Experience of urban farming

Ilgvars is a spacial planning student from Riga and has kindly made a guest post about allotment gardening in Riga. No advice on lettuce and radish this time, but - even better - discussion about the social and economic benefits from urban agriculture. Ilgvars is running his own blog http://ilgvarsjansons.blogspot.com/ about urban issues.

During the last decade the popularity of urban farming has increased. Not only in cities in developing countries like Cairo, Mumbai, Havana, but also in cities like New York and Detroit.

In developing countries urban farming is practised for income-earning or food producing but in developed countries urban farming may be undertaken for the physical and/or psychological relaxation it provides, rather than for food production. Because urban farming promotes energy-saving local food production, urban and peri-urban farming are generally seen as sustainable practices. Local production of food also allows savings in transportation costs, storage, and in product loss, what results in food cost reduction.

Social benefits that have emerged from urban farming practices are; better health and nutrition, increased income, employment, food security within the household, and community social life. Some researchers indicate that unemployed populations in large cities and suburban towns would decrease if put to work by local food movements.

I won’t question or deny the benefits of urban farming. I will briefly compare the situation in Latvia. To my opinion urban farming is nothing new in Latvia. For 50 years Latvia was part of USSR. This was time when urban farming took a serious role in each citizen’s life. So called community gardens took place in every city and surrounding area. These community gardens were made and supported by biggest factories and enterprises and provided recreational activities and extra food for their workers. The problem is that most of these areas are partly abandoned and are considered as degraded. Municipalities don’t know what to do with them. Remove or not, because these community gardens take a serious role in lives of old and poor people. Many of them are located in precious land like Lucavsala, Torņakalns in Riga and surrounding municipalities in Riga region. In many of these areas building of living houses has occurred during last years what makes the situation even more complicated. So what to do with this heritage?

Community gardens at Skanstes Street. Photo by Flickr user Kaspars Funts.

Another issue is that, because of the history how the community gardens were made, it is not prestigious to take part in it. That’s why when somebody mentions urban farming as a new practice people in Latvia are very sceptical. We might say that we have bad experience! Although ''the new economic situation'' and the experience of New York and Detroit has shattered this opinion a little.

Also we have a lot of vacant urban areas in cities where urban farming might take place. The question is - are people ready for reanimation of urban farming in Latvia? And if we look at example of Riga - is it reasonable to turn vacant urban places into agricultural land while surrounding agricultural land in Riga region is turned into suburbs?

High-speed rail Riga-Jēkabplis

In December 2010 Latvian Transport Minister Uldis Augulis came with a sensational proposal about High-speed rail (HSR) connecting Riga and Moscow. Instead of listing all reasons why Riga-Moscow HSR in unreasonable, I developed a new proposal – Latgale HSR stretching from Riga to Jēkabpils. French LGV Est has demonstrated that HSR can work not only with multi-million cities at booth ends but also as a trunk line with several branches to smaller cities all around the region - similar to the situation in Latgale. The primary use of Latgale HSR would be providing passenger transport from Riga to Jēkabpils and further east on three branches – to Daugavpils Rēzekne and Madona. And the secondary use – an additional freight capacity to Riga port. Though ‘classic’ HSR are passenger-only, several HSR in Germany and at least one in France have/will have mix of freight and passenger trains.

  

Where is the problem?

The existing railway between Riga and Jēkabpils was finished in 1861, since then dozen of towns and villages have emerged near the stops. It is the busiest railway in Latvia carrying big number of freight, suburban and bit smaller number of regional and intercity trains. If traffic will continue to grow, it will become very difficult to sustain so big variety of services on one railway so a need for alternative tracks may emerge. Furthermore – in favor to road transport, the construction of highway replacing the old and inconvenient road trough the towns and villages has already started. If no significant improvement is done to increase the intercity services on the railway, road traffic may steel significant part of passengers.

How this HSR to improve situation?

If a new rail line is considered, it must be build according to modern standards – e.g. the high speed no less then 300km/h. This would allow removing the slot-hungry intercity express service from the old railway. As passenger transport alone could not justify construction of new railway, it must be used also for freight traffic – especially the one heading to docks on the left bank of Daugava in Riga (supposed to be built soon) thus avoiding crossing of the busy Railway Bridge in Riga. The HSR should be routed south of river Daugava because the area is sparsely populated, flat and have vast state forest properties. The whole length of the new railway is approximately 130km; on average speed of 230km/h travel time would drop to 40minutes from Riga Central to Jēkabpils South so cutting the travel time to Daugavpils, Jēkabpils and Rēzekne by more then 1 hour.

