Sunday 11 December 2011

A Challenge

I grew up in areas developed before traffic engineers lost track of the needs of humans and can remember well the quality of life and safety that has been lost to the automobile.  Visits to the remnants of similar areas in Asian cities has reconnected me with the importance of taking the best of what existed in those times and building on them after having lost our way for sixty years and created a massive worldwide agglomeration of unlivable communities and cities.

 I lived my early years in a “Motor City” (Detroit0 suburb without cul-de-sacs, wide radius turns or broad avenues.  Revisiting the area I found a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone, looked out for each other’s children and generally retained the same values that it had when it was first built in 1942.  The streets haven’t changed; speeding is almost impossible because they are narrow and in general the area meets the requirements of modern network design, and it dates from the beginning of World War II.

In Denver, we lived in the city although not downtown.  Again we had an environment that matched the sort of neighborhood one would want one’s kids to grow up in.  Single family homes, schools within easy walking distance, neighborhood grocery store, cleaners, doughnut shop, drugstore, etc.  Kids could be trusted to safely make their way to the Saturday matinee at the movie theatre when they were in first grade, etc.

Then, finally we lived in a small town of 1,700 people in the mountains.  A major transcontinental highway came right through the centre of town but it was only two lanes wide, leading to traffic jams during skiing season that were twenty kilometers long or more. But one didn’t fear for one’s life when crossing it.  The town was bypassed by a four-lane Interestate highway in 1959 ,opening up the Rockies to hordes of tourists while the town largely kept the original street layout from the late 19th century.

Even as I lived an idyllic life away from the city centre in communities that didn’t benefit from the latest fads in traffic engineering, Detroit was busily creating an uninhabitable environment: hugely wide streets and an environment they thought was appropriate for the seventh wealthiest city in the world which it was in 1950.  Today there are substantial parts of its inner suburbs that resemble war zones or have become ghost towns even as other suburbs remain amongst the wealthiest enclaves in the world.  The destruction wrought by poor decisions are almost incalculable.

Unfortunately, throughout Asia we see that by and large, today’s wealthy cities have learned nothing from the demise of Detroit and are repeating many of the same mistakes in the name of “progress” and as they do, they spend billions creating cityscapes that it will cost extra billions to correct.  Perhaps the greatest of all their errors is designing the cities around the assumption of automobile ownership in the new cities will track that of Japan, Europe and the U.S., i.e. designing for the past, not for the future; designing to make automobiles happy, not people.

Some of the problems with these new cityscapes:
  • Hostile to pedestrians
  • Few public streets
  • Boring streetscapes
  • No redundancy in route choices
  • Few, broad streets
Quality of place exists from the air or automobile, but not from the sidewalk.
It doesn’t have to be that way.  Asia is full of areas that demonstrate what it takes to create human-centered cities.  Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem district is a case in point.

Walk through the streets of this area, ignore the fixable problems and it is quickly apparent that it is everything that most modern cities aren’t:
  • it is joyously walkable
  • it is well-connected even if it doesn’t have a rigid grid.
  • The streetscapes are anything but boring
  • Many, many route choices.
  • Many narrow streets
  • The streets are people-centred, not automobile-centred.
  • Trees line every street.
  • Blocks are short
  • Buildings are well-ornamented and avoid starkitecture
Now Hoan Kiem is not idyllic, by any means, but it probably once was.  Three main things are needed to make it that way again:
Move the utility lines underground.
Replace the motorcycles and motorscooters with their electric counterparts.
Increase public transport frequency and options.

Oh, and wash all the exhaust soot from the buildings just as London did once it ceased using coal and its pea-soup fogs became a thing of the past.
.
When you stop and think about it, that’s actually not a very tall order, even in a third world country.  And you can find areas like that in practically every Asian city of any age.  What is needed now is simply to rehabilitate what already exists

The sad thing is that there is virtually no interest in Asia for making new cities and neighborhoods livable although we’re surrounded with the remnants of wonderfully livable neighborhoods.  The area near Shinbashi station in Tokyo is a living museum of an ideal urban landscape but today it is a hidden gem in the midst of Tokyo’s urban blandness.

