26
November 2009
Report
on the 25 October 2009 Roland Avenue Sunday
Streets pilot
Prepared
by
Mike McQuestion, co-Chair, Sustainability Initiative
(mike.mcquestion@gmail.com)
Phil Spevak, President (pjspevak@gmail.com)
Roland Park Civic League
Background
Through its Sunday
Streets Program, the City of Baltimore proposes to close off
selected streets to motorized traffic during Sunday mornings, making
them available for recreational use. Sunday Streets is modeled
on Bogota, Colombia’s ciclovia.
Every Sunday, from 8AM until 1PM, a network of normally busy Bogota
streets is closed to motorists, allowing up to 1.7m residents to
traverse the city on bicycles, rollerblades, skateboards or on foot.
Bogota’s ciclovia has operated weekly since the early
1980s, providing residents in 70% of the city’s neighborhoods
with easily accessible recreational opportunities. The idea is
catching on. European examples include Copenhagen and Paris. In
Switzerland’s
Slow Up Program, 35-50km segments of particularly
scenic roads are closed on consecutive Sundays during the summer
months for pedestrians, skaters and cyclists to use. At this
writing, 38 cities in eleven countries have organized ciclovias.
Routes range from 1 to 121 km in length. Duration of ciclovia
events ranges from 2 to 12 hours. The number of events ranges from 18
to 64 per year. Annual budgets range from US$45k to US$2.08m. In
Seattle WA, Cambridge MA, San Francisco CA and El Paso TX, ciclovias
happen at least every month during the cycling season. Ciclovia
programs are credited with improving physical fitness, engaging young
people in constructive social activities and increasing neighborhood
cohesiveness (Sarmiento
et al 2008).
Sunday Streets
is an integral part of Baltimore’s
2009 Sustainability Plan.
The City’s
street network is particularly conducive to Sunday Streets.
(For more on this, see Baltimore’s 2006
Master Bicycle Plan.
City planners
prepared a detailed Sunday Streets implementation plan nearly
three years ago. The plan identifies specific streets and outlines
logistic and security procedures for the Police and Transportation
Department to follow. However, it has never been implemented,
ostensibly for budgetary reasons.
Supporters of
Baltimore’s Sunday Streets Program include the local
bicycling advocacy group One
Less Car. In 2008, One Less Car developed a 5-mile
Sunday Streets pilot route which runs from Lake Montebello to
Druid Hill Park along 33rd Street. This “lake-to-lake”
pilot, proposed for August 2008, was not implemented, again for
budgetary reasons (see below).
On October 25, 2009,
a modest, one-mile long Sunday Streets pilot was carried out
successfully on Roland Avenue, sponsored by the Roland
Park Civic League. Details of that experience are
described below. Most notably, the activity was successfully executed
from plan to completion in 8 weeks.
Planning
the Roland Park Sunday
Streets pilot
The Sunday
Streets pilot was conceived as a component of the RPCL‘s
2009-10
Sustainability Initiative. The Initiative aims to
educate residents about energy conservation, recycling, native
ecology and other aspects of environmentally sustainable lifestyles.
Roland Park is one of eight pilot neighborhoods participating in the
Baltimore
Neighborhood Energy Challenge (BNEC). One day each
month the RPCL encourages residents to walk, ride bikes, use mass
transit or carpool to school and work. RPCL sought to connect these
local efforts with the City’s Sunday Streets initiative.
Roland Park proposed
a Sunday Streets pilot for three reasons. First, it made
sense- if even on a small scale- since the event would pull in a
wider audience that could then be motivated to take other
sustainability actions beyond the BNEC challenge. Second, the
small-scale pilot could be used to test whether a ciclovia
could be accomplished at a lower cost than had been previously
estimated by the City. Since the large City costs were for the
police, the Civic League proposed that volunteers be used to
supervise the route rather than paid City employees. Third, the
Civic League wanted to create a model that could be provided to other
communities that would want to organize their own event. The aim was
to prepare a “cookbook” of how to create a successful
event, identifying problems encountered or mistakes made, and making
recommendations so that other communities could avoid those same
roadblocks.
In August 2009, RPCL
President Phil Spevak and Sustainability co-Chairs Rita Walters and
Mike McQuestion began planning Roland Park’s Sunday Streets
pilot event. Discussions with One Less Car led to the concept of
joining the proposed Roland Avenue pilot to the lake-to-lake route
via University Parkway. This would involve neighborhoods in City
Districts 6, 7 and 14.
