Tag Archives: Peter Calthorpe

Common Sense Opeds, Land Development, SunTrain

All aboard! The future…

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Published Marin IJ Wednesday May 15, 1996

Traffic in Marin:  Where do we go now?

Opinion  Marin independent Journal

 All aboard!  The future won’t wait

Dwayne Hunn

In the late 1970s, Peter Calthorpe was an associate of State Architect to-be Sim Van der Ryn, working to establish a Solar Village at Hamilton Air Force Base.   By the 1980s, Peter was on his own, preaching development Pedestrian Pocket communities where people could walk to and from parks, schools, work places and transit options other than the car nestled in suburbia’s omnipresent garage.

Pedestrian Pockets offered the opportunity to develop the community that ethnic neighborhoods of the 40’s and 50’s and Peter Calthorpe’s Sausalito houseboat neighbors had.  Unfortunately, Marin’s presumed environmentalists — and the power structure they supported, wouldn’t listen to concepts that allowed clustered communities of affordable housing to be built on at least 13+ large parcels that then laid adjacent to Marin and Sonoma’s Northwest Pacific Right of Way.

For years, few seemed to pay attention to Calthorpe’s rejuvenated concept or to pay for his services.  Luckily, his Berkeley students helped keep him going until the rest of the country realized the good sense of Pedestrian Pockets and paid him to do them.

In a shrinking world where our lifestyle consumes more than its proportional share, and our lack of community produces an abundance of dysfunctional acts, Pedestrian Pockets design part of the needed solutions.

In 1991 Peter was the keynote speaker for the region’s first Land Use and Transportation Conference sponsored by North Bay Transportation & Management Association, the first such association in Northern California.  Twenty regional leaders participated in the all day conference, where 400 listened and participated with the panels.

On Saturday, a similar conference will be held with Phil Erickson of Calthorpe & Associates serving as a keynote speaker.  Phil will report on a study that Peter has tried to fund for 20 years — a Sonoma/Marin transportation and land-use study.    Twenty years ago those 13+ large parcels were less fettered, with planned or existing expensive suburban sprawl homes entwined amid a morass of costly curbs, gutters and dead end streets.

But it is better late than never for Marin and Sonoma counties to use their remaining land to support uses that enhance the environment through more sustainable developments that allow for beneficial reuse of the rail line with passenger and freight traffic.

Thanks to narrow-minded planning, Marin rates at the bottom of the Bay Region’s nine county list when its labor market independence is ranked.  In Marin, 70 percent of county workers live here versus Sonoma’s comparable 94 percent.  In Marin, 59 percent of employed county residents work here versus Sonoma’s comparable 82 percent.   In Marin’s construction transportation, communications and public utilities industries, inbound-commutes hover near 50 percent versus Sonoma’s 10 percent.

Let’s hope Marin will waste no more time in providing land uses that will help make the rail line more economically viable. Even before Pedestrian Pockets are built, the existing rail line can help reduce environmental impacts.  Consider:

  • As development moves forward on Bel Marin Keys, Hamilton Field and St. Vincent/Silveira, wouldn’t it be more environmentally beneficial to import needed fill and building materials by train rather than by road hammering, pollution belching trucks?

And when you consider how much more fuel efficient trains are than cars, and how they, too, add to community building:

  • Wouldn’t Marin’s true environmentalists want to start setting the environmental and community standards for other parts of the country that have the same opportunity we have?

Dwayne Hunn, who lives in Mill valley, was Executive Director of the North Bay TMA and now works on land use, transportation and political issues as well as with Excel Telecommunications.

 

Land Development, SunTrain

Pedestrian Pockets II

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Mill Valley Herald  April 7–13, 1993
Dwayne Hunn

Last week’s interview with Architect Peter Calthorpe touched on some of the economic consequences of short-sighted land use policy. This column touches on some political and policy problems.

We have no technological problems with providing the answers. Architects and engineers can design cost efficient housing and transit solutions. Build it and they will comeapplies as well to the heavy on the brown mustard, hot dog eating baseball fan, as to the American desiring enjoyable and affordable housing and transportation. The snobbish estate dweller, however, doesn’t want one blade of grass touched in his Fields of Green to allow Joe Sixpack to live nearby.

Houseboat liver Calthorpe’s architectural work hinges on the belief that:

“We need to design communities and housing for a more diverse cross section. We need to think about affordability in terms of transportation as well as mortgage and rental costs. This all adds up to design that is more integrated– mixed-use, walkable communities where every trip doesn’t have to be in an automobile.”

