Black Friday Parking 2024: BR 151

They were there for the deals at the Marion Wal-Mart

Even frigid temperatures could not deter this devotee of #BlackFridayParking, Strong Towns' annual photographic survey of excess parking. Cultural devotion to ensuring drivers have an easy (and free or cheap) time storing the cars wherever they go has created a profligate use of land. Case in point: I went to a bar with some coworkers the day before Thanksgiving. It's a small building, 1800 square feet. Do you know how many parking spaces would fit in that building? Ten. That's all. So you can just imagine how many alternative uses we're foregoing with just one single megaparking lot.

Northwest section of the lot, 9 a.m.

This year's observance of #blackfridayparking took me to the Wal-Mart at the edge of Marion, or what used to be the edge of Marion, at the intersection of US151 and SR13. Built in 2005, it is the most newest of our metro's three Super Centers. There were a lot of people shopping there, and a lot of cars parked, and yet, as busy as it was, huge swaths of the lot went unoccupied. I'd guesstimate it might have been 55 percent full.

View from McDonald's

Northeast edge

Marion has grown quickly, more than doubling its population since 1990. More recently they have reconfigured traffic to enhance their Uptown area, and are engaged in writing a comprehensive plan for the next 25 years. For thirty years, though, their growth was an explosion of suburban development, much of it along Business Route 151, which runs from this intersection through the center of town into Cedar Rapids, where it becomes 1st Avenue East. So for about two miles, it seems like the edge of town, because the edge has moved ever-outward as the town has grown.

Hy-Vee Grocery Store, 3600 10th Avenue.
Maybe 75 percent full at 9:30 a.m.

Average daily traffic counts along this stretch are 16700 across 151/13, 13000 above 50th St, 11700 between 50th and 44th, and 14400 between 44th and 35th; after a roundabout routes traffic onto 6th Avenue, 7th Avenue still carries 5600 approaching 26th Street.

Auto-Zone, 1055 Linden Drive.
Last picture I took before my camera rebelled.

I walked along BR 151 to a coffee appointment in Uptown. It really gives you a sense of how human scale is lost in auto-centric development, in that I could walk five minutes and feel as though I was getting nowhere. It's difficult to convey in photographs, particularly since my phone rebelled against the cold at this point--it was about 15 degrees, and windy--and refused to come out of its shell until we were safely inside the coffee shop. 

Best I could do: Google Earth screenshot
looking east from 31st Street

As Marion undertakes its new comprehensive plan, they may or may not try to diversify this route. There certainly is a lot of parking along the way...

Screenshot from Marion 2045 page,
showing 26th to 44th Streets

Screenshot from Marion 2045 page,
showing area around Wal-Mart and 151/13 intersection

...which arguably is a bigger issue than whatever's going on at Wal-Mart.

Spending land that could be productive and interesting on parking lots seems irrational to me. But so does waiting ten cars deep at a drive through, and I saw that at both Starbucks and Dunkin today. So do all the people huddled under blankets in the long line outside Da Bin consignment store. There is clearly much I don't understand, which keeps your humble blogger extra-humble.

SEE ALSO

"Marion 2045," Marion comprehensive plan page

"Uptown Marion Parking Study" (May 2024)

"Black Friday Parking 2024: Mount Vernon Road," 24 November 2024 [last year's observance]

"Black Friday Parking 2019," 29 November 2019 [last time I surveyed Marion]

Metro housing update

 

(L to R) Jennifer Pratt, Pat Parsley, Kim Downs, Drew Retz

My friend Eric Gutschmidt is fond of saying "You can't build a $100,000 house." That unpleasant reality underlay the lively discussion of housing issues Tuesday morning at the Gazette Business Breakfast in the Geonetric Building cafeteria. Various subjects fell into three major topic areas: supply, price, and neighborhood context.

Supply

Kim Downs, deputy city manager for the City of Marion, described slow progress on a variety of housing needs. She cited a need for multi- and single family housing at all price points, a need echoed by the other panelists. Pat Parsley, community development director for the City of Hiawatha, cited a 2020 housing study showing a particular shortage of rental housing, which has spurred development of 200 units built since then.

All three towns are actively building, with the assistance of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding as well as derecho recovery funds. Jennifer Pratt, community development director for the City of Cedar Rapids, reported five multifamily units underway, and previewed a program ("Roots 2.0") that will build 76 houses in the 2008 flood zone that will sell for $175,000; she also noted "growth corridors" in the northeast quadrant (mostly single-family) and to the south near the College Community School District megacampus. Hiawatha touted their first multifamily development in ten years and first senior living facility ever, to be located in their emerging Boyson Road complex. Marion mentioned the rehabilitation of the former First United Methodist Church downtown as well as an "aging-in-place" development east of Route 13 with options for all ages.

An audience member asked about the demand for all this new housing. Unfortunately, she drowned her own question in a sea of unrelated issues, so it never got properly answered. What is the occupancy rate of recently-constructed apartments? What is the evidence (besides the existence of regular housing surveys) that we are under-supplied? Drew Retz, vice president of Jerry's Homes, said that he knew anecdotally that some of their customers have moved from out of state to take jobs, and that their houses were occupied upon construction.

Price

Only two factors in housing inflation were considered: high interest rates and regulatory compliance costs. The Federal Reserve Board is maintaining the prime lending rate, from which all other interest rates derive, at a historically high 5.25-5.5 percent, at least for now (Lee and Heuer 2024). Rates were raised to combat inflation resulting from coronavirus pandemic disruptions to the economy, and thus represent a temporary if powerful factor in raising housing prices. Kim Downs said interest rates were driving potential homebuyers into the rental market, and inspiring homeowners to convert all or part of their houses to rent. To me that suggests these individuals are deferring their long-term purchases, rather than buying a smaller cheaper house now. When they come back into the market in the next few years, that will have an interesting effect on demand and hence on prices. 

Drew Retz cited an estimate, which no one contradicted, that 25 percent of the cost of new housing is due to government regulation, and that it thereby takes about 18 months to build anything, implying (probably accurately) that price reduction was within the power of the cities, should they choose to use it. The city people all said they were working on streamlining the approval process to make it faster and more predictable, but even Pat Parsley from "developer friendly" Hiawatha allowed they also had a duty to the public to make sure the streets, trees, and such were done for the benefit of the public. (Streets "wide enough?" If developers want to build 16 foot streets, let 'em, I say.)

Retz made another point that's worth considering; Houses are built and sold by private businesses that need/expect a return on their investment, one that exceeds the return on financial instruments that don't require strenuous physical work. If buyers expect "everything," and cities are both willing to add to the cost with regulation and to subsidize some of the cost with public funds, what winds up being the right price? We seem to have lost the market price signals that could answer that question. Why wouldn't I want a big house with a big yard on a wide tree-lined street, a street that is plowed quickly after a snowstorm, located at an insulating distance from the madding crowd, yet near enough to parks and schools, if I didn't recognize that all of these have costs that must be borne by someone if not me? That's what my parents had!

We have difficulty, in both the private and public realms, talking about who pays for social costs not borne by the buyer or seller (known in the biz as "market failures"). Spreading out as we have done for two or three generations creates financial burdens for communities as well as environmental strains and all the problems attendant to car dependency. More demand raises the price of anything--that's simple economics, but problematic if we also consider a good like housing to be a necessary human right. These are awkward and unpleasant subjects to be broached in most spaces, and they were not broached on Tuesday.

Neighborhood Context

Social subjects did sneak in when the panel discussed "neighborhoods." Jennifer Pratt said Cedar Rapids is looking for "complete neighborhoods" as described in the 2015 plan EnvisionCR and subsequent updates. The adjective "healthy" was also used with respect to this, leading an audience member to ask what was meant by a healthy neighborhood. Pat Parsley defined it as a diversity of housing options, mixing uses within a walkable area (a radius of about one mile); such nodes are being built in his town of Hiawatha. Jennifer Pratt added that the cities also need to be mindful of what the market is looking for, which might include single use subdivisions.