Pointing out these neighborhoods isn’t simply an exercise in sentimentalism; peak energy based on fossil fuels has arrived.  Populations continue to grow and building cities that depend on them is a road to nowhere. In fact, it is worse than a road to nowhere. They increase the demand for a decreasing resource.  Ironically, by doing this they hasten the day when they become utterly unlivable relics.  Asian cities must rebuild rebuild themselves for a tomorrow that grows organically from the citeis of yesterday, not build cities that are obsolete before they are even conceived. This is a challenge that they must take up or they will pay a bitter price for generations to come.

Read more...

Monday 28 November 2011

You're Now a Consultant

 This post is re-reproduced from Your Life Their Life



My grandfather worked nearly his entire life at the railroad.  He worked hard, and they took care of him when he retired.  It's how life used to be.  His job didn't change much and neither did the required skills.  It will never be that way again.

Jobs and careers have taken an obvious turn in the last 10-15 years.  Gone are the days of getting a good job and staying with the same company for 45 years.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average employee born between 1957 and 1964 had 11 jobs between their ages of 18 and 44.  That means a new job every 2.3 years!

Things are moving even faster now and our generation will have even more than that.  It's easy to see we must take a different mindset to our careers.  To succeed, you must build marketable skills that can be used across many companies and industries.



Why the change?

Corporations don't care about their employees nearly as much as they used to because the value of experience with a company has turned into a detriment in many cases.

I'm not bitter towards corporate America, as I believe this is the inevitable path of the capitalism that we love so much.  Things move a lot faster and if companies don't keep up with the pace, they will die.  Another company that is smarter and faster will put them out of business.

Technology is changing faster and companies must keep up to stay competitive.  Projects cycle a lot faster, tools and systems change much faster, and if employees aren't up with the new technology and management styles they'll change out faster as well!

The ability to adapt allows companies to stay competitive.  To adapt they must be much more agile and have the ability to use people with the skills they need, only when they need them.  

This is how I lived my life at a major consulting firm for seven years.  Companies brought us in because they didn't have the expertise in a certain area.

We'd come in and deliver their new technology and leave when we were done.  They didn't need to keep us full time.

The faster you can get in this new mindset, the better off you will be in today's world.  It's a scary time, but you must also realize that companies will still be around and have even more money for the people who can fulfill their needs.

How can you keep up?

You have some options.  You can sit around and gripe about how companies have no loyalty anymore or you can learn to thrive in it.  These are some of the tips that have enabled me to succeed in this new age.

We are all consultants now.

1.  Become self-sufficient by building your network

2.  Every time you start a new project you must learn very fast about the client and the work

3.  You must keep up with the latest technologies and best practices

4.  Project lengths are short; typically 9-12 months

5.  Have a skill set that is in demand

1.  Become self-sufficient by building your network

The most important enabler to success as a consultant is the network that you've built.  It doesn’t matter that you have top skills in a certain area if no one knows you.  You must become very focused on building and maintaining your network.

The best way to do this is to do great work for the people you're currently working for.  This allowed me to navigate between projects and always have something lined up next that I wanted to do.

In the consulting world, if you don't work your network to find a good project, you'll end up on a project you didn't like with someone that you don't know.

Another way to build your network is to get involved in extra-curricular activities.  Join clubs or organizations focused around your expertise, join clubs outside of work (Toastmasters, philanthropic, etc), and reach out to people you're interested in meeting.

Do the work now so you have something lined up when you need it.

2.  Every time you start a new project you must learn very fast about the client and the work

This can be an exhausting process but there is no better way to learn than to drink from the fire hose.

When you start a new project, you're expected to come up to speed very quickly and learn about the project and the client.  The same thing goes for the 'expertise' you were brought in for.  More than once, I've been coined an expert in something that I've never done before!  I had to learn very quickly.

The best part about this process you learn an incredible amount of information in a very short time.  The more you do it, the quicker you'll learn to do it and the faster you'll succeed.

