Patent Grant
7866910
Community-based intermodal facilities, as now conceptualized, induce large-scale pedestrian movements based upon the cumulative pedestrian supportive characteristics of the urban habitat features (the pedestrian-orientation thereof that will hereinafter be referenced as “pedestrian-oriented” structures, building facades components, corridors, transit, hardscape, landscape, or other elements of the urban built environment); increase multimodal transportation system usage by use of innovative corridor, parking, and community transit strategies, and other methods to induce large-scale pedestrian intermodal access; and, stimulate economic, and community, and personal development.
Through the use of pedestrian-oriented corridor and community transit strategies, abundant shared-use, parking structures reduce traffic congestion, frame the new pedestrian-oriented urban form, and reduce private developer costs normally associated with parking requirements. Further, such intermodal community development strategies can provide: more affordable housing and business locations; economic growth for diverse business, social and residential populations; and, a variety of enhanced education, health, and quality of life opportunities.
Moreover, by using governmental transportation trust funds and other public infrastructure financing techniques to develop such community-based, pedestrian-oriented intermodal transportation solutions (parking, community transit, and the public places that help to gather passengers in preparation for intermodal transfers) and reserving the use of private investor funds for a variety of mixed-use projects that support economic development, the financial burdens on local governments related to such intermodal improvements are reduced. This method to reduce traffic congestion and promote community development helps to grow the local tax base and enables these community and transportation improvements to be self-supporting.
These recommendations require a paradigm shift. Transportation trust funds and other governmental funds used to build highways must be used to develop a built environment that induce travelers to abandon their nearly exclusive dependence on the single-occupant, private passenger automobile, to use other modes of transportation as part of virtually every automotive trip (making every trip to some degree multimodal) and to productively interact with community residents, visitors, and business, educational, and social institutions in the new pedestrian-oriented urban and suburban centers along major highway corridors and in the redeveloped city and town centers.
A premise of this invention is that world-class mobility and exceptional economic growth can be more readily achieved through the development of seamless multimodal transportation systems, not more road building; therefore a prudent transportation policy would be to use available road building funds to fully develop community-based, pedestrian-oriented intermodal facilities and related community and multimodal improvements. Development of such community intermodal systems (“CIS”) as herein described is a method to achieve sustainable world-class mobility and exceptional economic growth by the development of parking and pedestrian linkages between various modes of transport (especially between cars and rail transit), as well as conditions that will tend to improve the natural environment of the intermodal community and the quality of life (i.e., intellectual growth, emotional well-being, physical health and capabilities) of the residents and frequent visitors to such intermodal communities.
Transportation systems and community development in the best of circumstances should represent the two sides of the same coin. The community should provide for every need of each citizen and visitor and the transportation system should provide high quality citizen and visitor access to those needs.
In the last fifty years, there has been a growing incompatibility between the requirements of an automotive-based transportation system and the urban community capacity to satisfy citizen and visitor needs. Traffic congestion, air and water quality degradation, pedestrian and automotive fatalities, slum and blight are but a few of the community problems that have surfaced as road networks expand and lengthen to satisfy mobility demands.
Fortunately, transportation policy initiatives to support intermodal improvements may provide a basis for mutually beneficial community and transportation system enhancements. Like modern airport terminals, these intermodal improvements should respond to both the need to park automobiles near opportunities to board alternative transport modes and provide for an environment where basic human needs are satisfied (places to eat, read, talk and sit) until the next segment of a multimodal trip begins.
Like the best of communities, these needs should be provided not only within the built environments, but also, in the out-of-doors public spaces dispersed throughout the community and urban centers. These areas must be protected from the harshness and discomfort of the natural elements, e.g., too cold, too hot, too wet or humid, too bright or too dark by the structural components of the built environment and therefore are functionally defined as the habitable and desirable places in the spaces between building. Within these public places, the distances actually walked should be mitigated and flexible to provide exercise, but not exhaustion. On the other hand, the dimensions of these urban and suburban centers need to be large enough to accommodate the significant and varied development that support large-scale pedestrian movements and multimodal access and usage.
