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Given
the fact that information on, advertisements for
and discussion of Autonomobiles has been
dominated by advocates of Business As Usual,
where can an inquiring citizen turn to
understand for themselves the real dynamics of
Autonomobile use?
A
promising place to start is observing what
Enterprises, especially large, private
corporations, are doing to protect their
investments and stockholder equity when it comes
to their decisions about Mobility and Access.
Citizens, Agencies and Institutions can learn
from private sector experience - positive and
negative - and in the process get a better
grasp of Mobility and Access options.
Two
good venues for learning are (1) enterprises
that provide recreation and entertainment to
large numbers of patrons, and (2) facilities
for mass acquisition of retail goods (aka, Big
Boxes).
These
venues are the focus of PARTs II and III. We
start with recreation and entertainment venues.
Who better understands how to make citizens
happy and safe than the most successful
recreation and entertainment Enterprises?
When
Enterprises design venues for recreation and
entertainment do they rely on Autonomobiles
for Mobility and Access or do they employ a
different strategy?
Learning
from Disney
It
turns out there is a lot one can learn from
Mickey Mouse about Mobility and Access in
environments designed to make citizens happy and
safe. Admiration for the Walt Disney Company’s
application of shared-vehicle technology and
systems should not be interpreted as an
endorsement of the quality of the Disney
entertainment “experience.” Like all
entertainment Enterprises, Disney is in business
to maximize profits, not to optimize the quality
of the entertainment product. This reality makes
the Disney lessons concerning shared-vehicle
systems even more important. (See End
Note Eighteen.)
Walt
Disney’s original concept for the 25,000 acres
he purchased in Orange County, Florida was an
“Experimental City of Tomorrow.” As Walt
envisioned the early-'60s project on Reedy Creek
south of Orlando, it was to include a small
(Disneyland-scale) theme park. However, the main
goal was to demonstrate ways to improve human
settlement patterns.
Disney
knew that his Disneyland
project in Greater Anaheim (Los Angeles New
Urban Region) had been degraded by bad
settlement pattern decisions in the vicinity of
Disneyland. He believed that he could do much
better if he had a blank slate. Walt’s goal
was to show how citizens could be happy and safe
in a new environment of his design.
Before
real work began in Central Florida, Walt Disney
died and his brother Roy stepped back into
management at the company. Under Roy’s
leadership, the Disney Enterprise scrapped the
grand “new settlement pattern” ideas and
focused on what its executives understood. They
opened the Walt Disney World theme park in 1971
on a small part of the 25,000 +/- acre Reedy
Creek Improvement District property owned by the
Walt Disney Co.
Throughout
the '70s there was an undercurrent of discussion
in professional circles about things planners
could learn from the Disney operations in
Florida. When Disney World expanded to include a
scaled down and transformed version of the
“Experimental City of Tomorrow” (EPCOT) in
1982, professional contacts at the Urban Land
Institute, the Transportation Research Board and
elsewhere reported that some of the best minds
in transportation had been hired to solve
Mobility and Access problems in the expanded
Disney World.
The
time was ripe for a visit. Mobility and Access
was beginning to emerge as a society-wide
concern. It was obvious that the Interstate
Highway System was making New Urban Region
settlement patterns more and more dysfunctional.
Urban agglomerations were expanding
(disaggregating) and scattering the origins and
destinations of urban travel across the
Countryside just as MacKaye, Mumford, Owen and
others had predicted and warned. (See Chapter 13
of The Shape of the Future.)
EMR
visited EPCOT soon after it opened to see what
could be learned about energy conservation,
waste management and visitor security in higher-intensity
places designed for recreation and
entertainment. Primarily, he went to learn about
pedestrian movement and “transport.” EMR
reviewed Disney World, as he had the World's
Fairs and Expos in Seattle, Montreal, Vancouver
and New Orleans, with a focus on the use of
shared-vehicle systems. (See End
Note Nineteen.)
It
was a fortuitous time to visit because what
EMR found at Disney World, and EPCOT, was a
three-dimensional encyclopedia on
shared-vehicle systems.
The
majority of people arrive at Disney World by
Autonomobile, either directly from their home
Region or via a rental car from the Orlando
Airport. The airport terminals at Orlanda,
Tampa-St. Pete and Seattle (SeaTac) have, by the
way, three early applications of the horizontal-
elevator, people-mover, shared-vehicle systems.
