Jaywalking is responsible of the Beijing traffic woes

As you could know, Beijing is facing massive traffic issues, and here like too often in North America before, it is considered that the pedestrians are the problem. Enforcing the jaywalking laws is not an easy matter but it is deemed necessary by chinese,…this to be a “world class” country… at par with the USA…
In Vancouver, Councillor Heather Deal, whose devoted great amount of VPD time and taxpayer money to enforce the local jaywalking laws, couldn’t agree more [5].

In the Meantime, it is worth to note that in the not so “world class” countries such UK or France, jaywalking is legal as in many other European countries, and still it is generally safer to be a pedestrian there than in Vancouver and more generally in North America.

The edition contains not less than 2 articles related to cycling in Hong Kong: “Cyclist see open roads up ahead”, and “Cyclists face uphill ride on buses, MTR”.

Cycling is pretty much foreign to Hong Kongers: the fact that the Chairman of the Hong Kong Cycling alliance, Martin Turner, is a British raised individual is tale telling…And when cycling is considered it is mostly for recreational purpose, could lament Martin. Nevertheless, anecdotal evidences seem to show that cycling is on the rise in Hong Kong, like anywhere else, but it seems to be little appetite to quantify that:

Cycling seems on the rise in Hong Kong, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find a free spot to park your bike, before boarding the Transit system – notice Police can seize bike tied to the handrail – Credit Photo (4)

Statistics show that bike accidents are on the rise too. Helmet laws and bike licensing, are called by some quarters, to reverse this worrisome trend!

Turner has another opinion, and is lobbying for bike rack on bus, like in San Francisco, or Vancouver,…a North American specificity not seen Europe. This promise to be a tough sell, but there is lot of things to do to improve cycling in Hong Kong beside that:

Hong Kong bike lane (Along Ting Kok Rd, Kong Kong NT): More often that not, Hong Kong's cyclists are expected to walk their bikes to the Bike path... and dismount at intersections...what by the way is usually not respected! -credit photo left (4), right, Google

Light Rail or Monorail in Kong Kong

The debate concerns the redevelopment of the former Hong Kong’s airport: Kai Tak, which still look pretty much like below:

View on Kai Tak, the Former Hong Kong Airport.

The Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) of Hong Kong has a grand vision for the site, which seems reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s cite radieuse, including a “people mover” under the form of a monorail [1]:

Proposed Monorail for Kai Tak new district

Veolia operating The Hong Kong Trams, is making the case for a tramway. Many readers of the South China Morning Post support this idea. Norman Y. S. Heung, project manager at the CEDD Office, explains it is “Practically impossible to accommodate tram system at Kai Tak”, because taking too much road space (sic)…Worth to note that most of the area is not even built yet!

Many other arguments are advanced in favour of the Monorail, which is also presented as a tourist attraction… but at the end the quality of the urban environment is not one of them. It is also explained that the “walking environment will be improved by provision of footbridges and [underpasses]“ (sic).

So Does the Kai Tak’s monorail will look like the Chongqing one , or does Hong Kongers will push for a different street experience, may be on the model of the Kunming’s Zhengyi Rd?

Left, Chongqing (China): An avenue with a Monorail (opened in 2011) - Right, Kunming (China): Zhengyi Rd offers a Bld experience, which at par with the ones more traditionally founded in Europe - credit photo left (3), right, (4)

[1] See the video and other information at Hong Kong CEDD

[2] Old Cat

[3] South China Morning Post

[4] VivenDesign

[5] Vancouver launches campaign to educate ‘fragile’ pedestrians, Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun, February 07, 2012.

Adam is sharing an illustration to support his proposal, which has been the object of a Sun column:

A LRT line roughly following 2nd, then the Arbutus railtrack up to the 16th avenue

2041 ridership prediction AM peak WB in the case of the RRT line – source [1]

The Translink ridership predictions west of Arbutus (4000pphpd) is in fact less than a third of the one predicted on Central Broadway

This finding effectively strongly question the relevance of a subway west of Arbutus, or at least justify a phasing of the subway construction, a solution we have started to investigated in our previous post. In fact [1] has studied a first phase ending at Arbutus, costed at $1.5B, and states that:

The economic assessment of phasing RRT is positive with a benefit:cost ratio of 2.7, vs. 2.3 if built to UBC initially

[1] UBC Line rapid transit study: Phase 2 Evaluation report Steer Davies Gleave, August 2012

Addendum

I have noticed that Translink has made public on Monday its full study [5], which looks pretty comprehensive, so I have to swallow back some chunck of this post, to recognize this fact. An important figure from this study is how the line affect ridership region wise, and more especially the busiest segment of the Expo line:

2041 AM peak transit flow on on the Broadway-Commercial / Main-Terminal segment

In fact the above illustrates that not extending the Millenium beyond VCC Clark, involve a cost to be burdened by the Expo line… just to be able to cope with the demand on its busiest segment. This cost can be eventually tremendous, [6] has advanced number above $1 Billion to upgrade the Expo line capacity above 20,000pphpd.

