Cycling and Safe Streets in Amsterdam: A Movement Sparked by Parents and Children

Bicycle parking garage in Amsterdam

My family recently returned from a trip to Amsterdam, where we got to try out cycling in one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world. When we exited the train station, we were greeted by a multi-story parking garage clogged with more than 3,000 bikes, a now famous landmark in Amsterdam, reflecting how predominant cycling is here. Approximately 38% of all trips in Amsterdam are by bike compared to 2-3% in Austin.

I have been reading up about how these infrastructure changes came about. This video chronicles Amsterdam's history as a cycling city, pointing out that Amsterdam has not always embraced cycling like it does today. In the 1970s, after a record number of children were killed on Dutch roads, Dutch parents and their children led mass protests and organized around the country, demanding a transportation policy that prioritized safe streets.

Cycling in Amsterdam

While much attention has been given to how this fierce activism helped launch the construction of the nation's world-famous cycling infrastructure, families across the Netherlands worked for much more than that.  A wonderful documentary from 1972 captures how Dutch families have taken to the streets for a whole range of measures to make streets safer for children in dense urban areas. The Dutch government responded by creating play streets, "street corner havens," car-free Sundays, and an array of other traffic calming measures.

One of Amsterdam's biggest infrastructure challenges today is, ironically, addressing the deluge of bikes that fill the streets. Before our trip, a Dutch friend had warned us to not cycle in Amsterdam with children in the busy urban core unless they were super experienced urban cyclists.  It is true that making the jump to cycling in Amsterdam for my family was, well, terrifying at times. Sort of like going from driving a car in a small town to an L.A. freeway. My preteen children had to learn on the fly that they could absolutely not stop, much less slow down, while we were cycling in rush hour cycling traffic. And this was while cycling without helmets (no one wears them in Amsterdam and they were unavailable at the bike rental shop). The worst part was avoiding the speeding mopeds that weaved in and out of cyclists in the cycle lanes—apparently a widespread problem in the city. Luckily, it sounds like the government recognizes this is an issue and is working to ban mopeds in cycle paths.

Speeding mopeds and rush hour traffic aside, overall we were extremely impressed with Amsterdam's cycling infrastructure—an incredible opportunity to try out in person what we can aspire to here in Austin. The dedicated cycle lanes, the cycle-centric street crossings, the traffic lights for bikes, the ubiquitous bike parking facilities, and more. All these things were a delight to see in person.

Today, the Netherlands' traffic fatality rate is 60% lower than it was when parents and others first set out to advocate for safer streets. Meanwhile, Austin's traffic fatalities are on track to be a record high this year.  It is good to keep in mind the experiences of the Netherlands in making its street safer: that changes are more than possible, but they will not come about until the public demands them.

Off-street cycling lanes in Amsterdam

Cyclists even have their own lights!

A highlight: cycling through the famous Rijksmuseum

More dedicated cycling lanes with nice big buffers from the street

The Myth About the Inclusionary Zoning Ban in Texas

Another title for this post could be: "What you have been told about inclusionary zoning in Texas is wrong."

When it comes to generating affordable housing opportunities for families, inclusionary zoning has been an important and effective local tool, utilized in more than 400 local jurisdictions around the country. Inclusionary zoning requires the inclusion of a certain percentage of affordable housing units (typically 10-15%) in new market rate developments. Montgomery County, Maryland's inclusionary zoning program has been especially notable, generating more than 12,500 affordable housing units.

But whenever inclusionary zoning is brought up in Austin at the City Council or other policy forums, the discussion is shut down on the grounds that all inclusionary zoning is illegal in Texas. This is a misconception. In fact, the only type of inclusionary zoning that the Texas Legislature has banned is for homeownership units, and even this ban has several notable exceptions.

The Texas statute governing inclusionary zoning reads as follows:

Texas Local Government Code, Section 214.905. PROHIBITION OF CERTAIN MUNICIPAL REQUIREMENTS REGARDING SALES OF HOUSING UNITS OR RESIDENTIAL LOTS. 

(a) A municipality may not adopt a requirement in any form, including through an ordinance or regulation or as a condition for granting a building permit, that establishes a maximum sales price for a privately produced housing unit or residential building lot (emphasis added).  

