What

Americas Most Walkable Suburb Can Teach Towns

Everywhere

Arlington, Virginia shows how feet on the street helps a community
thrive

By Jay Walljasper

Suburban life has always been synonymous with long hours in the car-- going to work,
school, the grocery store, the mall, soccer practice and friends homes. Some people even
drive to take a walk.

Thats changing now, just like the stereotype of suburbs as places where everyones white,
married with children and plays golf at the country club. From Bethesda, Maryland to
Edina, Minnesota to Kirkland, Washington, citizens are reinventing their towns to better
accommodate walkers. Traffic is being tamed on busy streets. New sidewalks and trails are
being constructed. Business districts are coming to life thanks to growing foot traffic.

Leading the charge are suburban leaders who see their communities continuing prosperity
and quality-of-life dependent on creating lively walkable places that attract young people,
families and businesses wanting to locate where the action is. Walking is gaining
popularity across the US for both transportation and recreation because it improves health,
fosters community and saves money.

The best place to experience the future of suburban living is Arlington County, Virginia,
home of the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery right across the Potomac River
from Washington, DC. Built up during the 1950s, 40s and late 30s, after autos already
dominated American life, its a classic suburb full of freestanding homes with driveways
and green lawns. Nonetheless its been named one of the 14 best Walk Friendly
communities in America by the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center at the University
of North Carolina and one of the 25 Best Cities for Walking by Prevention magazine.

A Day in the Life of Americas Most Walkable Suburb

In Arlingtons Courthouse/Clarendon district, even on an unseasonably frigid Friday
evening, youll find folks walking their dogs, pushing baby strollers, toting home groceries
or just out strolling. One young man clutches a bouquet of flowers as he hurries down the
street. Sidewalk traffic is brisk with people heading from office buildings, transit stops,
parking lots, and nearby residences to health clubs, shops, restaurants and movie theaters.
PO Box 10581
Portland, OR 97296
503 757 8342
www.americawalks.org


The next morning is windy with snow flurries, but the wide sidewalks of Arlingtons
Virginia Square/Ballston district hums with people running errands at the bank, the
cleaners, the mall, the tailors, the print shop, the pharmacy and the phone store before
stopping off at the hair salon, Starbucks or sandwich shop. You even see a few intrepid
folks on bike.

A lot of shoppers popped over from nearby apartment buildings and townhomes that have
grown up recently what once was a struggling commercial strip, while others strolled from
nearby single family homes. Walking a couple of blocks in any direction from this town
center, youre transported from the bustling urbane milieu of TV shows like How I Met Your
Mother to the leafy bucolic setting of The Brady Brunch.

Clarendon/Courthouse and Ballston/Virginia Square are both served by a regional train
system, a boost for walkable communities that most American suburbs wont have access
to anytime soon. But pedestrians flourish in Arlington neighborhoods distant from train
lines too.

The Westover neighborhood sports a typically Mid-Century design with parking lots in
front of many businesses but still offers friendly streetlife. A trio of middle schoolers walk
home from the grocery with lunch fixings, while neighbors stop for a chat on their way to
the hardware store, library, pharmacy, barbershop, bus stop, the Lost Dog Caf or the Stray
Cat caf.

Meanwhile the brand new Shirlington community, rising out of the ashes of a failed
shopping center, feels like a suburban village. A Main Street built in what was a parking lot
invites you to take an afternoon stroll browsing a wide selection of shops, ethnic
restaurants, a library, a theater company and a brewpub. Around the corner stand a full-
service grocery and Bus Boys & Poets, a popular bookstore and caf named after African-
American writer Langston Hughes, who worked as a bus boy in Washington during the
1930s. A few steps away are movie theaters, service businesses like hair salons and yoga
studios, office buildings, townhomes, apartments, a bus station and parking garages.

These neighborhoods stretch over six miles in the heart of Arlington (which is both a city
and a county at the same time), but you can reach them all on foot via pedestrian-friendly
city streets or Arlingtons 50-mile trail network.