The expansive parking lots
are the
last time visitors see their Large, Private
Vehicles.
The
first shared vehicle-system that visitors
encounter are trams that move like
centipedes through the vast parking lots. Trams
carry out the task of picking up visitors at
their cars and getting them where they want to
go. Patrons immediately grasp the ease and
sensibility of utilizing the trams to get them
on the way to pedestrian-only sections of the park, to
other shared vehicle mobility systems on
premises, or to bring them to venues for
shopping, eating and drinking.
The
centerpiece of the shared-vehicle system was the
Disney World Monorail. The Monorail network was
a well-used mode of transport by the time EPCOT
opened. A visit to the Monorail stop inside the
Contemporary Hotel lobby should be a requirement
for every person concerned with Mobility and
Access. (See “All
Aboard,” 16 April 2007.)
EPCOT
itself opened with a low-tech bus system but a
bus system that worked well. If one got tired
while walking around the lagoon, there was a bus
stop, and very soon a bus to take you wherever
you wanted to go to eat, to buy or to your
on-site hotel.
The
bottom line is that large recreation and
entertainment venues work because tens of
thousands of people enjoy moving through
interesting contexts on foot and in
shared-vehicles with not a Large, Private
Vehicle in
sight. (See End Note
Twenty.)
Other
Lessons
Before
moving on to other shared-vehicle system lessons,
we can learn two other things from Disney World:
The
Platform: When one is on “Main Street,”
or many other places at Disney World, it seems
that one is “on the ground.” That is not the
case. Nearly every venue is built on a platform
over a multi-level service complex. Utilities,
storage, worker (cast) movement systems,
delivery vehicles, etc are consigned to a
“lower level.” As suggested in “All
Aboard,” multi levels are critical for
functional, shared-vehicle station areas.
Roadways,
parking, utilities, warehousing, deliveries and
other functions can, and should, be “down
below.” It is important to keep pedestrians
and the shared-vehicle system platform at the
“ground level” functions. Buildings above
the platform taper down as one moves out from
the platform, creating a pyramid with a
half-mile base when viewed from a distance.
Economy
of Scale: Disney World has been built over
the years on most of the 25,000 acres of land
Walt acquired in the '60s. It would have not
been possible to build these facilities with
that level of activity had the project been
built on separate parcels. That is also a lesson
one learns from Planned New Communities. It is
the reason one can rely on Regional Metrics to
determine the holding capacity of land within R
= 10-Miles or R = 20-Miles.
These
factors have an indirect impact on the evolution
of functional human settlement patterns and why
Autonomobiles do not provide Mobility and
Access.
More
Lessons from the Mouse
In 1994,
the prospect of Disney’s America coming to the
doorstep of the Virginia Piedmont provided an
opportunity for further study of Disney. S/P’s
clients paid for research in Orange County,
Calif, Orange County, Fla., and in the
Paris New Urban Region. A “ten-years-on”
perspective is provided by “Chasing Out the
Mouse,” 4 October 2004.
Building on past experience, S/P was able to
come to understand many of the basic parameters
which Disney applied in designing both
pedestrian movement and shared-vehicle system
movement as well as to determine the potential
impact of Disney’s America on the isolated
Haymarket site chosen by Disney’s time-share
development staff.
In the Paris New
Urban Region, Disney integrated the site for
Euro Disney (the theme park’s name was later
changed to Disneyland Paris) along with a large
conference center into the terminal
station-area of a Region-wide shared-vehicle
system (RER). This station also serves as a
gateway to the Paris New Urban Region for the inter-regional
high-speed rail system (TGV). In fact, the
site where Euro-Disney was built had been
designated by French Agencies as a
“multi-regional recreation venue” in the
mid-60s Paris Regional Plan. This Plan was a
nation-state / Regional effort to guide the
expansion of the urbanized part of the Paris New
Urban Region. The plan was adopted 20 years
before Disney started looking for a site in
Europe.
The overarching lesson from
Disney and other major recreation and
entertainment venues is that people can enjoy
themselves walking and using shared-vehicle
systems. These modes are far more efficient than
using Large, Private Vehicles.
