The Vienna Town Council is going to take up discussion of the zoning rules again, starting tonight (10/9/2019) at 7:30 in Town Hall. This will include both MAC zoning and the pre-existing standard commercial zoning.
Continue reading Post #412: The 10,000 foot overview of changing Vienna’s commercial zoning.
This post finishes Post #408, with a plea for taking the most systematic approach possible to implementing measures to reduce traffic congestion on Maple. Systematic, from the standpoint of cost-benefit analysis. Continue reading Post #411: Toward a cost per car-trip avoided and cost per traffic-minute avoided.
There appears to be just one public meeting this week relevant to MAC zoning.
Wednesday 10/9/2019 at 7:30 PM in Town Hall, Town Council will have a work session on revising the Town’s zoning statutes, including both MAC and other commercial zones.
The work session materials can be found here:
Please note that the Town does not broadcast work sessions, but it now typically makes audio recordings of those meetings available after-the-fact, at the bottom of this page on the Town of Vienna website:
https://www.viennava.gov/index.aspx?NID=567
The Town reserves the right to change or cancel meetings on short notice, so check the Town’s general calendar before you go, at this URL:
https://www.viennava.gov/
I thought it might be worth the time to write down the schedule for extending the MAC moratorium. I think it looks like this:
Detail follows, in reverse chronological order.
As of now, the MAC moratorium ends on 11/15/2019.
At the September 16, 2019 Town Council meeting, the Town Council set a public hearing on 11/4/2019, for extending that. Meeting materials from the September 16, 2019 meeting can be found here.
When the Town originally set the moratorium, for whatever reason, they let 10 days elapse between their vote, and when the moratorium took place. That lag is what got us both the Sunrise and 380 Maple West proposals. But when they extended the moratorium the first time, there appears to have been no such lag.
That’s a public hearing relating to zoning, so the Town has to adhere to this schedule (below) for publicizing it ahead of time. I calculate that the latest date at which they can begin advertising that meeting is 13 days before. So the advertisement for the meeting has to be published no later than 10/22/2019-ish.
Per Town code, Sec. 18-246 " ... Notice of public hearings before the commission shall be given by publishing the time, place and notice of the hearing once a week for two successive weeks in a newspaper having a paid general circulation in the Town. The public hearing shall be held not less than five nor more than 21 days after final publication. "
But before the Town Council discusses it, the Planning Commission must also hold a public hearing. Formally, the Planning Commission then passes its recommendation on to the Town Council. The only scheduled meeting of the Planning Commission is 10/30/2019.
They too must publish notice. Again, I make out the last possible date for publishing notice of the public meeting to be 10/17/2019-ish.
When those hearings are advertised, notice of that should appear on the Town’s webpage for public hearings.
Any post that starts with “Toward” isn’t going to get you to your destination. So you are forewarned: This is just the first of two posts.
Based on everything I’ve seen so far, it’s difficult and expensive to get cars off of Maple Avenue. That’s really the genesis of this post. If you don’t believe that, you could start with Post #331, no magic bullets for Maple Avenue traffic. You could skim my various analyses of the Town’s recent traffic study (search “multimodal”). Read my idea about behavioral modification to keep cars off the road. Maybe toss in analysis of Capital Bikeshare, and end with analysis of microtransit. See how hard it will be to use rental electric scooters effectively in Vienna. Or you could just re-read the first sentence of this paragraph and say, yeah, sounds about right.
I’m using this post to organize my thinking before the Town Council’s next round of discussions about Maple Avenue. But this ended up being too long, so I’m splitting it into two posts.
The point of this first post is that, ideally, the Town should come up with a way fully to offset the additional traffic that Maple Avenue redevelopment will cause. That should be part of the overall MAC plan. My next post will belabor that by talking about putting all the options into a single “cost effectiveness” framework. Continue reading Post #408: Toward a cost per car-trip avoided and cost per traffic-minute avoided.
This was discussed for about an hour, at the end the 9/30/2019 Town Council meeting. This is my brief review, based on watching the video recording. There was a presentation, with materials provided to Town Council members, but those materials are not posted on the Town website.
The Director of Public Works provided a brief presentation on mictrotransit. More or less, microtransit is an Uber-like service using small buses or vans.
As with Uber, you would use a smartphone app to call up a ride.
Unlike Uber, though:
Because this is a new concept, there is not much data yet to assess how well microtransit works, or in what situations it works. The Director of Public Works mentioned pilot projects that are starting in targeted areas of Washington DC, Montgomery County, MD, and Fredericksburg, VA.
Several tax- or toll-funded organizations were mentioned as possible sources of (most of) the money needed to do this, at least initially. Possible funding sources included the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC), Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transit (DRPT), and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG).