What is clear under this statute is that a city in Texas cannot enact an inclusionary zoning ordinance impacting homeownership units, such as requiring that 10% of homes built in a new subdivision be sold below a certain sales price to low-income families—unless an exception in 214.905 is met. What is also clear from the language above is that the inclusionary zoning ban does not extend to rental housing.

Also, importantly, Section 214.905 goes on to provide several notable exceptions to the ban on inclusionary zoning for homeownership units, including land in a homestead preservation district and density bonus programs:

(b) This section does not affect any authority of a municipality to:

(1) create or implement an incentive, contract commitment, density bonus, or other voluntary program designed to increase the supply of moderate or lower-cost housing units; or
(2) adopt a requirement applicable to an area served under the provisions of Chapter 373A, Local Government Code, which authorizes homestead preservation districts, if such chapter is created by an act of the legislature.  

With Austin's growing affordable housing crisis, we need to be using all of the tools at our disposal to preserve and create affordable housing opportunities for low- and middle-income families. Inclusionary zoning is one of those tools we should be using now.

Austin's Proposed Cuts to Public Pools

It was disheartening to hear that the City of Austin's Parks and Recreation Department is once again considering closing our city swimming pools and cutting back pool hours. Public pools are one of the best public services that the City can provide for Austin children. On top of that, the pool closures are targeting East Austin, with its historic disparities in access to public services.

I blogged about the issue of public pool access back in June 2013. Northeast Austin (north of 290), with its very high concentrations of low-income households already has zero public pools. If the City moves forward with its plan to close the Mabel Davis pool, Southeast Austin (the whole area south of Riverside all the way past William Cannon—likewise fairly poor) will have only one public pool. Meanwhile wealthier areas of the city have year-round access to public pools.

Even though Austin has fared quite well in the annual Trust for Public Land survey for public pool access, we continue to fall in the rankings.  In 2011, we ranked #11 amongst U.S. cities in terms of public pools per capita. Now we are at #16.  The proposed cuts, if they go through, will push us farther down the list.

Our population is booming (Austin was the fastest growing city last year), our tax base is exploding, and the summers are still sweltering. Shouldn't the City be figuring out ways to expand access to public pools?  As the Council dives into the City budget this summer, let's hope the City paddles away from its public pool closure plans.

Gettings Kids to Bicycle to School

New bike racks at Hart Elementary School in Austin
(photo courtesy of the City of Austin)

Back in 1969 (what my kids now refer to as the “olden days”), walking and bicycling to school was part of everyday life. Nearly half of all students traveled to school on foot or by bike. Today, that’s no longer the case, with only 13% of children walking or bicycling to school. Meanwhile, the percentage of children arriving at school by private automobile has increased from 12% to 44% (the rate of school bus ridership has stayed almost the same).

Austin is home to a number of innovative programs to encourage kids to bicycle to school. Last month, the City of Austin launched a major bicycle/walk-to-school initiative at Hart Elementary School, which serves a high proportion of low-income students with limited opportunities to be active. Along with the installation of a 1.3-mile cycle track connecting nearby apartment complexes to the school, the City secured 300 bikes to donate to children who commit to cycling to school. As of this week, more than 80 kids were cycling to school regularly!

The Bike Train at Hart Elementary School in Austin
(photo courtesy of the City of Austin)

As part of the program, the City has set up bike trains and walking school buses with adult monitors to pick the students up from their apartment complexes and supervise their commute to school. (A bike train is an organized group of students who cycle together along a pre-arranged route to school under the close supervision of adults.  A walking school bus is the pedestrian version of a bike train.) When the students arrive on campus, they swipe a special card so their parents can know they arrived safely.

In addition to the City’s program at Hart Elementary, at least five other elementary schools in Austin low-income neighborhoods have recently started walking school bus programs. Meanwhile, parents and PTA organizations at a number of local schools have started their own bike trains. The City of Austin’s Child Safety program provides support to parents who want to set up their own bike trains, by providing maps for customized biking routes and reflective arm bands for participants.

Boltage program at Doss Elementary School
(photo courtesy of AISD)

Several area schools, including Doss Elementary and Martin Middle Schools, have adopted high-tech approaches to get kids on bikes. One of these programs, Boltage, uses a solar-powered reader that records each child’s bike trip to school. The records are then used to reward students who commute to school regularly by bike.

