Blog: Scott Clein

It’shard to look anywhere these days without seeing someone touting the benefits of “being green”. During the pre-game show for NBC’s Football Night in America this weekend, the network turned off most of the studio lights at one point. They stated that by turning off these lights they were saving enough electricity to power an embarrassingly large number of single family homes for an embarrassingly long period of time. Erstwhile Bob Costas noted that NBC was doing this to bring awareness to “green” strategies, which worked because I’m now aware just how wasteful NBC really is. 

Notwithstanding NBC’s attempts, some of the biggest potential impacts of the green movement can be achieved by the construction industry. And it is ultimately the designers and the municipalities themselves that must embrace these techniques if we are to ever fully realize this potential. 

You’re probably most familiar with the concept of a green roof, that being a roof designed with living vegetation to help cool the structure and reduce storm water runoff (among other benefits). You may also consider the selection of high-efficiency heating and cooling equipment, or out-of-the-box ideas like geothermal cooling and solar panels. 

The general public usually gives little thought to the supporting infrastructure however, even though site engineering can have significant impacts on many levels. Properly sitting a building on a site can help decrease construction costs as well as operational expenses associated with electrical service and heating/cooling. It can also help minimize the amount of infrastructure needed, which reduces the amount of raw materials needed and the pollution associated with construction equipment. Implementing creative strategies for managing site storm water can not only reduce capital costs, but reduce the strain on the surrounding public systems while improving the quality of water discharging into our lakes and streams. 

A team of professionals needs to work together to create a complete program that includes these ideas from the beginning of a project. We then need to show our clients that there are real cost savings that can be derived from this approach in the near term.   

Lastly, we need to press our local communities to embrace these techniques by adopting proven standards for design and construction. This cannot be just lip service either, which is unfortunately what sometimes happens when design plans are reviewed by building officials stuck in their old-school thinking. 

Conclusion

I hope you’ve enjoyed your peak inside the head of an engineer over the course of the last few days, no matter how scary it might have been. I’ve touched on topics that will require changes in the way that some developers, architects, engineers, and government officials think. If you are a member of one of these groups I suggest you start thinking. Even if you are not, then let your local officials know how you feel about your community and hold them accountable to their promises. With yesterday being Election Day, I can’t think of a better time to start.

Have you noticed those bright red or yellow mats that have started showing up at intersections around town? They're usually rectangular with little bumps all over them, and look conspicuously like the mats used to keep people from falling in the shower. (As we engineers are prone to do, these bumps are referred to as truncated domes to make them sound more official.) The purpose of these mats, officially referred to as detectable warning strips, is to provide a visual and tactile experience that let’s pedestrians know that they may be about to step in front of a bus. 

This makes sense to me, as all people deserve a safe and accessible route when not driving. As a society we need to make sure that those with vision impairments or who are confined to a wheelchair have the same opportunities as anyone else.  The nutty part of this recent trend is not the intent, but rather the insanity of implementation. 

Our story starts, as many do in this country, in a court of law. A small and seemingly well intentioned group of citizens began suing communities for failure to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. These deficiencies certainly do exist throughout most community’s public spaces, most noticeably at street corners, and should be addressed. 

Consent judgments in these cases, such as in Ann Arbor and Detroit, bind the communities to provide public spaces that conform to ADA guidelines. Fair enough, except that adequate time is never provided to correct the problems.  Cities are instead required to undertake massive programs intended to wipe out the deficiencies throughout their jurisdiction in a matter of months. 

When you’re talking about a city like Detroit, consisting of 140 or so square miles, this is a daunting task. Add to it the budgetary problems most municipalities face, especially related to transportation funding, and it becomes almost mind boggling. 

But here’s the fun part: this isn’t even the most difficult aspect of the endeavor.  Since the United States Justice Department is involved, lawyers (not engineers) are determining what is and isn’t compliant. When you consider that the ADA only offers guidelines, this means that we are now subjected to multiple interpretations of compliance offered by people not trained in the design or construction of infrastructure. This Pandora’s Box has led the Michigan Department of Transportation to revise their standard construction detail for ramps 6 times since February. (And I personally still think there is an issue that must be addressed.) 

What is a City to do when they are told by lawyers to complete an immense task in a short time period with little funding, when only a few of us actually understand what the ADA guidelines are trying to accomplish? Waste a lot of money and effort. 

If you’re involved in municipal planning or construction, or even are a private developer of a small shopping center you need to discuss this matter with a competent engineer as soon as possible. Getting it right the first time will save you thousands of dollars and provide everyone with proper access to mobility that is their’s by right. And if you’re a lawyer or judge involved in these types of cases you need to set realistic goals and understand the magnitude of the undertaking you’re discussing. You may even want to talk to an engineer…

Richard Murphy wrote in July discussing the state of land planning in the region. "We want dense urban neighborhoods and pedestrian friendly, fine-grained downtowns where lots of different things are happening," he wrote.   

This leads me to one of my biggest beefs with the general development climate today, that being the mostly horrific collection of local zoning ordinances governing the development (and redevelopment) of property. Most current zoning ordinances still appear to be cut for the same 1970’s mindset I referenced talking about transportation planning.   

Look at most zoning ordinances today and what do you see?  You see the industrial zone, the business zone, the low density residential zone, the high density residential zone, the commercial zone, etc. No wonder we’ve sprawled away from our established communities at such a rate. We were forced to get in our cars and drive around town to shop or go to work anyway, so we decided to buy some inexpensive farmland and live in the country. 

Even if we live in older, denser suburbs we still need our cars just to make it through the acres of parking lots developers are being forced to build.  To be fair, some retail developers live by the theory that more parking is better (sound familiar), but most don’t want the added expense if they feel the spaces are redundant. Most zoning ordinances appear to base parking requirements on the volume anticipated on the day after Thanksgiving, which mirrors the over capacity paradigm that governs our roadways.   

There is a solution to this problem, and some communities with vision are working to nurture it by approving mixed-use developments with lower parking requirements. Mixed-use developments blur land use distinctions and place different densities of residential along side office, retail and commercial uses.  Shared parking agreements mean less square footage of pavement and all of the environmental benefits that follow. 

The result is an eclectic mix that cedes control back to the individual, who can pick and choose from any number of options (usually all within walking distance).  In that vein think of our urban cores, when properly planned, as super-sized mixed-use developments.  

In short, we need to promote economic development in all forms, especially if we’re going to create the diverse environment more and more people appear to desire. This starts with throwing out the old land planning playbook and looking at our communities holistically. Those that work to inspire creativity will succeed while those that don’t will certainly fail. We need to decide which group we want to be apart of before it’s too late.