This invention presents a fundamentally new way of assembling the building blocks of an intermodal transportation system into sustainable high-quality communities that provides a basis for world-class economic growth throughout a wide diversity of the citizenry.
To understand the premises upon which the invention is based, it is necessary to focus on both the macro-transportation systems and human-scale community issues that are required for the development of creative, successful, and historically inspired communities. Broadly speaking, transportation systems in America are large capital investments that must accommodate large numbers of private passenger automobiles and, in the case of transportation systems using aircraft, transit or waterborne vessels, large numbers of parked cars and pedestrian movements from parked cars to and within intermodal terminal facilities.
In most developed and rapidly developing nations, everyone wants to drive to their destination. In doing so, however, some very bad things can happen. In America, hundreds of thousands of people suffer sudden accidental death on congested highways (see: Mean Streets 2004 at: http://www.transact.org/library/reports_html/ms2004/pdf/Final_Mean_Streets—2004—4.pdf); millions of people suffer with chronic illnesses due to stress, air pollution, and lack of physical exercise (see: Suburban Sprawl and Physical and Mental Health at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcqi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15351221&dopt=Citation); and, the social behavior amongst Americans looks less fraternal, and more aggressively adverse, with each passing year (see: Fast Facts from Texas Department of Public Safety, Road Rage at: http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/director_staff/public_information/Fast_facts/roadrage.pdf; Road Rage Becoming Commonplace: Survey at: http://autonet.ca/Safety/story.cfm?story=/Safety/2004/11/15/715913.html; and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Road Rage Survey reference at: http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/about/outreach/dsweek/survey.htm). Many similar sources and observations can be referenced for other car-dominated urban communities around the world and it is expected that such road rage behavior will become more recognized in all car-dominated communities absent the use of the present invention in those world communities.
What should be readily understood is that the travel needs of a speeding automobile (wide, smooth asphalt or concrete surfaces) are exactly the opposite of the safe, comfortable, useful and interesting environments that humans respond to favorably. In short, the natural and best environment for the automobile is inherently a risk and hazard to humans who are not enclosed within the protective cocoon of their own automobile, otherwise separated from the automotive traffic. Conversely, the typical human habitats, i.e., your living room, bedroom and office are not suitable for the operation of an automobile at typical design speeds, e.g., 30 to 60 miles per hour or more.
Modern architecture and community designs, however, assume the automobile is welcome everywhere. It is precisely this lack of awareness that moving cars and people don't mix very well, that causes most of the design flaws of our built environment. Flaws that adversely impact all components of our communities and that will hopefully be rectified by the methods described below.
This does not mean that cars should not be used for many or even most of the trips between the urban, suburban and rural environments. Nor does it mean that car trips are no longer enjoyable and rewarding in very specific car-friendly circumstances: non-congested traffic conditions; interesting views of the natural and built environments that can be observed from a moving vehicle; the comfort of lounge-like seating during air-conditioned, smooth, and uninterrupted car trips; and, the entertainment, food and beverages that can be consumed during such car trips.
As one of the world's major industry, automotive-based transportation systems represent billions of dollars of investments in the movement, care, and feeding of the car-driving public. Such automotive related investments, however, can not be used as intended and do not provide the benefits envisioned when chronic car traffic congestion destroys productivity and mobility, fouls the air we breath, degrades the esthetics and physically conditions of the natural environment, and helps to support the sedentary lifestyle and obesity epidemic evident in America and other developed nations of the world.
What this does mean, however, is that as more and more of our streets and communities become congested with traffic, continued car use in those congested areas is not cost effective or beneficial and alternative modes of transportation must be successfully encouraged. In traffic congested communities, the air quality endangers health and urban blight threatens safety and the community esthetics, not to mention the economic vitality of the urban and suburban centers. This also means phase-out of car dominated systems of movements from home-to-work-to-home and to social events and the events of daily life in order to:
When traffic congestion is a dominant factor of daily life, the allurement and efficiencies of automotive movements are diminished due to substantial loss of work and leisure time, a reducing of quality of life, and increasingly dangerous driving conditions and, within a very short time period (a decade or so), the community benefits of car movements can vanish.