A Potential Broadway subway alignment (notice the 2 stations on the UBC campus)

Lot of activity on the Broadway subway front those days:

• A KPMG study financed by the City of Vancouver
• The finding of what is presented as a Phase 2 of the UBC line rapid transit study: One year study for a 9 pages pamphlet : Isn’t it pathetic? No, now Translink has made available the full 406p study on its site [5]
• A Vision’s campaign for the Broadway subway, with its Town hall meeting sunday March 10th

The result of the KPMG study are unsurprisingly aligned with the buyer, City of Vancouver, expectation. Nevertheless, they address an important global economic aspect of why rapid transit is needed, and we will have probably the opportunity to develop on this aspect

The Vision town hall meeting, or Broadway subway Rally

A gray hair, subway hostile crowd was out in full force at the St James Community Hall in the heart of Kitsilano, and was seeming to set a pretty dominating adversarial tone for this meeting. It turn out that the Geoff Meggs presentation [1] was able to keep their ire under control. After that, the “anti subway” looby was not really able to come with any constructive comment/question: Usually sarcastic, and more often that not fear-mongering and deriding UBC students.

The refreshing voice of one of them was in fact framing the debate: the young of UBC, representing and wanting to be the fuel of the future of the regional economy vs the old gray hair, living on and of over-inflated real estate, contemptuous of everything West of Alma, and East of Arbutus, and representing a past era.

In that sense, this meeting probably achieved its key objective. Some tried to make the case for an LRT, based on the premise that for a subway, you can have many LRTs. Geoff Meggs admitted that he has to believe the Translink engineer more than the “engineer” Patrick Condon (the champion of this idea).

The Phasing of the Line

Richard Campbell questioned about that, and it is probably the only way to see this line someday as well as the best way to move forward as suggested before and potentially enable to defer technology choice west of Arbutus to a later date. Below some useful numbers from an Ottawa study [2]; which are relatively inline with a Parisian study [7]; for the matter relevant to the Broadway Subway:

The total leads to a $2Billions for the Broadway line, adding a 50% contingency fund as assumed in [3], brings the cost to $3Billions, not including rolling stock and land acquisition.

The numbers suggest that a first phase VCC Clark/Arbutus could come at a $1.3Billion price tag.

For matter of comparison, the 6km extension of the metro line 14, including 4 new stations North of Paris, in a arguably much more complex typology, is costed at €1.2Billion [8].

Phasing can arise some challenges,

• It need to make sense from a Transit network perspective to allow to leverage the new line, and efficient reworking of the bus network

if tunnel is done in several phases

• More well access to tunnel could be necessary
• Duplication of starting cost and acquisition of expensive machinery like tunnel boring machine

So it is fair to examine the idea to build all the component requiring a TBM in a single phase, and defer later investments at an ulterior date.

• The drawback is that we have a sleeping investment not generating revenue, if it happen to build unused tunnel

Building technique

Oak station as envisioned in [2], is de facto assuming a cut and cover method for the sattion, and a twin bored tunnel. credit photo [2]

The twin tunnel option should also be considered as a starting default point, not as a political statement, like it seems to tend to be done in Vancouver. Considering the topography and traffic level, A cut and cover method could be applied reasonably as soon as West of MacDonald under 10th avenue. This method properly deployed doesn’t need to be despised on the ground of a bad experience, and is still routinely used around the world, including working under temporary deck [4]:

Paris Line 4 extension Cut and cover, performed under temporary deck do minimize surface impact, at very busy Paris’s Porte d’Orleans

The advantage of it, is that it allows a good phasing of the line in the vicinity of Arbutus.

