First Avenue Corridor Redevelopment Plan

Micro-area map

(2/12/2026) Can a historic neighborhood business district near downtown be reincarnated in the 21st century?

The City of Cedar Rapids is preparing a Corridor Redevelopment Plan for First Avenue East between 12th and 16th Streets, roughly the same area as covered in the First Avenue East Micro-Area Action Plan adopted in 2025 (Nieland 2025). That plan, while not bold, took notice of the problems that have accumulated over the years in this area:

• It is historically a neighborhood business district in an area where housing stock and population have been declining for decades
• So, businesses have neither the surrounding population to support a neighborhood business nor parking capacity for chain retail
• It is the main commercial street for the Mound View and Wellington Heights neighborhoods, but with 20,000 cars a day along five lanes it mainly serves as a highway between Interstate 380 and points farther out
• So, walking across or along 1st Avenue is highly unpleasant and dangerous

Modest development across 1st Avenue from Coe College

Ideas to mitigate these problems in the 2025 plan included more crosswalks, street trees, and business recruitment. The Corridor Redevelopment Plan is a sort of adjunct to the Micro-Area Action Plan, focused on design elements. Its stated goal is providing "a coordinated vision for new buildings, public spaces, and street improvements to support reinvestment."

Former Hy-Vee Grocery remains vacant nearly two years after closing
(picture taken from A Avenue facing 1st Avenue)

The city held an open house this week at Coe's Alumni House, at which they invited public comment on the Corridor Redevelopment Plan. Display boards located around the room looked very specific, but in fact they were imaginative concepts showing what a little nudge from the city might produce. What the city is committing to, if that's not too strong a phrase, is planting street trees and working with the State of Iowa to slow traffic, narrowing lanes and possibly inserting a tree lined median. (1st Avenue is also State Route 922 and Business U.S. 151.) 

Hypothetical locations of new development
(The mixed-use building with interior parking is at the former Hy-Vee site)

Also: Emily Stochl, who co-owns the Cafe Allez that has been fixing to move into the old Brewed Awakenings space at 1271 1st for quite awhile, told me 13th Street SE will become two-way, which would make access to that block from 1st much easier. Betsy Bostian from the city planning department told the Wellington Heights Neighborhood Association Tuesday night that the city was also going to try to rectify the crossing at 16th Street. Coe College is also willing to make some of their unused space east of campus temporarily available.

Some of Coe College's vacant land in the Mound View neighborhood

From these improvements might come more business investment and maybe some housing as well--and if they don't, we'll still have improved safety and dignity for pedestrians, at relatively low cost. A plaza was shown at 14th Street and 2nd Avenue, across from the Commonwealth Apartments, though its provenance was unclear. 

There were a lot of critical comments posted at the Coe open house, mainly complaining about slowing traffic on 1st, as well as missing some amenities like a grocery store and pharmacy. I'm all for having those amenities, too, but the current business models for groceries and pharmacies seem to require large buildings and large parking lots, neither of which is available in this historically neighborhood retail area.

The Wellington Heights neighbors exposed a flaw in the rosy scenario portrayed on the display boards. Efforts to develop the target area could easily fall afoul of the zoning process. The neighbors seemed primarily concerned with unwelcome uses, like smoke and vape shops and parking garages. The city people encouraged them to use the zoning process to voice specific concerns, but zoning is famous for derailing even good development by escalating time and costs (cf. Gray 2022). I feel the city should adopt a form-based code for this area to forestall this.

I think if the loudest voices prevail, 1st Avenue is doomed to be an underperforming stroad for the rest of time. I think, however, that the city is facing some other imperatives. With the state cutting property taxes on an annual basis, and city population not growing, Cedar Rapids just cannot let some of the most valuable property in the city rot. They simply have to do something to restart it, and if they can do it without kickstarting an ambitious housing program (my preference), so much the better. I hope the City Council sees it that way!

City of Cedar Rapids 1st Avenue East Corridor Redevelopment Plan and Micro-Area Action Plan page

EARLIER POSTS:

"Could 1st Avenue East Be a Grand Boulevard?" 1 July 2024

"Crossing Cedar Rapids' Busiest Intersections: 1st Avenue," 8 August 2023

10th anniversary post: Sidewalks

Wide sidewalk on Emmons Street approaching downtown Hiawatha

(12/16/2025) Of my three posts in December 2015, two were on the subject of sidewalks. We must not have had a white Christmas that year, because none of my pictures showed snow, nor did I mention the difficulty of walking in snow and ice. (I've done that elsewhere, though!)