In virtually all growing urban and suburban communities, a time comes when more road building no longer is a cost effective means to reduce traffic congestion. Limited right-of-way opportunities in already developed areas, very high costs for right-of-way acquisitions in urban and suburban areas, and significant business losses associated with the right-of-way acquired for road expansion projects, collectively constrain the physical, financial, and public support conditions necessary for recurring road building options. Not withstanding diminished road building efforts, development continues and traffic congestion exacerbates.
When road networks are build outward from the urban and suburban center in more rural communities to avoid such road building and right-of-way constraints, traffic congestion worsens as more cars driving longer distances, traffic conditions leave fewer places to safely walk from one necessary destination to another, and car movements become the only real option notwithstanding the chronic traffic congestion, loss of mobility, and other adverse, but related, effects to health, the economy, and the environment.
What it does mean is that continued road building is a counter productive and self-defeating mobility strategy that creates adverse conditions that community intermodal system development can remedy. By development of intermodally enhanced, pedestrian-oriented urban communities with very significant and convenient, but mostly invisible, parking capacity, this expansion of the roadway transportation system (highways and the intermodally linked mixed-use pedestrian-oriented parking structures) will accommodate more car traffic by diverting large numbers of cars from the highways and local streets into mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented parking structures and thereafter inducing the car occupants to leave their cars behind as they complete their daily trips using a variety of modal options (walking, bicycles, transit, airplanes and water-borne vessels).
When such community-based intermodal facilities are provided within the urban and suburban built environments, we would keep driving our cars, but when the traffic congestion occurs, we would park, walk, and use transit to regain mobility, reducing energy demands, improving health, air quality, and the economic conditions for each resident and visitor to such pedestrian-oriented, parking enriched, and intermodal enhanced city and town centers
In any monolithic system, fundamental design flaws can lead to systems failures with catastrophic consequences. While car only (or car dominated) movements within the urban and suburban communities and transportation systems, puts all residents and visitors at risk, a multimodal transportation system, with efficient and robust pedestrian-oriented intermodal improvements, will make the entire community safe, secure, sustainable and economically successful.
The question that needs to be responded to is specifically what type of intermodal improvements to the transportation system would be good for both the car-driving public in the frequently driven to cities and towns and still support the larger community interests. Further, it must be determined how to reorganize the urban and suburban centers to covert the build and natural environmental conditions from traffic congested, dangerous, unhealthy, unsightly and poor (“slum and blight conditions”) into the sustainable, high quality communities that represent the economic engines of a great nation.
A community intermodal transit system includes a city or town center; a plurality of low speed mixed-mode corridors extending substantially radially outwardly from said city center; a corresponding number of circumferentially disposed parking structures located proximally to outer ends of the mixed-mode corridors; and an outer transportation network including various modes of transportation, each mode including a transfer point to at least one of said parking structures. Service roads are provided to the city or town center, as are direct public links from the parking structures to airports and a seaport. Low speed, low profile vehicles may operate on small gauge tracks upon said corridors.
More specifically, the defining characteristics of a CIS include:
It is an object of the invention to rehabilitate urban communities from slum and blight conditions into centers for economic and human development. To do so, one must accept the premise that cars moving faster than 15 miles per hour should not be mixed with humans unprotected by a similar vehicle, structured barrier or significant distance and that the best human habitats do not have any cars in sight, i.e. quiet restaurant with family and friends, inside any major league baseball park, at a neighborhood swimming pool. Secondly, one must determine how to manage the thousands of cars a day that arrive at our urban and suburban centers so that they can bring, along with the other modes of transportation, the people and goods necessary for the economic, governmental, religious, educational, entertainment, nutritional, health care and cultural activities of a complex and sustainable communities. Thirdly, the city and town centers need to preserve most of their public spaces for people to enjoy without adverse traffic impacts.
Given these apparently conflicting requirements, it is another object to offer an alternative to car-based or car-dominant transportation systems and the chronic traffic congestion and socioeconomic problems they have created for urban planners.
