This Guy Knows What He's Talking About

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Note: One of many pictures that pops up when you Google "John Roach"

John Roach has a lot of credits to his name. He's a lawyer, a former St. Louis Alderman, was St. Louis' first Director of Community Development, and served on the National Commission on Intermodal Transportation during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

John recently wrote a scathing editorial about our road-building habits in the St. Louis region, criticizing what appears to be the current working philosophy throughout the region: the solution to traffic/transportation issues is simply to build more and wider highways and roadways.

According to John, "roadways must become part of a system that includes a variety of modes of transportation — rail, bus, auto, walking — each of which performs its function while interconnecting easily and efficiently and in balance with communities."

Although many of the readers of this blog live outside of the St. Louis region, this is equally pertinent to you because it deals with the frighteningly common misconception in America that affects everyone's quality of life: the idea that transportation deals with moving cars and trucks, as opposed to moving people. We forget that only 60% of Americans can drive. The other 40% are too young, too old, too poor, or unable due to a disability. Transportation systems that are built to move cars and trucks, leave millions of Americans stranded with no way to get their groceries, visit their friends and family, or do just about anything.

A little background for non-St. Louis folks -- Interstate 64/40 that cuts through the heart of the St. Louis region was recently closed for major renovation to make it bigger, better, faster. In the months leading up to the closure, people were freaking out. In the days after the closure, things didn't seem all that different.

Take a couple minutes to read what John has to say:

It's bigger than Highway 40

By John Roach

The following was originally published as an Op Ed in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, 1/24/2008

Despite weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, most of the metropolitan area seems to have survived the closing of U.S. Highway 40/Interstate 64 with body and soul intact. The behavior of the Missouri Department of Transportation and that of its arrogant and imperious major domo, Pete Rahn, remain properly subject to criticism.

The underlying premise of the department's policies — that all problems are solved by additional highway capacity — is unacceptable as a basis for future policy. By its very name, the department advertises its mission of providing transportation; in that mission, the department has failed.

The endless sprawl that characterizes the St. Louis community is a product of the ceaseless effort to pave substantial portions of the landscape to serve the economic interests of the home-building, auto and oil industries. The result of increased capacity — as is the case wherever the expansion of roadway capacity has been the policy priority— has been recurring congestion, followed by the addition of capacity, followed by renewed congestion and more and more sprawl.

It would be one thing if the consequences of this policy merely were a welter of copycat subdivisions, McMansions, congested roadways, a parade of fast-food, big-box retailers and miscellaneous examples of "Roadside America." But along with the ugliness, these policies also have helped foster global warming, social isolation, accelerating gas prices and more time-consuming and resource-wasting commutes.

Highway proponents seem to have overlooked the alternative model of efficient rail transportation. The concentration of development occurring along the light-rail lines enhances walking neighborhoods, places where the purchase of each loaf of bread or tube of toothpaste does not require an auto trip requiring added roadway capacity, added parking lots and garages and added pollution.

There is no denying that the latest expansion of MetroLink was managed poorly and suffered from ruinous cost overruns. However, the first two phases of the system were not similarly cursed, and they continue to provide superior service to patrons at modest operating cost and manageable capital investment. Ultimately, the Shrewsbury extension will provide long and productive service while spurring desirable development in its wake. The answer for future expansions is to ensure careful, cost-conscious management and good planning.

Neither is it possible to deny the reality of the transportation system that we — the public and the road builders — have created. So what do we do now? Obviously, we cannot start over. Our roadways must be kept safe and, insofar as feasible, attractive, including landscaping, screening and other decorative and functional elements.

But there is a bigger picture, and roadways must become part of a system that includes a variety of modes of transportation — rail, bus, auto, walking — each of which performs its function while interconnecting easily and efficiently and in balance with communities.

There are cities that have pursued this noble goal with considerable success; Portland, Ore., Toronto, and many European cities are prime examples. The St. Louis region should learn from and emulate these examples, rather than merely complaining about MoDOT, even as we accept its underlying faulty premise.

1 Billion Participate in Car Free Day

China, that is, participated in Car Free Day and the pictures are hard to believe.
Click here for more

Bicycle Boulevards

Cities all over the country are re-designing their transportation systems to include pedestrian, bicycle, and public transit accommodations. Here in St. Louis, the home of Trailnet, the Bike St. Louis network of routes just added another 20+ miles of marked routes through the city. One of the crown jewels of such city networks are the Bicycle Boulevards in Berkeley, California. The fine folks at StreetFilms.org put together the following video to showcase Berkeley's bike-friendly streets. The Bike Boulevards approach is an excellent way to calm traffic on residential streets, creating a safer environment for children to play and people to walk, in addition to accommodating people on bikes.