Dan Burden at CSPS Hall, December 2015

Early in December, Dan Burden, author and Blue Zones director of innovation and inspiration, spoke at CSPS Hall, who praised Cedar Rapids' just-begun sidewalk construction program. Not only do "complete streets" perform better economically, he proclaimed, but sidewalks provide the opportunity for individuals to get exercise and encounter other individuals, which auto travel does not. The key, he stressed, is "completing the system," providing a network of sidewalks that get people to "places to go." In the years since, Cedar Rapids has effectively linked people to parks, stores and schools, albeit some neighborhoods were able to reject new sidewalks, and all the new sidewalks haven't stemmed the outward movement of people and places.

10 foot sidewalk on 3rd Avenue SE
 by Greene Square, December 2015

The city had also begun installing wider sidewalks in high-traffic areas, usually about 10 feet wide, as opposed to the old standard of 4-6 feet. I surveyed a number of sidewalks in the core, as well as a number of urbanists commending the use of wider sidewalks. The Change Lab Solutions guidebook Move This Way: Making Neighborhoods More Walkable and Bikeable (n.d.: 48) noted Generally, two couples or two wheelchairs should be able to pass each other comfortably on a sidewalk, which requires about 10 to 12 feet across.... Ideally, sidewalks should also be wide enough to allow benches for older adults and families to stop and rest or relax. 

Very wide sidewalk in New Bohemia, November 2025

The Cedar Rapids zoning code requires sidewalks in all new developments, but without respect to width except the usable part of the sidewalk must be not "less than five feet wide" (2024: 154). 

Wide sidewalks are becoming more common, in some cases accommodating bicycle traffic as well. My perception is that the metro's initial forays into bike lanes in the 2010s has been mostly replaced by wide sidewalks. This can create confusion about whether bicycles are supposed to go, as on the Grant Wood Trail where it runs along 6th Avenue in downtown Marion:

bicycles will please divert: 1300 block of 6th Avenue, Marion

Having been surprised by a cyclist as I stepped out of the Marion Public Library, I applaud the intent anyhow.

When a planned shared path connecting to Washington High School raised concerns among elderly residents of Cottage Grove Place, the bike and pedestrian parts were separated in 2021.

sidewalk divides across from Washington High School
(Google Earth screenshot)

Sometimes there is signage that indicates... an aspiration to being a shared use path?

This is not a bikeway, and it doesn't narrow

(The cognoscenti will recognize this as Emmons Street west of I-380, about a quarter mile west along the same sidewalk as the picture at the top of this post. They will also know that the Linn County Trails Association, as per the latest Trail Connections, is raising $100,000 towards an improved bridge to get Hiawathans to the Cedar Valley Nature Trail.)

Even that sidewalk is better than no sidewalk, however, which is the problem with Boyson Road in Hiawatha near the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, and more curiously, the north side of Twixt Town Road in Mairon where riders board the Marion Circulator (the far side of the street in this picture).

bus transfer station, Twixt Town Road

And, since we've had more than 15 inches of snow since Thanksgiving, it's worth adding that any sidewalk is only as wide as it's plowed.

In this picture: it appears the sidewalk was cleared before the street was plowed. 

Part of the problem is the proximity of the sidewalk to the street (which puts pedestrians right next to traffic even in fair weather). In any case, don't attempt this stretch in a wheelchair or with a stroller!

Book review: Life After Cars

 

Goodyear, Sarah; Gordon, Doug; and Naparstek, Aaron. Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile. Penguin Random House, 2025, xix + 282 pp.

You could say it's the opposite of freedom. At this point, we are not driving cars. Cars are driving us. And we're headed for an existential crash. (2025: xii)

(10/29/2025) Like every American younger than 80 years of age, I have lived all my life with cars. When I was a mere tot, my mom used to take my sister and me for rides around town after lunch. Later, a car became my preferred way of getting to school, and once I got my drivers' license, a ready and able way to get anywhere I wanted to go.

In a country where most adults drive to get almost everywhere, our towns have been designed around making driving convenient and parking readily accessible. It's how our world has looked since before we were born, and we've heard its attributes celebrated in advertising and entertainment media. Only with effort can the substantial social costs of all these cars and all this driving become apparent, and it takes even more effort to imagine a different way of designing places.

Life After Cars is a handy survey of all those social costs of driving. I have long been a fan of The War on Cars, a slightly edgy but erudite podcast out of New York City that began in 2018 as a three-way collaboration between journalist-activists Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon, and Aaron Naperstek. I don't remember how I found out about it, but it can't have been too long after the podcast began. Somewhere on the road to 160 episodes, Naparstek, who also founded the website Streetsblog, withdrew from the podcast, though he is listed as a co-author of the book.