Arlingtons Path to Transformation

Arlington did not become a pedestrian success story overnight. The sidewalks are lively
today thanks to a series of smart decisions carried out over several decades. The story of
this suburbs rise to become one of Americas most walk-friendly communities offers
lessons for towns everywhere wanting to thrive in the years to come.

As an early model for the auto-oriented development that popped up all over the country
after World War II, Arlington also become one of the first suburbs to experience the

inevitable side effects of aging. The county population dropped from 174,000 in 1970 to
152,500 in 1980 as new land to develop became scarce and kids who grew up there moved
away.

In the 1970s this was a declining inner ring suburb, notes Chris Zimmerman, who served
on the county board for 18 years. I moved here in 1979 because of the cheap rent.
Arlington was a stopover for a lot of people until they could afford to move somewhere
else-- a familiar scene today in thousands of suburban communities.

I walked in those days because I didnt have a car, but I saw very few other people
walking, remembers Zimmerman, who left the county board in 2013 to become Vice-
president of Economic Development for Smart Growth America, which promotes walking
as part of its mission to create healthy, economically vital communities.

The first step in Arlingtons revival was improved transit service, including a number of
stops on the Washington Metro subway system. That reversed the countys population
decline, as new apartment buildings and shopping rose around the stations. Walking
picked up a bit in the immediate vicinity of Metro stops, but not in other parts of town.
Thats because most of the streets were still designed to move cars as quickly as possible
with little regard for the impact on pedestrians and surrounding neighborhoods. When I
took office in 1996, traffic was the biggest issue in every neighborhood. People were
worried about their kids walking to school, Zimmerman notes

The county board, spurred on by neighborhood leaders, adopted an urban village
approach to planning, which Zimmerman says, really resonated with people-- the idea of
comfort and community while still being cosmopolitan. Being both suburban and urban at
the same time.

One strong focus of this plan was to make walking more safe and convenient. Sidewalks
were widened while the pedestrian crossing distances at intersections were narrowed. A
task force on traffic calming was launched and the outdated policy of charging homeowners
for the cost of building new sidewalks--still common throughout the US--was eliminated.
(Homeowners are not expected to pay for the street in front of their house; why should
they be responsible for the pedestrian infrastructure? Zimmerman declares in a case study
about Arlington done by America Walks.)

Ninety percent of all residential streets now have sidewalks (up from 73 percent in 1997),
and traffic on seven of the countys nine busiest roads has declined between 5 and 23
percent since 1996. As a result, walking and biking now account for16.6 percent of all trips
around town.

When I moved here in the 1990s, I would walk to the grocery store or go running, and if
you ever saw anyone else you always said hi because there were so few people on the
streets, remembers Lauren Hassel, Outreach and Promotions Manager for WalkArlington.
Now if you stopped to say hi to everyone you met on the sidewalk, it would take hours to
get where youre going.


The countys population has now climbed to 220,000, and its attracting many young
professionals and families who could afford to live in wealthier suburbs but prefer
Arlingtons walkability and sense of community. It is also growing as a regional job center
with more than 215,000 people working in the county.

This could be done anywhere, Zimmerman counsels. It doesnt depend on big-scale
transit, it depends on good urban design.

Walking As a Way of Life

Peter Owen, a lawyer who grew up in nearby McLean, Virginia, chose to live in Arlington
after studying at University of Virginia, William & Mary and Harvard because he wanted to
be close to his family but still enjoy opportunities to walk.

Still old habits die hard, he admits. It took me about four months of living here to stop
driving in my car to the grocery store, even though I lived just a few blocks away. The shift
to walking has even improved his eating habits. I buy a lot less frozen food because its
easy to just stop at the store on my walk home every day and get fresh food. Owen still
owns a car, but says it stays in the garage most of the time.

When asked why walking is so important to him, Owen has plenty to say: I value the
serendipitous encounters with my neighbors and the sense of connection to this place. You
notice lots more things, like kids playing, when youre living at five miles per hour.

Arlington is becoming a place where people matter more than cars, he adds. Its not just
possible to walk here, its safe and comfortable to walk. There are crosswalks on the
corners and shop windows to look at as you pass by-- its more fun to walk with those kinds
of things.