This week’s column refers to the decade long 101 Corridor Study Plan which, wounded from its Transit Tax defeat in 1990, stumbles along. That plan concluded that Rail/Highway & Bus/Highway transit alternatives would yield the most effective transit solutions for Marin and Sonoma counties.

Rail and Pedestrian Pocket developments offer an invigorating symbiotic mix for what ails our nation today. The diversity and self-sufficiency offered in Pedestrian Pockets is given environmentally sound travel mobility when built adjacent to a rail line. Being able to move from one PP to another, or to a shopping center while viewing patches of open space in between, or to work in the big city–offers economy, free time and pleasure– three gifts lacking when strapped behind a freeway wheel.

 What hinders Pedestrian Pockets implementation?

Main hindrance is inertia. Inertia of: existing zoning regulations, existing vested land use designations, a financial community which feels safest repeating last year’s products, and developers who only want to deal with their isolated site rather. than regional concerns. And, quite honestly, the inertia of envinonnienta1ists who see their role in resisting any development rather than defining and advocating an ecological pattern of growth for an entire region.

The sum total of this inertia is what propels a pattern of growth which we know is bad for the environment, costly to communities, individually and socially stressful, and quite frankly, esthetically repugnant to most. But we do it anyway.

How do PPs fit with the 101 Corridor Committee’s two preferred alternatives — Rail/Highway and Bus/Highway?

A difficult question. I believe ultimately a healthy pattern of growth for a region will require and sustain light rail. If the BART study’s 40% utilization can be generated by PPs, this demand could only be satisfied by light rail. But it is a bit of the chicken and egg problem — how do we get there from here? If PPs are built without light rail, they would generate too much auto traffic. Without PPs, light rail would have a very low ridership and need to be heavily subsidized.

It is the transition time that is tricky. One scenario would use the right-of-way for express buses and carpools while the PPs are developing. When they mature and the ridership is high, a light rail should be installed. The danger, of course, is that it would never be installed and the pressures to turn the bus way into an auto expressway would be great. Although less efficient in the short run, I favor the light rail as a way of committing our growth to this compact transit oriented future configuration.

If we look 20-30 years down the road, we know we have to make such an investment. Even though it seems expensive now, it will be just more expensive later. I recently read that the CEO of Exxon expected to be out of the oil business by 2010 because US oil reserves would be depleted by then. We must plan our communities with that perspective in mind.

 How much of Marin and Sonoma’s projected population do you believe could be housed in PPs?

Anywhere from 50-70% of the Association of Bay Area Governments’ projections could fit in viable sites for both counties. The numbers are much lower for Marin because we have only a few viable sites left. Sonoma, however, has a great capacity for this type of development. The Marin sites along the North West Pacific right-of-way are limited by their adjacency to wetlands. Sonoma really doesn’t have this limitation north of Petaluma.

So the concept is not to eliminate all of our single family subdivisions and office parks, but merely to create a land use pattern that offers an alternative to people in businesses seeking more convenient accessibility and more affordable options.

Does Marin still have time to do this?

Unfortunately, in Marin these sites are dropping by the wayside as they develop oriented toward the freeway or lower density single use activities. The fabric of these developments should be diverse–townhouses, condos, elderly and young, in-law and rental units. We don’t need to build isolated, segregated apartment blocks. We should be integrating our needs for private ownership with the need for affordable rental, housing for elderly and college students by allowing in-law apartments in our communities.

Mixed-use zones, where you have jobs and retail, must be the center these developments. Our current land use policies segregate our land uses, we must get away from that. Diversity is the idea. Ground floor  retail. Second floor apartments.

Most popular office parks are now integrating retail and services. In the East Bay a lot of the areas that are being focused toward carpooling understand that if they want people to carpool they have to create a pedestrian environment for their mid-day and afternoon trips.

 

Common Sense Opeds, Land Development

Interviewing Angelo Siracusa — Bay Area Council boss

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Marinscope / Mill Valley Herald  March 29–April 4, 1993
 Dwayne Hunn

In 1966 he began working for the Bay Area Council (BAC). Today he runs it. In 1973 he moved to Sausalito, and his Berkeley girlfriend followed. In 1983 Angelo and Diana Siracusa bought their Hawk Hill home overlooking Tam Junction.