The title of the book is overstated, of course, even though it is not as contentious as the (ironically intended) title of the podcast. Motor vehicles are here to stay, and they know that. What the authors actually seek is "[a] world where those who truly need to use cars and trucks--workers delivering heavy loads, residents of rural areas, some people with mobility disabilities--can do so without competing for space and resources with people whose use of personal motor vehicles is unnecessary, wasteful, and inefficient," and walking, public transit, and cycling are accepted as part of the mobility mix (pp. 225-226).

The social costs of motor vehicles are mostly explored across five chapters in Part II, "How Cars Ruin Everything." Cars make force children to choose between their personal safety and exploring their world (ch. 3); cause a host of environmental, noise, and other public health problems (ch. 4); kill more and more people each year (ch. 5); create social isolation and all the problems attendant to it, not to mention making enemies of our fellow drivers (ch. 6); and create extra burdens for people who are poor, physically handicapped, or otherwise socially marginalized (ch. 7). A lot of these phenomena are explored in more detail elsewhere--they cite a lot of recently published books, many of whose authors they've had on their podcast--but rarely are they presented in one place in such a convenient way.

Are these social costs of driving "worth it?" Have we as a society, somewhere along the line, collective decided that some collateral damage was acceptable given the benefits car provide us? The authors argue otherwise in Part I, "How We Got Here." They spend a lot of Chapter 1 in the pre-World War II era, when cars had to fight for space on streets with pedestrians, streetcars, and so forth. They credit cars' ultimate victories, on the streets and in the halls of government, to powerful and ruthless business interests. Today, with fewer and fewer people around who remember a non-autocentric world, it's easy to see cyclists and other advocates of transportation alternatives as threats, because whatever our ideals, we have to get to work in the world cars have made.

The authors try to end on a hopeful note in Part III, "How We Get Free," although they frequently revert back to Part II world, as in their critique of city-supplied free parking (pp. 162-172). They hail academic studies of the effects of cars, and while noting the difficulties officials have faced even where (Ghent, Paris, e.g.) some space has been reclaimed, argue that politicians can look past the loud objectors to a quieter supportive majority; citizens can make themselves heard; and people in some cases can be proactive, as with tactical urbanism (pp, 205-214). 

They have faith, backed up by some experience, that once we are able to provide space for alternatives to cars, people will enjoy and defend it. The trick is overcoming the fears of chaos that are easy to gin up. 

It's a beautiful world, this one. A quieter, greener world that is more sustainable both environmentally and economically. It's also a happier world, where people are more likely to let their children roam free, to know and trust their neighbors, or to have spontaneous interactions with friends they bump into on a sidewalk. This is what life after cars could look like. (226)

I'm not sure I share their optimism, but they do lay out the choice urgently before us. The fantasy world of SUV commercials, in which we zip confidently through empty city streets or about the scenic wilderness, is just that--a fantasy. The reality, however, of traffic-choked suburban stroads was constructed to serve those fantasies as well as the economic needs of auto manufacturers. Reclaiming our streets will be strenuous, even if everyone reads this book, just because of how our towns have built those streets for the last 80 years. 

Promotional sticker is appropriate for guitar case placement

Life After Cars webpage (Penguin Random House)

The War on Cars webpage (Patreon)

"Week Without Driving Diary (II)," Holy Mountain, 29 September 2025

Week Without Driving Diary (II)

This is a contentious season for mobility issues, as indeed it has been for practically everything else. Earlier this month, Kea Wilson of Streetsblog USA reported that the U.S. Department of Transportation is rescinding grants for multimodal projects, including in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Bloomington-Normal, Illinois; and in the Naugatuck Valley area of Connecticut. Two of the applicants were specifically told the program was reallocating its grants to "projects that promote vehicular travel," which is consistent with the trend under Secretary Sean Duffy to shift away from previous goals of sustainability and equity (Wilson 2025, Ionescu 2025). 

Despite this sad pass to which we've come, the City of Cedar Rapids is back to celebrate National Week Without Driving, promoted by America Walks and Disability Rights Washington. While these organizations are not against other goals like physical fitness or sustainability, their focus is firmly on equity: Thirty percent of Washington residents are nondrivers--disabled people who can't drive, people who can't afford a vehicle or gas, have suspended licenses or lack documentation to get a license, people who are too young to drive, choose not to drive or who have aged out of driving. But nondrivers are largely invisible... ("How Would You Get Around" 2025).