The reason is
simple: Space to drive and park Large, Private
Vehicles disaggregate the places and activities
visitors pay to experience.
If an Enterprise depends on
making large groups of citizens happy and safe,
it is imperative that they invest in shared-
vehicle systems.
That is good advice for
Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions that want
to evolve functional urban settlements that
provide places to work, live and enjoy life.
Mobility and
Access systems do not need to be as
sophisticated as the more advanced hybrid
private / shared systems, such the one proposed
for Mobility and Access in Overhills, North
Carolina. See Chapter 14 of BRIDGES
(Forthcoming).
The
Wrong Villain
At S/P, we are always
looking for ways to demonstrate the futility of
trying to solve the Mobility and Access Crisis
(including, “traffic congestion”) with
Autonomobiles. Norman Leahy’s post
“Richmond’s Diabolical Plan to Reduce
Congestion” on the Bacon's Rebellion blog
(3 May 2007) provides a perfect opportunity.
The tone of the post and the use of the term
"diabolical" in the title suggests
that there is a villain thwarting the City of
Richmond’s attempt to reduce congestion and
improve access to recreation and entertainment
uses in the Zentrum of the Richmond New Urban
Region. From the tone of the post one might
guess the villain is:
It turns out there is a
villain but it is none of the above.
The villain is
“conventional wisdom.” Conventional wisdom
in the form of a recreation and entertainment
variant of the Private Vehicle Mobility Myth.
Conventional
wisdom with respect to recreation and
entertainment venues “assume” there is a way
to create a Critical Mass of human activity
where the primary mode of mobility to achieve
access is the Autonomobile. In the Leahy post,
the issue is a Critical Mass of recreation /
entertainment / amenity in the Zentrum of the
Richmond New Urban Region. However, there is an
important, larger context. (See End Note
Twenty-two.)
The
General Rule
We have seen no example in the
First, Second or Third World where a Critical
Mass of recreation / entertainment / amenity
activity can be generated by Autonomobiles.
That is what Walt Disney learned in Greater
Anaheim and what Walt Disney Company
demonstrated in the Orlando and Paris New Urban
Regions.
That is also what
every citizen can learn by visiting and
observing successful recreation and
entertainment venues. By the same method
S/P employed over the past three decades, any
observant citizen can learn what works and what
does not work in recreation and entertainment
venues.
Good examples of what not to
do are the isolated National Football League
(NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA)
facilities in many New Urban Regions. FedEx
Field in “Raljohn,” Md., (NFL) Gillette
Stadium in Foxboro, Mass, (NFL) The Meadowlands
in New Jersey (for the present, home of two NFL
teams and one NBA team) or “The Place” in
Auburn Hills, MI (NBA) are good examples. (See
End Note Twenty-three.)
Another prime
example is Cellar Door (now called Nissan
Pavilion), a subregional generator of congestion
in the Virginia part of the National Capital
Subregion. Ironically, the naming rights to this
facility are currently held by an Autonomobile
manufacturer. (See Backgrounder “Anatomy of a
Bottleneck,” 14 August 2002.)
Recreation / entertainment
venues surrounded by big parking lots like many
NFL football stadia, many NBA facilities and
assorted concert and entertainment venues do not
function well. They are also economic sink holes
if the operator has to foot the total cost of
new facilities to get patrons to and from the
venue.
Even when
tailgate parties and other “amenities”
are added before and after events, large
single-use venues do not make most citizens
happy and safe when relying on Autonomobiles for
access. Baseball fields, NFL stadia and
NBA arenas located in the Zentra of New Urban
Regions are forging a new image of functional,
large scale recreation venues. Actually these
new facilities are demonstrating the wisdom of a
return to a prior, more functional strategy for
filling the stadium seats. The isolated
Meadowlands complex in a New Jersey swamp is
struggling to add facilities to reach a Critical
Mass and diversity.
Non-athletic
recreational venues tell the same story.
Georgetown is plagued Autonomobile congestion
because the Beta Village leadership did not want
a METRO station in Georgetown when the system
was planned. Every mobility wish list for the
Zentrum of the National Capital Subregion now
includes a third Potomac River METRO tunnel and
METRO stations serving Georgetown.
