Ray Atkinson started this blog in 2014 when he moved from his childhood home in Kannapolis, North Carolina, USA (Walk Score of 0) to get his Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from Portland State University (Walk Score of 100). He has a sustainable transportation lifestyle in Key West, Florida, USA. His email is gismap1@gmail.com. The postings on this site are of my own and don't reflect or represent the opinions of the City of Key West, for which I work. https://www.linkedin.com/in/rayplans
I wanted to share a few more thoughts about Arcata before I depart tomorrow to hike and kayak with my retired friend, Stephen Walton, in Redwood National Park. As a reminder, I am still writing this post on my phone because I decided to leave my laptop at home. “Arcata at Eye Level: Part 2” is a reference to “The City at Eye Level”.
Importance of flipping stop signs on bike boulevard
I seeked out biking on Portland’s neighborhood greenways when I lived in Portland because I could avoid having to stop at every minor crossing. Unfortunately, Arcata did not design its bike boulevard (aka neighborhood greenway) the same way. While Arcata signed bike boulevard routes, I believe there were stop signs at every intersection. Flipping the stop signs at intersections with two stop signs or removing the stop signs on the bike boulevard at four-way stops is an easy and cheap way to prioritize people using the bike boulevard. As I have also been observing in Petaluma, it can be challenging to gain support from motorists for this idea because cyclists would be prioritized over motorists. Has your city flipped any stop signs to prioritize people over cars?
Arcata bike boulevard. Photo: Ray Atkinson
Car parking access using trail looks similar to approach used in Houten, Netherlands
I was so surprised by seeing car parking access provided using a trail in Arcata that I asked people walking by whether cars actually drive on the trail to access car parking. While the people walking did not understand what I was asking because they just said it’s a trail, I plan to ask the City of Arcata staff how this arrangement works. Since the intersection sign shows L Street and not a trail name, it appears that this section of L Street was converted to a trail. Due to this being a trail, I am also curious why the sign has “road” in it. A trail is not a road, so does the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) not have a sign that states “Trail Closed To Thru Car Traffic”?
“Road Closed To Thru Traffic” sign next to car parking on trail in Arcata. Photo: Ray AtkinsonCar parking that can only be accessed from the trail in Arcata. Photo: Ray Atkinson
The photo below is from when I biked in Houten, Netherlands. The car parking connection to the trail looks very similar to the approach used in Arcata. While I am not sure whether people in Houten actually drive on the trail, do you see how the car parking is connected to the trail?
Trail connected to car parking in Houten, Netherlands. Photo: Ray Atkinson
Future Blog Post
My vacation continues tomorrow in an area of northwest California that I have not explored yet. My friend and I plan to hike and kayak in Redwood National Park through Friday. Since one of my vacation goals is to be off the grid as much as possible, I am looking forward to having limited or no internet and cell services through Friday. While Arcata put the bar high in weird and surprising approaches to transportation planning, I hope to see more weird transportation planning approaches that surprise me. Am I surprised too easily, or are you also surprised by what I found?
I was surprised to see that I have not published a “The City at Eye Level” post recently. The link to The City at Eye Level keeps changing, so you can longer download the free book in my previous posts. I will need to update the links. For laypeople reading my blog, I am hoping this post helps you to understand the connection between The City at Eye Level and my recent posts about the power of slowing down and its impact on creating robust in-person social networks. Does this connection make sense after reading this post?
Light Rain Cancels Bike Rental
I was planning to rent bikes from a Windsor bike shop to ride with a new friend who was raised in Windsor, which is an unincorporated town on the northern edge of the North Bay Area. This was my first time visiting Windsor. I have so many new places to explore just in Sonoma County let alone the rest of the Bay Area and California!
While my friend and I were prepared to bike in the light rain, the other renters canceled their rentals and bike tours due to the light rain. The bike shop ended up canceling all the rentals and closing for the day. I have never experienced a bike shop cancel rentals due to light rain. I guess this is a weird welcome to California!
Walk Through Windsor
My friend and I did not want the canceled bike rental to ruin our day. We decided to walk several miles through Windsor instead. Walking instead of driving allowed us to more easily see Windsor at eye level. As the below “MORE BIKES, LESS CARS” banner shows, Windsor is trying to reduce car usage and promote biking. I would include walking in with “MORE BIKES” because there is only so much space on the banner. Unfortunately, my friend and I had to walk single-file through downtown and many other parts of Windsor because the sidewalks are too narrow. Even when the sidewalk is wider, street trees and awning posts prevented us from walking side by side. I saw many people walk directly from their parked cars to their destinations. This does not encourage robust in-person outdoor social networking!