A capacity increase by doubling the last single track sections is underway on the old railway so the slot problem will be solved at least for 20 years. But if politicians truly want to make passenger trains the mayor transportation mode in the state, the frequencies and operational speeds for intercity trains should be increased and that also leads to considerably smaller overall capacity of the railway. Latgale HSR is not a project desperately needed right now, but it should be carefully considered by planners. Riga to Daugavpils and Riga to Rēzekne are two of most developed intercity train routes in Latvia and market for passenger transport is bigger than for Rail Baltica or Riga-Moscow HSR project, meanwhile the 130km stretch require far less investments then the other two proposals.

Bicycle Rapid Transit for Riga

Most of modern cities currently try to sustain and upgrade booth mass transit systems and cycling infrastructure to attract people to sustainable modes of transport. On the other hand bicycling and public transport are actually competitors in several areas:

1. Users. The latest priority in several cities - cycling usually fight for passengers from public transport as being cheaper and often faster than the conventional busses and trams. Cycling infrastructure is usually aimed to reduce car trips but it may turn out to reduce mass transit trips.

2. Street space. Many cities have narrow streets so putting booth dedicated public transport and cycling lanes may be impossible.

3. Public funds. Public transport and cycling need funds for expansion and operation so sustaining booth modes puts bigger pressure on the city budget.

In Riga all these three arguments are often used to advocate focusing on conventional public transport and not support extensive upgrades in bike infrastructure. And the forth and biggest argument in favor of public transport is the seasonality of bicycling – there is no real way how to make people cycle in -10 degrees Celsius, during snowfalls or rainy days – so the year-round public transport must be supported. Really? Here is my question – why to prefer exactly weather-protected public transport instead of weather-protected cycling infrastructure? And it turns out that the cycling can be put ahead of mass transit even in cities with bad weather.

My idea is that cities can build dedicated cycling highways (see proposal for Toronto) with complete grade separation, high operating speed (>20km/h) between the districts. The system may be considered similar to existing undergrounds – a user arrives to the nearest station, pays for ride and heads to a station closest to his destination. Yet – unlike in a metro – user brings (or rents) his own vehicle, don’t wait for train in first and transfer stations and even don’t stop at unnecessary stations on his way and route himself to the exit station (similar of using a highway network). Altogether the result would be similar to the concept of Personal Rapid Transit system - with the difference of being slower on operation, requirement of user to drive and own (or rent) the vehicle yet with a big advantage of using the same vehicle for origin-to-station and station-to-destination movements.

An adequate riding climate is crucial for Bicycle Rapid transit – the users must be protected from precipitation, extreme temperatures, ice on pavement and direct sunlight, also good lighting is a must. As in practice the bikeways would be located in some type of tunnels – provision of artificial tailwinds may also be considered. Similar to using the conventional public transport – users are exposed to all types of weather while arriving/departing from station (in case of ground transportation passengers are often even forced to wait in bad weather), the controlled climate is provided only when entering the station or car.

New infrastructure required

The biggest challenge in this concept is provision of necessary infrastructure – the bikeways must be wide (>3.5m) each direction to provide high capacity. Maximum capacity for so wide bike path is not clearly known (though some sources state about 4500 bikes per hour per direction – a specific research must be done). The path must be fully separated and isolated from other modes to keep the flow non-stop, sustain the climate, restrict cyclists from entering the system without paying and provide safety. This makes Bicycle Rapid transit more costly to implement than usual on-street bus lines or trams yet cheaper than grade separate rail or bus transit. On the other hand cycling highways – unlike track based systems - can be effectively phased using existing streets for unfinished sections. Even one few kilometers long stretch of good bike highway would attract cyclists from districts yet directly unconnected to the system.

Operation compared to mass transit system

Travel time – generally shorter on Bicycle Rapid Transit because of no stops, no waiting time, no transfers and use of bicycle on the way to/from station instead of walking;

Peak performance – unclear as the capacity of Bicycle Rapid Transit System is unknown but even 4500 cyclists per hour per direction is sufficient for most routes in small to medium cities – it is equivalent to a tram with 200 riders running every 2min 40 sec. It is clear that bikes can’t handle very big flows but that is actually needed rarely;

Off-peak performance – as less crowded cycling would be even faster while public transport slower because of longer headways. If cycling network is closed for maintenance during nights – it would still be possible to use one’s bike to return home;

Accessibility – similar to public transport Bicycle Rapid Transit would not be very appropriate for wheelchair users and mothers with strollers during peak hours but during low hours would offer a comfortable ride. Cycling is appropriate for most of disabled people as specific vehicles like hand-powered tricycles are available. For others a simple bus network with long intervals and small capacity still must be sustained (possibly private). Bikes may provide also considerable hand luggage capacity if bags, baskets and trailers are used.