We let kids drink this stuff?!

Soda has become such a normal part of the American life that we forget (or maybe we never knew) each 12-ounce can contains roughly 11 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high-fructose corn syrup and 50-60 milligrams of caffeine.

Since it can sometimes be hard to put numbers into perspective, let's borrow some insight from everyone's favorite British nanny, Mary Poppins. Everyone remembers Mary's wisdom for sick children: "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." One simple spoonful of sugar used to seem so wise and just a little decadent, didn't it? Compare that to 11 spoonfuls of sugar in a 12-ounce can of soda! Can you imagine crunching your way through 11 teaspoons of sugar? You're mouth would go dry trying to get it all down... But Aha! With soda that problem is solved. Gulp it on down! It not only seems over the top, but also a little bit gross when you think of eating 11 teaspoons of sugar. Yet how many kids and adults do you know who drink soda daily? Sometimes many times a day.


Maybe it started with Paul Bunyan and Babe, the blue ox...maybe it was the vastness of our country...any way you slice it, we Americans sure do like big things. The once adequate 12-ounce soda is now a mini-serving compared to the 32-ounce soda AKA, the Big Gulp or a large soda at most fast food joints, including McD's and Burger King. The next time you drink one of these big guys, you will be consuming ~29 teaspoons of sugar. To help you visualize how much this actually is, imagine filling a 12-ounce can half-full with sugar.

Back to Mary... When Mary needed a little pick-me-up after all those high energy adventures with the kids, she'd grab a cup of coffee. A 12-ounce caffeinated soda contains roughly 1/3 or 1/2 the caffeine in a soda. For seasoned adult coffee drinkers, a half cup of coffee may not be much, but for kids with smaller bodies and low tolerances, a half-cup of coffee will send them flying in a much less magical manner than the way Mary Poppins flies.

The folks at Healthbolt, with consultation from a physician, put together a really compelling description of what happens inside our bodies when we drink a soda. Check it out HERE.

There are soda machines in schools all over the country...elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. Kids drink the stuff throughout the day, getting hopped-up on caffeine and sugar and then crash within a couple hours. Imagine what this does for classroom management and student achievement: Some of the kids are on sugar/caffeine highs, some of the kids are crashing and grumpy, and some of the kids are just trying to pay attention despite all of this. In addition, these types of beverages are thought to be a significant contributors to childhood and adult obesity. Within 20 minutes of drinking a Coke, Pepsi, or similar, our livers are already converting the sugar into fat. After all, soda is just filled with empty calories... 11 teaspoons = ~145 empty calories.


IMPROVING STUDENT HEALTH
In the last handful of years, districts throughout the country have developed beverage standards that eliminate the sale of sugary/caffeinated beverages on school grounds. Some school districts have argued that beverage sales generate very important revenue that helps fund sports programs among other things. A study was released in 2006 that reveals that many school districts are actually getting a Raw Deal with their beverage contracts.

Since many school districts have already made the switch to healthier beverages, there are some EXCELLENT tools and resources to help schools make the transition to fruit juices, milks, and water. One of the best resources out there is the Alliance for a Healthier Generation's School Beverage Toolkit.


Get involved with your local school district's Wellness Policy Committee or School Health Advisory Council to create beverage standards that will keep our children healthy. Consider developing a beverage policy and beverage contracts that limit beverage sales to:
• Water
• Minimum of 50% fruit juices, without additional sweeteners
• Dairy and non-dairy milks: 2% or lower milk, soy-milk, rice-milk, or similar
• Electrolyte replacement drinks with less than 42 grams of sweetener per 20-ounce serving

And finally, some quick tips for Negotiating Beverage Contracts
-Negotiate contracts that are consistent with the above beverage standards
-Retain full control over the length of the contract
-Negotiate higher commissions
-Negotiate for all schools in the district or form coalitions with other districts to strengthen purchasing power
-Require the beverage company to provide the district or school with readily understandable financial reports at regular intervals


Caffeine content Citation:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/info-u/nutrition/BJ884.html

A Growing City with a Great Vision

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Scottsdale, Arizona, population ~230,000, is a rapidly growing city. And with their new Transportation Master Plan, it looks Scottsdale will grow into a very easy city to navigate on foot, on bike, in wheelchair, on public transit, or in a car.