It is also possible that in the case of the Broadway line, especially East of Arbutus, an single large bored tunnel accommodating stacked tracks north of Broadway could make sense, since, taking account of the topography, it could allow a better access to platform in both directions:

The Line 9 in Barcelona has adopted a tub large enough to accommodate stacked train (like on the Expo line), encompassing the platform, as well as electrical sub station. cross over, and storage track all in the single bored tube. The impact of station on surface is then limited to the access well: In the Broadway case, it allows to run the tunnel North of Broadway, and still have direct access to platform in both direction

It is worth repeating that there are host of options, and none should be despised on pure political ground, and the one selected should be on the ground of best value for the $.

[1] It was in fact a rehash of a presentation done by the Vancouver engineering department to city council: Broadway Rapid transit, November 27, 2012

[2] Development of a downtown Transit solution and network implications, MacCormickRankin Corporation and Delcan, April 2008

[3] Prolongement du RER E, etude technique Traces gare et tunnel

[4] Prolongement de la ligne 4 du metro parisien, Lot 1, des techniques variees pour un lot complexe et delicat, V. Dore, B. Bizon, F. Billon, S. Leroux and L. Petit Jean. Tunnels et Espace souterrain, Nov/Dec 2010.

[5] UBC Line rapid transit study: Phase 2 Evaluation report Steer Davies Gleave, August 2012

[6] Expo line upgrade strategy SNC Lavalin and Steer Davies Gleave, September 21, 2010

[7] Arc express Etudes, insertion de traces, impact sommaire et redaction du DOCP, Setec Tpi, Xelis and Ingerop, 2009

[8] Metro ligne 14: Prolongement de St lazare a mairie de St Ouen, April 2012

That is a Vision sponsorised event on Sunday, March 10, 2013 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM, you can register here

Bus expenses and revenue per Translink region

Some comments on the above figure

• The property assesment value per Translink region is computed from the BC 2013 Assessment Roll Information

Property values assesment per Translink region

• Bus boarding per Translink region is estimated from the 2011 Translink’s Bus performance review. The revenue per boarding ($1.23) is estimated from [1][2]

Bus boarding per Translink region

• The number of revenue bus hour is estimated of the above too, but the cost per revenue bus hour is estimated at $180 (instead of $116), to match the finanical information as provided by [1][3]

Bus revenue hour per Translink region

[1] 2011 Statutory Annual Report, Translink 2011, Burnaby

[2] We estimate that the revenue per boarding is equivalent in all region, people travelling multi zone generating more boarding that people travelling into a single zone

[3] The discrepancy is eventually due to the fact that [1] doesn’t take account the deadend trip and other layover. Those are probably much more important in the outer suburb than in Vancouver proper. That is balanced by the fact that Vancouver region operate much articulated bus than other region. (see our previous post on it)

(Thought he mentions that he “would like to re-open this discussion”, the comment section of his site is closed)

• I don’t think too much of the multi venue idea (also proposed by Bob Rennie [3]); which if considered, should be region-wise, and not Vancouver centric, to bring culture to people, rather than expect people to travel to the most improbable locations to see a tiny part of what the VAG has to offer.
• I guess the idea to build, even underground, something in Stanley park, is just plain provocative, in a try to generate some media attention: Stanley park should be a nature sanctuary.

That said, a good idea emerges: the use of a bridge for something else than transportation.

Michael green is envisioning an art gallery under the Granville bridge

The idea beyond the infra-urbanity neologism

Vancouver, is a city of bridges. One has always to cross a bridge to move around and bridges are part of the Vancouver DNA. but so far bridges have been seen only as infrastructure -we like to routinely replace- designed as pure links, like freeways, with no urban contribution whatsoever. That is, the bridge is not considered as a place of exchange or life in itself. Thought some efforts have been suggested to improve the bridge experience, they should be considered as a starting point [2]:

The Granville bridge green way proposal by City of Vancouver is an improvement on the existing layout, but as proposed, it could deprive the pedestrians of one of the Main bridge asset: the vistas on False creek

With Granville bridge, we have an opportunity, to change that, be with an art gallery or something else, in its truss, encouraging strolling on the bridge, and taking advantage of it (rain shelter) to bring the city one step forward. In that sense the Michael Green contribution, bringing the old idea of “living bridge” into the debate is welcome.