At RPCL’s
request, City Councilwomen Sharon Green Middleton (Dist. 6) and Mary
Pat Clarke (Dist. 14) organized a planning meeting at City Hall. The
meeting took place on 22 September 2009. Attending were twelve
persons, including City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke and her staff
person Cindy Leahy; a representative of Councilwoman Middleton’s
office (Ty Miller); three representatives of the Baltimore City
Department of Transportation (Nate Evans, Howard James, Sandra
Butterfield); an officer from the Northern District of the Baltimore
Police Department (Jon Walter); two representatives of the Office of
the Mayor (Greg Hinchcliffe, Gary Letteron); the Executive Director
of the Knott Foundation (Greg Cantori, who is also a One Less Car
board member); and RPCL (Phil Spevak, Mike McQuestion).
Reasons for the
failure of the previously attempted lake-to-lake Sunday Streets
pilot were reviewed by Mr. Cantori. The principal reason was the
very high cost of deploying dozens of City police and DoT workers
along the proposed 5 mi. course. The original cost estimate was
about $233,000 for four Sundays with the City providing $104k of that
amount. Police-related expenses represented about two-thirds of the
costs. In addition, local neighborhood organizations and
establishments had not been engaged.
Dr. Spevak and Mr.
McQuestion then presented details of the proposed Roland Park Sunday
Streets pilot event. While the original plan was to do it on
Saturday 24 October, it would be better, all agreed, to do the test
on Sunday so as to minimize impacts on business. The proposed linkage
to 33rd Street was considered too ambitious by City
Transportation representatives. At their suggestion, it was further
agreed to close only the southbound side of Roland Avenue. The idea
of mobilizing local volunteers to help set up barriers and act as
safety monitors, thereby reducing costs by reducing the number of
police officers needed, was discussed but not endorsed. The group
agreed to explore whether traffic officers could be used in place of
police officers as a means to reduce cost.
The City permit
stipulated that RPCL would not be selling food. Because the event
would be short- from 8AM to 1PM- RPCL would not be obliged to arrange
outdoor toilets. Cindy Leahy of Councilwoman Clarkes’s office,
had previously obtained an estimate of City costs: $4,293.50 to close
Roland Avenue from Northern Parkway south to Cold Spring Lane for
five hours. The Police and DoT would handle the event using their
standard procedures.
RPCL volunteered to
undertake three additional actions. The first was to prepare a
detailed traffic map, showing which intersections would be closed and
where motorists would be re-routed. The second action was to
communicate the street closing plan to all commercial establishments,
schools and churches along the route. Thirdly, RPCL would inform
homeowners along the route and explain the implications of the street
closure.
As it turned out,
just one institution, Roland Park Country School, objected to closing
southbound Roland Avenue. RPCL proposed, and the school accepted, a
compromise that resulted in shortening the Sunday Streets
course to the northernmost ingress to the RPCS campus, thereby
permitting cars to enter during the event. It was further agreed
that the cars could leave together from a second egress, 100 yards
further to the south, late on Sunday morning. In the event, police
officers escorted the cars to the corner of Roland and Deepdene
Avenues.
On 12 October, Dr.
Spevak and Mr. McQuestion met with Ms. Stephanie Yanovitz, Senior
Transportation Planner, Baltimore Metropolitan Council at the RPCL
Office. Dr. Spevak and Ms. Yanovitz walked the Roland Avenue route
and discussed details of the event. Ms. Yanovitz subsequently
prepared a series of detailed maps of the proposed street closures
which RPCL provided to the City.
In the final two
weeks, the RPCL team was in frequent email and telephone contact. Two
conference calls were held to assure all contingencies were covered.
Attempts to engage City Police and DoT counterparts responsible for
street closings were not successful and there was confusion as to
which City officials to contact. The first City contact came on 16
October, when a DoT counterpart (Mr. Edward Lee) called Mr.
McQuestion (whose name appears on the permit) to ask whether the
event was still on. The following week, DoT officials surveyed
southbound Roland Avenue and placed temporary no parking signs along
the route. Mr. McQuestion received two calls from the Baltimore
Police Department Special Events Unit (Officer Alexis Brown) and
Northern District Command (Maj. Ross Buzaro). Mr. McQuestion briefed
each counterpart. It became clear that the various City offices had
not shared very much information about the event.
Councilwoman
Middleton and her office solved this problem. On 21 October, a team
from the Baltimore Police Department (led by Lt. Milton Corbett), DoT
(Edward Lee) and RPCL President Phil Spevak walked the Roland Avenue
route. Details of the police deployment were discussed. In the event,
five police officers and six transit police officers would be
deployed along with six DoT workers. Volunteers would be allowed to
participate, however Lt. Corbett stated that volunteers could not be
entrusted to maintain public safety.