According to Reed Kempton, Senior Transportation Planner for the City of Scottsdale:
"After two years of work, the Scottsdale City Council last night unanimously adopted our first comprehensive Transportation Master Plan. This document combines all transportation planning elements into one single document and eliminates separate plans for streets, bicycles, pedestrians, transit, and so on. It includes complete streets, increased funding for non SOV (single occupancy vehicle) modes, and a host of policies that truly institutionalize bicycling in our community."

Check it out here: http://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/traffic/transmasterplan/drafts.asp
and then click on the "Summaries of Transportation Master Plan Components."

This is excellent transportation policy, and we're thrilled to see a growing city planning so well for its future. Transportation systems that accommodate lots of different means of getting around, like the one outlined in Scottsdale's plan, move far more people with far less pollution, and typically result in highly livable cities. In an age of 3, 4, and 5-car households, it's easy to forget that many people don't own cars or cannot drive because they are too young, too old, or have a disability that makes driving unsafe. In certain neighborhoods in St. Louis City, as much as 40% of the population not only doesn't drive, but doesn't have access to a car. Well designed transportation systems look out for the vulnerable members of society to ensure they have the freedom to get around on their own, safely, and with dignity.

Study Finds that Kids like Real Food

There is a commonly held notion swirling around school cafeterias that goes something like this: Children will not eat healthy foods. If we improve school lunches, children simply won't eat the food or they'll throw most of it away, and school lunch sales will decline. As a result, school children across the country end up eating highly processed, high-fat foods that tend to look like this:


Contrary to this notion, a recent study by three economists finds that "the conventional wisdom that you can't serve healthier meals because kids won't eat them is false," said Benjamin Senauer, one of the authors of the study.

Key Findings of the Study:
-Schools serving the healthiest foods did not see a decrease in demand.
-Serving healthy foods does require higher labor costs; however, this is offset by lower costs for more nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables compared with processed foods.

"The study also pointed out that school districts are allowed to charge their lunch programs for indirect costs such as electricity or janitorial services for their cafeterias. The authors said that can be abused by cash-strapped districts charging their lunch programs high overhead; they recommended tighter limits on those charges." (Associated Press)

What this means: Through the National School Lunch Program, schools receive money from the Federal Government for every free or reduced price lunch they serve. In a cash-strapped district with a high number of students from low-income familes, the school might receive $2.50 for every meal they serve. Some districts will pull as much as $1.50 of this to pay for overhead costs, leaving only $1.00/meal to purchase student lunches. What kind of "meal" do you think you could buy for $1.00?

The article also identified a series of obstacles, as well as, policy solutions to help improve the foods American children are eating, including:

Obstacle #1: Minimum calorie requirements for schools allow schools to meet the minimum requirements for vitamins and minerals by simply serving more food, rather than nutrient-dense foods (colorful fruits and vegetables tend to be nutrient dense, compared to French fries which are mostly starch and fat from deep-frying). Recommended Solution: Establish a target calorie range with a maximum and minimum to ensure that schools meet their nutrition requirements by serving nutrient dense foods instead of over-serving minimally nutritious foods.
Obstacle #2: Many school kitchen facilities are insufficient for the sanitary preparation of fresh, healthy foods. Recommended Solution: Develop local, state, or federal one-time grants to upgrade school kitchen facilities and train staff to enable healthy food preparation.
Obstacle #3: Schools will often use a significant portion of their lunch budget to cover overhead costs, leaving only a small amount to purchase foods, often resulting in low-quality foods. Recommended Solution: Require that schools meet their nutritional guidelines before allowing them to draw indirect costs such as electricity and janitorial services from their food budget.
Obstacle #4: A surprising number of schools are not meeting/exceeding nutrition guidelines. Recommended Solution: Create a local, state, or federal incentive structure for schools to achieve existing nutrition guidelines.

In recent years, schools throughout the country have been introducing healthier options, including salad bars full of fresh, unprocessed food, like the one below. The new offerings are typically popular with students, and teachers often anecdotally report improvements in student behavior.


For additional information, check out the actual study:

Title: An empirical analysis of and policy recommendations to improve the nutritional quality of school meals.
Authors: Wagner, Barbara; Senauer, Benjamin; Runge, C. Ford.
Citation: Review of Agricultural Economics, v.29, no.4, Winter 2007, pp.672-688, 2007.

