Fund as the undifferentiated source for transit funding while meeting the requirements for dedicated funding required by Congressman Davis’ bill. In Virginia, the Senate budget bill which includes dedicating $50 million a year of new revenues for Metro funding is on hold for 90 days in the House of Delegates.  The counties of Fairfax and Arlington, and the cities of Alexandria, Fall Church and Fairfax would be required to raise the revenues from local sources. Elected officials from Northern Virginia have appealed to lawmakers who are not supporting the bill including Prince William state representatives and downstate officials. While 10,000 Prince William commuters use Metro every day, the County does not pay for Metro nor would it be included in any new tax increases to pay Virginia’s share of Metro’s capital funding needs.
	Vienna Metro Project Approved By Cheryl Cort On March 29, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the rezoning requests which allow the MetroWest proposal to move forward with plans to build over 2200 homes and 400,000 square feet of retail and office space.  The development would focus around the south entrance to the Vienna Metrorail station, replacing 65 single family homes on 56 acres of land.  The housing will be offered in a series of high-rise buildings close to the Metro entrance with ground floor retail, tapering down to low rise apartments and townhouses farther from the station. From the Sierra Club to County Supervisors, this proposal was heralded as an exemplary approach to addressing housing needs and offering better transportation choices for the region’s largest and wealthiest jurisdiction. WRN, Coalition for Smarter Growth and Smart Growth Alliance also offered their support for the project.
	Affordability of Place: The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index By Stephen Wade The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index is a groundbreaking innovation that prices the trade-offs that households make between housing and transportation costs and the savings that derive from living in communities that are near shopping, schools, and work, and that boast a transit-rich environment. A new report by the Brookings Institution, the Center for Neighborhood Technology and Reconnecting America will help local and regional planners understand the housing costs and "location costs" of building housing and transportation, affecting more efficient decisions about housing, placing it at sites that truly make it "affordable" because it is accessible to mass transit routes.  Potential home buyers and renters, finance agencies, public and private-sector real estate developers, housing lenders, and secondary market actors can also use the index to better understand the full cost of the homes they purchase. The report argues that the cost of housing and transportation is a more meaningful measure of how much we can afford than housing alone, and the kind of community in which we live and where it’s located often determines how much we need to drive and how many cars we need to own—and therefore how much we need to spend on transportation. The cost of living for an American family consists of many components. The two largest are housing and transportation. Housing affordability is most commonly understood as the extent to which a household’s income can cover the purchase price of a home. However, the traditional definition of housing affordability may be too limited. The cost of transportation, while not currently factored in to the affordability equation, has become increasingly central to family budgets, given their choices to live farther from jobs and as today’s development patterns require families to use their cars more often to run errands or take their children to school. Therefore, the affordability of housing should be considered in the context of the transportation costs associated with the neighborhood in which the home is located. It is the interaction between housing and location that provides a more meaningful measure of affordability, the study concludes. Used at a community level, the Affordability Index can help households assess which neighborhoods in a region are most affordable, and it can help policymakers determine where resources should be focused to enhance affordability. It provides consumers, policymakers, lenders, and investors with the information needed to make better decisions about which neighborhoods are truly affordable, and illuminate the implications of their policy and investment choices. For more information, the whole report can be found at http://www.brookings.edu/metro/umi/pubs/20060127_affindex.htm
	Events Mon., May 15, 12:30 - 1:30 pm. Smart Growth: The Massachusetts Experience .Monday, at the National Building Museum, 401 F Street N.W, Washington D.C. (Judiciary Square Metro). Part of the The Smart Growth Speaker Series . Free. http://www.smartgrowth.org/calendar/evdetails.asp?evid=1423 Thursday, May 18, 6 pm. Inclusionary Zoning: D.C. Zoning Commission Special Public Meeting. The Zoning Commission will deliberate and possibly decide on final language for the proposed zoning text amendment establishing an inclusionary zoning policy for the District of Columbia.  For more information, see: http://www.washingtonregion.net/programs/DCIZ.htm Friday, May 19, 8 - 9 am. Bike to Work Day: Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) volunteers will lead commuter convoys from will neighborhood pitstops around the region and converge on Freedom Plaza. For more see: http://www.waba.org/new/BTWD06/index.php May 22 – June 13: D.C. Comprehensive Plan presentations and hearing. Starting May 22, D.C. Office of Planning will conduct presentations in each Ward on the proposed changes to the city’s long-range plans for new growth and redevelopment.  The Mayor’s public hearing is June 13. Read more details at  http://www.smartergrowth.net/alerts/2006/2006.05.10.DCcompplan.html D.C. Comp Plan Ward Presentations 6 - 8:30 pm. Mon., May 22: Ward 1 - Reeves Center, 14th & U Street, NW, 2nd Fl (U Street/Cardozo Station); Tues., May 23: Ward 5 - McKinley High School, 151 T Street, NE (Rhode Island Avenue Station); Wed., May 24: Ward 7 - Kelly Miller Middle School, 301 49th Street, NE (Benning Road Station); Thurs., June 1. Ward 2 - WVSA/SAIL Public Charter School, 1100 16TH Street, NW, 5th Floor (Farragut North or West Stations); Tues., May 30: Ward 3 - Univ. of the District of Columbia, Bldg. 38, 4200 Connecticut Ave. NW, Windows Lounge (Van Ness Station, Bus); Thurs, June 8: Ward 2 - Emery Recreation Center, Georgia Ave. & Madison Street, NW (Georgia Ave Petworth Station); Wed, June 7: Ward 6 - King Greenleaf Recreation Center, 201 N Street, SW (Waterfront Station – SEU); Mon., June 5: Ward 8 - Petey Green Center, 2907 Martin Luther King, Jr., Ave, SE (Anacostia Station) Tues., June 13, 1 – 3 pm & 5 - 8 pm. Mayor’s Public Hearing. One Judiciary Square, 441 4th Street, NW, Old Council Chambers, (Judiciary Square). To sign up to testify, email: compplan@dc.gov or call 442-8812 Wednesday, May 24, 2006, 6 – 8 pm. Coalition For Smarter Growth Annual Spring Reception & Silent Auction. Find out more at http://www.smartergrowth.net/donate/2006/2006evite.html THANK YOU’S: WRN wishes to thank the following friends of WRN for their generous contributions:  Thomas W. Gore, Steven C. Hill, Lynn Hackney & Kim Hoover, Grace Malakoff, Joseph Sternlieb, East of the River Community Development Corporation, and The Woodbury Fund. Intersect staff: Cheryl Cort, editor; Jennifer Mueller, Stephen Wade, contributing writers. Washington Regional Network For Livable Communities (WRN) is a non-profit organization that advocates transportation investments, land use policies, and neighborhood designs that enhance existing communities and the environment of the Washington, D.C. Region. Phone: (202) 244-1105, Fax: (202) 244-4225, E-mail: staff@washingtonregion.net, 4000 Albemarle St, NW, Suite 305, Washington, D.C. 20016. Give online to WRN at: www.washingtonregion.net
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