Velib gets trashed--Bike-Sharing Vandals

From the NYTimes:

"Just as Le Corbusier’s white cruciform towers once excited visions of the industrial-age city of the future, so Vélib’, Paris’s bicycle rental system, inspired a new urban ethos for the era of climate change.

"Residents here can rent a sturdy bicycle from hundreds of public stations and pedal to their destinations, an inexpensive, healthy and low-carbon alternative to hopping in a car or bus.

"But this latest French utopia has met a prosaic reality: Many of the specially designed bikes, which cost $3,500 each, are showing up on black markets in Eastern Europe and northern Africa. Many others are being spirited away for urban joy rides, then ditched by roadsides, their wheels bent and tires stripped.

"With 80 percent of the initial 20,600 bicycles stolen or damaged, the program’s organizers have had to hire several hundred people just to fix them. And along with the dent in the city-subsidized budget has been a blow to the Parisian psyche.

" 'The symbol of a fixed-up, eco-friendly city has become a new source for criminality,' Le Monde mourned in an editorial over the summer. 'The Vélib’ was aimed at civilizing city travel. It has increased incivilities.'

"The heavy, sandy-bronze Vélib’ bicycles are seen as an accoutrement of the “bobos,” or “bourgeois-bohèmes,” the trendy urban middle class, and they stir resentment and covetousness. They are often being vandalized in a socially divided Paris by resentful, angry or anarchic youth, the police and sociologists say.

"Bruno Marzloff, a sociologist who specializes in transportation, said, 'One must relate this to other incivilities, and especially the burning of cars,' referring to gangs of immigrant youths burning cars during riots in the suburbs in 2005.

"He said he believed there was social revolt behind Vélib’ vandalism, especially for suburban residents, many of them poor immigrants who feel excluded from the glamorous side of Paris.

“ 'It is an outcry, a form of rebellion; this violence is not gratuitous,' Mr. Marzloff said. 'There is an element of negligence that means, ‘We don’t have the right to mobility like other people, to get to Paris it’s a huge pain, we don’t have cars, and when we do, it’s too expensive and too far.’ ”

"Used mainly for commuting in the urban core of the city, the Vélib’ program is by many measures a success. After swiping a credit card for a deposit at an electronic docking station, a rider pays one euro per day, or 29 euros (about $43) for an annual pass, for unlimited access to the bikes for 30-minute periods that can be extended for a small fee.

"Daily use averages 50,000 to 150,000 trips, depending on the season, and the bicycles have proved to be a hit with tourists, who help power the economy."

The rest at the NYTimes

In a recession, does green development sell?

"Since 2005, buildings certified for their environmental cred have risen from Battery Park to Harlem. Whether rentals or condos, they’ve been positioned as the guilt-free alternative to standard-issue construction, filled with green features both basic (compact fluorescent lightbulbs) and advanced (on-site renewable-energy sources). You could argue about how planet-friendly some of them actually were, but the market spoke clearly: They sold at least as well as most new condos, and in many cases a lot better.

"Not so anymore. Sales figures in the first four months of this year show that when it comes to real estate, the economy has trumped the environment."

The rest is after the jump.....NYMag

Target Field; The New Regional Ballpark

After being here for a few days it is clear why this region is called the twin cities- not necessarily referring to the two cities that are near each other, but because the area is so suburban that the phrase 'twin cities' embraces the overall region. Minneapolis is scattered with both surface parking lots and parking structures.


I'm not sure what the exact population is of the city center, but i've heard relatively small numbers such as 30,000 over the past couple days at the conferece. I could be wrong, I could be right; however, it feels quite small after 5 o'clock on a weekday.

So, the city is regional, not necessarily a city itself- yes- it is a city, has mostly everything that you would think a city would have, but even the residents take pride in the regional focus. One of the twins phrases is "This is Twins Territory"- referring to the areas of both cities, and suburan regions. St. Paul and Minneapolis had a huge fight in the 80's to get the rights and support from the Minnesota Sports Commissions (and several other entities) for a multi use sports stadium


As we all know, that stadium is the Metrodome, a place that didn't just embrace the culture of Minneapolis, but embraced the poeople of its nieghboring city, and more importanta, supports the region. As mentioned earlier, this area is very car dependent. I think, if you made cars dissapear for one week, Minneapolis would be a major city that would fail.



The city is in the process of improving that with the new twins stadium. Building sustainably and using local materials, such as limestone from quarries within 100 minles, the twins stadium will the a new focal point for the city, hopefully provide the city with a new lense for its sustainable vision.



The city's light rail will extend to the stadium, and a new commuter rail will begin and end on the site- using historic industrial rail lines. The site itself was set between parking structures, roads, and skyways- claiming around 10 acres of footprint, and utilizing the air rights of the highway and other buildings in order to build the stands out. As a result, the stadium, still underconstruction, has a very intimate feel- I am excited for its opening in a year.