If you switch jobs voluntarily or involuntarily, view it as an opportunity to learn a new skill in an expedited fashion.  You should avoid staying stagnate in the same job too long because you won’t be able to learn much if you’re not exposed to new things.

3.  You must keep up with the latest technologies and best practices

Why are you of value?   To start your new job or project, you must fit a need on the project or client.  The best way to do this is to have a skill set that is in demand. 

Cloud computing?  Social networking?  Guerilla marketing?  What skill will you bring?  An ability to work with and manage people will always be in demand.  So will providing excellent customer service.

It's not enough to learn the skill and think you'll be ok.  Things change so fast that you'll quickly become irrelevant if you don’t keep up to speed on your skills.

The best way to do this is to read as much as you can on your industry and skill set.  Find online blogs and forums, read magazines, and attend training.  You can read further here.

4.  Project lengths are short; typically 9-12 months

Most consulting projects are short term.  You must realize this and be able to adapt to it in order to succeed.  The best way to do this is to follow the three steps I've already outlined above. 

My former consulting firm lived by the mantra of 'one foot in today and one foot in tomorrow.'  This applies very much in the consulting world because you must deliver great work at your current client and at the same time think about what the future will hold as far as new technology and new clients.

Understand that the length of your next job could be very short and you’ll need to find something else soon.

5.  Have a skill that is in demand

The people who succeed at consulting have one of two major skill sets.  Either they are a deep expert at a certain skill, or they are a 'connector' and who know the right people with the skills. 

This a little more difficult to relate to an individual who does their own consulting but it's still applicable.

If you want to be the expert at a skill set, you must follow step 3 outlined above and stay relevant with your skills and knowledge.

If you want to be the connector, you'll need to be the guy who sells the work at a client and then brings in the right people to get the jobs done.

Life is a consultant isn’t easier than life on the railroad but it’s the new reality.  As I mentioned in a  previous post, not even George Costanza's method of 'looking busy' will work in this new environment.  Work within this reality, stay flexible, and find a way to succeed.

Read more...

Saturday 12 November 2011

Transportation Networks Part 1


"The global destruction of cities and countryside, of human cultures and of nature itself, can only be reversed by a global philosophical, technical, cultural, moral and economic project: by an ecological project.

 The city is not the unavoidable result of a society's activities.
 It can only be built and maintained when it represents the goal of individuals, of a society and its institutions.

A city is not an economic accident but a moral project. Forms of production ought no longer to dictate the form of the city; but the form of the city, its organic nature and moral order, must qualify and shape the forms and of production and of exchange."

Léon Krier     

(Photo by Léon Krier)


City Transportation Networks

We will address the transportation issue from a network design point of view first.  Later in this series we will address buildings, which are are more complex, more numerous and offer a greater variety of opportunities for saving energy and combatting global warming.

Even though it ranks third on the list of causes of global warming, that doesn’t mean that it’s impact isn’t significant to a degree that is unsupportable and that to continue on the path we are on isn’t irrational.  The Texas Transportation Institute, which states that “Traffic congestion continues to worsen in American cities of all sizes, creating a $78 billion annual drain on the U.S. economy in the form of 4.2 billion lost hours and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel”. 

Depending on the quality of the crude oil used to produce the gasoline, that means that somewhere between four and fourteen days of the total oil consumption in the U.S. is wasted in traffic congestion.  That doesn’t include the wastage at normal traffic stops, inefficient routing or other fuel wasters. That wasted petrol becomes 25 billion kilos of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere utterly without purpose.

As the U.S. transportation grid, for all of its inefficiencies, is substantially more efficient than many around the world, one thing is abundantly clear: transportation network design is critically important as one of the components to reducing global warming.

For this series we are using a multidimensional approach to viewing transportation networks: fuel efficiency, minimum transit times and psychic satisfaction.  A network that doesn’t satisfy all of these simply isn’t acceptable.

