by Roxanne Warren, Architect

Author's Abstract of the Book

The great majority of all kinds of trips begin or end at home; and when an automobile is needed on either end of a trip, there is every incentive to continue by car for the entire journey. Thus, it seems fairly certain that providing high quality systems of local circulation in close proximity to development with a residential base will make the use of longer distance public transport far more convenient, feasible, and likely.

Providing a quality of local service capable of competing with the private car requires 24-hour availability and reliability - criteria uniquely satisfied by automated peoplemovers (APMs). Yet ironically, when densities of development rise sufficiently high to justify installation of guided transit, they are typically associated with traffic congestion and the massive paving of land for roads and parking - factors which have helped to spur centrifugal migration toward outlying areas and away from access to public transport. With this dispersal of population, the cities are deprived of wealth and culture; non-motorists, including children and the elderly, are isolated; and per capita consumption of land and fuel spirals upward to unprecedented proportions.

We have the means at hand to make centripetal migration once again desirable, through a synthesis of four key elements: 1) new urban neighborhoods as pedestrian zones 2) peripheral parking, 3) abundant re-landscaping, and, tying it all together, 4) short-range automated shuttles and loops (which just happen to be the most economical types of APM to build and operate). In conventional high-density construction, its associated parking is contained on sub-plaza levels; all levels above the plaza comprise, in effect, a pedestrian zone. But with an automated shuttle or loop serving as "horizontal elevator", this organization can be turned on its side, with its parking structures located at nearby highways and major roads, and its buildings suffused with living vegetation. Lest peripheral parking be considered onerous, the APM should be fare-free, with its costs covered through rentals and parking fees; this will also preclude the need for fareboxes, and make the system more user-friendly and less costly to build and operate.

Several variations on this scheme are illustrated; each would house a community of some 5000 residents, together with commercial, educational, and community amenities. In one example, new development is clustered in compact form within a 3-minute walk of its station, and ample amounts of surrounding greenspace are protected from being taxed into development through a binding easement. In another, a station-cluster is built at lower densities for the same size population, with the length of station access extended to a maximum 5-minute walk; here the development is more continuously pervaded with semi-private areas of greenery. In a third type, the available land consists of smaller tracts, with new development distributed among two or more station-clusters - an option where larger tracts of land are unavailable. A fourth type would include and count residents of existing adjacent buildings as part of the community of 5000 - a scheme for which new clusters may, in fact, be more easily retrofitted within existing urban areas.

Located within or near a city, strategically sited within reach of a major transportation corridor, yet built in a green park, the urban oasis would juxtapose advantages of urban and rural space. It would reintroduce into the larger urban area, through a highly contemporary expression of guideways and greenways, those desirable components of the small town - an intimate scale among neighbors and a close proximity to nature - which have been all but lost in our explosion of development all over the landscape.

The book contains an overview and analysis of pedestrian zones in Europe and North America, and of elements that have contributed to their successes or failures. Also included are illuminating descriptions of the numerous types of automated peoplemover technologies, in language that is accessible to the lay reader. It is concisely written in 197 pages, and includes 98 illustrations.

Roxanne Warren, AIA, is principal of Roxanne Warren & Associates (NYC), whose major clients have included the NYC Transit Authority and the Port Authority of NY & NJ. She was formerly with I.M. Pei, among other firms, has spent many years in the study of automated guideway transit technologies and their potential urban application, and has been an active participant in conference seminars on the subject in the United States and France. She is a member of the Transportation Research Board and serves as a member of the Board of the Advanced Transit Association.

Roxanne Warren can be reached by phone at 212-580-5500 (office) or fax: 212-580-5690 or via e-mail: rwaa@erols.com Her mailing address is Roxanne Warren and Associates, Architects, 2112 Broadway - Suite 507, NYC 10023Copies of the book can be ordered from McGraw-Hill, phone 1-800-2mcgraw or www.amazon.com. The price is $49.50.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. The Lost Symbiosis of Urban and Rural: Explores factors, other than racial, that work to induce urban flight, and presents arguments--social, cultural, economic, demographic, and ecological--for the development of more compact communities within existing metropolitan areas.

