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Drive-throughs versus active transportation
10 October 2009
[indent]
Drive-through* businesses have been around in North America since the 1930s. According to Wikipedia, the concept began with a single bank in 1928, and extended to restaurants only in 1948.
They joined drive-in operations - restaurants and movies - as part of the popular car culture of the 1950s and the 1960s. One might even say it has been a car-worship culture, as many trends in planning and development catered to the car, rather than to people.
Although McDonald's didn't get their first drive-through until 1975, today, almost every fast food restaurant and chain coffee shop has one. For some of these businesses, the drive-through trade represents as much as 60% of their business. They are often touted as convenient, fast and efficient.
But are they good for the community? Should we restrict or even ban them from future developments? Those are questions council has to wrestle with in our new 'comprehensive zoning bylaw.'
First, let me note that no one is saying we will tell anyone with an existing drive-through that it has to be closed. Not only do we lack the legal authority to do so, that's not the subject of the debate. The debate is about future drive-through operations, not current ones.
Collingwood already has numerous drive-through businesses. Two banks on the edge of downtown have them. There are several fast-food restaurants on First Street, Hurontario and Hume Street that have them. Another is proposed for High Street.
So what's wrong with these drive-throughs?
Start with traffic. Several were designed for a predicted lower traffic count. They do not have the space to queue the number of cars that visit them. Anyone driving here knows that traffic gets backed up on First and Hurontario Streets as drivers line up for their turn in the queue. That causes all sorts of problems with other traffic, including delays and potential safety issues. On Hurontario Street, the nearby residents complain constantly about the traffic and noise.
Plus there is the pedestrian factor. Pedestrians often find themselves having to move through or close to lines of queuing traffic. That's always fraught with potential problems and safety issues. At some point, there will ALWAYS be a conflict because entrances or exits intersect with sidewalks where pedestrians and bicyclists travel.
So we have to ask what is necessary to design a drive-through that does not lead to traffic problems?
Well, larger queuing lanes, for one. But how many vehicles should we say a restaurant has to accommodate? Do we plan for peak times or the average daily use? And do we want to trade more asphalt for reduced landscaping and building footprint?
Then we have to recognize the threat of GHG emissions. Idling cars produce them. Drive-throughs encourage idling, hence more emissions. We have an anti-idling bylaw in Collingwood - don't drive-throughs violate the spirit of that? How can we tell someone they can't idle on the main street but they can idle in a lineup for a latte on First Street? There's some hypocrisy there.
We've accepted the sustainable community plan that includes key environmental concepts. How do drive-throughs contribute to those goals?
Next we have to ask how allowing drive-throughs aligns with our active-transportation policy. We have stated we want to be a walkable community. We want to promote walking, bicycling and alternate transportation (like buses). How do drive-throughs meet those goals? They don't. They act in direct opposition to them.
Which is more important for Collingwood to promote: active, healthy lifestyles with pedestrian-based development, or automobile-centric development? Do the drive-throughs offer enough return in taxes and jobs to offset their negative effect on our goals for walkability?
Another concern is urban design. Frankly there's no way to make asphalt look appealing or attractive. A skiffle of landscaping around the property line is merely lipstick on the pig. Sure, we can try to hide the drive-through at the back of the building, and move the business to the front, up towards the street. But we still need to have in-and-out entrances, directional signs, line painting, speakers, menu boards, and signs. No matter how we engineer it, it's still going to look very automobile-centric.
One thought is to define zones or areas where drive-throughs are welcome, and where they are not. They might be acceptable in the commercial west-end or in industrial zones, but not in or in close proximity to residential zones or the downtown. Certainly not near schools or in community safety zones. But what about near parks or areas where trails intersect?
We're a culture of convenience, and it's hard to break that habit. We will drive in circles around the downtown, circumnavigating block after block in order to be close to a store, rather than walk more than 200 feet to it.** We lead busy, rushed lives and would rather have the convenience of eating in our car as we race home or to work, rather than sit down to eat indoors (and we willingly risk our safety and that of passengers and other drivers rather than spend the extra time seated). Changing the car-centric, convenience-oriented culture that spawned the drive-through will not be easy, maybe not even possible at our level.
But we can make a statement about what we want our community to look and feel like, by limiting or restricting future drive-throughs to more suitable areas. And to make the designs more human-oriented and pedestrian-friendly so they aren't as coarse looking as many are now.
We can encourage developers of these operations to rethink their designs and plans, to focus on the human aspects, with less emphasis on the automobile. We can use 'new urbanism' designs and concepts to help us create our town's future look, not simply rely on tired, old design ideas from the 1950s and 60s.
And we can make sure that policies and goals like active transportation, walkability and sustainability are integral parts of our planning and growth, not simply feel-good proclamations with all the strength and integrity of wet tissue paper.
~~~~~
* Not the abhorrent "drive-thru" which is not only bad spelling but an embarrassment to anyone with even a modicum of English learning. It belongs in the same category as linguistic aberrations like "e-zy", "nite" and "lite." It was likely created by a functionally illiterate person in some marketing department in a failed attempt to be cute. Probably the same department that decided to call ungainly, lumbering trucks with a passenger cab instead of a cargo hold "sport" utility vehicles.
