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The Saturday Morning Post
D.C. Council members Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) and Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and District Office of Planning director Harriet Tregoning met with reporters this afternoon at a miniature street festival designed to highlight today's Car Free Day event. F Street NW between 9th and 8th will continue to be closed to motor vehicle traffic until about 3 p.m. while vendors meet with residents to promote various businesses that can help D.C. residents live in the city without a car.
Not too many people were on hand for the festivities, which includes live music, yoga demonstrations and booths from vendors like Zipcar. But the low turnout didn't stop Wells and Cheh from exuding optimism about the future of Washington as a place where suburbanites will want to move in order to ditch their cars. Wells said that the growing annual event (about 1,000 people signed up to participate last year, versus roughly 5,200 this year) is really intended to promote car-free, urban living in the District.
"You have to get people to break patterns, break habits," Wells said.
Both Wells and Cheh regularly ride their bicycles to work at the Wilson Building (Cheh once a week; Wells more often), and they genuinely appear to be passionate about pushing progressive development policies in the city that will encourage more and more residents to adopt car-free lifestyles. They said those policies include things like getting more and better retail services close to where people live, improving public transportation access, promoting car-sharing services like Zipcar, and working toward ending parking minimums in new residential developments.
Getting rid of parking minimums - zoning policies that force developers to include a certain number of parking spaces in new buildings based on projected occupancy numbers - has been a hot topic of late.
"What do you do when you don't use a parking space? It's not like you could house someone there," said Tregoning. "How much cheaper would that housing be without the parking?"
Cheh acknowledged that it isn't yet realistic to expect the once a year Car Free Day event to have a measurable impact on traffic congestion, since most of the weekday traffic inside the city comes from Maryland and Virginia. This year, the District spent $150,000 to promote the event, and for the first time, Maryland and Virginia contributed $50,000 each. But a general lack of cooperation between the three jurisdictions to promote car-free lifestyles is "part of the problem," said Cheh. Getting more cooperation just might be difficult, though, considering juxtaposing the lives of city dwellers who take advantage of being able to walk, bike and ride public transit to those in the nearby suburbs is part of the point.
"The thing is to get suburbanites to understand urban living," Wells said.
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Can we get the council to "break patterns, break habits" first?!
I'm kind of pissed off because it was advertised that there would be free bike tuneups. To the contrary - I showed up with my bike and they're only doing tire inflation and very minor brake tweaking.
The new Metrobus on display was pretty neat, though.
Spent $200,000 for 5000 people, which work out to $38 per person. That’s some Lehman Brothers leadership there. Why not blow the money on something that actually improves car free living...like a painting a bike lane or something.
Sorry I was using my AIG calculator...$40/person
http://www.yehudamoon.com/index.php?date=2008-06-06
The festival was held on a Monday from 11 - 3. How the heck is anyone supposed to get there during work? Wish that they had had this in the early AM like Bike to Work Day. Oh well ... at least they're trying!
I don't care if suburbanites understand my urban lifestyle, I just want them to pay for the damage they do the city. Charge toll on 395 and we'll call it even.
Metro needs to run 24-7 for PR events like this to be compelling
Part of my urban lifestyle is walking to the Metro and having my commute paid for by my employer so that I can spend all day in an office and not be able to attend events like this one.
I live in the city, even moved here from the dreaded suburbs and guess what? I own a car and drive it everywhere in DC. Driving in DC is acutally pretty easy and usually faster then Metro. Parking in DC is a breeze compared to other cities and guess what folks, gas prices never did hit $4 a gallon.
So maybe instead of hosting events that nobody wants to go to, DC should take some of that money and set up a grant program for low income families to buy and maintain a car.
A car is THE TICKET to economic freedom, especially in a city like DC that is very small and where much of the job growth is out in places like Reston or Tysons.
DC needs to encourage more car ownership, not less, if want to really serve its citizens and not just make empty statements at empty community events.
So...people are gonna ditch their cars for Metro and bikes. Yet Metro says it needs gazillions of dollars to keep its trains and buses running, and bikes remain a small percentage of all commuters' transportation method.
Dudes....pass the bong! I need another hit of the green shizzle.
"Part of my urban lifestyle is walking to the Metro and having my commute paid for by my employer so that I can spend all day in an office and not be able to attend events like this one" Yep, everyday is a care-free day for me too.
You know what would have made this event really awesome? If Metro had put some effort into making sure the trains were all running on schedule - or, wait, just RUNNING would have been nice. Instead I stayed car-free by getting off at Arlington Cemetary (where everyone else in my car disembarked) and walking the rest of the way to Foggy Bottom. I hear it took the poor saps on the train another 45 minutes to get in.
@Hillvada
I am not really sure what city you've been living in for the past six months but gas prices were over $4 a gallon here and in the suburbs for quite some time, and are on the way back up again.
I drove someone ELSE's car to work today... does that count?
Yes, a lucky few can be car free in DC. But that's simply not possible for all.
Many areas are simply too spread out to be car-free. A lot of people are 20 blocks from a decent supermarket, for instance.
Many can use public transit for the daily commute to work, but our neighborhoods simply don't always have the amenities that you need within walking distance. Or within safe walking distance.
