Tag: #featured

The Path to Equity: Do Greenways Help or Harm Low-Income Communities?

October 29, 2019 / odrozd

It’s not easy being green . . . unless you are a greenway.

In that case, you’re probably a hot ticket for municipalities, especially those in North Carolina. As part of the East Coast Greenway, 372 miles of trails wind across the state.

Proposed route, only 30% complete, by the East Coast Greenway Alliance.

Get Going NC, a blog created by Cary-based author Joe Miller in cooperation with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, compiled a list of trails in 2011. Many have been added since then, including in smaller cities such as Albemarle and Havelock.

Extensive greenways can also be found closer to home, logging 17.6 miles of trail in Chapel Hill, over 30 miles inDurham, 80 miles in Cary, and 100 miles in Raleigh.

Defining Greenways

Although many people associate greenways with undeveloped space, this misconception is easily debunked by Bolin Creek Trail. Brandon Tubby, UNC varsity distance runner and Angles contributor, describes the cement as “quite hostile” and “disappointing.”

In fact, greenways can be man-made or natural, urban or rural, paved or unpaved. The Town of Chapel Hill Greenways Master Plan (2013) interprets “greenways” as:

Networks of natural spaces which provide corridors connecting areas such as neighborhoods, parks, and schools. These passageways typically include trails for pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles.

While there is no technical definition for a greenway, the term connotates “the trails and connectivity that people always wanted,” said Dr. Danielle Spurlock, assistant professor in the Department of City & Regional Planning.¹

The actual number and length of greenways in North Carolina varies depending on whom you ask.

“There is the flipside that it’s also used as a marketing feature, and it is a metric that easier to measure than other types of investment,” Dr. Spurlock said.

The impact of greenways in the Triangle. Prepared by Alta Planning + Design.

Other potential benefits of greenways include transportation access, disaster mitigation, community cohesion, and aesthetic and moral value.

Greenway success, however, is typically measured in economic returns. The merits of measuring the success of greenways through property values warrants continued exploration. Do past projects illustrate the importance of considering equity to ensure sustainable, long-term development?

The Atlanta BeltLine

Equitable development is just about being sure to be inclusive of diverse groups throughout the planning process, and afterwards ensuring that you have some concrete plans that are able to be implemented. A lot of times, planners just use fancy buzzwords saying they’re going to be doing all this great stuff, and then there’s no follow-through. – Ansley K. Jones²

Ansley K. Jones, an Atlanta native, critiqued the Atlanta BeltLine’s lack of affordable housing for her UNC Master’s Project. She responded to the Master’s thesis that started it all: Ryan Gravel’s 1999 plan for the Atlanta BeltLine.

In his thesis, Gravel proposed converting 22 miles of railroads into multifunctional trails. He submitted this idea to the city in 2001, and the project broke ground in 2006. It has been called “the most comprehensive revitalization effort ever undertaken in the City of Atlanta . . . connecting 45 neighborhoods.”

Trail network proposed in the Atlanta BeltLine 2030 Strategic Implementation Plan.

However flashy the project seemed, the BeltLine promised 5,600 units of affordable housing by 2030, but almost immediately began to fall behind on achieving this goal. BeltLine Inc. neglected to earmark 15 percent of public funds and by 2016 had raised only enough to fund fewer than 785 affordable housing units.

Both Gravel and board member Nathaniel Smith resigned from the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership in 2016, and Paul Morris resigned as CEO of BeltLine Inc. in 2017. Gravel becomes an easy target to blame–with his “equity” rhetoric, early acknowledgement of gentrification, and modern loft in the BeltLine-gentrified Inman Park neighborhood–but blaming him misses the point.

The BeltLine’s tax increment financing (known as a Tax Allocation Fund in Georgia) prioritized profits over people, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with Georgia News Lab broke in 2017. While both Jones and the Journal-Constitution acknowledged factors outside of BeltLine Inc.’s control, such as the Recession and legal challenges, the partnership still neglected “millions of dollars of potential funds.” The Tax Allocation Fund relied on bonds from Tax Allocation Districts’ property taxes, “but because city statute stated that ‘bond proceeds,’ not tax dollars, would go to affordable housing, BeltLine Inc. was free to spend the TAD windfall elsewhere.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reported that BeltLine Inc. failed to invest in land trust homes and temporarily catered to luxury housing by withdrawing from Invest Atlanta’s tax incentive program.

