Agenda - Planning Commission - 01/04/2018

Home

offset in the short run by demands to use (or construct) them as staging areas. Planners should also think about their design stan- dards for parking lots and garages, because when those facilities are used as staging areas, there may be a lot more in -and -out activity than in today's parking garages (where in -and -out activity tends to mirror peak traffic periods). That may mean more entrances and exits that disperse entry and exits onto more or different streets. While there has been some media cov- erage of staging areas (mostly talking about how many more AVs can occupy spaces because they could be smaller vehicles that park within inches of each other and never make a mistake), there has been little coverage about how the need for staging areas will act as a partial brake on reduced demand for parking lots and garages. Plan- ners who have not thought about demand for staging areas should think about the alternative. If AVs do not wait somewhere still during nondemand periods, they will need to move around, which will compound traffic congestion needlessly (cars moving around for no purpose) and degrade air quality (at least until the AVs are all electric and our national electric system doesn't burn fossil fuels). Surely that is a worse outcome than allowing staging areas. Site Design In addition to gradual changes in demand for parking, the introduction of a mixed fleet of AVs may have a fairly significant impact on site design. Just as Uber and Lyft can pick up and drop off customers exactly where they want, AVs operated by mobility systems wilt do the same —or they will try to. One of the earliest impacts of AVs may be increased demand for on -site drop-off and pick-up areas. Today, most zoning codes only require drop-off/pick-up areas for specific uses. At the top of that list are hotels, because the level of drop-off/pick-up activity is high. Somewhere near the top of the list are child care facilities, because we think young children probably should not be dropped off on the street if that can be avoided. Sometimes they are required for nursing care or elderly care facilities, on the assumption that our elderly also should be treated a little better than dropping them off on the street. Sometimes large facilities like hospitals, auditoriums, and educational facilities are included. However, few zoning ordinances require drop-off/pick-up locations for office buildings, street -oriented retail, restaurants, multifamily residences, mixed use buildings, and the vast majority of other land uses. Today, most of that activ- ity takes place on the street. The dramatic increase in drop-off/pick-up activity by systems like Lyft and Uber is already noticeable, and when we use those ser- vices we sometimes think "Hmm, where can I stand where the car can both see me and pull over to pick me up?" It is unlikely that the dramatic increase in drop-off/pick-up activity that will accom- pany both system -owned and individually owned AVs can be accommodated within the street right-of-way (more about that later) without potentially significant impacts on traffic congestion and pedes- trian safety. So planners should think about what types of additional facilities (or maybe just large ones) will be needed for drop-off/ pick-up areas in the future. White they're at it, planners should think about how those areas can be designed to minimize conflicts with bicycle and pedestrian traffic. A curbside drop-off/pick-up zone for on -demand ride services. The Edge of the Street While the introduction of AVs may have significant impacts on street design, most zoning ordinances do not deal directly with design of through -traffic lanes (or they share that turf with engineering manuals approved by the public works department). But zoning ordinances do frequently regu- late streetscapes and the "public realm" between building frontages and the through traffic lanes (i.e., the edge of the street, where the demands of urban design meet the demands of traffic management). In addition to requiring additional on -site pick-up/drop-off areas, the introduction of AVs will increase demands for on -street drop-off/pick-up areas. In fact, the on -street impacts may be felt earlier, since drop-offs at existing buildings that do not have an on -site area will have to occur in the street. That may result in pressure to convert some of our current on -street parking spaces to drop-off/pick-up areas so that the AVs do not block traffic while on -boarding or off- loading humans. In a perfect world, the demand for on - street parking spaces would fall exactly as much as the demand for on -street drop-off/ pick-up areas rises, so the problem would solve itself. The city would just have to moni- tor the changing use and mark spaces or take out parking meters to reflect that changing demand. However, in the real world those miracle alignments of competing demands happen rarely, so planners should be think- ing about how to accommodate increased on -street drop-offs and pickups. All of this assumes that the issue arises on streets that currently provide on -street parking. If they occur on streets without on - street parking, then there may be pressure to create drop-off/pick-up areas out of areas currently occupied by trees, lawns, street furniture, patios, or other types of pedes- trian -friendly urban amenities that many planners have been trying to promote. That may lead to prohibitions on AV drop-offs and pickups along some street segments. In addition, planners should note the potential tension between the need for more on -street drop-offs and pickups and the goals of many complete streets programs. At the same time, we are trying to reinvent streets to allow more room for bicycles, pedestrians, and sometimes buffers between different modes of travel, so there ZONINGPRACTICE 12.17 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I pages