Monday, September 29 (sunny, 87F)

City staff handing out bagels and coffee to morning commuters

Biked to: Ground Transportation Center, St. Paul's United Methodist Church, Next Page Books

Yes, some people who are unable to drive, including When Driving Is Not an Option author Anna Zivarts, are able to get around by bicycle!

I started my morning with a "second breakfast" of a bagel and small coffee from Panera at the Ground Transportation Center, courtesy of the Cedar Rapids Department of Community Development and the Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization. (They did events like this last year, too, but I somehow missed them. How is that possible? What is this blog for anyhow?) The GTC is the transfer point for all routes except the Marion and Northeast circulators, and those riders whose attention we were able to get were pleasantly surprised. Buses provide a critical route to work or school for those whose mobility is limited, and because of the system's coverage orientation (Walker 2008) they are never going to be self-funding.

I arrived at the station about 8:00 a.m., which meant I navigated into downtown during the 10 minutes where the morning traffic is likely to be at its most intense. Nothing untoward happened, but I was conscious of being agile and knowledgeable enough to minimize encounters with cars. The most awkward moment was when I turned left in what appeared to be a brief break in opposing traffic, only to have the car I was turning behind slow way down to turn into a parking spot just around the corner (that probably shouldn't be a parking spot that close to the intersection)--unexpected but not dangerous. In all, I rode about eight miles to three places.

Bicycles are not only lighter and slower than cars, they are much easier to steal. When I stopped late in the morning at Next Page Books, Cedar Rapids' oldest independent bookstore, I locked my bike to a large post to which another bicycle was already locked. That bike immediately began emitting meek little beeps, which may have been intended to deter theft?

Passengers boarding the #7 bus

David Zipper's newsletter this morning discussed autonomous vehicles, which when fully ripe will contribute somehow to mobility. But there is a dangerous potential for "robotaxis," Zipper argues, to become so pleasant that everyone will spend more time in cars: The resulting spike in car traffic would be catastrophic for cities with limited street space. Crushing gridlock could exasperate residents, hobble employers, and cripple bus service. Mobility hubs, like one currently planned for Waco, Texas, haven't proven effective at changing travel habits. He concludes that since more than 90 percent of transit riders arrive at the station on foot, I sometimes wonder if cities and transit agencies should simply shift the resources... toward building high-quality sidewalk networks. Cedar Rapids, to its credit, had a huge push for sidewalk construction about a decade ago, though there are still places where they're needed. 

Tuesday, September 30 (sunny, high 87F)

Boarding the #5 to downtown Cedar Rapids at the Twixt Town Road transfer point.
The Northeast Circulator is in foreground; the Marion Circulator is in front of the 
apartment building across the street.

Bused to: (1) Trims Barbershop and Uptown Coffee, (2) Helen G. Nassif YMCA and Benz Beverage Depot [replaced at least one car trip]

Life and the transit system took me to Marion today. Google estimates the 4.5 miles from my home take about 11 minutes by car; the bus trip was about three times that, including the five blocks' walk to the stop.

Bus stop on 1st Avenue at 19th Street SE

I should probably consult Jarret Walker or someone about how much longer the bus can take versus a car trip and still attract ridership, but 3:1 is if I recall correctly pretty typical of Washington, D.C. Getting to Marion starts with the #5 bus, which runs up and down 1st Avenue every 15 minutes, making it Cedar Rapids' best bus line. The transfer point has moved over the years since the advent of the circulator a few years ago from Lindale Mall to the edge of the mall parking lot to where it is now, in front of an apartment building on Twixt Town Road. (Twixt Town Road, named by a poetically inclined city employee ages ago, runs along the border between Cedar Rapids and Marion.) The circulator got me to Uptown Marion ahead of my appointment, so I got to hang out in their remodeled City Square Park on a lovely morning. 

City Square, Marion

(It even has public restrooms!)

After the stop by City Square, the Marion circulator ranges far and wide over the town. For that reason I expect it's not practical for anyone above maybe 15th Street unless they're desperate. I expect that's a dilemma for any transit system, even one that's committed to coverage: how to balance convenient access to all the places people live with how much inconvenience we expect them to endure to get where they're going. But for me today, with the "right" trip planned, and a flexible schedule, the bus was great. There were 19 riders headed downtown on my return trip, so it was right for others as well.

