Urban planning » Ren Thomas

Maastricht’s strategic vision

Members of our transport planning group at the Liège railway station: Roel ter Brugge, Jake Wiersma, Florian Langstraat, Andrew Switzer, Ori Rubin, Lucas Harms, Luca Bertolini, Xue Hou, and Guowen Dai.

Last week, our transport planning research group at the University of Amsterdam visited the Municipality of Maastricht (population 122,000), capital of the southernmost Dutch province, Limburgh. The city is built on both sides of the Maas river, has a rich history as a Roman settlement and early industrial city, and is strategically positioned near the Belgian and German borders. One of our PhD students, Jake Wiersma, has been working on the strategic vision for Maastricht in his position as a planner at the Municipality, and invited us to participate in a workshop.

As Maastricht’s traditional industries of mining, ceramics and pottery have declined, the city has regenerated several brownfield sites, including the Céramique potteries site near the town centre where several new housing blocks, a new Aldo Rossi-designed museum and new library have been built. The Entre Deux and Mosae Forum shopping centres, the area around the main railway station, and the walkway along the river are other recent developments.

Housing blocks on the former Céramique potteries site takes on a very different form from traditional Dutch housing

As Maastricht tries to curb its persistent traffic problems, it has converted roads to pedestrian-only routes and squares. This one used to bring cars right to the central Market Square.

However, the region is one of two in the Netherlands whose population will shrink in the coming decades (the other being the eastern part of the province of Groningen). It is also one of the more car-dominant cities in the Netherlands, partly because its elevation is not nearly as flat as cities like Amsterdam in the north. Persistent congestion problems on the A2 motorway have led to a two-level tunnel through the city, currently under construction. Maastricht is still trying to discourage parking in its inner city and improving other options, such as walking and park and ride options. Besides trying to decrease driving in the city centre, one of the planning problems is how to maintain accessibility for residents of the rural towns and villages.

Another issue is regional planning–Maastricht is perhaps the most international city in the Netherlands, with students and workers commuting daily from nearby German and Belgian cities. German is widely spoken, and French names and words persist in the Limburgh dialect (and, as you can see, in the names of sites and neighbourhoods). Companies such as BASF, Vodaphone and Mercedez-Benz have extensive bases in the city. However, until recently there has been no attempt to try and plan for the region as a whole. Like many regions in the Netherlands, there is a long-standing debate on the question of which scale is the most appropriate for planning things like transportation infrastructure or employment growth. How far does the “region” actually extend–as far as Aachen (31km east) across the German border, or across the Belgian border to Liège (25km south) and Hasselt (25km west)? Should the region’s boundaries remain within the Netherlands, perhaps including Eindhoven (70km north)? The city is currently trying to determine which of these neighbouring municipalities to include as planning partners in its strategic vision process: in our workshop, we broke into three groups trying to tackle the international, regional and local scales.

Liège-Guillemins, a mere half hour by train from Maastricht, is one of three Belgian cities on the high-speed rail route, and is linked to Brussels, Paris, Aachen, Cologne, and Frankfurt. Here you can see the contrast of the Santiago Calatrava-designed station, which opened in 2009, with the old city behind it.

Maastricht planners at the municipal and provincial levels must now put their shoulders to the wheel: it will likely be years before a regional vision coalesces, if Amsterdam-Utrecht and Rotterdam-Den Haag are any indication. Amsterdam and Utrecht, two cities that share commuters and population growth but are in two different provinces, have struggled to plan anything at the regional level. Rotterdam and Den Haag have making slow but steady progress in this direction with the RandstadRail and Stedenbaan projects. Maastricht must make extensive use of the polder model to engage all its possible stakeholders in this strategic vision process.

Symbiotic exchange: Part II

Anne Katrine discusses "holy cows"

In an earlier post, I described an informal exchange between the transportation planning researchers at the Universities of Amsterdam and Groningen. This week, the University of Amsterdam hosted a similar exchange between our researchers and the fine folks at the University of Aalborg. The idea for the symposium came about last year’s AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning) conference in Ankara, no doubt through the charisma of our fearless leader, Luca Bertolini.