Source: Ray Atkinson
I should clarify that I do not want the street trees to be removed. As this Trees in the Curb Zone Pilot Project from the City of Portland shows, it is possible to replace on-street car parking spaces with trees. BikePortland also published this post about the City of Portland’s project. As my 2015 post from Rijswijk, Netherlands shows, I have been thinking about how to replace on-street car parking spaces with trees for several years. Since my Windsor friend said she does not want to lose car parking for her car and actually feels downtown needs more car parking, do you think rural towns like Windsor will ever have the public and political support to create a project like what Portland created?
Rembrandtkade in Rijswijk, Netherlands in August 2014. Source: Google
I wanted to share the below Spanish version of the above banner because I have never seen a banner with different languages on each side of the banner. I am still using Duolingo to improve my Spanish skills. I even bought a used Spanish textbook from the Windsor Public Library.
Source: Ray Atkinson
Another element that could improve Windsor’s eye-level walking experience and encourage the creation of robust outdoor in-person social networks is the planned SMART regional trail, which will someday connect all the way to the Larkspur Ferry Terminal that provides ferries to San Francisco. I would love to bike from Windsor to the Larkspur Ferry Terminal someday. The first signs of the planned trail and the associated Windsor SMART Station are in the below photo. The SMART Train does not currently serve Windsor, so I rode a Sonoma County bus from Santa Rosa to Windsor. I am excited to see the future of transit-oriented development (TOD) and trail-oriented development! Since trail-oriented development could also be shortened to TOD, I am curious to see what the acronym for trail-oriented development will be.
Source: Ray Atkinson
Future Blog Post
Do you understand the connection between The City at Eye Level and my recent posts about the power of slowing down and its impact on creating robust outdoor in-person social networks? If not, I will keep thinking about how to more clearly write about and show this connection in future blog posts. If so, what other topics do you want me to write about?
Thanks to Kathy Fitzpatrick for helping me decide what to write about in this post. I have been enjoying my new 1.3-mile commute. Yes, I decided where to live based on having a short commute. Due to how many people cannot afford to live near where they work, I am fortunate to have this opportunity. Since I want to avoid sharing exactly where my home is due to this being a public blog, I will share a general overview of my commute.
California Does Not Have Stop As Yield for Cyclists Law
I avoid biking on McDowell Blvd because it is stressful. I wish the parking lane was a bike lane because I feel somewhat comfortable biking in the parking lane. Unfortunately, there are frequently vehicles parked in this lane so I have had to swerve into the travel lane. I doubt the residents would support converting the parking lane to a bike lane. While biking on Maria Dr is less stressful, the stop signs have been annoying.
Biking on N McDowell Blvd (left) is more stressful than biking on Maria Dr
As I wrote in this 2019 post, Oregon Senate Bill 998 allowed cyclists starting in 2020 to yield at stop signs under certain circumstances. Unfortunately, California does not have this law so I have been nervous about getting ticketed when not fully stopping at stop signs. Despite rarely seeing other people biking on the road (many people bike on the sidewalk) in Petaluma, most people do not fully stop at stop signs. I find it annoying to fully stop when I can see no cross traffic. While Governor Newsom had a chance last year to allow cyclists to yield at stop signs under certain circumstances, he vetoed Assembly Bill 122. He wrote the following in his veto message:
While I share the author’s intent to increase bicyclist safety, I am concerned this bill will have the opposite effect. The approach in AB 122 may be especially concerning for children, who may not know how to judge vehicle speeds or exercise the necessary caution to yield to traffic when appropriate.
I realize that I will not have children anytime soon. I am single and have not gone on a date recently. I can still dream about providing my future children with a great education. I bike past Loma Vista Immersion Academy, which is on Maria Dr, during my commute. Loma Vista’s Dual Immersion Program emphasizes a bilingual, biliterate and bicultural community with positive cross-cultural attitudes and skills resulting in an enriched experience for all learners as well as the community. Students begin school in transitional kindergarten classes, where they are taught using only Spanish. In kindergarten and first grade, students are taught 90 percent in Spanish and 10 percent in English. As they move through the grades, they are gradually taught more in English until, by the time they are in the fourth grade, they are taught half in English and half in Spanish.
Loma Vista’s Dual Immersion Program is awesome! I wish I had this during elementary school because learning a language is easier as a child. I am slowly using Duolingo to learn Spanish as an adult. While I knew being fluent in Spanish is a valuable skill to have in California, I got to see and hear firsthand how valuable this skill is when my coworkers and I were doing outreach at middle and high schools. The only coworker who is fluent in Spanish was the only person able to communicate with Spanish-speaking parents about their child’s transit needs. She also translated all of the online and paper marketing materials into Spanish. While I am excited that she got a new job in Colorado Springs, I will miss working with her. I am not sure how long it will take me to become fluent in Spanish, but I want to be able to help my team by providing us with a fluent Spanish person again. Being fluent in Spanish would also make it easier to date Spanish-speaking women.