While Austin has made great progress recently in encouraging kids to cycle and bike to school, our community has a long ways to go if we want to reclaim the days when one out of every two kids bicycled or walked to school. By helping kids walk and bicycle to school, we can make a dent in child obesity rates here in Austin, where 38% of children in grades 3 to 8 are overweight or obese.  Increasing cycling and walk-to-school rates also reduces traffic congestion. In some communities, as much as 30% of vehicle traffic in the morning rush hour is from children being driven to school.

 

Safety remains the biggest barrier to getting more kids on bikes. We should all be advocating at City Hall for more local funding to create safer routes to schools, including sidewalks, cycle tracks, and neighborhood traffic calming. I love seeing what other cities are doing in this regards. Portland and Seattle, for example, are both building a network of neighborhood greenways that give priority to cyclists and pedestrians. By 2015, 80% of Portland residents will live within half a mile of a neighborhood greenway.

At a neighborhood and school level, setting up a bike train or walking school bus can go a long way in overcoming parents’ concerns about safety. In Portland, bike trains are now a predominant feature of kids’ commute to school, supported by a robust cycling culture and even a website with information on bike trains in operation around the city. In Seattle, the school district is working to set up a bike train or walking school bus at every elementary school in the district.

Austin is lucky to already have lots of success stories to build from to help our children bike and walk to school. Working together as a community to address the remaining barriers, I see no reason why we cannot reach the same goal that Seattle recently adopted—to get 50% of children walking and biking to school again.

(Look for a longer version of this blog post in the November issue of Austin Fit). 

Sending Our Children Off to School

It's back to school time today in Austin. We just sent our oldest son off to middle school. Sigh. Here is a shout out to all the parents who are sending their children off to elementary school/middle school/high school/college for the first time. And, if you are looking to shed more tears, here is a link to one of my favorite poems about sending kids off into the world, by Sharon Olds, The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb.  If you can, listen to the version at the link read by Garrison Keillor (I am unable to get the audio link to work this morning).

Traveling to Boston: What Makes Boston a Great Place for Families with Children

My youngest son and I spent a week exploring Boston this summer.  We fell in love with Boston's open spaces, pedestrian orientation, and cultural amenities. This post is about some of our favorite places in Boston and why we found Boston to be such a great place for families with children. Next up, a post about why Boston is still losing families with children to the suburbs.

Our favorite family-friendly amenities in Boston:

1. Boston's extensive network of high quality parks. Boston has parks for everyone, big and small, with 97% of the population living within a ten-minute walk of a public park (compared to 43% in Austin), and 3.5 playgrounds per 10,000 residents (vs 1.3 in Austin). We visited a different park everyday. One of our favorite parks, or rather series of parks, was the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a mile-and-a-half ribbon of new parks that were built on top of a major highway after it was relocated underground. The parks were filled with family-friendly amenities, from water features to carousels and wide lawns.

Map of Boston's public parks
from the Trust for Public Land
ParkScore index website

The Canal Fountain in the North End Park of Boston
Part of the Rose Kennedy Greenway

The Armenian Heritage Park in Boston
Part of the Rose Kennedy Greenway

An alley in Boston's North End

2. Pedestrian-orientation. Boston is one of the most pedestrian-friendly U.S. cities we have visited as family, with its wide sidewalks, well-striped crosswalks, and walking access to a diverse array of urban amenities. Indeed, Boston ranks third on the Walk Score index of walkable cities. Whenever we arrived at a mid-street crosswalk, the cars would actually stop to allow us to cross! (This is a novelty in Austin, where you place your life at risk if you cross a mid-street crosswalk.). While my son would have protested, I could have easily spent the whole week just walking around the city.

3. Public squares and alleys. I was equally impressed with Boston's rich array of lively public open spaces beyond its parks, including the city's numerous public squares, pedestrian-friendly alleys, and historic walking trails. The city government is embarking on a new 2015-2021 Open Space Plan, which will identify opportunities for further enhancing the city's public space inventory.

Public square in Boston's North End

Park and public gathering space in Central Boston

Jaume Plensa's "The Alchemist"
MIT Campus

4. Cultural Amenities:

Boston is teeming with cultural amenities with its public art and historic architecture, outdoor concerts, and museums galore, all within walking distance or an easy ride on public transit. In a week, we could not come even close to visiting all of the museums on our wish list.  My son's favorites: Boston Children's Museum and Museum of Science (where, to my chagrin, one of the most popular interactive exhibits was a machine that you could make fart). My favorites: Old State House, Boston Freedom Trail, and the MIT Museum (in Cambridge across the river). We never made it to the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Fire Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Isabella Gardner Museum, the USS Constitution Museum, and many of the other museums in Boston.