If you enjoy an engaging speaker who pulls few punches and knows his subject, listen to him when you can. Until then, read this.

What does the Bay Area Council do?

BAC is a business supported membership organization that engages in public policy issues that have an economic and social dimension. We are involved in housing, transportation, job training, economic development and growth management.

Our economic perspective is through the eyes of business so some in the environmental community dispute whether we act in the public interest. We believe we do. Housing affordability, for example, is a public interest issue, effecting peoples’ livelihood as well as corporate location and business expansion.

How has BAC’s agenda changed over the last 20 to 30 years?

Oddly, not very much. When the Council was first formed almost 50 years ago, we were almost exclusively an economic development, growth-oriented organization concerned about promoting post-war growth.

For the past 20 years we have been close to the stuff that is affected by and affects land use. For a while, when the Association of Bay Area Governments was doing the Bay Area Management Plan, we were more deeply involved in environmental questions. We are now in environmental issues largely because of the relationship between air quality and transportation.

Oddly enough, almost 20 years ago we were deeply involved in regional planning when then Assemblyman Jack Knox introduced regional planning and governance bills. Now they are back at the top of our agenda. Recently, we were significantly involved in the development and legislative work of SB 797 which would have created a regional growth management for the Bay Area.

Prior to the 1962 ballot election on whether to issue $792 million to construct 75 miles of the BART system, San Mateo and Marin dropped out. Why did Marin drop out?

Marin dropped out for the same reason Marin resists transportation today. They thought transit would be growth inducing.

They may have hid under the argument of the Golden Gate Bridge’s inadequate engineering capacity to handle fixed rail, but the real reason was the attitude that exists today. That is Marin doesn’t want a transit system that would generate what transit systems should generate–higher density development close to transportation corridors.

How would BART or a light rail system through the North Bay effect land use?

Tough to say. When we were first thinking about BART in the Bay Area, the Mayor of Toronto gave us a presentation showing how well theirs works. His slide presentation showed clusters of high density activity around their subway stations. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on where you stand, Toronto has a metropolitan system that was able to force not just transit decisions but related land use decisions. We don’t have that in the Bay Area. Here a city or a county can say, “Even though there’s a transit station here, we don’t want to change the land patterns.” The transit station’s existence should promote development there. Instead, the will of the local government too often stymies that sensible land use.

Do you think increased rail systems development would increase the development of Sausalito architect Peter Calthorpe’s Pedestrian Pockets?

Calthorpe’s PPs is really founded on the notion that you can get a home to work environment. A jobs-housing balance creates less of a necessity for either highways or transit. Therefore, I don’t see a necessary causal relationship between PPs and transit.

The Calthorpe idea, which I strongly endorse, is “let’s create a physical, psychological and economic environment where a person can and will want to live and work in the same general area.” That “will want to” is very important.

What’s one thing you’d like Marinites to think more deeply about?

Their narrow view of their own self interest. We all want open space next to us and less traffic. It’s part of our view of quality of life. Yet that can be a very narrow, parochial, selfish view. Marin is the worse example of that.

Marin’s density pattern is appallingly low. Density can be good for the environment — although others will disagree. There is nothing wrong with protecting the dairy lands of West Marin, but I don’t buy anti-development arguments surrounding Hamilton Field or Silvera (Ranch). We need to have the jobs-housing balance that sensible development at those sites can provide.

I’m unhappy with Marin’s extreme NIM­BYism. Yet I can understand it. All of us believe that our view of the environment is the world view of the environment, but Marin’s predominant view isn’t environmentalism. It’s extreme NIMBYism.

Do you think the 11 cities in Marin have dif­ferent attitudes regarding these problems?

No doubt about it. The political philosophies of southern and northern Marin are terribly dif­ferent. As it turns out, NIMBYism happens to transcend political philosophy. Even conservatives who love the market place and property rights can be as exclusionary as extreme environmentalists. So while they are different, it’s as difficult to get things done in Novato as in Mill Valley.

When you are on the social circuit, maybe at Marin parties, are you…

I’m the outcast. Yeah, I’m not too popular.  A lot of people think I state my beliefs with respect to other communities but not Mill Valley. My beliefs are also true for Mill Valley. We should develop different kinds of density patterns even in my hometown.

Somebody wanted to build a home in my neighborhood, and somebody else passed a peti­tion to not allow it. I testified on behalf of the developer. Not because I liked the developer, but because that person had a right to build there. An infrastructure existed. Homes were already there. Development did not change the character of the community.