Chapter 2. An Apparent Conflict of Environmental Values: Reviews dilemmas faced when new development is planned sufficiently high to justify provision of public transit--planning theory versus planning reality. Underlines the value attached to the natural environment for residential location.

Chapter 3. Pi*r2 (Formula for the Area of a Circle): Explains why local circulation systems, serving residential communities, must be made efficient and convenient first, if longer-distance transit patronage is ever to be realized on a significant scale.

Chapter 4. Pedestrian Zones and Their Place in the Region: Traces the development of pedestrian zones in cities, and analyzes elements that have contributed to, or in some cases detracted from their success. Considers the potential use of this concept to create new types of development.

Chapter 5. The Long Electrical Cord: Outlines the vital advantages of fixed transit guideways and automated operation in meeting the criteria that were called for in chapter 3, and in making readily accessible the pedestrian zone development projected in chapter 4.

Chapter 6. The Urban Oasis: A Tower Extended: Contains proposals for "urban oases", five basic variations on the theme, illustrated with drawings, model photos, and montages.

Chapter 7. Capillaries and Connections: The regional application of urban oases is demonstrated, together with the timing of trips from within the oases to longer-distance, area-wide transportation networks. A variety of automated guideway transit types are introduced.

Chapter 8. Less Is More: Descriptions of these systems are further developed. The relative simplicity of those systems which would be appropriate for urban oases is clarified, and is differentiated from full-scale automated metros, and from higher-tech concepts for small, personal automated vehicle systems with selected service.

Chapter 9. Equilibrium: Discusses some of the means available for effecting these proposals. It also comes full circle back to issues of urban policy that were reviewed in chapter 1.

Appendix: Selective Service and Automated Guideway Systems:

Further defines the distinctions between those guideway systems that would be most appropriate for urban oases, and the more "PRT" concept, which would, in fact, be irrelevant to their purpose.

As the intent is to describe the interrelationships and unity among the various subjects in this book, each is of necessity touched upon in a relatively summary way. The footnotes invite the curious reader to explore these issues further.

Thomas J. McGean, specialist in innovative transportation systems and Chairman of the Automated Peoplemover Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers, October 1, 1997.

...It is the only lucid and realistic planning book on automated transit issues I have ever seen...

Elevator World, December 1997

Architect Roxanne Warren contends the pressing needs of our cities and the equally pressing need to conserve the Earth's resources are opposite sides of the same coin, and in her book, The Urban Oasis, Warren proposes a way to respond to these twin needs. In doing so, she makes a compelling case for the benefits of high-density, mixed-use and car-free communities that are both environmentally attractive and easily accessible to and from regional transportation networks.

The author argues that the "dangerous dependence on the automobile" can be eliminated while creating livable communities. Warren proposes a way of consolidating new development and redevelopment, whether in a city or suburban setting, to combine the advantages of both rural and urban living.

Subtitled Guideways and Greenways in the Human Environment, The Urban Oasis is focused on the use of residential and mixed-use development clusters, designed as pedestrian zones with abundant landscaping, which are accessible by automated shuttles and loops to peripheral parking. These clusters may be neighborhoods whether within a city or in transit villages located near major transportation corridors. The purpose is the creation of human- scale communities that feature the convenience and satisfaction of both country and city life by effectively reducing the dependence on cars.

New transportation technologies are discussed in the context of ecological and social priorities, while tracing the development of pedestrian zones in Europe, North America and Asia. Different projects around the world are analyzed in an effort to determine why some pedestrian zones have prospered as others have failed. In the process, Warren illustrates the concepts and approaches used with numerous drawings, site plans and photographs--among them, a full-color insert.

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