The fallout was bad for affordable housing but good for public awareness about the complexities of development along the BeltLine. “It’s really made Atlanta step up. They’ve had to become a lot more transparent about what’s going on,” Jones said.

Indeed, there is a renewed commitment to affordability along the BeltLine, but its reporting structure of units built inside (1,640) and outside (1,032) TAD boundaries echoes earlier controversies regarding inflating the numbers of affordable housing units.

Durham and Community Engagement

“Housing and Equity” from the Durham Belt Line Trail Master Plan

The Durham Belt Line is a 1.7 mile rail-to-trail project intended to connect to the East Coast Greenway (Durham Belt Line Trail Master Plan). Displacement concerns similar to those seen in Atlanta prompted Nathaniel Smith, the former board member of Atlanta BeltLine and founder of the Partnership for Southern Equity in Atlanta, to speak to the Durham community in August 2018.

While Durham crafted an Equitable Engagement Plan, it lacks a meaningful enforcement mechanism. According to Dr. Spurlock, who is also affiliated with the grassroots organization Communities in Partnership, the plan was pushed through prior to substantial community engagement.

This pattern parallels the unrolling of the Atlanta BeltLine.

“There were so many articles and all this anecdotal evidence that people in Atlanta were mad that the city wasn’t following through on their goals. So, public engagement really could have helped that,” Jones said.

She described some of Atlanta’s recent engagement measures. Public meetings in the BeltLine’s subareas have shown mixed success, but homeownership empowerment workshops have been more successful. These sessions educate citizens about how to access tools such as homestead exemptions, grants to rehabilitate homes, and down payment assistance for first-time home-buyers.

Jones hopes it is not too late for the engagement in Atlanta to have an effect. While Durham’s Direct Engagement period is over, the city still has the opportunity to foster meaningful community input before final design and permitting of the project.

Special thanks to Dr. Danielle Spurlock, UNC Department of City & Regional Planning; Ansley K. Jones, Georgia Environmental Finance Authority and UNC Department of City & Regional Planning, 2018; and Brandon Tubby, UNC Public Policy and Communications, 2020.

Additional resources:

American Trails – List of trail organizations in North Carolina.
City on the Verge by Mark Pendergrast – Book recommended by Ansley Jones on the history of Atlanta and the BeltLine.
Durham Belt Line for Everybody – Project by community groups advocating for equity in the Durham Belt Line process.

[1] Spurlock, Danielle. Interview by Rachael Wolff. October 22, 2019.

[2] Jones, Ansley K. Interview by Rachael Wolff. October 23, 2019.

Featured Image: Before and after along the Atlanta BeltLine corridor. Photo credit: Adaptation Clearinghouse, a project of the Georgetown Climate Center.

RACHAEL WOLFF | Online Content Contributor

Rachael Wolff is a first-year master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She is interested in learning how flood risk shapes land use, property values, and behavior. Prior to UNC, Rachael worked at a federal agency in Washington, D.C., where she also earned her bachelor’s degree at American University. Rachael enjoys climbing with friends, eating new food, and when possible, taking naps.

Urban Freight Challenges with the Rise of E-Commerce

March 21, 2019 / odrozd

This piece was originally written by Tory Gibler for Planning Methods (PLAN 720) in November 2018.

Have you purchased a product online and had it shipped to your home in the last year? It’s a good bet you have, given that online shopping is a large and growing portion of all US retails sales. It’s always a challenge for planners to predict the countless events that might shape the global market and how these changes may affect individual urban areas. Even with all the forecasting techniques available, it’s unlikely that any planner thirty years ago could have seen Amazon coming or envisioned the rapid growth of online shopping and how this would affect urban freight delivery demand.

Freight, sometimes called goods movement, refers to the multimodal movement of shipped goods. The last mile of freight can be delivered in a semi-truck, a lightweight step through truck for more dense areas, and even smaller vehicles. Even if planners had predicted the growth of online shopping and product home delivery, it may not have made much of a difference. Typically, the movement of people is the top priority in transportation planning, leaving freight as merely an afterthought. The general lack of consideration for freight in planning has resulted in built environments that are not well suited for freight, despite its importance to society and the economy. Almost every good, food item, or supply one can buy was delivered with freight as part of a huge global supply chain and logistical process that is often invisible to everyday folks. And with the growth of online shopping, even more individual packages are being delivered to homes every day. This increase in deliveries has created several new challenges for both providers and city planners, including noise, congestion, pollution, changes to urban design, and safety risks.