Dorothy DeSouza Guedes of the Oak Hill Jackson Neighborhood Association, which has seen a great deal of development since the 2008 flood wiped out a huge swath of it, asked if current residents could be engaged earlier in the development process. Consultation with the neighborhood is required by law, but large developers in particular have the reputation of doing the minimum so late that it's ineffective. Yet residents have reputations, too. They surely have an essential voice in development of their own neighborhood, but too often they have exercised or tried to exercise veto power over beneficial development. 

Neighborhood, in other words, is a slippery concept. I have no problem with people living in whatever type of neighborhood they wish, as long as they're willing to pay the social costs, and as long as there's room left for everybody else to live as well. This is maybe a more difficult discussion than we were ready for Tuesday.

The Gazette Business Breakfast series next moves to Iowa City in April for a discussion of state and local taxes.

SEE ALSO: "New Data on Housing Prices," 23 January 2024

Cycling to Marion

 

Uptown is a coffee shop by day, a bar by night,
and never disappoints

In a couple years, cycling from Cedar Rapids to Marion will be as easy as floating on the breeze, because construction of the CeMar Trail will have been finished, creating a loop between the two towns. Even waiting one year will get you completion of the missing link on the Grant Wood Trail between the Nature Trail and Council Street.

But I was ready last week, and noting the summer fast ebbing away, I rode the Cedar Valley Nature Trail as far north as 51st Street, then straight east--mostly on the Grant Wood Trail--to Marion. Not to be morbid, but the impending start of the school year and the ensuing change of seasons meant the diem needed to be carped. The trip took me about 35 or 40 minutes each way. Actual mileage may vary. On a humid day, I was grateful for the air conditioning at both ends of the trip.

Uptown Marion is emerging as one of the metro's most attractive commercial districts, and while I live and work near two others, variety has been proven to be the spice of life. So off I went. My reward for all that exertion was Uptown Snug, a key Uptown bar for years, which recently opened a coffee shop in the front. Uptown Coffee checks all the coffee boxes, whether you enjoy your brew in the calmly lit bar area, or outdoors on the Art Alley.

Uptown shares frontage on the Art Alley with
a number of other fine establishments

I'd done outside all the way up, so sat in the bar, next to a table where some high school English teachers were talking pedagogy and the upcoming school year. Just overhearing their thoughtful conversation measurably improved my frame of mind. Bring it on, I now say. A good third place with good coffee will have that effect on a person.

Marion also offers the opportunity for celeb-spotting. Is that Brooke Prouty ducking into Shorts for lunch? Could be! Let's give her some space, though, and not trouble her for an autograph.

The trail route to Marion does have some pressure points. Some are temporary:

• Cedar Lake. As construction around the lake proceeds, the trail is closed. A sign seems to direct cyclists up Shaver Road, which is do-able, though it takes you out of your way and requires reconnecting to the trail via J Avenue (narrow and curvy). The better route is crossing the tracks to a temporary bike lane on 10th Street, which is how I got back, but I found the interface between 10th, H, and Shaver confusing, and I may have unwittingly executed a dangerous move to get across the streets and back to the trail.
• 51st Street. The gap between the two trails is bridged on this wide east-west street, but first you have to get across Center Point Road (traffic count 13500). There is a crossing button going east across the street, but not on the opposite side for those going west. I didn't have any difficulty either way, but this is a junction that gets a lot of complaints from regular trail riders,. Getting the eventual connection right when the Grant Wood Trail is completed remains under discussion. 
• Council Street. For now, until the final link is added, the Grant Wood Trail starts/ends at this frenetic stroad (traffic count 11100). On the way up I crossed Council at 51st Street, and got to the trail by cutting across the movie theater parking lot (not a problem in the morning, not sure I'd try it in the evening). On the way back I crept along the sidewalks on Council Street while hoping for a break in traffic, which eventually happened.

These issues will all be fixed, or at least addressed, within a few months when the Grant Wood Trail is connected to the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. There remain several busy street crossings on the route that use rider-activated crossing lights to warn drivers: 1st Avenue on the CVNT, and Rockwell and Lindale Drives on the Grant Wood Trail. 