Jean-Paul Sartre, author of The Critique of Dialectical Reason
 (Swiped from algundiaenalgunaparte.com)

On my afternoon ride downtown on the #2, we participated in what Jean-Paul Sartre called a "group-in-fusion," when a gentleman in a wheelchair had to maneuver around a woman with a walker. I wound up holding her walker while he got situated. Then, back on route #5 for the outbound trip, it happened again when a number of the 20-plus riders moved seats to make room for another rider and his wheelchair. "Yay, team bus riders," one lady said. On a day when President Trump proposed to use cities as military training grounds, our city's residents were taking care of each other.

Gil Penalosa's Cities for Everyone webinar today featured Phil Ginsburg, general manager of parks for the city of San Francisco. San Francisco aims to provide a park within a 10-minute walk for everyone in the city, including rerouting car traffic from Golden Gate Park and along the Pacific coast to improve safe access--not directly related to transportation alternatives, but definitely sharing the same goals of equity (cf. Hartlaub 2025).

Wednesday, October 1 (sunny, high 84F)

Biked to: Vault Coworking Space

Walked to: (1) Healthiest State Lunch at Greene Square, (2) Wellington Heights neighborhood

Today's official observance of Week Without Driving was the Healthiest State Walk, which originated from three locations and ended with lunch on the lawn at Greene Square. I joined a group that originated at the Cedar Rapids History Center on 2nd Avenue, which for me entailed walking an additional mile or so north from the Wendler (formerly Geonetric) Building where I'm coworking today. My route to the meetup point was highly unpleasant, up 6th and 7th Streets and dealing with a lot of medical and Interstate 380 vehicular traffic that wasn't expecting to have to deal with me. That included but was not limited to a woman on 7th Street signaling for a right turn at 6th Avenue who went through the intersection without turning--she was turning right into a parking lot past the street, not onto the street itself--and was not going to yield to the blogger in the crosswalk. Were I not fit and agile, I would never have attempted this walk.

The Healthiest State Walk proper and the lunch (catered by Craftd) were quite convivial; my group's walk was led by MedQuarter executive director Phil Wasta. Greene Square is a great space when it's activated. Betsy Borchardt from the City brought her dog to the park, who provided some drama as she squirmed to get at a nearby squirrel. Sadly or happily, depending on your perspective, her natural drive was denied.

Walking to lunch at Greene Square

In the evening, I went back out to do some door-to-door canvassing in the Wellington Heights neighborhood about a proposed restroom in Redmond Park. This effort is not directly related to Week Without Driving, but is aiming at the same goal of inclusive communities.

The latest Active Towns podcast episode arrived today. Host John Simmerman interviewed triathlete-turned-real estate mogul Michael Lovato, a resident of Boulder, Colorado. They describe Boulder as a haven for active people, which can include professional athletes but also people who want to stay physically fit and those who want to remain active through physical decline--all reasons to make it feasible to live well without driving!

Thursday, October 2 (sunny, high 86F)

Bused to: Helen G. Nassif YMCA, Lightworks Cafe [replaced car trip even though I...]

Drove 😒 to: CSPS Hall

As Rook Wilde took the stage at CSPS Hall tonight,
it was already dark outside

I made it to Thursday of the Week Without Driving without driving, but I saw this event on my calendar and knew it would break the skein. CSPS Hall, an eclectic arts venue where I frequently volunteer, is a hair over two miles from my house. I've frequently bicycled there during the day, and it's a mere three blocks from the #2 bus line stop by the Linn County Public Health building. But I'm not a confident night cyclist in a town that doesn't expect me, and the last city bus leaves the station at 7:15 p.m. With tonight's concert expected to go past 9:00, I opted to drive my car. I'm grateful I have that option available.

CSPS's one non-driving staff member, photographer Charles Black, lives in an apartment six blocks away, so he and his camera rely on an e-bike. He's going to be moving soon, though, due to the city's zoning-related demands on his current landlord. Happily he found an abode even closer--now he'll be only four blocks from CSPS Hall!

A new month reminds me to check my bike tires!

The Community Development folk were back at the Ground Transportation Center this afternoon, with treats for afternoon commuters, particularly high school students who use the city bus to get to and from school. They were planning to serve ice cream, but weren't sure about the logistics, particularly on another unseasonably warm day. I didn't get down there, but I wonder how it went?

Elsewhere, Cleveland-based blogger Angie Schmitt wrote today about an Ohio legislator's claim that traffic deaths are over-hyped. He told Schmitt's group that 1,300 annual traffic deaths in a state with a population over 11 million amounted to a very tiny risk. Yet, as Schmitt argues:

The thing is, these odds add up over time. Most people... live for 60 or 80 years if they're lucky. Risks compound... If we were to take those tiny fractions and add them up year after year, guess what? They start getting bigger. In the U.S., using 2022 data, the odds of being killed in a car crash over a lifetime are 1 in 93. More than 1 in 100 Americans can expect to die in a car crash over the course of their lifetimes.