Luca and Patrick Driscoll (PhD candidate, Aalborg) began the symposium by introducing the group to key issues in transportation planning in the Netherlands and Denmark, respectively. In a session on assessment of transportation plans, Morten Skou Nicolaisen (postdoctoral researcher, Aalborg) summarized his research determining the accuracy of forecasts used in Danish transport project evaluations: he found that for road projects, there is about 10% more demand than expected, while for rail projects there is as much as 30% less demand than expected. Large fixed projects such as major rail infrastructure had the least accuracy; smaller-scale and lower-cost upgrades have the most accuracy. In cases where projects were delayed extensively or scrapped altogether, there was actually 7% less demand than anticipated for the ‘do-nothing’ alternative; this knowledge should impact our valuation of this alternative in our plans. Els Beukers (PhD candidate, Amsterdam) presented her work on using cost-benefit analysis as a learning tool, based on Kolb and Fry’s experiential learning cycle (which I detailed in the post on Groningen). Patrick then presented his work on using ex-post project evaluations as a tool for social learning: we assume that new knowledge will lead to better evaluations, but does it? He discussed several ex-post evaluation attempts, including the Federal Transit Administration’s before and after studies of New Starts projects in the US and the Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) of Major Schemes (highway projects costing over £10 million) in the UK. POPE includes a meta-analysis of projects one year and five years after project completion, and has found that the projects give a positive economic outcome, environmental impacts were as expected, and there was no systemic bias.

Lucas and Andres discuss possible collaboration

In a session on transition studies, Andrew Switzer (PhD candidate, Amsterdam) presented his work on the transportation transitions in Munich and Zurich: the history of concrete threats in catalyzing transportation shifts has been observed in both cities (e.g. the threat of climate change, overdependence upon the car manufacturing industry, and loss of historic buildings to road expansion from 1970-1990 was linked to decreased car use). Nina Vogel (PhD candidate, Aalborg) explored Fredericia Kommune in Denmark, a community founded with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions. However, it is located in a very car-dependent part of the country with little transit accessibility, and residents appear to be technical optimists reluctant to pursue transportation demand management routes. Andrès Felipe Valderrama Pineda (postdoctoral researcher, Aalborg) discussed transitions in Copenhagen, which showed the same pattern as many other European and North American cities: a transition to car and bus transit in the 1950s-1970s; slowing of car use, growth in transit, and protests against highway infrastructure in the 1970s-1990s; reinvestment in city centres and increased rail infrastructure from the 1990s-2000s, but still fairly high rates of driving. He took a multi-level perspective to these trends, examining which were rooted in the landscape (very long term, seeing rapid change only through disrupted events), the regime (very stable, rooted in institutions) or niches (short terms of less than ten years, not necessarily local). Michel van Wijk (postdoctoral researcher, Amsterdam) presented his research underway on airport regions which will use Q-methodology to draw strong statements from interviews with transportation and planning practitioners. He will then ask actors who do not know a lot about the topic whether they agree or disagree with the statements, and using Q-sorting will be left with several frames that they can test through serious gaming.

In our final session on conditions to policy success in transport planning, I presented my work on critical success factors in integrating transportation and land use planning: at this time I’m halfway through a meta-analysis of 11 case cities. Anne Katrine Braagaard (PhD candidate, Aalborg) discussed “holy cows” in planning. In her study of Carlsberg Town, architects created a master plan prioritizing cycling and providing less parking, but when it was turned into a local plan and strategies, the municipality allowed the “holy cow” of car use and parking to re-enter, resulting in a watered-down plan. Finally, Jan Duffues (PhD candidate, Amsterdam) presented his study of compact city development in the Netherlands. So far he has found that planning documents attempt to integrate transportation and land use but there is only partial recognition of the effects of densification on the expansion of the car network and little mention of cycling or walking. While transportation planning becomes more prominent and less linked with land use at the higher levels (major projects and initiatives), at the level of project documentation land use is seen as fixed and projects are divided up into pieces so there isn’t an integrated transportation-land use approach–there can even be contradictory outcomes.