Different part of town (Boyson Road NE),
but an example of rider-activated lights

Even with crossing lights, I prefer to hang back and wait for traffic to clear, rather than pushing the buttons. That morning I got amazingly lucky and caught two breaks in traffic on 1st Avenue (which crossing has definitely been improved a lot anyhow). The only street I had difficulty crossing was Rockwell, which sent cars in unending driblets of two and three, so that I resolved to use the button on the way back. And I did use the button, but one car ran through anyway, reminding me why I prefer to hang back and wait for a break.

That leaves two pressure points on the route riders should expect:

• 42nd Street. This section of the Cedar Valley Nature Trail runs along I-380, and crosses the exit ramp as well as 42nd. This has been engineered about as well as could be imagined, with the sight lines for both exiting vehicles and cyclists very good. I still prefer to walk my bike through this intersection. Maybe some day I-380 will be rerouted around the city instead of through it.
• C Avenue and Blairs Ferry Road NE. These are two of the city's busiest streets, and their intersection has all the characteristics of danger. The Grant Wood Trail, which runs along the north edge of the Collins Aerospace campus, tunnels underneath Blairs Ferry (yay) but then takes you on a wide sidewalk directly to the intersection with C Avenue (boo). With many turning cars and one grocery-toting pedestrian present, I dismounted and walked across C. From there, trail users go up a wide sidewalk by a gas station on C to an access road that runs between Amoco and Walgreen's (not great either). 

After that, though, it's duck soup all the way into Marion. The trail goes just south of the 6th/7th Avenue roundabout at 7th Street, then follows a wide sidewalk on the south side of 6th Avenue (eventually separating at 31st Street). Along the way I rode for the first time across the delightful rebuilt railroad bridge over Marion Boulevard. When I arrived in Uptown I found coffee, air conditioning, and doughnuts. Summer was made for exactly this!

Or do you somehow prefer the beach??

Rethinking public transit in Marion

 

By day, Uptown's only coffee shop; by night, host to the Corridor Urbanists' next meeting

Marion's City Council has approved a shift away from participation in the Cedar Rapids bus system, in favor of an all-day neighborhood ride-sharing service in partnership with Horizons (Miskimen 2022). The city would use $225,000 in federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act to purchase three 16-passenger buses. I hope it costs out for them: The switch promises a more efficient and even a more compassionate way to approach transit services.

Every town has neighborhoods like this. Marion has a lot of them.

The City of Marion consists of a traditionally-built core, recently rebranded as Uptown Marion, and extensive suburban-style development elsewhere. Uptown Marion is no longer an employment center, and while it contains the public library and City Hall, most governmental facilities are elsewhere. Marion's 2020 population of 41,535 is spread over nearly 18 square miles. Some of the farthest-flung residents are in mobile home developments beyond State Route 13. Squaw Creek Villages, for example, has a WalkScore of 17, and that assumes you're willing to dart across Route 13 to Wal-Mart. The design of Marion creates challenges of efficiency and equity to any transit system.

The Marion Circulator bus currently connects to Routes 5 and 30 near Collins Road Square

Until 2017 Marion was served by Routes 5N and 5S, which were extensions of the 1st Avenue bus originating in downtown Cedar Rapids. Each ran every 90 minutes, half an hour apart, and both served the city center. In 2017 Route 5 was terminated at Lindale Mall, where it connected to two new circulator routes, including Route 20 for all of Marion. 

2017 version of Route 20 is in green

Route 20 runs once an hour during the day, going more or less directly to Uptown and then swinging widely about the town. It achieves the goal of wide coverage, but it's too circuitous to be practical for anyone, unless they simply have no alternative. As Jarrett Walker (2022) says, "the sad mathematical fact is:  Ridership arises from how useful service is to many people, not how useful it is to absolutely everyone.  When we seek to serve absolutely everyone, we’re planning for coverage, not ridership [link in original]."