**That's what one of our numerous parking studies reported, in the 1990s. When the distance is greater, most people will move their car rather than walk further.[/indent]
They joined drive-in operations - restaurants and movies - as part of the popular car culture of the 1950s and the 1960s. One might even say it has been a car-worship culture, as many trends in planning and development catered to the car, rather than to people.
Although McDonald's didn't get their first drive-through until 1975, today, almost every fast food restaurant and chain coffee shop has one. For some of these businesses, the drive-through trade represents as much as 60% of their business. They are often touted as convenient, fast and efficient.
But are they good for the community? Should we restrict or even ban them from future developments? Those are questions council has to wrestle with in our new 'comprehensive zoning bylaw.'
First, let me note that no one is saying we will tell anyone with an existing drive-through that it has to be closed. Not only do we lack the legal authority to do so, that's not the subject of the debate. The debate is about future drive-through operations, not current ones.
Collingwood already has numerous drive-through businesses. Two banks on the edge of downtown have them. There are several fast-food restaurants on First Street, Hurontario and Hume Street that have them. Another is proposed for High Street.
So what's wrong with these drive-throughs?
Start with traffic. Several were designed for a predicted lower traffic count. They do not have the space to queue the number of cars that visit them. Anyone driving here knows that traffic gets backed up on First and Hurontario Streets as drivers line up for their turn in the queue. That causes all sorts of problems with other traffic, including delays and potential safety issues. On Hurontario Street, the nearby residents complain constantly about the traffic and noise.
Plus there is the pedestrian factor. Pedestrians often find themselves having to move through or close to lines of queuing traffic. That's always fraught with potential problems and safety issues. At some point, there will ALWAYS be a conflict because entrances or exits intersect with sidewalks where pedestrians and bicyclists travel.
So we have to ask what is necessary to design a drive-through that does not lead to traffic problems?
Well, larger queuing lanes, for one. But how many vehicles should we say a restaurant has to accommodate? Do we plan for peak times or the average daily use? And do we want to trade more asphalt for reduced landscaping and building footprint?
We've accepted the sustainable community plan that includes key environmental concepts. How do drive-throughs contribute to those goals?
Next we have to ask how allowing drive-throughs aligns with our active-transportation policy. We have stated we want to be a walkable community. We want to promote walking, bicycling and alternate transportation (like buses). How do drive-throughs meet those goals? They don't. They act in direct opposition to them.
Which is more important for Collingwood to promote: active, healthy lifestyles with pedestrian-based development, or automobile-centric development? Do the drive-throughs offer enough return in taxes and jobs to offset their negative effect on our goals for walkability?
Another concern is urban design. Frankly there's no way to make asphalt look appealing or attractive. A skiffle of landscaping around the property line is merely lipstick on the pig. Sure, we can try to hide the drive-through at the back of the building, and move the business to the front, up towards the street. But we still need to have in-and-out entrances, directional signs, line painting, speakers, menu boards, and signs. No matter how we engineer it, it's still going to look very automobile-centric.
One thought is to define zones or areas where drive-throughs are welcome, and where they are not. They might be acceptable in the commercial west-end or in industrial zones, but not in or in close proximity to residential zones or the downtown. Certainly not near schools or in community safety zones. But what about near parks or areas where trails intersect?
We're a culture of convenience, and it's hard to break that habit. We will drive in circles around the downtown, circumnavigating block after block in order to be close to a store, rather than walk more than 200 feet to it.** We lead busy, rushed lives and would rather have the convenience of eating in our car as we race home or to work, rather than sit down to eat indoors (and we willingly risk our safety and that of passengers and other drivers rather than spend the extra time seated). Changing the car-centric, convenience-oriented culture that spawned the drive-through will not be easy, maybe not even possible at our level.
But we can make a statement about what we want our community to look and feel like, by limiting or restricting future drive-throughs to more suitable areas. And to make the designs more human-oriented and pedestrian-friendly so they aren't as coarse looking as many are now.
We can encourage developers of these operations to rethink their designs and plans, to focus on the human aspects, with less emphasis on the automobile. We can use 'new urbanism' designs and concepts to help us create our town's future look, not simply rely on tired, old design ideas from the 1950s and 60s.
And we can make sure that policies and goals like active transportation, walkability and sustainability are integral parts of our planning and growth, not simply feel-good proclamations with all the strength and integrity of wet tissue paper.
~~~~~
* Not the abhorrent "drive-thru" which is not only bad spelling but an embarrassment to anyone with even a modicum of English learning. It belongs in the same category as linguistic aberrations like "e-zy", "nite" and "lite." It was likely created by a functionally illiterate person in some marketing department in a failed attempt to be cute. Probably the same department that decided to call ungainly, lumbering trucks with a passenger cab instead of a cargo hold "sport" utility vehicles.
**That's what one of our numerous parking studies reported, in the 1990s. When the distance is greater, most people will move their car rather than walk further.[/indent]