Building costs – high for cycling highways and associated stations compared to on-street transport. Also more land required than on-street pubic transport;

Running costs – extremely low for cycling highways as almost no moving parts (maybe only turnstiles, bike escalators and ventilators compared to additional trains and buses in conventional systems). Extremely low labor costs – no drivers, no vehicle repair stuff, just highway maintenance and possibly - station stuff. Also energy consumption is low and costs predictable - no moving cars, only highway lighting and ventilation.  Low operation costs is the biggest advantage of this type of system meaning that it can be kept open almost always – even during nights. Cycling is also oil-independent and ecologically friendly and contributes to public health giving huge savings for economy.

Possibilities in Riga

Readers may be tired of different concepts for Riga but I am not doing only because that’s the city I know best but also because of an unique feature – total lack of investment in public transport infrastructure (I don’t mean vehicles in this case – they are very good in Riga). Riga doesn’t have tunnels or elevated ways exclusively for public transport and even bus lanes are rare. That is why this city turns to be a good soil for new ideas.

Some of the cycling highways can be located along railway lines making their construction relatively cheap but still many cycling highways must be build above and parallel to main streets – usually elevated if located outside the railway ring and tunneled below streets in the central part. Districts of Bolderāja and Daugavgrīva are near the sea and booth are detached from other districts by a 6km wide meadow making the cycling highway building costs unreasonable and cycling time long. These districts can be included in the cycling system anyway – using specially equipped bus line for user ferrying together with their bicycles. The cost of ferry bus may be or may not be included in the cost of the rest of system. Theoretically – if such buses turn to be popular they can also link distant points of the system if the travel time by bus is considerably shorter and demand is sufficient.

Urban Cable Transit – The Future Transport Mode in Cities?

So far Cable Propelled Transit (CPT) has only been used for crossing natural obstacles – valleys, steep slopes or wide rivers. But the obvious advantage of going over artificial obstacles like junctions, congested streets and buildings is left unused partly due to undeveloped technology, partly by sticking to conventional transport modes and not willing to develop a new one.

Some South American cities have succeeded in using gondolas as feeders to main metro stations from the poor neighborhoods on the hills. The technology used is the same standard one used in ski resorts – but anyway it proves that cables can be used also outside mountains.

You can find out more about current technology (what is MDG, BDG, Funitels, 3S, what is detachability, what are approximate costs and capacity) here: http://gondolaproject.com/ 

High capacity urban CPT (if once developed) would have a great use in Riga as the soil conditions has turned off the deep underground project, also the building density in central part is high and streets narrow, there are several water bodies in the city – biggest obstacle being the 400m wide river Daugava. Maybe one day it will be reality to travel on easy-to-build gondola lines above the cities rather than trains in tunnels deep below the street level.

Riga to Oslo ticket prices

Riga to Oslo is one of two routes from the Baltic States served by four airlines (the second being Riga-Moscow). While Riga has only one airport, Oslo area is covered by three airports: the primary Gardermoen airport (used by Air Baltic and Norwegian), secondary Rygge/Moss airport (used by Ryanair) and Sandefjord-Torp airport located more than 100km from Oslo, but convenient for area South-West of Oslo and chosen by Wizzair.

The biggest carrier on the route is Air Baltic accounting for 51% of capacity share and – as using smaller aircraft than others – 68% of frequency share. Closest runner-up is Norwegian with 19% of capacity and 14% of frequency. Ryanair offers 18% of capacity and 11% of frequency while Wizzair 12% of capacity and only 7% of flights as offering only two departures per week.

Fare graphs indicates two price peaks – one on Oslo-Riga route on December 15 to 23 and the second on Riga – Oslo route on January 1 to 5. This strongly suggests that during Christmas time flights are used by Latvian workers visiting their families. Each of the airlines tries to differ from the others – Air Baltic and Norwegian provides connecting flights and uses the primary airport, Air Baltic offers big number of departures. Ryanair targets price-sensitive passengers and population South-East fro Oslo, Wizzair relies less on Oslo city but caches passengers South-West from Oslo. Here you can see how well the airlines manage to translate their strategies into cash from tickets:

Edited Nov21 - I found an official confirmation that Air Baltic's EUR 5 transaction fee can be avoided by using Baltic Miles MasterCard so ticket prices in the research are lowered by EUR 5 and five euro surcharge to usual Visa and MasterCard is added.