Traffic safety, by this mathy logic, is a concern for everyone, not merely collateral damage from our (enjoyment of? attempts to accommodate to? assertion of individuality in?) car-dependent city design. That Ohio legislator was wrong to diminish the issue of traffic safety, but for many of us, he only said the quiet part out loud. 

The same can be said for non-drivers, whether they are that way from necessity or choice: they are people with legitimate stakes in how we roll, not mere statistical anomalies in what James Howard Kunstler once called "the era of happy motoring."

Friday, October 3 (sunny, high 88F)

Biked to: Coe College, Bricks Bar and Grill

My bike parked at Coe. The pergola at right honors the late Professor Dan Lehn.

I spent my day at my office at Coe College, from where I mostly retired a year and a half ago, then met some friends for happy hour at Bricks downtown.

Entrance to Bricks

Bricks has been in town longer than I have (1989), but is still going strong under the management of the Fun Not Fancy group. It is located where the main bike trail crosses 2nd Avenue SE, and though they hosted the after party for Bike to Work Week 2014, they haven't visibly appealed to cyclists as much as other bars along the trail have.

City bike rack outside Bricks, with my bike and my friend Chris's bike

In all, I rode about four miles to three places.

This year the city added to the commemoration of Week Without Driving a commuter bike ride in the style of Bike to Work Week. That happened today, riding downtown mostly on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail from McCloud Place on the northeast side in the morning, and back in the late afternoon. The same ride in May drew a small handful of riders, but everyone we can get into the spirit of this idea represents a step forward.

Rick Reilly's column in today's Washington Post demands greater regulation of e-bikes. The same technology that enables Charles to get his camera to and from CSPS Hall, and extends the possibility of bicycle rides, can be ridden aggressively and dangerously.  He cites a number of examples from his home state of California as well as suburban Chicago. Reilly recommends requiring drivers' licenses to drive any motorized vehicle, as well as fines and community service for violators. All this requires enforcement, however, and for a variety of good and bad reasons police presence on the streets has diminished nationwide. Accommodating non-drivers, especially those who are especially vulnerable, in our transportation system won't work unless the streets, and sidewalks and bike lanes, are safe.

Saturday, October 4 (sunny, high 86F)

Rode to: Bruegger's Bagels [replaced car trip]

Drove 😒 to: Zoey's Pizza

My bike in front of Bruegger's Bagels

A day after parts of Montana got socked with a foot of snow, we are still having summerlike temperatures, threatening but so far not breaking daily record highs. We have set a seasonal record with nine straight highs in the 80s.

I dodged a drive this morning because my list of errands stopped at one: to pick up bagels for Sunday breakfast. Bruegger's, the national bagel chain, has two Cedar Rapids locations, one only about two miles from our house. Mt. Vernon Rd. SE is a notorious stroad, but Bruegger's is on the north (our) side of the stroad, so I can get there by side streets. Once there, I spotted former mayor Ron Corbett among the diners. They offer free coffee if you order ahead through the app, and I managed to get that home in my drink holder without spilling too much. A four-mile bike ride with a dark roasted reward reminds me that Coffeeneuring starts in about a week; check the hashtag on your favorite social medium for more information, or you can live vicariously through the ride-by-ride coverage on Holy Mountain.

Saturday night I drove us out to dinner. We could have tried adhering to the letter of Week Without Driving--at the very least, Jane could have driven instead of me--but we didn't. The dining options within walking distance on a hot evening were not enticing, which carries a lesson for us all. Those of us who can drive sometimes drive because we don't feel like not driving.

Greater Greater Washington today posted an article by disability advocate Kelly Mack, who writes a blog on Substack called Rolling With It and uses a power wheelchair to get around Washington, D.C. She praises the improvements in mobility (transit buses with ramps, Metrorail elevators, more accessible taxis, sidewalks in good repair) during the 2000s. "I could access: work, medical appointments, stores for errands, and the many leisure activities I enjoyed, like visiting restaurants, theaters, and museums." Lately, though, she's "noticed a steady decline in the quality of accessible transportation options," with widespread broken elevators at Metro stations, erratic bus service, unplowed sidewalk ramps, and such. She refers to a "transportation rime tax" for disabled citizens whereby "Every piece of the transportation puzzle adds up to subtract time and energy from my life." As an advocate, she meets frequently with government officials on these very subjects, but finds only lip service, which she calls the "uh... hm factor." Mack, unlike me, can't drive herself when other options are too inconvenient or strenuous. It would be good to have a disability advocate, and I know they're out there, do some audits as part of next year's Week Without Driving in Cedar Rapids.