Could hearing characters like Angelo Siracusa improve Marin or just hurt the gray stuff between exclusive ears?

Land Development

Neighborhoods at St.Vincent’s-Silveira?

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Mill Valley Herald  March 29–April 4, 1993

Meanderings  by Dwayne Hunn, 

Final interview series on Pedestrian Pockets.

 If you are interested in various Pedestrian Pocket designs, visit St. Vincent’s Design competition on display through April, sponsored to provide the city with development ideas on one of Marin’s most significant remaining pieces of land.

Eight years ago Peter Calthorpe’s business was struggling. He was struggling to get people to listen and build the old fashioned way—with neighborhoods embedded in Pedestrian Pockets (PP). Remember the neighborhoods—playing in the street, biking to a neighborhood park, returning a coke bottle to the Mom and Pop store—for pennies or a stick of licorice?

Sometimes the best quality of changing, growing, adapting is in returning us to where we began. In a shrinking world where ideas, change, competition and dollars fly ever faster, shortsightedness and political selfishness can damn a nation’s development if her most basic resource—land—is used wastefully.

Today Calthorpe continually appears in print and has appeared on network nightly news. His Sacramento Laguna West Development, about 1,000 acres for 10,000 residents with bungalows from $20,000 to custom homes at $400,000, is the nation’s largest Pedestrian Pocket. Nonetheless, not enough people understand the importance inherent in moving the political process that stymies this common sense land use approach which fosters economic security and a healthier life.

At least, however the idea of community centered development woven together by narrow streets, front porches, easily identifiable civic buildings and walkable thoroughfares has moved beyond idealized discussion into market reality. Even housing market analyst and owner of Market Perspectives, John Schleimer, reversed his critical PP market beliefs based on the results of his survey of 619 homeowners at Laguna West and three other “neo-traditional” neighborhoods in Florida, Washington D.C. and Memphis. Those homeowners were willing to pay a “premium” because they felt their homes would appreciate more than the traditional suburban neighborhood.

Here in Marin it remains to be seen whether the debate over the need for Pedestrian Pocket development reaches the level of sense. Marin’s environmental movement, long controlled by a handful of politically astute, so-called environmentalists, has been opposed to PPs. If some fresh thinkers, concerned about community, affordability and environmental sensitivity ever get into the inner sanctums of these organizations, an interesting debate over true environmental issues might ensue.

Are PPs working anywhere else?

They work all over Europe where the traditional towns are mixed use communities in which rail transportation provides a healthy alternative to auto use. In Canada there are regions that have directed growth into transit oriented communities. In Marin, prior to the Golden Gate Bridge construction, we had many fine models that grew around rail stops. These town centers, such as Mill Valley, are among the most desirable places to live because of their mixed-use qualities.

If you were a planner in charge of the remaining land in Sonoma and Marin, what would you have cities, counties and developers do?

Zone for mixed use growth along the North West Pacific rail corridor. In some cases, this would merely mean transferring development rights from one part of a site to another.

For example, take the St. Vincent site. Presently San Rafael has St. Vincent’s thousand acres zoned for low density housing spread over a large portion of that land, along with some commercial uses. This development could be clustered into a 100 acre of mixed-use adjacent to the rail line leaving the wetlands and beautiful rolling hills as open space. None of the development would be visible from the freeway. The community would gain valuable open space, transit ridership would be reinforced and the land owner would still be allowed a reasonable level of return for his property.

    Some environmentalists fear that PPs development and rail transit may impact the wetlands. What is your response?

The wetland areas are critical issues mainly in northern Marin and south Petaluma. Much of the rail corridor is to the north as will be much of the growth. Therefore a lot of the PP development should take place in areas away from the wetlands.

In Marin there are few viable sites for PPs. In these sites development in the wetlands should be avoided. Once again, clustered development would provide the means to preserve the open space permanently by exchanging the development rights in the pocket for permanent open space easements on the wetlands and other important open space areas.

What is needed to move the PP concept to the next stage?

Some model PPs that the environmental and financial community can look at and judge. We are now working on opportunities along the new rail line in San Jose and in Sacramento. If these are built they would generate the concept and test its results. These two cities with their existing light rail systems are in an advanced position to test the idea.