And people paying $500,000 for a place to live are not going to be keen on taking the bus to grocery shopping.
I applaud any effort to make DC more walkable, but a bit of honesty is needed here. DC will not be NYC any time soon. Many are going to need vehicles, even if they don't use them every day.
Re: Disco_Stu
Are you the dingbat who stole my car???
True, a lot of people do need a car, but the point is a lot of people can and are car free and that a lot more people (not everyone) are in positions of being car free ... they just can't make the jump (even though they never use their car). A few minor enhancements (more bike racks, showers, etc.) in offices would do a lot for those who can, but don't, bike or take alternative transit to work.
And I happen to know a lot of people who paid $500K+ for their home and do just fine without a car and have zero intention of getting one. Zipcar, bus, bike, foot, metro does just fine in many neighborhoods.
.. or if not care free as far as ownership, car free for most transit needs.
It's clear that hillvada is trolling and would probably be banned if I had any control. Either that or a reality-deprived Republican.
I don't know about you people, but whenever I have to haul around a new refrigerator, take a corpse rolled up in a carpet to the bulk trash station, or get fellated, mass transit is my preferred medium of travel.
Car-less just like the paper-less office is a myth for many adults. But that doesn't mean you need to jump in the car to go everywhere.
where the was the free tuneups? they looked at my bike and just told me i should consider getting some new brake cables soon.
I think some people in DC need a car, but not a lot. I thought I needed a car, but once in the situation without one, I discovered it was not a need at all. You just have to make adjustments. If you're use to going to a certain grocery store, get a ride/go less frequent or go to a new one. Most people do not realize how much it truly cost to own a car. It's about $5-8K a year if you include depreciation.
hillvada: you're missing the point. we're going to fill the city with people who don't need/want cars. then all the people who can't afford to live here anymore will be pushed out to places like reston/tysons/PG and everywhere else where job growth "is". that's the "plan".
maybe!
"What do you do when you don't use a parking space? It's not like you could house someone there," said Tregoning. "How much cheaper would that housing be without the parking?"
If you don't use a parking space, you rent it out. I really don't see the justification for doing away with the minimum parking requirements for new developments. I would guess that most apartment buildings in D.C. don't come with off-street parking.
I think there's a pretty good balance between motorists and the carless here. Not having a car works out great for some people, and I applaud those who are able to make it work. But this city doesn't have the density of a Manhattan, and while public transportation is plentiful, it isn't nearly reliable enough to work for everybody, and unfortunately, things don't seem to be improving. The District's streets don't seem to be in 24/7 gridlock.
Many areas are simply too spread out to be car-free. A lot of people are 20 blocks from a decent supermarket, for instance.
20 blocks? Pshaw! When I was a kid we had to walk 30 blocks just to get to or from school! In the snow! Barefoot! Uphill, both ways!
(I don't know why we did this. We had plenty of shoes, of course, and the school bus stopped just a couple of blocks away. But my dad said what was good enough for him, and his father, and his father's father, was good enough for us as well, by gum. But it was really annoying in the summer, when my mom would drive the pickup truck along the route we took to school, and my dad would stand in the back, throwing shovelfuls of shaved ice on to the sidewalk as we went by.)
Hillman got it right: "DC will not be NYC any time soon. Many are going to need vehicles, even if they don't use them every day."
He's not bashing DC, but NYC is like a hive of smaller self contained neighborhoods that have the grocery, dry cleaner, etc. just down the block from the living spaces, maybe in the same building.
DC is more like huge sections labeled "Offices" "Semi-Hip Nightclub Zone" "Monument Valley", etc.
So, Wells and Cheh engage in a little snotty and gratuitous suburb-bashing. Great way to endear people to DC! To me it's all about choice. I chose to live in a pedestrian neighborhood and stay car-free. I cheat a little--I have a motorcycle and a Zipcar membership. (It's still a bit of a schlep to the new Safeway, though.) I'm single and don't have kids, and that makes being car-free immeasurably easier. I can celebrate my choices--in many parts of my life--without bashing others, including my friends and family who live the "suburban dream."
Movements like this miss the point. You can't modify people's behavior just because you tell them they should. You need to encourage it other ways, by increasing the number of bike lanes through the city, building higher density residential and commercial (especially grocery stores) near metro stations, improve intra-city public transit (there are people that live and work here, ya know), and generally support urban development where a car becomes less and less necessary. Nobody wants to be preached at, but if the right financial and convenience incentives are there, people will make the right choice on their own.
They also need to provide disincentives to use a car downtown, like bringing back the squeegee men at all the intersections sloshing buckets of HIV water all over your windshield. Morbidly obese transvestite hoookers work wonders at keeping streets clear. And whatever happened to those teenagers who went around slashing tires all the white folks cars around Shaw? Why aren't we recruiting the next generation of hooligans to discourage urban automobile ownership? Nothing says "take the bus" quite like four slashed tires, a smashed windshield, and human feces in the backseat.
I recently moved to the evil burbs.
I have kids.
I am thinking about buying a SECOND car!
I rule.
Anyone else thing Mary Cheh will be a one-termer?