Boston Children's Museum

Indoor climbing sculpture
Boston Children's Museum

Boston Science Museum
The toot machine

Plaza Saltillo: Lost Opportunity for Austin's Families with Children

After 20 years of on-and-off-again planning efforts, Cap Metro has finally selected a developer for the prime 11-acre tract of public land, the Saltillo Tract.  The closely watched 5-3 vote by the Cap Metro board was extremely disappointing, with the selection of a development plan by Endeavor that fails to include affordable housing for families with children and largely ignores the cultural and historical context of the tract. 

The 11-acre Saltillo Tract is bordered by Plaza Saltillo, which was intended to be the hub for a Hispanic cultural and commercial district called Ole Mexico. Those plans for the area now seem permanently out of reach, with the tract sitting in the heart of a rapidly gentrifying area, where low-income African-American and Hispanic families are quickly being replaced with higher income and primarily Anglo households, and local businesses face dramatically escalating property values. The demographic trends are contributing to large drops in enrollment at AISD schools in the area. 

Neighborhood leaders supported the Saltillo Tract development proposal by the other project finalist, Saltillo Collaborative, which would have generated 170 units of affordable housing developed by leading providers of affordable housing for children in Austin, Foundation Communities and Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation (GNDC). The bulk of the affordable units would have been multi-bedroom apartments accessible for families with children, supported by other child-friendly amenities. GNDC, which has a long history of working in the community, maintains a long list of low-income families with children waiting to access affordable housing in the neighborhood. Many of the families on the waiting list  are Hispanic families who grew up the neighborhood but were priced out and now want to return. 

The City of Austin's Families with Children Task Force, and most recently the City of Austin/Travis County/AISD workgroup on Schools and Families (both of which I served on), identified the need for more affordable, family-friendly housing in our urban core and near transit as a critical need in our community. The communities surrounding the Saltillo development have also long identified affordable housing for families as a high priority. And a recent survey by the University of Texas's Community and Regional Planning Program found that the majority of low-income households with children who commute more than 10 miles to work in Austin want to live close to their jobs in the urban core. 

Cap Metro's selection of the Endeavor team to redevelop the Saltillo Tract follows the unfortunate lead set by the City for the recent redevelopment of other important tracts of public land, including the Green Water and Seaholm sites downtown, none of which will include affordable units for families with children. Today, the Austin City Council has an opportunity to chart a new course when it considers the redevelopment of a city-owned parcel at 411 Chicon, the one remaining sizable tract of publicly-owned land in Central East Austin that is ripe for redevelopment.

Back in 2003, Cap Metro literature stated: "The overriding goal for the Saltillo District Redevelopment Project is to construct an exemplary, compact community."  By no means should the selection of the Endeavor project--a project that leaves out affordable housing for children on such a large tract of publicly-owned land in Central East Austin--be considered exemplary. 

When to Allow Your Children to Navigate Austin's Streets Alone on a Bike?

Cycling with my son down South Lamar: Not for the faint of heart!

As my sons approach their teens, they are wanting something I had as a kid: the ability to explore their neighborhood on bikes without their parents hovering over them.

A typical arterial street in our neighborhood.
Lots of parked cars, leaving no room for two cars to pass each other,
let alone two cars and a cyclist.

But our inner-city neighborhood streets today are not like the quiet streets in the suburbs where I grew up. Today, our streets are crowded with parked cars and traffic while lacking basic pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. Our kids have to regularly navigate weaving in and out of parked cars while distracted drivers speed by them. When there are sidewalks (which are rare), the kids must confront huge cracks, uneven pavement, and missing curb cuts.  It's one thing to navigate these hazards as a 40-year-old with many years of experience cycling, and another thing when you are 9.

Our neighborhood is by no means alone in this regards in Austin.  Throughout the city, parents must regularly confront this question: At what point is it safe enough to let your child ride his bike or scooter without an adult nearby?

One of our rare neighborhood sidewalks.
Notice the lack of curb cuts.