[1] A fresh vision for the old art gallery, Marsha Lederman, Globe and Mail, Dec 14, 2012

[2] see Price tags

[3] Rennie releases proposal for multi-venue art gallery system, Marsha Lederman, Globe and Mail, Dec 12, 2012

6,000 bus enter into the Sydney CBD per day, 1000 during the peak hour. Too many bus routes lead to a poorly legible network

Beside a poorly legible network (Sydney has 850 bus routes) [7], the great number of bus routes is also a source of loading inefficiency : thought that the offering bus-seat capacity could be great, the practical one could be much less on a given corridor (over-supply on some bus routes is not compensating for under supply on others)

The European solution

It is a problem many European cities are facing, and in Europe, it is in general the impetuous to switch to LRT – the rational is simple:

• A modern Tram replaces 5 buses
• Associated network consolidation allows a better adjustment of the offer to the demand, as well as a better legibility of it
• A Tram, being electric powered, generate less noise, and pollution

Hence trams improves the livability of the city. Generally, European modern trams are not justified by speed or urban development opportunities, which are very limited in mature cities but mainly by ridership. They operates on trunk lines fed by bus routes:

• Passengers have to transfer

The fact that the transfer from bus to tram, is not compensated by a time gain (like it could be from bus to subway) is one of the main drawback of such an approach. Providing a superior service and experience is a way to compensate for the disagreement. The European solution in Sydney’s CBD could be the vision proposed by Gehl Architects [2]:

Pedestrian George Street with LRT, in a typically European arrangement – credit picture (2)

The Australian approach

Australia is land of the finest BRTs. Tunnel a BRT is a solution, natural enough in Sydney, to be considered, in despite of its price tag; $2 Billions, for a ~2 km tunnel. The rational is simple:

• A BRT can avoid a transfer

The debate

BRT vs LRT, the context of the debate - Left: Bus volumes entering the Sydney City Centre during the two hour morning peak - Right: proposed BRT and LRT alignment and cost. The full LRT is 12 km long with implementation cost estimated at $1.6B

You could expect the government agencies, ministries and other actors to debate on facts, and not on opinions to lobby one system over another:

reading the different reports [3][4][5] will prove you wrong.

Below is how the debate has occurred between two New South Wales (NSW) government outlets, Transport NSW, favoring the LRT, and Infrastructure NSW (InNSW), an “independent agency”, supposed to not base recommendation on politic allegiance, favoring the BRT:

InNSW estimates the current demand at 9000 pphpd in the corridor [5]. The different system are assumed as below by the different actors:

The numbers provided by Certu (a French agency), are for reference. They are considering optimal surface operation conditions (signal preemption possible, perfect interval maintained) signaling the typical area of relevance for a given technology. Thought the numbers advanced by the Australian authorities are theoretically possible, they most probably supposes a compromise on the level of service:

High capacity BRT, like the one pictured in Brisbane come at a cost – credit photo (1)

The InNSW report contains lot of fear mongering on LRTs, but what is noticeable in the case of the both approaches, is that none quantifies travel time, neither expected operating cost, that is a benefit cost/ratio.

More importantly, beside removing bus of the surface, the BRT tunnel tries to address a problem different from the LRT: the former addresses regional access-and so doing tend to largely duplicate an existing rail corridor- while the later addresses the more local access into the CBD. One will find some more detail, especially question about the BRT approach in [8]

The urban approach: George Street

As suggested before, the tram choice over a tunnel BRT is not only a transportation choice, it is an urbanistic one too: George street is a 2.5km long street, it is the major Sydney spine. Jan Gehl compares its potential to the one mile long Barcelona’s las Ramblas [2]:

• Both are bounded, by the sea on one side, and by a major commuter railway station on the other
• Both are of similar with, 22 to 30m for George street

The Cost of the different approaches for George street:

InNSW suggested that George street -20 to 30m width- is not wide enough to accommodate both a tram and pedestrians, and explains that segregation of transport and pedestrian activities, or aggressive pedestrianization, is a better objective [5] (There is very few street of this wide successfully fully pedestrianized [10]). the Bus BRT is considered as a rapid transit with 2 underground stations [5].

George Street cross-section – as proposed by Gehl architects – credit (2)

Jan Gehl touted the concept of overlap use, with trams sharing the urban space with pedestrians, supporting thriving activities on the rather wide George street, and the neighboring alleys and lanes. In fact Transport for NSW states in [3]:

International experience indicates that the pedestrianization of George street without activation by light rail could reduce safety and accessibility, leading to a decline in retail activity.