The Congress for the New Urbanism has looked into this and developed this comparison of where we should be and where we are today in terms of design:

Modern Network Design
Conventional Roadway Networks
Highly Connected
Partially Connected
Multimodal
Auto-dependent
Accessible Destinations
Indirect Routes
More Public Streets
Fewer Public Streets
Detailed Streetscapes
Few Streetscape Elements
Welcoming for Pedestrians
Dangerous and Unpleasant for Pedestrians
More Route Choices /
Redundant
Fewer Route Choices /
Prone to Break Down
Smaller/Narrower Streets
Wider Streets
Finer Grained
Coarser Grained
Lower Speeds but Faster Trip
Higher Speeds but Longer Trips
Focus on Quality of Place
Focus on Flow of Vehicles
Less Delay at Intersections
More Delay at Intersections
Simpler Turns
More Complicated Turns
Supports Activity on Sidewalks  
Adjacent to Streets 
Sidewalk and Adjacent Activity
Subservient to Traffic Flow

It took a deep understanding of the environment in which we immerse ourselves to develop a modern network design and it would be difficult to find anyone who wouldn’t find it appealing.   However, we are living in the world that was defined by cheap oil, self-gratification and community disintegration.  The sunk capital in this world is immense and isn’t going away any time soon.  Immense tracts of arable land have been and are being paved over in greenfield areas even as food scarcity is increasing and costs rising because of resource shortages and climate change.  It is clear that we must work within the existing urban and suburban road networks to create the environment of the future which means infilling, repurposing and redesigning.  It is not going to be inexpensive.

Before proceeding with looking at that in the next posting, let’s put a little flesh around the bones that the CNU has provided.

Highly Connected vs. Partially Connected networks.
Highly connected networks provide lots of redundancy for getting from point A to point B and tend to spread out the traffic load.  Partially connected networks, on the other hand, push traffic onto a few routes which are therefore more heavily trafficked.  A fully connected network would be the most efficient for moving traffic around, but it would also be the most expensive, so the highly connected network can be viewed as a trade-off between a partially connected network and a fully connected one, leaving room for effective design not only for traffic flow but also for providing an aesthetically pleasing streetscape.

A simplified version of the conceptually difference is supplied by CNU:

    Driving only, Partially connected Network           Walkable highly connected network


Same houses, same school.  If it were your house and your school, which would you feel more comfortable having your child walk to alone?  Which network is more likely to provide the opportunity for interesting streetscapes?  Which one conserves energy?  The answer is clear.

What is also clear is that making the neighborhood more walkable and the school more accessible would not be expensive and this is the kind of retrofitting we need to do for our communities: 
Livability on the cheap - reconnecting using pedestrian/bicycle ways, short connectors & easements.
Because we cannot simply raze existing estates and developments, it is necessary to find ways to make them work in an increasingly resource-constrained world.  The CNU has some general prescriptions:
  • Connectivity Enhancements: These projects increase the number of intersections/square mile by removing gaps in the network.
  • Road Diets: These projects reduce the number of lanes or lane widths to accommodate more pedestrian capacity and/or improve vehicular speed on the roadway.
  • Intersection Diets: These projects add pedestrian bulb outs and remove right hand turn lanes so that the crossing distance for pedestrians is reduced.
  • Decrease Block Size: These projects add streets to large, underutilized projects, like greyfields and brownfields.
  • Sidewalk enhancements: These projects increase sidewalk width and/or improve pedestrian amenities.
  • Two-way conversions: Projects that replace one-way streets with two-way streets.
Context Sensitive Design Approach outlined in the Institute of Transportation Engineer’s 
Context Sensitive Solutions in Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable 
Communities. 
 
Constrained resources make it necessary to intelligently retrofit communities, both suburban and urban, to reduce energy and material consumption.  Intelligent reordering of priorities steers us away from the mere acquisition of more and more goods to the enjoyment of what we have and what is around us.  Communities need to rebuild themselves for this new priority at the same time that they prepare for the resource crunch that is beginning to be felt.



Read more...

Followers

Disclaimer

The contents on this site are provided as general information for educational purposes only and not meant to promote or discredit any of the projects discussed. The ideas expressed on this site are solely the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions of organizations or projects affiliated with the author(s). The author(s) may or may not have an affiliation in any project or organization referenced above.

  © Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP