Complete Streets

Pedestrian shoulder Ridge Rd.

According to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, "Providing safe places for people to walk is an essential responsiblility of government entities involved in constructing or regulating the construction of public rights-of-way." This seems so obvious, but Amberley has been wrestling with this issue for decades. By not moving forward with long-range planning to make Amberley more pedestrian friendly, housing and livablity trends are passing us by as the Millenial generation is seeking out living spaces that provide multiple options for transportation, which include more public transportion options as well as safe pathways.

It is time for Amberley Village officials to recognize that, although we do not have a central business district within our own community, a majority of our residents live within walking distance of business districts in either Pleasant Ridge, to the south, and Dillonvale, to the north. Safe access to these areas and to our own amentities within the Village will increase our property values thus benefitting the financial forcast for our community

In her presentation, "Designing Communities for All: The role of complete streets in improving accessibility and enhancing economic competitiveness," Kerstin Carr of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (morpc), indicates that "every one-point increase in the 100-point Walk Score scale is associated with an increase in home value of $500-$3,000." From a health standpoint, she cites another study that found that "43% of people with safe places to walk within 10 minutes of home met recommended activity levels. Among individuals without safe places to walk, just 27% were active enough." Amberley has great places to walk -- French Park, Amberley Green, the Amberley Walking Path, the JCC --  but we lack a safe way to get there on foot.

The Health, Education, & Welfare committee of Council held a meeting yesterday on the issue of pedestrian safety. The issue encompasses more than just providing a safe shoulder of the road upon which to walk. Our intersections can be made safer by installing crosswalks. Streets can be identified that are routinely used as cut-through thoroughfares and traffic calming measures can be examined. The city council of Westerville, Ohio, passed a Resolution last year expressing support of the Complete Streets Initiative. By so doing, they are expressing their committment to remember pedestrians when the time comes to budget for street maintenance and improvements.
Amberley should do the same. In fact, at Monday's council meeting, we supported the introduction of a Long Range Financial Plan, the partial mission of which includes this question: "What are (we) doing as... government officials to ensure that our community and ...property value is not only maintained but enhanced ten years from now and beyond?" (Emphasis mine).  An important question, and not one to be ignored when budgeting for the maintenance and future of our community.

Imagine...

A two lane rural road is made safer by adding a bike lane.

It's no secret that my vision for Amberley is a community that is not only accessible to pedestrians and cyclists, but also a community where the places we go to meet our friends, shop, and relax over a glass of wine, are right here in our own neighborhood. To that end, I have been attending sessions devoted to the concept of "Complete Streets" and "Form Based Codes" given by the Hamilton County Planning Partnership and the City of Cincinnati. Briefly, Form Based Codes require a community to decide what they want their built community to look like. Mixed use is more desirable than, say, platting a zone to be either strictly residential or strictly business. Parking lots are not determined by square footage of office or store, but by accessibility and how best to encourage shoppers to enter the facility. In the City of Cincinnati, the focus is on revitalizing and re-imagining neighborhoods that have been built over the years in conformance with out-of-date zoning codes and in deference to the automobile. Streets have become too wide and speed limits too fast to encourage drivers to slow down, stop, and get out of their cars to shop. Giant offices, warehouses, and high rise apartments have been built in once historic and unique neighborhoods with no consideration to the overall look and feel of the neighborhood. In Amberley, many of our neighborhoods are isolated platted subdivisions offering only one way in and out, with no easy access to main roads other than by car.  Under Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls leadership, the City of Cincinnati is trying to change the look and feel of its neighborhoods with the adoption of Form Based Codes in place of traditional zoning.

Last week, I attended a seminar at the Cincinnati Bar Association focusing on Local Government law. Topics included zoning and fair housing, but most interesting to me was that one of the topics was Form Based Codes. I asked Vice Mayor Qualls specifically about Amberley Village and Amberley Green in particular. Could Form Based Codes be used to plan a large, currently undeveloped property? In fact, we are in an ideal position to be proactive in terms of what we want the Amberley of the future to be and look like. An Amberley resident and fellow attorney sitting in front of me turned around and said, "I want three restaurants, a bar, and an ice cream parlour." This resident is a young mom and is representative of what young families want -- walkablity and complete streets. An opinion piece in today's New York Times confirmed that this is the trend throughout the country. Previously, home values in strictly suburban communities like Amberley have been higher than urban counterparts. But the trend has shifted dramatically, around the country and in Amberley Village.   According to Rick Hall, president of Hall Planning & Engineering, complete streets which include access to transportation options and safe, walkable convenient communities are happier communities. The time is now, when the need for new revenue is of paramount importance,  for Amberley to be thinking about and planning for the future of Amberley Green and Amberley Village.

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