The average fares in the two-month span (November 18 to January 17) are as follows: Ryanair – EUR 29, Wizzair – EUR 37, Norwegian – EUR 74, Air Baltic EUR 81 EUR 77. Prices for Air Baltic and Norwegian are extremely similar and they even peak at the same days indicating that the two companies compete for the same passengers. Less successful are the two youngest operators - Ryanair and Wizzair. Booth started the service over seven month ago but tickets are still extremely cheep and are not coming significantly more expensive closer to the flight dates. On the other hand during Christmas period Wizzair has as high prices as Air Baltic and Norwegian showing that their strategy of targeting specific region near Oslo works. Overall it is clear that the ticket prices for Riga – Oslo route is low due to the high supply and some operators (Ryanair and Wizzair in particular) may even drop it.

airBaltic Oulu Base – New Gateway to the Arctic

Though airBaltic’s intention to open a base in one of Finland’s regional airports was known already for several months – the official announcement came today - Oulu has been chosen over Tampere and Turku. Opening is going to happen in 2012, when Oulu terminal capacity will be increased. This decision is hardly explainable from point-to-point strategy as Southern Finland is more populous, the competition is still limited (especially from Turku) and flight times to Western European destinations are shorter. Furthermore - Tallinn and Vilnius base examples demonstrated – all other point-to-point bases for airBaltic has been a target for cuts if not working so well as from Riga. So is there any way how Oulu base can become a complementing not competing base in BT’s network?

  

The unique market - Arctic

RIX is in perfect location for serving Southern Finland, but the airports of Northern Finland are too far and with too less traffic to Western and Southern Europe. But the demand for Arctic and sub-Arctic routes can be high enough to sustain daily or double-daily flights if traffic from Oulu and other Finnish cities is added. Here is my vision how to make it work: 

The far north towns are proposed to be served with overnight flights arriving in Oulu at early morning. In Oulu passengers could change to:

1. Direct flight to Riga and further to any destination in Europe;

2. Any flight proceeding to towns in Southern Finland;

3. Other direct flights – for instance Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg.

Most of planes continue travel southwards with one-stop flight to Riga in order to provide link between Oulu and mayor Finnish cities and to pick up passengers for Riga hub departures starting at 10:00AM. Once arrived in Riga planes participate in daytime flights to destinations in Europe. As the Oulu-based planes most probably will be turboprops, they must serve the closest destinations from Riga – cities in Central Europe. Northwards journey starts shortly before 3:00PM and goes exactly the opposite way as the morning travel.

I see such advantages in this complex routing:

1. High aircraft utilization;

2. The widest possible market to towns in Arctic – important as the population is low;

3. Key markets using this routing: Arctic to Southern Finland via Oulu, Arctic to Riga and other mayor daytime destinations via Oulu; Southern Finland via Riga to Europe; Central Europe to nighttime destinations in N, E Europe and Asia via Riga;

4. Planes in utilization at Riga during the busiest daytime hours.

And such disadvantages:

1. Delay strategy is needed – being late is some segments may cause missed connections and delayed onward flights. But as booth Riga and Oulu are going to be bases, replacement capacities can be provided.

2. Tricky maintenance scheduling;

3. Arctic to South, West, Central Europe markets served with two transfers – one in Oulu, second in Riga. Situation can be improved by adding some direct flight to Arctic towns from Riga or offering more direct flights from Oulu to destinations in Europe.

Riga urban and suburban mass transit consolidation

Riga city public transport has always been - and in foreseeable future will be - a ground-transport based as no massive underground projects are on horizon. The system consists of 9 tram, 20 trolleybus and about 54 bus routes and involves about a thousand vehicles, but on the other hand it suffers of strict mode distinction, route overlapping, too frequent stops and lack of interchange opportunities; the stops lacks amenities and even basic service information. Inspired from success of Bus Rapit Transit systems (BRT) in several cities I revised the transit route system in Riga and came to a core route proposal:

Routes are numbered G1 to G11 with terminal stations A, B or C (say a trolleybus with code G4C on it is heading to Pļavnieki). The new routes are based on these existing ones:

G1 – trams 6 and 7;

G2 – trams 4 and 11;

G3 – bus 3 with modifications on the right bank;

G4 – trolleybus 22 and 25;

G5 – tram, part of route 5;

G6 – trolleybus 14;

G7 – bus 53;

G8 – trolleybus 3 and 19;

G9 – trolleybus 23;

G10 – buses 2, 11, 22 and 24;

G11 – a new bus route. 