It is not an object to induce people to give up their automobiles for the greater good. Rather, it is proposed rather that if one wants a sustainable, economically vibrant and world-class community where citizens interact in healthy, safe, and socially beneficial ways, one must eliminate car traffic within urban and suburban centers.
It is an object to find better ways to link cars and their parking spaces with opportunities for large-scale pedestrian movements and many other transportation modes, i.e., high speed rail, interregional and regional rail, statewide intercity rail, commuter rail, regional and community transit [narrow gauge rail systems and/or small buses, vans, and community adapted rubber tire vehicles, airplanes and other aircraft, ships, barges, ferries, water taxis, water buses, and other water-borne vessels, bicycles, pedestrian movements.
It is therefore further objects of the instant CIS improvements, and their urban centers as taught herein, to:
The above and yet other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the hereinafter Brief Description of the Drawings, Detailed Description of the Invention, and Claims appended herewith.
A community intermodal system (CIS) proposes a method of movement that relies upon, within an urban or suburban community context, high quality public spaces between buildings that are safe, comfortable, useful, and interesting. The interaction of each and every component of the urban form should be constructed and positioned to support large-scale pedestrian movements and to further the principal CIS objective: to cause larger than typical numbers of people to walk longer than typical distances and access transit or other modes of transportation as part of a multimodal trip involving at least one car-based trip segment.
While there have been numerous studies to support the calculation that pedestrian movements are typically limited to one-quarter to one-half mile distances (see: Walking Distances to and from Light-Rail Stations at: http://www.enhancements.org/trb/1538-003.pdf), little research or observations have been undertaken or published on the numbers of pedestrians that will occupy public space based upon the specific affects on human behavior that can be caused by the physical characteristics and architectural features (see: Projects for Public Spaces at: http://www.pps.org/info/aboutpps/). Nor has the environmental conditions that maximize predictable pedestrian movements (lengthen trips and increase numbers of people walking) been well documented.
What CIS improvements provide are new and unique urban forms, inclusive of a specific kind of public space, that will draw into an urbanized area large numbers of automotive travelers (10,000 to 30,000 people assuming 10,000 parking spaces), produce large-scale pedestrian movements (80,000 to 215,000 pedestrian trip segments per square mile per day or more) and cause substantial shifts from automotive to multimodal trips (30 percent or more). Once built, such an intermodal community or urban center would provide a test bed to verify the methods to induce large-scale pedestrian movements and the relationship between such large-scale pedestrian movements, the pedestrian holding capacity or pedestrian-oriented corridors, courtyards, and plazas and highly utilized multimodal transportation systems. A conceptual view of a CIS is shown in
The components of the CIS and the position of each component relative to other CIS components are constructed to effectuate CIS objectives in multiple ways. Each component and positioning of the component refines the qualities of public space to produce predictable human behaviors within this urban form that favor larger numbers of multimodal movements via: high speed rail; interregional and regional rail; statewide intercity rail; commuter rail; regional and community transit; narrow gauge rail systems; small buses, vans, and other community adapted rubber tire vehicles; airplanes and other aircraft; water-borne vessels, ships, barges, ferries, water taxis, water buses; bicycles; pedestrian movements; and, other modes. Large-scale pedestrian movements (walking distances of one or more miles in concert with community transit by many thousands of people) and substantial modal shifts arise as predictable human behavior within this urban form.
As may be noted in
Further shown in
CIS improvements are constructed using three-story to eight-story mixed-use buildings 40, 40a and 40b (see
Public spaces between buildings 40 are framed by the exterior of and entrances or other opening to a series of mixed-use buildings that line the perimeter of parking structures. Such liner buildings 210/212 are positioned along wide sidewalks, pedestrian corridors 262, courtyards 264 and plazas 266, walkable and traffic-calmed streets 209 (see: Walkable Communities at: http://www.walkable.org/index.htm and the history and type of measures that describe Traffic Calming at http://www.trafficcalming.org/), and mixed-mode corridors (see: John Zacharias, “The Amsterdam experiment in mixing pedestrians, trams and bicycles” ITE Journal, vol. 69, no. 8, pages 22-28, August 1999 available at http://www.ite.org/itejournal/index.asp.) designed to accommodate a mix of pedestrian, bicycle and transit movements.