Revised Street Standards Improve Walkability!

COLUMBIA, Missouri

Image Courtesy of John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune

If your community is like most American communities, it's likely that cars now take top priority. Over the last several decades American sidewalks have steadily been shrinking and in some cases disappearing altogether while street lanes have widened and more lanes have been added. As a result, it can be nearly impossible to safely walk or bike to school, the store, or work.

Frustrated by this trend, a group of folks in Columbia, MO known as the PedNet Coaltion came up with a radical idea: They believed that all Columbia residents should be able to safely walk, bike, or wheel(chair) their way all around town. From any location to any location, and the experience should be enjoyable. With sidewalks on less than half of their streets, the idea was radical.

In addition to lacking sidewalks, they noticed that the oldest parts of the city were the most pleasant and easiest to navigate on foot, bike, or wheelchair, with narrow streets and wide sidewalks. In contrast, the newest neighborhoods had unnecessarily wide streets and narrow sidewalks. They began to ask "why?" What they learned is that nearly every city in America has a set of street design standards that specify such things as street widths, sidewalk widths, and distance between the sidewalk and the curb, and it turns out that Columbia's street standards had been changed throughout the past few decades, putting less emphasis on pedestrians and greater emphasis on automobiles.

The PedNet Coalition's individual and organizational members, which included residents, businesses, and non-profits rallied around their idea. They did extensive research into the street standards in other cities and began proposing that Columbia revise it's standards to ensure safe walking, biking, and wheeling. PedNet successfully advocated for the City to establish a task force to look into the pros and cons of adopting new street standards. After a 15-month process involving local homebuilders and developers, key city departments and volunteer commissions, and local health groups, the task force published a set of recommendations for revising the existing street standards.

Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman supported the suggested revisions and pointed to the many benefits of the proposed design changes:
-Economic benefits including enhanced recruitment and retention of University of Missouri employees because of the desirable community amenities and higher real-estate values
-Health benefits including reduced rates of obesity and related health issues - diabetes, stroke and heart disease, among others
-Community benefits including more cohesive neighborhoods with lower crime rates.
-Enhanced transportation system
-Increased outdoor recreation opportunities

Some developers contended that the new designs would be more expensive to build, raising the cost of housing. To address these concerns, PedNet brought in national experts to testify that the new residential street standards could be built at little or no additional cost.

After a 3-year process, members of the Columbia City Council adopted the new standards:
-narrow residential street widths from 32 to 28 feet
-widen all residential sidewalks from 4 to 5 feet and install 5-foot sidewalks on ALL streets
-include 6-foot bike lanes on all arterials and major collectors
-include an 8-foot shared-use path on one side of arterials and major collectors

The resulting new standards will better accommodate more bicyclists, pedestrians and wheelchair users and will slow automobile traffic through neighborhoods. The standards apply to all new construction and major repairs (when feasible) on existing streets. Columbia city officials feel confident that the new standards will enhance the lives of residents and help Columbia better compete with other college towns, such as Madison, WI, Boulder, CO, and Davis, CA, towns that draw prospective university students and faculty away from Columbia.

Local street design standards can be a highly effective tool for ensuring bicycle/pedestrian friendly environments, increased safety, and a bolstered economy.

THE PROCESS
The process began with initial meetings of interested parties. This turned into regular meetings and an unofficial Street Design Standards Working Group. The working group started a dialog with the city council, and as a result, the city council formed an official "Street Design Standards Advisory Committee" that did extensive research on street standards across the country. The Advisory Committee kept the Planning/Zoning Commission and the City Council in the loop throughout the process and finally put forth their official recommendations. Proponents of the new standards wrote Op Ed articles in the local newspaper to keep the public informed about the proposed changes. The city held a series of public meetings to gather resident and business input. These meetings were heavily attended by supporters of the new standards--residents and businesses alike that saw the new standards as important for quality of life and the local economy. At the end of a three year process, the City Council voted to approve the new standards which were adopted June 7, 2004.

Ask Yourself: Can children in your community safely walk to school? Are the sidewalks in your community wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs? What are your obstacles to walking to the store?

If the newer streets in your community are nearly wide enough to land a jumbo jet, yet the sidewalks force you to walk single file with your sweetheart, it might be time to re-examine your local street design standards, too. A great place to start is by attending local city council meetings to learn about your current standards.

For more information, contact the PedNet Coalition: pednet@pednet.org and visit their website www.pednet.org.