How the Candidates stack up on Public Transit

Public Transit is one of the most important pieces of infastructure for sustaining a city and it is also one of the most expencies peices of infastrucutre as well. While in the last 40 years, Federal and state governments have spent more money on highway construction than on public tranist, it is important to note that all of American cities were developed and grew from public transit lines. With out public transit today, our best cities such as New York, Chicago and Sna Francisco would not be able to sustain themselves.

With a piece of infreastucture so vital to the daily lives to the city dwellers of this country, coast to coast, what are the Democratic candidates saying about the need to improve public transit. Well, according the the Philly Daily News...not that much.

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

"..."Transportation, which affects virtually everyone in the country, is barely on the radar of any of the candidates," said Samuel I. Schwartz, of Sam Schwartz PLLC, a transportation-planning firm."

Here's how Obama and Clinton plan to address the nation's transportation needs:

Barack Obama

Will create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to receive $6 billion annually to finance transportation projects around the country.

LOCAL TRANSIT: Will double the Jobs Access and Reverse Commute program, which provides federal money to help low-income people get to work. Will increase resources for local public transportation, but doesn't provide a dollar amount.

AMTRAK AND HIGH-SPEED RAIL: Will continue to fight for more funding. Supported a bill to provide $11 billion over six years. Supports development of high-speed freight and passenger rail, but does not indicate how much money he would provide.

AIR AND SEA: Wants to modernize air-traffic-control system to reduce delays. Will develop an accurate terrorist watch list to improve safety of air travel.

Hillary Clinton

INFRASTRUCTURE:Will establish a $10 billion emergency fund for repairs to roads, bridges and seaports. Another $250 million will fund "Emergency Assessment Grants" to help states inspect infrastructure.

LOCAL TRANSIT: Will provide $1.5 billion in additional funding annually for public transit.

AMTRAK AND HIGH-SPEED RAIL: Will increase funding for "inter-city" rail systems by $1 billion over five years. Also plans to invest more in Amtrak.

AIR AND SEA: Would devise a national policy to expand port capacity. *

Movies about Urban Culture: Persepolis

Persepolis is based off a graphic novel about a young girl growing up in Tehran, Iran during the political fall of the Shah dictatorship and the ensuing war with Iraq during the 1980's. (View the trailer)

The film shows the main character, Marjane, a bright and curious girl who is raised by an educated and politically active family whose members strive for freedom and democracy. The films shows that while the dictatorship had it's own brutalities and injustices, the rise of religious fundamentalism made life much worse in a very metropolitan Tehran and Iran as a whole. While the Fundamentalist movement killed or jailed all of it's opposition it also squashed almost all forms of personal expression and individual freedoms especially for women.

The film showed how a somewhat cosmopolitan city could be transformed into a military state where all citizens are suspects. How simple men could rise from nothing to positions of power just by having a dogmatic faith. One thing that was very intriguing in the film is how the functionalities and layers of a city could be used to control it's own cities. Unlike a rural setting, city dwellers take for granted that some one or some power controls everything from your water, power, protection and of course education. What can a city dweller really do if a government tries to control or manipulate it's citizens through the basic functionalities and infrastructure of a city?

People form cities or come to cities with the basic understanding that everyone will share in the responsibility of maintaining the infrastructure and costs of that city for the shared interest of creating a better society through personal wealth, education, culture or all the above. But what happens when a force comes in and no longer shares that vision of creating a better society. Is that place still a functional city if the basic premise of creativity and culture is taken away?

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Even if you have not seen the movie, please let us know what you think about the importance of not altering the creativity and cultures of cities.

1987 Version of Towson Circle III

Image of the proposed Towson Circle III project along East Joppa Road

As the new Towson Circle III development is gearing up to bring more retail along Joppa Road as well as a movie theater, let's look back at what Towson Circle III could have looked like if this 1987 proposal of Shealey Square went through.

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View of the proposed hotel. Looks like an Atlantic City Casino-Hotel

Here's a view of the proposed residential towers. Huge multi-story parking garage super blocks that obliterate the scale of adjacent buildings are sexy.

Here is a site plan of the proposed super block.

1964 Towson Redevelopment Plan

The Redevelopment Plan

The images that you are about to see below are scans of an old 1964 Towson Redevelopment and Rehabilitation Commission Plan for a vision of Towson in 1975. The plan included a reconfiguration of streets, land uses and public spaces with some spectacularly bad 1960's International-style designed architecture.

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Overall, the plan is very bold and there are some good features to the plan. Fortunately this planning vision did not take hold but I do have to say after viewing other redevelopment plans for Towson, a lot of times the planners proposed great plans that would have positively impacted the Towson core if the political will was there. Unfortunately, as planners we are proposing the same common sense plans as the planners before us had did in the previous decade. However the plan your about to see below is not a plan that we wish to duplicate.

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I remember an Urban Studies professor I had was grilled by one of my classmates to name one positive, concrete thing he did when he was a city planner. He paused and then stated..."I stopped a lot of bad plans."

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Existing Land Use of Towson in 1962

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Proposed Land use map. As you can see from the map, the vision for Towsontowne Boulevard (minus the bridges) and Bosley Avenue came from this plan.

A close-up map of the core.

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A transect of proposed buildings in the core

View of the plaza east of York Road

Image of what would be Towson Circle today

View of York Road from the south. Notice the tunnels for York Road going toward the Towson Circle. The tunnel is reminiscent of the tunnel found in downtown Rockville, MD.

View of Pennsylvania Avenue

View of retail shops. This picture is pretty accurate to what Towson looks like today.

View of the proposed government complex and public plaza

View of proposed moderate income housing. The plan sought to eliminate the neighborhood of East Towson due to blight. East Towson is currently a Nationally registered historic district which is comprised of descendants of the enslaved people of the nearby Hampton Mansion.

Proposed Towson skyline looking from the south

Towson back in the day - Pictures from 1962 and beyond

As the former town of Towson now a large edge city/suburb that is just due north of the Baltimore City line continues to redevelop the blog decided to look back at how the original Towson Town used to look.

The York Road-Dunaley Valley Road-Joppa Road-Allegheny Avenue interection before the circle.

Scenes from the core

FAMOUS - 4th Biggest City Music Video

Excuse the cursing but check out the signts of Toronto and the lyrics Famous kicks about the city