Post 331: No magic bullets for Maple Avenue traffic

Are there any radical solutions to congestion on Maple Avenue?  Any magic bullets that appear even remotely plausible?

When it comes to Maple Avenue and traffic, people seem to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing solutions that could not plausibly be implemented.  I thought it might be worthwhile just to do a brief writeup of what I believe is probably not feasible on Maple.  Ever.  And here, I am happy to say that if I’ve gotten something wrong, do not hesitate to email me (chogan@directresearch.com) so I can correct it.  It seems remarkably hard to track down even basic facts about what might or might not be feasible on Maple.

The gist of this is, there’s really not a whole lot you can do, realistically, to create a vast improvement in Maple Avenue traffic congestion.  If there were, somebody would have implemented it already.

If you already know or have guessed that, you have no need to read this posting.  In this posting, I explain why you’ll probably never see these solutions:

  • Widen the road (feasible, but ugly)
  • Replace lights with traffic circles (not enough room, could not handle peak Maple Avenue volume efficiently)
  • Reversible center lane (dangerous, plausibly only helps with AM rush hour, but not destructive — Maple would look more-or-less the same).
  • Bypass (destructive, requires W+OD crossing, unlikely to carry enough traffic to make a material difference).

Continue reading Post 331: No magic bullets for Maple Avenue traffic

Post #330: Scooter alert

I was driving in the City of Fairfax last week and had my first sighting of rental electric scooters there.  First time it was a set of red devices parked on the sidewalk, and I was not quite sure what I was looking at.  But when I saw a couple of lime-green ones in action, that’s when it hit me:  the scooters are here.

Turns out, if I had been paying attention, I’d have been prepared for it.  You can read news coverage here,  or here.

For us, note the key paragraph from that second news article:

"H.B. 2572 also amended the Code of Virginia to state that, if a locality does not adopt a licensing ordinance, regulation, or other action by Jan. 1, 2020, motorized skateboards, scooters, and dockless or electric-powered bicycles can be deployed without formal regulation."

That’s not exactly how I read that law, but it’s close enough.  In so many words, time is running out for having any orderly introduction of electric rental scooters or dockless rental bikes in Vienna.  We have five months to get our act together, or we’re fair game until such time as we do establish some rules.

There appear to be two main objections to rental scooters from the standpoint of the general public.

One, these scooters can typically do about 15 MPH top speed.  That can be a safety issue if allowed to be ridden on the sidewalk. 

Just as a point of reference, 15 MPH on level ground is a pretty good clip for a bicyclist.  I doubt that I have ever managed to achieve that, for any length of time, along any Town of Vienna sidewalk.  And on many parts of those sidewalks, you don’t dare ride at speed.  For example, my least favorite stretch of Maple Avenue sidewalk is below.  The doors of the shops literally open onto the sidewalk, and there’s no place to go.  I traverse this section at a walking pace.

The emergency stopping distance for an electric scooter traveling at 15 MPH appears to be around 30 feet (per this reference).  (About half of that is reaction time, the rest is braking distance.)  This does not strike me as being hugely different from the stopping distance for a bicycle at that speed.

So, in terms of hazard, my guess is, you are relying on the good sense and skill of the sidewalk scooter rider, same as you are relying on the good sense of the sidewalk bicyclist.  Scooters will attract a different type of person, will be ridden (at first) by inexperienced riders, and are capable of speeds without the corresponding physical exertion.  So they may be more dangerous than sidewalk bicycles for those reasons. But not inherently different, in my view, from a sidewalk bicyclist.

Furthermore, if you expect people to get around Maple Avenue on scooters, practically speaking, you have no choice but to allow them on the sidewalk.  I think you’d be borderline crazy to ride a scooter on Maple Avenue at almost any time.  (I feel the same about riding a bicycle on Maple.)   And the presence of scooters in the roadway would substantially disrupt traffic flow.

Two, people leave them anywhere, so they become a nuisance when parked willy-nilly. You can see some discussion of this issue in this post, which is my write up of dockless bike sharing.  Various cities have tried various solutions to this issue, as outlined in that posting.

Other issues with electric scooters are more of a non-public nature.  For example, rentals do not include helmets and (my best estimate) users tend to have a high rate of injury (compared to bicyclists, for example).

