Streetscape. It’s one of those trend words like green, sustainable, or smart growth that have been vaulted from planner jargon to resident conversation. Unlike the nebulous and often vague definitions of the latter, streetscape is a very real and impactful design element which can define a region as “walkable” or transportation desserts. So what is this concept and why does it come up in the discussion of every development?
First, a streetscape is the region between properties that includes greenspace and landscape, walkways, curb, bike lanes, vehicle lanes, and median. It is associated with the transport of people. It’s importance becomes evident when viewing an aerial image of any city or town as streetscape regions can encompass anywhere from 30% to 60% of a regions property. In the case of Tysons corner it may not come as any surprise that the largest land owner is VDOT. Us engineers for years have said that these regions should be purely used for utilitarian purposes and any non-transport improvements decrease the safety of the road (in the case trees blocking lines of sight) and add excess cost. The result of this design prioritization is a cacophonous interlude of transportation that in no way analyzes integration of vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians. For years it has been, cars go here, bikes go here, and people go here and pay no attention to what happens at intersections or whether the relative spaces provided induce or impede the usage of the zones.
Beyond the problem of integration has been the intangibles of good street design. Anyone who has walked down a bad streetscape in the middle of June knows how unstoppable the sun can feel. Shade relief is absent of trees and proper building massing due to adjacent parking lots. A lack of true separation (beyond a 3′ grass strip) between heavily traversed roads and miniature sidewalks cause poor air quality via kicked up dust and exhaust. Beyond the relation of walkways, landscape, and road there is also the dilemma of destination. When buildings are isolated by tenth of a mile parking lots instead of being grouped together it requires walking distances that are 10 times greater than if buildings were more condensed. In the form of vehicle travel this is encountered as a 10 second gap, on foot it can take 2 or more minutes simply to walk from one building to another.
All of these incentives to drive, and disincentives for any form of travel slower than 45 mph, create transportation deserts where one must find oasis points whether being bus stops or single occupied vehicles. Traversing across the desert without your trusty gas guzzling camel will quickly teach the pedestrian the perils of the vast openness.
The physical definition of streetscape is only the first part of the problem. The more impactful resultant of our design choices is the perception of safety and ease of use for pedestrians and bicyclists. This can be a much more pervasive and damaging impedance to use than the functional availability of bike lanes and walkways. If a person perceives a corridor or region as being unsafe or intraversable then it becomes far less likely that they will attempt to make alternative transportation choices for the first time.
One such case of this can be found in McLean along Dolley Madison Boulevard. Long after the road narrows from the chaos of 8 lanes within Tysons Corner to the relative calmness of 4-lane McLean the corridor remains void of inviting streetscape. The oasis is created between points along the residential portion of McLean and the office and retail spaces due to extensive gaps between buildings, the lack of separation between the heavily traveled Route 123 and the 4′ sidewalk, and the vast emptiness of the median without any shade.
By the time the road incorporates better streetscape the land use and zoning has clearly shifted to office use, the least logical walkable design location due to commuter dependence on vehicle transportation. The residents therefore are isolated from work zones and retail regions forcing even short 5 to 10 minute walks or bike rides to be replaced by vehicle trips, therefore requiring additional parking spaces to be provided at each destination, and thereby increasing the gap and isolation of each building. The cycle becomes self perpetuating until modifications are made analyzing why residents are forced to drive more than they would like.
Modification to the streetscape is not meant to remove all access for vehicles, as again part of the design should be the provision for vehicle traffic and parking, however it can re-balance the usage to improve the ease of use for other forms of people moving as well as reducing the land space required for parking. Even if this form of design only provides a 10% improvement on walking it can account for 5-15 parking spaces in many small retail locations.
This would reduce pavement by nearly 2500 square feet, or the equivalent of two whole townhouses. It also improves the likely hood that parking can be incorporated into the store frontage linearly via parallel or non-drive aisle parking layout. By removing the need for a parking aisle the reduction of 15 spaces can reduce pavement by over 5000 square feet, again allowing for buildings to be adjacent to pedestrian pathways, providing shade, and reducing the gap between destinations.
The benefits of understanding and properly designing a streetscape are plentiful and often it is the cheapest solution to improving multi-modal transportation as can be seen within the Tysons Corner infrastructure cost estimates. While road and vehicle improvements include nearly $1 billion in construction, pedestrian and bicycle improvements will cost a paltry $77 million. The only restriction we have to fight is our own unwillingness to rethink the trends we are creating in our transportation grid.