Next steps in the new partnership

The following day, we discussed directions for future partnerships between Aalborg and Amsterdam, including joint sessions at AESOP and the upcoming World Society of Transport and Land Use Symposium in Delft (2014), a couple of joint articles, and coordinating a special issue of a journal on sustainable mobility. Jan and Patrick will explore the use of social strategy games and other gaming possibilities in our research. Luca, Morten and I will explore the idea of comparative case research. Patrick has created an online file sharing environment for us on Podio. We will encourage the development of an informal exchange of Masters and PhD students working in each others’ departments, carrying out research on Danish and Dutch transportation and land use issues. I’d say the first Aalborg-Amsterdam Symposium was a great success, with many of us discovering common interests and research strategies. We will continue to build on these relationships over time, hopefully creating a lasting network of researchers and students exploring issues of sustainable mobility: obviously our countries need our help!

Reminder: Proposals due February 1, 2013

I’ve already started receiving proposals for my edited book, Planning Canada: A Case Study Approach, which will be published by Oxford University Press Canada (Call for Papers here). It’s great to see the response that the project is getting from planners and other professionals across the country, from the Yukon to Nova Scotia, from young planners starting out to seasoned practitioners. Many have e-mailed me to express interest in presenting their case studies to a broader audience. Thank you all for this reminder of the keen and diverse planning community we have in Canada! And to the ex-pats who have written, it’s nice to see that you still have sufficient ties to the Great White North to be able to write about planning issues “back home”.

This is just a brief reminder that the proposals are due on February 1, 2013, a mere 9 days away. I’m really looking forward to reading all of your ideas soon.

Calling all planners

I’m pleased to announce the call for papers for my upcoming edited book on Canadian planning. It’s been accepted by Oxford University Press with the working title Planning Canada: A Case Study Approach and will feature case studies from across Canada on issues as diverse as infrastructure planning, food policy, affordable housing, and natural resource planning. We’re hoping to give undergraduate students an understanding of the diverse plans, policies and processes that are happening right now across the country.

I’m looking forward to receiving proposals from interested authors from academic, public, private practice, and non-profit planning settings in a number of theme areas: for more details about these, check out the dedicated page on my site, www.renthomas.ca/publications/books

Proposals are due February 1, 2013 and selected authors will have until December 1, 2013 to finalize their case studies.

Symbiotic exchange

University of Groningen's Zernike campus

Researchers are often accused of working in “ivory towers” separated from the real world. Perhaps planning suffers less from this syndrome since it is firmly rooted in practice. But most universities still retain strong boundaries between academic teaching and learning units. Even in an interdisciplinary field like planning, efforts must be made to exchange ideas and achieve some sort of synergy between different groups. While the Department of Geography, Planning, and International Development at the University of Amsterdam seems to have these internal boundaries between groups, several key efforts have been made to link our work to that of others.

Last week several researchers from our transport planning group joined researchers at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen for a unique exchange. A few years ago, our professors Luca Bertolini and Jos Arts discovered that the two departments had a lot in common, and they decided it would be a great idea for the researchers and students to meet up and discuss their ideas. This week’s exchange was the seventh such workshop between the two groups of transport planners. The workshops are organized by two students, one from each school, twice a year.

From Groningen, Assistant Professor Eva Heinen presented her latest research proposal to study cycling in the Netherlands. PhD student Ori Rubin discussed travel trends among family members visiting each other, concentrating on parents visiting their children, children visiting their parents, and siblings visiting each other. PhD student Niels Heeres encouraged discussion on what makes a focus group or a workshop: is one a data collection technique and the other a learning opportunity? Or are both research methods, one centred on a particular issue and the other seeking to develop knowledge or skills? Masters student Marije Hamersma presented some fascinating insights from her study of people living near highways at two Dutch sites–a surprising 80% of people she surveyed had no problem living in these areas, and about 20% chose the location for proximity to the highway.