Specific structural components of liner buildings 210/212 (see
Most parking is accommodated in specially designed parking structures having entrances 213 that are circumscribed by said liner buildings 210/212. Within the parking structures 200/202 (see
No or very limited surface parking lots (consisting of six or less parking spaces). More particularly, as may be noted with reference to
As may be noted in the embodiment of
Further shown in
Shown at
With reference to
Said parking structure is designed to absorb traffic by efficiently converting automotive trips into pedestrian movements that eliminate traffic congestion and improve intermodel pedestrian access to transit and other transportation modes and to frame public squares and pedestrian or mixed-mode corridors and streets with horizontal components, as discussed in the Ergonomic Hybrid Transit Access Corridor Particularly for Town and Urban Centers of said U.S. Pat. No. 6,561,727 B1 (2003) 245. Within these public spaces (plazas, courtyards, and corridors), small transit, parking shuttle and local circulating vehicles help to more efficiently link parking facilities to destinations within a one to four square mile area and with the mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented parking structure, collectively, constitute a pedestrian-oriented design and transit access system that will improve intermodel movements within the urban community.
The above defines a better method to park automobiles within the shroud of a 20 foot to 90 foot deep liner building (typically 60 feet or so deep) and to incorporate elements of interior design to produce a mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented parking structure that positions parking spaces to better provide access, air, light and security to customers, visitors and residents of mixed-use liner buildings.
Further shown in
Liner building sections (see
The specific building heights need to provide sufficient light and air to the public realm to respond to all urban health and the multiple environmental needs of the lushly vegetated public places e.g., human and compatible animal and plant life. All components of these three dimensional spaces should appeal to the five human senses (what we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel) and should constitute the urban form of a “green corridor” that provides a sustainable environment for a variety of urban adapted wildlife and urban compatible domestic animals. Because a continuous array of buildings at or above 85 feet in height can create environmental problems within the corridor, courtyard, plaza, pedestrian via, zaquan and other microclimates, buildings sized down to three-story heights or occasional buildings above eight-story heights for specific large scale uses should be placed within the urban form where they add to and do not detract from these CIS objectives (see: Microclimate and Downtown Open Space Activity available through; http://eab.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/2/296).
Within this pedestrian-oriented environment, large numbers of people walk longer than typical distances because they enjoy the experience. Architectural features vary every 10 to 30 to 50 feet based upon different uses and independently conceived architectural designs that are observable from the public realm at close (30 feet or less), intermediate (30 feet to 300 feet or so) and greater distances (300 feet or more). These features must provide not only visual interest, but also provide other sensory reinforcement opportunities (what one hears, smells, feels, and tastes).
In the traffic calmed streets (see
With reference to the views of
In the elaborated embodiment of
Situated yet further symmetrically outwardly from parking segments 18 are said greenscape segments 20, having a width preferably of 3 to 6 feet or more when other segments or other corridor features are incorporated therein, which may include any of a variety of landscape and hardscape treatments and which can be used to laterally move from one corridor segment to another. Outwardly thereof are greenway transit segments 22, having a width preferably of 15 to 40 feet, which generally include narrow gauge rail tracks 24, that is, tracks having an x-axis width in a range of 24 to 30 inches and thereupon, a low speed, e.g., 5 to 10 miles per hour, low profile preferably electric, battery powered, tram, trolley, train or like transit vehicle 26 having a floor 28 (in the horizontal xy plane) situated at a level not exceeding about 20 inches above the plane of the greenway transit segments 22.
It is to be appreciated that each of the greenway transit segments 22 are multi-use in character, that is, functional for purposes of pedestrian and low speed bicycle or similar conveyance use both during periods when the small transit vehicles 26 are not present and, at lateral sides of the small-gauge rail tracks 24, when such transit vehicles 26 are upon the rail component of the greenway transit segment 22.