When Abe Pollen moved his basketball and hockey
franchises from the Capital Centre outside the
Capital Beltway in Prince Georges County, Md., to
the MCI Center (now Verizon Center) in the
Zentrum of the National Capital Subregion, he
traded inconvenient Autonomobile - only access
for access via METRO - a Subregional
shared-vehicle system plus supporting
Autonomobile access.
Las Vegas has
morphed from the iconic Autonomobile “strip”
to a series of nodes with a shared-vehicle
system - a monorail, not unlike the one Disney
employs in Disneyland and in Disney World.
A favorite example of successful recreation /
entertainment access strategy serves the
greatest multi-day good time party on the
Planet: Oktoberfest in Munchen. Over 300,000
were there the last time EMR visited. He, and
most of the rest, arrived via one of four U
Bahn lines or numerous Strassen Bahn lines that
serve the Festival Grounds.
As suggested by the sketch
guidelines below, the solution for creating a
Critical Mass of recreation and entertainment
patrons is a Balance between settlement pattern
generated demand and the mobility system
capacity.
Once one grasps the overarching concept, one
does not have to go to Florida (or to any major
regional recreation and entertainment venue) to
observe and understand the reality of mobility
provided by shared-vehicle systems as contrasted
with the immobility that results from reliance
on Large, Private Vehicles.
One sees the need for Balance in many contexts -
the move to limit the number of bars in Adams
Morgan Beta Village of the Federal District is a
perfect example. “Main Street” communities
in the Countryside also demonstrate the reality
of Autonomobiles failure to support recreation
and entertainment venues.
The
“main streets” in the towns of Culpeper (East
Davis Street), Warrenton (actually named Main
Street) and Middleburg (Washington Street)
provide excellent examples. Enterprises on all
three of these main streets (aka, high streets)
are struggling to achieve Critical Mass of
activity, and all three Towns are exhibiting an
unhealthy turnover of establishments. There are
a number of factors in play but relying
exclusively on Autonomobiles for access is the
primary stumbling block.
Merchants
believe they need more “parking lots” but, to repeat,
parking lots disaggregate the places
that visitors are attracted to in the first
place. Parking lots defeat the purpose of
creating a special venue. These small venues are
looking for customers but lacking the Critical
Mass in spite of the potential provided by the
historic fabric and regional context. (See End
Note Twenty-four.)
Scaled
Responses to Recreation and Entertainment Venue
Demand
To put a sharp focus on the
issue of appropriate response to demand for
Mobility and Access serving recreation and
entertainment that varies by scale and
intensity, listed below are six illustrative
levels of recreation / entertainment activity
and the Mobility and Access strategy (the “Scaled Response”) that corresponds to each
scale:
Level One.
Small, isolated recreation
and entertainment activities with limited
capacity and economic viability achieved
with small flows of visitors and modest peak
volumes - e.g. an inn or small vineyard in
the Countryside that is remote from the Core of
any New Urban Region and not closely associated
with other destinations.
Scaled
Response: A small parking lot and
pathways.
Level Two.
A collection of
small-scaled venues a considerable distance from
the Clear Edge around the Core of a New Urban
Region - e.g. a historic Neighborhood-scale
enclave.
Scaled
Response: Parking
garages with a comprehensive pedestrian
system and a “vehicles discouraged zone”
supplemented with a pathway system for bicycle
and mini-vehicles: Segways, scooters, golf
carts, etc.
Level Three.
A large collection of
small-scaled venues in close proximity to the
Clear Edge around the Core of a New Urban Region
- e.g. a historic Village-scaled enclave.
Scaled
Response: An extension of Region-serving
shared-vehicle system from the Core of the New
Urban Region plus parking garages with a
comprehensive pedestrian system and “vehicles
discouraged zones” supplemented with pathway
systems for bicycles and mini-vehicles:
Segways, scooters, golf carts, etc.
Level Four.
Moderate-scaled
recreation and entertainment venue within the
Clear Edge around the Core of a New Urban
Region.
Scaled
Response:
Integration of the venue as a special function
Village-scaled urban enclave into a Balanced
Community with supporting Mobility and Access
systems.