Week Without Driving is a good experience, if only for raising awareness. I found it not difficult to manage, with only a couple defections, because I'm [a] agile enough to walk places, [b] retired so I can roll with the bus's schedule, and [c] able to fall back on driving when all else fails. It would be more interesting to read about the regular experience of someone who literally can't drive.

City of Cedar Rapids Week Without Driving page

LAST YEAR: "Week Without Driving Diary," 30 September  

Safe Streets Open House

 

Early in the Safe Streets Open House

The Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization is in the final stages of formulating an action plan for transportation safety. "The goal of the plan," they say, "is to reduce traffic-related injuries and fatalities while enhancing mobility for all." While the overall plan is multifaceted, including attention to users, vehicles, and post-crash care, last week's open house at the New Bo City Market focused on design elements to reduce danger whatever your choice of transportation mode.

Posted maps displayed the areas designated, by features as well as five years of crash history, as High Risk Networks. Not surprisingly, these areas tend to be high-speed streets through commercial strips on the edge of town as well as 1st Avenue.

City and county intersections designated as High Injury Network
(Source: City of Cedar Rapids)

Risks were broken down by type of motor vehicle crash (head on collision, other angle collision, fixed object), with separate maps for motorcycles and "vulnerable road users" (pedestrians, bicyclists, wheelchair users, and the like). I was surprised to see one of the highest risk stretches for VRUs was 6th Avenue in Marion between 7th and 22nd Streets.

High Risk Network: VRU crash type
(author photograph from MPO poster)

This is a recently designed street, intended to draw through traffic off 7th Avenue so that 7th can serve as the main street of Uptown Marion. Still, 6th Avenue also goes through Marion, and is how you get to the Marion Public Library, City Hall, and the West End Diner; it's the southern border of City Square Park, and the Grant Wood Trail runs alongside it. This seems a matter for urgent attention!

Besides the maps, the posters displayed a number of options for treatments to improve safety.

The complete list of 15 proposed treatments is on the project webpage, cited below. I wish they had included the approximate construction costs of each treatment, so we could see the comparative price of each unit of harm reduction. I imagine that what's appropriate or effective will vary by context. For example, a traffic signal with a leading pedestrian interval seems to work in crowded downtown areas, but maybe not in higher speed zones where drivers are looking to make a right turn on red and aren't expecting a pedestrian or a cyclist. (Possible recency bias alert: I'm thinking of where Blairs Ferry Road NE crosses C Street, and happily this morning, the driver saw me crossing in time.)

Focus on transportation safety is most welcome. Can we do more than react to current situations? We should certainly stop building the unproductive, dangerous stroads that make up most of the high-risk routes. Given the role of cars, and hence car dependence, in fatalities, we could think of ways to facilitate alternatives to motor vehicles as well (despite the hostility of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy). I also advocate more traffic enforcement; I understand the risk to police, but driving is getting ridiculously aggressive.

The online comment period lasts til October 2. The next steps, I imagine, are the preparation of the final plan and funding (if available) for specific projects.

High-risk stretches in the core of our city

City of Cedar Rapids Safe Streets for All page

10th anniversary post: Jeff Speck in Cedar Rapids

 

Jeff Speck talking about "The Safe Walk," 2015

(3/9/2015) Ten years ago this month, when urbanism was still relatively "new," our local Corridor Urbanism group was all of two months old, your humble blogger was still young and idealistic, and Jeb Bush and Scott Walker were the frontrunners for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, the prophet Jeff Speck appeared in Cedar Rapids. The Boston-based architect, city planner, and author of Walkable City [Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2011] was in town to promote some of the redesign recommendations he had made while consulting with the city. Our one-way-to-two-way street conversions, separated bike lanes, and four-way-stops where there used to be traffic lights all came out of his time in our city.

My report on Speck's presentation at the City Services Center is here. Corridor Urbanism co-founder Ben Kaplan scored an interview with Speck, which can be found here. Speck's presentation that night is still on YouTube:

(1:15:08)

2015 was an optimistic time in a lot of ways. Across America residents and businesses were returning to city centers, violent crime had been falling for 25 years, the economy had largely recovered from the 2007-09 recession, and our city was rebuilding after the 2008 flood. Urbanism's insights promised knowledge that would help us sustain all that in ways that were also environmentally and financially resilient.