California’s Freedom to Walk Act
Yes, I jaywalk where I feel safe doing so. As with not coming to a complete stop at stop signs, I also get nervous about possibly getting ticketed for jaywalking. In case you think that jaywalking laws exist in every country, my 2019 post explains how the Netherlands has no jaywalking laws. Pedestrians in the Netherlands can legally cross the street anywhere. I recommend this 2015 Vox article to learn the forgotten history of how US automakers invented the crime of “jaywalking” in the 1920s to sell automobiles. I am curious whether this history is truly forgotten. Every layperson (non-transportation planner or engineer) who I have discussed jaywalking with has told me they do not know the history of jaywalking. Did you know the history of jaywalking before I shared the Vox article?
Governor Newsom had a chance last year to end jaywalking tickets for safe mid-block crossings. Assembly Bill 1238 would have allowed police to still issue tickets for unsafe pedestrian behavior, but they could no longer use jaywalking as a pretext to stop people. Unfortunately, Governor Newsom vetoed this bill. Hopefully, he will sign Assembly Bill 2147 in the current session.
The governor’s veto rests on the belief that police enforcement or the threat of jaywalking tickets will somehow prevent pedestrian fatalities in the future when that has consistently failed in the past. Continuing to criminalize people’s rational, predictable responses to poor infrastructure is simply unjust.
This post is getting long, so I am going to finish with what arrested mobility means and how it relates to jaywalking. In order to learn about and stay engaged with the national jaywalking movement, I recommend following Charles T. Brown. His Arrested Mobility podcast and Arrested Mobility Book Club have been helpful for me to learn more about and stay engaged in transportation justice issues. The book club sign-up link is from 2021, so I am not sure whether the link still works. While this Arrested Mobility Book Club Facebook group is private, which likely means you cannot access it, I wanted to reassure you that the book club still exists.
I am thankful to have a variety of ideas to write about. I could share another aspect of my commute by writing about how the Rainier Avenue Demonstration Project improved my bike commute. While I am not surprised by the many negative Nextdoor comments about this project from angry motorists, who do not like change in their neighborhood and believe no one bikes in Petaluma, I am concerned that the temporary project may not become permanent when Rainier Avenue is repaved and restriped in 2023. Since I am new to Petaluma and the Bay Area, I could also write about my car-free trips in Petaluma and the Bay Area. I am open to suggestions. What do you want to read?
As I was planning my 31st birthday, which is September 19, I realized that I can use a simple plan to celebrate with people that I care about. This got me thinking about my 100th post. I decided that I needed to stop thinking about an elaborate plan and just use a simple plan. I think the below photos from yesterday summarize my blog in a nutshell. PARK(ing) Day is about prioritizing people over cars. I enjoyed catching up with friends as we temporarily took over a car parking space. Hopefully, this will successfully advocate for permanent changes to the car parking space. Since I frequently overthink my plans, I want to work during my 31st year on how to not overwhelm myself with overthinking about complicated plans. Simple plans can be okay.
Since I am the Transportation Advisory Committee’s representative on the Downtown Oregon City Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Implementation Working Group, the City of Oregon City invited me to join this group on a tour of the Willamette Falls Legacy Project and Downtown Oregon City. In case you are unfamiliar with the Willamette Falls Legacy Project, I recommend watching the below video.
Even though the working group knows we need to prioritize people over cars because there will not be enough space to park all the cars on the Willamette Falls Legacy Project site, I found it interesting that the first thing the tour guide showed us was where cars would be parked on the future site. The tour guide even shared a specific location for the interim on-site surface parking lot and an estimate on the number of cars that could be parked in this lot.
While I assumed the tour guide was referring to parked cars because most people in Oregon City drive, he only said “parking” so I asked the tour guide to clarify what type of parking and whether there would be parking for bikes. My assumption was correct that he was only referring to car parking when he said “parking”. Thankfully, he said there would also be parking for bikes because the City requires bike parking. However, he was unable to provide a specific location for bike parking and how many bikes could be parked.
According to the below diagram, car “parking supply at full build-out of the site is estimated at 1,150 spaces off-street, and 85 spaces on-street.” Even though the City requires bike parking, I could not find any diagram for bike parking. This shows me that the project vision prioritizes car parking. On a positive note, minimum car parking space requirements may be reduced by up to 50% because the site is part of the downtown parking district.
In addition to being excited to hear about the potential for a 50% reduction of car parking, I was excited to hear that City staff are considering whether to remove mandatory car parking minimums in the downtown parking district. While I am sure there will be internal and public resistance, City staff want to give developers the flexibility to decide whether or not to include car parking in their projects. City staff said the mandatory car parking minimums have prevented many downtown developments from being built because the projects could not pencil out. As the below map shows, there is an international movement to remove car parking minimums.