Six years ago, Lenore Skenazy wrote a controversial article about how she let her 9-year-old son ride the New York subway home alone. This sparked a national conversation about parents becoming too obsessed with theirs kids' safety, stripping kids of the independence that they need to grow into healthy, confident adults. More recently, an article by Hanna Rosin criticized parents' pre-occupation with safety and cites evidence that links the loss of children's ability to engage in independent, risk-taking discovery  to increases in "depression, narcissism, and a decline in empathy."

Both of these articles, however, ignore the hazards we observe everyday as we travel through our neighborhoods: absent-minded drivers who text, ignore crosswalks, and regularly speed through our neighborhood streets. Rosin asserts that the world is not a more dangerous place than it was when we were growing up, but she bases her argument solely on crime stats and child abduction rates, not on traffic safety. Meanwhile, pedestrian fatalities have been on the rise. A pedestrian is injured every 8 minutes in a traffic crash in the United States, and 19% of these injuries are to kids 15 and younger. Pedestrian injuries are the second leading cause of accidental death among children 5 to 15. 

I wonder if I would feel more comfortable letting my kids ride a New York City subway alone than, say, riding their bikes or walking to their local library. I might. According to a report released last week by Smart Growth America, the Austin metro area is the 24th most dangerous region for pedestrians (and probably not any better for cyclists); New York City is 48th (out of 51 metro areas). To get to our neighborhood library, my kids have to navigate several hazards, including crossing a very busy and dangerous intersection on South Lamar where I regularly see cars turning left that fail to yield to oncoming cars, let alone pedestrians and cyclists. (Here's a link to a prior post about our cycling adventures together on South Lamar).

All this being said, I think that ultimately the decision about whether to let your child ride his or her bike alone is a very personal one. It depends on the conditions in the neighborhood, as well as the child's cognitive abilities and experience riding with adults and learning good cycling safety judgment. What also helps: a leap of faith, a kiss on the cheek, and maybe a prayer or two. 

The cast from the broken arm!

Taking all these things into account, last month we finally decided our kids were old enough to go off alone on their scooters to buy snow cones on the edge of the neighborhood.  The outcome? Did our kids survive? Yes. Although my oldest son's scooter hit a big piece of broken pavement in the sidewalk, causing him to fall and break his arm. I kid you not.

Will we let our children ride alone again? Yes, although next time I will remind them to look out for the cracks in the sidewalk.

Here's the uneven pavement that was the source of the fall and broken arm.
This is very typical of the state of neighborhood sidewalks in Austin.
Despite several calls to the City of Austin, this sidewalk has still not been repaired.

Assessing Austin's Community Character Part II

I have received some flack for my recent post on Assessing Austin's Community Character, where I presented what I love about my neighborhood: access to yards for children; our neighborhood school and park; affordable, family-friendly restaurants; access to parks and athletic facilities; the eclectic, artistic, and diverse character; nature; and -- gasp -- cul-de-sacs!  One commenter wrote that I was "clinging to some ideal of bungalows with huge yards," while another wrote that I was asking for "suburban amenities."

What some pro-densification readers have probably taken the most offense at was my reference to yards and cul-de-sacs.  But, actually, these concepts of safe, kid-friendly, outdoor play spaces are not antithetical to living in a dense urban area. 

One of my main purposes in creating this blog has been to call out examples from around the world where cities are successfully providing opportunities for families to live in denser housing with the amenities that these commenters have characterized as "suburban."

Courtyard housing in Zurich

For example, let's take yards. I have written several blog posts about housing designs from around the world, such as row houses and courtyard housing, that provide denser urban housing AND access to yards for children. For example, here is a picture from a post I wrote in 2012 about courtyard housing in Zurich. My sister-in-law used to live in this particular housing development, which provided a huge shared yard where kids (and adults) could safely play.  In Los Angeles, these complexes are called garden courts. 

Vancouver, which has one of the densest downtowns in North America, requires that 25% of units be designed and sold/rented to families with children. As a result, throughout downtown Vancouver you can find housing towers surrounded by wrap-around, three-story townhouse units with access to secure playground yards for children. (Through my service on the Downtown Commission, I recently advocated for Austin to adopt a first-step, scaled-down version of this policy for downtown by giving density bonuses to developers who include small outdoor play areas for children. The Commission unanimously voted for the policy, which the Austin City Council approved on first reading last week. City staff is currently opposed to the proposal).