Mall of America and Minneapolis Light Rail

Today, I ventured out to the Mall of America, which is about 30 minutes out of Minneapolis on the cities light rail system. The rail system is great, clean efficient, quick, and relatively cheap. As mentioned before, each train has bicycle racks. Below, is a picture of the light rail going towards the Metrodome stop.
At the Metrodome stop...

Coming from uptown, Minneapolis. In other cities where there is light rail, it seems like developers are buying parcels of land near transit stops, and either smartly, or not-so smartly, turning these areas into apartments, condos, shopping, or town centers. Minneapolis is a differnt. There are only 4 stops within the city center, and its is hard to find any other destination, outside of a bar or restaurant on the line. It is clear that that this is a very heavily auto-dependent area. The area around the rail system, all the way to the Mall of America holds tighty told the cities industrial history. Old and still in use lumber and mill faciltilites, and many abandoned structres. In some areas, there are groupings of what appear to be affordable housing communities, most likely coming from urban renewal projects in the 50's. There were some areas with new flats and apartment structures with large for sale/rent signs. I hope that these pick up and they develop mixed use town centers around the light rail.

Mall of America-easy to get lost.

As imagined, there is plenty of parking at the mall- almost as much as the nearby MSP airport.

What other mall has three hotels next to it- and little or nothing else in the area?

Tommorow, I will be taking a tour of Target Field, and the Metrodome. It should be an exciting day.

Minneapolis: The Skyway Problem

A simple concept in smart urban planning is designing buidlings to a pesdestrian scale- specifically, how the street and buildings meet. In a lecture this morning at the APA conference, a transportation planner from Los Angeles, stressed that streets aren't just a mode to travel and move cars and people, but a specific division between private life, and the public realm. This is why new urbanists stress multi use structures, with ground level retail. The street has life, office and residences above play into 24/7 vitality, and Jane Jacobs is happy.

Well, I have found the opposite.



I mentioned previously that there is a lack of retail in Minneapolis-I was wrong. While the type of retail, may not be geared to service residential or low income, there is plenty. My problem was that I only walked around on the street level yesterday. Today, I ventured through town through the skywalk system.


While I understand it gets quite cold and windy in Minneapolis, the skywalks will probably always seem strange to me. In some parts of the city, the skywalk level brings you through the third floor lobby of office buildings, with limited retail oppurutnity or direction for the pedestrian. Other parts are more welcoming, as different malls are linked together. However, I spent a while looking for a radio shack, while I knew what street it was on, there was no sign or indication that it was inside a building- which apparently was part of a mall.

There is also a lack of maps that let you know which skywalks close on the weekends, which buildings connect where, and what is located in the buldings. The one map I did see, just had teh name of the buildings, which is different than the directions that you would normally use on the street level. For instance, a avenue/street system is easy to read and follow, but three stories up- all you know is you're entering a new building, with little or no indication of where you are in the city.

I'm sure this gets easier as people use the system more, but it is uninviting for pedestrians up above. I guess I'd have to see it when its cold to see if it is lively or not. But seeing that the skyway system is half the city on a 3rd floor level, they would treat it as that, and not as a gerbil cage with no organization.

APA National Conference in Minneapolis: Day 1

This week I am attending the APA National Conference In Minneapolis. I will be attending several lectures this week, and doing various walking tours, including a site visit to the new Twins ballpark-Target Field. I'll be sure to update at least daily, put up pictures, and throw up some thoughts.



I have never to been to the midwest before, and am starting to see why so many people love it. Minneapolis specifically, seems like there is more to it that meets the eye. I was very impressed by the light rail coming in to downtown today, very efficient, easy to read and set up for good planning. The light rail has bicycle racks on each train and annouces bus transfers and locations at each station.

This seemed to matter more, after I walked around the city a little bit after checking in. There are parking garages everywhere! Minneapolis is a heavily car dependent town, and the light rail is one small dent. Also, there appears to be significant bus lines, as you cannot walk a block without seeing a bus. While the lines most likely spread out into the burbs, the demand I saw for the bus is quite high.



The main strip, Nicolett mall combines a nighlife and office feel; however, based on the mass exodus of office workers around five, I am uncertain how many people actually live in the city center itself. It may mostly serve commuters and 50,000 local thirsty college students. Also, much of the retail is very high end, which may explain why some of homeless are well dressed.

I know that there is a lot more to see here. I am excited for not only this conference, but to learn about planning set to the scale of Minneapolis and the surrounding region. Please shoot me an email or comment on these posts if you have idea or recommendations for things I should while I am here, or if I am off-base with my view of the city so far. Also, enjoy some pictures I took today.

We're Back

Thanks to everyone that has followed our blog, whether it was frequently or just a few times this year. We want to apologize for being missing in action over the past month or so, as Jon and I were in the meat of our semesters. Jon is in his final weeks of Grad School at NYU, and I am completing my first year at Catholic University. We are going to be more diligent with posting- a lot has been going on.
Please keep checking back, commenting on issues, or emailing us!
Thanks

-Smartgrowth