The permit was faxed
to Mr. McQuestion on Friday, 23 October. This short lead time is
normal procedure, explained Cindy Leahy who had kindly followed up
the permitting process on behalf of RPCL.
Publicity
For four weeks prior
to the event, the RPCL informed Roland Park residents about Sunday
Streets (and other sustainability-related events planned for the
23-25 October weekend) through announcement and information on the
RPCL website. RPCL emailed press
releases on 30 September, 7 October and 19 October.
The Baltimore Messenger ran
a story on 10 October announcing “Seven Generations Weekend”.
Volunteers dropped informational flyers door-to-door in each of the
six Roland Park plats (n=1100 households).
Invitations to join
the Sunday Streets event were emailed to some twenty adjacent
neighborhood associations. Of these, follow-up telephone contacts
were made with five: Wyndhurst Improvement Association, Chatham
Neighborhood Association, Mt. Washington Improvement Association,
North Roland Park Improvement Association, Greater Homewood Community
Corporation. Announcements were uploaded to the One Less Car,
Baltimore BikePed Beacon and Baltimore Bicycling Club blogs. The BBC
subsequently organized two rides that passed through the Sunday
Streets event. A password-protected workspace
was set up to help coordinate the action.
On 28 September, Mr.
McQuestion received a call from the Mayor’s Office of Marketing
and Public Relations (Ms. Kimberly Manns), enquiring about the Sunday
Streets event. There was no further contact with the Mayor’s
Office following this telephone briefing.
The
event
By 7AM on the
morning of 25 October, the DoT team had distributed signs, barriers
and cones at each intersection along the route. By 8AM, the DoT team
had blocked the intersections. A DoT spokesperson (Nate Evans) set up
a table in front of the Roland Park Library displaying a map of the
full Baltimore Sunday Streets plan, a signup sheet and a traffic
counter. Four police officers and six transportation officers were
deployed to guide northbound and cross-street traffic, particularly
at the intersections of Cold Spring, Wyndhurst, Deepdene and Northern
Parkway. The DoT workers were not similarly deployed.
The City No Parking
signs stated that parked cars would be towed that morning. RPCL
volunteers observed about a dozen cars parked along southbound Roland
Avenue at 7AM. They knocked on doors to inform residents to move
their cars. All but four were at home and did so. Discussion with
the commanding police officer (Sgt. Smith) determined that the four
remaining cars posed no real obstacle and that no towing would be
needed.
By 9AM people were
beginning to fill southbound Roland Avenue. By prior arrangement,
two local bike shops (Princeton Sports, Joes Bike Shop) had set up
repair stands along the course. On hand were City Councilwoman Mary
Part Clarke and Mr. Frank Pratka, a leader on a neighborhood
association near Lake Montebello. The crowd peaked at approximately
11:00 to noon. Discussions with the police officers revealed that all
were enjoying the experience, including the officers. (For a more
detailed account see:
https://rolandpark.org/SevenGenWeekend.)
At 1PM the DoT team
began collecting the barriers. Southbound Roland was reopened to
through traffic at about 1:30PM.
The
way forward
At RPCL’s
request, the lead DoT official (Edward Lee) and Police Dept.
commander (Sgt. Smith) met at 1PM with Dr. Spevak and Mr. McQuestion
to review the morning’s experience and formulate
recommendations for subsequent Sunday Streets events. All
agreed the event was an unqualified success. The turnout was
outstanding, the community’s response was enthusiastic. A DoT
official (Nate Evans) later estimated that at least one thousand
people participated. The event pulled participants from many
communities beyond Roland Park, manifesting the tremendous potential
support for a wider event. No injuries or untoward incidents
occurred. Only a few motorists expressed dismay at being
inconvenienced. It was apparent that volunteers could have replaced
many of the City workers.
Reaction elsewhere
in the City was positive. The Roland Park Sunday Streets pilot
was amply covered by local television, newspapers and blogs. At this
writing, City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke is preparing to introduce
a resolution calling on the Mayor’s Office to implement Sunday
Streets Citywide.
It was clear that
there were some real limitations or problems in the event and its
planning. First, the pilot plan failed to achieve its goal of using
volunteers in route supervision though there was agreement after the
event that, with proper training, volunteers could have been used.
Second, it was difficult at the outset to identify the responsible
City counterparts with whom to communicate. Only the direct
involvement of a City Council representative solved this problem.