In Marin and Sonoma the next step must be for the 101 Corridor Committee to study a transit option which forces transit oriented land uses. If such a study proves the case, we would have the basis for moving ahead with financing for transit and land use studies in each county and municipality. But such a regional unifying study has to be a prerequisite.

Land Development

Pedestrian pockets

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Mill Valley Herald  March 15–21, 1993

Meandering by Dwayne Hunn

This Is the first of a series, of columns on land use and transit problems facIng the North Bay, as well as the nation. Whether you live In San Rafael, Novato, Ross, Mill Valley or a big city, the way we use our most basic resource–the land– affects you, your loved ones and the environment. If you have comments, address them to Letters to the Editor or to the columnist.

 Across much of our nation short-sighted land use and transit planning burdens us with traffic congestion and longer commutes. In a failing economy, when the. full cost of car ownership is added to the cost of insufficient affordable housing not dependent on a car for work, the sum soon adds homeless, cardboard shacks and Safeway carts to the streets.

With one clogged artery running through its verdant body. Maria County frustrates workers pumping the North Bay’s economic life blood. With its penchant for downzoning developments to allow only pricey estates, Marin has a dearth of affordable housing. Each feeds off the other, sapping the diversity that provides quality and economic security to life.

Like the human body, what you put into the region’s body determines Its health. As one of the richest counties in the world, Marin fools itself by believing only exclusive estates and lack of diversity make a healthy economy.

Answers exist. Answer-givers live in our backyards. But politics and lack of visionary leadership, keep the answers out of town.

Sausalito architect Peter Calthorpe has been offering us an answer for more than 10 years, yet Marin politics has stopped him from doing a Pedestrian Pocket answer In his backyard. Recognized nationally, he is one of the members of the St. Vincent’s-Silveira Design Competition Review Board, which is looking across the nation for land use answers for one of Marine most significant pieces of land.

Marinites concerned about traffic, the environment and a jobs-housing balance should know the. benefits of Pedestrian Pocket development. The next three columns as. drawn from updated Interviews I did with Peter Calthorpe for our North Bay Transportation Management Association’s 1990 Land Use Conference.

What are Pedestrian Pockets?

 A simple and old strategy that builds communities around a mix of jobs,  housing and recreational activities. Our traditional towns were designed around pedestrians to provide a mix of walking, biking, mass transit, auto use and recreation. Recreating that mix Is the goal of pedestrian pockets. Beyond transportation, however, the goal of the pedestrian pocket (PP) concept is to cluster development and thereby save valuable open space and environmentally sensitive lands.

Hand in hand with transportation and land use objectives rides the Issue of affordability In housing end its corollary – a healthy regional economy. it has been shown time and time again — regions which do not balance jobs with appropriate and affordable housing lose their economic base. The loss occurs In both public services and in overall market place activity. Pedestrian pockets go a long way toward creating diversity and opportunity for affordable housing by creating more affordable life styles, as well as by reducing housing development casts.

PP’s three goals are: 1) support alternative transportation without denylng  the car; 2) cluster development to preserve open space/ag land and sensitive areas; 3) provide a development pattern which Is efficient and, thereby, affordable to a, broader range of citizens.

Physically, the PP is bounded by a .not-so-arbitrary 1/4 mille walking radius from the town’ center, which should include neighborhood retail, jobs and a transit station. Within the 14 mile, which is equivalent to about 100 acres of land, there could be 1,000 to 2,000 units of housing and up to 3,000 jobs. Beyond the simple mix and clustering of activities Is a critical design factor– design for the pedestrian.

In most of our suburban growth we seemed to have lost the talent for designing spaces, streets and plazas which are comfortable and enjoyable to walk in. It Is not enough to just have a destination within walking range. We must also begin to rediscover the scale and quality of our traditional pedestrian world. For example, a store or transit stop may be within walking distance, but if you have to cross a four-lane arterial and acres of parking to get there few people take the trouble. Therefore, the essential ingredient for a PP becomes a mix of uses and activities that results In a highly refined pedestrian environment. This pedestrian environment must also allow for free access of the auto in all areas.

Why did you develop the Pedestrian Pocket idea for the NWP right-of-way?

I had been working on the concept of ecological and sustainable communities for many years. Its so doing, It became apparent to me that no matter how efficiently or ecologically Isolated communities or stand-alone towns were designed, they would fail because It was unlikely that people would live and work in the same place.  So it occurred to me that we needed  a corridor of sustainable communities that were linked, so that people could get from one to the other without having to use their car. The North West Pacific right-of-way offered such an opportunity.