For the deliverer, the main difficulties are with the last mile of the delivery route, aptly referred to as ‘last mile challenges.’ Typically, trucks start their journeys in rural or suburban distribution warehouses, set outside of the city center where land is cheaper. From there, freight heads toward the denser urban area, where the last mile of the route is often the most difficult and expensive. Last mile challenges arise because of convergence with passenger traffic on roads, route optimization difficulties in a denser environment, outdated and aging road, bridge, and tunnel infrastructure, slower speeds, smaller roads, tight intersections, and lack of space for parking, unloading, and turning.

Of particular interest for transportation planners is the increasing conflict between freight delivery and the movement towards ‘complete streets’ design, especially around access to curb space. Complete street policies aim to create streets that are safe and accessible to all users and modes, such as pedestrians, people on bikes, cars, and freight, regardless of age or ability. As more road space is converted into designated bicycle and bus lanes, there is not only a reduction in vehicular parking but also reduced curb access for freight delivery. As a multimodal focused transportation planning student and a person living without a car who relies on my bicycle and buses to move me around the Triangle, I’m all about adding bicycle and bus lanes, and reducing parking. However, it’s important to keep freight delivery in mind when converting these spaces.

Docked bike share, bike lane, and double-parked delivery truck in San Francisco, Photo credit: waltarrrrr on Flickr Creative Commons.

Although most US cities don’t have the same density constraints as New York City, reviewing New York’s curb access challenges is helpful for other urban areas when looking to convert curb space. This will be particularly important in the future with increased ride-hailing drop off needs, bike share and e-scooters parking on sidewalks, and the rise of autonomous vehicles in the years to come.

Parking and curb access is so limited in NYC, that illegal or double parking is a common practice. UPS and FedEx received $2.8 million in double parking citations in the first quarter of 2013 alone, though, whether they are paying their full citations is another discussion. Limited unloading space means these illegal and double-parked delivery trucks often park in a lane of traffic, bus lane, or bicycle lane, leading to increased congestion and potential for crashes. Parking and curb access is a premium in NYC, but often vehicular parking has lower turnover resulting in the less efficient use of a subsidized city good.

There are solutions to these challenges that have proved effective, such as New York’s Off-Hours Delivery (OHD) program, which shifts freight delivery to occur between 7:00pm-6:00am. This program has succeeded in reducing congestion, though it has imposed new costs on retailers who must receive deliveries during off-business hours. There are also potential nighttime noise issues for residents near these deliveries. Additionally, this solution addresses business to business routes but does little for home deliveries. Regulation improvements, though, such as updating current zoning requirements for commercial and residential areas provide another solution. Removing portions of passenger vehicle parking for freight could pose challenges for residents, but would also push many to seek out other forms of more sustainable commuting. Better incorporation of freight delivery into complete street policies is another recommendation.

As online shopping will only continue to grow, this will have large impacts on urban areas. Cities need to ensure they are considering freight and thinking through delivery solutions. By addressing urban freight challenges cities will work to reduce pollution, energy consumption, noise, congestion, and risk of conflicts and crashes.

* * *

Featured Image: Double-parked UPS delivery truck in a bike lane in New York City, Photo credit: Richard Drdul in Flickr Creative Commons.

About the Author: Tory is a first-year master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning with a concentration in Transportation Planning. A passionate advocate for accessibility in transportation, she actively promotes access and multimodal transportation as a volunteer and former board member of the Raleigh bicycle advocacy group, Oaks & Spokes, and as a Graduate Research Assistant at the UNC Highway Safety Research Center. Tory received her undergraduate degree in Nonprofit Management and Fundraising from Indiana University. In her free time, she enjoys bicycle camping.

References:

Wang, X. (Cara), and Y. Zhou. 2015. “Deliveries to Residential Units: A Rising Form of Freight Transportation.” U.S. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies 58: 46–55.