Back to Fairfax City: 

Fairfax City expects scooter riders to ride in the road, and not on the sidewalk, among other things explained in this FAQ on the Faifax City website.  But, I also note here that, apparently, Fairfax city does not allow bicycles on the sidewalk, either.  (The exception appears to be routes that are marked bicycle routes, as explained in this Fairfax City ordinance.)

To which I can only say, good luck with that.  The Lime scooter users I saw on Old Lee Highway were cruising down the sidewalk, and I doubt that any no-sidwalk rules will be stringently enforced.  The reason I doubt that is my experience as a bicyclist.  Mainly, a) I never knew that City of Fairfax banned bicycles from sidewalks except along marked bike routes, b) I’m pretty sure I’ve bicycled on the sidewalk there many times and never been hassled. So they may enforce that in the Old Town section of Fairfax City, but certainly not city-wide.

Here’s news reporting on how Vienna is planning to handle this.  That article helpfully gives a link to audio for that meeting.  (Kudos to the Town of Vienna for proving timely audio for Town Council work sessions.)  The discussion of rental scooters starts about 33 minutes into the recording.  Discussion continues for about another 45 minutes, but after listening to most of it, I didn’t detect a lot of clarity there, and not much nuts-and-bolts discussion of how this should play out in Vienna.  It appears to me that Town government is nowhere near prepared to act.  They actually spent some time discussing whether the Virginia legislature is likely to change that January 1 2020 deadline noted above.

Also absent from the discussion — or maybe I missed it — is any notion that, as an ordinance, the Town could bar the use of these devices (say, on any public sidewalk).   The Town already has the right to bar bicycles from the sidewalk if it so chooses.  But near as I can tell, the discussion was all about how Vienna was going to allow electric scooter use in Town, and not really focused on whether Vienna would allow it.  It seemed to be taken as a done deal that they had no choice but to allow scooters here.  That’s not how I read the law, but I’m not a lawyer.  As I read it, if the Town hasn’t acted in some fashion, then rental scooters are legal here.  I didn’t read anything in the law to suggest that (e.g.) barring scooters from the sidewalks was not a legal course of action.

So the clock is ticking on this one, and we seem to be running late.  If you have an opinion on this, it will soon be time to make that known to the Town Council.  Hope the Town can get something reasonable enacted in time.   For a discussion of dockless bike rental — which shares some but not all the problems and benefits of scooter rental —

Post #329: MAC-related meetings this week: Marco Polo/Vienna Market

There is only one public meeting this week relevant to MAC zoning.

Friday, 8/2/2019, at 8 AM (yes, AM) in Town Hall, the Board of Architectural Review will hold a work session to examine revised plans for the Vienna Market/Marco Polo development.

The meeting materials for this work session are located here:
https://vienna-va.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4073485&GUID=4FEE28BF-51F1-4DED-9053-000950DF0218&Options=&Search=

For background, see Post #326.

Below is a time series of the Church Street side of the building, where I have crudely removed the background.  The top is the original concept plan as approved by the BAR.  The middle one is the “plain vanilla” generic-NoVA town houses for what I termed the “bait and switch” (Post #245).  The third is what was presented to the Bar on 6/14/2019 (Post #296).  The very last one is what will be presented to the BAR this Friday 8/2/2019.

At this level of detail, the only changes for this last set of drawings, for the Church Street view, are the following:

  1. The rusticated (roughened) brick portions (the lighter-colored brick) now go halfway up the first and third buildings.
  2. A horizontal decorative element ( ledge? molding?) was removed from the walls of the first and second buildings.

 

What you really can’t see well from any of the drawings is that alleyways lined with garage doors will be visible, from Church Street, between the 1st and 2nd buildings, and between the 3rd and 4th buildings.  I.e., beneath the bay windows that face each on the 1st and 2nd buildings, there are garage doors.  And the ground level is taken up with garage doors down the entire length of the building.  That’s a common enough thing in NoVA these days, but a novelty on Church or Maple in Vienna.  You may or may not see the other end of that alleyway, as you drive past on Maple, depending on the landscaping.

The only other change that was obvious to me, just glancing at the new plans, is that they darkened the color of the retail “podium” portion of the building.   Between the last set of plans that I have, and this most recent set, the very light-colored brick was replaced with darker brick.  (This reduced what I called in a prior post the “came out of a different set of Legos” effect that the light-colored podium had before.)  They also added ornaments to the windows.  This is the before-and-after, below:

 

Post #328: How many assisted-living beds does Vienna need?