Optionally disposed beneath each greenway transit segment 22 (see
With further reference to
Symmetrically outwardly beyond lateral segments 32 are pedestrian arcade-like segments 36, 36a and 36b having a width preferably in a range of 10 to 15 feet. The preferred xz plane cross-section of arcades 38 within segments 36 is shown in
The number and length of the store fronts or architectural details of surface 42 are designed to protect the pedestrian from the rain, wind, heat and cold, and to optimize pedestrian spacing and interest to urge the pedestrian to move continually forward along the y-axis toward a destination or transit linkage 12. A maximum distance for such pedestrian movements are defined in accordance with established psychological and medical criteria of how far a pedestrian can comfortably walk, in the given climate where the greenway transit system is located, before beginning to loose interest, perspire or tire, given the typical mental and physiological characteristics of individuals moving through the corridor segment.
Related to the time that it would typically take a consumer to walk along a pedestrian arcade segment 36 between destinations or transit use opportunities 12 is the periodicity of the schedule of community transit vehicles 26, the various rail services such as said link 243, bus transit systems, and other modal choices and a variety of end uses or refinements of the architectural design details. Accordingly, the schedule of the transit vehicles 26 as well as the land use itself and architectural design variations are a function of typical physiologic and psychological considerations.
With reference to the top or xy plane view of
A four lane roadway 14 and 15 (see
Per FIGS. 9A/9B, it is noted that arcade 38 may be defined through the use of arcades 38, balconies, porches, awnings, roof overhangs, zaquans, pedestrian vias, and other pedestrian and bicycle related shelters. That is, it is noted that vertical surface 42 defines an xz plane interface between the public right of way and private architectural structures such as structures 40a and 40b. These structures may be retrofitted to provide for arcades 38 or, alternatively, lobbies, courtyards, zaquans, or pedestrian vias.
In
It is noted that said corridors 10 and 100 may comprise segments of larger linear, bidirectional, unidirectional, or loop-like planning configurations within said city or town center 260.
In the pedestrian corridors 262 (see FIGS. 4 and 13-14), the mixed-mode corridor 215, the ergonomic hybrid transit access corridor 10/100 (see
This differential in the sensory reception distance forms the basis for the pedestrian propulsion system and the steering capacity of CIS urban forms (pedestrian-oriented corridors, plazas, traffic-calmed streets) in conjunction with large-scale pedestrian movements. With the use of a full range of human scales and the fractal qualities in the urban built and naturally-occurring structures and designs to excite visual interest at long, medium and short distances and the variety of needs that can be satisfied within mixed-use environments, pedestrian interest can be converted into a predictable and fully operational method of intermodal transport. (Salingaros, The Future of Cities [2006] at: http://www.math.utsa.edu/sphere/salingar/futurecities.html, A Theory of Architecture [2006] at: http://www.math.utsa.edu/˜salingar/architecture.html, Principles of Urban Structure [2005] at: http://www.math.utsa.edu/sphere/salingar/urbanstructure.html, and Pavements as Embodiments of Meaning for a Fractal Mind [2000] at: http://www.nexusjournal.com/Miki-Sali-Yu.html.
In addition, the pedestrian corridors 208 and 262, the mixed-mode corridors 215, the ergonomic hybrid transit access corridors 10/100 particularly for town and urban centers as is taught in my U.S. Pat. No. 6,561,727 B1 (2003), outer plazas 215A, courtyards 264, traffic-calmed streets 209, and the adjacent built and landscape environment, provide comfortable places to sit during both the walk and ride phases of typical multimodal trips, i.e., provides comfortable and well-lighted places to sit, eat, socialize, protected from the natural elements. Doorways, windows, balconies and other entry features (see
Finally, the provision for ultra-low floor community transit vehicles 26 (see
Cars 203 remain a dominant method of transport, but they are parked in mixed-use pedestrian-oriented parking structures 200/202 surrounded by liner buildings 210 (see
All multimodal trip needs are addressed so that a significant pedestrian-based model shifts to alternative modes of transport (bike racks, clean and safe public wash rooms, lockers, phone and internet services, food and drink outlets, way finding, mobility centers, abundant structured parking spaces, seamless transportation services and modal transfers for individuals and groups. As a result of the large-scale pedestrian movements, nearby mixed-use pedestrian-oriented structured parking and high quality public places for enhanced intermodal access, far larger numbers of the traveling public use public transport, automotive traffic congestion is reduced, and virtually all automotive trips can become multimodal trips.