While I was not satisfied with the tour guide’s answers, I was told that we would discuss bike parking more at a later point in the planning process. Even though I am used to bike parking being an afterthought in Oregon City, I was still frustrated that I had to ask for “parking” to be clarified and request that bike parking be discussed. Do Dutch and Danish planners have to ask for this clarification or do their tour guides automatically specify which type of parking?
As you know, I will be presenting on a panel at the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP) Conference in Portland on August 26 from 1:45-3:15pm (here is the agenda for August 26). Several Dutch and Danish planners that I have communicated with will be at this international conference, so I plan to ask them the above parking question.
Ray’s Behavior Change from 2009-2019
While I now get frustrated about having to clarify “parking” and request that bike parking be discussed, this shows how much I have changed over the past ten years. As I wrote about in this 2014 post and the below 2009 article shows, I used to advocate for cars by supporting the widening of North Carolina Highway 3 in Kannapolis. I said the below statement during my senior year at Northwest Cabarrus High School and just a semester before I started at UNC Charlotte. I was actually one of the few residents that supported the widening project. As this article shows, most people opposed the project because they wanted to maintain the rural character along this section of Highway 3. They felt widening Highway 3 would bring too much dense development and traffic congestion. Since I tell people that I was raised in a suburban area, it feels weird to see the articles described my home as being in a rural area.
Not everyone was opposed to the idea of a wider N.C. 3. Ray Atkinson lives about a mile off of the highway.
“I think it’s good to plan for growth,” Atkinson said. The N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis would benefit from the proposed improvements, he added.
Kannapolis Citizen article from January 28, 2009
Translating My Kannapolis Experience to Oregon City
Even though most people on the Willamette Falls Legacy Project and Downtown Oregon City tour saw me as the bike advocate, I am curious how much their perception of and interaction with me would have changed if I shared my Kannapolis experience. In addition to advocating for cars in Kannapolis, I experienced the closure of Cannon Mills (aka Pillowtex) in 2003. I have followed the redevelopment of this closed mill site into the North Carolina Research Campus. The redevelopment has also included areas beyond the closed mill site in Downtown Kannapolis. This redevelopment had such a large impact on me that I studied it for my high school senior exit project in Fall 2008. The Willamette Falls Legacy Project and redevelopment of Downtown Oregon City reminds me of my work in Downtown Kannapolis.
Mrs. Andersen, who was my high school teacher and advisor for my senior exit project, and I looking at a 1950s map of Kannapolis, NC in Fall 2008.
Translating My Tigard Experience to Oregon City
I also see similarities between my work in Tigard and Oregon City. As this 2016 post shows, my PSU planning workshop team consulted for the City of Tigard and worked with State of Place to conduct a walkability study in the Tigard Triangle and Downtown Tigard. The Downtown Oregon City TDM Implementation Working Group plans to work with City staff to conduct a walkability and bikeability study in Downtown Oregon City. I plan to write a future blog post about this study after it launches.
“Columbus at Eye Level” is a reference to “The City at Eye Level”. My family vacation is coming to an end. My parents and sister (brother had to stay in Charlotte) dropped me off in Columbus earlier today so they could drive back to Kannapolis. I am at the Columbus Airport waiting for my flight back to Portland. While I did not enjoy spending days in my parents’ van instead of biking, my grandmas are not getting any younger so I felt the need to spend time with them. Grandma Stoodt is on the left in the below photo, which was taken at Brandywine Falls in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Since my grandma uses a walker, I was thankful that the trail was ADA accessible.
While I have not thought about visiting Columbus before, I urged my family to visit Columbus during our vacation because Columbus won the USDOT’s 2016 Smart City Challenge. Since I thought Columbus would use some of the grant funding to create dynamic pricing for parking, I was surprised to learn from Robert Ferrin that about 1% of the grant funding has been used for upgrading the parking system. Robert and I met at UNC Charlotte when we were geography students. We both were born and raised in the Charlotte region.
My dad and I met with Robert about the Short North parking changes that he managed. Short North is a Columbus neighborhood located between Downtown Columbus and Ohio State University. Even though Robert showed us how he improved parking conditions in Short North, the responses to the below survey question appear to show that people do not understand how the parking changes improved the parking issues. Does Columbus need to better educate people about the benefits of the parking changes?
71% of survey respondents think the recent changes make parking harder for customers in the District.
I’m following up on my last post, which discussed Capital Bikeshare and dockless bikeshare in the Washington, DC region. While I agree that dockless bikeshare companies should be held accountable to making sure their bikes are parked correctly, why aren’t dockless automobile companies being held to the same standard? Dockless automobiles have been parked illegally for decades. Where is the public outrage? Why is most of the public outrage focused on dockless bikes?
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