20 minute hot spot map. Orange/yellow good pedestrian access. Magenta/purple: not so good
Map: Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability
The logic behind the city’s twenty-minute neighborhood concept is sound. If services and amenities are located close to housing, people will drive less and walk/bike more, reducing the social, economic and environmental costs of the automobile.
But, human nature being what it is, perhaps the design goal should be a ten-minute neighborhood–if city planners actually want to get people out of their cars.
Grocery stores are a prime example. It takes me 10 minutes to get to the neighborhood QFC on foot– 12-13 minutes to Whole Foods–and that’s about my upper limit for pedestrian transport and food shopping. And unlike many people, I love to walk–and don’t mind at all carrying a large backpack loaded down with milk, cheese and other staples.
Transit is another service/amenity that needs to be located within a 10, not 20-minute radius. Until gas prices become prohibitive, people are not going to walk more than 10 minutes to a bus or light rail stop—not when their car is 30 seconds away in the garage.
Other variables determine how close a given service or amenity needs to be.
If you are baking cookies and run out of butter, you want the butter ASAP, not in 40 minutes, the time it would take to walk to and from the grocery store. So in this scenario, you jump in the car.
But if you are leaving for work every day at 8:00 a.m., you plan ahead for the time it takes to get there. In that case, proximity of employment isn’t as important as the reliability of the mode of transportation.
So here’s a set of rules I would use to determine whether a given service/amenity falls into the 10 or 20 minute-plus category.
If a service or amenity fulfills a need that occurs at a fixed time every day/week/month, it can be located 20 minutes away.
But if a service or amenity fulfills a need that can occur at any time of day—and often does—it needs to be less than ten minutes away.
Ten minute services/amenities: grocery stores, parks, transit
Twenty minute plus services/amenities: jobs, high schools, hardware stores
By this logic of course, the ten-minute neighborhood requires more than locating amenities close to housing. It also means radically rethinking the way we structure those amenities.
Real estate-wise, you can’t have a New Seasons/QFC/Safeway within walking distance of every home in the city. But you can create a network of smaller grocers, corner stores, farmer’s markets etc. that would provide most Portlanders access to a limited but high quality selection of grocery items.
The ten-minute neighborhood also assumes Americans would abandon their weekly grocery shopping ritual in favor of the daily practice common in many European and Asian countries. Because only the hardiest of souls would carry a week’s worth of groceries–for the typical family of four–by bike or on foot.
Any other ideas about how close–or how far away–a given service should be?
Closer is always better, certainly. The grocery store is the most important, by far. I would never consider the South Waterfront for that reason alone (although there are many others).
I think I agree with the times for everything you’ve listed. At first I thought that a hardware store should be closer, but I’ll go with 20 minutes. Usually if you don’t need something at the hardware store it can wait, or isn’t so critical (unless a pipe is leaking or something!). Pearl Ace Hardware is the nearest one to us. It’s beyond 20 minutes, so I’m not running over there for every screw & washer, but by combining trips it isn’t so bad. At least the streetcar stop on Glisan is close enough.
Since the goal is to reduce driving, what about bike shops? A nearby mechanic can be a lifesaver for someone who is not mechanically inclined.
I think cultural venues need to be included. Most people probably go to the movie theater as much as any other type of event, so there ought to be some consideration given to that. Twenty minutes is probably sufficient.
Is there a larger version of that map available somewhere? Can you post a link?
Hi Dwaine,
Here is a link to the map: http://www.portlandonline.com/portlandplan/index.cfm?a=288098&c=52256
As for cultural venues–mostly I think they can be farther away, as one usually plans a trip to the ballet, concert etc ahead of time. I agree movie theaters should be closer…although streaming will probably make movie theaters obsolete.
The hardware store was a tough one, as it doesn’t really fit my fixed time rule. But as you point out, hardware stores aren’t high frequency amenities.
Elementary schools are tricky too. They need to be very close to housing so that kids can walk without parents. But this violates my fixed time rule too. So we need several metrics, me thinks….
Food Buying Clubs! Food Buying Clubs answer a lot of the food questions above. One, it encourages pantries and buying in bulk (other sustainable tenants naturally worked within). Two, it serves as a “third place” within the community by frequenting neighbors’ homes to get the food essential. Third, it mold the 10/20 minute rules within transporting things the buying club secures.
I know you’re familiar with Rebecca’s club, but there are others. Chris Musser of Lost Arts Kitchen runs the East Portland Buying Club, I am part of the North Portland Food Buying Club, Laura Bouma runs the Lents Grocery (Buying Club/coop) in Southeast.
Regardless, I love the 10 minute concept because it’s produce that’s the hardest to plan for in between the two weeks when the club has scheduled orders!
Linda,
You have hit on the very reason why the Portland Plan’s 20-minute concept is flawed. If you consider that an average Portland family makes 10 trips/per day, at 20 minutes per trip- a family could potentially commute up to 3:20 hours per day- which is obviously unrealistic. Your suggestion of a 10 minute neighborhood is an improvement but not good enough. A better model, is the “mobility-oriented district” (MOD) concept that I have been promoting and developing in other cities. It is based and builds upon transit-oriented development’s concept of a 5 minute (1/4 mile) walking trip to high capacity transit service (light rail or streetcar). In a MOD has a “hot spot” concentration of the greatest trip generating uses- shopping, employment and services at its core along with a transit station/stop. Around this core are apartments, condos, townhouses and single family homes along a direct and convenient walking network of ped-friendly streets (within 5 minutes). For those beyond walking distances, a network of protected bikeways (cycletracks) provide a 5 minute (1 mile) sweat-free bike trip. A MOD by no means eliminates auto trips- it however results in significantly fewer and shorter trips.
“Mobility Oriented District”–what an evocative name, and concept!
Linda, just stumbled across your blog and like what I see.
“Because only the hardiest of souls would carry a week’s worth of groceries–for the typical family of four–by bike or on foot.”
What about a light cargo bike? It greatly expands a 10-20 minute radius walking into entirely new neighborhoods and shops. In Portland cargo bikes are a dime a dozen ridden by all walks of life.
Jim,
Glad you stumbled upon! Cargo bikes are great, but are they really ridden by all walks of life? I’d say they are mostly for the “hardiest of souls.”
Sure you don’t see many seniors get around Portland on their bakfiets, but you see lots of moms and dads running their kids around. Many of them aren’t exceptional athletes. Tons of seniors do get around on trikes in flat areas all over the world, though.
It’s harder for me to get out the door in a driving rain on a bike than walking, for sure, but an Xtracycle is only marginally harder than a mountain bike, say.