How to Make Any Town Good for Walking

Arlingtons emergence as Americas most walkable suburb grew out of a wide range of
community improvements promoted by residents, like Peter Owen who served on the
Citizen Transportation Commission for six years, and carried out by elected officials and
county staff.

Its dramatically different walking here than in the 1990s, says Dennis Leach, Arlingtons
Director of Transportation, who lived here for years before joining the county staff. You
see all these people in places that used to be nowhere. It shows that if you do the
infrastructure and land use right, you can provide people more viable transportation
options and good places to walk, which has benefits for social equity, health and a sense of
community.

Leach calculates that 350,000 pedestrian and bike trips are made by residents, workers
and visitors every workday. Key actions that make Arlingtons streets more walkable
include:

Crosswalks, which are clearly defined so motorists know where to look for walkers;

Bulb outs, which extend the sidewalk a few feet into an intersection to shorten
pedestrians crossing distance;

Median islands, which offer pedestrians a mid-point refuge while crossing wide,
busy streets;

Landscaping along streets, which inspires motorists to drive slower;

Bike lanes, which not only encourage people to bike instead of drive, but also
increase the distance between sidewalks and rushing traffic;

Buffered bike lanes & cycle tracks, modern bike lanes that separate sidewalks
even further from traffic by adding wide swaths of paint on the road or physical
barriers from moving auto traffic;

Wider sidewalks, which make people feel more safe and comfortable on foot;

Narrower streets, which slow traffic speeds and frees up more space for
pedestrians and bicyclists;

Traffic calming, a whole toolkit of additional road innovations, ranging from
roundabouts to speed bumps, that remind motorists to look out for walkers and
heed the speed limit;

Pro-pedestrian zoning, which enhances the walking experience by requiring first-
floor retail shops or windows on buildings along pedestrian routes and by allowing
sidewalk cafes but making sure they dont crowd out people on foot;

Road Diets, a new step for Arlington, in which moderately traveled four lane road
are reduced to two through-lanes with an alternating left-turn lane in the middle,
creating space for bike lanes or wider sidewalks

Complete Streets, a county policy that all modes of transportation must be
considered in street reconstruction projects;

Transportation Demand Management, a sophisticated strategic plan that looks at
traffic issues involved in all development decisions, and offers incentives for
businesses to locate in walkable places served by transit.

On-the-Ground Efforts to Promote Walking

Of course, it takes more than crosswalks and sidewalks to get people walking. Thats why
nearly everyone I spoke with Arlington pointed to the work of WalkArlington, a county-
sponsored initiative to encourage people to get back on their feet. We help make people
aware of what great opportunities for walking are already have here, says Outreach and
Promotions Manager Lauren Hassel.

WalkArlington developed 25 walking routes known as Walkabouts around the county,
highlighting neighborhoods history, community resources and attractions. They also
publish a calendar of events, walking tip sheets, with special editions for winter and
summer (when the regions sticky weather can be more of a deterrent than cold
temperatures), and a monthly e-newsletter covering walking related topics.

The WalkArlington Works program helps employers and staff to boost walking in the
workplace, both for commuting and breaks during the workday. WalkArlington is part the
countys Car-Free Diet program, an innovative approach that helps families figure how
living without a car or car lite (using just one private car) would work for them. Arlingtons
walk friendly environment, plus extensive train and bus service, trails, bike lanes,
bikeshare, and carshare make this a viable option for a surprising number of households.

WalkArlington also excites kids about getting around on foot with programs at schools--
from coordinating Walk to School Day to promoting walking school buses (parents become
bus drivers on foot, picking up kids at their doors and walking them to school) at
elementary schools. In the summer, WalkArlington offers walking scavenger hunts at the
county fair and collaborates with County-run camps to promote walking.

Arlingtons 22 elementary schools and five middle schools all run Safe Routes to Schools
programs, which seek ways for more children to walk and bike to school. We let families
know the advantages of walking to school, says the school districts Safe Routes
coordinator Tom Norton. Its great for fitness and it improves academic performance.