A very important study just completed on BART has documented that 40 percent of people who live and work within five minutes walking distances of a BART station, use BART. Only I percent of those who live outside of that five minute walking radius use BART. This Is significant because BART stations are not even designed to be walked to. They are designed for the car.

In a Pedestrian Pocket one may have 3,000 job opportunities, but if the NWP right-of-way were developed with a series of PP’s, one could have 60,000 job opportunities within walking distance of the transit line. Those numbers allow one to conclude that transit would become usable and convenient. So the guiding block of the concept has to be a transit corridor.

 What’s the benefit of PPs to Marin and Sonoma?

 Benefit would include: reduced traffic on 101, land use patterns would support and make viable a mass transit system, the preserving of open space and the opportunity to provide more affordable housing and more desirable job location. It’s becoming apparent that many businesses would rather locate in mixed use areas than in isolated office parks. They understand that areas In which people can walk for their midday errands are desirable. They also understand that a region which has a good balance between affordable housing and jobs provides them a better work force.

 

Land Development

Rail/Highway alternative best with development “pockets’

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News Pointer September 7-13, 1988

One point of view

DWAYNE  HUNN Community Contributor

The 101 Corridor Commit­tee has been meeting since 1986. It is now finalizing cost estimates for either rail/highway or bus/ highway construction that will take the 101 corridor into the 21st century. Their consultants’ esti­mates show rail/highway having higher capital but lower operat­ing costs. The bus/highway has lower capital but higher operating costs. The result is that both are estimated to cost about $1 billion dollars. That money could be obtained by ratifying a 1 cent sales tax in Marin and a 1/2 cent sales tax in Sonoma.

Chief consultant to the 101 Corridor Study, Bob Harrison, succinctly sums up years of research and discussion when he says, “The costs are about the same. What’s important is how you want the corridor to develop In the future.”

Three reasons make me hope the train/highway option is our choice.

1) By continuing to over-rely on the automobile, America dis­regards good logic that tells us to not rely on Middle East oil and to seriously begin dealing with our atmospheric degradation., Car­bon dioxide produced by the in­ternal combustion engine is one of the big villains in destroying our ozone level.

2)America should lead, not be led, in the high tech manufac­turing areas of the 21st century. The United States not just, Japan, France and Disneyland, ought to be noted for effective, efficient long-lasting trains..

3) Marin is one of America’s most beautiful counties. From almost anywhere in the county, one can ride his/her bike for five minutes and be in open space agricultural reserve or a national park. Only a little of the 19% of land that can be developed re­mains to be developed, and much of that land lies adjacent to the101 right-of-way and just hap­pens to butt up to the North West Pacific right-of-way. Already apartments, business centers, and residential units are planned along the eastern side of Marin’s portion of the 101 corridor that runs from San Rafael to points further north.

Many argue that we should stop all that development. In America that means buying the land at fair market value, which is not feasible. Many argue that we should downzone what is pro­posed — reducing tax revenues for the involved cities and forcing the prices of the allowable homes up even higher. This produces
more suburban sprawl and con­tinues our over-reliance on the automobile.
Hopefully, Marin will not be burdened with years of debates and delaying tactics over how the eastern portion of 101 should be developed, it only delays the needed tax revenues, allows pro­ject costs to escalate and continues the inefficiencies that long commutes promote.

What is planned by devel­opers of the eastern portion of 101 are a series of development “pockets.” Can this develop­ment movement be joined Into something that is positive for all concerned?

Yes, with some coordina­tion. These pockets could be developed in a Mariner that would fall within the efficient land use patterns that are propos­ed by Sausalito architect Peter’ Calthorpe in his “Pedestrian Pockets.” Such development could also serve as the start for pocket developments all the way up the existing railroad line.

Calthorpe’s “Pedestrian Pockets” call for dense, mixed use development within a 1/4 mile of the railroad right-of-way with, large open spaces surrounding the development. A series of such developments through Marin and Sonoma’ would allow increased opportunities for people to live and~ work at one of the mini-neighborhood pockets. This would increase the likelihood that they would hop a train to go to and from work, as well as to shop and socialize. The proposal Is so logical, efficient and sensible that it is bound to cause debates, ar­guments and lost opportunities.

Dwayne Hunn is a member of the Board of Directors of the Canal Community Alliance and’ is Assistant Executive Director of Novato Ecumenical Housing.