Eventually, Vienna would have to pay the cost of running this. The very approximate estimate for having a third party provide turn-key operation of a system like this, for an area the size of Vienna, was given as $200,000 to $400,000 per year. (It was not clear if that was gross cost, or net cost after offsetting revenues from fares). Councilman Majdi noted that the cost would depend strongly on what you ask for — 24/7 on-demand service anywhere in Town, say, versus a few limited routes offered for a more limited time period.
There was a lengthy comment period, and a motion (subsequently withdrawn) to get staff started on applying for grants. Comments were mostly about how to go about getting seed money (grant funding), and putting this in the context of the other transportation recommendations from the Town’s multimodal transportation study (see Post #359, Post #362, Post #358 ).
In the end, Councilman Noble’s view won out that it would make more sense to see what Kimley-Horn recommends in terms of the overall transit picture, and then (if warranted) pursue a package of options, rather than begin to look at this option in isolation. At some point in the near future, Kimley-Horn will present the findings of the Town’s “multimodal” transportation study in front of Town Council.
In a nutshell, microtransit is a cheaper version of Uberpool, using a few vans instead of many cars, without door-to-door service, subsidized by taxes or tolls.
Councilmember Noble pointed out that the key to any of this is demand. Will people demand (use) this service, enough to justify the expense? Could this take away demand for the existing bus service in and around Vienna (Post #225)? I think that’s the key issue, and one where Town Council would be well-advised to get their hands on whatever hard data is available before making a commitment. (See Uber/Lyft suggestion below.) I have already noted that the stunningly nice local Connector bus service goes largely unused (Post #225).
I will take issue with a statement by Councilmember Patel, that this would reduce our carbon footprint. I think that’s plausible, but not proven, and would certainly depend on the demand. A typical vehicle for this type of service (Sprinter van) gets around 17 MPG. And as I learned with my analysis of electric scooters, a lot of things can affect carbon footprint that would surprise you (last section, Post #338). In particular, short-range transport may function more as a faster substitute for walking and biking, rather than passenger car trips. The substitution of motorized transport for walking or biking will increase carbon footprint.
It’s also worthwhile to note that traditional citybus service is only modestly better than the average new car, due to generally low load factors. For example, US city buses on average emit 300 grams C02 per passenger mile, not hugely different from the average 360 grams emitted by the average new US passenger car (Wikipedia reference is here). Both of those are worse than a solo driver in an efficient vehicle. For example, a solo driver in a new Prius (at 54 mpg) emits about 165 grams per mile. (These figures are for fuel only and are not life-cycle energy costs for the vehicles.) For a Sprinter van, you’d need three passengers at all times to get the same fuel efficient per passenger mile as a solo driver in a Prius.
Now I’m going to do some simple calculations. If this service will actually cost $400,000 per year, how many Uber trips could that buy, in and around the Town of Vienna?
Here’s what it costs to go from the center of Vienna to the Vienna Metro. This probably longer than the median trip within the Town of Vienna. So, at $7 per trip, that’s likely an over-estimate of the typical Uber fare within the proposed mictrotransit service area.
The answer is ($400,000/$7 =) ~57,000 Uber trips.
If the microtransit runs 365 days per year, 8 hours per day, then at what point will microtransit make more than 57,000 trips per year. Answer: about 20 trips per hour, every hour, 8 hours per day, 365 days per year.
Finally, just for fun, how does that 57,000 trips compare to the number of trips on Maple Avenue? (Fully realizing that a) not every microtransit trip would involve Maple, and b) the van itself would be a vehicle on Maple, so the reduction in vehicles on Maple would be less than 57,000 in any case.) Total annual transports on Maple amount to (33,000 cars/day x 365 days = ) about 12 million vehicle trips per year. So the theoretical break-even-vs-Uber 57,000 would amount to 0.4% of Maple Avenue traffic.
(Just to emphasize that I have not run this into the ground, note that the calculation above assumes that the Town would pay the full Uber fare for you. But if the Town just goes halfsies with you, then that $400K cost of microtransit would subsidize 114,000 half-price Uber rides. And yeah, the money isn’t the only thing at issue here. And Uber likely increases traffic congestion. But still, that’s a lot of cheap rides.)
None of this is to say “don’t do this”. All of this is to say, do some arithmetic and think hard before committing the Town to do this. Even if, at first, we’re going to spending Somebody Else’s Money.
Fully acknowledging that we are spending Somebody Else’s Money, what we’re talking about is a service that is, for all intents and purposes, an inconvenient form of Uberpool. (Albeit cheaper). By far, the first thing I would want to know is how many transports Uber and Lyft provide annually, in and around Vienna. (Uber does make such data available to city governments, but Vienna is just outside the zone for which data are publicly available for the DC area.) If it isn’t on-order-of 57,000 and up, … the Town really needs to think hard about this.