I still believe in cities, and believe that urbanism has important things to say which can help us understand our present problems, or which we can ignore at our peril. The optimism of those days has been difficult to sustain, however. National politics is getting uglier by the week, thanks to President Trump and Elon Musk and their reign of hate and lies and casual destruction. In Cedar Rapids, the most visible policies were once those street designs and reconstruction in the core, promising many safe walks to come. Now the most visible policies in Cedar Rapids have changed the subject from safe walking to carefree parking, as we put suburban development (the MedQuarter, the casino, school consolidation) where it shouldn't be. We seem to be moving towards more car-dependence, not less, which I think we will come to regret.

More importantly, urbanism across America has entered a new phase of life. Not only are the easy lifts behind us, but new challenges have arisen.

Loftus Lofts construction, New Bohemia, September 2024

Redevelopment has not been as inclusive as it should have been. Pete Saunders recently re-posted a 2018 reflection in which he quoted Richard Florida on the new wave of problems. Florida, whose The Rise of the Creative Class (Basic, 2002) and Who's Your City? (Basic, 2008) promoted the ideas of cities building off clustering of knowledge workers, more recently published The New Urban Crisis (Basic, 2017, also discussed here) in which he laments not foreseeing the problems that would result from an insurge of higher incomes.

Just when it seemed that our cities were really turning a corner, when people and jobs were moving back to them, a host of new urban challenges--from rising inequality to increasingly unaffordable housing and more--started to come to the fore. Seemingly overnight, the much-hoped-for urban revival has turned into a new kind of urban crisis.... Gentrification and inequality are the direct outgrowths of the re-colonization of the city by the affluent and the advantaged.

The city boundaries were re-integrated, but people were not, so the new prosperity ran up against the limits of the middle class bubble. Some places gentrified and older residents got displaced; a lot more places remained isolated and "devalued" (Saunders 2025).

Arco Building, 2022, features recently remodeled offices

The pandemic rearranged decades-old commercial patterns. The daylong succession of human activities (residential, work, recreational, residential) imagined six decades ago by Jane Jacobs and decimated by Euclidean zoning might have been easy to rebuild in our city centers, if only work had held still. The COVID pandemic shifted a good deal of work to remote, and the succeeding years have seen only partial recovery. Kaid Benefield wrote in Place Makers of a recent trip to Union Square in San Francisco where he found Nordstrom's closed, with Walgreen's and Bloomingdale's weeks away from the same fate. And it's not just remote work.

I think a number of trends are contributing to declining urban retail, none bigger than a consumer shift to the convenience of online shopping and delivery. A second major factor is the rise of remote work practices and consequent decline in daily office workers who have traditionally supported businesses near their places of employment. A third factor is rising crime rates in some urban neighborhoods.

With regard to crime, urban areas are having a variety of experiences, but the miracle of 1990-2015 seems to be over (citing Farrell 2024).

Low income housing, SW side

Housing. Need I say more? Not too long ago, Pete Saunders noted that urbanism seems to have turned into all housing all the time. As demand for housing increasingly outstrips supply, costs in high-demand areas are making one of the basic necessities of life harder for people to obtain. (See this interactive graphic, complete with time slider.) I don't know where this is going--another crash, maybe?--but in the meantime we're dealing with big time market failure. 

At the bottom end, an ever-larger group of people have been forced into unstable housing arrangements or out onto the street. This is a nationwide problem that hits people locally. New data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development find the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness has increased 57 percent since the low point in--you guessed it--2015. (See the analysis at Torres 2025). The explosion of homelessness has made some urban areas highly unpleasant. They are our brothers and sisters, and they need a place to sleep and process waste just the rest of us do, but their increasing presence is making urban areas harder for the rest of us to use. 

Maybe if we can find ways to make office-to-residential conversion work on a large scale (Anderson 2023), we can stabilize the housing market, rejuvenate urban retail at least for necessaries, and thereby put enough eyes on the streets that they will look less ramshackle and feel less dangerous. There certainly a lot of people continuing to do the hard work of building great places, as the The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast and the Cities for Everyone webinar series seem never to run out of people to feature (although the international scope of Cities for Everyone often makes me wish I lived in France or Spain). The black urbanist movement described by Pete Saunders (2018 [2025]) continues to "focus on immediate concerns and push for pragmatic solutions."

Mostly, I still believe in walkable, compact development as the best for human quality of life as well as the most sustainable. Speck's four elements of walkability--safe, comfortable, interesting, and useful--will remain forever relevant.