These pedestrian education efforts, on top of major improvements to streets and
sidewalks, advance Arlington toward fulfilling the dream of many residents, best
articulated by the countys former Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Charlie Denney who
grew up here: Our goal would be to build a community where every 8-year-old can go all
by themselves to buy an ice cream cone.

See a recent video about Arlingtons success in creating neighborhoods for people all ages
here.

5 More Suburbs Making Great Strides in Walking

The American city where the people walk the most is technically a suburb. In Cambridge,
Massachusetts--across the Charles River from Boston--a quarter of residents walk to work,
top among all cities with populations over 100,000 according to census figures. Number

three on the same list, where 18 percent walk to work, is also a suburb of sorts, Berkeley,
California, across the bay from San Francisco.

But Cambridge and Berkeley arent what we mean when we say suburbs. These towns are
older cities, established before automobiles took over American streets, and although both
have made sizable pedestrian improvements in recent years, they benefit from a head start
in walkability compared to communities built after World War II--the places we generally
call suburbs.

Walking is gaining ground in many of these newer communities, including forward looking
leaders like the following suburbs:

Edina, Minnesota---In 1956 this town just outside Minneapolis inaugurated the modern
suburban era by opening the first enclosed shopping mall surrounded by vast acres of
parking, a defining feature of late 20th century life. Now Edina is working hard to evolve
into a 21st century suburb, where theres a place for walking and biking too.
Bike lanes are sprouting on many streets and some four-lane roads have been downsized to
three lanes (with a turning lane in the middle) to curtail speeding drivers and create more
space for sidewalks-- known as a road diet. Even the historic shopping mall is more
pedestrian friendly, thanks to a $4 million overhaul of nearby streets. The city government
is responding to young families wishes for safer streets and more places to walk and bike.

Lakewood, Colorado---This Denver suburb traded a failed shopping mall for a built-from-
scratch downtown offering shops, homes, offices, restaurants, Whole Foods, Target, movies,
a town common, a bowling alley and an Irish pub, all within close and pleasurable walking
distance. The new town center, called BelMar, is not on a train line but shuttle buses run to
the closest stop on Denvers light rail network.

Bethesda, Maryland---Real estate developer and business professor Christopher
Leinberger calls the DC region the most walkable metropolitan area in the US, edging out
New York City on the strength of its suburban areas. Indeed, Silver Spring, White Flint and
Bethesda (all in Maryland) may someday challenge Arlington for the title of Americas most
walkable suburb. Bethesda Row, a newly built downtown with all the charm and
usefulness of a traditional town center, is a great example of a walk-friendly place.

Kirkland & University Place, Washington---Seattle is neck-and-neck with DC for
pioneering walkable suburbs. Dan Burden, one of Americas leading experts on pedestrian
friendly communities who works with Blue Zones, lists five towns in the region that are
taking big steps: Kirkland, Bellevue, University Place, Redmond and Sammamish. In
Kirkland, Burden lauds four of Americas best road diets, significant new development
downtown, an urban village created out of a strip mall and a 5.7 mile long multi-use trail
with excellent street crossings. University Place, he states, has become one of the most
studied turnaround stories in North America, winning one award after another for its roads, parks
and other projects. In just 20 years, sidewalks have been built on virtually every block.
Numerous roads were put on diets to shrink their way to greater safety, affordability,

sustainability and high performance, and now University Place has a true town center underway,
attracting the nations most sought-after retailers such as Trader Joes and Whole Foods.
And its worth keeping an eye on Tigard, Oregon, a Portland suburb, whose city council passed
a resolution last November to make the community the most walkable city in the Pacific
Northwest where people of all age and abilities enjoy healthy and interconnected lives. That
means surpassing not only University Place and Kirkland but also Portland and Seattle, which is
ranked as Americas #1 walk friendly community by the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information
Center at the University of North Carolina.
Jay Walljasper writes, speaks and consults about how to create more healthy, happy, enjoyable
communities. He is the author of the Great Neighborhood Book. His website:
www.JayWalljasper.com