At the same time, sending buses around that lengthy circuit is not cheap. In a town like Marion, which has few streets and many stroads, it makes sense for the foreseeable future to have an ad hoc transit system. In chapter 9 of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer--reviewed here--Strong Towns' Charles Marohn argues that the only provable purpose for a bus system remains what it was before we started developing towns around the automobile: to be "a wealth accelerator for local communities" (p. 156):

Transit is a wealth accelerator when it is used in support of productive development patterns and is deployed to function either as a road or a street. Successful transit requires successful places, so if you desire transit, you must focus on building a productive place, somewhere where people want to be outside of an automobile.... Start with a place, then pick a transit option scaled to that place as a means to an end of making that place more financially productive. (2021: 157)

City Square, including Marion's long-defunct train station

As of now, Marion simply has no such place. Uptown Marion is delightful, and could be the place to start, as Marohn starts in his case study with downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. But Marion doesn't have a transportation center like Springfield's Union Station, and it's not clear that Marion even wants Uptown to serve in its historic role as a core downtown. So it's probably most cost-effective to have an on-demand ride-sharing service for the people who need it. It can target the (mostly poor) people who don't drive, and serve them more effectively by taking them directly to their destinations instead of all around the town.

Perhaps this is the only transit service a sprawled town will ever need, or will ever be able to afford. Marohn (2021: 160-161) advocates funding capital costs of transit by capturing through tax assessment the increased property value created by the service, and ongoing operations through fares, with little-to-no reliance on federal or state contributions. This way the transit system is responsive to price signals sent by the community, and grows with it. (As anyone familiar with Strong Towns knows, he advocates the same principle for streets and roads.) This may never be possible in a town like Marion, which seems to be, like "many places in this country that, for better or for worse, cannot be reasonably served by public transit" (p. 161).

It might be, though, that as the on-demand service operates over time, certain patterns of demand will emerge. Or that businesses in, say, Uptown Marion, find they lose something from not having a transit connection to Cedar Rapids. In such cases, a more regular service could be instituted, the next incremental step up. Even then, they'd probably want to retain the ride-sharing service. As Edward Humes (2016: 311), where bus systems are well-established,

There's still the last-mile problem, and this is where the new dynamic of ridesharing services can complete the solution.... Offer riders a package deal, a true door-to-door solution, at a rate that beats car ownership.... A rideshare-express bus combo will certainly cost a lot less than paying $12 billion for light rail with a 2.6 percent share of commuter ridership. If such a service could be fast, convenient, and affordable compared to owning a car and commuting alone at peak hours, it could change the door-to-door world in a big way...

Maybe that day will come to Marion some day, or at least the part of Marion that isn't hopelessly sprawled. In the meantime, scaling down transit service at this time will provide the City of Marion with flexibility to do that which the long and winding fixed-route does not.

1100 7th Avenue, pre-2017: I miss this bus stop

City of Marion site: https://www.cityofmarion.org/ 

Cedar Rapids Transit site: http://www.cedar-rapids.org/residents/city_buses/index.php

Edward Humes, Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation (Harper Perennial, 2016)

Charles L. Marohn Jr., Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town (Wiley, 2021)

Density in Cedar Rapids: The Fuller Fourteen

Number 1! Census tract 18, still Linn County's densest (Source: density.website. Used without permission.)

 

The 2020 Census data are out, and while there are doubtless some anomalies in the data, it is clear that some areas of some metros are becoming more dense. The Census Bureau has a Data Viewer that makes it quick and easy to compare population density across tracts. It is interesting to compare these new data with the excellent aggregation of 2016 estimates at density.website, or with the last census at sites like this.

I used the 2016 estimates in my survey of urban neighborhoods last summer. The top five tracts by population density were (1) 18, northeast Cedar Rapids along 1st Avenue from 16th to 29th (see above); (2) 17, most of Wellington Heights on the southeast side; (3) 4, northeast of Uptown Marion; (4) 14, downtown and northeast Cedar Rapids below 16th Street; (5) 23, northwest Cedar Rapids along 1st Avenue from the railroad tracks to Edgewood Road.

