Union Station and Columbus Plaza. Credit: Rob Ketcherside (Flickr Feed).

Washington, D.C.’s Union Station is a major destination for tourists and commuters, with about 29 million people visiting it each year.  As a first glimpse of the city for many people traveling by rail or car, Union Station was designed as a grand entryway to the nation’s capital.  It’s classical Beaux-Arts architecture influenced other popular landmarks in Washington, D.C., such as the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials.  But as public transit increases in the city, and the surrounding neighborhoods rapidly undergo redevelopment, it is clear that the 104-year-old-railroad facility needs a facelift.

We recently came across an article in The Washington Post about an 18-month reconstruction project to improve access and safety throughout Columbus Plaza in front of Union Station.  Many years in the making, the $7.8 million redesign will include new sidewalks and upgrades to the traffic signals to enhance the flow of pedestrians and vehicles throughout the plaza.  The plan also calls for eliminating a fishhook-shaped road that cuts through Columbus Plaza, restoring the plaza to its earlier appearance and allowing for easier pedestrian access to the station from the Capitol and other areas.  Additional transit improvements to the area include the very successful bicycle storage and rental facility added to the west side of the station, and laying tracks for the future H Street streetcar route that will terminate at Union Station.

As with any huge endeavor undertaken in Washington, D.C., there are many agencies and interested parties involved in this complex project, including the federal government (who owns Union Station), National Park Service (manages Columbus Plaza), city government (controls the roads), and the Architect of the Capitol (land on the other side of Massachusetts Avenue).  Other partners involved include Amtrak, Greyhound, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, and the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation.  And of course, any structural changes at all to Union Station must also take into account its historical prominence.

Because the “downtrodden appearance” of the plaza when compared to the magnificent train station often confuses the thousands of pedestrians and motorists who use it each day, locals and visitors alike are anxious to see how the reconfiguration will create a more welcoming transportation hub.  As Thomas Luebke, secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, summed up, the idea is to have the space in front of Union Station “be more about a plaza and less about trying to walk across nine lines of vehicle traffic.”

Credit: Municipality of San Juan

 San Juan, Puerto Rico recently released a new plan to make the city more liveable and walkable. Titled The Walkable City, the plan calls for a redesign of the Isleta district, an island which is home to Old San Juan, the oldest planned city in the Americas. Isleta is separated from mainland Puerto Rico by a series of bridges and a ferry.  

The plan focuses on 10 strategic actions. Most significant is the introduction of the “Tren Satour”, a 5.3 mile light rail system to connect the historic center with the mainland. An integrated public transit system would also include buses and shuttles, water taxis, commuter ferries, and extensive park and ride facilities on the mainland. Other interesting features of the plan include mixed-use development, a waterfront loop for pedestrians, cyclists and joggers, and creating green corridors to connect the north and south waterfronts.  

The idea of including better public transportation options and connectivity to parks in urban design plans is nothing new. Many U.S. cities, including Houston, St. Louis, and Phoenix have recently been adding light rail or bus stops in parks as part of redevelopment plans. San Juan’s The Walkable City uses many U.S. as well as international cities as example success stories. View the full plan here.

Ultimately, the success of a plan is based on the quality and character of existing and new buildings, as well as the streets and open spaces within a station area. Different place types that are built using the plan’s guidance will have a mix of building types, and each building type will have a mix of architectural styles. In addition to buildings, there are different types of open spaces appropriate for TOD. The regional transit network should provide access to a range of different types of open spaces, from small transit plazas to large regional parks. While it
is unlikely that a single Station Area would include the full range of open space types, this typology is useful when making decisions about open spaces in Station Area Plans. The TOD Examples are Bay Area open spaces that are meant to illustrate the possibilities, not as examples to be replicated in every TOD location. The design of each open space should respond to site conditions, expected use patterns, and an analysis of station area open space needs.

The message is that there’s a variety of ways parks and public spaces can be provided. Transit stops are public spaces themselves and there can be plazas, parks, trails and connections to larger, more regional parks outside the service areas. And sometimes, large urban parks are destinations for transit themselves, as is the case with new light rail stations at Hermann Park in Houston, Minnehaha Falls Park in Minneapolis and Washington Park in Portland.

And while there is no concrete set of typologies related to parks and transit, the manual contains the following table that gives a basic framework of the different forms open space can take.

But that’s for walking — and not biking.

In the DC Metro suburbs, convenient access by bicycle would tremendously increase service area (dark green area within 10 minutes bicycling distance of a metro station). RTC

A Rails to Trails Conservancy report from earlier this year addresses this very issue, noting that “bicycling in particular has great potential to allow more people to access public transportation conveniently. Accessing public
transportation by bicycle can shorten travel times significantly. Because bicyclists travel about four times as fast as pedestrians, convenient access by bicycle can increase the geographic area served by one transit station 16-fold (see map).”

Infrastructure can include on-street bike paths, bike storage facilities and off-street trails.

The New York Times just featured a story about bus rapid transit in Bogota, Colombia — noting that, terminal stations are equipped with huge bicycle parking facilities and a network of bicycle paths and sidewalks were built leading to the stations. (Transportation Alternatives provides more information on providing bike parking at transit stations.)

In Minneapolis, a bike trail runs alongside much of the Hiawatha Light Rail corridor and the city’s Midtown Greenway hooks up to the line. (The rail cars themselves feature interior bike racks.)

In Dallas, The Trust for Public Land has worked with the city to create the Chalk Hill off-street trail, which will directly connect to one of the city’s light rail stations. In fact, Dallas has a greater trail network plan in which there will be six different light rail stations directly connecting to trails currently funded and in the design process.  The trails also connect parks and neighborhoods. (A map showing the city’s trail plans with its existing and planned light rail routes can be viewed here.)

Houston's Hermann Park before and after light rail and other improvements.

A brief look at the connection of parks and transit. Turns out most of the most visited parks in the United States have mass transit access. (See table below.) And with the exception of Mission Bay, most of the parks below are probably reached by transit in high numbers. Central Park and Prospect Park have no parking really at all, so your choices are limited as to how to get to the park: walk, bike, take transit or find a parking spot around the perimeter of the park somewhere.

Some cities have strategically placed transit in popular parks where parking cannot be additionally provided — most notably the light rail stations at Minneapolis’ popular Minnehaha Park, Houston’s noted Hermann Park and the planned stop at Atlanta’s Piedmont Park on the Beltline transit loop. As cities look to expand or even begin mass transit projects — light rail, bus rapid transit, trolleys and upgraded bus services — park officials and advocates may want to insert themselves into the debate on where perspective stops and lines go. Giving residents transit access to parks reduces dependence on cars, provides access to needed amentities and releaves the need to provide parking.