A walkable city: less parking, more trees

With the dog days of summer in full tilt, an intrepid committee of Houstonians has met for the past year to consider policies promoting “walkable places.” This mayoral committee will recommend a permitting process whereby certain neighborhoods could request ordinance exemptions to make their districts friendly to pedestrians.

The committee’s tall task is to suggest changes to the thicket of development codes that currently deem it against the rules to build pleasant, walkable neighborhoods.

In a city as hot as ours, shade from buildings and trees is one key to walkability, as the thousands of people who walk and run around Rice University or stroll through the Heights can testify. Yet government policy makes this simple amenity difficult or impossible. The result is the typical pedestrian experience in Houston — an unpleasant stroll between whizzing traffic and parked parks and smoldering parking lots, with no shade at all.

One of the biggest issues is that the city of Houston requires that new buildings be set back far from rights of way, such as roads. Faced with this unbuildable land and government diktats around parking requirements, developers naturally pave this unbuildable area. Presto, you have a strip mall that is effectively the only commercial establishment readily built in Houston. And the only place left to build a sidewalk is up against a street — hardly the most comfortable place to walk.

Houston’s streets are notorious for having unnecessary lanes and unnecessary road width, which encourages people in cars to drive faster and makes neighborhoods an even less appealing space to walk around.

That narrow avenue dedicated to walking is far from the shade of buildings and doesn’t leave enough space for shady trees. Even when Public Works leaves space for trees between sidewalks and the street, the space left is too narrow to allow the plants to thrive and grow large enough to develop a significant canopy.

With a better allocation of rights of way and space for trees between street and the sidewalk, Houston could facilitate shady walkable places that are safer for all road users, improve aesthetics, create ground permeability, improve water quality and enhance property values. These are not merely the claims of a tree hugger; they are data-driven facts.

But instead of trees, Houston builds parking. The city requires construction involve a certain amount of parking spots, no matter the location. These parking mandates pose a particular threat to the few remaining historic areas of Houston. In rapidly evolving EaDo and Houston’s East End, both areas with great walkability potential due to their historic building stock and exceptionally wide rights of way, nascent efforts are underway to hang on to architecturally interesting warehouses and former factories. However, a change of use from grandfathered occupancy permits requires knocking down the historic building next door to meet parking rules for new uses of old buildings.

Under a preliminary proposal developed by the planning department, the city would allow individual neighborhoods to apply to make their business districts into walkable places — less mandated parking, zero setbacks and perhaps a new look at street design in the future. After a certain number of property owners agree, a neighborhood could go to the city and ask to eliminate the rules that make their areas unfit for walking.

This is better than the status quo, but it still isn’t enough.

Under this convoluted logic, instead of Houston deciding that we want to make our densifying city walkable across the board, the city will decide, at its discretion, if it deigns to allow walkable areas. Needless to say, the areas that will qualify for walkable status will be those with resources and connections to apply for walkability and navigate the ensuing process. For everyone else, especially low-income Houstonians, , there are strip malls, few trees, parking lots, setbacks and hot pavement.

Our street paradigms need big changes. These changes don’t require money. We simply need the will to adapt our way of doing things. If we implement these changes, no economic or engineering disaster will befall us. Rather, we will have prettier, smarter streets where people — all people — will enjoy a higher quality of life.

Our street paradigms need big changes. These changes don’t require money.