Such community intermodal systems assume an intermodal community built environment that provides for all human needs, e.g., governmental, religious, commercial, health, education, entertainment, cultural, residential, and employment. Further, it assumes that the transportation systems that operate between and within the community intermodal system car-free centers (see: Carfree.com at: http://www.carfree.com/) or other pedestrian-oriented urban centers are safe, reliable, energy efficient, technologically advanced, and environmentally benign and that they enhance the region's global economic competitiveness, productivity, and quality of life. Finally, while specific single purpose buildings, especially those with more than eight floors, will exist within the pedestrian-oriented urban center, their first three floors or more will help to frame the high quality human habitat and provide for specific community needs within the CIS urban form, i.e., restaurants, retail goods and services, health related, social and governmental services.
Further, within a city or town center 260, the CIS components are themselves defined to specify that:
The CIS design as described differs from currently conceived transit oriented development (TOD) practices (see the materials, descriptions, and references found at: http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm45.htm) due to following CIS attributes:
Such CIS improvements (see FIGS. 1 and 12-13) provide for sufficient parking and density and intensity of use within a one-mile or so radius from the intermodal access points to assure the efficient and effective conversion of substantial automotive trips (30 percent or more) into multimodal trips where pedestrian, bicycle, transit, rail, waterborne and air transport movements complete the automotive trip segments. As many modern airport terminals provide easy access from automotive, transit or rail modes to the aircraft point of entry gates, such community-based, pedestrian-oriented intermodal systems will provide seamless intermodal transfers for multiple modes and increase rail, transit and intercity bus use, such as rail-to-parking-structure transfer 220, transfer 263 between interstate 267 and feeder highway 247.
With regard to the view of
At its core, the inventive intermodal and transit improvements aims to convert automotive travelers to pedestrian, bicycle, and transit users while encouraging private sector investments in community economic development, i.e., liner buildings related to the parking structures and other building projects within the CIS that provide places to live, work, pray, market and socialize. Mixed-use liner buildings would be built upon land acquired in bulk to construct parking structures, sidewalks, the pedestrian-oriented mixed-mode corridors and plazas, and the traffic calmed streets. Once such land has been made available for the intermodal improvements, e.g., parking structures, mixed-mode corridors, plazas, sidewalks and streets, the surplus lands can be sold to the appropriate bidder for liner buildings or other community building uses absent a private/public partnership to reserve such land for the property owners who pursue with the affected local governments a cooperative development strategy.
This transfer from automotive to alternative modes is in part accomplished by: connecting the long and narrow parking structures directly to the interstate off-ramp to improve car access to parking spaces; and, by keeping the walking distance as short as possible between the parked car and liner building destinations (from 5 to 40 feet) or between the car and the mixed-mode corridor 10/100 (from 70 to 100 feet) providing high quality pedestrian and transit access to multiple community destinations. (See
Other conditions that favor parking to pedestrian to transit intermodal transference are incorporated into: attractive and interesting architectural designs; safe, comfortable, useful, and interesting activities that can be undertaken along the mixed mode corridors, courtyards and plazas; and beneficial social interaction that occurs in the pedestrian-oriented and socially conducive public spaces between the car and the desired destinations.
There are multiple transportation related funding strategies that can be pursued to develop CIS improvements and multimodal transportation systems. Regardless of the statutory funding provisions that are used, it is clear that CIS related funding requests, when properly pursued, will be productive when the improvements are shown to serve a valid transportation purpose. While such improvements will simultaneously provide support for community and economic development goals and strategies, they will function as a highly successful intermodal system of transportation improvements.