Vancouver

In the same vein as Vancouver, Portland, Oregon's highly-dense Pearl District has a goal for 25% of the housing units to be family-friendly. In 2011, I visited one apartment complex there that has followed the courtyard concept, as well as other housing complexes that are directly adjacent to kid-friendly parks. 

The Pearl District in Portland, Oregon

As for safe streets where kids can throw a ball or ride their bikes, while admittedly cul-de-sacs are not ideal for a denser urban core, there are many models of streets in dense cities that facilitate kids' ability to play. The woonerfs in Denmark and Sweden are probably the most well-known model. In London, these are known as home zones and are being retrofitted throughout the city. In the U.S., these have been referred to as "shared streets" or "living streets." Here is a picture of a wonderful shared street my family visited in San Sebastian, Spain in 2012. 

Shared Street in San Sebastian, Spain

What worries me about the negative responses I have received to my previous post is that they may represent a more widely-shared expectation in our city: that we can only have a denser urban core if we sacrifice the things that many of us love most about our communities--such as yards, trees, and safe streets. My hope for CodeNext is that our city policymakers recognize that these family-friendly amenities are not only complementary but actually critical to creating a city that is robust, healthy, and sustainable for all types of households.

Assessing Austin's Community Character

Austin's CodeNEXT team (the team that is leading an overhaul of the City of Austin's land use code) is currently conducting an assessment of our city's community character. The team wants to know what the Austin public values about our neighborhoods, favorite places, and opportunities for improvement, with a focus on the built environment.

There is a final city workshop tomorrow where Austinites can offer their input on the community character assessment, and then later this month the City will be rolling out a "do-it-yourself" Neighborhood Community Character kit.

I hope that lots of Austin's families are weighing in on this assessment. What about our neighborhoods' unique character supports families' ability to raise children, and what makes it hard to raise children?  What do we like and not like about our homes, our streets, our public spaces, and our businesses?

Here is my (partial) list of things I love about my community's character, with a focus on the things in my neighborhood that contribute to my family's happiness and well-being. What does your list look like? 

1. Yards: I love my neighborhood's backyards and front yards. With the focus on densifying Austin's urban core, what often gets lost is the importance of providing safe places for kids to engage in free play outdoors. Outdoor play is a critical part of a child's development and a parent's sanity. In a household with two rambunctious boys, I don't know how we could have survived raising kids so far without being able to send our kids outdoors to run around and play--while also being able to keep a close eye on them when cooking dinner, working at home, etc.  In fact, the only reason I have been able to write this blog post today (since school was cancelled) is because I could send my kids and their friends into the yard to play.

2. Neighborhood school and park. When we first bought our house, before we had children, we did not realize at the time what a blessing it is to live within walking distance of an outstanding neighborhood school that was next to a park. Now that we have school-age kids, we are thankful everyday for living so close to such a community treasure that we can walk and bike to each day. Beyond the educational benefits, both our neighborhood school and park have fostered tons of new friendships with our neighbors, a greater sense of neighborhood identity, and community stewardship. 

3. Affordable, family-friendly restaurants. When my kids were younger, it was important for us to be able to go to restaurants with outdoor play areas for children. Now that my kids are older, a family-friendly restaurant is one that serves affordable, healthy, and kid-friendly food within walking or cycling distance of our home. 

4. Access to parks and athletic facilities.  I love the fact that my neighborhood is close to great parks as well as athletic facilities where our kids can play baseball, soccer, tennis, and more.

5. Eclectic, artistic and diverse character. I love living in a neighborhood where my 80-year-old neighbor can grow a field of corn in his front yard, where there are art cars parked in the driveways, and where multiple generations live on a street. I cherish the fact that our neighborhood includes affordable housing, including public housing for families and MHMR housing for persons with mental disabilities. And I appreciate all the artwork in the neighborhood, including the hand-knitted artwork on the stop sign pole, the mural in the alley, and other artwork gems that pop up in nooks and crannies throughout the hood.

6. Cul-de-sacs. While cul-de-sacs are generally shunned in urban planning circles, I love my neighborhood's cul-de-sacs.  Our cul-de-sacs offer the safest places for kids to play in the streets, learn to ride their bike, shoot hoops, roller skate, and more. Studies have found that cul-de-sacs result in a substantial increase in play activity compared to an open grid street pattern, and the Atlantic Cities recently ran this great article on how cul-de-sacs increase social interaction among neighbors. Here's to the cul-de-sac!