Answer:  About 40.  Maybe a few more, because we’re wealthy, and assisted living is something that you have to be fairly wealthy to afford.   Maybe a few less, because our resident population is a little younger than the US average.  But, best guess, if we use assisted living at the US average rate, then 40 assisted living beds would serve the needs of the entire Town of Vienna.

I calculated that back in March, when Sunrise assisted living (proposed for Maple and Center) was a hot topic, but never got around to making that public.  Here, I work through the arithmetic, then just line out the variety of options available for elderly who have various levels of need for assistance.

If you want information on assisted living, in general, in Northern Virginia, see Post #205.

Continue reading Post #328: How many assisted-living beds does Vienna need?

Post #327: Some basic questions to ask before modifying MAC zoning

As I noted in Post #323, the deadline for end of the moratorium on new MAC applications is fast approaching, and the Town government doesn’t seem to be taking any action either to revise the MAC statute or to extend the deadline.

At the end of Post #323, I laid out my biggest fear about some glitch temporarily ending the MAC moratorium.  I’m an economist, and my firm belief is that seemingly crazy things can happen when there’s a lot of money at stake, as there is now on Maple.

In this post, by contrast, I’ll assume the moratorium is extended without a hitch.  Here, I’ll start to list out some big-picture items that I think really need to be aired in public as part of any revision of MAC zoning.

Why?  I’m afraid that any discussion of MAC will immediately devolve into tweaking the details, and will lose sight of some very-big-picture issues.  That’s certainly my impression of the Town’s discussion to date, other than Commissioner Majdi’s proposal.  So, to be clear, this posting on revising MAC has nothing to do with building height, or setbacks from the street, or requirements for open space.  It’s about other stuff.

I’ll try to keep it short, but no guarantees.

Continue reading Post #327: Some basic questions to ask before modifying MAC zoning

Post #325: Revising MAC? Time is short? Or is time your friend?

In Post #323, I noted that the process for revising the MAC statute now combines  a looming deadline with zero activity.  That obviously makes no sense, so I think I’d like to take a few guesses as to what may or may not be happening.  So please note that while the first section (Past) is largely fact-based, the end of this post (Future) is pure speculation.

Continue reading Post #325: Revising MAC? Time is short? Or is time your friend?

Post #324: Affordable housing (ADDENDUM AND FURTHER CORRECTION 7/24/2019)

Affordable housing is a weighty topic that requires a real depth of knowledge if you’re going to address it seriously.

This post, by contrast, is not a serious analysis of affordable housing.  This is just one of those quirky little things you stumble across doing a Google search, that, oddly enough, can be used to get across a few simple points.

Bottom line:  Vienna residence, furnished, utilities included.  Monthly rent is $1950 $1500.  Price includes utilities, internet and cable, as well as daily maid service and free continental breakfast.

Correction:  Turns out, a colleague knows people who have lived there.  If you prepay a week in advance, it’s just $50/night, which works out to $1500/month.

Trip Advisor breathlessly assures me that it’s the #1 rated! motel in Vienna, VA. True, by definition.

On a more serious note, how about a little arithmetic.  It looks like the Wolf Trap Motel has about 120 rooms, or “dwelling units” in this case.  Is there any hope that MAC zoning will ever provide even as many as 120 affordable housing units in Vienna? 

And by that I mean, actual, formally-defined affordable housing under some legally-administered program.  Not the fast-and-loose discussion of “the market-determined rent on these apartments will be more affordable” that has substituted for real Town public discussion of this issue so far.  (And if you have no clue what I’m talking about, in terms of a legally-defined affordable housing project, take a look at what they do in Falls Church.)

The arithmetic is easy enough:  Additional MAC dwelling units x % reserved for affordable housing = additional MAC affordable housing.  All we need are plausible estimates for each.

The table below works through all of that, projecting total dwelling units based on the current MAC average density of dwelling units per acre, and some assumed fraction of Maple that eventually undergoes redevelopment.

But what fraction of units might plausibly be affordable housing?  To model that, I took one of the recent Falls Church mixed use projects.  There, for the Broad and Washington Project, the developer proffered six percent of the units in the building for affordable housing (see this .pdf).  So, if they can do it, presumably we … might too.  (I think this figure is ballpark for the rest of the Falls Church mixed-use development.  E.g., five beds in the large Kensington assisted living facility in Falls Church are in a special affordability program.)