University of Groningen's Zernike campus

From Amsterdam, PhD student Els Beukers discussed her research on cost benefit analysis as a tool that is problematic for many planners. Her research sought to bring together planners and evaluators to discuss some of the problems they had with cost benefit analysis; the Dutch government requires cost benefit analysis as the final step in approving land use-transport plans for federal funding. Els, Luca, and several other researchers at the University of Amsterdam are attempting to change the policy planning process through these types of projects: bringing together planners, policy makers and members of other professions to hear about innovative practices, reflect on them and try to develop their own policy and plans in focus group sessions. Can planners stage workshops that act in the same way as public health introduces interventions? Andrew Switzer, who is studying transitions to car use in Zurich and Munich for his PhD, hopes to use insights on this historical shift to learn how to shift current trends towards alternative transport modes. Postdoctoral researcher Lucas Harms has been mining data to explore demographic patterns in cycling in the Netherlands, including what percentages are due to population growth, increased distances, or increased trips. Although cycling has increased in the Netherlands in general, it has changed more rapidly in certain age groups and certain regions of the country.

This exchanged offered us the opportunity to hear what others are working on in planning and mobility issues, discuss methods and approaches, and our connection to planners. While Groningen researchers seem more linked to national agencies and organizations, at Amsterdam we tend to meet with local and regional stakeholders. The mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to explore these issues was also interesting, so much that we decided to devote our next meeting to mixed methods approaches. I only wish we had annual exchanges of this type within our own department–I’d love to know what the economic geographers and international development researchers are working on. But we’ll stick to interuniversity exchanges for now: in January we’ll host researchers from the University of Alborg, Denmark in a similar exchange.

Parking still a problem, even when it’s bikes

Bike parking at Amsterdam Centraal Station

Anyone who’s visited Amsterdam could tell you that while it’s “the capital of European biking”, it has serious parking problems. I’m currently teaching a class on metropolitan transport planning at the University of Amsterdam, and two groups of students have chose to study biking issues: one will examine the ever-rising rate of cycling injuries and the other the problem of parking.

A recent article in the New York Times mentioned that the City of Amsterdam plans to spend 120 million euros on cycling infrastructure in the next eight years. And it should, considering that it has 881,000 bicycles for its 780,559 citizens. While car-obsessed countries might be envious, there are some serious drawbacks to cycling’s increasing popularity in a city built on precious reclaimed land: while cycling increased 14% from 2001-2011, the number of cyclists seriously injured in accidents also increased to 56%. And building enough parking spaces for bikes is as much of a problem as it is for cars in the US or Canada.

Amsterdammers treat their bikes like Americans would treat a second-hand beater car with a rusted-out engine. Bikes are left out in the rain on a daily basis, they’re often left unlocked, and as one student told me, “they have little value.” Contrast this with Vancouver, where people go out of their way to rent the few coveted bike storage boxes provided by TransLink to protect them from the rain. In many North American cities it’s not unusual for cyclists to carry their bikes up several flights of stairs rather than leave them outside. Bikes are more expensive in the US (in Amsterdam you can pick one up for as little as 50 euros) they’re also more complicated: you need gears, and derailleur gears don’t respond well to daily rain.

Underground parking at Amsterdam Zuid Station

Another pervasive cultural practice in Amsterdam is owning three or four bikes; most people leave them in various places so they’ll always have access to a bike when they need one. In a city where every square centimeter of land is precious and most housing units are too small to store bikes (either indoors or out), this adds up to overcrowded bike racks, bikes blocking sidewalks, bikes affixed to every possible railing and pole, and bikes left for weeks in one place without being used. While some organizations will remove bikes left overnight (including the University of Amsterdam) this practice is controversial, as most people believe they have the right to park anywhere they want and for as long as they want. Covered bike storage is available for commuters at some places for a fee, but many people will cycle out of their way to park for free, leaving nearby neighbourhoods cluttered with two-wheelers. Shades of The High Cost of Free Parking, anyone?

The City plans to create an additional 38,000 bike parking spots at the rail and transit hubs over the next eight years. But more crucially, they plan to create more bike parking laws and enforce those that already exist, such as ensuring that Amsterdammers don’t leave their bikes for over 14 days in high-demand locations. It seems that the Dutch have discovered that unlimited free parking doesn’t work–even for bikes.