The main idea is to create a metro-like network (in witch transfers are extensively used) from transit lines that already exist. This in most cases means leaving a single, strong transport line from center to each district (unlike the current two or three) and providing vast interchange opportunities at several stations. Vehicles on the remaining lines would run with very short intervals (even less than 60s in peak hours) so making the system very attractive. Exclusive transport lanes may be required but the system may also work on usual city streets together with other traffic. At least in initial stages the introduction of such a system would be focused on branding, stop spacing, stop improvements and creation of line hierarchy rather than increasing the driving speeds.

As only the main districts would be covered by this network, feeders and some local routes also must be created to provide public transport in  less populous neighborhoods.

Suburban trains to do what they are supposed to

Right now suburban trains and the few regional trains in the city make frequent stops at small, poorly equipped stations not providing transfer opportunities and focusing just on the surrounding market. In order to make the train market wider I propose calling just at few but high-quality interchange station that serve the whole city. Instead of terminating at Riga central station the trains must continue the journey to other stations in the city to serve even more passengers. Here is the route-scheme for the reorganized system:

The colored lines are frequent suburban services (20-40 min intervals), black ones - all regional services (40-120min intervals). Currently Zemitāni-Pētersala and Imanta-RIX sections are non-existent but both are highly possible to be built. Until these rail links are getting built trains could terminate at Zemitāni and Torņakalns instead.

This plan don’t requires an excessively large funds but concentrates on making hierarchy (starting from local feeder buses, than to core routes, up to suburban, regional, intercity trains, coaches and planes) but it requires lot of political will and understanding. If such a consolidation would go hand-in-hand with exclusive bus lanes on streets or even separate level roads for public transport, Riga would have fast, modern and rather cheap public transport network with fully sufficient capacity.

Could the New airBaltic Terminal Become the First True Low-Cost Terminal?

Everyone who had air-traveled at least once had got familiar with the traditional order at airport: check-in, baggage drop, security, passport control, boarding, luggage reclaim and so on. But is it really the most appropriate, easiest and cheapest way to get people and their bags on and off the planes? There must be some more up-to-date model because the current system has strong roots in early luxury air travel when traveler numbers were low, ticked prices unaffordable for general public and service standards high.

Current terminal at Riga airport is now considerably crowded at peak times as airBaltic has created a local hub. All of the earlier expansion proposals came from airport itself and were some type of traditional glamorous ‘air-travel temples’ spread all over the world. The project did not move on and airBaltic took over the initiative of building a terminal for 7-8 million annual passengers with expansion possibilities to capacity of 14 million passengers. Terminal must be low cost (~EUR 95m) and satisfy needs of airBaltic. Here come my ideas for the terminal:

Self-Service Luggage Handling

The cheapest and most obvious way to handle luggage is to put this duty on the owner. This means no traditional luggage drop when entering the terminal but one must bring his suitcases as far as the aircraft and put it in trolley for loading onto aircraft. Arriving bags are delivered right near the aircraft and anyone can take them without any delays. Of course, all bags must comply with hand luggage safety standards so no sharp items or liquids can be carried. If all this is introduced luggage handing will cost less so most of restrictions and fees actually could be eliminated.

Problems start with other airports in airBaltic network – the arriving bags at Riga must be cleared as hand luggage not as checked-in luggage so gate baggage drop must be applied for everyone and several airports may not find it acceptable. Luggage transfers from traditional carriers to BT would be impossible and travelers would have to pick-up the bags from reclaim belt and go trough security again. Alternatively such type of luggage could be considered as air cargo and delivered at cargo facilities at RIX (with significantly longer delivery time).

Keeping the Terminal Simple

As terminal would not have a traditional baggage handling system, all the facilities can be located in single floor; there would be no need for check-in counters. Single floor and gate baggage drop don’t go well together with jetbridges so walk and bus gates are the only reasonable option also saving time.

New passenger oriented cargo and mail service must be developed for prohibited items in hand luggage. Sharp items and liquids could be delivered to destination with special mail service (optionally connected to traditional mail). The difference from current checked-in luggage would be earlier check-in times or later deliveries (booth in special offices), smaller item size. These items would not be attached to the particular flight where the owner flies but could be delivered to destination also earlier or later. The packages can be delivered to traveler’s preferred post office as regular mail so avoiding the need of make companies own post offices at all stations.

Maybe this all sound too crazy but just imagine how big savings could give significant airport cost reduction at hub airport for hub and spoke model airline. Hub model was introduced because it is cheaper than point-to-point model; it is multiple times easier to connect each node with one hub rather than each node with all of the others. Paradoxically European point-to-point LCC now can offer cheaper tickets with significantly more expensive network. Hub airlines can blame only themselves for high airport costs coming from starchitect terminals, luggage handling systems, jetbriges and 100m spans over check-in halls.