Level
Five. Large scale recreation
and entertainment venue, from National Harbor
to Disney World, either in the Countryside or
inside the Clear Edge around the Core of a New
Urban Region.
Scaled
Response:
Service from Region-serving shared-vehicle
systems plus peripheral parking garages with
venue-wide shared vehicle system or systems and
extensive pedestrian only zones.
Level Six.
Major recreation Venues, the Zentra of Paris, London, etc.
Scaled Response: Multiple Region-wide
shared-vehicle Mobility and Access systems with
many large “pedestrian only” and “vehicles
discouraged” zones.
NB:
The
quantification of the scale parameters (e.g.
“small,” “medium,” etc. and
“isolated,” “considerable distance
from,” etc.) will vary depending on:
Scattered
venues. Before leaving the topic of
Balance between Mobility and Access demand and
capacity for recreation and entertainment
venues, it is important to make the point that
relying on Autonomobiles to access low density,
scattered, destinations in a large target
territory is not functional. All one needs to do
is visit Lancaster County, Pa., on any pleasant
day to understand this reality.
If
one achieves Critical Mass to make individual
ventures profitable in a low density
distribution that is located in close proximity
to a large New Urban Region (or New Urban
Regions), then the volume of Autonomobile
traffic washes away the amenity and ambience
that attracts patrons in the first place. (See
End Note
Twenty-five.)
There are
many good examples in Europe of how to avoid
this problem. The lessons are clear when one
visits agglomerations of recreation and
entertainment venues such as the wine villages
in the Alsace south of Strasbourg. The
Black Forest in Bavaria, the Cotswolds in
England, Tuscany in Italy and Provence in France
all provide useful examples. In fact the same is
true in attractive areas in every part of the
European Union from the Greek Islands and Spain to
Scandinavia.
Visitors can gain access to
most of these venues by rail or bus as well as
car. InterRegional and venue access by rail and
bus (shared-vehicles) reduces the volume of
Autonomobile traffic to manageable levels.
Further, the
places of interest are not scattered across the
landscape, they are focused in Neighborhood- and
Village-scaled enclaves. These places have
wineries, breweries, pubs, museums, restaurants,
craft shops, religious buildings and historic
urban fabric as well as small hotels, bed and
breakfasts and other facilities.
These enclaves
are also the homes and workplaces of vintners,
farmers, fishermen, crafts people, artists,
writers and others including small, creative
Enterprises. Further they are frequently tied
together with networks of walking paths, hiking
trails and in some venues canals.
The key is that each enclave has a Critical Mass
that sustains a visitor’s interest for several
days and provides a much more attractive
alternative for recreation than “driving
around and parking here and there”. In the
most successful venues, there is a Balance
between travel demand and the capacity of the
mobility systems, including walking, hiking,
peddling and paddling.
The critical issue is
achieving a Balance between sufficient customers
getting to a site to achieve profitability and
having the way they get there not ruin the
ambience of the Countryside - the very reason
they would want to be there in the first place.
There are lots
of places to buy wine, food and crafts and to
learn about history and ecology in the Urbanside
where Mobility and Access are far less
expensive. The Countryside experience
should not be ruined by the means of achieving Mobility
and Access.
“Should not be
ruined”? It is more than “should.”
The experience must not be ruined if Enterprises
want to optimize their investment as Walt
Disney learned.
Opening
a Bigger Window
Listing a
few threshold parameters for six scales or
levels of recreation and entertainment venues
and noting the problems with scattering
recreation and entertainment venues across the
Countryside informs the reader about the range
of relevant data and the questions to be asked
about any proposed recreation and entertainment
venue. But that is not why we go to this level
of detail in this Backgrounder.
What
is most important about learning from recreation
and entertainment venues both large, such as Disney
World, and small, like the Main Street of a
Village in the Countryside, is this:
The same range of parameters that apply to
recreation and entertainment venues also applies
to other concentrations of urban economic,
social and physical activity. It is just easier
to understand in the recreation and
entertainment context.
What one
learns from Disney World, Oktoberfest, Alsace,
Main Street and Countryside inns - in fact every
scale of recreation and entertainment venue -
applies to all urban enclaves - agglomerations
of Jobs / Housing / Services / Recreation /
Amenity.