Cities need new infrastructure to cope with climate change

We’ve all read or heard about crumbling overpasses in Montreal, overburdened water treatment plants in Vancouver, and aging highways in Toronto. Inevitably, the physical components of our cities will face a new challenge in the coming decades: climate change adaptation.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities will release a set of recommendations today, asking the federal government for long-term investment in municipal infrastructure. FCM is part of the Municipal Infrastructure Forum launched earlier this year, which includes governments like the City of Toronto and the City of Ottawa, and business leaders such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Insurance Board of Canada. Members of the Forum announced principles for a new federal long-term infrastructure plan in Toronto on November 8, 2012. FCM conducted a study of 123 municipalities in 2009-2010 and reported on them in the Canadian Infrastructure Report Card. A major focus then was the declining quality of wastewater infrastructure, with over 40% of wastewater plants, pumping stations and storage tanks in “fair” to “very poor” conditions. Half of the roads surveyed fell below the rating of “good”. The report also found that many municipalities lack the capacity to assess the state of their infrastructure: they have limited data on their wastewater treatment plants or on buried infrastructure such as distribution pipes, some don’t have regular condition-assessment programs for their roads or a capacity/demand assessment process. They are also limited by financial and staffing constraints. But climate change is already beginning to take its toll: today, the forum notes that one in four wastewater plants needs major upgrades to meet federal regulations, storm events that used to occur every 100 years now happen every 20 years, and the insurance industry pays out more than $1 billion per year in sewage back-up claims. Stable, long-term funding will be more cost effective than replacement and will contribute to cities’ resiliency as the climate becomes more unstable.

FCM is encouraging municipalities to engage in the discussion on municipal infrastructure: a growing list of communities has already passed resolutions endorsing Target 2014, calling on the federal government to ensure that a new infrastructure plan is in place before the current federal programs (worth two billion dollars per year) expire in 2014.

Congratulations Dr. Cornelia Sussmann!

Many congratulations to my colleague and co-conspiritor at SCARP, Dr. Cornelia Sussmann. Cornelia finished her Ph.D. this August, unfortunately (for me!) just after my move to Amsterdam. She has been a friend, mentor, collaborator and valuable sounding board before, during, and after my Ph.D. years at SCARP.

Dr. Sussmann’s dissertation, Towards the Sustainable City: Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek, tells the compelling story of sustainable planning initiatives in a city that tops the “most livable” lists each year. Through in-depth interviews and analysis of the Southeast False Creek project goals and targets, she showed that only minimal reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and ecological footprint were achieved–quite an underachievement for a LEED-ND Platinum-rated project that won a UN Livability award. However, the City of Vancouver may have achieved important political, bureaucratic, industry and public support with this “stepping stone” project. After all, in the past three years the City has embarked on The Greenest City initiative, a comprehensive and broad-based attempt to make Vancouver the world’s greenest city by 2020. While the technical achievements of Southeast False Creek won’t impress our Professor Emeritus Dr. Bill Rees, they illustrate the messy collision of planning politics, construction and development paradigms.

Dr. Sussmann is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in a continuing collaboration with SCARP alumni Dr. Meidad Kissinger (Ben-Gurion University).

Pro-bike but anti-pedestrian?

Cycling is growing in popularity every year, even in North America, where road engineering standards are often bike-unfriendly. Even in New York City, where residents fought hard against Janette Sadik-Khan’s bike lane proposals six years ago, 66% of residents surveyed by the New York Times now feel that bike lanes are a good idea.