7. Back to nature. I love going to sleep at night to the sound of an owl hooting in my back yard, and then waking up on in the morning to the sound of a woodpecker. I love the canopy of trees that line our streets, the butterflies that appear in our flower beds, and the lizards that appear on our front porch.

Playground Innovations

"[Playgrounds] are among the few remaining places within the city for non-purposive, spontaneous, and creative activity, for exciting physical challenge and discovery."

--Gabriela Burkhalter, curator of the Playground Project at Carnegie Museum of Art

The Thinkery

I have playgrounds on my mind this month. The Thinkery--Austin's new children's museum--opened this month, and one of its best features is the new playground in the courtyard of the museum. Fun, unique, and engaging for kids.

And in Pittsburg, the Carnegie Museum of Art is showing the Playground Project exhibit, which chronicles some of the world's most outstanding playgrounds from the mid-to-late 20th century. The New York Times ran a write up of the exhibit earlier this year. As the write up for the exhibit explains, the playground is "a place where opinions about education, exploration, aesthetics, and the public space abound. . . Yet most playgrounds today are highly standardized and sanitized. A change is needed, but, as history shows, it is only possible if we engage in the revitalization not only of the playground but of the public space in general."

I have been collecting images of whimsical and inspiring playgrounds from around the world on my Pinterest page and agree with the Playground Project curators' conclusions that these types of playgrounds are few and far between. But I also believes that projects like the Thinkery playscape indicate a promising trend towards more innovative play structures. 

Here's to more projects in Austin's future that promote creative play, physical challenges, and discovery for kids of all ages.  Happy New Year.

Promoting the Walkability of Austin and Ability of Kids to Play in the Streets

Neighborhood grassroots campaign in Austin to get the City to install a stop sign

In talking to Austin parents, many express frustration with how unsafe it is for their kids to walk to school, play in the streets, or access nearby amenities on foot. By no means is Austin unique in this regard. As a writer in the Atlantic Monthly lamented earlier this year: 

This is the point we have come to in much of the developed world: The freedom for a child to walk out the door and skip rope or play catch is something that has to be scheduled, organized, and officially permitted.

And for parents trying to get basic safety improvements installed, the process can be maddening, quickly leading to roadblocks and dead-ends.

Luckily, there are three great new developments that will help make our streets safer in Austin:

First, the Austin City Council has formed a new Pedestrian Advisory Council to help guide the City as it looks to improve walkability in the city. The Council, which is modeled on the City's Bicycle Advisory Council, meets for the first time this week on October 22nd, 5:30, at City Hall.

Second, Austin has a new grassroots coalition, WalkAustin, committed to transforming Austin into a pedestrian-friendly city.  Earlier this year, the coalition put on a walkability summit to launch a citywide conversation about promoting walking in the city.  As I understand it, the idea for creating the Pedestrian Advisory Council grew out of the summit.

Third, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) recently released a set of new urban street design guidelines. The guidelines include a range of cutting-edge design guidelines for making streets safer and more inviting for people of all ages, as well as opportunities to carve out more active play spaces. As the NACTO website states:

Growing urban populations will demand that their streets serve not only as corridors for the conveyance of people, goods, and services, but as front yards, parks, playgrounds, and public spaces. Streets must accommodate an ever-expanding set of needs. They must be safe, sustainable, resilient, multi-modal, and economically beneficial, all while accommodating traffic.

The NACTO guidelines and Austin's new citizen-led efforts to increase walkability come at a perfect time for Austin, with its high pedestrian fatality rate and low walkability score. The national site, Walk Score, ranks Austin in the bottom half of large US cities on walkability--based on how easy it is to safely walk to basic household amenities such as grocery stores and restaurants. Both Dallas and Houston have higher rankings. 