The surface tram option is envisioned with a stop every 350m, so the tram is considered as a people mover. Evolving in a shared space, its average speed will not be much better than 10km/h on George street – Rest of the alignment is in a more “suburban” environment, so average speed outside the CBD should be more competitive with existing option

Some questions

At the end the LRT has been chosen over the BRT. Nevertheless, considering the expected passenger volume, one could still question this choice:

Shared spaces work well when traffic is light :

• Crossing the street is unimpeded by traffic (that is one advantage of fewer trains over more buses)

In the George street case, the demand suggests a train every mn, so starting to create a “wall” of train:

Too heavy LRT traffic can compromise the “sharing space” concept

But what could be of more concern, is that the system could be under-sized. The considered 9,000 pphpd requirement suggests that the debate should not have been a BRT versus trams one, but eventually trams versus a heavier rail mode, including a grade separated LRT – that is the Ottawa direction – or extension of the Sydney Cityrail (a S-bahn or RER equivalent). The later is fortunately on the menu [7], and hopefully will go in a direction to reduce the pressure on the tram.

Lessons for Vancouver.

Th Sydney LRT choice has generated some interest in Vancouver here and there : The Sydney choice is done to address problems very different of the ones faced either by Vancouver or Surrey. Still, the underlying motivation, for the heavy transit investment, is mainly to address existing demand. It also shows you are better to understand what objective you are trying to pursue, before embarking into a technology debate, which can lead on exaggerated and misleading claims.

If there is one lesson to be directly learned for Vancouver, it is the idea that [3]:

separating pedestrians and transport is contrary to good planning practice and international experience, which shows transport and pedestrians should be integrated to support thriving cities

Transit at Sydney Town Hall

Integrating transit into pedestrian oriented streets, is also the only way to have an extensive and still successful pedestrian friendly street network. In other word, let transit work, is the first and probably most important step toward bold pedestrianization scheme: An important lesson we could learn more especially fromWellington, NZ.

[1] flickr user SHOROC

[2] George street Urban design study, Gehl Architects for City of Sydney, January 2012

[3] Sydney Light rail’s future, Transport for NSW, December 2012

[4] Metro Transport Sydney’s position on LRT

[5] First things first, Infra NSW, October 2012.

[6] Tramway et Bus à Haut Niveau de Service
(BHNS) en France : domaines de pertinence en zone urbaine from Transport/Environnement/Circulation (TEC) n° 203, September 209.

[7] Transportation Master Plan, Transport for NSW, December 2012

[8] transportsydney.wordpress.com blog.

[9] That is considering a 45m long train. Fine grained Sydney downtown grid doesn’t allow for much longer trains on George street without hindering access to lateral streets

[10] New York City’s Broadway at ~80 feet wide is one example, but the pedestrianized block around Times Square see a traffic of 350,000 pedestrians/day – a uncommonly high volume.

Dundas Street, @Downtown_London's main street, wld benefit from having busses+busbays taken off, space given to patios. http://t.co/aaVXanyQ

Have you noticed the bus route number in the picture: it is a subliminal message from Brent Toderian

Trying to follow their European counterparts, many cities around the US, including Los Angeles, now commit tremendous amount of money on down-town Transit initiatives, seen as key toward their urban renaissance. Former Vancouver Chief Planner, Brent Toderian, thinks differently: We should get rid of the transit to install patios! Huh: What about the cars?

To be sure, it seems to be the talk of the day in London Ontario, for its main downtown street, Dundas street. London could have its own reason but that is odd:

• It doesn’t have the excuse to be in 1970, not even the one of a pedestrian Mall project (like the 1970′s Wellington Golden Mile)
• It is both more capital and operating intensive [1][2]

In brief, when cities around the world invest toward more attractive Downtown transit, London Ontario seems willing to invest toward the opposite goal?

Could we see here at play a very concerning Canadian attitude, toward surface Transit?

In Rouen, France, the removal of cars, not buses, has been chosen, to improve the streetscape, mainly by widening the sidewalk

[1] $1.8M for bus-free Dundas, London Community News, June, 06, 2012

[2] Ironically, the very same reason why Wellington has reintroduce Transit on its Golden Mile

The Wellington’s Golden Mile case

The Wellington Golden Mile is an area of Down town Wellington, New Zealand, including noticeably Manners Mall, an historically important Transit spine:

Manners Mall/ Cuba Street circa 1920
a busy transit corridor, lot of retail, lot of people – credit photo (1)

Aggressive pedestrianism: the Kiwi version

Manners Mall, strategically located, full of shopping opportunities and pedestrians, made an ideal target for pedestrianization, what has been done toward the end of the 70′s. That was allowed by rerouting Transit on adjacent streets:

The pedestrian Manners Mall was just a small segment, putting buses on a 'slight detour' - credit photo (9)

They put a bus lane through my heart

In 2008, the Wellington city council came with the project to reintroduce buses on the pedestrian mall:

Reintroducing buses in the once pedestrian Mall, make the bus network much simpler

• poor journey time reliability
• indirect routings
• poor legibility

Needless, to say, the project has encountered fierce opposition: the arguments are known:

• What the heck such a few meter of pedestrianized road make a problem?
• There is plenty of road where the bus can goes: Why absolutely there?
• Give me a break: It is only a 5mn walk to the bus!
• …

An example of argumentation:

examples of discussions surrounding the pedestrian/transit trade off in Wellington’s Golden Mile (click on pictures for better readability)

In despite of the local Green Party support for the plan, citizen feedbacks were overwhelmy negative: 74% opposed to the re-opening of the pedestrian Mall to buses during the first public consultation [8], a sizable facebook group was constituted, and even a song has been written in defense of the pedestrian mall [3]:

Alas for the pedestrian Mall, it is a case of Transit geometry. If one want to reduce auto reliance and have more pedestrians on the street; attractive transit is key, and good transit geometry is paramount. The Wellington people understood those reasons and the proposal was implemented in time for the 2011 Wolrd Rugby Cup.

Today The buses are flowing down on the once pedestrian only mall. Pedestrians are also the winner of this new configuration: A more direct bus route, open more pedestrianization possibilities, while still keeping pedestrian area accessible by transit, and here it was eventually an argument able to sell the project:

The buses returning on Manners mall, allow more pedestrian oriented streets than before

The new configuration, not only make sense from a transit perspective, but it also makes sense of a pedestrian perspective, by joining 2 pedestrian areas (that is via Cuba street), now irrigated; and not circumvoluted; by transit

That is in accord to the usually successful pedestrian philosophy at play in Europe, which is not to make life more complicate for transit, but to improve the city livability by discourage automobile use (see also [4])

Transit geometry

AFAIK, transit geometry is a term coined by Jarret Walker, to recover some different transit concepts, which are concretely exposed on a real life example in part 2 from the circling the square series, by Peter Marriott, on the Pricetags blog. The transit geometry concept boils down to mirror the desire lines one (concept often associated to Gaston Bachelard [6])[10]

Aggressive pedestrianism

Thought successful pedestrian areas are more often than not the result of a comprehensive transportation plan, addressing well identified problem, as seen in Europe [4], but also, more recently in New York [7], aggressive pedestrianism is a philosophy at 180 degree of it:

• A Vancouver example

A Bob Ransford’s post nearly perfectly syncretizes the aggressive pedestrianism philosophy. It illustrates why transit arteries – the path of least disturbance for motorists- are the main targets of the aggressive pedestrianism movement, which unfortunately is still getting lot of traction in Vancouver:

Great article Bob! RT @BobRansford debate over closing a 100 meters of Robson Street has ignored perspective. tinyurl.com/d8vnorv

—
VPSN (@vpsn) November 29, 2012

For the out of town reader (and apparently the not so out of town too), What is at stake in the case raised in the Bob Ransford’s post is not 100 meters of road, but the fact that this 100m are on an important transit spine of the Vancouver network, with no obvious rerouting alternative [5].

[1] City of Wellington

[2] Central Area Bus Operational Review, Final report, Opus consultant, Wellington NZ, November 2009

[3] “Manners Mall Emo Song”, Robbie Ellis, 2009

[4] Transit as part of the urban fabric

[5] see block 51: oct 15 and 17th events, a summary, and Peter Marriott’s Circling the square series

[6] La poetique de l’espace, Gaston Bachelard, 1958, Paris

[7] see NYC DOT press release Release # 06-56, October 12, 2006; See World Class Streets: Remaking New York City’s Public Realm, New York City DOT, 2008

[8] Restoring the Golden Mile :Summary of Consultation, Wellington NZ, 2008.

[9] www.aktnz.co.nz

[10] “mirror” because geometry is a rational term whereas “desire” is apriori not. In the case of Manners Mall, the sunny side of Manners mall has sidewalk 20% wider than the shaded side mirroring the pedestrian “line of desire” – Pedestrians, as transit users could prefer journeying thru vibrant street than others for reasons expressed in [4] (which could have to do with some anthropological gregarious trait of humanity among other reason)…