As most of you know, I’ve recently relocated to Amsterdam. Among the red tape and endless legwork that go along with an international move, I’ve had some time to observe the workings of this famously bike-friendly city. In the process of riding my rusted-out beater bike to and from work, I’ve picked up a few tips on cycling in Amsterdam:

Separated bike lanes and dedicated traffic signals make it a lot safer to bike in Amsterdam–that is, you’re unlikely to be hit by a car. Hence no cyclist (including the infant riding in the seat on the front of the bike) wears a helmet.
While you won’t be hit by a car, your odds of getting sideswiped by the scooters and motorcycle driving at 60km/h in your 1.5m-wide bike lane are pretty good. Remember the driving school tip on checking your blind spot before changing lanes in a car? Ditto–you need to look about 6 inches over your shoulder before turning.
There is a code of conduct among Amsterdam cyclists, e.g. occasionally giving a hand signal to indicate left turns, venturing slowly across a road if cars are nearby, timing your entry to a bike lane to merge with the 25 other cyclists.
The code of conduct is very loose; cyclists are often quite aggressive, especially when it comes to allowing pedestrians to cross the street. Most near-collisions I’ve seen have occurred between bikes and scooters or bikes and pedestrians.
It’s clear where the priorities lie–cycling paths are rarely obstructed by parked cars, garbage cans, or planters, but sidewalks often are.
Locking your bike to a rack is optional–more commonly, the back wheel is merely locked to the frame. Bikes generally stand freely in any area of the sidewalk or square, blowing over in daily wind or rainstorms, and blocking sidewalks.
Helpful bike route signs direct cyclists as they move about the city–assuming you know enough of the city’s geography to know you’re supposed to cycle in the direction of Osdorp or Station Zuid or Oosterpark.
The typical Amsterdam bike is black, rusty, and mono-gear with fenders and a chain guard. Bright colours are an advertisement: please steal my bike.
Doubling your boyfriend on the back rack or carrying your large-breed dog in the front (I hesitate to call it a ‘basket’ when ‘milk crate’ would suffice) are commonplace during a weekday commute.
An Amsterdam cyclist can perform any activity while biking: smoking, talking on a cell phone, eating a sandwich, unpacking a messenger bag, dragging a suitcase along beside them.

The city is built for reluctant cyclists like me: as one British expat told us, “The Dutch just bike to get around. They don’t necessarily enjoy it.” In a city that seems custom-built for bikes, it’s definitely the quickest and easiest way to commute, provided you have the guts to battle the scooters and motorbikes and the ability to duck quickly under an awning during sudden rain showers–as the Dutch do. Amsterdam cyclists don’t bike for fitness (smoking while biking?) As a Polish expat noted, “When I first came here and saw people biking in suits, and the women in high heels, it was as if they were going to the gym in a suit or heels. At home, biking is only associated with fitness.” With very good bus and tram service in the city (although the Dutch would disagree on this point), I suspect the major appeal of cycling in the Netherlands is its cost-effectiveness…it’s a thrifty culture!

From Vancouverite to Amsterdammer

Many of you have been following this blog over the years to read about housing, transportation, and immigration issues in Vancouver and across Canada. I’m thrilled that hundreds of you have tuned in to these stories and shared them with others. In the coming years, you will see a shift in tone. I leave Vancouver in July for a research position at the University of Amsterdam, where I will be working on a project with Dr. Luca Bertolini in the Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development.

The iTOD project is focused on the barriers to transit-oriented development in the Netherlands. While many of us in North America consider the Netherlands as an example of excellent transportation planning (cycling, walking and transit alike), there are in fact persistent governance, financial and knowledge barriers hampering TOD implementation. I’ll be working on the policy side of this project, and two other researchers will be exploring the financial barriers and knowledge transfer projects, led by Dr. Erwin van der Krabben (Radboud University Nijmegen) and Dr. Dominic Stead (Delft University of Technology).

I look forward to writing about all things Dutch in the coming months, and to exploring other European cities and countries. As a planner, international work experience and exposure to practices, tools and governance models unfamiliar to us eventually help in the development of innovative solutions to complex problems back home. I hope to write some comparative articles on the Netherlands and Canada in the coming years, which will take me back full circle to the day I first decided to apply to planning school. Dr. John Pucher at Rutgers University, who does comparative transportation research in Canada, Europe, the US and Australia, was my inspiration. I’ve been lucky to have studied and worked with some great people during my time in Vancouver’s planning scene and hope to reconnect with them in the future!

Ren Thomas

M.A., Ph.D. (Planning)