Third, the cost remained prohibitively high. RPCL managed, through
discussion with the City, to reduce the cost from the prior City
estimate of $11,650/mile to $4300/mile. However, the expense remained
unreasonably high due to the requirement that paid City employees be
used where they were not needed. By RPCL estimates, effectively and
safely using volunteers would have reduced the cost of the event to
$1500-2000/mile. Fourth, RPCL did not allow sufficient time to plan
the event. More lead time would have permitted better communication
with businesses and schools and churches. They, in turn, might have
made better accommodations and participated more actively in the
event. Fourth, by having the event on Sunday, after having the other
sustainability events on Saturday, some necessary motor vehicle use
(eg, transporting the elderly and infirmed), may have been hindered.
In the future, all events should take place on a single weekend day,
thus allowing individuals who need to drive to do so on the other
day.
Determining the
proper ratio of City officials to local volunteers will be an
empirical problem to be solved literally block by block, neighborhood
by neighborhood. On this stretch of Roland Avenue the ideal,
sustainable ratio might be 2-3 police and transportation police
officers and 1-2 DoT workers to, say, 10-20 volunteers. Volunteers,
all agreed, could guard each intersection, explain options to
motorists and erect and take down the traffic barriers. But the ratio
would still need to be worked out separately for other segments of
future Sunday Streets events.
Research to date
shows that only a few US Cities have figured out how to sustainably
fund Sunday ciclovias.
(Among them are El Paso, TX and San Francisco, CA.) Baltimore may be
able to secure interim federal funding for Sunday Streets. In early
October, Mr. Cantori circulated an announcement from US CDC
requesting proposals from states and cities for new obesity control
funding (“Communities putting prevention to work”). The
proposed grant would complement the Baltimore City Health
Department’s “Blueprint
for Healthy Outcomes in Children: Addressing Childhood Obesity”,
an action plan to reduce childhood obesity in Baltimore. Sunday
Streets would be a robust obesity-reduction strategy for children
and adults (Berkey et al 2003; Hoehner, Ramirez and Elliott 2005;
Journal of Adolescent Health 2009). A working group was quickly
formed with the City Health Department taking the lead. A conference
call took place on 6 October and an online workspace has since been
constructed (https://www.BaltimorePrevention.org).
RPCL is one of the collaborating agencies on this proposal. Besides
federal funding, local businesses may be willing to sponsor Sunday
Streets.
Outside funding and,
eventually, regular City funding, may be necessary conditions for
Sunday Streets to succeed. Sustained success will also require
building Sunday Streets from the ground up. Other neighborhood
organizations must be mobilized to take the responsibility to inform
their communities, organize volunteers and maintain liaison with City
officials. A second issue is the official permitting procedure. Will
each neighborhood organization have to secure a permit or can the
City dispense with the permit process altogether? The latter seems
preferable considering that Sunday Streets is expected to be a
routine, weekly occurrence. Finally, in some “low-crime areas”
the City should consider using already assigned and working police
officers to cover the route rather than hiring extra officer at
overtime rates.
As a next step in
the development process, RPCL and One Less Car propose working
together to produce a Roland Ave + Lake-to-Lake Sunday Streets
event. The RPCL segment will run south on Roland Avenue from Lake
Street to University Parkway, to 33rd Street where the two
courses will join. RPCL and One Less Car will work through
Councilwomen Middleton, Clarke and Conaway to plan the event. They
will contact each neighborhood association along the proposed route
and elicit their active involvement. The tentative date will be Earth
Day, Sunday, 18 April 2010. RPCL will coordinate volunteer
recruitment and training for this event. The current report is being
distributed to all key contacts who participated in the 25 October
Sunday Streets pilot event. It should be made available to any
neighborhood group that wishes to participate in future Sunday
Streets events.
Looking forward to a
wider, Citywide Sunday Streets event, one important question
remains: Who will take leadership?
References
Berkey CS, Rockett
HR, Gillman MW, Colditz GA. 2003. One-year changes in activity and in
inactivity among 10- to 15-year-old boys and girls: relationship to
change in body mass index. Pediatrics. 2003 Apr;111(4 Pt 1):836-43.
Hoehner C, Ramirez
L, Elliott M, et al. 2005. Perceived and Objective Environmental
Measures and Physical Activity Among Urban Adults. American Journal
of Preventive Medicine, 28(2): 105–116.
Journal of
Adolescent Health. 2009. Adolescent Obesity: Towards Evidence-Based
Policy and Environmental Solutions Journal of Adolescent Health 45
(2009) S1–S5.
Sarmiento, Olga,
Andrea Torres, Enrique Jacoby, Michael Pratt, Thomas Schmid and
Gonzalo Stierling. 2008. The Ciclovía-recreativa: a mass
recreational program with public health potential. Unpublished
manuscript. Available from:
https://new.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1435&Itemid=259.
oldId.20091130080841777