Morris, A.G. 2009. “Developing Efficient Freight Operations for Manhattan’s Buildings.” The Stephen L. Newman Real Estate Institute, Baruch College.

Rodrigue, J.-P., G. Giuliano, and L. Dablanc. 2017. “The Freight Landscape: Convergence and Divergence in Urban Freight Distribution.” The Journal of Transport and Land Use 10 (1): 557–72.

Allen, A., M. Piecyk, M. Piotrowska, F. McLeod, T. Cherrett, K. Ghali, and Austwick M. (n. d.) 2017. “Understanding the Impact of E-Commerce on Last-Mile Light Goods Vehicle Activity in Urban Areas: The Case of London.” Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 61, Part B: 325–38.

Rahman, A., and D. Haake. 2017. “Urban Freight Challenges.” Institute of Transportation Engineers 88 (9): 14–17.

Conway, A, X Wang, Q Chen, and J Schmid. 2016. “Final Report: Freight Costs at the Curbside.” City University of New York. University Transportation Research Center.

Hurricane Michael

October 11, 2018 / odrozd

Making landfall yesterday with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour (just 1 mph short of Category 5 status), Hurricane Michael broke the record for strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in the Florida Panhandle since records began in 1851. Striking near Mexico Beach, Florida, it’s minimum central pressure of 919 millibars also makes it the third most intense storm to make landfall in the U.S. ahead of Andrew (1992) and Katrina (2005) and surpassed only by Camille (1969) and the Labor Day Hurricane (1935). This is a remarkable event for a number of reasons, but every storm is unique.

Compared to Hurricane Florence this past September, which dumped more than 35 inches of rain and blew damaging winds and storm surge in North and South Carolina for several days, Michael, is moving much faster (14 mph vs 3 mph) and following a more typical track north and north east.

Instead of a slow-moving ‘rain-maker’, the most concerning aspects of Michael were and continue to be the extreme wind and storm surge. Compared to Hurricane Irma of 2017, which caused $50 billion in damages to Florida, Michael’s forecasted track has been easier to predict, though it’s dangerous energy is more focused on a region of the state as opposed to the entire state.

Michael is also unique in that it intensified into a major hurricane just a few days after developing and almost immediately posed a threat to land. Fueled by abnormally warm ocean waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the approaching storm gave communities less time to prepare and evacuate. On the other hand, the relatively high certainty with its track made for easier preparations from an emergency management perspective.

As hurricane Michael races north-northeast ahead of a cold front, he has produced the following hazardous impacts:

Catastrophic storm surges of 9-14 feet across several counties from Tyndall Air Force Base to Aucilla River, damaging water levels of <9 ft elsewhere. View real-time storm surge forecast.
Tropical storm force winds (39-73mph) more than 300 miles across which may knock power out for over a million customers through Florida, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina
Hurricane force winds (74 mph +) that will cause significant structural and environmental damage to homes, businesses and public facilities across multiple states
A stripe of rainfall amounts of 4-8 inches across northwest Florida, southeast Alabama, Georgia and portions of the Carolinas and Virginia, with up to a foot possible in some areas causing flash flooding
EF-0 or EF-1 tornadoes embedded within the outer bands of the storm may spin up quickly with little warning across the Southeast

Follow live coverage through the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network partner Florida Storms Facebook Page or view a summary of initial impacts documented by the Weather Channel.

Hurricane Michael as it hits the coast

Florida’s disaster recovery and adaptation planning work

While impacts expected in this region of Florida are in many ways unprecedented, the state is one of the most proactive and forward thinking not only in terms of its disaster preparedness and response, but also its recovery and adaptation planning. The impetus for their work, not surprisingly, was a response to the devastating 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons which produced 12 named storms making landfall in the state.

A few years later, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) and Florida Division of Emergency Management began the Post-Disaster Redevelopment Planning Initiative. In 2007 and 2008, the first community case study they worked with was Panama City who is currently feeling the effects of the western side of Hurricane Michael. Lessons learned from their experience and through other case studies eventually led to the development and release of the often-cited Post-Disaster Redevelopment Planning guide for Florida communities which outlines a process and set of best practices. Recognizing the increased interest and importance of climate change, an addendum on Addressing Adaptation During Long-term Recovery was developed earlier this year and focuses on how to incorporate sea-level-rise and other concerns into the recovery process.