Finally, just by way of illustration of what can happen if ridership does not materialize, I’ll point you to the Tyson’s Capital Bikeshare racks. The extremely low ridership results in a $25 per-one-mile-bike-trip average cost. See this post for calculation.
Finally (and I really mean it this time), if you think I’m kidding about high average cost if ridership does not materialize, read this, and find this line: ” … for a jaw-dropping subsidy of more than $1,000 per ride.”
But who am I kidding? Some days, I just get tired of talking to myself. As long as it’s Somebody Else’s Money, I doubt that stories of even truly spectacular failures, as above, will dissuade anyone.
I was reminded that I need to write this topic up, based on the most recent Town Council meeting. So here goes. This post announces that there will (may? might?) be a community meeting, sometime soon, for discussion of the proposed assisted living facility at 380 Maple West (Maple and Wade Hampton). Neighbors of that facility will (most likely) be invited to attend and talk to the assisted living provider. If you weren’t aware that this was (maybe?) going to be an assisted living facility instead of condos (as passed by Town Council), read Post #378.
I admit that writing these posts has become a chore. This one more than most. Continue reading Post #406: Forthcoming community meeting on the 380 Maple West assisted living facility
I’m sure you all marked October 3rd on your calendars (Post #366). Or not.
The initial scheduling hearing for the Sunrise lawsuit was supposed to occur today. But it will not.
They were given a continuance until 11/4/2019. That’s via per Shelley Ebert, who has diligently continued to track this.
That’s all I know. Check back in a month.
I discussed the “consent agenda” concept in Post #388. Instead of passing minor routine non-controversial business items individually, efficient governments package them into a single item (the “consent agenda”). Passing that one item is deemed to have passed each of those individual items of business.
Vienna does not currently use the consent agenda approach. Councilman Majdi proposed using it as a much-needed time saver for Town Council meetings.
I’m going to do 15 minutes of Google search to determine which governments around here use a consent agenda. Is it a rarity or is it the norm?
Answer: Everyone uses it. Except the Town of Vienna. I can’t find a single local government entity that doesn’t use it. Except the Town of Vienna. Why Vienna can’t/won’t adopt this approach, I have no clue.
At the most recent Town Council work session, there was a suggestion to start the meetings half an hour earlier, in response to the long meeting times. They would consider that, but they won’t consider using a consent agenda? Or adopting any other time efficiency measures? I’m sorry to have to say it, but the only word I can think to describe that is nuts. It’s nuts to see that every other local government entity in this area uses this approach, as a time saver, but the Town of Vienna will not even consider it.
So I’m putting this one in the same category as the hundred-day rule. It’s a goofy and dysfunctional practice that is unique to Town of Vienna government, and puts our government practices at odds with more-or-less every other government entity in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Here’s what I found, in alphabetical order, local government bodies that use the consent agenda method for passing minor routine business:
Alexandria City (reference, .pdf)
Alexandria City transportation board (reference)
Alexandria City School Board (reference, .pdf)
Alexandria City Planning Commission (reference, .pdf)
Arlington County (reference)
Falls Church (reference, .pdf)
Fairfax City (reference).
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors uses the term “administrative items”, but it serves the same function — a large number of routine business items passed with a single vote. See, e.g., reference, .pdf).
Fairfax County School Board (reference)
Herndon, Town of (reference, .pdf).
Prince William County (reference)
Leesburg, Town of (reference)
Loudoun County (reference)
Manassas City (reference, .pdf)
Manassas Park City (reference)
Stafford County (reference, .pdf)
I don’t mean this list to be exhaustive. This is just what I found with 15 minutes of searching.
Approximately 2050, at the current tear-down rate.
Calculation follows.
= 33 years.
2019 + 33 = 2050, rounded to the nearest ten.
Not sure that the calculation is worth much. But to me, the interesting fact is the number of building permits in the typical year. In any given year, the Town only issues about 100 permits for new detached homes. (And since Vienna is nearly fully built-up, I interpret that as about 100 tear-downs per year).
So, while it seems like tear-downs are everywhere, and it seemed to me that the pace of the tear-down boom has been accelerating, the Town’s data on building permits says otherwise. It’s about 100/year now, and it was about 100/year in (say) 2014.
It’s probably true that you can’t actually buy a small house in Vienna, to live in, because the lot is worth more as a tear-down than the structure is worth as a residence. And it’s certainly true that the houses being offered for sale in Vienna appear heavily weighted toward new construction (see Post #308).
But in terms of small houses going extinct in Vienna, nope. At the current rate, it does not appear that will happen any time soon.