Reading down the table, the first three MAC projects come in at 41 units per acre.  You can then see counts of total additional units that would be built under assumptions that 30% or 70% of the total MAC acreage gets redeveloped at that density.  Finally, if 6% of all new units are set aside for affordable housing, you get the counts at the bottom:  64 affordable housing units if 30% of Maple is redeveloped, or 169 affordable housing units if 70% of Maple is redeveloped.

(N.B. for the number-oriented among you.  The acreage is not proportional to the percentages because I net out the 5.7 that have already been approved for mixed-use development.)

And so the answer to my question is, maybe, if all suns shine.  If Vienna actually had an affordable housing program.  If every mixed-use building from now on would proffer affordable units at the same rate as was seen in the model Falls Church project.  And if a very large fraction of Maple gets redeveloped.

If all that happened, you might get more affordable housing units out of MAC than there currently are rooms in the Wolf Trap Motel.

But:  You can’t get blood from a stone.  Put aside the fact that some projects would not be suitable for this program (e.g., the million-dollar condo townhouses at Marco Polo).  The bottom line remains that there is no free lunch.  Every one of those units is money out of the developers’ pockets, so affordable housing must be balanced against other competing demands for proffers.  For example, developers might not be able to afford both putting the utility lines underground and reserving 6% of units for affordable housing.  Ditto, providing significant public green space on their property and in additional supplying significant affordable housing.  And if a future MAC results in smaller buildings, there would be fewer units and less profit available from which to supply affordable housing.

My point is that instead of just talking in the abstract about affordable housing, we really ought to get into the numbers just a bit.  It’s instructive.  Best guess, any formal, legal, zoning-driven affordable housing program under MAC would be a drop in the bucket, relative to the perceived need for affordable housing.

My only other point is to study Falls Church, because, by definition, they’re doing  better at it than we are.  Interestingly, while Falls Church has this formal, legally-defined affordable housing program, they also make sure that people looking for affordable housing can find a comprehensive list of apartment and condo rental rates.  They put those right on their website, on the affordable housing page (here, .pdf.). Those aren’t “affordable housing” in the legal sense, they are just (presumably) the market rates on the cheapest housing options available in Falls Church.  And given the extremely limited supply of legally-defined affordable housing, the market rate is going to be what almost every person pays.  Like it or not.

So, no free lunch.  But maybe a free breakfast, for the time being.

Addendum

I started out this post entirely tongue-in-cheek.  But I didn’t realize there was more truth here than I bargained for.  A colleague assures me that she knows of five or six people who do, in fact, use the Wolf Trap as the only affordable housing in town.  They all work food-service jobs on Maple Avenue, as far up the block as Whole Foods, don’t own cars, and walk to work, while living (presumably two-to-a-room, so 750/month/person?) at the Wolf Trap Motel.

So, in fact, Wolf Trap Motel does function as affordable housing in Vienna.  And that peculiar old motel out on Route 50 in Fairfax — the one that looks like a ship’s wheelhouse — apparently does the same for that area.  So the recycling of downscale hotels as affordable workers’ housing is not just limited to the Wolf Trap Hotel.

As a final note, yet another colleague assures me that the Wolf Trap is the most common way-station for the newly divorced in the area.   So, yeah, it does serve as affordable housing.  Maybe not as the Town intends it, but it serves as that all the same.

Post #323: Revising MAC? Time is short.

As much as it pains me to say it, I’m going to continue to write about the future of MAC development on Maple Avenue.  As of now, not only is there no forward motion on revising MAC, I’m not sure that the Town of Vienna government is even capable of making significant changes to MAC, based on the process used so far.

My main point here is to remind people that time is short.  Continue reading Post #323: Revising MAC? Time is short.

Post #322: Moving forward (Where do we go from here, part 3).

Quick recap of the facts, in so far as I know them.  Then one additional point that I believe to be a fact, but based solely on my own research.  The conclusion (jump down to that if you wish) seems to be some fairly clear guidance on a way to revise MAC to be more in keeping with what the majority of Vienna residents appear to want. Continue reading Post #322: Moving forward (Where do we go from here, part 3).