While this has led to a number of coastal counties developing Post-disaster redevelopment plans before the disaster, it’s unclear to what extent those have influenced activities and resilience building after past storms. Described by many former and current UNC City and Regional Planning professors, disaster present a ‘window of opportunity’ to increase the resilience of a community (Berke & Campanella, 2006, Smith, 2012).

Also new in 2018, the Adaptation Planning Guidebook compiles stakeholder involvement and research “to assist Florida communities in preparing for and dealing with the effects of sea level rise, especially coastal flooding, erosion, and ecosystem changes”. It is the compilation of nearly 30 documents focusing on adaptation and planning as part of the Community Resilience Initiative over a five-year period.

Moving forward…

The state of Florida certainly has the experience and vision for building resilience after major storms like Irma and Michael, but the inevitable complications and stress that come with dozens of agencies and organizations trying to address short-term critical needs make decisions for local communities about the long-term all the more difficult.

Expected Impacts in Central NC

Below is a summary of the impacts expected in the Triangle area from the National Weather Service in Raleigh, NC:

National Weather Service Summary of Impacts

About the Author: Christian Kamrath is a Coastal Resilience Specialist with the N.C. Division of Coastal Management in Morehead City where he works with local governments, state and federal agencies as well as community organizations to promote and facilitate coastal adaptation and resilience planning in the state’s 20 coastal counties. He has previously worked on projects involving climate adaptation, disaster recovery and emergency preparedness planning with North Carolina Sea Grant, the Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is a self-proclaimed weather-nerd and former forecaster at the University of Florida (WRUF-TV6) and recent graduate (’18) of the Masters of City and Regional Planning program at UNC-Chapel Hill where he received the Natural Hazards Resilience Certificate.

Freight Mobility Developments in North Carolina

November 9, 2017 / odrozd

Have you ever wondered how the varied products of our global economy end up in your possession? Even a cursory glance into your refrigerator, your closet, or your home office will reveal items grown, produced, and assembled all over the world. As consumer demand for online purchasing expands and as many companies increasingly require same-day delivery to conduct their own business, freight transportation becomes more complex, with its own unique challenges separate from human mobility. On the national level, the need for comprehensive freight planning was recognized in Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, passed in 2015 and requiring the development of state freight plans and a National Freight Strategic Plan. Among the efforts to expand freight mobility in North Carolina is intermodal freight services from the Port of Wilmington.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the transportation system in the U.S. moved an average of 49.3 million tons of freight daily in 2015. With a projected average annual increase of 1.4 percent each year through 2045, developing intermodal freight infrastructure is a key priority for reducing freight emissions, preserving road infrastructure, and increasing efficiency.

In North Carolina, recent developments include the opening of direct rail service from the Port of Wilmington to Charlotte with the Queen City Express, and the future siting of an Intermodal Terminal, dubbed the Carolina Connector, in Rocky Mount, NC. Rail service directly connecting the Port of Wilmington to Charlotte, which commenced in July 2017, offers numerous benefits including expanding Wilmington’s capacity and competitiveness with other regional ports and lowering transportation costs for companies. With each train removing as many as 280 trucks from roads, the Queen City Express is reducing vehicle emissions, congestion, and damage to roadways. The Carolina Connector Intermodal Terminal, currently in the environmental permitting process and expected to open in 2020, will further expand these connections and is expected to be a premier freight connection in the region, offering expedited service through both rail and truck connections. Intermodal terminals often attract warehouse and manufacturing firms that benefit from close proximity to transportation services, which would be a welcome economic boon for the region.

While an often overlooked element of transportation planning, freight mobility planning offers myriad opportunities for reducing transportation greenhouse gas emissions, preserving our infrastructure, and increasing the economic competitiveness of our region.

Feature Image: Freight, Cities, and Opportunity

Photo Credit: Politico

About the Author: Catherine Peele is a second year Master’s of City and Regional Planning candidate from Albemarle, North Carolina. Her planning interests include transportation project prioritization methods and freight mobility. Outside of planning, Catherine enjoys exploring local parks and museums, supporting refugee resettlement efforts in the Triangle, perfecting classic Southern dishes and trying new recipes, and spending time with her two nieces.