Hillary the liberal

According to DW-NOMINATE voting analysis, Hillary was the 11th most liberal member of the Senate during her period. The other 10 are dead, even older than she is, obscure enough that I haven't heard of them, Russ Feingold, or Bernie Sanders. Feingold seems to have gone quiet, but Sanders is loudly considering running.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/31/1374629/-Hillary-Clinton-Was-the-11th-Most-Liberal-Member-of-the-Senate

Article notes she's more liberal in voting than Obama (-0.37 to her -0.39) or the median Democrat (-0.33).

Now, that's one measure; maybe you'd care a lot more about her opinions on Israel or executive power, which might not have come up in votes. OTOH, if you're hoping someone more liberal than her to run, you've got like two options -- both men -- among recent Senators. Except maybe for even more recent Senators, but do we really want more first-term Senators running?

Who's out there among governors, I don't know.

Urban streets and other links

In my last post on urban densities I mentioned some research I didn't bother giving links for. In honor of a cool conversation two nights ago, let me get back to that!

Two related links on %age of city land devoted to streets and parking:
http://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2011/06/density-on-ground-cities-and-building.html?m=1
http://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2011/12/we-are-25-looking-at-street-area.html?m=1

Chart in the first has columns for "built or buildable land", "streets and sidewalks" (so not just asphalt), "parks and plazas". Housing projects can be really low in built use, 10-27%; Cabrini Green had 44% streets and 29% parks. Actual cities listed start at 51% buildable and 44% rights of way, for both Savannah and Boston's Back Bay! Given Commonwealth boulevard, the latter isn't that surprising. Portland's at 47% streets, with almost no parkland. You actually get lower numbers with Phoenix -- I suspect wide streets but long blocks, whereas Chicago has decent sized streets and shorter blocks. NYC is 2/3 buildable, Paris 74% with 25% streets, and Tokyo 80% buildable with 20% streets (and no parks? wow.) Buenos Aires goes even further with 15% streets, but I've never been there.

So my model last time of 20% streets, 75% buildable, 5% parks seems like a nice place. And many US cities, even or especially the relatively pedestrian/transit ones, could in theory use only half the land they do for roads. The change to buildability is a smaller proportion but still significant, 40% to 60% more land use.

The second link has the blogger trying to estimate rights of way *plus* off-street parking; the first link was just "land devoted to roads", the second is "land devoted to cars." We start with 65% for Houston. DC is 44%... I guess almost all the parking in his sample area is curbside or underground? Anyway, it's just a few sample points, but at least some US cities put over 20% of their land to off-street parking. http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Environment/E_Casestudy/E_casestudy2.htm provides some more numbers: 59% iin 1960 LA, 50% in 1953 Detroit.

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Shoup talked about how parking requirements are based on imaginary numbers. Apparently the professional recommendations for how much land to put to roads is equally airy: http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/12/a-widely-used-planning-manual-tends-to-recommend-building-far-more-roads-than-needed/383759/

"Take an average school. Whereas the ITE manual predicts it will generate about 41 million trips a year, the 2009 household travel survey suggests the real trip number is closer to 13.7 million—overestimating traffic by 198 percent."

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Cute picture of road chasms: http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/18/7236471/cars-pedestrians-roads

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Arguments for 20 mph speed limits
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/18/7240953/speed-limit-new-york
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-rules-of-the-road-arent-enough-to-prevent-people-from-dying/

The deadliest US cities for pedestrians: http://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5621388/pedestrian-and-biker-deaths

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Bike lanes in NYC improved biker safety a lot and didn't slow down traffic: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6121129/bike-lanes-traffic-new-york/in/5579561