Other economic impacts to be explored relate to the real estate value increases that can be expected when implementing pedestrian-oriented strategies. Throughout the world, downtown redevelopment successes have well established that the value return from thoughtful design and architectural variety when compared to similarly situated downtowns that allow lesser design standards to prevail. It would be safe to postulate that a ten fold property value change occurs between communities which insist upon the good pedestrian-oriented community designs compared to those that allow pedestrian-adverse good designs to prevail, given similar densities and modal access.
With such economic impacts derived from pedestrian-oriented designs, property owners are better positioned to partially self finance intermodal projects that include CIS improvements and TOD communities and will be stronger partners with government once planning and project commitments and development agreements have been secured. Further, should the sites where the CIS is developed be located within a community redevelopment district or similar governmental tax arrangements, then tax increment financing (TIF) and public bond financing, and other financial development plans add an additional level of governmental, property taxed based, funding options.
In the development of successful CIS improvements and TOD communities, care must be taken to organize the uses that are required for daily pedestrian needs. In the hallmark work of Lewis Mumfort, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (1961) (see: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0156180359/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-8867215-2876748#reader-page), the essential city functions and building types are identified and placed in their historic context. Summarizing his conclusions, the buildings and uses that need to be established with any sustainable community, TOD or CIS can be identified. These functions and the buildings in which they are housed are:
Each and every use benefits economically from the large scale pedestrian activity adjacent its location along the mixed-mode corridors, plazas, courtyards, sidewalks, and traffic-calmed streets. The crowds, whether they are residents, customers, or visitors just passing through, represent a social life that is good for business and the social interchange of a cooperative working community.
While business owners and residents share the parking spaces that are located behind each liner building, the use thereof is preferably is staggered with different hours or shifts of work, residential occupancy and visitor, traveler, or customer parking needs. Density that adds value to land use and enhanced transit ridership is accomplished by both building heights (uniformly three to eight story buildings with occasional taller buildings as approved by City ordinance) and the reduced use of land for automobile transport.
Because the public spaces are well designed and represent public living areas, residential units can be reduced in size as more life can be enjoyed out of doors. Smaller units mean reduced housing costs even in high land value communities. Fewer cars (the return of one and two car families and the emergence of no car families or individuals) mean more disposable income for housing, travel and cultural events.
Housing costs are further reduced because parking costs are shifted to federal and state transportation funds and parking spaces are shared with commercial/customer daytime users. When all of the development investment is spent on residential and commercial structures (not on the road access to parking improvements, the parking improvements or the land between buildings used for parking), housing costs are reduced and even high value properties become more affordable.
Simultaneously, community development can proceed without the use of local governmental general revenues because CIS funding is provided principally from federal and state transportation sources, from TIF funds, public bond financing, and from other governmental and private sources, augmented by HUD, SBA and other federal and state financing tools. In addition, because of the conversion from automobile to pedestrian, bicycle, and mass transit modalities, community health and vitality is substantially enhanced. Further, these community environments improve the urban lifestyle by incorporating educational resources, public art, the creative industries, commercial, retail, and entertainment districts within the clean-and-safe, 24-hour activity zones.
While there has been shown and described the preferred embodiment of the instant invention it is to be appreciated that the invention may be embodied otherwise than is herein specifically shown and described and that, within said embodiment, certain changes may be made in the form and arrangement of the parts without departing from the underlying ideas or principles of this invention as set forth herewith.
This application is a continuation-in-part of International Application Number PCT/US2006/004984, filed Feb. 13, 2006, entitled Community Intermodal Transit System, which claims the priority of U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 60/652,201, filed Feb. 11, 2005. All parent applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 671686 | Bergeron | Apr 1901 | A |
| 1784728 | Harriss | Dec 1930 | A |
| 1830518 | Mason | Nov 1931 | A |
| 3675584 | Hall | Jul 1972 | A |
| 3847496 | Stankiewicz | Nov 1974 | A |
| 20060272248 | Gustafson | Dec 2006 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20080038054 A1 | Feb 2008 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60652201 | Feb 2005 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | PCT/US2006/004984 | Feb 2006 | US |
| Child | 11891507 | US |