The same general parameters
apply to agglomerations of Cluster-,
Neighborhood- and Village-scale components in
the Countryside and to the Zentra of Balanced
Communities in the Core of New Urban
Regions.
By examining Mobility and
Access for recreation and entertainment uses,
one can come to understand how and why
Autonomobiles fail to provide Mobility and
Access for almost all scales and types of urban
activity.
There is yet another
important reason to consider recreation and
entertainment venues: From a small
but vocal segment of the society one hears that
scattered, low-intensity urban land uses are the
“American Dream.” Further it is argued that
the American Dream can only be provided with
Mobility and Access using Autonomobiles.
Contrary to “conventional misinformation”
peddled by Business As Usual, the low-intensity
scatteration of land use is not what the market
demonstrates is most desired.
When given a choice and when there is even a
rudimentary distribution of location-variable
costs, the market demonstrates that a more
intensive mix of land uses is favored. This is
true even for the
one in four Households engaged in
rearing children.
So, what can the
recreation and entertainment venue add to a
citizen’s understanding of Autonomobiles?
Recreation and entertainment venues demonstrate
that when citizens pay to go places where they
feel safe and have a good time, they go to places
that have a viable mix of uses and that these
places are best served by shared-vehicle
Mobility and Access systems, not by systems
dominated by Large, Private vehicles.
--
February 25, 2008
End
Notes
(18).
Due to the low personal regard with which his
parents held Mickey Mouse’s creator, EMR had
no opportunity to learn much from Disney during
his early years. In 1955, when Disneyland opened
in Anaheim, California, EMR’s family was
living in western Montana. While acquaintances
drove across the pre-Interstate west to visit
Disneyland, the Risses did not. It was at that
point that EMR learned his parents had a low
opinion of Walt Disney and his commercial
fantasy entertainment. Their view was based on
the fact that his father and mother had owned a
small farm in the Santa Inez Valley that turned
out to be far too close to Hollywood. (Recall
the recent movie “Sideways.”) EMR’s
grandfather had built the buildings for a number
of hobby / get away “ranches” for Hollywood
stars and moguls. In this instance familiarity
bred contempt for the less-than-authentic
recreation experience provided by Disney. EMR
had moved to the east coast and established a
planning practice by the same time Walt Disney
started work on Disney World in Florida. Until
EMR visited Disney World, his direct experience
with theme parks came from organizing opposition
to Marriott’s “Great America” in Maryland
and in trying to ensure that “real world”
activities, not plastic fantasies, were the
focus of childhood education.
(19).
Now a trip to Orlando is not necessary. One
can tune into the History Channel or buy the
History Channel “Modern Marvels” DVD titled
“Walt Disney World” for a virtual tour of
many of the behind-the-scenes aspects of Disney
World.
(20).
EMR’s experience was also broadened by having
worked with and shared insights with Wayne
Williams on the Burke Centre project. Williams
worked for Disney in Burbank and later worked on
the Planned New Community of Irvine in Orange
County, California. EMR’s appreciation for the
importance of walking in the context of
recreation venues was also enhanced by the
observations of Patrick Kane. Kane grew up in
the Los Angeles New Urban Region at the height
of the hotrod era. He points out that riding up
and down the streets was great fun but to get
involved in any meaningful “action” one had
to park the hotrod and proceed on foot. By the
way , there is now a “car chase”
entertainment venue at Disney World so one can
see “cars” inside the park but not “street
approved” cars.
(21).
Depending on one's perspective, malevolent
political processes seem to take one of two
forms:
(22). The
term “Critical Mass” is defined in GLOSSARY
and further explored in the Backgrounder “The
Use and Management of Land” (forthcoming).
(23). It
is ironic and informative to note that when
games are televised from these venues, the
telecast features “location identity”
pictures are of the Zentrum of the
Washington-Baltimore, Boston, Detroit or New
York, not the site of the facility. Jersey City,
NJ, and long shots of the Manhattan skyline also
provide the context images for The
Meadowlands.
(24). The
data and history of Middleburg, Warrenton and
Culpeper with respect to rents, vacancy,
turnover would provide a fascinating case study
on the role of parking.
(25). This
reality of scattered Autonomobile dependent
venues is the Achilles heel of projects like
“Journey Through Hallowed Ground.”
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