These five tracts continue among the leaders based on the 2020 census, but they have some new dense friends! This table contains all the tracts with density above 4000 people per square mile. This is an arbitrary and convenient cutoff, but there is also a significant dropoff below 4000. The next highest are 3642, 3344, and 3110, so these 14 are definitely in a class by themselves.

2020 RANK	CENSUS TRACT	LOC.	2020 DENSITY	2010 DENSITY	NOTES
1	18	NE	6284.5	6043	#1 in 2016
2	17	SE	5854.0	6118	#2 in 2016
3	22	SW/NW	4907.9	3289
4	4	Marion	4800.6	4774	#3 in 2016
5	1.02	Marion	4496.1	4392	NEW! (was part of #1)
6	23	NW	4495.5	4414	#5 in 2016
7	10.02	NW	4480.3	4747	#6 in 2016
8	2.12	NE	4471.4	4222	NEW! (was part of #2.07)
9	14	NE/SE	4320.2	4465	#4 in 2016
10	10.05	SW/NW	4170.8	4221	NEW! (was part of #10.03)
11	2.09	Marion/NE	4126.3	3624	NEW! (was part of #2.03)
12	10.04	SW/NW	4062.1	3841	NEW! (was part of #10.03)
13	11.01	NW	4055.0	3731
14	19	NE/SE	4023.3	4308	#7 in 2016

Do I wish there were only twelve such tracts, so I could refer to them as the Dense Dozen? Yes, reader, I confess I do.

Number three! Census tract 22 is storming up the charts (Source: density.website. Used without permission.)

Five of the "Fuller Fourteen" are newly-created by the Census Bureau for 2020, but it is possible to compare them with the same area in 2010. 

Three tracts stand out for high levels of growth/densification, none moreso than #22 across the river from downtown, which includes the burgeoning Kingston Village area with its condos and row houses. Its 2010 status reflected heavy flood damage two years earlier. It grew by nearly 50 percent over the decade, rising from the depths to land on third place on the list. It is also tied for third in the county in diversity, according to USA Today's Diversity Index. Also growing fast are the newly-created #2.09 east of C Avenue NE between Boyson and Robins Roads crossing into Marion (+13.9%) and #11.01 east of Edgewood Road NW between F and O Avenues (+8.7%). Notably quite a few of Cedar Rapids' fastest growing census tracts are on the west side, as are its most racially diverse tracts.

New condo development in tract 22

Some areas remain on the density charts despite losing population over the decade. Tract #19, including downtown and some of the MedQuarter and the Moundview neighborhood lost 6.6 percent of its population and fell seven notches on the density countdown; tract #17, including the Wellington Heights neighborhood and some blocks to the east, lost 4.5 percent of its population but remains the second-densest tract. Based on the intermediate numbers from density.website, the losses in #17 occurred early in the decade and it has grown somewhat since then; the losses in #19 have occurred since the 2016 estimates. I live in tract #17 and work and go to church in #19, so I hope it wasn't anything I said!

Some degree of density is key to a walkable neighborhood, because you have to have the numbers to support schools, stores, and other destinations within walking distance, as well as reasonable public transit. Density doesn't necessarily mean crowded, nor does it necessarily mean walkable.

Walk Score doesn't assign values to census tracts, and the scores are highly sensitive to specific location. For example, my friend Phillip and I both live in census tract #17, nine blocks apart; the Walk Score for his address is 75, whereas mine is 30. Nevertheless it's clear that walkability in densely-populated core neighborhoods is higher than that in more outlying areas even as those areas get more densely-populated.

Tract #18     43, 77

Tract #17     30, 75

Tract #22     62, 75

Tract #2.09   5, 37

Tract #11.01 8, 14

We can only hope that as density increases, the infrastructure and services needed for walkability will follow.

What this lacks is an explanation for why particular tracts are getting more or less dense. This is something we can explore in future posts.

SEE ALSO: Peyton Chung, "Which Neighborhood in Greater Washington Has the Highest Density? Hint: It's Not in D.C." Greater Greater Washington, 20 August 2021