I spent three years living in Philadelphia for grad school and one of the things that I appreciated the most was its walkability. I walked and took transit everywhere. Much of this has to do with the grid system that was laid out for the city in the 17th century. But there are also lots of more recent developments that help to reinforce this fabric.
CityLab, for example, just published this article on Penn's Landing Square, which is a housing complex in Philadelphia's Society Hill neighborhood. Built in 1970 and designed by Canadian-American architect Louis Sauer, the modernist complex occupies an entire 2.37-acre block and contains an assortment of 118 low-rise homes, many of which are connected through small interior laneways.
In addition to its handsome architecture, what is noteworthy about Penn's Landing Square is that its site plan makes it quite a dense low-rise development. At 118 homes, this translates into just under 50 units per acre. CityLab estimates that this means the development holds about 174 people per acre (~412 people total), which would make it more dense than Stuyvesant Town in New York (~158 persons per acre).
However, this is based on the assumption that there are almost 3.5 people living in each of these homes. While generally large, I don't know if this is the case. It would be higher than the average US household size. But regardless, from a unit per acre standpoint, it remains a great example of dense, family-oriented, and grade-related housing.
For fun, let's compare this to a more intense form of infill development. Our Junction House project, for instance, contains 151 homes and sits on a 0.48-acre piece of land. This translates into about 315 units per acre. I don't know off hand the average number of occupants per household, but I reckon that, given our larger average suite size, we should be on the higher end compared to most mid-rise condominiums. So I would say that we are probably 400+ people per acre.
It's unfair to compare a single development to an entire neighborhood, such as Stuyvesant Town. Circulation and other open spaces will necessarily pull down your average density. But these individual development examples do speak for themselves. There are many parts of North America where you might find 1 home or a handful of homes per acre of land. At Penn's Landing Square, this number is 50 units per acre. And at Junction House, it's 315 units per acre.
Here's some recent data, via CityLab, suggesting that Americans are walking less and driving less, but killing more people when they do drive around. (The report is based on data from 2019 to 2022.)
My first reaction to these high-level findings is that they seem to make sense. This time period was the pandemic. And people were locked away at home (though I used to take some seriously long walks around downtown during this dark time).
So I don't know, I'm not sure we can conclude that walking less is truly a structural phenomenon. Similarly, I'm not sure that we can immediately conclude that cars are becoming increasingly more dangerous.
According to Wikipedia, deaths per capita, deaths per billion vehicle miles traveled, and total deaths, have all been generally declining in the US since the 1960s.
However, I do wonder if there's some sort of correlation between people walking less and car-related fatalities. The most dangerous streets, in my mind, are often the ones that don't have a lot of pedestrians.
That's why, broadly speaking, it feels safer walking around Manhattan than it does Los Angeles. So maybe less people walking is enough to trigger an increase in pedestrian fatalities.
We talk a lot about congestion charges and road pricing on this blog. Here's a list of some of those posts. I found 46 that were tagged with "road pricing."
I continue to believe that it's the only way that big cities can effectively solve the problem of traffic congestion. It's not being caused by the bicycle lanes that were just added to your street. It's not the new COVID street patios. And it's not the new apartment that was just built with too many parking spots.
The problem is mispricing.
If you want free roads, then you don't get free-flowing traffic. That's how this equation works, which is why I have always thought it a good idea to dynamically price roads based on demand, and then to direct those funds toward more efficient forms of mobility -- such as transit.
Despite all this, it's not a very popular approach in this part of the world. Toronto looked at road pricing back in 2016, but we got nervous and backed away from it. New York City has also been looking at a congestion charge for Manhattan south of 60th Street for at least 4-5 years. But this one appears to still be on the table.
According to this recent CityLab article, New York's congestion prices could look something like this (note that this chart includes other pre-existing tolls):
But with some exceptions (I think this is an interesting approach):
Primary residents of the Manhattan central business district, which is south of 60th Street, and New York State residents with adjusted gross income of less than $60,000 would be eligible for a state tax credit equal to the amount of the new tolls, paid during the taxable year.
In total, this current pricing scheme is expected to generate an additional $1 billion in annual revenue for the city's transportation authority. The MTA also plans to bond against this revenue and raise an additional $15 billion for new transit projects.
This sounds like a reasonable approach to me.