Some of the new policies and programs I would love to see Austin adopt to improve walkability--and  the ability of families to walk and play in their neighborhoods--include:

• A pilot project to retrofit 10 neighborhood streets across the city into shared streets, also known as living streets or homes zones. Through their design, shared streets place an emphasis on pedestrian scale and traffic calming, permitting children to play safety in front of their homes. The shared street concept, which originated as "woonerfs" in the Netherlands, has been adopted by cities throughout the world. NACTO's new design guidelines includes a section on shared streets. The City of San Francisco also has its own design guidelines for shared streets. Chicago is in the process of designing its first shared street. Santa Monica finished its first shared street transformation last year in a residential neighborhood where residents were concerned about crime and quality of life, in an effort to bring about a stronger sense of neighborhood and to promote walking and cycling. Aukland, Australia is putting in place the shared street concept throughout the city. Great Britain has funded the retrofitting of dozens of shared streets under its "Home Zone" program.  We came across many shared streets in our travels to Europe last summer (see pictures below).
• Redesign the City of Austin's Pedestrian Program to more closely resemble the City's Bicycle Program, which has been able to cut across city silos and dramatically expand the city's cycling facilities through strong leadership and integration of planners and engineers. The Pedestrian Program is currently focused primarily on repairing and adding sidewalks to comply with the Americans Disabilities Act. In addition to addressing the critical gaps in sidewalk accessibility, the Program should be looking at other opportunities to increase pedestrian-oriented environments. Similar to the role of the Bicycle Program director, a Pedestrian Program director could serve as "walkability" advocate, to cut through city bureuacracy, proactively seek out opportunities to improve walkability, and build collaborations across departments.
• In this same vein, the City needs a pedestrian master plan, building upon the city's sidewalk master plan, looking at a fuller range of opportunities to not only address accessibility but to also promote walkability in the City.
  

  

  Shared street in San Sebastian, Spain

Shared street in San Sebastian, Spain

Austin Museum Day: Exploring Austin's Treasures with Kids

Austin's Bob Bullock Museum

This Sunday, September 22nd, is Austin's Annual Museum Day, a free, citywide discovery of museums in the area. I pulled up the list of participating museums and realized I had not heard of half of these museums. It looks like some are open just for this special day and are otherwise closed to the public.

Here are some of our family's favorite museums to visit with kids:

• Texas Memorial Museum (this museum always reminds me of the 1970s; maybe it is all those dioramas lining the walls; it isn't the American Museum of Natural History or the Exploratorium by any means, but it's our only science museum for kids in the city so we'll keep happily visiting it)
• Blanton Museum (offers several wonderful kids' programs)
• Children's Museum (soon to re-open as the Thinkery)
• Umlauf Sculpture Garden
• Mexic-Arte Museum
• LBJ Presidential Library (actually, I have been there but have not taken my kids yet; it is on our list!)
• Lady Bird Wildflower Center
• The Contemporary Austin

And here are some museums on the Museum Day list that I have never heard of before but am interested in checking out on Sunday with my kids:

• Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording (not usually open to the public)
• Texas Archive of the Moving Image (open to the public on Museum Day or by appointment)
• Austin Fire Museum (open to the public two times a year)
• Goodwill Computer Museum (to be able to show my kids' what I typed on in college)

2013 Austin Museum Day: List of Participating Museums

• Austin Fire Museum
• Austin History Center
• Austin Tour Guide Association
• Blanton Museum of Art
• Briscoe Center for American History
• Bullock Texas State History Museum
• Capitol Visitors Center
• City of Austin Cultural Arts Division
• Elisabet Ney Museum
• French Legation Museum
• George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center
• German-Texan Heritage Society
• Goodwill Computer Museum
• Harry Ransom Center
• Humanities Texas
• Immediatag
• Joseph & Susanna Dickinson Hannig Museum
• Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farms
• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
• Landmarks Public Art Program
• LBJ Presidential Library
• Mexic-Arte Museum
• Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording

• Neill-Cochran House Museum
• O. Henry Museum
• Old Bakery & Emporium
• Pump Project
• Republic of Texas Museum
• Save Austin's Cemeteries
• Texas Archive of the Moving Image
• Texas Department of Public Safety Historical Museum and Research Center
• Texas Governor's Mansion
• Texas Medical Association History of Medicine Gallery
• Texas Memorial Museum, Texas Natural Science Center
• Texas Military Forces Museum
• Texas Music Museum
• Texas State Capitol
• The Beverly S. Sheffield Education Center
• The Contemporary Austin
• The Thinkery
• Tiny Park
• Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum
• Visual Arts Center
• Williamson Museum
• Women & Their Work